Ashes to Ashes [Open]

[Hazel 'Hobbs' Yeung]

She had not expected to find it. She must have looked over that old plaque hundreds of times, thousands of times. She had now etched Stark’s name amongst those who were listed as fallen, and her eyes had slid over the names the way it had countless times before. Once she may have felt something, but now there was nothing left to feel. And there she had seen it. There, hiding at the far top of the plaque, where the sunlight caught the metal and blinded her as it gleamed off, she had noticed his name carved into the plaque. Hobbs had hoped never to find it, and after having gone this long without noticing, she had almost hoped that he wasn’t there at all. But when her eyes had snatched at the words she had stopped and stared. Declan O’Hara. Her first friend in this entire country, the man who had saved her life from a Vampire attack, the man who had introduced her to the Hunting life.

Her words were breathed from a chest filled with dread. “Oh no.”

She knew then, instantly, a feeling of dread creeping through her veins. She knew then where to find him. His body would have been buried on the island he called home, in the cemetery Hobbs had avoided for months. She had dreaded finding his name carved on a headstone and had instead calmed her fear by searching for him amongst a cloud of strangers’ names. She would find him too easily in a cemetery, and she had been afraid of that. After months of searching and trying not to look, she had finally found him... in the worst way possible.

Hobbs did not think twice about sticking on a coat and wellies and heading out to the Memorial Island cemetery where the Hunters laid their fallen.

She had found very little on his headstone. There was no mournful poem for the dead, no long lament of sorrow or loss. There were but two words - Farewell, brother - etched beneath his name and two dates. He had died almost seven months ago, and all this time she never knew. She had never wanted to. But in the wake of Stark’s death, what did one more dead comrade matter? From dust they were born, and to dust they returned. Nothing waited for them in the hereafter. They lived, they died, they went forgotten.

In the snow, Hazel slumped, staring at the epitaph. Farewell, brother. She wished she’d had a chance to say it.