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This entry is part 28 of 36 in the Afterlife collection

Richard had heard of the Rainbow Lake, but he hadn’t visited it himself. It was somewhere he wanted to take Caitlyn, when he had a chance, because he knew she’d like it. After Charis had moved on he found himself focusing entirely on his job, so he didn’t have to get close to anyone, and he was hoping that by being friendless Death he would be able to put everyone off – then Samael had knocked on his door, the angel who had walked away, which had changed things more than he’d ever expected them to. Sighing, Richard ran a hand through his hair. If it hadn’t been for Sam and his insistence that even Death needed friends he would never have been in the position that he was when Caitlyn found him sitting on the night beach.

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Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

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It wasn’t a surprise. Kara sat in the office of the Unity house she’d died in and smiled at Richard as he walked into the room. He smiled back, sitting down next to her, with his back against the wall and his knees up against his chest. They’d met before, the first and second times she’d died, and she knew it wouldn’t be long before he started trying to convince her that she should move on, but for a while they simply sat together in companionable silence. Even though she knew why he was there she was grateful for the company.

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Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

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Written for lj user ysabetwordsmith’s prompt: Richard watching dead leaves falling. It kind of wandered off, like stories for prompts sometimes do.

Being Death made autumn an interesting season and one Richard avoided whenever he could. Sometimes he had no choice, because people died in autumn the same way they died every other season of the year. He never quite knew why, but his attention was always drawn to the dead leaves falling from the trees, and part of him felt like he should be guiding the leaves to the afterlife in the same way he guided people. Sighing, he watched a brown leaf travel from its branch to the ground, swirling in the wind, as he reminded himself that every leaf that fell would find its way safely to where it needed to be now that its short life was over.

Autumn felt like an uncomfortable item of clothing. Richard rubbed his hands down his arms as he tried, unsuccessfully, to get rid of at least some of the feeling. It was a season that was neither alive or dead, but both at the same time. Spring was the same in a way, and different, because then things were coming alive instead of slowly dying. As Death he felt the things that were dying and, even though he knew there were things coming to life, he couldn’t feel life. Spring, unless he was gathering someone, didn’t really feel of anything to him, because he was a part of the afterlife that was almost more dead than the dead.

Richard picked up one of the dead leaves. There was no spirit within it any longer, because it had moved on. Above him he could feel the spirits in all the other leaves, who all knew that soon, very soon, they would be travelling to the afterlife. It was different to the feeling he got from humans, different to the feeling he got from domestic animals, different to the feeling he got from wild animals, and different to the feeling he got from animals that were breed for food. Death was something unique for everyone and everything. Humans were his responsibility, as Death, the afterlife’s psychopomp, but that didn’t stop him from feeling everything else.

When Richard thought about it, he knew his favourite of all the feelings was the one he got from loved domestic animals. It didn’t matter who loved them, but if someone who had loved the animal was in the afterlife they automatically went to them. Unloved domestic animals needed help to get to the afterlife, where they would find someone who would help the recuperate from what had happened to them during their life. His job wasn’t to guide them, although he sometimes did if an animal spirit happened to be close to where he was gathering a human spirit, because he couldn’t leave them alone.

The leaf swirled back down to the ground when Richard dropped it. It was nothing more than the shell that had once housed the spirit of the leaf. Gathering up his courage he looked at the gravestone in front of him and told himself that the body that was decomposing in the ground beneath him was just the shell that had once housed his spirit. Instead of being within that body he was outside it, his spirit continuing the life he’d been living since before he was even in that body. He knew there were other bodies in other graves and he promised himself he would visit them all.

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

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Written for LJ user ysabetwordsmith’s prompt: Caitlyn offers her services as a spirit guide to the newly deceased veteran that Death brings to the Afterlife.

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Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

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Richard couldn’t think of anything to say. There were clichés he could use, like life isn’t fair, but he didn’t want to use them on the man in front of him. It wouldn’t be right. After fighting for your country the soldiers should be looked after, but they weren’t. Maybe, if someone had bothered to think for five minutes, instead of being under a bed remembering the worst times of his life the poor soldier he was looking at might have died in bed a happy man.

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Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

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Richard reached out and gently squeezed Charis’ shoulder. “I understand. Hopefully we’ll be able to make a difference to those who come after us because you made the choice to train me. Every day has been enjoyable.”

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Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

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Written for livejournal user ysabetwordsmith’s prompt: ‘Richard convincing an old soldier’s soul to go to the afterlife’.

Richard stepped quietly into the room, knowing that his presence might scare the soul of the old soldier. He hated Fireworks Night but understood at the same time why it was important that the living remembered the past. It was seeing souls like the one he knew was hiding under the bed that made him angry. People didn’t seem to care that there were those who had once been in situations that were filled with the same smells and noises because it was a war zone. Trying to rein in his anger he knelt down by the soldier’s bed.

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Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

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“If the power of Death makes all the choices then why does each council member have the right to choose a spirit for the position before Death chooses someone?” Richard asked, leaning against the wall.

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Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

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“You did well,” Death said as the spirit guide and Justin left the room. The moment they were alone she reverted back to being Charis. “It won’t be long until you’re ready to take over from me and then I can move on.”

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Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

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Written for Surprise Story Week: 21.

Slowly Richard walked towards the spirit. He had done the training and he knew how to do the job, but knowing how to do something and actually being able to do it were two very different things. Thankfully the spirit wasn’t one that had become a poltergeist. Instead it was just someone who hadn’t wanted to leave his family behind when he’d died. It was sad really. All he could do was watch his family without being able to interact in any way with them or any of the other dead. Ghosts couldn’t see other ghosts so it was a very lonely way to exist. Of course that didn’t mean that all the spirits wanted to go to the afterlife, no matter how lonely they were. It didn’t make sense to Richard but that was the way some spirits were.

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Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

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Written for [livejournal.com profile] ysabetwordsmith's prompt: What is Christmas like in the Afterlife? Do the spirits or angels observe it, or does it only affect people like Death who still traffic closely with the mortal world?

Richard looked at Samael. It wasn't unusual for the angel to do things Richard didn't quite expect him to do, but this one was... Well, the tree would have filled his original living room entirely, so the room had grown. A fireplace was one of the several new additions, with stockings for him, Samael and Caitlyn attached to the mantelpiece. For a few seconds all Richard could do was stare at Samael, who was singing Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer as loud as he could and wrapping another piece of tinsel around the already smothered tree.

 

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This entry was originally posted at http://kajones-writing.dreamwidth.org/45840.html. It currently has comment count unavailable comments.
k_a_webb: (Default)

Written for [livejournal.com profile] ysabetwordsmith's link.

See the beginning of this story here (LJ link).

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Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. This entry was originally posted at http://kajones-writing.dreamwidth.org/40257.html. It currently has comment count unavailable comments.
k_a_webb: (Default)
See the beginning of this story here (LJ link).
See the second part of this story here (LJ link).
See the third part of this story here (LJ link).

 

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Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. This entry was originally posted at http://kajones-writing.dreamwidth.org/35408.html. It currently has comment count unavailable comments.
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Written for [personal profile] meeks's picture prompt.


It was the day before Halloween on Earth, and Richard was spending some time in his favourite house. As with all his houses it had three rooms: the sitting room; the reading room; and the room he built because he thought it was stupid to call two rooms a house. He found that it would change depending on who was visiting. If Caitlyn was over then it would turn into a study for her, complete with filing cabinets connected to the 'afterlife filing system'. With the appearance of Samael, who had decided to make friends with Death for the first time in millenia, it would turn into a bedroom. That house was his favourite because of the view he had from all the windows.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
k_a_webb: (Default)

Written for [livejournal.com profile] ysabetwordsmith's prompt on 'Richard convincing an old soldier's soul to go to the afterlife'.


Richard stepped quietly into the room, knowing that his presence might scare the soul of the old soldier. He hated Fireworks Night but understood at the same time why it was important that the living remembered the past. It was seeing souls like the one he knew was hiding under the bed that made him angry. People didn't seem to care that there were those who had once been in situations that were filled with the same smells and noises because it was a war zone. Trying to rein in his anger he knelt down by the soldier's bed.

Read more... )

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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