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Stones in the shape of a caern for a body that was never recovered and now never will be. It's down there on that forsaken planet, probably picked over by scavengers, both human and animal. Some criminal warlord is right now probably using his rank tiara to decorate his scarred forehead. Lafiel hopes it's not that bastard McAngus.

Late at night she's painstakingly brought her coffin of rock here. She carved his name on them in Baronh with her klanyu. If anyone wishes to activate their omnicomm's translation functions, they'll see it reads Lynn Su Rock Haidr Jinnto.

Lacking an airlock to eject the "coffin" out of, the alien stars rushing past are the only backdrop she can give for this makeshift funeral. She hopes his last view was of those stars. Maybe they gave him some comfort as starvation or wound stole the last little bit of energy from him and his chest stopped rising and falling in the oppresive, humid night.

She dares to hope he thought of her.

After a minute's rest (the stones were very heavy and awkward to carry from the city) she stands straight. She will have to be both speaker and audience for this wake.

First a crooning dirge, something that would be proud and magnificent if sung by all his friends. From her voice, it comes out too thin though, a small imitation of a grand gesture.

Next the Abh national anthem, not sung but recited in a monotone. This is their equivalent to Taps.

It ends like this:

Dear Stars,
Please listen to the wishes of your short-lived kin.
Our wishes,
It is to live until your are ancient.

Dear Empire, Dear Stars,
Let us pledge ourselves to eternity together.

At this point, the coffin would normally be shot off by an electromagnetic rail cannon, aimed towards the center of the galaxy, to travel eternally. She snaps the Abh salute, middle and index fingers to her forehead and the thing is over.

Abriels are royalty. To be fair rulers, they must not show too much concern for any one subject. Otherwise, they will have to show concern for all of them, and that is of course impossible. They are most definitely not allowed to cry.

So Lafiel stands stock straight but trembling and watches the stars...

Not crying.

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Meluly slowly shuffles forward from the hallway where she was watching, still wrapped in one of the Medbay's sheets. Her movement is uneven and her hair and body are slicked with sweat, but there's a kind of burning clarity in her eyes and expression. In any case, she should still be in bed, not wandering the ship like this.

But—she moves over to stand next to Lafiel. She doesn't say anything, but she starts humming, gently, the tune to "Amazing Grace".

She saw Meluly approach through her reflection in the glass (or whatever the material was), so she didn't startle. She recognizes what the tune is, though it is completely unfamiliar to her. It seems appropriate.

Like she said, she hasn't been crying. Abriels aren't allowed to. Those are not tears she's hurriedly knuckling away from the sides of her eyes as she turns to face her. Must just be some residual moisture. It's so humid on this ship...

Luly's face is clear, expression hard enough to make what's going on in her head unclear, but she moves to pull Lafiel against her--and, after a moment, she starts singing properly, in high, graceful Nazzadi, though the tune is the same. One of her hands slides up to stroke Lafiel's hair in the same way that was done for her not so long ago.

Lafiel allows herself to fall against Luly's chest. Sobs shake her small frame until she is completely empty, numb of all emotion. "Jinnto...Jinnto...Jinnto..." His name comes out quiet and muffled against her shoulder.

"What was Jinnto like?" Luly asks softly. Her hand keeps stroking Lafiel's hair, her other arn wrapped tightly enough around Lafiel's shoulders to support her upright. "You must have loved him very much..."

Her pale cheeks flush at that word: Love. She hasn't been able to admit that to herself yet.

She tells her about how kind he always was, not the type suited to war at all, how he was always quick with a joke or some stupid comment to cheer everyone up, how he was the first person to ever call her just by her name, not her title, how they escaped the death of the first ship she served on together (ordered away by the captain, her gene-mother), how he was present at her first kill in a duel with a disturbed baron, how they crash landed behind enemy lines together (perhaps planting a seed in Luly's mind about how she would look in a dress) and escaped in a coffin, how he waited for her while she spent three years in officer school, how they served together in Operation Phantom Flame, faced death together so many times...Finally to be seperated by what should have been the most boring duty of them all: Being Ambassadors.

"That was two months ago. He is almost certainly dead by now."

Luly listens quietly and attentively as Lafiel relates her story, doing what she can to comfort her with gesture and touch without interrupting.

"What makes you think that?" she asks quietly. Not denying, just--interested.

Lafiel lets out a shuddering sigh. "If the prisoners didn't kill him, the United Mankind certainly did when they retook the system. They consider landers who join the Abh Empire to be race traitors and almost always execute them." A slight pause. "Father once told me that Abriels aren't allowed to cry. You...you mustn't tell anyone."

"Y'know, my mother kind of told me the same thing," Luly says, and she sinks slowly towards the floor, pulling Lafiel next to her - and still supporting her if she needs it.

The woman's voice lilts up, accent twisting a little in a half-conscious imitation. "Do you think the fallen would have wanted you to be sad when you think of them? No! You go cry for yourself, girl, but don't you dare think they'd want you crying for them."

Lafiel feels boneless, as if her limbs lack any supporting power. Ashamed of her weakness, she must lean against Meluly. "But I promised him...he said he felt like noone would be sad if he dies."

A mother...that sounds interesting. She and Captain Lexshue never had that kind of relationship. She immensely respected the woman, but never once tried to invoke their bond. "My mother...was my first CO. She was the one who sent me and Jinnto away towards Sufugnoff..."

"Well, I never said my mother was a fortuneteller," Luly says with a little smile. "But yours might have been, to put you together like that."

Luly shifts position some to make it easier for Lafiel to lean against her. "Thinking 'bout it, when I was... god, it must've been ten years ago now or something like that... there was this boy I loved very much. We were zheori, ummmn, promised to each other for the future. Ah, and he was human," she adds as an afterthought. "We did everything together... Hell, we wanted to be soldiers together." Her voice is soft, and wistful, and she's the closest she's been to losing her composure this whole time. "Levy, he had this beautiful blonde hair that he took such good care of..."

Lafiel, shorter by almost a head, looks up at Meluly, curiosity replacing at least part of the sadness on her features. "You loved a human too? They are...such trouble. But I agree about their hair. There's something exotic about it." Says the girl whose own is bright blue.

Luly nods slightly. "Mine's black... I have to bleach it half to death to do anything with it." She snuffles back a sniffle. "Levy, ah, he loved red... I only changed it to anything else a couple of years ago." She blinks a few times--her eyes are watering just a little.

The thing that the Chief notices first is Lafiel's voice, which is what draws him here to investigate, and then the stone cairn. Obvious changes in the layout of a room catch his attention. A split second's thought decides that it's not a threat, just a pile of stone. Most likely with some kind of meaning to Lafiel. Can't be a waypoint, there would be no reason to build one on the obs deck, and it's not the simple cone shape that's easiest to build.

So a burial marker, then? Which makes... about as much sense to him to build on the obs deck. But it would explain the funerary feeling he's getting.

Not sure how to ask for the moment, he moves to stand next to Lafiel but a little behind her with his arms folded behind his back, looking out into the void. He'll wait.

Lafiel is startled and spins to face him. For such a large man, the Chief can move with remarkable stealth. She'll hurriedly wipe away the...residual environmental moisture...that seems to have accumulated at the edge of her dark eyes and travelled down her cheeks. "Chief..." He has to recognize this kind of thing.

And he does. All too well. It's awkward for him, he doesn't know how to console someone beyond maintaining his own composure.

He looks at the cairn to give her an out, not looking at her face. He's silent for a moment, then asks "Who?".

Lafiel breathes in deeply and exhales with a shuddering sigh, grateful for the Chief's respect to her pride.

"Lynn Su Rock Haidr Jinnto...Although I always just called him Jinnto and he called me Lafiel." This was a weighty statement if you came from a Warrior-Aristocracy that was big on the use of titles. "He was my supply officer...And friend." And could easily have been more. Could have. Would have. It's all just wasted speculation now. "During Operation Hunter, we were reassigned away from the front lines to ambassadorial duty on Lobnas. The situation on the planet became unstable and he volunteered to go down to the surface to smooth it out personally. He was caught up in the events there, captured by one of the faction leaders who attempted to use him as a hostage to sway me. At the same time, an enemy fleet was approaching our system. We had eight thousand civilians to evacuate...there was no time to look for him." She looks up and away, this being the only way she can get this all out. "That was two months ago."

"You did what was required of you," he replies. "You had a job to do and he had his. If he were half the man I think he is from the sound of it, he had no regrets."

"Also consider: If he were as valuable to you as he clearly was, they wouldn't stop at one hostage attempt. If he's potentially useful, they wouldn't kill him before getting anything out of him. That's how groups like this function. They'll threaten to kill, but if he's dead they have nothing to influence you with. Two months is not a long time for something like this."

The Chief's seen more than a few hostage situations. And taken hostages himself. The best he can really do here is offer his logic in an attempt to help. He's not an emotional man, the Chief, but he can tell when someone's in pain.

Lafiel shakes her head so her hair goes from side to side, except for those couple strands stuck to her cheeks. "He's a lander who joined the Abh. The United Mankind considers people like him race traitors. After their fleet took the system, they certainly executed him." Along with the revolting prisoners...Which she couldn't give a waste ejection about right now. She hopes Angus and Dukafu get a chance to experience the cruelty of United Mankind 'reeducation'. They'll beg for the Abh to come back then...

"But thank you, Chief."

He nods solemnly. "Then I am sorry for your loss."

It feels like an empty thing to say, because it is, but it's the best he can offer. The Chief knows how it feels to lose people that you are responsible for, but also that the ability to come to terms with these losses and to spend the lives in your hands wisely is very important for any officer.

"Chief, you could have left without saying anything and ignored this. Or you could have told me it's against regulations and made me take it all back to the city." A beat. "What I suppose i'm trying to say is, someday I want to be as good a commander as you are." Her own subordinates had found her distant or intimidating (excepting Ekuryua, who saw her as a rival). If she could manage his wordless ability to listen...

He's a little surprised by that.

"I... thankyou, Lafiel." It's nice to hear. He's not used to being told that, usually he's only in charge of his Spartans and they've been following him for years, since childhood even. It's kind of taken for granted that they trust him.

"The only thing I would worry about is that if you leave this here, you might be asked about it. Also it would need secured. When the obs deck detaches from Stacy for missions, we spend some time in zero gravity and one of these stones could kill someone."

He does have practical concerns.

"Understood, sir. In an Abh funeral, the coffin is sent into space, towards the center of the galaxy. If dumping them down the waste chute is the closest I can get, so be it." There is silence. Lafiel is not uncomfortable with it. I'm sorry I couldn't give you a more dignified burial, Jinnto.

"I'm not sure Stacy jettisons all waste, I wouldn't be surprised if she recycles as much organic material as she can."

"After we gain access to the ship's bridge, we should be able to find and get control of an actual air lock. Unless it's improper to delay."

Of course. Recycling everything was how her ancestors had survived as space nomads. Stacy would be no different.

"The departer certainly isn't going anywhere." She says with a ghost of a hint of an implication of a smile. "I will secure the..." She looks at the pile of stones. "Coffin...until such time as I can send it off properly."

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