#dead drops

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There is a name on a piece of paper in Persephone's office. And it's a name that you recognise as yours which also isn't. It's a name of convenience. It's an easier one to sign on contracts and paperwork when you moved to the US. 

It is your name. But for 41 days before this one, if your maths are correct, you had no name.

Stevenson yells in fear before realising you just forgot your finger and bringing it to you. He places it on the table next to your cup of warm coffee that is being neglected. No words are exchanged. You think you scare him a bit. You do smile.

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Visiting the local pagoda, you get a feeling you haven't had in a long time. Hearing the language of your mother spoken around you brings with it a feeling like finding your keys just before you realised you'd lost them. Even as you clearly put the people around you off with the large trench coat over your moth-eaten sweater.

As you leave, you notice the City shifting. Because your place is now outside the pagoda. And Stevenson simply walks out for a daily run, too focused on selecting a song for the run to notice you or the City.

Your left hand falls off and a young woman who notices it as you leave. "Xin lỗi." you apologise. And she smiles. Her teeth are black. Something that you remember your mother telling you about from 'back home'.

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You're walking the banks of the Phlegethon one morning. When you notice over the ridge, Jackson is introducing Stevenson to the local iwi. They smile together, bringing their heads together for hongi. You smile, Jackson has invited you also. But you are still looking for what you lost. If you lost it.

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You open Dead Drops because you're finding your collection of disparate items piling up in the small room of the apartment. Stevenson is nice but you could tell it was starting to bother him.

The first visitor is the young woman from the pagoda. You realise that you haven't properly spoken Vietnamese in some time. And you hope she doesn't notice your rustiness.

She does. She doesn't mind. She points out that you forgot your hand at the pagoda. And this time nobody else had noticed. Not even you.

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Stevenson drops by the shop one morning. He's on his daily run but he stops to sit on a folding chair with you outside the door. It's quiet. The past five decades of both of your lives have been anything but. Even the 16 year long siesta was an oh too short respite.

You were operating in the Shadows for all this time, Stevenson has never left the bright lights of the splort. Time hasn't had a hold on him and it had all too much of one on you.

There was little time to spend with yourself then… for yourself. But something about the Scattering and the Blackhole and the Fall… you know there's something to find. Perhaps it wasn't that you lost something in Hades.

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CN: Parental Loss

You find a local synagogue one day. You haven't been in… about two decades, since your father died.

You'd gone to the funeral, and told the people you'd be back. And you never were. Your dad wasn't the first dead body you'd seen. Working at the Agency and in Blaseball for about 30 years for the first and a good decade for the latter, death was something you felt insulated against.

And yet without your father, going to the synagogue always felt like it had lost its point. 

You forget your hat at the synagogue. A young man, barely an adult yet already towering above you, comes by the shop to bring it back to you and shares a few words in Hebrew which you are slightly less rusty in than Vietnamese. 

Now if anyone needed you to speak in morse code, that's one thing you never lost your practice at.

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CN: Funeral

You attend a funeral at the pagoda. The young woman's family sits in solemn silence. Linh lays in a casket with a faint smile on her face. The young man from the synagogue can't hold back the tears, wiping them and staining the white robes he's wearing. Yet, he stands still and quiet as a spirit medium sings. Not even your mother remembered these songs. And Linh had never even told you his name.

When you lose your right hand at the pagoda that evening, just after placing your offering, there's no one there to notice and bring it back to you.

You're sitting on your folding chair outside the shop. Your right hand still not recovered, you must have forgotten it somewhere. It'll turn up. You have a hook for exactly those situations.

The view isn't so pretty, the city has moved Dead Drops to face the Admin building and something about the hard stone face of the building in which Hades works sours your mood. "A better view would be nice.".

The City shifts. And you find yourself now looking at the more charming view of the harbour. "Cám ơn." You thank into the empty space. 

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Abner comes by the shop. It's maybe a couple of days later and you know his name now. He's found your hand, or rather, Linh's mother found your hand and had no idea what to do with it besides take it home and leave a note on the community board at the pagoda. 

Regardless, he's brought it back.

He sits next to you on a folding chair. You don't say a word after thanking him, he speaks Yiddish but you know too little of it to hold a conversation in. Which doesn't seem to be what he needs at the moment. 

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The next Fall will happen soon. Stevenson mentioned it. Despite his appearance, the man has lived as long as you have. You just have the arthritis to match the number of turns around the sun.

He's helping you reorganise the shop to be more efficient with the space. As you keep finding lost things. Except for your ring and little finger. They'll turn up.

"Why do you keep all of this? You don't even know that anyone remembers they lost these things." Stevenson asks after placing a box on a high shelf. "It's not the things that are lost. It's the people." You say with a smile. Your teeth are black. "I'm just making sure they find their rightful place. This is just for the meantime, until the right person comes along.".

You place a glass sculpture of an ox into the glass case behind you. Ah, that's where your fingers were.

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You take your first official case on the eve of the fall. Someone from the synagogue has lost a ring. A family heirloom. They told you all of their whereabouts in Hades since they lost it. You can see on their face that they don't believe you'll find it. You could barely find your head if you lost it. Of the latter they are correct. 

Tracing back the trail takes time, the City shifts all the time but you've noticed the details in the seams of the patchwork city. The different stones, the wood, the different pavement. Hades ebbs and flows, never static. And yet. You can follow the plan. It is still a city with rules. Even if those rules sometimes find themselves at odds with common assumptions.

The trail ends in what is now a dark alley around the back of the pagoda. Two days ago it was part of the main street Stevenson runs every day. A week before that. It was the street outside the synagogue.

"Some light please." You ask politely into the empty space. The City shifts. And a lamppost from an adjacent street lands next to you. And sure enough. A glint in the pavement.