In the spring, when the winter still clung to the land,
And cast its icy clutch over Hemviken in a last attempt.
The people of Hemviken gathered to say farewell to the one known as Agatha Tjurvakt.
Brought together, from their homesteads, by the singing choir that Knut of Hemviken lead,
The people gathered, one and all, in the funeral song that rang out over the land.
As the song whimpered through the homes, the people emerged and marched from the homesteads down the gravel roads holding their torches to cast off the approaching darkness and gathered to the circle that centred the village where the funeral pyre stood.
One by one they came and descended the steps of the theatre,
Dug in the earth, the stone slabs form their O.
In the theatre, processions and songs are sung at night,
And the summer days hold gay and merry plays and choirs.
But summer lay far away, and this was no happy play.
Though the wind whispered and no snow fell,
The still air crystalised the breath and bit the tips of their ears.
Cloaked in black dress and funeral attire,
With heavy mantles to shield from the numbing gale.
Whatever gust or flare did come, grated the skin and made it raw and rigid.

In the distance, as the people settled and fell into silence,
the pleading sea beckoned beyond the harbour.
It cried for peace, it cried for joy, and for the people to remember what it meant to be.
And as the final song finished and Knut began to speak,
Erik eye’s fell to the ground, and fell away from that pyre that cradled his mother.
Knut spoke the rites and asked the people of Hemviken to offer their light to Agatha,
That she might remember the way home.
He asked them to cast their torches of remembrance to the soul that sought its way home to Anon’s embrace.
Together the people answered, ‘We will offer our light.’
And so, casting their torches to the branches,
the kindling captured the flame,
And carried the flames up,
Until they wrapped themselves about that white cloth that held Agatha.

Erik found the stars staring down,
glimmering above them all,
overshadowed by the fragments of the shattered moon.
Beside them,
There it was.
Hovering with its colossal dome of an underbelly,
The Sky-City stood tall above all and it sat there watching them.
Somewhere therein, Aeon Aquarian doing naught to shield mortal man from the woes of death.

The embers of the pyre flew up into the night sky.
The flames buffeted Erik’s face and finding nothing in his heart,
No tears to shed, no pains to lament, Erik left having offered his torch to the pyre.

Knut and Torre watched as Erik returned to his mother’s heath and let him do so.
‘He sheds not a tear for the dead.’ Torre said to Knut.
‘What would you have him do?
Weep for Agatha?
Your eyes are as dry as his.’ Knut answered,
And Torre growled at his mentor.
‘Settle Beast,
Erik will mourn.
There is naught but pain in him.
And he has yet to realise how to vent it.’ Knut said as they stood before the fire,
‘Be wary with him, Torre.
Anger comes before sorrow.’
‘Agatha bade I take care of him.
See him through the trials.’
‘And you will do as your sister asks.
The child has lost his mother,
He has lost his father.
Though he is not our kin,
Such a soul requires our attention.
Consider what Aeon would think of it,
Seeing this lamb enter into our care –
Does it not fall onto us to protect him from the wolves,
From without and within?’
‘You speak keenly to his defence now.’
‘Make no mistake,
The kid’s a mess.
But I feel for him.
I remember when he was but a pup.
He smiled and laughed, nescient to what people thought of him.
That same child is somewhere therein.
Too scared and too full of fright to let anything but his anger protect him.
I ask you this as your mentor,
Be there for him.’
Torre looked to Knut as the flames continued to dance over their faces and he nodded though Knut looked to the flames.