Dei had the impression that she would have once felt distinctly uncomfortable with the idea of a room full of people bowing down and worshiping her, but now she felt none of that. Looking down at the people gathered around her, half of them bowing, and the other two following her just as faithfully, it dawned on her just how right this moment felt. It was like there was something coming together in her life, or rather un-life, that felt like she was becoming more of herself by gathering these people.
If she had been a little more humble she would have referred to it as fulfilling her people's need to become a part of something greater than themselves, or something else grandiose and pointless. No. It was so, so much more primal than that as she felt the embers in her cold, dead heart grow bit by bit. She decided then that the one thing that at least felt like it still made sense in her un-life was growing more into herself, or whatever else that might be whenever she manifested a new light.
So without a single word truly shared between the three flames of her heart, they all agreed on the direction of their journey. To grow.
The group of monks had slowly started to rise from their bows as she stood there contemplating things, eventually settling into a mild conversation with Matthew about travel preparations as John stood awkwardly to the side. Dei was instead drawn towards the dead body of the head monk as she contemplated what must have happened earlier.
‘So, that spark must have snuffed out when the monk died?’
‘Seems like the obvious really.’ Xei said
‘But if we were made from our followers, would that mean that we would die if they die?’ Fei asked.
‘I do not want to test that out.’ Xei cut in.
Dei continued to prod at the body of the man, casually filtering between her bone vision and reality as she took in the man and his death wounds. A cut throat seemed like such an awkward wound to her, so much blood. and gore, and coughing, and do we even know if they really died to the wound itself or did they just drown on their own blood? Ugh, disgusting. And totally not the type of wound she could just casually fix in a follower like a broken bone, or a misplaced rib or two.
‘What do you even say to someone when you could fix a dozen different maladies except the one problem your follower actually had to deal with? Like, why couldn't you just LIVE-’ Dei's words were taken from her as she abruptly felt something change.
The body shook. Vibrated actually, as the man's wound took on an orange glow to it that bled out from the one part of exposed bone in the back of his throat. The body really started to take on a life of its own though as the man suddenly put his hands on the ground to start pushing himself up. His head couldn't support its own weight and promptly fell off the body as the surrounding monks started to back off uneasily.
‘Just wanted to mention that John looks like he's totally gonna throw up too!’ Xei cut in on the moment.
The body stood up over the course of a couple seconds then reached down to grab his head off the ground and tried to put it back in place. It promptly fell back down with a rather sickeningly wet thud, before the body tried doing the exact same thing one more time.
‘He's not the brightest now is he?’ Dei thought to herself.
‘Oh, i've got an idea!’ Fei had a burst of excitement, and the room was quickly filled with a horrible crunching sound as every bone in the corpses body seemed to distort, one by one as Fei worked on her project. The monks had now decided to spend their time doing just about anything else as they left the hall to conduct any chores they could come up with, but John just looked on in abject horror. Matthew for his part just looked bored, the old weirdo, as he watched blood start to pool on the floor around the dead man as the flesh on his body broke apart in a hundred different fractures.
Perhaps a couple minutes later, the purple flashes across the mans body were starting to slow down as Dei realized she was almost done molding all the bones together using bone marrow like they had with their own body. The end result was grotesque, downright ghoulish even, as the man barely even resembled a human being after all the muscular trauma of having all his bones broken and reorganized like this, but he did certainly look a bit stronger than a moment ago. And his head wasn't falling off anymore so that was a plus. If only you could have seen much of the head under all the blood.
John did finally start vomiting by that point, bending over one of the nearby pews to look away.
‘Uh, maybe we shouldn't do this in front of an audience next time.’ Fei offered the idea.
‘Oh? What makes you say that? You don't want our followers to know what likely awaits them in the event they meet their untimely end? Total bodily mutilation?’ Xei responded.
‘Are you ever nice?’ Fei asked.
‘Possibly? Maybe? Probably. Seems like now is a bit of a tone deaf moment to play nice after what you just did to this poor man's body.’ Xei bit back.
‘Don't be like that! Its for the greater good!’
‘Sure, the greater good is,’ Xei hesitated ‘this.’
Only half paying attention to the two of them, Dei suddenly reached a conclusion on what must have happened. ‘Orders! Xei, you came with some sort of speech about giving orders!.’ She focused her attention on the corpse for a moment.
‘WALK’ Dei thought, but something felt like it had flowed from her into the corpse at that moment as another orange glow overtook the many more visible bones compared to the last time.
The body started shambling its way down the center aisle of the room, slowly dragging its own bloody stain up the length of the room. John decided this was a perfect time to go help the monks with their chores as he bolted outright through the ruined gate doors while Matthew had craned his neck to continue watching while still seated in the pews.
‘I also agree with the assessment that he's a weirdo.’ Xei threw his two cents in.
‘COME back.’ Her thoughts fizzled out this time halfway through the command as Dei realized that this wouldn't be quite so easy to figure out. Despite the lacking feeling as she entered the second half of the command the corpse still spun around and started making its way back to her only to stop once it was only five feet away. Dei then walked a little bit backwards, and the corpse started following her now, doing its best to maintain that minimum distance from her.
Next, out of mild curiousity, Dei extended her bone sense to Matthew and started to push on his hand and-. Dei was pushed back as though she had just tried to run into a solid brick wall, both mentally and physically rebuffed to the point that she staggered back several steps as her vision went hazy.
‘Oh, lets not try that again on someone living without a very good reason.’ Dei thought through the pain. It felt like she had compressed an entire migraine into the span of a second, and she had to mentally claw her way back from whatever terribly unright feeling that had just washed over her.
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A bloody horror stood silently looking over her as Matthew chuckled a bit and pulled out a book to start reading.
—-
John stared down at another pile of bile on the ground outside as he started to wonder just how many more times he was going to lose his lunch in the next 24 hours. A cool breeze had settled on the small courtyard as the night sky started to darken the twilight hour. It was pretty, serene even as John started to take in the nature around him. The sounds of life as even the trees rustled in the wind felt like a welcome reprieve after what he had just witnessed.
“What the fuck have I just gotten myself into?” He muttered to himself, looking up in the trees as they disappeared into the dark around him.
“You’ve been blessed as one of Death's constorts.” A smooth female voice replied from his right.
John started, and jumped to his feet as he whirled to meet the gaze of the woman standing next to him. Solid brown eyes peered at him from underneath her hooded robe as it cut a stark contrast against the noticeably blonde hair that was tied back behind her head.
“Uh, I wouldn't call myself her consort persay.” John tried to get out.
“We all interact with death soldier, but you've looked into Death's very own eyes and bent the knee, just as we did after you. Being a consort does not always have to be a sexual thing.”
“I. Well.” John stammered for a couple moments before he could find the words, then steeled his eyes to really look at her for the first time. “How can you follow that thing after what it's doing to your friend?”
“Turning him into something greater? Allowing him to serve her even unto death itself as he would have willingly chosen to do while he was still alive?”
“Something greater? And willingly?” John started to yell. “You want to tell me that you still want to serve that monster after what she’s just done? What she's probably about to do to all of us?”
The woman took him in for a moment before answering. “Have you heard about what happened when the other shard bearers first came?”
“No. I hadn't even been born yet.” John replied.
“Ah, I suppose that the shard-bearers tend to keep their origins quiet.” The woman began. “They say that the Conqueror of the southern marches appeared in an unimportant bandit camp at the start of his reign. He marched right into the middle of their camp and said nothing but challenged the leader of the gang to a duel. When the leader told some lackeys to take care of the Conqueror, its said that the man ripped their limbs off and beat them to death with their own arms and legs. Then, when the leader had been sufficiently cowed by the display the Conqueror walked up to the man and crushed his skull with just his bare hands.”
John felt the color draining from his face as she continued her story.
“The rest of that bandit camp ended up following the conqueror, mostly out of fear, but they followed none the less. And as the Conqueror traveled through every small farm and town in the southern Marches the same thing happened. He would kill those who resisted, and allow those who bent the knee to continue on. Even as those conflicts started to escalate into full scale battle on the open plains, the same thing continued to happen. Those who resisted died, and those who followed lived a relatively normal life. Kingdoms and duchies fell one after another, but what did it really matter to the common man whether they were following a noble or a god at the end of the day? Their lives were pledged to another's banner either way.” She paused to look him over, somewhat dismissive of his shoulder pads.
“And your own Prince of whispers that you still wear the armor of even now? Do you really think his rise was any different? No, he merely crushed the leader’s around him with his bare thoughts instead of his bare hands. The only thing that really stopped the growth of the shard bearers was the other shard bearers at the end of the day.”
“The five gods who now rule the lands.” John finally offered as he started to guess what came next.
“No. We may call them gods now, but don't forget that they were only men and women at one point in time like any other, just like your own Herald of Death. She may seem a little, different, already but even then she still pales in comparison to the spawn of these other shard bearers. For now.”
John was surprised by the turn the conversation had taken, as he hadn't expected such an obviously devout woman to express such doubt in the skeleton. She caught his expression though, and quickly continued the conversation.
“I'm rambling, sorry. But that's why we follow, soldier. Because at the end of the day we would end up following one liege or lord anyways, so why not pursue the chance to become one of the first to follow someone new? Maybe pick up some perks like positions along the way.” She gestured to the ornate mask that rested on her chest. “And do you really think any of us would still be living if we told her no at this point? Would you?”
Memories of his own sword flashed in John's mind as he remembered pushing it into armor and chainmail painted the same color as his. He wanted to forget. Wanted to leave that all behind. But he felt tied to his choices now. He had chosen to live, no matter what.
“Good! It is better for Death's consort to show resolve in his face! You look far more charming for her.”
“My names John.” He finally decided to share.
“Charity, nice to meet you.”
“So, those stories you just told me. Are you old enough that you were around when the shard bearer’s first came here?”
Charity's smile dropped as she decided to ignore his question, crossed her arms, and after a few moments of thought, walked away. John's eyebrows rose as he evidently missed whatever he had done wrong, and tried to stumble after her. “Hey wait!”
—--
Charity had been milling around the courtyard well, patiently waiting for her liege outside after she had rather unceremoniously left with the rest of the group. It still stung at her that she had almost immediately regretted leaving the goddess during what must be a rather trying time in her development. Thankfully, she was eventually drawn out of her self rebuking nature as footsteps started to approach through the gaping doorway.
The skeletal shardbearer stepped out into the faint moonlight and dancing shadows of a handful of lit torches lining the courtyard. Behind her two large figures trailed after her, a tall and sturdy looking old man, as well as a rather grotesque looking creature that Charity decided to ignore as best she could. Cutting a rather small image between the two statues that loomed behind her, it struck Charity that Dei, as John had named her, hardly looked like the most important person present.
No, instead she looked almost childlike as the Herald traipsed around in clothing that was noticeably too big on her boney frame. The strange image was only expanded upon as Death finally came to a stop in front of Charity, only to duck into a crouching position to write with her fingers. It gave Charity just enough time to peer down at the young skeleton's head as she took in the gashing sword wounds that left the rest of her face looking like it was about to peel off at any time now.
Dei looked up at the girl as she finished writing her point out, “Pyre for body.”
“Uh, yes Herald. Right away!” And charity was already off to gather the rest of the group to set up a pyre for the monk’s corpse.
—
It hadn't taken them very long to gather the materials needed, as the monastery had a rather sizable stock of logs pre cut for the coming winter. Some small bit of dried hay from the pasture was used to help get things going, and suddenly a blazing fire had been lit under the night's sky. A part of Charity was worried that this might draw the attention of any other groups looking for the Herald in the area, but the girl hardly seemed to be concerned with the possibility.
What had given Charity a bit of trouble had been figuring out why the bloody corpse following the Herald hadn't been laid to rest on the pyre before setting the blaze. She had tried gesturing with her eyes to the girl, then even voiced her concerns about laying the corpse on the stand, but Dei had simply shook her head without comment.
As they all stared into the fire, the herald started to rustle in place next to Charity, slowly removing her chainmail over her head. Then she started removing her leather jacket, boots, and pants until everyone's eyes were fixed to the small figure as she stood there without a single article of clothing left to her. Despite this there was hardly a flicker of sexuality about the scene in any way, as virtually everything from the bust downwards was practically missing other than the bones. The only main piece of meat left on the girl appeared to be her neck and head, as only patches of skin here and there remained anywhere else on her body.
The girl held up a hand tentatively, until the hulking corpse behind her lumbered up to take her hand in his own. They stepped forward together as Charity finally realized what the Herald had written earlier hadn't just been referring to the monk's body. So it was that the little girl reached up onto the pyre to prop herself up on her arms and twirl around to sit on the pyre, lithe as could be. As for her corpse, he casually pushed one of his legs into the brunt of the fire, raised the other knee up as high as he could, and then fell into place as several burning logs gave under his weight to leave him seated in the fire like a massive throne.
Watching the two of them perform these antics in the guise of monsters that could haunt any children's nightmares, Charity was suddenly brought back to earth from her fears at the well earlier that night. Even if her charge wasn't actually a child, it was evident that the Herald of Death was not the impeccable symbol of grace that she had expected of a new goddess. And perhaps that bode well for Charity too, as she felt at ease for perhaps the first time since picking up the mantle of head priest. Perhaps her measly 40 years of life or so weren't as impressive as the practiced wisdom of their last leader, but it would still be of use to this group, she was sure.
As the smell of burning flesh and hair rose high into the air, Charity caught sight of the Herald's unmasked face for the very first time as matching orbs of blue and purple fire shone from the holes where her eyes had used to be. As for her newest skeletal guard, his eyes shone a vibrant orange that could be distinguished even among the flames he sat in. Together, they watched the humans who had gathered around them in witness.