Grief

An excerpt from Tales of the Celestials about the Celestial of death. This is one of the few uncorrupted sections of her chapter.

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There is dirt on her hands.   She collapsed to her knees when she saw the bodies outside her house. She cradled her daughter in her arms, sobbed as she looked at the broken form of her husband, screamed to the sky as if God could help her.   She spent an endless time in the ruins of her village, fire burning around her, the emptiness inside slowly getting deeper.   When she opened her eyes after realizing they were closed, the sky was dark. She struggled to her feet, trying not to step on the bodies, and barely managed not to hurl when she felt how heavy they had already grown.   She dragged them to the edge of the river, arms aching, feet slipping, but she made it. Then she collapsed again, leaned away from her family, and plunged her hands into the soil.   Her nails broke at some point. The dirt sank into her skin. Her eyes were too sore to see through.   Something told her to stop digging. When she did, she realized the hole was deeper than her oldest friend's height. The ground was stained red from rust and minerals, dark enough for her to mistake as blood.   Her husband went in first. She lowered him in carefully, setting his back to the earth, his face turned up and umber eyes unseeing. In his arms, she placed their daughter. She couldn't look too long at the child's face. The freckles, black locks, and sweet brown gaze would always live in her dreams.   And then she sat back on her heels and stopped.   She sits there, tears dry on her face, dirt-caked hands in her lap, staring into the distance, unable to move.   She comes back to herself in flickers. Time presses at her body, reminds her that, even though immortal, her body is still fragile. She had already pushed herself before this, going without food or sleep so she could finish her work and return to her home.   She stands with effort and looks down at the grave. Her family looks back, but it isn't them. It's just their bodies. Shells their souls have left.   A wave of her hand sends the soil cascading back into the hole. If she were any less numb, she would feel sick at the thought of so much dirt pressing down on the arms that cradled her, the hands that reached up to her, the faces that looked and smiled at her. But she cannot feel nauseous. She cannot feel horrified. She cannot even feel her grief.   The ground smoothens out. There is no sign of the bodies beneath. No mark that a family is buried here. No symbol of a wife and mother's loss. No one can come to remember them, but no one can come to desecrate them.   She returns to the village, pulls a single object from her burning house, and leaves.   She ignores the way her skin bubbles from the flames, the streaks of dirt protecting only small places. Despite the pain, she knows it will heal.   The pain in her heart is another story entirely.   Not even time can heal it, no matter how much of it she has.