Private Tales Welcome to the First Day of the Rest of Your...eh...

A private roleplay only for those invited by the first writer

Oscar Viotto

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"I'm glad Rosebury decided to spare you." The Detritor sighed. The priest of the Silent Court cut a rather splendid figure next to Oscar; a triangular headdress covered the majority of his head, and heavy robes draped around his features. The colors were bright, oranges, whites, greens and reds, all with triangles as a main theme to the embroidery. Bells made of iron tolled softly as he picked his way through the graveyard, using a staff made of birch to guide his footing.

Oscar was dressed in a plum suit, with a white linen shirt. He was just happy he'd chosen a set of sturdy black boots for the occasion, as the graveyard was anything but organized. Bodies laid in state, gathered from various places around Arethil. The Detritors' responsibility was to sort them. Those who didn't have unfinished business were respectfully buried. Those who had ties to the world above were raised and given citizenship. The Silent Court was a place for people to adjust to and contend with death, or watch over their loved ones until they felt well enough to move on. Oscar pulled a cigarette free from a small silver case, putting it between his lips and lighting it with a match. It smelled thickly of tobacco, cloves, and sweetness.

"What better guide to the dead than a man who enjoys being so?" Oscar said with a cheerful smile.

The Detritor knelt by the body of the young woman. Her seal had been freshly carved, and Oscar could see the soft glow of a newly-pinned soul. A good place for it, the eye socket. The Detritor nodded to him. "I'll leave this one to you." he told him, and moved away. Oscar pulled up one of the stone benches, and settled on it.

He watched her with a raised eyebrow and smoked. "Come come, dear, out of the veil of sleep and blackness. Return to the light, though it be more a candle than the burning gaze of Arethil's sky." he called to her.

Ratha
 
Fires and pain and loss and grief mixed with the groggy darkness of eternal sleep. The fog was thick and despite its soothing embrace, she found the burning embers in her chest calmed, but never soothed. Rivulets of blood ran down paths of dirt, turning the road to her home into a red paste she could neither walk nor crawl through and through it all she could only hear a keening wail as the fog lowered once more, never realizing the cries were her own as the darkness crept in.

The dreams cycled and looped, changing only slightly yet the taste of blood and smell of hot ash always remained. The light, though, grew slightly stronger with each replay of the worst, and last, day of her life. It was a tiny mote, almost disregarded as a flickering cinder floating through the air, but grew larger and stronger until the wailing stopped and the visions ceased. She felt the mist clear and the weight holding her soul down lift slowly, but surely upward. Fearful that the heavens were taking her from her beloved held down by so much flaming timber, she yanked hard and downward, furious to even contemplate leaving her love behind. She pulled herself, her soul, away from the pull above and grasped her emotions and the scenes around her with an iron grip.

And then, as suddenly as she had yanked away, she woke.

Ratha started, sitting upright with a ramrod spine. She clawed at her face where she could still feel the bastard’s hands where he dug and ripped and pulled with bare fingers, taking her eyes and ensuring the last thing she ever saw was horror. Cold fingers found empty sockets, the flesh clean, but still torn, yet only one was fully empty. The other held a lump of carved stone. The etchings she couldn’t decipher, but knew it was magic the moment she touched the material. Her eyes no longer saw, yet she found she could still see, albeit with everything… muted. Blurred.

She turned her head to look around and spotted more bodies spread throughout, a robed figure a distance away, and a strange, pleasant looking man seated beside her.

“Where am I?”

Oscar Viotto
 
Oscar saw her sit up sharply, and smiled at her. Ah, good. She was quite the peppy one for an undead. He nodded to her, tapping the ashes from his cigarette onto the ground, and blowing out a plume of thickly perfumed smoke. He swept a hand outward and upward, indicating the massive cavern around them.

“My dear girl, welcome to the Fae Court of the Silent and Forgotten. Visited by none, and yet seen by all, where all paths cross and part again. Rather dreary on the outskirts isnt it?” Oscar smiled lightly.

They were indeed in a massive cavern, at what appeared to be a mass grave site. There were Detritors slowly walking among the dead, kneeling occasionally to start carving a seal or singing wordlessly to give peace to the departed. Before them, the mass grave stretched for miles. Thousands of dead needing tending to, bordered by a silent and quiet river that faded away into the black darkness.

The city behind Oscar was...anything but. There were lights, music and sound. The white stone walls seemed very out of place, and the buildings that peeked above the ramparts were colored gaily in tile mosaics. Scents of perfume and alcohol drifted on the air. Oscar offered her a hand.

“Ah, but a repose in the dirt shall soon bring worshippers of a different sort. Come, you must learn to take care of that body.” he offered her the cigarette.

Ratha
 
"No... I have to... They..." she tried to stand, her legs shaking from being still for so long. From being cold for so long. The world around her, blurred as it was, and her sudden awakening from eternal sleep wracked by hellish nightmares disoriented her. Her bare feet felt graveyard earth, her limbs ached from disuse, and she felt the cold no longer bothered her. Balance and corpses usually did not coincide, at least not freshly raised bodies, and the attempt to stand suddenly became an awkward sprawl into the dirt.

She clawed her way to her knees and braced herself on the small dais she'd lain on. Heedless of the clods of earth clinging to her yet-unfeeling skin and the offered cigarette from the strange man beside her, she tried to stand again.

"I have to find them," she gasped, realizing while her lungs no longer needed to function, she still needed to breathe to speak. Anger flashed through her, the white hot rage sparking throughout her body and giving her strength, though not coordination. She shot up on wobbly legs only to crash back down on her knees in the dirt.

"They have to pay... They... They..."

Oscar Viotto
 
“My dear what you’ve got to find are a set of sea legs.” Oscar put the cigarette back between his lips and stood. He grasped her gently by the elbow and stood her up. “Come now, there isn’t a faster way to re-orient yourself than the sight of a city.”

Oscar was used to the poor coordination. Poor dears were always wobbly when they first stood up. Though she hadn’t immediately gone to tears, she seemed more like she had died traumatically and wanted revenge. Ah, no wrath held like a woman’s scorn and all that. The poet made sure she was a little steadier before he helped her off the dias and onto the ground. He tutted at the state of her. She needed some clothing other than what she had died in.

He guided her toward the gates. “Deep breath now, like a flautist approaching the stage. Chin up, you’re less a picture of majesty and more a newborn faun. But my dear, what other guide than a dog? A blue wolf and a fallow doe, and there were born conquerors.”

Ratha
 
The offhand comment of seeing the city pulled her back a moment and grounded her insomuch as her mental state allowed. The rage in her heart rose up in waves only to crash down into the deepest pits of absolute loss moments after. Emotionally, few were ready to return to life - or unlife, rather - but for Ratha it was so much more. Her heart had been shattered, everything she had ever loved destroyed before her very eyes. The same eyes that were so brutally and sadistically taken. She took a moment to feel the soil beneath her feet and touched the empty sockets where her eyes once were.

"I cannot see," she said, her breath catching in her chest. Breathing had come so naturally when she'd been alive, and yet now she had to concentrate lest she forget to inhale before speaking. "Mine eyes were taken. Eyes and life and... and..."

She trailed off, unable to speak of the great pain that rested in her heart and soul or of the anger that built and broke within her. Her legs were shaky and she allowed the man who woke her to guide her steps, if only for the moment.

"I have eyes no longer, yet truly sightless I am not. Why?"

Oscar Viotto
 
Oscar patted her lightly. “My dear not all of us need mere eyes to see.” He told her. “Perhaps it is you, of these lucky few, who sees yet beyond sight.” He patted her arm affectionately as they walked toward the city. A few more minutes to get her legs steady and she wouldn’t be feeling anything at all. “Come now, the uneasiness should wear off in a few minutes.”

They walked through the gates into beauty. Mosaic tiles covered the roads, in spiraling patterns of geometric beauty. Every tile was the size of a thumbnail, oftentimes cut or split to make even more complex patterns in a hundred colors. There were brightly colored paper lanterns across the road, open market stalls advertising art, supplies. Food was an absence here, but art was overwhelming. Sculpture, glass, wood, paintings, shrines...a dizzying array of colors from a hundred different cultures.

The dead walked the streets, from heavily rotted men who could be smelled from half a block away to skeletons and Unearthed musicians. A gigantic cathedral dominated one central square, staring at a palace across the city like a fond pair of lovers.

Oscar sat Ratha down on a bench, near a street artist plucking a long stringed instrument with several pairs of arms. Oscar knelt in front of her. “The long sleep is sometimes a dream, my sighted seer. It is a slow awakening from the dream of life into the afterlife. You have centuries ahead of you, time immemorial stretching beyond you like these streets. Grasp that lifeline. Take a few minutes. Calm yourself. Then speak to me. I am here to help you.”

Ratha
 
"Calm shall escape me for eternity," she stated bitterly, pausing only a moment.

The bench was cold, and yet it failed to bother her. Whether it was from dead nerves barely responding or that she was simply no longer affected by something as trivial as chills, she had no idea and barely gave the subject much thought. Her mind was consumed with revenge, loss, and heartache, but not so much that she realized what her situation had become.

She'd been given a second chance, of sorts. Not to relive her life or save her loved ones, but for a different purpose entirely. She would avenge her loss, her grief, and take the lives of those who destroyed everything, but to do that meant she could not squander time here. She had a purpose and, much like a healer needed information, tools, and skills to treat a sickness, she would need the same to complete the task before her.

First, however, was a simple fix. In life, her husband had loved and cherished her eyes and their bright, blue gaze. In fact, her eyes had been what enthralled him to speak to her and sparked their happy life together. Now, though, their loss served as yet another ache on her heart. She was not a vain woman and it was not their presence or lack thereof, but their meaning that pained her and as she could still see, she could see her own reflection and her own empty sockets.

"I would like a... mask. To cover mine eyes," she touched her cheek sadly, the flesh feeling cool beneath her fingertips. "A cloth will suffice for now, though I have no coin to my name."

Oscar Viotto
 
Oscar gently took her hands. “What use have the dead for coins or banks? What use does a soul have for that which rots the living while they still breathe? There is no currency here, my darling. There is no knife in the shadows, no empty beings trawling garbage for scraps. This is the Silent Court, so called for it is silent of the cries of the damned. Moreover, it is raised in song.” He told her gently. “But if it truly bothers you, to have lost the windows to the soul, we shall find you a suitable shutter.”

He stood and smiled down at her. “Come, and senses will return. Ah! Smell! The incense of the Church, rising from the braziers of those who raised you.” Oscar said cheerily, pulling a breath deep into his dead lungs. The smell of rosemary, clove, and sweet marigold. All around them the dead passed in the streets, talking gaily amongst themselves. Detritors were common, in their heavy robes and triangular headdresses, swinging reliquaries of incense.

Oscar had always loved the Silent Court. Perfumes, liquors, dancing, song and sex. No war to be found. No criminals. The peace of death. “My darling, would you not enjoy a scrap of eternity? Those above shed tears for your passing aplenty.”

Ratha
 
"Those above are dead and lost," she stated, her voice bland and sad. "The kin that remain interred me out of obligation, not love. For them, death took me years ago. This was merely a delayed burial. My people do not take kindly to elves who marry humans."

She could smell the air around them, but try as she might, she could smell nothing but ash and smoke and fire. The concept of a society devoid of currency intrigued her, but she knew that such a place could only be denied her in time. For now, it would serve as a place to start. A staging point for her tasks. At least, once she found the way out.

"Eternity is empty without him, but for now let us find what I require," she said after a moment. She looked down at the plain, pale dress she wore and the faint remnants of earth staining it here and there. "And, perhaps, clothes as well."

Oscar Viotto
 
Oscar looked at her with a small amount of pity. “My dear, death unites us all. You will find no such hatred or discrimination here, mind. All are embraced by death and all are claimed by it. Therefore, all are welcome. It doesn’t matter what you were in life. Only what you do with your death. Who knows? Perhaps the man who died is here, waiting for you. Perhaps he is just as lost and alone.”

He smiled at the mention of her clothing. “Yes, those are dreadful. Come with me.” He led her down the street, hands behind his back. The streets were tiled mosaics, and they passed beautiful archways, doors, open windows with no glass in them. Oscar only interrupted his stride when a panicked squeak grabbed his attention. He seized Ratha’s waist with a rather unnatural strength given his build, and swept her to the other side of him.

He bowed to a tiny figure she’d nearly crushed. The little thing was barely four inches tall, a mushroom with dark little eyes, squat little legs, and arms clasping a little burlap sack. It squeaked indignantly, shifting its burden to point an accusatory finger at Ratha.

“My apologies, sir. Newly raised.” Oscar squatted down, and inclined his head. “Forgive the wanderings of giants in your kingdom, little one.”

The mushroom huffed, squeaked some choice words at Ratha, and hurried along. Oscar straightened with a sigh. “Myconids. The only living citizenry this city has. They are darling little things. Keep an eye on your feet.” Oscar told her.

Ratha
 
The walk was brisk and the sudden grab and lift was startling. She felt herself tense up and react, reaching instinctively for magic to defend herself. What she found disturbed her deeply. The wellspring of her abilities, the pool of mana she had used in life was... diminished. It felt emptied as if she'd spent weeks healing and working arcana.

The talk about her husband possibly being a resident in such a city struck a chord in her heart, but she refused to allow herself to hope. She had a feeling such a possibility was too good to be true.

"My husband was cut down before me and his body burned with our home. I fear he has no remains to bury nor living kith and kin to inter him. I doubt ashes return in such a place. I spy only bone and flesh in this city."

She reached within again, attempting to touch her magic once more. Yet again she found her internal wellspring weakened and what magic remained felt slippery, her grip fleeting.

"I... feel weakened. Magic for me is akin to grasping smoke in the air. Why is this so?"

Oscar Viotto
 
Oscar nodded sadly. “Then, I fear, if the body was burned all the Detritors could do for him is a soft passage of the spirit. The Silent Court is always respectful of souls lost in horrific ways, my dear. You may be able to pray to give his soul guidance; all the world adores a candle but to the spirits it is a guiding light.” He listened as they walked, his smile patient and reassuring. “You are not the only mage to grasp desperately for that which they mastered in life. Give it time. At the moment you are Unearthed. Whole and not rotten, as close to the living as you can be.”

Oscar gestured to one of the passersby who most certainly was not a fresh corpse. She was in an advanced stage of rot, welcoming beetles and flies to lay larvae in her skin, and missing swaths of organs. It didn’t seem to bother her, nor make her self conscious of her appearance. Ivory ignored her, other Rotten inclined their heads to her, but Unearthed gave her a wide berth lest they share her fate.

“When you rot, as all men do, you will feel magic and strength returning. However, the world above will spurn you, and you will begin to feel humanity slipping. Empathy, love, emotion. These things will fade as your power grows. All of us will cycle towards rot, and all rotten cycle towards Ivory, who then return their souls to the leylines.” Oscar explained. “I myself have precious little use for such power. I much prefer to keep the more fun parts of my body.” He smiled and patted her.

He steered her into a nearby clothing shop, and greeted the Unearthed inside with a warm embrace. It was a young man, who had clearly been dead a while but not long enough to lose his looks. Oscar gestured to Ratha. “A new soul walks along the earth, but no longer wishes to look as though she crawled from the grave. Please, assist her if you would.” He perched on a nearby bench, lighting another cigarette. “Tell him whatever your heart desires, dear.”

Ratha
 
She took what Oscar Viotto stated in stride, tucking the information away to analyze further later. The loss of magic, or at least the greater weakening of it, was a blow to her, but like many illnesses or injuries there were potentially ways around such things, though now was not the time to poke and prod to find them.

The shopkeeper waited patiently as she gathered her wits a moment, dodging a small mushroom creature as it moved through the shop. Myconids, if she remembered her guide correctly. She daintily sidestepped the creature who seemed engrossed in... whatever it was doing with what it carried, and stepped up to the counter, her list coalescing in her mind.

---------------

A while later, she stepped out of the shop. Her legs carried her more surely, the effects of being freshly unearthed wearing off. Gone was the pale white of her burial garb, that had been given to the shop and discarded. In its place she wore something far different.

A dress of midnight black, the color of mourning and grief, covered her body with the arms left free and bare. She wore a blindfold that doubled as an elegant, horned headpiece and covered her empty eye sockets. Her hair was unbound and flowed freely as her husband had loved and the entire outfit was trimmed in the green her eyes had once been, her love's favorite color.

She stepped out of the shop, her feet still bare as she'd always preferred, and faced her guide.

"I am without a staff," she said after a moment, remembering the simple one her husband had carved now lost to the fire. "Would thou know where to find such a thing?"