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deathsplaything · 2 months

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Location: Sugar Pot backroom Timing: Current, midday then at nightfall Parties: Alistair (Ft. Melody and Tommy) Summary: Something unthinkable happens, and Alistair must do something even worse. A necromantic ritual to bring back the dead is performed. Choices are made. Content Warnings: Child death tw, parental death tw, ritual sacrifice

“Mo ghaol cha'n fhaigh thu bàs.”

It was supposed to be a normal day at the Sugar Pot. Melody had left to go pick up Tommy from school, and Alistair could handle the slower end of the day with little trouble. There were no customers at the moment, so they were simply reorganizing the jars around the store so labels were facing outward for their ease. That’s when the door rang and they heard ragged breathing. “Alistair, he’s… you have to help him.” It was Melody, she was sobbing and could barely get her words out. Their heart sank, knowing that could only mean one thing. “Please, it was a drowngr,” Melody spoke through racked sobs, already heading for the back room. “Mels…” Alistair was at a loss, quickly waving their hand for Brutus to follow them into the back room. “What’s the damage?” They finally asked after closing themselves into the back room with Melody, Tommy, and Brutus. It was cramped, but Alistair couldn’t think about that. All they could think about was how the closest thing they’d ever had to a son was dying.

Melody was beside herself, putting Tommy down in the center of the spell circle and letting out a sob. He wasn’t conscious, he wasn’t breathing. Her baby was dying or already dead and there was nothing she could do. That’s when she stilled. There was something that Alistair could do. “Alistair, you have to bring him back. You have to.” Melody pleaded, grasping at the necromancer’s hands as realization dawned on their face. “Mels, I… you know what you’re asking me to do, here,” Alistair spoke, voice pleading.

Melody was asking to take Tommy’s place. She was begging him to sacrifice her to bring their child back. While Tommy wasn’t his biologically, he was in every other way that counted. Alistair would sooner sacrifice himself than let Melody do it. Melody was their everything. When they had nothing, Melody had come along and saved them from themselves. When they’d lost Mikael, she was right there to help pick up the pieces that had left Alistair shattered. Now she was asking them to say goodbye to her, say goodbye to the life they had built.

“Mels, I… you can’t ask that of me.” Their voice cracked as they spoke, tears threatening to fall as they dealt with the implications of her request. “If Tommy’s gone, then I’m already gone.” She whimpered, pressing her forehead to Alistair’s. “You have to do this for me. I… he’s my boy. He needs to live. He’s only twelve. He’s… Alistair, you have to.” Alistair closed their eyes, then slowly nodded their head. Melody would never forgive herself if her son died and she did nothing, knowing that she could bring him back. “You have to, Al.” Melody pleaded once more time as she watched them nod their head.

Alistair knelt over Tommy’s body and felt for a pulse. Nothing. A sob wracked their body as they realized what was happening. Tommy had been killed by a drowngr, and now Melody would sacrifice herself to take her son’s place. They were losing someone important to them all over again. When they needed her most, she was there for them. But now, she needed them. And they knew that they needed to do this. “Mels, I… know that I love you, okay?” Alistair spoke, turning their head in the direction of Melody.

Melody let out another sob, knelt beside Alistair, and pulled him into her arms, letting them both cry in each other’s arms as they cried for what was to come, and what could never be. “I love you too, Al.” She spoke between sobs, squeezing them tightly. “You’ve been everything to me. But Tommy is more. He’s… he’s our son.” She spoke, pressing her forehead to Alistair’s and pressing a kiss to their lips. A sob escaped Alistair’s lips as Melody pulled away. Alistair rubbed their hands together, letting out a frustrated cry before turning to their ingredients cabinet. Lycoris Radiata petals, also known as a corpse flower. “We have to wait until sundown,” Alistair told her, voice hollow and far away. “You need to get something important to him, really important to him.” They walked back over to Melody, squeezing her hands tightly. Alistair had never talked about the necromantic ritual to Melody before, and they’d not practiced it in so long. But it had to go perfectly. Any small mess-up could ruin everything, leaving them without Tommy and Melody for the rest of their days. “I need to prepare.” That was all they said as they continued to gather ingredients for each point of the pentacle that Tommy was laid on.

Melody knew better than to interrupt Alistair when they got like this, but she also knew that this was going to be the last time that she’d be with them. So she took their hands again and then hugged them tightly. “Thank you.” She murmured into their ear, which earned her a shuddered sob from Alistair in return. “I know this is hard for you, but he matters more than anything else in this world.” She spoke, pulling away so she could look at Alistair, who looked shattered all over again. “I know.” They spoke in reply, squeezing her hands just as hard as she was squeezing theirs. “I know, but it still hurts. It always will.”

Melody gave a sad smile, then nodded her head, her mind was made up. “I’ll be back soon. I have to get his baby blanket, it was his father’s.” She frowned, thinking deeper. There was something else she had to get, and that was her will. She’d had it written knowing the danger of this town, and the will left Alistair as Tommy’s legal guardian, she had no other family to take him in, and Alistair was family. She pressed one last kiss to Alistair’s cheek before departing, leaving Alistair alone to care for Tommy and prepare the ingredients.

Corpse flower petals on the top point, grave dirt on the right point, black copal incense burning on the bottom right point, full moon-charged water on the bottom left point, and coal to represent fire on the left point. A spell taught to them by his mother to open their senses to magick and promote success. It was different for every practitioner, though their spells of this magnitude, in their mind, needed offerings to the death gods they practiced under. They sat in front of the spell circle until sundown in a meditative state, only breaking from it when Melody returned at sundown. It was time to prepare for the ritual.

Pulled from the cabinet was an obsidian dagger, ornate in design, yet simple. Sharp. Deadly. This was the very tool Alistair would use to end Melody’s life, and in turn, bring back Tommy. There was only one chance to get this right. Alistair took the blanket and set it ablaze, letting the ashes scatter around in a circle around Tommy’s prone form and spell ingredients.

Melody watched somberly, hugging herself tightly as Alistair flitted around the room like a specter. Ingredients here, words spoken there. By the time they were done, the sun had set. Alistair spoke a few words in a language that Melody couldn’t understand, and then a hand reached out toward her. It was time. Alistair held her hand tightly for a moment, lost in their own world of spellcraft and ritual sacrifice. “Mo ghaol cha'n fhaigh thu bàs.” My love for you will not die. Alistair spoke to her before bringing her to the center of the spell circle, a powerful green smoke coming from the incense that burned on the right point of the star. “I will never forget what you’ve done for me, for Tommy. For us.” And with that, they pressed a kiss to her lips and dragged the obsidian blade across Melody’s throat Melody tried to gasp for breath, legs giving out under her, and Alistair held her aloft as the blood poured from the wound and onto Tommy’s body. A sacrifice, like for like. One spellcaster to save another. A mother sacrificing herself to save her son.

Standing for a long moment with Melody firm in their arms, a weak hand stretched out and touched Alistair’s cheek, smiled weakly, then fell down to her side. Melody was gone. Alistair set her down gently and began to pull from the ether, the tether between father and son forming to bring Tommy back from death. Tommy’s chest began to rise and fall, but Alistair didn’t stop, not there. The tether was pulled from their very essence, feeling a bit of life drain from their very being before cutting their palm with the blade and drew a sigil onto Tommy’s chest, then onto their own. A seal that would bind them together. Alistair could not see the sigil turn from blood to black, but could only trust that it was there. That it had been done correctly. They needed this to be done correctly. Any emotions they felt for the situation would be dealt with afterward, but they couldn’t let it interrupt the ritual now.

They knelt beside Tommy, waiting. After what felt like a lifetime, a small hand reached out toward Alistair. “Al?” The boy croaked, and Alistair instantly fell apart at the sound of Tommy’s voice, pulling him close to him and hugging him tightly. “It’s alright, you’re back now.” He murmured to the boy, who clung to the necromancer with all his might. “Where’s… where’s Mom?” He asked, looking around and letting out a cry of agony at the form of his mother’s body on the ground, throat slit. “No, you… she couldn’t. You didn’t.” Tommy shook his head fiercely. “A mother’s love knows no limits,” Alistair spoke softly, and Brutus who had waited in the corner of the room finally walked over to Tommy and plopped himself into his lap, and the boy hugged the dog tight and cried.

Alistair felt a tear run down their cheek, but that was all they allowed to flow. They took the discarded rag and tied it around their hand to stop the bleeding. They had to tend to Melody’s body. They couldn’t rest until it was over. With the ritual complete, they rose to their feet. There was much to do, and now they had the most important person in their life to take care of, their son. They would do anything to keep Tommy safe.

“Tommy, I’m so sorry,” Alistair murmured, kneeling next to the boy and wrapping his arms tightly around the boy he’d come to love as if he were his own. Tommy continued to sob, eyes peering out to look at his mother’s lifeless body, then quickly squeezed them shut again. “I’ve got you,” Alistair promised as Tommy once again clung to them. “I’m going to give you the world and then some.” They promised, squeezing the boy as tight as they could. “I swear to you, I won’t let anything separate us.” They pulled themselves away enough to look the boy in the eyes, and Tommy nodded his head, eyes filled with tears. “I loved your mother,” Alistair told him, carding a hand through the young boy’s curly blonde hair. He looked so much like his mother. “I will always love your mother, just as you will.” Tommy let out a choked sob and pushed his head into Alistair’s chest.

There was no undoing what had been done. There was no convincing a drowngr to stop in its tracks just as much as there was no convincing the knife that had cut across Melody’s throat to undo itself. Slowly, Alistair held Tommy tight in their arms and rose to their feet, walking out of the back room. Away from Melody, away from the sugar pot. Away from the dastardly deed they had to perform. It was late, the streets were barren as the necromancer walked with Tommy in their arms, Brutus by their side.

#To have loved and lost #threads #ft: melody #ft: tommy #child death tw #parental death tw #plot; good neighbors

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