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Oscar Wilde dies.
He dies, and not in the way he would have expected: not with a bang, not with a whimper, but a cut-off scream in the middle of a forest.
Oscar dies, suddenly and unexpectedly, alone. Friends and shipmates scattered across the snow.
Oscar dies, and then he wakes up.
He’s spoken to enough clerics to know it’s not unusual, to end up in an… in-between sort of place, when you die. Especially those who never dedicated themselves to one thing, one deity or passion or ideal.
It’s where he’d always thought he’d end up. Oscar never dedicated himself to the idea of the Meritocracy the way some did. Even if he had, the last year and a half would have shaken that resolve.
No, he always thought he’d end up here. Wherever here really is.
Oscar looks down.
The tip of his finger is glowing blue; not the dark of the deep ocean that it used to be, but the lighter blue of the sky (of hope) that he’s gotten used to in the past year or so. Zolf’s mark, on him.
No one told him that your marks glow, when you die.
It’s possible no one knows, amongst the living, with how tight a hold the Meritocracy had on resurrection. If anyone does, it’s not likely they’re in a good position to share the information around.
Out of the corner of his eye, Oscar catches a glow of forest green. A color he knows, but only saw in a mirror once, a few days before everything… went wrong.
It’s not the only thing he sees. There’s movement, off in the distance.
Two forms resolve themselves out of the gloom.
One short. Goblin-short, with a bow and quiver at his back. The other taller, though slight for a human, pale and scarred but with more colors than he remembers ever seeing on her.
Grizzop and Sasha, alight with a rainbow of marks. Of souls.
They make their way towards him, crossing an unmeasurable distance in an amount of time that feels both infinite and immediate. Oscar smiles. Smiles a real smile, the first one not weighted down with expectations, with despair, with anything besides true pleasure, to see people he thought he would never lay eyes upon again.
He smiles at them both, and holds out his hand.
Sasha takes it between both of hers. She mouths a word he cannot hear.
(It might be welcome. It might be goodbye.)
As Oscar feels himself--feels his soul tugged back towards the plane of the living, he lets go of Sasha’s hand.
Oscar Wilde wakes up.
He wakes up, not in a way he ever would have expected. Coming back to life is a new experience for him. He savors it, for a moment, just the breathing in and out.
Oscar opens his eyes. Turns his head, and looks down at his palm.
Before, where there was only the paleness of his skin, is now an oil-slick silver. As he watches, it slowly fades to grey, as his soul settles back into his body.
Oscar Wilde closes his eyes, and whispers one last goodbye to Sasha Rackett.