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

[weifinder]

Whoever's doing what?

[in_theworks]

Oh, right -- sorry, dude.

[he forgets that not everyone here will get all of his references, even half of the time. he's not trying to be difficult]

Uh. [the question is how to explain it succinctly without those references, though] Whoever's keeping the dead as pets or whatever.

[weifinder]

Oh. Right, so, the handful of us, of course.

[in_theworks]

[ ... ]

Wait, so. Are you one of the guys that's keeping zombie pets? Or was that a more general you?

[weifinder]

Oh, I am, and they're not pets, they were liabilities bent on murdering people in the tower that I directed to less murderous results.

[in_theworks]

[ ... ... ]

Wouldn't it have been neater to just put them out of their misery?

[wouldn't it have been kinder, to let the dead rest finally?]

[weifinder]

On the mistaken belief that there was time to do much of anything but react and pull out of the situations we were in at the time. No, I wouldn't have been capable at that moment.

[in_theworks]

Oh. [yeah, okay, that makes a little more sense, but] But you're not in that situation now. [but what's stopping him from putting them out of their misery now?]

[weifinder]

Which is why, as we're having these conversations, I'm stating my own leanings. I've been studying these women, what they've endured lingers on them for what, a century? For a long, long time. Their existence is pain, or a tool that feels pain and delivers it. That's not living, from what I'd call of it.

[in_theworks]

So, if you were in pain for all eternity, would you want someone poking you with sticks? Or would you just wanna get it all over with?

[please let the suffering witches go and stop 'studying' the women]

[weifinder]

I think you're speaking the wrong argument to the wrong person.

[in_theworks]

How so?

[you're the one with the zombies, dude]

[weifinder]

Because I was the first person arguing for their being laid to permanent rest.

[in_theworks]

Oh. Well. Uh.

... yay, team?

[can you hear the awkward jazzhands? because there are awkward jazzhands]