Pride and Joy - closed for siegimtode

siegimtode:

Tarquin could hear his father’s feet on the ground behind him, but gave his best to concentrate on his own pace. Every time his mind wavered, his thoughts considered a new direction, he started to feel his legs, how fragile they were beneath him. He was just a mess, there was no other word for it. A disgrace to the family name. That he’d ever thought he could live up to his father, to his name… he still remembered how proud he’d been when they’d promoted him to lieutenant… his father hadn’t been there. The war was already in motion… Tarquin didn’t know if he’d smiled when he got the news, or if he’d just thought that that had been long overdue.

His feet stumbled over a small rock in the ground. He’d gotten lost in thought again. What a fine soldier you are, Tarquin. Can’t even watch your own feet. Thankfully, he just stumbled against the door, hands uncoordinated as he reached for the doorhandle. Relieved as he felt the door give in, confused as he got in and held it open. Who was he holding it for? His father? Tarquin wasn’t sure. Was he even still there? He wasn’t sure. His vision was starting to blur, body almost pulsing in pain. There was nothing that didn’t hurt.

   Adrien nearly pitched forward to offer his son even a small measure of succor – wanting nothing more than to quietly help the boy forward, support his weight, guide his steps when his body was too weak to do it himself.  –A far cry from watching him toddle determinately forward as the child took his first steps.  The Primarch knew that Tarquin must have cried, surely, when he stumbled fell as an infant – but he couldn’t recall.  He had ever been brave.

  He slipped inside after his son, relieved to have cut away the stinging grit of the hot sands. 

                { But he no longer could blame such irritants for the tears in his eyes. }

  He waited silently, ill-at-ease.  He hated this above all else, this idleness, this uselessness.  Too despised by his own son to comfort him, too weak to help Tarquin anyway.  He said nothing, eyes quietly and simply taking in the boy’s brokenness, his pain not at all hidden by the shaded helmet over his face.  Adrien hoped that Tarquin had it inside him to forgive his father, to speak when he had time to catch his breath and heal.

  What more could he do, but wait?  Perhaps this moment of restive silence would give them time to process, if not recover. Spirits knew they both needed it.

August  31   ( 20 )   via   /   source   +
Anonymous:
"You're at a funeral for someone you love/care for and you have been asked to say final words over their casket. What do you say?"

Adrien looks over the empty casket, this observance more a memorial than a service of obsequies.  The body had been irretrievable, buried beneath tons of rubble and warped steel. “Lieutenant Victus—” The name of his dead son felt like ashes upon his tongue.  He could not bring himself to say it.  Tarquin.  It was too personal a loss.  If it escaped his throat, he would not be able to go on.  Far easier, then, to distance himself from the pain.  To honor the soldier who fell in battle, not the child he had raised and loved.

“Lieutenant Victus was a treasure to the Hierarchy.  He served with distinction.  With loyalty.  With pride.  Pride, because he carried on the noble legacy of the Ninth Platoon as an able commander, and as their brother-in-arms.  He proved that even in the face of insurmountable odds, one can triumph.  Even after a crippling mistake, acknowledging the failure and moving forward to overcome it is the turian way. He demonstrated his resolve, both to his men, to our allies, and to me.”

That was where his rehearsed speech ended.  He’d said what he had intended, and he meant it.  But when his gaze is drawn, once more, to the empty coffin, festooned with flowers and Tarquin’s posthumous awards of merit, his heart spasms, palpitating wildly in his hollow chest.

Adrien’s head slowly turns back. “My son…always strove to better himself.  To do right by a family with a decorated military history.  He stood beneath long shadows, but he did not curse it.  He fought to cast his own.  I know that sometimes he struggled with this burden.  He was like so many other young people — just trying to find himself, his path in life.  I don’t know if he did, in the end.  If he was content.  He had only just started to establish himself, to gain his bearings and wield the dubious honor of leadership. He did his best with what he had, and I hope that it was enough.”

A silence punctuates his words.  “As a general, and as a Primarch…” He paused, hesitating. “As a father, I can say that he—that Tarquin—died well.  His death, and those in his platoon who are no longer with us today, serve as an example that secrets can kill, just as they can save.  I confessed once before to someone I now consider a friend — that it is the hardest lesson I am ever to learn.  Many thousands of lives were saved because of their sacrifice, and many billions more thanks to the forgiveness of old grudges.  This was the catalyst of our peace today.  May their spirits guide us.  To the Ninth Platoon.”

August  26   ( 5 )   +
HW