Through the Eyes of Others: An Orc Quest

Since someone expressed interest, I thought I'd drop the quick and dirty info on how orcs do death rituals! Thanks to @Great Greedy Guts for her help and letting me bounce some ideas off of her.

Orc funeral customs can roughly be described as the following, generally in this order.

• Death
• Cleaning of body and beginning of lamentations. Wailing, gnashing of teeth, rending of garments, etc. These tend to continue throughout the initial ceremony until the body is finally prepared to be placed in the ossuary.
• The body is either ritually excarnated on a trellis or pavilion of some sort to expose the body and let nature remove the flesh OR
• Family members, assisted by a holy person if available, cut and/or boil away the flesh of their dead and feed it to a fire to be burned.
• Once the flesh is removed, the bones and the possessions of the dead are interred in a communal grave or crypt within the community or close to the home of the deceased.

[X] Let the poor whelp have her cry. You know what it's like to have your Da die when you're young.

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You can remember when your own father died. It was a couple years before things went to shit and you'd just started doing your work in the forges.. You'd tumbled home at the end of a bone-wearying twelve hours of working and being yelled at and beaten and your ma had been there. All that was left of him was his skull, the only bit of him they'd been able to get back home.

That skull had sat on the hearth and stared at you until you all fled in the messy aftermath of the fall. You weren't sure if your mother grabbed it or not but you have no idea and thinking about it just idle, wondering nonsense. You grunt, shake yourself back to the present and glance behind you. The girl is sat on the ground between the bodies of her parents, wailing and crying. You know you should shut her up--there are more ears than yours in the foothills. You can't bring yourself to do it, though. It reminds you too much of the raw and ragged sound that had ripped free from your own throat when your mother had told you da wasn't gonna be home from the war. You had to be tough about it though.

Turning back to the cart you start rummaging through its contents. THere's useful things here and letting it go to waste is just criminal. A bag of nails, a hammer, a couple of saws, woodworking tools, sacks of flour… You start stacking the things that you can use to one side. As the time passes, gradually Syen's crying and wailing drops off to quieter noises, then almost stops altogether. By the time she's almost completely silent, you've moved quite a bit to your stack of potential loot. One man's tragedy is another's opportunity, after all. As you move to pull something else off the cart she moves past you and tries to lift something off herself. It's a water keg, probably too heavy for a girl her size to lift but she's trying anyway, tear-streaked face set and grim now in the flickering orange light of the slowly dying campfire.

You watch her for a moment, then reach out and silently help her haul the thing off and set it on the ground next to her parents. She mumbles something, probably thanks, then begins to fill a basin. Turning around you notice for the first time that the bodies have been both been rolled face up and placed next to each other, eyes closed. Syen's been busy. You lean against the cart and watch as she begins to silently wash the bodies, first her mother, then her father. The long minutes tick past into hours until the fire is beginning to die and she's finally finished. That done, she moves back to the cart and awkwardly pulls a long shovel from the back of it. It's meant for an adult man, someone at least a foot taller than her (and she's already about as tall as you, maybe a little taller) but she hefts it despite the awkwardness of it all.

Clumsily, Syen steps away from the circle of firelight to a spot beneath a tall maple tree begins to dig, small sounds of exertion coming as she tries to dig a grave. You watch for a few minutes, then turn and rummage in the cart. Ah. Good. There's a mattock back here, too. Resting it on your shoulder you head over to where Syen has managed to hack a shallow gash in the soft earth and unceremoniously shoulder her out of the way.

"Yer weak." You can hear your sister's voice in your head as clear as if she were standing next to you. "She's weak. Helpin' some stupid tark bint ain't gonna help you survive so stop thinkin' like a soft-hearted snaga, whelp!"

"Yer ain't gettin' anywhere like that. Stop bein' stupid, girl," you mutter darkly. Then you start swinging the mattock in sure, easy strokes, breaking through the sod and topsoil with practiced easy. Syen watches for a moment, then speaks up quietly.

"Why?"

You don't stop working. You learned long ago how to talk while you work, or else you'd get a cuff around the ear.

"Why what?" Why are her parents dead? Why is this happening? Why here? Why now? Who knows.

"Why are you helping me?" Her voice is quiet between the rhythmic impact of the mattock against the earth. You grunt as you haul the tool free. You'd shrug if you could.

"...'Cause you'll be here all bloody night if I let yer do it yerself, you little tark. Don't ask me stupid questions!" You snap at her, almost snarling. That's why, right? Not because you feel a twinge of sympathy for her.

"Fine." She's quiet again then, only stepping in when you tell her to help shovel the loose soil out of the hole. Hours pass. By the time the sun is peaking over the eastern horizon you're stripped down to your undershirt, sticky with sweat and caked in soil. Of course, you're also at the bottom of a fair sized grave. It's not as deep as it probably would be in a proper human cemetery (you have no idea how they deal with their dead). You know some of them burn their warriors and others bury them in the earth. You clamber free and look at the bodies which Seyn long ago covered in blankets from the cart.

You help her lift them and deposit them into the grave one at a time, trying not to drop them too callously. Once they're in the dirt you step back and hover awkwardly to let the girl do what she needs to do in regards to her gods and customs and such like. Then comes the work of filling it back in but with the pair of you working together it doesn't take nearly as long. As she fixes a crude headboard of wood in place, you're left wondering what to do with the girl at this point.

Your sister's voice is back.

"Weak. Weak. Weak! You can barely take care o' yourself an' what are you gonna do with some tark whelp who can't hunt nor do anythin' useful? Get rid o' her. Idjit." You stare at her, leaning on the mattock. At least it's late spring and not going on winter. That makes things a bit easier…

"Get. Rid. Of. Her." You grimace, mostly to yourself. Shut up Ikgnath. You're not here. You shake your head, then move to throw your tool in the cart, then whistle sharply.

"Oi. Syen. Get yer beasts… attached or whatever. We're movin' this." The girl looks tired and somehow smaller in the daylight. Her dress is torn and dirty and her own face and hands are streaked with dirt, but she nods numbly. The horses have calmed down now that they're used to your smell but getting close to them still makes you nervous. Somehow she handles them easily.

Once she's got them set up, you lead the cart back away towards where you're staying. It's rough going after a night spent killing and digging, especially with the sun starting to sting your eyes, but you manage to get it across the stream and into a copse of trees at the base of your hill without too much trouble. You let her manage the horses while you cut some branches and other greenery and pile it around the edges of the cart to make it less obvious to anyone who might wander by. As you finish, you look over at the girl. Decision time. Also you're tired and need some sleep. At least she doesn't seem inclined to scream and run away from you anytime soon.

[ ] Tell her to come inside and get some rest and something to eat.
[ ] Tell her to stay out here with the cart. No way are you bringing a human into your home.
[ ] Other. Specify in vote.