Birds of a Feathyr

For a moment that was both brief and excruciatingly drawn out, Shades’ entire existence was nothing but terror, fire and blinding pain.

The Tengu promptly found himself in the extensive line of the dead leading into Pharasma’s Tower. The great Tower itself loomed impossibly high above. Some travellers in the afterlife see a certain magnificence and even awe about the Tower, but not Shades. To him it waited with a passive menace, like a smug dragon waiting to receive its helpless princess tribute.

Slowly the line shuffled forward, ever closer to the Tower. Shades was both relieved to see none of his fellow Engineers join the line, but also a touch disappointed. The company would have been appreciated, especially when he swore he could see the offending Orcusites some distance behind.

The realization that his mortal body would be irrecoverable from a pool of blazing lava didn’t come for some time later. Shades had never been the type for existential dread, having lived mostly in the moment for much of his life. With all the words of all the languages he had picked up in his life, he could not find one that described the depth of the following panic. The Wall of the Faithless was suddenly a very real possibility on the horizon. Literally- it was far off but it was still right fucking there.

For innumerable hours Shades woefully ruminated on his Prime Material life. His friends, his family that had once been, the people he had taken under his wing. And that itchy feather that had taken longer than a week to properly grow out of the small of his back. He had fought so hard to keep what very little random chance had given him, and to share what he could with those less fortunate than him. And here he was, standing in a queue hiding from the eyes of slain foes, soon destined to be another gibbering voice in a choir of gibbering voices for as long as existence existed.

“You!” A raspy sounding human voice broke Shades’ tumbling existential spell. Shades tried to cram a lid on his frothing existential terrors, and stared at the voice’s source. He was an old human, and very chipper for someone strolling about the Plane of the Dead. Curiously, he was not in the line at all.

“You there,” the old gent waved, “I don’t want to sound, well, rude at all, but I think I just spoke with some colleagues of yours. One of them was a bird you see. A bird man. Woman, actually I think. It’s hard to really tell. ...Oh dear, I am so sorry.”
“Just fuckin’ great,” Shades rolled his eyes. Apparently in Pharasma’s domain, where all souls from all the planes came together in a great queue into a gargantuan tower made of bone, being a humanoid shaped bird was still weird for people.
“Are you the head of the Great Downward Engineering Company?” the old man bleated, clearly a little upset with himself and his faux pas.
“Fuckin’ frog’s ass on a stick keep your yappin’ down!” Shades squawked and dragged the man into line with him, keeping both their heads low, “Who the nine Hells is askin’?”
“Bofred,” the geriatric stuck out a gnarled hand, “Bofred Aerim.”
“Well I never, it’s another Aerim. Who’s it this time, Illden’s long lost human grandpappy?”
“Uh, yes, actually. You have met my dear Illy Illden? She doesn’t have the frog spots still, does she?” 

Shades vomited a giggle or two. That wasn’t entirely information he needed to know about Illden, but the humour was hugely welcome. For some time Bofred and Shades engage in small talk. Bofred shares some of the more hilarious pranks he pulled on his Orcusite captors. Shades avidly recounts his adventures with the Great Downward, the trials, the terrors, and the pride he felt in taking a shitty crumbling old castle he had inherited seemingly by accident, and shaping it into tiny dysfunctional town of misfits, refugees and expats. The process is cathartic at first, but by the end the young Tengu is woefully upset. A Tengu doesn’t have the proper glands to cry, but when he blurts out his soon-to-be fate amongst the Wall of the Faithless he has made a fine attempt to do so.

“Oh, oh I see. Well. That can’t do. No, that can’t do at all,” Bofred frowned.
“The opinion is appreciated but that ain’t goin’ to change a fuckin’ thing,” Shades croaked.
“Well, that’s just the thing, Pezzack. I’m quite certain I can. The circumstances are admittedly dreadful, but...” Bofred brought his voice down to the faintest whisper, “I’m kind of a god now, you see.”

Shades lept to his feet and skittered in surprise, certainly not expecting that piece of information at all. Bofred’s eyes glazed a little, as if peering far into a misty horizon. His brow ticked, and one of his withered hands were clenched. His form drooped with a heavy weight that should not have existed on this immaterial plane.

“As the priests and their vows of poverty were the backbone of old Mitra’s worship, and the paladins were Muir’s...the goodly kings and queens of old where the strength and pride of Thyr. Thyr the God of Kings! For the greatest good for the greatest number He shall rule!”

“When Severin Aerim... when Severin... when Tsar fell to Orcus’ forces, well the whole spine fell out of the skeleton, didn’t it?! No one wanted anything to do with Thyr. Not if one could fall so hard and hurt so many. Lies, of course, lies, they have to be! Even so, they didn’t stop Thyr from fading so. I spent my life trying to clear Severin Aerim’s name. I spent my life trying to clear Thyr’s name. I could have saved a lot of people. I could have saved Thyr!”

By this point Shades was feeling no small measure of fear. Bofred was clearly desperately mad or madly desperate. And still quite possibly a god.

“I...I’m sorry to hear that,” the normally talkative Tengu gulped.
“Oh. Oh dear. Yes,” Bofred sighed, his trembling subsiding a little, “Sorry, Sir Highroost, I seem to have frighten-”
“It’s Shades, okay. Sir Highroost is so damn gaudy I could hurl.”
“I’m sorry Sir Shades. I’m not used to being a god, you see. Not that I’m going to last very long as a god, not having a church and all. Or a royal line to oversee the people of the Valley. Or any sort of myths or stories to wow the people. I’ll just be sitting on Thyr’s cold dusty throne. In the quiet, all alone, until Thyr fades or I do. Did I mention how lonely it is going to be?!”

“I’d happily trade you my place on that crazed wall for a spot o’ loneliness and quiet, it seems awful lively there.”
“Ah, yes. Yes. That’s right, that pesky Wall. How about this Pezza-"
“Shades.”
“How about this Shades? I’ll give you back to the Prime Material. I haven’t divinely intervened before, so it might take a little practice, but there’s no point being a god if you can’t do that is there now?! Haha!” 
“Alrigh’, you have my ears, grandpappy Aerim. But I’m guessin’ this ain’t really a free deal now, is it?”

“Yes. I can’t just go spending divine energy willy-nilly on every poor mortal with a sob story now can I? I want you to clear Severin Aerim’s name, or to do your best. I also want you to take my divine favour. This line of the dead here is fresh out of goodly kings and queens, but as the non-evil Mayor of that lovely new Dejune town you told me about -a Mayor with the right to a Lordship even!- who says he’s a good friend of my dear granddaughter... well you are the best and only candidate for a chosen I have. And I can’t have you spilling blood with swords or that frightening tinderbox cannon you said you had, Thyr would absolutely die. And then so would I. But it’s okay, I can make you a new body that’s better at different things. A Tengu body of course, I wouldn’t want this to be weird for you. Just.. don’t kill people when you don’t have to, and take care of your people, you hear? Oh and give Orcus a right kick up the arse, I would really enjoy that. I haven’t quite got a doctrine yet, but I can certainly keep you posted on the details.”

Shades glimpsed a look over at the distant yet definitely closer Wall of the Faithless, and looked back at Bofred. It’s not like he had any other choice.

“If a god’s gonna drop from the sky to pick a dead bird back up, well damn I ain’t gonna look his gift horse in the mouth. …You have yourself a deal, Bofred.”
“Marvelous! Say hello to my Illy Illden will you? But don’t tell her I told you about the frog spots, that would be ghastly.”

Shades didn’t have the time to word his agreement to do so. He was somewhere in a forest, possibly near Dejune from the looks of it, and had found himself in the peculiar position of not quite having a body yet.

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