xp_logs | Nathan and Manuel, Tuesday morning

Out for a walk, a slightly hungover Nathan finds Manuel engaged in an Askani funeral ritual for Lusanya. Manuel doesn't want comfort, and is unsatisfied by Nathan's answer to his question about why Lusanya had to leave.

He wasn't sure why he was outside. Given that he was enjoying something of an hangover after last night's slight overindulgence, the sunlight didn't feel all that good. Moira had raised an eyebrow at him, but hadn't been as unsympathetic as Nathan had expected. Of course, if I'd come home actually falling down drunk she and I probably would have had words...

But in lieu of the hair of the dog, taking the mind over matter approach to hangovers generally worked, or so he'd always found. Besides, it was quieter out there than in the mansion, and...

What was that? Eyes widening behind his sunglasses, Nathan followed the sound of what was unmistakably someone singing in Askani, until he found its source - Manuel, on his hands and knees apparently adding to Jean's rose garden.

Manuel was wearing unrelieved black - black suit, black tie, black dress shirt, and his black sunglasses. He was also sobbing out the words of Lusanya's death-song in Askani, and putting the finishing touches on placing the new rosebush in Jean's rose garden. He didn't think she'd mind too much, but she was so exhausted that he didn't want to bother her. So he just went ahead and did it anyway. It was, as she always said, the thought that counted. She'd have liked the sentiment. He felt Nathan approach - he couldn't help but not feel it, his power was on a heightened raw edge over a black abyss. But this was too important to spare the time to verbally fence with the lummox.

Nathan watched in silence for a moment, and then reached into that inward sky where the Askani were, looking. And looking, until Askani herself murmured to him, and he sighed, his shoulder slumping a little.

#How does he know a death-chant? Or that your Clan liked to plant things in memory of the dead?# It had always made a certain amount of sense to him, given how bad the ecology had been in the Askani's time.

#Perhaps he learned more from Lusanya than you believed.#

#Hopefully.#

Manuel came to the end of the chant, and slowly, slowly stood up. "G'journey, sister." he said, and then completely broke down, sinking back to his knees before the rose bush. "I'll miss you so much."

Nathan came up slowly behind him. "It's a beautiful rosebush," he said quietly, and it was. Tiny white roses. "She would have liked it very much."

Manuel didn't say anything right away. "Why?" he said, after a very long pause. "Why did she have to leave?"

"I... don't know," Nathan said, troubled, crouching down to take a closer look at the rosebush. "I don't know why any of them have had to leave."

"Bullshit." he snapped. "You could have stopped her. I begged her to reconsider, to find another way. I have an eidetic memory, I could have held her inside my mind forever. But she wouldn't do it. And I can't help but feel like her passing is my fault. I wasn't convincing enough, demanding enough." he said roughly, blinking back fresh tears. "But the roses are pretty, aren't they? She liked the purity of white. All colors together - that appealed to her."

"They may be ghosts," Nathan said slowly, "or memories, but they have their own... souls, Manuel. Their own wills. If she decided it was time to go, did either of us have the right to stop her?"

"Yes." he said flatly. "We did. Or, more precisely, you did. She was ... well, it doesn't matter now. She's gone. I hope you enjoyed your carousing. Did you even notice she was gone?" he said bitterly, rising to his feet and brushing off a few crumbs of dirt, ignoring the ground-in stains on his legs. "Did it even register to you that while you were off celebrating the anniversary of your packmates deaths that one of your own, the irreplaceable ghosts in your head, was saying goodbye before passing Beyond?"

Nathan didn't get up. No reason to loom and make it worse. "The ghosts in my head," he said quietly, "have been saying goodbye in increasing numbers for months. And I don't mock your sorrow, Manuel. Kindly don't mock mine."

"Fuck you." he said tiredly, and then looked away. "The only person who never stood in judgement over me just passed away from me forever. I loved her." he said simply. "She was more than a mentor, more than a teacher. She was hope. And now that hope is gone. Good day." he said bitterly, adjust the shades on his face and heading back for the door.

"You do a very poor job of honoring her," Nathan said, not looking at him. "With an attitude like that."

"Her, I honor every day. You? Different story." he said before banishing the desire to notice him with a flick of his power and disappearing back into the Mansion.