“The great eastern plain holds many mysteries in its endless expanse. From anomalies defying all reason to great ruins, their grey walls stained with tears of the elements. All are hidden in the most powerful type of concealment requiring no mana or men to maintain their secrecy, isolation.”
Extract from “Adventures with Wulff”
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Carefully putting her feet in front of her, Iris marched through the knee-high grass keeping her pace to a peaceful stroll through an orchard in late spring. She kept her speed to this sluggish pace for Kia’s solace as anything faster than a stroll caused the undead mage in her hands to cry in excruciating pain.
“Kia are you-“ The steadfast elf tried to repeat her question to the tired undead.
“I’m thinking still.” The life-size doll exerted much of her strength to raise her arm and close the elf’s lips. From her fingers, soothing cold permeated Iris’s lips in archaic pulses leaving a feeling of a sickly kiss with the elf as her slender arm returned to her side.
“I don’t understand,” Iris looked down at her arms and met with the necromancer’s face twisted into a slight wince. “What is there to think about?”
“Many things,” The pale girl replied in half-sigh. “I don’t understand the things I feel right now.”
“The pain?”
“No, I am familiar with feeling pain. Although it is my first time feeling so much of it,” Kia’s colour-filled eyes looked away and stared blankly at the sky. “I don’t understand why I haven’t reacted sooner. I was able to make us avoid this situation but I felt my mind go blank in the most bizarre way, like I couldn’t think clearly because I was scared for you... but in a different way than usual.”
“How do you normally worry about me?” The elf raised her eyebrow.
“Well… You are my favourite thing I have ever created." Kia closed her eyes tightly before curling her into a protective circle. "Huh?"
"Mmmm?" The elf hummed back.
"You didn't drop me." The undead unwinded her already exhausted body.
"Why would I do that?"
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"..." The ancient undead blinked before looking as if an old memory had emerged from the depths of her mind. "Some of the more intelligent of my creation will drop everything to ask me to call them Children or Creations, literally. I never understood why they didn't acquiesce with my an apt description of them." Kia's voice drifted into a familiar voice to the elf which she only used when talking about magic and her experiments. "I know you are not annoying but I thought you will take issue with that."
"I was used to being referred to as less than a thing." The elf solemnly answered.
After a moment of silence, the necromancer began to speak again. "I enjoy how you look and I like being close to you. The funny warmth you make is something I had never made and your hands are pleasantly rough, unlike anything I make." The paler then usual girl mulled over her next words as she winced rolling onto her right side. "When you fought the water-human I felt powerless, more than I'm now. In addition, I felt scared. I don't know what will happen to me when if our bond broke but that thought never crossed my mind until after the fight which I found anomalous as it defy logic. When I saw the water-human almost kill you I felt the urge to see the humans souls extinguished and their bones ground to dust. I was so angry at this unruly world that I broke your oath. As I succumbed to the anger I felt, I killed the water-human. After that, I teleported us away, away. As far away as I could manage." Iris felt like her world spin as she suddenly stopped. Her amethyst eyes stared at her barely alive mistress. Kia's broken shell fuelled her desire and need to throw herself off the nearest cliff. "Why did you take that human oath?" The mage didn't spare concealment spells on confessing the word human wasn't a pleasant complement aimed at her. "I don't understand, it was completely irrational."
"I didn't want you to get hurt" The elf instantly replied to the pale necromancer. "I thought the Spiritwalker alone was going to be easier to kill rather than fighting most of the tribe's warriors fighting alongside him but I wasn't sure that I could have kept you safe." She had thought that she could easily defeat the Spiritwalker, expecting the human to be somewhat like the dark elf in the dungeon underneath Firmusa but the man completely outclassed her.
"I could have used mana swirling around me to fuel my spells." Kia mustered as much strength as her body could muster to disagree with the elf.
"I-I thought taking an oath would be the best option." The elf replied.
Seeing how the undead mage looked at her she realised how stupid her idea was. Everyone who followed the Spiritwalker had gone out of their way to try to hunt them down but she still wanted to avoid killing more people than she needed to since fighting the humans would drag more of them into the fight in a cycle of revenge. Even in her new life, her old useless life came back to haunt her once more and caused Kia immeasurable pain.
"The seal." Kia's voice suddenly reached the risen before she felt something worm into her soul as the girl rested her palm on her chest. Even in her state, the undead found the energy to care for her.
No, she couldn't break down in tears now. She will have to endure her own failure until she could bring Kia to safety and then face the consequences.
"Kia, how did you survive breaking an oath?" The risen asked the girl still encroaching onto her soul.
"I'm not really sure," The necromancer answered. "Maybe the system became human for a moment."
"Human?"
"Stupid." Kia spoke one word fitting not only to the humans but to all beings cursed with being alive.
"Did you come up with that now?" The risen asked and was answered by a nod.
*Yawn*
Kia stretched herself on Iris's arms as much as her wounds allowed her to before she closed her eyes, hiding them in the folds of Iris's shirt. The snow-maiden quickly fell asleep leaving the elf alone with the awful feeling of Kia rummaging in her soul. Iris would have been happy if that was her punishment to feel this awful thing for all eternity seeing her stupidity had caused the petite girl to feel remarkable pain proven to her by the girl wincing and quietly sobbing in her sleep as soon as the powerful undead loosen her reigns on her wounded body.
Her wish was quickly swatted away as the feeling disappeared accompanied by the mage whispering in her sleep "The seal looks as it should?"
Regardless of the elf's wishes, she felt a small inkling of happiness as 2 months ago she had become something instead of nothing with merely a useful talent attached to it. Maybe in 1000 years after she had righted her wrongs and become useful she could become someone.