if you are buried in the city (as opposed to being transported home), there is a grave site.
Oh man, burial in Ba Sing Se. Well regulated, of course: there is really no alternative. But pricey, contested. When Iroh’s friend writes his letter to his young relative, after the old man’s death, he waits until after the funeral (it is arranged quickly, as is proper, propitious) so that he can include some of the details, though he feels too awkward, in the end, to describe the funeral dinner properly.
The men and women Iroh’s age, letting themselves have too much rice wine, spilling it from the little conical cups at the close of the evening. The earnest young people in their best clothes for the funeral.
The same serious young men and women who used to come and talk Pai Sho strategies, who told Iroh their troubles over tea in the back kitchen after he’d closed up shop for the day.
Iroh might have preferred to collect cheerful youngsters – he is pretty fond of Ty Lee, for instance; her bendiness is so very ... impressive. But he seems to have lost the knack.
In the circles of power, this was counted as a sign of his madness.
ARGH. I mean, Iroh may never have just flat out lost it, like Jeong Jeong, gone and sat in a swamp and meditated on the fire inside him as if he could chew it up and spit it out if he tried hard enough, but to order his only son, a prince of the Fire Nation, buried ... yeah.
There are mutters, as well, about how unfair it is of him to deny Lu Ten the grave-fire. Of how his spirit will be trapped in the Earth Kingdom, inside the walls of Ba Sing Se.
Iroh never believed in this kind of thing, of course, even in childhood. But living in his tea shop in the Upper Ring, he keeps an eye out, just the same.
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Date: 2010-09-21 11:44 pm (UTC)Oh man, burial in Ba Sing Se. Well regulated, of course: there is really no alternative. But pricey, contested. When Iroh’s friend writes his letter to his young relative, after the old man’s death, he waits until after the funeral (it is arranged quickly, as is proper, propitious) so that he can include some of the details, though he feels too awkward, in the end, to describe the funeral dinner properly.
The men and women Iroh’s age, letting themselves have too much rice wine, spilling it from the little conical cups at the close of the evening. The earnest young people in their best clothes for the funeral.
The same serious young men and women who used to come and talk Pai Sho strategies, who told Iroh their troubles over tea in the back kitchen after he’d closed up shop for the day.
Iroh might have preferred to collect cheerful youngsters – he is pretty fond of Ty Lee, for instance; her bendiness is so very ... impressive. But he seems to have lost the knack.
In the circles of power, this was counted as a sign of his madness.
ARGH. I mean, Iroh may never have just flat out lost it, like Jeong Jeong, gone and sat in a swamp and meditated on the fire inside him as if he could chew it up and spit it out if he tried hard enough, but to order his only son, a prince of the Fire Nation, buried ... yeah.
There are mutters, as well, about how unfair it is of him to deny Lu Ten the grave-fire. Of how his spirit will be trapped in the Earth Kingdom, inside the walls of Ba Sing Se.
Iroh never believed in this kind of thing, of course, even in childhood. But living in his tea shop in the Upper Ring, he keeps an eye out, just the same.