Chapter Text
Harrowhark gets isekai’d
Harrow was an exceptional necromancer, in fact, she was so committed that she spent her life half as dead as the corpses she wielded. Everyone she loved was dead – her parents, her imaginary girlfriend, her chance of revitalizing her home planet to its former glory – so it was only a matter of time that overwork and a concerning lack of care for her most basic bodily needs such as food and sleep sent her to join them. When she noticed that this was happening, the last thing she could think about was not how shocking her own death would be to the Ninth, but rather the death of her parents, that would now be revealed, and not even the Body came to say goodbye. The chaos that would ensue played out in her imagination, in her mind, so vividly that she didn’t even notice her entrance to the afterlife.
“They’re summoning just about anyone these days, huh?”, said the office clad lady in front of her.
Harrowhark Nonagesimus was an important someone, so it came natural to her to speak to office ladies of the cohort, and respond with an adequate: “Excuse me?”
“I said, they’re summoning just about anyone these days, huh?”, the office lady said.
“Are you trying to insult the Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House?”
“More like reverant daughter. You’re dead, honey.”
Harrowhark raised her hands to look at them, a futile gesture, but the only one her mind allowed as the fog cleared in her head. “I am? Are you positive?”
“Yup.”
“But I…”
“Do you want a flyer for the five stages of grief?” The office lady rolled her eyes. “We don’t have time forever. The next hero is already waiting.”
“Excuse me?”, Harrowhark repeated, less offended, more confused.
The lady sighed. “So I’ll take it you guys don’t work with Reincarnation Bureaus Inc very often.”
“We do not.”
The lady passed her a flyer. It was not for the five stages of grief, but said in bright yellow letters: “Death is not the end!” Underneat, in smaller letters, was printed: “Reincarnation is where the fun begins” and “Be born to be your best self!” The font was round and as if to designed as handwritten, yet clearly machine printed. It reminded Harrowhark of the font used in some of Gideon’s comic strips.
The office lady was typing furiously at her PC, a model that looked pre-resurrection, bulky as it was. “I see what the holdup is. The world you’re from sucks.”
“Excuse me?”, Harrowhark said for the third time, this time definitely offended.
“Yeah. Colonialist theocracy? Children dying at the frontlines? You have eaten three different vegetables your entire life? We don’t typically send heroes to places that are objectively worse than the one they come from. Unless they insult the boss, we had one guy who ended up as a little girl in a huge war. She’s making big bucks though, so I guess it’s working out for her.”
Harrowhark was decidedly out of “Excuse me?”s.
“So I suppose you have never had hero summons or anything like that. Your guy – John? - he’s never answered our e-mails either. In fact, I think he put us in the spam folder. Whatever, never liked that prick anyway. You ever heard about the stuff with the cows?”
“Apologies, but what are cows?”, Harrowhark responded.
The office lady blinked, then returned her attention to her screen without answering the question. “At any rate, this world has put in a summons for a capable necromancer. Suppose this is going to be an ‘edgy’ type world, but I think you’ll fit right in. Do you know JRPG mechanics?”
“I’m afraid I do not.”
“You’re a quick learner?”
“I would say so.”
“You’ll figure it out as you go.”, the office lady said. “Item wishes?”
“Yes?”
“You get to take a special item.”, the office lady explained. “Something that will give you an edge in the new world. You already have magic powers” (Magic?, Harrowhark thought, She would mock necromancy to the point of calling it magic?! It’s a science! It’s-) “so we’re not giving you a special power. Instead, you get an item. I’ve prepared some necromancy specialties, if you want to take a look.”
Harrowhark shook her head. “That will not be necessary. Whatever is asked of me, I will rise to the task without the need for assistance.”
“You sure?”, the office lady asked. “Take at least something.”
“I will only require my bone earrings then.”, Harrowhark decided.
The office lady shrugged. “Bone earrings. Sure, why not. We will be passing this on to the goddess of death, she’ll put her blessings. She’ll be in touch with you.”
“Excuse me, I only believe in the Emperor who--”
“Enjoy your stay!”, the office lady shouted, and Harrowhark fell into darkness.
Harrowhark awakened in a scenery most unfamiliar to her.
She had been on foreign planets before, for diplomatic reasons, so she knew gardens and she knew grass. She had seen a full hill of grass once, on New Rhodes, it had been decorated with flowers all around, all stopped in time with necromancy. To see another such hill right in front of her, albeit time flowing and the grass making its unconscious journey towards wilting and death and returning to the Earth, was quite an impressive sight for her. Nothing in the world could have prepared her for what she found behind it: Multiple grassy hills.
It was an image she had only seen in pictures, in the backgrounds of screens in incoming calls from the cohort, in cosmographic books, or ancient murals: A world populated so wholly with life, that all of its ground was covered in it, and it reached wide into the sky in branches and bushes dressed in bright leaves, and this life was populated by more life, tiny creatures bustling and buzzing and making a whole lot of sounds a skeleton could not. It was wholly too much color, the lush green and the bright azure blinding her from the sky, and a sun was hurting her eyes when she stared at it. Overwhelmed, Harrowhark allowed her knees to give in, and she sat into the moist grass and shielded her eyes with her hand, begging that the bright light would not scorch her.
“So now you’re telling me the key to defeating you all this time was a sky with actual color?”
Harrowhark shot up. “Impossible.”
“You’ll find it very un-impossible, my Nefarious Queen.”, said Gideon. Gideon Nav, the – excuse her language – absolute piece of shit. The disruptor, the nymphomanic, the bonehead, the fool and the pain in Harrowhark’s heart, and also, the most insufferable assembly of organic molecules and a tongue that didn’t know when to shut up.
“Why are you here, Griddle?”, Harrowhark asked.
Gideon shrugged. “I was right after you in line. You took forever.”
“I did not. I cleared up fundamental questions.”
“What fundamental questions are there?”, Gideon asked. “The lady said something about heroics and possibly babes. I said I was in. What did you get?”
“Get?”
“The item.”
“Oh, that.” Harrow tapped her bone ear plug, finding an unfamiliar texture under her fingertip, as if someone had made elaborate carvings in it when she wasn’t looking. “I rejected their offer for unwanted assistance. I will follow my duty here using my Royal Ninth Bone earring, which, if the lady I spoke to is to be believed, carries blessings of a deity of mortality in this new world we have entered.” She narrowed her eyebrows. “Why, what did you get?”
Gideon held up a two hander. “Cool sword.”
“Of course you did.”
Gideon opened her mouth for a retort, but Harrowhark decided then and there to put her duty first, and childish banter second, so she moved forward.
“Overlord Obscura, hold up.”, Gideon shouted.
Harrowhark ignored her.
“Void of Space Incarnate.”, Gideon called. “Princess of the Night. My Tenebrous Queen. My Lady of Gloom.” Beat. “Harrowhark.”
“What.”, Harrowhark called back. Then a fleshy length of hot mass slapped her onto the floor and buried her under a thick layer of moist leather.
“I was trying to tell you,” Gideon called, “Big worm.”