It disappointed him. The words that were spoken to him. For a moment Hasbaki thought perhaps it was the dead finally come to give him some mental reprieve to his delusion, in a way maybe that's what the man was, but it did not feel like a reprieve. If his mother was not in the one place within the cemetery soaked in death that held a modicum of beauty then she was amongst the rest of the graves stacked one on top of each other, not an ounce of life to them.
Once he exhaled a disappointed breath he sought the origin of the voice, turning to see a man of hair so white he thought perhaps he was a banshee come to wail at him. A notion that was cut short by the indication of who he had been speaking over since he was a child.
A young girl.
No. The Aneji coven had no young women. Women were, by the diety they worshipped, filled with sin and so were unwelcome within the coven. The few women that did enter their sacred grounds were ones that came to have the Aneji coven's sons, and then returned home - so far as he was told, and long suspected was not truly the case. Hasbaki had always been of the delusion that there was some magic to them, that made sure they had males, but the man's words offered an alternate indication. One he could not bring himself to fully think, let alone say. So his lips merely pursed in denial that beneath him was a baby girl denied life.
Pushing himself up from where he stood, glancing around at the headstones knocking against one another, the graves of differing heights for some had been buried without coffins, while other's thrown in, and was not quite sure if he wanted to know, or if the man was simply a trickster come to con him. Not that he looked it. Conmen had a way to them, a style of sympathy that this man lacked in his aesthetic even if his words felt as though they wrung with it.
"If she is here that is bad, is it not?" Hasbaki asked but she would be. Those that died on the grounds, in service of a false god, could not move on because there was no one to aid them, not a god, not their own fortitude for one need to always have a god, not any concept of anything beyond but one that was a lie. The statue of this diety watched the pair with unseeing eyes, an ominous figure that forced obedience from Hasbaki and his coven.
Hasbaki stepped forward, his long black cloth dragging over the dry dirt. "How do you know who is beneath the soil?" he asked. Sure introductions would come with time but not yet willing to offer up his own name in case this was one of his Uncle's tricks.
Lasher sensed the disappointment in the man rise up, almost ready to strike — likely because it was tied to a notion that his claims were unjust, unfair, cruel, deserving reprimand. Though his mind was muddled by a haze of unending wakefulness, by the onslaught of so many directives and sensations that were not his own, he understood the logic and merely bowed his head in respect. The blow he'd landed was likely unwelcome, but it was truth, nonetheless — and truth had a way of purifying, of cleansing away rot, restoring order. If only someone had stumbled upon him and struck him down with a blade forged with it.
The two of them stood for a long moment, obelisks coiled with pale mist, each surveying the graveyard in his own quiet way. Lasher closed his eyes and let the tapestry of many voices drape him, chasing away the emptiness that reigned in the marrow of his bones, touching the hollow walls of his soul. It was as if they sensed he was a vessel they might fill, but if so, he was but a leaky gourd. Not yet whole. Not yet able to hold. He was a copse of brittle, dead trees through which wind coursed and nothing took purchase.
When he heard the question asked of him, he took a moment to consider it. To Lasher, any state of being — even trapped — seemed a blessing. Was not a soul fixed to a body the same as one chained to a graveyard? At least they were whole in essence. But he understood how a son might prefer his mother's soul free. To imagine someone you loved damned eternally to a den of cursed souls, unable to pass on, dishonored, nameless — must have been unspeakable. Lasher wondered idly if there were those that loved him who might mourn what he himself had become.
As he opened his eyes, they flared like a fire in the otherwise colorless night. More voices washed over him, articulated fragments. Some raged, others wept, most sought some sort of absolution or release.
❝ Mm, ❞ he supposed. ❝ There are no souls buried here of their own will, if that's what you mean by 'bad'. ❞ Bad was so subjective, though. Lasher knew it was wrong to envy the souls here, but he would rather have no place to belong than to be without his own soul, his own sense of self. At least they had that. The man stepped closer, and Lasher raised his chin. As tall as he was, he was often looking down the ridge of his nose at others. ❝ I am the Scorn-Raven's servant, and the souls here were done a great injustice. It is because they deserve vengeance that I can hear them, and they me. ❞ His gaze wandered from the man's face to scan the proximity of the cemetery. ❝ Why was your mother buried in such a place? ❞














