faderift | Open: The Wake of Sina

WHO: Sorrel, the Dalish Clan(s), and all else who would attend
WHAT: Sina's funeral/wake and her burial
WHEN: Backdated: Mid-December/Haring
WHERE: The Gallows, and The Plains
NOTES: The first log of 2018, and the last for Sina

i. The Burial
"Death - the last sleep? No, it is the final awakening."
-Walter Scott

The ceremony was an old one, inherited from the rites of the old Dales and the words, half-remembered, passed down in secret from ancient Arlathan. Perhaps they now bore no resemblance to those rites, too worn down by younger hands, as shaped by the intervening centuries as wet clay, but nothing had changed about their purpose.

Death is an event. It happens to you, once only. These things, the gentle, holy words, the soft little shape, curled up in its hollow, and the tree... they are for the living. They are alive. It happens like this:

The pit is dug, deep and round, to protect that which once housed her life, to nourish the new life that will call this place home. Handfuls of soil are put over the body, tears and prayers, and words to the spirits, to Sina, who may be beyond hearing, or may not. The words are as much for those to speak as for any who listen, after all. Tall and fine, the elves of Arda pass their gift to the Keepers, a seed from their home, a token of their love for Dahlasanor's lost daughter. The Dalish mages join their magic and voices together, and the seed grows from shoot, to sapling, to a fine young Mallorn tree, silvery and strong. It will survive the winter that Sina never saw, and many more thereafter. Here, on hallowed ground, made sacrosanct by elven lives lost and elven blood spilled: the tree called Siuona.

(The funeral is mostly a Dalish (and Fern, ect) party only. It happens on the plains at the site of the Dahlasanor massacre. Feel free to thread out or handwave whatever you like for this part!)

ii. The Funeral
"Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them."
-George Eliot

Not long after, when the clans have parted ways with those who's obligations pull them back to Kirkwall, there is another kind of gathering. There is a room in the Gallows that was once several rooms; earlier renovations have knocked down walls and combined the space into something more suitable for a meeting-hall, for drinking together, for speeches, and memories, and the needs of an organization like the Inqusition. And their need tonight?

Drink! Drink and song and stories, memories of Sina Dahlasanor, with laughing and weeping to follow. Good, simple food, abundant wine, free-flowing tears, and the embarace of the mutually aggrieved.

So, drink up, friends! Give a toast, tell a story, tell everyone how Sina touched all your lives, all that she did, all that she was to you.

Tonight, we drink for Sina.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Korrin is there, of course, not about to pass up the chance to honor her fallen friend. She brings with her some dandelion wine, hearth cakes, and bear-hugs. Though she desperately wants to give a toast, every time the Vashoth woman steps forward, that lump in her throat prevents her. So she'll settle for a shoulder to lean on for anyone who needs it. (This does double for Sorrel, Beleth and Nahariel; if they need her then everyone else will just have to wait.) Given the circumstances, she's understandably subdued, and might attempt to slip away every now and then if she feels the need to pull herself together in private. But she's never gone for too long, not planning to leave until the wake is properly finished.