Wanna Hear A Funny Joke? Yeah, Me Too.

Absinth felt the weight of Aresenn’s question pierce her resolve, each word cutting deeper than any blade. She didn’t flinch as he stood over the grave, fury radiating from him in waves. The accusation, though unspoken, was as clear as the memory of their fallen son hovering between them. Her emerald eyes remained fixed on the freshly turned earth and rocks, where Indica now lay forevermore.

How many times had she looked into those bright eyes, believing they would see so much more of life? The thought pushed against her chest like an iron weight, but she swallowed it down, refusing to let it show.

“How?” His voice, raw and ragged, shattered the silence like a jagged stone. “We prepared him!” The snarl that followed was familiar, yet this time it carried a hollow note, an edge of desperation, like a howl swallowed by an indifferent storm.

Slowly, Absinth turned to meet Aresenn’s eyes, the unyielding set of her jaw betraying the chaos beneath. Her muscles tensed, claws flexing into the soil as if anchoring her against the storm of her own emotions. The grief in his amber gaze mirrored her own, but where his sorrow clawed out in rage, hers tangled silently in her chest, a suffocating mass of loss that grew with every breath.

“We did. Fuck, we did!” she said, her voice as biting and sharp as the winter wind. A pause. She blinked, the memory of Indica’s laughter breaking through, sharp as shattered glass. The words were bitter on her tongue, sharp fragments of shattered hope.

“We gave him everything—every lesson, every ounce of strength we could forge. But the world, Aresenn…” Her eyes flickered to the horizon, where the sun bled into the sky, time pressing forward without mercy. Fuck. She swallowed hard, forcing down the quiver in her voice. “The world takes what it will, no matter how ready we think we are. He wasn’t made for battle.” And none of it mattered now.

A muscle in her cheek twitched, but she forced it still with a clench of her jaw. Her grief was a private torment she would not let see the light of day. If it came flooding out, she feared what she might do. She had much to lose now, too many young lives that had only the two of them. She drew in a breath, the sound shuddering, an attempt to keep her composure. Her claws curled deeper into the earth, grounding herself.

“It fucking wasn’t enough,” she admitted, each word falling heavy, irrevocable. The silence that followed was thick and bristling, made all the worse by the mournful caw of ravens in the distance. Her gaze wavered, her lips parting with a tremor she quickly silenced. “He should never have had to risk his life like that. For what?” Her voice cracked, raw and unbidden, pausing before she forced the next words out. “For these Saxe bastards? For a bullshit cause we don’t even believe in?”

The admission seared, but Absinth let it settle over her like armor, the sting a reminder of who she needed to be. No amount of rage or regret would change the brutal truth before them: Indica was gone. The soil beneath her claws bore witness to their failure, a silent reminder of a loss that victory could never redeem.

Indica's first steps, his uncertain laughter, the way he once looked up to them with trust—all now buried beneath the earth.

She stepped closer, closing the space between them until only the shallow mound of their son’s grave separated them. Her eyes locked with Aresenn’s, not in search of comfort but of shared understanding—an unspoken agreement that neither of them could afford to break, not now.

“This won’t happen again,” she said, her voice a low growl, fierce and unyielding. Her throat tightened, and she paused, taking a shaky breath. “I won’t let it.” But the question, silent yet burning in her mind, remained: how could they ever stop it? If they didn't have a trial to be angry at, to blame, if it had been just fate alone; what path would this grief and rage take then? Absinth couldn't even rationalize it, too consumed by the pain countless mother's had experienced before.

"Absinth Artemisia Inferos"