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Dive into the Dark: the Carrion Crown Play-by-Post!
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<blockquote data-quote="The Patriarchy" data-source="post: 71445" data-attributes="member: 162"><p>Aerel steps forward, the grass not even noticing his weight. “If it pleases the bereaved,” he says, “I’ll see to the wounded. For the living, there should always be hope, even in the company of the dead.”</p><p></p><p>The crowd parts, and I get a better look at the boys—one cradling a broken arm, one leaking blood from a split scalp, the third groaning softly into his own vomit. Two more lie nearby, tangled like fallen marionettes. They smell like cheap rye and cheaper tobacco. Aerel kneels beside the worst-off, and his touch is neither gentle nor cruel, but—strange word—chaste. He closes his hand over the boy’s shoulder, murmurs a phrase soft as the rain, and then: a tingle, ozone-bright, the wound closing up in a neat pink spiral.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Aerel Feillendril</p><p></p><p>Returning from the tangle of battered boys, I find the mourners breaking apart into two separate orders of sorrow: one clinging tight to the grave, faces set against the wind, the other drifting to the periphery, stealing glances at the blood-stained grass as if it might begin to bloom in the old professor’s absence. With the last vestige of wound mended and the sharp scent of ozone trailing at my heels, I resume my post at the head of the coffin, hands folded—one to still my own tremor, the other to honor the dead.</p><p></p><p>The casket itself is a plain, honest vessel—oak, lacquered only by weather and the industry of local carpentry. It rests unevenly upon the mound of earth, a mute challenge to the formalities of burial. I lay a bare palm against the wood, anointing it with the chill that is my birthright, and wait for the congregation’s whisper to fall beneath the hush of morning.</p><p></p><p>It is time.</p><p></p><p>I close my eyes and exhale, conjuring the familiar cadence of the funereal rite, then begin: “Let no one say that Petros Lorrimor left this world unmarked. Though his bones rest here among the common clay, his legacy seeds the fields of memory and fear alike. Where some men reap only silence or shame, he sowed questions—and in their shadow, hope.”</p><p></p><p>The words drift out, softer than I intend, but the listeners lean in. I feel the point of it: the man with the staff in the back, arms folded across his chest in a pose meant to mask the shudder beneath; Kendra at my right hand, standing so rigidly her shadow could have been carved in basalt; the pointy eared mutant, whose subtle mimicry of elven stoicism does not quite hide the small, desperate sounds caught at the back of his throat; the maceman, his attention fixed and predatory, as if the delivery of this eulogy were part of a larger hunt.</p><p></p><p>“We come not to judge the sum of the professor’s days, but to bear witness to a debt—one owed by the living to the dead, and by the dead to those who dare remember them. The Lady of Graves asks nothing but this: that we carry the tale forward, uncorrupted and unafraid.”</p><p></p><p>The crows on the stones seem to understand, tilting their heads in shared approval or perhaps simple hunger. The wind carries away the last syllable before it can shatter.</p><p></p><p>I open my eyes and see that the crowd is listening as if to a spell, each mourner suspended for an instant in the gravity of what remains unsaid.</p><p></p><p>Kendra Lorrimor</p><p></p><p>I am not the one to speak, not now, not when my voice would betray me, but I stand at the very edge of the words, feeling the chill of Aerel’s hand through the lid of the coffin and the marrow of my own spine. My father would have liked this—no overwrought pieties, no hollowed-out comfort, just the blunt edge of truth, honed to something almost beautiful.</p><p></p><p>Aerel’s features are unreadable, but I see the faultline of sadness running beneath his even timbre, and for a split second I am brought back to every late night at the window, every lesson in the library, the two of us listening to my father’s lectures and only understanding them years later. I can no longer tell if I am crying from grief or from the relief of being understood, even if only in passing.</p><p></p><p>(this is your opportunity to speak on your memories, if you want to speak on your experiences with the professor roll D20 [USER=1]@Memento Mori[/USER] [USER=544]@Schwarzwald[/USER] [USER=271]@Apollo Tenzen[/USER] ) (you can remember anything you want i will edit anything out of order)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="The Patriarchy, post: 71445, member: 162"] Aerel steps forward, the grass not even noticing his weight. “If it pleases the bereaved,” he says, “I’ll see to the wounded. For the living, there should always be hope, even in the company of the dead.” The crowd parts, and I get a better look at the boys—one cradling a broken arm, one leaking blood from a split scalp, the third groaning softly into his own vomit. Two more lie nearby, tangled like fallen marionettes. They smell like cheap rye and cheaper tobacco. Aerel kneels beside the worst-off, and his touch is neither gentle nor cruel, but—strange word—chaste. He closes his hand over the boy’s shoulder, murmurs a phrase soft as the rain, and then: a tingle, ozone-bright, the wound closing up in a neat pink spiral. Aerel Feillendril Returning from the tangle of battered boys, I find the mourners breaking apart into two separate orders of sorrow: one clinging tight to the grave, faces set against the wind, the other drifting to the periphery, stealing glances at the blood-stained grass as if it might begin to bloom in the old professor’s absence. With the last vestige of wound mended and the sharp scent of ozone trailing at my heels, I resume my post at the head of the coffin, hands folded—one to still my own tremor, the other to honor the dead. The casket itself is a plain, honest vessel—oak, lacquered only by weather and the industry of local carpentry. It rests unevenly upon the mound of earth, a mute challenge to the formalities of burial. I lay a bare palm against the wood, anointing it with the chill that is my birthright, and wait for the congregation’s whisper to fall beneath the hush of morning. It is time. I close my eyes and exhale, conjuring the familiar cadence of the funereal rite, then begin: “Let no one say that Petros Lorrimor left this world unmarked. Though his bones rest here among the common clay, his legacy seeds the fields of memory and fear alike. Where some men reap only silence or shame, he sowed questions—and in their shadow, hope.” The words drift out, softer than I intend, but the listeners lean in. I feel the point of it: the man with the staff in the back, arms folded across his chest in a pose meant to mask the shudder beneath; Kendra at my right hand, standing so rigidly her shadow could have been carved in basalt; the pointy eared mutant, whose subtle mimicry of elven stoicism does not quite hide the small, desperate sounds caught at the back of his throat; the maceman, his attention fixed and predatory, as if the delivery of this eulogy were part of a larger hunt. “We come not to judge the sum of the professor’s days, but to bear witness to a debt—one owed by the living to the dead, and by the dead to those who dare remember them. The Lady of Graves asks nothing but this: that we carry the tale forward, uncorrupted and unafraid.” The crows on the stones seem to understand, tilting their heads in shared approval or perhaps simple hunger. The wind carries away the last syllable before it can shatter. I open my eyes and see that the crowd is listening as if to a spell, each mourner suspended for an instant in the gravity of what remains unsaid. Kendra Lorrimor I am not the one to speak, not now, not when my voice would betray me, but I stand at the very edge of the words, feeling the chill of Aerel’s hand through the lid of the coffin and the marrow of my own spine. My father would have liked this—no overwrought pieties, no hollowed-out comfort, just the blunt edge of truth, honed to something almost beautiful. Aerel’s features are unreadable, but I see the faultline of sadness running beneath his even timbre, and for a split second I am brought back to every late night at the window, every lesson in the library, the two of us listening to my father’s lectures and only understanding them years later. I can no longer tell if I am crying from grief or from the relief of being understood, even if only in passing. (this is your opportunity to speak on your memories, if you want to speak on your experiences with the professor roll D20 [USER=1]@Memento Mori[/USER] [USER=544]@Schwarzwald[/USER] [USER=271]@Apollo Tenzen[/USER] ) (you can remember anything you want i will edit anything out of order) [/QUOTE]
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