[open] you'll come back when it's over

[eolasemah]

WHO friends and family of Sina Dahlasanor
WHAT: post-mortem interactions
WHEN: the evening of 7 Haring and onward
WHERE: the infirmary and elsewhere
NOTES: CW for death and illness. Apart from the main post I will not be tagging in. This thread is for wake/funeral/burial arrangements and anything else you guys want to play out pertaining to Sina's death, so feel free to make top levels or do whatever else!

It was the evening of the sixth when Galadriel paid her visit to Sina, after which the girl became mostly unresponsive. Still breathing, she slept through the night and day, waking up in the late afternoon just long enough to reach for Nari's hand and whisper something to her before falling away again. The candles grew dim and the shadows long before she stirred again, pulling in a last rasping breath, her lips moving soundlessly to form two unknown words as she exhaled and fell still.

It was hardly ten minutes later when, witnessed by friends and clan, the glowing green patch of magic that had plagued them all for the last couple years simply... vanished from the elf's sternum, as though it had never been there. Lying small and wasted away, destroyed from the inside out, anyone who looked at Sina for the first time would not understand what had killed her.

The room was then vacated by all but Keeper Thalia and Sina's parents, a balding large-eyed man with a quivering chin and a plain, sandy-haired woman, neither appearing all that much more vital than their late daughter. It was they who prepared the body for the resulting rites, silent and weary, their miracle baby laid to an untimely rest.

Out in the hall, Nari found herself surrounded in a collective embrace by a sea of russet-haired Dalish, her family. Even in a time like this, being with their daughter and sister brought comfort, and they hoped she might find some as well.
Sedi and Nymii stood as sentries on either side of the door, permitting only mourners and scowling down otherwise unrelated onlookers.

At last, at long last, it was over.

Comments

[mythalenaste]

Tonight has been about being there for the people who were there for her. Anders has had a very long day, to say nothing of the night. She unfolds her arms and steps toward him.

"Have you eaten anything?"

[justice_is_blond]

He tries to find the answer to that, staring at the wall.

"I'm sure I have. Nate, he wouldn't have let me skip." If he's seen Nate this afternoon. Things are a little fuzzy when there's emotions at play, and he hasn't lost like this since he's been unpossessed. It means he's still human, pain, but that's about the only upside.

"Have you?"

[mythalenaste]

"A couple of times. Even kept it down." She sighs deeply. "Wait here. I have something you can have."

She tiptoes into her quarters and comes back with a flaky pastry she hands to him. It's filled with meat and gravy.

"People are really, really good at food," she muses, "when someone's died. Or when someone's sick, anything like that. People bring food from all over."

[justice_is_blond]

That's when he tears up a little and fights it back, when she gives him the pastry.

"I should have known that. I think I did. Maker. I'm sorry. I feel like I'm imposing. You've lost too." He takes a slow and shaky breath, looking over at her. "I'm here to check on you, not have someone looking after me."

But the pastry is warm in his hands and he takes a bite anyway as the scent is telling him that he is hungry.

[mythalenaste]

"You looked after me." She speaks it loud, though her pitch is strangely low. "You took care of me. Let me look after you."

[justice_is_blond]

He takes another shaky breath at her words, her kindness, and the emotion in her voice, before nodding.

"I don't know how to do this," he says finally. "I don't know how to, to let go. To do it right, if there is such a thing. There's..." Anders chuckles without humor, gaze roving all over at the wall behind her. "That's one thing they don't teach in Circles. Mages come and go and you don't know when or why, or if they're alive or dead, and you... move on. You have to, else you'd go mad, I'd think."

[mythalenaste]

"There's no trick to it." Pel reaches out for his hands, taking them, warming them. "No shortcut to make it easier. You just...you keep on. Eventually one day you look up and you realize you moved on. But every day from now till then is as hard as it's going to be."

[justice_is_blond]

Her hands are warm and comforting, the opposite of his own thoughts. He has never moved on despite what he'd said. So many things he's held on to, tucked away, while pretending he was fine.

But Sina's loss is a new type of hurt, one where there is no symbol of a failed institution, no reason anger or fighting. It's just there.

"It... fades, in those instances. On its own. As time goes by." That feels like a sort of betrayal to Sina, but it's not forgetting. And there's nothing to rally around. She died of a shard.

"You think she'd be all right with that?"