When Kimia moved up the desk, she saw a more gaunt figure under the morning light that drifted in from the stained glass windows. Not at all like the large brooding figure she’d come up with, who lived in the shadows and only crept out when it was absolutely necessary that he needed to. That he looked more like a phantom than a beast, however, did nothing to curb the snake pit of anxiety was starting to grovel inside of her her. All she could do for the time being was stand steadily behind him as he explained all the intricacies that came with bringing a dead wyvern back to life.

  “Where did you find the wyvern?” She asked, letting her fingertips roll up from behind it’s neck. Wyverns were not considered bright creatures during infancy, and this one didn’t break the mould either. It’s cranium was pea sized, with an eyelid that was torn and several large gnashes that were stretched across it’s forehead. Kimia, with some certainty, felt it had not a graceful death when it had exited from this murky world of theirs.

  “Outside my cottage,” Mort answered, “under a great oak tree from which I saw it watching me from time to time.”

  “It fell?”

  It does look that way, yes. Or rather, the branch it was on fell and it came crashing down alongside it.”

  Kimia felt her free hands being guided along by Mort to the other side of the wyvern, where she discovered it's more slovenly nature. It's stomach bulged, larger than it's shallow wide eyes combined, and Kimia figured it might've been the only child of it's mother. The only child who probably gobbled up most of the cliff side critters she would work tirelessly to catch. She was starting to dislike this dark wyvern the more she continued on with embalming him like this. Upturning his damaged feathers, Kimia wondered if he would upturn it’s nose at them when it was brought back to life. Even in death, it still had a face that was ready to sneer at anything less majestic than it’s black wings dabbled in crimson.

  "I never knew it was such a delicate practice, putting together a body like this for Necromancy."

  "Bodies are quickly revealed to be delicate things once they crumble down a treetop." Mort answered, "I've dealt with nobles who only came to realise that in their final moments."

  "Nobles?" Kimia asked dumbfounded, "You mean, you've done Necromancy on humans?"

  "I have, but only humans who've been dead for a long time," Kimia watched as he chipped away at the ingrown toenail on the wyvern's right foot, "I mean a really long time. When they’re just a few bones and part of an exhibition on royalty from the archaic times.”

  "Why is that?"

  "We're not sure why, but we think it's something to do with the nature of grief," he answered, "pass me the tweezers." He was getting frustrated with the speed at which she plucked away the wyvern's lopsided feathers.

  "Grief?"

  "Yes, when someone has only recently died, there is an outpouring of grief for days, weeks even years afterwards," Mort explained, "and that makes trying to retrieve their soul all the more trickier."

  "So, grief acts like a barrier then?" Kimia felt the pieces were coming together now, like a strange puzzle that, when fitted together, unravelled the inner machinations of Death's work.

  "Sort of, but not quite. Grief confuses the soul, and leaves it unable to decide whether to bring cold comfort to a griever, or return to it's old home and restart again." He did not linger long on the feathers as he worked, tossing and turning each one with only the slightest care for his corpse. He was not rushing through the endeavour, it simply seemed to come easy to him to prickle the feathers of a dead wyvern. She would be content to let him pick apart any feathers on her behalf from now on.

  “So when there’s nobody left to grieve you, you can be brought back to life?” She watched as Mort trawled his fingertips around the edge of the dishevelled wingspan, pricking and pulling at any signs of abnormalities before he was content to put it all back together again. “Now you’ve hit the root of it Kimia.” Mort answered.

  “But it’s possible to be brought back to life, even when others are still grieving you?” She pondered. There was little in magic that was definite, or would even remain definite for long. He started to strew together the wingspan with a thin and sharpened needle that might’ve come from the end of a pike. Her birth mother, Camilla, had taken much of Kimia’s torn skirts to task with similar needles, but Kimia had not inherited the same precision when she tried to do the same with her raggedy old dolls. She wished Mort well with stitching it together.

  “In theory, yes, but mishaps have have happened over the years.”

  “Mishaps?”

  “Someone might be brought back to life, only to find themselves left as a rotten shell of a mess.”

  “And you’ve seen this happen, Mort?”

  “Well, I’ve heard stories from acquaintances in this kind of work.”

  “Such as…?”

  “Let’s not jump ahead of ourselves,” Mort exclaimed, as he pulled on the needle work like a thick garrote, “I still want your stomach intact for what’s to come.” Kimia could only begin to gurgle at what horrors she was still to see. “Now, where do you think this wyvern’s mother was on a Tuesday Sunday afternoon?”

  Kimia felt uncertain, and that left her feeling slightly odd and out of place. She was studious, and would even take on the derogatory title of bookworm for herself, but here she was as stumped as the wyvern had been

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  “A wyvern mother would never leave her child to die, unless….”

  “Unless?”

  “It had left her to die instead!”

  “Quite right Kimia!”

  Though cute from a certain angle, wyverns were infamous for brewing up snake pits as they aged. A mother would never be content to kill off it’s offspring, but a young wyvern wouldn't have any qualms about doing the same. Perhaps he’d grown cocky and developing such a large frame from overeating that he threw her off the highest perch possible once her used had come to end. Kimia had heard many serenades that lamented the life of a wyvern mother, where, at the end of it’s tether, would be cast aside like turned leftovers.

  “It feels wrong to bring such a creature back to life.”

  “A creature?”

  “Such a treacherous, familicide creature.”

  “It’s also a very fortunate creature,” Mort smiled as he felt for the bones in it’s neck, “because you’re going to invoke him back to life.”

  “Are you serious?” Kimia asked incredulously. She felt bile begin to form at the bottom of her stomach. Betrayal from a friend stung, but betrayal from a family member often left a permanent mark. She wanted to reach out and tear it’s neck off by hand, removing such a foul-nature creature on the behalf of everyone else who lived in Mylea.

  “I am. I want you to redraw the spiral pattern I showed to the class earlier on.” Mort’s gaze drifted into a reverie of dark purple, and Kimia watched as his own rendition vanished off the face of the blackboard. He gave her the chalk. “By hand and by memory as well, of course.”

  She took it, and wondered how on earth she could be able to do this. Pattern magic usually invoked words sometime before or after she crafted one, but if Mort’s admission earlier was true, then she did not need to speak at all.

  “Make sure you do it perfectly as well, we don’t want any hellspawn coming out of the blackboard.”

  “Hellspawn?”

  “Lonesome monsters who take the souls of those who didn’t draw a pattern correctly.”

  Mort knew it was not so for invoking spells like this, but felt it was best she believed that and not grow careless. In the future, one she versed in much higher magic, one misremembered pattern would be enough to drag her into a world where not even the darkness of death was allowed to unwind it’s shadows. Acquaintances, who’d gotten far into their careers using avarice and arrogance, were lost in that nameless world, and Mort often awoke on a moonless night hearing their pleads to find and retrieve them.

  Kimia felt his dark eyes watch her as she begun to scribble down the earlier of snakes, spirals and serpents. She was not sure what to make of him quite yet, but felt he was someone who’d forgone earthly possessions wherever he’d had wondered before coming to this university. His robes were little more than dirty rags, not like the priestesses robes of the Dominion Sect, held together by a few belt buckles that were clamouring to break free from him and his dishevelled appearance. At time did Kimia felt his gaze begin to drift to her toned body as she worked too. Kimia did not dress immodestly, nor did she feel his gaze was entirely lecherous, but a part of her wondered why he would do so.

  Maybe he was simply watching her hand strokes, ready to come in and save her if she made a terrible mistake when she drew the long snout of a snake in a most ill-tempered way. Her new professor reminded her of a long snout snake who'd been drawn in the most ill-tempered way, actually.

  "I was a Potions student once," She answered

  “Finished.”

  “Let your mind take in what you have written, and remind what time you have lost in order to bring this creature back to life.”

  “A dark, treacherous creature.” Kimia reminded him.

  “Yes, but keep it in mind that you have given part of your own life to invoke him into this world once more.”

  Kimia smiled, and sensed her eyes her eyes beginning to clench. Then she felt something begin to trail between here and the blackboard, and she reached out to grab it. It started to nibble at the ends of sharpened nails, much like the tabby orange cat she had once upon a time would do. Both hands began to press down upon the spirit, until she felt it burst like a bubble without the sudden pop.

  Mort, who moved from her and the wyvern with an unsettling scabbard in both hands, who was relived to see the wyvern beginning to break out of the long slumber of death. There were a few groans and wheezes as it tasted life again, but he could that it was in little pain other than reaching to feel the crown of it’s head. Their embalming had been a success.

  “Turn around.”

  The wyvern had broken out of it’s long slumber of death, leaving Kimia surprised at how relived she was for it. There were a few groans and wheezes as it tasted life again, along with reaching for the crown of it’s to feel a hard pressed bump that even Mort couldn’t soothe down, but overall their embalming had been a success.

  “What will you call him?”

  “I leave that up to you, you were the one who invoked him, after all.”

  Kimia paused, and never in her wildest dreams did she ponder what name she would give to a pet dragon.

  “I’m not even sure I’m allowed to keep a wyvern, Mort.” Surely there were all sorts of guidelines draw up to prevent something like that. She could already see it nibbling at the ends of a curtain, or snatching toupees from more esteemed members of the faculty.

  “Well, it’s part of your degree, so now you have to.” Mort had decided to stomp out all those rules right there and then.

  “Let’s call him Wesley?”

  “Wesley the Wyvern?” Mort asked, in a way that made Kimia wonder if she was curiously out of touch when it came to naming dragons.

  After some time, she nodded, and Wesley it was to be. She was to spend the next few years looking after this shuffling wyvern corpse as part of her apprenticeship with Mort.

  And it was to be an apprenticeship, as Mort explained, considering how high the turnover rate was in this line of work. It would not be premature at all for her to refer to him as her master, as he guided her through this dangerous world where magic was distorted at times without caution or ethics.

  All Kimia do was nod her head as they cleaned up at the end of class, the strange little wyvern withering around in her arms, unable to resist reaching up and nibbling at the cords of her long, treasured choker from time to time.