#and I like to believe his lack of warm clothes was due to inexperience with the cold and snow

[thefandommind]

Thoughts on the Sphere: Spoilers for the later books and Spirit Oath ahead

Headcanon at the end.

So in the universe of Eli Monpress, the world described has some interesting key points-and I'm not talking about the magic system, or at least not rn. Here's a list of my points of interest and then I will expand.

There are three main continents mentioned: the main landmass the story is set in which isn't named but is of course known as the Council of Thrones. Then there is the "unknown continent" from which the Empress conquered and came from. And then lastly the "Northern" continent that is entirely ice tundra, where only packs of ghosthounds thrive. {side note, what the hell do natural ghosthounds hunt, they are huge canines that hunt in packs, and they only eat meat. Mammoths? Gin has a greatly described love of pigs, headcanon there are giant woolly boars in the ice cliffs of this world. In fact checking this post, I was reminded there's singular mentions of things called "black armored pigs", a" feathered lizard", and an "enormous red and gold stripped cat" that is some sort of crossbreed. I love it.}

was gonna try and make this list from most normal in fantasy worlds, to most interesting, but I've already run out of normal-THE SKY IS A LIE.

The sun and moon exist and have purpose. First, while I can't find any mention of the moon being noted as in crescent (i could just be blind), at some points it is described as "full", meaning it does have proper cycles. {I found it later, it does at one point get described as half moon, I was fucking right.}

The sun rises and sets, that's obvious, but the moon helps dictate the months. but then again, the sky is a lie, its just the inside of the Veil, the Weaver made it so. We see that not only is the blue sky part of the Veil, but the sun too as it gets torn by demons. (shout out to the poor lady who overheard me describing this phenomenon to my friend as "the sky is tearing itself apart in fear")

Now this is obviously the Weaver remembering the "before times" with the Creator. {don't worry I'll circle back to this.}

Moving on, the Sphere itself doesn't have stars in the sky, it's explained-"before times" and all that, but it obviously has a "sky". it also has a fucking "bottom".

Now you may have picked up on the fact the spirit world is effectively Flat Earth, now, I am no expert on flat earth, and spirit world is of course not earth (see; all of the spirits, the animals, and yk its fiction). But here are some notes I have regarding flat earth and the Sphere.

First, the Sphere is described as having a bottom, via the bedrock, and magma, this is when Benehime's watching over it. Then Slorn at one point is described as looking down-through the ground, through the mountains, through the bottom and he looks at the dome that is similar to that of the sky,(duh its a sphere its in the name. SO unlike flat earth, isn't a fucking coin with a sky dome, its more like a complicated Minecraft skyisland inside of an orb that is of course later revealed to be the last haven of Creation floating in a sea of demons which have devoured the universe.

Breaking up the text to make the horrible explanation, that instead of it being high fantasy skyblock, it's instead like if all of Creation is Earth and the Milky Way and every star in the sky being its own galaxy-was the world of Horton Hears A Who, and then demons ate everything in the world but Horton and the Speck, and that Speck and all those Whos is the Sphere and the spirit world. Then that Speck gets knocked off its flower and finds it's way to a snowflake and that's how you tie in Jim Carrey's Horton the Elephant being the Creator and Jim Carrey's Grinch is Benehime metaphor for the Spirit World being so tiny and depressing in the larger scope of the universe of demons.

now that's all just to over explain the world building that's presented to us in the books, plus a silly ramble that came to me in the first hour mark I spent typing up until this point. but here's the actual post.

The concept of there being a dome to the sky, is a very medieval concept, very fun system, but I bring you the concept of seasons.

Seasons don't exist in the Spirit World. Source, chapter 7 of Spirit War, when the Shaper Mountain tells Miranda he remembered back when there were seasons and stars in the sky. But you can probably sus it out by the then as months pass in the story, yet no descriptions of the change of weather or daylight associated with time passing.

I find this deeply depressing and so so beautiful. The implications.

Humans in this world are younger then the seasons!

That means the sun doesn't change even with the moon changing, the Weaver lets the moon wax and wane from memory or on vague description, but the sun doesn't change. There's no solstice, imagine solar eclipses happening because the moon is preprogrammed but the sun rises and sets with absolutely no inconsistency.

With no seasons, there is no Harvest. Yeah there's farmers and crops, but they don't have a deep freeze of any kind to prepare for. So no reason for fall festivities. No winter solstice, no darkest day of the year, no winter festivities.

With this world being kept in memory of a normal creation with planets, the Northern continent is tied to a pole that doesn't exist. There is no reason for it to be so cold, other then the frozen spirits that live there need to be cold. Same with every other climate. The weather is decided by the Wind Courts and only them, because they need to function.

SO. There are people, in this world, who haven't traveled. And they have never known the climates then the borders they live in. And then there are our main four characters, who are all very well traveled.

Imagine their first trip to the Sleeping Mountains, their first time seeing snow. Because it doesn't fall anywhere else in their entire world.

My personal headcanon involves Josef, because while he is obviously well traveled by the storyline, I like to believe the first time he saw snow was that first trip to the mountains. Eli had been there before, he already know what snow was like, and by then he has his lava spirit. Josef is from the tropics, and Eli is a teasing jerk (little shit). And what adds onto this idea is that him and Eli had made camp in the mountains (perhaps not the Shaper Mountain but its neighbor hooding slopes), and Josef had made his way to Nico when she crashed.

I'd like to emphasis that moments (hours maybe?) the mountains had been screaming, the entire League of Storms and the Lord of Storms was in battle with the Daughter of the Dead Mountain. The noise, the freezing rain, the panic. It goes quiet when Nico is defeated and laying on the mountain. And then Josef shows up, and then brings her back to camp, Eli nowhere to be seen.

You can infer from this that Eli heard the demon panic, or at least knew the mountains were shaking, there was a hell of a thunder storm (Eli has also met the Lord of Storms many times, he could probably recognize that spirit just a Nara could being the Favorite and all), and then in the echo of the worst of it, something crashes loud enough for them to discern where it was, and Eli was like FUCK NO, if you want to go out there and find out what that is, it's your funeral, you'll be lucky if i go searching for your frozen corpse in the morning. And he stayed at camp with his nice warm dry spirit.

And then an hour later Josef came back with a bleeding naked lady. That was somehow out there, and related to the huge fucking crash. And Nico's demon had abandoned her completely so it could hide, so say they found out she was a demonseed a little bit after she recovered from her wounds, which she also has no memory of. So Josef went out into the snow and came back with just a random girl with brutal injuries and no memory, probably freezing, and Eli canonically didn't press for information or question it. And then the rest is history.

Now again, we're imagining this happens in the same trip in which Josef experiences snow for the first time, and Eli has been giving him shit for it constantly.

Cut to Eli using Karon to warm up a strange girl he has no explanation for meeting, and he has to just be nice to her and give her all the attention he can, cus the only other option is look at Josef and he can't. How is he ever going to recover from this night. Josef is sitting there, concerned but also glaring I told you there was something out there, you said calm your tits Josef it's just the snow you don't understand you'll freeze-and I told you so every time Eli catches his eye.

thoughts?

[mal-likes-biscuits]

The Picnic - Epilogue

A proper epilogue for this thread with @macabrecabra​, because Magtherius did tell him to be more overt in his affection. Set in Series 2, before Act III and after most of the Series 1 angst has worked its way through. Also after, uhm, other things have happened. You’ll understand.

This is romantic and probably really sappy and there’s absolutely no demon stabbing in it.

“This is quite unusual,” Farah said, smiling as she gathered her zala about her shoulders and followed Malthael out of the library. 

Usually, he appeared at home after her work had ended for the day, or she was forced to interrupt him from his studies in the library in order to get his attention. But today, he had sought her out as she was tidying her desk, with a rather surprising request.

“As you said before,” he replied, raising an eyebrow. “Quite observant.” The sun was just beginning to dip towards the horizon; the amber glow illuminated tree leaves and the few stray strands of his hair that always managed to escape proper wrangling.

That aside, however, he was uncharacteristically.... well-kept. Not that his usual appearance bothered Farah terribly; she knew it was due to his travels, or his becoming distracted with his research. The months they had spent living together had shown her most of his disorganization was kept to his study and himself. Neither hindered her affection for his person, or his ability to demonstrate the same to her.

But such demonstrations were usually subtle or took the form of the gifts he brought back for her. Fresh clothing, a distinct lack of dirt on his face, and him appearing at the library to take her someplace?

Now, that was strange. Had he not maintained his usual verbal wit, she would have assumed something was wrong. Or that some demon had stolen his form in a poor attempt to abscond with her.

“You are thinking far too much about this,” Malthael chuckled, as he led her through Tristram towards the town’s outskirts. 

“You’ve caught me. Usually you’re the one I accuse of that.”

“Rightfully so.”

“It’s not without reason, though.” She spun to walk side-step, so she could better see him. “This is unusual. And I’m very curious.”

“That is entirely the idea.”

“Are you being coy with me, Malthael?” She grinned wryly, and before he could reply, she skipped ahead through the nearest alleyway; there were only so many places in Tristram he could take her, and given their general direction, she had a fairly good idea where they were going.

“You assume a great deal,” he called, though he made no attempt to redirect her.

“Only because you are being surprising. Did you get an idea from Lyndon?”

“No.”

“Tyrael, then?”

“No.”

“My sister?”

“No.”

“Well, that would explain how you managed to keep this a secret. Tristram has loose lips.”

“Verily. I have my ways. Also, you are assuming I needed ideas.”

That was true, though Farah had enough suspicions to know the surprise was more than likely outside Malthael’s area of expertise. He had already taken steps to dress himself in a way that was beyond his usual habits. She sneaked another glance backward, noting what she had suspected before, which was that his shirt was not only clean – it was new.

“You look quite nice,” she offered genuinely. The least she could do was acknowledge his efforts.

Though, unsurprisingly, the comment also brought a subtle colour to his cheeks. He ducked his head in thanks, the twitch of a smirk flashing across his lips before they were hidden behind his hair.

His footfalls were close behind hers as she charted the deer trail from Tristram to their destination. The meadow was not exactly a secret, but as Malthael often claimed a spot near the pond to read, it saw little use from the other residents. There were still some who preferred the former-reaper keep himself out of sight, and were therefore happy to concede the more remote location to him.

Farah pushed aside a fruit-laden branch and considered what lay before her.

There, under the reading willow, was a crimson blanket, spread tautly across the grass, its corners pinned in place with several metal stakes. On the blanket was a large covered basket, neatly stored beside matching ceramic dishes and utensils. A row of arcane braziers flickered gently, their light dancing in the water’s reflections and in the glass of a wine bottle, unopened and leaning against the trunk of the tree.

“Oh!” She had expected a book, perhaps. Or maybe a mug of tea. But certainly nothing like he had prepared.

He bumped her shoulder gently with his as he walked to the blanket. Then he took a seat crossed legged on it and gestured for her to join him. “Unless, you have somewhere else to be?” His eyes crinkled.

“You are coy,” she managed, her voice tremoring from warm elation. “And this is entirely unlike you.”

He hesitated. “Is it…all right?”

“Of course!” The blanket was soft to touch, woven from the more expensive cottons that were grown in tropical locales. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have implied otherwise. It’s wonderful. It’s just…you really did surprise me. What brought this on? It’s not my birthday.”

The wicker basket rustled as he opened the lid and withdrew several wrapped packets. He still wasn’t looking at her, but the smile had returned to his eyes. “Is a reason always necessary?”

“For you? I would think yes.” She took one of the bundles, helping him unwrap what turned out to be an assorted variety of picnic foods. Hard cheeses, various smoked meats, long-breads that had been drizzled with several types of cooking oils and vinegars.

It was not too different than what she had brought for him in the past. But she had always taken the initiative to do so, assuming he was not comfortable expressing his feelings for her that way. Still, seeing it all set out before her, clearly his doing, touched her far more than their usual private get-togethers did. It wasn’t the food, or the wine, or any of the specifics.

It was the degree he had gone out of his way to do something for her. Not because she had requested it. But because he knew she would like it.

Their fingers brushed as he handed her the last bundle.

“You won’t tell me, will you?” His hands were cold, as always; she wrapped hers around them, silently sharing the warmth. “Your reason?”

He considered their entwined fingers, and the package clasped between them, his expression nearly unreadable, but softening as he shook his head. She waited patiently, knowing he was trying to find the words, as he so often had to do when he spoke about her.

“Perhaps,” he whispered, drawing his thumb across the back of her hand, “you are reason enough.”

When he finally raised his head to look at her, it was with the most naked, disarmed expression she had ever seen him wear. From a man who was always certain about everything, such clear hesitation about his own words, and her reaction to them, said everything.

Malthael had always been astute at giving her whatever she needed, and whenever possible, she had never made him guess. They were stronger that way. But seeing him show her the extent of his inexperience with his own emotions, and his willingness to trust her with that vulnerability—

“That is a good reason,” she whispered in reply. “Now, how about you show me what you have brought? And then we can eat.”

#

The stars shone through the firmament, pinpricks of light that echoed faintly in the now-still waters of the pond. The earlier breeze had all but gone, leaving only the trilling of birds, and the occasional stifled laughter from the two of them. The empty wine bottle lay discarded on the grass, and they had stacked the plates to the side, to allow them to stretch out on the blanket proper.

“I still can’t believe you liked it,” Farah snickered, turning her head to grin at him. “I assumed you’d tried it before and didn’t.”

Malthael raised a finger and gestured absently in the direction of the wine. “It’s not entirely different from mead.”

“It’s made of grapes, pi’ra.”

“Aye, verily.”

“Which are the same as raisins.”

“No, they are not. Grapes have moisture, and substance. Raisins have been leached of any redeemable quality by the Lords of Hell.” He slapped his palm onto the blanket emphatically. “Wine also has moisture, and substance, and flavour. Because it hasn’t been demon-sapped.”

Farah stifled a cackle, though her grin did acquire some teeth. “How very astute of you, Aspect of Wisdom.”

“If I didn’t know better, I would think you were mocking me.”

“Never. Would not dare. I’ve been privy to your revenge on Lyndon often to enough to know better.”

Neither would she point out the slight drawl to his speech, or the way grammatical contractions sneaked into his usually impeccable phrasing once he’d had something to drink. She enjoyed watching him far too much and didn’t want to tip him off too heavily.

“That is wise.” He paused, then snorted loudly at his own joke. “It’s probably best…it’s the two of us.”

“Cowl down?”

“Cowl is…” he shrugged. “Floating on the water, alongside my sobriety. Somewhere.”

“Somewhere. But not here.”

“I still believe you are mocking me,” he muttered, without bite. “And I am not so drunk as to forget how to plot.”

“If you intend to keep me quiet, that may be difficult.” She raised an eyebrow, intentionally imitating his usual gesture.

“Farah. Owing to my apparent…confusion, you may have to be more forthright. Exactly in what way do you assume I will be distracting you?” Then, after a beat, he mirrored the eyebrow, amusement flickering across his face. “Detailed, if possible.”

“I meant nothing of the sort!” she sputtered, though she knew the mirth in her words gave away the truth.

“I am sensing…dishonesty.”

“And how will you prove it? Scry the Chalice?”

“Mmm, I think not. I think I know you quite well, indeed.” He trailed off, giving her a chance to ponder the joke they’d often tossed back and forth between each other, ever since she’d first caught him off-guard with a particularly effective flirtation.

“Ah, then what am I thinking?”

“If I were to guess,” he murmured, before shifting to her side and wrapping an arm loosely about her. “I assume…” His hair tickled across her face as he leaned close, his forehead gently tapping hers.

He waited for her, as always. She took the moment to close her eyes and absorb the moment. The soft whispers of the night, and the trace of the wine on his breath. Underneath, the always present hints of pine and smoke that were his scents.

“Just this,” she whispered. “No more. I won’t have you over-indulge me to your own detriment because of wayward grapes. Promise?”

“You have my word.”

“Also, I know I enjoy reading about these sorts of things all the time, but it’s not entirely the best climate to do this outside—”

“Farah.” She shivered as he slowly traced his fingers down her cheek. “I brought a quilt.”

Oh. He really had thought of everything. “Sneaky.”

“Verily. Did you expect otherwise?”

“From you? No.” And truthfully, she was more concerned about his respect for his own boundaries than the weather. But she also trusted him, implicitly. And she could help him keep his promise. “I think that is why I love you.”

He pulled her closer, exhaling briskly, the same as he did nearly every time she said it. Then, so quietly, it was almost lost to the night: “And I, you.”

Words she never thought she would hear spoken, and on the heels of an evening already filled with the unexpected. Perhaps it was finally the right time, for him. Or perhaps something else had driven him to it. She didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. It was a thought for another night.

She carefully snaked an arm behind his head, and when he didn’t protest, she buried her fingers in his hair and gently pressed her lips to his.

#####

[Oh hey look @oyeedraw they managed to kiss in writing. >:D]

[palindromepaladin]

The Novicemancer

By Rixon Grey

           The first time I brought something back to life went quite well, and I think that is why the next few times went so poorly. There really is some truth to beginner’s luck, how you need to fail a few times before you can say you’ve done well in earnest. Pride outweighs sincerity often, which is a bitch for efficiency’s sake.

           More than pride though, I do have a problem with death. The last sigh, the heat leaving, when that last thought wings through all tresses of a fearful brain and it is a sheepish: oh. Admittedly I am inclined to kill those around me. Necromancers get lumped together for obsession regarding death, which is prejudiced. I, however, uphold the stereotype. Other children of the Black God always looked down at me, dismissively and with pompous disdain, ‘God, he’s one of those.’ Pride is a sin, arrogance is rude.

           I take it all in stride and try to practice my craft in solitude. This is not only due to my unfortunate craving for la mort but out of necessity. Efficiency is key. Most civilized peoples will not simply shun a necromancer, but will likely pull the ol’ torch-and-pitchfork routine of driving out evil from their provincial dwelling. Larger cities are worse, their pitchforks tend more to resemble metal spears and torches are replaced with the pop of guns. The powder reeks to hell, and it will ruin your clothes.

           Better then to live the nomadic, hermetic, lifestyle. This is pleasant enough, assuming you have a way to keep your mind busy and uncluttered with a hatred for the social. Resentment towards clustered people often leads to want for mass murder. This gets you caught, and probably hanged. Or burned, if you ambitiously go the more extravagant route of harvesting the soul of your victim’s Nanna. Villagers and peasants alike find the courage to revolt more accessible if their harasser is more intimate.

           I can say with pride that I have avoided killing a human person for months now, and have not resurrected a human soul… since my first.

           “You’re a cunt,” was the first phrase I heard by my only friend and most loathing of resurrections, Liam. I have heard the phrase more since then. Liam was, and will forever be, thanks to me, fourteen. He died gasping for air within the -evidently too deep- waters of a local pond. His mother-made socks caught on amphibious tree roots under the murky water. I found him fishing.

           “I told you I need to practice, or I may fail again.” I was standing over the mushed remains of what I believed to have once been a middle-aged man. The trail I had been heading down for a few days now was grassy from disuse, still there were wagon-tracks through his pelvic area. The tracks went straight through, and well past his corpse. How inconsiderate.

           The glass orb hanging on my belt jostled with anticipation, but I calmed it with a pet from my cold hand. Liam, his ethereal form fluffed and feathered from his inexperience as a ghost, ‘stood’ beside me. He too stared at the remains, though his warped face showed disgust plain enough. I believe my face to have been calm.

           “If you raise that thing, it’ll be in pain like the others. What makes you think you’ll put him (or her) back together the right way?”

           “I don’t. That is exactly why I need to do it. Without opportunities like this I would have to grave-rob, and you know I can’t do that.” I rubbed my hands together. The sun was beginning to set, and twilight had been growing darker and colder with each passing evening. Winter’s warning slithered out from the brittle ground, looking more to me like a warm invitation of the desolation to come. Death all around made reanimation tricky, but the objects of such experiments plentiful.

           “Well I won’t watch this. I’m turning away.” Liam supposedly turned his form around, but to be honest he looked the same amorphous thing to me no matter which way he floated there.

           I nodded dismissively and began to dig in. I underestimated the rate of decay which had lay waste to this unfortunate thing. Try making a human skeleton out of oatmeal. Sew together lumps of chili hamburger to create the sinewy musculature which allows the surgical precision I was trying to achieve. This is what I had to work with. There was fungus under the wet-paper sternum, and all I could think of was that dish I had in Aigan years ago. Aigan was a city in the Coritza peninsula famous for their morels stuffed with scamorza.

           After a half a spool of thread and suppressed gags, I figured whatever I had sewn together looked more like a human now than it ever would have again without my help. Of course, the eyes had rotted out, so the sight would be an issue to overcome, but I knew this trick from the old druid to fix up a false-sight. It would be a blessing anyway, wouldn’t want this fellow peering into any bodies of water or silver spoon.

           “It’s over, Liam.”

           “So you’ve decided not to perform the ritual?”

           “No, of course I will, I meant the gross part is over.”

           “It’s all gross, tell me when you’re really done.”

           I rolled my eyes, and pushed up the sleeves of my loose-fitting doublet. They were damp with the day’s labor. I began reciting some overtly simple charms out of habit. I knew they were only used by old world wizards and “wise” men to calm their anxieties before a big spell, but they had been so ingrained into my use of magic by the old druid that I had to make an effort to stop myself; which I did not feel like doing at that moment.

           That being done I brought the needle into the tip of my pock-marked thumb. Blood emerged like an old friend, greeting me with warmth and pleasantries before I cast it down upon the flesh construct. I have seen shaman men in their quaint villages slide a dagger across their palm, or rip out the heart of some virginal girl to gather what I had just done with a needle. Magic is funny in that way: we are all quite stupid about it.

           A few more words, with a lot of feeling, and the life-energy which used to inhabit this body was ripped from its other worldly resting place back to the planes of existence. The man quivered. Admittedly when I had dug through the corpse I discovered it in fact had once been a man, though now it was androgynous. Out of respect for its assumed personality, I have and will refer to my construct as a man.

           He seized from the discomfort of what it is to be. Every feeling thing in his body was sending signals up to his brain at once and it was too much. In a moment I tried to freeze bits of him, the legs and arms first, followed by the lower gut. Chilling his blood to temperatures even lower than the now-evening air. He would live if I could isolate how he did so. My fingers wove the cold through him, channeling the invisible fires of power which littered our world to become frigid vessels inside this man. He groaned, a noise reminiscent of a goat or swine.

           Liam gagged, which amused me in the abstruse way in which sentient beings adore the suffering of others without a hint of maliciousness. A thin smile stretched across my face. Call me married to the job, because it was moments like these that made all the toil worth my time. I could never imagine doing anything else with my life.

           Slowly I began warming the writhing thing on the ground to help the blood flow once more, after the seizing had subsided. Little by little the man came back to us. You could see it in the twitch in his ruddy cheeks, the reflexive twisting of face and fingers, his little toes gripping dirt. Birth of new life hardly interested me. This was my pregnancy budding to fruition: I had just done more with my mind than any woman with her body. Any man who has felt the pride swell in his chest after building a house has never been so ecstatic as I have with my research.

           He screamed. I nearly shed a tear. It would take time for the thing to get used to living, and of course my magic was rudimentary; eventually this thing would fall apart and go further into the earth than any natural death. Magical disposal of waste seems more efficient by far than anything nature could have concocted out of mud and running water. I bent over to help him up and this was when Liam turned back to the scene.

           “Oh God you’ve actually done it,” I could hear the jealousy in his voice, even if he could not. “Look at it, that abomination, I feel as if I’m chucking but I know I’m not. Necromancer, are you so evil that you’ll let him exist for much longer?”

           I bent at the knees and grabbed my baby’s shoulders. I am not the strongest man, surely I have sacrificed the bulk of the beast for the intellect of a learned being, however I managed well enough to hoist him up and prop him against a nearby tree. Light flickered from my finger tip, my mock candle, and I used it to examine closely the body. Oh damn.

           The guts were leaking out and spilling to his legs. Mostly made of pus and viscera, the leakage gooped down and pooled in the creases of his pelvic area. He huffed weakly and searched for his surroundings with languid turns of his head. I had forgotten momentarily to give him the sight. The guts were a priority, and then his heart, and I would have to find strength to burn light into his eyes after a while. I was tiring fast from the spells and knew that without sleep or food I would soon look close to my creation. Well, closer.

           I took both my hands and cupped them together, trying to scoop the mash and force it back into the shoddy sutures. No dice. The bulging gut contained more pressure in it than I had been able to create. The more I agitated the gut, the more the sutures opened and the more slime wet my hands.

           I grabbed the man by the legs and shoulders and began to carefully set him back on the ground. He fought me, out of fear of course, but I smacked his forehead with the thick of my palm and he quieted.

           “Just leave it…” Liam paced behind me. Even though he made no footstep, I felt his presence as I felt all the forces of the world around me. His lack of contentedness frustrated me, as it was distracting. I would have told him to leave, but were he to part from me his essence would split and he would be lost to the cosmic void. I bared his childish protesting with the stoicism a parent need muster from nothing.

           I would have to either re-suture the mass of flesh compiled at the base of his spine, or add more stitching. I chose the latter, and started puncturing flesh with the bone needle. The man beneath me struggled and started up with the screaming again. I, again, smacked him and this calmed him momentarily. Had I whiskey or any civilized anesthetic I would have used it, probably, however I had none and would have to make peace with the torture I was inducing. A life filled with agony was still better than any death. I whispered calming charms into the man’s ears.

           After what felt to be an hour of more work, stitching and shoving, forcing life into the unwilling, I tried once more to get the man to stand. He was exhausted and I sympathized. I gritted my teeth and threw the corpse-man to his feet.

           “I told you to live and you will.”

           “Necromancer…” Liam made his way over to me and placed a cold breeze of a hand at my back.

           “Liam if you are going to continue sulk, then leave me and dissipate into the ether, but if you want to remain one solid consciousness I suggest you clam up!” Parents must leave scars on their children too. I shoved him away with invisible, yet very real, real force.

I gripped tight the man’s arm and steadied him as he swayed left and right. With my other hand I patted his jaw, gently then with increasing force. Still he limply swayed and tried desperately to fall and die. My pats turned swiftly to slaps, and then with one furious backhanded strike the jaw flew off and thudded into some mud some ways away.

I swore and let the thing collapse. I started to walk away, but Liam stopped me.

“You can’t let it lay there and waste away,” his tone was stern and he knew that I would know that he was correct. It was wrong, objectively, to let it suffer like that. I spun around and shot forth a beam of green light into the skull of the agonized thing. He disappeared. I looked at Liam and nodded. He returned the gesture and strode up to me.

“You’re going to do this more, aren’t you?” He asked in reluctance for an answer.

“If I don’t, when the time comes for me to resurrect someone or thing for reasons of importance, I will be ill-prepared. That will not be allowed to happen.” At that Liam for a while was silent. We walked in near darkness, as the moon was obstructed by wispy clouds and shaggy trees.

“Well, try to be less of a cunt about it.”

I smirked. The next time will be better. It may be that more supplies are needed, and perhaps more preparation for arising problems should be implemented. Books are always a welcome addition to my repertoire; however, I did not think knowledge to be my weakness as much as application was. Practice was what I needed, and maybe a fresher body.

Pride is not efficient. Arrogance will bag you no more friends than will a head full of lice. Still, what am I if not genuine? I looked over to Liam with the same look I would give a nursing calf.

“No.”