Coming Back:

The true circumstances behind Larry's death were somewhat mysterious, as previously mentioned. The truth is something that not even Larry knows, though he never needed it to get to where he is now. All he ever needed for that was the thought of his love, lying dead in the ground, and knowing that somewhere out there were the people who killed her, still walking free...

The truth? Larry's suicide was supposed to have been stopped. One of the Reapers of the Silent Legion, seeing the young boy's plight, took control of his body in the hopes of taking him downtown and showing him something wonderful. Either that or getting him to talk to someone who wouldn't judge him? Or getting him to confront someone who was...?

Quite frankly, the Reaper wasn't completely sure what to do, except that anything to get Larry interested in living again was better than watching him blow his brains out. Unfortunately, the Reaper's Shadow had other ideas, and fixed things so that its Psyche didn't see a car coming as it piloted the boy's body across a busy street...

And that was that. Under the circumstances, it was all the Silent Reaper could do to try and Reap the boy with a straight face. But then he saw that Larry's Deathmarks were changing from Silent to Pauper, right in front of his eyes, and knew that he had to hand him over to the Beggar Lord's representative when that wheedy Reaper came to call.

And she did, as always: somehow the Beggar Lord's minions always know how and where to find their own. And once he was claimed by the "correct" Legion, Larry was clapped in chains, taken to Salem, and sold as a thrall to the Pauper Overlord, there.

He was promised his freedom if he would attend to his duties and be mindful of his place, and Larry - not seeing much choice - agreed. But before too long he became aware that there were a lot of other thralls who'd been told the same thing, and they'd been there for well past a century, if not longer.

And every mention he made of trying to get back and find the people who'd killed the girl he loved and ruined his life got him the wrong kind of attention from his superiors. The Hierarchy told him that such things were a violation of Charon's law, and that he should temper his will to make better use of such feelings.

But Larry would not do it. He could not erase the nagging, pulsing and burning lump of pure anger he felt inside of him. And he refused to even try, no matter how many times he was chastized, spoken to or punished.

Larry would probably have been soulforged for his insolence, sooner or later - provided he hadn't succeeded in escaping - but fortune intervened in the form of the 6th Great Maelstrom. He was swept away by the Storm, much like his owners, and after his Harrowing he was deposited back in Providence.

He came to right at his girlfriend's grave, which he hadn't yet seen. There - still stinging from the Labyrinth - he swore to what he believed was her dead body that he would avenge her death. And as luck would have it, this oath was overheard by the very person who needed to hear it the most: the Reaper who'd taken Larry from his home that fateful day.

That fellow hadn't fared too well in the last year: he'd been caught trying to persuade "new recruits" from killing themselves, and had to run or be soulforged for his counterproductive behavior. His skills with Puppetry and gotten him an in with that Guild, and he'd been there ever since, but all the while his conscience had been nagging him about the ones couldn't save.

As such, he felt very responsible for what happened to Larry. And when he saw him there - half-in and half-out of his Fetter - raging against his fate and swearing to get his own back, he felt that he should at least see about getting the kid some new friends. Especially if this Storm was going to last...

The Reaper never told Larry that he knew him, or why he was helping him, outside of general desire to give a new guy a hand. His new protege agreed to at least talk to the people he wanted Larry to meet, especially when the Reaper said they might be able to help him with his goals. And once the introductions were made, the kid took to the Puppeteers pretty well, even if a number of them thought he made a better Songbird than Skinrider.

After some time, they realized that he was as perfect a candidate for Rising as anyone else they'd had in a long while, given how dead-set he was on wanting to find his girl's killers. So they made Larry an offer, and he took it - gladly.

He went back to what was left of Salem's Necropolis to attend "boot camp" for would-be Risen, and passed his trials with flying colors. He may not have been as strong as most of his peers, but he was bloody-minded enough to keep up with the best of them, and wasn't going to take shit from anyone, much less accept a "no" from his instructors.

After a few months' with the Resurrectionists, he and his Reaper mentor went back to Providence to try and make it happen. Larry sunk into his coffin, reclaimed his body and came crashing out of the ground a few hours later. After that, he broke into his house to get his Conduit {his flute, which his father had tossed out into the garage} and went off, following the few clues he'd been able to get concerning his lover's murderers.

What did he know? In the end, not too much. He knew they had a dark, red van that they'd stolen from Vermont. He knew there were between four and five of them, and that they were led by someone named Darling Dreary. He also knew that they liked to hang out in the New England area, and usually could be found in weird, ecclectic alehouses that attracted a "dreamy" crowd - whatever that meant.

So the next few months were spent trekking up and down the coastline, looking for "dreamy" places. After a few misses, he came to understand what the wraiths he'd talk to were trying to tell him {or so he thought} and changed his search patterns accordingly. That led him to more success, as the people he talked to either thought they knew who he meant, or actually had seen Darling Dreary and his crew... just not for some time.

And that, in turn, led him to the small, dingy bar in Salem, where he walked in on a hunch and saw the lost love of his life sitting there, whispering to the audience as two strange fellows played behind her.