While soldiers patrolled the streets of Oriripol and merchants floated past the great city, a field of flowers bloomed early in the cold winter morning doing so at the behest of the many students inside the Academy's walls.
*Purrrrr*
Inside the room meant only for the highest of nobles, a certain fake happily used its luxury furniture for its slothful desires. Also entangled in the intrigue a very real servant turned undead sat straight on the soft bed, her fingers slowly and repeatedly gliding through the obsidian black strands of hair.
After sneaking the star-struck girl back inside their bedroom, the usually timid girl sprung into action managing to topple the unprepared elf and climb on top of her, pinning the hoplite down. Iris couldn't deny that she didn't like where things were going, feeling an inner fire burning just beneath her skin as a smile filled her frowny face.
Unaware of the risen's thoughts, the ancient whose mind had cleared those past memories pushed the perverted undead further into the soft bed before settling down in the warmth, building herself a cosy nest from the risen's long arms.
"What is that smile?" The ancient who appeared extremely pleased with her nest building skills turned her head around.
"What smile?" The risen answered, melting with awkwardness as she stared into the oblivious eyes of her saviour.
"This one?" Turning the rest of her body around like a cat, the girl extended her hands and grabbed Iris's cheeks in an attempt to rearrange her mouth into its previous form.
"Gappy?" The elf tried to speak but the girl like an artisan she was continued to try to mold her face and had to be stopped. "I smiled because I didn't expect you to push me onto the bed." She said, holding both of Kia's hands in a grip, feeling far too awkward to share her thoughts so openly with the fair object of her desire.
What was I thinking even? She would have cried afterwards. To Kia's endless amusement, the elf's brow dipped into a frown as she remembered what the girl's mind seemed not too eager to recall seeing how the girl acted without a shred of understanding in her otherwise knowledgeable eyes.
"And you liked it?" The ancient parroted the look on the elf's face rather than matching her expression to her words.
"I got to say that I may have a little bit of you inside of me." The elf found and jumped on the occasion to tease the delightfully expressional girl who went through multiple faces before falling silent as she settled on an annoyed face with two brightly pink spots on her cheeks.
The two damestar ravens covered themselves under the thick blanket staying glued to each other throughout the passing bells. And with each bell after them the small arrangement of knickknacks Kia pulled out of her inventory grew. Iris who had seen many things appear in Kia's inventory found the collection of items rather endearing. She didn't know what she expected, a flesh-eating book wrapped in chains maybe but instead simple trinkets she remembered seeing Kia pick up throughout their journey together passed through the porcelain hands after a thorough examination. She might have thought that the girl was trying to say something but the strange ancient had already dodged one of Iris's assumptions and seeing how the mage held each item, she brushed it off as the girl's flight of fancy.
Eventually, Kia's head slumped to the side, sliding into the elf's arms as the apparent bellmeter inside of her won the battle after precisely two bells after midnight.
"Hmmm?" The elf gently pried open Kia's hand, taking a look at the unusually normal-looking notebook in the girl's possession. "Notes?"
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For a peasant seeing white paper might have been something once in a blue moon but for the risen seeing it instead of hide from a rare and unpronounceable monster from a long past era was far more intriguing. Maybe I am simply growing complacent? The undead spearwoman gave a long good look at the sleeping beauty and shook her head. Even if she was blessed to stay with Kia until the Night caught up to the Sun, the elf couldn't quite rule out that the ancient wouldn't simply replace the annoying fireball in the sky.
Following the heavily accented writing Iris entertained her mind with Kia's class notes. The girl still refused to write with a quill seeing how each page was covered in a thin layer of glass characteristic of any writing the girl did. Among the burned letters a spindly ink writing joined on the margins provides context the undead lacked. Skimming the pages with too many numbers for Iris's liking, she pieced out that there seemed to be two humans aiding the purring mage in her lessons.
"...Is casting spells at a laying enemy a taboo in their culture?" Iris read out a small not burned under commentary about how a Mage Tag worked, hearing the confusion which had to go through the mage's head as she wrote that. "Kia I know that you know what was wrong with shooting an incapacitated foe," Iris said to the sleeping undead, receiving an explanatory purr in return. "I know, I know they must have been awfully rude to you."
A disagreeing sound tickled the hair on the risen's arm.
"No? Kia, did you shot someone only to see how they would react?" Surprised both at the muttered answer and the fact she even got one the elf continued the bizarre conversation.
A long silence followed making the guardian question herself for thinking the girl could hold a conversation coherently in her sleep before getting surprised as she noticed the expression of a naughty critter getting caught in the act on Kia's smushed face.
"Such an undead you are." Iris playfully said to the slumbering ancient as she began to trace the Anchor mark on Kia's arm.
A clay idol the size of a large ragdoll struggled in its climb toward the window. Despite what its size might suggest and the seamless, life-like grace of its movements Kia's constructs weren't the most mobile of monsters. They were more like heavy rocks tumbling about in the way they needed to move because of their heavy clay and metal bodies. Each step only rose enough to move it forward before quickly being followed by a muted thud, reminiscent of a small toy figure shuffling on the wooden floor Iris remembered making long ago out of chestnuts.
The golem looked around, searching for something it could reach before approaching a book lying on the floor. It wasn't a human book but one left by Kia while pulling other more interesting things, roughly the height of the petite necromancer and the width of a medium-sized shoe.
"Should have made her clean up." Iris muttered to herself as the sound of shuffling rose from below.
The golem pushed the book toward the chair and climbed on top of it, before opening a drawer and using it as a stepping stool to get to the window sill.
A flowery smell entered the bedroom as the construct dutifully obeyed days long order Iris almost forgot. The risen-felt aromatic air flowed over her, and the girl tucked happily under her wing began to move as if wanting to shake off the coldness the elf's senses had forgotten to register.
"Close the window." The elf turned her head to order the construct which had sat down on the heavy desk motionless, mimicking a curiosity nobles often kept near such places as desks and mirrors.
"Ibbbbis." The girl muttered switching side on which she rested and very slowly opening her glowing eyes
"Go back to sleep. I'm not going anywhere today."
"Exactly, I can't sleep because I rrememberrred," The kitten said as the elf stroked her face. "Why were you staring at the golem?" She asked.
Seeing how Kia closed one of her eyes, Iris could tell that the girl simply wanted to hear her voice.
"I'm just wondering if they can be happy. They look happier when I give them an order and seem overjoyed after you dot on them."
"They do?" The golden jewel gazing up at the risen turned as the girl gathered her thoughts, looking rather confused.
"You didn't know that?"
"I knew that they can be annoying... Do you want me to diagnose you?" The girl moved her hand to the centre of Iris's chest but the elf gently lifted her pale hand away, settling it at the mage's side.
"I would not, Kia," The taller undead said before turning her head. "Nod if you are happy when Master does something with you."
"Iris!" Instead of an answer from the golem, the ice-cold undead whined at the elf's words as it went on its knees and pressed its forehead to the dest. "You turned it annoying, turn it back."
"Stand." The elf spoke upon the order of the necromancer causing the clay death to move.
"I used these demi-soul templates for a long time, they are able to express a limited range of emotions but not when they are in a golem. Iris, it would have been impossible for me to miss such a thing. They are not you."
"What do you mean they are not me?" The elf's brow rose into a curious expression.
"I meant that I can't predict you. I would have noticed if they showed emotions by now." Kia answered, clutching onto the white linen of the hoplite's shirt.
"You're right probably." The elf concluded.
"Because I'm super intelligent," The girl smugly bragged before adding "I'm always right."
"I wouldn't say that." An adorably shocked face appeared on Kia's face.
"IRIS!"