Open | Wake me up inside

[keenly]

WHO: Everyone
WHAT: A wake for the (not)dead
WHEN: Bloomingtide 23, evening/night/next morning
WHERE: The de la Fontaine apartments
NOTES: Really this is an excuse for stalkable grieving content and stories about other characters.

I. Weeping

At a traditional wake, there is an actual body for people to visit and wail over. There's none of that here. Instead, there are candles to light in someone's name, in a private and quiet room away from the eating and drinking and story-telling. This is the grieving room, the place to express what you need to express in the solidarity of other mourners.

II. Drinking

Colin has cooked a variety of delicious foods, but it's really the de la Fontaine cellar that's the star of the show here. The brandy is smooth and the wine is perfectly aged--not that it matters so much, because it is the drunkenness that's important. Something, anything, to dull the pain. Or maybe the pain is still keen, but the expression of it, the exorcism, cannot happen without a little lubricant. That's this.

III. Telling Stories

At some point, Colin shouts for everyone to quiet down. He then proceeds to tell a story.

"When I got to the Circle, they told me there was this time when the mages were allowed outside, onto the island, for exercises. But then, there was this apprentice--I think he was an apprentice back then--who decided if he was allowed outside, he was allowed as far as he liked. So, he ruined everything for everyone by jumping into the lake and swimming as fast as he could to the shore. It was a week before they found him again, and mages weren't allowed outside ever again. His name was Anders. And by the time I heard the story, he'd finally escaped the Circle for the final time. I mean at least, so far, this escape attempt has gone pretty well. He got to the end of his life without ever being in the Circle again. They said he'd go nowhere but the Void, and look what he did--he got possessed by a spirit, started a war, then ended his own possession somehow. And he, he was obviously quite controversial. But he was a good man anyway, even if he wouldn't've called himself that, ever.

So...at a wake, we tell these stories. Because at this point, nobody's going to remember these people but us. So we have to get each other to remember them, because that's the only way they live on. It's in us. Um, who's next?"