Thelma Goth
Seamstress
To the rest of the galaxy, the customs of Dahrtag were strange, even disturbing. The Dahrtagians felt much the same about foreign ways, and no practice was more important to the Necropolitan than those rites related to the dead. People on other planets were whisked away as quickly as possible after death, to be burned and their ashes scattered. The Dahrtagians buried their dead in the ground with great reverence. The manner in which someone was laid to rest mattered as much as how the person died, and the process was conducted with a pomp and circumstance unique to tombworlds.
As Thelma walked the streets of Lamont, she passed by neon-lit storefronts advertising death masks, post-mortem photography, embalming services, and customized coffins. Sculptors and stonecutters offered their services in the carving of grand marble mausoleums. Tourists stood bug-eyed and slack-jawed outside these places, morbidly fascinated by what they perceived as a ghastly and uncomfortable display of familiarity with death. A few of the younger ones snapped selfies using the macabre signs as a backdrop. Mingling among them were people on a mission to immortalize their loved ones. They moved almost unnoticed beneath the leering gargoyles, often hooded or veiled, disappearing into the shops with purpose rather than mere curiosity.
Despite having grown up in this death-obsessed culture, Thelma had never known loss until the day she was forced to flee her homeworld. Everyone at the Citadel was a vampire like her, and vampires didn't grow old or get sick and die. But they could be slaughtered like animals, or go mad and have to be put down like a rabid dog. She found the grieving process awkward and rushed. She wasn't able to see the others after they were gone, couldn't confirm and accept that they were no more. Even in the case of her mother, they had to destroy her body completely to ensure she could not rise again. She told herself that time healed all wounds and she needed to move on. But it all rang like a resounding gong, failing to penetrate the emptiness she felt.
She turned a corner, finding herself walking alongside a funeral procession. The train of sleek black speeders moved slowly through the morning mist. Traffic had been halted to allow them to pass through unhindered. Whoever had died must've been somebody important. She kept moving, searching for the block of thrift stores and junk dealers where she had found so many treasures as of late...
