Ghost in the Machine (Undertaker x Female Reader)

Chapter Fifteen.

!Canon reaper lore mixed with non-canon theories of my own
!Don't try this at home
!Fluffing fluffery
!Feeling that slow burn yet?

Chapter Fifteen.

I gazed across the dark abyss between the two halves of the unfinished bridge, breathing hard from exertion and gripping my wooden sotoba with two fists. My sparring partner had alighted easily on the framework of the elevated walkway that extended from the north end of the bridge, another of the long burial markers in his hand. I heard him chuckle from across the expanse, his eyes and the sotoba glowing the eerie green that I knew my own eyes reflected back to him, marking me in the darkness.

"Come on, then; I'm still waiting for someone to best me!" He shouted. "I can't tell you how happy it would make me to receive the thrashing I deserve from you, Your Grace!"

I snorted. During these sessions that had occurred on the regular over the last few weeks, he had discovered my competitive streak and took his fill of enjoyment from egging me on. He never went too far, knowing to give me the pause I needed when my frustration brought a sag to my shoulders and tears to my eyes. However, while I didn't find learning to cloak myself in plain sight or the stashing of an item in an inner layer of the fabric of my surroundings to be terribly challenging, combat was not something I had felt suited me.

However, the Undertaker had gotten the idea that I would be good at it and that it was good for defending myself, and so had given me lessons using his unlimited collection of sotoba. I knew I was far from ready to parry his scythe with any of my own, let alone the overgrown toothpicks we were practicing with, but I wondered what was to be done about an actual weapon for me should anything come of this "training"...at least, until the wheels were set in motion on the plan to remedy that particular need.

He apparently thought my sparring was going well, for I now found myself with him on the top of London's newest bridge, barely under construction, with my skirts cinched up in ribbon and my heart in my throat as I jumped back and forth over the black nothingness where the two halves of the pedestrian walkway had yet to meet. Foggy light lay scattered below us on each riverbank, the people in the buildings and streets below unaware how we utilized the construction after the builders had finished for the day. The Undertaker explained that we were a bit vulnerable from discovery from the other reapers here, but that it was good practice for me to increase my sensitivity to them, and that he could easily remove with me if they came upon us. They hadn't yet, and I could only think that perhaps they were tied up in the toil of their trade, London being no stranger to easy death in those days.

Indeed, the Undertaker himself had benefitted from the conditions of the era: poverty, disease, and even such things as poisonous chemicals in popular wallpaper designs gathered up lives of both the young and the old. He did not care for money, he mentioned occasionally, but received coin for his trade to keep himself in rent and supplies, and had added myself to what the funds supported.

He had collected coin, indeed, from my family itself, performing his services for my mother.

He had spoke of it the day after I'd discovered the reality of my own death, and I had stared at him, thinking I'd heard him incorrectly. He was assisting me from the bath into the bedroom, lying me back into the bedding and covering me up. "I'll get you more tea and something to eat," he said, pulling the damp bath sheet I'd been wrapped in from under the duvet.

I snatched his wrist in my grasp, impeding him leaving. "How did we meet...?" I pulled his arm, the rest of him following, back closer to me so I could see him clearly without my spectacles.

He looked from his ensnared wrist to my pleading eyes, his lips softly parting before blooming into a wide smile. "You really don't recall?"

"I wouldn't ask if I did." I freed his wrist and shivered a little under the bedding. He nodded, seating himself on the bed facing me, the thigh closer to me resting on the mattress so I could curl myself against it. He tucked the duvet around me before brushing his knuckles over my cheek.