It's with a heavy heart that I accompany Africa and the Basin machinery that carries the body of the fallen King. The Gallant. Neither of us speak on our journey, wrapped up in our emotions with tongues too heavy to move. My adorned skull droops toward the ground as I follow the mate of the fallen. The wheels of the cart-thing creak over the roots and stones as we make our way into the Falls. We do not stop to announce our arrival, to ask permission of those that now rule here. We are on a mission, one of mourning and burial. Neither of us can think of diplomacy, territorial dispute. I can't look at the body next to me. I've never seen the King so plain, so... innocent, as bare as the day he was born. It seems almost indecent to view him as such, disrespectful.

Time passes, my mind is blank. I don't notice until we've arrived that we are now in one of the caves of the Falls. Africa moves her body to Midas's and her pain in tangible. I can't express my emotion like she does. I have to be strong, don't I? For her. For Midas. I don't know how to express myself. I don't know loss like this. The loss of someone I actually cared about, respected, adored? Before I say anything, a turtle I am familiar with appears. The Earth Turtle. I regard him carefully, wary of any representation of a God that failed his most loyal. At least, that's how I see it. But his words are kind and carried to the mourning mate and mother. He disappears and another comes instead.

I don't know this one, but it is as if I look upon a ghost. This surely must be a child of Midas. She calls out to the Turtle as he disappears and I look on at her expression of pain (a child indeed), and all the items laid out before the grey mare. I move toward her, pressing my nose against her cheek. "Let's move him from this contraption." And so after she's moved, I work with all my strength and care to move Midas gently to the ground. It's easier said than done, but after some effort, he is removed from the Basin's cart. While handy for the transport, we need it no longer, and I cannot imagine that it should be a part of his burial.

I don't feel like I belong here, with Midas's body, his mate, and his offspring. And yet here I am, loyal soldier to the end. The end of the end. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to continue. I'm helpless.

WC: 453
Tag: @[Africa]
PP permissable by Riven.

Rostislav

more than a drunken fool