33 Saun 718
The thing about death was it wasn’t even something that should have been sad. People died all the time - constantly. Take a breath? Three people fall down, never going to get up again. Death was as much a part of life as eating, or sleeping, or learning how to walk, and none of those things seemed to inspire people to gather around, wear black, and lie about how much the deceased meant to them.
That was another weird thing about dying. Once someone was dead, they weren’t “Karen” anymore, they were “the deceased”, “the departed”, “my dearest friend who I will miss more than anything else in the world”.
Karen probably would have liked it if you showed up to any of her birthday parties within the last decade, Helen, but now she’s dead so you can bull shit all you want and know no one will know the difference.
Well, no one but Mads. Mads knew; he didn’t care, but he knew just how little anyone actually liked Janet. She had been an average, boring, simple human being who had spent far too much dime downing wine and spilling other people’s secrets to keep too many friends close. That, and she had had the worst habit of constantly trying to finger her coworkers during after-hours “get-togethers”.
Mads hadn’t particularly liked her.
In fact, he wouldn’t have even bothered donning his far too expensive suit and thrice as expensive shoes to show up to the pathetic display of everyone else’s competing performances of who could be the saddest if it hadn’t been for Graciana informing him he didn’t have a choice.
She’d set up, of all things, a blind date for him. Apparently, an old friend - Torvyn, if memory served - had contacted her asking if she knew any suitable suitors who might be seeking a dedicated relationship.
Mads wasn’t a suitor nor was he particularly suitable in such a respect, but Graciana had volunteered him none-the-less, explaining to him that, whether he wanted to or not, it was never a bad idea to work on one’s romantic advances. Persuasion, word play, and lies weren’t infallible, after all.
That, and he needed a raise.
So, he’d arrived at the funeral about ten minutes past when the cream-colored cardstock invitations with the absurd floral embossed borders had asked him to - not because he intended to waltz in fashionably late, but because there had been an accident along the way that had forced him to take an alternate route.
Muggings were so very inconvenient.
Helen went five minutes past her allocated time, spewing some inane anecdote about how Karen and she had once found themselves the last two people late at work one night. They had a heart-to-heart about what it meant to be in the profession, how much multitasking was required to handle the varied assortment of assassins, hitmen, and murderers who incidentally got paid to do what they want was. “It was strenuous work,” Helen said, pausing as if she was about to deliver a punchline. “It was to die for, I recall her Karen saying.” A polite but enthusiastic round of laughter rose from the crowd.
Mads stared blankly, hands as unmoving as his lips.
After Helen came Jolene, who recounted the time Karen saved her from the Gouger after he went rogue - a half-truth from a liar that wasn’t even there. It was an amicable split from the Syndicate turned sour after the Gouger saw this paltry severance package which, in turn, was greatly worsened by Karen after she suggested he take a Domain initiation (In Empathy, no less!) to compensate for his lack of monetary compensation. Then it was Sandra from Inhuman Resources, who couldn’t be here but had a fairly decent imitation of herself in the form of a Revenant to screech out her heartfelt condolences. Then it was Nathaniel, then Gina, then Cassie, then Natasha, mages and monsters (fuck you, Sandra, they’re monsters not “demi-humans”) coming up one by one to honor a monster worse than any of them (Gossips shake my head)
And then, finally, someone whose name he didn’t know came up to the podium; in fact, he’d never seen her before at all. For all the years he’d spent as an underpaid, under-the-table child labor employee, the woman who took the stage - an actual stage; some imbecile had thought it appropriate to rent out the local Academy of Witching and Wizardcraft’s auditorium for the whole hellish shindig - was different than the rest.
For starters, she didn’t even try to look sad. If anything, she looked aggravated that she had to be here. She was cute - at least as far as Mads understood that word to mean - even if the expression of her face seemed to be doing everything her power to strangle the life out of that perception.
Her first words out of her mouth broke its neck with a sickening pop.
“I think she deserved to die.” The woman said to a very stunned and suddenly very still crowd. She paused, as if fumbling for the next words, then lifted up her palm as if to peek at something written there. She frowned, squinted at what was either bad handwriting or smudged ink, and then rolled her eyes. “Carrie deserved to die and that’s not a bad thing. She was born, I presume, lived a full life, again a baseless presumption but bear with me, and she died. That’s as full a life as any of us deserve. Now I know what you’re all thinking: what happens to her debts when she dies-”
“No one was thinking that!” came a voice from the crowd. Harold. Fucking Harold. The woman paused again, pegged Harold with a stare that marked him for consumption, and continued.
“-Do they vanish? Do they just fuckin’ float away into the wind like the stale ash? I think not. On the eve of 714, Carina-” She checked the palm again. The frown only deepened. “-Carole Mazelgese rubbed my lamp and wished for an unlimited supply of low-grade wine. Actually, she asked for unlimited wishes first, but I’m middle management. I ain’t an omnipotent wish-granting emean entity. Those are goals, fucks.” She punched up an arm unenthusiastically. “In exchange, she promised me her firstborn child. Now unless that obiturary is terrible inaccurate, Katherine Mazeltoz has not fulfilled her end of the bargain and, well, done the deed to give me my payment. Thus, I am here to invoke the breach clause: I am obligated to one date with any of her designated co-workers.”
New wave “genies”. They’d been on the rise ever since the septuries had started all getting their sparks, gruffly shoving the baby schooners and “GEN HEX” out of relevance. They had an obsession with ancient pacts and contracts that were discovered a little before the turn of the last century. Most of them were relatively harmless con-men, women, and monsters, but the odd few were actually pretty competent.
Mads brow raised curiously, the only expression that had managed to work its way into his features since he’d arrive two hours ago.
“As Carolina has, predictably, not chosen a designated co-worker, it falls to some loser named Graciana to name my squeeze tonight. Who is ‘Mathias NexttimetakeoutthetrashwhenIaskyoutonottendayslater’? I will say this first: if this courtship is successful, I will be keeping my maiden name.”
Collectively, the some four hundred heads all turned to face him. Helen had insisted on assigned seating. Fuck Helen.
With a heavy sigh, Mads rose to his feet. One of the defiers manifested a little ball of fire above his head so he was easily spotted. He looked about as amused as the “genie” had when she’d first taken the stage, but none-the-less, he spoke out, voice just loud enough to carry but not much more than that. “I assume that is meant to be me.”
If she had any opinion on Graciana’s choice, it didn’t show on her face. “You have 10 bits to plan the itinerary. I don’t eat, intercourse is pain on both a physical and an emotional level, and if you touch me, I will extinguish you on the spot. Do try not to disappoint.”
With that, she stepped down from the podium, passing the next baffled speaker (Christina was always easily spooked) and disappearing somewhere behind a pillar or some such presumably to pout.
“W-well that was…” The auditorium was oppressively quiet as the flame above Mads’ head extinguished itself. Christina swallowed, the sound carrying through the room like a sea cucumber being slapped against a land snake. “There’s c-cookies and wine in the l-lobby. As we all know, Cass- er, I mean… Karol. Karen!” Her nervousness was enough to make even Mads cringe uncomfortably. “Karen’s head was blown up, so… you know… we won’t be showing the bits that are le-”
“Thank you, Christina.” Someone shouted from the audience. Mads was pretty sure it was Janice, but the call was quickly followed by the rusting of three-hundred ninety-nine-ish bodies rising from their seats and proceeding out of the hall. The “genie” had killed the mood entirely, and most of them just wanted to get drunk.
The thing about death was it wasn’t even something that should have been sad. People died all the time - constantly. Take a breath? Three people fall down, never going to get up again. Death was as much a part of life as eating, or sleeping, or learning how to walk, and none of those things seemed to inspire people to gather around, wear black, and lie about how much the deceased meant to them.
That was another weird thing about dying. Once someone was dead, they weren’t “Karen” anymore, they were “the deceased”, “the departed”, “my dearest friend who I will miss more than anything else in the world”.
Karen probably would have liked it if you showed up to any of her birthday parties within the last decade, Helen, but now she’s dead so you can bull shit all you want and know no one will know the difference.
Well, no one but Mads. Mads knew; he didn’t care, but he knew just how little anyone actually liked Janet. She had been an average, boring, simple human being who had spent far too much dime downing wine and spilling other people’s secrets to keep too many friends close. That, and she had had the worst habit of constantly trying to finger her coworkers during after-hours “get-togethers”.
Mads hadn’t particularly liked her.
In fact, he wouldn’t have even bothered donning his far too expensive suit and thrice as expensive shoes to show up to the pathetic display of everyone else’s competing performances of who could be the saddest if it hadn’t been for Graciana informing him he didn’t have a choice.
She’d set up, of all things, a blind date for him. Apparently, an old friend - Torvyn, if memory served - had contacted her asking if she knew any suitable suitors who might be seeking a dedicated relationship.
Mads wasn’t a suitor nor was he particularly suitable in such a respect, but Graciana had volunteered him none-the-less, explaining to him that, whether he wanted to or not, it was never a bad idea to work on one’s romantic advances. Persuasion, word play, and lies weren’t infallible, after all.
That, and he needed a raise.
So, he’d arrived at the funeral about ten minutes past when the cream-colored cardstock invitations with the absurd floral embossed borders had asked him to - not because he intended to waltz in fashionably late, but because there had been an accident along the way that had forced him to take an alternate route.
Muggings were so very inconvenient.
Helen went five minutes past her allocated time, spewing some inane anecdote about how Karen and she had once found themselves the last two people late at work one night. They had a heart-to-heart about what it meant to be in the profession, how much multitasking was required to handle the varied assortment of assassins, hitmen, and murderers who incidentally got paid to do what they want was. “It was strenuous work,” Helen said, pausing as if she was about to deliver a punchline. “It was to die for, I recall her Karen saying.” A polite but enthusiastic round of laughter rose from the crowd.
Mads stared blankly, hands as unmoving as his lips.
After Helen came Jolene, who recounted the time Karen saved her from the Gouger after he went rogue - a half-truth from a liar that wasn’t even there. It was an amicable split from the Syndicate turned sour after the Gouger saw this paltry severance package which, in turn, was greatly worsened by Karen after she suggested he take a Domain initiation (In Empathy, no less!) to compensate for his lack of monetary compensation. Then it was Sandra from Inhuman Resources, who couldn’t be here but had a fairly decent imitation of herself in the form of a Revenant to screech out her heartfelt condolences. Then it was Nathaniel, then Gina, then Cassie, then Natasha, mages and monsters (fuck you, Sandra, they’re monsters not “demi-humans”) coming up one by one to honor a monster worse than any of them (Gossips shake my head)
And then, finally, someone whose name he didn’t know came up to the podium; in fact, he’d never seen her before at all. For all the years he’d spent as an underpaid, under-the-table child labor employee, the woman who took the stage - an actual stage; some imbecile had thought it appropriate to rent out the local Academy of Witching and Wizardcraft’s auditorium for the whole hellish shindig - was different than the rest.
For starters, she didn’t even try to look sad. If anything, she looked aggravated that she had to be here. She was cute - at least as far as Mads understood that word to mean - even if the expression of her face seemed to be doing everything her power to strangle the life out of that perception.
Her first words out of her mouth broke its neck with a sickening pop.
“I think she deserved to die.” The woman said to a very stunned and suddenly very still crowd. She paused, as if fumbling for the next words, then lifted up her palm as if to peek at something written there. She frowned, squinted at what was either bad handwriting or smudged ink, and then rolled her eyes. “Carrie deserved to die and that’s not a bad thing. She was born, I presume, lived a full life, again a baseless presumption but bear with me, and she died. That’s as full a life as any of us deserve. Now I know what you’re all thinking: what happens to her debts when she dies-”
“No one was thinking that!” came a voice from the crowd. Harold. Fucking Harold. The woman paused again, pegged Harold with a stare that marked him for consumption, and continued.
“-Do they vanish? Do they just fuckin’ float away into the wind like the stale ash? I think not. On the eve of 714, Carina-” She checked the palm again. The frown only deepened. “-Carole Mazelgese rubbed my lamp and wished for an unlimited supply of low-grade wine. Actually, she asked for unlimited wishes first, but I’m middle management. I ain’t an omnipotent wish-granting emean entity. Those are goals, fucks.” She punched up an arm unenthusiastically. “In exchange, she promised me her firstborn child. Now unless that obiturary is terrible inaccurate, Katherine Mazeltoz has not fulfilled her end of the bargain and, well, done the deed to give me my payment. Thus, I am here to invoke the breach clause: I am obligated to one date with any of her designated co-workers.”
New wave “genies”. They’d been on the rise ever since the septuries had started all getting their sparks, gruffly shoving the baby schooners and “GEN HEX” out of relevance. They had an obsession with ancient pacts and contracts that were discovered a little before the turn of the last century. Most of them were relatively harmless con-men, women, and monsters, but the odd few were actually pretty competent.
Mads brow raised curiously, the only expression that had managed to work its way into his features since he’d arrive two hours ago.
“As Carolina has, predictably, not chosen a designated co-worker, it falls to some loser named Graciana to name my squeeze tonight. Who is ‘Mathias NexttimetakeoutthetrashwhenIaskyoutonottendayslater’? I will say this first: if this courtship is successful, I will be keeping my maiden name.”
Collectively, the some four hundred heads all turned to face him. Helen had insisted on assigned seating. Fuck Helen.
With a heavy sigh, Mads rose to his feet. One of the defiers manifested a little ball of fire above his head so he was easily spotted. He looked about as amused as the “genie” had when she’d first taken the stage, but none-the-less, he spoke out, voice just loud enough to carry but not much more than that. “I assume that is meant to be me.”
If she had any opinion on Graciana’s choice, it didn’t show on her face. “You have 10 bits to plan the itinerary. I don’t eat, intercourse is pain on both a physical and an emotional level, and if you touch me, I will extinguish you on the spot. Do try not to disappoint.”
With that, she stepped down from the podium, passing the next baffled speaker (Christina was always easily spooked) and disappearing somewhere behind a pillar or some such presumably to pout.
“W-well that was…” The auditorium was oppressively quiet as the flame above Mads’ head extinguished itself. Christina swallowed, the sound carrying through the room like a sea cucumber being slapped against a land snake. “There’s c-cookies and wine in the l-lobby. As we all know, Cass- er, I mean… Karol. Karen!” Her nervousness was enough to make even Mads cringe uncomfortably. “Karen’s head was blown up, so… you know… we won’t be showing the bits that are le-”
“Thank you, Christina.” Someone shouted from the audience. Mads was pretty sure it was Janice, but the call was quickly followed by the rusting of three-hundred ninety-nine-ish bodies rising from their seats and proceeding out of the hall. The “genie” had killed the mood entirely, and most of them just wanted to get drunk.
