Today’s prompt was “remains,” and once again IDK how spooky I actually got, but it once again immediately made me think of a character, so I had to go with that.
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Werydd has never been afraid among the ancestors. Few Helthane children are; she's vaguely aware that her older sister was, and that her older sister went away to another household to be raised to that family's profession, instead of the one she was born to. But Weyrdd has never felt that fear.
The ancestors are just people, like her and her parents and her grandparents and her aunts and uncles and her cousins and everyone else she knows. Sure, they're dead people, which means that they spend most of their time resting in the tombs. But when they're needed, they get up and do whatever they're needed for, and then they go back to sleep until they're needed again. Just like her grandmother, who spends most of her time in naps. Werydd assumes that it must be something that just happens to you when you get old.
And just like her living elders, the ancestors deserve respect for their age and the hard work they've put in over the centuries. Werydd understands that keenly. It's rude to disturb their bones without good reason. So when she finds an ancestor's bones in a tangle on the floor, she stops to pick them up and put them back on the shelf where they belong.
Vaguely, Werydd is aware that she shouldn't be wandering the tombs alone. She'd asked to come with him to work today, because sometimes it was interesting, but she'd found out quickly that today it involved a lot of very boring polishing of the arms and armor of the battle-born ancestors. Boring didn't mean unnecessary, though, and even at eight, knew that. She'd asked to come, so she should have stayed and helped.
But it had been so boring, and she'd decided to visit other ancestors instead. And that's lucky, she thinks, and her grandfather should be glad she did, because otherwise no one would know about the bones and the poor fallen ancestor wouldn't have anyone to pick them up for them. Werydd reflects on this reasoning as she places the bones back on the shelf, carefully lining them up according to the anatomy diagrams she's already starting to learn, and finds it quite pleasing.
As is the process of aligning the bones itself. She starts to sing, quietly, as she works, one of the hymns of praise that her father sings with his strong warm voice whenever he's preparing a body for burial. She doesn't know all of the words, but she does her best.
“...as worthy in death as you were in life, honored for service in peace and in strife...”
Diagrams aside, arranging bones in the right order is hard. Weyrdd steps back and frowns at her work so far, hands on her hips. This would be easier if everything was wired together, the way it's supposed to be, but a bunch of the wires have broken. And some of the bones, too. And shouldn't the ancestor have burial clothes? Even the ones who've only earned themselves a shelf aren't laid to rest naked. That wouldn't be proper.
There's a rustling behind her. It sounds a little like paper on paper, or like her grandfather's robes, coarse cloth on cloth. This is a good time for him to arrive, actually.
“Granpa, I can't get the bones right,” she announces, still frowning at the poor disassembled ancestor. “And some wires got broke. And the ancestor doesn't have any clothes on.”
She expects her grandfather's voice in answer, but instead she gets another rustle, louder this time, and going on for too long to be cloth rustling. Weyrdd turns around.
Her first thought is that it's a dog, or a wolf—she's seen pictures of both. But it doesn't look quite like either. She doesn't think they have spines down their back, do they? And it's emaciated, barely more than a skeleton stretched over jutting bones, with long hind legs that bend like a cricket's and more front legs than a dog should have, huge bony claws coming from all four of them. Its eyes aren't proper eyeballs either, they look like huge glowing gemstones shoved into the sockets. It opens its mouth and its teeth are long and sharp and pointed, and dripping something greenish-black.
Weyrdd screams. The thing pushes off with its cricket-like hindlegs and leaps towards her, snarling. She drops immediately into a ball, arms over her head, eyes shut tight. “Help! Help! Heeeeelp!”
There's more rustling behind her, but it's more of a grating sound, and a familiar one—bone dragging against bone. Still screaming, Weyrdd curls in all tense, waiting for those slavering teeth to close on her, or the claws to rake through her flesh. Instead, she hears, once again, the grating of bone on bone, and somewhere in front of her the monster snarls.
Next she hears a thump, and a banging noise, and more snarling, and a few more thumps, and the sound of breaking bone. The monster yelps, and whines, and it and whatever it's fighting crash around the tomb. Slowly, Weyrdd opens one eye to peek at what sounds like a battle.
The ancestor is fighting the monster. They're still not all together, some ribs are missing, and part of their foot, but they've pulled the most important bones to themself somehow despite the broken wires. Though they hadn't had any clothes on, there'd been a pick at their feet, because they'd been a miner of some kind, and they're wielding it now, smacking the monster with it again and again as the creature bangs around the tomb.
Unlike the ancestor, it cries out when its bones are broken, and its poisonous teeth and raking claws don't seem to do the ancestor any harm. It's being driven back, inch by inch. Still, it's shattered one of the ancestor's legs, forcing them to drag themselves forward like they should be using a cane, and it's making a dedicated attempt to tear their arm off. Weyrdd closes her eyes again, too afraid of seeing the ancestor torn apart in front of her.
At which point, her grandfather's voice finally fills the tomb. “Weyrdd!” he cries, and then, “Tomb-haunt! Foul creature! Begone!”
The last is accompanied by a booming sound, like a hammer coming down upon a slab of stone, that fills the whole tomb, and a flash of light so bright that Weyrdd can see it even through her closed eyes. The sound echoes a few times, and then it goes silent. Once the light fades, she dares to look again. The creature is gone, nothing left but a hissing puddle of blackish-green liquid at the center of the floor. Her grandfather steps over it as he crosses the room, then bows in front of the ancestor, who has dragged themselves back to stand in front of Weyrdd. He scans the room quickly and must see the empty shelf behind Weyrdd.
“Bless you, daughter of Durthane,” he says to the ancestor, relief and reverence mixing in his voice. “You have done my granddaughter a great service today.”
The ancestor nods back at him, and then collapses in a pile of broken bone.
With a cry, Weyrdd leaps to her feet and rushes forward. Her grandfather moves to meet her, catching her up in his arms and holding her close. She feels a sob start to shudder its way out of her chest, and buries her face into his shoulder. He presses his own face against her hair and rubs her back.
“You shouldn't wander away like that, Weyrdd,” he says, but his voice is too choked up for the scolding to come through. “You know that tomb-haunts sometimes infest these old sections. If that Durthane hadn't risen to protect you, it would have killed you and eaten your soul.”
“I know,” Weyrdd sobs. “I know, grandfather, I'm sorry, I was just visiting the ancestors, and then her bones fell, and I was putting them back on the shelf, and then it came, and I was so scared, and I'm sorry....”
“Oh, my little Helthane granddaughter,” her grandfather says, and there's a chuckle in his voice, despite how choked he still sounds. He pulls his face away and strokes her hair. “My little cleric in the making. No wonder she defended you, if you were trying to repair the damage the tomb-haunt had done. Keep that respect for the dead, my love, and you will never have to fear for anything here.”
“But is she all right?” Weyrdd asks, squirming around in his arms so that she can look down at the bones. “Can we put her back together and back on the shelf? And put clothes back on her?”
“Of course we can,” her grandfather assures her. “We'll lay her to rest just as she was laid in the first place, and replace her burial robes. And then we'll burn an extra blessing for her, in thanks for having saved you.”
“Good,” Weyrdd says, clinging to his arm for support as she leans forward to look at the bones. “Thank you, Durthane ancestor. You're a nice lady. We'll take care of you, promise.”