The Weapon - Resurrection - part 4
By Diana the Valkyrie
Funeral Blues
Update: 14/05/2003 to valkyrie05


I watched her cry. I didn't know what to do. I didn't actually understand why
she was crying; what was this actually all about? Who had died?

I moved closer on the park bench. "Wendy, why are you crying? Who died?" She
tried to stifle her sobs, and took a deep breath. "Duncan. And I couldn't do
anything about it."

Now I began to understand. Duncan was her Wielder, and they'd obviously had a
very close relationship. The oath of the Weapon, is to "love, protect and
obey", and he'd died.

But this was 23 years ago, surely it was all just history now. How come she
was still crying over it?

The difficulty is, she looks human, She looks totally human, especially right
now. But she isn't, she's alien. She thinks differently, she sees things
differently, her emotions, if she has them, aren't the same as ours. Yes, she
has emotions, no question, I was seeing that now. So I simply didn't
understand. And I didn't even know what questions to ask. So I asked an
open-ended question. "Tell me about it."

She looked down at the ground, her head supported by her hands. "First it was
his heart, he had an arrhythmia. They wanted to operate, to fit him with a
pacemaker. They said it was a minor operation, but Duncan was terrified. I
held him in my arms and told him it would be all right. And he tried to act
brave, but I could tell, inside he was really so scared, so frightened, my
Duncan, my love. So I told the doctors; no operation, I'll take care of it.
And I spun up a handler to monitor and pace his heart, just like a pacemaker
would, but without needing to operate, I could do it from outside."

"So you were protecting him." she looked at me, and nodded. "Yes. But then
..." It turned out that he was diabetic, and that was the cause of his heart
problem. But then there were more complications. "When his kidneys stopped
working properly, they wanted to do a transplant. And he was even more scared.
So I said no, and I took care of the blood purification function for him; each
week I did a hemodialysis. And by that time, I was keeping him alive, but we
didn't really think about that. Then he went blind."

I looked at her. She wasn't looking at me any more, she had the "thousand yard
stare", she was remembering. "I couldn't see for him. So I'd hold his hand and
make sure he didn't bump into things, and we bought him audio books, but
that's not the same as reading."

Tears were pouring down her face as she told me this terrible tale. "You don't
have to do this," I said, "remembering is making it worse." "I remember this
every day, David. Every single day. I cry every night." I looked at her. "But
this was all 23 years ago, you can't live in the past, memories fade." "Mine
are digital, they don't fade."

"Your memory ... ?" "I don't forget things. I don't forget anything. It's all
stored, video with sound, smells and tastes. How it felt, how I felt at the
time. I have a 100% memory of everything I ever experienced. Digital."

I thought how lucky we are not to have the curse of perfect memory. I thought
about how damned she was. "Every night, I think about him, I play back some of
my memories, and I cry." "You're just torturing yourself." She looked into my
eyes. "Maybe I deserve it. I didn't protect him. I let him die." "How?"
"Towards the end, he was suffering nerve damage. He couldn't walk, he couldn't
use his hands. I had to do everything for him, all the little humiliating
things. And then the pain, I could block out most of it, but some of it got
through. And then, one day, he turned to me, and asked to die."

"How awful." She nodded. "We talked about it for a very long time. He told me,
he was never going to get better, he could only get worse, his life wasn't
worth living now, and the pain was getting worse all the time. I argued with
him, but he wouldn't give way. He pointed out that it was months since we'd
had any sex, and that it was pointless because he couldn't feel anything any
more. And that he dreaded waking up each day, because of the pain and the
humiliation. How each night when he went to sleep, he hoped that he wouldn't
wake up again. And that I was keeping him alive, and he was commanding me to
stop doing that. He said that all I was doing now, was keeping him in pain,
when he should be on his way to heaven. He pointed out that my oath said that
I had to obey him, even though I usually took no notice of that. But that this
once, he pleaded with me to do what he wanted. And let him go."

"So you ..."

"Didn't protect him."

"You gave him what he wanted."

"I didn't take care of him."

"No, you just let him go, like he wanted."

"I didn't look after him. He died, my Wielder, my Duncan, my only love."

We sat in silence for a while. Some people cry noisily, some people weep
soundlessly. I watched the silent tears dripping down her face in the quiet of
the night.

"Sometimes I spend the night underwater, in the river Thames. Then the river
washes away my tears. Sometimes I lay huddled up under Charing Cross Bridge,
people think I'm just one of the homeless, crying in the cold, and they don't
bother me. Sometimes I just walk all night, remembering the good times.
Sometimes I lie down in a doorway. Sometimes I hide in a rubbish skip. The
nights are the worst, because that's when the memories play back."

More silence.

"I wish there was something I could do to help", I said. I meant it, too.
She'd given us all so much. I'd do anything to give her something back. But
she shook her head. "There's only one thing I want, and you can't give him to
me." "Can't you erase the memories?" She frowned at me, she looked angry.
"Haven't you been listening? My memories of him are all that's left of him on
this planet, you want me to destroy that too?" She raised her voice. "Isn't it
enough that I let him die, you want me to kill his remembrance?"

Without thinking, I moved away from her. All my thoughts about her power came
back to me, I was scared of her again.

She looked at me, sadly. "You're shaking. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare
you." She held out her hand, and I put mine on top of it. "It's mostly because
I'm cold," I explained. Well, it was the middle of winter, and I hadn't
dressed warmly enough for sitting on a park bench in the middle of the night.
"Yes," she said, you're freezing. Come here." and she pulled me toward her.
"I'll warm you up, I don't want you getting pneumonia."

I'd just acted like a pig and upset her, and her only concern was that I was
cold. She put her arms round me, and pulled me close to her body. "Oh, you are
cold. Very cold. Don't be scared, David. I'm going to raise my body
temperature a bit, so I can warm you up." She pulled me close to her body,
which was far too hot to be normal. And I felt something like a blanket
wrapping around me. "That's my cape, it's actually part of me, that's why it's
warm too." Compared with the icy cold of the winter wind, I suddenly felt much
warmer. And at the same time, the fear of her left me. I felt that I wasn't on
the outside of her, I felt that she'd brought me inside her personal space,
inside the circle of her arms, and inside her warm cape. It was a very
comforting feeling.

"Is that better?" she asked. I nodded, my head close to her body. "You'll be
nice and warm soon," she said.