The Rains Cannot Wash Away, the Red-Cold Stains of that Day...

[Morph Bark]

[ref.]

It rained that day. Why should it not? Rain was ever the symbol of sorrow, and sorrow had spread here like never before or ever elsewhere. The servants whispered amongst each other that the skies wept for what had happened, while others assured that the occasion had been carefully planned as to take place on a day of such rain as this one. Not a torrent, not yet, but the drizzle that had begun the day had begun to grow in power.

Gun Huang's head was bowed. His wet hair clung in strings to his face and what didn't was a straight line down like a purple-black waterfall as the rain flowed over him. His clothes were soaked, taking away what regal magnificence they might have had. Others had umbrellas with them, but he had foregone the luxury, as if to burn the memory into his mind all the deeper. He had stood there for more than an hour after they had filled up the holes in the ground. The tombstones had the names carved into them and filled with orichalcum so that they'd never be worn down. He stood before two graves, marked by the names Li Coaxoch and Li Aune Sam Ravitar. One had been his youngest daughter, the other one of his eldest.

The rain left a salty taste on his lips, or maybe that was tears, having been absorbed into the stream on his face without clear distinction as the multi-sourced water ran into his beard that had remained unshaven since his return from the Grand Ball. Night was falling, the sun having touched the horizon already, but in the glow that came from Gun Huang's body thanks to Elwyr's blessed curse at that same Ball the names on the stones remained illuminated.

"Salterri value not retaliation, but recompensation," he said, choking back a sob as he glanced at the person beside him. "So I'll incur them all a payment they will never forget."

[TheDarkDM]

Alongside Gun Huang stood the Xiuhtlatec Nezetkhamun, clad in a simple robe of purest white. It was a stark contrast to the extravagance expected of the Tzaltec, but as in all things their traditions of mourning were particular. He had arrived, not on wings of storm and shadow, but on a single sleek cutter sailing beneath similarly white sails. In his wake he left an armada of white paper ships bearing candles upon the Bay of Stars and a city fallen silent in reverence and solemn mourning. For in the grave of Li Coaxoch lay the first of the Teotlkan's bloodline to die by violence beyond the trials of the tlapepentli since the dark ages of antiquity.

His head bowed, the Xiuhtlatec appeared uniquely his age before the grave site, his powerful frame and fearsome visage reduced to nothing with a single glance into eyes shrouded in grief and anger. He stood behind his youngest daughter, holding her shoulders in his clawed hands, and seemed almost a statue until Gun Huang's words. Turning his head towards the bereaved Qzare, and his eyes flashed with a light far more in keeping with his character.

"Of that, my good son, I have no doubt."