And as we wind on down the road

[faderifting]

WHO: Open to all
WHAT: The Herald of Andraste is laid to rest, and the remains of the Inquisition try to put on a good face for their visitors. Some of them try, anyway.
WHEN: Harvestmere 26
WHERE: Skyhold
NOTES: n/a

The day after the mysterious strangers from the rift arrive, the Herald's body is delivered back to Skyhold. At first, there is doubt-- the timing is convenient, finally found the very day the funeral is to take place, and many still cling to hope that the Herald has somehow survived. Most, but not all, are appeased by news that the Inquisition's chief advisers have all confirmed the identity of the deceased. Preparations are accelerated: what was once to be a symbolic memorial now requires actual rites, and while some prepare the body others break down whatever can be spared for the pyre, constructed in the center of the main courtyard by another crew.

The funeral itself is a somber affair, as funerals generally are. The Great Hall has been cleared and swept but little else-- all attendees stand, and they are lucky it is a clear day, since the late afternoon sun streams in through the gaping holes in the roof. The service proceeds along strictly traditional Andrastian lines, stately and stiff. Mother Giselle provides the service and the sermon, focusing on duty, sacrifice, and the Maker's plan and concluded with a recitation of Transfigurations 10:1 by the whole assemblage. It is all very predictable, but sincerely delivered. Cassandra and Cullen lead the honor guard. It is a mismatched collection of visiting dignitaries, suspicious observers, pilgrims, colleagues, and companions that slowly process up to pay their silent respects as Evelyn Trevelyan lies in state. Some may notice that the body has been carefully arranged to disguise the fact that her left hand is gone. As night falls they light candles and then the pyre, and as the flames catch and lick up toward the star-washed sky, Mother Giselle sings a haunting version of the Chantry hymn The Dawn Will Come.

The wake that follows is less staid. It seems as if every table and chair in the castle has been dragged into The Herald's Rest and the courtyards and every hidden store of fine wine and food has been dug out from Josephine's secret stores to impress the more exalted visitors. This isn't just a funeral, after all, but a political occasion, an opportunity to demonstrate that the Inquisition lives on beyond the loss of its first symbolic leader, and that it can still be a force for peace and unity.

That impression is dented as the night wears on, and opinions and stories get shared more and more loudly. Someone hops up on a table to give their own little eulogy and others follow suit. Of course eventually it turns sour-- a templar gets up and starts blaming the mages for killing the Herald just like they killed the Divine, and mages at the next table shout back. He's hauled down before things can escalate, but grumbling and dirty looks are unlikely to be the last of it.

The event carries on into the wee hours, and noise echoes around the stone walls loudly enough to make it difficult for any to sleep early. One team of Inquisition scouts and soldiers comes out of the barn to complain more than once, and eventually move their bedrolls down into a basement hall, growling about how they have to be up at the crack of dawn to head out on a mission to scout some Maker-forsaken bog of all the places. (Mire, one of them corrects.)

Comments

[byblow]

"She called him--" one of the young mages begins to protest.

"--killed the Herald, I heard them Templars say so," the cook says, muttering really, busy with her charred skirts but apparently not too busy to continue making poor choices. Alistair had turned his focus to Adelaide, but at that he glances back over his shoulder, and realizes with some amount of horror that the cook is now hiding behind him. Like a shield. And not shutting up.

"Please, please stop talking," he says to her. Then, to Adelaide: "Forgive them. I'm sure the Circles' books on good manners were the first to burn."

It's a joke. He's joking. It's incredibly appropriate.

[fleurdesel]

"Nothing worth responding to-" Except for that. Of course that would be making the rounds. Who else is there to blame? The Qunari? The Orlesians? Why can't they go back to blaming Tevinter for everything like civilized people? But no. Mages. It always comes back to mages.

Though she's not in a position to say much of anything after that- nor is she of the mind to after the mages seem to see fit to put her between them and Cook and her chosen champion. Lovely. "Mages don't burn books. Templars burn books. Irritable cooks that do not know how to mind their tongues burn books. Mages do not anymore than we kill Heralds."

[byblow]

"Oh, come on," Alistair says, and somewhere his dear old knight-commander and grand cleric are likely feeling mysteriously satisfied, if they aren't dead, as their matching assessments of Alistair as a smart-mouthed troublemaker who would embarrass the Templar Order once again prove at least slightly accurate. "I'm sure she's never touched a book in her life."

"I know my letters," the cook protests, so, all right, she's at least clever enough to know when she's been insulted. Why she couldn't have put that cleverness to use when all signs pointed toward needing to shut her mouth, Alistair couldn't say. It isn't his job to say. It's apparently his job to be a meat shield.

Anyway, he ignores her.

"And mages do burn cooks, looks like, and I'm not sure that's much better," he says. A pause to consider the most probable title has the not-entirely-unintended side-effect of making it sound like a flippant afterthought. "--Enchanter."

[fleurdesel]

"Then she should know enough to not poke at mages- and mages should know well enough to not poke back." She glares over her shoulder, managing to wring something of a contrite grimace out of one of the fools involved in this mess. Templars, horrid as they may be, have their knight commander. Mages once had their First Enchanters, Senior Enchanters- someone to guide and take point on conflicts such as this.

Now they have only one another as the titles from the Circle mean precious little. Of course that's when her own gets thrown out like a rotten fish to lay at her feet.

Adelaide draws herself up, hand tight around her staff, eyes cold and narrow. "They will be reprimanded. This is ours to handle among ourselves, not for you to meddle in, Templar."

If there was a way to make that word sound more distasteful and loathsome? Adelaide hadn't quite found it yet. Give her time.

[byblow]

"Whoa," Alistair says, both sword- and shield-free hands coming up in front of him to defend his delicate person from her glare and tone, "whoa, whoa, no. Not a Templar. Just talented."

Behind him, the cook has sat up and is inspecting her skirts, muttering beneath her breath. She doesn't sound pained, only angry, so he doesn't look back at her. He does look at the drunk mages, for a moment, to confirm that they've been cowed into submission by this woman, as they logically should be, considering how terrifying she is.

"And tired," he adds. "I'm very tired."

[fleurdesel]

"...You're a mage wrangling hobbyist then?" Oh, there. There is the rest of the loathsome distaste. The skin of her hand where she grips her staff crinkles with flakes of frost that fall free as she gestures away from the tavern, turning her glare back to the drunken mages behind her. "Sleep this off. Do not let this happen again- if it does? I will know."

It isn't often she presumes to snap at anyone as she would a misbehaving apprentice- it isn't ever, actually, but this is unacceptable on every level and these fools damn well know it. Once they've begun to shuffle off she turns her gaze back to the not Templar, The hobbyist. The- whatever he is.

"Then find your bed. Or is there something else you wish to see done?"

[byblow]

When her hand frosts, Alistair glances at it. It's quick, a dart there and back to her face, but one eyebrow raises very slightly. If he's frozen solid for trying to help, that--

That won't be remotely surprising. It will fit pretty well into the overall pattern of his life. But he'll be cross about it anyway.

Fortunately, Enchanter Icicle's attention and ire shift (however briefly) away from him. While the mages are absorbing all of her bad vibes, Alistair takes the opportunity to check on the cook, but not to offer her a hand up. His hands are suddenly busy brushing straw out of his hair and off his shirt.

He smiles at her. To someone inclined to be won, it might have been a winning smile; in context, it's a bit flippant and smirky. And sleepy. He's not lying about that.

"Can't you make them scour pots or something? I always had to scour pots when I misbehaved."

[fleurdesel]

"I'll assume that was quite often." The frost recedes a bit from her skin, only to double down in her voice. Cold and dry as the tundra and all of it focused on this flippant, smirky, straw covered would be templar. She hasn't the authority to bid them to do anything other than leave and rest. They aren't her students and this isn't the spire.

That much becomes more apparent every day.

"We shall tend to our own, Ser." Unlike with Alayre the term is in no way, shape, or form respectful, if anything it's terribly wry and thoroughly vexed.

[byblow]

"Quicker, next time, I hope," Alistair says, because he has a problem, some sort of compulsion or perhaps psychosis, that makes it impossible for him to mind his tongue around people who talk down to him.

She's not wrong. He had to scour a lot of pots, etc.

"It'd be a shame to fight this whole war and then wind up back in Circles because some stupid stupid kids lit the wrong person on fire."

[fleurdesel]

"It would not take much to be quicker than you." Implying that one's opponent is slow is normally beneath Adelaide but something in him tweaks at her already thin patience. Tonight is stressful enough without all of this and all the commentary from those that were better served by minding their own business.

"And what, precisely, do you know of the war? What do you care? What business is it of yours- you are neither mage nor templar, nor anyone of note that I can see."