Nightingale's Welcome

One of the oldest funerary rites in Voira, this ritual portrays the goddess of death collecting a mortals body and bringing it into the Nightingale's Woods, a transitive space between all other planes and divine realms.  

The Rite

After a loved one of the deceased held their speech, the attendance moves to the nearest forest edge. A woman dressed in a black dress, feather cloak and pale makeup emerges from the forest, singing. She will grab the coffin by a latch at one end and drag it behind her into the forest. When she is out of sight the coffin will be collected by other graveyard workers who will then bury the deceased.  

The Song

The melody that is sung by the performer is an ancient dirge, composed by a long-lost civilization of fetchlings and darkfolk, the alleged children of the Nightingale. The text is typically Aklo but alot of people have begun to use a translation into the more widespread language Undercommon. Research suggests that the original was written in D'ziriak, the language of the Shadow Plane.  

Hear her now - her whispers
have turned to song and plea.
The sun, it now has vanished
gave to night eternally.
  Follow the sounds carried
gently by the breeze.
Footsteps echo on and on
till swallowed by the trees.
  Walk on through the darkness,
your destined gate you'll face.
The rolling mists and solitude
are not your resting place.
  ~ Galeian Dirge