104 A Speech Draft
The God of Mountains’ funeral was set amid a sea of blue blossoms, a calm ocean where every petal breathed a hush.
Echo-flowers in full bloom record every sound; yet for the god who raised Lamter from bare plains and stony hills, the send-off was silence, like wind seeping through blue lips.
Nidhogg had guessed wrong. Even Lamter’s warm-blooded folk, usually fire and song, stood heavy with grief, like torches soaked by rain.
The Little White Dragon felt a weight like cloud in her chest before she moved. She slipped through the blue, found an empty corner, and settled like a wary bird.
Nidhogg shadowed her steps. Once she stilled, he found her side again and reached out, steadying Lilith with a hand, quiet as night on stone.
Her small hand curled around the Black Dragon’s arm like a pale ribbon on iron. Her eyes, though, searched the sea of flowers, skimming like swallows over waves.
She spotted familiar faces blooming near the blue. The young city lord stood on time at the center, a lone lantern. Mio trailed her, usually loose as breeze.
Today the elf had wrapped herself in a strict long dress, tight as bark. She tugged hard at the skirt’s hem, like a trapped fish, until Ayla caught her wrist and towed her into shadow.
“Mio used to be Ayla’s secretary. That’s her work uniform. I doubt she owns anything more formal,” Nidhogg murmured at Lilith’s ear, a low wind under leaves.
The Little White Dragon nodded. Lilith didn’t answer. She pushed his head away, gentle as pushing a cloud, and returned to her searching, eyes like lanterns combing dusk.
What she didn’t expect: Mr. Joseph among the crowd. The elf scholar who once guided her through Stellar Magic wore a suit as black as wet ink.
He carried a heavy roll of parchment, old as tree rings. In bright day he still gazed upward, as if recalling the Star Canvas, or seeing stars the eye can’t catch.
As for the Archbishop, the Little White Dragon only found her last, tucked into an unremarkable knot of people like a pebble in a stream.
The clergy of the Majestic Court had dispersed through the crowd, scattered like seeds, with no wish to cluster. The Archbishop waited, still as a mountain’s shadow, for the invited to arrive.
When the final guest stepped into the blue, a nun leaned close and breathed at her ear like a faint tide. The Archbishop nodded, rose, and walked to the field’s heart.
“I don’t think we need an opening today,” she said, standing amid the flowers, her voice spread wide by a spell on her throat, like a bell made whole.
“Everyone invited into this sea of blue knows why we’ve come.” Her tone held age like rings in wood; only at times like this did Lilith feel her years gather like dusk.
“Our beloved god—first we met after leaving the capital’s plains, after crossing a thousand mountains and rivers to Lamter—the God of Mountains—has chosen to depart today.”
Sorrow braided through her words like smoke. Yet she went on. “Chosen, yes. We decided to speak of today as a choice, not an accident of fate.”
“Some will say the God of Mountains fell to forces beyond control. We say this: it was the god’s own choice. Why?” She let the silence fall like snow.
“Because of love,” the Archbishop declared, a flint-spark in the hush. “I think it was love. Because the God of Mountains loved the people.”
“So the god sweetly, willingly, laid down life, like fruit dropping when ripe, and placed their future in better hands—into a god more suited, and into Lamter’s own hands.”
“Friends, change comes like winter; it can’t be stopped. The God of Mountains would one day wane. This funeral was always waiting, like a tide beyond the reef.”
“Maybe in a few years. Maybe decades. Maybe after we old ones had already gone, the god would still hold a small place in this small city.”
“But departure would come. Not for lack of love for this city and its people, but because someone else fits better, like a keel fits a new hull.”
“We must admit, as we admit the god’s leaving is fact: Lamter has been taken wholly by market and trade, like a river by its current.”
“To seek unending profit, elves will spend everything they have, as bees spend their wings. The God of Mountains cannot shelter an outward-striving Lamter under that ancient ridge.”
“For the city’s future growth, for the lives yet to bloom here, the god chose to yield Lamter to Mali, like passing a torch into steadier hands.”
“Even I must say it. Mali is better for Lamter today than the God of Mountains. Our god never left the elves of this land—only gave us a better path to walk.”
“And we stand here to bid farewell to a god both lovely and worthy, and to fulfill the final oracle the great one sent down—to hold her a funeral.”
“I turned this over and over, like a pebble in the palm, and chose to end the long road between the God of Mountains and Lamter here, in the flowers the god once left.”
“The first bloom in this field sprang beside the first oracle, a blue star under a new sky. These blossoms faithfully record every nearby sound.”
“As long as the flowers don’t wither, as long as life hasn’t gone, they won’t forget what the field hears, or what their petals hold, like grooves in old wood.”
“This sea of flowers has recorded our travels beside the God of Mountains. Though the god has passed, they’ll keep recording in silence, like ink that never dries.”
“The flowers will remember everything. We will remember everything. We’ll remember, on Kuri’s southern coast, a small city wrapped by mountains and surf, like a pearl in a shell.”
“And in that city, there was once a god.”
“The God of Mountains’ deeds will ride the clear wind to every corner of the world, like pollen on the air. All we can do is try to remember.”
