The fire had burned low, settling into a soft orange glow that barely reached the cracked pillars of the abandoned ruin. Ainz sat where he had before, silent, unmoving, a monolith draped in black and gold. The faint pulse of the orb inside his chest glimmered steadily, casting faint reflections off his inner rib cage whenever he shifted.
Across from him, Übel watched.
Not subtly.
Her chin rested on her arms, propped up by her knees, violet eyes gleaming mischievously.
He had noticed, of course.
He simply chose—for the sake of some fleeting peace—to ignore it.
For about five minutes.
Then she moved.
Quick. Casual. Like she was reaching for a stray pebble.
Her hand shot out, aiming squarely for his World Item.
Ainz's head swiveled with mechanical smoothness. His eye sockets burned slightly brighter.
Übel froze mid-reach, caught like a guilty child.
There was a long, terrible silence.
"...What," he said, voice as flat as an ancient tomb, "do you think you are doing?"
Übel flashed a winning smile. "Scientific curiosity?"
He didn't move. Only the faint red glow of his gaze intensified.
"Is touching relics of unimaginable power a hobby of yours?" he asked, as if inquiring whether she enjoyed knitting.
"Hey," she said defensively, "you made it sound so interesting. Ancient! Untouchable! Burdened with cosmic sadness! Of course I want to touch it."
He said nothing.
"And besides," she added brightly, "what's the worst that could happen?"
Ainz remained utterly still.
He thought about responding diplomatically. He thought about ignoring her.
But then he thought about the very real possibility of her trying it again.
And so—
He flicked his wrist, silent casting[Gate].
The air behind and below Übel shimmered. Before she could even yelp, a black portal tore open with a low, reverberating hum, the magic folding space like paper.
"Wai—!"
There was a sucking sound, and she was pulled backward into the vortex mid-protest, her limbs flailing wildly. The portal snapped shut a moment later with a soft pop.
Silence reclaimed the ruin.
Ainz folded his hands calmly in his lap, a faint sigh escaping the hollow cavity of his rib cage. "Actions," he muttered, "must have consequences."
He sat there for perhaps ten minutes—no more—before a familiar voice echoed faintly from outside, carried by the wind:
"THIS IS ABUSE OF MAGIC! I HAVE RIGHTS!"
Ainz said nothing.
Another minute passed.
Then, stomping footsteps. Heavy, furious, muddy.
Übel emerged into the broken hall, covered in leaves, twigs sticking out of her hair, her boots caked in swamp muck, and what appeared to be a particularly aggressive moss clinging to her sleeve.
She glared at him across the fire, eyes blazing.
He inclined his head ever so slightly.
"Welcome back."
"You sent me into a swamp." she growled.
"I relocated you to a natural environment conducive to cooling your enthusiasm."
"You teleported me into a frog nest."
"I fail to see the distinction."
She stomped over, swiping at the moss with aggressive fury, then dramatically plopped herself back on the stones opposite him, sulking.
Ainz regarded her for a long moment. Then, in a voice so smooth it could have been mistaken for kindness: "Attempt to touch the orb again, and next time I will relocate you somewhere considerably...less charming."
Übel huffed, crossing her arms. "Yeah, yeah. Boundaries. Respect. Whatever."
There was a beat of quiet. Then she muttered, loud enough for him to hear, "...Still think it looks touchable."
Ainz didn't move.
Didn't react.
Didn't sigh.
He simply made a mental note to double the number of Death Knights assigned to watch her at night.
One could never be too careful with her brand of scientific curiosity.
The second fire they built was smaller.
Ainz sat unmoving atop a fallen stone, his robes draping the jagged surface like spilled ink. Across from him, Übel grumbled softly as she peeled a stubborn clump of moss from her sleeve, muttering curses under her breath about "abuse of magic" and "skeletal tyrants."
The night pressed in quietly around them.
The forest was still. Even the wind seemed to hush its breath when it passed through the broken archways overhead. The ruined clearing, half-eaten by roots and time, sat like an island in a sea of silver mist.
For once, Übel wasn't trying to poke him.
Not directly.
She was exhausted, dirty, and—despite herself—grateful for the fire.
But not grateful enough to stay quiet.
"You know," she said, tossing a twig into the flames, "you could have dropped me somewhere nice. Like a bakery. Or a jewel merchant's roof."
Ainz said nothing.
She peeked at him through the firelight, half expecting a retort.
None came.
He simply sat there, still and cold, like a statue left behind by an ancient god.
Übel frowned slightly.
It was too quiet.
Even for him.
She shifted uncomfortably, the last bits of muck finally flicked off her boots. She pulled her knees to her chest, hugging them loosely, and stared at the fire.
"You're doing that thing again," she muttered.
Ainz finally turned his head. Slightly.
Enough to acknowledge her, but not enough to speak.
"That thing where you disappear without moving." She poked the air with her finger, as if jabbing at some invisible fog around him. "Like you're here, but you're not. It's weird."
He regarded her silently, the crimson lights of his gaze dimmed to soft embers.
Übel stared into the fire for a moment before adding, "I don't like it."
Still, he said nothing.
But inwardly—
He noticed it too.
The way the world tried to blur at the edges when he let his mind drift.
The way his undead nature, if unchecked, crept into every corner of his awareness like a slow frost, promising quiet, perfect detachment.
He could feel it, even now.
The temptation of stillness.
The lure of apathy.
The false peace of forgetting anything mattered at all.
He hadn't realized how easy it would be here, in this world, without his friends—without an anchor—to simply let go.
To become nothing but what he appeared to be: a cold monument to power, unmoved, uncaring, untouched.
He had come dangerously close, he realized, to surrendering to it entirely.
And then…
He glanced across the fire.
Übel was trying—and failing—to stack three uneven stones into a little tower. Every time the top one slid off, she scowled and muttered something about "cheating gravity" and "skeleton jinxes."
It was stupid. Pointless.
She was wasting time, energy, attention.
It was noise.
It was infuriating.
It was...grounding.
Without meaning to, Ainz exhaled—a slow, faint rattle of airless breath.
Übel paused, eyeing him. "You sigh like the dead."
"I am undead," he replied flatly.
She grinned, unbothered. "Still counts."
He let the silence stretch between them, but it no longer felt suffocating.
Not entirely.
Perhaps it wasn't about the noise itself. Perhaps it was what it meant.
Someone else was here.
Someone stubborn enough to challenge the quiet.
Someone foolish enough to speak, to laugh, to ask questions even when the answers scared them.
Someone who refused to let him be a shadow.
Ainz shifted slightly, adjusting the hem of his robe over the stone.
The embers in his eyes pulsed once, faintly.
He didn't thank her.
He didn't laugh.
He didn't even move more than necessary.
But deep within the hollow spaces that had once been warm, something clung stubbornly to the flickering idea that he was not yet lost.
That he didn't have to be.
Übel finally managed to balance all three stones. She raised her arms in triumph, only for the top one to fall off a heartbeat later and clatter into the fire.
She yelped, scooting back, smacking at a singed sleeve with rapid-fire curses.
Ainz watched without comment, the faintest amusement stirring under the surface of his mind.
When she caught him looking, she grinned defiantly through the soot on her face. "You saw nothing."
"Of course," he said, voice dry.
She huffed, folding her arms. "I'm essential to camp morale, you know."
Ainz considered that.
In a way, she was right.
Without her, he might have simply stood here until the stars wore out.
Without her, he might have vanished into the silence without ever realizing he was fading.
"Noted," he said at last.
Übel preened slightly, victorious despite herself.
The fire crackled on.
In a strange new world full of unknowns and unseen dangers, an undead sorcerer and a reckless mage held the night at bay—not with power, not with spells, but with the stubborn, ragged persistence of being alive.
Even if only one of them still had a heartbeat.
A/N:
I'm still working on chapter 2 of He Who Brings the End, She Who Remembers the Beginning. That one's taking me a lot more time to flesh out to make it work the way I envision it. If I am able to work on it through the weekends as planned, I'd love to have it posted before the end of April.
On the other hand, I've had the chapters for this one sitting in a document in limbo until now.
Would you like to see any other interesting themes/situations between Ainz and Übel, or Ainz and other Frieren characters?