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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
None of us expected it, I think.
[His thumb finds the crease between dark eyebrows, smooths at it twice, three times, strokes once across the hair of each brow. (The very same way she does to Leander, now, in dreams.) To press his lips there too—it would be so simple.
Instead, gently,]
Have you spoken to him?
no subject
Mn.
[ That's a yes. A voluminous one, space he isn't quite sure how to navigate yet. Instead, a delicate step around: ]
He said you read his letter.
no subject
[Stubborn crease. A soft shifting shrinks the gap that much more, brings mouth to brow after all, to speak against skin.]
The one about the name. The mirror and the monster. I shouldn't have. I'm sorry. [Again, combing softly, hand resting but for the movement of his fingers. (It's what you say.)] I told him I wanted to understand—now I do. [Words softening at the edges.] He's very beautiful.
no subject
I do not think he agrees. Not the way that you mean.
[ Not the way a smile is. Ogre's bones twisting together like tree trunks; stag muscle twining into braid. Now, skin splitting at its seams. ]
Is that why you didn't hurt him?
no subject
[A mouth is like a seam, a smile splits the skin. Not his; his face is relaxed despite the constant complaint of his ribs.]
I didn't want to hurt him. Because he's yours. [Drifting, dreamy.] I nearly did, after the spell, but he was quick. He was very brave, too. [His thumb moves against the warm skin behind an ear, settles into the crease there.] You're still dressed—do you want to sleep this way?
no subject
It is loose enough. [ It isn't; even a week of lean meals in, he's broader in the shoulders than Isaac, but an ill-fitted shirt barely ranks amongst his most pressing problems. ] I will move in a minute.
[ He might fall asleep in a minute. First, though-- lifting his eyes to find Leander's and his hand to rest gentle at a forearm, ] May I ask something of you?
Will you promise me-- [ Now, before there's reason to reconsider-- ] Promise me you won't harm him. Not for anything but your own self-defense. Not ever.
no subject
I already have.
[A whisper, the quietest pops of wet tongue and teeth. The greedy wound carved by Isaac's letter, the one that became something like an eye, that's what it was after all: a promise that made itself.]
Please stay. Here, with me. Just to sleep.
no subject
(Tomorrow, maybe he'll explain the rest tomorrow.) ]
Just to sleep, [ he agrees, forehead returning to shoulder. ] But not half on top of your ribs. Come.
[ A gesture, a gentle repositioning of bony limbs. If anyone is going to sleep with the other's weight against their chest, it ought to be him. ]