“By the sword let known our will, steel burn away all those who would harm the innocent. We are the singers of the hymns of war. Today, we put the dead back in their graves, let this monster, this lichlord know fear for he looks now upon true bringers of death.” speeches of war, charging to face a foe that had torn up the lands in a swathe of death. To have bravery in the face of knowing defeat.

Great wars tearing up kingdoms and empires whole, laying waste to all in sight with a tide of the undead. Till finally a hero had stood and killed the lichlord to bring the ravenous tide to a halt. All those felled in his path of death left to pick up the pieces of fragmented minds, bodies shattered and souls sundered. Freed by his will, left still in undeath.

Taeyeon marches now, mind shattered and clawing at fragmented memories. Woken from a hellish nightmare, freed from the lichlord’s will upon his death. Waking into a world she doesn’t recognize but in the few fragments her mind dares to hold onto. Left only with a feeling, a pull towards somewhere, something. What’s called to her from the moment she woke from his, the monster’s control.

Following the feeling day and night, the days when her body knew fatigue as distant to her as what the beating of her heart had once felt like. Walking with nothing but the clothes she’d awoken with, armor that was too shattered to carry and a cloth bundle carrying what she dares not to think about.

Walking through a field of tall grass, the morning sun just barely above the trees. The pull falling away as she looks ahead. Not sure what she expects to see, if she expected anything when she started to follow the pull. The grass clearing ahead by a small farmhouse, chickens pecking around at the ground in front of it, clothes hung up to dry on a line beside the house.

Nothing that seems unlike anywhere else she’s passed, wondering why the pull stops here. Stuck frozen completely still as she watches the front door come open, watching the woman who steps outside.

Brunette hair that shines under the sun, pulled up into a messy ponytail. Her features that somehow dare to seem familiar to Taeyeon, seeing her what feels as a long forgotten memory now brought to mind. Tired though, Taeyeon notices even from a distance, a dirtied apron draped across her front, basket in hand, steps exhausted as she walks towards the clothesline. Turning to look over the fields, going still and her eyes locking with Taeyeon as she sees her standing in the tall grass.

The woman turning to face Taeyeon, stepping forward and staring out at her curiously. “Can I help you..” she starts, voice falling to a whisper as she takes a last step to the edge of the tall grass. Staring in disbelief, blinking to be certain it’s no illusion in front of her. “T-Taeyeon?” she stammers, held still in shock like she’s seen a ghost appear before her. “It can’t be… you can’t be, t-they said you died.” the woman drops the basket, eyes wide in shock, almost moving forward till she sees the scarred visage of Taeyeon. Her eyes stolen of all life, skin deathly pale.

Taeyeon feeling something primal rush through her as the woman calls out to her. What dares to rip through the endless fog in her mind. Memories of a name, a face. Memories of before death had taken her, a woman she’d loved when her heart had life beating in her chest. “Jessica?” she numbly whispers. Jessica shaking her head, tears falling down her cheeks.

“Don’t.. Don’t do this.” Jessica steps back, barely able to bring herself to look at Taeyeon. “You died, Taeyeon died!” she chokes up with each word, stumbling back till she trips over a rock beneath her feet. Taeyeon dashing forward, bolting off by instinct. Catching Jessica before she meets the ground.

Smacking at Taeyeon’s shoulders, Jessica pushes at her, shaking as Taeyeon eases her to sit down. Taeyeon almost moving to step back, fearing she’s only brought pain with her presence, till Jessica pulls weakly at her cloak. Eyes shut, almost scared to look at Taeyeon.

“I’m sorry.” Taeyeon mumbles, all she’s felt since death that feels numb, shrouded and just barely out of reach. Listening to Jessica cry though, pulling at Taeyeon so weakly. Emotions don’t seem so numb, almost feeling as though her chest aches and shriveled heart wallows, the barest moment that feels even a little closer to memories of life.

Sitting by Jessica’s side, Taeyeon dares to think of running, how it might be better to have never brought up such pain to Jessica. Kept grounded by the hand that so weakly clutches at her sleeve yet feels like a weight demanding, begging that she stay. Sat completely still as Jessica’s crying eventually turns to sniffles and she barely opens her eyes to look up at Taeyeon.

Taeyeon expecting her to cower in fear, scream at the sight of the monster in front of her, the corpse that still moves after life has long left it. No cowering that follows though, no screaming at the monster, something far more forlorn in her eyes, pained to see Taeyeon in front of her as a scarred and broken visage of a former self.

“I-Is it you,” Jessica mutters, barely reaching up to brush her fingers against Taeyeon’s cheek, shaking at the chill of Taeyeon’s skin. “Are you still in there?” Jessica asks, her lips trembling, scared for what she might answer.

“I don’t know.” Taeyeon struggles, watching Jessica repulse slightly as Taeyeon speaks. Her voice broken, something almost magically given to her, a tone that bristles with a deathly ice. “What happened?” Jessica sits back, unnerved by the dead gaze in Taeyeon’s eyes.

“I’m not sure whether to think you were brave or just terribly stupid.” he laughs, eyes rippling with shadow, a consuming darkness that surrounds him. The lichlord, standing over Taeyeon as she kneels in the mud, her own warriors laid out around her, lifeless and shattered. “They died like all the rest, cowering and begging for their lives. Pitiful, begging when all I offer is immortality.” he laughs, his minions of the dead pushing Taeyeon down when she tries to buck up as the lichlord comes closer. “You though, you didn’t beg, you destroyed my precious host till even your knuckles bled.” he laughs as he watches Taeyeon grit her teeth, almost growling.

“I might die, but you and your horde will burn. My only regret is I won’t see your head fall!” Taeyeon shouts before a blade is pressed to and it slices across.

Her world fading away as life falls from her, left only with whispered words in her last moments. “You won’t die no, you will ascend.”

“I died and everything just.. I don’t remember.” Taeyeon hesitates, shivering as memories shake through her. The lichlord’s voice clear as the moment she’d heard it, the wound across aching with the thought. “He killed me and the rest..” she shudders, something so furiously painful it rips even through her shattered spirit.

“How did you come back?” Jessica asks, her heart feeling like it breaks into a million pieces when she sees Taeyeon, even through her soul lost eyes seeing how pained Taeyeon is. “How did you know.”

“I felt something, when I woke, when he died.” Taeyeon sighs almost breathlessly, air she no longer pulls to her lungs. “It pulled at me, so I walked and when I saw you it stopped.” she mutters, watching Jessica move to sit up straight, curious.

“You didn’t remember. This place, what you are?” Jessica hesitates, seeing Taeyeon shake her head, so pained, confused and lost. Trying so hard to probe her mind for something, anything but finding everything so consumed by the haze bristling in every corner of her mind.

“Who was I?” Taeyeon dares to ask, reluctant for every word she speaks. Jessica sighing deeply. looking around at the farm, a look in her eyes of memories left in every where she glances.

Jessica shaking her head, lost with where to start. “You were so, so many things.” she chuckles grimly, burying her head in her palms. “A warrior, you were always a warrior.” Jessica shudders, tears falling down but no whimper that leaves her, an almost broken pain. “You fought, never afraid to charge. When he.. That monster rose up, you ran to fight him,” Jessica struggles, shaking with every word. “You promised you’d come back.” her chest heaves, sniffling as tears fall.

What only narrowly comes to Taeyeon through the fog, the vaguest of memories of wars once fought, wars only for the living. Leading a life dedicated to the blade, to chasing every fight asked of her. Memories still though of something peaceful, what she had dared to fight for when her will was her own.

“You promised, you promised me.” Jessica whispers. Something snapping like a taut rope in Taeyeon’s mind, what comes rushing to her with the strength of a raging river. What remained stowed away, shattered by death comes ripping to the front of her mind. Moments spent together, a life lived entwined by heart and soul, a love for Jessica that even through death grips her heart so strongly and brings her to her knees. Her whole world shaking on its axis, battling a body long dead by a spirit that still courses through her.

“Taeyeon?” Jessica rushes to her, only worried as Taeyeon kneels on the ground and what breaks her heart when she hears, the smallest whimper. “My daisy, I’m sorry.” Taeyeon’s hands grip tightly through the dirt, her whole body shaking. Speaking a name only she called Jessica. “I couldn’t, I couldn’t stop him.” Taeyeon gasps almost begging for air she no longer can breathe, weeping but not a single tear falls.

Feeling a hand barely across her cheek, brushing stray strands of hair back. Taeyeon looking up into Jessica’s eyes, a gaze not of fear or terror like most seeing the risen dead. Something almost hopeful. “They said you died, that you passed honorably saving the land, the kingdom.. Honor and glory, empty platitudes when you lose your love,” Jessica brushes her fingers just under Taeyeon’s eyes, aching seeing how much she’s lost in eyes that once could glimmer like the stars. “He took so much from you, but here you are. You came back.”

“How do you know that it’s me that’s left. That I’m not..” Taeyeon stammers, feeling her whole world crush in her chest. Even in the few memories she has, witnessing the horde of the dead before she joined it herself. A ravenous swarm, listening to nothing but the command of the lichlord.

“Cause I feel it, cause I’ve known you my whole life Tae.” Jessica takes a deep breath, resting her head gently against Taeyeon’s. “It’s you, I have to believe it’s you.” she says, reaching for Taeyeon’s hand, shivering feeling how cold they are. “Come home.” Jessica urges her up. Looking toward the farmhouse. “It’s been too long.”

Home. Taeyeon isn’t sure if she can dare to call anything home, stepping inside the house, the sight almost hurts. No memories that rush to her but something that seems familiar nonetheless. The smell of fresh picked wildflowers, the sight of woodcarvings placed across the home and hung over the fireplace, two blades crossed together lined with runes of a latent magic, runes she recognizes that were emblazoned on the blades she carried when she went to fight the lichlord.

“Do you remember?” Jessica says, motioning around at the main room. Almost held in the moment as Taeyeon looks around the house, running her fingers along the walls, shaking her head as she glances back at Jessica. “I don’t know, it seems familiar.” Taeyeon sighs, wanting nothing more than to break through the fog but the same as has been from the moment she awoke, nothing more comes so easily to her.

“You built it.” Jessica says, motioning around her. Taeyeon standing still in front of her, staring at the fixtures of the house but feeling nothing. Barely believing she could be capable of building anything when the few memories she has, most are of destruction she had wrought.

“How long,” Taeyeon mumbles, time she’s lost in a blur, marching from the moment of her death and not a moment truly she can remember stopping, where the rise and setting of the sun merged together and time was lost on her. “How long was I gone?” she asks, watching as Jessica goes to take a seat by the wooden table at the center of the room, clasping her hands together as she takes a deep breath and leans forward.

“You ran off to fight him over a year ago.” Jessica sighs, staring right at the ground almost trying to hide the hurt in her eyes, the shaking that runs through her. “I had seen you go to war before, months, years at a time where I worried if every day might be your last. I think I knew that you wouldn’t come back this last time.” Jessica glances up, still struggling to believe Taeyeon truly stands in front of her, whatever she might be now. “Knowing didn’t make losing you any easier.”

“I’m sorry.” Taeyeon mutters again, numbly locked in place till Jessica looks up at her and holds out her open hands for Taeyeon, urging her to come closer. “You keep saying how sorry you are.”

“I’m not sure what else to say.” Taeyeon admits, stepping forward. Reluctantly offering her hands to Jessica, feeling warm hands that contrast against her icy touch and somehow the same warmth flowing to her chest. Piercing so slightly through the aching cold. “I thought my love, my wife was long gone. Now I fear that when I blink you’ll be gone and this will just be a fever dream.”

Wife. The word replays over in Taeyeon’s mind, notices the ring on Jessica’s finger. The woman who she had sworn to share a life with. Taeyeon now bound in a walking death, Jessica somehow still a woman who dares to see her as even a shattered image of what once was.

Grasping tightly at Taeyeon’s hands, Jessica looks at her with something far more painful than loss or anger. Love. “What do you want me to say?” Taeyeon whispers, daring to grip Jessica’s hands back, shudders running down her spine when Jessica shuts her eyes and whispers. “Tell me you’ll stay.”

Taeyeon looks into Jessica’s eyes, a sight she barely remembers but somehow shakes her still to the center of what’s left of her being. Jessica asking her to stay, Taeyeon feeling a pull again, not of magic guiding her. The longing for home.

“I’ll stay.”

Standing in front of Jessica till her grip loosens slightly, Taeyeon not sure what to say or do. Jessica woman who says she’s known her for a lifetime, Taeyeon only left with the faintest memories of the relationship they share. Feeling shame her mind has shattered so far she couldn’t remember the very woman she married.

“Gods Tae, you’re in rags.” Jessica sighs, running her fingers over the many tears in Taeyeon’s cloak, the shambled mess she’s marched in since she awoke. “I don’t.. I can’t smell anymore.” Taeyeon mumbles, Jessica only looking up at her encouraging. “I’ll run you a bath and get you something clean to wear.” she stands up, pulling Taeyeon along before she can think to protest.

Watching the bath fill, magic that runs the water and warms it. Taeyeon numbly watching Jessica put out a set of clean clothes and a towel for her.

Jessica reaching up to unclip Taeyeon’s cloak. Tilting her head curious as she sees the piece of cloth wrapped tight around Taeyeon’s neck. Reaching up to untie it till Taeyeon grabs her wrist firmly, so fast she startles Jessica. “Tae?” Jessica watches Taeyeon release her wrist, shaking her head no. “Don’t.. Don’t do that.” Taeyeon whispers, shuddering as Jessica’s hands rest on her shoulders.

“I’ve seen you a thousand times over, with and without the marks of a warrior.” Jessica shifts her fingers closer to the knot in the cloth. Taeyeon shaking no still, barely able to look in Jessica’s direction. “I remember when you broke your leg falling out of a tree. I told you it was foolish to climb it but you were headstrong as ever.” Jessica chuckles, a moment from when they were both just kids. “I was so scared, gods you even had the bone showing. All you could think about was how cool the scar looked when your leg finally healed.”

Taeyeon only looks a little more towards Jessica as she talks, the gentle smile on Jessica’s lips bringing the barest feeling of ease, enough that Taeyeon for a moment doesn’t feel so lost.

“And I saw the scars when you went to war. They didn’t scare me then, they don’t now.” Jessica reaches for the tie, Taeyeon not moving to stop her. “I loved you through those,” she croaks, her voice so cold and pained it sends chills down Jessica’s spine. “Let me do the same now.”

Looking into Taeyeon’s eyes, nothing but a grey emptiness, she still feels Taeyeon looking right at her a gaze that almost holds the same steel as they once did. The wound that had torn her very life away, what both killed her and brought her back.

Slipping the cloth loose, Jessica looks upon the scar that rips across Taeyeon’s throat, cut with malice and dread. Reaching to entwine her fingers with Taeyeon’s. “I see you Taeyeon. I’m not scared.” Jessica looks fiercely into Taeyeon’s eyes, hoping only Taeyeon feels every word she says.

“And if I am?” Taeyeon almost crumbles in front of her, the air of a broken voice barely sounding. “It’s okay to be scared.” Jessica says simply, stepping back slightly and glancing towards the now full bath. “I’ll be just outside okay.” she reluctantly lets go of Taeyeon’s hand, walking to the door as Taeyeon nods slightly.

Laying in hot water, alone with her thoughts. Taeyeon’s mind runs without much control of her own. Staring at herself how she hasn’t since before her death, the small mirror across from her that reflects her pale visage back to her. Flashes of what she once looked like in life, so bright. Brown eyes that held such steel and purpose, brunette hair that would glimmer in the sun. So much now bereft of what was. Wondering if she should be thankful to remember so little of what she lost.

What was taken from her, twisted like all his creations to be his horrid immortals. Fury ripping through her, scorching a path to her fists that makes her grip so hard at the bath it cracks under her fingertips. Pulling back in horror realizing what she’s done. The strength of the dead, of the ones favored by the lich.

Putting on a pair of clean clothes, Taeyeon feels it’s better at least to be out of the rags she’s marched in since she woke. Rid of the dirt at least. Tossed in a pile now, beside the bundle she’s carried on her back, things that are better left buried.

Stepping out, Taeyeon notices the smoke from the fireplace. Jessica tending to a pot hung over the flames, the sound of boiling water, Taeyeon imagines there might be the smell of what’s cooking if not for her senses being long gone.

“Hey, how’re you feeling?” Jessica asks, setting the ladle down in the pot, looking up at Taeyeon now with clothes that aren’t falling apart and torn to shreds. Smiling bittersweet to see Taeyeon almost an image of how she once was, seeing so clearly what they’ve both lost.

“Warm.” Taeyeon answers simply, the touch of the bitter cold pushed away if only for a moment. Shifting awkwardly in place as they both share the silence. “Are you hungry.. Can you be?..” Jessica asks, so much uncertain still.

“I’m not sure.” Taeyeon answers honestly, what does and doesn’t remain for her still a mystery. “I haven’t felt it since I woke.” she shrugs, glancing out the open front door. The sun setting on the horizon. “Thank you.” Taeyeon whispers, numbly picking at the fabric of the clean grey shirt. Feeling so out of place between all the memory she’s lost and Jessica who seemingly knows far more about Taeyeon than she knows herself. Thankful enough Jessica didn’t send her away, screaming of a monster returned.

“You don’t need to thank me for running you a bath Tae.” Jessica chuckles though Taeyeon hears the slight sniffle, reeling still from the tears she’d let go. Looking into Taeyeon’s eyes so earnestly it hurts. “I thought about what I might feel if you came back. So many people said what remained after his death was just the same monsters.” she steps up towards Taeyeon, sighing wistfully as she runs her fingers over Taeyeon’s sleeve. “Seeing you stand in that field, I thought I should be terrified, to see a ghost of the woman I’ve spent my life loving.”

Reaching out, guided more by instinct than every thought that tells her not to. Brushing her fingers along Jessica’s cheek, threading just barely along her hair. How soft she feels paining Taeyeon, lacking so many memories of the love between them but yearning for her all the same.

“I thought of all the fear when I had to watch you go to fight him. But you caught me when I fell, you marched across the world because something you didn’t even know told you to, my wife came home, you’re here now. He could never take that from you.” Jessica presses her palm against Taeyeon’s hand through her hair, urging just a little closer.

“I don’t know what I am.” Taeyeon shakes, her fingers trembling. Not for a moment glancing away from Jessica. “You’re here, we can figure out the rest.” Jessica shifts closer, daring to press her lips just barely to Taeyeon’s. Cold to the touch, rough, the touch of her love still that remains through it all as Taeyeon dares to kiss her back. Let the world fall away if only for a moment.

Long after Jessica has gone to sleep, Taeyeon insisting on sleeping on the bench in the main room. Taeyeon worried Jessica might not like to wake up beside her anymore, the torn visage maybe not so forgiving in the morning light. If she’s even capable of sleep anymore, Taeyeon isn’t sure. Rest unheard of among the lichlord’s horde.

Standing outside in the night, grasping a shovel she’d found tossed in a shed beside the house, Taeyeon digs. Staring at the bundle she’s carried on her back since she woke, throwing it into the hole and tossing the dirt back upon it. She had died and avoided the grave. Some things still were better left buried.

“You warsingers and your fancy blades. We aren’t too unalike, much as you might like to think otherwise.” the lichlord chuckles, the pounding of a blacksmith’s hammer against an anvil sounding again and again in Taeyeon’s ear. Armor covered in runes, magical inscriptions of power. Glittering covered in silver and steel, so pristine above the horde of the broken dead. His gifts.

“Yes my lord.” she answers, twisted to answer at his whim. Proud warrior turned lieutenant of the dead. “You used magic of the steel, great power to enact the vision of your people. I simply use my magic to enact my vision, a world that will never fear, never know pain again. Isn’t that a noble mission?” he hums, throwing the dead blacksmith aside and picking up the blades on the forge. “Very noble my lord.” Taeyeon nods, words that come from her but are spoken through his control.

Cackling as he holds the blades up to Taeyeon, arms outstretched like an offering. Blades twisted from their original form, bristling with his fowl magic. “Go enact our noble cause, my most loyal servant.”

Patting the dirt down, Taeyeon shudders at the memory. Even free from his control feeling helpless to what he did. “You should’ve died by my blade.” she spits, tossing the shovel aside and heading back to the house.

Memories, moments that come back to her as time passes. When Jessica teaches her how to tend to their fields again and Taeyeon remembers the very first time they’d walked through the fields.

“Tae, what is this?” Jessica asks, still giggling from running through the forest with Taeyeon, under the early evening moonlight, basking in a time after Taeyeon had just come back from war and things finally felt at peace, hopeful.

“I said when I came back, I would build you a home.” Taeyeon smiles, happily linking her arms around Jessica’s waist. “You also said you’d marry me.” Jessica pouts, expecting Taeyeon play it off with a laugh or joke. Instead staring eyes wide open as Taeyeon gets down on one knee in front of her and pulls a ring into hand.

“I did. Jessica, I have gone to war too many times, I have lived by the hymns of steel. Now let me build you a home, our home. I am done with war, let me live now by the hymns of your love. Marry me.”

“You know I can’t do this all by myself right?” Jessica rolls her eyes, pulling a weed out of their patch of tomatoes, glancing up at Taeyeon curiously when she sees her smile for the first time since she’s come back.

“I asked you to marry me, right over there.” Taeyeon points towards the tall grass, the two bent trees where she asked Jessica to dedicate their lives to each other. Jessica looking at Taeyeon in disbelief for a moment till she breaks into a gentle smile. “You remember?” Jessica whispers, Taeyeon nodding slightly.

“I’m sorry, I told you I wouldn’t go to war again.” Taeyeon murmurs wistful, picking up memories that in death, feel so much more pained for the promises she broke. “It’s okay, you had a good reason.” Jessica nods, grasping Taeyeon’s hand assuringly. Taeyeon can only think there could never be a reason good enough to leave Jessica.

Most nights Taeyeon avoids sleep, rest she’s still capable of but doesn’t need. When sleep does come over her, the visions of what the lichlord made her do coming to her all too clearly. Jessica waking her when Taeyeon screams so loudly in her nightmares her cries shake through the whole house. Jolting when she wakes, breaking down in Jessica’s arms as she feels her whole being shake.

Jessica whispering sweet nothings into her ear, cradling Taeyeon in her arms like Taeyeon is her whole world. “You’re okay, it’s okay I promise.” she whispers. Taeyeon struggling to believe it will be. Wanting nothing more than to trust Jessica. “I killed them, I killed so many.” Taeyeon heaves, hunched over feeling she’d empty her stomach if there was anything to empty.

“That wasn’t you, none of it was you.” Jessica pats down her back, all the horrors Taeyeon has seen and Jessica can barely begin to imagine. “Gods I know it wasn’t you.”

It isn’t everyone that believes Taeyeon and walking dead were torn of their free will, that those crimes of the lichlord’s were his own. Prying eyes of the village not content to let either of them be. Too scared to drive Taeyeon away knowing of her in life, the warrior beyond compare.

As time passes though, some things return to Taeyeon easier than others. The memory of her hands, what built the house she’d made for Jessica, carved intricacies into wood that would seemingly take a lifetime to learn. How her fingers fit around a bow, the familiar tug of its string as she’d find her prey and pull the bow taut. Hunting their dinner.

Skills she once learned to lead a simpler life, beyond war which she understood all too well.

Carrying a deer back home, Taeyeon smiles to herself as the thought comes to her. When she had woken, what remained of her seemed so bare. Memories torn from her, ones she still hopes will come back in time, every day that clears through just a little more of the haze in her mind. What she hadn’t dared to think would be left for her, a home.

Stepping through the treeline, Taeyeon catches sight of Jessica, hanging up washing on the line outside. An image almost of when Taeyeon had first come back, when she didn’t know where she was marching to. Greeted by a gentle smile, a comment about how Taeyeon smells from walking around in the forest all day in search of dinner to bring back home, Taeyeon only hugging Jessica close and laughs as Jessica tries to squirm half heartedly away from the smell, both laughing as Jessica playfully pushes her away to go wash up.

Taeyeon remembers how once she told Jessica it would take more than death to take her away. She knows now how true that is, how she would always come home to her.