Harrin stared at his hand, slowly turning it over. The stark bone that met his vision carried no flesh with it, not anymore. What did that mean for him? For his humanity, if he had any? He couldn't remember what sort of person he'd been when he was… alive.

At least he had a name. The granite gravestone he had awoken beneath had lasted a long time, but even then, the letters were so eroded that it took some scratching to make out the indent of his name.

There had been a relief in knowing he wasn't a simple zombie, mindless with no drive beyond hunger. There was equal relief to be had that he wasn't a ghost or wight, incapable of touch or interaction. But what that left him with was a lack of knowledge. If not those, then what was he?

He looked at the necromancer who had raised him. She was sitting on a rock, shivering uncontrollably. Her clothing was nondescript, a loose brown shirt with baggy pants, and she wore no shoes. Her glazed eyes were fixed forward, staring at nothing. Harrin couldn't help but think she was unprepared for this, and he was surprised to feel sympathy. Necromancers were kingslayers and kingdom-razers, not a half-asleep child.

He approached her after a moment of thought, and she didn't even seem to notice him.

Kneeling again, he placed a hand on her shoulder. She started in surprise, her head snapping up as she stared wide-eyed into his empty sockets. He opened his mouth, his jaw lowering, and tried to speak.

A sibilant hiss slid through his throat, sending a thin jet of air through the mist layering the graveyard. It was an alien sound and a hostile one at that, nothing like the words of comfort he'd meant to give her.

Her pupils dilated in fear, and she tried to back away. Still seated on the rock, she tilted backward, and her arms pinwheeled, a startled shriek ripping from her mouth as she fell.

Harrin seized her hand and twisted, shifting her momentum sideways and pulling her off the rock in one motion before drawing her to her feet. She stood there, shocked for a full second, and then looked down at the bone hand she held.

Tearing her hand out of Harrin's grasp, she hastily backpedaled away, breathing heavily. Harrin straightened, watching her with mixed feelings.

She was the one that raised him. Shouldn't she be more comfortable around the undead? Or was she new to her trade?

Harrin couldn't ask the questions coming to him. Not yet, at least.

The girl's eyes narrowed as she shifted her weight from foot to foot. Finally, she spoke aloud, "Was that… are-" She cut herself off, pursing her lips thoughtfully.

Harrin was glad to hear a language he understood, and he was just as frustrated that he couldn't return her words. Instead, he opted for the most basic of universal gestures.

He raised his hand and waved hello.

Her reaction was immediate. A small "eep" escaped her as she took another step back, but at least her eyes lacked fear. She seemed more startled than anything. After a few seconds, she waved back. “You’re…”

She bit her lip. “You’re alive?”

Harrin looked down at himself, seeing the ground straight through his ribs, then back up at the young girl. Alive wasn’t quite the word he would use to describe himself, but he nodded regardless.

Her hands started trembling, and Harrin watched her curiously, trying to figure out what she was doing.

Before he could react, she burst into tears and slammed into him. He was alarmed for a fraction of a second before he realized she was simply hugging him, crying uncontrollably. After a moment of uncertainty, he uncomfortably put a hand on her back.

She wasn’t stopping.

Harrin searched through what scant remainder of his memories were left and came up empty. At no point had he been good with crying children, and he’d always passed that job onto…

The name almost came to him but escaped before he could grasp it.

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Pulling away, she began stumbling towards the edge of the graveyard, still crying. “We - we have to g-go.” Harrin hurried after her, grabbing onto her shoulder. She shook her head, wiping snot from her nose. “We have to go-” She tripped over a gnarled tree root, hiccuping in surprise. Harrin’s hand shot out and seized the back of her shirt, pulling her back to her feet. She swayed, looking up at him.

He took a step back as he saw the expression on her face. It was the most horrific mix of desperation and fear and anger he’d ever seen. It made feelings rise up inside him that he didn’t have a name for, but most prominent among them was deep concern.

Harrin had no context for why she was crying, and he certainly didn’t know how to deal with it. But he’d rescued people before - or at least he was fairly sure he had - and that was a decent frame of reference to work with.

With quick action, he scooped her up, ignoring the squeak of surprise that slipped out of her. She was still crying too much for Harrin to understand a word of what she was saying. He simply shook his head.

Walking past the milling undead nearby, he set her down on a mound of dirt and crouched, looking her in the eye.

Sniffling miserably, she hunched in on herself, curling into a fetal position. Worryingly, she was repeating herself, saying the same phrase over and over. “We have to- we have to go. We have to go. We…”

Harrin knelt next to her and placed a bone hand on her side. She stiffened, sharply drawing a breath. For a moment he thought she’d stopped breathing.

All of a sudden, the dam broke, and she began sobbing outright. Harrin awkwardly stayed next to her, maintaining the contact. He had no idea whether this was beneficial or not. One thing for sure, she defied his mental picture of what a necromancer was supposed to be.

He waited for her to stop crying so she could tell him what she needed, or at least tell him what her name was, but it didn’t seem to really end.

After perhaps ten minutes, she fell silent. Harrin inquisitively looked a little closer and found she was asleep.

Standing, Harrin gazed down at the small, vulnerable shape lying on the cold dirt, fast asleep. Her clothes had been filthy to begin with, but now he doubted they could be cleaned at all. Her hair was matted, although he couldn’t tell whether it was from mud or blood or both.

He came to a conclusion a few moments later. Inconsequential of further proceedings, this girl needed to be kept safe. He didn’t care if that was his own decision or some necromantic safety magic nonsense. Everything about what he knew about honor stated that children were to be protected at all costs.

Rising to his feet, Harrin lifted his hand and looked through it, then clenched it into a fist. He’d been dead for a while, that much was obvious. Flesh decomposed quickly, but not that quickly. Moreover, his own mentality towards having died was… strangely disconnected. Perhaps it was dissociation? Considering he lacked a brain, he couldn’t help but doubt it. Unless that sort of thing didn’t matter.

He’d never had questions about the undead until he’d become one. Now he wished he’d done more research and less smiting. There were only so many ways to smash a skeleton’s head in until you figured out the fastest and easiest way to do it just right, and he’d pretty much gotten that down to an art form.

Removing his sword from the rotten scabbard that carried it, Harrin inspected the blade with no small amount of disappointment. It was rusted far beyond repair, and the edge itself had been reduced to a wavy series of lines instead of the perfectly straight blade he’d recalled it to be.

Harrin paused even as he sheathed the weapon. Why did he remember this? Why could he remember with such clarity how to use his sword? He knew every maneuver, every slash, every minute of effort he’d put into perfecting his footwork, and yet the faces of the people in his mind stayed faded. Was it some second effect of the necromancy at work? An intent to produce only soldiers for the raiser?

He glanced down at the sleeping shape of the young girl again. She seemed so peaceful, and yet incomporably fragile. He couldn’t compare her to the picture of a necromancer he held in his head.

The rest of the undead occupying the graveyard seemed largely uninterested in anything going on, save for one. One of the undead, one of the few with any flesh left on them, slowly began walking towards the girl. Based on the empty look in its eyes, it was barely even conscious, but Harrin drew his sword regardless.

The zombie paused, looking at the sword with only mild consternation. Looking up at Harrin, it released a low moan. It was devoid of anything that might be construed as intelligent, which made Harrin feel a little better about what happened next.

It lumbered towards the girl with its arms outstretched, shambling faster than he expected. Raising his sword, he gripped the handle with both hands and brought it sideways to slice into the zombie’s neck.

The blade was too rusted to have anything resembling an edge, and yet it slammed into the exposed flesh harder than Harrin had ever hit anything. The sheer force of the blow decapitated the zombie with the sound of breaking metal, and the beheaded corpse was launched off its feet, tumbling away. Its head hit the ground with a dull thump a moment later, and Harrin stared at it in confusion.

Even decomposing, flesh should be difficult to cut through, and that was with a good sharp sword. And yet, there had been barely any resistance.

Harrin looked down at his hands, still grasping the sword. Or at least, the sword’s handle. The sound he’d heard hadn’t been from the undead, but rather his own weapon breaking. Only a few inches of rusted steel were left above the crossguard, and he couldn’t see where the rest of it had gone.

He had more questions than ever.