TRAVELING STONEMASON DANNY NIGHTINGALE
he bounces around from universe to universe making graves for the dead and putting them to rest. hes not king in this, he just knows how it feels to be without a place to put his bones
danny, of course, carries his own with him, so he is, essentially, his own grave, and its... unsettling. gives him the ghost version of adhd, makes it impossible to take 'settle down.'
and he could technically solve that with a headstone but... well. graves are supposed to be made FOR you. even if youre paying someone or the government is putting you in an incinerator or whatever else is arranged by your family, its supposed to be a mark of affection, of belonging.
Danny died but nobody noticed. Danny left home and nobody cared. Danny left the UNIVERSE, and nobody looked for him.
they call, yeah, and theyre all friends still, but some part of danny feels so distant. he loves his family. he loves his friends. but sometimes he cant help but wonder how much easier their lives are without him. how much safer. if they ever think back on their wild high school years and feel relief that hes not around to mess things up anymore.
so he keeps moving, long beyond the time it starts to feel like running.
and he carves and carves and carves
An Angela here, a Jeoffery there. A Dua and a Haoyu and a Peter. A Zitkala and an Assol and an Ahsan. A Kleio and a Fabian and a Bluebell and so many more he can't remember them all.
It takes longer than he wishes it had for him to start writing their names down in a little book he tucks close to his heart.
He goes to mass graves that makes his stomach roll and his ears ring from how many voices cry out to him, and spends weeks carving name after name into rocks he digs up and places like sentinels around every sliver of bone.
He goes to cities and engraves plaques and nails them to brick walls.
He finds himself in ruins and plains and icy cracks and the bottom of the sea.
His markers won't last forever, he knows. But they don't need to. The dead are, in many ways, similar to the living. They want to be heard, known, cherished. It doesn't matter if it's for a lifetime or a moment.
Danny can give them that moment. For many, it's enough to settle their clamoring and usher them gently on. So Danny keeps doing it, because it feels good, offering people this measure of peace. It feels good, to help without fighting.
eventually, he makes his way to a city called Gotham. He finds many, many unknown dead there. Restless dead. Violent dead.
He gets to work.
