The Sleeping Citadel: Gray Magic

The Woes of a Necromage

AN: Originally posted 1/1/2020. Reposted 2/29/2024.

"Bigot!" Sonorhc grumbled. Not for the first time had she been prematurely and unfairly judged because of her less-than-savory magic.

"What was it this time?" Reaper asked with an amused smirk. Unlike Sonorhc, she found this magical-based discrimination amusing.

"They won't even let me into hospitals now!" Sonorhc complained, pouting at the building in front of her.

"I would call that a blessing!" Reaper snickered, elbowing her friend. "Hospitals are creepy. Who would ever go into one willingly?"

"But what if I get sick?" Sonorhc demanded.

"Just die and resurrect," Reaper replied with a shrug.

"And what if someone I love gets sick?"

"Just kill and resurrect!"

"Reaper!"

"Well fine. If you don't do the deed, I will!" Reaper cracked her knuckles playfully. "You can bring 'em back once I send 'em away!"

"Reaper!" Sonorhc cried again, pinching the bridge of her nose. The two of them had been best friends ever since they started training under death-based magic together, but they were still very different. While Reaper was almost obnoxiously cheerful, Sonorhc was the grumpy one.

"Ok, ok, I'm sorry, I'll stop," Reaper promised, trying to reign in. She knew that Sonorhc could be a bit self-conscious at times.

"Honestly, you think they'd consider Necromagy a Life Magic! Not a Death Magic!" Sonorhc continued to glare at the hospital. "We don't kill, we resurrect! But we're still treated like villains in training!"

"Ah, the woes of a Necromage," Reaper smiled dryly. "But to be fair, you only work with those who are already dead, and you don't always bring them back very well..."

"Hey! It's harder than it looks!" Sonorhc snapped. "I have to get every body part back in the right place, and then I have to reactivate everything!"

"I know, I know!" Reaper promised, trying to calm her friend down. "I just mean that since you start with, and from, death, that's why Necromagy is considered a Death Magic. It's like Shadow Magic!"

"What?!" Sonorhc snorted. "How can controlling shadows and darkness compare to, oh, I don't know... creating zombies and working with the DEAD and bringing them back to life?! I'd say that Necromagy is a bit more extreme than Umbramagy!"

"Not that," Reaper said. "I'm not about to go into which magic is the most oppressed, but Shadow Magic is another type of "Gray Magic", you know? Nevermore was talking to me about this not too long ago. From what she said, shadows can't exist without light, so Umbramagy should be considered Light Magic rather than Dark Magic."

"Yeah, but it would look silly to see an Umbramage working with a Photomage," said Sonorhc. "Even if shadows do rely on light!"

"Well, that's exactly your beef with Necromagy!" Reaper cried. "Both you and Nevermore are pointing out how arbitrary our categorization of magic is. Sure, some magic is more defined than others, but for people like us in the Gray Magic area, it's, well, gray!"

"Ha, yeah. It's like the "Featherless Biped" problem," Sonorhc gave a dry smile. "You fit one category, but totally mess up another."

"And then you have to re-sort the entire thing," Reaper agreed. "Pyromages have the same problem. Some of them focus on the flames while others on the smoke. And some wish to use their fire to destroy while others use it to warm and illuminate. So is it a good magic, or evil?"

"Ugh. You're making my head hurt," Sonorhc joked tiredly. "Just call it "Gray Magic" and leave it there."

"I thought you liked philosophy!" Reaper defended herself.

"I do," Sonorhc admitted. "Just not when I'm moping over not being allowed into a hospital!" She gave the hospital another glare.

"If it makes you feel any better, they probably wouldn't let me in either," Reaper said, trying to be empathetic.

"Well, your powers are expressly for causing death!" Sonorhc snorted. "You decay things with a single touch! But me? I bring people back! And besides, it's not like people don't die in hospitals anyway! Regardless of who's there, a hospital is a place of death, just as much as it's a place of life! Yet here I am, being told I'll bring bad luck to everyone!"

"Oof," Reaper shook her head sympathetically. "Maybe this is just a bad hospital. I once worked as an anesthetist in a hospital a few states over. I used my death-skill to kill nerve endings and pain receptors. And yes, I have been used as euthanasia before," she added, grimacing slightly. She didn't mind that line of work, but she knew it was very controversial. Not everyone supported using magic in such a morbid way.

"But I mean hey, like I said, you need someone to put people out of their misery and clean up the bodies!" Reaper joked a second later, trying to lighten the mood. She gave a goofy grin and even Sonorhc stopped pouting for a moment.

"You're terrible!" Sonorhc laughed despite herself. Reaper's morbid humor never ceased to amuse her, no matter how messed up it was. Besides, she wasn't wrong. There were hospitals that accepted Death Mages. Unfortunately, they were usually the creepy hospitals. They were places like sanitariums, sanitoriums and asylums. Places that were more skewed towards death than life, and that was Sonorhc's annoyance.

Even if hospitals were also places of death, they had an air of life and hope as well. Only the places that were truly like "living tombs" welcomed Death Mages unconditionally. That meant the working conditions were... subpar. While "Doctors of Life" were hoity-toity jerks working in high-end hospitals, the poor fools working funeral homes and autopsy rooms were much lower down on the social ladder. But that's what you got for working in a morbid field, apparently! That was why a Necromage might find a job as an anesthetist or euthenists, but not necessarily a surgeon.

"Never mind. Let's just go," Sonorhc finally sighed. "I'd rather not stare up at a hospital all day and complain."

"Sounds good! Let's get something to eat! I'm starving," said Reaper, looking excited as she and Sonorhc finally turned away from the hospital.

"Pig," Sonorhc snickered despite herself.

"What can I say? I love demolishing!" Reaper gave a wicked smile, winking mischievously. Sonorhc only rolled her eyes in return, but in secret, she was glad to have a friend like Reaper. It made the woes of a Necromage so much easier to handle.

AN: Just me rambling about different types of magic and magical discrimination in a world I will never fully flesh out (sorry y'all).

And yes, I changed the suffix from "-mancer" to "-mage". You'll find out why later. And I've made other edits to the other chapters too.