#phanora x johan | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

midorishinji · 9 months ago

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Necroromance

The man seemed happy… No, more than that: he seemed genuinely in love with his wife. Adoration filled his eyes anytime they danced, and she recognized this familiar look. She recognized it now, as she and Johan danced. It had always been there, hidden when he was alive, but so much clearer now. Unmistakable.

Johan x Phanora Kristoffel ｜Oneshot｜Based on this Tumblr post｜Also published in Portuguese and on AO3

There are few known rules to necromancy, as Phanora Kristoffel well knows. Do not raise a person back from the dead without their — or a first-degree family member’s — consent. Do not resurrect an incomplete or otherwise subpar corpse. Do not forget to maintain the undead, unless you want them to lose consciousness and wreak havoc. Everything else is sort of up to debate: some necromancers do not resurrect an undead that has not expressed the desire to be brought back, regardless of family’s wishes; some do not bring back those who have lived a long, fulfilling life, and others will not resurrect victims of suicide. She always had her own personal code of honor to follow.

Johan was her first undead to be resurrected. He was also her first (and only) exception to many of those rules.

When he first came back, he was quiet. Always observing, always attentive, but never daring to speak: a round of dissection later revealed his vocal cords were as they should have been, and he was by all physical means capable of speaking. Still, he did not mutter a word for long, silent weeks of being encouraged to say something, anything . Phanora thought he might have suffered some kind of brain damage, and considered another dissection, and this is when he finally spoke.

— Ouch, again? That kind of hurts.

Wasn’t he under anesthesia back then? Oh, right . It doesn’t work that well on the undead. The books mentioned a 50 to 60% chance of propofol not properly sedating them, so she mixed it with opioids for additional pain relief and sedation… Apparently, it didn’t work, and she did not know that. Maybe benzodiazepines would have been better, as they induce anterograde amnesia. Maybe she should recalculate the dosage. That information would be useful for future purposes.

— So you can speak. — she said, surprised.

He seemed embarrassed. — Just got nothing to say, that’s all.

— Then answer when talked to. It’s impolite to ignore me.

No more dissections. Johan grew confident enough to talk, maybe even a little too confident, sometimes talking for hours on end with no particular subject in mind, and even addressing her informally. Deep down, Phanora knew this was not the sort of relationship undead and master should have: there is a power imbalance for a good reason — she brought him back, and he should have been nothing more than a servant. But before being an undead, he was no such thing, and old habits die hard. He could still call her by her first name, no honorifics as he used to, she didn’t mind. He could still touch her, and hold her close, and complain of how cold her skin felt. It didn’t matter what other people would think.

But one day, Johan said words that should have been forbidden. — You know, I think I’m in love with you. Just a little bit, though.

— You’re not. — Phanora simply answered, without looking away from her cup of tea — It’s just part of the spell, I assume. You’re probably confused because one way or another, our souls are connected.

She did not look up not because she thought the matter wasn’t important: she didn’t do so because she wasn’t brave enough to face the truth presented to her, or the truth inside herself. No books ever mentioned love being a side effect of necromancy.

Still, he did not give in. — What, you think I’m confused? That all undeads end up in love with their masters? I’ll prove you wrong.

— Be my guest.

— How many people have you revived, anyway?

That was a low blow, and he knew that. Resurrecting people left and right was against Phanora’s code of honor and at that time, he had been the first and only to be given that grace. Others had perished while begging for her gift. He should consider himself lucky to even stay by her side, for whatever contrived reason she had, that’s what everyone always said.

But the immovable obstacle that was Phanora’s will did not bulge. She did not raise her voice, nor did she dismiss him. She didn’t even offer him a change in facial expressions to indicate anything, neither displeasure nor amusement. — If I revive someone else, we can put that theory to the test.

Then came the war. During and after it, the casualties piled up high, corpse mountains that reached the sky in ungodly defiance. People begged her to bring back their loved ones: widows who grieved their soldier husbands, fathers and mothers who went crazy with the loss of their children, governments desperate for their heroes back, armies who needed an infinite supply of soldiers to die on a battlefield. Phanora turned down the vast majority of them: some could not afford the price of necromancy, and others were not worthy of it. One such exception was the widow of a war hero, who died trying to save a group of children from an airstrike.

Phanora brought him back, and Johan waited for the worse, that he was actually wrong and the hero brought back would sweep the witch off her feet and take her away from him. And, secretly, Phanora waited to be wrong. She had been wrong before, many times, even: necromancy was a forgotten craft and most of the books had only captured the early dawn of the forbidden art, but not the current knowledge; most of what was known was passed around in whispers, and the voices who used to speak were long gone. She could be wrong — Hell, she should be , it would be a welcome surprise, even if both possibilities were frightening. Days passed. Weeks. Long months of absolutely boring silence, until a letter from the ex-widow arrived: the witch had been invited to their tenth marriage anniversary, at which the couple was expected to renew their vows.

— You were wrong. Ha. Told you so.

The incomparable satisfaction in Johan’s voice would have been grating in any other circumstances, she thought, but not right now. — It’s a small sample. If you want to conduct a valid experiment, you need a bigger pool sample to reduce the risk of bias, that’s how science works.

— Sounds like a load of bullshit to me. Doesn’t change the fact that I’m in love with you.

— He probably would never fall for me, considering he was resurrected for someone else, someone who already had his heart long before he died. That could be different if I had resurrected him for my own personal use.

A sly smile went through his lips. — So you did resurrect me for you, huh… Fine. Enlarge your sample, or whatever. Bring back more people. Actually, we could use a gardener. Maybe a cook, too, you’re always so picky about food…

She did not humor his half-serious comments, nor did she argue about her work ethic. Maybe Johan was right, and she was running away from facing it. Either possibility was thoroughly frightening.

The months went by and the number of undead raised by the Profound Witch grew. Some of them were bound to someone else already, like the war hero; some were for her own personal use, like moles to spy on enemies, and a cook. Johan appreciated the help, as he disliked preparing meals, even if she would not admit she did this to make his life easier: tea was prepared by him still, always, and he was urged to accompany the witch in this silly little play pretend of a meal (as neither of them needed to eat), a wish he took pleasure in granting her. No matter the number of undead, who they were bound to, or their gender, age and preferences, none of them ever loved Phanora Kristoffel. Day by day, it grew harder to deny the truth.

Phanora should have turned down the invitation to the anniversary ball of her second resurrected, the war hero. That would have been a sensible response: witches were not welcome everywhere, and necromancy is largely taboo. Yet, she confirmed her presence, out of curiosity. She didn’t care about the opulent ballroom they rented, nor the expensive food, nor the exotic drinks. The man seemed happy… No, more than that: he seemed genuinely in love with his wife. Adoration filled his eyes anytime they danced, and she recognized this familiar look. She recognized it now, as she and Johan danced. It had always been there, hidden when he was alive, but so much clearer now. Unmistakable.

— How do you know you’re in love? — she asked him.

— I just do.

— Then why?

— I wouldn’t be able to explain it when I was alive. But now I just know you would go to the deepest parts of Hell for me as I would for you, and that’s enough.

He was right: it was enough to know that. Enough to stop denying, to stop trying to disprove it scientifically, to stop beating around the bush. Necroromance magic was sort of stupid, anyway. Phanora pulled him closer, and this time he did not complain of her coldness.

#fanfiction #fanfic #writing #ao3 #majo to yajuu #phanora kristoffel #johan #the witch and the beast

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