(no subject)

[murdering]

More pieces of Superbia.

In Zhurei, the country my mother came from, they still believe in the necromancers. When someone dies, they are given a funeral in a casket, and then their body is burned, ashes spread to the desert wind. I can appreciate the dignity of such a resting place. The worms and animals never eat the body, and rot will never destroy the face the family has come to love.

Amriya claims superiority in their customs and advancement as a people. When someone dies, they bury them in a wall, sealing the coffin in with mortar and marking the grave with a placard. Five years later, the bonehaunts open the tomb and remove the pieces from the casket. They place them in a sack, rotting skin and bone and whatever may be left, and then the remains are put in a jar. It's stuck in one of the storage rooms beneath the city, and there they remain until time or nature decides otherwise.

Today, Rufus forced me to come to the unearthing of his former brother-in-arms. We all stood in a solemn line, soldiers honoring their fallen comrade, watching the bonehaunt shovel the chunks of corpse that had once carried the soul of Nelvin Shepherd with his bare hands. I could barely keep my expression neutral, and I'm certain I didn't manage it for the entire time. The others found it perfectly normal, simply customary.

When it was over, and we were walking out the gates of the cemetery, I put a hand to my mouth and breathed the deathless air. Rufus put a reassuring arm over my shoulders.

"It's barbaric," I finally hissed, finding my words. "That's just barbarism, Rufus."

He didn't answer, or react- I hate that expression, his commanding officer face- just kept walking, kept his hand on my shoulder. "That's just the way it is, Brenna."

I spat into the dirt beneath our feet, disgusted; Rufus just cuffed me in the back of the head and walked ahead, leaving me to wander home on my own.

She felt the bite of gravel in her shins and knees the instant she fell, and she let loose a string of nonsensical curses as she waited for the sting to subside. It was just a minor scrape, and she had every intention of just getting up and going about her business as if nothing had happened. The mercy of being unobserved was not hers this evening, however, and a young man appeared before her. He knelt down, taking her scratched hands in his own and helping her to her feet with a steady grip.

"I'm fine," Brenna assured him, moving to reclaim her hands. He didn't release her quite yet, however, looking her over with a slightly bemused shine to his eyes.

"Your uniform is not quite so lucky," he remarked, letting her fingers loose and reaching out to straighten her insignia.

Glancing down at her now-ruined pants, Brenna grimaced. "Great."

The man smiled, flicking her adept's badge lightly. "Can't you do a bit of stitchwitchery? They'll be good as new."

"I didn't go into the military for my MRS in magic, thanks." She scoffed, brushing his hand away with a mildly affronted air. "I make things smoke, not stitch."

"Charming," he replied, and suddenly he was kneeling down again, pressing his hand against the leg of her pants. She jumped at the tickle of moving threads, but then he was standing up once more, and the fabric was in perfect condition.

"You're a mage?" She wasn't sure why that surprised her, but he shook his head.

"Simply a trickster. That will wear off by dawn." He grabbed her hand, brushing a light kiss to her fingers with a coy smile. "Go back to the party, Miss Brenna. I'm sure they're looking for you."

Brenna slapped her free hand over her name placard, stiffening slightly. "You have to tell me your name, now. It's only fair."

"Fair?" He seemed ready to laugh, but he suppressed his amusement to a grin. His teeth were ridiculously white, Brenna noticed with a little envy. "I suppose so. You may call me Azael."

"That's an odd name."

"Is it?" He dropped her hand, stepping back with the smallest of mock bows. "It seems the raven is laughing at the pig for being black, as your people would say."

"Half of my people." Brenna snapped her response, but he had already melted back into the darkness of the garden. She stood there for a long minute, searching for movement in the night, but the only sound came from the gravel beneath her brother's approaching boots.

"What are you doing outside?" Rufus grabbed her by the shoulder, tone low and stern as he started steering her back toward the patio doors. "Get back inside, and pretend you're happy to be here."

The vials contained a viscous, copper-red substance. If one stared at it long enough, they could see it squirm within the container as if it was alive. Morgan tapped the glass experimentally with one fingernail, making a noise of approval as the liquid worked itself into a froth as it tried to vacate the source of the noise.

"You're some weird shit, you know that?" He dropped the vial back into its slot, tugging his jacket into place over his muscular shoulders as he stepped away from the table. "Where the fuck's the paper in this place..." The search yielded the supplies he needed after only a few moments of digging. Pen and paper in hand, Morgan returned to his small box. Once he had scrawled a few words out, he ripped the sheet in half, sliding the piece he'd written on into the container.

With the efficiency of a practiced man, Morgan gently nailed the lid onto the box. As he tucked his cargo beneath his arm, he glanced around the lab, making sure he had left nothing out of place. Assured of his success, the man slipped out into the catacomb that led to the underbelly of the city.

Only when he was walking out into the dusty sunlight of the Riversweep did he breathe a sigh of relief. This was his game, and having that little bitch Azael catch him would have ruined everything before it could even begin.