Smells Like Something I've Forgotten

[Audrey]

Things were quiet. Jade had made sure to venture far enough into the woods that the sounds of nature and serenity overcame the shrill yells of children and guzzle of the cars on the street. She hadn't yet had a chance to spare any words for her master, Jubian, since his passing back at their home in China. The rush to get on the ship to America and to set up a home in Jump City had dominated her time thus far, and despite it's necessity, she was shamed to have placed the honor of her master at the end of her priorities. That changed now though. While there was no possibility of her taking Jubian's body with her across the sea, she was able to take his sword with her. He didn't ever use the sword to assault anyone, but it was a common piece in his daily rituals and the sword he taught her the tools of the trade with. It was the closest thing to a physical embodiment of him that she had, and so it was what she would bury him as.

Now was a rare moment for Jade. Solemnity was not a common emotional standpoint for her. If she ever did feel bad, she often worked it out through aggression towards her training dummies. This situation though deserved her thoughtfulness, her care, and attention. Sighing into the autumn breeze, she pulled the spade out from her bag and set to work digging a shallow hole in the ground of the woods. Of all places in Jump City, this was probably the closest in similarity to her Jubian's home in Asia. She had considered burying him in the sewer within her living space, but to leave his reminder of the world in with the garbage of the city seemed sickeningly wrong even if she had turned it into her own domicile. He would've liked being buried in the woods though. He often referred to himself as a living tree and to the trees around his house as brothers and the bonsai is raised as his children. She only wished his actual body could buried amongst the trees.

With the hole satisfyingly deep enough, she delicately pulled a long blade from out of a silk case and placed it into the hole. Carefully, she reburied the blade into the dirt with her spade until it was but a small mound amongst the leaves. Satisfied, she removed a statue of Buddha, a picture of Jubian, a white cloth, a candle, an empty cup, and a pitcher sealed with water from her bag and placed the statue and picture at the head of the mound. She was no buddhist monk, but they weren't exactly in high amounts here in Jump City, so she decided she would speak the rite herself.

She placed the white cloth across the mound and began to speak quietly to herself "Aniccā vata saṅkhārā, uppādavayadhammino. Uppajjitvā nirujjhanti tesaṃ vūpasamo sukho," she chanted in foreign tongue before unsealing the pitcher. As she poured the water from the pitcher to the cup, continuing to pour even after the cup was filled, she continued chanting, "Unname udakaṃ vaṭṭhaṃ yathā ninnaṃ pavattati evameva ito dinnaṃ petānaṃ upakappati." She took a breath between the verse as her eyes began to well up with tears looking into the picture of her master. "Yathā vārivahā pūrā paripūrenti sāgaraṃ Evameva ito dinnaṃ petānaṃ upakappati," she finished, trying as best she could to hold back her tears. Finished with the rite, she placed the candle down and lit it, proceeding to go into meditation in front of the grave, turning invisible where she sat save for the face of her mask. The candle persistently burned through the winds of autumn blowing amongst the trees as Jade thought to what her master would accomplish in his next life.

[A.G.]

"You get it, right? You're mine. Miiiiiiiine. That means you obey me."

Alex was growing fairly tired, very quickly. It was at least midday now, and she'd been tucked away in the depths of the forests of Jump City for longer than the sun itself had been present. This was her Sunday. This had always been her Sundays, for longer than she liked to remember. Alone, in the deepest bits of the forests that she and her old lady Agatha lived in, secluded from society... secluded from reality, almost. It was the perfect place to clear one's mind, and focus solely on reflection of the soul, if not of the world as a living, breathing being. It was also, to Alex's good graces, one of the few places that cops came driving through.

Taming the undead would be kinda hard if she had to deal with that as well.

Alex was a mage, born and raised as such. While Agatha had only ever taught her some of the most dark and depraved of magical arts, magic in it's purest form ran in her blood. That, of course, didn't exactly mean she was a great magician by default. She couldn't summon storms, or split the ocean in two. Necromancy was one of her best subjects (despite how advanced it was), and she wasn't even very good at that. In fact, she was almost convinced that she had absolutely no talent for it, whatsoever. This was why she was now perched high up in an oak tree, while a few feet below, her latest 'project' was hanging out, waiting for her to come down.

Literally, hanging out.

There were a few ways to raise the dead; The most practical of which being to simply find a suitable body, and using the proper ingredients (In the case of a human being, the elements which made up the human body), one would create what was vaguely referred to in her grimoire as an 'artificial spark', which would incite and rekindle the life of the fallen body. Of course, the spark was supposed to grant one necromancer control of the body it rekindled... but in Alex's case, she was having a rather rough time of that last part. Thus, her solution was to, quite simply, hang the dead body by it's neck from a tree prior to resurrecting it. Now, instead of having to fend for herself against a wild zombie, her audience was, quite literally, captive; It could not die from strangulation, because it was already dead! Wonderful stuff.

"Now don't be upset that you're, well, stuck, but I couldn't risk you trying to kill me. Again. One time was enough," Alex muttered to herself, while the zombie stared blankly up at her from it's hanging place. "Oh don't give me that look... Fine, I'll cut you down. But FIRST, I need to know that you'll be an obedient... rotting corpse. Got it? That means no eating me. Ever." The zombie moaned in response. Alex wasn't exactly convinced. However, her personal opinion proved to matter little after accidentally moving a bit too far off of the branch she was situated on, resulting in a yelp of shock and a sudden drop. Had the grass not been so tall, she might have broken a bone or so.

[Audrey]

After a pause in the silence following Alex's fall, Jade reappeared into existence. "It seems we're not alone Master Jubian. I suppose this is goodbye. I do hope all is well wherever you have returned to the world. I am off to continue your legacy now," she spoke to the mound in front of her before standing up. She gathered up the picture and cup and placed them back into her bag before slinging it over her shoulders and moving on, the silent tears rolling down her face hidden away by her mask as she walked over to her fellow companion in the woods of Jump City. She was thankful it was far enough from Jubian's faux-resting place in case whatever was going on went ugly. Disturbing Jubian's grave would be more sacrilegious than anything she could possibly do otherwise. She would sooner run away from a fight than risk even so much as disturbing a grain of dirt covering Jubian's blade, and that is saying a lot.

As she stepped over, the first thing she noticed was the zombie hanging from a tree. She had heard stories while she was in China about a forest of death, Aokigahara in Japan, but she hadn't heard anything about such a forest existing in the US, let alone Jump City where everything seemed like it was sunshine and butterflies until you went underground. Not to mention she was pretty sure the dead bodies in Aokigahara did not writhe, moan, and attempt to pull people in, in order to eat their brain stems for an afternoon snack. At the most, they supposedly turned into skeletal or temptress demons of some kind, like in a Legend of Zelda game or something... Which thinking about it, is probably worse than zombies. At least zombies have simple demands. Who knows what a Yuki-Onna could want with you. Plus Stalfos and Onnas were smart enough to know how to get themselves down from a tree typically.

Jade then noticed the rather... punkish looking girl below her in the grass. Seeing the branch above, the disturbed dirt and hearing her pained groans, she figured the gal probably fell out of the tree and caused the noise she heard. What a trashy looking thing she was. Like some high school goth felt like having a little fun with the arcane. Putting two and two together, she figured the zombie was likely her doing. She was aware of magic out there existing, heck, in a way she was magic. Invisibility isn't exactly a matter that can explained by modern science. Though, the 'magicians' she had heard of were for the most part old men. Admittedly, she knew of a couple women too, but generally they were all in the second half of their lives...

Come to think of it, that's probably why this zombie is so... disorderly. No doubt this gal was a novice in the magical arts with her apparent youth. Well isn't that cheery, a high school goth playing with necromancy? Cheshire laughed a little behind her mask, her tears coming to pass now. She stood over the fallen lass and crouched down into her face, her Cheshire mask's eyes staring right into hers. "You seem to have left your friend hanging. He's not exactly too happy about it either," she said, rather surprised almost the rope hadn't given under the zombie's weight yet. When it did, the two of them would be in for a treat if he was still fresh. Though, Cheshire could probably reduce him to B-Movie gore effects pretty quickly should it be necessary... Hell, she may even do it anyway for fun.

[A.G.]

"Ugh... hate trees. Hate'em." Alex muttered to herself as she slowly righted herself. Really, it was her own fault for climbing back up there to begin with; She had performed the ritual of soul binding on the ground. She THOUGHT that the tree was safer, just in case the darned zombie managed to get free, but at the end of the day it only made things worse. Naturally, the zombie just watched, and groaned. Alex rolled her eyes. "Y'know I don't need your input; I'm perfectly capable of groaning on my own." She quipped, rubbing her lower back with her right hand, while going to retrieve the grimoire she'd left on the ground.

Another dud, unfortunately. The 'goal' of these test runs was to reanimate a perfectly preserved corpse, mind and body still in-tact. Agatha had hundreds of undead servants, and she constantly nagged Alex about how crucial it was for her to master the art of necromancy as early as possible. Granted, Alex could do more than someone who'd never picked up a book before in their life, but she seemed to have hit a figurative wall in keep the body and mind preserved... All she could manage were these useless zombies. And now, with a sigh, she had to get started on climbing BACK up the tree to untie the darned thing.

Or, that was the plan, before her thinking process was interrupted by a voice. Naturally, Alex's head snapped towards the source; There shouldn't have been anyone out here but herself... And zombies, but they didn't count. What she found was... some kinda weirdo? Wonderful. She wore an odd mask that obscured her face (for whatever reason), and strange garbs that didn't exactly scream 'I'm from Jump, nice to meet you'. Conclusion; Alex was hallucinating again. Awesome. "I'm not really much of a high five kinda girl, he knows that," Alex replied sarcastically, looking over the zombie-- More importantly, it's rope. It wasn't designed to hold the entire weight of a human being, undead or not, and the longer he hung up there, the more the twine began to unravel... Hey, maybe she wouldn't have to climb back up after all!

With a sigh and a wave of her hand, Alex grabbed her grimoire and began to collect the various other items scattered about the ground below the zombie-- Everything from a small bowl stained red, a dagger of ceremonious design, and more. "I'm guessing you're one of Agatha's goon-dead? You can tell her I'm on my way back... I failed again, as usual." Alex muttered, giving a rather spiteful look to the hanging zombie.