[For a few long moments, Onni just looks at Reynir, his mouth pressed into a straight line, his body held tense, while he explains what he'd seen. Onni as a little kid, holding Tuuri as a baby, who had grabbed at his finger and held onto it. Reynir tells him he was a cute kid, and he tries to remember what he'd looked like back then. If he was actually cute. Tries to remember what it was like holding Tuuri when she was a baby - some of it seems familiar, he knows that he'd done it and he knows that he'd felt good when he did, that he'd been happy and felt protective of her, this tiny helpless life that came from the same parents. He can imagine the scene, but he can't exactly remember it, not in the way he remembers other things, with that tactile, emotional sort of feeling.
It's a little unnerving. But he just nods and makes a soft 'hm' in his throat, non-committal, while he feels Reynir radiating fondness and sadness and nostalgia and knows that he's projecting his own puzzlement and discomfort and sadness.]
I'm not sure if I remember that.
[Shifting from foot to foot, he shakes his head and then lifts Reynir's wreath, inhaling the scent of it. It only takes a few moments before he's falling into the memory. That horrific horselike creature with too many legs and a skeletal face entering the church and approaching the soft but practical priest woman, shouting at her when she tries to offer salvation, shouting about its pain and suffering, the injustice of it all. It's a little disturbing, to realize that he agrees with that thing, to an extent. The world is unjust and terrible, and people suffer who shouldn't be suffering. Onni doesn't deserve to suffer as he has, his family hadn't, and the souls making up that thing hadn't deserved it either.
The priest lady asks then, quiet and calm, if the thing is tired, says that she is, from waiting for these souls, explains that she was waiting and so they're not abandoned, just lost. He watches as the thing admits that they are tired and melt away into the form of a tiny, crying, three-headed sheep. And together, that sheep and the souls with it, and the pastor, a tiny sheep with glasses, gather together and fly into the sky, into the light, a column of settled souls, and the pastor calls back her name - Anne. The memory fades away, then, and Onni lifts his head, blinking at Reynir.]
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It's a little unnerving. But he just nods and makes a soft 'hm' in his throat, non-committal, while he feels Reynir radiating fondness and sadness and nostalgia and knows that he's projecting his own puzzlement and discomfort and sadness.]
I'm not sure if I remember that.
[Shifting from foot to foot, he shakes his head and then lifts Reynir's wreath, inhaling the scent of it. It only takes a few moments before he's falling into the memory. That horrific horselike creature with too many legs and a skeletal face entering the church and approaching the soft but practical priest woman, shouting at her when she tries to offer salvation, shouting about its pain and suffering, the injustice of it all. It's a little disturbing, to realize that he agrees with that thing, to an extent. The world is unjust and terrible, and people suffer who shouldn't be suffering. Onni doesn't deserve to suffer as he has, his family hadn't, and the souls making up that thing hadn't deserved it either.
The priest lady asks then, quiet and calm, if the thing is tired, says that she is, from waiting for these souls, explains that she was waiting and so they're not abandoned, just lost. He watches as the thing admits that they are tired and melt away into the form of a tiny, crying, three-headed sheep. And together, that sheep and the souls with it, and the pastor, a tiny sheep with glasses, gather together and fly into the sky, into the light, a column of settled souls, and the pastor calls back her name - Anne. The memory fades away, then, and Onni lifts his head, blinking at Reynir.]
That turned out well, then.