art by the wonderful @helpiminhell | original art/prompt can be found here
This lovely piece that M made a while back totally gave me brainworms about Asra's bout with dark magic, which then resulted in this little ficlet. Enjoy!
The subject: Asra becomes acquainted with necromancy at the expense of his personal comfort level. (To put it lightly.)
Note: For this phase in the timeline, I do hc Asra as going through a period where he suppresses most of his guilt for the mc’s death. This is primarily for practical reasons. He has to save face for Nadia and appear confident before Lucio and the court. He also understands that if he wants to achieve any sort of mastery over the necromantic arts, he’s got to go in with a clear head (not quite the same as a clear conscience). It’s not until closer to the execution of the ritual that Asra experiences a sort of emotional spiraling / emotional-mental breakdown – resulting more from the toll of the time spent dabbling in the dark arts rather than any hesitation towards lying to the guests at the dinner party. I envision that the dam on Asra’s guilt does not truly break until after the mc wakes up.
cw: slight horror elements, necromancy stuff
~ 520 words
****
The shopfront is neat, organized, not a single mote of dust to be seen in between the jars and asymmetrical gemstones. The lamps were glowing soft, welcoming light. A red scarf strewn over the countertop appeared to be the only careless feature. But it was done purposefully, perhaps to prove that everything was still normal here. With nothing out of place, the customers might think this strange. They might wonder if their favorite local magician was holding onto grief from those years of city waste and decay. Not Asra – not Asra too.
That’s why the magician had been so careful about the way he draped the scarf across the counter. He had also been very careful to lock the door to the building’s interior. Lest a customer see the total dysfunction and alarming chaos the rest of Asra’s home had descended into…
Asra had never used a stool before. Not to study magic. Stools were for catching up with friends at tea houses or doing readings on the go in the city. Cushions were for reading and researching and spending time with magic.
But Asra wanted to do this the right way. So he abandoned his cozy blanket fort setting for a desk, a stool, and something that he didn’t expect to need, but nonetheless brought it home when the shelf clerk at the dark arts emporium told him it was absolutely necessary.
A skull.
To track your progress, he had been told. Whatever that was supposed to mean. So far, the artifact had only served to unsettle and harass him with a needling sense of dread.
In an effort to lighten the mood and reclaim some sense of himself in this cold, unfamiliar space, Asra dipped his thumb in a sleeve of glitter and dragged it across the brow of the small skull. He grinned dimly in satisfaction before getting to work. But when he looked up for the first time from his research, the glitter had vanished. The skull stared at him just as bone hollow and deathly as before.
The days passed painfully as Asra moved through his self-teachings. The skull remained unresponsive most of the time, but eventually developed its own method of letting Asra know when he was getting closer to or further from reaching his final goal.
He learned to read the signs.
Ash collecting in the mouth – colder
The skull appearing in places where it shouldn’t – warmer
Individual teeth falling out – colder
Hollow eyes becoming… not so hollow anymore – definitely warmer
Faust did not appreciate the artifact’s presence on the days it followed Asra around the shop. She hissed at it so frequently, Asra had stopped trying to comfort her. He had stopped trying to comfort himself too on the mornings where he awoke to the skull resting on the pillow beside him, eyes drooling with something gross and unique.
Nowadays, he simply gathered his scrolls and journals full of dark marks, and made his way to his desk and stool. There was no need to bring along the skull.
