#and delilah could write several papers now that she has solid statistical power actually!!! get published in Nature babe

[blorbologist]

briarwoods!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! cadaver, cross, century

[I'm LATE but this idea hit me while crossing the road. like a car. and it's maybe MOSTLY Delilah but she's constantly thinking about Sylas it's ok]

--

Delilah can’t say she’s bored. She really can’t. But - oh. The cemetery is tempting.

If it’s bodies she wants - and of course she wants, from the head of this table, with an entire city at her disposal - she can want them and then have them. Brought to her: already dead, or alive, or in-between. Or down the secret stairs, in the crypts, neatly labeled samples. Or in the servant’s quarters, where she could choose a body herself and redistribute the staff. 

All the funding of the assembly means little compared to this wealth, this absolute wealth, of cadavers. Enough to test the limits of her control - to find those lines malleable. And fresh, so fresh, in whatever state she wants. 

But she wants the cemetery. 

So: here she is, soft shoes muddied, sweat at her back. And it’s underwhelming. The markers are in wobbling rows, skirting ground too rocky for graves. 

(Rexxentrum’s graveyards are neat. Efficient in their use of space; they only take urns. Tiny, cramped urns. Far too small.)

Whitestone is a well-trained city by now, brought to heel. It watched politely, quietly as she walked, and probably averts its eyes as she walks, feeling the dead underneath, around, everywhere. Or maybe little people try their very best to peer through the fog, to glimpse the Lady of the city seeks on such a night.

You see - no, do look. You see, it is very difficult to get away with grave robbery near Rexxentrum. Or several miles outside it. Even within reasonable distance of most major roads. Which is such a shame when decomposition is a fascinating process, one so heavily influenced by the size of the corpse and the content of its insides and how it is buried. 

Delilah almost floats over the loamy ground. At what point is a body beyond even her talents? Is it a matter of time, or preservation? To the best of her knowledge, a minimum amount of material from the same individual is needed - but how degraded could they be? She’s never really had the sample size to experiment before.

(Decomposition begins as the body begins to eat itself. Then the littlest creatures begin to eat it, too. Everyone so hungry for it, so hungry. Three days later and there is bloat, and fluid, and flies, and maggots. And he looks just like any of her bodies, and he looks wrong.)

She peruses the markers with a smile. Cute, in wood or stone, they are fashioned into sunbeams pouring over where the deceased’s head should be. One for date of birth, one for their name, and one describing when and how they died. Sometimes another with a short message, but she really only cares for the cause of death.

(A few are broken, crooked. Made into crosses; made into wooden daggers. Pretty, petty threats. Cause of death: nothing, never, he did not die, he will not.)

For centuries she walks. Down one row, up the next. Consumption. Lethargie. Accident, accident, accident. Erathis’ judgment. Tympany. Coffin birth - oh, interesting. Here there is not a marker but a shovel, at the head of an empty grave. Flanked by another, another, another. They’ve been busy. 

She peeks in. Shame - nobody. No body yet. 

(In a fit, she had bought a plot for him. For her. So he could have something, even if she failed him. And she did. Until she didn’t anymore. Now it probably sits empty.)

Her heart is too loud, baying in this quiet. Delilah inhales. Exhales. Petrichor and moss and a whiff of her own perfume. Heel, she wills it. Heel. It would do her no good to worry Sylas, if he listens for her.

(They would fit neatly in one of the graves, in any of them. Six feet and Sylas would help her down with a hand. The dirt would be cool; he would be colder. A burial just for them, only moving things in this cemetery.)

When she is confident her blood is as still as it can be, as close to death as she can be between breaths - when she is here and now and not then and there. Only then does she reach for the nameless dead and make them move.

#i think exploring the limits and weirdness of necromancy is Fun Actually #and delilah could write several papers now that she has solid statistical power actually!!! get published in Nature babe #what do you Mean this might bring up some memories she'd rather not deal with. she is completely fine about the fact Sylas Did Die #hes fine now shes fine now and Whitestone gets to deal with how Fine they are <3 #critical role #cr fanfic #delilah briarwood #the briarwoods #prompt game #my writing #not sure how I feel about this BUT I'm decently high and had fun so YOLO