Post by P-chan on May 18, 2008 16:15:23 GMT -8
Comments are greatly appreciated; I'd love to get some feedback on it. I haven't reread this at all yet, this is the untouched first draft. It's bound to have errors. >.>
~
“Necromancy is the art of summoning the dead. A Necromancer will conjure up the spirits of the dead and the skeletons and corpses buried deep beneath the depths of the crusty soil and call them forth to do their every bidding. To be a Necromancer, one must have the intelligence and diligence to study the every critical step of successful Necromancy. Here today, we have one of the most skilled upperclassmen here who will show you all an example of Necromancy.”
At last, the professor had completed his short monologue for the young students just beginning their classes here at the academy, and turned to me, adjusting his frosty monocle as he gave me a tight lipped expression of impatience. I coolly averted my eyes from him with a quiet sigh, and they fell onto the huddled group of children standing around us in a circle, staring at me intently, as if I was some otherworldly being they’d never had the pleasure of laying their eyes on ever before. It was the fifth time today a group of students was watching me like this, and I had started to grow bored of this after the first. I clutched my staff topped with a silver speckled blue sapphire in my left hand as I stood there outside on the dirt ground, and lowered its bottom to the ground, starting to carve a five pointed star around me with the tip. Once I had completed, the whole group had fallen into a sullen silence, and I threw my staff into the ground like a javelin, leaving it jutting out in front of me, the sapphire beginning to emanate a soft, muted light.
“It is I who control you,” I whispered under my breath, and slowly outstretched my left hand to its full length in front of me. At the tips of each of my fingers, a thin thread seemed to flow until it met with the ground, and once they connected to the dirt, I began to languidly raise up my hand, pulling the strings taut. “You only listen to me,” I recited, starting to tug up on the thread, now glowing a piercing blue. From the ground, shambling corpses of skeletons began to rise, being pulled up by the thread. “The cold darkness will meet with your spirit, and you will rise, under my every command.” Slowly as I lifted them up, they inevitably emerged, until they were fully born with my hand stretched as high above my head as I could raise it. “I own your soul and command you with audacity,” I finished softly, and with a snap of my fingers, the thread fell limply off of my fingers, and the skeletons gave low growls, eyeing the children like they were dinner.
I grasped my staff once again and pulled it up from the ground. Once it lost contact with the loose dirt, the fallen strands of string disintegrated, and I strode towards the summoned up corpses I had just conjured. “What shall I tell them to do?” I asked, obviously directing the question to my professor, but he didn’t take the hint until I glanced back at him.
“Command them to do something for the new students,” was the blunt, simple reply I received.
With an unnoticeable roll of my eyes, I turned back to the skeletons with a dull, stoic stare. “My deepest appreciation for being so specific with your words, Professor,” I called out, sarcastically with no real tone of sarcasm in my voice – a talent I seemed to have, which provided its amusing times as well as its share of confusion. “’Something’ is certainly the range that I can command them to perform. I shall tell them to do something entertaining, then.” I raised up my staff to the corpses, who were sulking around before me with blank grunts. “Why don’t we give the newcomers a nice taste of some ballroom dancing?” I jousted with a small smile.
The skeletons immediately started the most skillful and graceful waltz imaginable, each of them dancing quaintly with another. I was waving my right hand about in the air the same way a conductor would keep beat, and I heard the children, who previously had threatened and scared expressions, begin to laugh at how incredibly quickly the menacing skeletons had changed entirely at my simply words. “I do think that is enough of a display for now,” I interjected in the middle of the elegant dancing, and with an effortless tap of my staff to them, the skeletons dissipated just like the thread that had once been connected to them.
My professor was regarding me with a look of either anger or amusement – it was always hard to tell with him – and scoffed. “Do you have any final words for the children before I dismiss them for the time?” he asked me, adjusting his monocle for what seemed to be the hundredth time today. It was a dreadful habit of his that perked my annoyance.
“I’m delighted that you ask me that question,” I responded, strapping my staff onto my back. By now the skeletons had fully disappeared, and all that was before me was the crowd of children and my professor, as we had started this cloudy afternoon. “When you students sign up for your classes, I do hope that you choose Necromancy as one of your options. It is a most enjoyable class with… fulfilling results, and one that most students don’t take, for whatever reason. I hope I have managed to grasp onto your interest today, and that you indeed will sign up for this class. Thank you for your time.”
“With that, you all are released,” the professor announced. “Thank Eori for taking the time to come today with his example.”
It was around five in the afternoon when school ended. As they filed off the school grounds, I received thank you’s from the kids, and started to leave, myself, letting the professor stay there by himself to mutter. We had been at the back of the school, a large white painted brick building, and I shuffled wordlessly around to the front on the paved cobblestone path. Today had been the first day of a new school year, and I was now in my tenth and final year. Most people need about twelve or more years, until they were usually twenty years old, but I was an exception. I was to graduate early. My Necromancy teacher – Professor Falwyn, a pudgy old fellow – had selected me today to show examples of Necromancy to the young students who were just arriving at the school. I was at the top of my class. Not just this class, though, I was at the top of all my magic classes. Our school was the most prestigious in the country, and everyone who wanted to have a name in magic came here, even though it was in a city of half-elves. It was the only reason anyone ever came here to Alesnia. No one wanted to be associated with us for any other reason.
The sky above was emanating predictions of rain, and I was ready to head home after a long and excruciatingly boring day. I rounded the corner to the front of the school’s main building and saw many other students filing around, all headed home. For the people who travelled here to come to school, there were the boarding rooms, but for other like me who actually lived here, we had homes in the quiet section of the city. Already on her way home, I spotted my green-haired friend Saelyr walking alone down the path to her house, and I strode towards her. Truthfully, she was my only friend in the whole school. I wasn’t one to talk to others often. I’m not open like that.
“I hate children,” I stated as I came up beside her.
She jumped at my voice, letting out a startled yelp and instinctively clutching her robes near her heart with a tight fist. Once she realized it was just me, she let out a sigh of relief and lowered her hand to shoot me a faint glare. “I think you need to stop sneaking up behind me and scaring me like that.”
“I don’t try to,” I replied bluntly. “I will try to refrain, though. It seems even I can’t help my sneakiness.”
Starting to walk again, Saelyr shook her head disapprovingly, and I trailed after her. “I’ll never understand the tones of your voice… Anyways, what’s all this about children?”
“Professor Falwyn had me show all the new students some Necromancy over and over again. It made my brain rot from monotony. The professor is very skilled with what he does and is a great teacher… It is just that he irritates me sometimes. And children, too, I cannot stand children, how they stand there and act cute and stupid while they stare at you dully.”
“You don’t hate your little sister,” Saelyr interjected in the middle of my ramblings, falling silent after realizing what she had just said. There was quiet as we walked more, until she glanced sideways at me warily. “…Sorry to bring up the subject.”
I didn’t reply, and just wordlessly continued to walk as she stared at me, waiting for me to speak. I came from a family of four, me being the only boy. I had two older sisters – Celan, twenty-three, and Lestil, twenty-one – along with one younger sister, Breiti, who was eight right now. My father was never home. He was a travelling merchant that merely returned to bring home money, only to leave again to sell more merchandise in larger cities like the capital. I knew that he cared about us, but sometimes I just wasn’t sure. He never was around in times of need. My mother had died giving birth to Breiti. Celan and Lestil were always busy, so I was left to take care of Breiti all these years. Breiti wasn’t a normal eight year old girl, though. She was deaf, debilitated by a disease that was to do more unexpected things to her health as time passed, and was predicted by our doctor to die soon – as in a month or so left to live.
“…So,” Saelyr began quietly, aware of my awkward silence as we walked along, now in the section of the city with the green grass for miles, trees growing lushly, and picturesque white brick houses, “you’ll never guess what happened last night.”
“Do tell,” I inquired, making my voice calm on purpose to mask how I really felt about her previous words. “Something unfortunate?”
Saelyr shook her head and gave me a cheerful smile. “Far from. Now that I’m eighteen, my parents are letting me join the family business.”
“They’re letting you help with the pegusi?” I asked, a rhetorical question, really, but it was helping the conversation move away from the previous subject.
She nodded, clasping her hands together behind her, letting her fingers intertwine. “Yup. I even get my own pegasus from it. Eliel doesn’t think I’ll be able to take care of it, though. My big brother doesn’t think I’m responsible...”
“And you are?” I questioned, not meaning to sound rude, but it most likely came out that way.
When I glanced at her, I noticed her cheeks turning a light tinge of red, and she seemed surprised and embarrassed at my words. “Of course I can handle it! I’m not a child! What makes you think I can’t?” she questioned not quite angrily but obviously flustered.
“You are hotheaded and ignorant,” I answered, and I saw her frown and pout, staring at my expressionless face without knowing what to say. Saelyr took things too seriously. “…Then again, “I continued, “you are also enthusiastic and dedicated, so I do suppose you will be fine.” It was my signature way of giving congratulations – giving someone approval without saying it directly – since I wasn’t one to openly give them. She knew this by now, of course, so she accepted my words with a grateful smile.
“…Thanks, Eori. Here’s my house, I’ll see you tomorrow.” She gave me a short wave before running off in the direction of her house, white brick and black shingled like all the buildings in the city. I watched her as she entered, greeted at the door by her older brother Eliel, and she gave me a smile before closing the door. Behind her house, I could see gallant winged pegusi flying around and grazing on the grass at the side of her house. How nice it was to have a full family.
I soon reached my own house as the clouds above grew darker with each step I took. As I reached the front door of my house identical to all the rest, there was a thunderous clap and bright flash of lightning, and I rushed inside, glad to have reached home in time before the storm. I wasn’t greeted by anyone, and the house didn’t seem glad to see me as the floorboards creaked as I walked on them. I dropped my staff off near the door as I always did. In the kitchen, I could hear talking, so I strode over and poked my head in the room. My curiosity was met with half a flying head of lettuce, nearly knocking me off my feet.
“Oh my god! Eori!”
“Look what you did, Lestil! I told you to stop throwing around all the food!”
“It wasn’t my fault he popped in at the worst time possible! And maybe you shouldn’t have ducked!”
Oh, the many joys of life with a household of two reckless older sisters. Once I came back to and pried the lettuce off my face, I glared at my sisters standing near the counter – obviously very distracted while making food by the temptations and amusements of throwing lettuce at each other. At the kitchen table at the other end of the room sat Breiti, not knowing what was going on as she sat there with a carving knife and wood block in her hand.
“Celan, Lestil, I would suggest you two stop your food fight and concentrate on making food,” I grumbled, starting towards Breiti. “I’ve had a bad enough day as it is at school, I don’t want to have to deal with you two at home.”
As I passed them, I tossed the lettuce I held at them and continued on, pulling out a chair next to my younger sister and sitting down. My older sisters muttered amongst themselves as they went back to preparing food, and I mused in my head about how amazing it was that I had to keep my older sisters in line. Beside me, Breiti was hard at work carving an intricate figure out of her chunk of wood. This was how she tended to pass her time during the day. Her face was pale from never being outside in the sun, and it was framed by her long black hair. We rarely cut it, since she fidgeted when we did.
Breiti looked up as I neared and took a seat in a chair beside her. I held out my hand, motioning for hers – the routine we did every day. She stretched it out and sat there motionlessly as I lowered my index finger to her palm and began to trace words on it. She didn’t flinch through any of it.
It’s Eori. I’m home. School’s done for today. Dinner is going to be ready soon. I am going upstairs to study now. I will be back later for dinner once it is ready.
She put down her wood and reached out for my hand. I let her grasp it, and she began to trace onto my own palm.
Hi, Eori. I’m making a duck. Have fun studying. I love you.
I cringed at her last words for some reason, and took her hand again.
I love you, too.
Standing up to leave, I pushed my chair in and started out of the room. “I will be back. I am going upstairs right now to study for a while.”
“Bookworm, you always have your nose in those books,” Lestil jousted with lighthearted intentions through her jovial voice. “You’re already studying on the first day of school. Pssh. And I can’t believe you’re graduating three years early from class. What do you have left – half a semester or something? I had to go through an extra year of school, myself… You have no idea how much I envy you and your bloated head-”
“Try to enjoy yourself up there, Eori,” Celan calmly interjected as she knelt down to begin to fish around for a bowl. “Don’t burst your brain thinking too hard. Even you have limits.”
Celan was always acting like the motherly figure to us since my mother’s death, and it always seemed to annoy Lestil, as my black haired sister scowled up at Celan after being interrupted. “Of course,” I replied bluntly, not really thinking as I just said what mattered to please her before heading up the stairs towards my room.
The actual reason I had chosen Necromancy as my major for all these years at school wasn’t for my own benefit by any means. Also in the art of summoning the dead included summoning the revered goddess of Necromancy, Selikeh. She was also known as the goddess of death and was the one who collected souls and corpses of the dead once they passed on. This was why I truly wanted to learn Necromancy. Now that I was more experienced, I was going to summon this goddess and have a civilized conversation with her regarding my sick younger sister, but that wasn’t all I was going to do.
Once I reached my room, I closed the door tightly behind me and started immediately for my mahogany carved desk beside my bed. The ceiling was slanted, and the back of my desk was situated right between the crook that the ceiling made when it connected with the wall. I pulled out the chair, padded with a soft cushion for my own comfort, and sat down. There was already a stack of books on my desk’s surface, and I picked up the top one, dusting off the cover.
Advanced Necromancy.
It contained detailed instructions concerning the ritual conducted when summoning the goddess, Selikeh, and I had read it over many times before. I knew so well every single step that the book dictated, but the thing I didn’t know was how I would go about approaching and speaking to her once I had completed the summoning. A goddess wasn’t exactly someone you could just speak to however you wanted. I had no clue what her personality was or how she would want me to address her. Even past that, I didn’t know what I would even ask of her.
Well, I knew the depths of what she could accomplish. It wasn’t really a matter of knowing what I wanted to ask her. It was more that I didn’t know how she would react when I did ask her. I had read many books – all the ones that were piled under these – and there were a few things that had interested me.
First, I had figured out that the goddess of Necromancy knew the exact death date down to the milliseconds of every inhabitant on this planet.
Second, I knew that she could alter people’s dates of death, with certain restrictions.
Lastly, I had read the details of these restrictions. She could take one’s lifetime and subtract time from it. That life had to be given to another, though, since life couldn’t simply be destroyed. Life can be neither created nor eradicated. This life that was taken from one could be given to another.
I wanted to know Breiti’s death date. After that, I wanted to know if Selikeh would agree to give her some of my lifespan. If the goddess would really take me seriously and consider this was what I didn’t know. Thinking about it truthfully made my head ache, which didn’t happen often. I sighed, not wanting to look more at the book tonight. However, putting it all off was doing me no good at all.
Tomorrow was going to be a leisurely and quiet day. It was odd; the first day of school was on a Friday, and then we had the weekend. I decided that I would try out the ritual tomorrow, at night. I set the book down, not wanting to think about it anymore lest I decide to change my mind. I stood up and instead changed my mind about studying, starting to leave my room and head back down the stairs to where my family – well, Celan and Lestil – was making a loud ruckus.
Supper was at the same point it had been when I had arrived at home – far from being done. I chose to ignore my older sisters as they still continued to argue, and sat beside Breiti again. She glanced up at me and gave me a wide grin before going back to carving at her wood. She had gotten farther during the time I wasn’t there and was now completed with the entire head, working hard at the body.
It was quite amazing; I could see all the outlines of the individual feathers. Breiti surely got detailed and intricate when she carved, and I was intrigued at how since she didn’t have her sense of hearing she had somehow perhaps gotten gifted with an extraordinary sense of touch. She could be the talented woodworker, but if only people didn’t discriminate against others that were handicapped like her. We were already discriminated against enough because of our race.
“No, Celan, you’re doing it all wrong! That’s not what you’re supposed to put in the pot! I already have a pot here for that vegetables – this pot was for something else!”
“Lestil, just calm down. Supper will never get done if you just keep yell-”
“I should just make supper myself tomorrow! You’re a horrible cook! Grah, you should just let me do it! You’re terrible!”
They never changed. Supper really would never get done, but thankfully I wasn’t hungry anyways. I sighed, resting my elbow on the table as I cupped my chin in my hand. Perhaps for once they should let me try cooking instead. But I supposed that even if they did, they would find something else to argue about. I wondered how they never lost their voices.
Breiti tapped my arm, and I glanced to her curiously. She set down her knife and wood and made a writing motion, and I took this to mean that she wanted some paper and ink to write on. Breiti only wanted to write with a pen and paper when it was something that she didn’t want to fit onto my hand, and I immediately stood up and went into the family room to rummage around. Once I had acquired some parchment, and quill, and ink bottle, I came back and carefully handed it to her. She eagerly uncapped the bottle, dipped in the quill, and began to scribble on the parchment.
Since school has started for you, I want to start learning stuff again, too. I want you to teach me stuff, Eori. Magic stuff, like all the things you learn at school when you go. Please? I want to learn. What can you teach me?
I wasn’t surprised by this. Breiti had the same compulsive need to learn as I did, but she wasn’t allowed to go to school. Everything she had learned had been taught by one of us here at home. I had taught her how to read and write, Lestil had taught her math, and Celan had taught her everything she needed to know in-between. Our whole family was educated in magic – me specialized in Necromancy, Lestil in manipulating water, and Celan in the art of healing – so why not just teach Breiti some basic things? I picked up the quill from her hand and wrote hastily in cursive under her words.
I would be glad to teach you. First, why don’t I show you how to use staves and healing techniques? That’s one of the most important things that we learn at school.
A wide smile spread on her pale face after reading what I had written, and she nodded eagerly as she wrote back.
I’d love that. It should be fun. Knowing how to heal people would be cool, too. I’m excited. I’ll be good at it, I hope.
Then we will start on Sunday, I wrote, I have something going on tomorrow and I will be busy. Sunday, I promise. And don’t worry, you will be splendid.
She grinned up at me with that Breiti-smile she always had when she was happy, and motioned that she wanted to hug me. I scooted closer and allowed her to stretch her arms up around my neck and pull me into a tight hug. She knew she was supposed to die soon, and was still so happy. I wish I could have been as happy as her – for her – but that wouldn’t have been like me at all.
My first book was a fairy tale, and it was read to me when I was about two, almost three. It was about some magical kingdom and the inhabitants who all adored their princess, but she got kidnapped and had to be rescued by some prince. I didn’t pay attention at all past that, but just listened to my mother’s soft voice while she read. The story itself was boring to me, and I had no interest in stories like that, but after she finished reading to me and went off to do other things with Celan and Lestil, I wandered around the small room to the bookshelves that rested at the opposite wall. I pulled one down, and it fell to the ground in front of me to open.
Mother must have heard the loud crash, and came running in from the other room. “Oh, Eori, what in the world are you doing? You’re going to hurt yourself, stop pulling books from the shelf like that…”
I pointed my finger at the open page, though, and stared at the interesting picture that was on it. “This one,” I stated firmly, poking the book with my finger. “Read this one.”
“You want me to read this one to you, Eori?” she asked confusedly, sitting down next to me on the wooden floor. She picked up the book carefully, and when she glanced at the cover I noticed the perplexed look on her face framed by her long blue hair. “This book is far too complicated, Eori. It’s about learning how to do magic, and you’re far too young.”
“Read the magic one,” I repeated determinedly. It seemed far more interesting than the boring fairy tale I had just been fed, and my mother sighed, rubbing her temples with her fingers.
“If you insist, but you’ll probably be bored to death and fall asleep,” she replied, and set the book down to grab hold of my waist, hoisting me up to her lap to set me down. Picking up the book, she held it out in front of us and flipped to the first page of the thick book and began to read.
I found it all entirely more interesting than the other story I had been read, and hadn’t fallen asleep despite her predictions. Every time we came upon a word I didn’t know, I asked her what it meant, and she explained it. Soon, we finished that book, and I found myself entirely engrossed in the world of magic.
~
.
Bitter Decadence |:.
. Chapter I |:.
. Eori’s P.O.V. |:.
Bitter Decadence |:..
Chapter I |:..
Eori’s P.O.V. |:.“Necromancy is the art of summoning the dead. A Necromancer will conjure up the spirits of the dead and the skeletons and corpses buried deep beneath the depths of the crusty soil and call them forth to do their every bidding. To be a Necromancer, one must have the intelligence and diligence to study the every critical step of successful Necromancy. Here today, we have one of the most skilled upperclassmen here who will show you all an example of Necromancy.”
At last, the professor had completed his short monologue for the young students just beginning their classes here at the academy, and turned to me, adjusting his frosty monocle as he gave me a tight lipped expression of impatience. I coolly averted my eyes from him with a quiet sigh, and they fell onto the huddled group of children standing around us in a circle, staring at me intently, as if I was some otherworldly being they’d never had the pleasure of laying their eyes on ever before. It was the fifth time today a group of students was watching me like this, and I had started to grow bored of this after the first. I clutched my staff topped with a silver speckled blue sapphire in my left hand as I stood there outside on the dirt ground, and lowered its bottom to the ground, starting to carve a five pointed star around me with the tip. Once I had completed, the whole group had fallen into a sullen silence, and I threw my staff into the ground like a javelin, leaving it jutting out in front of me, the sapphire beginning to emanate a soft, muted light.
“It is I who control you,” I whispered under my breath, and slowly outstretched my left hand to its full length in front of me. At the tips of each of my fingers, a thin thread seemed to flow until it met with the ground, and once they connected to the dirt, I began to languidly raise up my hand, pulling the strings taut. “You only listen to me,” I recited, starting to tug up on the thread, now glowing a piercing blue. From the ground, shambling corpses of skeletons began to rise, being pulled up by the thread. “The cold darkness will meet with your spirit, and you will rise, under my every command.” Slowly as I lifted them up, they inevitably emerged, until they were fully born with my hand stretched as high above my head as I could raise it. “I own your soul and command you with audacity,” I finished softly, and with a snap of my fingers, the thread fell limply off of my fingers, and the skeletons gave low growls, eyeing the children like they were dinner.
I grasped my staff once again and pulled it up from the ground. Once it lost contact with the loose dirt, the fallen strands of string disintegrated, and I strode towards the summoned up corpses I had just conjured. “What shall I tell them to do?” I asked, obviously directing the question to my professor, but he didn’t take the hint until I glanced back at him.
“Command them to do something for the new students,” was the blunt, simple reply I received.
With an unnoticeable roll of my eyes, I turned back to the skeletons with a dull, stoic stare. “My deepest appreciation for being so specific with your words, Professor,” I called out, sarcastically with no real tone of sarcasm in my voice – a talent I seemed to have, which provided its amusing times as well as its share of confusion. “’Something’ is certainly the range that I can command them to perform. I shall tell them to do something entertaining, then.” I raised up my staff to the corpses, who were sulking around before me with blank grunts. “Why don’t we give the newcomers a nice taste of some ballroom dancing?” I jousted with a small smile.
The skeletons immediately started the most skillful and graceful waltz imaginable, each of them dancing quaintly with another. I was waving my right hand about in the air the same way a conductor would keep beat, and I heard the children, who previously had threatened and scared expressions, begin to laugh at how incredibly quickly the menacing skeletons had changed entirely at my simply words. “I do think that is enough of a display for now,” I interjected in the middle of the elegant dancing, and with an effortless tap of my staff to them, the skeletons dissipated just like the thread that had once been connected to them.
My professor was regarding me with a look of either anger or amusement – it was always hard to tell with him – and scoffed. “Do you have any final words for the children before I dismiss them for the time?” he asked me, adjusting his monocle for what seemed to be the hundredth time today. It was a dreadful habit of his that perked my annoyance.
“I’m delighted that you ask me that question,” I responded, strapping my staff onto my back. By now the skeletons had fully disappeared, and all that was before me was the crowd of children and my professor, as we had started this cloudy afternoon. “When you students sign up for your classes, I do hope that you choose Necromancy as one of your options. It is a most enjoyable class with… fulfilling results, and one that most students don’t take, for whatever reason. I hope I have managed to grasp onto your interest today, and that you indeed will sign up for this class. Thank you for your time.”
“With that, you all are released,” the professor announced. “Thank Eori for taking the time to come today with his example.”
It was around five in the afternoon when school ended. As they filed off the school grounds, I received thank you’s from the kids, and started to leave, myself, letting the professor stay there by himself to mutter. We had been at the back of the school, a large white painted brick building, and I shuffled wordlessly around to the front on the paved cobblestone path. Today had been the first day of a new school year, and I was now in my tenth and final year. Most people need about twelve or more years, until they were usually twenty years old, but I was an exception. I was to graduate early. My Necromancy teacher – Professor Falwyn, a pudgy old fellow – had selected me today to show examples of Necromancy to the young students who were just arriving at the school. I was at the top of my class. Not just this class, though, I was at the top of all my magic classes. Our school was the most prestigious in the country, and everyone who wanted to have a name in magic came here, even though it was in a city of half-elves. It was the only reason anyone ever came here to Alesnia. No one wanted to be associated with us for any other reason.
The sky above was emanating predictions of rain, and I was ready to head home after a long and excruciatingly boring day. I rounded the corner to the front of the school’s main building and saw many other students filing around, all headed home. For the people who travelled here to come to school, there were the boarding rooms, but for other like me who actually lived here, we had homes in the quiet section of the city. Already on her way home, I spotted my green-haired friend Saelyr walking alone down the path to her house, and I strode towards her. Truthfully, she was my only friend in the whole school. I wasn’t one to talk to others often. I’m not open like that.
“I hate children,” I stated as I came up beside her.
She jumped at my voice, letting out a startled yelp and instinctively clutching her robes near her heart with a tight fist. Once she realized it was just me, she let out a sigh of relief and lowered her hand to shoot me a faint glare. “I think you need to stop sneaking up behind me and scaring me like that.”
“I don’t try to,” I replied bluntly. “I will try to refrain, though. It seems even I can’t help my sneakiness.”
Starting to walk again, Saelyr shook her head disapprovingly, and I trailed after her. “I’ll never understand the tones of your voice… Anyways, what’s all this about children?”
“Professor Falwyn had me show all the new students some Necromancy over and over again. It made my brain rot from monotony. The professor is very skilled with what he does and is a great teacher… It is just that he irritates me sometimes. And children, too, I cannot stand children, how they stand there and act cute and stupid while they stare at you dully.”
“You don’t hate your little sister,” Saelyr interjected in the middle of my ramblings, falling silent after realizing what she had just said. There was quiet as we walked more, until she glanced sideways at me warily. “…Sorry to bring up the subject.”
I didn’t reply, and just wordlessly continued to walk as she stared at me, waiting for me to speak. I came from a family of four, me being the only boy. I had two older sisters – Celan, twenty-three, and Lestil, twenty-one – along with one younger sister, Breiti, who was eight right now. My father was never home. He was a travelling merchant that merely returned to bring home money, only to leave again to sell more merchandise in larger cities like the capital. I knew that he cared about us, but sometimes I just wasn’t sure. He never was around in times of need. My mother had died giving birth to Breiti. Celan and Lestil were always busy, so I was left to take care of Breiti all these years. Breiti wasn’t a normal eight year old girl, though. She was deaf, debilitated by a disease that was to do more unexpected things to her health as time passed, and was predicted by our doctor to die soon – as in a month or so left to live.
“…So,” Saelyr began quietly, aware of my awkward silence as we walked along, now in the section of the city with the green grass for miles, trees growing lushly, and picturesque white brick houses, “you’ll never guess what happened last night.”
“Do tell,” I inquired, making my voice calm on purpose to mask how I really felt about her previous words. “Something unfortunate?”
Saelyr shook her head and gave me a cheerful smile. “Far from. Now that I’m eighteen, my parents are letting me join the family business.”
“They’re letting you help with the pegusi?” I asked, a rhetorical question, really, but it was helping the conversation move away from the previous subject.
She nodded, clasping her hands together behind her, letting her fingers intertwine. “Yup. I even get my own pegasus from it. Eliel doesn’t think I’ll be able to take care of it, though. My big brother doesn’t think I’m responsible...”
“And you are?” I questioned, not meaning to sound rude, but it most likely came out that way.
When I glanced at her, I noticed her cheeks turning a light tinge of red, and she seemed surprised and embarrassed at my words. “Of course I can handle it! I’m not a child! What makes you think I can’t?” she questioned not quite angrily but obviously flustered.
“You are hotheaded and ignorant,” I answered, and I saw her frown and pout, staring at my expressionless face without knowing what to say. Saelyr took things too seriously. “…Then again, “I continued, “you are also enthusiastic and dedicated, so I do suppose you will be fine.” It was my signature way of giving congratulations – giving someone approval without saying it directly – since I wasn’t one to openly give them. She knew this by now, of course, so she accepted my words with a grateful smile.
“…Thanks, Eori. Here’s my house, I’ll see you tomorrow.” She gave me a short wave before running off in the direction of her house, white brick and black shingled like all the buildings in the city. I watched her as she entered, greeted at the door by her older brother Eliel, and she gave me a smile before closing the door. Behind her house, I could see gallant winged pegusi flying around and grazing on the grass at the side of her house. How nice it was to have a full family.
I soon reached my own house as the clouds above grew darker with each step I took. As I reached the front door of my house identical to all the rest, there was a thunderous clap and bright flash of lightning, and I rushed inside, glad to have reached home in time before the storm. I wasn’t greeted by anyone, and the house didn’t seem glad to see me as the floorboards creaked as I walked on them. I dropped my staff off near the door as I always did. In the kitchen, I could hear talking, so I strode over and poked my head in the room. My curiosity was met with half a flying head of lettuce, nearly knocking me off my feet.
“Oh my god! Eori!”
“Look what you did, Lestil! I told you to stop throwing around all the food!”
“It wasn’t my fault he popped in at the worst time possible! And maybe you shouldn’t have ducked!”
Oh, the many joys of life with a household of two reckless older sisters. Once I came back to and pried the lettuce off my face, I glared at my sisters standing near the counter – obviously very distracted while making food by the temptations and amusements of throwing lettuce at each other. At the kitchen table at the other end of the room sat Breiti, not knowing what was going on as she sat there with a carving knife and wood block in her hand.
“Celan, Lestil, I would suggest you two stop your food fight and concentrate on making food,” I grumbled, starting towards Breiti. “I’ve had a bad enough day as it is at school, I don’t want to have to deal with you two at home.”
As I passed them, I tossed the lettuce I held at them and continued on, pulling out a chair next to my younger sister and sitting down. My older sisters muttered amongst themselves as they went back to preparing food, and I mused in my head about how amazing it was that I had to keep my older sisters in line. Beside me, Breiti was hard at work carving an intricate figure out of her chunk of wood. This was how she tended to pass her time during the day. Her face was pale from never being outside in the sun, and it was framed by her long black hair. We rarely cut it, since she fidgeted when we did.
Breiti looked up as I neared and took a seat in a chair beside her. I held out my hand, motioning for hers – the routine we did every day. She stretched it out and sat there motionlessly as I lowered my index finger to her palm and began to trace words on it. She didn’t flinch through any of it.
It’s Eori. I’m home. School’s done for today. Dinner is going to be ready soon. I am going upstairs to study now. I will be back later for dinner once it is ready.
She put down her wood and reached out for my hand. I let her grasp it, and she began to trace onto my own palm.
Hi, Eori. I’m making a duck. Have fun studying. I love you.
I cringed at her last words for some reason, and took her hand again.
I love you, too.
Standing up to leave, I pushed my chair in and started out of the room. “I will be back. I am going upstairs right now to study for a while.”
“Bookworm, you always have your nose in those books,” Lestil jousted with lighthearted intentions through her jovial voice. “You’re already studying on the first day of school. Pssh. And I can’t believe you’re graduating three years early from class. What do you have left – half a semester or something? I had to go through an extra year of school, myself… You have no idea how much I envy you and your bloated head-”
“Try to enjoy yourself up there, Eori,” Celan calmly interjected as she knelt down to begin to fish around for a bowl. “Don’t burst your brain thinking too hard. Even you have limits.”
Celan was always acting like the motherly figure to us since my mother’s death, and it always seemed to annoy Lestil, as my black haired sister scowled up at Celan after being interrupted. “Of course,” I replied bluntly, not really thinking as I just said what mattered to please her before heading up the stairs towards my room.
The actual reason I had chosen Necromancy as my major for all these years at school wasn’t for my own benefit by any means. Also in the art of summoning the dead included summoning the revered goddess of Necromancy, Selikeh. She was also known as the goddess of death and was the one who collected souls and corpses of the dead once they passed on. This was why I truly wanted to learn Necromancy. Now that I was more experienced, I was going to summon this goddess and have a civilized conversation with her regarding my sick younger sister, but that wasn’t all I was going to do.
Once I reached my room, I closed the door tightly behind me and started immediately for my mahogany carved desk beside my bed. The ceiling was slanted, and the back of my desk was situated right between the crook that the ceiling made when it connected with the wall. I pulled out the chair, padded with a soft cushion for my own comfort, and sat down. There was already a stack of books on my desk’s surface, and I picked up the top one, dusting off the cover.
Advanced Necromancy.
It contained detailed instructions concerning the ritual conducted when summoning the goddess, Selikeh, and I had read it over many times before. I knew so well every single step that the book dictated, but the thing I didn’t know was how I would go about approaching and speaking to her once I had completed the summoning. A goddess wasn’t exactly someone you could just speak to however you wanted. I had no clue what her personality was or how she would want me to address her. Even past that, I didn’t know what I would even ask of her.
Well, I knew the depths of what she could accomplish. It wasn’t really a matter of knowing what I wanted to ask her. It was more that I didn’t know how she would react when I did ask her. I had read many books – all the ones that were piled under these – and there were a few things that had interested me.
First, I had figured out that the goddess of Necromancy knew the exact death date down to the milliseconds of every inhabitant on this planet.
Second, I knew that she could alter people’s dates of death, with certain restrictions.
Lastly, I had read the details of these restrictions. She could take one’s lifetime and subtract time from it. That life had to be given to another, though, since life couldn’t simply be destroyed. Life can be neither created nor eradicated. This life that was taken from one could be given to another.
I wanted to know Breiti’s death date. After that, I wanted to know if Selikeh would agree to give her some of my lifespan. If the goddess would really take me seriously and consider this was what I didn’t know. Thinking about it truthfully made my head ache, which didn’t happen often. I sighed, not wanting to look more at the book tonight. However, putting it all off was doing me no good at all.
Tomorrow was going to be a leisurely and quiet day. It was odd; the first day of school was on a Friday, and then we had the weekend. I decided that I would try out the ritual tomorrow, at night. I set the book down, not wanting to think about it anymore lest I decide to change my mind. I stood up and instead changed my mind about studying, starting to leave my room and head back down the stairs to where my family – well, Celan and Lestil – was making a loud ruckus.
Supper was at the same point it had been when I had arrived at home – far from being done. I chose to ignore my older sisters as they still continued to argue, and sat beside Breiti again. She glanced up at me and gave me a wide grin before going back to carving at her wood. She had gotten farther during the time I wasn’t there and was now completed with the entire head, working hard at the body.
It was quite amazing; I could see all the outlines of the individual feathers. Breiti surely got detailed and intricate when she carved, and I was intrigued at how since she didn’t have her sense of hearing she had somehow perhaps gotten gifted with an extraordinary sense of touch. She could be the talented woodworker, but if only people didn’t discriminate against others that were handicapped like her. We were already discriminated against enough because of our race.
“No, Celan, you’re doing it all wrong! That’s not what you’re supposed to put in the pot! I already have a pot here for that vegetables – this pot was for something else!”
“Lestil, just calm down. Supper will never get done if you just keep yell-”
“I should just make supper myself tomorrow! You’re a horrible cook! Grah, you should just let me do it! You’re terrible!”
They never changed. Supper really would never get done, but thankfully I wasn’t hungry anyways. I sighed, resting my elbow on the table as I cupped my chin in my hand. Perhaps for once they should let me try cooking instead. But I supposed that even if they did, they would find something else to argue about. I wondered how they never lost their voices.
Breiti tapped my arm, and I glanced to her curiously. She set down her knife and wood and made a writing motion, and I took this to mean that she wanted some paper and ink to write on. Breiti only wanted to write with a pen and paper when it was something that she didn’t want to fit onto my hand, and I immediately stood up and went into the family room to rummage around. Once I had acquired some parchment, and quill, and ink bottle, I came back and carefully handed it to her. She eagerly uncapped the bottle, dipped in the quill, and began to scribble on the parchment.
Since school has started for you, I want to start learning stuff again, too. I want you to teach me stuff, Eori. Magic stuff, like all the things you learn at school when you go. Please? I want to learn. What can you teach me?
I wasn’t surprised by this. Breiti had the same compulsive need to learn as I did, but she wasn’t allowed to go to school. Everything she had learned had been taught by one of us here at home. I had taught her how to read and write, Lestil had taught her math, and Celan had taught her everything she needed to know in-between. Our whole family was educated in magic – me specialized in Necromancy, Lestil in manipulating water, and Celan in the art of healing – so why not just teach Breiti some basic things? I picked up the quill from her hand and wrote hastily in cursive under her words.
I would be glad to teach you. First, why don’t I show you how to use staves and healing techniques? That’s one of the most important things that we learn at school.
A wide smile spread on her pale face after reading what I had written, and she nodded eagerly as she wrote back.
I’d love that. It should be fun. Knowing how to heal people would be cool, too. I’m excited. I’ll be good at it, I hope.
Then we will start on Sunday, I wrote, I have something going on tomorrow and I will be busy. Sunday, I promise. And don’t worry, you will be splendid.
She grinned up at me with that Breiti-smile she always had when she was happy, and motioned that she wanted to hug me. I scooted closer and allowed her to stretch her arms up around my neck and pull me into a tight hug. She knew she was supposed to die soon, and was still so happy. I wish I could have been as happy as her – for her – but that wouldn’t have been like me at all.
. Flashback |:.
Flashback |:.My first book was a fairy tale, and it was read to me when I was about two, almost three. It was about some magical kingdom and the inhabitants who all adored their princess, but she got kidnapped and had to be rescued by some prince. I didn’t pay attention at all past that, but just listened to my mother’s soft voice while she read. The story itself was boring to me, and I had no interest in stories like that, but after she finished reading to me and went off to do other things with Celan and Lestil, I wandered around the small room to the bookshelves that rested at the opposite wall. I pulled one down, and it fell to the ground in front of me to open.
Mother must have heard the loud crash, and came running in from the other room. “Oh, Eori, what in the world are you doing? You’re going to hurt yourself, stop pulling books from the shelf like that…”
I pointed my finger at the open page, though, and stared at the interesting picture that was on it. “This one,” I stated firmly, poking the book with my finger. “Read this one.”
“You want me to read this one to you, Eori?” she asked confusedly, sitting down next to me on the wooden floor. She picked up the book carefully, and when she glanced at the cover I noticed the perplexed look on her face framed by her long blue hair. “This book is far too complicated, Eori. It’s about learning how to do magic, and you’re far too young.”
“Read the magic one,” I repeated determinedly. It seemed far more interesting than the boring fairy tale I had just been fed, and my mother sighed, rubbing her temples with her fingers.
“If you insist, but you’ll probably be bored to death and fall asleep,” she replied, and set the book down to grab hold of my waist, hoisting me up to her lap to set me down. Picking up the book, she held it out in front of us and flipped to the first page of the thick book and began to read.
I found it all entirely more interesting than the other story I had been read, and hadn’t fallen asleep despite her predictions. Every time we came upon a word I didn’t know, I asked her what it meant, and she explained it. Soon, we finished that book, and I found myself entirely engrossed in the world of magic.
. End Flashback |:.
End Flashback |:.
Because you know, Eori's slowly withering away, hence the decadence, and I needed an adjective in front. @_@
