The spirits of the Death Realm stirred, an eddy in a stream of phantom particles. In the ruins buried under the Iron Temple of Hydlaa, Icerra Meibi turned in her sleep.
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"Listen... things are happening, don'tcha hear? We need you to be strong, we need you to be smart, I need you to lead, you hear me?"
The clamod met her eyes, a look of loss and hopelessness overcome suddenly with resolve and determination.
"I'll lead," Lazarene said simply, puffed out her chest, and followed the others down to the plaza, "Follow me."
So she did follow. The two of them quit the tavern and followed the crowd down the lengthy steps to the expansive plaza below, towards the promise of one truly dead. A corwd had formed around the site, tavern patrons, scragglers in Harnquist's army of slave wage smiths, and professional gawkers alike. The fenki hung on the balustrade. Her arm had been harshly broken, hanging by threads and tendons, and her ankle was bent at a painful, broken angle. Buried deep in her gut was a dagger, the source of her demise, the blood from the wound trickling out to soak her tunic and slowly the hem of her trousers. A rope across her collarbone, and another around her waist, kept her upright, and her eyes had not been closed in death, lending them an eerie and ethereal stare. Judging by the fact that her body did not vanish upon death, it was fairly plain: this woman was truly and forever gone.
The body was of a fenki Icerra had never lain eyes on before, a girl without a name, a home, a past, a story.
The murmers amongst the crowd were what you would expect, "I wonder who killed her" and "Poor girl", as the dead fenki's head hunng limply, lifeless eyes staring at the cobblestones. A trickle of blood had worked its way from the wound in her stomach down to her feet, staining the entire stone podium with her blood. She stood in this small puddle, obviously unawares of the goings on around her, deaf and dumb in death.
Icerra approached the corpse and inspected it closely. She turned toward the crowd and demanded, "Who's this girl? What'd she ever do to deserve this?", but no one there could supply much of an answer. They muddled about, shifting uneasily on their feet, debating in whispered, uncertain voices how best to handle the remains of one as gone she.
She grew agitated, "Some nobody fenki gets permanent death? Why? What'd she do? This is pointless, her death means nuthin' if she don't deserve it!"
This seemed to get their attention, if only briefly. There was a vague look on their faces, hovering somewhere near the centroid in the gamut of fear, confusion, and disbelief.
They challenged.
"How can you say that, knowing nothing of how she died?"
"How do you know she didn't deserve it?"
The corpse's lifeless eyes stared outwards at the crowd, and even in death it appeared eerily as though she was listening to what was being said about her: Her ears pricked forward, her mouth slightly ajar, if not for the faint trickle of blood leaking past her pointed teeth one might have even thought she was paying rapt attention.
Some, for some reason, still empathized for the lifeless and unfeeling, now inanimate object.
"We should at least loosen the ropes."
"Give her a proper burial."
"Bury her with some dignity."
Dignity? Icerra couldn't stand it.
DIGNITY? There was no dignity in any of this. A senseless, useless, pointless killing, without meaning, without cause. Nothing was lost, and so Dakkru gained nothing from it. No shift in the balance had been made.
"She ain't nobody in life, she ain't nuthin' in death, that's how it goes."
The menki Caraick emerged from the crowd and walked over nearer to the fountain. He moved as though to reach up and attempt to loosen the binds around the Fenki. The mutilated corpse began to crumble at Caraick's touch. Her chest collapsed in upon itself, followed by her head, her fingers and toes, her legs and arms. They all crumpled inwards, collapsing as if whatever held them up has been eaten away from within, reducing the interior to nothing but ashes and dust. Even her fur begins to split and fall apart, piece by piece, until nothing at all but a little pile of dust remains, colorless, a deadened grey, to blend in nicely with the stone. The dagger dropped down on top of it with a 'clang' of resounding finality.
The dagger.Caraick withdrew his paw quickly, observing the odd spectacle. Gasps resounded throughout the crowd as the event left them stunned, but Icerra spurred to action. She jumped onto the stone platform and picked up the dagger from its bed of fine dust.
As the initial shock subsided, the onlookers felt obliged to comment.
"Poor little fenki."
"Nothing remains but ashes to be swept in the wind..."
The ashes ashes began to shift slightly, as if cued by the statement. They billowed upwards into a vortex, a small cacoon of whirling breezes. They swept up every last trace, and carry it off, as if being controlled and given it's own destination, leaving behind only the dried, cracked stains of blood.
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In quantum echo, the murmuring dead quickened into a whirlwind, summoning images from the dark depths and feeding them into the sleeping kore's dream.
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Icerra held the dagger across her palms, wondering at its simplicity. She cast a glance over the complacent crowd and felt herself suddenly gripped in a compulsive force. Driven by impulse, she made her voice heard.
"Dakkru demands a sacrifice!" she shouted, "A death worthy of her taking!"
The words were not hers, only emerged from her. She was not speaking to the crowd, but was being spoken to, instructed.
The faces now locked on her in fear, a smoldering spark inside her ignited, fueled her passion. She felt her paws tighten around the dagger hilt and blade. The edges of her vision turned red.
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Icerra woke with a start. The scene from the previous day played out in her dreams, only it wasn't. It was different. Hidden among the chain of memories was a sign. She knew instantaneously what it meant.
She slipped the dagger out from under her ragged cloak and held it once again in her palms. There was enough luminescence in the dungeon for her to see it clearly. It was only a simple dagger, one that would be sold en masse, so as not to be easily traced, coated in the dried remnants of a permadeath poison. The coating had been rendered inert through time; Icerra had tested it on enough arangmas, clackers, and rats to confirm this. But it was the only guide she had now to follow if she were to complete her given task.
Dakkru had demanded a sacrifice to make up for the waste that was the fenki stranger's death. Icerra vowed to find the one responsible, to learn their ways, and to make them pay.
