Seven paced in front of the classroom for Afterlife Studies. Rather, she hovered in slow, ambling circles as in her ghostform she did not require her intangible feet to provide her traction
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The door was opened, but the girl standing there was taken slightly aback. Hidden as she had been she did not realize that Vanya's powers would allow her to see her while in her spectral form. She had grown accustomed to being unseen, unnoticed, and for her ghostly visage not to deceive someone left her momentarily speechless.
She quickly regained her composure, however, filing this bit of knowledge away for future reference. She knew almost nothing about her powers, only how they were to be used, so perhaps this clue would lead to an important bit of self-discovery at a later time. For now, she entered the classroom, seemingly unafraid of the professor who had frightened her peers. She seemed to display no noticeable emotions at all.
"Professor, I have a question. Provided that you are accepting questions from students at this time." The girl paused for a moment, trying to distance herself from the conversation and speak only in terms of topics and theory. "I did not want to ask in class because I am unaware if the topics will be presented in a later lecture, or if they are beyond the scope of this course."
Deep blue eyes watched her, observed her, even silently judged her. Behind it was a mind that tried to break through the motionless mask, to see what lay behind it and to find out what Seven was really feeling or thinking. Vanya did not know this girl very well. Seven was quiet, both vocally and mentally. She was like a small blip on the radar on a quiet day where others were more like tornadoes and hurricanes, wild and uncontrollable.
Although they had hardly ever spoken to each other before, Vanya would almost say she liked Seven, just because of that. Almost...
"I have been told that office hours are to answer questions from students," she replied. "What is it that you want to know?"
"I wanted to inquire on the nature of the Afterlife when it pertains to atypical beings," came the calm reply. But the question was a complicated one, easily enough for an entire thesis, and she carefully arranged the thoughts in her mind before proceeding.
"If a being was never truly 'born', is it technically 'alive'? And if so, how would the rules concerning the afterlife affect such creatures?" This first question was almost rhetorical, other than needing to determine if something was first alive before commenting on the after-life. "In short, I wanted to better understand what would happen to a physical entity when the magic holding it together, this semblance of life, were to fail."
There was a flicker of understanding in her eyes when Vanya grasped at the real reason why Seven was here. "You want to know what happens to you when you die." It was not a question; it was a statement. Vanya realized only later that perhaps Seven had wanted to keep it a secret from everyone. The truth of where she came from and what she was. "Don't worry," the Seer then said. "I won't tell and hardly anyone else realizes it."
She stood up and walked to the window through which she stared outside. "What's a soul?" she then asked out loud. "What happens to it when a person dies? Where does it go to? Does it even exist? Is it eternal or bound to the flesh? Do animals have souls and what happens to them? What makes a person a person? Where do souls come from? Is there a hell and a heaven? If we die, will we be punished for our sins and rewarded for our good deeds? Are souls an invisible organ or are they nothing more than a combination of DNA and electric pulses in the brain?"
Vanya paused for a moment. She turned around to look at Seven again. "Mankind has been trying to find answers to such questions since the beginning of time. Only a few have come close to the truth before they turned insane." She stared ahead of herself again. "I'm just a necromancer. I deal with the afterlife. But even I don't have all the answers. I know that an object can be infused by a soul. That's the basic principle of raising a zombie. You infuse a corpse with the person's soul. I know there is more to a human being than just flesh and blood."
She fell silent again, organizing her thoughts. "To come back to your question, if a physical entity is infused with a soul... whether that physical entity is created through magic, technology or two people exchanging DNA during sex... You can expect it to have the same endings in the afterlife like a normal person. But I cannot be certain. I have never met anyone like it, or they are keeping it a secret."
"Attempting to keep it a secret, perhaps." Seven spoke quietly, almost to herself, as she listened to Vanya. Once again the professor saw right through her; figuratively, this time, rather than literally. "I hold my thoughts rather close. Now I wonder if it's possible for anyone to keep secrets around you at all."
She cast her eyes downward, averting them from the necromancer's gaze. "But you are right," she added. "I did not believe the rest of the class would notice nor care about the fates of things not much different than....flesh golems." The girl lacked a better comparison, but spat out those final two words with noticeable distaste. "But...I do admit, I had ulterior motives for asking as well."
A faint, bitter smile graced Vanya's lips. "No, they can't," she responded to Seven's musings. "You'd think most people are most scared of necromancy. After all, who wouldn't be? Hordes of undead, zombies, skeletons. But the truth is that most people are even more afraid of those who know the truth. They fear those who can know all of their secrets."
Vanya threw a sideways glance at Seven. "Lucky for me, there are not many people around here who realize that. I'd prefer to keep it that way."
She looked straight at Seven when those two words were uttered in disgust. A hint of curiosity could be seen in her eyes. "You don't like what you are."
"I'd like to think that I'm more than...some kind of monster," came the definitive answer. Her distant, detached demeanor was beginning to waver. It did not take a Seer to understand that a good number of things bothered her, even beyond the near-death experience that brought her here today.
"My entire life is of no consequence to anyone," she said, turning away. It was not like her to open up to many people, but she merely gave voice to the thoughts Vanya likely could already See. "I was born a failure. Useless. Irrelevant. I have no place in this world. I have no future..." Her voice began to rise slightly with each word, as hints of her true emotion seeped through the cracks in her usually calm facade. "I am not free to live. I am not free to love. I am...I am a mistake," she then said, her voice cooling with that pause. "And there are those who would murder me on sight, should I ever be found."
Her back to Vanya, she sighed as the futility of it all seemed insurmountable. In a hushed whisper she spoke once more. "How could I possibly enjoy any of this..."
"Then do that." Vanya extended an arm, spread out her fingers. "People think I'm a monster too, you know. But I don't. No matter what they think of me, I will not ever let it change how I think of myself. I may hate the world and all the people living on it, but I don't hate myself."
She folded her arms. "I noticed you had some interest when I mentioned the word 'defect'. It's true, you know. Necromancers are some kind of mistake as well. Something went wrong with genetics and magic, giving us the wrong Sight and an affiliation with the dead. Do you know how many necromancers there currently are in this world? Rough estimation would be somewhere between twenty and a hundred. All through a magical defect, a genetic mishap. We are not supposed to be here, and yet... here I am. Along with a few others. And unlike you, we don't run away from this mistake bestowed upon us at birth. We embrace it. We try to learn it the best we can. The world can go to hell for all I care. I'm proud to be what I am, even if I am a magical mistake."
There was a brief moment of silence. "You know what I'd do if I were you?" Vanya then said. "Prove them all wrong. Defy them. Not free to love? Love someone. Not free to live? Live. My doctors told my parents I wouldn't make it through my first year after I was born. I defied them. They then told them I'd certainly die during my childhood. I defied them. Time and again they were certain I'd die soon. And time after time I defied them. My parents tried to poison me. I found out, I could escape and I got my revenge. I'm quite content to stay alive just to prove the rest of the world wrong. I will defy them at anything they dare to suggest."
Another sideways glance at Seven when Vanya moved towards her desk where her coat - Soi's coat, actually - was left behind. "You should do the same. Be proud of what you are and defy the rest of the world. Don't care about what they think of you."
"It captured my interest because it was applicable to me as well," Seven quietly added. "I do not have the same abilities that you possess, but a similar sort of magic was hard-wired into my DNA."
Seven inwardly reflected on this. As bad as those other twenty cases were, accidental mishaps in the normal flow of magic, how much crueler was it then to deliberately introduce such a flaw and ruin an otherwise healthy being?
She then shook her head slowly from side to side. "It's not that I care what they think of me," she corrected, her voice soft and still when compared to the defiance Vanya spoke so strongly of. "It's that no one thinks of me at all." There was a pause. Then, as an afterthought she added, "Other than my brothers and sisters, who only wish me harm." She left it at that, as she had her reasons for running. She had her reasons for hiding here, on this campus, so far away from the eyes of the world at large. Her very creation defied the natural order of the world. That she still lived defied the wishes of even her creators.
"That is my gift," she continued. "That is my curse as well. I was never meant to be seen..."
"Every gift is a curse," Vanya said, almost automatically. Part of her findings, however, was that it was true, and that every gift - or blessing - was a curse as well. Nothing came without the other.
She viewed Seven in silence, somewhat surprised that she found it necessary to correct her idea about the girl. Seven did defy them... although in a somewhat more quiet and invisible way.
"There are people who think of you and who see you," Vanya finally said while she put on the warm coat and prepared herself to leave the classroom. "You just have to be willing to see them."
Seven remained emotionless as Vanya spoke, the many conflicting feelings she felt somehow balancing and evening one another out. As the instructor prepared to leave, finally she spoke. "Sometimes...I believe that the one thing I wish for the most, is the one thing most harmful to all those around me."
Vanya was right and Seven was well aware. But her selfish desires would only crush the spirits of those around her should she be so foolish to act upon them. "Perhaps it is best that I remain shrouded in shadow. Hidden from the eyes of men, a whisper of a soul not meant to be a part of this world and as easily forgotten." With those words she resumed her ghostform, her physical shell melting away and replaced with a wispy, spectral being. "To see and to be unseen. That is my fate. That is the best that I could ever hope for."
Vanya grabbed her final things, appearing to ignore Seven and not hear her at all. But as she passed the ghostform of Seven, she stopped and looked straight at the girl.
"You may think you are unseen for the whole world, but I still see you. Don't think you can hide from me, not with your mind and not with your body."
The Seer gave Seven a small nod and continued her way to the door, turning off the lights on her way. Soi would be waiting for her...
She quickly regained her composure, however, filing this bit of knowledge away for future reference. She knew almost nothing about her powers, only how they were to be used, so perhaps this clue would lead to an important bit of self-discovery at a later time. For now, she entered the classroom, seemingly unafraid of the professor who had frightened her peers. She seemed to display no noticeable emotions at all.
"Professor, I have a question. Provided that you are accepting questions from students at this time." The girl paused for a moment, trying to distance herself from the conversation and speak only in terms of topics and theory. "I did not want to ask in class because I am unaware if the topics will be presented in a later lecture, or if they are beyond the scope of this course."
Reply
Although they had hardly ever spoken to each other before, Vanya would almost say she liked Seven, just because of that. Almost...
"I have been told that office hours are to answer questions from students," she replied. "What is it that you want to know?"
Reply
"If a being was never truly 'born', is it technically 'alive'? And if so, how would the rules concerning the afterlife affect such creatures?" This first question was almost rhetorical, other than needing to determine if something was first alive before commenting on the after-life. "In short, I wanted to better understand what would happen to a physical entity when the magic holding it together, this semblance of life, were to fail."
Reply
She stood up and walked to the window through which she stared outside. "What's a soul?" she then asked out loud. "What happens to it when a person dies? Where does it go to? Does it even exist? Is it eternal or bound to the flesh? Do animals have souls and what happens to them? What makes a person a person? Where do souls come from? Is there a hell and a heaven? If we die, will we be punished for our sins and rewarded for our good deeds? Are souls an invisible organ or are they nothing more than a combination of DNA and electric pulses in the brain?"
Vanya paused for a moment. She turned around to look at Seven again. "Mankind has been trying to find answers to such questions since the beginning of time. Only a few have come close to the truth before they turned insane." She stared ahead of herself again. "I'm just a necromancer. I deal with the afterlife. But even I don't have all the answers. I know that an object can be infused by a soul. That's the basic principle of raising a zombie. You infuse a corpse with the person's soul. I know there is more to a human being than just flesh and blood."
She fell silent again, organizing her thoughts. "To come back to your question, if a physical entity is infused with a soul... whether that physical entity is created through magic, technology or two people exchanging DNA during sex... You can expect it to have the same endings in the afterlife like a normal person. But I cannot be certain. I have never met anyone like it, or they are keeping it a secret."
Reply
She cast her eyes downward, averting them from the necromancer's gaze. "But you are right," she added. "I did not believe the rest of the class would notice nor care about the fates of things not much different than....flesh golems." The girl lacked a better comparison, but spat out those final two words with noticeable distaste. "But...I do admit, I had ulterior motives for asking as well."
Reply
Vanya threw a sideways glance at Seven. "Lucky for me, there are not many people around here who realize that. I'd prefer to keep it that way."
She looked straight at Seven when those two words were uttered in disgust. A hint of curiosity could be seen in her eyes. "You don't like what you are."
Reply
"My entire life is of no consequence to anyone," she said, turning away. It was not like her to open up to many people, but she merely gave voice to the thoughts Vanya likely could already See. "I was born a failure. Useless. Irrelevant. I have no place in this world. I have no future..." Her voice began to rise slightly with each word, as hints of her true emotion seeped through the cracks in her usually calm facade. "I am not free to live. I am not free to love. I am...I am a mistake," she then said, her voice cooling with that pause. "And there are those who would murder me on sight, should I ever be found."
Her back to Vanya, she sighed as the futility of it all seemed insurmountable. In a hushed whisper she spoke once more. "How could I possibly enjoy any of this..."
Reply
She folded her arms. "I noticed you had some interest when I mentioned the word 'defect'. It's true, you know. Necromancers are some kind of mistake as well. Something went wrong with genetics and magic, giving us the wrong Sight and an affiliation with the dead. Do you know how many necromancers there currently are in this world? Rough estimation would be somewhere between twenty and a hundred. All through a magical defect, a genetic mishap. We are not supposed to be here, and yet... here I am. Along with a few others. And unlike you, we don't run away from this mistake bestowed upon us at birth. We embrace it. We try to learn it the best we can. The world can go to hell for all I care. I'm proud to be what I am, even if I am a magical mistake."
There was a brief moment of silence. "You know what I'd do if I were you?" Vanya then said. "Prove them all wrong. Defy them. Not free to love? Love someone. Not free to live? Live. My doctors told my parents I wouldn't make it through my first year after I was born. I defied them. They then told them I'd certainly die during my childhood. I defied them. Time and again they were certain I'd die soon. And time after time I defied them. My parents tried to poison me. I found out, I could escape and I got my revenge. I'm quite content to stay alive just to prove the rest of the world wrong. I will defy them at anything they dare to suggest."
Another sideways glance at Seven when Vanya moved towards her desk where her coat - Soi's coat, actually - was left behind. "You should do the same. Be proud of what you are and defy the rest of the world. Don't care about what they think of you."
Reply
Seven inwardly reflected on this. As bad as those other twenty cases were, accidental mishaps in the normal flow of magic, how much crueler was it then to deliberately introduce such a flaw and ruin an otherwise healthy being?
She then shook her head slowly from side to side. "It's not that I care what they think of me," she corrected, her voice soft and still when compared to the defiance Vanya spoke so strongly of. "It's that no one thinks of me at all." There was a pause. Then, as an afterthought she added, "Other than my brothers and sisters, who only wish me harm." She left it at that, as she had her reasons for running. She had her reasons for hiding here, on this campus, so far away from the eyes of the world at large. Her very creation defied the natural order of the world. That she still lived defied the wishes of even her creators.
"That is my gift," she continued. "That is my curse as well. I was never meant to be seen..."
Reply
She viewed Seven in silence, somewhat surprised that she found it necessary to correct her idea about the girl. Seven did defy them... although in a somewhat more quiet and invisible way.
"There are people who think of you and who see you," Vanya finally said while she put on the warm coat and prepared herself to leave the classroom. "You just have to be willing to see them."
Reply
Vanya was right and Seven was well aware. But her selfish desires would only crush the spirits of those around her should she be so foolish to act upon them. "Perhaps it is best that I remain shrouded in shadow. Hidden from the eyes of men, a whisper of a soul not meant to be a part of this world and as easily forgotten." With those words she resumed her ghostform, her physical shell melting away and replaced with a wispy, spectral being. "To see and to be unseen. That is my fate. That is the best that I could ever hope for."
Reply
"You may think you are unseen for the whole world, but I still see you. Don't think you can hide from me, not with your mind and not with your body."
The Seer gave Seven a small nod and continued her way to the door, turning off the lights on her way. Soi would be waiting for her...
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