About That

"I need an advisory."

I had said the words clearly, but I could feel every muscle in body trembling. I was wheezing, sweating and out of breath. I didn't like it. I felt like every single good feeling had been taken out of my soul. I wanted to kill something. I wanted to hurt something so badly that it felt like my head was on fire. My body was cold, but my core burned with rage.

"Who are you?" the young lady (or rather the corpse of a young lady) was looking at me with utter contempt. "Are you the one who's been spying on me?"

"From time to time," I admitted. It was my first meeting the church's contracted necromancer in person. I had read the records of my predecessors. I knew what she was and I knew who she was. "And I was keeping an eye on Theo more than anything."

The necromancer suddenly looked interested. "I know… you're the Hell Knight aren't you? Don't think just because I'm buddy-buddy with your boss that you can boss me around missy!"

"Forgive me," I bowed politely. "I didn't make it clear enough that I'm begging for your help."

She raised an eyebrow. "Are you insane?"

"For the moment." I admitted. I paused then asked, "Can I sit down? I sort of dashed to get here."

"Fine," the necromancer lead me to a short table. "I'll listen."

"Thank you."

I chose my words carefully and somehow through my anger and exhaustion managed to paint a picture of what I needed. The necromancer patiently listened to what I had to say without interruption. For that I was grateful. I knew that my request most likely would not be heeded, but I could live with it if it was this person who turned me down. I could live with having to be in debt to this person if only for showing up unexpectedly. I was essentially playing with fire and it was alright if I got burned.

"It is one of the agreed upon dates," the necromancer admitted. "But Sun hasn't come in quite some time so I wondered if he had forgotten."

"That would be rather negligent on his part," I let the words slip out with a dark tone.

"But that's not why you're doing it," she observed. "You're thinking of revenge. If you do this you won't have an ounce of dignity left. You'll be a knight in tarnished armor and Sun will never forgive you."

"Like shadow, like master." I replied with resolution. "But I don't have anything to channel my frustrations. Unlike our shiny friend, I cannot just casually take lovers. I'm good with a sword, but not much else. Hurting a living person would be unforgivable and I don't have the control right now to safely spar with anyone. I am imploring you to help me."

"If Sun intervenes?" the necromancer inquired.

"Seeing my commander performing his duty (for once) would undoubtedly put my heart as ease." But I didn't think he would.

"And if you die?" the necromancer asked in a more sarcastic tone. "The level of creature you're asking for isn't child's play and you certainly are not formidable at wielding holy magic."

"I suppose I'll have to become a death knight then," I smiled without humor. "Would you be willing to make a bet on it? If I die, I can become your servant. If I live… well, we can just be friends, have a cup of tea and forget the matter ever happened."

"Would you bring me strawberry flavored lollipops?"

"Sure."

"Then it's a deal!"

"You want to switch patrols?"

Sun looked at me like I had just grown a second head. Just a few days ago he had knocked all my precious reports off my desk. The shouting match that had followed it was still fresh on both our minds. The cause of the argument had not been resolved and yet here I was with a peace offering. He was right to be wary.

"Yes," I looked at him expressionlessly. Hiding my emotions was easy since I always wore a mask.

"Fine, do what you want," Sun sighed. "Just let Kyle know."

I felt a sharp pain and in a soft voice I said, "You had no intention of going, did you? You were going to go see her, weren't you."

Go on and say it, my thoughts taunted. I knew it was cowardly since he couldn't hear. Just go on and tell me that you are still going to meet with her.

"That's none of your business."

Very well, I thought. I have other ways of getting answers. I'll be obedient. You've ordered me to stop spying on you. That's fine. I can do that. But you won't like my other methods.

The creature was bigger than I had expected, but it was slow and stupid. Even with just our blades my platoon was able to corner it. I didn't know anything about the undead, but I was confident in my abilities and the discipline of my men. Besides we didn't have to beat it, we just had to stall it. The "bet" I had was just to survive.

A dark aura had began forming around the creature when the battle started. A couple of my men began to feel faint so I ordered them to fall back, widen the circle and just wait. If it tried moved we would cut it off. My mask protected me from the miasma's more deadly effects, but I could feel my body slowing down. I wondered if undead creatures could play with people's minds, too, or if that was a skill only reserved for the living.

I looked into its empty eye sockets and thought of her. She wasn't a beauty, but she was loved and admired. Actually, "loved" might have been a strong word, but everyone always praised her and took her side on things. I envied her at first. She could walk up to anyone and ask personal questions. She could get people to talk about themselves and it was a skill I really wanted to have, but never really learned.

She was sweet to everyone so no one had any real cause to resent her. That was fine. I had enough hate to make up for everyone else. Unlike them I had trouble picturing her as a human. I remember her like a doll, an empty shell and sometimes even a soulless corpse. She'd often stare at nothing with a dark or sullen expression on her face. I'm sure she smiled, but her smile must have been fake because I couldn't for the life of me remember what her smile even looked like.

And then she drank. A lot.

That wasn't a sin in itself, but it was like watching a person downing and begging for a cup of water. She had the damsel in distress thing going for her hard and I was going to be a knight in a few years. I had been fooled into thinking I could help her. I knew I couldn't "save" her. I was far too cynical for that, but I tried to help her all the same.

My efforts were unsuccessful. All I could do was watch her slowly kill herself and I felt like I was the only one who could see it. I had no allies. I was on a mission, I was alone and I needed her to be something she was not. I needed her to be human to prove that I was doing a service by helping her. I needed her to pull herself together. Instead she was the worst kind of undead; a person who was alive, but dying on the inside. No necromancer could do that. I had yet to see a necromancer do anything more terrible than this woman did to herself. For six months she made my life hell and it was the only mission I had ever "failed".

And now she had Sun.

He was probably eating up her sob story of abuse by her older sisters and parents who looked the other way. She talked about it like it was her only defining feature. I felt sorry for her at first because even though my family had nothing and even though they had a dark sense of humor that came with living in the slums- my family on the whole had been kind. If fairytales were real she'd be the perfect damsel waiting for her prince or knight in shining armor to save her. She was Cinderella, so hard working and yet so pitiful. Didn't the Gods help those who needed them? Wasn't it true that if you worked hard then you could turn your life around? No, not with her. I wasn't sure if it was subconscious or not, but no matter how hard she worked she only made things harder on herself. I grew to hate people like that and in the end I hated her.

I felt angry for a while after that and then I was able to eventually stop caring. My teacher was impressed by how much I had grown after that mission. I had learned hatred. I had felt emotions that I had never knew existed and I had learned to control them.

Or so I thought. The misconception was quickly rectified when I saw her name cross my desk.

I was fine with Sun having secret lovers. His taste in women wasn't so terrible that they would pose a threat to the church. I didn't even have to bribe them. I didn't like them, but that was fine because Sun didn't stay with them for very long. As the whole continent knew, the Sun Knight loves only the God of Light and doesn't look at women. His reputation was in no danger.

Unless it was her.

That woman made me lose my mind. My teacher would be ashamed, but that was my flaw. Storm gambled, Blaze was scared women, Stone had a sweets addiction, Earth was quick to judge people, Moon was a neat freak, Frost liked books more than he did people, Leaf had a guilt complex, Cloud had been banned from the kitchen for all eternity, Metal would pick up stray animals all the time and hide them in his room, Judgment was far too lenient with the lot of us and all of us were far too lenient on Sun. We'd probably let our golden boy get away with murder. We'd scold him for it and make him promise never to do it again and he'd be confined to quarters with the campiest men we could find- But he'd still get away with it.

Not this time though, I thought as my vision started to blur. Theo was going to learn the error of his ways.

I looked around and realized another platoon had arrived. I smiled. It was the Blaze Knight's platoon. Blaze came over and propped me with his shoulder. He was shouting, scolding me for being stupid for taking on an undead creature. I could say the same for him. He was out of his league as well. The undead weren't his specialty either. Sometime later Leaf's platoon arrived.

My plan was going well. In a few minutes the creature's strength would suddenly increase and we'd all be fighting for our lives.I found the prospect to be invigorating, but the image of Theo and her kept playing over and over in my head like a page in a book and I couldn't turn the page. I could only read the same passage over and over.

The thing that scared me the most about that person was she was like a funhouse mirror. I looked at her and I saw a warped version of myself.

I wish I was dead. If this is person I am then I wish I was dead.

I hoped the God of Light would forgive my weakness because I knew I never would.

Leaf was crying. Blaze had a vacant expression on his face and half of his uniform was covered in blood. The blood wasn't his. It belonged to Knight-Captain Hell. Chad was trying to calm them down and administer first aid, but he was hesitant. Everyone knew the orders. No one was allowed to heal Hell's body but myself or the Pope-

But Hell was dying. The creature had mauled her. Several of Hell's own men were off to the side throwing up. Even as they stripped off her armor they couldn't be tell she was female. Blood and gore was all they could see. Administering their weakly holy magic would be a waste of time.

Kyle, my vice-captain, gave me a brisk report. Things had been going well. Everyone had been following procedure and the creature had been stopped in its tracks. The streets were secure, pedestrians were out of the way, and the platoons were just waiting for me to come and mop up.

Then things went horribly wrong. Kyle said Hell had hesitated for a moment. This was strange because Hell never hesitated when her sword was drawn. That's just the way things were. If Hell's legacy sword was drawn then somebody was about to meet their maker. She wasn't showy and she was efficient, but none of that mattered because suddenly the battle turned and the creature ignored everyone else and focused solely on her. It had been an unfair duel and Hell had lost.

When I arrived, I vaporized the creature in an instant. If I had just been a few minutes earlier Hell would have been fine and cracking jokes about "walking it off". Hell was not fine. Blaze laid his comrade's body on the ground and stared at the blood helplessly a moment. Leaf tried to cast a couple of heal spells, but a lot of the damage was internal and that would require advanced healing spells that clerics used. Hell's abdomen had been crushed. Bones were protruding out of places they didn't belong and I attributed the fact that she was still breathing to the force of habit and her own stubbornness.

The worst bit was that Hell was still conscious.

"What is everyone doing?! We have a man down! Get your asses moving!" I was too shocked to even say it. Instead I knelt down and gently picked up our fallen knight companion wondering how this could even happen.

As I gathered my holy light Hell's eyes turned to look at me. She whispered as if confused, "Sun?"

I felt a sharp pain to my conscience. She didn't have to look so surprise. Was I really that unreliable as a commander? Did I really arrive too late?

Then Hell did something unexpected. She looked relieved and I could see tears forming around her eyes as she choked on blood.

She said, "It's so bright...I'm glad."