Upon the Isles, in the darkest corners of what once pulsated with low, steady life - there hide spirits. They speak in low tones, hushed fragments of their once-lives under the pin of their tongues. Distantly, like he's having trouble connecting to the ground, earth, reality around him, he tries to listen. Find the fragments of their whispers that he can take apart, put together. Make something of them.
It's not a story he wants to hear, but it's a story he'd put together to pass the time. The wailing of the dead overwhelm him eventually.
Vladimir asks if they always do that. Repeat themselves under empty breaths until the end of existence. He is told, without purpose, that is all they will do, and all the can do. They linger in the Mist, trapped in the memory of who they were before the curse came upon them.
There hangs wisps and plumes of sea-green light around them. Vladimir reaches a hand up, like he's trying to curl his clawed fingers around one. "Can you control them, then?"
Karthus tentatively mirrors Vladimir's hand. Separated by soft light, cool on both their palms. The light drifts away, catching other wisps - the mist blends and shifts and moves for them, and the whispers become a choir, coalesced into the requiem.
Vladimir lowers his hand down, into the lich. He holds it, a half smile over him. Music. Something to fill the silence.