Up in smoke

"What is the purpose of writing something that noone shall ever read?
It is a question I wondered about a lot and hoped I shan't have to answer anytime soon, but it became apparent now. Olenna Brackencreek, one that had taken the name Owlena - how we laughed together at the marriage of bird and woman names in it! - had finally had her age catch up to her. She did not wake up this morning and I write this in a journal condemned to the flames. But now I know. I write this to get it off my chest, to help the realisation sink in.
My grandmother is dead and it is up to me to care for her book - the wisdom of the family's healers and herbalists. I will expand it, as I have promised. My past journals shall join her in the flames, while her tome shall replace them. I will write, but with purpose now.
I cry now so that I won't later. I had hoped I could invite one or two others for this day, but I will be alone. She would reprimand me for it, but now, it is my mother's duty. She will be there and she will not say a word, but we both will know.
Farewell, grandmother."

Kestrea read these words one last time, before closing the tear-stained pages of the book and leaving it atop the chest of the woman that laid on the bed within a lone hut in the woods. An elder woman, with very local, full face, a wealth of gray hair surrounding it - looking as if she were to wake up any moment now, as if to defy death, or finish a long-planned prank. But they all knew it wasn't to be.
The huntress reached out, laying a hand on the elder woman's forehead. She said nothing - the words weren't needed, not for her and not for the dead. Staying like this for a moment, before turning to walk.

Pushing open the door to the house, walking out of it. They were all there. Shrike, her mother - silent and steeled, in no way resembling the broken, grieving woman from the last few days. Wolfgang, her brother - even now, his name made Kestrea's lips twitch in amusement, one he had found in a book of tales and adopted as his own - calm, unusually quiet as compared to his usual, jovial and jestful self, finished setting the ring of wet dirt and rocks around the hut. Thistle, his wife, with tears on her cheeks, but bravely quiet, beside her, the child - Pinecone, about ready to take on her real name, watching the house with revered silence. Much calmer than her mother, reminding Kestrea of herself her age - less experienced in some ways, but more in others. She would be a good hunter one day. And finally - William, her father, who shed his family name in respect to his wife's traditions, but kept his so that he had something to remember his own family by. He finished stacking up kindling next to the walls, nodding to his daughter as she passed by, making way outside of the circle of stone and dirt - standing next to his wife, reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder. The woman looked at him sternly, then leaned against her husband, prompting him to wrap an arm around her shoulders instead.

There they all stood, silent, waiting. Kestrea cast a look at the humongous tome left behind by her grandmother, for now left in the care of her brother's wife. Typically to the locals, she left it beside, casting an occasional glance to make sure it remains there. This would suffice for now, thought the huntress, kneeling down before one of the kindling stacks. She cast a look around - making sure the warding mounds of dirt and stone were secure and whole. Only after being certain, the woman reached for her tinderbox, ignoring the tinder and picking the flint and steel instead. Striking one against the other, to produce a spark, having it fall onto a previously prepared torch, after a few strikes, hoisting it to make sure the flame catches. Waiting in silence, as did everybody else.

The flint, tinder and steel found their way back to Kestrea's pockets, as she waited for the fire to grow. Then, more silence followed, as she put the flaming torch to the kindling. More silence followed as the kindling caught fire, as Kestrea stepped back to a safe distance, then more so as the hut's straw roof was set ablaze, the element soon spreading to the tar between wooden logs and the logs themselves. They stood silently, watching - a family so different from eachother. A woman half-feral by the local standards, her townsman husband, her carefree son and his townswoman wife, a calm, reclusive huntress and her very alike niece. Standing in the night, watching the fire consume one of their own. All cleverly standing back to the wind, so that the stench of burning house and the person within wouldn't reach them.

"Rest, Owlene. Your name can not be used against you anymore and now it is free."
The calm sentence was uttered by Shrike, even as the woman noticed her bree-landish daughter in law getting restless. It was a cue to leave - and so, they did, one by one. First, Thistle, tugging Pinecone with her despite the latter's silent protests. Wolfgang followed soon, then William. Eventually, at the crack of dawn, Shrike left as well, leaving her daughter with her book and the ashes. She knew Kestrea needed this silence - after a message she received but a few days ago, she knew the woman will need time alone, to find her resolve once more.

Kestrea stood there the longest. She waited for the logs to turn into charcoal, the charcoal into ash, she waited for the ashes to grow cold, before walking right into them. The ash needed to be spread, so that the ground would bear more life outside of the ring of stone. The ring would eventually be dismantled too, but for now, it remained a memory for them all.
A memory for her.