#zenithal

TW: Death

Years had passed since the night of the sparrow. Zenithal was no longer a frightened child staring at a terrible miracle in the moonlight. He was older now, more knowledgeable, and far more dangerous because of it. His parents had taught him a great deal about death and the forces that surrounded it, but there were still subjects they refused to heavily discuss beyond a firm warning. Resurrection sat at the top of that list.

The prohibition only made it more fascinating. Every time he asked why it was forbidden, he received some variation of the same answer. He wasn't ready, he didn't understand enough, some boundaries existed for a reason. None of those explanations satisfied him, and if anything, they convinced him there was something important hidden behind the refusal. Zenith had spent years studying, practicing, and refining his abilities, and at fifteen, he no longer believed he was the child who had animated a sparrow by accident.

One autumn evening, when both his parents were away for the night, he slipped quietly from his room and made his way next door. The funeral parlor sat silent in the darkness, the familiar halls illuminated only by moonlight filtering through the windows. He knew every corner of the building because he had grown up there. It was the family business, so the preparation room and the morgue held no fear for him. At least not anymore.

The cold greeted him as he entered the lower level. Along one wall sat the rows of refrigerated mortuary cabinets used to store the dead before preparation. Zenith paused in front of one of the drawers, resting his hand against the metal handle. The man inside had died suddenly only two days earlier. No violence or prolonged illness. Alive one day, gone the next.

He stood there for several moments before pulling the drawer open. The body slid forward with a soft metallic sound, revealing a man who appeared to be middle-aged. His features were peaceful enough, and there were no obvious injuries. Looking at him, it was easy to imagine he was merely asleep.

A part of Zenith knew he should close the drawer and leave, but another part reminded him that opportunities to test his theories rarely presented themselves so conveniently. Curiosity had been winning that argument for months. If his parents were right, he would finally understand why. If they were wrong, he would prove it.

The process was nothing like what had happened with the sparrow years ago. There was no accidental instinct guiding him now. Every movement was deliberate, and every word chosen with care. He reached toward the body and focused on everything he had learned over the years. The room seemed to grow unnaturally still as the cold and invasive sensation settled over him, drawing at something unseen beneath the surface of the world.

The moment he truly committed to the process, he felt the magic respond. The cold spread through his arms and settled deep within his chest, far stronger than anything he had experienced before. It felt as though something was being pulled from him as much as it was flowing through him. Sweat gathered along his brow despite the chill of the morgue, and a dull ache began to form behind his eyes. He ignored it. Powerful magic always demanded something from the practitioner. That was simply part of the discipline.

For a long moment, nothing happened. Then the man's fingers twitched against the drawer. Zenith's pulse quickened as a shallow breath followed, then another. The man's chest rose steadily, and before long his eyes opened.

Excitement surged through Zenith so suddenly that he nearly stumbled backward. He had done it. Against every warning and every prohibition, he had succeeded. The man blinked several times, his gaze wandering across the ceiling before eventually settling on Zenith. For a few brief moments, he looked confused.

"Do you know who you are?" Zenith asked.

The answer came immediately. The man gave his name, even his wife’s and daughter’s names. He named the business he owned and the street where he lived. Every answer was correct and coherent. With each response, Zenith felt his confidence growing. He had expected confusion, gaps in memory, perhaps signs that something had been lost. Instead, everything appeared intact.

Then, the man fell silent. His eyes shifted past Zenith's shoulder and fixated on something that wasn't there. The confusion vanished so quickly it was almost unsettling. What replaced it was something far worse.

Fear.

Not ordinary fear. This was the look of someone who had seen something so terrible that merely remembering it threatened to break them. That expression alone was enough to horrify Zenith more than anything he had witnessed in his studies. 

The color drained from the man’s face, his breathing quickened, and his entire body began to tremble. "No." The word was but a faint whisper. His gaze darted around the room wildly before returning to Zenith. "No. No. No."

Zenith felt a knot form in his stomach. The excitement that had filled him moments earlier began to evaporate. He stepped closer, intending to calm the man, but the moment he entered arm’s reach, a hand shot forward and seized the front of his shirt. The strength behind the grip startled him.

"Why did you do that?" The man's voice cracked as tears gathered in his eyes. "Why did you bring me back?"

For a moment, Zenith could only stare. He had imagined countless reactions to success. Gratitude, relief, maybe even confusion. Never this.

"I was gone." The man's entire body shook. "I was gone!"

A sharp pain shot through Zenith's skull, forcing him to brace himself against the edge of the cabinet. His vision blurred for a moment before slowly clearing. The effort of maintaining the resurrection was becoming increasingly apparent. Every breath the man took seemed to pull something from him in return. Was it supposed to feel like this?

The man's eyes remained fixed on him. "I wasn't supposed to come back." His voice was growing weaker now, but the terror within it had not diminished. "It was over." The words broke apart as he spoke them. "It was finally over."

Whatever memories had returned with him, whatever experience lay beyond death, Zenith wanted no part of it. The man's dread-filled expression was more than enough. He looked like someone standing before an open abyss. Not because he feared death, but because he had already crossed into it and been dragged back against his will.

For the first time that night, genuine doubt pierced through Zenith's confidence. He realized he had never truly considered what resurrection might feel like for the person being resurrected. He had approached the entire problem from his own curiosity and desire to know whether it could be done. The man inside the drawer had never been part of the equation.

Maintaining the connection became increasingly difficult. Every breath the man drew seemed to drain Zenith further. His muscles felt heavy, and his heart hammered against his ribs despite standing still. The room swayed around him, and his hands trembled from more than nerves. Years of study had taught him that necromancy carried a cost, but knowing that fact and experiencing it were very different things. Maybe he was still too young and inexperienced.

The realization settled heavily in his chest. He could render a body functional and restore movement, breath, and speech. But whatever made a person truly belong among the living seemed far more complicated than he had imagined. The difference between life and animation suddenly felt far greater than it had when he first looked upon that sparrow years ago.

The man's grip gradually loosened and his breathing slowed. The terror in his eyes remained until the very end. Then, little by little, the unnatural force holding him together began to unravel. Moments later his chest stilled, his eyes closed, and he became a corpse once more.

By then, Zenith's own legs were trembling. A deep exhaustion had settled into his bones, and every breath felt shallow and strained. He gripped the edge of the mortuary drawer to keep himself upright, staring at the body as the room slowly stopped spinning around him.

The silence that followed felt far heavier than any lecture his parents could have given him. Zenith remained there for a long time, replaying every moment in his mind. The victory he had imagined felt hollow now. He had achieved exactly what he set out to do, yet all he felt was unease.

As dawn approached, he finally pushed the drawer closed. The metallic sound echoed through the room, followed by an uncomfortable stillness. Looking at the man, he had found one answer. Looking down at his own shaking hands and feeling the lingering drain within himself, he found another. Some questions carried costs far greater than curiosity could justify.

Slowly working through my 40k pile...

Today?

Finally got some purple primer and gave it a whirl.

A bit rusty on my Zen-dry approach, but pretty happy with the results just the same.

First two are Black base, Purple Zenithal, light purple dry brush.

The garden was at its most vibrant in the early hours of the morning, before the world had fully awakened. Zenith moved slowly along the winding stone path, a pair of pruning shears resting loosely in one hand as he inspected each bed with his usual care. The foxgloves were thriving this season. Tall spires of purple and white blossoms swayed gently in the breeze, beautiful enough to draw admiration from anyone who passed by. Most people would stop at the beauty, few would remember that every part of the plant held the potential to stop a heart. 

Not far from them, monkshood bloomed in rich shades of violet-blue, strikingly elegant despite being among the most poisonous plants in the garden. Zenith found himself smiling faintly at the contrast. Some of nature's most lethal creations were also among its most beautiful.

He paused beside a patch of deadly nightshade, fingers brushing lightly against a leaf as he adjusted a stake supporting one of the stems. Years spent studying death had taught him that appearances were rarely reliable. People liked things to be simple: safe or dangerous, good or bad, harmless or deadly. Yet the world had never worked that way, and beauty offered no guarantees. The brilliant berries hanging from the nightshade could kill a person just as surely as any blade. The foxglove that could stop a heart had also led to medicines that saved lives. Nature seemed wholly uninterested in mankind's desire to divide everything into neat categories.

As he continued through the garden, his thoughts drifted beyond the plants themselves. He had seen similar contradictions in people throughout his life. Some of the kindest souls he had ever known carried a darkness that few would suspect. Others wrapped cruelty in charm so effectively that most never saw it until it was too late. Grief could make gentle people frightening, and love could soften those who had once seemed beyond redemption. 

Even he was not immune to such complexities. There had been years when loss had driven him toward places he would not willingly return to, years when his fascination with death had become something darker and far less healthy. Yet those same experiences had eventually shaped the person he had become. Life was rarely defined by a single truth.

If anyone understood contradiction, it was him. He spent his days helping families understand the deaths of those they loved, and offering answers where there had once been uncertainty. He sat with the dying when others could not, guiding people through fears that many spent their entire lives avoiding. Yet there were parts of his own history that would make some of those same people uneasy if they knew them fully. Knowledge gained from places they would rather not look, subjects they would consider better left untouched. He understood their discomfort, even if he did not share it. 

People often seemed surprised when they learned enough about him. They struggled to reconcile the patient, soft-spoken man they knew with someone who had spent so much of his life studying subjects most avoided. As though kindness and darkness could not occupy the same person. As though compassion somehow erased the mistakes that came before it. 

Zenith had long since stopped trying to fit himself into categories that made other people comfortable. He knew exactly what he was: a man who spent his days among the dead yet deeply appreciated the living. Someone capable of gentleness who had also survived periods of profound anger and grief. None of those truths invalidated the others. They simply existed together, much like the plants surrounding him. Beautiful things could be dangerous, dangerous things could serve a purpose. Complexity did not require resolution. 

Zenith stopped near the center of the garden and looked out across the vibrant sea of color surrounding him. Everywhere he looked, beauty existed alongside danger, life alongside the possibility of death. There was no contradiction in it, the garden did not struggle with what it was. The monkshood did not apologize for its poison, nor did the foxglove deny its beauty. They simply existed as complete versions of themselves. 

Perhaps that was why he found such comfort among them. The garden understood something many people spent their entire lives fighting against: that things could be beautiful and dangerous, healing and harmful, gentle and deadly all at once. Complexity was not a flaw in nature, it was its most honest expression.

tw: death, undeath

Zenithal was already in Fairbreeze Village when the first alarms sounded. News spread quickly through the Eversong Woods to gather belongings and evacuate towards the city. He was among those preparing to leave, part of a small group moving toward the main road when an eerie silence fell over the land.

It happened faster than anyone had expected. The distant sounds came first, followed by a shift in the air, that cold, unnatural stillness that sharpened every instinct and made hairs stand on end. This was as far as they had made it before the Scourge arrived.

He stood near the edge of the main path for a moment, gloved hands folded loosely behind his back, eyes darting between the rooftops and the gathering defenders. He had always been more comfortable tending gardens than battlefields, more inclined to preserve than to destroy. But this was not about fighting, it was about protection and dignity. It was about refusing to let death be twisted into something cruel. That was more than reason for him to reach out for the magic he had promised to always keep hidden.

As the village shifted from evacuation to defense, the sounds of shouted orders, the clash of steel, and the low, terrible moan that marked the Scourge’s presence surrounded him. Elven defenders rushed through the streets with urgency, guiding civilians toward safer ground while holding defensive lines where they could. Zen worked through the chaos with a calm efficiency, avoiding notice where he could. His attention went first to those who had fallen.

A young ranger lay near the base of a marble archway, armor split open and breath already gone. The faint pull of necromantic energy lingered around the body, the early stages of reanimation taking hold. Zen knelt beside him without hesitation. His gloved hand hovered briefly over the ranger’s chest before settling lightly. His voice dropped into a low murmur only he could hear. The magic he wove was measured, a binding meant to shield rather than hold, granting the soul safe passage before darker forces could lay claim to it.

The subtle tension in the air eased, and the tether the Scourge might have used simply wasn’t there anymore. He moved on before anyone could notice what he had done. 

Further into the village, a surge of undead pressed against a defensive line, their numbers bolstered by freshly risen corpses that still wore the colors of Quel’thalas. Zen’s jaw tightened at the sight, grief flashing beneath his calm exterior. He stepped closer to the edge of the skirmish, lifting one hand as he focused. Where the Scourge’s magic clung to the newly fallen, he unraveled it, severing invisible threads and collapsing the necromantic bindings with precision. One by one, the bodies that might have risen again simply stilled, inert and beyond the Lich King’s reach.

A nearby Captain glanced toward him, confusion flickering briefly before recognition dawned. They said nothing, only gave a nod before turning back to the fight with renewed focus.

Zen continued through the village like that, a countercurrent to the tide of death. He stabilized what he could, denied what he could not save, and moved on without fanfare. Hours passed in fragments of motion and stillness until the worst of the fighting began to ebb. Fires still burned in places, and the heavy exhaustion that follows survival filled the air.

Near the edge of the village, he finally paused, removing his gloves as he stood beneath a familiar tree that had somehow remained untouched. The skin of his hands looked faintly ashen, the color drained from them as though the warmth had been drawn elsewhere. He knew it wasn’t just his hands, he could feel everywhere, even deep within his very core. Though steady, faint traces of cold clung to the air around him, the lingering sign of magic used with care but not without cost.

He looked back over Fairbreeze, at the defenders moving among the wounded, at the bodies that would not rise again, at a home that still stood. Zen drew a slow breath, the tension in his shoulders easing just slightly. It was far from over, but it could have been so much worse.

He was not a warrior, nor would he ever be, but he could stand between the living and what sought to claim them. He could protect what dignity remained when violence threatened to strip it away. After a moment, he slid his gloves back on and drew his hood low enough to shadow his sunken features. There would be more to do before the night fell, and he would face it the same way he always did: with the steady resolve of someone who understood exactly what was at stake.