“Do you think that was a good idea?” Sou Yuet asked.

“Do ye have a better one?” responded the necromancer. Her body took the opportunity to change shape and he had to hurriedly rearrange his robes to fit his masculine form.

“What if he eats her?”

“And what if he does? It ain't like she can go back to living among humans, Ah Yuet.” The necromancer stretched. “At best, she'd become a criminal to survive. Well... I guess she will soon anyway. Somehow I don't think cooking human meat is considered legal around here.”

“But driving someone potentially to their death is?”

“World's a funny place.” Seeing Sou Yuet's expression, the necromancer grabbed the monk in a loose headlock and energetically ruffled their hair. “Hey, this really is the best result. I know ye want to save everyone, but it's just not possible. Oh, shite, yer hairpin...”

Sou Yuet laughed lightly, extracting their already escaping hairpin from their rumpled hair. “What a mess... Is it wrong? If one can do something, shouldn't they do it?” They distractedly fiddled with the leaves of the olive tree beside them, their fingers finding a fruit that had failed to ripen well, abandoned on the tree after the autumn harvest. “Don't you think? I have-” The olive slowly grew, the wrinkled skin filling and smoothing, darkening to the blackness of the monk's eyes. “- some abilities, so shouldn't I be using them to help others?”

“Why?”

“Because... it's right?”

“Is it?” The necromancer sighed and leaned against Sunny, running his hands through his hair. It needed a brush. “Ah Yuet... Ye're an idiot.”

“Um... Okay. Why exactly?”

“I'm not saying it's not right to help people, but where do ye stop? When do ye look after yerself? Just because ye're powerful enough to make thousands of plants suddenly pop up when ye want-”

“Ah, I can't just do that whenever I want.”

“What do ye mean?”

“It was an emergency then.” The monk joined the necromancer, leaning against Sunny too. She patiently lay down, and they fell together with her. “But doing something like that could harm the soil, by taking out lots of nutrients and water. The plants wouldn't be able to survive long either, since it's the wrong time of year for them, and then what if those plants attract a certain kind of insect, and then the plant dies and the insect has nothing to feed on? And... What?”

The necromancer, chin resting on one hand, and his strong eyebrows quirked with amusement, said, “Okay, from now on, ye're a plant.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. An eejit plant. What was that grass called again?”

“What grass... Oh, the silver one we say near Yùhǎi? It's called tǎn.”

“Ye've got a whole bunch of things ye need to stay alive and flowering, Ah Tǎn. Ye get it?” He looked thoughtful. “Hm, how d'ye say 'stupid'? Don't ye think 'Stupid Grass' would be a good name for ye?”

“Are you sure? I might come up with some better names for you than 'Pang Yau', if that's the case.”

“Please do. I mean-” The necromancer sat up quickly. “Should we get going?”

“Mm.” Sou Yuet dusted themselves off. “Do you remember this area much?”

“Nah, didn't get to see much. I had to keep my head down.”

“Then would you like to look around?”

“Can't do that, Sunny'll start a riot again.”

“We don't have to go near people.” Sou Yuet pointed across the rocky foothills. “Let's go that way. So long as we continue heading roughly west, we can stay out of sight of towns.”

With the monk finally convinced to ride on Sunny's back, the three of them headed west along narrow goat tracks. After the daytime heat of the sandy places around Vurdʑɕahar and Samant, the coolness of late autumn in these mountainous lands was both welcome and unexpected. Sunny was certainly more pleased with these temperatures, her thick coat keeping her well insulated as she padded happily after the necromancer.

The rocky landscape was a strange place. Without any humans, and only the occasionally goat who would stand and stare at them, unimpressed, the low shrubs and pale rocks seemed to go on forever. Once or twice, they came across some evidence of other living beings. Or perhaps, previously living beings. Fallen columns of marble, half-buried under soil, grass, and tiny strawberries. The bust of a woman rising out of the ground, her head gone. Shards of pottery. Pieces of metal, so rusted away as to be unrecognisable.

The necromancer examined these remains as Sou Yuet experimentally ate the tiny strawberries and made notes.

“Sometimes, I wonder how old the world is,” the witch said, turning a piece of pottery from side to side. The only recognisable design on the shard was the head of a dog. “And yet, some things don't change.”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“Have you ever tried asking someone? The deceased, I mean?”

“I've never met anyone dead long enough. I also think that maybe they don't care so much about the world anymore.” He absently opened his mouth, so Sou Yuet could drop a strawberry into it. “I probably wouldn't if I'd been dead a few thousand years. Hey, that's actually not bad.”

“The flavour seems to be variable.”

Sunny whined.

“Hungry? I saw some pigeons earlier. They're usually tasty.”

“Sit,” the necromancer ordered sternly. “We'll get food. You just eat yer little strawberries.”

“Yes, yes.”

They were gone for some time. Sou Yuet flipped through their notebook of plants, engraving the writing into their mind.

“... clusters of white flowers, yellow eyes, flat inflorescence, scent like chrysanthemum, tripinnate leaves, winged stems – reduces bleeding... rosette base, serrated leaves, tiny white flowers, heart-shaped seeds – reduces bleeding... whirled, narrow leaves, water-loving, club-like seed heads – reduces bleeding...”

Something caught the corner of the monk's vision, and they looked up to see a bird circling lower and lower. When it at last drifted to a stop beside Sou Yuet, the monk could see it was a hawk, but extraordinarily tiny and almost transparent. The beak cracked open, and Yuan Mu's voice floated faintly out.

“Ah Yuet, I hope you are doing well. Unfortunately, we cannot converse both ways at this distance, so please listen carefully.

“Things are changing quickly here. Chūn's internal conflict will end soon, but this means that other matters will arise. I'm sure we will see attempts to recover Dzue once more. And along with that, a determined search for Lí. Keep sending your findings. They will be very useful in the days to come.

“I still hope that one day soon you will come back to Yuen Mei. This may be selfish of me, but I am... very old, and very tired, Ah Yuet. There is someone waiting for me, and... I want to see him as soon as possible. And it would comfort me very much if you were here when I finally make my Ascension.”

The hawk flickered, and both its appearance and voice grew even fainter. “I'm not telling you to compromise your values. The gods know I lived by my justice for a long time. But please, come home to me one day. Remember there are those who love you, child.”

The hawk dissolved into a puff of dust.

“What was that?” the necromancer demanded, hurrying into view with a small, hairy boar slung over his shoulders. “Ah Yuet, are ye alright? Are ye crying?”

“It was a message from Si fu,” Sou Yuet explained, lightly wiping their eyes. “I'm a little homesick, I think,” the monk hastily added, seeing the look on the necromancer's face, “Once this job is over, and we've made sure your mother is well, we'll go back. It won't be long. I've just never been away from Yuen Mei like this before. Let's cook this!”

The necromancer built the fire and carved the meat as Sou Yuet foraged for edible plants. A few crows appeared, hopefully, but they scattered as three tiny cat-like creatures peered over the rocks. The cats had human heads and small wings that could not lift them in the air. Black and brown stripes helped them blend in with their surroundings; Sunny kept losing them as she stood guardedly and tried to watch them skulk around.

After giving a considerable amount of the carcass to Sunny, the necromancer dragged the rest to a respectable distance, and the small sphynxes immediately pounced on it, taking turns to eat and keep watch on the suspicious humans and their giant dog nearby.

Food eaten, they headed west again, skirting the base of snow-capped mountains. The further they travelled, the colder it became.

When at last they had left the mountainous areas behind, they began to see more and more villages on the flat plains. There was no avoiding it, and with the weather becoming colder, the necromancer insisted on obtaining a cloak for Sou Yuet.

Instructing Sunny to wait in the woods, they entered the first village, only to find it empty. It took some wandering around to finally hear voices, and see torchlight, emanating from another section of woods beyond the village.

In a large clearing within the woods, the people of the village were gathered, surrounded by small mounds of earth and carved stones.

“A funeral,” muttered the necromancer. “This is a graveyard. I can sense lots of the dead.”

“I know there are graveyards in the Four Kingdoms, but I've never seen one.”

“What do ye do with the dead at Yuen Mei, usually? I know all those old monks got caught in a fire, but ye don't usually cremate yer dead, do ye?”

“We do, actually. And then the ashes are placed in a jar, and then we take them to a cave, and place the jar there. It's called the Lánggān Cave. I'll have to show it to you some time.”

They stepped out onto the path and approached in full view of the villagers to avoid startling them. A tall woman with thick dark hair and weather-beaten skin, a bear's fur around her shoulders, saluted them warily.

“Excuse me, do you understand the Common Tongue?”

“Little,” she replied. Her eyes flickering curiously over first the necromancer's bright green eyes and pale, tattooed skin, then Sou Yuet's silver-blond hair and golden complexion. “You want... what?”

“Trade for fur,” the necromancer grunted, his own gaze wary, and he crossed his arms.

The woman's eyes moved back to him. “Trade what?”

Sou Yuet explained, as best they could, their healing skills, and demonstrated a little by assisting a child with a cold to breathe freely again after providing an inhalant of aromatic herbs. The bear-fur woman didn't seem as impressed as the rest of the villagers.

“And you?” Her eyes had not left the necromancer.

“What about me?”

“What you do?”

Sou Yuet squeezed the necromancer's elbow. “Calm down, Pang Yau.”

The woman stared at Sou Yuet's hand.

The necromancer cracked his jaw. “Who died here?”

“Sister's son.”

“What did he die of?”

“Knife.”

“Who did it?”

The response was a shrug. The necromancer brushed past the bear-fur woman and knelt by the hole that the villagers had gathered around. A young man in his late teens lay pale and slack-jawed at the bottom, his eyes rolled back sightlessly. He had been dressed in what had probably been his best clothes, and was surrounded by flowers and belongings – weapons, carvings, pieces of leather armour.

The necromancer greeted him. “Hi. What's your name?”

The bear-fur woman opened her mouth to speak, but the necromancer kept talking.

“Bertcaoz, was it? That's hard to pronounce. How old are ye? Nineteen. And this is yer aunt here? And... that's yer little sister, okay. Ah, no, I don't have a name, sorry... I'm from west of here. Íriu. I'm travelling with that person over there. Yuen S- Yuān Yì Fēng. Um... I don't know... No, I'm not going to find out! Oi, shut it, ye cheeky little- Why is yer nephew so gabby?”

The necromancer looked up to find every staring at him.

“Ah... So yer nephew's name is Bertcaoz, he's nineteen years old, and yesterday a man with a limp and a tattoo of a wolf on his neck stabbed him.”

The bear-fur woman was fast. Before the man could run, she had drawn a knife from her belt and flung it. The knife accurately stabbed through one of his feet and sent him crashing to the ground, wailing.

There was a confusion of sound. People shouting, weapons being drawn. Sou Yuet and the necromancer stood to one side, waiting until the hubbub died down.

At last, an agreement seemed to have been reached. The bear-fur woman strode over to them, nodding to the necromancer.

“You. Marry me.”