The trip back is incredibly quiet, but that seems only reasonable considering how exposed everyone must feel. Emmrich gives people room. He too needs a little time to process, and doesn't want to intrude. For that reason he doesn't meet Teren's gaze the first time she glances at him. He'd already seen her reaction to walking into a solid surface. Emmrich can't imagine she'd be any happier to know he'd seen her grief.
The second time she looks his way, she stays looking. It feels like an invitation. Emmrich meets her gaze and moves through the small group to walk beside her.
"Warden Teren," he says, an acknowledgement that's meant to also serve as an invitation in return.
“Professor.” Her mouth is dry and her mind swirls too quickly for her to vocalize anything useful beyond the title. She opens her mouth, closes it again, looks away; when one has spent as long as she has stuffing every thought and feeling into the deepest untouched recesses of one’s psyche, it can be difficult to even understand what she wants her question to be.
In a way, she’s waiting: for acknowledgment that he saw what he did, perhaps. If he didn’t, there’s no reason not to stifle it along with all the rest.
Several steps pass in silence, the opposite of their first meeting. That she wants to speak on something is clear, as was the fact that he was who she wished to speak with out of the whole of the party. Considering what he'd seen and his occupation Emmrich feels like he can make a reasonable guess.
"I've heard their names, of course." There were many with at least two of those names, but in context of each other and wardens the individuals were identifiable.
"But you knew them personally," he continued. Another easy guess. One does not feel grief like that over strangers. The door was now open, as simple as his words had been. It was not his place to guess at how she wanted to deal with the grief, only to enable her to approach it and assist her along the way.
She holds onto it until he's finished speaking, his gentle voice creeping through her walls until, unexpectedly, it's a correction rather than agreement she has to offer.
"They were mine," she brokenly exhales, the muscles on her face trembling before she steadies them again. It seems impossible for one so thin to carry so much inside, her shoulders shaking with the effort.
He offers her his arm. Perhaps she does not need it, but personally he's always found physical contact helpful with pain, and if tears come then she has a steadying aid on that front too.
"Tell me about them," Emmrich says quietly. "That which was yours, that the world has lost." He knows this grief. Every student he's had is his. There are scrapbooks back home in his rooms in the Necropolis, filled with every clipping he's come across from each of them. Through the years some have fallen and it has hurt every single time.
She doesn't take his arm, still obstinately walled in to a degree-- what an alarming sight that would be, Teren von Skraedder walking in-arm-in arm with a Nevarran gentleman like some alternate, classy version of herself.
"Fools and idealists," she says quietly, "stupid boys." Her look is hard, strained, fixed straight ahead. "The world was unkind to them. And I was theirs as well."
When she doesn't take his arm he brings it back in, but not completely. It will be easy enough for her to steady herself if she chooses to do so.
There are many things he could say, and few of them useful. Were they not all possibly foolish idealists, attempting to deal with a being some consider a god? And the world could be fickle indeed, dealing unkindness far more frequently than the reverse. But that was general, sweeping, and empty.
"You found a family with them." He can feel the way her focus is ahead of them. If the 'boys' were in front of them now, she'd grab them by the scruff of their necks and shake them, he's quite certain, before breaking down and embracing them. "As I did with the Mourn Watch."
And now he is here, without the Watch, and she is here, without her three. Did she have others, back in Kirkwall? He hoped she did.
The Mourn Watch, an organization of which Teren has been aware most of her life and only just recently encountered in person: a shadowy cabal serving Nevarra's elites, she had come to believe, only to have her negative judgment somewhat tempered by seeing their operations.
"The skeletons," she says suddenly, pivoting the conversation, "in the Necropolis." A sidelong glance at Emmrich, testing, "the ones what light the candles, open doors. Who were they?"
"The skeletons?" he asked with no little surprise at the change of topic. "All sorts. There's many former Mourn Watch among them. We've dedicated our lives to serve the Grand Necropolis, why not let our bones continue when we're done with them?" If he was to die, if he failed the ritual, at least he could still serve. And that was a thought that threatened to drag him down into fears he did not want to face right now.
Emmrich cleared his throat and continued. "And then there's the Venatori, who have no choice in the matter. They sealed their fate when they invaded with violence in their hearts." After a beat he glanced away with a shrug. "Perhaps it is not all sorts. Few among the nobility would choose service. But there are those who are grateful to the Necropolis for various reasons, those who saw it as a way to atone for what they did in their lives, and so on."
"But they all-- save the Venatori," Teren clarifies, uneasy, "they all wanted that. To be there. Working like that, in death." It's clearly bothering her, but she watches Emmrich's face carefully, granting him just a sliver more benefit of the doubt than most.
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corpsestuff) wrote2025-01-19 08:22 pm
no subject
The second time she looks his way, she stays looking. It feels like an invitation. Emmrich meets her gaze and moves through the small group to walk beside her.
"Warden Teren," he says, an acknowledgement that's meant to also serve as an invitation in return.
no subject
In a way, she’s waiting: for acknowledgment that he saw what he did, perhaps. If he didn’t, there’s no reason not to stifle it along with all the rest.
no subject
"I've heard their names, of course." There were many with at least two of those names, but in context of each other and wardens the individuals were identifiable.
"But you knew them personally," he continued. Another easy guess. One does not feel grief like that over strangers. The door was now open, as simple as his words had been. It was not his place to guess at how she wanted to deal with the grief, only to enable her to approach it and assist her along the way.
no subject
"They were mine," she brokenly exhales, the muscles on her face trembling before she steadies them again. It seems impossible for one so thin to carry so much inside, her shoulders shaking with the effort.
no subject
"Tell me about them," Emmrich says quietly. "That which was yours, that the world has lost." He knows this grief. Every student he's had is his. There are scrapbooks back home in his rooms in the Necropolis, filled with every clipping he's come across from each of them. Through the years some have fallen and it has hurt every single time.
no subject
"Fools and idealists," she says quietly, "stupid boys." Her look is hard, strained, fixed straight ahead.
"The world was unkind to them. And I was theirs as well."
no subject
There are many things he could say, and few of them useful. Were they not all possibly foolish idealists, attempting to deal with a being some consider a god? And the world could be fickle indeed, dealing unkindness far more frequently than the reverse. But that was general, sweeping, and empty.
"You found a family with them." He can feel the way her focus is ahead of them. If the 'boys' were in front of them now, she'd grab them by the scruff of their necks and shake them, he's quite certain, before breaking down and embracing them. "As I did with the Mourn Watch."
And now he is here, without the Watch, and she is here, without her three. Did she have others, back in Kirkwall? He hoped she did.
no subject
"The skeletons," she says suddenly, pivoting the conversation, "in the Necropolis." A sidelong glance at Emmrich, testing, "the ones what light the candles, open doors. Who were they?"
no subject
Emmrich cleared his throat and continued. "And then there's the Venatori, who have no choice in the matter. They sealed their fate when they invaded with violence in their hearts." After a beat he glanced away with a shrug. "Perhaps it is not all sorts. Few among the nobility would choose service. But there are those who are grateful to the Necropolis for various reasons, those who saw it as a way to atone for what they did in their lives, and so on."
returns from the dead myself
"What of Nevarra City's poor?"