Tuft Popkhern
Full Name: Tuft Popkhern
Unit: The Lost
Home Realm: Dur-Demarion
Fighting Since: Dead of Winter 2016
Race: Ghost, former human
Fighting Style: Punch shield with flail, spear
Garb and Leather: Leather: Flynnt
Story
It was a brisk April’s morning as Garth Lerik entered the Scattered Ash tavern and ordered his usual; one bowl of soup, one tankard of ale, several more tankards one after the other well into the evening, and “some goddamn respect around here.” As is routine, he took a few bites of the soup, prepared with great care by Tuft behind the counter, before getting sidetracked by his drink and the barkeep’s low neckline. Before long he was barking insults at the staff, providing their usual reminder that it was time to call in the guards and close the bar for the night, another successful day under their belts. Tuft made his way home and stepped gingerly through the door. Despite his best efforts, he entered the bedroom to see the faint shine of a man’s eyes opening. “How was work today, my love?” said the man.
“And here I thought tonight would be the night I could let you sleep,” answered Tuft.
“As if I could sleep without knowing how your day was.”
“You’ve done a fine job of it so far.”
“That… what was his name… Garth was it? giving you trouble again?”
“No more than we're accustomed to. How was the shop today?”
“A woman ordered eighteen hats. Seemed like… seemed like an unusual amount of hats…”
“Oh get your beauty sleep, Jamie.”
“Beauty sleep…” Jamie let out something between a yawn and a chuckle, “you're cute.” With that, Jamie fell promptly asleep. Tuft kissed him and followed suit.
The next day began like any other for Tuft. He awoke to breakfast prepared by his beloved, though Jamie knew Tuft was always the better cook. Jamie left for work and before long, Tuft would do the same. The Scattered Ash was quiet this morning. Even Garth would enter with naught but a mild grunt at the other patrons, before taking his perch at the bar and placing his order in a weak, haggard voice. He had already finished his first three drinks by the time Tuft had finished preparing a batch of soup. As soon as Garth took his first bite, he muttered the words “needs salt.” Tuft, stopping from his path back toward the kitchen, turned to respond, “I tasted it myself, but I’d be happy to go and get you-”
“No it needs more salt.”
“Sir, Mr. Lerik, allow me to-”
“I gotta do everything myself huh?” With that, Garth stood and took one step toward the kitchen before collapsing under his own weight, his face growing pale.
“The fuck you put in my soup, tiny?” he moaned.
“I’d sooner blame it on the ale, but frankly you haven't looked okay since you got here. Do you feel alright?” With what little strength he had left in his body, Garth drew his sword and clumsily lunged toward Tuft, taking a wild swing before descending toward the floor yet again, this time nearly tossing a sword across the tavern. Tuft, however, was so overcome with shock in those few seconds that he failed to notice either this reckless maneuver or the blood now gushing from his own neck.
Death came swiftly to the now expired form of Tuft Popkhern, but to the rest of his being, this transition from life unto life felt like falling asleep. Though where sleep is a peaceful entrance and an unpleasant exit, Tuft’s death began with pain, but would end some time later with a slow, tranquil reemergence of the senses. In fact, he began to feel that his entire being was a bundle of senses capable of perceiving but never experiencing. The world appeared as vibrant as ever, sounded as harmonious, and smelled as sweet, but no matter how hard he tried, he could never seem to reach out his arm and touch whatever he came across. Tuft couldn't remember where his new life began, but he would find himself in front of a fairly fresh tombstone depicting the words “Tuft Popkhern.” Only now did the he fully realize his circumstances. Tuft was a passenger in life, no longer a participant. Tuft was, as many would say, a ghost. His previous life was still somewhat hazy in his mind, so he attempted to work his way from the most recent memories backward. Unfortunately, this meant that the first scene to play in his head was looking down to see a distinct crimson pouring down the front of his shirt. This seemed but a moment long, the rest clouded by terror. There was blood, there was pain, then there was this. So Tuft worked backwards again. He recalled Garth, shouting empty inanities. Garth did this to him. A faint voice in Tuft’s head suggested that traditionally, now would be the time for vengeance. Spirits of lore might torment their killer, cursing even the murderer’s whole lineage. But Tuft wasn’t angry; Tuft was confused. What would lead a man to become a creature of such deep loathing that at eleven in the morning, it would eschew the bedrest it needed to nurse a benign sickness, and rather choose to sink its coin into a well’s full of ale and kill a frightened cook. Finding no greater need of his presence, Tuft traveled to the Scattered Ash, finding, to some surprise, Garth Lerik, alternating between swigs and grumbles, this time with no disregarded bowl of soup in front of him. It had occurred to Tuft that a man who had some time ago committed murder should be barred at least from the very location on which it had happened, and for once, Tuft began to wonder how Garth, to his credit, continually paid in full for his drinking habit, despite it appearing to be all he did throughout the day. Tuft began to follow Garth from day to day. Time, as it would happen, does not pass for a ghost the way it does for a man. Years felt like days, and days felt like years. Throughout whatever length Tuft investigated this miserable soul, he would find Garth one night after the other returning home to a once splendid mansion, now in decay. Every room that wasn't Garth’s bedroom and the hallway leading to it had collected several decades’ worth of dust. It would seem that the Lerik family was once a clan with the means to shape communities, to give back to the world, and to inspire greatness. Garth, now their last living heir, had transformed this into the means to pay barkeeps and to pay off guards. Perhaps Tuft had hoped to be inspired by a tale of Garth Lerik that betrayed the image of a man with a common cold slashing the throat of a lowly cook. Perhaps Tuft never wanted his idea of Garth to be tarnished. But the reinvigoration of Tuft’s spirit had reminded him, he may have died for an insufferable alcoholic, but he lived for a loving partner in life. Did Jamie miss him too? Tuft would then pursue his once lover with a feeling of much greater hope than when he had pursued his once assailant.
He would begin this exploit to find Jamie hard at work in the hat shop Tuft had visited him so many times prior. Jamie was who he always was, a man hard at work throughout his constant state of exhaustion. He would greet customers as if each were his closest friend, though he made no effort to hide the weariness behind his eyes. Joy was a feeling that Tuft had only now recalled. He would follow Jamie after work not as a detective, but as a loyal dog who saw no wrong in his companion. Jamie returned home to a house now slightly more vacant, and wasted no time falling straight to sleep. Upon waking he cooked breakfast for two, cursed to himself, laughed a beaten laugh, and ate his share, hesitating before discarding the rest. His routine continued nonetheless for some length of time. Jamie was his own man before he met Tuft, and Tuft was in no way disappointed to find that he continued to be this man in Tuft’s absence. Nonetheless, it was clear through Jamie’s sighs and faint curses that, in his own way, he was grieving a terrible loss. But he would focus his energy on his work, on making each patron as happy as any hat vendor ever could. This continued for what Tuft didn't then realize was around four years, with Jamie every day finding more of limited reserves of energy to place on work, on friends, and on life, rather than on tending to the memory of a lost love. This wouldn’t be fully illustrated to Tuft until one day when a woman, maybe slightly older than Jamie, would walk through the doors of his shop and introduce herself to him, explaining that she was new in town but eager to meet her neighbors and see what this town had to offer in terms of food, drink, and fashion. She was so genuinely amicable and had enough pep for the both of them. Frankly, she beautiful as well. Jamie would admit to her that he was a bit of a homebody when not at work, but that his favorite part of the surrounding area had always been a trail through the mountains, about three miles long.
“I'm through with work here in just about five minutes,” he told her, “and if you don't mind a slower pace, I’d be happy to show you.”
“I’d like nothing more,” she told him, “Remind me your name, charming haberdasher?”
“Jamie,” he told her with a smile that Tuft knew Jamie save for special occasions. She killed some time perusing the store before walking arm in arm with Jamie toward the mountains. Tuft let out a shriek that he didn't know he had in him. It seemed to shake his very spirit.
“Did you hear something?” said Jamie.
“Only faintly,” the woman responded. This, not the incident at the Scattered Ash, was the moment where Tuft’s previous life had ended. In time, he would learn to recognize it not as a great tragedy, but as the moment where he would cease to be a man who cooks soup for ungrateful tavern patrons, a man who loved to shop for new ingredients, a man who was afraid of snakes and had a complicated relationship with his mother. He was, as he saw it, finally dead. The afterlife that Tuft experienced would then become an aimless wandering for ages and ages. Tuft ceased to exist in any particular place, becoming present yet not present throughout the entire world. He would see everything and take it all in, before doing nothing with that knowledge. But a perfectly neutral watcher serves the world no purpose, and it would not be allowed for so long.
Tuft found himself passing through a small hamlet built atop a shallow swamp, each house resting on stilts and piled stones. He would notice a woman who sat reading atop a small mound of earth. She looked up in his direction as he passed by, before returning to her book. She mustn't have seen him, but he stopped in his path, intrigued by this coincidence nonetheless.
“Could you move a bit? You’re blocking my light,” she said, her eyes still facing downward. “Nah just kidding. I know the light doesn't really have much to do with you.” Tuft was confused. He unconsciously let out a small “I…” before trailing off, too shocked to remember he had a voice once.
“Yeah you, the one who’s, like scientifically invisible.”
“You see me?” he said feeling somehow embarrassed
“‘See’ isn't the best way to put it.”
“Then what is?”
“Hey if i knew how i do this then maybe i wouldn't be the only one around who can.”
“What… are you?”
“Oh of course! I'm Cholette, ex-priestess, presently a bit of a drifter who talks to dead people. You?”
“I’m Tuft, ex-cook, presently a bit of a drifter who is a dead person.”
“I like you, Tuft. Why don't you rest those old bones here in this horrid swamp?”
“Well I don't really have-”
“Bones? Well sure you don't, not with that attitude. Wait, have you not tried to manifest yet?”
“I can do that?”
“Haven't met a specter such as yourself who couldn't.”
“How?”
“Beats me. Haven't needed to. What with my having a pulse and all. But they say it's about as easy as wanting to. Do you want to?”
“Not too inclined to, no”
“You sure? Having skin is more fun than you remember”
“My life has nothing left for me.”
“Your old life might, but you might have noticed, you're dead.”
“What gave it away?”
“What I’m saying is you're dead, but you're still here. Some higher power or another decided it was time for your life to end but your existence to hang on. They tell me the world looks different from the other side, new challenges, new opportunities. Honestly, Tuft, I'm excited for you.”
“Opportunities for a dead man?”
“Sure, some take up the cloth-”
“I'm not the type.”
“You're not missing much. Some incessantly follow loved ones-”
“That didn't suit me well.”
“Never does. Others find communities of similar, like minded individuals.”
“There are communities which accept lost souls who death neglected?”
“There are communities of lost souls who death neglected. You'll have a much easier time finding them once they can find you, which could be tough, because, you know, you're in an intangible entity. You said you were a cook. Were you proud of your work?”
“Fiercely.”
“Do you remember how your food tasted? Because frankly I’m hungry.”
“You've found a much more effective way to tempt me.”
“If food is your game, got some fresh celery right here in my pouch. Just bought it this morning. Care for some?”
“What unnatural charms are these which you have employed?”
“Ah, you like celery.”
“I… I love celery”
“All yours, companion.” She tossed a stalk in his direction. Without thinking, he felt a hand reach out to grab the celery, before realizing that hand was his own. Simply the feeling of feeling distracted him from the fact that the celery had fallen into the swamp.
“Aw rats,” Cholette said, “I just checked and that was actually the last of the ol’ celery reserves. On the bright side, I like your body. That sounded odd. I like that you have a body.”
“The swamp water is getting in my boots. I mean, thank you.”
“Your death was kinda gnarly huh?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Your clothes are covered in blood. Here, I’ll find you one of my old robes.” Cholette walked into her small caravan. As she did so, Tuft stared in awe at his boots now filling with uncomfortably warm water. “Gross,” he thought. Cholette reemerged, now holding a dusty black robe.
“This one seems decent enough,” she said, “the moths seemed to like it anyway.”
“Cholette,” he said, “ you've done me a great service, many actually. The next time I’m passing through, remind me to put us together some dinner.”
Cholette was right; once Tuft knew to look for them, he began to realize that the restless dead were everywhere, many of them of them finding entirely new ways to thrive. While it was pleasantly surprising to see hope in life after life, it would become apparent that the living do not generally see the dead from a perfectly fair standpoint. Distrust from the living gave way to defensiveness from the undead, creating an endless cycle of fear and hatred. Tuft would once again scour the earth, hoping to find a place of refuge from this turmoil. Only in one of the seemingly least welcoming settings would he find that. Though Tuft was an aimless being, vaguely familiar with just about all the world has to offer, there were places of which he knew little, places that face off an energy that might repel any rational soul. It wasn’t that Tuft feared some ill consequence of venturing toward these locations. It was as if some force fought within Tuft’s brain to weed out the curiosity that might drive him there. But as Tuft one night would be traversing a stormy sea somewhere between nowhere and nothing, he felt more conscious of those forces which once fought much deeper in his mind. And then, as was now commonplace for him, Tuft’s curiosity took over.
Events Attended
Oktoberfest, 2017
Beltane, 2017
Dur Demarion Home Opener, 2017