((Sorry guys, play-by-post was never my strong suit. If you couldn't tell by my minimal participation before the RP crashed. Like the gala was the most play-by-post RP I had done on this site. So yeah, I'm out, no hard feelings.))
OOC: No need to be sorry, I fully understand. I have not participated in the DND for similar reasons.
IC: It is silent and unusually cold as Feanor steps into the Council halls. She finds a guard who gives her directions to where Miner's body is being kept in a hushed, troubled tone. It is not just him, Feanor notes, as she walks the echoing halls. There is a hushed stillness over the whole place, a sense of worried waiting, sorrow and uncertainty. And the cold, as though some fundamental warmth has passed from these halls with the Head of Council. It suits her.
The chamber is small and simple, no different than any of the other medical chambers here. The body lying partially covered on a cot at the back of the room could have been any sleeping patient. No blood, no ghastly wounds or stench of infection. Hooves folded across his chest, Dungeon Miner looks more calm than she has ever seen him in life, Feanor thinks.
She moves to the bedside and stands there, looking down at him for a long while. Lying there with his face to the ceiling, his eyes closed by some kind hooves, she wonders if the serenity she sees is real, or only the mockery of death. Finally she shakes her head.
"You were a fool Miner," she mutters. "To think that peace was something for this world."
She lifts one of his chipped and travel-worn hooves from his chest to examine idly.
"Our hooves were not made for it. We are small and petty things in a large and indifferent world. You can break yourself against it, trying to make the world change, trying to shift the mountains at their roots. Or you can fight and scratch and claw your way up, and maybe in the end, you are the one left at the top."
She lays his hoof back down gently.
"Your dream was... pure, but it could never be." She sighs. "Still, I hope you have found the peace you always wanted for us."
Her breath leaves a faint wisp of steam in the chill air, and, though she knows the instinct illogical, she pulls the sheet up to cover the boar's cold body.
"Rest in peace, Dungeon Miner."