Romancing the shadows Volume One

Female Lich/reader(SFW)

This became so self indulgent lmao
ITS ALSO REALLY BITTER SWEET THIS STORY GOT AWAY FROM ME OOPS.

People often didn't believe you when you told them you were an adventurer.
They said you were too oblivious to your surroundings, too spacey.
Well right about now you may have started to believe them.
You always thought it was just an old cliche to trap the entrances to a dungeon. Something so overdone that people didn't do it anymore.
Well.
You were wrong.
The cell you had fallen into through the trap doors was cold and damp and it smelt bad.
However, you've talked yourself out of worse- right? Yeah...
Being a bard you've traveled a great deal and had conversations with the most terrifying of beasts.
You'd like to consider yourself a pacifist adventurer.
While the amount of laughs that phrase usually gets you it still greatly out numbers the times you've been hurt.
You would rather laughing than fighting.
You were shaken from your thoughts as a door you didn't even see strained and squeaked as it was shoved open. Torch light flooded the stone room and you could finally see, even if there wasn't much *to* see. The iron barred cell you were in sat in the middle of a wet smelly cold stone room. The figure holding the torch was not human however. Not even in the bare basics. It was a skeleton, but the skeleton of what looked like a cat person.
"Oh, hello! Terribly sorry to drop in like this." You smile from the ground hoping to get a chuckle out of the skeleton but there is no such sound. It stares at you and you take in the awkward pause.
"Right, well it appears that this dungeon is not abandoned after all. It seems I've made a mistake. If you would kindly let me go I will simply be on my way, unless you would like to trade? Or... I'm sure we can find something..?" You spoke as best you could imitating other bards that you've seen talk their way out of bad situations.
It doesn't speak but it steps in placing the torch it held onto a scone by the wall and fiddles with a ring of keys that was in its other hand.
"Oh wonderful you will let me go?" You start as it opens the door for you but just as you stand up to thank the creature it grabs onto your arms and yanks you out of the cage.
"Hey ow ow! You don't need to be so handsy! I'm completely cooperative!" You try as it yanks you along into a long corridor just as cold damp and Stoney as the room you were just in.
"You uh, you're not very decorative are you?" You glance around before being pulled harder towards large wooden doors at the end of the hall. Despite hoping for it to maybe be a set of doors leading outside, your gut told you it was probably wrong. The skeleton opened the large door pushing you inside before slamming it shut. It was brightly lit and you stood brushing yourself off as you eyes adjusted.
"Not much of a talker either I- oh, hello." You looked up to see a far less decomposed creature standing over a table of enchanting. Bits of muscle still cling to the Liches skull but that was about it. She was dressed in expensive looking robes and jewelry that radiated magic."
She stared down at you not saying a word before raising a clawed decaying hand, just as you began to speak she flung her hand to right and your body felt pushed as you were threw into yet another cell- no... a more appropriate description would be a human sized golden bird cage.
"Out of the frying pan and into the fire eh? Miss may I ask your name?" You tried. You certainly hoped the situation hadn't gotten worse. After all you were now in a golden cage
Fancier than an iron cell...
"Ingredients do not have a need for my name Mortal." She spoke looking back down to an open book on her table. You nodded.
"I guess that makes sense but- wait what?!" You shouted and she looked up smiling.
"No need to scream I won't make it slow. Although I can't promise it will be painless." She hums. Her voice is deep and hypnotizing but you some how don't fall under the charm of her sound.
"There's got to be something I can be useful for." You try and she chirps a soft yet doubtful laugh. "Don't underestimate a bards skills miss! We are plenty traveled and-" She cute you off at that looking up and actually at you this time.
"You're a bard?" She hesitates and you nod eagerly.
"Bard slash adventurer slash pacifist!" You announce proudly. She stares for a moment before letting out another laugh. You take no offense, simply smiling that she found you amusing. You stair at her but not knowing where exactly to stair. Would standing where her eyes used to be be rude? You weren't sure but it doesn't seem to matter when she looks back to you.
"Poetry." Is all she says with still a slight smile on her lips.
"Poetry-?" You start taking in a deep breath "I mean I'm not much of a poetry person- like I mean as far as just a couple paragraphs on paper- I'm more of a-"
"Poetry." She announces more forcefully this time and you find your self immediately belting out the first thing that comes to mind.
"It was many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea, that a maiden lived whom you may know by the name of Annabel Lee" at first your recital was mechanical and rusty but you soon fell into the swing of the verses you had memorized oh so perfectly. Through the whole poem she occasionally softened tilting her head as if remembering something.
"And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side of my darling, my darling my life and my bride Im her sepulchre there by the sea— In her tomb by the sounding sea." You finished falling back to earth as you remembered your surroundings. You glanced at the Liche who had set her things down to listen so completely to you.
"Is that the only one you know?" She asked softly and you shook your head feeling a little safer.
"Nah my heads chalked full of stuff like this." You smile and she tilts her head again curiously.
"You're quite a bouncy mortal to be carrying around such poetry in that head of yours.
"That's exactly why I have to be." You shoot back and she lets out another bark of laughter.
"I like you. Tell me a story while I work."
You pause to respond to her request but she just speaks again.
"Keep me entertained while I work. When I decide I no longer need your poems and stories I will let you go, providing you keep me satisfied." She finishes.
With nothing to argue you began weaving the next scene of a large mansion, and a visitor, and old friend coming to visit upon urgent request.
Eventually you grew tired.
"Sleep if you need mortal." She hummer and you watched through drooling eyelids as she seemed to be mixing something in a large pot.
"Sleep." She tried again and you nodded, despite the hard and uncomfortable cold stone beneath you, exhaustion took over and you found yourself falling through darkness into dreams that had waited through waking hours.
It went on like this for days at a time however the more she kept you around the friendlier she became. She had kept you fed, and kept you warm. Her superiority falling around you as she began calling and requesting things from you by name, not mortal.
You began telling her not of just poems and stories but tails of your life, and getting few out of her you had started joking about just staying here as a full one job. She had even let you out of the cage. You were free to roam around the room and often times she would touch your face while thanking you for your entertainment before you fell into sleep each night.

"Another poem."
She seemed frazzled today and it had been poem after poem after story after poem. You throat had grown sore yet you cleared your throat and began reciting the death obsessed verses.
Half way through the poem however you you stopped seeing her. She had been starting at the book the entire time not doing anything.
"Are you?" You attempted but she looked up at you, a red glowing in the sockets of her eyes.
"Have you lost your place? Did I tell you to stop?! Finish the poem then you are gone. Be glad I don't kill you where you stand for your disobedience!" The torches in the room had gone out as a cold gust of wind flowed through the room from her mouth as she shouted. You had been frozen in fear and for the first time you had used your own magic now unable to see.
A little flutter of light had sparked from your fingers and growing to a few square inches before lighting the room.
She had fallen to the ground, her shoulders shaking as they did.
You hadn't spoken her name before, she had never even told you it but a soft elegant voice whispered to you in that moment. It told you to help her. And with that the voice has quieted never to return.
"Hannah?" You quietly approached her and her shaking stopped.
"You need to go." She whispered
"Why?" You tried and when she didn't respond you knelt down as well gently grasping her shoulders. "Tell me why I need to go Hannah." You said her name again and it only seemed to make her go quiet.
"Because I am selfish. And the longer you stay the more this feeling grows. It hurts to think of repeating heart break only for a few selfish years." She hasn't looked up at you and she doesn't need to.
"Who said you were selfish?" You spoke softly, "because as I see it this is a mutual affection. So what if it doesn't last... what matters is the present." You smile and she finally looks up at you, her eyes no longer glowing with anger but a soft mint green had replaced the glow.
You feel yourself smile as she nods shyly.
"How did you know my name?" She whispers and you feel your heart tighten, you remember the way she looked when you spoke that first poem to her.
"I think you were holding onto someone. Someone who couldn't be brought back, someone who you also love dearly. They told me... To help you."