The Rosenberg Memorial Funeral Home is, by all accounts, a fairly standard funeral home as these things go. That's not to say they skimped out, the settlement had been substantial and there was no reason to hold back on this front. It had your standard amenities: rooms for the grieving to pay their final respects, coffins, a dower yet tactful funeral director... These things went without saying, and in reality, the best thing a funeral home could offer was to alleviate as much of the hassle as possible, or at least make it tolerable.

There was only one hard requirement: access for a large concert grand piano. As it turned out, this narrowed the choices of venue considerably, which made things much easier as there was only one place that could make the accommodations. The Rosenberg Memorial Funeral home was a converted gym, and it had retained its access for larger furnishings, more out of ease than anything else.

Ripley had felt terrible. He considered it his fault, although how could he have known of the twisted machinations of fate. In truth, nobody had even thought to place any of the blame on him. To the contrary, everyone who knew them both extended their deepest sympathies to him. Of course, aside from the sense of responsibility, there was the crushing loss of a cherished friend. He had met Seth in his freshman year of college and had taken him under his wing. He was a quiet person to be certain, ostentatiously so, ironically. Though this might have been what drew his attention to him, Ripley could see he had potential. He did have a good sense of people. Seth always gave the impression that he was seeing deeper than the surface level, not completely present, but at the same time more present. Ripley took an immediate liking to him and considered him something of a younger brother. For it to end the way it had...

Therefore, Ripley had taken it upon himself to handle all the final arrangements, including the legal matters. On this latter point, he was conflicted. As one could expect, the settlement was substantial. There was really no way the Imperial Manifest could spin a cable snapping that resulted in the death of one of its patrons in any other way than gross negligence. On a side note, nonstaff is no longer allowed backstage. This wasn't the issue. In some ways, Ripley lamented that Seth didn't have a wife or family to accept the settlement. On the other hand, he was glad he didn't have a wife or family to receive his body. Ultimately, he found this preferable because of the latter point. This did, however, leave him with something of a bad taste in his mouth, as Seth never had anything good to say about his next of kin, mainly his mother and father. This is ultimately where the financial compensation would arrive as Seth did not have a will. Oh well... At least he would make sure to give his good friend a proper send-off.

It was a cold yet sunny winter day on the morning of the funeral. Ripley had come quite early to set everything up; he had insisted that the family not worry about anything and need only arrive for the service, he would take care of everything. They might have been inclined to object, but his insistence and determination to take on this responsibility would tolerate no objection. However, he did allow the aid of another of his dear friends, Roa Lordonhal.

With her aid, they brought in Ripley's cherished Bösendorfer Concert Grand piano through the double wide doors that had been the deciding factor for this choice of venue. After the incident, Ripley had learned a valuable lesson about allowing other people to handle the care of his professional companion, and would now personally handle its transport. It seemed Seth was right to inquire about Manifest's methods. He had indeed been torn after this very piano had been the instrument to send his dear friend to the place they now found themselves. On top of this fact, the piano had understandably sustained massive damage. Did he really want to salvage it after it had killed his friend? After some soul searching, he ultimately concluded that it was not the piano's fault, the cable had snapped. She was just as much a victim in this as anyone. Of course, the cost to repair a highly intricate musical instrument that had been dropped from several stories was more than it would cost to outright buy another one. But no price was too high, the bond they shared was sacred. Plus it was ultimately the Imperial Manifest footing the bill, so there was that.

"Thanks, Roa. I don't think I could have managed to get her in here without your help. She is not a small girl." Ripley Wiped the sweat from his brow and arched his back out to stretch. Roa was more out of breath than he was but was kind enough to dress her complaint up in morbid humor.

"Seriously Ripley, you and this piano! (Huff) It's going to be the death of you! It's already claimed one victim..." She almost immediately regretted making that joke, it was too soon. But Ripley understood. It was part of the grieving process.

Still breathing hard, Ripley returned the joke, "That's alright, as long as it's me next time." Roa leaning on the piano, looked away, a melancholy look on her face. This was a face she had worn a lot during the last month. She had taken Seth's death harder than an outside observer might think. Some might think this was because he had saved her life and paid the ultimate price, but Ripley knew the truth.

"Sorry to make you help me out, after all I've put you through."

"Stop that Ripley!" She turned her head to face him. "What happened was in no way your fault! You were only trying to help. What happened was a complete freak accident." She sighed in exasperation, this wasn't the first time she had tried to assuage his guilt.

"Sure... But I really thought that would be what did it." He sighed as his head dropped. "Ironic isn't it..."

"Yeah..." She looked away deep in thought.

"You know Roa, there has been something I've been meaning to talk to you about, but haven't been able to find the right time..." She looked back at him with an expectant tilt of her head. But before he could continue, the doors of the funeral hall swung open.

In marched two people that Ripley was nominally familiar with. They were Seth's older sister and younger brother. Being that he was handling the legal front, he had met them, but beyond that, he didn't really know them. Seth really never talked about them. Only after Seth's death did he learn anything more about them than they actually existed. They seemed okay at least, not that he could really tell from the handful of times they had been in the same room together; their parents had taken the spotlight in those instances, and he couldn't say that his friend was exactly wrong to have a less than favorable opinion of the two.

"See Marisa? I told you we should have left earlier." The younger brother gestured to the two occupants of the room as he turned his head to address his sister, exasperation evident in his voice.

"But it's still early... I didn't think anyone would be here yet." She furrowed her brow at the rebuke. "The ceremony is at 5, and it's just barely dawn... "

"That was over an hour ago, and the world doesn't rise and rest with the Sun anymore. Please meet up with the rest of the world in the 21st century."

Ripley was surprised to see anyone here so early, but since he saw himself as the host of this event, he took it upon himself to play the role. "Hey there. You are both quite early, it was Lucas and Marisa I believe?" He walked over and extended a hand to both of them, they shook it readily enough.

"Yes, we wanted to help with the preparations, he was our brother after all." Despite being the younger of the two, the younger sibling seemed to be the one to take charge in these situations. Ripley could see in Lucas's narrowed eyes that he was conflicted between having a stranger handle his brother's final affairs, and respecting that he had enough regard for his brother to do so. Perhaps he couldn't read that deeply into it, but that is what he felt. Lucas glanced at the large piano they had just brought in. "I'm surprised you could get that thing in here, it's huge."

"Yes well... It has wheels, and I had help." He gestured over to Roa who had been standing back by the piano with her arms crossed, looking uncomfortable. On cue, she felt compelled to come over and introduce herself. "This is Roa, he was one of your brother's friends."

She extended her hand to greet them, "Hi, I'm Roa. Nice to meet you."

As she shook Marisa's hand you could see her eyes go wide with surprise. "Wow, I didn't think Seth did well with the ladies, but it seems I was mistaken."

"Haha," Roa gave a melancholy giggle.

"Marisa! That's rude!" Lucas reprimanded his sister, was she really the elder? "I'm sorry... Honestly, I don't know how she functions in society."

"No, No. It's fine, honestly."

"See Lucas? Maybe you're the one who is the stick in the mud." She seized the layup with a smirk, looking rather pleased with herself.

He sighed and as he massaged his forehead, "Please don't encourage her."

There was quite a bit to do, and in the end, Ripley was grateful that the two had dropped in to aid them. The centerpiece of the service was of course the memorial area. There would be no coffin. The fact of the matter was Seth had been cremated long before, 36 days to be precise. There might have been more complaining about this arrangement if not for the fact that his body was pretty mangled and it would have had to have been a closed casket service regardless. This allowed the ceremony to be pushed back considerably as there wasn't a rotting corpse to consider. The fact that the funeral was pushed so far back was due almost exclusively to Ripley's insistence. There were a few reasons for this. Primarily because he wanted to play his friend off on his cherished piano, a piano that needed substantial repairs, but also because he wanted to make sure everyone who wanted to attend the send-off could be present, as well as gather all the materials needed for a proper memorial. This ultimately paid dividends, as a somewhat famous radio host had happened to hear about this strange incident and wanted to be present for the funeral.

Perhaps it is not so strange as he was supposed to be in the front row of that fateful concert that wasn't to be and was considered a fan of the classical music scene. Ripley was only vaguely familiar with him but was glad to have someone of prominence in attendance. It also helped solve another matter. There was some debate about whether or not to cater the funeral. The parents were in favor, but Ripley was pretty sure that Seth would find it in poor form to use someone's death as a reason to indulge in some good old American gluttony. He could see how one would feel this way, but he was probably more in line with standard convention with regard to ceremonies. Of course, he ultimately would want to honor his friends' wishes above all else. However, with such a famous person in attendance, not catering was not an option. Ripley was sure he would want to be accommodating for a guest who had no obligation to even take note of his death, let alone show up to the last rites.

It took some time but Ripley was happy with the setup. Seth would surely be shocked if he could have seen it; Ripley had managed to find enough material to essentially fill the entire hall with tribute material and memorabilia. He was sure Seth didn't think his life amounted to this much, and perhaps it didn't. Seth was still young and hadn't gone out of his way to leave his mark, but Ripley was a showman at heart and knew how to make a mountain out of a molehill in this regard. He was quite proud of himself as he drew his finger across his upper lip.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

The catering was to be left for last of course; nobody wants food that has been sitting out for hours after all. It arrived just as people were starting to filter in for the service. Ripley wasn't sure what one ordered for funerals. But luckily the caterer already had a funeral option when he made the arrangement, so he just went with that.

Perhaps more impressive than the memorial itself, were those in attendance. Of course, you had the family including some of the aunts, uncles, and cousins. Ripley suspected that they might have only shown up for the food though. Some of Seth’s coworkers had shown up as well. Outside of that was what he called the inner circle, this would be Roa, but also Tim, Kate, Demetry, and Brianne. Though Seth might not have thought so, they all considered him a pretty close friend. Then there were the two more surprising guests. We have already mentioned the radio host, but also Mitch Mitchilson came to pay his respects.

"Mitch? What are you doing here?" Roa's face went wide with surprise when she caught sight of him.

"I'm here to pay my respects of course." He narrowed his brow in confusion. He was likewise surprised to find that this was in question.

"You really didn't have to come, you know... " With one hand on her hip, she turned away embarrassed. His pity wasn't something she appreciated.

"Of course, I had to!" He rebuffed. "The man saved my life at the cost of his own. I owe him a debt I will never be able to repay." This seemed probable as it is hard to repay a dead man. As for Roa, she was taken aback. She had only considered the fact that Seth had saved her life, and hadn't even considered that Mitch was standing right next to her and would have been equally as dead if Seth had not intervened.

Looking down in repentance she massaged the stress out of her forehead. "Sorry, Mitch. After that day, it took me a while to process everything. I guess... somehow you got left out of that processing."

"Totally understandable. I was a wreck myself... had to postpone a few major operations..." He scratched his nose. "Have you been doing okay, Roa?"

"Oh, yeah... I've been doing alright... "

While Roa and Mitch worked through their shared trauma, Seth's family was reconciling their grievances.

"You brought this bimbo to your son's funeral!?" A middle-aged woman wearing an appropriate black dress yelled at a middle-aged man also wearing black.

"This bimbo just happens to be my wife!" (Solid justification)

"Hey! Did you just call me a bimbo!?" The busty blonde next to the man uttered in offense.

"No dear, I was just refuting her insinuation that you had no right to be here..." With a slouched poster and a weak smile, he tried to offer justification for his somewhat thoughtless comment.

"You still called me a bimbo…" The blonde turns her head away with a pout.

She considered this a victory, she had shown up her former husband in front of his new wife, and she hadn't failed to miss that he was balding quite splendidly. Now that he was in the process of trying to pacify his wife, she could let a spiteful smile slip. It could only last a moment though; he had managed to find a new wife, and she wasn't hard on the eyes either. For sure, the blonde was past her prime but was still quite the knockout, and about 20 years too young for him as far as she was concerned. Had to be somewhere in her mid-30s. But what pissed her off the most was that she still hadn't found anyone. Well, not anyone who could tolerate her for more than a year. In fact, the longest relationship she had had was 2 years, and they were not consecutive. She was beginning to believe there were no good men out there, that they were all just looking for knockouts like the blonde over there. Of course, she was also aware that she was getting on in years and that her midsection demanded increasingly larger textile accommodations.

"You know Sue," the man addressed his EX, having pacified his current wife, "we came here to mourn our son, not start some drama. Let's just tolerate each other and get through this, then we can go our separate ways." However, Sue was not ready to let this go.

"Get through this?!?!" She threw her hand up as she shouted at him. "This is your son's funeral, not some trivial formality!!"

"Now Sue, you know that is not what I meant." Presenting both palms in a deescalating gesture, he now tried to calm his former wife down. Poor guy, out of the frying pan and into the fire.

"No? Then what did you mean?" By this point, most of the assembled mourners were directing their attention to the ongoing incident.

"Sigh, I just meant we should be civil to each other for the sake of our son."

"Oh, now you care about your son!" Several people who were privy to the entire conversation rolled their eyes at this obvious circular logic. Luckily for the memorial's sake, the fire brigade had just arrived.

"Will you two stop that!" It was Lucas riding in to break up the quibbling children. "This is Seth's funeral! Act your age!"

That stung a little for Sue. Although he didn't mean it at all in that regard, it brought her attention back to her age, just when that was the last thing that she wanted to be reminded of. Seems this firefighter had kicked open a door with a smoldering fire behind it, causing it to explode with the influx of fresh oxygen. "Damn it, Charley! You have even turned my own son against me!"

"Mother, please calm yourself. You are acting like a child."

"I am your mother! I am not the child here!"

"Sigh, regardless..." The futile attempt to calm his mother would have continued, but Marisa now took the reins.

"Now, now Lucas. You are reading this situation wrong." Marisa was calm and composed and she spoke with a light-hearted smile on her face. "Maybe you haven't noticed, but mother has been suffering. I'm sure there are many things that she is dealing with, but she hasn't had an outlet until now. So though it might be a bit unsightly, I think it is for the best if she can vent all this frustration now. After this, I think we need to support Mom more. We just lost a brother, we should take care of each other, don't you think?" As she finished, she tilted her head and flashed the most innocent smile you can imagine, one where your lips reach to your ears and your closed eyes seem to smile.

Well, this completely took the wind out of Sue's sails. Marisa had totally called her on it but also wasn't judging her for it. As tears threatened to brim over, she hugged her daughter tightly. Though she said no words, the sentiment was clear and the tears flowed freely. Marisa returned the embrace and patted her mother's back. "It's okay Mom." This only caused her to hold her tighter and throttle up the spigot.

At this point, some of the attendants clapped. It is debatable as to whether this was appropriate or not.

Having live music at a funeral is what you would call unorthodox. One might even question if this was in good taste. This may be the case if you hire an outside third party to perform. However, if the one performing was close to the deceased, this not only seemed acceptable, but a fine act of mourning. It was still unorthodox though. Most would have been uncomfortable with performing such a gesture, but not Ripley. He was a performer after all, and rather unorthodox himself.

You might have thought that Ripley would be more involved in the actual service, but once it was underway, he was almost exclusively at the piano. He had prepared a number of context-appropriate pieces that may have included a few video game theme songs. To many of the more distant relatives, this seemed out of place. But to anyone actually familiar with the deceased, this seemed more than appropriate. Ripley would usually take a moment after a song was over, to talk with some of the other attendants that had wandered over to inquire. But otherwise, he sat at the keyboard with all the resolve and responsibility of an ocean-faring vessel violinist playing as the ship went down.

It was during one of these interludes that the radio host spoke with Ripley. He had been making the rounds to most of the guests and was quite the socialite. Most people found him quite charming, and he definitely lifted the mood of the place. He of course paid his respects. Not knowing him, he didn't have much to say. Instead, he had been adroitly working his way to Ripley and seized an appropriate opportunity to talk to him.

"Well, if it isn't the famous Ripley." He extended his hand with a smile to introduce himself. Ripley readily accepted it. "You know, I had hoped to meet you after the performance at the Imperial Manifest, before that unfortunate accident." His voice dropped at those last words. "So sad." He ever so slightly shook his head. He didn't seem particularly sad, but Ripley didn't sense he was being insincere either.

"You know I find it truly touching, that you are playing your friend off like this." Ripley flushed a bit, something uncharacteristic for him. The radio host looked over the piano with more scrutiny than he had been till now. "Ah, another Bösendorfer I see..." He squinted his eyes as he seemed to realize something. "Wait, this isn't the same piano that... caused the accident, is it"

Ripley suddenly found himself quite taken aback, like he was being accused of some injustice. "Well... It does mean quite a bit to me." Ripley drew in on himself as he couldn't help but feel a bit of uncharacteristic shame.

The host couldn't help but look just a bit perturbed. "So what do you say when people ask if this is the piano that killed your friend?" It wasn't a jab, but a serious question. Ripley really had no good answer for this.

"Well... It usually doesn't come up," He eventually settled on this. It wasn't false, but it didn't answer the question either.

"I see..." His reaction was very matter-of-fact. He tugged his chin as he reflected on Ripley's words.

Ripley was suddenly caught with the need to defend himself. "Look, I get that it is kind of in bad taste, but this piano means a great deal to me. And to blame an inanimate object for killing someone is absurd!" He clenched his fists tight. "If Seth found it necessary to haunt this piano, I would gladly accept his torment. But Seth wouldn't do that, he's a much better man than that!" He was just about in tears as he finished.

A moment passed and the radio host's features softened. "Your love for your friend is truly touching. He sounds like a great person."

"He is, you don't even know..." He hesitated for a minute before continuing. "I haven't said anything about this because I don't think it's my place to say anything. Those involved will let it be known when they have come to terms with it."

"You don't need to share anything with me you don't think I should be privy to."

"No, I want you to hear this, as it won't be announced to the world when it's time." He took a breath. "And perhaps, after some time has passed, if you find it appropriate, you can share this story with your audience."

"If I have your blessing then I won't conceal it." With his reassurance, Ripley told the tale of Seth and his fondness for Roa. He touched on relevant points in his past to give context to the story. And finished with his heroic sacrifice at the end. Though he had only heard the story secondhand from Roa, he was aware that just before the incident she had met up with her college friend Mitch, with great enthusiasm. From this, he correctly inferred how Seth would have taken this chance meeting, mainly that Mitch had stolen his opportunity. Ripley made sure to convey this sentiment as he told the final part of the tale.

"Wow... So he sacrificed himself to not only save the woman he loved, but also the one he saw as a chief rival." He had been nodding along with the story and now drifted deep into thought.

"Yes, that is the kind of man Seth is. I only wish more people could have seen it." His eyes were misty as he looked down with lingering sorrow.

"Truly great people don't need recognition, though I understand your desire to promote your friend." He gave a bright smile, almost a laugh. "I don't know what your beliefs are, but regardless, you can rest assured that when the final judgment comes, God will not overlook the selfless act undertaken that night."

Ripley wasn't really sure what his view on God was, but regardless, he appreciated his kind words more than the host could have known.