---Butchering---

---Ẽ’s perspective---

I stand in the town plaza in the capital of a deathworld empire.

I’m keeping the tips of all 8 of my perambulatory tentacles firmly planted on the ground in respect.

I am surrounded by most of the offworlders not currently in stasis.

The Terrans, having cleared the colour with our hosts beforehand, are dressed entirely in sparkling bright white.

The effect is dramatic!

My people don’t have a ‘mourning colour’, so I just chose the palest clothes that the repair crew were able to salvage from my quarters aboard the disabled ship.

To our left is a small contingent of Twigg, the first to ever be invited into a Vrakhand city and to witness a ritual like this, as far as we know.

They are dressed in pale grey clothes (matching the Vrakhand mourning colour) that were printed for them at the embassy.

All around us stand thousands of Vrakhand, some giving us dirty looks, some crying blue tears, most just looking down at the ground, sombrely.

To our left is a long road with a procession, around halfway between here and the palace, slowly making its way in this direction.

The centre of the plaza is empty of all but a few Vrakhand, an empty plinth, an assortment of tools laid out on a cloth and four boxes; two large ones, one completely empty and the other lined with silk, into which the bandages and cloths baring the monarch’s blood have already been deposited, a smaller box filled with dark, dry, woody soil and the smallest box of all, empty but richly decorated.

On the far side of the audience from us is an orchestra entirely composed of Vrakhand boys.

Most bear stringed instruments but a few have percussives, such as one with a log drum and one with a water drum.

As the procession nears, they begin to play.

There is no people yet known in the galaxy who don’t have any concept of music…

Song is universal to the sapient experience…

My people, the Ĕēȇè, having vocal anatomy that restricts us to a single phoneme, our language, Ėꬴ Ĕēȇè, consists entirely of song.

When I was a child, I was told that that fact made us the galaxy’s finest songsmiths.

That perception changed after the War.

Anyone could tell that Terran music was simply better… that our technical exactitude in constructing instruments, the fastidious way we arranged our compositions and the precise care we were able to take in singing and playing our songs was simply no substitute for the emotional power that even a relatively unskilled Terran could pour into their craft.

Hearing the Vrakhand play their dirge makes it very clear… they are deathworlders!

The unTerran design and materials of their instruments as well as the anatomy of their hands result in their song sounding nothing like Terran music… Nevertheless, it too has that same raw, emotional power that makes me feel as if all three of my hearts were about to rip themselves in half!

The sound resonates out across the river and echoes back from the hill on the far bank in a way that only layers further depth into it.

Just when I feel like I might be about to collapse from the intensity of my emotions, they begin to sing.

---Yasmin’s perspective---

My arms shoot out to catch the squidgirl as the song of mourning brings her to the point of losing her tentacles.

She’s light… I’d estimate her to be about half my mass (though I have no idea what she’s set her gravity field to, so I can’t be sure!)

“You alright?” I whisper-sing in Ėꬴ Ĕēȇè.

My command of her language isn’t good enough yet to allow me to understand her answer but it sounds like a reassurance so I just keep propping her up until she’s able to recover.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Her species are uniquely susceptible to the effect of music and it seems as if the Vrakhand song is simply too much for her to handle.

It’s strange…

I consider myself to be nearly fluent in Vrakhandic at this point and, yet… I can’t understand a word of this!

None of those I’ve spoken to have volunteered being able to speak any other language but they all seem to know the words to this song that shares very little in common with Vrakhandic featurally!

This language is far less guttural and has much more of a syllabic metre, like Italian or Japanese, rather than the phrase metring of English and Vrakhandic.

There is always the possibility of the lyrics being nonsense but… that’s not how it sounds…

I’ll have to talk about it to Jae, Lilith, Björn and Strik later… This could be a promising avenue for exploring their history but I think it would be a touch inappropriate to bring up with any Vrakhand at their monarch’s funeral!

Khr’kowan enters the town square, just ahead of the litter bearing her father’s body.

The nature of Vrakhandic funeral practices mean that he is entirely nude.

It is slightly odd that they’re so conservative about their nudity most of the time and, yet, no one seems to have any reservation about seeing their king’s body without a scrap of silk to protect his modesty!

The postmortem tightening has curled his legs under his hindbody and his head downward, disguising the wound at his throat.

The undertakers have done their best to clean the blood out of his fur but there is still a noticeably blue stain in the grey of his chest.

The two of his daughters acting as the man’s pallbearers bring him to the plinth and set him down, wordlessly.

The music ceases and Khr’kowan sits on his far side, the butchering tools at her right.

---Khr’kowan’s perspective---

The death song ceases…

I can’t cry.

My people need me to be strong right now.

They need to see me being strong for them!

How many have I butchered in my life?

This needs to be no different!

It doesn’t matter that this is the man who gave me everything I have, everything I am, the one who taught me all that I know!

It doesn’t matter that he’s been a fixture in my entire life and ruler of my realm since before I existed!

If my people see me despairing, it will bring them to despair!

Once I’m sure that my voice shan’t crack, I address his body, shouting loudly enough for all my people to hear “Father; In life, you gave all that you had for your people. With the wisdom of age you led us judiciously. You wielded man’s softness and compassion to provide for your people but also knew when to allow woman’s strength and ferocity to be unleashed in their defence! You were a man who never baulked at what was required of you! You did your duty to the last and gave your life for the noble end of protecting allies from danger, a distinguishment few women and scarcely any men will ever claim! And now, Father, I must ask you for your last favours…”

I bend to pick a pair of iron tongs from where they lie beside the other tools.

I reach to my father’s head with my left hand and hold open his jaw.

Inserting the tongs into his mouth, I clamp them around his lower toothplate.

Iron is too soft to scratch even the thanatite of an old man so I squeeze hard, not wanting to shame myself before him by failing to pull it free on the first attempt.

I yank it free of his skull in one clean, practiced motion and hold the tongs aloft to show it to my people.

2,662 voices roar, bitterly, at seeing the first of my father’s last gifts.

Out of the corner of my right eyes, I see the offworlders mostly manage to keep themselves from startling.

The Twigg are less composed but quickly manage to contain their shock at the outcry.

“From the thanatite you gift us, we shall make the weapons to arm the next generation of your daughters!” I declare, depositing it into the thanatite box and placing down the tongs.

Turning back to my father, I wedge my claws beneath his chest plate and prize it from his body.

Thankfully, it stays intact which is not always a given when butchering older men.

I hold it aloft to another anguished scream from my people.

“From the armour you gift us, we shall make the tools that will equip the next generation of your sons!” I cry out, placing it into its box.

I turn back to my father’s body for the last time before the morticians take over.

Exactly in the middle of his exposed chest is a perfectly still organ a little smaller than his head.

My hands quiver slightly as I reach out to grasp it but, mercifully, I don’t think it will have been too noticeable.

I wrap my hands around the fleshy tubes at the top and slice through them with my claws.

Having freed his heart from its moorings I pull it away from him, gently, as if holding a sleeping infant.

I do not hold it aloft.

There is no roar.

My people are in fact so quiet that, as I lay it atop the bandages in the terra preta box, I do not need to raise my voice to say “From the flesh you gift us, we shall ferment fertiliser which will nourish your lands. That your children, your children’s children and your children’s children’s children may continue to receive your gifts, long into the future.”

I bend to scoop a handful of dry soil from the earth box.

I scatter the earth over my father’s heart.

I stare, distantly, into the box for a few moments until I feel a hand on my right elbow.

I look down to see Wh’rneth, the head mortician, staring back at me with a sombre smile adorning his face.

Quietly enough that only I’ll be able to hear him, he says “Well done, Regent… You can leave the rest to us.” pointing behind himself to the boys of the mortuary group.

I gesture affirmative and wordlessly turn to take my seat with the crowd.

I feel a slightly shameful wash of relief that my part is over.

I don’t know how much longer I would have been able to maintain the illusion of composure.