#afterlife lauren | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

arospecsyourblockdudes · 2 years

Text

The afterlife, Scott found, was dreadfully boring.

Sure, it was…..nice. Once he got over not feeling his own heartbeat, it was nice. Nice to live in a Rivendell not threatened by demons or ice powers or fish-related explosions. Nice to be able to spend time with his brother, his actual brother, not the demon he’d turned into. Nice to be with Jimmy without the pretenses of alliances and politics. The sun shone brightly, it snowed soft flakes every here and again, and it was always warm inside of his house.

But that’s all it was. Nice. Scott knew he was dead. And while some rest and relaxation was absolutely needed, he grew weary of it. There was no way to forget the life he’d lived, the burdens he’d borne, the weight of the golden antlers on his head. And an eternity of niceness made him restless. Everything was so perfect, his hands itched to break something so he could fix it.

Plus, besides the dullness, it was uncanny. Jimmy was still alive, the real one, he knew that. It was hard to kill a creature that’d already lived a thousand years, and he doubted Rivendell was Jimmy’s happy afterlife. And Xornoth, his brother….well, Xornoth was dead but he didn’t know where he’d ended up. Probably not here. Scott hadn’t known him before the corruption got him. And he assumed at least most of the other emperors and empresses were living still, and yet when he flew to visit their lands, there they were.

So, his afterlife was populated with imitations and terrible perfections. Scott longed endlessly for the things that used to annoy him. Jimmy’s stammering excuses every time he’d messed something up. Tracking snow on the carpets by accident. Sausage’s obnoxiously loud laughter. Lizzie’s penchant for scams and tricks. Buzzing bugs, horrendous blizzards, Xornoth in a crystal, the horrible weight of responsibility….

Well, almost all the things that annoyed him.

A man couldn’t live like that. Scott doesn’t think any reasonable person would stay sane if they had to live forever like this. People crave imperfections, they’ve lived a whole life surrounded by them.

One day, he’d just had enough. He wasn’t sure how long it had actually been, the fake Xornoth had laughed when Scott flinched at his touch, and fake Jimmy had made a lunch without burning anything (which wasn’t like him at all). And so he made his way to Aeor’s church.

Aeor was much easier to contact now, most likely because there wasn’t the barrier of reality to get around. What here was real? Scott could feel his presence in the winds and rains, like a faint electric shock. So, Scott knelt in front of the podium and called to him.

It wasn’t long before he felt a shift in the air, as if lightning were about to strike. He was listening.

“Aeor, I don’t want to sound ungrateful. My afterlife here has been great. But I’m entirely alone here. Is there…is there anything else I can do?”

I do not understand, hummed a voice both within his head and without. You have your friends here. As you’d have liked them to be. There is no reason to be lonely

Scott resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Yes, but being how I would like them to be only makes it ever clearer that they aren’t my friends. Can’t I…I don’t know, be a ghost? Haunt them a bit?”

Your friends have moved onto their own plane. You wouldn’t find them in your old world.

Scott gasped, eyes flying open briefly in shock. He caught the image of a pure white stag, glowing as bright as the sun, before shutting them tightly again. “Have…have they all died? How long has it been? How…how?!”

Why do you wish to know? It has not been very long. And I do not believe it would help you to know the cause.

Not very long to a god could be just about any amount of time. From five months to five hundred years. Scott didn’t put too much stock into that. “Why haven’t I gone where they’ve gone? Where have they gone?”

Because you died by the Rune Sword’s blade, you are here. The rest have ended up in a transitory place. A cyclical state. They will be washed clean of their previous lives to become ready for the next.

“Is it possible to join them?”

I could transport you there, yes. You would lose all memory of your life as King Scott of Rivendell. You would not remember this afterlife. As I stated, it is a place to prepare souls for their next life. You would not be there forever. And I cannot guarantee where your next life is.

Scott’s breath caught in his throat. To lose his memory of this life…of everything…some things seemed worth forgetting. He wouldn’t mind not remembering the dark hopelessness he felt as the End Dragon fell, the way he feared his own self when he froze Gem. But every memory, gone. Is it worth it to spend a small amount of time with the ones he loved if he wouldn’t even remember that he loved them?

“May I think on it? It’s a big decision.”

Of course. Come back here to give me your answer when you’re ready. We have all the time in the world

With that, Aeor left, the atmosphere in the building returning to normal. Scott waited a moment before he opened his eyes and stood, brushing the dust off his skirt. He stared at the golden horns on the wall. He resolved to give it one more day. If he couldn’t stand one more day in this place, he would join his friends.

The rest of the day passed as it always did. It was snowing gently when Scott stepped out of the church, and he took a moment to enjoy it. He took a walk around the gardens, nothing seeming out of place. Xornoth joined him, startling him near out of his boots. It was difficult to relax around this Xornoth, even if Scott knew he wasn’t a threat. They chatted for a while about absolutely nothing interesting, before Scott made some excuse to leave. Then, he made his way over to the Undergrove, and just…observed this Shrub for a moment.

When he wasn’t interacting with the people here, they were near robotic. This Shrub was tending to her mooshroms, except she kept patting the same one on the nose for far too long before pouring feed into the trough. Stiff, repetitive, motions. Creepy.

Eventually, Scott went up to say hello and they chatted, yet again, about nothing. What was there to even consider discussing? This Shrub wanted to know how Jimmy was, Scott said he was fine. Scott mentioned the nice weather around here, this Shrub said it was always lovely. She offered him some mushroom stew for dinner, he declined. The Shrub he knew would’ve teased him about his distaste for mushrooms, or insisted he stay for at least a cup of tea. But this one just shrugged and said maybe next time and Scott left.

Jimmy was at home when he got back, and let Scott make dinner for them all. It was strange how he always got Rivendell cuisine just right, as if he’d lived here all his life. While he cooked a simple potato soup, Scott made small talk. Tried to ignore how odd it was that this Jimmy never wore his Codfather apparel. It had been his pride and joy when Scott knew him, never taking it off for anyone hardly. He hardly ever saw Jimmy’s face, and that had been fine, even if he wished he got to see him more often. It was how he wanted to go about, so Scott never minded. But of course, this Jimmy never wore it. This Jimmy never responded to teasing and jabs, never got mad, never had his pride hurt. It made Scott want to grab him by the shoulders and shake him, but he couldn’t. Couldn’t do, as long as it looked like Jimmy.

Dinner was awkward. Always was. Scott, Jimmy, and Xornoth, sat in Scott’s small sitting area. They didn’t ever need to eat, Scott had discovered, but it was nice to. It always turned out nice. Scott dismissed all attempts at a scripted conversation and went up to bed.

He didn’t know where the others slept. His house only had the one bedroom and the one bed. He assumed they just left for one of the houses in the village. Maybe they didn’t sleep, but the thought of that spooked Scott so he never considered it. Either way, Scott liked his privacy, so he slept alone.

The stillness kept him up. No howling winds, no bug sounds, no creaks or groans from the house settling or from the weight of snow on the roof. It was unnerving, especially so tonight when he knew there was a way out. At the price of remembering his life, sure, but a way out of a facade. A way into authenticity.

Scott lay like that a moment longer before pushing himself out of bed. He’d made up his mind. He pulled on his boots, put a warm coat on, and made his way to the Church of Aeor.

The silence made the crunching of his steps on the snow seem deafening. Nobody was awake at this hour, but the church would be open. It always was.

Scott cut through the lawns and pushed open the church doors. All was as he’d left it this afternoon, except s few candles lit to provide a little bit of light. It wasn’t necessary, as the moonlight through the windows was enough.

He strode down the aisle to the podium, ignoring the swarm of nerves in his gut and kneeling. If he backed out of this now, he’d never forgive himself, he knew. No matter how nervous he was, it was better to be out of here. Out of routine, out of uncanny perfections, out of imitations and scripts and fakery. It was worth any price to leave an eternity of that.

He wouldn’t need to call Aeor. He knew the god was listening.

“I have my answer for you. I’m ready to leave.”

——————————————————————————

Some time later, or maybe some time before, a mothling wakes up

#empires smp #alsmp #Scott Smajor #anyway my hc is everyone else went to alsmp after empires and Scott eventually left his afterlife to join them #also skirt smajor never leaves my heart #so basically none of them remember their empires life n r getting ready for their next life (empires 2 perhaps?)#who knows what like…oli and Mika and Lauren and all them r doing here #they just also are hanging out getting ready for a new life perhaps #why isn’t Pearl there? who knows! perhaps her soul was bound to her land #or perhaps she already made her way thru which is why she’s considered a saint here

42 notes · View notes