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

[dark_light]

Amariah preemptively wraps her arms around Shell Bell's shoulders.

[she_sells_seashells]

Shell Bell - and the smew, calmly nestled in Sherlock's arms - are fine. At first.

And then Shell Bell starts shaking, and tears run down her face, but she doesn't sob aloud, and the smew presses himself as close to Sherlock as he can get but makes no sound either.

[sicaria]

Pearl cuddles the smew.

[she_sells_seashells]

Shell Bell peers into her girlfriend's thoughts; focusing on her instead of on the growing distance between self and soul is definitely an improvement at this time.

[sicaria]

Pearl is thinking about love.

[endragoned]

Aianon shivers abruptly, flaring his wings and lashing his tail, then settles again.

Ansharil, back at Amariah's house, keeps still. It might be some trouble to their beloved if he did not.

Speaking of their beloved.

[she_sells_seashells]

Shell Bell leans into the thoughts, drowns in them, opens them up and sinks as deep as she can. The drawing-away is a nightmare; with attention on and from Sherlock it is a lucid nightmare, it doesn't win.

[small_magics]

Sarion wishes to know if all is well. She runs her thumb along Ansharil's foreleg.

[endragoned]

He rumbles happily and sends her what it feels like. Love, pure love, the best thing in the world.

[small_magics]

That is lovely, lovely, lovely. She settles in for a good long snuggle.

She wonders if he can change shape now like the other Joker daemons can.

[she_sells_seashells]

The boat travels.

Shell Bell cries harder, the smew shakes, and then at once they relax.

[dark_light]

Amariah lets her alt go. "Okay?" she murmurs.

[she_sells_seashells]

"Mmhm," murmurs Shell Bell.

On the dock, the smew sighs.

"We love you so much," he tells Sherlock dreamily.

[sicaria]

"I love you too," she says, petting him. "You're beautiful. What's your name going to be?"

[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."