graves

Anisa

To the east of the manor was a field, one minute away. Hilly. Sometimes well-groomed, green. Sometimes less-well-groomed, snow-white. Past the field, 5 walkminutes away from the manor, was the graveyard.

It was checked often, it was sanctified and prayed over, the corpses were tested, guards patrolled, zombies and skeletons and revenants weren’t an issue.

Anisa walks through it. Not for any sense of nostalgia or reverence. To have a location with solid ground upon which to move her legs.

The graves were all from before her time, when the manor was a fort. It was a graveyard. Then, it became an unholy base from which the dead were raised and commanded to enslave the living. Then a mass grave, when body parts had to be sorted but couldn’t be distinguished. And finally, it was a graveyard, expanded to accommodate all those who had died in the revolution.

It looked good to have her slowly walk through. The people could easily expect stability from someone who cared for the past.

She didn’t care. She hoped not caring would make her more stable. You often need to consider how the irrational attachments and whims of the people affect their perceptions of you, however.

Samantha and Quincy used to run through the yard, trip over mounds of dirt, play tag, hide and seek… they were scolded for it constantly, by everyone. Their caretaker would say, they’d catch a disease or twist their leg, it was disrespectful, they were being too noisy to the mourners. They would change one aspect of their play and pretend that resolved it, quieting or slowing down, or mocking looking around carefully. After a few minutes, they would conveniently forget their scolding and continue doing what they had done before, in the manner they had been doing it.

This was a prince and a princess? No, they were scions, as was she. But the people liked a monarchy, so we pretend it’s a monarchy. The underlying question, though, was “these were children deserving of respect? Deserving to lead?” No, so give them desolate Penbarrow.

They hadn’t changed, much, in the intervening years. They were still children.

Had been. Quincy was gone, now. Samantha, too.

Once, it was windy. Unusually warm for the time of year. The air was clean, the skies were clear. She moved her left leg, right leg, left, right. She closed her eyes, she could walk the route with them closed, anyone who could’ve been there knew to get out of her way. It took concentration to keep them from floating away.

The graveyard is a dull, reddish-pink phantasmagoria. If she opened her eyes, she’d again be Brune’s servile. She slept with her eyes open.

She thought about dogs, this time. Cute little puppies with curly black fur, or those guys with the straightish orangey tufts, or those Bythrusian breeds with their stupid crinkled faces, and how they were all so happy, would follow commands, and would just have those stupid, vacant, tonguey smiles.

She ran out of time. She stopped thinking about dogs. She opened her eyes. Like every time before, she floated back to the manor, 10 minutes before the end of her weekly break.