1317 - It May Be The End
CW: Famine, hunger, illness, funerals, death throughout the entire chapter.
Eddida's funeral was delayed by two days than the original planned date. The Watcher finally seemed to answer their many prayers and gave them a short reprieve from the rain but long enough to conduct the burial.
Olyff rose that morning with a heavy heart in her chest. She still felt it difficult to believe that Eddida was gone but every morning she would look to the other side of the farmhouse and see her bedroom empty from her upstairs bedroom. The grief was tough to handle but her weakening body from countless months of hunger was far worse.
The two remaining adults in the home continued to cut their portions to sustain their youngest two children as that was all they had left at home. Linyeve was to remain in the keep until conditions improved but for all they knew she could be kept on as a servant for the rest of her days. Regardless, Osuald's and Lavina's smiles were the ray of sunshine they needed these days to get through the struggles.
The Chapmans decided to keep several of Eddida's paintings that she created throughout her life. Two particular ones were her parent's favourite, one being a brilliantly colourful visage of the rolling hills of Praaven, full of bountiful harvest, and another being a trio of laughing women immersed in music during a warm summer. They displayed the creations in spaces of the home that housed the needed space for these great paintings and they looked upon them with reminiscence often.
Olyff and Byrhtnoth began to get ready for the funeral service as they cooked up some watery seed porridge for themselves and their tots. They didn't have much to chat about that morning and silently agreed to keep to themselves until Olyff broke this silence, bursting into a sobbing mess.
This grief felt like one of the worst ones she's ever felt before. Perhaps it was because it was something that could have been avoided, if they were more careful with their food or if the weather had been more graceful, or perhaps it was the knowledge that Eddida was only a few weeks shy of her thirteenth birthday and that she still had so many fruitful years to live in bliss.
When Olyff heaved with grief her husband came to the rescue, steadying her with all the strength he had left and held her for a while, whispering comments of reassurance to her. When her breathing finally eased to a comfortable speed they realised it was time to be dressed and venture to the Lughaven graveyard.
There was nobody left to mind Osuald and Lavina back at home so they had to bring them along to the service. The fact that they were too young to possibly remember this in the future put the parent's minds at ease, they weren't to traumatise them in this event. They each carried a child in their arms as they all wrapped up in mild winter clothes and made their way over the bridge that connected them to the Lughaven village.
The toddlers babbled away on their walk there, pointing at various trees and birds that surrounded them. Olyff tried to keep a neutral to happy expression for her children but a sorrowful frown kept making an appearance. Byrhtnoth would try his best to distract his babies from this image as he kept trying to get Osuald to learn new words of the shrubbery around them.
As soon as they walked the perimeter of the church walls they spotted a heavily pregnant Pipa walk out from the bungalow nearby and towards the cemetery gates. She greeted her parents and siblings yet wondered who it was that they were to bury; she hadn't been told in fears that the sorrow would launch her into an early birth.
When talking to her mother Pipa was ushered to go back home, "You're bound to go into labor any minute! It's dangerous for you to be out of the home right now!"
"It's just a few small steps to get back home, mother," tried to reason Pipa. "Just please, tell me who it is that died. I want to be here for you, for father, and to remember my fallen sibling."
It was in this moment that Linyeve arrived on the back of Prince Sidgurd's horse, in the company of the Prince himself. This answered Pipa's question without any words and her face sank. She waddled into the cemetery to view the gravestone of Eddida as fast as she could.
Olyff wanted to rush after her daughter but Linyeve approached her before her legs could take her anywhere. They greeted one another with a tight hug and Byrhtnoth spent a moment to thank the Prince once again for bringing Linyeve to mourn her sister. Catherine, the mother of Pipa's husband, was to stay inside the church and promised to watch after Lavina and Osuald while the ceremony took place.
The group all met at the grave, freshly packed with clumpy soil, alongside all of the other fallen Chapman relatives. Father Bruceus stood nearby and greeted each guest before glancing up to the sky and seeing the raindrops multiply as they hit the ground.
"No matter if it is rain or sunshine this ceremony will begin," he stated and quickly began his speech.
He began to respectfully talk of the famine that the country was being swallowed by, how this unstoppable force of nature could take lives of people regardless of their age, background or gender, and how each death is a tragic one. He recited passages from the Scripture of the Watcher with a lilt in his voice, clearly having practiced these psalms for many years, and spoke of peace and a believed afterlife.
He gathered the group to pray for Eddida's spirit to be free, free from pain, free from hunger, and free from all the struggles that medieval life brought her. As he recited everything he wished upon her soul Olyff began to sob once again and was held by her husband as she shook in mourning. One by one each Chapman joined in tears and as Father Bruceus concluded his ceremony it wasn't only the raindrops that fell to the grass below.
In their deep sorrow Pipa suddenly clutched at her large belly and Frank gravitated to her side. The group all stood in shock and she announced that she felt the labor pains begin to which she was guided back to the Bruceus bungalow to conduct her birth. Olyff promised to join soon after she finished her business at the graveyard. She took one last glance at Eddida's headstone, the grass surrounding it littered with little daisies, and bid her farewell for the time being.
She met with Catherine inside the church and agreed to take her children back as she was to hurry after Pipa and assist her in labor. She found Prince Sidgurd getting acquainted with Lavina and commented on how adorable and intelligent she was,
"I haven't had many interactions with little children, as I never had any younger siblings myself, but she is absolutely splendid. I hope to have an adoring little girl like this of my own one day."
"Thank you for your kind words," replied Olyff with a slight bow. "Let me take her from your hands. I imagine you have some royal duties to attend to very soon."
"We're not in a massive rush but I appreciate your attention." He smiled as he passed Lavina on and began to make conversation with Byrhtnoth before his and Linyeve's departure.
When Linyeve made her way inside the church little Osuald spotted her right away and shouted "Liny!" and she came running right to him, lifting him up high above her as he squealed with delight. It warmed her heart to see that even all this time later he still remembered her and she got chatting with him. He may have not been able to form full cohesive sentences but she helped him through every word.
Olyff excused herself after a short while and made her way to the Bruceus home. It was only Byrhtnoth, Linyeve and Prince Sidgurd left in the church, and of course Lavina and Osuald who were crawling and climbing among the pews in the sight of the adults. Linyeve comforted her father but he insisted that he was faring just fine, he wanted to hear more about how she was getting on in the keep amongst her daily chores and castle upkeep.
Eventually, after many grueling hours, Pipa successfully gave birth to a darling baby girl with the help of Olyff and Catherine. She cradled her baby and got help from her husband to choose a name for the babe to which they decided she was to be named Shavonne. She didn't bare many hairs on her newborn head but they were all so fair that Catherine commented on how she was to be just as blonde as her mother.
Olyff congratulated her daughter with praise, hugs and kisses and continued to cry throughout the event. Pipa didn't want to see her mother cry again but it was such an emotionally charged day that she just stroked her shoulder and let her expel her emotions. She retired back to her bed very soon after the calm celebration of her child as she was just as hungry and weak as the rest of them and needed the rest after the rigorous ordeal.
By the time Olyff met back with her husband at the church Linyeve had travelled back to the castle and it was just her youngest children and Byrhtnoth left. They got ready to brave the rain outside and made their way home just before sundown. They prepared their tots to bed right after their dinner and washed away any leftover grief in a warm bath before climbing into their beds.
In the months after the funeral there were rumours spreading across the local villages that Lughaven was cursed. It was undeniable that a large influx of burials were taking place there after the many deaths from the famine but with the previous forest fire that swept through many years ago, and now a full cemetery, citizens believed they saw ghosts roam the fields. There was no concrete evidence to back these claims so some agitated village folk blamed the hunger for spreading these delirious lies.
Praaven was growing tired of the constant rain. Spring didn't feel like spring anymore, nothing seemed to bloom as it once did and things looked bleak. The only thing that brought the lands colour and comfort was the various sunrises and sunsets when the skies weren't incredibly cloudy. The closer the year got to summer the more yellow and orange skies they witnessed and farmers around believed that warmer months were to follow.
Despite the marshy lands that were once green, luscious fields, things persisted and grew in the worst conditions. Crops may have had trouble flourishing in the wetness but certain plants continued to find ways to live. Byrhtnoth was alerted by Catherine one day that she spotted a batch of wild garlic growing in the charred Lughaven forest and so he picked just enough to feed his family well and hoped that others would catch on to this bounty.
Yet people grew more desperate still and some unruly folk attempted to break in and rob others in pursuit of sustenance. The Chapmans became a target and even with the strength of a hungry man Byrhtnoth gave a thief something to cry about; they were inches away from saddling and stealing away one of their horses one morning but he was quick enough to stop them.
This led Byrhtnoth to pay extra attention to his three steeds and bring them to higher elevated plains where there was bound to be fresher grass for the horses to feed on. They still continued to lose weight, just as all of the townsfolk were, but they maintained strong and relatively happy with him.
Lavina and Osuald were growing up fast. Osuald had just celebrated his third birthday and was growing more and more excited to be as independent as possible, creating all sorts of make believe games to share with his sister and attempting to run outside of the farm house on multiple occasions.
In the throes of June Praaven was graced with a long period of no rain. The citizens rejoiced and many began to sow seeds as quickly as they could but to no avail as with one freak of nature gone another cometh and in the middle of summer a snowstorm broke out. People were grateful that they dried enough firewood during the brief sunny days to last them through this plight and so everyone stayed indoors.
And in the early morning of the summer day that hosted the thickest layer of snow the land has ever seen tragedy struck the Chapmans once again. Pipa had passed away, far too feeble to survive the ongoing hunger and sudden snowstorm. She hadn't been doing well after her birth but attempted to hide this fact from her parents, wanting for them to have one less thing to worry about, but after one last attempted feed with her newborn she lay to sleep and never awoke.
Frank couldn't live with this knowledge as a secret and so he trekked through the shin deep snow to her parent's home to deliver the grim news. He was lucky that Olyff and Byrhtnoth had woken up early that morning and had their small breakfast by the time he arrived; he would have felt even more guilty if he would have startled them awake with grave news.
He knocked on their shabby door as Byrhtnoth was clearing the table and Olyff was tending to her youngest. The head of the house opened the door and let out a surprised oh! before questioning,
"Frank, what are you doing here so early? I feel inappropriate for answering my door to you in my night tunic!"
"Y-yes, I... I apologise for my unwanted presence," he uttered.
"Unwanted? That's a preposterous word! You're always welcome in our home." Byrhtnoth patted his son-in-law on the shoulder but quickly noticed his grim demeanor. "Is there some news you have come to deliver to us?"
Frank looked from side to side as he hung his head. "I really don't know how to tell you this Byrhtnoth... but... Pipa, she-"
"She what, Frank?" he barked back. The suspense was gnawing at him, he wanted to know what had happened and he wanted to know NOW.
"She has died." Frank said it with almost an inquisitive tone, shocked to hear himself say it out loud. The kitchen stood quiet, a muffled conversation between Olyff and Lavina in the distance. Byrhtnoth sighed,
"How did this happen?"
"She hadn't been doing well, I'll speak with honesty." Frank looked up at Byrhtnoth as if he were about to be scolded by a parent, and then the tears emerged. "She was pale and weak and she tried to feed Shavonne, she really did! But she... she died."
Byrhtnoth wrapped Frank in a manly hug, patting him on the back as if he were trying to smack out all of the tears from the boy. He pulled away with a stern look and said,
"I trust you to make all of the arrangements necessary for her burial. You have my blessing to place her on a new plot, honour her as if she was a Bruceus." He pulled away and cleared his throat. "Now go, I will tell my wife this news in a moment. Spend your last moments with my still daughter and please, in the name of The Watcher, mind your little daughter as if she was your last."
"Yes, sir," announced Frank. He was led out of the home by Byrhtnoth and he watched him run through the snow back towards Lughaven. He shut the door, sat down at the dinner table and leaned his arm on the wood, hiding his face in his boney hand. He heaved out an intense sigh and he questioned everything that he lived for, everything he felt he achieved, it all felt as if it was for nothing.
He pulled his hand away from his face and leaned forward, staring at the dusty floor. Memories of Pipa's spring wedding danced in his mind and he thought back on prosperous years... how could it all have been taken away from him so easy? He cursed at The Watcher, cursed at the weather and he could have taken it further but he heard Olyff emerge into the living area as she threw in an extra log into the fire and began to warm her hands over the flames.
She turned to look at her husband as he approached her and she instantly recognised his expression. It was the same one he wore when he told her that Eddida had passed away and without a second thought she said,
"Who died now?"
He was stunned by her comment and stuttered for a moment. Olyff spoke up again, "I briefly heard you speaking to someone but I prayed it was my imagination... who died?"
"Pipa." He didn't want to say any more, a name was all that was necessary in that moment. Her breath caught in her throat and the very name made her stumble a step back. She looked around bewildered and answered back to Byrhtnoth,
"A-are you sure?"
"I was talking to Frank," he reasoned. "She passed just this morning."
Her eyes darted around as she didn't know what to think. She hadn't even fully mourned the loss of Eddida and now another daughter?! She wailed out a painful groan and clutched at her gown, as if she was trying to pull the grief out of her body and be rid of it. Byrhtnoth swooped in and enveloped his wife, listening to her attempt to say,
"Why me, oh Watcher? What have I done to deserve this? Oh, this pain is unberable, oh Watcher!" Her words were suppressed by her frizzy greying hair in her face and her husband clutched onto her, sharing her pain and sorrow. Olyff's legs began to buckle under her and soon he couldn't hold her up and they fell to kneel on the ground below them.
They cried together in unnatural harmony. They had shared tears together when their stillborn Eawulf and baby Mabel died just months from each other years ago but this grief was different, worse. It felt like hours, days, weeks, that they sat crumpled on the floor before having to gather themselves up as Osuald walked into the room.
"Mommy is crying?" he asked in a small voice. Olyff wiped her reddened eyes in a hurry and tried to tell him,
"Just a little. Come here, it's play time." She set him up at the dollhouse and Byrhtnoth suggested to her to take a bath, a comforting and warm solution to the pain. He warmed the water by the very fire they cried at and she submerged herself in the liquid.
The day of Pipa's funeral arrived and Olyff was still too much of a mess to attend. She tried to use the excuse of someone having to mind the children but her tears that followed showed the true reason behind her staying home. She was nowhere near close to being prepared to say goodbye to her eldest daughter and so it was Byrhtnoth that went to the burial solo.
At the familiar cemetery he met Frank, Catherine, Father Bruceus and Linyeve in the company of Prince Sidgurd once again. The ceremony was honourable and concise with Father Bruceus pointing out her magnificent feats of motherhood throughout his speech. Frank clutched Shavonne close to his chest in the frost, she was only several months old and was now left without a mother. Byrthtnoth had to look away from that tragic scene and often met eyes with Linyeve who attempted a sorrowful yet comforting smile every so often.
Catherine sobbed for Pipa as if she was her own daughter and it warmed Byrhtnoth's heart to know she was cared for in the Bruceus home. He spoke to everyone there and thanked Frank and his father for giving his daughter a better burial than he could have ever afforded. He noticed that they also made a small headstone for Dominique, her fallen baby daughter, which was planted right next to her own.
Before venturing back home to his grieving wife he was given the news that Prince Sidgurd was to become King in the next month. He was finally to become eighteen and was arranged to marry a princess from a nearby kingdom. The inauguration was to be intimate, seeing the circumstances the country faced, but soon he was to be even more stooped in royal duties and apologised in advance to Byrhtnoth if he was to see him less often.
Following the two weeks after Pipa's death and burial Olyff wasn't herself. The only moments when she wasn't crying was when she held her children, comforting them with all her heart. But other than that her chores were left to the wayside and she lay in bed for hours on end, sobbing all of her grief into her pillow.
The snow had stopped falling from the skies now and the frost began to change back into warmth with time. Byrhtnoth tried his best to follow up on all of the leftover chores but he was only one man and he could only do so much. He tried to give his wife plenty of time to grieve but grew increasingly worried when she began to refuse to eat some days.
And then one night Olyff went to bed after putting Osuald and Lavina to sleep. She lay and cried like she had been since Pipa's passing and Byrhtnoth overheard her with a heavy heart as he finished up the last bits of cleaning for the day. The sky was clear and several stars shone bright through the windows of their home, gazing upon them before making his way to bed.
Olyff lay still on top of her blanket, not an uncommon scene recently, and so Byrhtnoth left his wife to rest as he got ready for bed. As he pulled up the blanket to lay down on his side he felt a wave of unease wash over him. His wife seemed too still beside him so he called out her name. He called it out again, shaking her this time. No response. He lay flat on his back as he felt reality sink in.
He couldn't believe it... had he lost his wife too? He rolled on his side and hugged her tight from behind. Her skin grew cold and her limbs were stiff, her hair even began to smell different to how it usually did. Was it the hunger that put her into eternal slumber or was it a broken heart? Nevertheless he could not bear with such a reality and decided to share one last sleep with his wife by his side.
When he awoke the next morning she was still the same, laying on her side facing away from him, as still as ever. He gave her one last gentle shake and still no response. A third person to grieve in one year, a new record. How was he supposed to mourn his wife? He had never been told how to, especially after a string of deaths. He lay in bed for several hours that morning, going from crying to stroking Olyff's hair to facing away from reality before he heard his children's cries from below.
Life felt like it was ending for him, almost everyone he had ever deeply loved taken away by death. His parents, Eddida, Pipa and her baby Dominique, and now Olyff, all gone out of his life. But there were still so many that depended on him, Osuald, Lavina and even Linyeve back in the Praaven castle. And with this he gathered himself and began to embody the perfect example of what a man should be: a caring figure of authority for his family who would do anything and everything for them.
He was lucky that Father Bruceus arrived to his home just a day after Olyff's passing to check on him after Pipa's, also sudden, death. He informed him of his wife's passing and the news swept Father from his feet, plopping down on a chair at their dining table. They worked together to have a private burial for Olyff, no ceremonies or invitations, the Chapmans were running low on coin regardless. Father Bruceus made sure she would have a magnificent monument in her memory erected and when Byrhtnoth had the chance he promised he would travel to check on it.
And so he continued living, waking up every morning and caring for his son and daughter who deeply depended on him and going to sleep knowing that there will always be another day ahead of him. As horrible as it was to admit but with there being less mouths to feed their rations were disappearing slower and he could sustain a few more weeks of decent sized portions with what they had.
After a week of mourning Olyff's death he finally had to clean the sheets he shared in his last night with his wife. It pained him as it almost felt like the last remaining physical memory he had left of her, her woody scent soaked in those linens. He gathered them up and scrunched it into a ball, breathing in her smell until his lungs were full, holding it in until he felt his lungs burn for air. He exhaled loudly and trudged out into the now melting snow and brought them to be washed.
He kept most of her few clothes that she owned during her lifetime in hopes of storing them as keepsakes or perhaps passing them down to Linyeve or Lavina when the time was right. He stored them folded in a carton box at the bottom of the shared wardrobe that they displayed in the living space downstairs.
The snow altered between sleet and frost on the ground as winter rolled in but it continued to fall from the sky on occasion. One clear skied afternoon there was a knock on the door and Byrhtnoth found Linyeve standing outside. She had been escorted by a royal soldier to their farmhouse and as soon as he presented himself to her she threw herself into her father's arms.
"I'm so so sorry, father," she spoke into his chest, "I would have come sooner to aid you in your grief." She pulled away and they both looked at each other mournfully. She continued,
"I was paralysed by my own sorrow for too long. I know I had lost my mother but the realisation came to me that you lost your wife, your lifelong partner. I felt stupidly selfish for not coming sooner."
"Now there, Linyeve," scolded Byrhtnoth gently, "don't ever put down your feelings for someone else's. You deserve to process your grief in your own way, as do I. I appreciate your presence and I'm incredibly glad that you were able to venture back home."
Linyeve pestered her father on all the details of what happened to her mother and he hesitated to tell her the full story. She may have been fourteen and maturing quickly from all of these circumstances but she was still his child and he believed certain details should be left out. Regardless she pitied him deeply and shared how tough she thinks it is to mind her little siblings now,
"I hope Osuald and Lavina aren't too much trouble now that you're alone here. Are they eating well?"
"We're managing alright, my love. I'm making sure that they're plenty fed."
"But what about you? Please don't starve yourself into oblivion just for them, they need a guardian." She looked deep into Byrhtnoth's soul with pleading eyes, he felt guilty for their situation. He looked down as his emotions stirred in his chest but suddenly Linyeve peered out the window to check what the guard that delivered her here was doing.
As he was adequately distracted and clearly disinterested in what they were conversing about she suddenly pulled up her skirt and unclipped a small satchel from her stocking. "Quietly accept this, father," she whispered. He untied the twine that sealed the bag and found various salted meats and delicacies he hadn't seen in years. His eyes widened and he tried to speak but was cut off by his daughter,
"I said quietly. This was difficult to obtain and I don't want to hear anything about it. Accept it and let it aid you through this insane weather Praaven is facing."
He gulped and strapped the satchel to his belt, it blended in well with his attire and looked as if it always hung there. He pulled his daughter into an embrace and clenched his jaw to hold back his tears. Linyeve still stood shorter than he did and her small shoulders and arms took him back to the days when he would hold his wife when they were much younger. Linyeve may not be carrying Olyff's similar scent but it was a comforting one nonetheless.
Eventually they pulled away and Byrhtnoth couldn't control a tear slipping down his cheek. She huffed out a sharp sigh and turned around to open the front door and announce to the guard,
"I will be staying over night here. Please apologise to King Sidgurd on my behalf but my father is managing terribly with two young children, I would like to help him for one simple night."
The guard grunted and mounted his horse before galloping far away through the snow. She entered back inside and received a flurry of thank you's from her father before being led to reunite with her siblings. She was relieved to see that they bore healthy rosy cheeks and to her delight her father told the truth about them eating well. Osuald was growing heavier each time she lifted him up this year and she knew that was a great sign.
The father and daughter duo noticed the large snowflakes litter the sky and thought it would be lovely to experience some joy from this freak weather. They all wrapped up with wooly layers under their tunics and went outside the front door. Osuald ran around confidently, kicking snow in all directions, and Linyeve began to sculpt a snowman from balls of the white blanket beneath them. Byrhtnoth held his youngest daughter in his arms and talked her through Linyeve's artistic process.
Lavina soon wanted to follow her brother around the farm and Byrhtnoth joined in with the snowman building. They found it difficult to decorate the sculpture but found nice big rocks for his face and Linyeve wanted to use one of Olyff's knitted scarves for the snowman to which her father gave permission. Once the job was done he put his arm around his visiting daughter and admired their work from the side.
She helped play with and feed her siblings as the day grew into night and showed a few new recipes to her father with the ingredients being some of the delicacies she brought from the castle. He ate that night's dinner slowly, counting each bite as he chewed with pleasure and complimented his daughter's cooking. Once the babies were put to bed in their cribs Linyeve had one more thing she wanted to do before they all retired to their beds.
"I never had the chance to honour Eddida in my own way," she explained to her father who stood and listened inquisitively. "Do you remember one of the silly games we used to play a few years back? We liked to pillow fight... let's do that together!"
They climbed up the ladder to Byrhtnoth's bedroom and each swiped a chicken feather pillow from the large bed and took a swing at one another. It was the first time in probably months that the house was filled with joyful laughter. As they pummeled each other with the soft sacks they both felt as if the presence of Olyff's and Eddida's spirit were with them, perhaps even Pipa's. They shared this familial moment and cherished this unplanned sleep over amidst the tragedies that occurred in their town.
When Byrhtnoth called a truce they stood and finished their infectious laughter. Linyeve adored seeing the crows feet on her father's face pronounced, his sun damaged skin may have grown old and stressed but to see it wrinkle into genuine smiles made her heart full.
And Byrhtnoth praised The Watcher in that moment for giving him the foresight to keep one of his daughter's safe in the Praaven keep, away from the hunger, away from death. The pair placed the pillows back onto the straw bed and sat for a minute, steadying their chuckling breaths.
"I've missed having you home, Linyeve," admitted Byrhtnoth to his daughter.
"And I've missed being home," replied Linyeve, leaning her head on her father's rigid shoulder.
The Watcher's Observation:
In the third, and last, year of the famine Praaven had lost 17 sims from the total population of 140, making the percentage of people dying to the famine 12% this year.
The famine has concluded, historically lasting from 1315-1317. There will still be struggles for the citizens of Praaven as the weather stabilises but the worst is now over. Our statistics for these three years are as so:
From 140 sims we lost 48 sims overall, making the percentage of people who died to the famine 34%, more than the estimated historical amount of 10-25%!
This year was the toughest for the Chapmans during the famine, losing dear Pipa to hunger and Olyff, our matriarch, to hunger combined with a broken heart. The family has practically been halved in size and things are looking tense when it comes to the family's survival. Let's hope they all stay safe in the years to come...
