Come again?
Are Jormsson
Cobbler / Leatherworker

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#1


Are
He kept fingering the coin as he again walked the path to the stone circle. A common theme emerged as he tried to look at his question from different angles; he should've known better. In this case he really should have. He knew very well who could answer, he knew who had the power to give him what he wanted. What he needed.

A centerpiece to what he had been drawing every day as the sun slowly set on his shop. Drawing the tribute to a world the sun had slowly set on, a world he refused to leave behind until it was told for all to see.

So the cobbler once more stood before the place he'd found almost on instinct, as if his shoes knew where they needed to take him. Again they traced the path among the carefully placed stones, treading some sort of meaningful route towards the center where again the face of one he so hated was placed as an offering.

"I come again to you, gods, old and new, I ask of you, anyone of you, please answer my prayer." he said as loudly as he could muster, voice thick with both anticipation and a touch of fear. "I come again to ask of you to help me find the word I have lost. A name I need to write the last words of this chapter, the name of the one I raise a stone for. Please take my simple offering and heed my call!"
Spooky Rags


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#2
ludo

Braved the forests, braved the stone
Braved the icy winds and fire
Braved and beat them on my own

"How positively pious..."

The world around Are would appear to darken but for the glowstones that illuminated the Glade. Given that he had walked the circle to the centre, almost, he would feel the brush of soft fabrics, of Ludo's rags as the deity drifted overhead to hover before him. A mass of knots and scraps of cloth with a blank, porcelain mask for a face, it tilted its head this way and that to examine the coin. Unimpressed, it turned its mask back up to the mortal before it, and somehow seemed to smile.

"Ah," it said. "It is you - the already dead man. I've heard all about you."

Are Jormsson
Cobbler / Leatherworker

Age: 31 | Height: 6'4" (193cm) | Race: Accepted | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 3 - Strg: 20 - Dext: 12 - Endr: 20 - Luck: 6 - Int:
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#3


Are
He had no right to be surprised, he was the one who'd cried into the wind in hope of it answering just as it had before. Before came the cold temptress whispering songs of greatness untold, then came nothing.

He got what he called for, but still he seized up just as before. Petrified by the mere presence of what he instinctively knew but would never dare name. Call its name and sooner or later it would answer. In that moment it very much did, and how alive the dead man felt as the cold, iron fist of death and fear curled its fingers around his spine, holding him in place to face it at last.

Breathe. It was all it took, a deep, calming breath allowed the grip to loosen and mind to catch the tongue before it got him in trouble. A mind suddenly occupied with all the pleasantries and niceties that seemed proper. A deep bow and a well rehearsed greeting. "Heill ok sæl." he said, respectful if a bit stiff.

"I come to ask a favour..." straight to the point, but hesitant to continue. Are reminded himself of how assumptions and brash decisions had affected him before, so he paused and thought. Picking his words with more care than ever before. "I seek the memory of a name, and the meaning behind it."
Spooky Rags


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#4
ludo

Braved the forests, braved the stone
Braved the icy winds and fire
Braved and beat them on my own

Ludo knew not the strange words that the not-dead man spoke, but it understood the bow well enough, drifting back so that Are did not knock into it or end up falling into the void of its rags. Everybody does," it drawled, almost, as Are professed to want a favour. Surging up and around the Glade as if to follow the concentric circles in some kind of game, Ludo heard the man's request out before pausing directly in front of him once more.

The porcelain mask stared down at him, hard. "Indeed. And what is the name? And please do not tell me that you do not know, sweetling. For you cannot wish to find meaning in something cannot even remember."

Are Jormsson
Cobbler / Leatherworker

Age: 31 | Height: 6'4" (193cm) | Race: Accepted | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
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#5


Are
Could that without eyes stare? His mind hesitated but his soul knew it to be true. A piercing gaze cutting through layer upon layer of trivial worries, worldly troubles, and reaching the absolute core of the being that was the better man. Upon it's craggly surface the gaze softly carved symbols of a lost life, invoking memories taken by the waves and only then washed ashore on the shores of a new existence.

ᛋᛁᚴᚾᛁ
A whince, a grimace. A body wracked by the pain of remembering what no mortal man ever should, the passing from one world to the next, and the eroding of the mind. Limestone blasted with raging waters from between worlds. A malleable tossed to the winds, torn asunder and stitched back together in another place, in another time. Each cycle something was lost to the void. Ginnungagap claiming it's tribute.

Behind closed eyes he could see the symbols, echoes of a life he'd all but left behind. He could reach out, touch them, feel the ragged edges as fresh as the day he carved them into the birch handle of a knife. A gift to her.

Now they meant nothing. Each line a mystery to behold and ponder upon, but without meaning beyond the image they invoked. His throat was gasping for air, air with which to scream her name, if only it could.

"I see... Her. I know, but I do not understand." voice and body weak, frozen, and eyes welling up as what little meaning the symbols had ran like sand between his fingers. Fingers reaching out, pleading, begging for the strength to carry on. The strength to search, the strength to find.
Spooky Rags


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#6
ludo

Braved the forests, braved the stone
Braved the icy winds and fire
Braved and beat them on my own

Once upon a time Ludo would have eagerly played with the easy target presented to it. What fun it might have been, to mislead and misdirect, to turn Are about and upside down until he knew not what was real and what was fiction? Even now the trickster lived within the soul guide, awaiting a time when it might be provoked or bored enough to take up arms against the innocent. But now was not that time. Are was lucky.

The symbols which danced and cut upon his psyche would emerge, as if carved into the porcelain of Ludo's mask, the deity seeming to breathe with the memory of it - of her. It twirled lazily in the air, before drifting to settle once more above the stones.

"Signe," it said. "You were bonded in marriage. The memories you hold are difficult to recover. What would you offer, to retrieve them?"

Are Jormsson
Cobbler / Leatherworker

Age: 31 | Height: 6'4" (193cm) | Race: Accepted | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
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#7


Are
"Signe?" the cobbler said as the voice of the god reverberated in him, as if spoken from within and without. Just the name alone set off an avalanche of emotions, joy that he knew the name as perfect as the woman it belonged to. Grief, that she was gone and not yet with him. Anger, that he had allowed himself to ever let it go. A quiet promise was made in the blink of an eye, a better man taking precautions to never let it happen again.

His face betrayed the storm inside of him, as did his voice, weak and trembling under the weight of the meaning of it all. "I made a promise once, to be a better man." he almost whispered as he slowly regained his composure. Faculties processing what he was considering doing. Even though there was no consideration, Are knew exactly what his answer would be, and he'd known since the day he met her, Signe.

"Anything, oh Hræsvelgr. I am offering you whatever I can give, I just want her back." he said as his voice trailed off into nothingness and little pearls rolled down his cheeks. A better man, no, a weaker man, but one with a purpose and determined to fulfill it.
Spooky Rags


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#8
ludo

Braved the forests, braved the stone
Braved the icy winds and fire
Braved and beat them on my own

Ludo watched, blank in the face of emotion, still against the tide of Are's grief and joy as they warred for dominance within the mortal. It merely waited, certain that it might return the memories that Are sought, but wondering what price he would be willing to pay. And then he said it, said that word that made the god's wounds sing, that made it lift and bob and scatter asunder. Anything.

Oh, but if only more of them could offer anything. Ludo's mask would appear to smile; small at first, but soon wider, ghoulishly so. "Done. I will call upon you one day. When asked, you will not refuse. Now close your eyes, and think her name."

Are Jormsson
Cobbler / Leatherworker

Age: 31 | Height: 6'4" (193cm) | Race: Accepted | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 3 - Strg: 20 - Dext: 12 - Endr: 20 - Luck: 6 - Int:
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#9


Are
"And I will answer." Are said, nodding and turning his red-eyed face to the mask in the dark. A grin that should have sent the cobbler packing, running for home, screaming bloody murder and crying out for help. But he didn't. He stood where he stood, and looked upon the god before him with a strange sense of comfort. Like a fading man wrapped in warm blankets and rocked to sleep by the waning songs of a life well lived.

A life that flashed before his eyes as he did as he was told, allowing them to slide shut and inadvertently opening his relaxed mind to the world around him. Near frozen water came crashing down, again he sank and saw his world fade away as he left the surface behind. This time though, this time he turned towards the great darkness beneath. His whole mind laid bare and open, no smoke or mist to obscure what he sought the most.

There she was.

Signe.

All the wounds the thought healed by time re-opening as the memories came crashing back. Crimson ribbons ripping across his mind as her divine visage came before his inner eye. His hope distilled into the radiant glow of the one he loved the most. He would have done anything to go to her. To meet her hand there in the depths of his mind and to forever remain enveloped in her loving embrace, but she was but a reminder. As was the pain. A reminder of what he fought for and what his life had become. A fight.

The cobbler smiled at her, but turned to the surface above to once again join the world of the not-yet-dead. Lungs and eyes burning he breached into reality, greedy gasps for air ringing out into the night as the cobbler returned to face the Shepherd of the departed.

"Thank you, dark one. I am in your debt."
Spooky Rags


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#10
ludo

Braved the forests, braved the stone
Braved the icy winds and fire
Braved and beat them on my own

When Are returned Ludo would still be there, too-wide grin still plastered across its mask, rags writhing about it as though a part of the shadows themselves. "That you are, sweetling. That you are."

It spoke slowly, as if savouring the words, before abruptly surging up and away. Are would receive no more from the soul guide tonight. His memories would need to be enough - that, and the promise that the debt would be repaid. Sooner or later, come hell or high water.

{END}



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