starless and bible black

Siv Helsi · 04-13-2012, 10:19 PM

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(381)There's a lot that will go on in this thread, so please bear with me!
Siv and Rowan have brought the cart bearing Larkspur to a location in Borgata Tenzontli, where she has built a stone ship and pyre for the funeral. As it is customary for the dead to be buried with their things, I would suggest people bring items to send with him to the next world. You can get an idea of what I'll be doing by reading this.

For four days, she had waited.

It was culturally what her people demanded. While spring was a poor time to do such a thing, she would not break tradition. Siv and her daughter had done their work, the elder teaching the younger. Each terrible wound was cleaned, and the fur of the dead was washed in salt-water and a sweet-smelling mixture of bayberry and mint. They had, even as his family mourned, went through the proper rituals. His body was covered in the door to his home. Large stones were brought from the far reaches of their land, laid out in the conformation of a ship.

They could not risk him returning as a revenant, nor could they risk the safety of the family. The slave girl, Rowan, had become a zombie. She worked tirelessly on what Siv had asked; clothing for the next life. When she had finally come with it, her fingers raw and her body weak from lack of food, Siv had stopped her.

“He has taken part of you with him,” the witch affirmed, and saw the girl’s eyes widen with surprise.

Rowan’s ears folded back. “He has all of me,” she confirmed, her voice slow and unfamiliar with the language.

“Would you join him?”

The question was so stark and so sudden that the slave started at it. Yet Siv’s eyes were somber and so intense she knew it was no bluff.

So the girl had been brought back. Siv had helped to wash her, and brushed her hair with the eel-spine comb until it was thick and full. They brought some of the sweet-smelling mead that Siv had prepared. It was not much, but a small amount would do. Salsola had wine, and this they would drink.

Siv led the slave girl to the place of the rite. It was near the sea, on a bluff overlooking the shore. Larkspur’s body had remained in his home until this day, when the cart bearing it had been led to the stones that formed a ring around a well-built pyre. Rowan, to Siv’s surprise, was calm. She was wearing white and looking at the tapestry that covered her once-master somberly.

Dressed in her feathers and purple leather, Siv let out a long, deep cry. It was time.

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