open | grief is the thing with feathers

[coquettish_trees]

WHO: Lexie, Thor, Colin, you?
WHAT: a collection of dramas
WHEN: after The News drops
WHERE: Kirkwall
NOTES: (I'm not doing a general, but anyone who wants to come at her or have me write something, come touch me gently with a paw @ shaestorms or shae#7274 on discord) okay maybe I am doing general prompts, but you can still put a paw on me.

Day One: The Chantry Gardens

Alexandrie doesn't paint the living. It had made even the process of selecting canvas funereal. There are five leaning against her chair with an air of solemnity to them, bright and white in the sunlight, and one on her easel covered with a clamped down sketch, the lines of which she is tracing over with a stylus. A genial looking fellow with lively, interested eyes and an easy smile accentuated by the mustache above it, the slightly curling dark of his hair mussed in the way that always makes one appear as if they could not be anything but the most genuine of souls.

She straightens to regard it, her skirts ruffling in the breeze.


Day Two: Library

There is a quiet noise, somewhere amidst the shelves. A person noise, rather than the shuffling of books.

After a while, long enough to dismiss it, it repeats; a soft kind of gasping.

If one were to be curious enough, a search for the source would reveal Alexandrie sitting with her skirts pooled around her with her hand over her mouth to stifle the labored sob of her breath, the fingers of her other hand resting in the empty space where a book ought to be.


Day Three: Lowtown Market

Someone calls out that they have flowers, flowers that had come to full bloom this very morning, and Alexandrie's face twists with sudden incandescent rage at the immensity of the insult that things had continued to grow. That merchants had continued to sell. That down the row, someone is trying to decide which ribbon to quickly buy for their sweetheart before she notices that he's not moved on to the next stall with her.

The call again—Beautiful spring blossoms! Brighten your home! Charm your wife!—and Alexandrie rounds on the man with a snarl so quickly it sends apples bouncing from the basket she carries. He looks surprised.

Someone really ought to stop her.


[ or bring your own! :D ]

Comments

[keenly]

There's a guest arriving at the Asgards' house. He doesn't break down until Alexandrie arrives to greet him, staggering forward into her arms.

[coquettish_trees]

There's nothing for it but to catch him, although it will not be in the pliant soft warmth of her usual embrace. She holds him woodenly, like an artist's manikin posed to allow them to practice the drawing of comfort.

[keenly]

His grip, in return, is needy, seeking comfort more than giving. But an embrace and a mutual cry are comforting for both parties, aren't they? In his abject grief, Colin doesn't notice that Alexandrie isn't crying. He's never going to see Anders again. That's the only thing he can think of right now, although it isn't thinking so much as a visceral cry of protest.

He pulls away eventually, wiping at his face, having absorbed her lack of reaction by now. There's no judging her for it. Everyone reacts in their own way, deals in their own way, but he still feels the need to apologize.

"I'm sorry," he chokes, as if he's being too much of a bummer.

[coquettish_trees]

"You need not be," she murmurs, "come in and have some tea."

It's like watching a music box. Her turn towards the downstairs parlor is graceful, as is her gesture to a waiting servant to begin preparations, the extension of her hand to Colin in invitation to take it; her walk is a court glide, straight and tall with her head held high. A perfect moving sculpture of Orlesian nobility, hollow of its spark.

[keenly]

"I can't believe he's gone. It hardly seems real. Anders. Sidony. I knew Kitty, too, though we weren't close. I just can't believe they're gone."

His breath hitches and holds as another torrent of tears threatens.

[coquettish_trees]

The parlor is lit by sun filtering in through the filmy drapes of cloth that adorn the high arched windows—the weather had refused to attend the announcement. The sun keeps shining. The birds sing. The trees rustle with the gentle breeze. Nature is heartless.

Alexandrie flinches at Kitty's name, her fingers limp for a moment in Colin's, her step uneven, but she lengthens again and pulls to gently draw him down beside her onto one of the plush seats to turn her knees toward him and regard him with the very convincing appearance of all the sympathy in the world. Or it would be, but within the perfect mask of it her eyes are fever-bright and dilated and empty of the lively turn of her thoughts. She is absent from her own gaze, even as her eyebrows tilt in sympathy.