Wunder
[Fort Zvyar Lieutenant]
[Beast of Unhurried Demises]
[The Kindred Heretic]
Thousand-Quilled Barbeast
Lv. ?
His voice was deep but not unpleasant, almost sounding like a man who’d spent his entire life singing blues, there was a dissonance in my mind between what he looked like and what he sounded like. With his bulky frame and sharp, lethal looking quills, I almost questioned why he needed to attack from a distance. Why he chose to attack from a distance.
“Though, I’ll admit, you are rather unusual for a skeleton.” Wunder approached me, dark eyes almost shining in the darkness.
“I know!” Arol chipped in. “After I attacked him, he complemented my eyes. My. Eyes.”
“Oh?” Wunder crossed his arms. “Perhaps he has a thing for his fellow undead. A skeleton and a poltergeist would make a great pair don’t you think?”
Sorry – what? “I’m not –”
“No way! He doesn’t even have a cock. How would we fuck?”
“My fingers still work rather fine.”
The duo stared at me. I realized what I’d said and was glad that my mask covered my face. It was almost second nature for me to let out a snide or sarcastic response to things at this point, and sometimes I did it without even thinking. I coughed heavily into my working right hand to try and regain some sense of where the conversation was going. “You two are nightmares, correct?”
“I’m a scarecrow and he’s the village pillory.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Sorry Arol. This skeleton is perhaps too unintelligent for you.”
“I told you he was stupid.”
My face would burn with indignation if I had a face to burn. “I believed all nightmares were just mindless monsters who wanted to destroy and pillage and burn.”
“Of course we want to destroy and pillage and burn!” Arol said. “Destroying is fun. We get to tear stuff down. Pillaging is fun. We get to get new stuff. Burning is fun. Have you seen how great a fire looks at night?”
“Ah.” I said, understanding slowly dawning. “So it’s not that you’re mindless monsters, but sociopathic monsters.”
“Sozopahic?” Arol scrunched up her nose. “What’s that?” She frowned. “Ah, I know what that is. Leader Erzili told us. You’re talking about that thing Alamirians have… um… em.. erm…”
“Empathy.” Wunder said, giving me a side-eye glance. “You must be a soulborn.”
“Soulborn?”
“Like me!” She said, placing one hand on her hip. “That explains it. I used to be a Leporinian before I died, but an Aljutha used me for this dark ritual thing, and my soul lingered and festered and I met Lady Rhamnusia and she turned me into a nightmare. I was stupid like you, but Leader Erzili helped fix me. Maybe Leader Erzili can fix you too.”
“Is that so?” I tried to keep my tone neutral. “Having empathy means you’re broken?”
“Yep!” Arol nodded. “Broken badly.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because –”
“Arol, allow me.” Wunder said, the larger creature staring me down. “Whatever you were before you died, forget it. You’re a nightmare now. Even if you were to become a hermit that lived at the top of a mountain eating leaves and counting grass, the Alamirians – the Elvani, Humans, Leporinians, Midwarfs, Lycaoni, Felani and Druids – they will gather forces and raise up arms, burn down your mountain, destroy your home and hunt you without rest until your head hangs on a pike at their gates and your killer is heralded a champion. Children will sing tales of your killer as a vanquisher of evil, songs will exaggerate their bravery and courage, and the cold truth of a nightmare who did no wrong and begged for mercy will be unheard by history.”
My mouth opened behind my mask, and closed slowly. “That was… rather elegant. Still unsure as to how it has to relate with why having empathy is bad, but it was elegant nonetheless.”
Wunder patted me against the back, staggering me from the strength in his arms and making me confused at an almost forgotten gesture that felt alien coming from a creature as huge and grotesque as he was.
“We are Nightmares of Alamir. If we will be hunted and feared regardless, we must make ourselves worthy of both the hunt and the fear. And of course, we mustn’t forget to enjoy ourselves in the process. Isn’t that right Arol?”
“Alamirians are delicious.”
“There’s also that,” Wunder chuckled. “Speaking of delicious things… we still haven’t caught any.”
“Ugh… you had to remind me. Onna’s gonna outdo us in the hunting again. I’m sick of eating kobold for dinner. Every time she just goes off and brings back frozen kobold for dinner.” The little poltergeist clicked her tongue and glared in my direction. “Why did you have to be a skeleton? Couldn’t you have been something with flesh and bones and blood that could be made into a broth?”
“No one is more disappointed in my lack of fleshy parts than I am.” I said. The remaining part of her sentence caught up to me, along with the implications. “You’d eat me if I was a nightmare that had flesh?”
“Of course.” Wunder said.
“Especially if you were very meaty.” Arol added.
“It’s nothing personal little skeleton,” Wunder said, “But as per Erzili’s rules, everyone is food by default unless the amount of effort required in killing them is more than the satisfaction
