moved.

Tagged by: @raichoose​ Tagging: @invictarre​ ; @shadesandrollerblades​ ; @sereina​ ; @shemustbemagic​ ; @godfrey-industries​ [Yarbert] ; @pinevalley​ [Cassie]

Smart Until Infected With Stupid.

writers should hire you.

“I also like an intricate handle, as well as a sharp blade. My arsenal is well-stocked with all kinds of weaponry - some for war, some for spars, some for show … I take it you might like to see my greatest showpieces, dear?”

(Is she being so kind and accommodating because Reggie is a spirit? 

Perhaps. 

She knows very well that the dead don’t come back - but he has, in his own way, and Stella wants to give him some little bits of joy whilst he’s in her dimension.)

“You can walk next to me, by the way! I don’t mind. Tell me about yourself, if you’d like? My name is Stella.” 

Reggie had been in and out of a lot of realms at this point in his afterlife - every one except for Heaven, the one he was supposed to have ended up in. The sheer irony that he was now in Hell (for the time being, at least - he always woke up somewhere different, no matter where he rested his undead head) was not lost on him, but as he so often tried to do - 

He took it in stride. 

(And stride he did, falling in step beside the queen as requested.)

“Thank you, Your Majesty. I’m Reggie. It would be an honor to see your collection! I’d offer to share mine, but it’s - well, back in Roseden,” he says, with half a laugh. “Not too sure how long I’ll be here, anyway. Whatever fates control my spirit send me all over the map every week.” Quite literally and quite unfortunately.

“Well, I do love my throwing knives,” she says, not even questioning Reggie’s presence (she finds him charming, truthfully). “Hmm … Walk with me. Let’s see which ones I should use, yes?” 

He does as told, falling into step a bit behind the demon queen (under the assumption that to walk directly at her side might be considered rude or presumptuous). He’s actually unsure how he got here - being a ghost lost to time does take him to many strange places, after all - but that doesn’t mean he’ll say no to the chance to talk about knives!

Maizie looks up at the reaper and gives her a curt nod “Aye.  If it means I can stay and remind them-” she points at the Royals “-about the truth, then I’ll become a ghost that wails in their sleep until they can tell lies no longer.” 

The Royals addressed the crowds below them.  Now trying to tell a new lie that what they’d done was for the good of the people, when it was actually for the good of their greed.  The crowd seems a little shaky to believe them though.  She hopes her words reached at least a few of them.

“You can allow that, can’t you?  I’m still dead either way.”

She knows she should be sad.  Most kids would cry about being dead, wouldn’t they?  But her last moments were not filled with sadness.  They were filled with anger and fear, an anger and fear that followed her into the next life, and would persist until someone spoke the truth.

Red might be immortalized now as the greatest kill a hunter ever made, but the beast deserved to go out better than that.  She deserved to die of old age in the ocean she loved, at peace, far away from the violence their kind had come to know from the humans.

“I can allow you to say it’s what you want, yes,” Daniella answers, “although it’s not a desire I can grant right away. Most people who die suddenly or tragically or unfairly beg to stay behind with their loved ones after death or to avenge what killed them, so there’s a - waiting period, if you will. It’s because you can’t really change your mind once you’ve become a ghost unless someone finds the very specific thing that will allow your ghost to come back to the afterlife. So, our patron deity has us bring spirits who want to be ghosts to a place where we can see if it’s what they really want or if their rage or mourning just needed time to fizzle out.”

A pause.

“I don’t think yours will die, though. And I can’t say I blame you.” 

She reaches up and touches the hide of the fallen sea beast. “After all, I empathize with these creatures. They know what it’s like to be hunted and feared by humans simply because of what you are. I wish I could have met her.”

(A different branch of reapers dealt with animals, and that coworker had come and gone already, leaving Daniella to work with the child. In truth, she hated collecting the souls of children, but her maternal instincts and the fact that she “had the face for it” made them one of her more common assignments. C’est la mort, she thinks, wearily, before turning back to the girl.)

“Yeah, I can do it,” Daniella says, softly. Is she allowed to do it? Not really. But that doesn’t mean she’s incapable of doing it, nor does it mean she isn’t going to. 

This wouldn’t be the first time she’d broken protocol, after all, but at least this time she was doing it for someone other than herself.

Squeezing Lucy’s hand, she adds, “And I’ll let anyone see Lily who you want to see Lily, don’t worry. We’ll just need everybody gathered in one place - I’m less likely to get caught if I’m not taking her all over the map, you know?”

“Can you get me one of those fifty cent peach pies while we’re at it? Arkham only serves the blandest of plastic utensil-friendly food to me, and that’s only because I don’t try to kill the guards with the aforementioned plastic utensils.” 

“You say that, but then you never do, and suddenly I’m terrorizing random citizens, getting arrested, and calling you from a padded cell.” 

Oh, he’s done it now. 

“Fair point. We’ll have to rectify that. Come along.”