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Entry tags:
- ! open,
- alexandrie d'asgard,
- bastien,
- benedict quintus artemaeus,
- darras rivain,
- gwenaëlle strange,
- isaac,
- james flint,
- john silver,
- julius,
- kostos averesch,
- teren von skraedder,
- yseult,
- { adasse agassi },
- { alistair },
- { anders },
- { colin },
- { ilias fabria },
- { iorveth },
- { leander },
- { merrill },
- { nathaniel howe },
- { romain de coucy },
- { sidony veranas },
- { sorrelean ashara },
- { thor }
open: lol never mind.
WHO: Open!
WHAT: A memorial that doesn’t go as planned.
WHEN: Justinian 1
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Nah.
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.
(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.
no subject
"I'm sorry," he whispers. "I didn't know, I couldn't have changed anything if I did, we moved as quickly as we could, but..." But nothing. He'd hurt people around him and he hates it.
no subject
He wipes at a tear that fell from his eye.
“It’s a shame you missed your wake, though.”
no subject
"Is it?" Anders glances toward the front of the building. "I'm a little surprised I'm not burning in effigy up there, truth be told."
It's said lightly, but he can't deny that ever since the ferryman had explained the chuckling he's been wondering if there were some celebrating and wanting to turn this into an international holiday of sorts. He shouldn't think about that. It doesn't help anything. But he does nonetheless.
"Was there at least good food?"
no subject
no subject
"I really am sorry," he says again. "Obviously being captured isn't on my list of favorite activities, but maybe we should have tried harder to leave some sort of sign when we escaped. Though I'm... I'm not entirely clear on why we were reported dead? The ferryman didn't have that particular detail."
no subject
no subject
There's still fear whenever he admits to someone being important to him, but with all they've been through this feels like something that needs to be said.
"Are you... all right?" Obviously Colin was upset and Anders is touched by that, but he's also very aware of the fact that he'd promised to be there for Colin no matter what and then got abducted and presumed dead.