crystal ||

[inkindled]

FORM: sending crystal
SENDER: Matthias, on behalf of team rescue
RECIPIENT: everyone. except the dead people :,(
NOTES: info here to help you mourn accordingly. this is forward dated to 5.24 so we can make the most of this tragedy.

This is Matthias. I'm with the team that went after the missing party. They were on an assignment, looking into these elven ruins at Baron Deshaies' estate, and they--

They're dead. [He doesn't sound sad, precisely. It's the calm of someone that's gotten used to this.] We confirmed it with an Inquisition contact. Their capture from Deshaies' was purposeful but their deaths, they were-- The whole thing was the work of these mercenaries. They had a Tevinter mage with them, he was there on an assignment of his own. Somewhere on the way back, our party tried an escape. That mage, he's dead now as well, from their attempt. So they must've come close. Not that it matters now. Sometimes it's a comfort, is all.

We've made our report to the Division Heads and we're coming back, to the Gallows. We've got some of their things, that were recovered. The bodies were burned. But we thought everyone ought to know, now. Instead of waiting.

[That's the script. Matthias hesitates, and in a break from what he'd prepared to say--speaking now with more conviction, speaking in half a rush, as if he might regret what he's going to say and so has to get it all out--]

Their names were Merrill, Kitty, Anders, Sorrell, Teren, Wysteria, Bastien, Gwenaëlle [a name he's practiced saying; he stumbles on just a little], Ilias, Kain, Darras, Iorveth, John Silver, Loki, Sidony, and Magni. Saying their names, it's important. There's nothing we can do to change it or bring them back, but--they ought not to be forgotten.

Comments

[inkindled]

[Uncertain all over again, Matthias hesitates.]

Which one was she? Your wife.

[rowancrowned]

Gwenaëlle Baudin.

[inkindled]

[Oh. Yeah. All right, now he's putting this together--the bloody great elf, head of research--he makes her name sound easy, when he says it, like it's nothing, but of course he'd be able to manage that--and for half a second, Matthias thinks of pointing out how well he did with the name. Like that matters; like that would come off as anything but stupid. Like he should even be talking to this fellow at all.]

Yeah. Well-- [Sorry, but he can't quite get it out. Stupid as well, isn't it, to say sorry. Stupid to say anything.] It is bad, for a bit. Seriously bad. Then it stays bad, but more like-- like digging through a mountain.

[Even that feels lame. Because it is lame. Matthias chews on his sleeve a minute, absent and anxious and unsure. He charges on.]

You can have anything of hers. No one'd stop you. I dunno what happens with the rest of it. I s'ppose you could say, if it came down to it. Or at least you'd get to cast one of the votes.

[rowancrowned]

I will pass through it, [ he says, not unkindly. at least, he is familiar with it. ] There is a war to be won.

Thank you for your sympathy. She will have... settled things. I will look through her papers. My concern was not for her.

[ wry: ] I do not think anyone would try.

[inkindled]

[Mumbled, as true embarrassment overtakes him:] Yeah, sure. 'Course.

[Matthias stares at nothing for a few moments, trying to master himself. Tamping down that emotion leaves space for something more complicated. Opposite of sympathy, there's a strange sort of jealousy. He hasn't got the truth-telling thing to blame this on, and it's not the sort of thing to be said, but--]

If everyone had papers of that sort, s'ppose you wouldn't need to be concerned about it at all. 'Cause it'd be clear, what was to be done with their things, with whatever there is.

[rowancrowned]

The logistics are-- a puzzle.

[ a good thing to fuss over now, he means, when he has- he has nothing left, really. too many names on that list held dear, and his dearest of all. there is the war, and the after, now made bleak and empty of her.

he is tired. ]

A good distraction. But I will not hamper your work.

[inkindled]

[Well. That teeters Matthias back from the edge of inappropriate envy and indignation, back toward the more complex side of commiseration. Damn.

As gruff as he can manage, then--]

I mean, so--if you want to help unknot it, without wills and paperwork and all the rest of that posher stuff. I don't want the responsibility, not the full responsibility, leastwise.

Don't think anyone ought to be the sole holder of the things. Saying who gets what for good and all, one judge over all of it. Looks unfair and impartial.