Time of the Necromancer: Chapter 26

Vincent stood in front of the mounds of overturned sand. It was rare for people to die inside the Free City. Most of the time they died on missions and not often were they able to come back home. Rather than be buried in a foreign field they were burned and their ashes spread within the city when they could come home.

 He’d been to a few ash funerals. More than he’d cared to count. They were always held near the proving grounds. Partially because at the grounds you had to prove yourself to not only the living and the dead but because you could cheer on the next generation. Many superstitions lived within the Free City.

But now Vincent stood in front of the graves of two men he’d got to know and respect. It was somehow harder. The funeral for the two of them had been huge. He was one of the ones who spoke for the two of them.

Almost every mercenary and bandit in the city knew Lionel. He’d taught half of them and gone out to raid with the other half. He was one of the ones to reinforce the code of conduct for the city, not just Rogue Thuggery. But Boss. Boss was a face that everyone in the city knew. He was more than a leader of the Rogues. He truly tried to be a friend of everyone within the city, not just his own people. Children, elderly, rivals, everyone. He exemplified everything that the Free City was made of.

And now they were both dead in a conflict that had nothing to do with them. Vincent uncorked a bottle and smelled it, the strong alcoholic scent a comfort. He turned it over on Boss’s grave knowing he drank like a fish. He only dashed a little for the old man who had been trying to refrain. Turning it around he put it to his lips and drank hard leaning back. Dropping his arm, he shook his head and felt the air on his face.

It was weird to even think that. The city had been changed after Envy left. The air wasn’t as clean, the sun was a lot more oppressive and the nights colder. Growing things was more difficult and water didn’t flow from the fountain. But most of all there was a stillness to the city. The city moved still but it was slower, not as profound and it wasn’t as prominent. The city had changed and he truly believed what Morrigan had said.

The Free Lady was gone.

Staring at the grave longer he didn’t know how to even account for that fact. It didn’t sound right. Didn’t sound real but the proof was in the city now. The proof was in the air. He took another drink from the bottle and stumbled backward. Shaking his head quickly he finally sat.

He looked over his shoulder and narrowed his eyes, “Hey. What are you doing? You got something to say come say it.”

The twins jumped, not realizing that they had been spotted. But despite his glare, they both approached him standing on either side. Vincent shook his head, “What do you want?” he asked returning his gaze to the graves. “Shouldn’t you be with Morrigan?”

Gemini shook his head, “That’s for princess and Scorpio. No reason for us to be there really.”

“Yeah. And you looked. Well, you looked like our mom,” Cancer said then frowned hard. “Once a year.”

“Guess someone she cared about died a long time ago then.”

Neither twin knew how to respond to that so they both sat down beside him. He looked at the two of them and shook his head taking another sip from the bottle. “Who were they?” Gemini asked pointing toward the mounds.

“Friends,” Vincent said quickly but took a slow breath and knew that wasn’t a good enough answer. “The old man.” He pointed at Lionel’s grave. “Was like my dad. He. He found me when I was running from the Sanctum and raised me. Wouldn’t be who I am without him. And Boss. I don’t even have the words to describe Boss. Other than larger than life. He was huge and somehow he was bigger than that. He was everything to us. Here.”

He handed the bottle over to Gemini who stared at it wide eyed. But he took it and took a quick swig. His eyes widened and he coughed but managed to swallow it. Wiping his mouth, he handed it to his brother who just stared at him but Gemini grinned.

Cancer took it and took a slow sip and didn’t struggle nearly as badly as his brother. He took another and finally gave it back to Vincent. Gemini started to say something, hiccupped and suddenly the twins were split into two. Umbra and Luce looked at each other, pointed at one another and hiccupped again finally laughing together.

“What the hell?” Vincent mumbled and then waved his hand. “Right. Whatever weird magic you guys do. Cause everyone is magic these days.”

“It’s not magic,” Gemini protested. “We’re blessed by the twin Goddesses. Our moms.”

“Wow Gem go ahead and tell everyone that.”

“What he’s friends with the weird blood lady. And princess and Scorpio are with her so come on!”

“Children of Goddesses. Pfft you kids sound like some Sanctum brats,” Vincent laughed. “Reminds me of the kids in my orphanage growing up.”

“What’s that supposed to mean,” Luce shouted.

“He’s calling you two annoying,” Cancer said pressing a hand to his face. “Which you both are.”

Vincent sipped from the bottle and sighed. He took another, larger, sip and then gave it to Umbra who took it eagerly despite the complaints from his other other twin. “They would have liked you two,” he said softly and rubbed his eyes.

While the three of them sat at the field drinking and talking, though it was mostly Cancer asking questions while Gemini listened or interjected with his own comments. On the other side of the tent, however, were the other Zodiac.

Morrigan stood in front of the two girls and didn’t know how to feel. There was Virgo, sitting on a recently made bed and beside Scorpio. Her face was stern while the others were barely contained. Morrigan was ready for one of them to just blurt out a question to her. She remembered seeing those faces once a very very long ago.

Virgo stared at Morrigan and she couldn’t take her eyes off her. The woman’s beauty was enchanting, especially her eyes. The deep red of them was almost mesmerizing. At the moment her face was a blank slate, just a stare that she had seen many times on Scorpio’s face. In fact to call Morrigan and Scorpio loosely related would not sound foreign to her.

“Do you remember us?” Scorpio asked finally.

Morrigan stared at her and she could remember the child she’d found. A small girl carrying a baby in a bundle of cloth. She barely had clothes to cover her then.  She’d held the baby like she was her own in one hand and a knife in the other to fend off any that would threaten them. Yet the baby didn’t cry or even make a noise. She simply slept comfortably in her protector’s arms.

“I do. You’ve grown up well.” Morrigan looked at Virgo. “You were barely a baby when we met. I doubt you remember me”

“I do not. But for some reason I trust you,” she said frowning. “Why is that?”

Morrigan stared at Virgo and for a moment she was back in the castle of Cerise. She was staring at herself, the other her’s head bowed while she patiently sat on the throne. She watched herself point at the younger version of Morrigan and heard the words come from her mouth, ‘Go to the villages that surround our territory. I do not know where they are but I know they are here. And I know if we do not act fast they will be lost to me. Go my knight and do not fail.’

“Yes my Queen,” she whispered and then shook her head returning to the present. “I found you a very long time ago.”

“Do you know then?” Virgo asked leaning forward. “Do you know who my parents are? Where I come from? Where we both come from?”

If the pair of them had come to the Free City just a few days earlier Morrigan wouldn’t have a proper answer for them. She touched her chest and felt the core of her Queen beating with her heart and her memories in her head.

“Yes. Both of you are daughters of Cerise. Especially you,” she pointed at Virgo. “You had a grand destiny ahead of you but circumstances changed. You were taken by a power much higher than my own. For that I do neat weep. If our mothers chose to make you one of theirs then that is a blessing in its own right.”

“Your mothers?” Virgo repeated. “I do not understand.”

“You know that you are not your mothers’ first children,” they nodded and she continued. “Inside of me dwells part of one of your Goddesses’ children. She is my Queen. Long ago She sent me to retrieve you and I know now that you were destined to be Her new body. But Her mother had other plans.”

“Destined to be her new body?” Scorpio scowled stepping in front of Virgo. “What the hell does that even mean?”

“It means that my Queen was going to be reborn within her body. Absorbing Her soul into herself,” Morrigan said. “But that’s no longer the case. My Queen will find a new form to inhabit once this conflict is over.”

“What does mean for me,” Virgo said softly looking at the ground. “I was born to be a vessel?”

“That is one way to look at it,” Morrigan said. “But another is that you were born to always be someone special. The Goddesses smiled upon you from the very beginning.”

 “And what of me?” Scorpio asked sharply the words coming quickly from her mouth. “Do you know where I hail?”

Morrigan shook her head, “As I said you were a child of Cerise. But beyond that, I do not know. Perhaps you were brought to take care of my Queens future vassal and the Goddesses’ chose to make you a proper protector of Virgo. To not lose your purpose.”

Scorpio started to say something but frowned hard. Her oldest memories included Virgo. There was never a time in her life that she didn’t have her with her. And she couldn’t imagine a world where they were not together. “So, our fates are intertwined then?”

Morrigan folded her arms skeptical, “I don’t know. I don’t buy that anything is fated. Not in this world. You decide what you do.”

Virgo got off the bed and walked toward her slowly. Morrigan tensed as the young Zodiac stood in front of her and the difference in height between the two was something. Yet under her gaze, she felt like she was being sized up. A fact that definitely amused her to no end but she met the girl’s eyes unflinchingly.

“If we are daughters of Cerise does that mean we are like you?” Virgo asked.

Morrigan smiled gently, “Yes. You are both like me. Though you are special.” She touched Virgo’s hair gently, teasing the curls straight and watching them bounce back. “Golden hair was very rare within Cerise. Children such as you were valued and lavished upon. The golden children and apple of my eye.”

She smiled again and the red glint of her eyes flashed as she turned to stare at Scorpio. “Come child.”

There was something strange about this one. She was like two different people and yet both of those people were people that didn’t scare Scorpio. Just confused her. But she approached, standing at Virgo’s side and rested one hand against her back. Morrigan touched Scorpio’s head gently going to the ponytail and she shook her head.

“Why do you shave your head?” she asked softly. “One of the gems of Cerise is our hair.”

Scorpio almost looked at the ground embarrassed but kept her gaze on Morrigan, “When we were in the orphanage there were some who would try to bully Virgo or myself. I defended her. One night while I slept, they cut my hair and it was in such a bad way that Susu said it had to be cut. She said it would grow back but I didn’t want it. Didn’t want to give them more targets to attack. So I shaved it. I shaved it for years but Aquarius convinced me to have at least this.”

Morrigan’s face warped into a scowl that went away with a deep breath. She looked between the two of them and saw their necklaces for the first time. The soft golden talismans that represented who they truly were. Lifting them both up slowly one by one she shut her eyes,

“You truly are one our mothers. You traveled here to learn more about yourselves and found a conflict. I promise that you and your friends will return home safely. And while you are here, I will tell you as much about Cerise as I possibly can. Cerise may be gone but it lives on in you.”

As she said it Morrigan’s eyes faded in their glow returning to a softer shade of red with flecks of their old green. Her Queen’s core hummed inside her and she rested her hand against her chest. This was the first time that she hadn’t felt it this calm since it had first merged inside of her.

Virgo watched her, her own eyes beginning to glow. She reached out to her and stroked her cheek slowly. She tilted her head to the side as she stared at Morrigan. Morrigan met her gaze confused and then slowly she saw it unfurl within her. The red and green of Morrigan’s eyes bled away to a black sky.

Virgo pieced together the pinpricks of light, first one star and then another. None of them were the twelve constellations that she knew. But unlike when she met the Speaker this constellation seemed to be guiding her. Teaching her how to create the shape that it was meant to be. And when the last dot was connected, she saw the woman in the sky smiling her way.

“You. You’re like us,” she said finally and began to get excited. She grabbed both her hands squeezing them tightly. “Stingie! She’s like the Speaker. Like us.”

Scorpio stared at Morrigan but neither of them were too confident as to what Virgo meant. She turned to Scorpio and took her hand and led it to Morrigan’s. They took one another’s hands and for the barest of a moment, they saw what she saw. Saw the bindings that brought not just the three of them but all of them together.

Virgo smiled brightly at the two of them and shook their arms. Scorpio offered her a smile and Morrigan just stared at the both of them, “What just happened?”

“I don’t know. At least not exactly,” Scorpio said.

“You saw the great constellation. In the sky. You saw it. It’s where our Mothers reside. It’s the origin of all of us. It’s where me and Stingie get our powers from. It’s where your Queen and the Father and the others come from. It’s all of us.” She threw her hands up and wobbled backward into Scorpio’s arms.

“Virgo are you alright?”

“I’m great.”

“Maybe you should lie down for a bit,” Morrigan said motioning to her bed.  

Virgo looked at her, then the bed, and her excitement lessened to a degree as she put a hand to her head. She hadn’t realized how much that had taken out of her and nodded quickly. Scorpio squeezed her hand and walked her over to the bed. She sat her down and made sure that she was comfortable.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that I had gotten so excited.”

Scorpio squeezed her shoulder lightly and then took her hand in her own, “It’s fine Virgo. Just take it easy. We’ve both just received lots of information. And what you showed us wasn’t exactly small either.”

She nodded but her small didn’t fade, “Stingie we found out who we are. Where we come from. And even here we are under our Mothers’ gaze.”

Scorpio smiled gently, “Yes. They are always watching over us. Especially you.”

Morrigan watched the pair of them and was reminded of the children of Cerise. There weren’t many in the castle itself but they existed. Learning from the servants or the knights while playing their games and causing trouble that only children could get into. Her Queen had asked her if love or starting a family was ever something that she had thought of. Again she was back in castle Cerise looking at her younger self. They walked through the halls and she spoke.

‘Children are a gift my knight. A blessing that is ever rarer and rarer for those of us who no longer feel the embrace of time. Sure we may see the rise and fall of every civilization our bodies allow us to visit. But in this world just living out our days in isolation and safety isn’t so easy. Battle, war, and the Calamity beckon. Love can only live on through others. Lovers. Children. Though I have no lover to have children with, my bloodline lives on in you and all of my other children. Living embodiments of my love. But what will be said of Morrigan’s love in the future?’

“A future without you is a future I do not wish to have. The love I have left is love for you and you alone. The name Morrigan can fade into obscurity as long as your legacy lives on,” she said to herself and the words rang hollow. “Perhaps you were right my Queen. Who remains after Morrigan is gone?”

She looked up quickly and looked as a shadow moved across the front of their tent. For a moment she lowered her hand to her sword which Scorpio caught and also tensed but Morrigan knew better. Old habits died hard and she knew that on the other side of the tent wasn’t danger. Forcing herself to breathe she lowered her hand and walked to the front.

The shape came forward and bowed their head low. She opened the flap and saw the last remaining Harlequin, the same woman who’d alerted her to Vincent’s disappearance in the first place. She had survived the battle and that was to be respected. “Your Majesty. I have news.”

“Rise,” Morrigan said simply. “And speak.”

She stood after bowing her head again, “There was a surge of magic on the horizon not too many minutes ago. We thought it to be another attack but good tidings instead. The group that left for Noria. They have returned. They should be back within the city’s walls within minutes. Benidict sent me to inform you.”

Morrigan stared at the Harlequin and she let out a shuddering breath. She never knew a single piece of news could bring such joy to her. “I’m going to see them arrive. These two are recovering. Remain with them until I tell you otherwise If danger comes protect them.”

“Yes your Majesty,” she bowed again.

Morrigan turned toward Scorpio and Virgo and smiled, “I won’t be long.”

Stepping out of the tent she immediately started running toward the gate. As she ran the only thing she could think of was the fact that she was about to see Alistair again. She could touch his face and hold him in her arms and with every step that brought her closer to the gate the faster her heart had begun to beat.

‘That’s the thing about love my knight. You’ll never know it when it starts to happen. All you’ll know is the moment it has you within its clutches. And once it has you, you’ll never be able to imagine a world before you had it. You’ll fight tooth and nail to protect it and nothing will ever bring you more joy.’