faithlikeaseed | [IC/OOC] Fade Rift Inbox & Contact

Ser Six. [His voice is warm, as if he’s been waiting to hear from her all day and is happy she’s called at last.] I’d be glad to spare one. What is it?

[ The warmth doesn't make her pause, but her voice does seem strained. ]

My sister is gone. I... I would like to pray for her. Properly. But I do not know how.

[After Ghislain, you think he’d be inured to this—think he’d have developed armor against hearing she’s gone.

But he is not. He will never be, each loss as wounding as the one before; and he cannot imagine how it must be for Six.

There is some transitory mercy in that Adalia’s a rifter and gone might have two meanings—]

Maker’s love. [The words ache.] She’s vanished? Or—

[A pause, then gently:] There are prayers we have for the departed. Might I offer them with you?

I do not know. She is simply no longer here.

[ It's painful. Her heart is heavy with it and there's something deep and sad that lingers, but she cannot find any means other than forcing herself to breathe in and out.

It's a constant thing, remembering that her sister is gone, that Adrian is gone, that she is alone. But she cannot think on it too long or she will find herself miserable. ]

That would be welcomed, ser. Please.

[So. No surety, no closure, but a hope she had gone home—or whatever it was that happened to rifters when their tenure on Thedas drew to an end.

It changes nothing in the size of the hole left in their hearts. Nor what might be done about.

In the end, the offices for the dead are meant most for the living.]

Of course. Where might I meet you? [Or perhaps that’s not the best thing to ask now when she’s in the thick of her grief.] If the service chapel won’t suit, I know a quiet room in the mage tower.

Any place is fine.

[ Six does not know what is the best place for these things, what she ought to do to make certain that she is understanding what is happening. It is down to Myr to know, she thinks, because this is where his talent lies.

She breathes out, sharp and sad. ]

The mage tower, perhaps? If there are less people.

[He considers the hour, and how many others might be in need of Andraste's grace after Ghislain. He considers the familiar and less-so faces he's seen in the chapel lately, and decides,]

The mage tower it is. [He names the room and how to find it.] Meet me there in ten minutes? I've a few things to collect.

And if you've something of hers with you still--you might bring that, as well.

Ten minutes will suit.

[ What might she bring of her sister's? Does she even own anything? Six frowns. ]

... I will see if there is anything left.

[I will see if there is anything left.

It hurt Myr's heart to hear that and weighed heavy on his mind as he collected what he needed, brought it down to the room he'd spoken of and arranged it on a low little table in a makeshift shrine. Candles, of course, and an icon of Andraste, laid out on a piece of cloth embroidered with Hasmali style and colors. A copy of the Chant, lovingly annotated in the margins, laid open to Trials.

And because Myr does not know if Six will find anything, because there may not be anything left, there is also an entrant's token from Wycome's Grand Melee among the offerings at the shrine. It is tattered and a little singed, but it is there and a tangible reminder of Adalia: She and Myr had fought on the same team, after all.

Once all is arranged he lights the candles with fire drawn from the Fade and steps back to regard his handiwork. As good as one might find in any home in Hasmal, and better than some could afford in the alienage--it would do.

Now all that's needed is Six--and when she arrives, Myr is there at the door to meet her.] Welcome, ser--come in.

Edited (get the right canticle in there ya scrub) 2018-12-10 14:48 (UTC)

[ Six cannot find anything of her sister's.

Her room is bare without much in it, but there are some items left. What she manages to discover is the amulet to Sarenrae she had carved alongside the dragon, and she puts them in her arms, carrying them from the Gallows to where she will meet Myr.

It is a heavy burden indeed. She did not ask for this - she did not ask to come to this world and love a sister who would be taken from her. The world is too painful already, something intense and aching that might be enough to shake her entirely. Each step she takes is a reminder of what she is sacrificing; her leg is not fully repaired yet. She wonders when it will be.

Myr is there to meet her but the tension does not bleed from her shoulders. Slowly, she offers a bow. ]

Thank you. It is kind of you to meet me.

[Myr returns the bow with one of his own, hand pressed to heart in a Hasmali gesture of esteem.] I’m glad to, ser. And I’m honored you would ask me. Please--

[He gestures her inside, toward the makeshift shrine and the prayer cushions stacked before it. Makes no suggestion of them, though; if she would rather one than the cold stone floor they are there, but he won't make her further uncomfortable by offering.] Make yourself comfortable and be at ease; you are welcome here. The Lady is kindly disposed toward all who greet Her children with peace.

[Whatever they believed; it wasn't so long after he'd spoken to Six that morning in the courtyard that he found himself leafing through Apotheosis again, found himself struck by a years-old note in his own hand: Shartan and his People never professed the Maker, yet Andraste had welcomed them all the same.

Yet they had prayed and sung with the rest of Her army and were not made ashamed for appealing to divinity by other names or no name at all--perhaps because, as Sorrel had said, the gods they treated with were neither demons nor spirits nor ancient monsters. Perhaps the Creators demanded nothing of the People contrary to the Maker's will.

Perhaps there's something to learn from that.]

You might add anything you've brought to the shrine, [he adds, kindly.] I've a question or two before we begin--to better know what it is we're praying for.

[ The bow relaxes her, just a little - formality takes the edge off her emotions and she breathes out gently, closing her eyes for a brief moment. ]

There is no one else I would ask. [ She does not immediately go to the cushions. She is not used to comfort while she prays; she is used to kneeling in the dirt, hands scabby and muddy with blood, her hair plastered to her skin. This is different, a softer kind of worship than the glory and fight of Sarenrae's honour in combat and glory in redemption. it does not make it worse, but it does not make it better, either. Simply different.

Breathing up, she stares at the world around them, feeling intent and weighted with it all, unsure of how to manage all the twisted up and dangerous emotions that have settled in her gut. Slowly moving forward, she focusses instead on leaving the trinkets on the shrine, not sure what to do with her hands once they're gone.

Eventually, she moves and settles by Myr, her face soft, drowned in echoes of sorrow. Breathing, she nods her head. ]

Ask your questions. I do not mind - whatever you need.

[Grief has its own pace, Myr knows; it has its own weight that must be borne step by aching step, and no one--especially not the grieving--knew how long the path might be. So he waits as she sizes up what's before her--the shrine, the task, the awful absence that's brought them both here--and watches her kindly without staring.

There is surely more he can do than this, he thinks. But that is something best pursued after; those are questions it is--perhaps--better not to ask directly of someone may not be used to answering them. There are those (and he recognizes himself in that mirror) who get lost when there's not a problem to be solved or a person to be aided.

It is good in its way that she takes so long to settle; it lets him think over his questions, picking carefully among them for what will be helpful rather than what's simply a matter of interest to him.]

Did Adalia have a patron of her own? [She'd never mentioned one to him; she'd spoken positively of Sarenrae but only in the context of Her closeness to Six, not in the way of one who'd experienced such communion.] And--where do the dead go, on Toril? Back to the arms of their gods?

[ Six manages herself as best she can, steeling herself, forcing herself to be stoic and strong because it is all she knows. She thinks of her reaction when Adrian had fallen, when she had realised his spirit had been taken and she had no strength nor magic to return him to her arms, realising that there were no clerics nor diamonds or magics that might save him... She had dug a grave with her own hands.

Sometimes, she thinks she can still feel the crack of the mud under her fingertips, the pain of digging with bare hands, of feeling the ground open below her. She had bled into his grave, the scar of that wound still vibrant and flush across her back, and she had resisted the urge to crawl in alongside him. She had suffered so much, she thinks: she did not want to suffer more.

Frowning, she pauses to consider the nature of Adalia's devotion. She had chosen poorly and it had been her duty, as a Paladin of Sarenrae and her sister, to guide her back toward the light. She had failed in that, surely; seeing the two of them here, seeing their delight in one another's company... ]

No. [ Pursed lips, set, tight. Not one that Six is willing to offer any kind of worship to, at least. ] I believe they return to the arms of those who most touched them. I would hope that, if she had truly died, Adalia would be welcomed in Sarenrae's embrace.

[Ah.

That's an expression--a tone--Myr recognizes as well from experience; love for one's own blood couldn't erase the disappointment one felt in their choices. (Too often enhanced it, as he'd learned worrying over Vandelin.) It raises another question--he'd heard rumors of Adalia's particular relationship, for rumors were the lifeblood of the Gallows--but not one he'll ask now or any time following. There are certainly some things he does not need to know simply to pray for her, or for Six.

So he nods to this, chewing his lower lip briefly in thought as he fits these pieces in where he might with all he knows of Andraste.]

Our lady Andraste is likewise forgiving, and we entreat Her for the souls of those who've departed into the Fade--that She'll intercede with Her Divine Husband, so He will take them up in His arms.

Those who turned aside from the Maker in life are said to wander the Void forever and only She weeps for them-- But I’d think, even there, the penitent might hear Her voice and cast off their sins to run to Her.

[He hopes. He dearly hopes.

He reaches careful fingers to touch his copy of the Chant where it lies splayed open.]

In Hasmal, a week after the death we’d sing from Trials for the departed--and pray for them a month at least. In the Circle, anyway--we were all alike there, but outside it the rich could pay for more weeks of prayer. [Like anyone else’s piety would get them where they were going, his rueful smile seems to say.]

The prayers, though--they’ve a form to them and you might change the words a little for Sarenrae, as you're not sure of any for her. I think ours would suit.

Edited (fixed this to be a little less ambiguous) 2019-01-07 00:36 (UTC)

I see.

[ Six isn't sure how she feels about the idea of people being trapped and unable to hear the voice of the God they are so devout to. Sarenrae guides, Sarenrae is gentle and soft and good, but the idea of being stopped and lost and not being able to feel any of that guidance...

She can empathise. It is what being in Thedas is like.

There's some uncertainty to her and it's obvious that she wishes that Sarenrae was here, or at least some essence of the woman, something that makes her feel less alone, something that might give her a real anchor. There's knots in her stomach and she has to force herself to breathe and calm down, to focus on this. She is praying for Adalia - for her sister, for the only family she has left.

(The only family she believes in.)

Relaxing, Six rests her hands on her lap. ]

I have some, for her, but not any that might be appropriate for a situation with no death or mercies. [ There's a frown on her face. ] But... If it is not an offence, I would use yours.

[It's not a thing Myr likes any better--there were those he loved among the dead that might now be wandering the Void; Sina's face comes most easily to mind. (As does Sina vanishing through that honeysuckled arch after he'd bid her good rest and a tiny halla bounding across the fields beyond it; a reminder that perhaps all the Chant said of death might not be complete. Might have room for something kinder in it.)

But the Adalia who lived back on Toril was not dead and wandering the Fade, though who knew exactly what became of rifters upon their disappearance from Thedas--what became of the spirits who'd been given life and form drawn from another of the Maker's worlds and set loose on this one--and since that Adalia was the one concerning them... He breathes out and considers.]

It isn't; rather, an honor, I think. Let me see-- [It's not that he needs to pick up his copy of the Chant and read from it to find the verses he wants, the prayers; he has much of it memorized, for how else could he have contemplated it when blind? But flipping through the pages and seeing the words before his eyes--seeing his own careful annotations, not all of which he'd memorized--helps him decide.]

Here, [he says, laying the book open to the prayer he's chosen,] This will suit, I think; it's for those who've left us without our certainty of their death. Those who might come back. [Usually used for lost sailors at sea or those vanished into the far northern jungles in the pursuit of the qunari heathen (or anciently the Dales, after elves)--or more often in the Circles, with an irony their friends didn't understand, for apprentices lost to Harrowing. (No one was supposed to know where you went if you failed, but the light off a templar's sword when you struggled up from under the weight of the Fade told you exactly where they'd have sent you.)

He offers it to her for her approval. Redeeming Lady, it begins, who smiles on the lost...

There are places, here and there, where it would be easy to substitute one name for another, one epithet for its counterpart. Speaking of mercy and guidance on the road home as the prayer does, it's not far off what Myr knows of Sarenrae.]

Edited 2019-03-06 09:50 (UTC)

[ It's clear that Six is struggling with this. She is out of her depth entirely, unsure what to do with herself, not sure how to manage or handle what has happened to her and what will happen in the future; there is no temple of Sarenrae to guide her here. No, instead she has a weight to her, something that makes her feel as though she might settle in knots, as though she might twist herself inside out, a longing for something that will never be present.

The tiny shrine in her room is not enough.

She wishes for the book of prayer she had with her once. She might have read them to Adalia, to offer her goddess to her lost sister once more, to give her a place. (To avoid the topic of their father, to dance around their heritage, to hide her shame). ]

Thank you. [ Her voice is, perhaps, too soft and too quiet now, not sure what to do or say. This is not her religion, this is not her path, and she accepts it because she thinks that is what she ought to do. Not even her own prayer can guide her here; loss is a loss and she will wear the mantle. There will be no pause.

Reaching out, she touches the page. ]

This... Thank you, Myr.

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