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The dirt itches, burns with the wrongness of it. His father and mother would be displeased at the state of him, at the soil under his nails and in the creases of his palm; clean hands were essential, were necessary if he’s to be helpful, if he’s to be of use. He enjoys helping, likes how it eases the strain on his parents when he offers, his hands scrubbed clean and his nails kept tidy.
A cook must keep clean hands to prevent sickness, a butcher too.
A boy must keep clean hands so he can help, so he can learn.
A boy must throw the first handful of dirt over the graves, the paltry scattering of a child’s small fistful. Two lonely markers, tucked away, no proper headstones. There’s a hand on his shoulder, firm and guiding, and it grounds him even though he cannot hear what the voice attached to the hand is saying. Maybe it’s important, maybe it’s not.
His love of spirits and his conversations with them must have reached certain ears, and so he learns in the Circle, the largest and most powerful under the Orlesian Chantry, and so he becomes Mortalitasi. The Mourn Watch that raised him ushers him into their ranks once more, now a mage and a man all at once.
Emmrich’s hands are always clean, always tidy. His nails are kept neat, trimmed and sanitary. He wears gloves, he is careful how he handles the dead (with respect, with reverence, aware of sickness and infection always and the vague remembrance of his mother’s voice and the lingering memory of soap). His peers and colleagues tease him, but Emmrich’s fastidious grooming extends to all areas and he will not be swayed. When he visits his parents, when he places flowers, he remembers the itch of dirt and that he was the first of the last to scatter it over their coffins.
All the secrets of necromancy, of spirits, of burials and their rites, all of them have been demystified but hold no less power. He is no longer a poor boy in dirty, worn clothes, but a man outfitted in Mourn Watch colors with the weight of their responsibilities on his shoulders. Different than feeding people, true, but he still carries his own empathy.
The first thing he does when he is paid a stipend is calculate his expenses down to the copper. He rounds up to be safe, and the rest is put aside. It takes far longer than he’d like, but Emmrich is a determined young man, and his Watch has only just begun. The dead have eternity, another year or three will not make a difference to them—only he will know. His parents will understand.
When he’s saved enough, Emmrich gets matching headstones, proper ones, to replace the markers at his parent’s graves. A proper shrine, the least they deserve. Wisps linger after they’re installed, his only company, as he tells his parents of his life, of his new station, of his small apartment just inside the Grand Necropolis. It fits a bed and a table, and he has a small kitchen, but that’s all he needs. He tells them of the friends he’s made, his future plans, and he likes to think they listen.
He wonders if they’d know him now, a man instead of a boy.
A man with duties to the Necropolis and the Watch that took him in, and so he performs his rituals, talking them through, detailing his childhood to attentive ears and wide eyes as Rook takes it all in, asking questions and hungry for more. Usually when people outside Nevarra visit they are a touch put off, to say the least. The Dalish have very different customs, but Rook is eager and bright at his side, gathering wisps as they go.
Selfishly, and he hopes she won’t be blindsided by it, Emmrich has one last site for them to visit, one last rite of his own.
The two headstones, matching and proud, rise before them and it does not take Rook more than a moment to read the names upon them, to realize where they are.
“Oh,” Rook says. “So this is what the flowers are for.”
Her fist is closed around a small bouquet. “Yes,” Emmrich says. “If you could place them on the graves, please.”
Rook’s eyes are keen in the dark and she tips her head to read on, even as she places the flowers into the vase kept for this purpose. “Rupert and Elannora, those are nice names.”
She isn’t talking to him.
She’s talking to the graves.
“I’m Teagan, but everyone calls me ‘Rook’ these days, except your son.”
Teagan continues to chatter as she arranges the flowers, talking through what she’s doing, but Emmrich is barely listening, the lump in his throat and his pulse pounding in his ears threaten to overwhelm.
Her hands are always flecked with dirt, it seems, worked into the lines of her palms and the undersides of her nails. Teagan uses her hands like tools, the same as him, but she relies on hers for different things. No magic to assist her, no hazy parental reminders to keep clean as possible at all times. She uses her hands to explore the world around her, curious and light and he knows what it’s like to be on the receiving end of those questing fingers, and she doesn’t care if she gets a bit of dirt on her in the process.
Yet when she stands and slides her hand into his, the dirt does not itch.