ORIGIN

"Booker Speech" "Louie Speech"

So this is what death felt like. It really wasn't any different than what he was expecting but the pain that resonated from every corner of his body was making him immobile. All he had been able to do was recover ever so slightly so as not to die within Orion. Hasira didn't need a trophy that he could display at the base of the throne. A fur skin rug made out of his crimson pelt. Above is eye, the cut from the icicle had scabbed over. The shallower parts of the gore marks on his leg too. Down his chest, was where it hurt the most and he winced and cried as his gem glowed hot having almost been dislodged itself. Louie hadn't meant to go this way. Over time, his previously ominous thoughts about how after this there was nothing, they would return with vigour. All they were was walking, sentient gemstones. Nothing else.

Whimpering, he curled tighter on himself. There were no thoughts spared for Magdalena or his children. Self absorbed, the only thing there was to think about was how he had met such a shameful end. How he'd wanted to die, but instead he was forced to walk the earth and now he was ripped from it he didn't want to go. Behind the pillar, he was out of sight of Orion but the glow still leeched in and he waited to hear the thundering hooves pursue him to assure his death. In his throat, the heat of the gem continued to grow, the vibrations and humming reached a climax before he could feel a total numbness wash over his body. The warmth of the life gem began to spread and as it did so, he could feel it almost begin to spread as well.

His body began to stiffen as the gemstone prepared to once again encapsulate its host. As it worked, Louie ran over the many mistakes he'd made in his life, unaware that this would mean he would recover. A coffin made from his own gem seemed fitting and he gurgled slightly at the loss of blood as he kept slipping in and out of consciousness, 'All these mistakes I have made. Nothing will change what I've done. As I lay here dying, all I can do is relive the misery. I'm sorry.' The last words he had spoken to Booker. How he couldn't have let himself be happy because he didn't deserve to be. Just a gembound without a cause. The peridot began to expand up his neck and down over the worst of the scars on his chest.

A chill had woken him from sleep, something sharp and painful that scratched at his spine until he rolled away whining, stumbling up and out of his burrow into the light. The Mother's call hadn't ever been so direct and unpleasant. Priest walked as fast as his bad leg could handle, worn cane digging into the dirt of Eridanus with a vengeance, following the directions of the humming signal. Over pebbles, under arching bushes, and half an hour later it almost seemed useless to go on - but the numbat was nothing if not stubborn, and loyal to a fault to the wishes of the giant, silvery fungus.

Finally, a strange entrance came into view - vaguely familiar, but neglected over time, overgrown with ferns and tall grass. The cane became more of a would-be cutlass than a support for minutes longer, until, finally, he stepped into the tunnel beyond. It was cold, barren - and seemingly silent. Priest limped along, clouded eye roaming the carved walls. Yes, he had been here before. He had taught a veritable herd of children how to copy the strange markings from the stone. The thought made a smile twitch at his lips - one that slipped away when a pained whimper cut through the air.

The man flinched, twisted on the spot to face the noise, slinking towards it through the shadows. The cane was slipped into his belt, the light from the pebble muted by vines, and Priest quieted, barely breathing for fear of bringing whatever was harming - or harmed - upon himself. Still, he followed it, half-hidden. Another noise, and the numbat winced, finally peering around a stone to see... well. To see something he really hadn't thought possible.

Could ghosts die?

His good eye widened, body frozen on the spot. Louie looked... he almost looked dead already. Bloodied and split open, the peridot gemstone that lent him his life spreading like a disease, encapsulating meat and bone in a sick revision of birth. Priest breathed in, breathed out, again, and stepped forward, closer, until he was just outside of paw's reach, straightening up to grab at his cane with shaking hands, tapping it against the ground as if to gather both his thoughts and the fox's attention. "Louie. Oh, my child. Whatever happened to you?"

The older Gembound was a Sinner, through and through, that was certain.

But he was loved, once. And Priest had no energy to hold grudges against the dead.

A step closer, another, until he could raise his free hand to rest on one of the fox's paws, the only comfort a creature of the living could think to give to the dead. "It is alright. You are safe, now." His good eye rose to meet Louie's, though he couldn't muster up a smile. Bile burned at the back of his throat, blood lapping at his feet. "I am sorry, love. No one should suffer so."

No point in pretenses with a spirit, after all.

"Booker Speech" "Louie Speech"

Hollow gasps for air as he felt his neck tighten with the gem beginning to travel up to his shoulder blades and spread down his back like lava as it seeped over him. Already his heart had stopped beating, that was not a necessity for survival but an absence of the sensation made him swallow even when his mouth would produce no saliva. A roaring in his ears was only disturbed by the sound of the cane being tapped sharply on the ground, it caused the creature to have his eyes snap sideways as his body had entered rigor mortis and was by no means able to move. That voice sounded so familiar, yet so distant and his one blood shot eye was watering both from the pain and the realization he had broken down to his most emotional state.

Vulnerable, he had no means of defending himself should this entity be hostile. "Leave me to die stranger." A coarse whisper, and he tried his best to roll over despite being frozen and he found his head cracking and twisting painfully so he could look at the assailant. Next came the words, he knew his name and as he blinked out painfully to try and get the man to take shape in his vision, the familiar stripes caused him to squint hard and blink rapidly. It was him. It had to be him. A strangled gurgle erupted from his strained vocal chords. If it was him, he had to apologize. Booker needed to know he was sorry. So sorry for just leaving him standing there.

Great happiness washed over him as the dread was momentarily forgotten. By now, the chrysalis had progressed to his flank but he couldn't worry about that. "Booker.. It's you. I'm so sorry. I-I." Again he swallowed deeply, mouth and lips dry as he gasped and twitched. "I didn't mean to leave. You're everything to me. But I don't deserve to be happy." Now, he had to take a long pause as he tried to collect his thoughts, the pain was slowly fading as, like honey, the chrysalis was entering his bones and warming him from the inside. Frozen, he wanted nothing more to reach out and hug the man he had pushed away for so long, but he couldn't.

Fat tears began to roll down his cheek as Booker spoke about how he was safe. Saying how he was sorry that he shouldn't be suffering. Wailing, he cried out, "Booker I don't want to die. I'm... I'm scared Booker." Encapsulating his back legs, it began to work up his tail with ease. "Don't let it hurt. I don't want to hurt. I'm scared Booker scared." Repeating himself, he wanted to close his eyes but he was now forced to stare forever. Why the chrysalis was allowing his jaw to continue working he wasn't quite sure. Chest now fully covered, his front legs too, he was close to being at the end. "I've always been suffering. I've always been dead inside but I don't want to go this way."

"I can't let it end please don't let it end."

Priest watched as the green gemstone continued on its path, eating away at red fur, creeping closer and closer to Louie's head. The pained sounds emitting from the fox almost made him flee - so much suffering, there had to be some end to it, why wouldn't the Mother let the dead rest - but the words anchored the numbat to the spot. Booker. The name was... distant and unfamiliar. But Louie was dead, dying again, and Priest could remember every detail of killing him the first time, all the way down to how his fur curled at the ends from the fire, how black paw pads popped and sizzled, flesh sloughing off of bone.

This was crueler, somehow, like watching something drown in slow motion. The familiar itch of embers tingled his hands, and his clutch on the cane tightened. He would not falter. Sinners deserved comfort in death, as much or, perhaps, even more than Chosen. Priest began to pet at the soft fur that covered Louie's paw, eye stuck on the fox's face. Perhaps the words were for him. Then again, perhaps he had simply been chosen to deliver them. "Everyone deserves happiness, Louie. Everyone." That, at least, he could offer, without the threat of tears making itself known.

The apologies would be more difficult to handle. It made his stomach turn and twist violently. He was a Sinner, the biggest of them all - if anyone should apologise, it should be him, encased and beaten. It would be almost merciful, by this point. He'd lost track of just how many he'd slaughtered.

The cane trembled in his hand.

"You do not need to apologise, my child." A dry swallow, and a memory. Yes, he had left. With an apology, it seemed, for his own cowardice. "I believe we have shared enough of them." Warm humor colored his tone, for once, though even that was snuffed out as Louie began to cry, trapped within a shell made by his own traitorous corpse. Priest's scarred hand clutched at red fur, stark against the fox's pelt, as if he could stop the process by presence alone. "Please, do not cry, my child," he tried, desperately, wincing.

The words were too much, too great, they were melding with the memories, the visions, the images of burying bones under the Mother's shadow, of apologizing every day to all of them. Hadn't he done enough? He had repented so thoroughly, and yet, it seemed, he would have to face what he had done, to Louie and, perhaps, to the others. "It is alright, love. Everything will be alright. I promise. I won't let you die." His voice trembled, wavered, but did not falter in its truth, even when he shivered at the sight of green covering over even the fur he had just seconds before grabbed at.

Priest's free paw moved to rest over Louie's heart.

"Do not be scared, my love. I will stay with you." Saltwater threatened to obscure his vision further, bit at his teeth and gnawed at his gums, sent the smell of roasting flesh into his lungs. "This is not the end and I will not let you die!" Heaving breaths, shaking with them, feeling the thud of the fox's heart stop. "I will not let you. You do not have my permission. You must stay alive, Louie. For me. And for yourself. Please."

Louie deserved a second chance. They both did.

But it should be him, with half his blood supply staining the floor.

Priest wondered if, somewhere, the Mother was laughing at him. If She found the whole affair pitiable. In one instant She had snatched his security away. And all Priest could think of was that the flare inside him, the one that had been long buried, the one that chanted Louie at him in the dark and made him think of skulls and unborn children and lying in a pool of his own blood and pulling glass shards out of his captor friend destined's paw... would eat him alive, one day.

Because if a ghost could die, than certainly, certainly, certainly he could too.

Because even the Mother can't take Louie away from him.

Because it should be him.

It should be him.

It should be him.

"Booker Speech" "Louie Speech"

There was not much left. All he could do was stare at Booker as his eyes glazed over and were in turn covered by the peridot that was entombing him. "I love you Booker. We'll make it work." Sealing over him, he appeared like he was made out of solid gemstone, until it ballooned and formed an egg. There was no discernible shape, only the look of an unhatched child.

It was over. Louie was gone.

Unfortunately, it seemed the Mother didn't care much for his wishes, or what he thought was right, because the green gemstone kept creeping up, up, up, into the fox's nostrils, into his eyes, his ears, until it cocooned his mouth like a muzzle, stilling the words, crept over teeth and encapsulated the entirety of the one person he'd never been able to save. "No, no, god dammit!" Nails scratched at hardening crystal, knuckle ringing off the thickening shell of the chrysalis, until the silhouette of Louie faded from view completely. "Come back. You better come back. I can't lose you again," Priest finally whispered, defeat casting its familiar rope about his throat, pulling the air from his lungs.

The fox's cradle of peridot was anchoring in place, slowly, rooting into the ground, and Priest stumbled back, landed on his haunches and caught his bad leg beneath him. A startled breath, and he was back up on one leg and the cane, rubbing at his eye with a shaking free hand. This doesn't make any sense. How did he survive in the first place? How could anyone harm a dead man? The questions made his head hurt, like something trying to stab its way out of his eye sockets, so Priest resigned to shoving them off on the Mother's guidance.

The first thing that came to mind was defense - he'd lined the burrow with defenses, once, when it contained the people he loved. He'd do the same here, the numbat supposed. It was all he could think to do; he was useless on his own, without the Mother's help, without the guidance of everyone else... but he could do this. He would have to. Nothing could survive death twice. No one was that lucky.

Slowly, Priest relaxed, breath and heartbeat slowing to a steady thrum, stepping close enough to the chrysalis to rest his forehead against it, the cold surface centering him. His clouded eye slipped shut, and slowly, he pulled at the darkness of the world - looked for the pinpricks of light in it. They blinked into view like the stars of Orion, gentle and softly glowing, welcoming him like an old friend. He was as much of them as he was of the Gembounds, in his mind. An inhale, and a long exhale, and the lights wavered, grew, bloomed and thrust upwards through the soil of the tunnel, their caps unfurling. Death caps encircled Louie's chrysalis, destroying angels shadowing them from above, lepidella bowing away from the gemstone as if it frightened them. Webcaps and skullcaps danced together, stuck to the sides of the shell itself.

By the end of the spell, Priest was dizzy, stumbling back to view his work, a tiny smile of relief twitching at his lips. "Thank you, my friends. I know you will keep him safe." And if the fungi twitched in response, seemed to stand up a bit taller with pride, well, that was his business.

Like a strange sort of groundskeeper, Priest steadied himself, and slowly undid the belt at his waist, placing his teacup down near the fungal shroud. The vine was slowly wrapped around the glowing pebble that helped to guide his vision, and the contraption was carefully tied to the very crook of the cane. With that, he started up his very own dirge of sorts, a patrol around the only thing protecting his... well, whatever Louie was. What wasn't he? The pebble illuminated the numbat's form and the tunnel before him, and for once, Priest let himself relax.

Perhaps this was his purpose - it was as good and mighty as any other. He would stay until Louie was alright. Then he would take the punishment for his crimes with as much grace as any man could muster.