open: lol never mind.

[cozen]

WHO: Open!
WHAT: A memorial that doesn’t go as planned.
WHEN: Justinian 1
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Nah.

The ceremony takes place in one of the side courtyards that’s been converted into a garden, where the oppressive architecture is offset with flowers and trees. There’s a small pyre, for those whose traditions call for pyres, but no bodies to burn. Instead there are tokens, flowers, favorite foods, treasured possessions—not yet lit.

(For the others, the Dalish and Nevarrans and anyone else with a different wish, their friends and family will have made different arrangements alongside the pyre, probably, if they aren’t universally reviled.)

Anyone who wants to speak, whether it’s a prepared speech or a single spontaneous sentence, can do so. The tone is respectful but only so solemn. It’s been more than a week. For many, the worst of the shock has passed, and the sun has continued to rise and set, and there’s room between bouts of misery for fond memories and occasionally laughter. The memorial is a door that’s closing—slowly, kindly—and tomorrow, on the other side of it, the war will continue.

Today, on this side, the only people judging anyone else for crying are the assholes.

***

Across the harbor, more than a dozen filthy and tired people come to a stop on the docks, and the loitering ferryman pauses to take stock of them, then starts laughing. There isn’t even any local mythology about ferrymen and the dead. It’s just that funny to him on its own, that he’s been rowing miserable people around all week, and here’s the source of all that misery, dirty and tired but significantly less dead than believed.

When he stops laughing, he offers to dunk everyone in the harbor before rowing them over. For the smell, you know. No one is going to be happy to see them if their eyes are watering too much to actually see them. Then he laughs some more at his hilarious joke.

But he does eventually load up his boat—and maybe there isn’t room for everyone all at once, maybe some dramatic reunions will be delayed, maybe some people will be even more fashionably late to their funeral than the others—and carries everyone across the bay, still chuckling intermittently.

***

In the courtyard, the speeches and anecdotes (and singing, perhaps) wind down to long silences peppered with murmurs or sniffling. Someone is preparing to light the pyre. And then the gate creaks open.

Comments

Sorrel | OTA

[writteninblood]

Sorrel takes in the scene. The empty pyre, the weeping faces, the solemn words tumbling from the mouth of the poor sot tasked with memorializing this motly crowd. This wasn't just a funeral, this was a funeral, the kind of thing that happened after a massacre, or a battle. This was— this was their funeral.

One gets so few chances for these things, in a lifetime; Sorrel holds out a hand to put the pause to whoever's just behind him. His hair is wet, his clothing is stained and like the rest of them he is little more than a bedraggled survivor with nothing in either pockets or belly, but he wouldn't be Sorrelean Ashara if he didn't lift his voice above the somber noise of the mourners and heckle his own funeral.

"Who died?"

shortest thread ever.

[exequy]

Kostos—standing in the back of the crowd, out it respect for everyone who knew the dead more intimately, dry-eyed but grim and still, with his arms folded behind his back—hears the gate in time to turn his head in the silence. That gives him a second to narrow his eyes in reflexive disbelief before Sorrel opens his mouth, and when he does speak that disbelief is fading, sort of, into good old shock, the kind that doesn’t leave a lot of room for being guarded.

So he says, who died, and Kostos’ face and shoulders both twitch from the effort required to chase the laugh that’s trying to make a break for it and swallow it back down.

But a second later it’s gone and he’s grim again, and while the realization ripples through the rest of the crowd, and whoever has claim and interest in hugging Sorrel or anyone else sees to that, he moves briskly around it to make sure no one actually lights anyone’s shit on fire.

Re: Sorrel | OTA

[gottakeeponejumpahead]

"Who died?"

The words struck Adasse like lightening, and he pushed his way through the other mourners to the back of the crowd, his dark eyes wide as he took in the band of Very Much Not Dead People. In the front of that crowd was the man whose ring Adasse has tied around his neck.

He let out a strangled noise, "... Sorrel? Is that you? Are you - are you not --- you're not a spirit, are you?"

He could be. Kirkwall was cruel like that.

Anders, OTA

[justice_is_blond]

He hangs a little back once entering, feeling a mix of guilt and a familiar desire to be invisible. There are probably people hurt by the thought of his death, and there are probably people relieved. Anders brushes back greasy, dirty hair, looking around.

'I've made better entrances' gets considered and hastily discarded because he's also made worse. He settles after several moments on "Afterparty in the baths, then?"

[pinprick]

Miserable and completely forlorn Nathaniel doesn’t even look back at once. His mind has been in a rut since yesterday, when he heard the news. But when there are gasps, he turns his head with a scowl at whoever is disrupting—and it’s the very people being mourned here today. He freezes for a second, then bolts across the room so fast his feet barely touch the floor. He pushes someone aside, looking, until he hears that voice. His hands cup that beloved face, gazing and taking it in, and it’s really, absolutely him underneath the dirt. His arms are suddenly flung around Anders, lifting him off the floor and spinning him around.

[altusimperius]

The voice providing commentary is familiar, and Benedict turns to see who spoke it, doing a double take when it clicks in his mind who exactly he's looking at.
He stands there in awkward bewilderment for a time, watching the reunion with Anders' husband, and when they finally break apart he spares the man a confused if melancholy smile. what the fuck man

[keenly]

A couple of people get to Anders first, but at last it is Colin’s turn, and he throws his arms around him.

[overharrowed]

There are other people who get to see Anders first; other people that Anders will first want to see. But Julius was at the memorial because of course he was.

(He'd had the thought, when he'd gotten the news, that he wasn't even completely sure if he and Anders had made up after the Divine election. He wasn't sure they had been fighting in the first place, exactly. Old disagreements and new sharp edges pushing up against the long, long weight of their history seemed of a piece with their complicated relationship, but in this particular case it had made his grieving awkward and inward and a bit guilty.)

When Anders has a moment to look around again, he may catch Julius' eye from a short distance away. Julius doesn't rush over, unsure of his welcome even now. But he raises a hand in greeting and offers a shaky smile of relief. Whether or not Anders wants to talk to him just now, it is a novel and not unpleasant experience to be at a memorial that turns out purely unnecessary.

gwenaëlle feat. iorveth | open

[elegiaque]

( the scene into which they return doesn't immediately make sense to gwenaëlle, exhausted and filthy, hair tangled into itself, holding onto iorveth still both for the comfort of his proximity and because she's rapidly approaching the point at which she no longer wishes to be standing up at all—

she has the brief, insane thought that they're supposed to be in the pyre, which is not the most useful way her mind could have made the connection that this is their funeral, and she says, )

Oh, fuck,

( with the abruptness of someone who had been so focused on surviving to return she hadn't considered what if they think I already haven't. has anyone been murdered already. where is her family. )

[toujoursdroit]

[Her grandfather is hard to miss, in clothing probably worth about as much as the entire cost of the memorial. Perfectly correct, an Orlesian duke in mourning.

...and then he is less than perfectly correct. The moment it becomes clear that something is happening and he looks around for what, he catches sight of her. No one present has ever seen him move at anything other than a stately walk, but he hurries to her, careless of propriety for this one moment. She'll see him coming. So can everyone.]

bastien | open

[cozen]

[ Bastien is a particular type of dramatic. He's a performer, but not given to genuine self-indulgence; fascinated by tableaux of emotional extremes, but never an earnest participant in one. And that means he can't skip the reentry entirely. There is no one he feels an overwhelming need to reassure of his survival, but he would never forgive himself if he didn't see some of the hugging and crying.

And is only there to watch. His particular set of skills—so pointless in the desert and the Deep Roads—is finally good for something: for flowing through a crowd, evading people entirely and extricating quickly from anyone he snags on, always seeming on his way to talk to someone else, who he doesn't actually intend to talk to, until he's slipped out of the scene without having an actual conversation with anyone at all. The only difference between this and work is that he hasn't stolen anything or ruined any lives in the meantime.

When he leaves, he stops briefly by his room, which blessedly has not yet been emptied of his clothing, and then is the first person down to the baths, where for the next long while he can be found—intentionally or not—slumped down and submerged up to his chin, intent on not moving, even if that means he has to talk to someone for real. ]

sidony venaras | ota

[indissection]

The ceremony is a little too much, even for her, especially looking as worn down and frustrated as she does presently.

There's a level of something awkward and intense about Sidony as she steps forward and wanders through, looking around at the people. There's no one she recognises immediately, and she's quite glad for that, but something knots in her stomach. There are no bodies being burned. There are people crying, weeping, staring in despair, and she's not sure what to make of it - funerals were never something she particularly enjoyed attending and things were somewhat different in Nevarra, for the most part.

Moving forward, not looking herself at all, she crosses her arms and gazes around at all the attendees, trying to work out what in the name of - well, someone, not being quite the believer as others - is happening. Unlike her natural attempts at being beautiful and winsome, she looks almost... Out of place, dirty and downtrodden, in torn clothing with what she's sure are twigs and dirt in her hair no matter how hard she's tried.

She's exhausted, and it shows, even as she tries to put on a brave face, turning to the nearest person.

"Would you mind telling me what is happening?"

[keenly]

When it’s his turn in line, Colin reaches for a hug. They don’t know each other all that well, but they did bond at first meet and she was among the people he missed.

“They said you were all dead,” he explains, face damp from relief and joy.

wysteria | ota

[heirring]

Her shoe, having been across the terrible heat of the wastes and having traversed the Deep Roads and passed finally over a cursed mountain if all things more or less intact finally - finally! - fails her. It's just as Wysteria's stepping up out of the ferry that the peg heel, much abused and thoroughly battered, catches on a small hole in the ferry's combing and snaps.

She falls forward, narrowly missing cracking her skull open on hard stone of the Gallows' landing, and slips with an aborted cry into the cold black water of the harbor. It takes some minutes to wrestle her from the water, longer still for her to recover from the indignity of it all, and so by the time she finally trudges into the courthard in her soaking wet clothes and ragged squelching stockings, she has missed the dramatic moment entirely.

For a second or ten, Wysteria just stands stupidly there at the edge of the festivities with a broken shoe in her hand. Dumbfounded, she turns to person nearest and asks: "What are we celebrating?"

[hornswoggle]

"Us, I suppose."

Celebrating, eulogizing. What's the difference?

"There's still time to make your escape before you're called upon to participate more actively."

It's a joke, except it's not really a joke. John's been spotted so here he will have to stay until the moment is right. But Wysteria, miserable, drenched, half-barefoot, has not been seen and can thus make herself scarce. That's an enviable position, though John doesn't expect her to see it that way.

thranduil - open

[rowancrowned]

He is stoic. He had his fit when the news first came to him, the horror that had punched a cry from him like some wounded animal, and then the stillness that had come later and set iron against his spine, sorrow freezing his features into court placidity. He had risen from bed and bathed and eaten and done his work each day, and slept in his bed, Hardie as lank and quiet in the loss of his mistress as Thranduil was.

He had made plans, and then, this morning, he rose and donned tunic with whitework at the cuffs and collar and hose, and he went to the memorial, more presence than corporeal form, to mourn.

He does not sing. He does not speak. He does not trust himself to, the grief close to the surface and behind that, the rage. As others fuss, chat, turn, he stands stoic, hands folded in front, and watches the pile of wood that will become the pyre.

[elegiaque]

She hasn't been gone so long that the small presence at his elbow could possibly be unfamiliar; a hand slipped in between his, nails worried at the edges, roughened from the necessities of scrambling all the way back here and as grimy as the rest of her but still the same hand, and its flaws forgivable for that. She says, “There's no need for that,” a little bit more prepared this time than when she had been taken off-guard by her grandfather.

“Thranduil. I'm all right.”

And here.

Kitty, Who Is An Asshole | OTA

[rathercommon]

Kitty's towards the back of the group. Thank God. The people in front of her, they ask the awkward questions, and get the awkward answers, and all Kitty has to do is see the tears and listen to the sniffling and deal with her exquisite embarrassment from a distance rather than having to - you know - talk to people.

Because this really is excruciating. All that emotion and all that sorrow and relief just makes her feel so flustered and nervous, and so she resolves straightaway to not get involved in any of it.

So as the first few people bear the brunt of the misplaced sorrow, Kitty tries her best to creep around the side of a statue so that she can just slip into the castle without having any conversations. She's really too tired and too dirty for - you know - sentiment.

[altusimperius]

"Kitty!"

The call has a tone of pleasant surprise than of outright relief: it comes from someone who was standing more or less off to the side as well, witnessing the tearful reunions and feeling somewhat separate from them.

Oblivious of her effort to vanish, Benedict strides over with an uncertain little smile.
"I'm glad you're back." It's unusually candid, but there's something off about him as it is.

Lexie, A Drama Queen | OTA

[coquettish_trees]

She had been half-laced into the darkness of her mourning gown, Marie pinning the matching lace half veil into her hair, when she'd suddenly said No. Off. Take it off. When Marie had hesitated, questioning, she'd turned to look at Coleus. Go and get it. He'd bowed exactingly and slipped into the next room. Marie, her face shifting as she understood, had looked at her with a naked sympathy she ignored and hesitantly began removing the veil.

And so Lady Alexandrie de la Fontaine is there on the morning of the day on which she had meant to trade that name, her hand tucked at her nearly-brother's elbow, pale and tired and determinedly resplendent in the dress she had been meant to wear to that purpose, silently watching the pyre being built as the breeze off the sea tugs at the gilded petals of the white roses in the oiled and shining upsweep of her hair.

[thorndergod]

He's not completely certain she's got a firm hold on her sanity when she joins him wearing this, but Thor can't blame her. She's well and truly swept up into House Asgard now, with her family knowing her decision to leave them and without the comfort of a partner with which to walk into the Imperium's particular sort of drama. That she'll manage it he doesn't doubt. That she's ready for it today? He's not sure on that one.

"I have you." There are seats to the side, ones that won't clash too terribly with her green-and-gold and not at all with his black-and-gold, and he nods to them. "Would you care to sit?"

a pirate

[hornswoggle]

This is perhaps the dirtiest John has ever been in his life. Exhaustion feels ground into his bones. He is not too tired to trade jokes with their gleeful ferryman, but thinking ahead, he consider leaving the rest of this group to drag themselves into the city proper and explain everywhere while John sequesters himself on the Walrus.

But the impulse that saw him submitting himself to join the others on this terrible journey in the first place still makes itself known. No, he can't shirk this re-entry. (Duty is such a loathsome thing, what had ever possessed him to make such space for it in his life?) So when the doors open, John is still stumping along near the back, leaning heavily on the stolen staff. Useful, to have all his traveling companions before him as a buffer while he gets his bearings.

"Well, don't let us stop you," John says finally, because humor is closer at hand than any other question he might dredge up.

And it's easier than the rising concern of what has been done in his absence, if he's been mistaken for dead. (What has become of all the plans he and Flint had been constructing? What have they all told Madi?) There's no quick way out of this crowd, and there's some benefit to staying, but John is seized very quickly with the urge to extract himself from all the fuss as smoothly as he can.

[swordproof]

The relief Six feels when she sees the dead return is not something she can put into proper words. She had been mourning, despite not knowing too many of them on a deep, personal level - save John, who knew more of her than she did of him, who had accepted memories of her past without too much of a flinch, who had been there to accept her apologies and offer her kindness. She had been mourning that as much anything else, her heart sore in her chest.

She had been praying for hours, but she did not feel the numb ache in her knees. She could not allow it, not when words were to be said and offerings to be given.

Stoic and tall, she steps forward as she watches people mill around, her heart beating fast as she realises that she was wrong, that all is well, that the relief she feels can be accepted and given into. It's a rush and she almost, almost smiles, fighting the urge. It might be improper.

"John," she says, voice soft, her hair, for once, tied beautifully and properly. "It is good to see you."

Loki OTA

[hwaaaitsme]

Loki looks positively abysmal. In fact, he looks just as terrible as he feels--drawn, exhausted, more than slightly burnt from his time spent in the sun, grime covered in ways that are difficult to wash away--but he hardly cares. He shoves his way forward, off that ferry and into the Gallows with such speed he is likely one of the first to smell the oil on their pyres. Gods help him he was gladdened to see a decrepit ancient prison. His hair is wild and tangled, his expression severe, and he wants nothing more than to make himself even slightly presentable before he runs across anyone he knows.

The funerary proceedings to give him some pause though, as does the group of very finely dressed and generally familiar faces gathered around. He stops in his tracks and stares for a long moment and is briefly mortified. He looks like a sewage slave (and smells like one). One would be forgiven for not recognizing him, but he knows he will not have that luck.

[thorndergod]

He's here. Stiff, tired from standing vigil, in the back of the crowd for once because he thinks if he hears one more muttered 'the only good vint is a dead vint' he's going to punch someone in the face and won't be able to stop. The disturbance gets him looking back wearily... and then he spots Loki and everything comes to a halt. It's not possible, but at the same time, if anyone were to show up to their own funeral, it would be his brother.

Thor shoves people aside, heedless of who they are, and sweeps his smelly younger brother in his arms tightly.

"Your timing needs work," he declares, not about to let go. "You should have shown up in the middle and not the end. You've missed all of the speeches!"

Teren OTA

[doneisdone]

Teren does not appear at the ceremony: she didn't make it that far, because taking a moment to sit down while they waited for the ferry turned into her falling dead asleep, the journey's rigors finally catching up with her once and for all. She did it so unobtrusively that likely nobody even noticed she wasn't with them until they had reached the other shore, and of course she was none the wiser.

It's some time later that she can be found sitting on a bench on the other side of the ferry, looking thin and disheveled, asleep with her head on one hand, elbow propped improbably on her spindly knee. It's fortunate she lost everything in their travels, or she'd have done so to urchins now.

[gentlecountry]

And here, while she's waiting for her own private boat, comes along someone quite new to the city; a dwarf, dressed in warden armor and travel gear. He is, himself, waiting for the ferry. He glances at Teren, the sad evidence of the state of things, truly. Even here, where it's so open and dangerous, the homeless of Kirkwall try to shelter and— he gives her a second, sharper glance.

Now, wait just a minute. This isn't just some random wastrel...

"Ma'am," He says, eventually, and prepares a gentle nudge for if this isn't enough incentive to wake, "Begging your pardons, but you ought to wake up, now. Ma'am."

merrill | ota

[chainlightning]

The lack of shoes on Merrill isn't too different. The dirt and dried blood are not as bad as it could have been, thanks to melting some ice that had been conjured up and a quick dunk in the harbor, but still present. She's clearly stiff and sore, though; favoring one arm, with dark circles under her eyes. Still, in true Merrill fashion, when the group of them opens the gate and abruptly stops... well, she's a spot of cheer. She's been a bright beacon throughout the trudge back; she's not going to stop now.

"Hi, everyone! We're not dead!"

[pinprick]

And here's a massive hug, the second he's done with Anders. Nathaniel has clearly been crying, which, to be fair, most of these people have been. Finding Merrill again is another great relief, something he can adjust to relatively quickly.

"Welcome back."

Kain Ventfort | OTA

[in_death_sacrifice]

It's been a long, hard journey. Kain is just as disheveled and messed up as the rest of them, covered in dirt, blood, and sweat, his long hair in disarray. He'd taken in the ferryman's reaction in a bit of shock, unsure he fully understands what's happening. It's not until he sees the pyre and flowers, and all the rest of it, that it really sinks in what's happened. He heads forth alongside the others, but eventually just pauses on the fringe of the gathering to take it all in. People are legitimately grieving, and this is no small affair, no, this most definitely coincides with the disappearance of the whole group of them.

"Oh, Maker damn it..."

Just how long had they been gone? He'd lost track, himself. There had been moments where he'd wondered if they'd even make it back at all, but they're here now, and Kain starts glancing around for familiar faces.

[circleprodigy]

Inessa certainly hadn't attended the wake and she nearly missed the memorial; that numbness wouldn't go away and what was the point? There were no bodies, no pyres. Just personal effects that she couldn't stop staring at, then putting away, then bringing back out to stare at again. She should just hang out with Potato, who seemed to understand her distress and was a lot more accommodating because of it.

It was on her mind to visit the roost, but...well, she saw others heading toward the memorial and a last minute impulse decided things for her. The slight elven woman was thinner, if possible, less alert to her surroundings and more in her own mental fog. However, Garahel was paying more attention. The mabari, right at his mistresses' side, perks up and begins sniffing around, then barrels toward Kain before Inessa even begins to register the movement.

Kaisa | OTA

[unbrokenoath]

[ She hadn't made much of a fuss about arriving, which would probably be uncharacteristic of her, had the purpose of her return not been so grim. But she's here at the memorial, as somber as the occasion demands. Wherever she had been before this, she'd been busy--she's more tan and toned than before, yellow eyes sharp as a hawk as they look over the grievers.

There's a lot to process, a lot of emotions that Kaisa has never been a big fan of dealing with, both coming from herself and from others. So she lingers in the back, avoiding anyone who looks like they might start crying on her shoulder. Maybe she'll be a little more helpful later, once she's gotten her head wrapped around it all, once the grief settles.

It's probably a good thing that she won't get the chance. ]

[justice_is_blond]

[There's a gap in people being emotional at him, which means he's at last able to go be emotional at a face he's missed for quite some time.]

You look like someone died.

[Anders offers her a small smile, voice apologetic even as he tries to tease.]

yseult | ota

[hassaran]

[ The Division Heads are up at the front of the crowd near the pyres on a dais of sorts, a low platform constructed for the occasion to allow the assembled to be led in song or to hear speakers, and in between to give the leadership a place to stand and look like solemn representatives of an organization for which sixteen people have just died. Yseult has said nothing, not the sort for speeches under the best of circumstances and not yet having been given cause to quell any more fights or stop anyone from flinging themselves onto the woodpiles. If she has offerings to make or tokens to burn, she won't be doing it in front of a crowd, but she does bow her head as the planned portion of the memorial wraps up, lingering, drawn but dry-eyed, over some silent prayer.

But she's alert as ever to potential trouble, and at the creak of the gates and the first rumbling of noise from the back of the crowd, her head lifts to look, and then leans around to look again. It's not that big a crowd that word doesn't spread quickly, but it's hard to tell what's really going on, who is returned, exactly. (She hadn't even known he'd gone until she read his name on the report of their disappearance, had to go confirm it wasn't a mistake, that he'd really set off for Orlais and not back to sea.)

She moves quickly through the crowd, narrow skirts gathered further still where necessary, midnight blue near-black against pale skin. But with emotions so high it's impossible to avoid people entirely. A polite hand on the shoulder here to excuse herself, a foot nearly trod on there. Any of the returned might be stopped--politely and apologetically--and asked if they have all come back safely or if any were lost. The crowd milling about leaves her circling, and eventually she may even be forced to ask someone calmly but quite specifically if they have seen Darras Rivain, pirate, long-ish hair, supposedly lost with the rest on this mission. ]

[staysail]

[His hair is actually shorter. Unevenly cut, hacked at with what had passed for a knife. And he's looking for her, in the chaos of the reunion, though he'd tried to tell himself to hang back, to wait outside, by the door, up somewhere that he could find her from a distance and then approach--but that was stupid, he'd realized that from the start. It's not in Darras to hang back and wait.

If she finds him or if he finds her, it doesn't matter. Here: skip to the part where they're face to face. Not after any dramatics, the room clearing out, the crowd parting, a shaft of light falling on to a path to guide their way. Instead it happens any way it might on any other day, a chance meeting, the way they first came together. Two people in a crowded room. Except seeing Yseult feels, double, now, like a shot, the painful punch of an arrow, before the bloom of pain and blood. And the room, and the people around them, they all do seem to matter less, like a wash in the background of a painting. Darras reaches for her, when he finds a grip on her arm so he can pull her close--or maybe he pulls himself close to her. Skip to the part where they fit together. Stay, where they don't say anything yet, where there's not any talking or questioning or arguing, just this.

Yseult's hair smells like her. Skin and sweat and soap and oil and the faint undertint of perfume. It's funny how that matters. Darras closes his eyes.]

for isaac;

[libratus]

[ The first ferry that docks in the Gallows brings no sign of him; the first wave of too-swift embraces are for people more insistent than him, or less stubborn about ensuring everyone else gets across first. By the time the ferryman rows back again and brings Ilias to the scene, still turning the man's words over in his mind (significantly less dead than believed), grief is making its strange twist into astonished joy around him; for some, the mood in the courtyard has begun to brighten.

And yet.

When Ilias finally crosses the threshold, sun worn and scruffy jawed, in a torn and tattered undertunic and smelling like the backside of a gurn, the sight of the pyre makes the world tilt under his feet. Logic leaps between frayed nerve endings, taking him past wood and fuel, a last spike of adrenaline carrying him to the collection of personal effects, where coarse hands ghost at a fretfull distance over each -- counting, assigning, the knot in his chest twisting tighter as he claws through his memory for even the faintest glimmer of recognition -- hoping desperately (selfishly) to find no more than a glimmer.

(How many more died, because of who he left behind?) ]

[wythersake]

Need a light?

[ Metal presses smooth into a palm.

Not that smooth — contact recedes with the clink of beads on wood. Not the striker, then, abandoned farther down the table. Isaac draws back (there's room now, the advantage of a late entry) to regard him; doesn't look much the picture of grief or joy. He's slept. He's shaved.

He is, though it would be difficult to say, a little drunk.

No one's paying attention now. Not in the hurry of reunion. Fingers press wondering to the bristle of his jaw. There are a lot of things he'd like to do and say. Instead, ]

He's upstairs.

iorveth | ota

[aenseidhe]

[ iorveth never wants to see another nug again in his life. fuck kidnapping, fuck the desert, fuck the deep roads. when they make it back into the gallows, the thin, light cotton underclothes he'd been in are stained and dirty, the only new addition from when they'd burst forth from the wagon being a ratty pair of trousers he'd stolen off a clothes line, and a rope tied tight to keep them from falling off his skinny elf ass. there's not even the scarf on his head that usually covers the vicious scar taking up one side of his face, and the ugly lack of a right eye.

he shuffles in with gwenaelle on his arm, a hand on her waist, probably carrying her at this point more than supporting her. they were glued together during the trip, and once it's time for her to meet with her family and husband, iorveth's loathe to let her go. watching her fall into thranduil's arms, he smiles softly, and turns to face the rest of those gathered for the memorial, eyes skimming over the pyre and other ceremonial nonsense. ]

No no. My wishes were that seven human virgins be burned as sacrifice to honor my demise. I only see five here.

[ which of you humans is he calling a virgin? you will never know. ]

closed to kostos;

[ once the groups have all folded together to mingle and clutch at each other and weep in sweet relief, iorveth sinks back, watching them all from a distance after passing gwen off to her husband, giving him a silent nod, because emotions are for tools. despite what thranduil's grief pulls at in his chest.

he's frowning down at the grime on his person, clinging to his clothes, his arms, probably his neck and cheeks, and worst of all on his hands - dark dirt from the disgusting deep roads, iorveth wanting to cringe again at the thought of the black fungus that seemed to take the place down there. thankfully, none of that is on his hands, as iorveth refused to go anywhere near it, but there is still dirt and mud and nastiness there.

he's about to head to the baths, in the templar tower, when kostos crosses his path, and fuckery ensues.

pacing over, iorveth's palms splat soundly against each of kostos' cheeks, rubbing at his face in circular motions that also squish his cheeks together ridiculously, as iorveth grins at him like a half starved, douchebag fox. ] Miss me?

[rowancrowned]

[ there is, sadly, another nug, in one of thranduil's hands much like you'd hold a hot dog- firmly, by the belly, held slightly in front to protect him from jostling via thranduil's wide shoulders. at least it's a familiar nug. he's probably seen iorveth naked, at least. the kitten has been deposited with gwen and romain, but thranduil still has leviathan, for his own safety.

he reaches out. they are in public, so the touch to the edge of iorveth's shift is so light as to be nothing, but they are both attentive men, and so it can carry the weight of more. ]

Ah, I thought to myself, [ he says, soft. ] He was right. It is a terrible pain, to lose him during this war.