faderift | And as we wind on down the road

And as we wind on down the road

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.)

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Alistair's eyebrows go up at not you--not many people give him orders anymore--and stay up as the mages actually do as they're told and step away from him, the ones nearest walking backwards for several paces until they seem to feel safely distant enough to turn their backs.

"Telling the Commander," the cook grumbles on the other side of them, picking herself up and dusting off her skirts and, no, not dying at all. "First thing in the morning--blighters--"

"Tell him what you said, too," Alistair says, "for his records. You know."

She looks on the verge of spitting, but she walks off as well, and Alistair rubs his cheek with his knuckles until she's out of earshot.

"Well. That was--handy," he says to the glowy interloper. Handy. Get it?

Edited 2015-11-23 01:05 (UTC)

It's not supposed to come across as an order - more like a strongly worded suggestion - but when the mages leave, he winds up straightening up and looking just a touch pleased with himself. It's not the sort of smug look that might appear from someone who knows they can get people to back off, but more the sort of thing that turns up when someone who hasn't expected something to work at all winds up being pleasantly surprised when it does.

But then...then there are puns. Or a pun, anyway, but it's not the first time that someone's gone and pulled that on him, and his reaction is the same as it is so often when he hears that sort of thing from the Doctor - which is to groan and make a face, the expression still quite visible as he turns back to look at Alistair. He doesn't come out with an 'Och', not quite, but there's a small noise from the back of his throat that almost serves the same purpose.

"That's the second worst pun I've ever heard in my life, I'll have you know. And here I thought I was doing you a favor by getting those mages to back off so you could have your drink in peace."

Edited 2015-11-24 04:34 (UTC)

"What?" Alistair says, pausing his idle attempts to pick hay off his clothes. He doesn't sound offended, but he does sound like someone who isn't offended trying to sound offended. "What do I have to top to get the worst?"

Perhaps not the first question one should ask a probable demon with a magic hand, in the scheme of things, but here they are.

Luckily, the probable demon doesn't seem offended either - and in his case, he doesn't even try to pretend that he's offended. His mouth does twitch, just a little, but that's more out of amusement than anything else.

"One about a beastie made out of metal that I've faced a few times. Very nasty things. One time, though, they were defeated by a sort of magic from our world that wound up scrambling their wee metal minds and caused them to stop working. You could say they had a complete metal breakdown."

To his credit (or to something, anyway), there's not even a hint of the groan that he'd given the Doctor over hearing that one. He even manages to keep a straight face throughout it for a second or two after - then, quite suddenly, he breaks into a grin.

"You did ask." But it's all good, as far as he's concerned, and he holds out a hand to shake. "I'm Jamie, by the way. Don't know if you've got any beasties made out of metal around here, but if you can figure out a way to use that, you're welcome to it."

Beastie made out of metal and metal mind aren't really that difficult for Alistair to imagine--he thinks--but that he's imagining is a golem made of metal instead of stone, and he's so busy imagining it that he takes a moment to understand the pun.

When he does, he laughs, in a startled burst. Brilliant.

"I might be able to work it in if someone has trouble with their armor," he says, shaking the offered hand. It's not the green glowy one, or he might have hesitated. "I'm Alistair. Thank you for stepping in, that was--stupid of me, probably."

Alistair isn't the only one who would've hesitated, in this case. If the mark had been on the hand he'd offered, he might have thought twice about offering it out too, just because he's already getting enough odd looks as it is. No sense in making the situation worse.

Since it's not that hand, however, he has no qualms about going through with the handshake - or about bringing it to the back of his head a few moments later to rub at the back of his neck as he glances over at the quickly retreating form of the cook.

"Well, they were trying to set her on fire. I'd say that stopping them from burning the place down was a good thing, overall. Still, you're welcome. Do many mages go about setting skirts on fire, then, or am I just missing something?"

"You might be," Alistair says.

He's heard that the people (to, possibly, use the term lightly) who have come tumbling out of the rifts don't seem to understand where they are or what's happened, but he doesn't know what Jamie might have been told and what he might still be missing.

"She called him a spellbind. Don't do that." Practical advice first. "They were all at war before the sky tore open. The mages and the Templars. I think some of them still sort of are, in between dealing with the blighted demons." He pauses and smiles wider to make it clear, hopefully, that he's 55% joking: "No offense."

He wasn't offended, not really. That still didn't stop his mouth from tugging off to one side briefly in protest, something echoed somewhat in the tone of his voice.

"I'm not a demon."

The expression didn't last long, though, shifting into something a little more wry a few seconds later.

"Suppose it could be worse, though. Just think what they would've thought if this shard thingy'd embedded itself in my forehead. Take it a spellbind's one of those terms people use when they want to insult people around here, then? Like those people who were calling the elves nasty names."

He's probably a demon. If Alistair had any money, he'd put it on that. But he's at least a very nice and reasonable-seeming demon, so Alistair nods solemnly at the protest, with only a mildly mocking furrow between his eyebrows, an expression that hints at if that's what lets you sleep at night--but in a nice way.

"Knife-ears," Alistair supplies. He wouldn't normally say it at all, and even now he winces a little, but making sure this not-Marcher not-demon is fully aware of what he's not allowed to say is worthwhile. "Rabbits is less offensive, but I still wouldn't. And if they're not calling you a demon, they'll call you a shemlen, but that's... We deserve it, I think, for the centuries of slavery."

A mildly mocking brow furrow he can ignore. Likely Alistair doesn't believe him, which isn't really much of a surprise by now. But he still seems willing to talk, and explain things, and Jamie'll take it until he figures out some way to prove he's not a demon. So for now he decides to treat that expression like he would the Doctor or Zoe teasing him about his lack of intelligence, which is to say at worst he might get mildly grumpy about it.

Those names, however, are a whole other story, and his own expression turns quite serious at hearing them, in large part because one of them he's heard before.

"Aye, I've heard rabbits before. There was someone who was calling a new friend of mine that, and I didn't like that one bit. I'd have sorted him out, too, if she'd not talked me into leaving."

By sorted out he means 'more than likely tried to get into a fight', but he doesn't really go into much detail there, unless one counts the rather tight press of his lips as a detail.

"I'll not be be calling any of the Dalish or the other elves any of those names, believe me. The ones I've met are good folk, and don't deserve any of that. If they think I need to be called names back, well..." He shrugs. "I've been called worse than a sham-lend."

"Shemlen," Alistair corrects, because he so rarely gets to correct anyone, but otherwise--he nods, like he understands what this demon with a green-glowing appendage might possibly have been called in the bizarre past life he invented for himself in the Fade. "You'll probably get called worse here, too. You sound a lot like a Free Marcher."

Who are barbarians. Clearly.

If Alistair truly wants the chance to correct someone more often, there's a solution for that. All he has to do is come up with a lot of slightly-complicated sounding words that Jamie doesn't know, and they can spend hours with Jamie mangling the word and Alistair correcting them.

It'd pass the time, anyway.

That aside, Jamie's eyebrows do wind up disappearing into his bangs at the mention of Free Marchers. Those are simple enough words that there's no chance he'll mangle them, but the comment about that so close to the one about being called worse makes him wonder just a bit what'd be actually be worse than "shemlen" or "demon." "Barbarian" doesn't occur to him, but then again he's not even really sure where the Free Marches are. Maybe he can be forgiven for that.

"Aye? And that's a bad thing, I take it?"

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And as we wind on down the road

sorryyyyy!

no apologies, that was totally worth it. totally.

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