Taking care of dead bodies?

[Ireth]

I'm working on the penultimate chapter of my main WIP, and the supporting cast have two corpses to take care of: a healer, and the traitorous prince who murdered her in cold blood while she tended him. Neither are really ready to be buried yet, as it's been less than a day since either one died (the prince died elsewhere, and sometime later than the healer after leaving the infirmary in a fit of insane rage; his body was brought back by others), and I want to know what realistically might be done with them. The remaining healers are also busy at the moment, tending to the king, whom the prince had tried to kill before being offed himself. (The king is going to survive, because he has to for the sake of the plot.)

The setting is more or less medieval, as the characters in question are Fae living in Faerie. It is also early November, and cold but not yet snowy outside of the area they're in right now; inside that area, it's akin to midwinter, with snow over pretty much everything except the gardens, thanks to Fae magic. So, burying the bodies in the ground would be problematic.

I imagine there might be tombs or such built for the royal line -- not that they die often, since Fae are immortal by nature, and the current king has been ruling for thousands of years, with his only heirs being his son (now deceased) and daughter. I haven't yet decided whether he's actually the first king of his Court, but he is the best known. On the other hand, I doubt a traitorous prince would be buried alongside more (relatively) virtuous kindred, if any are buried at all.

Right now I have the healer laid out in the infirmary, mainly for dramatic effect, and I'm working on a dialogue that will tell where the prince's body is, if not there too. Which is the question I'm trying to answer. Thoughts, please?

 

[FifthView]

I'm not sure what's being asked.

Do you mean, how can they preserve the bodies long enough before burial? Bodies take a lot of time to decay, although decay (smells and such) begins rather quickly. In the old days, bodies could be preserved in casks of rum or brandy, for instance if they died while out to sea. Admiral Nelson's body was preserved this way. If you wanted to create some sort of cultural ritual, you could always have a tub or such filled with whatever the Fae have as a preferred liquor, for preserving bodies the right length of time before burial.

 

[Ireth]

Basically, what would be done with the bodies between the deaths and others having time to preserve the bodies (since the situation surrounding the deaths is fairly chaotic). I know medieval humans typically held wakes to honor the dead (and make sure they were in fact dead) before burying them, but I'm not sure if the Fae would do anything similar. Bearing in mind the cold temperatures, I imagine decay would be delayed somewhat anyway.

 

[RedMetalHunter]

I would imagine they would be placed somewhere secure, sacred, or at least out of the way - until they could be properly preserved.

Would the traitorous prince be displayed in some fashion?

Longer term, with frozen ground, options are limited. Cremation or stone cairns might work?

 

[Ireth]

Yeah, somewhere secure and/or out of the way would be best. "Sacred" isn't really a term applicable when dealing with Fae; for all intents and purposes they are demigods, but humans don't worship them, nor do the Fae worship their godly forbears. They deem themselves to be sort of beyond good and evil, running on morality that's more "blue and orange" than "black and white". Few humans even believe the Fae exist; the MC and her family are rare exceptions, and they have long feared the Fae. The closest they get to worshiping any of them is paying due respect to their royalty, which is what they'd do for human royalty anyway, so it's not that big a deal.

I kinda like the idea of the prince being displayed, though the MC won't be there to witness that. I can definitely imply it in dialogue, though.

 

[CupofJoe]

Cool stores [ice houses] would be fairly common in most larger homes/estates. They might be posh stone built sunken buildings or just converted caves. As for partially preserving bodies... Alcohol. Bodies could be sunk in barrels or troughs to get rid of their access to oxygen. They'd have to be [how to put this delicately...] drained of their normal internal fluids [Bodies relax after death and two things flow out of them] and then washed for it to work.