we are not truly immortal

[dark_light]

After Glass's party is over with, Amariah and Kas go home.

Amariah fetches down their alethiometers.

"It's about time I took care of Alethia's afterlife, whatever it may be," she says quietly. "What can the alethiometer tell you about what I'll find?"

Comments

[she_sells_seashells]

"I don't know. Do you want to name me?"

[sicaria]

"I would, but I can't think what."

[she_sells_seashells]

"We'll think of something," says the smew.

[sicaria]

"No rush, I suppose."

[endragoned]

(Ansharil does not presently desire to change his form.)

[alicornucopia]

The boat ride takes a good half an hour.

They are let off at the shore.

It's sort of like a negative of Downside. There there were buildings but no plants; here there are - occasional, dead, lonely - trees, but no buildings, just endless landscape.

Over which drift the shades of the dead.

The nearest shades are intensely fascinated by the visitors, with their color and solidity and live-ness, and several of them drift closer.

[dark_light]

"Hello," Amariah says. "I am Isabella Amariah. I want to know all about this place."

[alicornucopia]

"It's the land of the dead," says the shade of a man. He drifts near enough to touch Amariah's shoulder, but his hand goes right through her; on inspection, a number of the shades are also intersecting each other. "It's - only this."

[lifes_sake]

"Only this, what do you mean?"

[endragoned]

Aianon folds his wings and watches curiously.

[alicornucopia]

Many of the shades seem particularly nervous of Aianon.

"However far you walk," the shade says, giving up on trying to touch Amariah, "it's never any different."

[truthwright]

Kas reaches curiously towards a shade.

[alicornucopia]

The old-woman shade who is nearest doesn't move out of the way, but she's insubstantial - and frigid.

[truthwright]

"Cold," he murmurs, drawing back his hand.

[alicornucopia]

"Always," murmurs the old woman.

[dark_light]

"I didn't notice," murmurs Amariah.

[alicornucopia]

"There are some like you," says the man she's been talking to. "Who don't notice the cold. They notice everything else, though."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Everything else?" prompts Shell Bell.

[alicornucopia]

"The nothingness," says the man.

"The hurt in your heart, that never goes away," murmurs the woman Kas tried to touch.

"Nothing feels like anything except cold," complains a wisp of a girl from the crowd of more distantly observing shades.

"The dark. The way you can't quite sleep," says another girl who stands with her arm in the same space as the other girl's; they look a bit alike.

"The harpies."

"The hunger and the stillness and the sameness."

"The -"

[lifes_sake]

"Excuse me," says Cam, "harpies?"

[alicornucopia]

"They come up on you when you're dozing," says the shade of a young man. "They know everything bad you've done, ever, they scream it at you, you can't ignore them."

"Maybe you could," says another shade doubtfully. "With your colors still in."

[truthwright]

"I'm pretty good at ignoring people screaming at me," Kas says cheerfully.

[endragoned]

Aianon laughs.

[pythbox]

Ghosty giggles out of thin air.

[dark_light]

"What do the harpies want?" Amariah asks. When the shades have no answer ready to hand, she turns to Cam. "Cam, ask it if the harpies are - the thing."