stone grave in the libyan desert, Fezzan

Carefully chosen light and dark stones mark the isolated grave of a herder who died between 5,000 and 3,000 years ago. As rainfall dwindled, Fezzan's inhabitants congregated around scattered oases.

places under the sky by narie

🔒 places under the sky

by narie

T, 17k, Wei Wuxian

Summary: Wei Wuxian braces himself for what might come next, the story of how this man died by the Yiling Patriarch's hand—at Nightless City, at the Burial Mounds, as the rest of the sects tried to bring that great villain to account. "What was his name?" Uncle Gan sits back, twiddles his thumbs as he thinks. "Well, it'd be Wei something, of course." "Wei Changze, wasn't it?" chimes in a new person, and if anyone agrees or disagrees, Wei Wuxian does not hear them. His wine bowl slips from his grip and the sudden clatter of it barely registers over the unexpected sounds of his father's name. Wei Changze, slipping so careless from a stranger's mouth here in small Taozi, here of all places under the open sky. Wei Changze. - Wei Wuxian meets his grandmother. No, not the immortal one. The other one. Kay's comments: The first comment under this story just read "Oh. Oh. This was heart breaking" and yeah. I couldn't have said it better. Absolutely heart-breaking, devastating and sad, but like in the best way possible. Not a happy story at all, but instead one that leaves you feeling as if your heart has been clawed open. The Untamed canon where Wei Wuxian accidently meets his grandmother, on his father's side of the family, during his post-canon travels, while he pines away for Lan Zhan. Surprise grandma, but he can't bring himself to burden her with the truth of who he is and so simply introduces himself as Mo Xuanyu. Excerpt: "Did your sect know they had a son? He was born here, in this house. Little a'Ying," she adds, effortlessly, thoughtlessly, smiling at him. The name in her mouth is unfamiliar, a warped version of those that have claimed him before. A'Ying is a child's name, the most childish of them, and although of course it's supposed to be his, he doesn't recall ever having been that. He's been a'Xian to shijie, to Uncle Fengmian sometimes, and he is Wei Ying to Lan Zhan now, nothing else. It's not a name he owns, and he does not like the way it lingers in the small space between them: innocent, untroubled, unaware, reaching for him and offering to tie him to this place. It's instinct to look away to avoid it, to busy his hands and his gaze with his teacup, to reach for the final cake. Yet he can't stop his hearing from betraying him, he can't not hear Zhang Rufen as she continues, "They always took him with them when they went wandering, all three of them were very stubborn. I used to tell Chang'er to leave the boy here with us, but neither he nor his wife would hear of it. He would not have been so much to feed, and we were doing better by then, we could have used another pair of hands to help with the orchards as he grew up." There it is again, this possibility, this other life, offered to him with fully unhesitant regard. He tries to avoid it, but it unspools in front of him, so bright and clear, almost tempting: the seasons, the harvest, the river, the cool moist soil settling under his nails and around them, working its indelible way into every groove of his fingers, a different sort of ink. Tending life, instead of rending it. A good life. Maybe it would have suited a'Ying, whoever that boy would have become.

pov wei wuxian, post-canon, the untamed compliant, the untamed, rogue cultivator wei wuxian, canonical character death, grief/mourning, closure, sad wei wuxian, wei wuxian has a family, funerary rites, family dynamics

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DPxDC Week 2023

17: Jason Todd/Soulmate AU/Funerary Rites

Ao3

Warning: Referenced character death.

- - -

Jason trailed along after Danny, feeling through their bond the core held in his soulmate’s bare hands still pulsing waves of coldness.

More present through the bond, was Danny’s sorrow.

Jason hadn’t been asked to come, hadn’t been required to be here. Danny had been the one Frostbite had chosen as the messenger, and it was usual that they did the trek alone, but as his Soulmate, it wasn’t prohibited for Jason to tag along.

After seven days of walking, with the Zone reshaping itself to allow them an uninterrupted path, the pair of halfas reached the very end of the Ghost Zone.

There, Death sat beneath a tree, its leaves rustling with no wind.

“Hi, boys.” She said, tipping her black top hat at them. “Fancy seeing you here.”

That managed to put a small smile in Danny’s face, and Jason was grateful for that. Still, though, he felt his other half wasn’t ready for cheeky answers, so he did it for him.

“Oh, you know us, can’t go too long without swinging by to see ya.”

The Endless smirked at that, but finally looked back at Danny with gentle, gentle eyes.

“Ready?” She asked.

A courtesy of a few seconds. Frostbite had made his choice, and decided it was his time to go and they would both respect that, even if it hurt.

Danny held the core out to her, and Death took it in her hands with care.

“Take him somewhere nice.” Danny pleaded, voice small.

“That’s for him to find out.” She told him in a kind tone that nonetheless left no room for arguments, and then, without another word, Death left.

Funerary mask of Merit, wife of Kha.

Mid-18th dynasty

Egyptian museum Turin, Italy.

Archaeologists in Pozo de Ibarra, Mexico, have unearthed a unique pre-Hispanic burial ground revealing intricate funerary systems. The site showcases a special arrangement of skulls and bones, offering a glimpse into the ceremonial practices of ancient cultures.

Lekythos featuring a woman pouring a funerary libation.

This was not an item for everyday use, as the scene is painted on after firing; it was always intended for funerary rites, as the scene suggests.

Athens, 420-400 BCE

Attributed to the Reed Painter.

Wolcred Week 2023: Rain|Sparks

(Early EW but again only vaguely mentioning MSQ; 770-ish words of grief and fantasy funeral rites for Aeryn's particular group of people as no nation is a monolith.)

Rain fell in sheets, obscuring vision more than a few yalms out. There was barely any wind, driving the water straight down and leaving everything soaked. Thancred held onto the umbrella, glad for the proofing on his coat as he tried to keep Aeryn more or less dry.

She, of course, was heedless of the weather beyond skipping over the deep muddy puddles that comprised most of the path they traversed. The heat and humidity did not seem to bother her while Thancred wanted to wilt. He missed Sharlayan’s dryer, cooler clime.

The Scions were dispersing to inform their allies of the success with the Tower of Zot and about the alchemical breakthrough that had made it possible, to determine the next course of action against the Telophoroi. Before Thancred or Aeryn attended to those duties, however, they had this important errand to complete. It was truly too bad the weather did not wish to cooperate; he would like to see Davarresh in the sunlight. Perhaps on their next visit to Aeryn’s childhood home.

They reached their destination, an alcove dug into the small barrier island’s lone mountain, one of its connective bones to the main part of Thavnair across the narrow strait. Other alcoves lined the path, but this one, almost deep enough for them both to stand in, belonged to the Eadir family. Hundreds of simple metal and cloth tokens, nearly uniform rectangles about eight ilms long and two ilms both wide and thick, hung all over the interior, gently clinking against the stone and the hooks they hung upon.

“All of these represent members of your family?” Thancred asked, keeping his voice low. The umbrella was behind him, blocking the rain, while Aeryn squeezed into the alcove in front of him.

“Yes; the Eadirs, anyroad. The Ranaz family's further up the slope, and someday my nani’s token will hang there. But this is where Mama is.”

The East Thavnairian Cooperative was a business conglomerate of about fifty named family groups, descended from colonists who came from southern Ilsabard only a few centuries ago, long after the wars and the unification of the island nation. The satrap at the time had let them stay, and now they were simply part of Thavnairian life and culture.

But they still held a few of their own traditions, separate from their neighbors. Such as how they interred and honored their dead.

Aeryn pulled a new token from her pack, looking at it for a long moment. Thancred squeezed her shoulder as she took a shaky breath and hung Zaine’s token next to their mother’s.

“We try to keep their own ashes in the tokens,” she said, her accent thickening. “But we’re travelers and adventurers at heart. In cases such as this, the token is given the dust of the road, and ash from a campfire made of many different woods, from as far as can be found. The prayers and consecrations are different as it’s sealed and engraved with their name. And then, someone in the family brings them here, to this landmark that even a lost soul might find and use as a marker on their road to the next world.”

“That’s lovely,” Thancred said.

She turned to look at him, smiling. “Sometimes, your fifteen years among Thal’s faithful shows.”

He shrugged. “If I learned aught from Ul’dah’s priests, how we honor our dead and use it to work through our grief is rather important.” He pulled reeds of incense from his pocket and handed them to her. “Also how to profit from a good card game, but that’s neither here nor there.”

Aeryn laughed lightly. She set the reeds into minuscule holes alongside the new token. “The family had this made some time ago, when I wrote to them what I learned about Zaine’s fate. They kept it, though, for as long as they could, as Papa thought I’d want to do this.”

Everything was too damp to light the incense traditionally; Aeryn raised her hand, carefully drawing fire to it. Sparks leapt onto the reeds, and soon their warm scents wafted into the air.

“He knows you well,” Thancred said, wrapping an arm around her waist, letting her lean against him.

“Thank you for coming with me.”

He pressed his face to her head, taking in the scent of her hair and the strange white flower she wore in it today, while he tried not to be too melancholy of his last memory of Zaine, leaving for Carteneau while Thancred returned to Ul’dah, so long ago. “Anytime,” he managed.

Behind them the rain finally abated, the sun breaking through the clouds.

Just by the way, it's extremely rude for white gentiles to go "ewww but dead bodies" when hearing someone talk about their culture's funerary practices.

It's not gross to bury a body without a coffin.

It's not gross to not embalm a body.

It's not gross to actively take part in cleaning and preparing the body for burial.

Just because you're used to your corporate, hegemonized funeral practices doesn't mean that others are gross or weird for not following it.

A recent finding in Mallen (a town of Zaragoza, Aragon) shows a beheaded lamb, five children burials and a chicken with a brazen needle through his skull. All of this dates to the II a.D, so during Imperial Rome. The experts tell that could be a ritual burial or a curse of some sort.

"One tradition among the East Slavs in general was to only provide spoons at funeral or memorial meals. Forks and knives were not used in case they might injure the fragile soul. Today, in north Russia this interdiction is still observed by some people while others provide forks as well as spoons, but no knives, which, in any case, rarely appear at normal mealtimes in rural areas.

In the Kureisko-Sergiev parish of Kholmogorsk uezd, at a funeral everyone would be given a new wooden spoon "in memory of the deceased". The gifting of spoons was a reminder to pray for the soul of the dead person each time the spoon was used. The deceased does not normally receive cutlery at all."

- We Remember We Love We Grieve: Mortuary and Memorial Practice in Contemporary Russia by Elizabeth Warner and Svetlana Adonyeva

It's so stupid that not being enbalmed is still illegal in most places. Things that lived have been peacefully rejoining the soil for as long as life on Earth has existed, but no! We've gotta poison the fuck out of the ground for everyone because we're scared of our meat armature's impermanence!

Burial from Us’-Uda and a reconstruction of the ritual coat of a female shaman (after Okladnikov 1955).

“Rock art and the material culture of Siberian and Central Asian shamanism” by Ekaterina Devlet

In The Blood of Olympus, Nico di Angelo speaks of Plato’s Tale (the story behind the concept of soulmates) and how, because the story he read describes humans “coupled” as consisting of a man and a woman, he feels like an aberration for his homosexuality. However, the version of Plato’s Tale described is a bastardization of the original text, which included man-man and woman-woman “coupled” humans in addition to those that were man-woman. I propose that discovering this would have played a significant role in the development of Nico’s dedication to ancient Greek rites, particularly funerary rites, as an effort to keep the true culture and history of ancient Greece alive. In this essay I will—

Ancient Funeral Grounds and Temples: Insights into Past Civilizations

Ancient funeral grounds and temples offer a glimpse into the cultural practices and beliefs of past civilizations. These sacred sites were often constructed with great care and attention to detail, indicating the importance they held within the community. Funeral grounds were primarily used for burial and cremation rituals. The design of these grounds varied widely depending on the culture, with…

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New personal body disposal goal for my funeral: zap my inanimate corpse into an inert bone Polyhedron.

"This is the essence of what they were. The flesh and the brain and what you call the personality, distilled down into these compact shapes."

Well mine wouldn't have a personality since it would start with a corpse. But it would be efficient.

From Star Trek: The Original Series, episode 2.22: By Any Other Name

Different cultures approach death and funerals in a variety of ways. For the Torajan people of Indonesia it can mean living with a corpse for weeks, months or even years.