therookery | (no subject)

FORM: Crystal
SENDER: Herian Amsel
RECIPIENT: everyone with a crystal
WHAT: Deep Thoughts & Dogges
WHEN: during Nevarra stuff, prior to the dragon hunt & Necropolis Thriller Reenactment.
WHERE: Nevaaaarra
NOTES: content warning for themes of loss & death. Also just a heads up that Herian is (still) a big jerk about the Dalish and rebels/eager apostates

Inquisition,

( she starts, and then there is a moment of pause. Her accent is stronger than it was before her trip to Starkhaven, renewed by proximity even if it has already softened from what it had been there. She speaks with that same, inevitable control, but she does not sound quite the same type of calm as usual. )

How do you best honour the dead? Recently or long departed. I would be glad to know.

( Just a casual question, nbd.

She sure doesn't sound like "glad" should be a description of her ever, but maybe given the content she can be forgiven. There's a small bark, and though it cannot be seen, rest assured that Herian is frowning at the source. There is a measured pause, before Herian adds, )

And if any could advise me what to do with a small canine that sees fit to prance about wherever I go, I'd be grateful.

( Quietly exasperated, to the dog as she moves to end the post, ) You're too short for the stairs. Accept it.

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[There is a sigh, and a pause, as someone tries to find a way NOT to insult someone's customs and finds it really, really hard not to do so.]

Listen, I ... have never had any problem with what my people do with the dead. When I'm gone, I want to be in the Necropolis, if it's allowed. [Considering everything... it might not be.] So the customs of other lands are, well, vague to me. But if people build altars to honor Andraste and the Maker, I don't see why your loved one doesn't deserve the same level of ... respect and deference. Whomever the loved one ...was.

[And another awkward pause.]

I'm sorry for your loss.

My thanks.

( It's not an easy topic. Some part of her wonders, though, if it is easier to broach the topics with strangers than it is to wrestle them with those closer to her. It is comparatively far easier to speak with one of the Tranquil about her failures, than it is to disclose it to those dearest to her. It is easier to consider tradition and death with someone with whom she has never previously spoken, than to respond to friends asking her what decisions she has made. )

Another suggested somehow getting something named in my mother's honour, so her name is forever associated with something. I've little notion of how such grand feats are to be accomplished, or even if that would be the right course.

And I must confess that this is my first visit to Nevarra - I'll not pretend to have come close to grasping the nuances of tradition, but... I can both understand the great love that must go in crafting such memorials for the dead, and celebrating them with their own city, and... wonder if there are times when we become so absorbed in the dead it is possible to neglect the living. Not solely in Nevarra, by any means.

You're ... welcome.

[She's not entirely certain what she is being thanked for. She hasn't done anything more than just spit out some opinions. Usually that'll get her glowered at but - hey - take what you can get.]

... well. That's, ah. What sort of things did your mother ... support? Or believe in, or you know? Something she loved? Then, er, you need money.

Truthfully, I am not sure she'd be comfortable with some grand, public monument named in her honour. She was... much invested in healing, and caring for her patients. Tending what plants she could cultivate in the alienage. It is nice to imagine, though.

( She is at a loss, basically, but in a kind of calm way. Or, at least, she is very good at sounding totally calm, in the presence of strangers. )

I think it may be a mystery requiring me some time to unravel.

My mother would. [The faintest of snorts.] My mother would have wanted to have the largest statue put up in her honour in the center of Cumberland. Probably something ridiculously gilt.

[She is silent for a moment.]

.... well. Why not, uh, build a clinic?