As the sun passed the third quarter leaving roughly four more bells of daytime, the human-shaped ivory doll sleeping on Iris's chest stirred with life. She watched as the girl's unconscious body lifted itself off from her body and sat on her lap, with her eyes still closed the girl began to turn her head as if she was searching for something. Her mouth began to move as she grinded her tongue on her front teeth, trying to remove the foul dry taste lingering on it.

 

"We didn't move?" Kia asked as she rubbed her eyes with her soft hands.

 

"The humans spotted a herd of hornlegs and rode to hunt them down," Iris explained as she helped the mage readjust her position and cradled the sleepy kitten in her hands. An inkling of suspicion casted a shadow on the pale girl in the risen's mind as the soft-skinned kitten dramatically opened her mouth open in a yawn before hiding half of her face in the elf's chest while her golden eye watched her with a surprising amount of clarity.

 

  Off course, she wasn't against the girl prolonging her contact with her but she did find it weird that the necromancer still found it necessary to find an excuse for her to be coddled. "I don't know how they will fit more things onto the already crammed wagons, we might be forced to sleep onto those furs packed tightly behind me." Iris spoke to the pale undead while she traced the snaking mark on the girl's palm. "They left us with two young humans who I was told are siblings to protect alongside some of the terror birds. The two don't look like they are comfortable with staying with us so could you send your golem to watch them?"

 

  The girl's eyes pulsed with energy before the hulking mass of magically animated rock behind them, moved toward the front of the caravan Before the softly smiling elf could speak again, an unexpected guest interrupted her by growling loudly. The elf looked down at Kia's vocal abdomen hidden under a black dress causing the shorter undead to hide her face in embarrassment.

 

"You are a savage~" Iris gave the heavily blushing girl a peck on her hands which covered her face before going down and giving another adoring kiss on the girl's stomach. "Both of you."

 

  The elf lifted Kia off herself before standing up and stretching her petrified legs. Her boots sank passed their soles as she jumped off onto the muddy ground surrounding the motionless caravan. 

 

"They unharnessed the birds to rest." Iris explained as she saw the girl staring at the empty spot where the old dauntless bird once was. Her answer caused the mage to swivel in place as she searched the tall grass for the terror.

 

  The loyal duckling turned toward the elf but upon seeing how muddy Iris's tall boots had gotten, she decided to walk alongside the risen while she remained on the hard wooden surface. The girl balanced on the bar in front of the cart and stepped onto the waggon before climbing on top of the railing and ungainly balancing her way on the wooden edge while quietly giggling.

Iris shook her head as watched the ancient undead slowly make progress forward.

 

  When the two finally reached the front of the column where they saw the terror birds freely stalking the grassland in search of food alongside the completely differently dressed siblings sitting between large barrels inside the hull of the leading wagon. It was hard to guess the age of the humans while they wore their masks but from how the sister wearing a white mask with blue dots was sitting behind the boy wearing a brown mask with red handprints covering the mouth area while he carved something out of wood. The only word appearing in her mind to describe how the nomad woman was acting was caringly, almost motherly.

 

  While the elf was distracted the necromancer walked further before she summoned the terracotta golem to her side, she touched her creation and in an instant, the golem's left forearm twisted and warped into an inversely crescent blade before it started to cut the tall blades of green grass with absolute and unquestionable loyalty.

 

"I didn't know you could do that." Iris approached the girl while watching the golem cleave through the greenery with ease.

 

"It's quite easy. It is simpler and more efficient than summoning a new one." The undead mage reminded the elf of her immense knowledge of the arcane.

 

"Kia, you said you were not great at earth magic but you can easily reform an earth golem with ease." 

 

"That's because I am. I'm not using earth magic to control it, if I was I would have to continuously mould the golem into my desired shape. I guess I could use something to keep the golem together but I don't know how to do it. Instead, I just infuse the materials with a demi-soul which takes over their own maintenance functions through the small amount of mana they generate." The girl casually mentioned her soul-crafting ability to the stunned elf. "The demi-souls are somewhat muted but I like them more than full-souls since I can easily expand demi-soul to fit their vessel without any worry about them not being able to control their vessel properly or going insane. Even when I would spend the time and mana to create vessels purpose-made for the full souls, they would be more versatile and better in general but they quickly end up becoming strangely annoying toward me calling me Master or Creator. I even deliberately avoided casting any binding spells on them and then allow them to do whatever but they still were annoying." Kia ranted at her failure to the elf in desperate need of organising her scattered thoughts.

 

"...What did you do with the souls you created?" Iris couldn't believe she had to ask Kia the ridiculous and unfathomable question in a hushed tone.

 

"I..." The ancient mirrored the stunned elf's tone as she rested her head on her fist and pondered. "...I set them all to sleep alongside the Cyclops. I didn't want them to be bored and lonely like I was." She finally answered.

 

  The ruler of Necropolis seemed to have enough of the elf asking her further questions as she fell deathly quiet. The risen too quickly fell silent as the undead mage sat down beside her radiating a glum feeling through their bond while she worked on Kia's meal. 

The soul crafter rested her head on the elf's lap as soon as her presence would not interrupt the tall risen from preparing her meal and placed Iris's hand on her hair inviting the elf to stroke her. Iris ran her fingers through the black velvet acting as the girl's hair causing the gloomy feeling to slowly fade away.

 

"Sorry for asking you, Kia." Iris finally spoke, breaking the looming silence interrupted only by the cracking of fire and the occasional word of the unaware humans behind the two.

 

The snow-white undead human looked up at the risen's face with a confused look wondering why was the purple-eyed hoplite apologising.

"Don't be, I like when you are talking to me. When I answered your question I suddenly felt soo weak and dumb that I was so easily fooled by everyone." 

 

"Welcome to the dummy club," Iris said, causing the mage to look at her with confusion. "You have fooled an elven slave to cuddle with evil and murderous undead while putting her world upside down." She explained to the smarter dummy trying to lighten up the solemn mood.

 

"Am I evil?" The undead horror asked not understanding the risen intent.

 

"That depends on who would you ask, in my most honest opinion I think you are a strange, delightedly soft and adorably curious girl who was tricked into being trapped inside a dungeon." 

 

"Hey!"

 

"That is not an insult, Kia. I'm not an undead for long enough to get used to some things that had changed and perhaps I never will. The thing is that you are certainly not weak, your mind is sharper than any person I had known and it holds knowledge that daily breaks my very understanding of the world and those people didn't have to spend millennia in isolation. Being tricked is not something to be ashamed of, the important part is that you had acknowledged you were fooled and learned to avoid being fooled again." Iris hushed into the girl's ear. "Also if you had left earlier, how would this scared dummy ever have met you?"

 

"You are not a dummy."

 

"I am though and without you, I would have been weak too."

 

"But you are not dumb." Kia frowned with defiance against the self-deprecative elf. "You are very smart, you know so much about this world even when a lot of things here don't make sense but you are still weak... for now."

 

"Kia."

 

"Yes?"

 

"Shush." 

 

"Make me." The necromancer ordered while her face watched Iris's reaction.

 

"...with pleasure~" The risen moved her face right in front of the girl's face and tickled her ears with her sweet words causing the necromancer to yelp in surprise as Iris assaulted her lips, sealing their lips together until the elf regrettably had to return to her cooking duty leaving Kia breathing rapidly on the grass.