Winds of Closure III

Paces are taken in the slow rhythmic steps of a traveler’s saunter as a white haired young man approaches the outskirts of a particular area near Mare Maris. His approach is from the east with the pre noon sun of the early day at his back. Beyond him the horizon was lined with forests and mountain ranges to his back heading further inland to the continent’s interior. About his shoulders, the slender youth is garbed in a dusty brown travel cloak which serves to hide most of the normal attire that existed beneath it which consisted of black cargo pants and a white tee shirt. His shoes were worn with travel and his frame weary with the weight of his journey hanging on his back.

Approaching the coastal area, his body comes to stop before a house that he used to live in. Slit foxish eyes gaze upon the house, recalling what memories of living there that were able to be pulled from the archived of his fading youth. The day that changed his life is the only constant as the rest of the dreamlike memories seem faded and distant things. His gaze would shift over to the spot where his father died, and he would recall the state in which he watched helpless while holding his father’s sword, the very object that was worn on his side partially hidden beneath the cloak that covered his frame.

After pausing for a moment, he would continue on. His steps would once again come to a stop at a grave, an area that held his father’s corpse. Standing in this new area beneath a large tree, his closed eye gaze would look down at it blank with hard to read emotions hidden in its elusiveness. His hand reaches behind his cloak and pulls out a small jar of ashes. His gaze remains on the jar for a moment as it seems to hold some form of significance to it. He approaches the grave and sits the ashes down to the side of it. From there, he holds his right hand out and murmurs an incantation to create light from nothingness. Nothing happens, which causes the boy to sigh. He understood that this would have to be done the hard way. Crouching before the grave he would begin to dig in that place, tearing grass and earth with his bare hands and setting them to the side with each pull. It would be a long process to attempt to dig up his father’s grave, but it didn’t matter to him, because in his mind, he had all the time in the world.

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The young man hadn’t gotten far into the grave, though it was no fault of his own. Digging with one’s hands was more of a frustrating and difficult task than he would have enjoyed doing. A firm grimace was upon his face as he visually noticed that the depth he was currently at with his small rut was less than a foot deep.

Due to the internal discord which currently plagued his being, his senses were not as unnaturally sharp as they would be otherwise. Thus it wouldn’t be a long shot for him to not have noticed the approach of another into the area which he was in. In fact, his mental condition probably serviced to dull his senses a bit more multiplied by the fatigue of performing a journey by foot and then going straight into working.

In the midst of digging, his right hand lifts up to wipe his forehead with the back of his hand and that is when he is interrupted by the outburst from his childhood friend. For a moment, he looks at her with his closed eye gaze, fully remembering her and the role that she played in his life. She was his betrothed and the one he had promised to always come back to, though it may not have always been in this form most recently. Months had passed since his last visit and many things had happened to talk about and this was probably the moment for a touching reunion where each party would begin on opposing sides of a flowing emerald meadow and happily run towards one another with tears of happiness and joy hanging from the corners of their eyes with each floating bound. But at the moment, Jin was focused, so he would simply state in a dull tone, “oh… Meloli… did you bring a shovel with you?”

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Jin’s gaze remains on her when the first question was asked. To himself he thinks, ‘that’s right, of course she wouldn’t recognize me; she’s used to Jyn.’ Though Jyn was created of Jyn, he was created to fill in where Jyn was lacking, primarily in social skills and looks. Even if they were the same and Jyn was created to support Jin, he would still resent his alter ego with a moderate amount of jealousy for not possessing the things that he had. Though they had promised to marry when they were younger, Jin believed that the one’s she’s grown to love and had been with sexually was Jyn, meaning that he had technically have and never had been with Meloli. In a way, his mind could twist up the ideal that she was not untouched in that manner, but considering the circumstances and how he felt about her, he would blame Jyn more so than Meloli.

Standing up, Jin dusts his hands off on the brown cloak that covered his body allowing the loose bits of dirt to fall freely from his earth stained hands. His visage would answer her with a seemingly empty and unfulfilled look about it as he spoke, “it’s over. The people who took away my family are no longer of this realm… I killed…” His voice trails off. What had he actually done? He hadn’t killed Baek or any of the men and the mage from back then was killed as well… but he wasn’t fully sure if it were by his hands or not. He concludes, “well… it’s over… all of it.”

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She had a point there, that he could think about and rationalize from, but he didn’t receive the type of joy that he thought he would in ending things. With a short nod, he comments, “sorry, it’s been rough on me.” Turning his head towards the grave and the jar beside it, he mentions, “I’m holding my mother’s funeral right now…” With that, he moves back over to the grave and begins to dig once more. Maybe he would feel better as he settled into normal life, but after what he had gone through, he seemed more traumatized than released from his pain. As he gets back to digging, he comments, “I never knew what happened to my mother… she was actually alive all this time and in a lot of pain…” He continued to dig, “she was waiting for me to save her one day, but the day I came she was killed before I got there.” There is a small amount of solace in the fact that, “… at least I can bury her alongside my father today… you can help dig if you like…” He would allow her to make the decision either way, but he figured he would at least need to get six feet down since he wanted to place the jar as close to his father as possible. Just sitting it next to the grave didn’t seem to work for him. “There’s a lot I need to explain to you… as well…”

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With a nod, Jin would accept her words at that. He knew that he wasn’t good at conveying his feelings; that was the reason why he had personas to do it for him. The fact that she was going to get a shovel for them seemed a practical application of her use at the moment, so he would be content with that; as content as someone could be in his situation. Because she would be back with shovels, he took that time to stop digging and take a moment to himself reflecting over the things that had happened and the closure that was supposedly being brought to his life. Now his life no longer had meaning. He disconnected himself from the others so he was all alone. In this time, however, he still had Meloli, the one person whom he felt he could still count on.

Having taken a sitting position, he stands up as she comes back with the shovel’s, dusting off his bottom before reaching for one of them and offering a soft, “thank you.” With that, he moves to his father’s grave and continues digging, this time, with the added assistance of a man made tool. Between small grunts pushed out of his smaller frame, he would speak, “now that it’s over… I was thinking of staying here… if that’s okay… that is.”

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