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It’s hard, Nyx finds, to mourn the dead without mourning Galahd as a whole.
Sometimes the smallest things got him. The birdsongs in the Citadel that were just cheap imitations, barely even a song compared to the long warbles that filled his youth. The way the rivers that cut through the city stunk of oil and trash rather than silt and living fish. The knowledge that every person he passed in the streets was a stranger, even when he had to do a double take just to make sure.
Often, though, it was just Insomnia in its entirety.
Despite being the political center of Lucis, Insomnia felt more like its own world than a reflection of the lands around it. Since joining the Glaives, Nyx had seen everything from Keycatrich to Ravatogh, and while he wouldn’t consider himself an expert on Lucian cultures, he would have to be blind not to see the great divide between those within the Wall, and those without.
In Leide, you could breakdown on the side of the road and have three different pick-ups within minutes pulling over to get you back on your way before sun-down. In the city, you’d be lucky if you weren’t robbed the second you stopped to read a sign.
In Duscae, you’d find people setting out elaborate offerings to appease Titan, while in Insomnia there were people who would stand on the street and preach that Astrals were just lies made up by the Kings of Yore to keep power over the masses.
In Galahd, Etro was a family name. In Insomnia, it was the equivalent of heresy to even utter it under your breath.
Lucians were supposed to exalt her. Her image was on everything. From his uniform to the royal insignia, she watched over them with her ever patient gaze. And yet Insomnians baulked at the mention of her name, at the conversation of death, and at the celebrations outside the walls. Barbaric, they called them. Grotesque.
In Insomnia, they buried their dead. They held silent vigils. Said their prayers on scraps of paper burned in a messenger votive from the safety of their homes. Wrapped everything in white gauze and lilies and called it a day. Names of those passed were held close, like curse words on holy days, sealed behind tight lips and seldom uttered.
In Galahd, they would have been knee deep in the flood waters, singing.
But what really got to him was how gods damned hard it was to get what you needed out here. Insomnia was supposed to be this shining beacon of excess. You can get everything in Insomnia, right? The Crown City; Center of the fucking universe, as proclaimed by the Gods themselves. Bahamut touched the land and out sprang the Kings of Lucii or whatever. So why was it so damn hard to get Galahdian turmeric?
Nyx glared at the small spice bottles on the shelf in front of him.
Because this wasn’t Galahd.
Because no one in Insomnia ever needed to send their loved ones down the River. They never had to paint them in yellow in the dying light so that the Astrals could see them in the dark. They never needed to sit, soaked in rain, and scream to Etro through the night. Never had to beg her to scare away the daemons who would take the bodies if given the chance.
Nyx rubbed a hand along his jaw, wincing at the sting of stubble against his palm. He needed to shave. He needed sleep, too, given the way the labels in front of him blurred along the edges.
Schier turmeric.
Not Galahdian, not by a long shot. The color was off. All orangey and uniform from mechanical milling. Not the thick yellow clumping powder piled at the bottom of a stained pestle he’d buy from the local herbalist. Not the sharp bitter tang that burned his sinuses like gingerroot along the gums. The glass jar was nothing like the fabric bag that bled the powder onto his fingers in the humid summer heat, the weight of it in his hands somehow equal to the weight of his father’s death on his shoulders. Glass. Green label; certifiable organic, as if it meant anything to the dead. To the Astrals. To Etro.
To him.
There wasn’t a body, anyway. No River, either. No Galahd. Not anymore. Niflheim took that all from him. Took it with bullets and hellfire and a big fucking concrete dam and—
Okay, focus. Turmeric? Check. Now snacks.
His boots squelched loud along the grimy tiles, the filthy off-blue vinyl looking somehow more fake than the shiny black marble in the Citadel. Crackers, chips, cracker-chips, something called ‘crisps’ that were apparently just expensive Tenebraen chips—
Nyx stopped in front of the brightly-colored candy section.
Sometimes, late into a long night with the others, they’d stumble into a convenience store just like this one and stare. They’d stand there like dumb kids until they remembered they were, in fact, dumb adults and could buy whatever they wanted. Crowe always liked to pick out whatever had a ‘New!’ sticker on it, while Lib hoarded the clearance items like a racoon. Nyx stuck with the treasures of childhood, Li’l MalHots and Ifrit’s Balls, the latter of which never failed to send Crowe into giggle fits whenever she saw the flame-covered packaging. Luche, the few times he was with them anymore, would just bemoan how none of them tasted the same as they had been at home. Nyx was pretty sure they were just two months stale back home, but that was an argument he was tired of having.
Nyx reached out, running a tentative finger over the pastel yellow packaging he usually pretended wasn’t there. It was an unspoken rule of the candy aisle that they never mention her favorite sitting front and center. Tonberry Grudges, sweet pineapple flavor. Like every other luxury in Galahd, they were dirt cheap in Insomnia. His sister would cackle, delighted, whenever he managed to snag a package when they were kids.
Usually, he’d have nicked it from the import store and snuck it into the house right under their mother’s nose. Occasionally he’d come by it honestly, bought and paid for with money he made running errands for the neighbors. Always, they shared it hidden under blankets in their room on stormy nights when the thunder was enough to hide the sound of the crinkling bag. Even just the feel of the packaging left Nyx feeling hollow, the memory of her laugh a sucking wound on his soul.
He shuffled over to the miscellaneous section next, grabbing a bag of votive candles marketed as ‘emergency lights’ and three more lighters to add to his never-ending pile of half-empties. A spare roll of toilet paper, since Lib left him with nothing but cardboard last week and Nyx refused on principle to buy a bulk package before Lib replaced it like he promised he would. He fully intended to hide it every time Lib was over until he paid him back for leaving him to suffer hung-over and toilet-paperless the next morning.
He definitely didn’t take a moment to psych himself up to take the lot up to the counter. Absolutely did not stare blankly at a fridge full of energy drinks while trying to pretend he wasn’t working up the nerve to talk to another human being. Nope, not him.
Nyx ignored the way the cashier eyed him as he placed his items on the counter. Schier turmeric, the gummies, candles, lighters, and the single roll of toilet paper. Ignored the way the cashier eyed his ID when he asked for a pack of Cac-tar Blacks, the same shit his mom used to smoke, and a bottle of the shittiest whiskey they had behind the counter. He had given up trying to find the same bottle his dad used to neck on the back-porch after he learned it came from Old Lestallum. The distillery had likely gone out of business long before Nyx was even born, just another relic his father had been clinging to.
He ignored the swiftly-getting-old game of ‘Nyx Ulric?’ ‘Yep.’ ‘Like the Nyx Ulric?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Like the Captain of the Kings-’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Wow.’ ‘Mhm.’ as he mentally crossed this store off his dwindling list of places he could go without some teenage retail worker breathing down his neck.
He couldn’t ignore the rain dripping down his face as he walked towards his apartment.
‘Ramuh’s tears,’ his mother used to call them when he was young. He hadn’t much liked the imagery as a kid, didn’t much like it now, but it was infinitely better than Lib’s mom calling it ‘Ramuh’s piss.’
Though, in Insomnia, it was a lot more like piss than tears. Back home, rain felt clean, settling all the dust and gently lulling the cicadas to sleep. Even during flood seasons, it was still a cool reprieve from the overbearing sun. In the city, all it did was bring the stench of garbage to the forefront and drag oil up from the streets to swirl in multi-colored puddles that drowned the sidewalks.
Still, Nyx felt better in the rain. He twisted the plastic bag around his wrist twice to keep the contents dry and tilted his head back as he walked. The streets were always empty when it rained, all the Insomnians rushing to the underground rail system rather than get a little damp. He had the sidewalk mostly to himself as he walked, letting the water settle on him like a heavy mantel of grief.
He could practically hear Crowe mocking him for being an angsty teenager. Except, she probably wouldn’t have. Not today, anyway. She and Lib knew to give him a wide berth. His phone was mercifully silent and his ear-piece was locked in his office, Cor having physically taken it from him once he had been notified of the anniversary by some loose-lipped Glaive.
At least Insomnia understood the importance of anniversaries.
Nyx dropped his water-logged boots by his door and the soaked bag on the floor. The majority of the apartment was in boxes, what little there was already prepared to be shipped over to the nicer place he had snagged uptown. Closer to the Citadel, infinitely more secure, and easily four times the size of the shoebox he had shoved his life into three years ago.
He sat down hard in front of his corkboard, the last bastion of his life that needed to be packed. Propped up against the wall, as far away from the leaky window as possible, it was filled with the black, white, and sepia of his heart. Pops of color from new photos sprinkled amongst the newspaper clippings and faded positives from his childhood. He was glad Crowe had nicked them from him a few years ago to have digital copies made, the files on his phone still holding the memory of his mother’s eyes better than the polaroid, which had lost the color of them entirely.
Nyx carefully arranged three candles in front of the board, setting the cigarettes and whiskey to one side and the snacks in his lap. The turmeric he dumped in little piles around the votives, all to aware that it would be a bitch to clean off the concrete but unwilling to try burning it the way he had the first year. The smell had been horrible.
In Galahd, all of this would have been done by the River. The lights would have been wax-paper lanterns. He lit each votive slowly, muttering prayers under his breath that should have been screamed out into the heavens. He cracked open the whisky first, swallowing a large mouthful through gritted teeth, the entire contents of which should have been dumped straight into the tide. He lit a cigarette on the second votive and left it there to burn. He should have smoked it, really, but his mother had always lamented the habit and he felt she’d have preferred if that particular offering stay outside his lungs. Last, slowly, he opened the gummies and held one on his tongue. The sour crystals burned and the sweet pineapple tasted horrible paired with the whiskey, but it was his sister through and through.
In Galahd, these offerings would have gone to the River, to be taken by Etro to the ones who would best appreciate them.
In Insomnia, they stayed with Nyx. They burned his lungs and his throat and his tongue, reminding him of all he had lost.