This One's Not So Stiff… (Private RP)

[Mortimer]

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Marrow was hungry. Looking around her tree she found no scraps of anything edible. Any tidbits of food that she had squirrelled away were now gone, and so it was time to forage. She grabbed her bone and set out into the forest, determined to find food.

Marrow started wandering the woods but finding only twigs and turds to gnaw on, she pressed on. She wandered on for several more minutes until she came upon a rotting, fermenting pumpkin. Unaffected by its smell or appearance, she smashed a hole in the side with her bone and immediately started to feast, as at this point she was feeling a little weak from hunger. She pulled herself half way in, smushing pumpkin into her cheeks as she went. As she ate, Marrow was overcome with a strange wooziness and was slowly succumbing to the alcohol that had fermented inside the fruit. She kept eating until she passed out, blackout-drunk.

About that time, a Dreg named Mortimer was walking through the forest. The morgue he worked for was running low on funds, so he was commissioned to look for some fresh cadavers to sell off to necromancers. Equipped with heavy leather surgical gloves and some body-bags, he was having little luck. The whole forest seemed to be booming with life, and this made Morty sad.

After wandering for a ways, the dark ginger Dreg squirrel finally came across something of interest.  He saw Marrow, sticking like a cork out of the side of a rotting pumpkin, only her hips down visible. He set down his bags and rapped on the gourd to see if there was a response. There was none. He referred briefly to his enchanted pocket watch. It was stopped at 4:20, like it had been for the past month. This was precisely how long it had been since it last ticked, signifying that the damned were nearby. Looking over the scene, he decided she must have choked to death a week ago, given the decay of the pumpkin and, seemingly, her too. He lamented, "awwwww, poor……… girl." He pulled her body out and layed it down on a body-bag. "What a shame, you were a cute one too…" He briefly checked her over, then closed the bag up. Noticing the massive femur that was lying near the pumpkin, he grabbed that too, admiring how well preserved it was. One body had to do for him, as it was getting dark. Mortimer made his way back to the village, and the morgue, to stash this find.

Soon after his return, Mortimer moved Marrow from her body bag to the operating table, to prepare her for sale. As he turned to the counter to prepare his instruments, she began to stir…

[Mortimer]

Mortimer deftly tied off and cut the last stitch, then started to dress the body in traditional burial garb. "Looking Dapper there old chum!" he said as he pinched the sugar glider on both cheeks, then slid him back into the storage cabinet. He moved to the Basin and cleaned his hands. "I think that'll do for today. Are you ready to head out, Marrow?"

[Marrow]

Marrow watched as he dressed the body. She really did not understand why he was doing that, but was not about to question anything. "Uh yeah," she said, backing out of the door. "I'm ready to go."

[Mortimer]

He lead Marrow out of the Morgue and into the village road. it was only a short walk until they reached his home. a small stone and wood shack. He opened the front door to reveal again a very warm and inviting space, almost all horizontal spaces covered in either magical devices or bones of all shapes and sizes. Directing Marrow to the kitchen table, Mort began to gather ingredients.

[Marrow]

Marrow sat down at the table, positioning herself to watch for any suspicious activity on Mortimer's part as she's still not all that trusting of him. She sat her bone on her lap and watched him very closely, rarely even blinking.

[Mortimer]

Oblivious of her Death-stare, Mortimer boiled some oats, and added some honey and milk. He placed a generous helping in front of Marrow, and added some berries as garnish, then sat across from her with his own, and handed her a spoon. "You've said you don't live in the village? where abouts do you live?" he asked before blowing on his oatmeal.

[Marrow]

"Uh, I live just outside of it. I live in a tree..." She sniffed the oatmeal and found nothing off. She looked at the spoon with quite the confused expression. She had never used one before and did not know the purpose of it at all. She sat it down on the table and used her claws to pick some up.  Having never had any hot food before, as she was only used to scavenging for raw food, she put the food right in her mouth, without blowing on it. After a moment she spit the food into the bowl, shocked by the temperature. She felt her tongue with her hand, eyes watering.

[Mortimer]

"OH!…I'm terribly sorry, I should have told you it was still scalding hot." he got up and poured her a glass of cold water. "let it cool down a bit, then it will be good". After tending to his a bit he plunged the spoon in and delivered a portion to his mouth. "are you alright to find your way back there? I know this whole thing must've been quite disorienting."

[Marrow]

She filled her mouth with water and held it for a few seconds, trying to soothe her tongue, then swallowed. "I... really don't know which way my home is right now," she admitted, rather reluctantly. "I don't go this far into the village." She stuck part of her finger into the oatmeal to feel if it was still hot. It had cooled down some and so she took a handful and began to eat it from her hands.

[Mortimer]

Not wanting to be rude to his guest, he didn't question her method of eating. He simply assumed she may be Dreg, like him, but who hadn't joined society. "I was planning on going back out to the forest to find more bodies, I haven't quite reached my quota yet. You're more than welcome to tag along." He finished his oatmeal, then offered marrow the rest of the pot. "We can swing by where I originally found you, and you can splinter off when things feel familiar to you."

[Marrow]

Marrow took the pot and shoveled the food in her mouth with her hands. Between mouthfuls, she said, "I guess I could go with you; you haven't tried to kill me yet." When she finished, she put the pot down on the table and licked her hands, then drank the rest of the water.

[Mortimer]

"………Nor would I ever" he assured her, gathering the dishes, and putting them in the sink. He gather some body bags and 2 pairs of leather gloves. He handed a pair to Marrow. "do you mind helping me bag a couple?"

[Marrow]

Marrow took the gloves. "Okay..." She looked at the gloves, confused by them. "What are these for?" she asked.

[Mortimer]

Mortimer carefully showed her by putting them on himself. "to protect you from the disease and decay"

[Marrow]

Marrow tried putting them on, but her claws didn't really fit into them alone. "I never used these to handle bodies before." She looked at the glove on her hand, that didn't even cover her hand at all. "I don't think it fits."

[Mortimer]

"alright then… suit yourself, I sometimes forgo protection too, but I oft find that Feral's always have…something… crawling around inside them" They set out, Mortimer leading.

[Marrow]

Marrow followed him, wondering why he was passing up so many bodies that she sensed as they wandered through the forest. She was hesitant to tell him of the bodies he was passing, noticing that for someone who searches for bodies he's not doing too good a job of it, but she began to feel an urge to bring him to one. Not aware that it was due to some appreciation of the help, she was extremely baffled why she felt that way. After a mental struggle with herself on whether or not to speak up, she did remember she agreed to assist him and finally decided to say something.  "Uh.... Wait." She stopped in her tracks. "I... I, uh.... I think there's one over there." She pointed over to a bush, in the distance slightly behind them to the left. "Somewhere over there."

[Mortimer]

Mortimer stopped and looked in the direction Marrow had pointed out. "You think so?" he walked over to it and laid down his bag of tools and the body bags near the bush. "Let's see…" he said reaching over to the bush. He pushed aside it's branches, and sure enough, there laid the cadaver of a chinchilla. Severely mauled by some predator and rotted for what Mort deemed to be months, and completely infested with parasites wriggling through it. "Nice Spot Marrow! This fella won't be too useful to sell whole, but I imagine his bones might catch a pretty penny!" Mort dragged the corpse out of the bush and laid it flat in a clearing. "Ok, let's get those bones!" he announced laying out his tools in a perfectly neat orderly row on a rag.

[Marrow]

Marrow knelt down next to the body and dug right in with her bare hands. She started cutting and pulling out the innards with her claws and hands, heeding no mind to the various parasites there were wriggling all over. After yanking out all the guts, she started to cut the skin off and various rotted tissues that remained attached to the bones. Old blood and other fluids from the decomposition process covered her arms and was splattered around as she worked. After that, she pulled apart all of the bones and set them in a pile in front of him, a couple of maggots trekking across the the skull at the top of the pile.  Some maggots were also on her arms, but they started slowing down from her withering touch.

[Mortimer]

Mortimer finally placed the last instrument on the work cloth "Alright let's ge…" He stared as Marrow completely and efficiently eviscerated the corpse. when she was done having left only a deflated sack of skin and fur and a neat pile of stripped bones, she stood triumphantly in front of Mortimer drenched in fluids. "Th…Thank you. Where did you…uh…" He was so taken aback by what he'd just witnessed that he couldn't form a proper sentence. "You got…uh… a little…" he pointed to her left ear which had a large maggot wriggling out of it.

[Marrow]

Marrow casually wiped her arm on her face, smearing the decomposed fluids across her face. "Huh?" she asked, confused by the half-sentences. The maggot in her ear slowed down as the withering touch took hold, and soon fell out of her ear, dead.  The same happened to the other parasites that crawled her arms, while the ones remaining on the pile of bones continued to crawl. She wiped her hands on her fur and picked up her bone, resting it on her shoulder.

[Mortimer]

Mortimer watched as the Maggot slowly die and fall from her ear, and the wrigglers from her arms as well. It slowly dawned on Mortimer that she might not be normal. "Did you just Suck the life from those parasites?" he pointed at the small collection of dead maggots at her feet. "If I had touched you would that have happened?…Fascinating…"

[Marrow]

She looked down at her feet, where a few dead maggots laid on and around. "Uh...." She had forgotten completely about her withering touch for that time. Realizing he saw this and came to pretty accurate conclusion, she started to get nervous. "Um... They um...." She tried to think up some excuse but was unsuccessful. She had no real practice in coming up with any lies on the spot. She backed away a few steps as she fumbled her words. "It just happens... Uh I... I mean...." She looked left, right, then straight at his eyes as she backed away another step. She really didn't want anyone to know about the withering touch, if she could help it.

[Mortimer]

"that's a pretty high level spell, I've gotta say, very impressive…oooh, that's brilliant, you withered everything on you to disinfect so you don't have to worry about getting hands on, right? when you said you studied necromancy, I think I underestimated you!" he chattered on, looking quite excited. He put all his tools away, and began to gather the immaculately scraped clean bones. "you've been a huge help, that would have taken me hours"

[Marrow]

Marrow stared, wide eyed at him as he chattered. She remained in place, frozen from nerves and unfamiliarity with his expressions of excitement. Seeing no immediate threat from his behavior, she decided to clarify, "I... didn't do it on purpose. Um, it just happens." She kept her distance as she spoke. "I don't know why..."

[Mortimer]

"Not a spell? I have heard stories of those who are permanently surrounded by an aura of aether due to the circumstances of their birth… Could you be an Uplift?" he mused, looking at her in wonder. "I haven't felt ill around you yet, and I carried you for maybe 2 hours on my shoulder last night." He felt his collarbones and shoulder just to make sure. "Is it just direct contact?"

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