Faustine.

  Death stared down upon her, bzing sockets filled with unholy wrath for the living, disdain for mortal ambition, and the unyielding hatred born of the grave.

  Though she wasn't terribly averse to the dead, nor their smells or ick or fbbiness or anything else involved, what she was nervous about was the avatar of a possible ‘god’ paying her a visit.

  Should she be honored?

  Should she just—kill herself?

  A-after all, this was Death! And what better way to prove her loyalty, questionable as it was, than to offer herself as yet another sacrifice?

  Was there even a point to trying anything else?

  Certainly, a question for the old thinkers and pointed hat wearers locked in their dusty universities…

  What would her mother do?

  Admittedly, that was something of a question she had continuously asked all through her self-taught journey into the realm of necromancy.

  And while she might just be a little unnerved by her evident abundance of success, the one rule to remember when it came to dealing with the dead, was that the ‘summoner’ was always in charge.

  Theoretically, of course.

  One could not allow their unruly and flesh-hungry servants to get out of hand, lest they themselves wind up as dinner, and promptly join the shambling legions.

  Thus, Faustine had to invoke confidence! She had to prove herself! Had to—not look so much like something tasty and easy to nibble on.

  Yet, again, this was Death.

  Not just in some cute or coy way, but genuine death. The entity that ruled over the dead! And the dead outnumbered the living by quite the substantial number.

  Being ‘too confident’ or bold before such a monster might just end with her being dead. Which was something of a tidbit of irony since, if she was too faithful, she’d, in theory, wind up dead anyway, but if she was too foolish? Well, that would also presumably lead to her untimely demise.

  The line was thoroughly muddled…

  Strange, Faustine really hadn't put this much thought into her own mortality, but now that its fiery gaze was staring her right in the face, she found the entire prospect entirely absurd!

  Still, if nothing else, Faustine had her pride. And after what she assumed was an appropriate length of genuflection, somewhere above what she’d offer a king, but below the point she’d hoped to avoid annoying the avatar, she lifted her head, smiling, nervous, excited, but also horrified.

  In short, happy, but also very, very concerned.

  “Faustine?” A—familiar and cultured voice drawled, the words arriving with the tone of a mature but elegant woman, which, naturally, had the young noble somewhat perplexed…

  “M-mom?”

  “Oh, it is you!” The ‘skeleton’ enthused. The fog of lingering ice and death already beginning to recede back toward the skeleton that was standing in her room, its grim smile looking down at her and, somehow, projecting both amusement and pleasure. “Oh my… you’ve certainly grown… How many years has it been? Mhm… m-maybe—three?”

  “Seven,” Faustine, slowly, countered, her gaze narrowing on the animated creature, but only lingering for a moment before it abruptly darted to the side, staring at the now empty chest she’d prepared, which, yeah… was this actually happening?

  “Oh, my bones are so clean! Look, not a hint of decay… my my, I take it you’ve been keeping up with our lessons? Even if I haven't been around to give them? Did I even start those lessons? Oh, my grimoire! Hmph, well I suppose that expins it…”

  There was something—not quite right about the ‘thing’ she was having a conversation with.

  And while it was hard to parse, as it continued to speak, rambling on about some tangent and obscure ‘lesson’ she’d supposedly desired to teach Faustine as a child, the young noble abruptly realized what that ‘weirdness’ might be.

  Ignoring, of course, that she was speaking with her mother's reanimated bones.

  “Your—” She began, attempting to work through her own thoughts,

  “More matronly sounding?” Her mother asked, the trace of a chuckle causing her jaw to ctter with an ominous ugh, “Come dear, I’m not some trick, I, very much am Lady Morgana Solizar, if not in the flesh, then, where it counts! Now, give your mother a hug…”

  Oh boy. That… Yeah, that was quite a big leap of faith.

  And despite everything she’d previously felt of an apprehensive nature, Faustine quickly found herself raising her guard, standing and backing away from the undead ‘thing’ she’d summoned, not at all convinced of anything it had said.

  Oh, the voice was familiar, as was the somewhat flippant and carefree attitude. Yet, even beyond it all, there was an underlying sense of—something she just couldn't wrap her head around.

  And, as the creature watched her, its peppy and bright demeanor slowly faltering, that familiar ‘chill’ that had filled the room only seemed to redouble its prior efforts.

  “Oh—oh I see…” Her ‘mother’ commented, her voice almost droll as she eyed her supposed daughter, skull giving one ‘sinister’ cck.

  Then, the creature darted for her!

  Lurching forward with an abrupt and unexpected lunge.

  Faustine let out a shrill cry of despair as she shrieked in terror! Doing her best to throw herself away from her attacker, but the monster caught her with its bony fingers!

  She sshed at the bleached forearm with her dagger, but it merely skated across the smooth bone, the nightmare reeling her in with its horrible and grinning face, tugging her closer bit by bit, glowing gaze blooming like twin bonfires through the night!

  This was it!

  She’d fucked up…

  She wasn't sure where, she wasn't sure how, but somewhere, Faustine had bungled the spell and now she was about to be eaten!

  She couldn't even scream! So primal and overwhelming was her horror that—

  Oh… the skeleton was—hugging her?

  “Gotcha!” The monster whispered, holding her tightly in its bleached arms… “Oh, don't be like that, it was just a bit of harmless fun!” The creature sang, holding her with arms far stronger than they had any right to be absent muscle and tendon, her mother’s bones pinning them together with overwhelming force as though she were, once more, but a babe in her arms.

  Then, to her immense hope, despair, love and uncertainty, the skull kissed her on the lips, just for a moment, as chaste as could ever be.

  “Oh, I did teach you well! It’s important never to truly trust the undead. They aren't typically pleased about being ‘disturbed’ from their afterlife, nor do they view the living with anything but contempt. Jealousy and all that, the afterlife can be a fairly unfair pce after all.”

  “O-okay… m-mother…” Faustine whimpered, her entire body rigid as could be.

  “Mother? Mother? Oh, my dear, you wound me…”

  Still, after a few moments, and a fairly familiar roll of the skeleton's fiery orbs, Faustine found herself, somewhat reluctantly, returning the embrace, awkward as it was…

  After all, the skeleton was—well, a skeleton, all hard ridges and pointy bits, meanwhile, Faustine was attractively plump and comparatively squishy. Far, far from overweight, but not necessarily skinny…

  Both mother and daughter, one of bones and one of flesh, held their union for some time. Though, once things had taken a beat towards the truly unsettling, the skeleton let her go, though only marginally, holding Faustine at arm's length by the shoulder, as though intending to drink her appearance in.

  The skull dipped, flowing from her feet to her scalp, then back again. The slight tilt of its head as it finally regarded her face leaving the young noble just a touch uneasy…

  “Hmph… the spitting image of your dear mother, at the same age… Only, you got your father’s beautiful emerald eyes and his delectably tight little tucchee…”

  “Mom!”

  “What? He was my husband dear, and you were far from an only child, don't tell me nobody ever told you how juveniles are made?”

  Almost as an afterthought, both women gnced to the side wherein a now deceased young man was lying on her sheets, naked, butchered like swine to the sughter, the dampness beneath his corpse both born of nervous sweat, exertion, and Faustine’s own ‘proof’ of enjoyment.

  “I know what sex is…”

  “Then don't be so prude about it!” Her mother countered, finally releasing her daughter with a disdainful huff, “By the way, how is your father doing? I do miss him quite dearly, all his overflowing patriotism and—ugh, zealotry, aside… Did he remarry?”

  For a moment, Faustine just stood there, unsure how to process most of what was going on, and far too overwhelmed by the ‘weird’ to truly put together coherent thoughts.

  Beyond strange, things had taken a decided turn toward the outright bizarre.

  Still, the unblinking and pointed look that the skeleton was giving her made Faustine grind right along, thoughts churning in a sluggish mire of confusion as they were.

  “I—think he might be dead… That’s why I tried the ritual,” She added with a small degree of exasperation, “I was stuck.”

  “Whatever for? What could be so bad that—”

  As the skeleton's words abruptly halted, her ‘mother’ gave the impression of a small blink, hesitating momentarily before, slowly, her bleached head began to shift, peering about her surroundings as though for the first time.

  “You know—while I have been dead for some time, I swear our vil is as fresh in my mind as the day you were born… Where are we?”

  “A small fort on the edge of the kingdom, just west of the Weird-weald, north of Lycia.”

  A distinctive popping sound emerged from her mother as the woman offered a slow nod, gaze dragging itself back to her daughter without commentary.

  The implication was clear.

  Thus, her mother didn't seem terribly interested in asking over it. Instead, the woman let out a long sigh, teeth chattering with malignant delight, though there didn't seem to be any humor in her demeanor.

  “So, you were banished to the border, hm? Albert was always a stuck-up prick, but to think he’d go this far… For goodness' sake, we're cousins! Sure, I get the whole execution bit, hmhm, not like I didn't deserve it, but still, does family mean nothing to the man?”

  “What do you mean, you deserved it?” Faustine asked, tone dropping to gcial temperatures as she stared at her mother, eyes narrowing to slits.

  “Oh, we can speak of politics another time, darling. For now, we must focus on bigger and grander things! Now tell me, what is this 'crisis' for which you tried to summon your stepfather?”

  “Stepfather?”

  “I remarried!”

  “To Death?”

  “Oh, please, as if you are any judge of seduction and feminine wiles, what are you? Twenty-four? Not even married… No children, no husband, no prospects beyond—hm… Is that a bcksmith’s boy, or a woodsman's?”

  “Farmer…”

  “Farmer!” Her mother chortled, one of her hands rising to her face in a dispy of extreme amusement, “Well, snack as he was, my point stands the same. Either way, you're quite lucky, darling, mother is here, and she’ll help make everything right again…