"The forest reveals before my eyes.
The pain invades my body.
I feel the fire signs.
Shadows in the forest... are the ravens
Fire in the sky... is the sign
I feel the silent death
But it doesn't humiliate me
And full of pride...
I fall exhausted."

     --- Funeral Pyre
"I remember the first war, the way the sky burned
The faces of angels destroyed
I saw a third of Heaven's legion banished
And the creation fell
I stood with my brothers and watched and listened to the revolt
But now, my brothers aren't my brothers."

     --- Ravage Rituals

Only Butterflies Part 3
Taharah

"Can you pilot, Maxwell?"

Duo stared off into the distance, face expressionless and cold. There was a smudge of ash across his forehead, and his gashed cheek bled steadily, blood trickling to trail down the line of his jaw. His gaze was empty and desolate, as if he had died and been resurrected, knowing some terrible secret of life after death.

"Duo." Wufei put a hand on the Deathscythe pilot's shoulder gently. Duo jerked back and away from his touch, recoiling violently.

It had taken the better part of a half-hour to calm Duo down, after he pulled Heero from the cockpit of Wing. Heero's blood had gotten smeared across Duo's chest and neck, and even now, the Deathscythe pilot wiped at his skin ineffectually in a quietly hysterical gesture, trying to rub his partner's blood from his skin.

"Duo... look at me."

Deep violet eyes met Wufei's blankly, looking at him, but not seeing him. Wufei put both his hands firmly on Duo's shoulders, feeling the other boy shaking under his touch. He didn't have time to comfort Duo. Not now.

"We have to leave this place."

"Okay."

"The fires are spreading here."

"Uh-huh."

"Maxwell, you've got to get a hold of yourself."

Duo looked back at him, eyes bewildered and slightly questioning. Not much of what Wufei had been saying got through. He had been thinking about the sight of his partner impaled, the feel of Heero's blood soaking into his habit in a warm rush, how Heero wouldn't have died if it wasn't for him. But a little of that last got through to him.

"Can you pilot Deathscythe?"

Finally, Duo's eyes seemed to focus a little, gazing into Wufei's instead of through them. Along with awareness, sorrow flooded those violet depths, a terrible stupified suffering. His voice was a harsh whisper. "I... don't know."

"That'll have to be good enough. You don't really have a choice. Get in. We'll meet at the nearest available safehouse. Check your coordinates. Trowa... Trowa will take Yuy," he finished hesitantly, as if afraid to say the Wing pilot's name aloud.

Wufei clapped Duo's shoulder in a gesture that was as gentle as he could manage, and then he walked off towards Shenlong.

As if in a dream, Duo climbed into the kneeling Deathscythe. The reflexive buckling of his safety harness in the mech felt the same as the thousand times that had come before it. But even in his daze of grief, Duo knew it would never be the same.

~*~

"Spread it out, Quatre."

Grimly, Quatre did as he was told, spreading the the blankets from the emergency kits of Sandrock and Heavyarms across the grass.

Trowa gently lifted Heero from where they had laid him down, and Heero's body lolled bonelessly in his arms. He could feel the wet spot pressed against his stomach where Heero had been stabbed, and his stomach lurched violently. He clenched his teeth, willing down the bile rising in his throat.

Trowa carefully laid Heero on the blankets, and silently Quatre helped to wrap him up in them, concealing him in a black woolen shroud. He sealed the blankets with long strips of medical tape that he took from the first aid kit of his Gundam.

"Can you fit him into Heavyarms, Trowa?" Quatre asked, his eyes lowered. Once covered, the form of the fallen Wing pilot seemed smaller, insignificant. Just another body on the ground.

But this wasn't just a civilian casualty or an enemy soldier.

It was Heero.

"I'll manage," Trowa replied quietly, lifting Heero once more. He put Heero over one shoulder, carefully carrying him up into the cockpit of Heavyarms.

Quatre nodded a little, then headed back to Sandrock, climbing in. Before he began to follow Wufei and Duo, he simply sat in the cockpit a minute, fresh tears welling up in his eyes. He didn't care now. He was alone again, where the others couldn't see him.

It hurt so badly. His head throbbed, and his side ached, like a phantom stigmata. He pressed his hand against it, closing his eyes.

After a moment, he opened his eyes and started up the mobile suit. He hit the relay switch, tuning in to Shenlong's frequency. He began the ritual that had developed between them, over the months that they had fought together.

"03, 04 in. Over."

There was a rustling sound as Trowa strapped into his Gundam and got situated (it was hard to get comfortable riding double in a cockpit that was made for one) and then his calm, quiet voice came over the link.

"03 copy. 02?"

"... Copy. 05 clear?"

"05 copy. 01-"

There was a moment of silence over the comlink except for the sound of soft breathing, and Wufei closed his eyes tightly, holding back the urge to babble an apology. The words had tripped out of his mouth without thinking, as reflexive as breathing. After all, Heero had never failed to drop his line before or after a mission.

None of them expected Heero to answer the check call now.

He'd never answer it again.

~*~

Finally, they reached the cabin that Heero had designated as their safehouse before the battle. It was abandoned for the winter, used as a hunting cabin in the fall. But for now, the cabin was dark, and the fires were far behind them.

The smoke still rose in the air from far off, in a thick black cloud.

Wufei jumped down from Shenlong, looking over the safehouse with a critical eye. His gaze grew more distant, taking in the smoke that clouded the horizon. He glanced back as Duo emerged from Deathscythe, climbing down from the mobile suit like an invalid, limbs stiff and head lowered.

Trowa was not far behind him, the wrapped form of Heero's body cradled in his arms. Quatre walked beside him, face pale and guarded.

Before Wufei could even say a word, Duo spoke.

"We're still too close to the battlefield to relax yet," he said, his voice strange and vacant. "You guys go ahead and take a breather. I'll take first watch... while I'm burying Heero."

"We'll help you," Wufei said immediately, eyes dark.

Duo shook his head, not raising his eyes. "I... I'll do it alone."

Trowa gazed at him. "At least let me help, Duo. I know the rites."

Duo looked back at him mutely. When he finally when he spoke again, his voice wavered slightly. "I... I don't-"

"-want any help. I know. But please let me."

Duo looked away a moment, and then silently nodded.

~*~

Duo and Trowa prepared the body. Quatre and Wufei would have gladly helped them, but there simply wasn't enough room for all four of them to work without getting in each other's way. So the other two pilots sat silent and numb at a rusty card table in the kitchenette, drinking coffee from cracked mugs and an ancient-looking percolator they had found stored in the cupboards.

Trowa spoke softly on his knees as he pulled the tank top from over Heero's head, baring the Wing pilot's pale chest. It came away from his pierced side with a wet sound, and Duo turned away. But Trowa's face remained tranquil, his green eyes as still as cool jade water. A few bowls of soapy water sat beside him, and a few rags. He murmured softly.

"There is no death, what we call death, is but surcease from strife; they do not die whom we call dead, they go from life to life."

He started to pull down Heero's black biking short as well, but Duo grabbed his wrist, squeezing fiercely. A strange, violent light danced in the American's eyes. "What are you doing?"

Trowa raised his eyebrows a little. "Washing the body. Taharah. Let go, Duo."

Slowly, Duo released Trowa's arm, taking a deep breath. He drew his knees up to his chest and observed silently. To comfort himself, he tried to remind himself that as a soldier he had seen plenty of dead bodies. He had looked on the smashed and scorched remains of dozens of people with no kind of squeamishness at all. Searching for something neutral to focus on, he gazed around at the dingy room. Someone had hung a little cross-stitch tapestry on the wall.

The Lord's Prayer.

Closing his eyes, Duo called on a long-lost time, tried to repeat the prayer from memory in his mind.

But it was gone.

Looking at it had a strange, calming effect on him. He didn't know whether it was serenity or shock, but he guessed that it really didn't matter. It transported him six years back in time; in an instant he was nine years old again, standing with Father Maxwell during the Christmas Mass, trying to read the story of the Nativity. Trying to learn to read. Father Maxwell had brushed a hand across his face before resting a hand on his shoulder, steadying him. He remembered it as if it had only been the night before.

He started as he felt Trowa put a hand on his arm. Trowa's fierce cat eyes were looking at him, but they weren't fierce now. They were soft and gentle. "Taharah, Duo. We pour water over him, wash him and seal the wound, then dry him, anoint and dress him." His face was amazingly calm. "Don't talk unless you have to. Okay?"

Duo shook his head 'no'. He wondered-and not for the first time-how Trowa had come across the knowledge of such things, but he didn't think to ask. Not now.

Trowa took Duo by the wrist and moved the Deathscythe pilot's hand to lay on Heero's chest. Duo resisted the urge to grimace; Heero was already cold. But he didn't move his hand. He gently touched Heero, moving his hand in a small caress that he wished he had given when Heero was still breathing and alive. This wasn't a piece of meat, it was his best friend. The person he had been closest to in the world. He couldn't afford to turn away now.

He closed his eyes and said a silent prayer.

Heero... I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

Trowa poured water across Heero's body, soaking the Wing pilot's hair, then handed one of the rags to Duo. His voice was soft. "Start at the shoulders and work your way down, Duo." Wetting his own cloth, Trowa washed Heero's neck and face, cleaning his hair and brushing Heero's wet hair back from his forehead. Every swish of his cloth announced the reverence and respect he felt for his task.

Trowa ran his rag over Heero's lips, the cloth staining crimson. He moved it over Heero's brow, dampening his forehead and cheeks. He moved slowly but surely, all traces of gore being slowly removed from Heero's body. Duo's heart lurched painfully in his chest as he saw how vulnerable Heero looked, under all that blood and pain. Without that steely cobalt gaze and the quick, lethal force of his movement, now that he was still and his eyes were closed, he didn't look like a soldier to Duo anymore.

He looked like an angel.

Following Trowa's lead, Duo dribbled drops of warm water across Heero's shoulders and chest, rubbing in wide rhythmic circles. Slowly and methodically, he worked his way down from the shoulder. Soak and wash, soak and wash, soak and wash. The water in the washbowls was turning a deep pink color, and at one point, Trowa got up to freshen them, but Duo didn't notice. Somehow, the slow, repeated actions of the ritual brought him into a peaceful state. It was soothing... numbing. Almost hypnotic.

Somewhere in the depths of his mind, Duo could hear a hymn. Oh come, all ye faithful... joyful and triumphant... Without thinking, his hand starting moving in time with the cadence of the song in his mind. He saw Heero's arms, muscled and taut, reaching deep into the bowels of Wing, rewiring the circuits. He had always been so lithe... so lethal.

Absently, he wondered if someone washed Father Maxwell like this when he died six years ago. Was killed, he corrected himself. From the Father Duo's thoughts wandered to his own father, and to his father before him, and all the fallen who had been washed and buried by their friends just like him. Suddenly, he felt like a part of every soldier who had ever had to bury a comrade. All generations of soldiers are with him now, in this last act of compassion.

Duo was brought back to his senses when Trowa tapped him on the shoulder. He stifled a shriek of surprise.

"Where's the suture I asked you to get, Duo?"

Distantly, hearing Trowa's voice as if he was trying to talk over a canyon, Duo put his damp hand down into his pocket and pulled out a roll of clear suture, giving it over to the Heavyarms pilot. The pilot picked up a needle from one of the rags he had laid out beside him, then threaded the suture, carefully stitching up the gaping wound in Heero's side.

"Why are you doing that, Trowa? He's already dead," Duo whispered, going back to washing his partner's body.

"It is part of taharah," Trowa answered simply. He worked quickly and efficiently, closing the terrible injury in a matter of minutes.

"Who taught you this?"

"... The chaplain of the squadron that raised me when I was a kid. He was a rabbi. When he wasn't killing people."

When they were finally finished, they patted Heero's body dry with whatever clean edges they could find on the blankets they had brought him in on. When they were finished, Duo gently reached forward and placed Heero's hands over his bare chest, one over the other. Heero's arms felt colder than they had before... stiffer. He let out his breath in a deep sigh, feeling a part of himself sink away.

"We don't have a shroud."

"There are bedsheets in the hall closet," Wufei said quietly from the kitchen. "I'll go without."

"It's snowing," Quatre murmured. The soft sound of his voice carried in the silence of the room. The four of them seemed frozen in time. Light from the kerosene lamp on the card table made eerie shadows dance across the walls.

Duo looked up and out the window. Quatre was right. It was snowing. By morning, the fires would be gone.

Trowa looked at him. "Maybe you should wait until tomorrow, Duo."

Duo shook his head and raised his eyes, desolate violet eyes seeking Trowa's.

"The ground will be frozen by then. It has to be tonight."

He stood up and walked towards the front door of the cabin, not looking at any of the others. He opened the door, letting a cold gust of wind sweep across the bare wooden floors, bringing in a fragrance of snow and fire, chilling them all. Duo seemed immune, facing the cold darkness with a strength of purpose that was reflected in the Deathscythe pilot's dark eyes.

"I'm going to find a shovel."

TBC...

 

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