Rum stood outside Amez’s shop, his left hand holding White Rose’s right. His gaze aimed at the building’s door, and his mind swirling with uncertainty.

“I don’t think I know how to tell my brother about you.” he said, looking sideways at White Rose. “Especially in a way that he’d be likely to let you stay with me in the room I’m using.” White Rose and Rum stared into each other’s eyes for a long, silent, thoughtful moment. Which was surprisingly non-awkward, due to White Rose’s generally dead and uncomprehending return stare. “I mean, I can’t tell him you’re my sister. He’s my brother! That would cause all kinds of questions and difficult situations. Maybe…” Rum let his eyes linger on White Rose for a while longer. “Maybe I tell him you’re my girlfriend?” White Rose put zes head to one side, and then to another, like a dog curious about what its master is talking about. Rum’s gaze went back to the door. “All right then!” he half-shouted. A feeling of determination had risen up in him, as he lost patience with his own indecision. “Girlfriend. That’s the plan we’re going with. You just–“ he surveyed White Rose’s appearance, “–be a convincing girlfriend if you could.” And with that he knocked on the door of Amez’s shop, and let himself inside.

“Hello. Amez. I’ve come back! I’ve returned from the dungeon.”

Inside the shop Amez sat in front of his drawing board in deep concentration. A few moments passed before Amez briefly looked up, just to catch the sight of Rum and his escort, then returned to his drawing. With his eyes fixed on what he was drawing, he mumbled “Welcome back brother. Who’s that person by your side?”

“Oh this?” Rum gestured at the hand he was holding with White Rose, “This is just my new girlfriend. Her name’s Whi… Rose, her name’s Rose.”

“Hi there, Rose.” Amez mumbled, still staring back at his drawing. Another few moments passed with silence, before Amez finally put down his pencil and looked up, at full attention this time. “You’re his girlfriend?” Amez put so much weight on that last part, it was as if Rum having a girlfriend was somehow a revelation of incredible proportions.

“Rose doesn’t talk much. She’s very shy.” Rum explained, when White Rose replied nothing.

“Shy, huh. Well no problem there. But… sorry if I’m curious, but how did you two meet?”

Rum tried to open his mouth to respond, but hadn’t prepared any response, and so he rummaged around in his own brain. “It–“ he started saying, trying to find the easiest and most convincing answer “–sort-of just happened. I met her in the dungeon.”

“In the dungeon?” Amez frowned, a skeptical look on his face. “You mean like she’s another adventurer?” Amez stood up and walked over to White Rose, at which point he surveyed ze from top to bottom, nodding to himself.

“YES!” Rum exclaimed, a bit too excited to be handed a saving answer.

“Well, I guess you look kind-of like the adventuring type. Very mysterious clothing you have there. I hope I get to know your face at some point.” Amez turned over to Rum, “So tell me about the trip.”

Amez and Rum sat down in chairs. Rum tried to demonstrate to White Rose that ze should also sit, and after gesturing for a while with Amez looking on in puzzlement, White Rose eventually figured out the purpose of chairs, and awkwardly sat down in one. For nearly half an hour Rum went on about the trip, censoring out all the details that involved White Rose. He told Amez about nearly drowning Elrith and himself as soon as he saw her. And as soon as he’d confessed to nearly killing one party member, he felt compelled to remember and confess to nearly killing Gilda as well with his overcharged cooling magic. He told about his use of the Positive Mind spell, at which point Amez just shook his head, a weak smile appearing on his lips, as Rum explained how Elrith had reacted at the spell when it ended. When he came to the skeletons, and how they’d ambushed the party twice, Amez truly became captivated. When Rum described the last stand of the party against the hoard of battle-ready skeletons, and the saving moment of Rum’s magical improvisation, Amez looked both horrified and worried. Then when Rum told of the invention of Rumalize and Elrith’s resistance to having her power characteristics checked, Amez again smiled and shook his head.

“You really had an adventure.” He said. Then a moment of thought passed, and Amez shook his head once more, though for a different reason this time. “I’m jealous, you know that right?”

Rum looked innocently back at Amez. “Why? Don’t you have it good here?”

“It’s not that. Sure I have coin, many good customers, and many fun friends to talk to. But all my customers, and now you too, keep telling me about these adventures. I’m starting to want an adventure myself. To go away for a little while. To not just spend every day drawing, tattooing, enchanting. Either that, or you adventurers need to stop making it sound so exciting!” Rum just responded with a smile, and they sat there for a while making various attempts at imagining Amez as an adventurer. Finally, as the discussion came to a bit of a halt, Rum changed the subject.

“So brother, Rose doesn’t have any place she can stay. And I still don’t have my own place to bring her to. Do you think she could stay here with me in the back bedroom?” Amez responded with raised eyebrows, and looked out into the blue for a brief moment. Then he turned to White Rose, “You don’t have a place to stay? Really?” White Rose, dead silent as always, just tilted zes head left and right, like ze always seemed to do when people asked ze questions. Before Rum could interject however, Amez made up his mind: “Sure. She can stay. Just remember not to interfere too much when I’m dealing with the customers.”

“Great!” Rum said, and went on to guide White Rose into zes new room together with Amez. “So this is the closet” Rum waved at a large closet by his bed, “and this is a large mirror. Look, you can see yourself in it!” Rum pointed at White Rose in the mirror, and White Rose ended up standing still in front of the mirror, staring at zes own reflection like it was the strangest thing. Rum continued pointing out a work desk, a chest, a stool, a bucket, and the door to the backside. The shop had no bathrooms, but luckily there were public bathrooms and baths not far away. Not that White Rose needed to worry much about bathrooms though. But baths? Rum looked White Rose over again, and wondered if ze didn’t need a thorough cleaning of zes skeletal body. Who knows how long it’s been since that skeleton was last cleaned? Or if it had ever been cleaned. Jorteg probably didn’t bother with that kind of aesthetic maintenance on his killer hoard.

“Amez?” Rum said to Amez, who had just been standing by and giving the occasional commentary while Rum had been guiding. “I think White Rose and I should probably have a bit of privacy right now. Could we be alone for a bit?”

“Sure brother” Amez said, a smile forming on his face just as the little brother left the room, closing the door behind him.

Rum walked up to White Rose. “So, White Rose, I think I want to clean you a bit. You’ve probably never had a proper cleaning before. I’ve got a spell for cleaning people’s bodies, but it isn’t really made for skeletons. I will have to take a look at you and try to figure out how I should clean you.” Rum started undressing White Rose’s disguise while White Rose observed the undressing through the large mirror. As White Rose’s skeletal body came into view, ze looked to be even more curious about zes own reflection.

“Hmm” Rum looked White Rose’s bones over. Their yellow-brownish hue looked like discoloration from the various things that had come into contact with White Rose, as well as whatever had remained from the flesh suit of a body ze’d once inhabited.

Rum touched one of the ribs. White Rose rotated zes skull to look down at him for a brief second, then having confirmed who and what was activating zes magical sensations, ze went back to staring into zes own reflection. Ze appeared absolutely hypnotized by the mirror. Rum channeled some mana, trying to will his spell Become Clean into taking hold of the bone and doing its job. But the spell resisted – this was not the kind of job it was designed for. Rum relented. Perhaps it’s not even that good of an idea to make Become Clean do bones. Just imagine it: I cast Become Clean on a person and suddenly the spell starts cleaning internal tissue off the person’s skeleton, attempting to separate the person from their own skeleton as if the person’s flesh was dirtying up their skeleton. Rum shuddered a little when he realized what an absolutely horrible, torturous, murderous spell that could become. No, I’ll have to make a separate Become Clean spell for White Rose. Rum went over to the chest and found a rag. He used Become Clean on the rag itself, and grabbed the bucket, walking out the back to the well to fill it with a bit of water. After a little while he returned, whereupon he started rubbing White Rose’s bones clean with the rag. Not having much of cleaning supplies, he resorted to spitting on the bones and using the acidity of his spit to break through the coating of dirt. Thus he continued for many minutes – constantly spitting, rubbing, and using Become Clean on the rag – all until the first little spot on White Rose’s rib started to reveal an underlying white coloration. Rum was ecstatic at this progress, because he wasn’t planning on cleaning all of White Rose this way. Instead he cast “Mana Ghost” on himself, and let the spell study his will and his actions as he rubbed and spit furiously to reveal more of White Rose’s whiteness. As the spell finished, and returned its findings to him, Rum dropped the rag, stood up, sat on the bed and went into a full mana-fueled meditation. Here, deep in his mind, he wrestled with the Become Clean spell, attempting to force it to copy itself into two spells. When he eventually succeeded he quickly let go of the original Become Clean spell, and started pouring his new mana ghost into the copy of Become Clean. Here another round of wrestling started, as Rum attempted to fuse the will of his own cleaning efforts towards White Rose with the imperative and skill towards cleanliness lingering within the Become Clean spell. The wrestling didn’t just involve a fusion though, he also had to try and purge the copy of its more unnecessary or inconvenient features meant for human bodies and human clothes. In the end though he won it all, and another spell was added to his mental spellbook. Opening his eyes, he strode over to White Rose, grabbing her by the rib cage. “Become Clean Skeleton” he whispered. A weak whirlwind of mana circled around White Rose, creating a twister of air, and as Rum watched, slowly by the second, White Rose’s hue transformed from yellow-brownish, to a fine white polish.

“Look at you now” Rum smiled to White Rose, who’d been looking at him and the twisting air the whole time, wondering what the heck was going on. Rum turned and pointed towards the mirror. “That’s how you look like now. Real clean, real fine.” White Rose did appear intrigued by zes new appearance, zes head tilting left and right, and back and forth, as if trying to take in zes own reflection from every angle.

A quick knock was heard. Rum looked up, and wondered if it was their door which had been knocked. The knock came again, and before Rum could answer, Amez pushed the door open and walked straight into the room, and straight in front of the naked White Rose.

“I just came for something I’d forg…” Amez became dead silent. He stared at White Rose, eyes widening and mouth agape.

Rum winked from behind White Rose, his face showing a sudden rush of total guiltiness. “Hi Amez. I guess you found out sooner than I’d expected.”

Amez couldn’t immediately bring his eyes over to Rum, instead his entire attention was gripped by the white skeleton in front of him, now having turned around from the mirror to return Amez’s stare. Amez gulped after a moment, then looked over at Rum who was – smiling!? Awkwardly smiling true, but his brother was indeed smiling.

“So as you might’ve guessed by now, Rose, or White Rose which is zes full name, is not my girlfriend. Ze is a skeleton. And I am zes guardian, until ze can take care of zeself.” Rum grabbed the skeleton’s right hand with his left, and stood next to White Rose.

Amez took a short deep breath, and then pointed his finger at White Rose. “Do you see what I am seeing?” he said, eyes still viewing White Rose with incredulity.

“Ah, yes. I see it too brother. Every fine white bone on ze, I see them.”

Amez tried to open his mouth to say another word, but couldn’t immediately find anyone to speak. After a few failed tries, he just went with: “How?”

“I’m not sure which how you are referring to Amez, but I guess you probably want to know why I’m walking around with a skeleton.”

Amez nodded, his eyes unable to leave White Rose, but his eyebrows still raised like a question. A true multitasker of facial muscles.

“Well. White Rose, which is ze’s name, was a reanimated skeleton which I sort-of decided to make into a real person. I just think that what Jorteg the dungeon lord is doing to those skeletons is just horrible. Giving them intelligence and all, but no personality!? So I created this spell which I called Bony Love, which installs a semi-randomized personality into a reanimated skeleton. The semi-randomized personality is based on the personalities of two young wild gnomish girls which I discovered in the forest at night. I judged that they were beings of curiosity and love, which are excellent personality traits for personhood in general. It really drives the growth of individuality, which is necessary for the long-term sustainability and livability of a person. Really I was so lucky when I found–“

Amez cut Rum off with a hand. “You made this skeleton?” he asked, his posture relaxing a bit, while his eyes were allowed to leave their intense stare at White Rose, to meet the eyes of his older brother.

“Well yes and no. White Rose was really made by Jorteg, ze was one of Jorteg’s undead army. But I fixed ze. Jorteg can no longer control ze now – ze is free.”

“What do you mean by free?” Amez watched the skeleton with suspicion.

“I mean ze should be capable of making zes own decisions now.” Rum fondly eyed his new friend, “Or at least that’s the theory. At the moment ze lacks the adequate knowledge of the world to make many meaningful choices, so ze’s been just following the party around doing whatever people tell ze. But I’ll help ze get there! Soon, you will all see what I mean; this fabulous being’s curiosity will drive ze towards a life only ze can know the purpose of. Just like the rest of us.” Rum looked over at his brother. “Of course, what this means for you, is just that Jorteg has no part of ze’s life anymore, so you don’t have to worry about any trouble coming from this beautiful flower.” Rum returned his eyes to White Rose, smiled warmly and clapped zes right shoulder fondly.

“I’ll have to trust you on that I suppose.” And for the first time since the conversation had started, Amez took a step inside the room. “But Rum, how do you expect other people to react to you bringing a dungeon creature into the city? If news reaches people about this skeleton here… well I’m not sure I can’t protect you against people wanting to come into the shop to destroy the skeleton.”

Rum took on a comprehending expression. “I know that. But I’ll figure it out. This disguise–“ Rum gestured at White Rose’s clothing spread on the ground, “–has worked well so far, the only reason why you managed to catch us was because I was cleaning ze. Ze has never been cleaned before, and so I just thought it needed to be done now rather than later. But now that ze is clean, I’m just gonna take this disguise back on and nobody will notice what ze is.” Rum in fact started doing just that. Dressing White Rose didn’t take very long, and Amez looked at the whole process, as if trying to figure out whether he believed Rum about the reliability of the disguise.

As White Rose stood fully dressed, Amez inspected the disguise up and down, left and right, round and around. In the end he nodded, seeming satisfied. “I guess that does work. But do you really want the skel–“

Rum interrupted Amez: “–White Rose. Ze’s name is White Rose.”

Amez reworded himself “Do you really want White Rose to stay here? In my shop bedroom?”

Rum nodded with a determined look “This is the only place I can keep ze. I am zes guardian. Nobody else would take care of ze, and ze still has a lot missing before ze can survive on zes own.”

Amez sighed a heavy breath while staring at White Rose “Well I suppose it can’t be helped then. Just never take the disguise off, and don’t let the skel–I mean White Rose–walk around in my shop. I really don’t want any of my adventurer customers to find out that the guy making their dungeon protections is harboring the undead.”

“No worries brother. This won’t be an issue!”

“Okay. I guess, again, I’ll just have to believe you. I want to help you brother, but you’ve really put yourself, and myself, in a difficult situation here. By the way, why do you keep calling it ze?”

“Well, you know, as technically an undead, who can’t procreate and have no… how should I put this? You know how people get married, have kids, and us boys are often expected to provide for the family, the girls are often expected to learn how to take care of the home? Well… undead don’t get married, they don’t have children, and they don’t even have families to raise them into boy-tasks and girl-tasks. Undead have no gender, because they don’t have families.”

“Okay. That’s a new idea for me.” Amez just stared at White Rose for a moment in thought. “It does feel like you’ve basically adopted this one though. Doesn’t that make you White Rose’s family? Wait… if I am your brother, doesn’t that also make me White Rose’s family?” Amez seemed quite surprised by his own thinking.

“Well. Depends on your definition of family. But I suppose I am zes family now. Though this doesn’t really change anything, because, well… you know when I studied at Flip University, we encountered a theory made by some strange naturalist who’d been sailing the world for many years, and he had claimed much evidence that the reason why we are all here the way we are, is mostly due to something called evolution.” Rum went into lecture mode and started talking animatedly. “According to evolution, creatures who are best suited for procreating, will tend to let their offspring inherit those features of them which makes them good at procreating. This includes high fertility and a high potential for survival skills. Over generations only those most procreative of lineages survive, and at any moment of time the people alive are descendants of those who best procreated.” Rum started pacing a little bit back and forth now that he was full-on lecturing. “A core feature of being good procreators is to be able to prepare offspring for further procreation, and later theorists have pondered if not the gendered roles of our society are the result of lineages where girls are prepared for sexual captivity – eh, sorry, I mean marriage – and psychologically controlled to never have ambitions outside of procreating. The same goes for men, of course men are more flexible procreators, but you understand where I want to go with this?”

“No, not really.” Amez massaged his temple, he tended to get a bit of a headache listening to Rum’s monologuing.

“Fair enough, I didn’t get to the point yet. The point is that White Rose, an individual who can’t procreate, can neither fit into the role of girl; whose job according to evolution is to carry as many children as possible off to the next generation, nor the boy; whose job is to ensure his offspring do make it to the next generation, where the cycle is repeated. White Rose simply has no job being a girl, nor a boy, in the traditional sense. Neither does ze have any capacity, as far as I know, for playing gender roles since ze is unable to feel sexual attraction, and really I can’t imagine ze being fully able to identify with either group. So, thus I call ze for ze, because ze can’t be a he, and ze can’t be a she, and ze is the only known gender pronoun which I’ve heard of, and which can describe anything outside of the two definitions. Although the term is actually intended for use about genderless gods, but still, it’s the closest I got.”

Amez massaged his temple some more, and then the top of his head. “But” he started, “I think I heard from one of my adventurer customers once, when he was talking about fighting skeletons; that male skeletons and female skeletons are slightly different? White Rose would have to be either a male skeleton or a female one. Right?”

Rum looked surprised at this idea, and then looked over at White Rose. He shrugged. “Yeah, but really it comes down to zes psyche. How many people would be able to tell a male and female skeleton apart? It’s an unlikely subject, and I don’t think it’d be fair to decide White Rose’s gender, just because the previous owner of zes bones had a gender. As I said, ze is zes own person now.”

After that awkward conversation Amez eventually left Rum’s bedroom, and Rum laid down on his bed – mightily exhausted after a long day and a late evening.

“White Rose?” Rum said, and the skeleton, still looking at zes own reflection now that nothing else was going on, turned to look at zes guardian.

“Please just stay there okay? No going roaming around. Just stay right there until I wake up again. Okay?” The skeleton took some time to respond, but in the end it nodded.

“Great. Two weeks without a real bed has made this bed-reunion a long awaited affair. I’m sorry in advance if it takes much longer than usual before I wake up afterwards.”

Using a bit of Softify, Rum was quickly in heaven when it came to comfort. Just lying there, he slowly drifted towards sleep. And as the world of dreams approached, he mumbled one last little sentence, partially muffled by his pillow.

“Good night, my White Rose”