#irelia gets an ever sadder one yay

[deathdxnces]

They are never far from her mind or heart. Father perhaps most of all.

It was his forgiveness she asked for whenever her blades — the fractured pieces of their family crest — were stained with their people's blood. With how frequent it had become, the gesture was almost ritualistic; the cleansing of the blades, before sitting on her knees for prayer, an admission of her sins and request for absolution after blemishing their family's honor once again.

Always had her ancestors strived to follow Karma's teachings, but it had been father who first taught her about them. Never inflict harm on anyone, regardless of circumstance. It had been in the little things (the spider has as much right to life as any of us, he had told her once, offering his palm for the creature to climb after she had tried to kill it; Lito simply led it outside, where it could weave its web in a different part of the woodwoven house), soft teaching that sought to ensure she would grow to respect all life. And the bigger ones, too, shaped like reprimands whenever Irelia and Ohn were at each other's throats for something utterly irrelevant and soon to be forgotten (violence is never the answer, regardless of what Ohn did; your anger may be valid, but hurting another never is, much less your own brother). She used to be so pressed about it whenever lashing out felt justified; and yet, stern or gentle, father had always tried to make her understand.

At twenty-four, she had lived exactly as many years without him as she had with father in her life, and not one in which he had not been deeply missed. Next year would tip the scales (a lump in her throat at the thought, vision blurred by the tears she does not attempt to hold back). Kneeling in front of his grave, there is no one to witness it, even as silent tears turn to quiet sobs.

Everyone expects the grief to end, but no understanding of the cycle of life and its ebb and flow would ever be enough to mend those wounds. Irelia wishes only the little girl she had been with her father around had grown to be someone he would be proud of. Someone other than who she was.