silversnowfall

[69]

[It was almost a relief, to hear about so many people going home recently, even as more were due to arrive.

It was too sad to mention, knowing that one of those people was Professor Nebilim. That she wasn't really returning to anything. Just to the completion of a sad tale of a boy who thought he should be able to do everything.

And now Nephry is lonely. She has been, off and on, for a while; she feels it especially strongly today. At first she tried cleaning the kitchen but now she's sitting there, chin against her hands, staring at the table. With almost half of the house away or out of commission...things are quiet.

In the silence, she turns to her journal for a while.]

What do you believe happens...when you die?

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[They most definitely did, that is something Leonhardt understands well since he had lost his parents at a young age, and he's raised two children who also had seen death from a young age. They do understand something happened, and it is scary, but the idea that the child will see the dead person again someday can be a comfort.]

I did as a child. I kept on thinking maybe someday they'd return from their journey, then as I grew older I understood better that it is not a journey a person can return from. I will merely follow someday myself.

[Before you're old enough to be logically aware of what you've lost - old enough to realize that your sadness is more selfish than sympathetic - it almost doesn't...hurt as much. In the same way.]

Calling it a journey makes it sound softer.

[In the same way, no, but a child also may think it's their fault somehow and that is something that can affect the view the child has of themselves for the rest of their lives.]

Just because it is softer doesn't make it less true. A journey is merely a trip from one place to another, is it not?

Oh, I meant that I liked the way it sounded. It certainly might take a bit of the fear out of it.

It might, but a lot of that fear comes from all the unknowns. We don't know when or how that will happen. We don't know what it is like where we go as well. Any of those things are reason to fear. [Yet oddly, never fears Leonhardt himself had. Perhaps it was his own brush with death as a child, or perhaps the fact that he fears living more than dying.]

Does it matter so much, in this place? Where you know dying is temporary?

[And considering the territory this is treading into now and that he doesn't wish to confirm in public that yes, he has died here, Leonhardt is putting a nice unhackable filter on the remainder of this.]

Having been through it myself, I do not feel it is truly death, because the person returns and it is far more like painfully falling into a dreamless sleep for a week. In a way, it seems more like returning home is this world's form of death even if most will return to a good life and some may come back someday with or without memories of their last stay.

For some...returning home is death.

I'm very aware of that. I'm one of those people myself.

Oh. ...Forgive me if I've been out of line, then, please.

You are not. I'm aware that my own acceptance of what I am to return to is unusual and many in my situation would prefer to stay here.

This place, however, makes life and death hold less meaning. It is hard to mourn a death here knowing that the person will come back. And yet we are supposed to feel happy that someone went home when they may be returning to a world that is horrible or to their own death that they will not return from.

...It's harder to feel happy when you know they're already gone.

There are plenty of circumstances a person can return to that are not good. Even knowing we won't see a person from another world and they will forget us can make it all feel like a waste. I don't see why happiness should be forced upon us.

...I don't see why unhappiness should be, either.

I don't think anyone should dictate any sort of response. Each deals with loss in their own way. As long as that doesn't do them or others harm, then let them deal with it how they wish.

Forgive me if you thought I was making the assumption that there is a proper way to grieve.

I merely wished to be sure you didn't think I felt that there is anything correct or not. [Leonhardt merely added the part about harm, since he's seen just that before. His little brother stopped eating due to grief. Then there is Leonhardt's own suicidal tendencies.]

I would not fault you if you did.

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