Work Text:
“See you around, Wiz-kid.”
Her voice was too casual for the stone walls. Somewhere between a shared joke and smugness without a choking point.
Alia couldn’t move in response. All the tension locked inside their legs, bleeding into the dead floor and rooting them like a stone in water.
Without a regard, she waved a hand, turning with mundane instinct as she stepped into her own teleportation.
Lucy’s ashes still lay where they’d dissolved, stained with the ash from the ignited branch she had carried.
“She’s gone.” They muttered, expressionless or shocked or somewhere awful in between.
Duncan took a breath to speak behind them.
He didn’t get the chance. They practically growled.
“She’s gone.”
Their movements were twitchy— shoulders locking into flintlock-stiff, head snapping downward.
Shaking fists didn’t stop their voice from coming out deathly even, icy and too official.
“You knew.”
The skidding of their boots as they twisted bounced against the high ceiling. Duncan didn’t flinch.
Not even when they stomped forward.
“You knew. You’re a Necromancer. You know Lucy was dying. You knew that cure was killing her.”
Their voice cracked, once, too high and unfiltered. “You didn’t tell me.”
“…Tell me what you would have done with that information.”
Another slam from their boot, cascading outward and lashing against the walls, striking back to the center of the room.
“Days, you idiot! Days— days we worked with that woman! Days you sat there while she acted like Lucy’s savior! And you didn’t tell me!”
He inclined his head, as if they’d said something absurd. Like he couldn’t hear them properly over the dust. Or he didn’t want to.
“What would you have done, had you known? You wanted the Mortal Plain liberated.”
“I would have told her she was dying!”
They meant to shout, to snarl, but the words escaped as a scream.
“And what would that have done?!”
He was the one to shout, slamming his staff against the floor like a useless gavel. “What would that have done, Sunmender?! Would you have made her choose? Choose to die or choose to lose herself again?!”
“She deserved to know! And clearly— clearly both you and Miranda knew! I was the only one out of the loop!”
They stepped back, throwing their arms out before slamming them to their side in fists. “You let her kill a woman!”
Breath caught in their throat before they could swallow it. Somewhere behind them, the shadows of the room turned strange. They held their breath before it could turn worse, and the darkness pooled back to its intended shape.
Duncan’s voice stepped forward as evenly as a ship in wind.
“I never know. I never know when to say it. It’s not all the time. It’s not always correct.”
He looked at them properly, then, adjusting his staff as if he was about to cast. He didn’t. Alia glared.
“The first time I saw it… I was ten years old.”
“What does that—“
“Shut up. Just… be silent for one single moment.”
He started, again, pulling his hood down lower. “I was ten years old. It was just a squirrel. An old one. And I had no clue what to do. So I—“
The story fell short, his words stuttering.
“So I ran to professor Drake. I scooped the poor creature up and ran to him. I thought he could help. I thought it was a curse, or an infection, or some other false story they’d tell children about magic to get them to eat their vegetables.”
“I think— I think professor Drake was afraid that I’d seen it so early. He told me this was the one burden Necromancers carried. Our greatest burden and our greatest gift.”
He snapped his head up to look towards them. “So— forgive me, for not telling you information you’d clearly not be able to take.”
“You forget that we’re in hostile territory. It doesn’t matter if you don’t think I can take it or not, forget my feelings!” Alia barked. “We are on a mission! It’s kind of critical that we’re on the same page!”
“If you had known, you would have done something! And then Miranda would have known that you—“
Duncan stuttered, gesturing wildly. “If you interfered, your truce would have fallen apart. The Mortal Plain would have never been freed, and— Miranda could have easily struck at us if we tried to save Lucy— assuming Lucy had wanted to be saved! Do you truly believe she would want to go back to being a monster? Even to save her life?”
“I think she should have had the choice!”
“I know.”
His voice was quieter than it was. “That’s the trouble. Loss isn’t a choice.”
Alia brought a hand to the side of their temple, nails curling into their scalp. Only one of their shoulders fell loose.
“You’re not a good person, Duncan.”
Even under the hood, they could see him looking down and away from them.
“I’m not. And your excuse?”
“What—“
“You were the one who chose to trust Miranda Briar.” He half spat. “I saw you holding back laughter at her jokes. Don’t pretend you haven’t made compromises.”
Their eyes narrowed.
“I wasn’t going to let a blood farm stand.”
“That was your choice. You made a moral judgement. I made mine.”
Alia didn’t look at him any longer, throwing their head to the side.
“…I can’t…” They tried, trailing off and starting over. “I would have— if it were just me here— I would have taken the risk. I would have told her. I could have gotten out even if it went sideways. I’d just come back for the Mortal Plain later.”
They didn’t see if Duncan was even still listening. “Miranda probably needs me. Not sure. She acts like it. But she… probably doesn’t care about you. She’s not blind to magic. She knows what Necromancy is. She saw you work. She would have known you knew.”
As much as they didn’t want to admit it…
“…If I reacted, you’d be the first down. I would have gotten you hurt. I probably wouldn’t have been able to even help Lucy. The only solution would have been to… get her bit again.”
They sighed.
“Which would have been a risk to take in the middle of a risk.”
He didn’t respond.
The room was too quiet, too wet with moisture on the stone and the smell of rotten iron.
Then Alia heard a single step. They glanced up just in time to see Duncan move towards Lucy’s ashes.
“…Do you want me to perform the last rites?”
“Yeah. What do you need me to do?”
“Nothing.”
He was on his knees before they could respond, drawing a spell circle around Lucy’s ashes. It lit, and a square of silk formed under them.
With practice and not experience, he tied the silk around the remains.
“It would be… traditional, to bury her somewhere with a higher concentration of Life energy.”
“…The woods by the town?” Alia half suggested, half mumbled. “I don’t think you wanna bury her on monster land, but the spot close to the Mortal Plain is… close to neutral.”
He nodded. “I would suggest scattering her ashes into the Skyway, but we can’t afford the travel to the edge of the land, and you’re supposed to… get the rites over in a reasonable time.”
Alia didn’t answer for a moment.
“Forest it is, then. Come on.”
It had rained in the time they were gone. Mud choked the grass and slid down the hills surrounding the Mortal Plain, but the sun had at least decided to fight to peek over the clouded horizon.
Alia avoided the villagers’ eyes as they passed through the fields, leaving Duncan as the unfortunate one to assure them that they would be back shortly.
“You know how to do this, right?” They finally whispered as they slipped past the stalks.
“Not well enough.” He muttered. “She’ll have to forgive me for burying her with the skills of a fourth-year.”
“…You didn’t learn anything else from anywhere?”
“Why.” He started. “Would the Schism have taught me anything about respectful burial?”
“Sorry.”
Duncan didn’t respond. Either because there was absolutely nothing to say, or because the ground had properly started to squelch under his boots.
He was mid-step over a puddle of mud when he froze.
“I don’t have a shovel.”
“…You’re going to have to dig with your hands.” Alia responded, shoving a low-hanging branch out of their way.
“I can’t, that’s the issue. I can’t put the ashes down, and I can’t touch them without clean hands.”
He groaned, shaking his head as he started to walk again.
The thicker canopy had kept the ground a bit dryer further into the woods. Leaves almost crunched under Alia’s boots in places.
“Okay, do you— do you gotta be the one to dig the hole and stuff? Because then I’ll just… hold the ashes, and make a little raincloud to wash your hands or something.”
“I don’t… uh…”
“You don’t actually remember this very well, do you?”
Duncan whirled his head back to look at them, more disbelief than anger. “I didn’t think I would be in this situation, for certain!”
Alia didn’t respond. He took that as permission.
“What are we— what are we supposed to do? Scholar Venkman isn’t with us, we don’t know what Miranda wants, we can’t ask the other scholars for help— we left of our own accord— I am not equipped for this, frankly, because this is a ridiculous situation that should not have happened in the first place.”
A heavier step than the last one was his punctuation. He took a breath like that would be the end of it, but it clearly wasn’t.
“And I can’t even blame— there’s no one to blame. Not Ambrose, not Ione, as absurd and ignorant as she is— no one! No one! Briar is just cruel, and senseless, and from the same nightmare reality you, a child of our oh so loving World Tree— were stuck in!”
“…What are you—“
“And who am I to blame?! Bartleby?! Well, that just worked so well last time, didn’t it?!”
Alia stumbled into a faster step, catching up with him. “Hey, you’re uh— look, I’m sorry about the—“
“It’s not about that! It is about the fact that I have clearly neglected some fundamental aspect of being a wizard, and now I have lost the vantage point!”
“…You’re not making any sense.”
“Good!”
He tugged his hood further down his head, footfalls like forceful marching.
“I could have had a normal life. I could have been a perfectly reasonable, successful Necromancer. I could have pursued my own studies. But no, instead, I chased a hunch I had as an apprentice.”
The force slowly left his steps, stuttering out in the shaking of his arms. “Instead, I convinced myself that destroying existence was preferable. And as penance I am all but forced to work for a scholarly group I don’t like, nor trust.”
Wind, too humid and chilled, weaved through the trees. The clearing in front of them wasn’t pretty, but it was bare, somewhat shielded by weathered tree trunks.
“I am completely, utterly, stuck. And I’m far too old for a professor to come save me, now.”
He scoffed.
“…As if I would even accept something so pathetic.”
Alia blinked, hard. Then they sighed, and moved past him.
“All right. You’re freaking out. Let me dig.”
Without ceremony, they dropped to their knees at the center of the clearing, and dug their nails into the dirt. It crumbled against their fingers, wet sand and too solid.
It wasn’t pretty. They tried to create a pile, but the dirt mostly just scattered around, and the indent came uneven and misshapen.
A single drop of water fell onto the earth. They blinked and sat back upright.
“Can I just— ugh, not again.”
“You’re crying.”
“Shut up. You’ll make it worse. Is this deep enough?”
“…I don’t know.”
Alia leaned back over the hole, digging their nails in one more time, prying away as much as they could in one motion.
“She’ll have to forgive us.” They muttered.
Neither of them moved for a moment. The hole stayed where it was, lopsided and pathetic and far too accidental looking for what it was supposed to protect.
Alia took a breath in pieces. “Velma said that… when I feel like this, I should take a deep breath, and tense all my muscles and count and—“
They shrugged.
“I don’t care. I feel like this. Someone’s dead. That’s it.”
Duncan didn’t say anything. Barely, he leaned forward and lowered Lucy’s ashes into the grave. For just a moment too long to be an accident, he didn’t move— staring with the frozen disbelief of hypothetical and lesson turned to reality. Then he covered the grave as thoroughly as possible, before smoothing the land out and picking up a twig next to him.
“Stand. I have to draw the circle.”
Alia forced themselves up, stepping backwards a bit too loosely. Duncan drew the circle widely and as evenly as he could manage on uneven ground.
The sigils, admittedly, took several tries, and the ground wore thin where he drew them. Alia didn’t comment.
“What… what’s this circle for?”
“It just keeps the energy around the burial site still for a day— or, something. To let things settle.”
“Wait.” They blinked in response. “Lucy’s soul is…”
“Absolutely not. She joined with the Spiral the moment her body gave out. If she ever manifests, it could be days or years from now. Her spirit needs to recover, the curse put strain under it.” He stopped mid-motion, turning his head. “This is just a basic formality. Earlier Necromantic theory believed that spirits, suddenly sensitive to energy in their new forms, would be overwhelmed by how many energies exist in the world. Early Necromancers thought a holding period would ease the transition.”
“Does it?” They mumbled, half bracing, half flat.
“When it’s my turn, I’ll let you know.”
There was too much wayward and misplaced venom behind his voice. Alia didn’t flinch, exactly, but their response came faster.
“Don’t talk like that.”
“Sorry. Now, just—“
He stepped to the front of the circle. Alia moved to the side so they could watch him from a better angle. He froze again, planting his staff in front of him.
“I have to take off my hood. Look away.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want you to see my face, that’s why.”
“I haven’t seen your face in years. What’s your deal with that, anyway?”
Duncan didn’t reply, not for a moment. His hands gripped his staff tighter.
“Just look away.”
“You don’t want me to see you cry—“
“Stormfreak.”
Alia’s shoulders dropped, and they turned.
“Fine.”
They didn’t look. They didn’t listen, really— if he was praying, if he was humming, it didn’t reach their ears. They weren’t sure they wanted it to, really.
Not that they’d ever been particularly averse to Necromancy. It certainly wasn’t their calling, but it never seemed terribly frightening. At least, not in comparison to the deafening silence of Earth’s deaths. Nothing remained of the dead there. Not in the way it did in the Spiral.
It was up to the people and the people alone, what remained of someone who had passed. Ghosts, and zombies, and all the manners of half-returns that they’d seen since returning home had never existed on Earth. Wherever they went, they couldn’t visit once they left.
They didn't think about Earth. They didn’t, anyway. But the half-formed memories had crept up since the moment they saw Miranda for the first time.
No one Lucy truly knew was here to mourn her. The village had known her, briefly, of course— and, hopefully, she would be something of treasured to them. The other members of the Broken Branch had seemed ecstatic that she had seemingly taken to the cure and returned to humanity.
But the vampire who’d turned her, who’d considered her something of a strange daughter… he had seen her as vermin and prey the moment she ran to him, unfazed and uncaring for the tears she’d had upon waking up as a human.
And no one from her former human life would have been alive to be informed of her passing.
Even they barely knew her.
Duncan stood. Alia glanced back toward him.
“It’s… done. That’s all I can do.” He said, voice nearly monotone.
In barely a half-step, they moved back towards him, stopping just short of too noticeable.
“Do I… say goodbye?”
“No.”
“That’ll mess something up?”
He glanced toward them— genuine, unplanned. “No, no, it won’t. You’ll just— be wasting your breath. You’ll say goodbye a thousand times.”
They didn’t respond. Duncan barely moved.
“Let’s just go.” He finally muttered, and turned. Alia stuttered behind him, ankles fighting to twist them back around for far too many steps.
Neither of them spoke until the trees had swallowed the view back towards the clearing.
Alia was the one to break the silence.
“I… used to think you were so cool. For never crying.”
“What?”
“You just—“ They said, a breath in nearly stopping them. “You seemed so… I dunno. Put together. Like a real wizard. You were a year older than me, but you lived in your own house, and you studied all on your own. I thought you were strong.”
“And you… don’t think I’m strong now?”
Indignation lost the battle with the confusion in his voice. Duncan’s steps fell out of place. Alia didn’t answer. Not really.
“It’s not always like this.”
“I wouldn’t ever count on it.”
“Yeah.” They mumbled, stopping to kick a pebble. “You have to— make it good. When you can. And then try harder than that. It’s not always so serious. Usually you can…”
“Keep people alive?”
“Better. Usually you can make ‘em happy. See something ridiculous and weird.”
The scoff that escaped him had no energy behind it.
“How you would ever— what, turn these circumstances around? You told me of your time in Avalon and Celestia, but surely you won’t compare—“
“I’m not at my limit yet. We aren’t done.”