Fealty

The Bone-Judge gathered up the pile of gleaming bones and placed each with the utmost reverence into the cloth-lined basket.  She was no Bone-Keeper, but there was no need to correct the Emperor; he wouldn't have cared. She shook her head and snorted, sending up a swirl of ash from the piece of bone she was moving.

"I wonder," she murmured, "if he actually listened to you.  If he knew who you were."  She slid a smooth, pale finger over a heat-cracked rib.  She frowned and moved the piece of bone into the basket.  "He did not judge you properly in life, lost soul; so I will judge you in death.  I just hope that the story you have to tell will be enough to earn your redemption in the Ever-After."

"Chatting with the condemned again, I see?"  Akuk chuckled from his perch behind her.  

"They are the only ones with something interesting to say."

"Says the Bone-Judge to the Bone-Maker.  Pfah.  You wouldn't have those bones if it weren't for me."

"You wouldn't have had the flesh if it weren't for the Emperor."

Akuk stuck his tongue out.  "That's debatable.  You could have pegged it on the archers."

"They tend to hit their mark well, don't they?"  She fought the urge to smile, but only barely; the fall of her hood was enough to mask the rest.

"Oh, you make me quiver, so you do."  Akuk had no sense of self-control.  He cackled wildly at the pun parade and gamboled about along the edge of the Ashen Judgment.

"'Nock' it off."

"Bullseye - again."

"Hnh."

He reveled in his victory while she picked up the last bits of bone.  A few stray teeth and shards of skull were the final pieces to the puzzle and, only then, did the Bone-Judge straighten.  She shook out her robes with a deft hand, creating a swirl of dust and ash that briefly enveloped her.

Akuk finally calmed enough to ask, "Need anything, Bone-Judge?"

She shook her head.  "No, Bone-Maker.  I have all I need here," she jostled the basket just a little.  "And up here."  She pointed at her head with her free hand.  Only then did she smile, though it was a tired and tilted thing that sat poorly on her severe features.  "I may have need of an ear later - depending on just what she has to say."

"Pfah.  As you say, as you say.  Have fun with your dead friend of the night, eh?"

"Mm."

Akuk scuttled off without a sound and the Bone-Judge regarded her collection of skeletal pieces with a grim expression.  

"Come along, traitor," she said.  "Let's see what stories you have left to tell."