Let's celebrate life!

[delightable]

Who| Everyone who wants to mourn Orc, or wants free food
What| A mingle log, where Holly is holding a memorial party on the roof to celebrate Orc's life
Where| The roof
When| A couple of days before the arena
Warnings/Notes| N/A unless you count people being sad about death

Orc's death really shook Holly up. There's nothing she can do about it, nor does she have the courage to speak out about it. But she doesn't have it in her to just pretend it never happened. She was quite fond of Orc, he deserves to be remembered and people deserve to have a place they can do so, regardless of whether or not he was a rebel.

So, a couple of days prior, she starts posting fliers and handing them out to anyone who will take one. They're sparkly, colorful and visually loud just like the Capitol. But their intent is clear; on the roof, she's holding a memorial party for Orc for anyone and everyone to come and celebrate his life.

The memorial is held in the evening, and when the time comes, there is a buffet table with various foods, snacks and drinks, all supplied by Holly herself, and Jolie who helped a little as well. The area is cleared around Eponine's secret place, where a little shrine is set up with a picture of Orc surrounded by candles and other mementos relating to the boy. There's also a podium, where anyone is free to say a few words for him if they so choose.

It's the closest to a funeral that she can get, because she knows she'll never have permission to hold a real one.

Comments

[bindsthedead]

Sabriel's stylist tended to dress her in black even when she wasn't attending a memorial service. Still, they'd picked out something relatively subdued, the only skull present in the form of a carved bone decoration on her choker.

She gave Cyrus a polite nod. She knew the act she had to put on- the one of an ominous necromancer- and had no interest in making him comfortable. Still, he was high ranking enough that threatening him would be stupid. So she stuffed down her anger and put her best manners on display.

"It shouldn't have," Sabriel echoed, "But unfortunately, everyone and everything has a time to die. I suppose that was his."

[currupted]

Cyrus looked at Sabriel with mild surprise under his veneer of sympathy. That was both more morbid than he had expected, and less angry. (...Was that a skull? Tasteful.)

He sighed. "I suppose," he said. "I only wish the circumstances had been different." He looked back at the photograph and shook his head. "Within the week, his memory will be a symbol. A tool. Tragic."

[bindsthedead]

"Unfortunate," Sabriel agreed. Control control control. Privately, Sabriel could think of worse fates than martyrdom.

Be a reed, not an oak Sabriel reminded herself before speaking again, "You fear his death will add fuel to the fire? Or a means to snuff it out?"

[currupted]

Cyrus shakes his head. "Please," he says. "Starting tomorrow it'll be my responsibility to decide how best to spin this - how to bring up his name in press conferences, how to prevent some imitator doing something just as senseless in his memory." The bitterness in his voice is convincing, though who it's directed at isn't specified - it might be either the unfeeling system that would saddle him with such a cruel responsibility, or the unexpected workload. Either way: it is genuine. "Tonight, I'm only here to mourn, with the rest of you."

He takes a pensive sip of his drink, and then adds, "Did you know him?"

[bindsthedead]

"Not closely, but he represented District 10, as I do," With considerable effort, Sabriel gave Cyrus a mournful smile that was only a bit of a grimace.

"You Capitol people... you see death so much, but you don't really understand it," Sabriel murmured, "Not as a necromancer does at least."

She did not trust this man, this Capitol politician who was trying to put a bandage over a gaping wound. And though she wasn't stupid enough to vent her anger openly, she would do what she could to unnerve him.

[currupted]

A--? Cyrus' frown deepens slightly. He knows the meaning of the word "necromancer," but that's a hell of a thing to drop into casual conversation. To him, it sounds like a total non sequitur. A creepy non sequitur.

He tries to step around it, though. "I hope I haven't been insensitive," he says. "I admit that I can't claim to understand death as well as a... a necromancer does--" God, that sounded ridiculous coming out of his mouth. "--but I certainly didn't mean to offend."

[bindsthedead]

"None taken. Death is never pleasant, although for some it is a mercy," Sabriel told him, "And for those mourning here... Many of them blame the Capitol for his death, so seeing a representative of the Capitol at his memorial service...." She shrugged, her voice carefully controlled. "Some might see it as another slap in the face, although I do understand your purpose is to set things as right as they can be set." Although I suspect our ideas of 'setting things right' are radically different.

[currupted]

"Solidarity was the impression I was going for," Cyrus admitted. "To show that one person in the Capitol, at least, wishes this could have been prevented."

He moved slightly closer, dropping his voice a little. "Tell me honestly," he said quietly, putting a look of abashed concern on his face. "Should I not have come?" His tone was worried-- worried that he might have offended without meaning to, that he might have accidentally made things harder for the already-overburdened Tributes.

[bindsthedead]

"If I was in your shoes," Sabriel said, "I would not have come. But perhaps, your presence may make things a little better, if you say the right words."

"Perhaps it could be reversed, if his death is so troublesome," Sabriel suggested, "If not by your technology, then by me." Her dead white face broke into a helpful smile. If she couldn't openly vent her anger at this man, she could at least make him profoundly uncomfortable

"I understand that restoring the dead to life- or an approximation of it- is rather against the spirit of the Games, so you've prevented me from doing so. But I don't understand why we're prevented from doing so outside the arenas. If you wish Orc- or anyone else, hadn't died, why not allow me to return them to the world of Life?" Not that Sabriel was actually willing to do so- but she doubted Cyrus was desperate enough to take her up on the offer.

"It could resolve so many of the difficulties you've been experiencing recently."

[currupted]

A crease appeared between Cyrus' eyes as Sabriel spoke, and deepened as she continued. He tried to reverse his step toward her surreptitiously-- making it a little larger than the one that had brought him closer.

"...Thank you," he said, after a pause in which he created and discarded at least twenty replies to this, from We do not grant Tributes their supernatural abilities back for the purpose of resurrecting traitors from the dead to I'm fairly certain we made necromancy illegal last week. "Thank you for that... that generous offer." He cleared his throat and glanced around, as though looking for help; but there was no one else near enough even to overhear them. "But that... won't be necessary."

[bindsthedead]

Sabriel stepped forward, closing the distance with a sense of petty, vindictive satisfaction. Her expression was still politely helpful.

"If not Orc, then perhaps District Three? I could probably bring all of them back- although unless you have some spare bodies around, some would have to be noncorporeal- but they'd still be able to talk, and if they could explain that it really was gang warfare, and that of course those awful lies weren't true- and then they could rebuild their district and get back to work!" She felt a surge of nausea at even suggesting it, but her smile didn't waver.

[currupted]

It took all of Cyrus' willpower not to take another step back. He put the hand holding his drink between them, as a psychological if not a physical barrier.

"...Please," he said. "This is not the place to insult those who lost their lives in the disaster in District Three." As if it were a joke-- because of course she couldn't be serious, right? The face of the world had changed immensely in recent years, but Cyrus couldn't swallow the idea of necromancy as a political solution. (And even if he could, he didn't particularly want to. Living people were complicated enough.)

[bindsthedead]

The greatest insult is the lies the Capitol spread about what really happened, Sabriel almost said, but she held the words back. Instead she let her expression fall.

"I'm not joking," she insisted, her expression all wide-eyed worry, "I really do want to help prevent needless death. So many of us have ways to contribute to your country beyond the Games, and I don't understand why you won't let us."

[currupted]

It would be absolutely stupid, Cyrus realized, to reply with anything calling into question either the moral or practical limitations of raising people from the dead. Sabriel had fought in at least one Arena, and been resurrected. There was no way that wouldn't fall flat.

Pointing out the difference between municipally-mandated and... amateur necromancy (for lack of a better word) would be equally stupid. Raising people from the dead is fine, but only if the government does it. Yes, that would go over well.

"...Your presence here is contribution enough," was what he decided upon, after a silence that stretched a few seconds too long. He even put his smile back on. "And, between the two of us-- I would rather work to prevent even more needless death than to spend the same time trying to reverse what's already been done."

[bindsthedead]

Excuse you Cyrus, Sabriel is a professional necromancer. Or rather, Abhorsen.

"But I can do so much more" Sabriel insisted, "I can heal, and enchant weapons, and I'm good at removing poison from food and living people, although I admit there's probably not much need for that outside the arena." If only she knew how much poison played a roll in Capitol politics.

[currupted]

Well, Cyrus certainly wasn't going to tell her that. Though he could see the practicality in such a talent. A necromancer didn't seem such a bad thing to be, in a world that wasn't this one.

"There are a wealth of different abilities among our Tributes," he said, and he could hear that his voice was too stiff, too brusque, but he couldn't decide what an appropriate tone was for discussing the regulation of necromantic powers among the otherworlder population. There simply wasn't any protocol for it. "A stunning diversity-- that's all the more difficult to regulate for being so diverse." If he tried, he could add a little regret to his tone, right? "Maybe in the future, it will be possible - but not until we can be sure that the free use of Tribute abilities wouldn't lead to more tragedies like this."

This last with a rueful glance at Orc's makeshift shrine.