"When a new graveyard was opened it was believed that the first person buried there doesn't cross over. They help other spirits move on and guard the graveyard against evil"
- old European belief
It is something his family has been doing for generations now. Taking care of the dead, preparing graves, making sure nothing disturbed the natural order of things established by the Wildmother. And sometimes, when they feel a pull of fate from somewhere else, somewhere far, they take on the journey to find the place where they will be needed the most.
That's what happens to Caduceus as well. He travels for a long, long time with his brothers and sisters, before they decide that this strange forest in the middle of bogs and swamps will be their new home.
And when he dies, they bury him first.
When he wakes up but doesn't really wake up, taking a breath that doesn't fill his lungs, feeling the grass beneath him more like a memory than an actual sensation, he knows. He's heard of what happens to those who are buried first, of course he has. His family isn't one for passing down stories just to amuse themselves or scare children. No, each tale and legend is their reality and it pays off to know about the unexplainable when you are part of it yourself.
The graveyard grims. Looking after the place they are buried at. Helping people pass to the other side. Never really leaving themselves.
He didn't have a choice in that, as one rarely does when it comes to death, but even if he had, he'd accept it anyway.
He stands, oddly light, and goes on to learn his new duties.
The graveyard grows, as is only natural. It fills with strangers brought here on threads of fate, and it fills with family members. Before he knows it, graves of all those people he traveled with are safely under his protection.
It does not mean it gets lonely, of course. Young firbolgs are running between the headstones, laughing and making flower crowns from greenery that his family began to grow here. Their parents are busy taking care of travelers who come to them with their troubles. Some of them stay, finding their final resting place in this calm and warm forest, and Caduceus greets them warmly when they finally meet. Others leave, and some of his brothers and sisters go with them, to help with plagues or curses or ghosts. They are a family of makers of fine graves, and of those listening to whispers of the wind. They go wherever they need to go.
They all know he's here.
They've heard the stories about the graveyard grims, of course, but it's more than that. As time passes and nature begins to accept his existence and the fact that he's not going to pass on, he seems to… solidify. He's not just a spirit anymore, waiting for souls to assist. He discovers that he disturbs the tea leaves when he passes, that he leaves footsteps in the morning dew. And his family is anything but not perceptive. In their field of work, they have to be.
And as years go by and the signs of his presence become stronger and stronger – an afterimage of pink hair, soft laughter in the air – his family responds. They sing songs for him while playing, talk to him about their day while digging new graves. They leave out tea for him sometimes, or moss covered stones, or interestingly shaped bones, and while he can't take any of those things, he appreciates it nonetheless.
It's nice. It means he's not alone, not truly.
Then the plague starts.
The graveyard is old by then, the first graves almost completely submerged in flowers and moss, earning the place the name of the Blooming Grove. His own grave is so collapsed it's almost invisible. Everything is slowly but surely returning to the nature and to the Wildmother, as it should.
He is the first to feel the ripples, hanging between the realms as he is. There is something, something dark and cold and dissonant, and far, yes, but getting closer.
His family can see him now, if he chooses to, a pale shadow against the greenery.
He rarely chooses to.
There are things that should be kept separate, and life and death is one of them.
Which is why they know it's serious when he comes to them now. They can't hear him and he fades away soon, but he gets the message across and he knows that when they concentrate, they will be able to feel the tiniest speck of darkness too.
He can do nothing more. These are things that belong to the world outside of his graveyard, far, far out of his sight. And he is nothing but a guardian of safe passages, looking after those who make their way into the unknown, after all.
Generations go by and now there are more people who leave the forest, than those who come to it. The darkness is closing in, still far, but closer, and it doesn't matter how long it will take for it to reach his home. If it is to come, Caduceus will still be here.
And for the first time in centuries, he worries.
The graveyard is becoming unkempt.
It is not obvious, tied to the natural order of decay as they all are, but Caduceus notices it. There aren't that many children running around anymore, people leave and usually don't come back. They try to find a way to stop the darkness looming over horizon like a thick, dark fog, and they perish, one after the other. His brothers and sisters, separated from him by endless generations, but his blood and bones still.
The elders of his family begin preparing tea for him, and with a surprise Caduceus discovers that he can actually touch and taste it. And so they sit together sometimes, a ghost still watching over his family and old firbolgs getting to know the spirit that will guide them to the other side, just like it did with all of their ancestors. But not their children, not the ones who find their graves in a foreign soil, far from the safety of their graveyard filled with flowers and smiles and warmth.
And then he is alone.
He wonders if he is a spirit, still. He is not translucent at all anymore, he can touch and move things around, he prepares and drinks his own tea. For all instances and purposes, he's just like any other living person – except that he isn't.
He wonders what he is, then.
He spends his days tending to the garden and drinking tea in his family's hut. He guards his family's graves, as is his duty, even though it's been a long time since he has last helped somebody go. The darkness surrounds the graveyard like a restless sea now, and he knows that his presence is the only thing keeping it from entering his home.
He wonders how long it will stay that way.
Time passes and the bushes engulf the graveyard more and more, this slow corrosion itself a prayer to the Wildmother, a mother to whom everything will return at the end. And Caduceus is her lone cleric now, it seems.
That's why when he hears Her whisper, he is not surprised. He only nods once to himself. He's a member of family of people who go wherever they need to go, after all.
They enter his graveyard, just like She predicted, a group of people with desperation in their steps and fresh grief in their eyes. Not unlike countless others in centuries before them, Caduceus thinks. And yet, they are different. If not for any other reason, than for the fact that their destiny leads them right into the middle of the darkness that looms over the world, darkness they cannot yet see, cannot comprehend.
They ask for his help. And even though they don't know it, they ask him to leave the graveyard he has been protecting for centuries upon centuries, to leave his own grave unrecognizable now in its oldness. They ask him, a grim, an apparition, a guardian of the unknown paths, to enter the world of the living…
And his bag is already packed.