Tu Es Ma Lumière

151 - Deprivation - Modern - Part 1

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Prompt - Modern Francis' death.

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"Kenna, I can't do this." Mary suddenly says, the nineteen year old girl halting in her steps. Her feet ache from the tall black heels, her knees tremble, barely managing to keep herself standing up straight. Her small, pale hands tighten around Kenna's as they walk into the crowded church arm in arm. Her chest hurts, she cannot breathe. This cannot be. This cannot happen like this, it couldn't ever happen. The veil she wears covers her face, it lays upon her nostrils. She cannot breathe. Nothing's right in this godforsaken world anymore, now that he's gone to her forevermore. "I can't." she whispers, shaking her head, turning to her dear friend. Mary's lower lip trembles, her eyes fill with more tears.

"It's alright." she says, placing her hand on Mary's gently. Miss Beaton's heart stutters as she takes sight of her dear friend, so broken and destroyed by such a catastrophic event that shouldn't have happened. Anybody, anybody in the world, but not Francis de Valois. Her voice is gentle and raw, her throat burns as she swallows and as she speaks. "It's okay." she whispers, "we don't have to sit at the front, okay?" she asks, clutching the sermon in the crook of her forearm. She glances at the front of the church, where soon, it would be presenting the body of a man taken from this world with his entire life still left to live. It wasn't fair, none of it was fair. A life still left unlived, now forever a fairytale or a story.

"No, it's-" her heart hammers, she cannot talk. "I can't do this, live within a world where he's not with me, where he doesn't hold my hand in the street or kiss me good morning. I can't." she sniffles, reaching behind her veil to wipe her tears away. "Why didn't we notice sooner?" she asks desperately. "Why didn't I push harder for him to go to the Doctor? How could this happen?" her voice breaks again. Kenna says nothing, for what can she say? And just brings Mary's hand to her lips. She kisses the rings upon her finger, slowly leading the grieving young woman, who hadn't even reached her second decade of life, from the back of the church, to the front.

"Come on, Mary," Aylee says quietly, tightening her grip on her friends' lower back as they near the seating of the large church, which fills with more and more grievers by the second. "Sit down, that's it." she says, pushing a stray hair from the ravenette's onyx, long dress that one of the two chief mourners wore. Her heart hammers, she cannot breathe, she cannot talk. How could this happen? How could he leave her? To live within a world where she would never see him, where she would never look into his beautiful blue eyes or run her fingers through his soft blonde curls. It was unfathomable, it was unfair. It was painful, so, so painful. The pain was so great it was null.

Her three friends gather around her, give her tissues and rub her back, whispering soothing words into her ear. After, groups silence as the grieving mother slowly enters the church, a tissue to her face, a wobble to her walk. The two of them, so alone because of one thing. One thing so great and terrible that it shouldn't even exist. She felt so sick, sick and numb by it all. This couldn't be happening. Soon, she'd wake up and this would all be a dream, he'd be right by her in their large bed and tell her that it was over now. He'd kiss her and soothe her fears, whisper loving words into her ear until she settled. And then it would be over, she would forget about these nine days, nine days so painful and horrid that her closest worried for her state of mind. She clung to that hope with everything within her entire being. She had to, it had to be like that. Because the truth was so horrid, she had to dream up a beautiful, pretend reality, so deep and intense that one day, she could convince herself that her beautiful delusion was a medicated reality.

The doors close. And then they open again. The organist plays, and eight ushers slowly walk into the church, a beautiful white and gold coffin upon their shoulders. Mary's eyes, so dark they almost resemble the onyx of her dress or her hair or her veil, do not leave the coffin as it is slowly placed upon its stand. Sebastian, Leith, Remy and Julien on one side. Henry, James, Louis and Phillip upon the other. They place him gently down. Sebastian, Henry, Leith and Louis take another moment to stare down at the tomb that forever will hold the beautiful, golden gem that the world was a worse place without. Remy, Julien, Phillip and James guide them down towards the first few rows of seating. They place themselves down. And the priest begins to talk.

"Thank you. You may be seated, please. We've gathered in this very beautiful place for a service of thanksgiving and celebration for the life of Francois Simon Leon Valois-Angouleme-de Medici, better known to the world as Francis de Valois, a loving friend, brother, cousin and husband, a loyal follower of our lord, Jesus Christ. In it he spoke the very words of Jesus who said of Himself, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me though he were dead yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die." "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and He shall stand at the latter day upon the Earth, and though this body be destroyed yet shall I see God, Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold and not as a stranger. We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that we can carry nothing out. The Lord has given, the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."

The service is long, justifiably so. A man such as Francis deserved an eternity of life and of eulogy. Twenty seven people get up to talk about Francis, but not his wife. She sits upon the front row and listens in silence, begging her tears at bay for the moment, until she could grieve alone and in private. The grieving widow mourns in black, head to foot black and white. She eclipses the grieving mother, who has to get up three times to compose herself outside. Mary grows tired of the sympathetic looks given to her by Francis' family, but she says nothing until the service is over and the transport for Francis' coffin and his body nears. The church empties out slowly, people filing into the outdoors. It was so sunny, warm and bright. How could that be, when her light, her heart, her moon, her stars, her sun, her warmth, her home, her love, her husband no longer walks upon it? No longer breathes the air that they breathe, all because of meningitis that was too strong for them to have the chance of fighting. One moment, he was here. And the next, he was gone. And that was that.

The grieving widow finally raises from her chair, mindful of her friends' sympathetic looks. She says nothing to Kenna, Greer or Aylee, instead walks towards the coffin. She places her hand upon it. It's cold and hard, she can find no trace of the beautiful life that it would forever contain.

Mary whispers to Francis, words only he will hear. She tells him she loves him, she tells him to wait for her. She tells him that there will never be any other, except perhaps one.

Because she places a hand on the slight swell of her abdomen. Only he knew, they had just found out when he had been cruelty taken from her. She wasn't that far gone, only three months or so, just beginning to show. Soon, she'd tell their families that their beloved left one final gift for them all, one last piece of him into the land of the living from the land of the dead. 

It doesn't matter that she's young. It doesn't matter that she's widowed. It doesn't matter that she would have to rare and raise the child herself. Because she's got one last piece of the only man she'd ever love, and one day, in about six months, she'd push out a bouncing baby boy with blue eyes and blonde curls, every inch his father. And she knows that, wherever he is now, Francis would be watching them, guiding them, loving them.

Because, how lucky was she? To have experienced something so profound and wonderful that it makes saying goodbye so hard?

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Annd I'm sad :( You guys sure do ask for some depressive stuff sometimes. I was gonna write a counter piece where we have a little switcharoo, but your girl's gonna need some fluffiness before that. So, I'm gonna try and write that super soon. And, I'm planning a period version of Francis grieving Mary, but not the other way around. For some reason, I have an easier time with her death than his in period universes. So, yeah. Look forward to the sadness!