Unliving

"The reason of how a mere peasant rebellion successfully threw off the yoke of not one, but *two* necromancer overlords stemmed mostly from two factors. One was the coincidence that the first few villages who were part of the rebellion happened to have many people born to the light affinity, with potential to be a mage. The other, was the Bone Lord's support, as he discreetly supplied arms and rations to the villagers, and if reports were accurate, also sent assassins to help remove the leadership of the necromancers sent to quash the rebellion. It was only when Antemeia and Junora decided that enough was enough and threatened to go into full blown war that the rebellion halted, consolidated their territory, and declared their independence as the theocracy of Vitalica." - by Padra bin Ismail, royal court Historian of the Hassid Caliphate, circa year 12 VA.

"Is it true, Aoife?" Asked the man who walked into the chapel in haste. Ciarran Fiachna looked more aged than his youthful-looking wife, despite her being three years his senior. He looked his age of fifty-two, his flame-red hair thoroughly streaked with grey, the same with his mustache and beard.

 

He had apparently come straight from wherever the guard she sent to fetch him had found him, and he clearly ran all the way to the chapel considering how he sweated. Not a surprise considering that had run the entire way in full armor.

 

"See for yourself, husband," Aoife said while she kept her eye on her daughter with worry and pity. Aideen had been unresponsive since her last answer, probably shocked by the fate that had befallen her.

 

It was really not a stretch. Like most younger people in Vitalica, she had been raised on the church's teachings, and had believed that the undead were unnatural abominations that had needed to be purged off this world. Even the revelation that her own mother was a powerful necromancer - something most people aren't aware of - and that the Bone Lord had directly made their nation possible didn't shake her ingrained belief that much. What happened to her now, on the other hand, shook the girl to her soul.

 

"Aideen, child," called Ciarran as he approached his daughter, newly risen from the dead. He had grieved and drowned himself in drink the past three days since he received the news, and now he was unsure what to make of it. "Is it really you in there?"

 

"Father?" Aideen asked as she went out of her stupor upon hearing her father's voice. She looked at her father with a complex look, one with a mixture of self-loathing, guilt, and worry, before she spoke nervously, unsure what else she could have said. "I… don't know for certain. I think I'm me, but what can I do to prove it?"

 

"Tell me something only you and I know, child," said her father as the burly man looked like he wanted to cry. "You should know what I mean, if it's truly you."

 

"Are- are you sure about that?" She asked with some trepidation as she gave a glance towards her mother. When her father nodded with resolve, she too made hers. "Very well then. When I was six, you accidentally knocked down mother's favorite flower vase, and got me to help cover for it. We blamed Helix, our old cat."

 

"Ciarran, for real!?" Yelled a scandalized Aoife from the side. "So that was you? And to think I punished Helix by withholding his treats for a week back then. And you got our daughter to help cover for you!?"

 

"All right, I believe you're Aideen, all right," said her father with a wry smile as he gave his wife an apologetic look. Despite the somber mood Faerghus visibly struggled to contain his laughter, while Diarmuid just looked gobsmacked at the situation. Ciarran offered his hand to his daughter as he said more. "Come, girl, living or not, you remain a daughter mine. Let's get you out of that coffin first."

 

"Thank you, father," replied Aideen as she took her father's hand and stepped down from her coffin.

 

Whatever words they wanted to say next were held at the tip of their tongues, as an old man, dressed in long white robes trimmed with red, walked into the chapel. The long staff in his right hand tapped against the tiled floor as he used it for a walking aid.

 

At eighty one years old, Theodin Fiachna, the patriarch of the family, and the current pope of Vitalica, was no longer as spry as he was during the rebellion. His once luxurious mane of red hair now reduced to a pitiful shadow of its former self, and had mostly turned grey with age. He looked at Aideen with hard, grey eyes, and walked towards her slowly, but with sure steps.

 

"So, what is the situation?" Asked the pope, his voice brimmed with authority and demanded answers be given.

 

"We are not certain, respected father-in-law," said Aoife in reply as she gave the pope a short bow in greetings. "I had done a deep inspection on the child, and as far as I could tell, her physical body is in every sense of the word, dead. Yet she has kept her mind, somehow, and seems unchanged."

 

"Is this true, Ciarran?" This time the pope directly asked his second son.

 

"She knows secrets only me and she herself were privy to, that not even Aoife knows of. This I have confirmed myself," answered Ciarran respectfully.

 

"Quite curious… Aideen, child, would you come to me for a bit?" The pope said more gently this time, less as a figure of authority and more as a grandfather. Aideen nodded and approached the pope as he requested. "Give me your hand, child."

 

"Sure, grandfather," Aideen replied as she raised her right hand.

 

The pope grasped her right wrist gently with his own wrinkled hand, then looked Aideen in the eye. "Do not resist, my child."

 

Aideen nodded, and felt her grandfather's pure, warm mana flow through her conduits. For some reason it felt warmer than it used to, and made her feel very comfortable. She was a little surprised at the quantity her grandfather poured in however, and had to squint her eyes when a bright pillar of light came to existence around her.

 

"Father!?" Yelled Ciarran in surprise, as he recognized the pillar of light to be an exorcism spell, a spell which was extremely fatal to undead beings. His wife also gasped in surprise at the sight.

 

"Shh!" Said the pope as he silenced his son and daughter-in-law. The old man had an utterly perplexed look on his face, and took some moments before he collected his voice again. "Aideen, child? How do you feel?" He asked tentatively.

 

"It's warm… and very comfortable," replied Aideen from inside the pillar of light. By now both Ciarran and Aoife shared the pope's perplexed look, and when the pillar of light died out moments later, they saw Aideen standing there, in perfectly good shape.

 

Not reduced to a pile of dust as the spell usually did to an undead being.

 

To everyone's surprise, the pope bowed deeply to Aoife, which caught her - and everyone else in the room - off guard. "I ask for an apology for having doubted you, Aoife Mac Lir. I had feared that grief might have overtaken your reason and that this was your doing. I now see that it clearly was not, and I was wrong."

 

"And to you, my child," the pope said as he now looked at Aideen with a tender gaze. "I also apologize, but know that I would rather have your blood in my hands rather than see your body be turned into a puppet."

 

"I understand, grandfather," Aideen said as she warmly hugged her aging grandfather. "There was nothing to apologize about."

 

"What is with her condition then?" Asked Ciarran. "Her body is undead, yet she found father's exorcism spell comfortable, which is… hard to believe."

 

"I am not sure either, my son," replied the pope. "I have never seen anything the likes of this in my life. I'm afraid if an answer is to be found, it would not be from me."

 

"Master should arrive here by tomorrow," cut in Aoife. "He sent me a letter mentioning that he would be present for the funeral, I just didn't have the chance to share the news yet with all that has happened."

 

"Maybe he would have an idea then, on what happened to our child."

 

"If someone would have an idea, the Bone Lord would likely be the one, yes," replied the pope as he nodded sagely.