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

closed to Gela

[wearyallalone]

Vanya has purposely waited until a time he thinks won't be very busy to pay his last respects to the bodies of those they'd lost. He'd met nearly all of them at least glancingly, considering how heavily Forces was represented. Some are hard in ways he mostly expects (Abby, Gwenaëlle, Ellis); others are unexpectedly complicated (Rowntree, Barrow).

But he finds himself lingering, eventually, not because of any particular individual but because of a nagging uneasiness that he tells himself is inappropriate but cannot fully dismiss.

People across Thedas burn their dead every day. But he finds himself too Nevarran in his heart to accept it easily. He should go, his respects paid, but it's hard to know that in a few days, most of those in this room will be ash. From the outside, it looks like a man standing alone in the visitation room, frowning at nothing in particular.

hops in

[sprent]

It's terrible, isn't it, how the feeling sits in your stomach like a stone. When Gela sees him lingering around she understands why, comes in at once to stand with him, her arms folded across herself. There is a solidarity, between them. She says, looking less at one of the shrouded bodies and more at the toe of her boot, "I can't stand it." Calm, and soft. "I know that's wrong. But," truthfully, "so is this."

You can't visit ash. You can't look at an urn like you might a face.

She adds, "Are you okay?"

[wearyallalone]

He glances over at her. Quietly: "As much as anyone is." So ... not really. More than some. He doesn't ask if she's alright, under the assumption that she isn't.

Instead, after a moment, he says, "You know, I noticed before. A lot of people talk about the North and the South, and they just mean Tevinter and a combination of the Marches, Orlais and Fereden." Ravain was technically north of the Imperium, for the most part. "When I left home it was to go to war, at first, I didn't stop and think things about the rest of Thedas are going to feel strange."

And now it's been years, and he's still aware of his accent setting him apart. Aware of how much he took for granted that the rest of Thedas doesn't share.

[sprent]

She didn't expect any other answer, has to wonder why she keeps asking. Out of habit, maybe. Or because she doesn't know what else to say.

Gathering her hair behind her head to tug it into some bun is also familiar comfort, the way she plucks at it while he speaks, rewinding it a few times to make sure the hair stays put.

"When I left Cumberland I was running," is more honest than she's been about Nevarra to anybody else, and in a long time. Secrets don't feel like they matter as much any more. "And I was already scared. I think that set the tone for everywhere else. I didn't think this would bother me so much."

But it does. It really does, she keeps sticking on it. When she puts her hand on his arm, it's to squeeze and bolster him. "You aren't the only one."

[wearyallalone]

He looks over at her and covers her hand with his own. "I wasn't sure that it was ... not everyone in Riftwatch is eager to talk about where they came from." Which was to say, he wasn't avoiding asking her about Neverra before because he hadn't thought about the connection. He's not sure that this is an invitation to talk about it more, either, but he leaves that door open.

After a moment, unsure whether this is the right thing but offering anyway: "If you ever don't make it back from a mission. If you'd like. I can make sure they don't burn you." He's aware he might be overstepping, but the offer is genuine.

[sprent]

There's a nice sort of kinship there, when he puts his hand over hers. She's spent a lot of time holding any mention of Nevarra at arm's length for fear of somebody asking her too many questions she wouldn't have enough answers for; now, it doesn't seem like it really matters. There are even worse things out there than Gela.

She looks at him the moment he says it, the thoughtfulness a sting on her grief. Tears rise up quickly, and skip down her cheeks before she can think of holding them back.

Taking her hand back so she can wipe them away hurriedly, "I would like that. Thank you. I'd do the same for you."

[wearyallalone]

He nods. As recently as a few years ago, he'd have been surprised to find it mattered to him anymore. But faced with this sort of calamity, the comfort in her offering the promise in return is a bit more legible to him.

(He found he'd half expected Benevenuta to turn up, outraged at the organization's approach. That might have been comforting too, in its way.)

He has a handkerchief, plain but clean, which he offers to her. After a moment, again unsure if he's overstepping but willing to risk doing so, he asks, "Was there anyone we lost you were especially close to? I mean, we all ..." It was a small organization, Riftwatch. Everyone had likely known all sixteen of them at least in passing. But he knows he feels certainly losses more keenly than others, himself.

[sprent]

Gela takes it, murmuring thank you; she might hold onto it for a while longer, especially in light of this next question. It doesn't feel like overstepping either. In fact, she thinks it's very kind of him to ask. Most people here have lost loved ones, and she can't compete with that. Gela has been here for a year and change, thinks she is friendly with most but close to very few. Of that little group, only Ellie remains.

Quietly, "Jude. And Clarisse. And I was making better friends with Barrow, I think... I don't know.

"I wanted to know more about them."

But they're gone, and Gela can't even do them the decency of getting through that door to go sit with them, say a proper goodbye before the pyre turns them to dust. What is wrong with her? It's just that when she thinks about fire passing over and taking away Jude's smile, his strong, gentle hands; Clarisse's strength, her pride, the bashfulness with which she spoke of Ellie, it makes her feel so bitter and miserable she can barely stand it.

Her eyes are wide and watery again, tongue passing slowly over her teeth. She presses the handkerchief delicately to the corner of one eye and looks at him. "You?"

[wearyallalone]

"I knew many of them," is probably unsurprising; a lot of those who fell had been members of Forces. "I don't know if I would say close. Abby and I trusted one another." Had said so, in so many words, a few months back; it was something that clearly weighed with him. Something he didn't take for granted. "I wouldn't say we were close, but Mlle. Baudin and I ... She thought I was worth her honesty, and I valued that about her."

He doesn't look, but he can almost feel an itch on his neck from the direction of where a particular body is resting. "I respected Ellis very much." Had they been friends? Vanya isn't sure it's his place to say, but the loss he'd felt had been real and sharp regardless. Maybe they were friends; maybe they could have been, if they hadn't both been folded into organizations that weren't made for friendship years before.

He lingers over that short sentence for just a moment, the weight of it, before returning to her list. "I knew all three of yours, though not well. Jude was always so kind to everyone, though, even not knowing him much it's easy to see the hole he left."

[sprent]

“I knew yours too.” Not personally, not well. But Gela saw them around, and spoke to each of them and was friendly. Riftwatch was already small before this happened, and now it is impossibly little. Holding itself together. She touches his arm. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

And he’s so right about Jude. Gela can imagine him being here and wanting to help in all of his little ways. Wouldn’t matter what shape he was in.

In spirit of this thought she thinks to tell Vanya, “If… you ever want to talk about it—or not talk about it—you can come and find me.” But it’s not entirely true to Jude’s kindness, because she offers it on her own behalf, too. Grieving alone is so hard.

[wearyallalone]

"It is very kind," he says even so, meaning it. "I admit that I am a man who traditionally finds it easier to listen than to talk. But perhaps it would help, one day." He adds, with a fleeting bit of irony, "Well, or if you would find it helpful to have someone listen." He can, at least, offer that.

After a short pause, he adds, "Also I am sorry that Mobius and I did a bad job with the pancakes." It is deadpan, but if you squint, it's almost a joke. It is, at least, gently self-deprecating.

[sprent]

"Thank you. I'll remember that." Maybe not now, when she feels this raw, but Gela thinks she will take him up on this offer in the near future, even if only for some quiet, understanding company.

What he says next catches her off guard; a rusty little giggle bursts out of her, followed quickly by tears. She catches them hastily with the handkerchief she had balled in one hand.

"No," she says, quick to reassure him. "No, they were good! Sort of.

"It was so nice of you both to try."

[wearyallalone]

"It only felt ... I thought everyone would be thinking of their absence." Of Jude's absence, more specifically. "But I have never been much of a cook. No need to practice, and so. But it seems ... I think it would be satisfying. People need to eat, and so you feed them." It's an impulse he can easily understand, even if it's not a skill he's been in a position to cultivate.

[sprent]

"That's true." And Jude would have fed everybody. He would have been in the kitchens from morning to night making pancakes, every day, if he thought it would help.

She speaks suddenly without thinking it through. "He was so kind to me when I first got here and I didn't have anybody at all... And now I'm supposed to keep going, doing all these little things. Like it isn't so hard."

Her voice breaks on the last word. She bites the inside of her cheek. The lump in her throat feels more like a spike. "Nothing is satisfying. How do you find something like that?"

[wearyallalone]

"It is hard," he says, muted. "I was thinking ... even the people here I barely knew. I would see them in the training yard, or at meals, or on the ferry. It is a great deal. For all of us who are left, even if not everyone shows it."

Vanya himself tends to quiet, to holding his injuries close. But whether it's an accent that sounds like home or just Gela's own raw hurt, it feels important to him to be honest now.

"I cannot say that I am any kind of wise man, when it comes to grief. So I cannot offer any real advice beyond ... I put one foot in front of the other as best I can. And on days it is not as crushing, I try to help others, if I'm able. We have, all of us, had much more than we should have to bear. But I think." He hesitates, unsure if the next thought is helpful or not. Eventually, though, he decides in favor: "I think the Venatori would like it very much. If the rest of us just lay down and stopped trying. And I do not wish to give them the satisfaction."