Well this was most certainly interesting. It seemed like Pravpora had all the fun. The Goddess walked the fine line between wanting to smack the headless child handing her a poorly written note and actually humoring the request. The more she thought about it the more she realized that tormenting a few banshees would probably do her some good. There was not any interesting things happening at the moment so she could take the time off to have fun.

“I'll be back I suppose,” she sighed and summoned Trandafir in its staff form. The obsidian staff was put over her shoulder as she jumped up onto a tree branch. These trees were special and she knew that most likely they loved her walking all over them. She sported a corset and skirt for this occasion, as always the Mother was barefoot. Golden anklets about her feet. She jumped from tree to tree until she spotted a banshee.

Crouching on the branch she smirked a bit. She did not like getting overly cocky but this seemed more like child's play. She had seen others toting around the things from the list. They were generic everyday items. The only thing that tugged at her mind was that these women had lost their husbands to the tree much like she had lost her own husband to her ascension.

“Better off getting killed again then living with that misery. Though..” Looking deep into the mind of the banshee she found the tree. “Be reunited a final time.” A tree popped up out of the ground and ran towards the banshee. Angela flicked her wrist and snapped her fingers. She was sure that the banshee would have been after her if Angela hadn't twisted the tree to take the form of the man she loved most.

They had been separated a long time. Dead hands crept up and embraced the tree. She could hear crying. Flicking Trandafir she seamlessly killed both the banshee and the tree. A frown was on her face, that had been a lot sadder than she had intended it to be. Hopping off the tree she picked up the wounded heart from the list. It was still somewhat alive but nothing these days surprised her.

Life. Fresh, verdant, indubitable life. It stank like spring in this place of death, stinging in the nostrils of the lurking evil. Chae was not the only one to cringe when the false tree sprang up from the ground, eyes darting in the direction of its source. Ultimately there were none who would dared challenge the Lady of the Earth, nor openly abhor her creation. The little lich was no different. Though it did not truly contain the agonized soul of a soldier, the transient tree was real enough to fool a banshee. At least she could appreciate the skill in such a manipulation.

Chae’s tactics were a little less nuanced. A necromancer in her own right, she returned to the task at hand. The banshee was under her spell, dominated by the same magic that kept them both from their graves. The ghostly face, already warped by hatred and suffering, writhed with new pains as it struggled beneath her young power. Chae’s tiny arms reached toward her victim, pinning the spirit with necrotic chains. It screamed and screamed, but its torment was merely one voice in a chorus of many.

“Show me,” she muttered, and perhaps even the banshee could not hear her over its own desperate cries. But the words were channeled through magic as much as air and, slowly, the banshee began to quiet with understanding. The poor wife was cursed by greater power than Chae could even imagine, but at least she could hope to take control for a moment.

Finally, she released it. The screaming song rang anew through the trees as the unbound spirit escaped, whirling through the darkness toward the object of its temporary master’s commands. Chae ran after it as fast as her little legs would carry her, ignoring the goddess as they passed close. Not ten feet from where Angela Rose had collected the heart of a dead woman, Chae’s banshee circled another tree and sank mournfully into the earth. There, buried in a shallow grave beneath the twisted roots, were a pair of matching wedding bands, though tarnished and nearly worthless.

Without hesitation, Chae dropped to her knees and dug them up. The banshee lamented the thievery loudly and persistently, as if forgetting that it had lead the witch to that precise location. Pocketing the treasures, Chae reached out again as if to take hold of the spirit’s unbreathing throat. Angrily, if not entirely willingly, the phantom wife gave one last shriek before fleeing into the night.

Angela found herself distracted as she eyed the heart. Finally it was the screams that brought the goddess back to life. Taking Trandafir she walked along the path. She had almost entirely missed the little lich if it had not been for another shriek into the night. Lips turned to a smile as she bent down to look at the halfling. “Are you enjoying their games as well?” Perhaps it was a lie.

“The banshees around here are of a particular level of interest to me.” She pulled herself back up and put one hand on her lower back as if she were not so young anymore. “Would you be interested in hunting stuck creatures with me? Or would you rather let them escape?” She had not let that much escape her about the halfling in front of her.

Tilting her head Angela looked up and smiled a bit more. “To show others what they desire most in the world.” She waved Trandafir. “It can torture a soul.” When she brought the staff back down manifestations of children ran around. A cry in the darkness came out and Angela moved. “To show them what they lost for being so selfish.” She took off and grabbed a banish by the loose noose around her neck.

“You should be free but also at the same time what anchored you here will always haunt you.” She did a flicker movement with Trandafir as it transformed into a sword and she struck the banshee. She pulled the noose off before taking a petrified hand back to the Lich. “Here..” She tossed the hand to the girl and watched.


“What is your name?”

Scrambling to her feet, Chae gave an absent glare at the display that transpired between the banshees and staff-wielder. The words were delivered as a mere explanation, but to the lich there was something of a threat in them, dancing between calm syllables and powerful magic. Games, desires, torture. If this creature of life could manipulate the dead so easily, what did she intend for the other foul creatures that wandered the earth this night?

“Chae,” she answered simply. Her sweet, soft voice resonated more of her long lost forest kin than her gaunt undead form. “And you?”

Chae herself had no use for destroying the banshees. Their essences were too corrupted to serve her hunger, and her necromantic control was not strong enough to turn them into anything useful. It was a sort of sick kinship which prompted her to spare them, but she would not admit that to Angela—at least, not willingly. Taking the offering of the petrified hand more curiously than graciously, she said, “I leave them to their torment. I would not destroy a thing without due purpose.”

With a clumsy movement, Chae reached for the ghost which Angela had run through and took hold of it, mending its ethereal wounds with sickly blue magic. She whispered a few words in a language that even she did not entirely know, and the banshee was sent screeching skyward, away from the meddling of carnival patrons. It would flutter down soon enough.  The point was not to spare the undead as much as it was to show this lifer her priorities. Without hesitation Chae turned to a nearby tree.

Perhaps Angela could sense what Chae sensed there: the shivering spirit hiding within the despairing arms of her long dead lover. Another pulse of necrotic energy pulled the poor thing from its place, a shrill moan streaking through the air. The banshee drew slowly near until Chae’s little hand gripped the invisible heart within it, her fingers twitching beneath an illusory pulse. “What do you want?” She said, for it was not for her nor the goddess to decide this creature’s fate. It was mostly incoherent as it alternated between screaming and moaning, but ultimately it understood the magic in her words.

“Free… dom…,” it replied hoarsely, if not lucidly, and Chae frowned. She had been wrong.

“Show me, first,” she commanded, releasing the wounded heart which would be hers in due time. With the same arc of movement that Angela had witnessed before, the banshee fled to a nearby tree. There, a silvery glint revealed a locket hanging around the warped neck of one of the cursed trees. Finally Chae turned to Angela, offering up one of the two wedding rings she had found in a tiny, outstretched palm. “In exchange for the hand. But that one’s mine,” she mumbled just before making her way toward the treasure on the tree.

The banshee was circling the tree almost hypnotically, temporarily bound by Chae’s command. Angela could make the final blow, if she so desired. Perhaps it would have been kinder to free the human soul from its torment, but this creature was no longer just that. Its curse was its being, its purpose. As far as Chae was concerned, it was as good an afterlife as any.

The name was cute enough and her voice was sweet. Angela gave her a smile. “Angela.” It was just as simple as the girl had been to her. The goddess gave a curious look back to the girl as she looked over the hand. This was most certainly an interesting meeting. “Most people choose to do that. Sometimes we leave the living to suffer, the undead to suffer, and sometimes even in end death they are still suffering. That is the principal of life. The people who died in this forest paid the ultimate price for their greed. Even in death they linger trying to catch on to what they lost.”

It was almost like a whisper as she spoke to the halfling. Angela's bare feet kept up with her as she traveled closely. The lick knew a language that most would want to know and it perked her curiosity. Angela had been alive long enough to want to learn most things. She had decades to master a craft if she wanted to. Very few things were foreign to her and when she discovered something new she watched it for a while.

This was not at all completely new but the first time she had seen it in person. A smirk crossed her face but in her eyes there was pain. She understood the banshee more than the girl. She had lost her love one as well. These men were gone none of them remained. They had not died like the women had. Of all her studies on the forest it came down to greed verses agony. To love was to be in pain.

Once they had found the locket Angela accepted the ring. “Thank you my little companion.” Looking up at the spirit she offered a sad smile. “As the Goddess who spreads life I hold no responsibility over your death but I once was the harbinger of death and decay. I understand you more than you know.” She lifted her staff and it transformed into the obsidian and crystal sword. She swift in her movement. “Not all spirits deserve to pass on but some do.” She towards the halfling.

“I was the ferryman for those who departed in life over a hundred years ago. Though it does not matter much now. You are a lich aren't you?” She had been watching the halfling. “I've seen many of you in my days. Never seen one so beautiful before.” Angela reached her hand out and stroked the girl's hair. “This forest is draining my happy aura though. This is a reminder of why mortals should be careful what they wish for.” She put a hand to her forehead as she thought.

“Two more items to go. I need a locket and a petrified hand.”

Angela was very nice, and in a way that reminded Chae of herself in her beforelife. The halfling did not know if she liked that about her, but she decided that she did not hate it. She endured her touches and her flattery, only barely cringing when the dreaded word—little—made its inevitable appearance in their conversation. Chae knew little of beauty, but much of power; she peered inquisitively at the goddess who she spoke of dominions and deserving. “Gavels are too heavy for my little arms,” she said vaguely, reaching for the locket that hung from the cursed man’s wooden neck. It was too high. “I do not presume to judge, not the dead nor the living.”
 
Perhaps too soon, she gave up on the necklace. Though she had claimed it for herself, she would have to depend on the other woman’s generosity to retrieve it. If only to distract herself from her failure, she went on, “Yes, lich is what they call it. But it were not these hands which pulled me back to mortals and their wishes. Perchance it is that I am cursed, and that I deserve it.” Her eyes wandered toward the circling banshee, too absorbed it its own lamentation to avoid the women who would destroy it. “I was a healer once, you know. A good one,” she added absently.

Her hand beckoned the specter, whose translucent form wrapped tentatively around her cold, pale fingers. She found the heart again, pulsing warily against her palm, and willed it to materialize. Chae needed it for this stupid game, to earn whatever mysterious prize there was to gain. But in the end she could not bring herself to destroy the banshee. Selfish fear motivated her more than compassion, for in some ways she saw her own eyes in the crazed face before her. In any case, she did not know enough about love to fathom the agony that persisted when she spared the mindless creature.

She did not release it. Instead, she turned her attention on the sword in Angela’s hand. “I would think a life-spreader would not be so patient with my kind,” she mused, mustering the courage to say the words that would follow presently. The kinds were one and the same to Chae; she was both necromancer and necromancee, a manipulator of the undead as well as a member of their ranks. Either way she was an abomination to both life and death, both of which seemed important to this woman. Why would she care to spare Chae, when she could obliterate these spirits so easily?

“I saw you take a heart, before,” she said, but not without a long and thoughtful pause. “Do it again for me, and you may have the locket.”

As Chae took the heart, there was a touch of disappointment in her eyes. She had expected it to be as warm as a fresh one, but of course it was cold; it shriveled in her small hands, quite literally marred by the black wounds of loss and betrayal. The halfling dropped it in her bag beside the ring and the hand. If she could, she would have shivered. But truly she was always cold, and would never again feel the warmth of real life.

“I did not choose to be risen,” she said sourly, eyes fixed on the shadows between the horrible trees as she searched for another victim. “I did not want to live again. But the curse of life, as you call it, was bestowed on me, and I intend to make the most of it.” She saw the ghastly white mist of a banshee’s shawl flicker from behind a silently screaming tree and, without once looking back on the woman who had become her makeshift partner in the passing moments, engaged pursuit.

She did not grab its heart, as she had for the last few creatures that had not managed to escape her power. She did not want to feel it again. Instead she brought its face down to hers, ethereal rags flailing close and cold. She pressed her face into the wailing wife’s, seeing through her eyes. Between the shards of hatred and anguish, she saw the memory of the banshee’s own body hanging, withering, decaying. “Show me,” she said yet again, and the banshee whirled toward the next prize.

Chae followed quickly after, head down as she leapt carefully over the twisted roots that poked into the winding path. “The undead are not a part of the cycle of life,” she replied lowly. “We are leeches, plowing the lifeblood of the world’s balance and sowing in it the seeds of chaos.” As she spoke, the lich found her attention straying to the goddess’s chest, the heart beneath, and the warm eternity of her life. If she were mortal, it would have been so easy to take and eat her soul. What would it take to have even a taste of an immortal soul?

“Purity be damned,” she mumbled, pushing the thought away. “It is not a matter of intent.”

Soon enough they came upon the banshee once more, standing in a daze beneath the noose it had died on. “Give it to me,” she commanded, and it spun intangibly around the branch until the decaying rope fell to the ground. Chae retrieved it, but she did not release the banshee from her influence. Instead she laid eyes on the other woman, summoning the tortured soul between them. The witch’s eyes stared with arcane effort as the banshee raised a hand toward Angela, offering up the final item.

Angela stared at Chae and for a moment she felt lost. “Purity be damned.” She called back. There was something about the blood on Angela's hands that she could not wash away. It was always going to eat at her nightmares and fight her very being. “Even if you are not part of the cycle.. I'm not either. My race born from the undead and the living. Where does that put me?” She moved closer to the banshee.

She raised Trandafir and took the hand easily. Looking down her partner she smiled. “It puts me in a position to understand. I didn't want immortality yet here we are. Each given something we have to make the most of. This is our life and what we do with it is entirely up to us.” For a moment she felt her breath catch. “Purity be damned.”

She let Trandafir turn back into its obsidian staff as she looked at five of the items that she had gathered. “Not one thing is better than the other. Evil nor good. Living, dead, or undead. It is all how you make it. So my lich friend I would take what you have been given and shove it up someone's ass and show them what it means to be given something you don't want. Like I have to. Becoming a god took my peace away. It took my life away. I've been slowly picking up the pieces but over one hundred and fifty years later I still haven't completely filled the hole it sank me into.”

She would stick around with her companion until the lich's job was done. “If you ever need anything the rose arches all lead to me.”

A banshee passed between them, fleeing another mortal who had accepted the headless child's task. Chae stopped it with a glance and pulled it close, her hands enclosing its incorporeal neck. With a moment of concentration and a single deliberate tug, the banshee puffed out of existence. In its place there hung a locket, its chain glinting beneath Chae's fist. She had not spared the last one. She had ripped it away from its misery and its being. A deep and secret part of her wanted to be destroyed too, to be rent from this world by some sort of almighty force of good and released from the curse of her unlife.

But, of course, a less secret part of her wanted to press on–to, as Angela had said, shove it up someone's ass. Chae did not reply out loud, though. She had no answers to give the troubled deity, much less any sort of compassion or understanding. Perhaps it was true that they had more in common than the little lich would have liked to admit. But there was nothing Chae could say that could better describe the ripples which had sprouted from Angela's advice.

She smiled.

And then she departed, her physicality overtaken by the tall shadows of the rising dawn until there was no more left of her to commiserate. She would return to the gypsies and retrieve her prize, but then she would go back to her own little torment. And she would keep an eye out for rose arches.