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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
There'd been even more people he lost where he hadn't had a chance to attend any sort of funeral. It's a small reprieve, being wrong about a loss this once. For all he'd pulled away from other people who'd known Anders, rather than toward them, he'd been grieving it in his own way.
"I'm sure there will be a more general answer to where all of you have been, so for now, I'll just ask whether you're well?" Beyond the obvious road-wear, it's hard to tell.
no subject
"People thinking I'm dead doesn't hurt me," he says quietly. It's the ones he'd left behind he's feeling for right now more than himself, which is part of why he half-answers Julius' inquiry with a shrug. "I'm never going to be all right being held or feeling my magic being taken away, but I survived again. Survived and got away again. That counts for a good deal."
As does having a place to run to, even if it's Kirkwall, and people there. Anders needs people. He needs his people, and whether or not he and Julius see eye-to-eye on the Current Pressing Matters of the Day, Julius is included in that group.
no subject
"Maker, I don't know what to say, though, I've never had someone turn up at their own memorial on me before." It's enough, at least, to wring this much honesty out of him.