A Gracious Sentinel

Lesson One: A midwife’s primary purpose is as a steward of life, ever vigilant to protect it miraculous nature. Lesson Two: A midwife’s secondary purpose is as a gracious sentinel, when death humbles us with our own mortality. Lesson Three: Life is your purpose, and so is death. These lessons had been drilled into her head from day one of her apprenticeship. Her teacher, an old woman who hid her wisdom under layers of intentionally over-the-top eccentricity, had always posited that these three lessons were more important to understand than any technical skill she would ever learn. As a seven year-old she couldn’t grasp more than the first two, nor the depth of their importance. The third she could never get her arms around. How was death her purpose too, when she was supposed to ensure women and their babies didn’t die? Was not death her adversary? ”You won’t understand until you understand.” was all her teacher would tut, further obscuring her meaning. Sabrina Hodges. The fourth day of the second month of summer. Twenty-one hours and thirteen minutes. Age twenty-two. Shocking red hair, brown eyes, button nose with a shock of freckles on pale skin. Her third child. Everything was normal. It all progressed to the plan. The child was positioned well and had been moving regularly. The child was born, healthy and strong – a boy like the other two. Then suddenly, without warning, her heart ceased to beat, and she died. The fourth day of the second month of summer. Twenty-one hours and thirteen minutes. Her teacher had stood by while her husband and children grieved. She comforted them. She cried with them. She held them. She assured them of her peaceful passing, of her eternal comfort wherever it was souls went to rest. She prepared them to continue living, and to move on. Her teacher had been right. She understood when she understood. Sabrina was one of many names and faces Phoebe knew by heart, ones she could not, would not, forget. Each person that died in her care she wore on her shoulders, a mantle of responsibility. Most only saw her primary purpose, bubbling, happy, soothing as she saw new life brought to the world. Only she felt the weight of her secondary purpose, to accept the things she could not change, and assist in as peaceful a passing as one could hope for. Early on the weight crushed her, but she learned to cope by an odd means, though she never had a sacred place in which to do so. Gods did not exist in Northwind after all. But feeling the crushing pressure of grief now, remembering what she had been told by Safrin, she went to the temple once Emmett and his siblings had fallen asleep. She was still in the rags of her dress, walking barefoot, an armful of small candles in her arms. The image of the Palmer house haunted her. She needed to do the only thing she knew to do to put their memories to rest. Phoebe arranged the candles on the alter, lighting them each as she imagined the face of each Palmer member that had died. The candles weren’t what she would have used ideally, they were too small and gave too faint a glow…but it was Long Night still. Once lit, she stepped back and kneeled, contemplating her words carefully. First, she said each of their names, starting with Emmett’s parents, and working her way down the list of his siblings that had been killed. ”…I am sorry. I am so, so sorry that I could do nothing to save you all. I pray you find peace and rest wherever it is Ludo takes you, that they grant you that final comfort. I promise I will do all that I can for Emmett, Chris, and Milly.” Tears briefly rose in her eyes, but quickly subsided as she sighed. For several minutes she sat in silence, sitting vigil over the flames that represented what the Palmers had been. That was all she could do. The dead were not to be raised, but bid rest by a gracious sentinel. Phoebe I'll be your shoulder when you cry

Ludo "Would that I took them anywhere, sweetling." The memories bubbling around in Phoebe's head were delicious. Ludo might have taken any shape it liked - any number of Emmett's torn-to-bits family; Sabrina with her button nose and her freckles; even the memory Remi had given him, of the blonde woman with the paint in her hair. But it was tired, in truth. Tired of LongNight. Tired of the barrier. Whilst the darkness and the death did not affect Ludo in the same way as Safrin - indeed, it was at its strongest during this time, which was probably the only reason it had been able to perform a feat such as forcing a soul back into a constructed body, that wasn't to say it enjoyed itself. Once it did, of course. Maybe one day it would again. But not this LongNight. "I merely hold them for safekeeping," it said, drifting on its rags down before the shrine, its porcelain mask tilting curiously. "What would you like me to tell you? That they are at peace? That they feel no pain?"

She should have startled. She should have been frightened hearing a new voice coming from the alter. But she couldn't muster it. Her mind was numb to the fear for the moment, protecting itself from the horror of what she had seen and experienced. A voice was not a direct threat. No need to get worked up over nothing. Phoebe turned her face up to look at Ludo, who was, of all the deities she had seen, certainly the most terrifying to behold. Yet they seemed to move with a gentleness, solemn and silent. Equal parts human and amorphous in shape and visage, a mask instead of a face. Death has no face after all, it simply is. Ludo was a fitting physical manifestation. "You...don't take them anywhere? Where do they go?" she said, sad wide brown eyes watching the diety. She came from a place with no gods, but she had seen many women and babies die. She had seen the light in their eyes flicker out as their souls left their bodies. They had to be going somewhere. It was these images that she carried with her. Sabrina was one of many. Her track record as a midwife was impeccable, it was why she had been so highly regarded. But 10 years of such a practice did not go by without seeing death. If Ludo was tired, there were as many faces of stillborns and infants passed suddenly in their sleep if they wished to be held. It was the nature of her work. Ludo held them for safekeeping...she frowned slightly as her mind tried to work it out. Ludo, like Safrin and Frey, fell under another God. Mort. God of Death. The most logical place for the souls of the dead to be taken. But Mort was outside the barrier. "You can't take them anywhere because of the barrier?" she asked quietly. Ludo asked her what she wanted to know and she paused. Yes. That was exactly what she wanted to hear. That what they had suffered in life was at an end. That she could tell Emmett and his siblings that their family no longer hurt. "It is, but only if it is true." The truth. That was what she really wanted. Why was this barrier in the way, why was it allowed to be when it caused such chaos to reign? Phoebe herself couldn't do much, how close she had come to death today proved that. She was just a midwife. Not a fighter. Phoebe I'll be your shoulder when you cry

Ludo Did it... wish to be held? Ludo shook its head softly, as if in response to an unanswered question, or perhaps to shake the notion from its thoughts. "I carry them, still," it said softly. "They are with me, in the void, until I can complete their journey." Not that it ever would. Not with the new purpose it had gained, by being trapped here as the mortals were. Since that larger group had come down, though... Change was in the air. Ludo could feel it. So could Frey, so could Safrin. But it was the only one willing to accept that the change was inevitable, it seemed. It nodded quietly in response to her question - indeed, yes. The barrier stopped everything, even the passage of souls into their next stage of existence. "They feel nothing, where they are presently," it said. "No pain... but no peace, either."

So Ludo was the guide then. It made sense, in a way. If Mort was one of the head three and Ludo under him, then Mort ruled whatever the world of the dead was, and Ludo brought departed souls there. But with the barrier it was an impossible task to complete. "No pain...but no peace either." Her fists clenched and she looked down. She was angry. It usually was an emotion she left buried under sweetness and positivity. But she couldn't muster it today. And she wasn't really angry at any one. Not at Ludo. Not at the fact that the Palmers were dead, per se. But this barrier...as she had suspected based on Safrin's words...it distorted and disrupted the natural order. Souls were created. People were born. They lived. They died. They were taken to where their soul was to rest. But the process litetally could not be completed because of this barrier. How many people had died in this bubble and remained in limbo? "Why is the barrier there, and what needs to be done to bring it down?" she asked, tone still respectful. But as she looked back up at Ludo there was fire in her eyes, even as a few errant tears ran down her cheeks. This state of things wasn't right. It was unjust. It wasn't right for the living. It wasn't right for the dead. It wasn't right for Ludo or Frey or Safrin. And in someway she knew that outside the barrier, things were probably off kilter too, if in a different way. Were errant souls running amuck without a guide to the afterlife, as one example. Phoebe knew she couldn't do anything herself. She wasn't particularly useful when it came to bringing down things of power like the barrier. But Roana. She didn't like her sister in law but...if any could be of use it was her. She knew the former captain had cheated death more than once, and while she had stepped back from the lime light...depending on what was needed Phoebe might be able to convince her to lend her assistance. Phoebe I'll be your shoulder when you cry

Ludo Ludo drifted to settle upon the stone platform of the shrine, and as it did so the white candles there lit up. It cast the masked deity in a ghoulish light, and it regarded Phoebe quietly and patiently. As she asked her question it seemed to quiver, as if caught between saying and not saying. It recalled its conversation with Safrin, nudging at one of the candles with a shred of fabric. "What are barriers for, sweetling?" it said. "To keep things out... and to keep things in." Swirling up once more, it seemed to melt into the shadows, appearing as just that white, innocuous mask. "A group broke into a chamber deep in the Underground and ignited something there that ought to have remained buried," it said. "Before that, the abominations you call Ascended were forced to replenish themselves only when necessary, and lacked knowledge about their situation. That has changed." Would she put two and two together?

Ok well, yes that first question was stupid. The purpose of the barrier was obvious. Ludo looked ghoulish in that light, but Phoebe was more captivated by how gracefully they moved. It was beautiful in a way. But they didn't stay on the shrine long, moving back into the shadows so only their mask was visible. That she thought was a much scarier image than previous. Floating head? Definitely disconcerting. Would she put two and two together? Was her career not taking disparate pieces of information and observations and coming to conclusions about the state of her clients? It took her a few moment, thinking through what Ludo said, what Safrin had said, information she had heard from others. "The Voice." she said quietly. "They awakened the Voice...who has something to do with the Ascended?" She didn't really know any ascended except Sam...and she had a feeling he was atypical. "So...if the Voice is destroyed, the barrier will be as well? What about the spire and the demon there?" she asked. That had seemed the key before but...perhaps they were all wrong. But...how much did it matter if the Voice was the real issue? "Can...are we even capable of destroying her?" They were just human. So was the Voice...or she had been. What sort of power did she possess that she had needed to be locked away? Phoebe I'll be your shoulder when you cry

Ludo Ludo watched quietly as he fed the mortal two plus two and she somehow came up with seventeen. If it could have blinked it would have. Instead it simply sighed, seeming to deflate languidly towards the ground. "A scholar you are not," it said simply. Speaking frankly was trouble, it was against what the three of them had agreed when they'd found themselves behind this barrier. But... gods damned it all. "If the Voice could be destroyed by something as fragile as a mortal, it would never have been hidden so carefully," Ludo quipped. "No. Destroying the Voice will not lift the barrier. The barrier was created precisely to keep the Voice and the rest of her ilk inside, and she must never be released." Therein lay the problem. "I have already said too much. Shoo, now."

Well, she certainly wasn't a scholar of religion. That much was true. But it was clear she had misunderstood something. It didn't all add up like she thought. The two and two she was given didn't make the other twos Safrin had given her...or maybe they did but she was missing all the imaginary twos that would get her back to four from seventeen. Ugh! Math! Regardless, she felt the guilt and shame of failure, and like Ludo, seemd to deflate. The Voice couldn't be destroyed. Definitely not by humans. If she could be by a god why would they have not done so before. Perhaps it wasn't so extreme. Perhaps she merely needed to be resealed and hidden away? "I'm sorry. I'm...only just starting to get a grasp of what is going on here." But that wasn't where it would end. Oh no. Something was amiss. She was primarily a steward of life. She was secondarily a gracious sentinel of death. Neither were in balance here because of the barrier. It needed to go...and somehow the Voice was its cause. If she was free...the barrier couldn't come down. Phoebe stood and gave Ludo a respectful nod. "I will do all I can to figure it out, Ludo. Things will be set right...thank you for your time...and your work." And should the god not say something to make her stay, she would leave. Phoebe I'll be your shoulder when you cry