Thoughts of the Departed
by zero0hero

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"Wells-sa-ma!"

Sir William Wells, former vice commander of his majesty's 4th Royal Dragon Knight squadron, and now field commander of the 4th Dragon Squadron of the Holy Aerial Cavalry of the Glorious Movement of the Reconquistadors, grimaced as he heard the sing song voice of the bane of his existence.

"Wells-sa-ma!" Aki sang again, badly as she bounced up behind him.

Despite every effort that had been made by both himself and Sir Dunwell to tactfully dispose of the . . . unique assets that had been entrusted to them by Lord Cromwell, the Zombies proved disconcertingly resilient. Of the six they had been allowed to retain after the battle of Newcastle, they had managed to attrition the zombies down by about half so far, employing them deliberately in a fashion to ensure their destruction. However, somehow, no matter how many times she was dismembered, her bones splintered, and her flesh sliced to shreds, Aki had come through ever mission with no more permanent damage than a missing rib.

Every day with her about was a new and unique horror. Interrogations of prisoners taken brutally literally. Trainees traumatized by her mere presence. And then there had been the incident where she had brought breakfast to his room dressed in an apron . . . and nothing else. He tried desperately to shut out the memory and its implications.

Wells had decided that he would either eventually grow numb to her existence or else finally throw etiquette out the window and incinerate the walking horror, possibly in full view of every one of his subordinates, and damn the consequences. Why he had not done so already was a mystery, even to himself.

Perhaps it was masochism.

More than any of the other undead, Aki represented a uniquely personal hell. Reminding him every day that he had killed an innocent and that he obeyed monsters in the hopes of serving some greater good.

It had not been intentional. He had simply seen a figure by the fire light, running through the smoke, brandishing a sword as she made a path towards the foot soldiers. Though his fireball had missed its mark, the wood splinters thrown out when it had struck a nearby tree had taken her threw the heart, killing her almost instantly. He had only learned the full horror of what he had done after Aki had been resurrected as one of the undead and happily explained her circumstances.

That might have been why, instead of ignoring the voice, Wells reluctantly turned around to accept the latest episode of his ongoing punishment.

"Aki." He greeted neutrally.

"Wells-sama!" She chirped back, clutching a book closely to her chest like some young bording school girl.

Said book was a compilation of low level Fae magics that had been obtained by their agents in Tristain. It had been decided that so long as Aki and the other zombies existed, they might as well be studied, and their capabilities utilized to their fullest. Personally, Wells thought giving Aki the ability to conjure magical fire was a horrific idea.

The girl bounced up and down on the balls of her feet as she stared at him with her ever fixed smile. He remembered after a moment that he had instructed her not to speak more than greetings unless spoken to first. Some of her comments had been quite . . . compromising . . . in the past.

"Do you need something to do, Miss Aki?" Wells asked. At very least she could be made useful around the camp, and while occupied she had less time to horrify the men.

The girl tilted he head to the side. "Wells-sama, I've been thinking . . ."

'Never a good thing.' Wells thought.

He couldn't say what Aki had been like in life, but in death, her reanimated mind had become a maze of obscene, perverted, and borderline psychotic thoughts giving rise to most of her untoward comments.

"If its about the chicken then no!" He groaned.

"No, not that silly!" Aki shook her head. "I have a question."

Almost as bad as her thinking for herself, but, "Go on." Wells sighed.

"Those mages and Faeries we killed the other day said some very hurtful things." She said with a faux pout of her lips. "They called Dunwell-sama a traitor and Lutece-san a whore, and they called Wells-sama the illegitimate son of a traitor and a whore and . . ."

"Yes, yes, where is this going?" Wells asked.

"Dunwell-sama didn't deny being called a traitor and Lutece-san didn't care that she was called a whore. But that made me think, when I was killing that Puca, he said I wasn't really Aki, isn't that silly?" Aki took on an exaggerated look of studious concentration. It would have been comical, adorable, if done by anyone else.

He really didn't have time for this, and the faster he got to whatever was rattling about in Aki's perpetually un-rotting skull the better. "And what do you think?" He asked carefully.

Aki smiled brightly. "Obviously, I'm Aki! How can't I be? I have Aki's memories, and Aki's body, and Aki's brain, there's nothing else I could be but Aki! So?"

"So?" Wells asked.

"What do you think Wells-sa-ma?" Her head tilted from side to side as she sing songed his name and the attached honorific.

Wells shook his head. Was this all. "I think that it is just so, you are Aki." He said, exacerbated. "Is that all?"

"Yep!" Aki nodded.

Thankful to have this resolved for now, though nonetheless somewhat at a loss, Sir Wells returned to making his way down the hall towards his next meeting.

That should have been the end of it, but as he turned the corner, Aki's voice carried down the hallway, she'd seemingly never relearned the etiquette of whispering after her demise.

Speaking to no one but herself. "That's right." The voice as cheerful as ever, but with a distinctly brittle note. "I am Aki."