Face to face with death

Hi there, I’m Mouse! This is a self-promotion for my OC Jay, who is a reaper of spirits. If you’d like to rp with me could you shoot this a like (or reblog it for other people to see!) I’d be super appreciative!

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He holds the dead rabbit in his hands-- the poor thing. It had at least looked like it had been a quick death, and though his heart aches for the loss of life, he understands this is the natural order of things.

Prey animals are food.

"Thank you," He smiles softly at the stranger. "I suppose I shouldn't let the carcass go to waste, I'll make something of it, and bury the bones."

Fia smiled at Jay and watched him depart, her fingers threading through Rogier’s silky hair. Her smile fell when they were alone, and she could sense the tenseness in the sorcerer’s body. “You are not happy with these turn of events.” It’s a statement, more than a question, and Rogier hated how easily she could read him. Stiffly, he nodded. 

“Can’t be helped,” he said eventually, turning to look at her, sighing as she cupped his cheek with her once cool hand. It felt so warm against his chilled skin, and he had to wonder if it was because some of his vitality was still within her. “I can work with this, all the same…” The deathbed companion sighed but didn’t fight him on it, kissing his forehead. “Soon, our Prince will make it sure that we will live fairly among the living.”  Rogier stared up at her with wide eyes then. “You - you know where the other cursemark is, then?” Fia did not answer, turning her eyes towards the door.

“Do not worry yourself on this just yet. We still need to stabilize your legs.”

In his search he’d managed to find gauze, tape, a bandage or two, and a couple of treats. He’s not sure why somebody had given him sweets, but he’s not going to complain-- he pockets the items and makes his way back to Fia’s room-- though he stops, momentarily.

He hadn’t known Rogier for long, at all. Their meeting was awfully brief, and he wonders if maybe interfering with this process-- even if it felt wrong-- was going to bite him back at some point. This system exists, and that’s proof enough that this world utilizes it, even if it’s in a way he is ignorant of.

Jay places a hand on the door to push it open, and determines that maybe he should let sleeping dogs lie, and let the world balance itself out. 

He knocks-- if only to be polite-- “I’ve returned with the bandages and such,” He gently pushes the door open and makes his way inside. It feels like he had interrupted something, but pays it no mind, as it is none of his business, and walks over to Fia to relinquish the medical supplies he had been given by the lovely people of this place.

“Hopefully his ailment is something that can be mended,” Jay casts a worried look to the break. “I’m confident in your abilities, Fia, so I will leave in him your hands while you mend his wound,” and then, a pause, for a moment, he looks at Rogier. “I can wait outside if you’d like, you can call me back in when you’re all mended.”

“I know, it’s silly. But–ah–w-well, I didn’t want you to think I was stupid. Or lose interest because it was too much work to decipher my words. I really enjoyed our conversation. So I found a font online that looked close to print and downloaded it. My lines could never be that straight.” He giggled to himself. 

Though, he’d admit some struggle when first receiving Jay’s letters. His English wasn’t the strongest when they first started to talk. He definitely hadn’t been prepared for cursive ontop of that. But he studied it! And he got to the point that he could understand it. Back then Jay was his only friend, so he worked really hard to understand him. He thought it well worth it, now that they were sitting across from one another. 

“I speak very formally in letters. I don’t think in general. I’m surprised to hear my voice was expected though.” Finally, he was sipping his drink since it wouldn’t scald his tongue. “I feel like I know so much yet so little about you. We started talking right after I was out of high school after all. That’s almost 7 years.” 

“I’m really excited to get to know the real you–the live and in person you. As similar as they might be, i-it’s a little different for everyone yeah?” 

Seven years-- had it really been so long? It felt like he’d only met Sully a week ago. Time generally distorts in his mind, though, losing track of time unless there was active sunlight was par for the course. He flashes Sullivan a big smile.

“It’s easy to pick and choose what you tell people in letters, it’s a lot harder to hide who you are in person,” he takes another sip of his-- thankfully cooler-- coffee. “For instance, I actually wrote a couple of your letters while sat in a tree.” He laughs, to be fair, it’s not the most high-end secret, but it’s enough to diffuse the tension, he thinks. 

“I-I probably sound more confident in my writing. Since we don’t have my stammers.” He said it in good fun. With Jay it seemed less critical and more part of him. Though, he hoped to eventually be comfortable enough that he didn’t do it, or did it less. He was sure that his letters made him come off more proficient in speaking. “Though, ah–I admit that I cheat when I send you letters. I type them s-so I can use spell check. I’m really dyslexic and people sometimes can’t make out my spelling when combined with my handwriting. I’m told it’s sloppy. That’s why they’re always typed.” 

Like he needed to show it, he was grabbing for a pen and sticky note from his bag. He set to work trying to write a sentence for Jay to have as an example. It was a nice filler for the time so he didnt’ burn his tongue like poor Jay. He listened though, catching his question and feeling his smile grow when he thought about it. 

“You sound sort of like it, yeah. But–y-you know–” He broke into a small bout of laughter as he continued. “You always make a voice a bit more dramatic in your head, right? Or maybe I’ve just watched too many cartoons. I always expected you to sound pretty even-voiced and to have some youth to your tone. But I made it really exaggerated.” 

“You sound like a protagonist to an anime in my head. It’s cute to have your real voice with that same stem of imagination.” 

The stammers are cute though. He wouldn’t sat that out loud, he doesn’t know how Sully actually feels about them. Jay lets out a fake, exaggerated gasp, at the knowledge that the other cheats on his letters. “Typing thine letters?” There is an obvious layer of sarcasm laced all over his words, “Why that is of criminal offence, sir, I will simply have to arrest you, for crimes of no-pen upon paper,” Jay offers a small laugh at the end of it and waves his hand nonchalantly.

“I’m kidding, of course, nothing wrong with spell-checking, though I did wonder if you were typing or writing them, the text you use is clever.” Though that begs the question of if Sully could read his own cursive letters back-- he tried to not join so many letters so the other could read it, and at one point he had to get his friend to coach him on how to actually block his letters out.... 

He chuckles at the idea that he sounds like an anime protagonist and glances at the sentence Sully is writing-- oh dear. “Oh wow...” If he really focuses he could probably try to decipher it. Wait a second, he looks up at Sully, his brain catching up to the latter half of the sentence-- “Cute eh?” Well, he can’t say that he doesn’t feel his cheeks heating up. “I imagined your voice about the same, though now I understand why your letters at first felt pretty formal,” because of the typing, though he may not have actively realised it, a subconscious part of him did. “If anything, the stutter is human, I haven’t met a single person who doesn’t trip up when talking.”

Rogier stares back at Jay, reluctant but understanding that he needn’t worry about what was to be seen. Perhaps, really, it was more that a part of himself dreaded to see the state of his legs. Jay was merely an excuse for the inevitable. But finally, he nodded to Fia, who wordlessly helped him lay down on the bed, her hands gently trailing for the ruins of his pant legs.  The thorns, deathroot, vines, deathblight, whatever one may call them, were no longer there to hinder her ability to hike the fabric up so she could assess the damage. Rogier wasn’t sure what was worse. To be studied, poked and prodded, or the complete and utter silence as she worked. He couldn’t even hear his own breathing, because he didn’t have a use for it anymore. That in itself, was maddening to think about.

Fia gently traced her fingers over the holes the roots had left behind in their disappearance, the way the skin there was devoid of warm blood, purpling and blue and graying as Death. Rot had set in, one way or another. Bones, she’d noticed, that had healed by the magic of Death to keep them attached. The blight had caused quite the issue for her dear Rogier. Walking in such a state would come with problems for some time, until he was used to the skeletal limbs they would once become. 

Finally, she looked up at Jay. “Could you find us some bandages, if you would? And perhaps a few thin pieces of wood. If it’s no trouble. I would also like to have a chance to speak to him alone.” 

As they say, the silence is deafening. He can hear the whispers of the walls around him, the dead howling from another room, he’s desperately wanting anything else to think of other than the begging of the cursed-- He takes a breath to drown the noise and in the second it fades he focuses on Rogier’s leg. The holes are grim to be sure, but nothing he can’t handle. He’s seen folks cut in twain, whole limbs missing, the violence of murder and madness, he’s no stranger to blood and giblets.

The wound, if anything, simply makes Jay saddened-- and then he notices. The death blight, the thorns must have been some sort of stitching to keep him there, the way a curse would prevent a soul from truly leaving. He can’t help but feel angry over this fact, and yet Rogier was not suffering, and there wasn’t anything he could do without a tool to undo said stitching- like a scythe-- so he dampens his anger and instead...

“Of course, Fia, I’ll be a moment,” He doesn’t quite know his way around, but he’ll make do. Perhaps the lady in the main hall might know of some place to get medical equipment. At least while he’s distracted with the task the noises won’t come back to plague him. He smiles at Rogier and turns to leave the room.

Elias considered surrendering; he was getting antsy waiting for Jay to find him, and his pho would get cold. Instead, he stifled a snicker and, careful to keep it close to the ground, snaked a tendril of shadow to the cupboard on the opposite side of the room. He pulled it open a bit, then pushed it closed.

@mirroredshadows

Aha, and then he hears it, the subtle sneaking of a shadow trailing across the floor and... to the cupboard. He tries to make it seem like he hadn’t noticed, and he paces the room, opening the place Elias had previously been hiding in and huffing loudly.