Necromancer's Descent

79 - Inviting the Unknown

Rosalin / Nao's Point of View

"...If that's how you felt, then why did you say you suspected my personality as a reason for not telling me you were sentient?"

Theodore's lips immediately curl into a frown, and his face twitches slightly to the side, as he breaks eye contact, and looks down to Alger.

"There was no benefit for either of us from me doing it," he says calmly, but doesn't seem like he wants to meet my eyes.

"What do you mean there was no benefit? I was lonely and afraid and had no one to trust, how can you say that there was no benefit in it for me at the very least?"

A shadow of frustration flashes across his face, before he lets out a heavy sigh.

"So you wouldn't get attached to me... and so I wouldn't get more attached to you" he finally says out, after many long moments of hesitation.

Attached?

"What do you mean?"

"...In the end, I will have to die properly. What use is it to get attached to something that will disappear soon? It would just bring you more pain to have to leave my soul and rotting body behind, if you knew that I'd lay there lonely for eternity. Even if that has changed now, and you can give me a final peace, you'll still have to let me go. In some way, killing me with your own hands, depending on how you look at it."

I stare at him blankly, as he points out parts of the situation that I had yet to consider.

"In the same way, it's also bad for me to get more attached to you. If I'm not careful, then I won't want to say goodbye when it's time for me to leave. I'll get greedy and wish for more than I can have. It would have been easier for both of us, if you thought of me as a thing so neither of us would hesitate when it was time."

I didn't think about it at all.

About how Theodore felt about being a zombie.

Everything ended up being more about me being the one that raised him, how I raised him, and how he felt about the people around him.

But when he says it like that, and looks as if he's ashamed of the desire to want to be close with people, it makes him appear truly helpless under my rule.

"...I don't care. Even if it's temporary, I would rather have known you, than believe you were just a corpse walking next to me... and you don't deserve being perceived just as a thing. Besides, even if you're dead, you still deserve to enjoy this time as much as can be done. Death is inevitable, but as you said, for now, for the first time you get to do what you yourself want."

Theodore finally looks at me, and then gives a small but still somewhat pitiful smile.

"You shouldn't say something like that, Rosalin. Who knows what kind of ghosts you could accidentally invite into your life with such kind words. It could end up dangerous."

I just smile in return.

"How fortunate that they'll kneel for me at a word."

"They could love you obsessively, and try to isolate you from everyone, so they'd be the only one to enjoy your conversations, your time and your expressions."

I hum softly as I consider his words. So he's hinting that they might try to manipulate me instead of being direct.

"That won't be an issue. I've experienced being isolated like that once, even if it wasn't because of 'love'. The silence, loneliness and helplessness is suffocating... besides, I always hated that trope."