story time

“Wait, you’re saying you caught Hayward being actually affectionate?”

The two young women sat around a table at the Griffilar deli they loved, a short walk away from Lumentia Castle. Angel had her arms folded and her eyebrow quirked in disbelief as she listened to her three-eyed companion speak.

“Saw it with my own eyes! It gets even better, you guys. Not only did I catch him being affectionate, I saw actual, legitimate blue in his aura. As in, deep blue. As in, actual love.”

“No. Noooo. You’re lying. You gotta be lying. He doesn’t people, Spirit. He barely emotes on a good day. At least, unless he’s been hanging out with his friends. But even then, never, like, blue. Maybe a little vermillion, but never ever blue. I honest to gods thought he was aromantic at least. Maybe not asexual. You’ve seen the dungeon porn.”

“He says it’s to learn the language but it’s totally not.”

“Definitely not.”

“I’m not lying though. You’ve gotta see it. I don’t know if he even knows it, but any time he even looks at her he lights up like Glacientyr Castle on Tia’s birthday that one year.”

“...That was an event.”

“Kind of amazing we managed to get banned from six bars. Not really the point though.”

“No I know. See, now, I can’t believe this. I need to see it.”

“He was in a book fort, Angel. I bet if you snuck in there you could see it for yourself and not even get caught like I did. They closed themselves off in there.”

“Think they can wait until we finish lunch?”

“I mean, they seemed pretty cozy.”

“Then we’re finishing lunch.”

“I agree.”

~*~*

Later on, Angel slipped quietly back into the castle library. A stack of books sat on a conspicuously empty desk, immediately raising her suspicions. No, Spirit couldn’t be right. Could she? No way she’s right. If she’s right, Angel thought, I’ll eat my shirt. He’s just in the bathroom, she urged herself. Even completely non-emotional automatons had to pee. Right?

The sound of soft speaking caught her attention somewhere toward the back, and she followed the sound, eventually coming upon what had since developed into a very ornate palace of books. Barely visible through a small crack was a point of light within, where the voices seemed to be coming from. Seated nearby was none other than Starr, who appeared to be staring in disbelief in the direction of the book palace.

“What’d I miss-” Angel stopped as Starr lifted a hand.

“Shhhh! You’re not gonna believe this. C’mere. Sit. Listen.”

Angel followed her instructions, and sat, flipping on her own aura sight. Inside, she saw two figures, leaning against one another, awash in sky blue calmness and vermillion happiness, with a strongly burning core of, just as she had been told, the most vivid deep blue imaginable. There was no way, she thought. That must be someone else. She stopped to listen to the two voices in silence.

“Ah, I have one. How about I read you this one? The Woeful Tale of the Crow King, it’s called. Would you be interested?”

“It sounds neat. I’d listen to you read off an ingredient list if you really wanted, though.”

“Now now, surely you’d like to hear something more exciting than that.”

“Well… I mean, go for it. I’d like to hear it...”

“Alright. So, the tale goes that the Crow King wandered the three planets long before any other rose to prominence as Death. Even the gods couldn’t tell you if he truly exists or not, as he looks, acts and sounds like any ordinary old man and has never been seen in their courts or counsels. Truly, his existence is as mere legend to most, but those that know death understand that he is real.”

“Huh. Interesting...”

“They say he’s existed since the universe began. Some say, he’s existed even longer than that. No one knows.”

“I… I guess I wouldn’t know either. I always assumed gods didn’t exist, back on Earth… there was no real proof, y’know. Kind of funny in retrospect, how all this stuff here was just myths and legends and video game stuff back then...”

“Indeed…”

“I’m glad I’m here now though. Everything is so… so rad here. And… and you’re here.”

“Well I’m glad I can add even a modicum of value to this world for you. Shall we continue with the story?”

“Oh, yeah sorry.”

“Very good. They say he is not cruel or callous, nor does he take a twisted interest in his work. He walks the worlds, gathering souls and sending them along to their next journey, allowing them to soothe their past regrets. But though he cares for the souls he must send along, rarely does he take such favor to a mortal soul to establish a familial bond with them. Such things are temporary, and serve only to hurt his heart as he walks, as one day he will inevitably have to ferry them across the veil.”

“I guess that’s understandable. Watching your family die isn’t easy...”

There was a brief, heavy pause in the conversation.

“I- I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“Shhh. Poppet. It’s fine. I understand completely.”

“Mmh… please continue. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. Ah, where were we. Here. Rarely does the Crow King make such family connections, because he will inevitably ferry them to the beyond one day. This story is that of the trials of his daughter, in a matter of speaking.”

“Daughter...”

“Yes. It came to pass that a young woman, a mortician in training, caught his eye and enraptured his heart, and in turn, she began to see him as her father after the loss of her own. Deep down within him, however, he knew one day that he would have to ferry her soul away. Unfortunately, that day came far sooner than either would have hoped. She was struck and killed in a terrible accident, and he was too late to rush to her side and save her.”

“Oh, that’s… that’s unfortunate.”

“Unfortunate indeed. Even more so, the fact that he could not revive her.”

“Couldn’t he have used… one of those things they’re making?”

“Ah, but as the true and original Death, the reviver stone had no effect when he used it on her. Never before had he needed to, and he certainly did try. But still she lay, cold as the grave. Starved of options, he called her spirit to him, and turned her body to ash so that it may never rise as undead. He put that ash in a small vial around a cord, placed it around her neck, and gave her three tasks. To soothe the soul of a long-deceased lost spirit, to put to rest an angry and violent specter, and to journey across the mirror of our world that all ghosts wander to find her way to him. When she passed all three trials, she would be reborn, in a new body forged from the ashes of the old.”

“Fascinating… so there are other ways to bring somebody back.”

“Only in myth, poppet. No one truly knows if the Crow King exists, after all. Not even the gods. Not even you.”

“Mm… I guess, yeah. This is the first time I’ve heard about it anyway.”

“In any case, the child set forth on her journey through the world where death reigns, that world that only spirits and his Channelers are ever able to see.”

“I thought Death didn’t have Channelers? You know… like I don’t.”

“Ah, not the Death the common man knows. No, she chooses her chosen to be her assassins. But the Crow King has, and has always had Channelers, so they say. But they aren’t like other Channelers, no. Most may never know what they are.”

“Huuuuh...”

“And so, the child walked. Like her father, she wandered the plane beyond the world, where those poor souls are gathered that were never ferried to Heaven nor Hell. And she communed with them, helped ease their regrets. Until one day, she encountered the lost souls of a crew of Venturenian pirates, whose bodies had been been frozen in the depths of the Ice Storm Wastes for a thousand years, maybe more.”

“The… Ice Storm Wastes?”

“Yes, or as my mother calls it, Kori no Rohi. The Glacientyrians call it Snezhnaya Burya Otkhodov. In the far north, near the planet’s polar ice caps, there’s a region of terrible cold and constant storms. It is incredibly dangerous, enough that the central governments of Ventureni and Glacientyr have no idea what to do with it. Legends spanning a thousand years tell of vast treasures housed deep within, but none who seek those treasures come back to tell the tale. These pirates were some such victims of the region’s terrible curse, long ago.”

“Ooh… I hate the cold. Remind me never to go there...”

“I don’t know if I’d let you, even were it an option. To venture into its depths means certain death.”

“Like it did for these guys?”

“Correct. And with nobody for miles to ferry their souls, they wandered, unaware that they had passed. The child spoke to them, learned their woes, and helped guide them to the otherworldly mirror of their lost treasure, and helped them realize their own passing. When she left to continue her wandering, the Crow King arrived to see them off finally, pleased that she had passed her first trial.”

“Did she know she finished it?”

“Certainly not. She wandered long without purpose, until she came upon a beast of deepest black, a vortex of hate and sorrow given physical form. A Grudge.”

“What are those?”

“The souls of the angry departed that are left to fester and grow bitter. They lose sight of themselves, become monsters. Sometimes, they fuse together as a collective of souls and grow more potent that way. Sometimes, they even become capable of affecting our physical world, of tearing through, building forms for themselves out of the bodies of those whose sorrows they inflame to the point of irrational action, depression and suicide. This one was very close to tearing through, as it happened, and the child rushed into battle without a second thought, though her very soul was at stake.”

“What happened after that?”

“The battle was long and tiring. When forced to deal with a Grudge, most opt simply to destroy it. Who knows what happens to the souls contained within after that. A rare few are able to reach out to the core within, and bring those souls back from an event horizon which is otherwise irreversible. Can you guess which one our heroine chose?”

“She redeemed it.”

“Very good. She pulled the souls free of the black mire of hate, and set them loose. And again, the Crow King smiled, because she had passed her second task.”

“She had to have known by then.”

“She didn’t. To her, it was merely doing what was right. And so, she continued to walk. And eventually, she found her way back to the very spot at which she had died, and found her father standing there waiting. In that moment, the ashes spilled out of the vial around her neck, and she was given new physical form. She lived again, she breathed again. And the Crow King told her, ‘my daughter, you have learned the other side of death, and earned life for it. Never more shall you have your breath stolen from you’.”

“Well… what does that mean?”

“Nothing less than preternatural fortitude. When next she was victim to a terrible event, she stood through it as an impenetrable bastion. She did not crumble, she survived. She thrived, with little more than a scratch. And they say she remains to this day, quietly doing her work as a mortician and never truly letting on what she knows.”

“Huuuuh… That’s a really neat story.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

Angel couldn’t believe what she was hearing and seeing. Spirit was right. They were canoodling in there. What was this? How was this? This wasn’t right. This couldn’t be.

She slowly got up from the table and exited the library. She needed to think about this.