Abasi
You tell me what you want and I'll tell you what you get
The recipe was simple enough, one Abasi had been making for many years. Some kind of plant oil and root, gum and resin; mixed with a salt, then anything that was desired for scent; this mixture created a simple preserving paste that would keep the skin of a body almost perfectly free from decay for at least a decade, more if the covering was reapplied when it began to crack.
As of yet, no one had requested he mummify a body, but in his asking around the town about death traditions, he'd found that some families had traditions that relied on the preservation of at least some of a body, or those whom were interested in the idea. He wanted to have the mixture ready should anyone come in with such a request, so that he could get on with the work right away. As Ludo had said, he'd found the lantern on his door to be good luck, though in a rather practical way; people had taken the gesture as a show of loyalty to Caido's death Gods and as such trusted Abasi more.
It was pleasant, working in the quiet mortuary as the morning sun filtered in through the one window he had left uncovered. Alone, except for a couple of bodies in the cold drawer in the back, one he was keeping for a day before a families funeral procession out in the fields, the other unidentified and awaiting people to come look; with the Fiat Lux disaster, he had seen a lot of business recently (a boom in this business was rarely for a good reason). Some of his tables were filled too, blanket-clad shapes, some of them too small to be adults; he had done all he could for the moment.
Pressing the recipe in his mortar and pestle, he added in a few flowers he'd taken from outside for scent - they had a sharp, fresh tang, one that he thought was strong enough to stay for a while. It threatened to become overpowering; he went to open the door an inch, not wanting the smell to contaminate the bodies currently in his shop. The screen between the door and the room protected the dead from the view of the street, and for a moment he looked out into the world of the living from the door, watching them go by. Did they know what lay within?
