Eden’s puppy hands hummed over the ground and shoveled full of mud. It was loose from the rain, kept eluding his grasp. Like trying to clench water in his fists. Every time he raked a hole clear it all just flowed back in. Over and over and over until he settled for punching the earth instead. He twisted his fist in the black muck, carving a corridor through the mud.

It had to be deep so no cats would dig him up when the rains stopped.

Arkite’s little stone lump body was wrapped up in white silk and bundled in his lap, stained black and sopping with earth and rain. The flowing shirt from his single traditional Hessean outfit would be a nice burial shroud. He was aching for his human nanny with her big cross eyes and bony hands, so that she could embellish the borders with colorful stitches of all the things his turtle had liked to eat. Fat orange carrots, stubby flowers from the garden bright as witch dresses.

Eden suddenly didn’t like Anaxas with all its stupid rain and didn’t like Brunnhold for teaching him that ticking Levitate spell in the first place.

The meat at the back of his eyes burned from crying so much, from crying still. The rain streaking his face made that hard to see.

He couldn’t stand to put Arkite in the ground. He hadn’t thought of anything pretty to say other than ‘I am very very sorry for letting you fall’ and kissing his hard nub head. And he felt bad for putting him in the dirt like some human or wick-thing, but he didn’t think turtles could go to the phasmonia.

Maybe, he thought, if he prayed hard enough Ophur would take his little turtle body and turn him into a lump of gold. Even though his mother said prayers don’t work like that.

Fowler hardly ever ventured into the West Gardens. They were far too crowded, normally, with people wishing to chatter about the latest fashions, politics or scientific discoveries, and while science intrigued him immensely, the politics and fashion did not at all. In fact, the only reason why Fowler had decided to visit today was to hopefully collect a pollen sample from the finest specimen of red rose he'd ever seen; the rain was not helpful in this matter, but since it was a contributing factor to the garden being empty, the boy decided to appreciate it's being around at least for one more day. I can always hate the rain again tomorrow, he thought with a smile.

Upon reaching the gardens, however, he found it less empty than he thought. Not two feet from the very roses Fowler intended to harvest was someone pounding away at the muddy earth, as if it had mortally insulted their mother and they intended to seek revenge. Closer inspection revealed said person to be a boy, not too much older than himself. Had this encounter happened months before, when Fowler had only just started school, the boy would have been ignored completely. The passage of time and the meeting of new friends (not the least of whom was a girl Fowler was still quite smitten with) had given the boy a newfound sense of minuscule confidence. Fowler walked up behind the boy, careful to avoid any mud being flung off in all directions, and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"I s-s-say, a-are y-y-you i-ill?"

The sudden touch coaxed a watery yelp from him. Eden flinched away, whipping around to glower at the culprit. Or trying very, very hard to glower. What he managed was some younger cousin of that look, something much softer but with great potential for looking pissed off.

“N-no I’m not ill!” Sharp and loud, loud, loud. His mother always told him it was impolite to shout, but it was also impolite to wander up to people and interrupt them when they’re burying their turtles. Especially if you were tiny and pale and had a funny stumbling voice. He clutched Arkite against his chest, tightening the bundle of stained and sodden silk around him.

“Go away, you. This…this is a funeral,” he grumbled, trying to hold back another volley of sniffling. That didn't sound nearly as mean as he wanted it too -- but I was hard to sound mean when you were choking back tears. He already accidentally murdered his best animal friend, now he was going to look like a toddler. In front of what couldn't be more than a third year.

“Ghosts and spirits and things will be about. You--you should go before they get here.”

Fowler looked at the boy with marked skepticism. "Y-y-you m-must b-be c-c-conf-fused. The g-g-ghosts are over in th-the E-e-east G-garden. N-no g-ghosts h-h-here in the W-w-west." Despite his own personal plantings being in the East Garden, he had yet to have any ghostly encounters, despite the rumors that swirled around like water in a drain.

The boy looked familiar slightly. Fowler wasn't entirely sure as to where precisely he'd seen him, but the hair...he shook his head to clear his thoughts and gave a small sigh. If it were important, he'd remember. Eventually.

"H-h-how c-can th-there b-b-be a f-f-funeral h-here? Ev-veryb-body knows y-you n-n-need th-the Ev-everine for a p-prop-p-per one an-anyw-way." Fowler paused, and looked away, scratching his neck. "Um...wh-who d-d-died?"

"Cl-close your head! Of course it's proper! That's..." his throat clicked, eyes burned. "That's how we do things in Hesse." That was the root of the root of all this crying. Eden suddenly and deeply wanted to be back in Mestigia, where all his real friends were and where it didn't rain all the time, where his mother would buy him a beautiful baby drake to make him feel better.

"Where else do you think gold comes from, stu--" That horribly mean word stilled on the back of his teeth. He heard his mother heaving a sad little sigh and saying his name in that holy disappointed way only she could say. He wasn't allowed to say horrid things to other people.

"The...The Everine wouldn't bother to help at the funeral for a turtle, anyhow. Because...because they're too busy yelling things at the moon. Or whatever they do that's so important," he muttered. Digging his fingers deep into the mud like a fleshly drill, boring holes in the earth that would fill up too fast.

With his other hand, Eden hugged the stained bundle of silk to his chest. The bowed line of his shoulders quaked, drawing up up up with his hitching breath. Then falling down down down. Quiet little sobs.

"His name was Arkite."

Fowler's eyes narrowed slightly as he breathed in deep through his nose. It was the closest thing to anger he ever really encountered, and it usually involved his ears picking up on words starting with the letters 'stu-'. The boy didn't finish the word, though, which was good for him. Not that Fowler would have been able to do anything about it. Even while sobbing, the older boy could probably give him a sound beating he'd hear about for the rest of his life. This is what I get for caring more about science, Fowler mentally chided himself.

A turtle! The younger student's eyes widened as his brow knit in sympathy. Why hadn't he said so before? "I l-l-like t-turtles," Fowler managed to stammer out quietly. He'd had one once he'd named Fortissimo, until one day his parents said it had escaped into the garden and couldn't be found. He'd always suspected they got tired of him carrying it everywhere so they gave it away, but he never found any evidence to support his theory.

Fowler went over to the rosebush. He was useless at digging holes in the rain, but if anything, he knew a good flower when he saw one. One of the blooms had just opened that morning; its petals were incredibly bright in the gloomy grey of the soggy outdoors. Carefully, Fowler cut the rose off the plant with his pruning shears. Returning to the older boy's side, he knelt and held out the flower.

"H-here. I b-b-bet h-he w-w-would h-h-have l-l-liked th-this one."

Eden ground the heels of his big hands into his eyes. The faint drizzle was puffing his curls out to volumes unfathomable, his eyes burned, his uniform was caked in mud; however, he suddenly felt better. Just a smidge. A bit. A little bit.

Arkite had liked carrots and strawberries the most. He also favored fat little pumbleberries, when Eden could find them. He'd been pondering starting a little box garden off the balcony of the fifth form dormitories, so Arkite would always have pleasant things to nibble.

Eden gingerly accepted the rose, handling it gently as his big hands could allow. There was small compulsion to just hold the other boy's hand. His mother always held his hand, his brothers too -- they even kissed his forehead every time they saw him. But Anaxi people were so awkward about touching people, even their families and best friends. He pulled his hand away after a few lingering seconds, settling on leaning slightly against the other boy's shoulder instead.

He ran his thumb over the crushed velvet petals, thinking of one of his mother's fur stolls. The inside of them was always lined with something smooth and soft, just like this. He placed the flower over the Arkite's silk-swathed little body, trying his best shield it from the rain with his arm. It was no use, really -- the flower had been out in the rain for hours before this. It was the thought behind the gesture that mattered.

"I'm sure he would like that plenty. So, so much. Lots and lots." Sniffling, quick hitches of breath leveling out. The tears were slowing down a bit now. He blinked down at the other boy, trying to pin his face to some memory. It was dark, and it didn't help that Brunnhold was filled with more peaked-looking redheads than he could count.

"Thank you, um--?" His thoughts hovered, grasping for a name. Had he introduced himself yet? "I...don't know who you are," he pronounced gravely. "..'m sorry for being so very rude. I...I'm Edenai. Eden."

A tiny peace offering.

Fowler blushed slightly, although Eden most likely couldn't tell. Nobody had ever apologized to him before, at least not in that sense. He'd had plenty of 'excuse mes' and 'sorrys' from people who continued to bump into him in the halls, but never a forthright apology for being rude. It was a new experience for the boy, and he wasn't entirely sure as to how to take it or what to do in response. He made up for it by mumbling an acceptance, blushing more and scratching the back of his neck. "Um, m-my n-n-name's F-f-fowl-ler," he murmured, looking down at the ground. Even after Ellie, Nauleth and the others, he still wasn't good at making friends.

Fowler sat with the older boy for a moment or two in silence. It seemed like the right sort of thing to do, considering they were attending a funeral for a lost friend. Well, it wasn't my friend, he thought, but it was his pet and he liked it. Might as well have some sympathy.

"Erm, s-s-sorry ab-bout y-your t-t-turt-tle. I'm s-s-sure he w-was n-n-nice."

“Fowler? Like a bird? That’s…that’s a nice name.”

Anaxi people had funny names, too. Too many heavy letters, not light and fluffy things like Etheros and Eiliean and Amathea. Eden guessed their pale neighbors were funny and cold in lots of ways his own people weren’t, from their names to the stuff they did. Fowler, so far, didn’t seem very Anaxi at all. That was nice.

“And…and…he was. He was very nice. The nicest turtle I’d ever met. I was going to buy a terrarium thing for him to live in because he mostly lived in a box. And…and because they stopped letting us have pets and stuff.” He tilted his head down and wiped a streaming eye on the too-tight shoulder of his uniform. “He’d even eat stuff right out of my hands and never bite me at all. I loved him very much.”

The last bit was coupled with a somber nod, as if nothing in the history of the world had ever been half as true as those words. Eden wasn’t very smart, but Eden had conviction. Convictions about dead things turning into lumps of gold and about small, wonderful magics outside the Mona, but convictions still.

“Do you know any songs?" he ventured meekly. Yet, there was deep serious in his voice. "We need to sing him down. A pretty song will help him sleep.”

Eden didn't think Fowler would be a very good singer, but more than one voice was always nice.