Private Tales The Body Dies, The Soul is Indestructible

[Len Dy't B-taa]

Nothing gave the one who called himself Len Dy't B-taa the sense of harmony that a black snowy night sky did.

It was the calmest night he'd had in generations, under the gentle snowfall peppered down in gentle flakes from the night sky. It was so rare that it snowed on the arid roads of the Aberresai Savannah. Even when he'd sat in the tenements of The Aberrant Kingdom as a youth, every time that he would see the snow, mixing beautifully with the stars was an occasion for celebration with his friends. The last time... it must have been the month before his Illya. The western watchtower had been under Len's watch that night; a test of his ability to stay alert before his coming of age began proper. He'd let Yura and Herak join him, and they'd spent the entire night talking excitedly about which Tree of the Seven they would climb. Herak was so eager to began his journey towards the Second Tree. Yura...

Len knew that Yura would have chosen whatever Tree that Len did.

It was under the same black snowy night sky that he'd first felt her touch. The warmth of another was all that kept them from shivering beneath the bishop's canopy of The Fifth Tree. Not even the torches that hung from vines fashioned into ropes could burn brighter than they had that night. The conversations they held that night... They spurred him forward even now, her words piercing through even the haze that death brought upon him.

But they were all dead now. Herak was dead, as was Yura. The Seven Trees had long since fallen. The Aberrant Kingdom was gone, the Savannah it once stood in now barren. There was nothing left but Len, brought back from eternal rest and left to watch what had become of the world develop and move around him: A relic of the past. A relic he likely looked as well; He stood in the heavy steel armor he'd taken from those who'd awoken him, an enigmatic figure behind a clay mask, with a sword dangling uselessly from one of his hands as he stood on a rocky outcropping that looked out over an intersection of roads in the savannah he'd once lived in. Len was an incomplete being, brought back by greed by those who read of his triumphs in battle. They were fools. Len was never a soldier, Len was a protector.

And now, he was alive once more, with none to protect. There was no way for him to know how long he had, necromancy being an imperfect and fickle magic. What was the purpose he had for being here now? Several times, he'd contemplated sending himself back to the afterlife. Each time he found himself unable to do so. There was something. Something that despite all of his accolades and victories in life, he had never been able to accomplish.

It was something that had been promised to him, as he held Yura in his arms that night. She'd made him a promise that still rang in his ears, haunting him through every dance and every life he took. "One day." She'd told him, "One day you will like you. You'll see all that you have to offer our world, and you'll love yourself the way that I love you, Terios."

Perhaps, he thought to himself as he began to slide his heavy frame down the outcropping to investigate a bit of movement at the edge of his vision, that was why fate had truly returned him to this world. Perhaps it was to serve this world until he found that love. He would protect this Savannah, guard these roads from evil until the difference he made was undeniable. For whatever time he had left...

He would chase that love.

Oscar Viotto

 

[Oscar Viotto]

Oscar walked through the Savannahs, pleasantly surprised by the falling flakes. He looked up with a smile, welcoming the little friends onto his skin. He closed his eyes for a moment, and blew a cloud of perfumed smoke up into the sky. His clove cigarette burned brightly, and surrounded him in the scent of cinnamon. Oscar was a giant of a man, well rounded in the middle. Most of the muscle was swathed in fat from a life heavy with rich food.

Oscar had fucked, drunk, and eaten his way through Arethil. He’d made love to dragons under the stars, drunk with the Abtati, sang with orcs in the high mountains. He had enjoyed his life, now he was enjoying his service in death. His jovial nature, open-mindedness, and generosity made him a rarity amongst men, never mind the undead. He was a servant to the Lord of Luck, but it wasn’t above him to seek the dead above ground to take to the Silent Court.

He was looking for lost souls, the dead who laid unmourned and unburied. They needed to be guided to peace. Oscar’s gentle grey eyes were to be a guiding light to them. His search, so far, had turned up nothing.

The zombie hummed to himself cheerfully, enjoying the snow. He had no idea he was being watched.

Len Dy't B-taa

 

[Len Dy't B-taa]

Len's movement under the cover of the night was difficult to detect even covered in heavy armor. He would often perform his dance in or near nakedness, but he also performed in his armor. The stress of performing such acrobatics under the heavy weight of his plates trained him to feel as though it were nothing but his own weight; he was agile and swift even with the burden of a man twice his size. He need only sometimes worry about the heat of the Savannah air baking him alive in his own clothes. Of course, that was no issue tonight.

His feet hardly touched the dirt beneath him as he propelled himself towards the movement he'd spotted from the right side, having angled himself so that the outcropping he'd been standing on would mask the beginning of his approach. Underneath the light blanket of snow coming from the stars above, he could being to make out a figure. It looked humanoid, with no means of transportation. The idea made Len slow his pace; Somebody travelling the Savannah on foot in the middle of the night? Were they quite mad? He re-directed himself, moving onto the path in front of the man.

There would be no doubt that he would be seen now. He slows to a fast walk, half wary and half concerned at the gall of this man. The sword tied to his back is pulled from it's spot, brandished in his off hand. "Halt, stranger." He barked in what was a low, inhumanely gravelly voice. "You walk on the Aberrant lands in the dead of night with no protection. Are you well?"

Oscar Viotto

 

[Oscar Viotto]

Oscar strolled along, looking very much like a man in his own backyard. He feared little. Animals had no want to attack him; he was neither threatening nor smelled like food. He smelled of magic and death, not exactly things a lone hunter would be interested in. Likewise, traveling unarmed meant that he was largely disregarded by others. After all, what business of anyone’s was it that a madman walked a snowy Savannah?

He had little idea what a lost soul looked like. Oh, he knew the living ones well enough! The poor, the empty, the cups he tried to fill with a little mirth. The dead? The Detritors had let him know he would know one when he saw one.

Detritors visited graveyards and battlefields, and Oscar was hoping to stumble across the latter. What more romantic place than a battlefield?

Strangely enough, a relic of one such place planted itself in front of him and drew a blade. Oscar stopped, as requested, and fluffed out a parasol to protect his shoulders from the snow. It was pink, and emblazoned with the symbol of his master; a golden chrysanthemum.

“My dear handsome stranger. My protection is the stars and dice, the winds of the cage and the whispers they bring. I have no need of any weapon.” He said cheerfully. “I could ask you the same; a knight with no rook, no Queen, no flag? Where are these pieces you’ve so woefully abandoned...or has the Titan swept you from the board?”

Len Dy't B-taa

 

[Len Dy't B-taa]

The blade trained towards Oscar did not move, aside from a cautionary twitch forward when he drew the pink and golden colored parasol. From behind the mask that covered his face, Len saw no malice in this creature. He would have thought him no more than a wayward land-roamer if not for his words, if not for the boldness with which he addressed a blade. No, he wasn't land-roamer. The armored figure slid his blade back into the mount on his back.

His words were fluffed. So many words were added to surround what he was truly saying, and what he was asking was far beyond his business. His footfalls left heavy imprints in the ground beneath him as he approached Oscar. "You give me too much credit. I'm just a jester, disguised as a knight. One without a King to praise him." There was a much deeper connotation to his analogy, one that bit at Len's tongue as it passed over it and through his lips.

He stops in front of Oscar, Len's head tilting to the side curiously as he prods further. "What do you do when the dice are thrown where they cannot be seen, you who claim to be protected by stars? What outcome do you expect when you submit yourself to the unseen hands of fate? Did they bring you here to me tonight?"

He didn't know if the being was mad, or if he had reason to walk these lands. There seemed no in between in this world that he'd awoken into. All that he knew was replaced my madness and greed. Even so, he'd learned not to look past the ever present fate that guided his life.

Everything in Len's life had been dictated by those who sought to use him. He was nothing but a blade that other's wielded. Even his most recent revival was guided by naught but fate refusing to allow him to rest from his service.

"Answer me, please. Who are you? What brings you to this place, that which was once my home?"

Oscar Viotto

 

[Oscar Viotto]

Oscar relaxed a bit when the man slid his blade back into its sheath. He was a dead man, and the dead feared no weapons, but Oscar really hadn’t been looking forward to rot and decay so soon. He wanted to preserve his appearance as much as possible for as long as possible. He listened, with the ears of a poet.

“Ah my poor wandering friend. Lonely and without court, guarding crossroads no one sees. How few have passed under your eyes?” He asked sadly. “My dear, I am a warlock to the fateful hand that guides the dice. A man of mirth who dispenses good and ill fortunes with the same hand. Perhaps you have thrown dice you cannot see, to be as fortunate as to find me.”

Oscar settled the parasol against a shoulder, and offered the crook of his elbow. “It is a lovely evening for a walk, stranger.” He offered.

Len Dy't B-taa

 

[Len Dy't B-taa]

Len was not a being of violence, but a part of him began to regret sheathing his blade. Doing so only seemed to encourage this man to speak further, and his presumption was beginning to frustrate Len. His head tilts, gaze passing over Oscar's elbow and moving toward the rest of his body. There was a lack of fear that spoke to the idea that this was no mere land-roamer.

"You continue to speak as though you know anything about me. I can appreciate nuance and poetry, but stay your tongue on your talk of me and my court." The warning came in a calm, albeit stern voice. Len's body itched, it began at his mid-section and spread through his entire body, his skin rising into tiny bumps. He was restless; remaining in one place was making him nervous. Raising an armored hand, he gestures for the stranger to walk, following by his side.

"You are servant to a higher being. I can relate to that plight, however much pain it brings me to do so." The quiet air of the Savannah left them both blanketed in an awkward silence as they conversed, walking side by side. His armor clinked and collided softly as he turned part of his body to look at him. "But my charge is long since dead and buried. All that I am now is what is left. I am a bastardized remnant. You, Land-Roamer, fear not death. Why?"

Oscar Viotto