player plot | when my time comes around, pt 2

[cozen]

WHO: Anyone who didn't die here.
WHAT: A sad week.
WHEN: Approx Solas 21-30
WHERE: Granitefell, the Gallows, wherever else you want.
NOTES: A second log for this plot. Additional posts/logs will cover the time travel/fix-it components—this one is for the time period where no one knows that's a possibility.

Those who fly out to Granitefell arrive a few hours after dawn to find a smoldering gravesite and fewer than twenty living souls, Riftwatch's five included. The survivors have done what they can in the intervening hours, but there's still work to be done to tend to wounds, move the bodies—especially the delicate ones—and help the remaining villagers, mostly children, build pyres to see to their own dead before they're relocated somewhere safer. Somewhere with roofs that aren't collapsed or still lightly burning.

Carts to carry Riftwatch's dead won't arrive for some time afterward, and bringing them back takes just as long. It's a few days before they're returned to the Gallows, preserved from decay as best everyone could manage but nonetheless in poor shape from the battle. Pyres are an Andrastian tradition for a reason—to prevent possession—but burials and mummification aren't so unheard of that anyone will be barred from seeing to their loved ones as they see fit.

Before, during, and after any funerary rites, there are absences. Empty beds, empty offices, voices missing from the crystals, pancakes missing from Sundays. Belongings that need to be sorted and letters that need to be written. And, perhaps most pressingly, work that still needs to be done, including the work left behind by those who can no longer follow through on their own projects or tie up their own loose ends, as the world and its war keep moving steadily onward as if nothing happened at all.

Comments

[altusimperius]

Turning quickly toward the sound of a voice, Benedict almost seems as though he's been caught in doing something illegal or at least uncouth (which, to be fair, maybe it's the latter; he hasn't examined southern Andrastianism that much, truth be told).
He straightens, but doesn't sputter an excuse or leave. He knows Mobius to be an even-keeled type, friendly even.

"Candles," he answers dully, nudging his head toward them rather than explain further. He's tired, drained. They all are.

[favoriteanalyst]

"...Okay."

Ask stupid questions, get stupid answers. That's on him. But it's all clearly not malicious in any way. Keeping vigil, maybe. Abby might hate it, the morose moping and focus. He doesn't--didn't--know Clarisse enough to have a good idea, but she might not be a huge fan, either.

Neither of them are here to protest, and neither of their spirits are around (or shouldn't be), so.

"Can I join you?"

Unless Benedict wasn't going to stay.

[altusimperius]

Though he watches Mobius for an uncertain moment, Benedict eventually nods as he angles his gaze back toward the candles. No sense in turning anyone away, especially if he's here to pay respects as well.

[favoriteanalyst]

His knees protest a little in that way that speaks of age more than fitness as he comes down, not kneeling but cross legged. When he settles, he sags, the weight of loss like a boulder on his shoulders.

Quiet, for a few long moments. And then: "Do you mind if I say a prayer?"

[altusimperius]

Another long, slightly awkward pause, and then Benedict replies: "go ahead." It's not like either of them was Andrastian anyway, whether belonging to the northern or the southern Chantry. They wouldn't discriminate, and thus neither shall he.

[favoriteanalyst]

These things are more for the living than the dead anyway. It might not give anyone beyond any peace, but it might help set their own spirits to some form of rest.

It feels at least slightly better than empty nothingness and silence. "The Light shall lead her safely through the paths of this world, and into the next. For she who trusts in the Maker, fire is her water. As the moth sees light and goes toward flame, she should see fire and go towards Light."

[altusimperius]

Benedict weathers it at first, but as the scripture continues, something in his brain switches off and he abruptly finds he can't stand it: the recitation, the hallowedness of it, when they don't even know what happens to Rifters. Where they go.
He lurches to his feet and walks several jolting paces away, pressing a hand over his eyes. He thought he could do it, but he can't listen to this. Maybe he needed the silence. He needed to not think this hard about it.

[favoriteanalyst]

Was that a little much? Maybe it was a little much. Mobius won't apologize for his faith, but: "I'll keep my prayers on the inside, then."

[altusimperius]

"It's fine," Benedict hisses, despite it being very much not fine. He can't articulate why it isn't, so it might as well be, but he can't bear to be around it further. Wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand, he moves toward the stairwell, giving Mobius the space to do his praying so he can go sort himself out.