The Witch and the Lich; The Odd Not-Couple

Credits; Krell, Rea,
Krell looked over his files.  He'd stayed low for quite some time now, and there was a lot of back log.  He'd left his granddaughter with orders to try and find the locations of a few things he'd need to take on Holine. 
He wasn't quite certain what those things were, but thanks to these reports he knew where they were. 
"So what's with all the papers?"
"Ah, my sneaky little assassin companion; what brings you to my office?"
She slipped around the desk.  It was nearly instant, a side effect of her unnatural speed.  Still, it was obvious she was doing her best to slowly creep around it.  It was somewhat disturbing, but the way she trailed her hand, while fast and much harder than she seemed to realize, was clearly intended to be sexy.  If he'd had a heart, or any other internal organs for that matter, or skin even, it probably would have responded somehow.  Maybe beating faster, or crawled a bit; he wasn't certain.  THere was something distinctly creepy about an apparently fourteen year old being flirtatious.  If it weren't for the fact that she was so old underneath the steelsil wrappings and young body he'd have probably just been confused.  But there could be no mistaking that she was teasing him. 
Not that it mattered, he was nothing but bones, mind, and tethered soul.  Even if he had found her advances welcome he couldn't act on them.  He didn't though.  He was sitting in an office that his grandaughter had provided.  Just knowing she was there reminded him of his sweet Lewiza; now long dead.  He should have shared her grave, and even those he'd been close to believed he did.  Just his succesor and Holine knew he was still bound to unlife.  The irony, that the man famous for leading the last living subjects of the Empire was now trapped in undeath, was a constant companion.  It was painful even at times, to know that his tale was used to remind people to remain hopeful, when he had nothing left but the pursuit of his own destruction.  All he wanted was to rest with the wife he'd loved, the children he'd raised, and the friends he'd fought beside. 
"Oh nothing, I just wanted to know if you had any plans?"
"I have our targets.  I just don't know what they are, only where."  He purposefully ignored her flirtations.  She'd gotten behind him and was resting on the back of his chair.  Her breath was cold, but its mere existance served only to remind him of his own post-mortality. 
He refocused on the papers.  The throne itself would be his ultimate goal.  She'd created several Lich, most had become so willingly.  There were five diamonds arrayed on the left armrest, one for each of them.  Two she'd apparently destroyed already when their owners had gone mad and turned on her.  A third was the captain of her guard, who never left her side.  The fourth it seemed was Holine herself.  The fifth was him.  She'd refused to destroy his, perhaps because she couldn't, perhaps because she knew the consequences, or maybe it was because she simply knew that death was the fate he desired and that by denying it she caused him more suffering than if she were to end him. 
Of course, she was no longer empress.  Her son had taken the throne at the end of the Secloran war.  Two years ago Holine's grandaughter, Winifred, had taken the throne.  The diamonds that tethered Holine and her captain had been removed then, but his was still in the armrest, under the padding.  One had been hidden away on Appeni, the second had been banished to 'Realm'.  Neither could be retrieved easily, and there was no way of knowing exactly which one was which.  Worse, that was as far as they'd been tracked.  He needed a way to track down a set of devices invented by the Guard; soul seekers.  The problem was that the only record he could find of them made no mention of location.  And in what felt like an extrodinarily contrived circumstance, the only set of blueprints had been divided into three parts and moved to three serperate locations, doubtless occupied by semi-sentient monsters and booby traps easily solved by an item located somewhere within the ancient temple, ruined fortress, or shadowy tomb. 
Just like old times. 
"But you have the information on how to find the information to just build your own, no doubt hidden away in the sort of place that is only even allowed to exist so that things can be hidden in them.  If I told you that there's a better way would you promise to do something for me?"
Fourteen year old girl with twelve thousand year old mind trying to get him to make an open ended promise, no possible way that could go wrong.  No, there was a better way; he just couldn't ask now.  It was far to risky. 
"I swear it isn't anything wierd.  I just want a fair trade."
"I want to know before I agree to anything, what's the trade?"
"I help you get your body back, you agree to help me grow up."
"Which entails?" 
"Living and travelling in close proximity to each other."  She paused.  Krell had known it would come around to this at some point.  They were already using her ship, living in the same hallway, and she was blatantly flirting with him, albeit very poorly. 
"Hmmn, five hundred year old Lich with a twelve thousand year old fourteen year-old; You don't see something wrong with that?"
"Of course I do, but I happen to like you as a person, not as a collection of bones.  I was rather hoping that one day you might learn to see beyond the fourteen year old girl and see the older wiser woman I really am."
"We've known each other for all of four months and you want me to what, fall in love with you?"
She nodded enthusiastically.  He stood up and turned towards the door.  She'd already beaten him to it, and from the way her hair had been blown, she'd also beaten the air she'd displaced while moving. 
"It's not personal.  But the way the enchantment works, I can only get older if someone is willing to give me years of their own life.  The only way that could be done is either by a very powerful enchantment, such as the one that made me like this in the first place, or the desire to spend your years with someone, i.e. love.  If you love me, really love me, I will get older.  And since we both have all the time in the world, I figure why not just make you travel around with me for a while and hope that it happens somewhere along the way."
It was crazy, but it was clearly better than crawling through a dungeon looking for a scrap of paper.
"Fine, we travel together then.  What's the plan?"
She pulled out a business card.  The script, a flowing black print with capitals shaped out of iron bolts and wires, read simply 'Cystech systems Ultm.  Whatever you direly need, we casually invented several years ago in an effort to cure baldness in Lycanthropes and probably left on a table somewhere.  Mr. & Mrs. Igor Von Gravaga, owners'.