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 Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 8:33 pm
It was a full moon, a pretty good one too by the clarity of the night sky thanks to the cold, and Rory stared up at the stars from his position atop a crypt. Night had fallen into the old cemetery, embracing with a cold hand the occupants in even colder graves, and the groundskeeper sat with the shovel leaning against his shoulder as he took a break from cleaning.
Normally someone would be doing this job during the day, taking in the light needed and the normal hours that a person was willing to work in such a creepy area, but thanks to Rory's schedule at the bakery and school, not to mention the clinic, the evenings were the only time he had to come here and clean. Not that he minded the darkness and solitude, it gave him precious time to himself which was all too rare.
"Nice out this evening. Wonder if it's going to get colder."
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Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 4:02 am
"Of course it is. That's the way of the human world."
Attis was dressed warmly for the weather, a striped scarf twisted around his neck that nonetheless exposed some skin around his shoulders because of the wide neck of his shirt. He seemed deathly pale with a pearly sheen in the moonlight, and when he moved it seemed like one could see something else peering out of his eyes. "Do you work here?" The boy looked like he belonged in the graveyard; kneeling on a grave, it seemed like he might have just risen up.
Then he shrugged. "No matter. My name is Attis. Would you mind if I stayed for a bit, Mr. Gravekeeper?"
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Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 1:12 pm
Rory startled for a moment, only enough that his shoulders seemed to move up with the shock, and he turned to look at the direction the voice had come from. When his eyes fell upon this person who introduced themselves as Attis he merely shrugged and smiled.
"Name's Rory, and I don't really mind what you do so long as you don't go about trashing any of the graves. This place is pretty special to me and I wouldn't want anything that bad happening to it."
He leaned back, still keeping his eyes on the stranger who had spoke of this world as being the 'human' one. That meant to him right away that Attis was probably along the lines that Lucifer was, and by now Rory was feeling glad he wasn't as uneasy as before with stuff like this.
"And yeah, I work here. No one wants to care for the dead anymore nowadays so I picked the job up. It's a shame when our ancestors who people loved so much are left to spoil when they have passed on."
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Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 7:11 pm
"I said it was no matter if you worked here," said the boy in a lilting voice. He straightened slowly, hair falling in front of his eyes for a moment. A small black cap rested at his feet; he bent back down to pick it up and put it on his head properly. "Thank you for informing me, nevertheless." Attis stretched, lacing his fingers together and raising his arms over his head. "I imagine the payment helps, also, Rory?"
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Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 7:46 pm
"Payment? No, I don't work here for the money. The job at the bakery covers what I need so this place is more or less out of my own self-righteousness. Sometimes I think we humans take things too much for granted and don't care about what we should."
He moved a little, causing the shovel to slide slightly down into the crook of his elbow, and he let out a small breath that caught and turned into a puff of steam.
"Did you need something, by the way? Not many people come into a cemetery around midnight unless there's something they're wanting. You don't look like the grave robbing type, unless I'm very mistaken about what you are, so let me know what it is so you can get on your way. No use loitering around in the land of the dead too long.
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Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 8:19 pm
An owlish blink from his mossy green eyes, and they glinted with a spark of white light for the barest moment. "I'm a Gancanagh... at least, partially so. We don't need anything from the night save what it gives." Trapped at thirteen, he'd never gain the full powers that were his right. His touch would never intoxicate, like his father's; his gaze could never entrance like his mother's. What Attis had, though, was magnetism. One simply couldn't look away from his cherubic features.
"I come here on work for my Queen." He stepped over an infant's small, crumbling headstones. "I protect her, you see. She's going to visit you unworthy mortals." For a moment, as he stepped under a tree, his hands looked almost skeletal. One could almost see horrific scars around his throat as well. His tone, though, approached reverence, the sort you might give a god.
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Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 8:42 pm
Rory did indeed stare at the boy's face, but only because he felt it would be best to talk to this child while looking at him instead of around and at anything else. It was downright rude, not to mention he didn't know what the boy may do if he should turn his eyes away. Call it more or less being attentive, not paranoid.
"A Gancanagh? Gotta admit I've never heard of someone like that."
He left that topic there, as he was not really wanting to know more about what a gan-whatever actually was. He wanted to be able to sleep later on that day after all, whenever it was that he finally got his chance.
"Your Queen? To what do we owe the honor of her presence, if we're so unworthy of it?"
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Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 9:09 pm
"It's a kind of fae-demon," said the boy, looking at the gravekeeper curiously. "You're a gravekeeper and you don't know that? How curious." Attis apparently found what he was looking for under the tree, because he knelt between the massive roots and began to dig away at the base with his fingernails; a tiny pouch peeked out from under the soft white sweater. Something glinted between fancy knotwork, bright and silver like... glass shards?
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Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 9:17 pm
"Oi, I thought I asked you not to dig around for anything or to put anything. I would hope you would be polite enough to respect my wishes on that matter."
Rory frowned and got down from his perch atop the crypt though he dared not venture towards the digging boy. He still had no idea what Attis was but a fae-demon (or anything demon) rang in his head as something to tread with intense gentleness. The stories his Mother and Grandmother had told of fae spiriting people away probably related to people like this boy in front of him, and by spirited away she probably meant 'killed and/or eaten'.
"If there's anything you need just ask. I don't mind digging around myself since I'll put everything back where it goes."
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Posted: Fri Oct 17, 2008 9:48 pm
The look he sent up to Rory was simply pissed off, for a lack of better terminology. "I am quite polite. You told me not to disturb the dead- rather, you told me not to 'trash the graves'. There are none buried here. Therefore, I'm obeying you very well." With a perfectly bowl-shaped hole dug in the dirt, he dumped half the glassy contents of his pouch in the bag and tamped them down with one hand (tiny little specks of blood formed on the tips, but the boy didn't wince) before putting the pouch away. He because to push the loose dirt back into the hole as Rory looked on, quite calm.
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Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2008 8:34 pm
"That's true, but I would have though someone of your kind would have understand that this whole place belongs to the dead. From that tree to the bushes to the sidewalk. I wouldn't have minded digging for you since it's my job, but I guess you'd rather do things on your own."
It felt like he was talking down to one of his younger siblings now, the way Rory was scolding yet chattering at the same time. He was about to say a bit more when he noticed the blood, having good eyes when it comes to small wounds that others would ignore, and the man sighed before rubbing the back of his head.
"Ah, well, whatever. You've cut your hand up right, doing whatever it was you're planning? Let me see it and we'll get it cleaned up for you."
He extended his own hand out towards Attis, a halfsmile on his lips.
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Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2008 2:11 pm
Attis sneered, slapping the dirt in the hole flat again. Then, after a minute or two of intense concentration, the grass began to quickly grow back. It stopped the moment his concentration broke and he stayed there for a few minutes, panting heavily and scrubbing at his face with a scarf. "I am a demon, sir. Little cuts like these, they're nothing. Nothing!" With an unsteady frown, he pushed Rory's hand away and stood up, seeming quite well-balanced.
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Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 6:13 pm
"Eh, was just offering. I figure if demons can get hurt they may or may not be able to heal super quickly, so there's no real harm in asking."
This child, Rory decided, was a friggen' brat. Even his youngest sibling didn't behave this way when someone was speaking to them, but he let it slide based on the fact that this kid wasn't human, he probably wasn't a kid, and there was no use getting riled up over these things.
The grass had grown back, after all. Nothing to fret over.
"Anyway, how much longer do you plan on being here? I need to make my rounds and demon or not, I don't feel comfortable with someone who's not me or a corpse wandering around here."
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Posted: Tue Oct 28, 2008 6:28 pm
A harsh glare. "As long as I please." Couldn't the man just leave him alone? Attis sat back down. His opinion of Rory was as low as Rory's opinion of him, which is to say he felt the groundskeeper seriously needed to learn about personal space and meddling not in the affairs of demons lest he get his head ripped off in a bloody, angry fashion. "I won't move or bother you. Simply ignore me."
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Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 9:23 pm
"Look kid, I don't care who or what you are or what you may want to do to me or do while you're here, but this is my workplace. You may be some demon or messenger or walking flaming ball of pure evil and violence, but you're not going to sit here and tell me what to do in my own place."
Rory stood his ground despite having a pretty strong inkling of what was going to happen to him should he really piss this smallish demon off, but he wasn't the type to let anyone who even remotely resembled a kid tell him what he was and was not going to do. He may only be human, but he was a grown man in charge of his own destiny (as far as he could tell).
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