10261/Path of Glory: Blessed Are The Dead

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Path of Glory: Blessed Are The Dead
Date of Scene: 23 February 2022
Location: The Inbetween
Synopsis: Lady Death has another destined meeting with Death of the Endless and finally takes hold of the mantle that was tailor made for her.
Cast of Characters: Hope Svelgate, Chas Chandler
Tinyplot: Path of Glory


Hope Svelgate has posed:
Castle Winterhaven, Hell's Kitchen,

    For someone who had nearly forgotten what pain felt like, the sensation is intense as Jophiel the Angel of War's weapon, twin of Michael's Aubade, empowered by The Presence itself, pierces through Lady Death's chest as the glittering broken shards of Apocalypse fall to the ground.

    Lady Death's body shudders with pain and she can feel her strength leaving her. She digs deep to powers she has ever been loath to call upon, the last of Lucifer's power, and even her mother's Holy Light as she coughs up dark ichorous blood and lurches forward clutching what remains of the broken blade Apocalypse. In her last moments, awash in Holy Light, her only thought is to break the chains of the one who would have cried for her, cried for Hope, chains that can seemingly only be broken through Death.

    Plunging the blade into Jophiel's throat, the last of her strength leaves her and Lady Death sinks to her knees before completely collapsing into a spreading pool of her dark ichorous blood. <<Fuck, I guess this is it. Well, fuck you all.>> Is her last defiant thought. Better to die than surrender. She'd probably laugh, if she still had the strength.

Somewhere in the Underworld,

    At the headwaters of the legendary River of the Dead, which forks through many Realms, three figures in hooded cloaks have gathered. Their presences have been obscured by some of the most powerful magics known in either Heaven or Hell. Together they lower a large stone sarcophagus into the wellspring of the waters of Death.

"My part here is finished. Right now I am the last person she will want to see when she returns."

"I thank you for your assistance, even if our Lady probably will not."

"Now, all we can do is wait and hope for her return."

"She will return." There is utter certainty in that voice, as the figure turns and black wings extend before they fly off leaving the other two to watch the waters and wait.

The Inbetween,

<<Isn't death supposed to be more painful then this?>> Hope thinks as she floats in the endless nothing. <<Surely, I've earned eternal torment several times over after all that I have done.>> It is only then that she looks down at her hand, at herself. Stripped of the body of Lady Death, reduced to only her soul, she is once again just Hope, powerless Hope, and deep inside it angers her. <<Well, at least I can still feel.>> She thinks as she floats and drifts through the Nothing of the void.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    A familiar voice calls from the void that stretches out around Hope. "At long last, the wayward child has returned." Death emerges from the dark void with calm deliberate steps. Her appearance this time is slightly different than their previous meeting. She's still the pale young woman but over her dark leggings and black camisole is a voluminous violet cloak.

    She waves a hand and firey chains coil around Hope. The flames do not burn her but she is held in place before the powerful figure, suspended in place. "Long has this day been destined and now, here in my grasp you can realize the truth of the path you have walked for over five hundred years." The figure raises a hand and a great scythe of incredible power springs forth to rest against the shoulder of the cloaked woman.

    "Do you remember our encounter some twenty years past? The offer you were given at that time?" the cosmic being asks of her newest acquisition.

Hope Svelgate has posed:
Hope is snapped from her half dreaming reverie by the encircling chains. The bindings fan the flames of that spark of anger within her, Powerless Hope, now bound and chained Hope. <<Ah now begins the suffering.>> She thinks to herself.

Angry blue eyes turn upon the cloaked woman who has chained her. "Is that what this is about? You still want to control me?" The pale blonde young woman struggles against her chains, as she has always struggled against being bound by anything, especially Fate, but it is to no avail.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    The young woman tilts her head. "Who said anything about controlling you?" she asks seeming amused by the thought. "Hope, if I wanted to control you do you think you would really have any power at all to resist it? You're willful, powerful, and defiant--sometimes to a fault--but I'm Death. Nothing that ever lived truly escapes me."

    She grins and shakes her head. "No. I don't want to control you. There are plenty of beings out there that serve me. I don't need another servant. What I need is an executor."

    The chains shift and rattle with the struggle of the woman in them but they--like their creator--are inexorable in their grip. "A role you, inadvertantly or not, have positioned yourself to take hold of with surprising effenciency."

Hope Svelgate has posed:
    Hope continues to struggle against the chains. In this strange Nothingness between worlds, she may look as she once did but Lady Death's defiance still shines within her eyes. "There's a first time for everything."

    At least some of the words do perhaps sink in though. "So what is being your executor if not being controlled by you?" But her willful defiance does not falter.

    "And... why me?" She finally asks. Behind her defiance is the pain of one cursed to eternal violence, even in death there is no rest for her.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    "Answering the first is better done by answering the second" Death replies crypically, a small smile playing on her black lips. "You're life is all but defined by your willingness to embrace my dominion." She stops a few paces from Hope's form and releases the scythe. It remains in that spot upright as if it is still held.

    The young woman replaces it with a black parasol. She opens it and rests it against her shoulder seeming much more comfortable with the item than she was with the heavy scythe, but perhaps that is simply part of the act. "Your father, Mathias Tott was a powerful enough diabolist but far too focused on power for power's sake."

    And there before the pair of them appears a vision of Lord Mathias Tott standing before a fire, a visciously curved and bloody knife in one hand. He plunges the knife into the chest of a prone figure on a stone alter before the fire. The body jerks and a scream of anguish is pulled from his throat that echoes through the forest.

    Hope has seen this before. It was the sacrifice she witnessed when she was 16. "He wanted to rule Hell, but didn't have a plan for after he gained control of it. Sure, being a Hell Lord is all fine and well, but... it get's boring after a while. There is nothing to truly -do-. Storming the Gates of Heaven would only result is failure time and again. Why do you think the Morningstar has abandoned his post? Stagnation is a terrible, terrible fate."

Hope Svelgate has posed:
Rage shines in Hope's eyes when Death makes the image of Mathias Tott appear before him. She strains against the chains to the point where she might hurt herself if allowed to continue, seemingly intent on killing him all over again. "Your answer is to provoke me?!" And the urge to kill that rises in her at the sight of Mathias is unmistakable.

"Lucifer was weak, Mathias was weak. I will see the Silver City in ashes for what they have done!" Provoking her has never been a difficult task. It is quite the dichotomy. Anger and Violence are as ever engraved upon her soul, but somewhere beneath there is also still a girl who still can't understand how her fellow humans could leave her to burn.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Death smiles at Hope's rage. "Both are beyond your anger at this moment, child. Besides, this is not a matter of what you want. It is a view of what has already come to pass, you should know this." The vision of Mathias washes away as if water against glass and another vision takes hold. Hope tied to a stake, a crowd of peasants surrounding her, calling her witch and other vile names that bear no truth to who she is or was.

    "You were meant to die there you know?" Death says to her. "The terrible fate of the daughter of the 666th son. And yet..." They watch as Hope utters the words of devils and is consumed by fire not of Earth. "You used the very loophole he did to escape your fate. Rather ingenius of you, to be honest."

    That scene also washes away and is replaced with Hope's arrival in the depths of Hell. "That is why I pointed out when we last spoke. Your arrival in Hell was not by any path controlled by me. You -lived- there."

    More scenes appear and fade as Hope's life continues to play out before her eyes. Her survival in Hell--assisted by the able hands of Cremator. "One would not be wrong to even say that you -thrived- there."

Hope Svelgate has posed:
    The anger continues to shine in Hope's eyes when she sees herself on the cross, condemned, forced to betray everything she believed in in order to live. "And so what? I did that because I was betrayed. Betrayed by my people, betrayed by Heaven. I was left to die. But I survived, I refused die. I refused you, time and again." She pauses to laugh bitterly. "I suppose I did bring others to you, whether through mercy or vengeance or even convenience. Am I a demon then? That I thrived in Hell? I did what I had to in order to /survive/. I guess you finally got me though. Fucking Jophiel, that's what I get for letting weakness cloud my thinking."

    There is a resigned shrug as she stops fighting the chains. "So, what now?"

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Death laughs again. "You are no demon, Hope" she says. "Quite the contrary. You carry many aspects of power in you. Asgardian, Heavensent, Infernal... but under it all you are still human and I'm not sure there is anything that anyone in this universe can do to stop that. Which is a wonderful thing."

    She snaps her fingers and the chains fall away the moment Hope stops fighting. "Do not be too angry at Jophiel. She did what she was instructed to do by my hand. Confronting you as you were didn't work the first time. So I went for a more direct approach to arrange this meeting."

    She gestures to the sycthe still standing just an arms length from where Hope. "My offer still stands. Embrace the name you took for yourself all those years ago. Become the living Avatar of Death. The Reaper of souls. And in doing so... the protector of the Harvest. Hate humankind if you must. You have plenty of reason for it. But understand what it means to truly live as one if you take this offer."

    The words of the young woman ring out with power and meaning. "You will retain your freedom. But you must understand that being the embodiment of my power on Earth means that you must see that humanity endures and continues. Protect the life that is there. After all, what reason does death have to exist without life. Death is above good and evil, right and wrong. And it is not truly the end that many see it as, yourself included. Death simply is."

Hope Svelgate has posed:
    First there is a guffaw and then a chuckle as the laughter starts to build in her before Hope throws back her head and cackles at what she is being told. "The champion of Death is the protector of Life? The laughter finally quiets as she gets a hold of herself again. "That's really fucked up."

    To her it is an almost painful level of irony and yet it does make a disturbing amount of sense, what meaning does Death have if it is not defined by life? Whether too short, cut short, long and fulfilling, or sacrificed. She took the moniker of Death to End her foes and yet why even did she need to fight them but for the horrors they inflicted in Life.

    Hope's eyes stray to the scythe for a moment, looking it up and down, before returning to Death. The gears are clearly turning within her brain. There was a time when, even in this state, she might have tried to seize the scythe and strike at Death. But, while she has been disappointed many times, to say that she has seen no good at all among humans in her time walking among them would be a lie.

    "Fine." She says seizing the Death Scythe in hand. Even as she does, her voice becoming that of Lady Death once more. "But I'm doing it MY way!" The corners of her mouth quirking into a grin.

Chas Chandler has posed:
    Death smiles. If there was any thought or hesitation given that Hope would attack, it doesn't show on the young woman's face. "I wouldn't expect anything less from you, Hope" she says allowing the transfer of power to flow into Lady Death from her. Letting the mantle of the Reaper to settle into place around the -much- taller woman's shoulders.

    "I admit to being quite curious as to what you have in mind" she says. "But as I said, being the Reaper of Souls gives you a great deal of freedom to do as you please as long as you understand that should Life wane so too does Death. We are intrinsically linked together and nothing can change that, not even the one who thinks himself Mightiest."

Hope Svelgate has posed:
Somewhere in the Underworld,

    Who knows how long the sarcophagus has been down within the wellspring of the River of Death, neither of the cloaked figures can say for certain. Particularly in the Underworld moments can seem to stretch into an infinities. Neither cloaked watcher, however, gives up hope.

    And in the end their patience is rewarded when the top of the sarcophagus breaks the surface of the stygian waters, blasting up into the air. Following shortly after it, glowing brighter than ever before with the pale blue light of the Energy Arcane, wearing someone's leather jacket, and holding a deadly looking scythe, is Lady Death herself. A shiny metal Ankh dangling around her neck.

"I have returned."

"There was never any doubt my Lady." Cremator replies from beneath his hood.

"Welcome back." Echoes Satasha.

"Now, it's time to settle the score." A wicked grin plays across her face. "But first there is someone who is going to make a little girl cry if he stays dead, and I fucking hate that." Nevermind the Fate of the Universe. But no matter what mantle she assumes, She Who Reaps will ever be herself.