Gordon freezes. His tiny, almost non-essential shoulders slump. That’s when I realize that Sammy’s on his back, and he collapses across Gordon, hugging him.
“Oh, no.” Liz must have just realized the same thing. She lost her mother and we lost Rufus within a very close span, and there hasn’t been time to grieve any of it. “We’ll hold a funeral.” Her head whips toward me. “Thunar?” She wipes at her eyes. “Should we include him?”
Definitely not, Gordon says. Good riddance.
I can’t argue with that.
While Gordon and I work furiously on the repairs of the residence, Liz and the children put together the details of this human ritual, the funeral. Apparently it’s where earth children obsess over the loss of the ones who died so that they can feel better about the loved one being gone forever.
I don’t understand, Gordon says. What are they doing exactly?
I can’t quite grasp it myself, I say. And Liz’s mother was not the best, so I’m not sure why she’s so bent on doing it.
Sammy says she was the best, Gordon says. Until she just wasn’t. I think the return of the blessed was harder for some humans than others, and she was one of the ones who took it the hardest.
I suppose if the vanir showed up and started taking our things and pushing us around, I’d have handled that poorly.
We finish the repairs to the residence quite a while before the funeral’s ready. Apparently it involves contacting Liz’s father and her mother’s friends, and then planning on a way to somehow bury her body.
Which leads us back to the question Liz first asked when we portaled back, before she began bawling uncontrollably.
Humans place a lot of significance on the location of the bodies of their deceased relatives. Even though worms are going to eat it, and it’s going to rot? Gordon looks disgusted. I can’t eat those grubs, either.
I should hope not. Liz says they visit the places where the dead body has been placed in the dirt.
Why? Gordon looks even more disturbed. Do humans grow back in the place you plant them?
Now I’m laughing, but I’m not sure why. I think it’s just a place where they think about them more.
They bury them deep down? Gordon asks.
I plan to make sure of it, I say. I’d hate for one of us to inadvertently tunnel through her mother’s rotting remains. Speaking of, we should talk to the earth blessed about this human custom called cemeteries.
Eventually, all the relevant human pieces are in place, and Gordon and I have done our best to prepare Rufus’ friends for the protocols of a human funeral. At first, we merely walk past photos of the deceased—not many of Rufus, and the ones we have are very, very small—and then we look at flowers and listen to music. I’m not sure why the humans do any of this, but a lot of them are leaking, so it makes them feel things.
Eventually, a human I don’t know gets up and talks about where humans go when they die.
Liz did not tell me about this heaven place, I say.
But after hearing about it, I don’t mind the idea. Gordon looks pleased. I’m sure Rufus has found many squirrels there.
My head whips sideways, and so does Liz’s. Her eyes are wide. Squirrels? Her hissed whisper was at least on a private channel to me and Gordon.
Sammy didn’t tell you? Rufus thought they were crunchy and a lot of fun to chase. Gordon looks entirely serious. Here, even the squirrels hop, so they were even more fun to catch.
“That’s just. . .” Liz shakes her head. I can’t decide whether that’s better or worse than grubs.
Better, I say. Much better. I still can’t believe someone of Gordon’s size chooses to consume mostly underground insects.
But then, in a real surprise move, Liz stands up. She looks down for a moment, wiping her eyes, and I feel a real wave of sorrow from her. We have had a very long week. She laughs. “And this is really strange, having a joint human and dragon funeral.” She looks around and forces a smile. “Thank you for humoring us, if you’re one of the dragons. I know you don’t do anything like this.”
Probably mostly because when one of us has died for the past few thousand years, the family and friends knew he’d been eaten.
“The past few years have been hard ones. The blessed stopped having children, and that precipitated your sending a party here to earth, where you learned you can’t really eat much of anything without being bonded to one of the whiney, small, weak humans.” She smiles. “At first, you might have bonded us the wrong way, but lately you’ve learned the error of your ways, and we’re learning to inhabit this world together. That’s why my siblings and I thought, after the loss of two people we loved deeply, but two people who came from very different places, that we should mourn their loss. . .together.”
She’s quiet for a moment, but she surprisingly feels less sad through the bond.
“The first time I met Rufus, I thought his insane blond hair looked ridiculous. He had copied the clothing from a fantasy movie when he shifted, so he looked like a total comic book nerd.” The memory makes her feel surprisingly twitchy and sad through the bond. “I—I knocked him out, but he came right back up swinging. And that’s how he always was. He loved his prince, Axel, but once he came to care for me and my siblings, he loved us dearly as well.” She wipes at her eyes. “In fact, he told Axel when the blessed were dying from not bonding humans that my family had become his family, and since he couldn’t bond one of us. . .” She cuts off, her face turning red and blotchy. “He didn’t mean to bond anyone at all.” She starts to cry, tears flowing down her cheeks. “When Sammy bonded him too, ignoring all the rules just like his big sister, I think it made Rufus happier than anything else ever could have. And while he wasn’t with us nearly long enough, I think that was exactly how he would have wanted to spend the extra time he had, right here with his family.” She holds out her arm, and Sammy hops up and runs up to hug her. “And he was family to us. We miss him just like he was a brother.”
