A Funeral (The Major)

[Madelyn Lowe]

Dosuun.
Avalonia War Cemetery.
5 days after the Battle of Dagobah.

It was a miserable day, but a peaceful one. A cool wind blew across the lush green grass of the cemetery, and echoed wistfully through the plain white crosses that dotted the neatly trimmed field on the outskirts of Avalonia. The sky was dulled by slabs of grey clouds, which scudded lazily across the sky as the minutes ticked by. Fitfully, the heavens would open up, and a soft drizzle would wet the cheeks of the passersby below, only to stop a moment later.

At the centre of the grounds sat a squat building. Plain in construction, with tasteful furnishings, but not grand in any sense of the world. In a carpeted room, lit by a lamp that cast deep and hazy shadows, there sat a simple coffin. It was made out of a dark wood, and was of high quality, yet plain. The wood was polished to a sheen, and treated to last as long as possible. The door was ajar, secured with brass hinges and held open so that the people in the room could view the body. On the front of the casket, there was a simple inscription, carved into a metal plate secured to the wood, that bore the name of the dead woman.

The door swung open heavily, allowing the cool air to stream in and provide brief relief from the stale, dusty air the pervaded the building. Two people walked inside. One woman, in her mid-60s, and a man of about 35. Both were dressed in black formalwear that was on the cheaper side. The woman’s name was Lillian Ravel, and the brother was Anton Ravel. They were the only known family of the late Bureau Chief, and were two of the three people summoned to attend the funeral. A hook-nosed attendant regarded them as they walked in, nodding and checking off the names to himself, before wandering into the back room while they waited for the last guest to appear.

Lillian Ravel held herself with a sort of vague disquiet. Her neutral expression was betrayed by the faraway look in her eyes, and the restless fidgeting of her hands as she stood beside her son in silence. Anton was decidedly worse at hiding his true feelings. The corners of his mouth were downturned, his head bent down towards the earth. Every now and again his eyes would flit to the casket, and the body inside, before slinking away in guilt. When he looked at her face, peaceful in its final moments, he felt his stomach turning, and his blood boiling in his veins. Her too-white skin burned itself upon his retinas. Her full lips, now artificially coloured, were parted, and he imagined her whispering to him, about how he’d failed, how he hadn’t been there for her.

Lillian approached the coffin, laying a wrist over the edge, and gazing at the girl inside, the daughter she hadn’t seen in at least 20 years. A breathy sigh escaped her lips, and she murmured softly to nobody in particular. “All these years, and yet I still see my little girl.” Anton nodded his affirmation, but inside he was screaming out. He wanted to beat his mother, to avenge the dead woman a metre by smashing Lillian to a pulp. That woman was no more Emilia Ravel’s mother than he was her brother. They were strangers, separated by necessity, and linked only by blood. It filled him with rage that Lillian could so casually claim that the child she’d abandoned in order to keep food on the table was ‘her little girl.’ Emilia Ravel was a girl the two of them had never known, and now she was dead. It seemed unfair, that she should be forced into service to the Order, and die for them, while they lived on, as if her death were just a necessary sacrifice, a tax to be paid to keep things moving. From the very beginning to the very end, Emilia Ravel had just been a pawn in somebody else’s game. Anton only hoped that she had found meaning in her life before the end. Somehow he doubted it, which only further twisted the knife in his guts.

A bell tinkling by the door disturbed his reverie, and he turned his head to see who’d entered. It was likely the woman known as [member="The Major"], a enigmatic employee of the Security Bureau, and one of Ravel’s only known associates. Well, at least that was what he’d been told.

 

[The Major]

A ragged specter dressed in a noble’s clothes stood upon the threshold as the door was held open at the figure’s discretion. Outside and a few meters away one could see a private speeder waiting just beyond the entrance; standing besides that one could spy a woman with a mane of curling, black hair who leaned with her arms crossed as the humanoid mass of ink dominated the opening. Shadowed against the bright gray of the cloudy heavens this cadaver still walking upon its feet seemed to have the woeful moisture of the passing drizzles clinging to its vaguely feminine profile. It paused, regarding the few people inside from this distance -and although its black outline neither stirred or trembled the coal slicked irises blankly peered with the barest traces of blue flecks behind the shimmering glasses. Inside the mind a tulmoutlous run of musings, imagery, and schizophrenic ramblings clamored like a choir ramrodded down a typhoon. They were of little use to anyone, and even she, it, knew it served her no help. All this was most easily represented by the thin frown tugging upon the Major’s lips. Concentrating, she walked on.

Exquisite boots fitting of a hunter tapped slowly as the imposing woman advanced. Inadvertently, lost in the noise between her ears, she didn’t realize how menacing her gait looked. A black trenchcoat with slate gray and blue whisked richly as the path was carved, and as the mysterious woman drew near one might notice the strange white-feathered cap which was typical of her homeworld. So far away from any familiar or compassionate face, it only lended to the anachronistic split that was her presence. Beneath that a dark, tailored, double breasted suit complimented her somewhat towering frame. Accentuated with embossed buttons, one might wonder if the strange, engraved swirls reminiscent of songsteel didn’t in actuality form accursed runes in some ancient form of blasphemous calligraphy. Everything on this agent screeched of morbid tones, for even a silk kerchief of rich white looked as though it had been taken and dipped in bright, red paint. Perhaps this was intended out of sentimentality -the woman herself moved to try and emulate a color that would remind her of the casket’s current occupant and her most defining feature: the shocking ruby hair that tended to pull the eye to the former Ravel’s head. Or maybe it served as ghastly reminder of the Security Bureau’s blood soaked tendencies. Fastened to this impromptu scarf was a rusty looking brooch with a solid oval of emerald adorned upon the flat circle. If one dared to step very closely to inspect the trinket one might be shocked to realize that the brooch wasn’t rusted but stained with what appeared to be even more flecks of sprinkled crimson. The fact that the naked eye could not determine if this was either battered bits of sanguine paint or actual spritts of blood perhaps spoke volumes on the psychology of the person who would choose to wear such a thing.

Finally, a bright yellow flower was fastened as a boutonnière upon the foreign woman’s lapel. It only looked more bleak when arrayed against this mass of delusion.

The Major stopped her march just at the point that any further step would allow her to peek past the edge of the open casket. It appeared for however pompous and arrogant this woman arrayed herself to be, she could not muster the courage to see what was but a step away. Delaying the inevitable, the Fallanassi pulled her dress glove adorned hands free from her coat’s deep pockets before commiting a formal bow to the man and elderly woman standing nearby. Unable to speak, she waited for them to greet or ignore her presence.

[member="Emilia Ravel"] ​