Afterlife PSL: Lilith and Samael

[worthallthis]

Soldat struggles up the riverbank with a vague, bedraggled confusion. Rivers shouldn't have banks. They should be deep cuts in the ground, manufactured more than developed. And it's dark, but it's not too dark, not the kind of dark they expect from a dead world.

Does that mean they made it? Is the sun going to come up on Beacon at last? Is the World Eater dead? They didn't see, the explosion flooded their perch, and now--

--now they have no idea where they are or what happened. They sink to their knees among the trees to pull the lantern off their shoulder, but it looks undamaged, nothing worse than the two small cracks from the Asset and from their second death. Sora's wayfinder charm and Owl Friend's safe passage charm are even still attached, still whole, somehow. Water streams from the metal arm, but it doesn't feel like water made it past the shielding. It'll be fine once it dries out.

Looking up, there doesn't seem to be anyone nearby. Had they been thrown that far? Had the lake washed them up on some other shore, far away from the others? Their tablet has no signal, when they check it, though all the music and notes are still there. (Hate to lose those. Hate to lose a lot of things. Mission. Yeah, pal. Mission. I'm getting up.)

They struggle wearily back to their feet. Time to find the others.

Comments

[anappleaday]

...back to where they died, would be more accurate. Assuming that's what they want.

[ not everyone considers that place home, and not everyone wants to go back. Lilith certainly hadn't. ]

This is the country of the "unjustly dead." If you died when you weren't meant to, according to fate or God or whatever you might believe cares about such things— you end up here.

[ she doesn't bother keeping the sardonic edge out of her tone as she speaks. Samael knows she thinks the whole thing is senseless, and there's nothing to be gained in this cases by setting herself up as some sort of mysterious authority on the matter when the entire system has already been all but torn up by the roots. ]

[worthallthis]

I've been dead for. Eighteen months. Brought back in a new body by a scientist on a dead world to stop world eaters. Not sure if I can still... inhabit the body left on my world.

[There's a lot they're not sure about, but they do know pretty clearly how bodies in Beacon work. The joys of being on the team that helps restore the fallen through lantern technology. The towel is pretty soaked, now, but they bend to wring out the hems of their combat pants, anyway.]