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

[gottakeeponejumpahead]

He sniffled deeply, nodding his head before he made a face and shuddered at the very thought of darkspawn. Especially darkspawn in that number. His face shifted, though, to fiercely angry when Sorrel spoke of the Baron.

"I knew it - I Knew It. I knew that shem was a fucking liar ... " He shook his head once more, "I'll kill that bastard with my bare fucking hands."

[writteninblood]

"I think there's a line for it, and a lot of scary people in that line," Sorrel replies, honestly, and strokes his thumb across the angry wrinkles Adasse is making, "Can he wait, though? I'd like a bath, and I'm in no mood to have you any farther away than this."

It ought to have been innuendo, but Sorrel is appalled to hear it come out more like begging. He tries again, or means to; he's missed too many meals, lately, to make a joke out of hunger.

"Bath with dinner?" The wet faces and continual leaking tears don't do the humor any favors, neither. Sorrel gives up and only asks, honestly, "I think I'd kill for a bite of venison just now. I could eat a bear."

He has certainly lost weight. They all have.

[gottakeeponejumpahead]

Adasse let out a long and harsh breath, before he nodded and pressed a kiss to Sorrel's forehead. "Yes - yes. Of course. Come on, let's ... let's get you something from the kitchen before this horde descends on it, and then bath. Then you and I are going to be locked in the room for at least a day while I hug the daylights out of you."

He leaned back, but kept hold of Sorrel's hand, tight as he dared.

[writteninblood]

"Alright, but only if you promise to do more than just hug me," not contend to simply hold hands, Sorrel wound their arms together for more contact; the time for any amount of hiding their mutual claim was gone, "And since you're dying to just pick me up..."

Don't lie, he knows you.

"...You should know, I'm bloody exhausted and much too sore to go up all those stairs to our room. So you won't even have to wait that long, if you don't like."

[gottakeeponejumpahead]

"I promise, you'll get more than hugs. Kisses. Canoodling. Whatever you want - because honestly I'd be your own carpet right now love." Adasse grinned wildly, before he turned around and crouched slightly.

"Come on then. I'm going to give you the halla-ride you so need right now."

[writteninblood]

He ought to have known it would be a Halla-ride. But still, because the way he grumbles and pretends to mind is at least half the point of it, Sorrel sighs heavily to express a vague sense of unearned dignity, then drapes himself across Adasse's shoulders, wrapping his legs around in the indicated manner.

Actually, it's quite nice. Like this, he has to put his arms around Adasse's neck and shoulders, and it takes the pressure off his knees, which is nice. And then there's the warm, welcome way it lets him put his face right up next to Adasse's hair, and cuddle close. Quite nice indeed.

"Onward, faithful Halla," He says, deadpan and teasing, "To the kitchens!"

[gottakeeponejumpahead]

"... I have no idea what noise a halla makes so you're on your own there, love." Adasse answered back, equally straight-faced, before he 'galloped' away from the memorial-turned-party, towards the kitchens as fast as he could with a Sorrel curled up behind him. Not that it matted, he hugged the other man's legs far too tightly, just to know he was really there.