username: lady of the willow tree | audio

[aprescoup]

( She has long suffered, her great sigh speaks, every fool that's walked this world. ) ...you took more dead. Why are you like this? You want friends? I buy you friends. Three for five coin pieces, at the market. You are ugly, maybe I pay seven. And you are fools! No one likes you. I pay nine.

Pah! What is your luck? What is my luck? These other clapping seals in their little frills, with their little cakes and their little cups, they are playing their little games. And they come to me with messages. I I have the look of a saint now, who delivers word. How fortunate Karsa is. How grateful.

Look here. Pay attention. ( She spits out the words: ) First come the beggars, the Bessis. What is their puny fire worth now? I breathe hotter each morning. They ask for their captives, to hide their shame. Imagine! You kill, and you kill, and you kill, and then you keep your dead 'allies' like vermin, and it is not good, when you are found out. Who could have thought?

( And softer: ) The others. The Attaryl, for whom speaks the red woman, Vannozza. They want their dead. For burial. Ha! As if she will not use them to say, looooooooooooook! Look what my cousin's good friends! Look. But the witches... these are their dead.

So, talk, choose, and — ( The transmission seems to flicker, her voice first feeble, then doubled, then she shrieks: ) No. No. You do not dare, you do not presume, you do not, you fur-clad pink pig, you do not dare —

( But Karsa falls silent. To a quiet backdrop, broken only by a rhythmic drip, speaks undead Lord Anurr of Sa-Hareth — who has not been seen since arriving in Sa-Hareth. He seems to borrow the voices of multiple men, women and children, never settling on the one: )

H elLo   Li TtlE   FrIenD S. HoW   Ha VE   YoU   Be EN?   GoOD?   Yo U   ArE   Go OD   peOPlE.

Go oD   ThIn Gs   SHOUl D   HaPpE N   T o   GoOd   Peop Le.   And   GoO D   EnDing S   to   Th Ose   Who   HAV e   SuF f e Red   LoN G.

N o?   Y E s.

And   Th E y   havE SuFFer Ed,   ThEse   AtTa ryL.   An D   N oW   ThEY WoU l D   Be   Use D   aGA in?

No.   So   Man Y   BuRNs. So   ManY   WA I Ls.   I heAR   ThE M   FroM   HerE.

GiVE   Them   To   ME.   Th E Y   Will   Be   O U R   BrothER s   In   SA-HARE Th.   Fr E e.

( As quickly as Anurr interrupted, his voice disappears. A long heartbeat's silence. By the time Karsa recovers command of her own transmission sorcery, she is quieter for it, rattled. )

You... that. That disgusting creature. That... well. Well, you heard him, didn't you? You heard him. Tell me what you wish done. You cannot have it all ways. Only one answer.

( ooc: the floor is yours, threadjack away, debate the fate of the six undead claimed in the Bessis tower disaster, plus the three previously weaponised by Wei Wuxian. Characters with 'ownership' of the dead get final say — please state it! All the undead will go to the petitioner with the highest number of votes. Haltham Anurr will not be answering any comments. )

Comments

[aprescoup]

I am Karsa, survivor of Sa-Hareth, speaker of the flame, burner of cities.

[in_theworks]

And I am Wrench, survivor of San Francisco, speaker of DedSec, burner of Blume.

[which is to say he's not impressed]

You still need fuel to burn cities. [a beat] Or bad guys. [because like he told Wei, he's not really interested in burninating all the people and the thatched roof cottages]

[aprescoup]

I make do.

[in_theworks]

Yeah, well. Pretty sure your whole approach needs work.

[since her transmission got hijacked and all, among other things]

[aprescoup]

You want to say that to my face, silly mask man?

[in_theworks]

Only if you've got a flamethrower I can borrow.

[that way, they could try and set each other on fire on equal footing]

Plus, I'm pretty sure we have bigger fish to fry. Kind of literally.

[even if your approach to stopping the BBEG sucks]

[aprescoup]

He is not fish. He is... pink pig. Skin.

[in_theworks]

You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to.

[same difference, lady]

But, okay. Backing way up. Can we not just, like, take a sledgehammer to the zombies that are still hanging around? [that would make her happy, that would make Anurr unhappy. win-win, right? why has no one considered this option?]

[aprescoup]

The zo... you mean, the dead? The dead, you do what you want. Do I stop you? You see my hands? They are in your face? They are stopping you?

[in_theworks]

Hey, you were the one offering to buy us friends, if we stopped with the zombies.

[so, clearly she has some stake in what happens to them]

[aprescoup]

The... dead? Why do you call them differently? Is one name not enough? They need two?

[in_theworks]

"The dead" would be people who are actually dead, as in stopped moving, as in not getting up again. "Zombies" are what people call animated corpses, where I'm from.

[the clarification is very important]

[aprescoup]

It is a foolish word. It suits you.

[in_theworks]

Hey, thanks.

[can you hear the (^_^) on his mask, Karsa? can you?]

But seriously, though. You want us to axe "the dead," right? Like, that's your horse in this race?

[aprescoup]

I have no opinion. But they had family once. The family asks now.

[in_theworks]

[there's a long pause, before ... ]

On a scale from, like, one to ten, how likely am I to end up a zombie, when I get killed in this fuckery?

[aprescoup]

...you?

Oh. Ohhhh, very big. They want you. That is why you are here. Brought by... them. For this. You are only food. We are keeping you out of the bowl. For now.

[in_theworks]

Cool, cool, creepy, cool.

So, what's in it for you, keeping meat off the menu and all?

[he must have missed that day in class -- either that or still struggling with the culture shock]

[aprescoup]

The more of you they claim, the more we have to fight. It is not difficult.

[in_theworks]

[that really doesn't inspire confidence]

Great. Good talk.

[aprescoup]

It was not very good. It was quite mediocre.

[in_theworks]

Try me later, sometime, when I'm not still trying to compartmentalize the whole mountain of crap getting dropped on me.

[and because he can't be serious for more than five seconds with spraining something ... !]

Maybe I'm the Wicked Witch of the West.

[sure feels like a house got dropped on him, never mind the fact that that's the Wicked Witch of the East]