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

for byerly.

[indissection]

It does not offend her, necessarily, to find that Byerly was not at the funeral - her funeral, even if it might have been shared with others. It hurts, a little, to think he did not come, but she imagines it something a little difficult for him to manage. No, Sidony knows him well enough to think that he might have buried himself in the midst of a bottle of wine and let himself labour over his thoughts in that way rather than come here and be publicly mournful.

Who would allow themselves to show such emotion to the general public? Certainly not either of them.

She gives herself the time to go and have a quick bath - hand in hand with a sobbing, mournful handmaiden who was so certain her mistress had died and abandoned her here - and get a change of clothes before she marches her way over to Byerly's room, prepared to knock some sense into him with a gentle touch and herself sitting primly on his lap, as she is wont to do. He'll welcome it, surely, after being bereft of her company for so long.

Sidony doesn't even wait after she's knocked; she raps, once, with sharp knuckles before she steps inside, head held high and her eyes scanning the room.

"Byerly? Show yourself. I've missed you."

[bouchonne]

He looks -

Not great.

The room stinks of unwashed confinement. The source of the smell is sitting upright, at least, but barely - slouched in a chair, clad in nothing but his breeches, red-smudged bandages wrapped around his chest. In his hand is not a bottle of wine, thank you, but rather a spirit far stronger and far fouler - his eyes are red with it, or with exhaustion, or perhaps with a different unnamed substance.

When he sees her walk in, his response is not to jump to his feet, or cheer, or even smile. Instead, all he does is give her a hard stare, and raise the bottle to his lips again. (The problem with having taken an unnamed substance - this isn't the first instance of something unreal that he's seen today.)

[indissection]

The smell is almost enough to have her turning away from him in disgust, but she manages to steel herself. It's not nearly as bad as the smell of corpses and she'd quickly grown used to those. No, this is simply an unwashed man and she feels somewhat of a need to make sure he's alright - and, perhaps, to throw some cold water over him to wake him from his stupor.

Moving through, she raises her eyebrows as she sees the spirit, making her way over and leaning over Byerly with a soft sigh. She's uncertain what she had expected, but this... This is beyond what she had anticipated. She had only known of her own 'death' for a few mere hours; how long had he thought her gone from him forever?

Long enough for this, she supposes.

"Dear heart," her voice is soft, far more tender than it might be for anyone else. "Is this any way to greet a woman who has crossed Thedas itself to find you?"

[bouchonne]

It is not the first time Byerly has spoken to a hallucination of his; it shall not be, he suspects, the last. Another hard swig of the rot-gut, and then he says, voice dripping with sarcasm -

"Crossed Thedas, to arrive precisely at the moment of her own funeral, at a time when I am most extraordinarily high." His voice is eerily precise and dispassionate - Byerly only slurs when he's pretending to be drunk. Like this, his diction is perfect.

"Yes. That seems likely."

[indissection]

"Come now. Had you attended my funeral you would've known that I hadn't died. You're lucky I took the time to clean up before I came here - imagine the scent if both of us were as disgusting as you are currently."

Careful hands reach out to take the bottle from his, to place it to one side, if his grip is lax enough. Then she might reach out and touch his cheek with her fingers - still warm, still soft despite her travels, her hair falling over one shoulder as perfectly as it always has. Her expression is unwavering, all tenderness and warmth for this man, the closest she has to family here.

"I've never seen you high before. It's not particularly charming."

[bouchonne]

"The more precise term for it would be dans le melange. Orlesian term, of course. You can count on Orlesians to be able to describe that precise and transcendent state when you are high and also pissed and also..."

Ah. His bottle is gone. Why is his bottle gone? And why does his cheek tickle? He reaches up and encounters something solid, and doesn't entirely understand. The hallucinations do not, in his experience, extend to the physical. So he squints up at it, baffled.

[indissection]

“And also completely oblivious to reality?” It’s said gently enough, Sidony’s voice quiet as she looks at him. Is it just her death that had caused this? Or was there more than her on that journey and he is suffering completely? There’s an ache in her heart as her fingers brush through his hair, leaning down to press a gentle kiss to his forehead. It’s like some silly, girlish fantasy, save his intoxication.

Eyes closing, she breathes out.

“It was a hideous journey. All I wished was to come back and sit with you and drink some wine. Do you think you might sleep this off so that you can welcome me back properly, or are you determined to contest reality?”

[bouchonne]

He's quiet a long moment. That kiss was hard to deny. Even in his state, that felt very real. Exceedingly real. He reaches up to touch the spot, confused, uncertain.

"Are - you a Fade spirit?"

[indissection]

“No. I am simply alive.”

Sidony nudges his arm, hoping to move him enough that she might settle properly on his lap. It might be less comfortable for him, but he deserves it for not believing she is real, surely. That’s what she imagines, at least.

“We never died. It seems they falsified it somehow, but we were forced to travel through the Deep Roads and across the world to return. Perhaps our timing might have been better, but at leafy I can rely on the drama.”

[bouchonne]

He doesn't quite move, not quite yet. Instead, he shakes his head.

"That's a lie," he says, his voice dispassionate. "I saw. I went after you, and I saw. They gave us your things. They said that you were killed by an abomination. All of you."

He lifts his hand, starts to reach out - but stops just short of her. Afraid to make that final bit of contact, lest she disappear. His eyes grow redder, and wet, and then tears spill over - but he doesn't make a sound, or even acknowledge them.

[indissection]

“Oh, my darling, dear heart -“ Sidony does not pause. She reaches and wipes at his tears, her own hands shaking as she does. Selfishly she had wanted this, to have been mourned, to think of herself as missed, but witnessing it in person does no more than leave her aching and hurting. Instead of celebrating it she leans close, her forehead on his.

“You were misled, Byerly. I give you my word that I am real, that I live, that I’ve come back to you. Thank you for coming for me - for trying.”

Her voices aches with her tenderness and she wraps her arms around his neck.

“I’m alive. I’m here, darling. I’m safe.”

[bouchonne]

He shifts when she grasps at him - and then flinches a little bit, the wound in his side aching. No matter. His brain is still not quite capable of comprehending this - it's impossible, it seems to him, that she's returned; he still thinks that he'll come out of it, or wake up, or something - but there's no reason not to succumb to the illusion while it lasts.

And so he pulls at her, drawing her down to sit upon him. And he buries his unshaven face against her shoulder. "Don't go away again."

[indissection]

She cannot imagine what it might be like to see someone you thought dead return - she has no experience of this. No, Sidony only knows her own heart and her own trials, and she sits here with him knowing that he needs her. It’s a silly, strange thought; she’s never felt necessary before. She’s never felt vital, but clearly Byerly had mourned her far more deeply than she could have anticipated.

It makes her heart ache a little.

“Never again,” she agrees easily enough. “And if I must go then you shall come with me. You were to be my fiancé once, were you not? It is only right that you protect your bride.” It’s meant to be teasing, her fingers lifting to hold his head in place, to stroke through his hair. “I shan’t leave you alone again.”