Chapter Text
Wake up
Wake up
Breathe
You are not dead yet
Wake up!
*~-~-~☆^☆~-~-~*
He should be dead.
So why was he alive?
He had been forgotten after Oakhurst had been abandoned 600 years ago, and holy spirits died when their towns failed to honor them, so why was he alive?
He coughed for a few moments before collecting himself.
He was alive, sitting in the ruins of the old church and very much out in the open. If he was alive, that could only mean one thing.
People have returned to Oakhurst.
…
Shit
When was the last time people had lived in Oakhurst?
(200 years)
How long was he dead for?
(600, we counted)
Who came here and how did they reawaken him? Why? What was this strange object he was propped up on?
The last question he could answer with observation, so he should probably work on that. It was a strange cube, of a delicate glass and ornate rune work. The glass shell was very intricate, great at storing energies, and he recognized that handiwork. What had his old friend decided to give him? Well, whatever it was, whoever had come to Oakhurst had filled the structure with a bright, warm energy. Divine light, he realized.
Well, that had explained it. The structure had been consecrated, and by consecrating it, whoever came here had called on the power of the local light energy, which was him. Thus waking him up from his death, possibly unknowingly, and if that was the case, then it was Fwhip who had saved him by creating the strange objects in the first place.
Ugh, Fwhip was going to be insufferable once he found out.
He bent down to inspect the thing closer, there, christening the strange device in a soft inscription of runes that was very typical of the tinkerer spirit was the words "Beacon".
Huh, a beacon. What a… not very original name, wasn't Fwhip a spirit of creativity?
He checked his form in the reflection of beacon's glass, his hair still teal, eyes still pale blue with that divine shine and he was wearing the familiar old timey robes of a nobleman. He had looked just like this for centuries, one of many inexplicable thing about him.
Straightening back up, only now did he realize just how much of a crick in your neck death left you with. Every joint in his body was stiff, and he long to stretch them all out. But that could wait.
Because a presence was approaching the ruin he was currently sitting in.
The presence reached the ruins, revealing itself as it walked around the broken wall. It was a male, probably human due to the lack of magic though he was unsure whether he was in a fit state to tell after waking up from being dead for who knows how long, and seemingly in their 50s, assuming that he was human, based on his balding head and thin greys streaking through what little hair he had, including his mustache and beard. He was wearing a long white apron with a multitude of stains on it and a monocle over one eye. Probably a doctor of some sort, though the scar crossing his lined and sullen face spoke of a brutal past.
"Hello? Who might you be?" The doctor asked.
"My name's Scott," he said, the words coming as easy as ever, "you are?"
"Doctor Legundo, though most just call me Legs. What brings you to Oakhurst?"
"That-" Scott said, "is a long story."
(More like, you don't have a story)
"Ok… well… welcome? I don't know whether or not to say that, I'm not really from here. In fact, no one seems to be from here… it's strange, you know, how a bunch of people just all arrived on the same day."
"Oh? That is strange…" he mused.
"Doctor?" Another voice called, and another person arrived, probably human, with long curly orange hair adorned with purple flowers, wearing a flowing green dress.
"Oh," they said, spotting him, "another. That makes, what, 14 of us now? Why are you here? And please don't be crazy like the others."
"It's a long story," Scott insisted again, because he didn't have the time to come up with an explanation. Somehow, these people had mistaken him for a human, which meant either it had been so long that his image had been forgotten entirely or humans had forgotten how to identify spirits. Maybe both. Either way, he needed information before he made any moves.
"Right, ok. Why don't you come out to talk with the others?" Legs said, leading Scott away from the old church and the beacon.
The rest of the arrivals were a strange bunch. You had flowers in hair, nightshades specifically, he recognized now that he's had time to look, who's name was Cleo, some blond noble kid named Martyn, a… butlern't named Abolish, Drift the jumpy detective, Apo the military soldier, an apparently famous author M, Ren whose tongue was cursed, the rich girl Pearl with the dead family, a high born scholar called Pyro, supernatural hunters Shelby and Avid, and the lumberjack. Not a group you'd expect to see together.
Though the thing that made it particularly strange was the group's relationship with the hunters. They thought them crazy, and Scott could agree with them on Avid, but for different reasons.
"Vampires aren't real," the doctor insisted when Avid was telling everyone to protect themselves.
That was insane. Vampires are real. Everyone knows that. Or at least, knew that.
Had the world changed so much in 600 years that everyone forgot? (Oh, spirits, it had been 600 years. He could feel it now, the ground had shifted and the trees had aged. Waters flowed so far into the sea that he could not call the rivers running through his land the same ones that he knew.) How could anyone not believe in vampires?
Avid was crazy, don't get him wrong, but not because he thought vampires existed, no. It was cause he thought they were all evil and Scott knew that was wrong.
(He did not remember the old vampire for he was already dead when he first arrived, but the lands did. And they mourned his passing, Scott could feel it. It had rained for days.)
(I'm honestly quite flattered)
Shelby though? Crazy? No way! They seemed normal, nice even. Kind, endearing, young and adventurous, but far from crazy.
(Tis' unfortunate, that the nicest of people seem to be overlooked by others for the smallest of things, especially those ostracized for being right.)
Another strange thing about the group was the lumberjack in particular. Owen. Everyone else in town was foreign. Neither Scott nor the lands remembered them. But Owen was different. Oakhurst recognized the lumberjack, and Scott had not gotten a moment to understand why.
(Him
Him
Him
Him…
The ruiner
The murderer
Death is too good for him
CUT HIM SOME SLACK!)
It was all very confusing, but then again, he had been dead the past 600 years, he was slow to catch up with the rest of Oakhurst.
Based on how everyone was acting, Scott deemed Shelby the only sane one there and decided to stay with her while keeping up his human disguise to understand everything that happened the past 600 years.
It wasn't a very good disguise, but no one was particularly observant.
Well, Avid at least clocked him as inhuman, but he had somehow mistooken him for… a vampire.
"He's too… inhuman, too symmetrical. He's got bad vibes," Avid was saying.
"You're accusing someone of being a vampire based on vibes?" Pearl sounded absolutely miffed.
"Come on! He's got this dreadful aura, you've got to feel it!"
That… was interesting. He was a light spirit, and they tended to make humans feel warm and calm in their presence. If Avid felt dread at his presence, then he wasn't human, at least not entirely. Based on the fact that he felt a dreadful aura and thought of a creature of darkness, then he didn't know he wasn't a creature of light. Or he was just really incompetent, and seeing as he thought vampires had an aura it was not out the question.
(Be nice, he's just a kid
A stupid one
Hey!
False, now is not the time to arguificate with the new guy. Besides, we are diplomats
YOU may be a diplomat, but I only speak with the sword!)
Scott sighed internally. Aspects. Still as annoying as always (since when did he have 3?) He never liked how he didn't get to choose which souls of the dead stayed around as aspects, seeing as it lead to his mind being full of bickering children, but there was nothing he could do about it.
(HEY! We are NOT children!
Speak for yourself, that dude is older than us by centuries
Can we count the 600 years he was dead on our age but not his?
Seeing as we were only half conscious at the time, no)
The town was run down, terribly so. It'd take such a long time to repair it, but he'd manage. He'd already waited 600 years, he could wait a little longer.
"Shelby," Scott said, watching the red haired girl work on the roof of their house.
"Yes Scott?" Shelby replied.
"I'm going to get wood, will you be fine building on your own?"
"Of course! I'm going to add a hearth, so getting firewood would be appreciated!"
Scott disappeared into the trees. He needed to check up on his lands.
The trees were still the same ones he knew, though the paths had grown over, and part of the river had been rerouted. A large swath of the forest had been diseased (from his own death, no less) growing in twisted and white and partially dead. He felt guilt twist in his gut, these were his lands that he was meant to protect and he had failed, his absence bringing death to his lands. Over and over again.
Because he could feel it so well.
600 years ago, earthquake. One that shattered the fields and toppled the last of the old castle's ruins, cracking the world after his death. He could feel how the dirt had shifted beneath his feet.
400 years ago, plague and famine. During a time when he could've helped had he been awake, the resurgent Oakhurst had fallen. It still stained the land, sickening the dirt deep below.
200 years ago… ####, followed by fire. Ash still swept through the air, the soil charred. All because… because…
(No need to dwell on it
You can't hide this knowledge from him!
You have some nerve, new guy
I do what I must
More like what you want
I WILL PUT YOU BACK ON THAT PYRE!)
What?
(…No need to dwell on it)
A headache seemed to bloom across Scott's conciousness. There was a terrible haze in his mind where he couldn't grasp something he desperately wanted to.
He leaned against a tree, sliding down the trunk and onto the ground.
"There's one more of you than normal," he muttered under his breath.
(Yes)
"Who are you?"
(Call me Louis)