Speaker?
Speaker of what?
"You... you're not a mortal. But you're not a god either."
"Oh? You can tell? How can you see that?"
Raghen narrowed his vertical pupils.
"I am Liandros, blooded or not. We know the ways of nature and the world, it is in our bones and scales. You... you are not the concept a god is. You are... different."
The Nameless One laughed. "Well, I've been called a god, and I suppose I am worshipped as one. Do I seem more a demon to you?"
"A demon?"
"Ah... think of it like the opposite of a god. A being that requires no worship, but fulfills a role of their own choosing. Sorta like a gatekeeper to death and new life, if you will."
The Nameless One shrugged, turning to the light. "You coming?"
Raghen hesitated, before steeling himself and following.
As he exited the door...
Suddenly he was back in the graveyard, but the graves seemed to shine, as if made of a faintly glowing white marble.
The earth was dark and rich with moisture as a fog clung to his feet and ankles, only rising a foot off the ground at most.
"Okay, where are we?"
"I told you." The child smiled back, it's features once again different as Raghen recoiled from the sight of a Liandros youth with half its face rotting off!
"You brought us here. You also are why I appear this way... you instinctively recognized me as higher, so you made me human, and then elven, because these are the people's who have ordered you around all your life."
"And now?" He struggles not to inhale, a strange mixture of the smell of ozone and rotting flesh mixing with peppermint to make him feel dizzy.
"Now you see me as similar to yourself, because you saw it, didn't you?"
"Saw... what?"
"My shadow."
And for an instant, he could have sworn the shadow stretching from the young Liandros, swallowed the horizon itself behind him, a weight of death and terrifying power that seemed to own all the world in a single breath, and twisting beyond any bipedal form.
And then it was normal to the point he could've sworn he imagined it.
"What... are you? A demon? That's what you said?"
The youth rolled his eyes, and as he did so a ripple spread from those eyes, rotting flesh becoming whole as fur sprouted on his body, fur becoming feathers before he became the other side to the Liandros, the Viandros.
Reptilian became avian, as a beak and feathers and wing-like arms became its body, and it had bright blue feathers with emerald green flecks.
"I am not sure, but a demon or a god, the word doesn't matter. Stop trying to put a name to things. Not everything is neatly categorized, especially when something is still in flux."
"Sorry?"
"Sigh... how to put this simply? I am more than I am, but the rest of me hidden away has yet to decide if it likes me enough to reveal itself. That's the best way I can put it right now."
Raghen looked around at the graves. "So... what is a being such as yourself doing in my-"
He paused, his eyes widening.
"We're... in my dreams?"
The Nameless One shrugged with a mild annoyance. "Yeah. Duh."
"What could a being capable of entering another's mind want with a Gravedigger?"
Suddenly a snake was before him, with scarlet eyes and green scales, it's mouth open wide to swallow him whole!
Before he could even scream, when his instincts went into panic and his muscles locked up, the snake spoke.
"I want you to tell the tale of the Nameless One. I want you to be my Speaker, and preach of the dead."
"What... is your Tale?"
"The Tale starts with three voices, three children, and death."
Raghen suddenly found himself on his bed, a child like he'd been when his father wove stories and tales to impress him.
A mirror reflection of his younger self sat across from him, all colors inverted.
"The first child was sick, and dying for years. The second was innocent, but befell an accident of circumstance that killed him. And the third tried to escape the cruelty of man, only to have death steal her only family."
"3 children. 3forms of death. Each thought their own thoughts and had their own dreams, but one thing they shared in common: fear."
"All believed that death was the end. And they were scared."
The one across from him was suddenly a little girl, a Kheto, with pink hair and skin translucent enough to make her veins easily seen.
He recognized her... she'd once helped him when he was lost on a hunt in his younger days by guiding him out of a swamp.
He later found out she was a frog become lord beast, and his father had bowed and thanked her profusely for not slaying him as an intruder.
She was gentle, and kind, and it matched the feeling this Nameless One suddenly gave him.
"Out of 3, a wish was born, a single thought, an idea. 'I wish death wasn't the end.' So the sick boy died... and was born again in a new life."
Raghen blinked. 'What? Sorry?'
"In death, the souls, the essence of the living, are brought to a place to be judged."
"Judged on the life they led."
"And that judgement is what will affect the skills and circumstances they have in the next life."
Raghen's eyes had narrowed intensely, his mouth gaping open.
"Y-you... what are you saying?!"
"I am the Nameless One. I am the guide to the dead. I am he who brings the souls of the departed to their judgement, and to their new lives. And I'm here to ask you, Raghen, unblooded, tribeless."
"Will you speak for me? Will you pray for the dead to pass into my reach, so they may reincarnate? Will you take on this duty?"
Raghen didn't know what to say!
A being like this wouldn't bother lying to him, it was beneath them.
Death wasn't the end?
His father had a new life.
All those whose bells stayed silent passed on to a new life.
He... would have a new life.
Death wasn't the end of his existence!?
How much had he wasted his life, how much does he wish he valued more, how much precious time slipped past?
This... was immortality. It was the truth of death as told by a being on par with the gods, even if only a small part of it seemed to be present in truth.
"Yes. I... will write the tale of the Nameless One, and speak on your behalf to the people. I will tell them of reincarnation, and that their choices in this life matter."
The Kheto smiled. "That's all I ask. Your reward will be a bit more apparent when you wake up. To be blooded is to take on the bloodline of a "Divine Beast", essentially a magical beast become god rather than a two-leg, yes?"
Raghen nodded. "The tribes all have different reptilian bloodlines, while the Viandros have different bird bloodlines."
"Well, I suppose that's all I needed to make sure I understood properly. I wanted to make sure I'd read that correctly."
Everything began to smear into blues of color.
"Speak well, Raghen."
~ ~ ~
Raghen opened his eyes to the cemetery, normal again, and dawn light peaking over the horizon.
He felt a change deep within, a passage of sorts to a place of many lights.
He outreached a hand...
And a small glowing rock began to materialize.
"I'm... an awakened?"
Earth to bury the dead, light to see life.
But far more important to him was the change in his body, a heat in his blood that wasn't there before.
It was so small as to be undetectable... but a small sliver of blood that shimmered with power ran in his veins.
"I'm..."
Tears began to fall as he realized what the Nameless One had given him.
Honor. Respect. Integrity.
To be blooded was to be given these things.
He stood up, and bowed to his fathers's grave.
"May the Nameless One take you in peace, father."