Chapter Text
Teeth. Gum. Tongue. Tangled wires of muscle and sinew, each cord twisting and pulling. Each movement deliberate, each movement unnatural. His vocal cords twanged as he produced a quiet hum, dragged up from his throat as he pushed air up from his lungs. Those bags of meat, once vibrant and full of windy life, fell still once more. His ribs settled, slightly loose in their sockets.
He could still feel it, or rather the ghost of it. His own brother’s arm, fingers splayed, scrambling through his guts. The way his esophagus spasmed as it was grabbed by an intruder. It would leave a sickening taste in his mouth, if he could have tasted anything.
He pressed his fingers to his chest–each ligament in each finger rippling beneath the graying skin–and tremulously prodded the bloody red thread closing up the gash in his chest. It yielded painlessly beneath his hands, and Occtis watched in silent horror as the skin parted again. It revealed nothing but a void where his heart should have been. A bloody cavern, spongy fat torn to shreds from his brother’s prying hands.
For a moment, Occtis dared to push his fingertips past the opening. He was a student and scholar of death, perhaps even more so than his family (though they would vehemently disagree) and he knew what its tell-tale signs were. The viscera was cold, the blood congealing, even as it began to drip down the tubing of his legs. Movement that was sinuous and simple in life became a chore, an act of effort. Was this part of being dead, too? Amidst all his study of necromancy, it had never really occurred to him to wonder how the corpse felt.
What was the consensus? Bad. It feels bad.
Somewhere behind him, he could hear his compatriots bickering. Taisha’s voice the loudest among them, defending him, as stalwart as ever. Sir Julien DaVinos, who hadn’t been friendly at the best of times, now swinging his sword around and barking insults. If it weren’t for Taisha hounding him, Occtis had no doubt that sword would be at his neck.
Taisha. A strange thought occurred to him, one almost funny in his shock. What was it, maybe five hours ago, that he had happened upon her trying to set her daughter up with him? Shadia, a stocky young orcish woman, was voicing to her mother that she had meant to ask Occtis to bed. Despite the fact that her uncle had just been murdered, despite the fact that they were at his funeral, despite the fact that they’d never met before, despite another dozen absurdities. It was an orc thing, he had silently decided, after hearing just how many children Taisha had.
“Who…Occtis? I mean yeah girl, go for it.” Taisha was leaning against the wall of her “baby daddy’s” humble home, her shoulder finding the rare space not taken up by paintings. “He’s a good k…a good guy!”
“It wouldn’t be weird? He’s like…your…” Shadia, almost as toweringly tall as her mother, leaned forward with brows drawn. “Your…?”
“Coworker! No nooo, it wouldn’t be weird.” Taisha sounded like she was trying to convince herself. “He…” She paused, biting into her lip a moment, before blurting out, “He’s never had sex!” A hand clapped over her mouth, hiccouping. Still a little more drunk than she should have been.
“Oh…” Shadia blinked. Occtis, who had set out to find Taisha and ask her if they could be roommates for the night, stood just out of sight. He still had a heart then, five hours ago, and as such felt his face flush beet red.
“Ohhhkayyy!” Halandil, the “baby daddy” who’s house they were all camped out in, and Shadia’s father, came swooping in. He grabbed Taisha by the shoulders, forcing a laugh as she cringed at herself. “Let’s hit the hay, huh?”
Well, Taisha wasn’t wrong.
“Ah…I died a virgin.” He forced a laugh, if only out of habit, forcing his diaphragm to flex. A little ways off, Taisha and Halandil were loudly making out. Only Murray and Julien seemed to hear him…the short dwarven woman burst out laughing, only to quickly cover her mouth with one hand. Occtis shot her a pathetic glance, and she stumbled off, mumbling something about papers to grade. Julien only rolled his eyes and stalked off to another part of the Lloy gardens, shoulders hunched up to his ears.
The humor of the situation was pretty quickly exhausted.
—
“You’re all welcome to rest for a night.” Maybe ten minutes later, Taisha had gathered the batch of misfits once more. Halandil stood just behind her broad shoulder, the anchor to the ship. Murray just to her side, blinking groggily, the King’s guard beside her looking much more appropriately depressed. Julien, still pissy, Vaelus, still inscrutably judging them all. And…the last of their little party, a tall and graceful man with fiery red hair.
Across from the rough circle that Taisha had called for, Occtis squinted at the stranger. Amidst all these people, he was the only one Occtis didn’t know even a little bit. More than his bright hair, or his beautifully tailored vestments, he stood out for a bone-white mask on his face. The carved lips and eyes seemed to move just like a human face would, defying it’s own stony texture. Who could that be…?
“I got work in like...two hours.” Murray rubbed at her eyes, smearing already mussed up eyeshadow. A beat, and she squinted at Occtis. “You still have your thesis due this weekend.”
“I…no I f-fucking don’t.” Occtis kicked at the dirt, arms crossed. Murray snorted.
“Alright, alright. Aranessa…Julien?” Taisha waved Murray away, before squinting at her newly acquired nemesis.
Julien only shrugged, even as Aranessa nodded graciously.
“Azune…”
“I have patrol.”
“Vaelus?”
The tall elven woman did not answer for a long second, so long that Taisha had just opened her mouth to ask again, when she finally spoke. “Perhaps.”
“Uh-huh. Hal, um, please go check on the girls.” She pawed at Halandil’s arm for a moment, shooing him away, before darting a glance to Occtis. Worry. Something deeper, something that made him want to shrivel into nothingness on the spot. Darting away again, and turning to the stranger. “Bolaire?”
“Mm.” The tall man, Bolaire, apparently, folded his arms. Just a ghost of a smile crossed his alabaster lips, before he inclined his chin in a nod. “I’ll stick around.” It was hard to tell where he was looking, his actual eyes lost in the deep shadows of the mask. But Occtis could have sworn that the pinprick lights in the darkness moved, darting to lock onto his own face. A quick up-down, then away again.
What’s that about?
It didn’t take long for everyone to scatter to their respective business. Julien dragged his Lady away, still scowling into the pitiless night sky. Murray tottered off, Azune trailing just behind. Vaelus turned on her heel and melted into the shadow, off to do whatever strange business elves liked to do at night. Halandil left a peck on Taisha’s lips, gave her hand a tight squeeze, and hurried off again. To their girls. Shadia.
Left alone with Taisha and Bolaire, in a chilly silence, Occtis swayed a little on his feet. I doubt she still wants to sleep with me now. He hadn’t even gotten around to deciding if he wanted to, before the option was whisked away. At least, he was pretty sure. Be realistic. The mechanics hardly matter…you’re a monster now.
The night felt a little colder still.
Taisha sidled up to him. “Hey.” Her arm draped across his shoulders, still bare from where his shirt and jacket had been shredded in the fight. He could feel her flinch, ever so slightly, at the cold and stiff skin. Rigor mortis had started to set in, turning the soft and slightly pudgy flesh to stone. And yet he kept moving, the corded muscles in his neck groaning as he turned and looked up at her.
He had never been sure why he liked Taisha so much. Did the conspicuous absence of his mother have something to do with it? Maybe. He couldn’t lie, he liked it when she treated him like a kid. Looked at him like he was a baby deer, stumbling through life, incapable of responsibility or evil. He was freshly twenty years old, a grown man by the human metric of aging, but he didn’t feel it. He felt like the baby deer, even if he didn’t really deserve to be given so much grace.
But in Taisha’s eyes, he was still incorruptible. Just a kid. So when Occtis met her gaze, he didn’t expect to see a trace of fear. She was studying him, no longer wholly and blindly loving–like a mother–but cautiously. Like a grown man. Like something evil. Occtis swallowed a whimper, looking away fast.
She stayed silent. Only gave his shoulder a squeeze, or tried to, and gave up when the rigid flesh didn’t move an inch. Unsaid disappointment hung in the air. You’ve changed. Transformed. You’ve lost something irreplaceable.
“Get…get some rest.” That was all Taisha could say, in the end. She brought her arm back to her side, gave Bolaire a silent look that Occtis couldn’t begin to decode, and left. Occtis could only watch her go, retreating to the ancestral estate of her family. One where nature flourished, where countless generations of druids had practiced beautiful magic.
Occtis had always known that his necromantic interests were a bit at odds with hers. But she never seemed to mind, or perhaps, he had been so useless at raising the dead that she simply hadn’t cared. And now he had somehow done the impossible–raised himself from the dead. Something she could not so easily forgive.
It was only now that the full weight of his situation settled in. He wasn’t alive again, maybe he wasn’t even Occtis anymore. Occtis was a living man, even in the study of death. A man that could have slept with Shadia, or been taken care of by Taisha. A man that could have defended himself against Julien’s deriding snarls. Distantly, he wondered about Thimble, already miles away from here…she had promised to talk again before she left, but she was already gone.
It was for the best. At least in one person’s memory, he wouldn’t be a monster.
Occtis stood there, unblinking, in the shadowy courtyard. He should have been having a panic attack, but with no lungs to gasp and no heart to race, it was rather difficult. He could only stand there, stagnant, feeling an incomprehensible grief for the self.
And none of his friends knew how to fix it. They had all peeled off into the night. He couldn’t blame them…but what surprised him was a hand on his shoulder.
Occtis’s head snapped to the side, his stiff spine half dislodging with a gritty crunch. It was Bolaire who stood beside him, a complete stranger. His mask had gone still, betraying nothing. Only, to the undead’s great surprise, an unexpected kindness. He reached out, gently holding the sides of Occtis’s head, and carefully repositioning the spinal column. With a quick twist and a click, the noodly nerves and chattering bones realigned. A touch that, unlike Taisha’s, did not flinch.
Occtis looked up at him, wide eyed. “...Thank you.”
“You are welcome.” A faint accent, vaguely elvish, though his rounded ears and heavier frame gave him away as a human. “Apologies for the touch, but your neck won’t hold for long without an intact spine. And after all we’ve dealt with tonight, I think a severed head is a bit much.”
“Hm. Yeah. Apologies.” Occtis looked back down, kicking the dirt again. Grass scattered, alive and green. Natural, the opposite of him. “I would have stayed dead if I had the choice.” It was meant to be funny. A last ditch effort to find humor. But Bolaire only sighed.
“I feel we should have a chat, young man.”