Unliving

"Undead beings had occurred naturally in places, not just because necromancers had raised them. However, one common quality that all these undead have is that they were all mindless beings, driven only by their primal instincts, without the capacity for complex thoughts. Those that necromancers raised had the ability to follow simple directions, at least those not simply used as puppets by their necromancer masters. An undead with sentience… was an unheard of occurrence, at least until yesterday." - Diary entry on Aoife Mac Lir's diary, on the seventhday of the fourth week of the ninth month, year 34 VA.

La Fiachna, capital city of the Theocracy of Vitalica, within the grand chapel, sixthday of the fourth week of the ninth month, year 34 VA.

 

*Gasp*

 

*Bump*

 

"Ow!" Aideen said as she woke up with a start, as her head had bumped rather painfully against the very low ceiling. She was somewhere dark and cramped, some sort of box that was covered, long enough for her to lie straight, but narrow to the point that her shoulders had little room to the side.

 

Her memory of the past was a bit blurred, not helped by the throbbing pain on her head, but she slowly recollected what she could remember. That was strange. She thought that she had died back then.

 

Did Diarmuid manage to find someone to save her? That was probably the case, and it would have made some sense to place her in a box like this if they were transporting her back home while she was unconscious.

 

The air inside the box smelled a bit stale though, so maybe he should have had more ventilation built into it.

 

But that was not the most important point. The most important thing now was to let someone know she was awake and ready to get out of the box.

 

"Anyone there? Could really use a hand in getting out, here!" She yelled at the top of her voice after she loudly banged on the lid a few times. Her throat felt a bit dry and hoarse, but that was probably to be expected, she guessed.

 

*Bang bang bang bang*

 

"Anyone?" Aideen yelled again after a while. This time she thought she heard some noises from the outside, what sounded like an argument, then a crowbar was wedged against the upper left side of the box, and soon someone had pried the cover loose. To her surprise the cover had been nailed to the box. Wasn't that a little excessive?

 

She heard gasps as she sat up, and her smile died prematurely as she looked around. She saw her family around the box she was seated in, her eldest brother Faerghus looked at her in surprise and disbelief, while Diarmuid looked down and crestfallen, with utter shock in his features.

 

It was her mother's red eyes and wet cheeks that worried her however. In her twenty two years of life, Aideen had never seen her mother cry before and the sight surprised her.

 

What also worried her was how two templar knights, both trusted men of her father's, were present besides her family, and they had their maces drawn.

 

"Mother? What's wrong?" She asked tentatively. "Brother Diarmuid, why do you look like you've seen a ghost?"

 

"Aideen, child," her mother said with a voice that made it clear she had been crying just recently. Even in her fifties, Aoife Mac Lir was still a beautiful woman, her black tresses still unstreaked with grey, and easily being able to pass for a woman in her thirties. Her features - and affinity - had passed on mostly to Diarmuid, who greatly resembled her, whereas Aideen and her brother Faerghus inherited their father's major life affinity and flame red hair. For some reason, Aideen thought her mother had some trepidation as she said her next words. "Were you not aware… of what has happened to you?"

 

"What do you mean?" Aideen asked her mother even as a cold feeling seemed to have grasped her guts. She took a closer look at the clothes her mother and brothers wore, and realized that they dressed in the blacks of mourning. While her mother and Diarmuid habitually wore black anyway, Faerghus never did, which was what clued her in.

 

She looked down on herself and saw that she wore a white dress, made from many sheer layers of fragile cloth stacked atop each other. Further inspection made her realize the identity of the narrow box she had been stuck in as well. It was a coffin.

 

Her own coffin.

 

"Oh, no no no no…. No!" Aideen stammered as the implication hit her all at once. Her coffin. Her being dressed in burial clothes. Her family wearing mourning clothes. The way the templars eyed her with conflicted looks and weapons at the ready.

 

And most damning, she remembered how she had died cradled in Diarmuid's hands, she remembered her own last words, and the darkness that felt like it went on forever, yet also only briefly at the same time. She remembered it all.

 

"Yes, my child," said her mother while she stifled a sob. She looked at Aideen squarely in the eye and told her the truth she had dreaded to hear with a sad, yet reluctant voice. "You passed away a week ago, and tomorrow… would have been the date of your funeral."

 

"But- but how am I awake and aware?" Stammered Aideen as she looked at herself with fear and doubt. She had known undead creatures, had fought them on occasion, they were little more than unthinking beasts at best, or puppets at worst.

 

"Will you allow me a deep inspection, child?" Asked her mother as she approached Aideen. The templars looked like they had wanted to say something as she walked past them, but stayed their words. Aoife Mac Lir was still one of the deadliest mages in Vitalica, and they knew how much she loved her children.

 

"Go ahead, Mother," said Aideen as she lowered her head. She was still seated within her own coffin, and allowed her mother to lay a hand on her head. The deep inspection her mother mentioned differed from the cursory probes mages did to measure each other's affinity and prowess.

 

A deep inspection meant baring the very fabrics of your soul to the inspector, and to have it done was generally taken as a gesture of complete trust. And complete trust in the other party was indeed much needed, for the inspector could easily destroy the person they inspected should they wish to. It was a trivial matter, when the other party had laid their soul bare before your hands.

 

Aideen felt her mother's mana as it coursed through her body, and how it inspected every nook and cranny with extreme care, before it slowly receded back out of her. For some reason, she felt the death-affinity mana no longer as cold as she remembered it.

 

"Child," her mother said with a heavy voice. "Try to feel your own heartbeat. There seemed to be nothing wrong with your mana so you ought to be able to do so."

 

She did as her mother said, and could indeed circulate her mana, although… it felt different than before, though she was unable to say how. She inspected the condition of her body with care, and found that the many stab wounds and torn organs had been fixed, if less than perfectly, as whoever was fixing her body cared more about making her presentable for the funeral than actually repairing them.

 

With a thought she smoothened out the tears and rips, stitches and scabs fell off from newly healed skin where wounds used to be, which surprised her. What shocked her more was when she checked her heart. It had a stab wound that nearly cleaved it in half, which she healed up quickly, yet even after that, her heart laid still, and did not beat.

 

She took a deep breath and realized that it had never beat since she had woken up, and after she breathed in she also realized that she had not breathed before this point either.

 

"Mother… what have I become?" She asked her mother with dread in her voice.

 

"I'm sorry to say, child," her mother said sadly. "That you seemed to have risen… into undeath."