This/Deathgods song

After 200-some years, Abearanoth was different. It still had the general vibes of myth and legend, and the strange, strange sensations of perfect normalcy, but it was, all in all, a different world. Technology and Progress had passed by, though as far as Coraline was concerned they were still well behind anything she was comfortable with, even outside of the Angler's Internet realm of stolen Star Wars monikers and impossible science. This, she supposed, was more... Victorian, perhaps? She wasn't sure, something about having spent her recent History courses reading Discworld instead of actually paying attention to the lectures, but it was probably something along those lines. Not that the Victorians of her world had ever done much by way of blimps.

Whatever the case, the world of Abearanoth had passed her by without actually catching up in the slightest. They had phones and such and magic and such and some semblance of industrialisation, but that was about it. It was still pretty damn backwater, really.

So Coraline was lost, standing on a street-corner as carriages, horsemen, and pedestrians passed her by amidst the general hubbub of city life, where people came and went full of purpose (or at least direction). She felt like the entire thing was just some distant dream, except she knew it wasn't - this was real. This was the reality she had yearned for, the freedom of the real world, the world of the living, the world of change. The world where she had previously spent an important part of her life, such as it had been, utterly and unequivocally drunk.

---

"Hey."

"Huh?" Coraline looked up.

"You mind is elsewhere - what were you thinking about?" he said.

"Pirates!" Coraline said. Might as well tell the truth. He just looked blank, however, so she waved an imaginary cutlass and continued, "Arr! Avast, ye landlubber!"

"Pirates," the old elf repeated.

"Right."

"Like in the moving pictures?"

"Erm... sure." Coraline hadn't even realised they had moving pictures already, but if they did of course there would be pirates. There were always pirates.

The elf nodded, sipping his tea. "All the rage amongst the youngsters these days. I understand it, Saint Cloud has another one in the making, too, but it won't be out for awhile yet."

"What, a travelogue by Edward Teller? Short film on the kingdom of death?"

"No..." he said, looking at her. "Why would you ask that?"

"Well..." She didn't quite know how to ask. "It's not... Emily Saint Cloud, is it?"

He nodded. "This one's Wasteland, they called it. Supposed to be something special, something new, the likes of which nobody has ever seen. Like anyone has ever seen any of these before." He snorted. "Moving pictures... like anyone's seen anything like these at all."

"Fern was right," Coraline whispered. "Same names. Same things. Mirrors." The old elf was watching her over his tea, but she didn't even care. "I could have sworn Ypheirod was a cat, Kyrule a writer... and Vardaman was dead. The entire point of Vardaman was that he was dead, and dead mum never even knew the difference. But it's all different."

"Life," he said. "Always is."

Somehow Coraline resisted the urge to do a Marvin impression in response.

---

Gorm, proprieter of the Empty Cistern, glanced up when he heard the door open and a waft of argument drift in. It was still fairly early in the afternoon, so the place was mostly empty, but these two looked like customers so he picked up a cup and obligatorily began wiping it, as much for the look of things as for the fact that the cup in question was quite heavy and if aimed right could probably kill an orc, nevermind these two waifs.

"What'll it be?" he asked the women as they sat down. A human and an elf, one in grey and the other in black; neither were dressed exactly fashionably, but the clothes looked well-made. Probably skilled workers of some sort, passing through on business.

The elf looked to her friend, who said, "Can't you figure? Shalott as appropriate."

Interesting. "You come a lot?" he asked as he poured them both a 15-stone.

"Used to. Leave the bottle."

The elf sniffed her mug suspiciously, then took a tentative sip. "Ghuck," she said.

"Welcome to booze." The other grinned, downed her mug, and quickly refilled it. "You don't sip this stuff. It's not supposed to taste good, so you drink it as quickly as possible and then get a refill, is what you do."

The elf looked at her shalott. Then she drank quickly, twitched, and then said again, this time with feeling, "Ghuck."

"Yup." The mugs were quickly refilled - in the human's case, again.

Two minutes later they needed another bottle. This took Gorm by surprise. It wasn't that people didn't tend to go through a bottle of shalott very quickly - in fact they usually didn't get through them at all. These two, however, were clearly just getting started, though it was also pretty clear the elf had never actually tried alcohol before and still wasn't sure she wanted to be here. But she held it as well as her companion, probably because she was an elf.

Three bottles of 20-stone later, the elf was starting to get into the swing of things. And the human was clearly in heaven as far as she was concerned.

"Man, it's good to be back."

"So this is how some people live?"

"It's how I always wanted to die."

"Is it? Why didn't you?"

"Life. Always gets in the way."

The waste disposal was almost full. Gorm normally dumped it into the toxic dump outside the mages' College every month - it was just not practical to throw old shalott bottles into the main garbage because of its tendency to eat through anything it touched, including the floors of bins and garbage coaches - but that required a bin that could store it in the meantime without getting eaten itself. And he only had one of those. And exploding a garbage coach in the middle of the street was not good publicity. Was it?

Then again, considering his usual clientelle, he didn't reckon any of them would mind even if it did get tracked back here. If anything they'd find it funny. They found the floor funny enough a lot of the time.

"Do you make funny fiddly drinks? With thingies. And things?"

"Brollies?"

"Swhat?"

"Puts brollies in the colourful ones. They do."

"Who?"

"They. Them. People."

"God any fiddly brolly drinks? Them's what people do, right?"

"Shalott's what people do here."

"Needs a brolly."

Was this even possible? Gorm wondered. A single bottle of shalott would be enough to kill most men and floor an immortal, but now these two, after quite a few more, were... well, upright, at least. Mostly. He pulled out a bottle of grog and poured them another round. Grog was, once you were drunk enough, almost indistinguishable from some of the worst shalott in the world, and indeed they didn't even notice.

"Whaddabout that shiny god of yours, what'd he say?"

"'Snot shiny. Dreary-like, more."

"Add some glitter, then he'd be shiny."

"Be glittery then."

"Totally would."

"Not shiny, though."

"Would be kind of sexy..." She slumped onto the bar.

Coraline looked at her mug, tapped out some dregs from the last bottle, and stared at it.

"Huh," she said. She tried to think, stood up in the hopes that it would help, and promptly fell over instead.

Now this part Gorm knew well. People passed out at the Cistern all the time, and some even were still very much alive when they did. Normally that wouldn't be a problem a good heavy cup couldn't solve, but since it was still too early in the evening for anyone to just make them disappear, he settled for emptying their pockets and dumping them out in the street instead.

---

The three of them sat down by the fire and stared at various things in the room that weren't each other. Finally they agreed that the entire thing had probably been a horrible idea. Technically they had all died. They were in another universe, in the middle of a fight that had nothing to do with them and that next to nobody else even knew about. They had each, on various occasions, utterly betrayed each other. They were also the closest thing to family any of them really had anymore.

What they didn't agree on was what the entire thing had been, or if it was even over.

---

It helps to stay in motion. It helps to have a center, a place to return to, a family to turn to, a dream to cling to...

---

"To have faith so strong that even when your god abandoned you, you remained resolute..." He shook his head. "I cannot comprehend it."

"Neither can I."

"But..." The preceptor looked confused.

"I just said 'fuck 'im' and then focussed on more pressing problems."

---

It was a kitchen, but unlike any he had ever seen before. Counters with built-in sinks lined two walls, and cupboards flanked them as was common custom, but it was also full of several appliances that he did not recognise, one of which had a large note taped to it in a script he couldn't read. White was the predominant colour, with deep brown and grey accents giving it all a distinct aesthetic that might have been quite nice were it not so cluttered. The counters themselves were littered with odds and ends, including several frying pans, a few bags of snacks, an ornate recurve bow that he knew all too well, and about fifty small seedling pots. There were also several large pots and pans sitting around the floor.

Of all the things he might have been expecting, this was not it.

"Hello?" he called. There was no response, then one of the pots started whirring and rose a bit off the ground, and he realised it wasn't a pot. In fact he had no idea what it was. It hovered in place for a moment, then whirred toward one of the doorways.

Hoping it might lead somewhere, he followed it.

---

Coraline yelped and rubbed her head.

"Are you okay?" Tessa asked.

"Yeah," she said. She opened her hand and found the key, once again accounted for. Bloody gods, she though to herself, but even so, she smiled. "Kyrule pulled his head out of his arse."

"Oh?" Zaeres look intrigued, and also amused at the wording. "How do you know that?"

She twirled the key. "He told me so and restored his blessing." It was somewhat amusing because as an undead, she had found his touch quite painful, but for some reason she also didn't expect he had regretted that at all. "Bit painful, actually."

Tessa frowned and exchanged glances with Lorelei, who looked downright worried.

Zaeres smiled thinly. "I can only imagine."

"Nevermind that, though. You were saying what happened on Dresore?"

"Hold a moment," Lorelei said. "You serve Kyrule?"

Coraline cocked her head. "Mmm, aye. Not that he and I necessarily see eye-to-eye on some topics. I'm very opinionated, see. Very opinionated."

"What topics?"

"Such as the one you're worried about, perhaps?" She smiled. "I have no problem with the undead, as a general rule. So long as they don't bother me or mine, I ain't going to go bother them or theirs. It's just another way to live, really, and to come at it otherwise just seems... bigoted to me."

"But we're not alive."

Coraline laughed out loud. "By whose definition? Life is what you make it, and anything that manages to move about and generate energy, especially if it happens to have some sort of consciousness, seems pretty damn alive to me. After that it just comes down to the same things as it does for anyone."

"Yes?"

"Something about disruption and a base level of equilibrium." She chewed her lip. "Something. It can reproduce, make more of itself, that's that thing what classifies lifeforms."

Zaeres smiled over his wine. "You always did have all the answers, Denereise."

"Well, I am a librarian," Coraline said haughtily.

---

The gate guards watched as the cloaked and hooded figure passed through, but did nothing to stop her. Those who meant ill rarely dressed so tackily or moved so silkily, and it was well known that no demon or undead could pass upon these holy grounds. Well, with perhaps one exception, but that woman hadn't really been a demon, strictly speaking.

Coraline headed for the main temple. In the darkness everything was still; though it was not yet late, most of the temple was asleep. Those who watched over the dead tended to prefer daylight.

---

"What's the worst that could happen?"

"Oh, just the end of the universe," Coraline said glumly. "More likely the city'll get levelled and we'll just wind up with another rift here, though."

"Like the one in Sannesee?" The entire party had seen the beginnings, so long ago. A strange darkness to the air, dead plants all around in an expanding circle, and just this... hole in space, whispering to them over the distance.

"Yeah. Bigger, though."

---

She moved to continue on, but Arsten poked her elbow. "You're not in a hurry, are you?"

"No, not really," Coraline said. She waited for him to elaborate, but he just stood there watching her instead. "Do you need something?" she finally asked.

"Oh, could you take a look at this? I could use an outside opinion." He gestured for her to follow and turned around and set off without giving her room to respond. Bemused, she followed.

He led her to what was probably some kind of lab. Several large tables took up most of the floor, littered with artefacts and experiments, and larger objects lined the walls and were shoved into corners. Several chairs were scattered about as well; it seemed Arsten shared this lab, but the others had slightly more typical sleeping patterns.

One of the tables had a large Book of Dreams open on it, but before she could investigate, Arsten activated a small blocky thing and suddenly a huge hologram of what appeared to be a giant piece of cheese filled the room. It seemed to be wavering slightly, and made her eyes hurt.

"I can't seem to figure what's wrong with it. It's finally showing, but it's wrong." He looked at her and shook his head in confusion. "It's not right!"

She pulled her eyes away and immediately felt better; it seemed the thing had managed to make her mildly ill as well. "What's the refresh rate?"

"Re... oh!" He excitedly started fiddling with something on the contraption. "That's brilliant! Of course the light decays quite quickly, so it needs to refresh it whenever something changes, but it also needs to maintain it, so... yes, here."

The cheese shuddered violently, and then became still. Coraline hesitated, then looked directly at it again. It was no longer wavering, and now for all the world looked exactly like a giant glowing block of cheese hovering in the air, with no ill effects.

"At last!" he shouted. "And everyone thought it was impossible!"

Coraline looked at him. "Who are you, Ponder Stibbons?"

Arsten looked confused, but picked up a notebook. "Who? No. What's your name?"

"Coraline." She poked at the cheese, but her hand passed right through it. There was nothing to touch or feel, simply the illusion to see, a matrix of light.

"Right," he said, and started scribbling. "Date, is it still... help of Coraline... works now... reasonably stable, hasn't puked..."

She looked closer. She could see the threads, the mesh that defined the shape and guided the light, but they were faint, behind the image itself. She wondered if this was how holograms normally worked.

---

"It is not your place to question."

"You do not even see it at the worlds fall to pieces, and you would have us sit idly by? On what?"

"Oh, he sees it," Coraline said, stepping forward. "He just welcomes it."

"A petty insect thinks to presume it knows the truth?"

She glared up at him. "If I am wrong, then call me wrong by name. If it is not so, then tell us the truth."

She had nothing. But nothing was all she needed. It was all she had ever needed.

Daru moved, but Coraline was already gone.

---

Eapherod held up the silvery key, examining the intricate detail of the curled twist. "Vardaman," she said gravely, "You do realise how much trouble your god went to to get this away from me in the first place, right?"

"No, not really," he said. "But I trust Coraline. And she trusts you."

And that, as far as he was willing to concern himself with it, was that.

---

As much as religion tended to make Rahah uncomfortable, there was something to be said for the lengths to which people could go in its name. The monuments span millenia, telling anyone who might see them later a small piece of history, even when the people themselves are gone, with stories springing up to fill in the details with ever more elaborate twists. And these stories persist even without books to record them, for they in turn become a part of the rituals that keep societies alive, telling and retelling the people who they are and where they came from. The wars that never fade from memory, persisting even in myth and legend after all those involved have long since faded to dust, for who else but those who truly believe would fight so hard, and go so far?

Temples, even those built in times of peace and well after the fact of the stories themselves, reflect the history as well as the culture of the present, and this one was no exception. Even so, it gave her the creeps.

Of course, it was probably designed to give people the creeps, what with the carved skeletons everywhere and the frescos of the hundred or so visages of Death and so forth, but Rahah had no problem with death, as such. Death was just something that happened, rather like life, annoying neighbours, and cats. For some reason these were just four things that always happened to her, every time, but it was only the last two that ever really caused a problem. Neighbours were neighbours and cats were cats, but when the neighbours got annoying, it was what her cats would do that really left an impression.

She was kind of glad she didn't have any here.

"Impressive, isn't it?" Rahah realised she was standing in front of a particularly large mural depicting what appeared to be some sort of apocalypse, with grand figures scattered about in some sort of epic battle against what seemed to be a mass of darkness. There was a distinct lack of a dragon anywhere on it, though she wasn't entirely sure why this would be important.

Then she remembered the speaker and looked around. He turned out the be a youngish fellow supporting a very large book and a pair of glasses that, if anything, were even bigger - they looked like some sort of rather crude binoculars, and made him look like some sort of ant.

He freed a hand from the book and then managed to free his head from the glasses; it turned out he was human underneath after all. "Er, sorry. Name's Arsten."

"Rahah," she said, then looked back to the mural. "So what's the story?"

"Oh, you know," he said, trying to find a way to balance the book and the glasses and almost dropping both of them on his foot. "Apocalypse and all that. End of the world show, as Coraline would say."

"She would, wouldn't she?" That line was right out of the Reagan Library, but Coraline had always loved that thing, pile of dreams and strange lines that it was. Little wonder she might repeat it, even here.

"It's said that the gods would come to fight a great darkness that spreads across the land. This is the only picture I've seen that manages to depict a 'darkness' at all convincingly."

"Huh."

They looked at it for a bit.

"How exactly do you fight a darkness, then?" Rahah asked.

"Suppose that's for the gods to know."

"Be easier if it were a dragon, wouldn't it?"

"Why a dragon?"

"Why not?"

Arsten looked at her. "You know, that's a funny thing... it does look a bit like a dragon in some of the other ones. I always just figured they probably didn't know how to paint a darkness." He tried to gesture but only succeeded in dropping the binocular-glasses, which shattered.

The two of them looked at the resulting mess on the floor for a moment. Then Arsten, suddenly remembering that he was relatively out in public and there were social expectations in situations like these, threw up his arms melodramatically and shouted "Noooooooo!"

Several passerby gave him strange looks.

Rahah blinked. "I'm not sure that was quite the right response."

"So what is?"

"I don't know."

"What," he said, "you think I did that on purpose?"

"Didn't you?"

He sighed. "That obvious, huh?"

"No, not really."