Dead Name
Ash had never killed anyone- not even consensually.
"Would you get on with it? The water's cold."
"Last chance to back out." Ash tried for a grin.
A pair of steady hands found their shaky ones in the dark.
"I trust you, love."
Ash took a salt-sharp breath.
When the harbourmaster's eldest had sought out Ash, they hadn't known what to expect. It hadn't been the words:
"I hear you're a witch. I need you to change me."
Ash regarded the curls tucked underneath the cap, the slouch designed to draw attention from the chest.
"Sorry, handsome," they said, and were rewarded with a startled smile. "I'm a necromancer. Can't change anything unless it's dead."
"Even better."
Months later, they stood face-to-face, knee-deep in the ocean. Starlight trembled on the water. Gently, firmly, Ash pushed down. Held on fast through the spasms, the instinctive struggles, until they felt their charge go limp.
Leaving the body floating in the shallows was the difficult part, but it had to look like an accident.
The following dusk, Ash watched the funeral from the shoreline, unseen. They winced at the name the mourners wailed, willed the seagulls' cries to drown it.
When the moon crested the horizon, Ash approached the newest grave.
It wasn't difficult for them to reach out with their magic and grasp hold of those bones- they knew them better than their own now. Even easier to reshape the flesh, so eager to be transmogrified: roiling water cresting into a wave.
Ash raised him anew, and the grave dirt crumbled like seafoam.
He stretched, luxuriously, as if waking from a nap, and half-glanced at the headstone.
"Check it out," he grinned, pointing. "My deadname."
"You're impossible." Ash took his true face in their hands and kissed him in the pearlescent moonlight.