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[we_bring_hell]

Harrow is having a slow-motion argument with the Bar over breakfast. She wants water and a little bread, and the Bar does not agree that this is a breakfast.


She has rejected an omelet, a breakfast sandwich, and biscuits and gravy. The Bar is trying a bowl of porridge on her and she's considering it. (She hasn't noticed it has raisins in it yet.)

Comments

[we_bring_hell]

She gives Alyce a dubious look. "In the Empire, necromancy is the only subject."

She touches the bones in her ear. "They are the heirlooms of the Ninth House. From parishioners of distinguished service who were exempted from construct labor."

[whenthewindblows]

She has no idea how to respond to this. Not about them being bones! Real bones are fine, who is she to judge?

Ninth - Harrowhawk? - must come from one of the fancy worlds where there are, like, special schools where everyone learns all the complex magical things from, like, infancy. Not like kids from Sunnydale where you figure things out the hard way as you go along while avoiding vampire and demon attacks on the regular.

"That's great. They're pretty. I'm majoring in Healing Arts. Or I'm trying. I'm failing a class right now."

[we_bring_hell]

"I have done some healing... much of the the population of the Ninth is elderly and require maintenance. But I've never been terribly interested in the flesh," she says.

"Healing arts are not considered necromancy in your school? It's bio-magic, isn't it?"

[whenthewindblows]

"Yeeees?"

Probably?

"And no, necromancy is a whole different discipline. Their building is really far from the rest of campus."

[we_bring_hell]

"Hm." She shrugs. "I have met those here who have been excluded or judged for their interest in necromancy, so I shouldn't be surprised."

"Where I come from, it is simply the only kind of magic there is. But it also seems to include a broader sphere of activities."

[whenthewindblows]

"Oh, um, no, it's really far because it's by the graveyard? Which is off by the edge of campus."

Harrowhark is way, way smarter than Alyce - you can tell by the way she talks. Alyce feels pretty stupid about now. But she is a brave little toaster, and she's less sure of how to stop talking than keep talking at this point.

"Are there many bone witches? Um. Necromancers? I guess so, right, if it's the only magic."

Maybe the floor will open up and let her drop into it! That would be awesome.

[we_bring_hell]

"There are hundreds of thousands of necromancers in the Empire. Far fewer bone witches. The population of the Ninth is declining."

She toys with one of her bangles with a gloved hand; the half-eaten crust of bread is entirely forgotten. "Most competent necromancers can raise and control a bone construct, but to grow and animate an intact skeleton from partial bones is a secret of the Ninth House."

"I believe I may be the last, barring the Emperor himself and his Saints."

[whenthewindblows]

Okay. She caught the growing and animating an intact skeleton part. She has no idea about the Emperor and his saints, but she can work with this!

"How do you do the reanimation? Do the bones have to be fresh?"

She shuffles her deck, and this time it's a little less nervously.

[we_bring_hell]

"No," she says. "Reanimation among us is simply about control. You can make constructs very simple--only following direct orders--or automated with more complex theorems. The spirit is not involved, so it doesn't matter how recently it departed."

"True Resurrection is the province of the Emperor alone."

[whenthewindblows]

"That makes sense."

Does it, though?

"When you have a, um, construct following orders, what do they do? Guard treasures? Fight? Where I'm from, reanimated forms usually just make people scared and panic."

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow shrugs. "They do anything something human-shaped but not very smart can do, but they can do it in conditions that would kill a human. On the Ninth we mostly use them to farm snow-leeks in the tundra."

"They do have their applications in combat, but it's much harder to raise them on foreign planets. Our home system is... undead," she says, avoid the word thanergenic. "It makes things much easier."

"How long have you been studying magic?"

[whenthewindblows]

That's a great question.

"I- um. We don't have a lot of formal schools? My college is a magical one, but even it has, you know, regular subjects. Like Communications and Business Administration."

Because someone's gotta run the magic stores and work in the social media department at Wolfram and Hart.

"So my twin brother and I, we grew up knowing we were different? We found some books here and there and did spells to make things happen. We had a coven in high school. But no one really, like, studied anything. Oh, and we lived on a Hellmouth."

[we_bring_hell]

"I see," she says. And indeed, she does.

"What is a Hellmouth?"

[whenthewindblows]

"It's a portal to hell. It makes for a lot of vampires, demons, world ending rituals, Slayers. Oh and for graduation three years before mine, the Mayor turned into a giant snake and ate some of the senior class."

[we_bring_hell]

She blinks.

"That seems... undesirable. Why is it left open?"

[whenthewindblows]

"I don't think they can be closed? Unless the city on top of it is, like, totally swallowed up. That's what happened to Sunnydale. So there's no more hellmouth, but no more Sunnydale, either."

[we_bring_hell]

"I see," she says.

Well, what can she say? Sucks to live on your planet?

"That.... seems to be for the best?"


"I grew up in the shadow of a Tomb that holds an apocalyptic enemy of God," she offers.

[whenthewindblows]

"Oh," she says, brightening. "You get it, then! Most people have absolutely no clue when I try to explain it."

[we_bring_hell]

"The Ninth was built to guard the Tomb," she says. "It sounds like your Hellmouth had... gotten out of hand?"

[whenthewindblows]

"Oh for sure, but the whole 'ancient lurking dread' right where you live is similar."

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow nods.

"I hope your new home is less fraught?"

[whenthewindblows]

"Yes. It rains a lot, but it's really, really nice to not have to worry about vampires every time you go somewhere at night. Or demon apocalypses every few months."

She pauses.

"I mean, they still happen? Just not like right next door."

[we_bring_hell]

She shakes her head. "It's strange--vampires do not exist in my world. It is a name we are called by the people of foreign planets sometimes, but they are a myth."

[whenthewindblows]

"It's funny you say that, because in mine, vampires are also a myth. Except for how they're totally real and they kill people all the time. But the authorities say the deaths are caused by wild animal attacks or accidental barbecue fork stabbings. Then when you know, when you really know, you feel like you're crazy for believing in these 'myths' that are actually really real."

The Buffyverse does suck, doesn't it?

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow blinks. "Why the secrecy?"