Pemzin Week, Day 7: Modern

Note, this is not modern at all. I don't like writing alternate setting AUs, so when I saw this prompt my brain started looking for ways to be contrary. I went the opposite direction and made it really traditional. I think sky burials are beautiful, and I realize this isn't entirely like real Jhator rituals, but I tried to keep it mostly accurate and 100% respectful.

When Tenzin dies he wants me to bury him in the sky. It wasn't a conversation I wanted to have back in the early days of our marriage. We were young and we were going to live forever. But he told me that he wanted to be buried by the one who he loved best in life, when I came to see what it meant to him, I learned the rituals. When he dies I will go with his body to the Northern Air Temple, to the high mountains where the Air Nomads used to bury their dead. There is a rock there were his ancestors were buried for centuries, and where he himself buried his father. At dawn he will be wrapped in a cloth of the whitest silk and laid there while I burn offerings of juniper incense and chant the mantras he has taught me. What is left will not be my husband anymore, but a simple shell that I must return to nature.

When I have made my peace and my preparations, I will unveil him to the sky and give alms to the birds. They will descend, as they have for untold years, and consume the meal that I offer them. I will watch as they tear into him and pick away at his flesh until he is reduced to bones. What I must do next will be the hardest by far. When the birds have left his skeleton behind I must take an axe and pound his bones into powder. I must take my time, for I need to be sure that no parts of his body are lost and it is all given to the sky. I will take these bones and what flesh is left and mix it with flour and butter and give it once again to the creatures of the air. Tenzin asks that I try to smile and laugh as I work because what was him will be long gone and I am only returning his empty body to the land, and I will do my best even if I have to smile through tears. I will keep my vigil until the birds have consumed all that I offer them, and then I will leave the empty rock behind me and walk down the mountain. I will have buried my husband in the sky.