Family in Ruin (Count Sparrow)

Mel stood in front of the Crawford Mausoleum. She held her hand up forming the word candle with it and opened the door to the crypt. The room was dark and she stood there. Four caskets lay in the room. She put a hand over one of the concrete caskets and sighed. Her hand dusted off the first casket's name. Hargren Crawford. She smiled and sat down on the casket. "Your great grandson, Harland is with you now. It's really funny how our family has come to this. We started this family to make peace with the world, but..." She took her hat off. She got off of the casket and picked up a picture. She blew on it and the dust clouded. She wiped it down and sat it down on the casket. She climbed back on top the casket. It was a picture of her unaged with a man with crimson hair. He held a cigarette in his hand. His hat covered his eyes but the two were happy. She looked out towards the group of caskets. Harland's was just recently put there. "Harland would come here often so I had no way to come visit you Harry." Mel said with a smile. "He was convinced that his son was dead, so he had an empty casket placed here. I traveled for so long to find the truth. Harry..." She pulled out a handkerchief from her pocket and began to cry. "Our family... is in shambles. Harrigan is the only one truly left with your name and he wreaks havoc with it. He is far more greedy than you were. Our dreams... our hopes... to be faithful to this Council. Is gone. Every single bit." She wrote out the word flowers with her hands. Poof. A bouquet of flowers formed and she left the bouquet on Hargren's casket.

She sighed and wiped another tear. "There will never be another Crawford that will have the honor and integrity you had, dear." Mel tapped her heel against the casket and began to talk once more. "Where do we go from here? I don't wish for Harrigan to enjoy your company. In fact, I bet he never will. Our sons and daughters never understood why I left so suddenly as well, and they passed that hate on through their children." Mel gave a smile as she spoke to herself hoping that the spirit of her dead husband would hear her. "And having to explain why I haven't aged to them would've been worse. Taking on the roll of Nanny was even harder, my dearest. When you stated that you wanted me around disguised as a nurse and nanny, I thought it would've been great.... but...." Mel sighed. "Watching the life fade out of your body that night... Was the hardest thing I could ever had done. Just knowing that I will never be by your side... ever. Just knowing that a simple mistake at my atlier caused such an effect." She looked at her hand. It trembled. "To never lose life, is much worse than death itself."



Mel's eyes hid under her bangs as she gripped her teeth. "And to be so understanding when Harland and the rest of his family took my inheritance, that you GAVE ME, away... To be so graceful to know that our family has resorted to this greed..." Her hand gripped. "I will do something about that Harry. I will do what ever I can to fix this issue." She shoved herself off of the casket and put a hand on it. "This is the most selfish thing I have ever done, Harry.... but I promise.. when I'm through with my life. There will be no more Crawfords. I will undo the problem we have unleashed upon this world."

Mel looked over towards the voice and her eyes widened. He had heard her. He had heard that she was an old soul. Perhaps older than ever. She sighed and closed her eyes and gave a small smile. Mel knew that she would have to come to face Lucien soon about her wisdom and acquired knowledge. She crossed her arms and tapped one of her clog shaped shoes. "You're imitation of my great grandson is rather... rough." She put a gloved hand back on Hargren's casket. "Hargren's death could have been prevented and the Crawfords would have flourished in their path, but instead of wishing to live on longer he told me that he would rather move on. Something I cannot do." She moved her hand to the picture of the happy couple holding each other in their arms. "So to honor his wishes... I did so. On the day of his funeral I disguised myself as his nurse... Yet I received hate for disappearing even though I hid in plain sight. Harland took his spot. Though not as greedy as those that come after him, he carried Hargren's need to do the right thing. A part of Hargren's honor that had long since disappeared after he left."

Mel sighed as she looked her Chairman in the eye. "Harland's death was your fault just as much as mine. I could've prevented that one too had I figured out what he was doing in time. He died trying to protect a dark mage he had mistook for an innocent girl. I don't know what came over him. He just lost all sense of logic. She was a girl from Savage Skull... Like a worse version of me." She put a hand on the jewel on her blouse then squeezed it. "Not dead... but not alive at the same time."

"As far as living fully as a woman... I have done that... For a good hundred years or so I would say... Then I found him, the man in this casket here. Then I left him and hid as a servant to the Crawfords. I watched the downfall slowly creep in. The greed slowly poisoned each one of them. Harland's brothers and sisters awaited for Hargren's slow death. Yet you tell me to remember the joyous memories. Okay.. Let's do just that." Mel could feel the lump in her throat forming as the picture of Harland's day of birth flew through her mind. "I remember being his mother's midwife and being the first one to hold him in my arms. I remember Hargren being there on the night of his birth to hold him as well. I remember Hargren smiling patiently as his granddaughter talked negatively of me. Telling Hargren that I was never meant to be a part of this family. Yet Hargren would always come to my defense expressing that I left with a good reason. I just stood there holding Harland in my arms. When I finally gave him to his mother, she just shunned me, but Harland still stared curiously at me." A tear grew in her eye and fell down her cheek as pictures of Harland growing up and her teaching him how to read came to mind. "I was there for his first book." Her lip quivered as she felt the shame of what she had said before about Harland. "Even at this funeral I do feel some regret as well. I see... What you just said... Yet I came into the Rune Knights to stay up to date with this unfamiliar world. I'm surprised Harland didn't recognize me." She tapped her shoe again and looked over at Harland's casket. "An old soul such as mine has no right to be called a woman anymore..." She leaned on the casket and looked up at the candle lit ceiling. "Maybe... a crone, but definitely not a maiden anymore." She wiped her tear away. "I no longer fall under the image of maiden and mother anymore. Well not in your eyes now that my secret is out."

Mel put her dominant hand up and formed the word 'flowers.' A bouquet formed in her hands. She walked over to Harland's casket and stood beside Lucien. She put the daffodils on the casket and smiled warmly. "Perhaps, if I had told you Harland, when you were just a child that I was still around, you would have changed the rest of the Crawfords feelings of hate and anguish towards me. Maybe you would have been like your Great Grandfather and understood exactly what I was. May your soul rest in peace great grandson of mine. However, those that carry your family's name and carry that greed that brings forth shame, I will find them. With the help of your knights." She looked at Lucien.

She smiled. "Someone who blames himself and wants to carry that burden forth," Mel thought carefully, "would be called a hot mess by Harland and Hargren. Blaming one self doesn't change anything, but understanding can revolutionize everything. Something I've told both of these men. The person to blame doesn't matter. As a Rune Knight I have learned that delegation takes the burden off of everyone." She kept the same smile but her eyes seemed to have softened. "Then I would like to be delegated to the fourth chair."