faderift | So, I'll sing Hallelujah

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So, I'll sing Hallelujah

WHO: Beleth, Kit's CR, Kit in spirit
WHAT: Kit's slightly belated funeral service, come pay your respects.
WHEN: Backdated to a bit after he died bc I suck
WHERE: A forest outside of Kirkwall
NOTES: Death, grieving, I'm so sorry this is late

Beleth had tried to speak to Orzammar--argue with them, more like, and had only stopped when she realized that she was more likely to cause a diplomatic incident than get them to agree to take his body. So, as she usually did when people failed to meet her expectations, Beleth took it into her own hands.

Kit's funeral is a bit of a mishmash between dwarven culture and Dalish--Beleth had to draw from somewhere, after all, and she knew more about Dalish funerals than any other. Kit's body is buried in a nice clearing in the forest, body lined with stones instead of branches. Instead of a tree, there's a large rock marking his grave, his name carved into the stone.

The songs sung aren't in Elven, nor are they Dwarven funeral songs. But they're still somber, and full of grief of a life lost.

Anyone who knew Kit and wishes to send him off is invited, and to the wake held afterwards. It takes place, in what seems to be most fitting for Kit's memory, in the Hanged Man. Food (from Beleth, decent quality) and drink (from the tavern, dubious quality) is provided, and people are free to mingle, drink, get rowdy, and remember a man who fit a lot of living into being dead.

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I. Funeral

The memories of the last funeral Nari had been to are like jumbled shards of broken glass: out of order, refracting the world around them strangely. She wants to remember, sometimes, but can't. The pieces are so razor edged that reaching to try and put them to some semblance of rights cuts so exquisitely there's near no room for blood to come.

She's glad it's stones that cover him. That in the end Kit rests in a close comfortable solid embrace of something less shifting than soil. That seeing him laid to that rest is different enough to be able to see and hold on to. The clean whole sorrow of it, one she can put her hands around and find the edges of, is almost welcome-- it's a guilty thought.

Not knowing the songs, she'll just listen to the rise and fall of them, trying to pick out the different threads of the voices around her.

Afterwards, she'll be standing with her arms crossed over her chest staring into the cairn thoughtfully.

II. Wake

Nari's never been one for wild abandon, but it feels good and right to sit quietly in a corner inside the wooden lamplit chaos of the Hanged Man with an as yet untouched (and dirty) glass of the same liquid fire she'd been drinking with Kit a bare handful of days before his death; to hear the snatches of conversation, song, and laughter-- some light, some raucous-- that bubble up through the rowdy hubbub of the still living.

It's relatively sheltered over here, should anyone need a break from the room.

Cade stands with her in total silence, his eyes clear and far away, his hands folded in front of him for the duration of the service. He's been to many of these, albeit never for a dwarf, but for once it's nice to attend one with people he feels some attachment to. Never mind that it's for someone he felt attachment to as well.
Feeling the difficulty of mourning someone with a different set of beliefs, all Cade can do is reassure himself that Kit is with Andraste, welcomed alongside all the other good people of the world regardless of whether or not they prayed every day.

It rolled into her head like the smoke that he blew sometimes, as she looked simultaneously at the grave and beyond it. Kit's voice, smooth and dark and filled always with a cheerful resignation that should have been contradictory but wasn't: I'm a dead man walking. Then her own: We're all dead walking, Kit... Don't wait too long. Our lives aren't fair or just, and things happen.

Nari had never met Vandelin. She wonders if Kit had waited too long. If they'd talked, before, or if the silence that Kit had meant one day to fill with words would only be filled with the stones of his cairn now that the dwarf had run out of 'one day's. She wonders if he's here, if while she stands here there's someone else breathlessly grabbing at handfuls of shattered glass.

When it finishes, she feels the same sort of difficulty as Cade. While it had been lovely-- Beleth had done him well-- she can't help but quietly say something to herself, even if the gods only took their own. Perhaps, selfishly, because she couldn't make herself say anything back then.

"He was born, then died, then lived more than most. Kit, Falon'din enansal enaste." And then, after her eyes flicker over towards Cade, back again to the stones, "We only know the prayers we know."

Edited 2018-04-16 22:13 (UTC)

Grief is a feeling foreign to Benedict, and he's still having trouble processing it when the funeral rolls around. He spends most of the day standing sullenly off to one side, shivering in the chill and shooting caustic glares at anyone who might consider talking to him.

If caustic glares had ever been enough to warn off Beleth, it certainly wasn't at this moment. She strides up to Benedict, her body language best described as 'rigid'. Somber, and almost tense, like she's readying herself for being plunged into shockingly cold water. Nevertheless, she dips her head politely when she reaches Benedict, expression as distant as she feels.

"Thank you for coming, and I apologize that you had to do so in such weather." A pity she can't just go make some random NPC fetch him a sweater in the middle of the woods, but such is life. "The wake will be held inside, I'm sure it'll be warmer there, if you wish to attend."

Benedict grunts a noncommittal reply, not even looking at Beleth. "Where's that," he grumbles after a moment, staring hard at the cairn and trying his very hardest to stop giving a shit.

“The Hanged Man. It’s a popular tavern in Kirkwall, and Kit, um. He enjoyed going there.” It still feels...wrong, to use the past tense for him.

“I can already tell you that it will be beneath the standard you like to keep, as will the food, drink, and company.” Might as well get that out of the way. But her face softens a little, and she reaches to gently touch his arm—ready to pull away, if he shows signs of disliking it. “But you’ll be welcomed there, anyway. And I think you might like a chance to talk to other people who knew Kit.”

She can’t make Benedict learn to cope with loss in a moderately healthy way, but at least she can offer him the option.

He actually seems to consider it for a time, shoulders hunched and arms folded, as closed-off as can be. Once he reaches a conclusion, Benedict glances to Beleth, almost wincing as though waiting for her to make fun of him. "I don't know how to get there."

Beleth doesn’t make fun of him, or change her galacial expression. She just nods. “You can come with me, if you would like. I’ll be heading over there soon, to begin making sure the food is all set up.”

Briefly, she wonders who is in the more enviable position—to have loss be a new, unknown feeling, fresh and raw, or to have become experienced in it? Dulled to the pain? Which would she rather be? The latter, probably, which is why she’ll try to tend after Benedict.

After another moment's hesitation, Benedict shrugs and gives a little nod of assent. He'll go there with her, even if she is an elf.
Kit was just a dwarf, after all.

Benedict can glare all he'd like. Anders has dealt with many worse glares, and it's all the easier to accept this one when he agrees with the reason and the source doesn't want him in particular dead.

"I'd offer some trite advice on dealing with loss, but I can't think of any that would help," he says quietly as he joins the younger man. "There's never been anything that's really helped before except throwing myself into work."

"I don't want anything to help," Benedict grumbles, clasping his upper arms, "I want everything to stop. And for this accursed city to fall into the sea."

"Right, of course." His voice is dry. "Because either of those is going to happen any time in the near future."

With a shake of his head, Anders leans against the wall next to Benedict. "People come to wakes to remember and to hurt a little less. You can bristle how you'd like. I know you're not unbothered and an educated guess says you don't entirely want to be alone."

He'd like the company, after all. It hurts to lose someone.

Benedict sneers and shakes his head, feeling no patience for jabs and wishing Anders would go away, at least until he becomes more conciliatory.
"I don't know what I want," Bene grumbles, misery bleeding through in his tone.

I. Funeral

Julius almost didn't come. He'd have gone to the wake either way, but he feels a bit of an intruder at the funeral itself. He's not sure where his own faith has landed, in the mess the world has become, but the likelihood that he and his friend are bound on the same journey after death is almost none by practically everyone's belief system. But... for all of that, Kit deserved those who'd cared about him showing up to pay their respects. Julius can be one more, standing in the group. A silent reminder that Kit had mattered to yet one more person, for anyone who is looking.

He's not seeking anyone out, but he won't avoid a conversation if someone approaches him as they leave.

II. Wake

Given the wake's nature, it's hard for Julius not to think of the fact that the last time he'd seen Kit, they had planned to meet for a drink. It seems more than a bit surreal now. He plans to have a drink, thank Beleth for her work in organizing things, and then slip out. He's not good at this sort of grieving; he wasn't raised with it and suspects he hasn't the knack. But he's hard to miss, if anyone has an eye to catch him before he goes. He doesn't want to look like he's running away, after all.

Not an eye for catching Julius, precisely--and had the older mage remained as silent through the wake as he was at the funeral, Myr might've missed his presence entirely. But a chance word caught through the crowd pulls at his attention, pulls him away from his own drink (nursed, not touched) to seek after his research partner. Some inchoate need to--comfort, to reach out drives it; Myr doesn't question it too closely, dealing as poorly as he is with his own grief. Helping someone else means he doesn't have to think about that, though why he chose to get up now when he's awash in people to help is opaque even to him.

His own misery reached a tipping point, maybe. Hard to think of, right now.

"Julius?"

"Yes -- oh." He turns and there's something like relief in his tone. He touches Myr's arm, briefly, a gesture meant to comfort that he hopes is taken in the spirit it's meant. "I was honestly beginning to think there wouldn't be anyone here I knew. Not that it's important, I suppose, but..."

...but he's glad he was wrong, all the same. He feels marginally less at a loss, this way.

Myr reaches to return the gesture, all wounded instinct--a touch on the arm or the hand, an I'm here when digging out the words to say it is too hard. "But it's less lonely," he picks up, and promptly drops it again: "Having--having someone familiar around."

Though most of Kit's friends were familiar, at the weakest; it drives home how large a part of Myr's life he'd become. How large a part of all their lives, wrenched so completely out of it--

"--Do you--were you leaving? D'you mind company to the edge of Lowtown?"

"Not at all. I'd appreciate the company, actually. It's been..." a shitty day doesn't quite convey it. Julius has lost many friends, but somehow it never gets easier. Kit feels somehow unfair when he'd been braced to lose someone he cared about to the illness and dodged that blow. He's too old to imagine life is fair, of course, but the sensation is still hard to shake.

As they move to go, he comments, "From observation, it seems he was a man with a lot of friends who seldom saw more than one of them at the same time." Julius and Myr hadn't been the only ones unsure who to talk to, in Julius' observation.

"It has." Whatever it has been; there's nothing he can lay hands on to properly circumference the wound Kit's left behind him. No word to define it or fill up the gaping abyss, no way to get around it enough to understand and diminish it-- Myr swallows back a grief that threatens to choke him; it's not getting any easier with practice.

Maybe with time. Sina's--

Hadn't, yet, though it had grown quieter and less strangling. Why it should be so that the friends he's made since joining the Inquisition hurt deeper for their losses than near-family back in Hasmal, he doesn't know; isn't in any condition to suss out.

"He'd a way with people like that--I don't know but some of his friends didn't have anyone but him, to begin with." Benedict certainly hadn't. "He was--a bridge."

"That's an apt way to put it." They walk a little, and instead of circling back to Kit right away, Julius adds, "How are you holding up otherwise? I know you were right at the center of the work to find a cure for the plague, that had to be exhausting work."

I. Funeral

Beleth hadn't gotten anyone to give the eulogy, or the rites--A Keeper or a Chantry clergy member seemed inappropriate, and as far as she could tell, no one that would have done this in Orzammar is currently available above the surface. So she gives the eulogy, describing Kit and what he'd accomplished as best as she could, and then inviting others to share their piece.

She sings for him, a mournful dirge in a clear, high voice.

Similar to how she had functioned at Sina's funeral, Beleth looks almost completely devoid of emotion for the entire thing. Everything's been locked up for dealing with later, when she didn't have a job to do. It slips into her voice when she sings, grief and loss for a friend, but when it is finished, she slides a palm across her eyes, and steadies herself again.

II: Wake

Here, she watches the gathering like a particularly somber hawk, a gloomy sore thumb against the backdrop of the festive tavern. She checks to make sure that no one gets carried away with their drink--she's not posting bail for a brawl at a funeral--and that the food is being served properly, and that there's enough to go around. People who come are greeted, thanked for their attendance, and anyone who seems to need anything can usually find her at their elbow.

But other than that, she simply watches, a drink in hand that she sips at throughout the night. It does get refilled, slowly at first, and then with more vigor as she embraces the warm buzz of the alcohol. It's only later in the night that the stoic mask begins wearing down, and Beleth begins to look, for no better word, incredibly tired.

It's not fair. None of this is fair. Not to Kit, not to her, not to any of the mourners here. But she could take some consolation in having done her best to try give Kit part of what he deserved--as much as she could do, at least.

Sometime later on in the night, Nari slips into a seat near where Beleth has positioned herself and sets a little sampler plate of the food that had been made available down between them. If this were not an obvious enough invitation, she scoots it slowly toward the other woman with her fingertips.

She'd been watching Beleth take care of everyone else, but it had seemed to be 'everyone else' exclusively.

The thought of eating hadn't quite crossed her mind, until Nari began dropping some very unsubtle hints. It's not that she was purposely avoiding it, but there had been so much else to do--still, after watching Nari gently prod the plate at her, Beleth can't help but smile. Obediently, she grabs some of the sliced meat, and nibbles on it quietly.

"Thank you," She adds hastily, flashing that smile at Nari. "I know I should be more careful, I just...There's a lot that had to be done." There always is, it seems. Though she shouldn't complain too much--things have been better than they have been. There have been longer breaks between shit going south. But...even so. It's a lot.

Nari nods soberly at Beleth's explanation.

"Ir su aravel tu elvaral u na emma abelas, lethallan." Nari intones the words rather than singing, but the rhythm is there. "It might be that organizing and caring for everyone else is what you need to do right now, but if there comes a time when you feel you can share your burdens, then... we're here to be shared with." Much like she did with the plate, Nari offers her hand palm up between them in case Beleth might want a small hand hug.

After the song he finds her, expression a little wary. He doesn't know how she feels about him right now, but it's a funeral. It's not really a grudge sort of time.

"That was... a good song," he says weakly. How do you talk to someone at a funeral? This is his second one despite all the people he's lost, and Anders has no idea what he's even doing. But the song had been good. "It... there were feelings."

That was clearly not the way to do it.

There are some unflattering replies that crop up in Beleth’s thoughts, but—well, it is a funeral, and Beleth knows how to be polite. She’s certainly been to plenty of funerals—from the mass one for the plague victims when she was too young to truly understand, up through the Herald’s funeral at Skyhold, to here. Though this is the first—and hopefully last—that Beleth has had to organize alone.

“Thank you. I don’t know if dwarves sing at their funerals, or what they would sing. Orzammar wasn’t very forthcoming.” Assholes. “But I thought...the song was pretty. I think—hope—he would’ve liked it.”

I. Funeral

Cyril doesn't know how to feel about this. He and Kit weren't very close, all things considered. They had been little more than a one night stand, and yet he feels and odd sense of loss when he thinks about the man.

The world lost someone good when it lost Kit. That should be mourned, even if Cyril isn't sure what he thinks of the afterlife, he wants to be here to show that he knows how sad it is that Kit is gone.

He keeps to himself during the funeral, ending up very quiet and contemplative, though supportive of those around him.

II. Wake

People who are close to Cyril know he usually avoids drinking while in crowds. During big events he'll usually keep one drink and nurse it throughout the night. He doesn't like being intoxicated in front of others - doesn't like losing that control.

During this wake, though, he already has a couple of drinks in front of him just the first hour in. Apparently he's not dealing with his complicated emotions over this well.

Nari considers waving Cyril over to join her, but decides on the opposite. He isn't looking at her in any case, more fixed on a point somewhere in the slowly growing collection of glasses. She moves over, placing her own still-full glass on the tabletop somewhere where it'll ensure her appearance is noted, and settles down onto a stool which creaks predictably.

He looks over at her and offers a gentle smile. "Hello lethallan," he greets her as she sits.

"It was a lovely service, wasn't it?"

"It was," Nari says with a nod, "Beleth did well by him."

She rolls the cracked glass she brought with her between her fingers, watching the amber liquid move around, and then taps it with a nail. It's too loud to hear the small tink noise it made. "Kit and I were drinking this together the last night I saw him," she says.

Cyril nods in agreement and acknowledgment of Beleth's work. She always managed to do well. It was reassuring to know Kit's services were under her care.

He smiles gently, the expression tinged with guilt, as she shared the memory of Kit. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked, giving her a place where she could talk if she wished.

"We were just talking about living while you can," she says, "It's... even more poignant now." Painfully so. It didn't hurt like Sina-- nothing could hurt like Sina-- but it was a loss. She was almost sadder for Kit than she was for the loss of him. Despite himself he had wanted so much to love. Be loved. Had held back out of some kind of razor edged compassion, not wanting to hurt any partner he might have.

If anyone had deserved that kind of happiness it had been Kit. (Despite herself, Nari's eyes flit about the bar briefly looking for gold)

"It takes a lot of courage to do that, I think," she muses, returning to looking at Cyril. "You're one of the strongest people I know, when it comes to that."

Cyril grimaces slightly. "I'm not so sure," he admitted after a moment. "I'm good at pretending more than anything." He drinks deeply from his mug and then considers her.

"Sorry. I don't want to make this about me. This is about the loss of a good man. A man I wish I had known better. He and I had fun, sure, but I feel as if he could have been a valued friend."

"You're certainly not pretending to be with Sam," Nari says. She's seen the depth of care between the two of them enough over the years. "Nor have I ever seen you be stinting with your care for anyone else." She says it like she's nearly in awe of such a thing, gazing into her glass. "If there's anything in life that requires more courage than--" she pauses briefly, as if the act of even saying the next word requires bravery she doesn't have "--love, then I don't know it."

Despite himself, Cyril manages to look a little embarrassed at that. He has a hard time with love himself. It had taken so long for him to even admit that he had feelings for Sam.

"I know what you mean. Do you know it took Sam turning into a dog and overhearing me talk about him for him to even know I had developed those sorts of feelings for him? I was so terrible at talking to him."

"Really?" Nari's eyebrows dart upwards in sincere shock.

Cyril had always seemed to navigate affairs of the heart with ease. Perhaps it was just a seeming, or perhaps she just had... no frame of reference whatsoever. It wasn't so long ago that the entire idea of having 'those sorts of feelings' was so completely foreign that being good or bad at it was as irrelevant to her as how skillfully a cake had just been baked in Val Royeaux.

"I..." she pauses and the corner of her mouth twitches amusedly. "That's... honestly comforting."

"Well, then I'm happy to be of service," he offers her. "If it helps, I have a lot of problems saying, well, that 'l' word. Even right now. It closes up my throat." He winces a bit and drinks some more as if it will help clear out the lump.

"I'm really good at friendship, Nari. And sex. And sometimes both at the same time. Anything else, honestly terrifies me."

Considering what she's good at reveals carving, carpentry, and remembering what blend of tea someone likes best. Things she is not good at: understanding why the very mention of the concept of physical intimacy has begun to make her spring a cold sweat.

"You are, lethallin. A good friend," Nari says. And drinks. The burn of it is clarifying. "I think it's okay to be scared of things. But perhaps... we ought to try not to be so scared that we pass a moment by-- or let it pass by us. I think that would make Kit happy." She pauses to think, and then, "how did you meet him?"

"I first met him when I was helping with the Qunari. After that..." He pauses, not wanting to be too lewd given the circumstances. "We spent a very nice night together. He was very giving, though it never made we beyond that. I'd like to think we probably would have been friends, though, had we done more.

He was a very good man."

"He was." Nari nods in agreement. She reaches with her glass to tap the rim to Cyril's, drinks to Kit's memory. Stares into the candlelight swimming in the rest of the drink. "What-might-have-beens are... hard," she says after a moment. The hand close to him being occupied, Nari dips her head to touch his shoulder.

Cyril reaches up and puts his hand over hers on his shoulder. He knows that there's a lot of grief that she has had to shoulder over the years, and some of the most painful of it happened recently.

"The people who are gone wouldn't want us to dwell on what could have been, I think, but rather to celebrate what was."

Somehow Cyril has ended up comforting her rather than the other way around— a not unfamiliar state of affairs— and Nari smiles a bit sadly. Perhaps, like Kit, he finds some grace through it. She's not going to deny him that, if so.

"Agreed," she says, "And perhaps even to look to the future."

[lmk if there's anything you want to get to with Cy here! Otherwise we can probably leave it?]

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So, I'll sing Hallelujah

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