Owl naturally led our small party of six, both being the leader of the group and because the new addition to our group was pushing the wheelchair out in front of everyone. Erin and Bear flanked the new man, with me and the kid trailing behind. Our entire walk to this apparent funeral had been completed in silence. The four people walking in front of me were surrounded by a strange air; asking them questions didn't seem right and they certainly weren't inclined to talk.
My eyes were glued to the crowd during the last stretch of our walk. Gathered in this one square were more people than the entirety of my small town, and all of them were there for a single person. The importance this person held must have been incredible. That, or he was very important to a very important person who could draw all these people here.
There were stairs built behind the wooden stage, occupying a portion of the street. I expected us to follow the street, but they instead walked up to the stairs. I had no idea what this was really about or what I was even in the city for, so I followed. Owl stood up, and Bear swiftly handed him his crutches. The chair pusher folded his namesake up and tucked it back under his arm. Owl and Erin then shared a look before ascending the stairs together, with Bear and Chair Pusher following them. I threw a quick glance around me, and it was only at this point I realized the kid was no longer with us, leaving me to trail our small procession alone.
We drew a few gazes from the people on the stage, a few dozen total. They made me uneasy, but everyone else just ignored them, and I tried to follow their example. I fell in line at the very back of the crowd, feeling very out of place. My eyes were darting from person to person, each giving me a strange vibe. Their outward ages ranged from mid-thirties to ancient, but even the youngest of them gave me the feeling that they were much older than they looked. As I scrutinized these people from behind, I felt them doing the same. Some were less discrete, physically turning their heads to look at me, but most seemed to be using some type of magic to inspect me without looking at me. As I picked up on this feeling, I caught a certain shimmering out of the corner of my eye that dissipated as soon as I tried to look at it. As soon as I switched my focus to something else, it appeared in my periphery again.
It was visual version of a mosquito buzzing around my ear. I wanted to leave, but drawing more attention didn't seem like the best course of action. I did what I could to ignore it, but I only grew more and more irritated by it. My hands moved to my belt, trying to find something to fiddle with to take my mind off it. One hand fell naturally to my sword, which I had honestly almost forgotten about. I absentmindedly started thumbing the snake carving that served as a cross guard. It helped to make the experience less annoying, but that only really served to let my mind focus on how much I wanted this experience to end. As that thought flashed through my mind, I felt the sword vibrate a little. Immediately following that, a shockwave comprised of a similar shimmering energy silently and violently exploded from the sword, tinged with an ethereal gray. The wave pushed away the preexisting energy, leaving the air completely clear. As it cleared, so did the feeling of being watched. The looks people were giving me also stopped. The whole thing happened in under a minute.
After the small commotion from both the stage group and the crowd subsided, a man stepped forward to the small podium placed beside the coffin. He had thin, white hair and was wrapped in a gold-edged white cloak. The second he stepped up to the podium, all the noise from the crowd stopped instantly. He began to speak, his voice falling like a soft blanket over the crowd. He spoke in a grandiose manner, going on about the values of the Church and how this man stood as a shining example of them. Even given his name, I didn't know the man, nor did I know the man delivering his eulogy. It made me realize I needed to do some studying.
The eulogy didn't last long, which was good for me since I found it very boring. His final sentence caught my attention though.
"Now, as per the request of the deceased, only two people will be speaking today, after myself. The first to speak, for which we are ever thankful for, is his daughter."
Then Erin stepped forward. She spoke with a voice that seemed to just appear next to our ears, making everyone feel as though she was speaking just to them.
"Thank you all for coming, though I know only the people behind me ever knew my father personally. As I'm sure you can tell, I was brought into this world very late into my father's life. For nearly all my life, I was witness to my father's declining health. Much like all of you, most of what I knew about my father came from the stories and legends built around him over the centuries; much like all of you, I never saw my father do anything to warrant his legend. I only ever truly knew him as a dying old man. I don't say this in attempt to posthumously tarnish his image, but rather to share a side of the old man only I was privy to.
"Even in his declining state, he still strove actively to be as good a father as any other. He would teach me verbally, as much content as he could. He would read to me as a child stories of the world, often offering his own insights as he did; as I aged, the stories became more realistic, bereft of the black and white storybook worlds of childhood. Early on, he would speak to me for hours at a time, always happy to indulge my curiosity at any time. These sessions would decrease in both time and frequency as his health declined, until he was eventually left with no choice but to hire other people to teach me, something his position allowed him to do comfortably. I still remember the pain in his eyes when he told me he couldn't do it himself anymore.
"Even without him directly teaching me, I would continue to see my father regularly, albeit with decreasing frequency, until only a few years ago. In what I understand now to be an attempt to spare me from witnessing his final decline, he asked me to accompany one of his friends watching over a fringe city. I was only able to see him one more time after that; I only learned of his passing days after it happened, and partly by chance at that. I will be eternally regretful for not being present at the time of his passing. I didn't even see him before they put him in the coffin.
She shot a glare at the member of the church who was running the funeral. He avoided her gaze.
"And now we're here. My father is dead; time goes on. Whether or not I want to continue on without him, the choice isn't mine to make. The gears of time grind into infinitesimal eternity, as they say. My father always hated pointless speeches like this, and I feel I've said my piece. I will now make way for the second and final speaker."
She stepped back and Owl went forward. Even with crutches, he radiated power; even in a weakened state, he still stood above everyone else. There was a certain excitement that rippled through the crowd when he approached the podium. If it was the influence of the man in the box that brought everyone here, it was him that was now making them stay. When he spoke, his voice rang over the square like thunder. The people in the front few rows of the crowd physically flinched. He didn't speak with any strong emotion; there was no strong anger or sadness. There was almost no emotion, apart from a vague somberness.
"Two millennia. Two thousand, one hundred years and some change is how long we knew each other, long enough for a friendship to become normality. Now, that normal, built over centuries and held for millennia, is broken. That is what I mourn most of all. We grieve that which we know we have lost forever. I mourn not the loss of a dear friend, for his place in my mind will remain the same as it always was. He will never be forgotten, and although there will be no new experiences shared between us, I do not regret that.
"It is the natural course of all things to return to nothing, to embark on a final journey into nonexistence. I believe to feel grief at that fact, and especially fear, is pointless. What is far more frightening is knowing that one day, even the dearest of memories will fade, and with it so too will die whatever was contained within those memories. I have seen this happen already with many I have considered friends, and that is what I truly regret; the fact I couldn't do more to preserve their legacy will continue to haunt me. But what can be done about it? Nothing. Such is how worldly events transpire.
"The past has passed, and there is nothing we in the present are capable of changing within it. We can instead only learn to live with the effects. But this fact is what makes the human experience so special, for the ability to undo events, to never make a mistake, would be far more disastrous to our collective psyche than any unfortunate event. We are nothing more than the sum of our parts, parts built atop our experiences, good and bad, and parts that are ever changing based on those experiences. Our stories continue to be written every day we live, and the only true end to a story is wherever the audience stops paying attention.
"This is why, if you do nothing else, I ask that you do everything in your power to maintain the presence of those whose stories may so easily be halted. It is for this reason I continue to live, to carry on the stories of all the great men and women lost to the violent churning of the river of time. I am the last of my generation. I am the oldest mortal being in this world. I will not let this time go to waste. I am determined to witness as far into eternity as I am allowed. I will not allow death to be the end for as many souls as I am blessed to encounter."
The final part of the speech caused a number of people in the crowd to weep, and even some of the people on the stage I could tell were moved. The most remarkable thing, however, was the number of people in the crowd smiling. The world was, is, full of loss; everyone has lost something, be it people or otherwise. It was something everyone had to deal with, often alone, so to hear, and see, someone they viewed as a paragon of strength tell them how to repurpose and recontextualize their grief must have been incredibly cathartic, I think.
The man who initiated this event then stepped up to the coffin and raised his hands before him, but he withdrew them quickly before doing anything. He then looked back towards Erin and gestured her forward, taking a step to the side to make room for her. The two of them then raised their hands above the coffin and began to chant, joined by a chorus of myriad voices.
"May this soul find peace in the nothing,
May it find its place in the dreams of our Sleeping God,
May its light shine forever in the eyes of the Great Serpent, and
May its energy be used to stave off the night.
Let this soul experience the eternal truth,
Let this soul be free of the shackles of its body,
Let this soul be unshackled from our impure, mortal realm, and
Let us join it when our time comes."
In a flash of white fire, the coffin was gone.