Incidental Bits Thread #3

[Dartz]

Lemme fiddle with that. I have a sense of humour so black it has a Schwarz child radius

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"So how did she die?" asked Usagi,

Yuuno looked up from the bones just long enough "You don't want to know," he said.

Usagi pouted. "But I love watching True Crime series on television. And it can't be any worse than some of those. Why, there was this one time where they locked this girl in a basement and...."

"OK." Yuuno interrupted her, taking a breath. He sat back on his own heels, giving himself a moment to compose his thoughts and wonder what it was about women and brutal homicides.

"The left leg and lower right arm were disassociated from the remains." He pointed to a another cordened off area, about ten meters away. "We found them over there." Another archaeologist was busy cataloging them.

"Ow," said Usagi.

Yuuno nodded "She broke her back, pelvis, several ribs, and this fracture on the jaw here." He beckoned her in close to the bleached remains. "You can actually see where claws tore into the bone, here, here and here."

Usagi loomed in.

"Ooohh"

"Anyway, none of that would've killed her immediately. From the position of the bones and how it looks like she tried to protect herself I'd say she was still alive and conscious when they burned her body."

"Ow," said Usagi, again.

"I don't know who she was - most of the uniform is burned."

Usagi stared down at the remains, with grim intensity. The bones stared back up at her through empty eye sockets. Something inside her stirred - a vague familiarity. Yuuno - seeing she'd zoned out, busied himself brushing layers of regolith from between bleached bones. Her fingers - what remained on them, still held on to to a sliver object, the size of a zippo lighter but infinitely more ornate. Even after centuries, it hadn't tarnished.

Ami reached over Yuuno's shoulder and took the device from the corpse's cold dead hand.

Usagi 'eeped' in shock, the spell on her broken by Ami's sudden intrusion.

"Hey!" Yuuno snapped. "You can't just take something from a dig!"

"Why not?" said Ami. "It's mine."

Yuuno blinked in surprise. "Is this...?" he started, motioning toward the body.

"Yes, that's me. How did I die?"

Usagi's face lit up, her mouth snapping open ready to reveal the goriest of details. Yunno's hands smothered the words before they could emerge.

"Quickly." he blurted out. "Very quickly. Almost painless in fact. Just poof and gone. Probably never even realised it happened."

"Ah," Ami nodded, looking down at the device in her hand.

Usagi steamed, face already turning a bright cherry red.