somewhere between the Alchemist and God (OPEN)
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Undertaker

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#1
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?
Weaver Hale
the Scythe
Warden of the Citadel

Age: 33 | Height: 5'6 | Race: Abandoned | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Halo
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#2
She’d actually decided to stay in a populated area today. It was unlike Weaver not to disappear into the wilds and hope upon hope she didn’t die. The wilds were useful places though and Weaver was always a risk taker, foolishly so. She counted on her nine lives (and the fact that not a single one of the gods wanted her) to keep her alive. Vi kept trying to pawn her off on Mort and Mort kept punting her back, it seemed. This was probably not even true. Probably she was just really lucky and the gods hadn’t the foggiest who she was, but still, she liked the image of two gods shoving her between some door and fighting about it for the next however many years she lived.

It amused her, given that she did not amuse the gods. All for a war she wasn’t even alive for, but apparently that didn’t matter much. She supposes if you are immortal it’s easy to hold a grudge longer than strictly necessary. It is also easy to see how quickly humanity might become what it was then. Besides, she will forever wonder if she is the daughter of someone who did fight against the gods, because it seemed like a very fitting thing for her mother to have done, even if the timelines made no sense at all. Time was funny, wasn’t it?

She’s not sure what she’s looking for, if anything, as she wanders through the settlement. Halo’s town was more impressive, honestly, which wasn’t saying much given that nothing in Halo was impressive, except the palace and the fact that anyone even survived there in the first place. Granted she gathers the Hallowed Ground was a ruin before the Outlanders came in, and she wonders what devastation the war had wrought here or the events since. She’s caught enough whispers and stories to know that maybe Halo had been better off in isolation.

There are plenty of peddlers and merchants around here though, and she figures she might stumble into something useful or simply something interesting. Looking almost bored, (though her amber eyes are alert and interested, giving her away to any keen observer) Weaver makes her way through the settlement, stopping only when she sees a face peering out of the door of some sort of shop. Signs would have been helpful, but that was probably too much to ask of a rebuilding community (Halo had a questionable amount of signs, and they were not rebuilding). “Morning,” she says by way of greeting. “Afternoon? Whatever time it is.” she says, her voice dismissive of the fact she doesn’t know. She glances up to the sun but it doesn’t help her because it’s at that precarious point between morning and afternoon where the difference doesn’t actually matter anyway.

weaver

-- ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies --

Quote by Charles Dickens


Undertaker

Age: 36 | Height: 5'8" | Race: Abandoned | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 2 - Strg: 12 - Dext: 14 - Endr: 13 - Luck: 10 - Int:
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#3
Abasi
You tell me what you want and I'll tell you what you get

Abasi often poked his head out of the door to watch the day and it's citizens go by - never before had he been interrupted during this, giving him the impression he was essentially invisible; when Weaver addressed him he took a moment to reply, as if unsure it was him she was speaking to.

"It is morning." He confirmed for her, though admittedly it felt like much later; he had been in the mortuary for so long with only the bodies for company, working tirelessly to make sure each was seen to in time. "Can I...help you with anything else?" He doubted she had approached just to ask the time of day, but he knew not everyone wanted to just come into a building full of dead people.
Weaver Hale
the Scythe
Warden of the Citadel

Age: 33 | Height: 5'6 | Race: Abandoned | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Halo
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#4
Can I….help you with anything else?

It’s a good question. Why had she stopped to say hello to a perfect stranger? Honestly, she didn’t have a good reason why. She didn’t even know what he did or what he was, let alone what he might be able to help her with. “Honestly?” she says, with a quirk of an eyebrow and a slightly amused look, “I’m just scouting for information. I’m from Halo,” she adds, as if this explains everything. To most it probably would. She suspects all but the newest or most secluded of people knew that Halo had been trapped in it’s own little bubble up until recently. Some wouldn’t know, and she would elaborate if needed, but she didn’t bother at the moment.

“What kind of shop do you have?” she asks, because that seems like an easy place to start. Something familiar and comfortable for him, probably anyway. It’d be like asking her what she does most days, if you care to learn about making traps and not freezing to death. It was easy for her to talk about such things, not that she really struggled to talk. Weaver was full of plenty of bravado and bluster, after all.

“I’m Weaver, by the way.” she adds, making sure she doesn’t accidentally rest her hand on a knife instead of her hip. She wasn’t trying to give him the wrong impression. This was a friend making, not enemy making, sort of day. At least, that was the goal. Who knew what the actual outcome would be.

weaver

-- ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies --

Quote by Charles Dickens


Undertaker

Age: 36 | Height: 5'8" | Race: Abandoned | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
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#5
Abasi
You tell me what you want and I'll tell you what you get

Halo...Abasi knew very little about the new land that had opened up, only second-hand what Loren had told him. That it was cold, a mountain region, that the people there could be just as frosty as the place they lived. It intrigued him to meet someone from this place, though he felt his guard rise a little as she mentioned 'scouting for information'. "Information on what?"

Looking back into the building, Abasi held open the door a little wider in case Weaver wanted to enter. As the entrance was covered from the rest of the room with a screen, she would not as of yet see anything too shocking. "It is not a shop. This is a mortuary, a house for the dead. ...It is...rather full, at the moment." He glanced back towards her, unsure if she knew of the disaster that had occurred at the festival.

"I am Abasi." He returned the greeting, hoping this woman would be a little more sensible than the last person he had let into the building.
Weaver Hale
the Scythe
Warden of the Citadel

Age: 33 | Height: 5'6 | Race: Abandoned | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Halo
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#6
Halovians could be frosty, though she was willing to bet that was true everywhere. They could also be any number of things, as it turned out. Some were kind, some were cruel, some were ridiculous. Halo was not any different than anywhere else, in that regard, it just really depended on who you met. “Just information on what’s been going on in the rest of the world. I’ve never actually seen it, and we don’t get much information in Halo even with the portals open. For once in my life, nothing nefarious.” she gives him a smirk and a wink at the last bit, which is clearly a joke.

Weaver, for all her faults, was not particularly nefarious. Not now, anyway, given that she had no reason to be. She’d lie, if needed, but preferred the truth. It tended to get her farther than lies, and she was definitely not the type to shy away from hurting feelings, which made the truth a little easier for her. He holds the door open a little wider, answering her question and telling her that it is not, exactly, a shop. Rather it is a house for the dead, and she nods in understanding. Taking the invitation of the open door, she steps closer, gesturing for him to lead the way. “If you don’t mind, that is.”

Death doesn’t scare her. Some, if they’d died if she had, might shy away from the possibility of it happening again. No, not possibility, but an inevitability. Weaver isn’t afraid of it though, for death is familiar and inevitable. She could live in fear of something she could not avoid, or she could simply live with the time given to her. One choice seems vastly better than another.

weaver

-- ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies --

Quote by Charles Dickens


Undertaker

Age: 36 | Height: 5'8" | Race: Abandoned | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 2 - Strg: 12 - Dext: 14 - Endr: 13 - Luck: 10 - Int:
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#7
Abasi
You tell me what you want and I'll tell you what you get

"Oh, I see." Abasi relaxed a little, though her joke did not make him smile, only regard her with a suspicious eye once again. Perhaps it was fortunate he did not have a store people might like to steal from, if such seedy company could be found on the doorstep.

That she still wanted to come in was a surprise; he wondered what need she could have to look upon the dead of the Hollowed Grounds; he'd not allow people to gawk at the bodies of the passed. Perhaps she was merely curious of how his work was done, though, and that he could understand. Opening the door entirely for her, he stood back.

Upon entering the smell of harsh, mixed chemicals and potions for treating bodies would hit Weaver's nose and she would see only a screen in front of her, the entrance into the rest of the building off to the right. "I do not like to show the dead directly to the world." Abasi said in explanation, beginning to walk to the gap that led further into the mortuary. "Do you have practices of your own surrounding death in Halo?"
Weaver Hale
the Scythe
Warden of the Citadel

Age: 33 | Height: 5'6 | Race: Abandoned | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Halo
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#8
Her joke falls flat. She notices the way he eyes her with suspicion and it takes effort not to sigh aloud. She manages, sighing only in her head instead. Perhaps working with the dead makes one a little stiff, or maybe you just have to be stiff in order to work with the dead. Still, she is not actually that nefarious. Weaver has earned the things in her life. She hunts in the deadly tundra of Halo and trades the game she finds rather than steals. She may sneak around occasionally and eavesdrop on conversations in bars, but only because information is harder to get when you aren’t a bit sneaky and it’s rather useful. The problem though is that she is willing to do what it takes, and not everyone is so willing. Not everyone has a good view of what it sometimes takes.

Exactly what draws her in, she’s not sure. It is not to stare at dead bodies, not exactly. It’s to understand, to understand more about the Hallowed Grounds. What he does is part of that, part of the rituals and customs of this place that is so close to her and yet has been out of reach for so long. She wants to understand too how they came to be here, the dead. Are there any elderly here, do they make it to old age? Or has the plight of the gods kept them from living?

She wants to know what is coming for her.

He leads her inside and she follows, nodding as he explains that the screen keeps busy-bodies like her (he is of course much nicer than this) from peeking in unwanted. Her demeanor changes, softens, becomes something more respectful as she enters the mortuary. Why? Because she knows death. It is a familiar companion and a lingering shadow in her life, and she respects those who have died far more than those who still live.

He asks about Halo and she nods again. “We do. We burn our dead, for practical reasons that we cannot bury them, though for more than that. We give them to a warmth they never experienced in life in Halo. We let them burn to feel the kiss of the sun. If there is no body, which happens a lot in Halo, we burn something that was important to them. For those that aligned with a god, we burn something that would be an offering to that god as well.” She grows almost sad as she speaks of it, like she is recalling a service she does not want to. It is not one service, but many. Though above all it is the service she missed that hurts the most. “Each is a bit different, but the general service is always beautiful.”

weaver

-- ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies --

Quote by Charles Dickens


Undertaker

Age: 36 | Height: 5'8" | Race: Abandoned | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 2 - Strg: 12 - Dext: 14 - Endr: 13 - Luck: 10 - Int:
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#9
Abasi
You tell me what you want and I'll tell you what you get

As Weaver entered into the mortuary proper, she would only see one table in the main room being used; a sheet covering what was clearly a child. At the back of the room a cold draft escaped from a wooden drawer fitted into the wall and a table filled with various tools, some more macabre than others, sat next to the covered body.

Abasi entered and sat on a chair by the end of the table, motioning to another next to it for Weaver. They were not particularly comfortable, stools for him to perch on while he was working. He listened with interest to her describe the traditions of Halo, thinking that with the portal now being open, it was not impossible he'd have to assist Halovians with their dead eventually. "I see. Some here like to be cremated also...I have a pyre in the fields which we use. A pleasing meaning behind your tradition, though."

He pointed to the wall behind her, where a window was surrounded by different images and words, depicting various afterlifes, each clearly drawn by a different person. There was his own, Egyptian hieroglyphs showing the weighing of the heart, Loren's magical fire, Remi's simple words of 'YOU HAVE A CHOICE', among many more. "I try to ask the people that visit to put on this wall their own traditions or beliefs, so that anyone else with those beliefs might feel welcomed and comforted in this space. Could I ask you to do so?"
Weaver Hale
the Scythe
Warden of the Citadel

Age: 33 | Height: 5'6 | Race: Abandoned | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Halo
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#10
The sight of the child on the table almost stops her in her tracks. Almost. The problem is she knows, all too well, that even children are taken. That many are taken too young, before they were ever given a chance to live. One might argue that Erebor, even, was taken too young, though he had been in his early twenties. Not a child, but still, hardly a man. He was just beginning, really. His life was a blank canvas before him, though Weaver could imagine a wife and children in it, had he been given the chance. Erebor coming home with his kill from hunting that day, children running out to meet him. Maybe a boy that would learn to hunt, but before he was old enough one that would still help his father skin and carve a kill. She can imagine them bent over their work, hands bloody and cold, but laughing as father teaches son. Maybe a girl that Erebor would have pampered, because he was soft like that, and yet taught to survive. Weaver knows this treatment first hands, knows that he’d teach a girl to hunt and carve and fight just as much as a boy, knows that he’d bring her pretty dresses (or pretty knives) all the same.

She has to shake the thoughts from her, has to bring herself back to reality as Abasi speaks saying that some here also like to be cremated. They have more of a choice, here, with the ground far softer than Halo’s will ever be. Abasi sits and gestures for her to do the same. Removing the scythe from behind her back and leaving it by the door, Weaver joins him. It seems rude to keep the weapon any closer at hand given that she is not attempting to hurt anyone and if something goes terribly wrong she still has knives anyway.

He gestures to a wall and she turns to look, noticing the writing and images that surround the window. He goes on to explain, and after a moment she gets up to examine what is written there. It is a beautiful thing, and though she does not share the same beliefs as those on this wall, she finds them comforting all the same. “Of course,” she says, walking back toward him. “Do you have something to write with? “ Her alternative, which she’d be fine with, would be to scratch it into the wall with a knife. She doesn’t say as much, remembering how her last joke fell flat. Looking back to the wall, she adds, “Which is yours, if I may ask?”

weaver

-- ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies --

Quote by Charles Dickens


Undertaker

Age: 36 | Height: 5'8" | Race: Abandoned | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 2 - Strg: 12 - Dext: 14 - Endr: 13 - Luck: 10 - Int:
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#11
Abasi
You tell me what you want and I'll tell you what you get

Abasi knew well the signs of someone shocked by death and did not say anything as he saw Weaver hesitate; truthfully he would have been more surprised if she had not. He had become desensitised to the dead long ago (and unfortunately, especially to young dead in this last week) but thought it a sign of a good person that they did not revel in the sight of life extinguished.

She agreed to write on the wall (rare - most people needed some convincing) and he smiled, going to find her the charcoal paint and brush. Pulling the bucket of dark paint from the underside of a table, he placed it by the wall for her. "You may put whatever you like. Perhaps it will help someone else from Halo, if I serve them here." There were still many spaces on the wall, most of them underneath the window; he sat on a stool and kept an interested eye on what she drew or wrote.

As for his own...he pointed to the neat sideways figures and hieroglyphs. "This. Ma'at weighs the heart against her feather to determine the worth of the soul, to see if they are able to escape Duat." Weaver would see a pair of scales and a woman with a feather in her hair, neat symbolic writing giving her name over her head. "Those worthy may go to Aaru, the fields of paradise, to live with Osiris."
Weaver Hale
the Scythe
Warden of the Citadel

Age: 33 | Height: 5'6 | Race: Abandoned | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Halo
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#12
Was it shock or just simply sadness that stops her? It is not that she is necessarily shocked by death, but rather that it will always simply hurt. Death is no stranger to Weaver, for she has tasted his kiss and it is sweet and tempting, but it leaves poison on your lips. Shock is, of course, simply a way of being upset but it feels different, somehow, as if implying that she is surprised to find a child on the table. She is not surprised, not really, but the wave of memories and the pain that comes with them is, she supposes, shocking. Things she thought long buried come flooding back too easily.

She is almost thankful for something else to do, for the distraction from the thoughts of Erebor, her mother, her step-father. She’d rather not dream of the life she might have had, if they had not died, if at the very least Erebor had not died. Who might she have been if she’d be given the chance to grow up with him into adulthood? It doesn’t matter, now.

Abasi collects a bucket of paint and a brush for her, which is not as fun as carving with a knife but she supposes it is vastly more effective. She studies the open space for a moment, most of which is beneath the window, listening as he tells her of his own custom. “Must our souls be lighter than a feather, then?” she asks, dipping the brush into the paint. Her soul was far heavier than a feather, she was sure.

She begins to paint, a curving and small script beneath the window:

We return your ashes to the earth.
We hear your memories on the wind.
We feel your love in the snow.
We give you to the flame.


Beside the words, she draws a flame. Art is not her strong suit, but she knows fire well, and is able to create something akin to a flame made only of one color. She cannot do it justice, not really, but one can imagine the flame that consumes the body and pyre, one can imagine standing to watch reciting those words as the flames brought home a body lost to this world.

weaver

-- ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies --

Quote by Charles Dickens


Undertaker

Age: 36 | Height: 5'8" | Race: Abandoned | Nationality: Outlander | Citizenship: Hollowed Grounds
Level: 2 - Strg: 12 - Dext: 14 - Endr: 13 - Luck: 10 - Int:
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#13
Abasi
You tell me what you want and I'll tell you what you get

Weaver took the paint from him and Abasi went to sit again, watching her work. "Ah, no, not quite...it is the heart's sins that are being weighed. Bad deeds are heavy. If there are too many, they will tip the scales. Good deeds can alleviate the bad and make one's heart lighter." He liked to think his heart would pass the test, though whenever he spoke of it he felt a touch of doubt in his soul over the matter. Truthfully, the scales terrified him - would he ever get to see the paradise?

(Perhaps it was fortunate he did not know how soon he would find out.)

The words she wrote were beautiful enough and a similar sentiment to other things he'd seen put there. "Thank you. It is good to have some contribution from Halo here." After all, he wanted to be able to serve anyone he could.
Weaver Hale
the Scythe
Warden of the Citadel

Age: 33 | Height: 5'6 | Race: Abandoned | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Halo
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#14
She listens as he talks about the heart’s sins. She wonders if bad things with good intentions weigh negatively or positively. She’d done plenty of ‘bad’ things, but is it wrong to kill in order to eat? Is it wrong to drink and enjoy oneself? It is wrong, certainly, to deceive as she does, but then again she does it to learn, to survive, to provide for her brother and herself. Wrong and right, good and bad, these things have never seemed quite clear to her. She doesn’t believe that all killing is bad, that all kindness is good. Sometimes kindness comes with the wrong intentions, with a price that it should not have.

She finishes her drawing, returning the bucket and brush to Abasi after she is done. Her eyes linger for another moment on the child beneath the sheet, and she wonders who the child was, who he or she might have grown into if given the chance. That is always the question, isn’t it? “I hope that it helps someone. I know how hard it can be.” she says, willing to admit this much and this much only. She moves to the door, picking up her scythe and swinging it over her back. “Thank you for humoring me. I am sure I should let you get back to your work.” she says, giving him a nod before letting herself out.  

(finished)

weaver

-- ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies --

Quote by Charles Dickens




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