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niravenous · 7 months ago

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There are some things about the world of the living that can remain there. The queue is one of them. It's a bit funny really, that with all the seemingly infinite time and resources the afterlife has to offer, the Magistrate hasn't found a better way to manage a bunch of souls attempting to access a single resource. Instead, they do what every other bureaucracy in the world has ever done and ferry them into a single file line.

Normally, Rav wouldn't have anything to do with it, but long-term access to the Living world without Swan or the rest of the Magistrate looking over his shoulder and tsk-ing at the amount of time he takes to leisurely collect soul, it's too good to pass up. So Rav makes the trip, tramping through the streets of Near Vain, all the way up the steps of the magistrate's office. By the time they arrive, the line is already an interminable length. For a moment, they consider turning around. They're dead. Time is seemingly infinite. This is still a total waste of it.

For awhile, Rav is able to let their mind wander, filtering the buzz of people shifting and gossiping out as he stares up at the ceiling. Then, something new happens. Someone drops their letter and steps out of the line to fumble for it. They recognize Pigeon, her fluttering gray wings and nervous, moth-like energy. Rav watches with bland, distant interest as she gathers up her letter and attempts to step back into line. They raise a dark eyebrow at her request. "Is that how you intend to capture the first soul to slip through magistrate's fingers in all eternity?" They ask, head tilting. Behind them is a snaking line of Grymm, most of them some form of irritable or impatient. Rav takes a step back anyway, not minding that it puts them into the space of the person behind them, causing the whole line to begin fumbling backwards. "That's why you're here isn't it? To hunt Psyche like all the rest of us?"

—✦ open!

✦ setting: department of afterlife affairs, collections office, mission lobby. ✦ timeframe: quoth the raven. ✦ content warnings: references to anxiety.

FEATHERS WHIP UP IN A FRENZY. a day-to-day occurrence for many, made most peculiar by the sheer frequency and volume, bridging the gap from the mundane to the extreme in the always industrious sector of the department of afterlife affairs. maira — pigeon — spits out fine down from her pursed lips. she should un-mind the limitless line snaking around and around the collections offices' mission lobby, as counting the heads of the potential contenders in the hunt will most likely trigger another fit of labored, exhausted breaths, and she doesn't delight in inhaling another grymm's filoplumes ...

... but her lungs seize up in panic when the letter plummets from her sweat-slippery fingers, and slides a good distance away from the line. there is no grace for maira, as eyes around her orbit to her invitation on the ground, fluttering and threatening to depart with an updraft, to her creased and tormented face. the woman wrings her hands and after a spine-curving sigh to the ground, quickly paces to the envelope, snatches it up, and turns—

—to see her spot swallowed up by the tide of bodies. color drains from her face, the only tint a rouge on her cheeks painted by surefire embarrassment. her wings, drab gray and banded, shackled at the ends, appear hang heavier on the woman's poor back. after some fretting of her lips, the berry-rose lipstick smearing on her teeth during the fit, maira takes a plain step forward, a little clack on her heel, a weak introduction to what follows.

“ ᵉʳᵐ, hello... i don't know if you saw, but i was in line ʲᵘˢᵗ ᵃ ˡᶦᵗᵗˡᵉ while ago… in front of you, ᶦ ᵗʰᶦⁿᵏ, and if you could see it in, ᵉʳᵐ, ᵗʰᵉ ᵏᶦⁿᵈⁿᵉˢˢ ᵒᶠ ʸᵒᵘʳ ʰᵉᵃʳᵗ, ᶜ-ᶜᵒᵘˡᵈ ʸᵒᵘ… may i step back ᶦⁿ? ᵖˡᵉᵃˢᵉ? ”

#pigeon001 #tw #anxiety #sorry for any mistakes..im simply too eepy to proofread

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niravenous · 7 months ago

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It's rare any soul enters the Bardo of another. Bardos are the sanctum of the individual soul after all, a space where desires are made real, or, well, as real as they can appear. The intimacy of Osprey inviting Rav here isn't lost on them. Even now, after countless unyears spent together as grymm, Rav enters her Bardo with care. It's an easy thing to do. Osprey’s Bardo is beautiful after all, startlingly accurate, to the point it might feel real to a newer soul. But Rav isn't a newer soul, and they gaze out at the emerald water with the dull interest of someone examining a very pretty photograph.

“Does it matter even if it is?” Rav replies to her last question, palms flat on the wood railing. “Orders are orders and at the end of it we're just soldiers with wings.” the mindset is easy to slip into, a well worn glove, a data point they have already carefully examined. It's not the place of a soldier to question or doubt. There is only the choice to obey or to stop being a soldier entirely. Rav enjoys the privileges reaperhood provides too much to give it up simply because the new mission he's been provided is a dubious waste of-

“Can you even call it a waste of time when we have infinite time? It's another job, treat it the same as you’ve treated any other. Either we actually catch this lost soul or it eventually blows over and we go back to business as usual.” They try for a reassuring tone but it comes out flat, listless and resigned.

“I agree it’s strange, but the magistrate’s got ultimate power here. There's no point in lying to us when we've got to do what it says anyway.”

He pauses, tilts his head ever so slightly to examine Osprey from the corner of his eye. “Unless you have other plans?”

✧･ﾟ— where: ⌜osprey's bardo ; on the pier by the lake ; early morning⌟

✧･ﾟ— when: ⌜sometime after osprey manages to acquire a small stack of the magistrate's letter from other grymm ⌟

✧･ﾟ— status: ⌜closed for @niravenous⌟

“You think it's weird too, right?” Osprey asked, leaning forward to brace her hands on the galvanized steel guardrail in front of her. Her eyes scanned the water's surface as she spoke; early morning mist still clung to its surface, obscuring the other side of the shore in a soft white haze. The mountain ridge in the distance was cloaked in a thicker brume, merely a suggestion of a cordillera; fuzzy at the edges, the details nearly indescribable in the fog.

Normally, the sight of the lake and its surroundings would soothe her, but the nagging questions bouncing around in her head would not be so easily quashed. Instead dislodging other quandaries she had shelved for later, causing them to float up to the surface. As far as she knew, she’d never been to the Emerald Lake when she was alive. The first and only time she'd ever been to the location had been during a standard collection where she had been so captivated by the vibrant green color of the water she had stayed on Earth long enough to watch the sun climb far above the highest peak of the mountain. At the time she had felt like something had clicked into place, like she had finally found her own little slice of heaven to recreate back in the After. So, logically, she understood why her bardo had taken this form when she had finally walked through her door again, it made perfect sense—except for the fact that she had never been inside the lodge. She hadn't needed to enter the building to complete her mission so there had been no reason to, not when she had already extended her time in the Living World for longer than was necessary. But, Osprey knew if she and Magpie were to walk inside it, they would find the cabin fully furnished, filled in, lived in. Therefore, there was a huge gap in the logic. Because if not her own, then whose memories had the bardo used to create that space from? Had it pulled the information from the minds of other shades who had been here in life—or did it drag the information out from some deep, forgotten corner of her brain? Her stomach turned with discomfort at the thought and she chewed on her bottom lip. Something heavy splashed in the water to her right and her eyes shifted to land on familiar circular ripples in the water. It was a routine occurrence in her bardo, one that she could probably set a watch to if such a thing would matter in the After. But she had never been able to see the fish as it leaped from the water—no matter how hard she tried—only the waves that it left in its wake. Whose memory was that? Hers or the fish's? Sighing, Osprey shook her head. It would do her no good to dwell on that right now. There were bigger fish to fry than the one lurking in the water. Turning her attention back to the grymm at her side, she continued the train of thought from earlier. “I mean, think about it for a sec, Mags. If there was really a soul running around Earth with the power to escape death—then why didn’t they give us more information about them? Like how do we even know the kid is real and this isn't just some wild goose chase?”

#4ccismus #worry not i love it #osprey001 #tw #references to being a solider

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