Innu and Calvean: A Necromantic Scene

Hungry.

You and me both, thought Innu. He glanced back at Cyril who had fallen behind a couple steps and was moving forward slowly and with eyes cast to the wet grass. Innu sighed to himself. Poor kid. They had only set out on their journey two days ago. His heart was still heavy with grief and anger, Innu suspected.

At first glance, Cyril seemed submissive and sorrowful, but then he would say surprising things or scowl… just subtle things that made Innu think that there were strong emotions underneath the prince’s carefully-cultured submission.

Of course there were. Souls were complicated and no one could be perfectly anything, much less perfectly submissive. That fiery glint that flared and was gone from Cyril’s eyes, the way he hugged himself against the cold…it was hard to pick out exactly what it was that tipped Innu off to the kid’s anger. But it was there. Oh, it was there.

And why wouldn’t it be? He had been kicked out of his home, unceremoniously, secretly, without even his mother or sister present. Being sent to be “trained” by a professional necromancer, to learn how to “control his powers,” it was nothing but troll spit. His parents were afraid and ashamed of Cyril. They just wanted to make him go away.

Innu felt terrible. Maybe he shouldn’t have accepted the task of training him. Maybe the king and queen would have given up trying to find another necromancer and would have let Cyril live in peace. Maybe they would have even grown to accept his gift. Maybe he would have been the king that would repair the Montomogen Moors with the supernatural.

Or maybe they would have found another necromancer, a cruel and corrupted one that would have thrust Cyril into the slave-driving world of professional necromancy. Or maybe they wouldn’t and Cyril would have been forced to live as the sick and ignored relative for the rest of his life.

Innu wanted to hug the prince and tell him it would be alright. He wanted to stroke his fluffy hair like Innu’s father used to do to him.

Not everyone likes that, you know.

But he might. You never know.

You sure as dawn can’t make him feel any worse, that’s for sure.

The spirits had a point. Innu wasn’t used to human, physical interaction. He had put his hand on Cyril’s shoulder two days ago, and before then, the last time he had touched someone was probably on one of his and Garnet’s visits to the necromancers in other towns, fifteen years ago, at least. Probably Calvean; he was the necromancer of the Elegiel kingdom, a three-day’s journey from here on foot.

Calvean liked to hug. He liked to laugh, and he liked to entertain other necromancers with his gold-painted bone china tea set all the way from Ponticus, which he always managed to slip into conversation whenever Innu and Garnet came to visit.

Out of all the necromancers of Innu’s past, he missed seeing Calvean the most. He wondered briefly if Calvean was still alive. He had only been middle aged when Innu last visited him, but necromancers often met with early deaths, the likeliness increasing depending on what kinds of spirits they were in the habit of messing with. Nature spirits could be prodded to violence if they were offended too many times, and demons required hardly any prodding.

Innu hoped Calvean hadn’t met with any serious misfortune since Innu had last seen him; just enough misfortune to make him set his spirit slaves free, but nothing permanently damaging.

A/N: Calvean also liked to tell the same jokes every time Garnet and little Innu came to visit. Innu would laugh at them every time, but Garnet would never laugh. In her opinion, toilet humor didn’t befit a necromancer, and she would appreciate it if Calvean wouldn’t poison her apprentice’s mind, thank you very much.