#zoe promihnksuvi

[sadnessisavegetable]

Bioluminescence

This is tentatively an attempt to write from the point of view of one of my ocs, William, who is the oldest of the triplets I slapped onto Ghirahim and Zant. William is the one who closely resembles Zant out of his siblings, though William, Aaron, and Ezekiel all have Ghirahim's dark eyes and sword demon traits that are hard to track down until they literally aren't aging a day past their prime. Yes, I am cringe, but I am free.

The death of my Dad was hard to quantify.

We all knew we would outlive him and our sister Via. That was a given for years. But Dad and Via looked like me and my two brothers. So it was hard to watch them slip away all the same.

Mom said they weren't built to last like we were.

I think Mom was mainly doing their best not to cry. Mom doesn't like crying...they say it makes their cheeks rust.

Of course, it doesn't...not if they kept their false skin on.

As for the rest of us...well. My brothers processed things differently.

Aaron was indifferent.

Ezekiel would snap at us out of nowhere.

And my sisters didn't want to intrude in preparations, they didn't belong to my dad.

Via was dead already, Amaya was trying to keep Mom together, and Zoe had to keep Ezekiel under control.

Which left me to do the preparations for Dad's funeral.

I had to quietly grieve and handle everything.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Dad was old and ailing for a very, very long time. He was 113 years old, and his body was frail and old. Not to mention how he was immunocompromised.

Dad was bed-bound for a long time, routinely being helped out of bed to avoid bedsores, and allow him to sit in his library downstairs or in the upstairs common area between all of the bedrooms, giving him a chance to socialize from his armchair.

That wasn't even mentioning how he would sundown on a regular basis, not really recognizing me or my siblings at all, and only vaguely recognizing Mom.

Mom didn't age, after all.

It made it easier for Dad to want to listen to Mom without a fuss. Mom often made busy work for Dad to wear him out by then.

So when he got sick again, we weren't surprised that Dad would rather sleep the days away and be consoled by Mom. Mom always knew what to do.

Dad slipped away from us for the last time at the stroke of midnight, the start of the New Year.

Mom didn't cry at all...just numbly went downstairs, leaving Dad in their shared bed, and slept in the armchair in the library. I suppose Mom had done all their crying in the weeks before.

In the morning, I took care of removing Dad from the sheets, walking his body respectfully through the house for the last time and down into cold storage until we were ready for the send-off. It felt odd, putting him down there until we were ready.

But we lived far away from any city that had a mortician. We would need to send for someone from Cassiton, the big central city.

So I didn't bother. I knew that we would cremate him, that was a given. He'd wanted that. And some part of me figured that I could do that with my siblings and Mom respectfully.

But when I found myself alone to do it, I wasn't too surprised either.

I took care of Dad's body for the last time before I placed him in his chosen shell for the afterlife, an odd ceramic bottle with glowing teal marks on it, and silently placed it on the mantle without a fuss or saying anything to anyone.

I needed a drink and to lay down for a good cry without anyone hearing me.

I went down to the beach with a bottle of the atrocious nightshade wine concoction Dad had made, smiling slightly at how it still glowed through the dark glass of the bottle. Of course, I brought some of my preferred drink with me, but...a send-off with the nightshade atrocity felt...right.

Memorial candles could be lit beside his portrait later...for now, I will focus on the bioluminescence of the algae, the wine, and the runes he gave me.