7 [@necromantica/anonymous: audio/text]

[burntbridges]

[This message is preceded by an accidental audio clip from the username "necromantica". It's only a few seconds long, and contains only a single phrase.]

--Oh, bloody hell--

[The clip stays up on the network for an hour or two, before she remembers how to take down mistakes like that.

Several hours later there is an anonymous message, in text:]

I'm curious about everyone's thoughts on death, in this city. It's been so long since I've had new thoughts to hear on the matter.

Are you afraid of death? Would you be less afraid if you were in your home world?

If you had the chance to die briefly and return, just to see what it was like, would you take it?

Do you feel abandoned by those who have died before you? If someone abandoned you, could you forgive them?

Do you believe that corpses are people, or simply objects no longer in use? Should the dead have a say in how their body is used?

Could you love a ghost? Could you even stomach being their friend?

Comments

[somakemelaugh]

[He sees that and it brightens his grin and doesn't bother him in the least.]

Well, you surely would have liked it in my parlor. The guest room always smelled of burning candles and old lumber, but in the back where my clients were kept, it smelled of the formaldehyde and waxes I used.

[He reaches up to scratch at his cheek with one long, dark nail.] Hard to say. We never really spoke. But ghosts are just the people they were in life. I didn't know many of them, but I met them all over the country.

[burntbridges]

I'm not particularly fond of candles, but I do love the smell of wax. It would be lovely to spend time in a mortuary again - do you have one here?

[She nods understandingly to the topic of ghosts; she didn't believe in them until her adventures in Riverview began, but she supposes in retrospect they make about as much sense as any other sort of magic. They just bend the rules a bit beyond what she knows as truth.]

The dead are fascinating creatures, aren't they? I often think they make better company than the living - they're far less likely to judge.

[somakemelaugh]

[Well, well. Someone as fond of the dead as he is. This is interesting.]

I do, but I'm almost sorry to say I haven't had a chance to use it. This world is very good at keeping their living alive. Not my place to complain about that, I suppose.

[He shrugs. He doesn't worry about it. A job in this place is a job and it's kept a roof over his head and food on the table. With his wealth back then and what it is now, that's all he cared about.] Oh, but they are. They don't judge, they don't lie. They're simple creatures.