Their people were known as Pheleukens (pronounced like pelican with a ph/f sound), a pink-skinned people who had migrated to this planet after their own was invaded and overrun by a race of giant insects. They had lived on Earth for several thousand years, though only in scattered pockets here and there, and they had little to no interaction with the greater world. The majority of their population was spread across South America and a few of the Caribbean islands. None of their people lived in groups any greater than a couple dozen. It had been the same way on their own world before they all fled. They didn’t tend to live in big cities, instead preferring to remain in the small family groups who lived inside enormous, naturally hollow trees that were large enough to contain an entire family within. The relatively few members of their own clan were essentially each Pheleuken’s entire world.

The Pheleukens generally kept to themselves without a lot of group interaction between multiple members of different trees at the same time. When one of the outgoing members was of-age and possessed the uncommon desire to roam, they would head into the world for an adventure until they found another Pheleuken tree, where they would bond with one of those people. From there, the newly bonded pair would decide if they were going to live in one of the established (literal) family trees, or form their own. This was influenced by their relationship with their own families, the needs of the tree, and more. When it came down to it, most of them stayed in an established tree. That was how their people lived. The Pheleukens were not great risk takers. Those who left their trees to explore and ended up bonding with one from another tree were seen as the exception, and yet the truth was that even they rarely ended up venturing further than twenty or thirty miles in their extensive excursions. There tended to be three or four Pheleuken trees within that general proximity, who would all share members amongst one another. If a single tree was a Pheleuken tribe’s world, the few trees within that small area amounted to an entire universe.

The point was, they kept to themselves. They didn’t bother other species, had no interest in allying with or opposing anyone or anything, were essentially herbivores who had no need for meat and received all of their nutritional requirements by breaking down the leaves, bark, and fruit of the trees they lived inside of into a nutritious paste, and were not in the least bit intrigued by the thought of adventure. They had left their own world and come to this one purely out of a need for survival. Generally speaking, as a people, they planted roots as firm as the trees they lived in. On top of that, they bothered no one, had no particular special gifts or treasures that would be targeted, and were not all that useful as slave labor given the much stronger options out there. They stayed in their trees, away from civilization, and kept to themselves. Which, for the most part, resulted in them being left alone by the major power players across the world. The girl known as Laein had spent the first few years of her existence living in complete peace and security, happily fed and cared for by a small yet devoted clan. Her life had been calm.

Had been, that was, until the humans arrived. The tree her people had lived for the past several hundred years was on a small island, blissfully cut off from any outside interference. Unfortunately, that island was purchased by one of the billionaire Bystander humans, who immediately cut down all the trees in order to build his dream resort. He didn’t even notice nor pay attention to the beautiful, impossibly large plants he was destroying. Her people were forced to flee the island on a boat, before finding themselves eventually drifting onto the mainland in Central America. There, they had attempted to find a new place to live. But no matter where they went, the Pheleukens were set upon by threat after threat. Entirely unaccustomed to needing to defend themselves, they trusted the wrong people, were taken advantage of, and lost several members of their family to violence. And complicating matters even further was the fact that only a couple of their members spoke any language other species could understand. They kept to themselves so much that there had never previously been any need for outside communication. As a result, even those who might willingly have helped often misunderstood what was being asked, or couldn’t get their own answers across properly.

That was where the small, barely-eight-year-old Laein had found herself. For those first years of her life, everything had been peaceful, loving, and quiet. But for those four months, she had spent most of her time terrified about what was going to happen next. Three of her brothers and one sister had already died to violence, with another brother vanishing into the dark ocean before they even made it to shore. She had been hungry, tired, and frightened throughout that entire time, since the moment those humans had shown up to cut down her home.

And now, here she was, alongside fifteen family members including her first mother, second mother, and first father (second father had passed away of disease a year before this all started), and a dozen siblings. All of them were huddled together in the back of a large human trailer truck being driven to what was supposed to be a safe place, according to the Rakshasa they had negotiated with. Laein had a funny feeling about the way the cat-people had looked at them, but assumed it was a result of her own hunger. They had barely managed to eat enough to survive since the tree came down, and none of what they did find tasted quite right. It wasn’t their food from their home. It was wrong. It was all wrong.

That feeling of wrongness persisted as the truck came to a stop and the back doors were open. Now there was a truly massive figure, who stood over ten feet tall and was nearly as wide. In time, they would come to know him as a Guhlben named Auk. He wore a dark purple suit that had to have been made out of a parachute or two, along with twenty or so gold chains across his neck, wrists, and waist. His teeth had been replaced with some sort of silver with gold inlay. On top of that, he had arrived in a semi trailer of his own, though his was covered in neon lights proclaiming him to be the Emperador of Panama. He was also flanked by no less than fifteen heavily armed guards who were clearly keeping an eye out for any intruders.

Ordering the small, pink-skinned people out of the truck (which itself was accomplished through gestures and a translation from the two members of their group who actually understood anything other than their own language), the large Guhlben introduced himself and went down on one knee. Not that doing so actually put him on their level. He still towered over even the tallest of them by a couple feet. “Hmm, my old friend was right, you do look small and delightful.” His voice rumbled over the terrified group, forcing the two English-speaking members to translate fearfully.

One of those two, an older brother who had been near his own Day Of Venturing when their home had been cut down, actually spoke up. His voice was tentative as he asked if they were still going to their new home. It was a question that made the massive figure in front of them laugh uproariously. Which itself was a terrifying sound for the clustered group.

“Oh yes,” he confirmed. “You are absolutely going to your new home. A nice, safe place for innocent little Pheleukens.” With that, he gave them a quick flash of a silver and gold smile. “It’s just that you owe us for getting you this far. That wasn’t exactly easy, you know. Lots of people out there who would do terrible things to creatures who can’t defend themselves. We really stuck our necks out. So you’ll have to pay that off before we send you on your merry way.” His gaze moved over as he licked his lips. “But don’t you worry. We’ve got just the work for you to do. Before you know it, you’ll be moving on again. This is just gonna feel like a tiny blip on your way to a brand new home. And won’t it feel better to do that without any debt hanging over your heads?”

*******

Auk had been telling the truth in one regard. He did have plenty of work for them to do. Work he continued to claim was paying off their debt to his organization. But that debt kept going up instead of down. They owed him for protection from all the enemies he claimed were still searching for them, for food, for shelter, and plenty of other charges that just kept racking up no matter what they did. It had been three years since the night when he took them off the truck, and if anything, they owed him more now than before.

Worse was all the food they couldn’t eat. It turned out that the work he was having them do involved converting all manner of plants and fruit into the paste they would normally use as food. But they weren’t allowed to eat that. The paste, when a few other ingredients were added, was some sort of powerful hallucinatory drug that he made a lot of money off. Too much to risk letting them go. He had gotten the paste here and there by raiding other trees full of their people, but having a ready source of it had boosted his income many times over.

Not that he openly told the Pheleukens about that, of course. The details were just what Laein had been able to put together over the past couple years. Still so tiny compared to her siblings, the now eleven-year-old girl had not yet grown the special gland in her throat that would allow her to convert the plant material into that paste by breathing on it. So, she was instead put to work cleaning the kitchen, offices, and anything else she was pointed at. Auk and his people tend to forget she was there, most times. It helped that they didn’t realize she had found both English and Spanish-learning books in the library she was often sent to clean. She was small and seemingly harmless, but she was also smart. She paid attention and learned how to understand what they were saying. She listened and read.

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It was through that the girl also found out about contracts and negotiations. From the corners of rooms throughout the complex, she watched these people engage in ‘negotiations’ over all sorts of things. The idea was obviously that both sides got something they wanted, and agreed to provide other objects or services in exchange. It gave her an idea, and she began to spend extra time in the library, taking paper from the computer printers (another brand new thing she had learned about) and scribbling hundreds of words in her small handwriting. Handwriting which began as entirely illegible given her not-exactly-formal education. But she knew this was important, too important to risk no one being able to read. So she practiced over and over again, working hard until she was finally able to write properly.

And write properly she did. Over the next couple weeks, the eleven-year-old carefully wrote out an actual contract. It was more than fair, ensuring that Auk would not actually lose that much, if anything. The contract stipulated that the Pheleukens would be allowed to leave this place and set up in their own tree. But it also agreed to provide the man with the paste he needed for his business. They would provide paste for him and he, in turn, would make certain their tree was left alone so they could live their lives peacefully, the way they wanted to. She included vacation and holiday agreements as she had seen in other work contracts, and even included notes about how not needing to provide shelter or other resources for them would actually help the man in the long run. She did everything she could to make it an attractive contract that would help take her family out of this place and back into a real home.

And yet, none of her efforts mattered. When she convinced the eldest member of the group, First Mother, to present the offered contract to Auk, he had… not reacted well. Instead, all of the Pheleukens had been brought into the room, and they were forced to watch as the man had First Mother… killed. He had his men kill her in front of them, as a sign of what would happen if they didn’t do as they were told. The fact that the contract still would’ve given him what he wanted didn’t matter at all. He was simply enraged that his property tried to negotiate anything better for themselves.

After that, their treatment got worse. They were forced to work even harder than ever as Auk raised their quota of paste, claiming that if they thought they could provide as much as he had already been asking for while ‘lazing around some stupid tree,’ then clearly he hadn’t been asking for nearly enough. They were forced to work day and night, barely given any time to rest. He seemed to be delighting in hammering in the fact that they belonged to him and nothing would change. He had no intention of ever letting them go, that much was clear to all of them.

First Mother was dead. First Mother was murdered, all because of Laein. The guilt and horror of that fact left the girl cowering and broken for days. She’d only wanted to help, had only wanted to find a way to get her people to safety, to a new home. She only wanted to save them and go back to the way things were before, back when they had been happy on the island. And now the woman who had been there for her since she was a tiny pink ball curled up in a nest of leaves, blinking up blearily at the world around her was gone. First Mother was gone, she was… she was… dead. She was dead and it was all Laein’s fault.

No. No, it wasn’t her fault. It was Auk. He was the one responsible, just as he was responsible for keeping them prisoner here. She’d tried to negotiate with him, had tried to make things fair for both sides. She had tried to be nice. But no more. She would never be nice again. She had seen where that got them. There had to be a way of solving this problem. And she knew just where to look for it.

After all, the library had already helped her so much already. The books had told her how to make contracts. Surely there was another one in there that would tell her how to kill someone.

*******

Two years. That was how long it took for Laein to study the books on Necromancy (Or Fallwielding as the first book she read had called it, which stuck in her mind) that she found tucked away in the forgotten corners of that library. Not just educational books, but stories as well. She studied intently and practiced on rodents or insects whenever possible. She read everything she could get her hands on about the Necromancers, both fictional and real. She saw their power over death as the ultimate strength. They commanded legions and refused to allow anyone to control or restrict them, be it living people or the natural laws of the universe. That was who she wanted to be, someone who would never be shackled again, who would never depend on anyone else to protect her.

For so many of her formative years, she had been enslaved and treated as a disposable object. She had faint memories of a loving and happy time back in the tree, but those had faded with the years of servitude and fear. Her family had grown weaker and more despondent, convinced they would never be happy again, that they would never get back what they had lost.

But true Necromancers, the ones she read about, the ones she had begun to admire so much through her readings, never allowed anyone to enslave or control them. They were strong. They were the victorious ones. Her people may have been weak and easily pushed around, but a powerful Necromancer would never be taken advantage of in life or death. Losing so many of those close to her, especially First Mother when the beloved figure had only been trying to do what Laein had told her would help their family, had left the girl terrified of death. Which made Necromancy the perfect solution. She would conquer death and life with one power.

Laein had decided she never wanted to be that tiny, quiet, abused and helpless girl again. She wanted to be strong like the Necromancers she read about. So she spirited away bits of cloth and forgotten jewelry pieces to fashion herself an outfit just like the ones in the pictures she’d seen. She practiced with her rapidly growing Necromancy skills in the best way she could: by killing rodents in the basement or the surrounding grounds of the warehouse where they all lived before bringing them back. These tiny creatures became her army, hidden away in holes or within the walls of the building. They waited for her command to attack.

If only she hadn’t waited too long.

It wasn’t even intentional on Auk’s part, sadly enough. Kneeling in his office as she scrubbed the hardwood floor as she had so many other days, the girl was barely paying attention to her work by that point. The vast majority of her focus went toward checking on her dead rodents throughout the building. They were all waiting for orders, but she wasn’t quite ready yet. If she was going to do this, it had to be perfect the first time. She wouldn’t get a second chance. If she tried to attack Auk and his people and her army of tiny dead things was defeated, then she and everyone she cared about would be killed, or worse.

It was while kneeling there that one of the men came sprinting in, not even bothering to knock in his rush. Before his boss could voice his displeasure at that fact, the intruder blurted that there was some sort of sabotage, an attack by their rivals on the truck that was supposed to be carrying the rest of the Pheleukens to the forest where they picked out the best plants to use for the paste. That had been a weekly trip, made with no problems for years by this point. But this time… this time it had all gone wrong. The man here was the only survivor of the attack. The… the only… the only… survivor…

“Fuck.” Straightening up from his enormous throne to his full ten-foot height, Auk cast a glance toward the tiny Laein, who stared in paralyzed horror as the full ramifications of what she had just heard washed over her. “You hear that, kid? Sounds like I’m gonna have to find you some new relatives. You got any idea which trees I should shake?” After saying that, he laughed.

He laughed.

Laughed.

In all honesty, Laein’s recollection of the next hour or so was pretty faint. She remembered all of her dead creatures erupting through the walls and up out of the floor. She remembered screams, gunfire, and horrified cursing. And she remembered sending dozens of zombie mice, rats, and squirrels into Auk’s mouth and down his throat to eat him from the inside. She remembered him bellowing and trying to grab her before she scrambled away from his enormous hands. She remembered him collapsing, his body literally exploding apart as her zombie rodents ate their way through him. She remembered sending them out to kill literally everything in their path. She was in a blind rage, where all that mattered was wiping out every living thing that bore even the slightest bit of responsibility for what had been done to her people.

The only thing she thought about in those moments was that if she had done this just hours earlier, hours, she could’ve saved her family. They would be safe now. But no, she had waited too long, and now they were dead. They were gone, and she would never get that happiness back again. Not in that way.

She remembered picking herself up, dressing up in the Necromancer clothing she had stitched together in secret and making her way through the building as she gradually added the bodies and ghosts of Auk and his people, forcing them to attack their former companions. It was her turn to enslave them. They were dead, and the dead belonged to her.

And, when it was all over, she remembered finding herself in the parking lot of the utterly demolished warehouse. Everyone who had been inside was dead and part of her unwilling army as she stood face-to-face with a tall, pale man with metal parts she didn’t recognize, as he wasn’t part of the people who had enslaved her family.

“Well hey there, little lady,” Fahsteth had greeted her on that day, almost a year before she met the person calling themselves Jacob. “I gotta admit, I just stopped by to see if old Auk had any guns he could spare.

“But something tells me you could be a better weapon than every gun that bastard ever laid eyes on.”