Feast of the Dead

“It’s time.”

It was the last thing that Tobias said to Blackmist while the iguanodon stood on guard in the already-full banquet hall. Tobias had barely raised his voice over the jovial sounds of the feasting and festivities, yet it was evident that the massive iguanodon had heard him clearly.

Blackmist snorted. His exhale was a rush of wind due to the male’s size, and he nodded. Something about Tobias unsettled him, although he tried his best to hide it. After all, Tobias and Ghostlight were nothing to be feared, just topsiders. Weak, useless, and vastly outmatched and surrounded by his fully armed compatriots. They could truly do him no lasting harm. He was entirely, completely safe - yet his feather crest flared slightly as he straightened from his kneeling position. His invisible crown wavered, just for a moment.

Ghostlight almost seemed to smile.

“Please, enjoy the feast,” Blackmist murmured. He bowed his head slightly, gesturing for them to wander, feast, and mingle as they pleased. “We hold this banquet in your honour, in thanks for all that you’ve done to help Atlantis.”

As if. Ghostlight’s faint smile didn’t linger long. The iguanodon uttered poisoned words, just like the oviraptors as they spread the invasive plants across the islands. But why. Why? It was the one thing she couldn’t quite figure out.

Tobias’s sigh drew her attention, a softer kind of exhale than what Blackmist had made. A bit of the tension that had been building and building up inside of him eased. This was where they were meant to be. The message had been delivered. He was free of the draw.

Blackmist shook his head faintly, mumbled under his breath as he turned to walk away down a side hall. Topsiders made little sense to begin with, but these two were the worst of them. Not that it would matter for much longer. As Tobias had said, it was time.

The cryos stood in silence for a moment, surrounded by revelry as they were. Ghostlight waited patiently, her lantern creaking ever so slightly as it swayed back and forth with the slightest movements of her head. It would take Tobias some time to center himself again, and she was content to stay by his side until he returned to her. She would hold the light, as always.

It wasn’t natural, the way he focused again. He was drawn abruptly from his thoughts by a low rumble from within the banquet hall, a sound of warning. Tobias blinked and looked up, finding Ghostlight already looking back towards an acro that was approaching them. It seemed they weren’t done here, after all.

Giving help to Blight and pointing him in the right direction - and indirectly, the rest of his family - was an easy enough feat for the pair. All that was left was to enjoy the remains of the feast and watch the events of their labour play out.

Though Blacklight had told them they could "mingle," it wasn't something that either cryo was particularly good at, nor did anyone seem to want to approach them. It mattered little to either of them. They weren't here for conversation, just to be part of the feast and bear witness to the festivities.

The food was plentiful and looked appetising, though neither Ghostlight nor Tobias dined on anything but the scents of cooked and prepared food that wafted through the air. The atmosphere of the banquet hall was bright and lively. Music pounded through the halls, small drums performed by oviraptors and joined by deeper notes which echoed through the halls and rang across the Court. The pound of a larger drum. The oviraptor’s limbs were too thin to create such a sound - those were made by a euoplo’s almost impossibly gentle hammer in a display of incredible grace and control.

Voices, harmonious and melodic, wove lyrics into the steady and constant tempo of the drums. Happy songs, inspirational and stunning. Songs of triumph and strength, joy and aspiration. While it took care and precise movement to play the drums, the melody belonged to any voice who knew the words and was willing to sing. Tobias found it to be quite beautiful, though Ghostlight was less impressed.

Her attention wandered, blank eyes staring out across the banquet hall and unnerving anyone that thought they caught her gaze. She was listening to the other forms of entertainment.

The rapid sound of feet and shifting bodies. Many Atlanteans were dancing to the beat of the music. Some were dancing to no rhythm at all, simply moving to move. The scent of fermented fruit hung heavily in the air - it was easy to guess the cause of such wild and sporadic movements.

A few islanders had enough “liquid courage” to join in, though they didn’t know the moves. Laughter, likely at the islanders’ expense. It wasn’t their fault. They hadn’t been taught.

Ghostlight tilted her head. Voices raised in jeers and cheers as some of the courtiers sparred in an open area. So many of them had come wearing armour, bearing weapons on their limbs and tails. A useless show of power. The Atlanteans already knew that they held all the power here in the dome. The islanders had to bow, or risk being consumed by the voracious jungle that clawed at the boundaries of Atlantis.

Even now, though the banquet was theoretically in celebration for the islanders, many of the islanders present at the banquet looked as though they wanted to be anywhere else. Some of them came wounded by the Court’s vicious games or the horrific labours that they had been made to suffer through.

The sparring - the “demonstrations” - were just a show. Even the Queen’s speech was a show, a grasp for sympathy when most islanders would have been happy to give it freely, if not for the detail of their incarceration, imprisonment, and enthrallment.

This was all just a show. Ghostlight turned her blind eyes across the banquet hall. Who was watching?

An oviraptor honked when the two of them almost collided, bringing with it the scent of freshly roasted nuts. “I’d thank you to watch where you’re-”

The oviraptor paused, seeing Ghostlight’s eyes when the cryo turned her muzzle down towards them. He swallowed and shifted his feet awkwardly, adjusting the bowl of roasted tree nuts in his hands when he realised his mistake. “...going,” he finished meekly. “Excuse me.”

There. Already, they were learning.

Tobias watched the movements of the smallest members of the Court as he wandered the banquet hall with his partner. It was fascinating, in a way, though his dull expression betrayed nothing of his interest. Oviraptors regularly coming in and out of the hall, cycling out empty plates and bowls and replacing them with fresh food and drink. No one space was left empty for long. It was almost mechanical, something that they had practiced for a long time.

They… had practiced it for a long time. They'd done this time and time again. They had the resources for it, their food being plentiful and sustainable. There were feasts for festivals they had created to pass the time, momentous occasions, births, deaths... coronations. Tobias looked out across the crowds, then felt his gaze drawn inexplicably up to where a primate - a golden lion tamarin - was looking back, and tilted its head inquisitively. Her eyes. Her ears. Her hands. Voices from the shadows who whispered of all that they had seen and heard. Hidden things, secret things. They have always been watching, since before the moment she was Ascended. There was nothing that she did not know.

How long had she been planning this?

His pulse quickened. Tobias’s gaze returned to the crowd, drawn, where he saw in horror that they were in the company of the dead. Islanders skeletonized before his eyes, bones stained with blood and destined to never bleach beneath the sun that would never burn. Screams echoed through the air, crushing him with their weight. The stench of blood and death was so thick in the air that it choked him. He was drowning in it, he could taste it. Staring in the eyes of a pachy of rippling black markings and a hide decorated with a hundred suns. They were meant to be here.

He couldn’t breathe -

No. No -

The quiet creak of a lantern. Tobias blinked as he looked back at Ghostlight, his breathing still just as rapid as his heartbeat. “It’s too late,” he whispered.

His eyes widened, frantic as the Queen’s final speech continued. The rapid pounding of the drums was almost as fast as the sound of his heart in his ears. “Don’t hold it against them.” They were too late. They were doing what they thought they had to, what they thought was right.

“Please.” That single word told Ghostlight everything that she needed to know. She dipped her head, almost imperceptibly, and started towards the exit. Her heart ached, knowing what was to come. She would guide those that felt they were lost, as she always did, but she couldn’t do it from in here.

Even from outside the hall, she could hear the Queen’s voice as she prepared to reveal the truth of the ultimatum. She could hear the doors shut, cutting the remaining islanders off from making an escape.

Tobias fought to get through the crowd. He could convince her of another way, he knew it didn’t have to come to this. If enough islanders chose to make the right choice, there was a chance, there was always a chance.

It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. It wasn't his decision to make, not his singular choice to divert them from a preset future. If she needed to, she would bathe the land in blood to get what she wanted, turn the seas red. Her ambition and love for her kingdom ran too deeply. This was inescapable, unavoidable.

When Blackmist struck, he realised that the first shriek of the dead that he'd heard was his.