The Chimeric Professor spent most of the day's duration excusing their foreseeable absence from appointments and assorted duties, informing those that were no obligation, and finishing those projects and compromise that were going to be easily finished today anyhow. This, of course, did nothing to improve their ungodly sleepy state. Luckily the Grand Détour's crew was already assembled and expected to be ready in a moment's notice due to the Maven and Devil's extraordinary circumstances, so the airship could take off that very afternoon. Destination: The Citadel-Necropolis that a recently Fallen group of French tracklayers named the Sous.
The journey itself was fortunately clear from the most dangerous encounters one could have in the Roof, but allowed to witness an uncommon wonder of nature: The Bullcombs, a network of warrens burrowed into the Roof by the strongest wild Miser-Bulls as part of some esoteric mating ritual. A huge-sized hive full of airship-apt tunnels, engraved in scintillating glim fragments. Now that they're admiring them from within (as it is a very convenient shortcut, if one knows how to navigate it, just like the crew's Starved Shepherd) they wish the Socialite, Maven and Devil could have seen this as well, but the Bullcombs can only be found at this side of the Miser-Roads, sadly.
Finally, the Grand Détour is moored in the narrow, certainly precarious entrance of the Sous. A looming complex of solemnly yet very narrowly carved stalactites, plated with bone like an armor, or exoskeleton. Only one mooring post of recent construction can be found, property of the Inverse Bargemen from Burgundy, but luckily it doesn't see much traffic. This doesn't mean the airship can remain here, so the Professor gives instructions (and a generous amount of Stuivers) for the crew to take leave in Ghent until a flare signals the moment to return, to be expected the next day not early.
Holdeverything in hand, when the Professor steps inside the necropolis' entry chamber the first thing they notice is the silence: Absolutely perfect, broken only by their own breath and heartbeat. A silence defeated by every step taken in this bone-paved floor yet regaining all lost territory the moment after. The second thing is the light, faint enough to allow for the usefulness of eyes yet forbidding long-distance sight, each chamber invisible from the previous. The third thing are, of course, the bones. There are bones everywhere. Either arranged in neat, artistical compositions like murals or tiles, or scattered chaotically all over the place, no matter if so ancient they could be mistaken as rocks or so recent they still keep a hint of lively bright red. Niches, tombstones, sacrophagi... Ebony, marble, granite... Black, white, grey... Weeping angels, pagan symbols and effigies, epitaphs... A place where only the mournful and funereal has place, and every place is dedicated to death.
And yet, there is a hint of a nostalgic golden light once meant to bring hope, up above... Painfully close, thankfully far enough. No one who has seen it before has any doubt of what it is: Sunlight. Final death. Permeating through the thin Treacherous last layer of defense against Judgement. A promise of an end to all things beneath the Roof, but not yet... Not yet.
There was supposed to be a clade tending to this place, but it isn't any hint of recent inhabitation to be found. The only footsteps among the dust and bone are their own, this light needs no tender, and whoever arranged the bones has definitely not done so recently. The Professor was preparing themself for an aimless search until, with a flick of the tongue, they detected a hint: Incense. Floral and sweet, like the orchids their mother liked to grow in her little garden... The mere thought made their chest ache more than any of these monuments to grief could ever have.
Following the scent, through one precariously cartilaginous bridge, the Professor finds one Starved woman. Short and lean, four-armed, eyeless (and even socketless) and even noseless, though they don't doubt she would have other means to appreciate her aromatic work. Her skull is elongated and grows long hair, a small mouth close to the chin. She had noticed them long before, for she was already facing them when they arrived. Calm and silent, she starts gesturing in the four-armed version of the pan-Starved sign language. They're not familiar to one spoken in a lack of eyes, but she is patient, and waits to be understood repeating when necessary.
"Do not vibrate your outer mind, groundling." Which meant to keep silent, but of course a shapeling society wouldn't be so rude as to suppose the interlocutor would speak through a mouth, or even words.
After the Professor signed in acquiescence, the woman continued.
"Greetings. Our thoughts can commingle as long as no noise is involved. Death/rest is not to be disrespected/disturbed. I am the caretaker/gardener/mortician of this patient/place/body. It is a solitary task/duty, one not many witness. What is your wish/crave/need? Looking for someone's place of final rest, or your own? If it's the Killing Light you seek, I will advise otherwise."
So it's true... Sunlight, this close... Yet another exit to the Surface? It's worth knowing, but not what they're looking for.
"Knowledge/fitness is what I wish/crave/need. I am afflicted/wounded/poisoned by a mistake/misshape, I need to understand how deep, and the cure."
"Why do you seek/milk healing from a tomb? Death is no mistake/misshape, and can't be adapted against forever."
The Gravetender's body language remained always perfectly polite and light-hearted.
"It is a mistake/misshape born from the Memorious Guild/Clade of Corpse-Weavers, and the arts/crafts they learned/assimilated/shaped from this place. I seek to better understand how those were born/made."
At this point the Gravetender's distaste is evident. Not towards the Professor, for they couldn't know better if they met the Guild before the Sous, but towards the Guild as a whole, and their distorted, twisted ways. She makes this extensively clear, even without moving a single finger.
What follows is a lengthy explanation (made longer to clarify the alienness of some concepts expressed by the Gravetender, for it is true the Inuit have several meaningful names for the snow) on the principles and processes behind the Tapestry-Moth breeding, life and ultimate final demise, a double death for a doubled being. This being the Professor, and the Gravetender being patient and knowledgeable, meant that the conversation stretched and branched for hours, and extensive notes were taken.
In the end, it was getting late into the night when the Gravetender asked for the specific ailment the Professor is worried about. They informed her that it can only be revealed in a shaping vat, and so she accepted to let them use it together this night. The process was already natural for the Professor, but even more so for the Gravetender, who also could teach a thing or two on the process, specially regarding the bones and the intricacies of their connection to the whole. She commended on the expansive evolutionary approach of the Professor, they commended in return on her accretive mineraloid method.
The problem was made apparent right at the end... When the Professor's scalesilk wings manifested and, shortly afterwards, withered and faded away as ashen flakes of nothing. The Gravetender was aghast, and needed some encouraging to start speaking after remaining in motionless thinking for a while.
"You have betrayed/poisoned your own death. Milked/harvested out of you and given a different body to be spliced/implanted. You have already experienced your death, and lived on. This strains both Judgement and Treachery, and thus you are left without support. This superposition/paradox/self-parasitism aches for resolution, and all things tend to the less expensive/effortful/ordered result."
Realization hit like a femur's epiphysis on the back of the Professor's head.
"Which means death... Final, absolute death..." Was their defeated, terrified conclusion. "How long until the superposition/paradox/self-parasitism is resolved?"
"Four False-Seasons/twelve Moon-Cycles/a year since its inception/making/birth." Was the absolute, certainly delivered answer.
The Professor allowed all tension to dissipate from their muscles as if an airship's balloon had just been pierced and deflated, damning a whole crew to a certain demise. Laying flatly on their back, where the wretched things inserted and left their signature, ever-present absence. Their moth was born March 29th, they could never forget the date. Which means, they'll be dead for good in four months and a week...
"Is there something that can be done? The Professor starts cycling through all the signed iterations of the sentence known to them. Suddenly, patience was no longer an option.
"To rest, and assimilate the information you now have. I shared all knowledge I have related to your situation. If a solution exists, its ingredients can already be found within you. Give your mind time. If you do so, come the morning I'll show you the first step in the road to assimilate your death, and make it yours, so it doesn't take anything from you that you don't wish."
There was no possible discusion, her body language was adamant at that. And, certainly, the Professor wanted nothing more than curl up and sob tearless cries, allow their feelings to storm so they can settle, and do what they do better: To find out after having fucked around (and up).
It is in a silent, dark niche that the Professor finds their rest, successfully shaped by the Gravetender's indications to feel it comfortable and agreeable. The dinner was a surprising mixture of strange fruits and avian meats, sourced from one 'Antipelago' the Professor would likely not have any time to explore at all now. The sleep, as promised by the Gravetender, was dreamless.
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