Mbembe

M’embe stood perfectly still, his tail coiled neatly around his paws. The stagnant air was unpleasant as it burned in his throat, yet it didn’t affect the grin that played along his features. There was an unusual calmness in his frame- a looseness in the way he held himself that was unsettling to anyone that had known the dragon. In all the time he’d lived at the Sanctuary, he’d never one lost the tension in his stance or the tightness around his eyes. He had been perfectly meek. Eager to learn and please; scrambling for the faintest inkling of praise. How the tides had turned.

He stank of death and betrayal, the typical fragrance of a necromancer.

At his sides, the re-animated skulls of two much smaller creatures hovered silently. They hadn’t been silent moments before as their innate magic fought against his will- when he’d carved spiralling runes into the pale bones. To someone who’d never heard the whispering calls of his craft, it was difficult to describe. Under his touch they’d melted and warped into twisted abominations; even their voices had risen in pitch until the raw hatred that kept them tethered to this realm wasn’t enough. The last traces of their personality snapped and all that was left was fractured magic and silence.

It hasn't been easy but he'd done it. He’d finally done it. A giddy laugh threatened to bubble up through his throat. After so long, he almost didn’t believe it. He’d broken every rule- pushed past all the safeguards- and done something truly horrific. Necromancy was something the Sanctuary approached with a deference and solemnity. It was the first lesson he’d learned.

It was the first lesson they’d taught him. There was no way he could imagine them not being there, breathing down his neck. Stalking his every movement. Watching with their too-wide eyes as they turned over his creations with bloodsoaked claws and boredom etched into their features. M’embe eyed the floating skulls, trying to see the similarities between them and his former teachers. There were none. The constructs retained nothing of their former personality, and even the magic that held them afloat was a pale mockery of what it had been.

Even the pristine apparel they wore- took pride in wearing when the world was unraveling at the seams- were disheveled and coated in a muddy slime of lichen and sour magic. In life they'd made death their profession, and now… well. Full circle. It was almost poetic.

That last moment of fear-tinted understanding was priceless; it made a savage grin spread across his face. Finally, after years of biting back his scorn- of letting that rage simmer in his blood, he’d done it.

They hadn’t recognized him when he first joined their coven, but he had to fight back a growl when he'd been introduced.

They looked at him as if he were nothing. As if he were some street urchin that stumbled into their conven and soiled their holy sanctum. (They hadn’t aged a single day. Matching patterns carved into their wings- the same patterns that seared their way into his nightmares. Larger than life. Cackling as they spun sharp little blades through the air with chilling precision. Twin, bloody grins as they stood in the inferno and breathed in the destruction.)
But he sure wasn’t the same scared little kid that could do nothing but hide while they razed his town.



They looked at him and saw nothing.
(The hellbeasts at their beck and call looked at him through familiar faces and saw nothing. His sibling’s eyes, dull and blank and sightless. It wasn’t even his sibling. It just wore his face.)

Somehow he'd found himself under their tutelage, deep within the heart of the Association. He learned the spells. He learned the theories. Hell, he even learned to take pride in his work- in the twisted little things that stumbled in shambled steps. (Not true necromancy, they whispered with their sneering smiles. But that wasn’t what he wanted, after all.)

And then he’d catch sight of one of the constructs (one of his clanmantes. He’d forgotten her name. How could he have forgotten?) collapsing under their own weight (too old to hold up, they’d said as they let the magic holding it together fizzle away.) One by one they crumbled into dust and he’d watched them all die a second time.

And they'd taught him everything he needed to know. And he’d unraveled them all.