Do Not Stand On My Grave (Do Not Weep)
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there.
I did not die.
Haze- no, Fan, sees the sun rise and glint horridly off the Praetorium spires, and flash upon the refugees' meagre supply of grain. No dapple, no gold. It is not right. It is not real. It is not true. What have I forgotten?
Jin, still Jin, always Jin, forever Jin, sits crumpled in the dirty Ardainian streets, and the rain does not fall gentle and clean, not the way she liked it. It is not right. It is not real. It is not true. Why can't I forget?
They wake and see the birds, spiraling upwards. "See, Jin?" Lora says. "Just like us. Wherever we go, we'll go together." And so Jin clings to the sight of the fair Tornan sky. Together. Wherever we go.
Lora was boisterous. She could be quiet and moody, but most of the time her cheer overflowed. Then when they found Haze, and welcomed her in to the tiny flying wedge, the reflection was like that of a moon upon a star. Their ecosystem, their solar system, their microcosm that did not reflect the macrocosm.
It was perfect. In its little everyday flaws, it was perfect. So Jin does not like, oh, no, how Jin hates, to see himself so wretched, and Haze so pedestalized. We are not perfect if we are not together.
We are nothing if we do not go together.
So Jin kills Haze. Haze dies. Haze was already dead. Fan was never alive.
Jin does not stand at Lora's grave. Jin runs through it, for it runs through him.
But Jin knows. This world is no longer the one Lora lived in.
Jin lived. Lora died.