Seralah rested her sharp little chin on the top of the cloaked Unquenched's head. He towered over the rest of the crowd and had been chosen just for that reason. The Speaker of Nehmain didn't need a disguise, not really. Seralah Bloodhaven didn't look like the flesh avatar of the god of death. She was a frail looking girl with limbs that were too thin and a sweetly delicate face with large, large blue eyes fringed in dark lashes. The warm breeze stirred her waist-long black hair and she blinked up at the temple, squinting in the bright light of the noonday sun. Seralah wore a butter yellow sundress, and her skinny legs dangled over the Unquenched's shoulders. Her feet were bare and dirty, and she had rings on her toes.
"Look, Maelnor," she murmured to her undead servant. "Meriweather Osterious." She smiled. She couldn't see him well; he was just a pale figure in a white robe.
Seralah had seen him earlier when they'd carried him on the golden litter up to the temple. The papers didn't do him justice. She waved enthusiastically and whistled, flailing atop her Unquenched servant. But alas, Merris Osterious hadn't noticed her.
But he would notice her. Nehmain told her so. Over and over again. She saw his face in the smoke when she burned the bones of the Unquenched who fell to pieces, went mad, and had to be put down like rabid dogs. He was somehow the key to Nehmain's glorious ascension.
"When all the world closes its eyes in the forever sleep of death, I'll rise to rule and sit on the bones of the world," she whispered to herself. Her god was noisy, always singing his sad funeral songs in her little head.
She bounced on Maelnor's shoulders and tapped her long, skinny fingers on the top of his head. "Closer!" she said over the din of the maddened crowd. "I need to see."
Maelnor trudged closer, pushing people out of the way, stepping over writhing, sweaty bodies as they coupled in the street before the temple. Crunching on colorful, pink rock candy, Seralah craned her neck and saw them. The enigmatic Lady Shadowglade and Merris Osterious. Though untouched herself, Seralah wasn't naive, and the way they moved together, the way he kissed her, it was clear that this Feast Day was very personal. She leaned down close to Maelnor's ear. "Romantic. Just like the papers said, huh?"
Maelnor grunted at her. "Romantic," he agreed in his flat, rasping voice.
Seralah laughed brightly, crossing her ankles over his chest, smooshing the sides of his face with her thighs. She chomped noisily on her candy and watched the sacrifices go at each other on Baellith's sacred altar. It was artless fucking, frantic and needy. She rolled her eyes, bored. She crunched her candy by Maelnor's notched, broken ear. "Come on. This is boring. Take me to the Osterious manor, would you?" She dug her heels in his sides as though he were her stallion. She laughed as he plodded off to do his Speaker's bidding. Seralah, much like the Pale Witch, had dominion over all the undead on the planet.
Seralah didn't usually come up top, not even for festivals or feast days. They were not her gods or her people, so why should she care? They'd all turn to ash and dust when Nehmain was born in death and darkness anyway. But she had a vested interest in Merris Osterious. Only two days prior, after the terrible, scary fire in Underground Market, she had met with Magda the Mad. She had to see her fortune told in the bones.
The fortune was unpleasant. Magda carefully hinted that unless change was made, Seralah might lose her power and her kingdom! That wouldn't do at all! Seralah wondered how to change her fate, but all Magda would talk about was how someday, and someday soon, Merris Osterious would rule over the Underground.
Seralah decided, right then and there, that she wouldn't fight fate; she'd merely work with it. If that was his destiny, she'd come to him and offer to share it first. They could be friends! Or... maybe more. Though she was but a girl and such relationships were foreign to her. She'd seen Merris Osterious' picture in the papers. He was very handsome. Still, it would be all right if they were just friends!
The Speaker of Nehmain pouted and frowned childishly at the crowd gathered in front of Osterious' manor. Reporters and well-wishers carrying banners with his House's sigil, the moth. She couldn't very well break into his manor with all those people milling about. She had to chase them away.
As a god-touched elf, Seralah was granted certain abilities. The Speaker of Nehmain could raise the dead, control them, summon flies and diseases. She had dominion over the carrion beasts.
A sly grin curled her pale lips. "Rats," she said to Maelnor. While she knew that rats were intelligent, fastidious creatures, she knew most people found them abhorrent. She sighed and tip-tapped the Unquenched on the shoulder. "Let me down now."
Gently, the big creature plucked her from her perch and placed her gingerly on her feet. With the stick from the rock candy poking from between her lips, Seralah began to slowly dance in a circle. "Hear the voice of your servant, god of twilight and ruin." Her voice was a sweet, maudlin sing-song. She drew a small, thin dagger from the leather cord that twined around her thin waist. She pulled the blade across her palm. Blood beaded and welled and then dripped to the ground. "Hear me, oh Nehmain, Breath-stealer and Bone-grinder. Summon your children to clear my path. Herd them away, silly, useless living sheep."
From her blood formed an angel of Nehmain. It was just sneering lips and pointed teeth. "Sssseralaaaaah," it cooed.
Maelnor cringed and averted his gaze.
She stopped and smiled, her hands folded behind her back as she rocked on her heels. "Yes, bright angel! What do you want? What sacrifice must be made? What price must be paid?" She liked rhyming, even though it certainly wasn't necessary.
"All Unquenched must come back to the fold. All must be feeeeeeared again. They are not pets, foolish sack of meeeeat." The lips undulated, smacked.
Seralah frowned and stopped being childish. She knew when to be serious, though she disliked doing so a great deal. "If it is Nehmain's will, then it is his will. Command me." She bowed, sweeping and theatrical.
"Nooooo. Stupid girl. Command the Dead One cowering behind you. He will chase them away. Devour them. Their flesh and their bones!" The Angel laughed and faded in a crimson mist.
Seralah wrinkled her nose and backed away, swatting her slim hand through the air. A crescendo of hooping and cheering went up from the direction they'd just come from. She didn't have much time. She turned to Maelnor and sighed at him. "I'm sorry. But I must. Nehmain has spoken." She'd have preferred summoning rats and other carrion vermin, but Nehmain wanted bloodshed. And she knew better than to question her god, for while he had thus far been generous, she could just as easily have her powers taken. And then what? She'd be like the Pale Witch, lost to obscurity.
Though it would not have made any difference, nor would it have changed her mind, Seralah fervently wished that Maelnor would've fought for his life. Begged. But he did not. He bowed to her and waited, folding his arms behind his back.
Her power rushed into her like ice water under her skin. Her breath left her lips in a ghosted cloud of gray and her vision blurred. She saw the world as Nehmain saw it. Gray. Empty and lifeless. She watched as the thick patina of time stained everything, watched leaves darken and wither. The sky was sepia and weeping black. She looked at the crowd of people, her eyes all white, and she saw them as bones, their guts dripping from their frames to spatter to the ground. Flies and maggots writhed over the spoils.
It hurt. Nehmain's power was a cold so intense that it burned. Her teeth chattered and her little frame wavered, but Maelnor did as she bade him. A low, wrenching moan gurgled from his lips and he flung himself at the crowd. At first, the people were too busy chatting and laughing to notice the tall Unquenched slavering and lumbering towards them. They didn't see how wide his maw was, so eager to take in their meat. So eager to rend their flesh and break their bones.
Maelnor caught a young woman by the throat before the small gathering could scatter. A shower of red followed when he crushed her throat. The sound was wet, tearing. It was hard to remember now how it had been before. When she'd been younger still. She'd not had her first blood when they had lifted her up, sang her songs and made her queen of the dead. Such a sight then would have made her vomit, but now she looked on dispassionately as Maelnor dropped the girl's body and moved atop her. He tore into her stomach, through her clothes. Seralah only hoped the girl was dead before he'd done that.
Maelnor had his instructions and she had a letter to deliver. Seralah slipped passed the dead woman on the street and the growing puddle of crimson. She knew that the Imperial guards would be along shortly and that she had very little time to accomplish her task. Her feet padded over the cold, jagged stone that made up the path through Merris' dead, twisting gardens. Seralah made it to the door of the manor and sensed them. All of them.
Merris' dead servants. She tittered. Oh! He had so many! What a delight. Magda the Mad was right about him. He was special. Special enough to be with her. She hmm-hmm'd and knocked lightly on the door, whispering against the rough wood.
"Come, little sweetlings. Let me in! I am your queen."
She didn't have to wait long. The door creaked open and there was a beautiful little Unquenched dressed all in black and white like a doll. Seralah ooooh'd and stepped inside the drafty, musty manor house. She shut the door behind her and tipped her head up at Lauris. Seralah was very short, a diminutive girl. Even Lauris towered over her.
"Oh, my sweet. Your face! What happened?" She tapped her thin, white fingers over Lauris' mask.
Lauris sighed and turned away, clearly ashamed to be in such a bad state in front of the Speaker of Nehmain.
"No, no! No shame, my friend. There's no shame at all. I am here. And because you were so good to let me inside your master's house, I will fix you. Would you like that? A lovely new face and no more ugly scars?"
Slowly, Lauris nodded. She tugged at the mask, snapping the stitches, and let it fall to her feet. There was naught else but bleached bone shining through tattered gray flesh. The decay was very bad indeed. Seralah cooed sympathetically and tsk'd.
"This won't do? Will it? No." Lauris' golden hair was sparse and hidden under a lacy hat. Seralah thought it would be a lovely gift to the object of her fancy if she fixed up his servant. She pursed her lips and tapped her chin. "You must promise me, Lauris," she said, knowing the Unquenched's name. She just knew them. "You must promise to watch and listen for me. And on the next full moon, you will come to me in the Underground. Come to my kingdom. All right?"
Though Seralah asked, there was no reason to. Lauris would do as she was told, but Seralah liked being polite. The Unquenched girl nodded eagerly and Seralah set to work. Her eyes frosted over again and she saw the world in dripping decay. It had long ago ceased to bother her, the nightmare visions of Nehmain. It was just the way of the world. You were born, you aged, and you died, and then you turned to rot.
Unless you had control over undead things and then – well, it was like being immortal. Sort of! With fingers glowing sickly acid green, Seralah worked on Lauris. It took longer than she would have liked, but it was worth it. She crafted more dead flesh to cover her face and fashioned it as it had been when Lauris had been fresh. She replaced her hair so that it hung in doll-like golden ringlets around her face. When she was all done, Seralah clapped and cheered and took a stick of bright pink lipstick from her pocket and applied it carefully over Lauris' lips.
"You are very pretty! All better now, yes?" Seralah beamed up at the Unquenched who nodded.
"Thank you, Speaker," Lauris rasped.
"Of course! Anything to help my friends." She offered Lauris the tube of pink lipstick. She pointed to her pouting lips. "Put some on for me?"
Seralah held very still as Lauris applied the pink lipstick to her lips. She let the Unquenched keep the lipstick and this clearly pleased the woman who smiled sheepishly and tucked it safely away in the pocket of her frilly white apron. Seralah asked Lauris to show her around the manor and Seralah poked her head in here and there – but when they reached the door to Merris' room, she stopped. "No, no. I mustn't go in here uninvited. It would be unseemly." She hmm'd. "Would you fetch me a piece of parchment, sweet Lauris? I wish to write him a letter."
Seralah waited patiently in the dark hallway for Lauris to return. Her heels click-clacked and she gently offered Seralah some very fine bleached parchment. From the big pocket on her yellow sundress, she took out a quill and pot of rose-scented, pink ink. With loopy, childish handwriting she penned Mister Osterious a letter. She wished to see him. She drew little hearts and flowers to be certain that he understood the romantic overtones and then she pressed kisses to the page. She cuddled the letter to her chest and sighed happily.
"Oh, I do hope he comes. We're meant to be. A seer told me so," she said to Lauris as she folded the letter and placed it in front of Merris' door. She could feel eyes on her. All his servants had gathered to watch her, to look at her. She waved at them and then scampered away. It was time to go, time to head back to her kingdom to lead vigils and prayers.
"I'll see you all soon, I promise!" They chittered and cooed at her, sad to see her go. All undead things loved Seralah. It was an odd comfort.
Before Nehmain had chosen her, she'd been so alone and lost and afraid. Now? She never lacked friends and comforting hands to hold. That the hands didn't belong to the living didn't matter to Seralah. But maybe for once it would be nice to have living, breathing company. Merris, she thought with a little flutter in her chest. She couldn't wait!