======Livith Eternity======

===== Publishing =====

[tw: death, death of a child, disease]

**Love is grief,**

A woman trembles, weakened by hunger and loss, as she fills a shallow grave she dug herself. There is no headstone. She knows not how to craft one, nor how to write the name. The only record of who is buried here will be in her memory; she does not know it, but even that will be gone before too long.

**but also safety.**

The same woman trembles again, this time in the arms of another. A feeling does not swell, but settles; peace arrives in the turbulent heart of a woman full of rage. For the first time she thinks there might be a place where she can just //be//.

**Faith is pain,**

The woman knocks on them with increasing desperation; the child in her arms faces whatever comes in the next life, and the woman does not know how to prepare her for it. Many times she has told that only the priests could save the child from eternal suffering. The doors stay closed.

**but also hope.**

She invites a robed figure in, sits down to take confession. They laugh, and cry, and feel a burden lifted. Fires burn, and something new is born. Connection is forged, roots grow, a stable foundation from which something new can grow. A choir sings in harmony; their voices reach for the future.

**Friendship is loss,**

The woman leaves another bowl of pottage on the steps of her neighbour; the one she left yesterday is untouched. This one will be untouched when she comes to collect it tomorrow. She doesn’t know if twitches inside is somebody looking out, or the last movements of a decaying corpse. She doesn’t dare check.

**but also relief.**

She pats the back of a girl in awkward comfort; forgiveness is a new feeling, but she thinks she likes it. Carrying the weight of all the damage she’s done, she feels someone taking some of the load. A blindfold is lifted and someone is truly listening to the woman; she is no longer screaming alone into the void.

**Happiness isn’t real;**

The woman has nothing left. She sits at the last grave she’ll ever dig. Already the concept of the joy she had with this person seems a fairytale, something distant and fuzzy; soon it will be even further away. She makes a decision. She unsheathes her knife, and starts heading towards the manor.

**pursue it anyway.**

How do you seek  something you don’t remember? 
Livith doesn’t know. But she’s going to try.


// -- by Gemma//
                                                                                          
=====Putting Down Roots=====

It is odd perhaps for Livith that she finds herself truly living long after she has died. The rage inside her, once constantly threatening to boil over, has calmed. A rough sea into a gentle wave. Maybe the anger will always be there, maybe, she thinks, it matters more what she does with it. 

The energy she once spent sparring and sitting in her anger, she spends singing, planting, walking around the Block. It’s different than it once was, the security cameras are gone and the Tower remains no more. It’s rough around the edges, but so is she. The Block did not become safe overnight - there is still crime, there’s fights, there’s arguments. There’s days in which she finds herself with bloody knuckles, protecting the meek. But over time those days lessen and she finds herself in a comfortable routine. 

There’s a group of delinquent young adults in the Block that she has broken up fights between more times than she can count. She wouldn’t admit it, but in their faces, in their angry eyes - she sees herself. Her rage, her passion, her energy. So she teaches them mob football, and before she knows it - it has spread across the Block.

Antonius becomes a friend, a confidant. She may laugh at his use of the phrase “The Divine” but there is some truth in it, she feels. That everyone in the Block is connected, roots binding them to each other, revealing how much they rely on each other. Community. The Block is her home, the people in it are her people. 

So she sings in the Turnip choir and it’s almost painful how much it reminds her of life. Family and friends sitting around singing songs, enjoying each other’s company. She’s out of practice, having no reason to sing since her family members died, but Antonius does not comment on it. Over time she feels herself getting better and better, and singing the hymns becomes second nature. 

The songs of her childhood come back to her slowly. The voice of her mother is the first to return fully. The way she would sing Livith lullabies - how could she ever forget? 

Memory. In her dreams and in the back of her mind, it all starts slowly coming back to her. Her family, her friends - first just phrases, mannerisms, blurry faces. Not enough to identify them with, but it’s a small comfort nonetheless. Until one day in the garden, among the flowers and the berries and the foliage, she remembers a name. //Her sister’s name//.