Dusts of Avalon - Beastwithin.org

hundreds of families stu together in trying to mend their grief, and how a fewstrange traditions quily formed. A strange pact was made, not in any formalmanner, but again in one of the raging debates in the Network. It turned out tobe, in Daleworth's mind, even stranger than the removal of the word “Plan”: noflowers on the monument until the war is over.Instead of flowers, Daleworth just brushed her father's name clean with herhand; e surface was usually kept unwashed — and the cover for the fluorescentlights above the the name plates seemed to shelter half of the names from raintoday — and fingerprints could be seen all over the surface; some names hadactually worn a lile over the years. e names were toued. e fingerprintsand smudges suggested there were dozens of visitors to this remote monumentevery day.Daleworth sighed ruefully and just looked at the monument. She had touedthe name. It didn't need more reflection than this. She had vowed to defend humanityand fight with honour against an enemy that, despite its alien mainations,appeared to have some sense of honour — if perverted one at that.She didn't say aloud what she was thinking. Daddy Rob's dust was in Ganymede.None of the spirits, wherever they may be or whether they even be or not, weren'there. is memorial was a place for the survivors to congregate.And the survivors wouldn't approve of her view, or at least she would need alot of explanation aerward to avoid being branded a heretic of some sort. But itwas a view that everyone in the military shared.It was clearer than anything else to everyone in the World Federation DefenceForces that they didn't fight the Planners for the sake of the victims. is was nota war for revenge. Some soldiers had joined up for revenge, but all those thoughtshad been wiped off over the years. at pretense was long over.e war had simply ceased to be a war for revenge years ago. is was a warfor survival.e soldiers admied it. Everyone knew it, from lowliest soldiers to the generals,the President of Earth and the High Assembly of Human Colony Planets.And soon, very soon, they'd have to break those news to the civilians.What lile Daleworth could remember of her father, and what she had readof his writings, she knew that he would approve of not fighting the war in hismemory, or the memory of the fallen civilians. He was a man commied to doingwhat was the right thing to do.Daleworth closed her eyes. Be a strong girl, Mielle, Robert had said sometime before he had le to the colonies the last time. You've got to do a lot of toughoices when I'm not around. And I'm not around forever.e past was behind them. e future was something they could do somethingabout.She just wasn't very sure the other wounded families would have su an