A Gracious Sentinel

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