Lilabel's Inn

She's sweeping up a table, chuckling under her breath at Bertie, a man so determined to climb up Mount Memnon even she, who had seen many with a fire alight in their eyes, was impressed. Still, of the few, like him, with a fire burning so bright, so blue, they stuck out from the rest, there were still many that went up and never went down. Her laugh turns bitter and sour. The sight of a big tip at one table perks her up, even if the pile of food and drinks perched precariously on it makes her sigh. Thankfully, the day is winding down as darkness creeps in, and many tiredly begin their trek to their respective hotels. She wishes a few stragglers good luck as they walk out, hoping to quiet their nerves. As she sighs and runs her fingers through her hair, she makes her way to the restroom, knocking to check on customers. Hearing nothing, she walks in, noticing a pair of black sandals and a glimpse of black clothing. She resists the temptation to kick down the door. In any case, at this rate, she'll be forced to do her second job tomorrow. Dragging her hands over her face, she knocks, hoping it doesn't startle him. "Hi, I'm Lilabel, I just wanted to let you know that we're closing. Hearing nothing, she shrugs,  making her way back to the bathroom entrance, when she is met with the loud thump of the door opening  behind her. She doesn't even have time to jump into the self-defense stance Sarah, a mountaineer from Greece, had taught her, before the man in the stall, young and short and a lot of other distinguishing features she’s attempting to capture in her mind’s eye, is grasping onto her shoulders, nails digging in (like talons??). "You're Lilabel." "No." "You're Lilabel." Quickly, he shoots out, “You’re not Lilabel.” “You’re not gonna trick me. Because I’m not Lilabel.” There's a furrow forming on his face, and he's so certain she's Lilabel that she's beginning to wonder if she's met this guy before. She tilts her head to the side, musing over whether he was one of those few mountaineers that survived. But then he's talking again, so she listens in time to catch, "the owner right?" "Yeah", she says automatically, and then he huffs, exasperated, leaning forward. "The sole owner of the restaurant/inn named Lilabel" He's looking at her like she's stupid, and she's used to giving that look, namely to climbers that prepare to climb a gigantic mountain covered in ice with only one layer(until she shoves a million coats from storage into their arms), and quite frankly, it's pissing her off. "Yeah" she says, holding in the urge to scoff, "but I'm not that Lilabel, the one you're looking for. "5'4, owner of self-titled restaurant" he leans in to whisper the next part, and she dully takes note of how bad it smells. "Guider of soouls". She's looking around, a rat in a cage, a lion in a cage, trapped, and maybe it's because the air is thinner up here but she can't breathe. There's a centipede making its way towards the bathroom door and she's about to grasp onto it for a flimsy excuse, like 'Excuse me, seeing as I am the owner of this establishment, I must take a brief reprieve from this conversation in order to rid it of this tiny disease spreading miscreant', when it starts crawling up his arm. She'd tell the man about it if she weren't so scared right now, but she still feels bad. For some reason, it crawls into the man's hand, and then the man lifts it to his ear, and then nods, like the centipede is saying something to him. Then he's turning to her, stone cold serious, and telling her, "I need your guidance."

Somewhere, somehow, the part of her that's normal, that's just a regular inn/restaurant owner that doesn't do anything else after she closes up shop, shuts down, shoved to the back by the her from her second job. She can even feel her face falling, smoothing into something robotic, aided by the feeling that this man is a threat, and she won't let him get any ammo. "You're not dead." It's a fact, and it leaves no room for anything else, because the only thing she does for people that aren't dead is serve them food. "I'm not." His face sours, like he's thinking, or like he hates what he's thinking about. "Kinda. I'm kinda dead and I'm kinda not, I can't tell. " She doesn't have time for this. "I can see you, you're not dead." "Earlier, you were knocking on the stall, and I spoke, but you couldn't hear me." "I can hear you now" "You couldn't hear me then." "Maybe you were just quiet? Why are you going straight to 'I'm dead!" And she's about to give him some advice, some sage piece of wisdom she stole off of Facebook, when suddenly it quiets. And then he's back, arching his brow expectantly, phasing back in, body suddenly solid and corporeal, and arching his brow, "Told you so."

"I didn't see that" "Yes you did." She sighs, because she knows that ultimately she is going to help him, and that means the souls in the back are going to have to wait. She's surprised however, when he plops a gigantic book in front of her, her questioning gaze shooting up to him sharply. "Do you know why Mount Memnon is named Mount Memnon?" he asks, back ramrod straight like a teacher, question obviously rhetorical. "According to my family, my great-uncle was killed by my great-grandfather over an inheritance. Their father, the owner of the mountain, told them that whoever could reach the top and back the fastest would win the land. My great-uncle never came down, my great-grandfather did." Like Jacob, falsely murdered by his brothers, a voice sourly surmises in her head. Except he never became king. "The rumor stayed circulating silently around the family, but the reason why I knew it was true wasn’t because of that. It was just", he huffs a sigh, leaning backwards, "at a certain point being in the town felt weird, creepy." He shivers and then turns, like he can sense something, "I know that some people say they can feel a presence on the mountain, but our family could feel it here, could feel it, however weakly, everywhere, even after we all left." Her mind's running a million miles per hour, trying to figure out the connection between a family rumor from a century ago and a not-dead-dead man hiding in a stall.  Her train of thought is interrupted. "Anyways, my great-uncle was named Memnon, a king in Greek mythology that was favored by the gods. Which reminds her, "What's your name?" "Oh, Cain" "Hmm." And then the next thing, to make the conversation light after the revelation of the previous one, "that rhymes with pain."

The next thing he says is stupid. "We need to climb the mountain." "What?" All she can hear is her brain shouting NONONO at a million miles per hour, because as allegedly tied to this town as the man in front of her is, any local would know you don't climb Mount Memnon, even the ones who didn't believe it was haunted by a vengeful spirit." "According to my family legend" She's raking her hands over her face again, frustrated, "Ah yes, that widely credible source." "and according to Matilda." And now her hands are stilling, because Matilda, all locals know, reads the future, turning red strings into death sentences, red strings into stories, and while the red strings aren't set in stone, they're highly probable. So she turns stone-cold, and tells him to take him to her.

It's five minutes into the walk that has left her with more respect she's ever had for the mountaineers before when they finally stumble upon Matilda's infamous blue building. Surprisingly, Matilda's standing at the door, teeth chewing at her lip. Noticing them, she straightens, turns to Lilabel, and tells her, "You need to talk to Memnon". She can feel herself internally shaking her head in confusion before she already feels herself starts doing it. Matilda must really be a magician because she's stopping Lilabel before she can voice her complaints. "Lilabel", she says, hand fidgeting nervously at the side, "this man right here told me that he went up the mountain because he felt something guiding him there. Then, suddenly, he, the great grandson of the man that kills Memnon" "Allegedly" both Cain and Lilabel cut in. Matilda waves it off. “Then, suddenly, he's stranded between the two planes of existence. Maybe it's revenge, maybe he wants a family reunion. Either way, people are not meant to straddle between the two planes. If they are, according to my knowledge, they slowly begin to split in both directions until they go practically insane." Cain’'s eyes grow wide at this. "But, I don't know much about this, because this has never happened before." Lilabel can practically feel the tension radiating off of Cain, even as he attempts to hide it, and (internally) graons. "I'll help, but what can I do? You know more than me about this." "Memnon had two children, both grown, before he went on that mountaintop and died. After he died, they changed their last names, believing that their father, who, according to rumors, was born not to their grandfather, but from an unknown man, had been killed in order to ensure the inheritance would be secured for his own son, Memnon's (maybe) half-brother" "Okay," Lilabel cuts in. “But what does that have to do with me?” . Matilda turns and hums. "You know what the name of Memnon's mother was?" "No", they chime in. "Lilabel."

"Lilabel. Are you okay?" "Yeah. What's the plan?" "You sure you don't need any time to process that. I mean I-" this comes from her (apparent) relative Cain, whose eyes are staring wide at her in concern."We don't have time." She shoves it all aside, which might be easy because she's in shock, and turns back to Matilda. "What do we need to do?" "Go to the peak, and talk to him." "No."

Lilabel mostly says no because she wants to hope there's another way, mostly says it because she just wants them to know how stupid this plan is, and mostly says no because she wishes she could comfortably walk away from being involved in it. Still, how it ends is her walking back to Lilabel's, taking the jacket Sarah had given her after she came down from the mountain, swearing she would never climb again. Cain is wearing so many jackets he's about to tip over and despite the circumstances she can't resist the urge to laugh. He stands there, looking down at himself, and shrugs, walking after her as she sets off to the peak.

The thing is, the mountain begins to look smaller and smaller the closer they get to it, to the point that by the time they reach the base, it actually... doesn't look that bad. But then she hears a loud chattering next to her. It's Cain, and he looks more terrified than in the admittedly short time she's known him. "Are you scared?" And now he just looks insulted, which she'll take. "No, I'm cold." "Don't get the cold where you're from?" He shrugs, "Pssh. My home is like the complete opposite of this place." Lilabel hums thoughtfully, as the question that’s been sitting in the back of her mind since they started climbing slips out. "Hey, if so many people have died here, why can't we see their bodies?" “Cain” throws his head back, clearly agitated. "After you just got me to forget about how creepy this place is." Honestly, the area isn’t that scary to her, but something tells her that won’t comfort Cain any so she keeps it to herself. “Is it really that creepy?" "Did you not just hear what you just asked, about the bod-. Nevermind." "Nevermind what? Oh. I guess we spoke too soon." He points, his finger outstretched towards the only body they'd seen all day. In any case, somehow they had already reached the peak, far faster than she had previously imagined. It could be good luck, but that never happened to her, so. "Hello" a deep voice, rumbling somehow simultaneously from the body and the sky, spoke. Yeah, not good luck.

"So" the man(?) hums, thoughtfully, "I died, and then he went and had a child." "Are you Memnon?" Cain asks, like an idiot. "Yes, and you must be my half-brother's(and the word seeps like venom) great-grandson. Cain just blinks. "Yeah, well, as you can see, the relationship there is quite tangential, so I was wondering if you could uh, not do what you're doing to me?" A knife flies by, from... somewhere, truly a terrifying thought, and Lilabel's resolve strengthens. "Geesh you can hold a grudge, I was wondering where I got it from." The skull sharply turns to her. "My great-granddaughter, seeing as I went through the trouble to make this trip nice for you, I would appreciate if you'd leave." "Why are you doing this?" And now the skull's right in front of her, empty sockets staring into her soul, jaw moving, "because he was the only one that listened to me". "So you're gonna kill him? Just like that, because you can?" "It's what my brother did." "He's not your brother". "Close enough." Memnon is slowly but steadily growing restless, head angling towards Cain, and she feels useless, because if this guy can conjure a knife from nowhere there's no way she's strong enough to fight him. "Aren't you trained in this?" Cain chimes in the back, because apparently he's not drawing enough attention. And it's true, because she spends her nights guiding those to the afterlife, and her days guiding those who insist on conquering Memnon, and the two always overlap, but... that's all Memnon is. When she hear Memnon all she thinks of is that mountain, of locals telling her to never climb it, telling her that she’d be lucky to survive with trauma. But, Memnon was a person who never got to leave, trying to force everyone to understand, which is a pretty normal human reaction, because he was... is.. a person. "My name's Lilabel. I'm not sure how you feel about your mom, but, yeah" The skull shifts towards her, so it's probably positive. "My mom and I don't really get along, but I still love her. Because love's pretty crazy. And when I was younger I took that out on others, because she was supposed to love me, and maybe she did, but I didn't like how she did it, and that hurt, and then I changed my career path from selling fruits at the stand with her to started guiding souls to the afterlife because I was afraid if I stayed working with her I’d be tied to her forever, constantly trying to fit myself into what she wanted. It was instense, at first, and my mom told me to stop. But the pain of trying to distinguish between when she was right and when she was controlling was too hard, so I ignored it. And then she told me, she'd invest, in whatever else I did, so long as guiding wasn't the only thing I did. So yeah." She honestly wound’t be surprised if Memnon killed her right now after that probably meaningless, speech, but surprisingly, he stops.  "My mother hated to cook. Her food wasn’t bad, then again she'd only make meals when I climbed the mountain, and when you're freezing and hungry it's hard to tell. But I loved to cook. So, everytime I set off for the mountain, she’d teach me how to make a new meal, and then she’d joke that I made it better." The silence stretches, and she musters up the strength to ask, "what happens when you kill Cain?" Next to her, Cain jumps. "I find the next one that listens and kill them" She leans back and gives it a shot. "Did you love your brother?" "Did he love me, when he left me bleeding in the cold, to rot?" "Did you love him?" The silence continues, the wind growing stronger around them. "The other people, that climbed this mountain, that died. Did you kill them?" Memnon admits, rather quickly, "Yes." "Where are their bodies?" "I hid them." Carefully, carefully, she asks, "Why?" And then the skull turns, looks to Cain, sees something that he never saw before, or a little more of the something that made him stop and listen to her in the first place, and waves a hand, walks away. Suddenly, Cain looks... different, looks less pale , looks corporeal, and the wind is practically still and silent, oddly. She tells him they need to test to see if he’s still trapped within both realms, but she’s almost certain he’s fully alive now. The mountain feels less alive, and she’s not sure what that means, but they begin their trek down the mountain, and she hopes there's still enough magic to make the trip down as short as it took going up.