[Flashback] What Lurks in the Mist (Auldwin)

[Growl]

The woman groaned, as her body sank into Auldwin's mist, and then away from it, over and over again. Her lashes seemed to sink beneath the weight of the rain, as her closed eyelids trembled. As though she were about to stir. And yet... she would not wake. She would not say anything. She merely groaned from time to time, and tried to inch her head away from Auldwin, as though, even in this state, she could sense the cold. The bone-chilling state of his misty form. It seemed, then, that if Auldwin truly wished to rouse her, he would have to try another tactic. Simply nudging her with his soulmist was not enough. Or was it? Maybe he wasn't trying hard enough.

[Auldwin]

"Gah, come on, open your eyes." he hissed at her, watching her flesh move a bit each time his Soulmist moved into her soft skin. He didn't have many other choices in his arsenal of options. Possession was usually a sure thing, but one of the more taxing ways to go about getting the woman on her feet. He knew of one other way to rouse someone from unconsciousness without medicinal aid.

Slowly he let his sight lose focus, as the images around him were distracting. He let his ears become deaf, as the sounds took too much of his attention away. He tried to find a total calmness as he remembered by one thing of his past life. It was not the way he lived, the people he lived with, or even the place he was from, it was simply the image of himself. A physical representation of that body he had lost years ago. If he could keep the image fresh in his mind, perhaps it wasn't so far away after all. Auldwin remember he was not a handsome man. He was built well from a life of unskilled labor. His height was probably just below this womans. His skin was more pale than hers, but still kissed by the son of many occasions, it was also rough and leathery.

Slowly those pieces fell together as his Soulmist swirled in a counter-clockwise circle, connecting at places as if to build a body from scratch. His boots, his pants, his belt, his tunic, his coat, his hair, his mustache, his beard, his face. It was all coming together until the mist had almost completely receded into him, just faint bits slithering out at times like the explosive spots of some great star. Slowly he reached down and placed his hands upon the sides of her neck. It wasn't much, but he found he could at the very least release a prickling static electric jolt by expending some of his own power. "Come on, open your eyes for me. Wake up!" he yelled as he released that energy into her, trying to jump start her senses, starting with that of touch.

[Growl]

The woman moaned. Her eyes fluttered open for but an instant, before closing once more. Far too quickly for her to have caught more than a glimpse of Auldwin, if even that. Perhaps it was for that reason that she had closed her eyes again. Outside of Black Rock, after all, ghosts didn't seem like the most common thing in the world. An everyday sight, a natural occurrence. Perhaps she was afraid. Or convinced she had been imagining things. Perhaps she only closed her eyes in the hopes that when she opened them again, the ghost would be gone. That her vision would have cleared. Or perhaps, that little jolt, much like the nudges of soulmist had not been enough to rouse her. The ghost simply, could not be sure. The woman's eyelids, however, seemed to flutter. As though she were experiencing some sort of bad dream. She groaned a few more times, and then rolled over halfway. "Can it be?" There was a slight pause. "Is it really you?" she whispered, her voice sounding strangely weak and far-off.

[Auldwin]

Auldwin watched carefully, seeing the woman's eyes open just for a moment. In that moment hoped filled him that perhaps he had managed to rouse her to consciousness, but that hope flitted away when her eyes closed again. Auldwin sat on his knees near her in the only way possible for a Ghost, due to managing to Materialize himself as best as he could. In this form he could at the very least interact with the environment, even if he couldn't impact it all that much. He still didn't have mass, but he was solid to some extent.

Another failed cause the Ghost thought to himself. He couldn't even effect the outcome of one woman's life. Being a Ghost truly was punishment, how infuriating. His anger started to well up, immediately focusing on the Gods. Those divine entities that sought to ignore him. Somehow he would show them, one day. Before he could get too dark in his thoughts, the female seemed to come to life once more.

"Is it really me? Yes it's me. Can you sit up? You're in the middle of the Jungle and there's a terrible storm, we've got to get you to some place safer. What happened to you?" he asked. He would have helped her up, but Auldwin knew the limitations of his Soulmist. Even if he projected it with everything he have, the Ghost would be hard pressed to lift a brick or a bucket of water up from the ground. Helping a sizable woman to sit was most likely outside of his realm of ability.

[Growl]

The woman didn't seem to hear Auldwin. She seemed to be lost in her own little world, caught in a place between the conscious, and the unconscious. "But it cannot be you... you're lost to this world," the woman whispered, as her eyes shut more tightly, before opening for another second, and then closing. The woman was clearly lost in-between worlds. If only, Auldwin were a bit louder, perhaps he could rouse her for more than a few seconds at a time. OOCYes, I am being a freakishly annoying mod...

[Auldwin]

Lost to the world? What a strange thing to say. It was true, Auldwin was a Ghost, his body had long been obliterated but as far as he was concerned he was at least existing enough to continue to roam the world as any man or woman might. "Maybe I was, once." he replied a bit hesitantly, his words mostly being drowned out by the storm around them. He was lost. He had always been lost, even when he was alive. The difference between then and now was he was trying desperately to find his way, even if he was death, and he wasn't about to be so easily dissuaded from his path.

Almost like a living person preparing his muscles the Soulmist that made up Auldwin flexed outward for a moment before drawing in, almost as if it was breathing. He needed to focus everything he had. Even if he didn't need to touch an object to effect it with his Soulmist he had to combine every step he had learned to attempt to enhance it's power as far as he could. With his form solidified as much as he could muster with Materialization he put both hands upon her shoulders while kneeling at her side, he paused for a moment, as if preparing himself for the influx of discontentment he was about to experience.

A Ghosts existence was sad indeed. As far as the physical experiences of a Ghost went, there were only two feelings. The euphoria in consuming strong Soulmist, and the pain that came from doing nearly everything else. "If you don't want to lose yourself, you need to get up!" His touch was cold, it intermingled with the rain as it fell. Suddenly mist flowed rapidly down his arms, causing other bits of his body to lose some of their tangibility as he focused on lifting her, her weight typically being vastly outside of his lifting capacity. Perhaps it was possible to exceed that limit? Being a Ghost was mainly limited by ones own willpower.

"Come on!" he yelled now, pain wracking through his body as his Soulmist shredded away, burning at an accelerated rate as he attempting to go beyond his own supernatural boundaries. If that mist did direct him here. If this was a test for him, he was not about to fail, pain or not. The pain touched every part that existed within him. It could not be regulated to just one muscle as if he were Human, but despite that he still gave it everything he had, "Shake it off! Open your eyes! Follow my voice!"

[Growl]

The woman trembled beneath Auldwin's touch. "You're just as cold as the rain," she whispered, as she opened her eyes. She looked weak, frail somehow, despite her height, her stature. "But then again, you're a ghost. Your embrace is supposed to be as such, cold as Dira's death." She sat up a little, slowly, so as not to make herself dizzy. Her head hurt. She was cold. She shivered, her teeth chattering a little as her hair clung to her flesh, much as her clothes. She shook her head lightly. "Aren't you a bit far from Black Rock..." Auldwin had yet to offer the mysterious woman his name. She was searching for it, upon a thread of invisible air. "Ssayerari," she whispered. "But you may call me Ari... anyway, as you said, or at least, I think you said it... I should get out of here. It's not safe here... especially for those who speak so loudly."

[Auldwin]

This woman, there was something about her. Something strange, and that was quite an assumption coming from a Ghost. She seemed to know exactly what Auldwin was, but showed no overt fear against him. He had seen the full slew of reactions caused by the presence of a Ghost, fear and confusion being the most common. When someone simply interacted with him as if he was just another person it somehow made him feel more real. "I'd rather it not be, but I suppose these days I don't get much say in the matter." he replied to her as she commented on his frozen touch. Dira's embrace certainly had a way of making death a hardship as a Ghost.

She was taking things well though, and that was good enough for him. There was a certain triumph in his interaction with her, perhaps it was the illusion of making a difference in something, anything. "Am I? I'm not the best judge of distance. That place is rather bleak, after all, I'd prefer to see what the rest of the world has to offer. Around here it seems you mostly enjoy rain and dangerous spots of nature."

Finally Auldwin got the chance to relax. Now that she was at the very least awake his Soulmist shuttered for a moment, his opaque form suddenly gaining it's previous transparency. After that he felt weakened, just like her. Materialization and Soulmist Projection in combination appeared to be quite taxing. "I'm Auldwin. I didn't think I'd find anyone in this maze of trees and vines. Where is it you're going to? I can't imagine who would live willingly in this place, but perhaps I spent too much time in Syliras during my time alive." Auldwin had so many questions, some were for her, some were for himself. Who was this Ari? What was she doing all the way out here? The Ghost couldn't help but ponder, why did he care so much? Was he trying for some sort of redemption? Some kind of demonstraton that his existence still mattered, if not to the gods than to himself?

[Growl]

"You'd be sssssurprised Auldwin, many people lurk in the treessss, and other placessss within this jungle. Placessss you'd never think to look," Ari commented, as she eased herself onto her feet. Some of her bones cracked, as she groaned with the effort. Steadying herself on the tree beside her when the need presented itself. Ari's chest was rising and falling all the more rapidly now, as her heart began to beat a little faster. Her head spun, but only a little. Mainly, her vision was somewhat blurry solely because of the weather. "Many groupssss of people live here, or around here," Ari went on. "But not me. I come from a place called Zinrah... I am headed there right now. It ssssshouldn't be far, and it sssshould be over there," Ari pointed, towards the right. "Although, it issss a bit difficult to tell in this sssort of nassssty weather." The woman shuddered several more times, her teeth still chattering. "Thisssss cursssed rain will make it difficult to get back home," she finished, with a nervous glance back up at the sky, and then out in every which direction, as though she were looking for something. Anything, that may spring out at her from the line of trees.

[Auldwin]

"They do...?" he wondered idly. Slowly his eyes elevated upward, then to the sides, his body turning slightly, floating softly in place before righting himself into what would appear to be a standing position. He didn't see anyone else. At least not right now. There was still so much of the world he had yet to see, so many places he had yet to go. Just wandering around that enormous chunk of land was teaching him new things.

One thing he was being taught was the feeling of being out of place. Something didn't seem right. When Ari spoke of a place called Zinrah, Auldwin had absolutely no recollection of any such place. Perhaps it was a very small village? "Zinrah? I've never heard of such a place, but this is my first time being so far West." Seeing something new couldn't hurt, could it? Those thoughts crossed his mind, just another new settlement of people to observe. Most likely nothing particular for someone dead like he to learn, but still an experience he would not have had otherwise.

"Well...I'll stay with you until you get there. Lets move, there's no way to tell when the weather in this place will get better or worse." Auldwin floated over toward the direction the woman had pointed, struggling to see any discernible path, "I think navigating in here would be difficult even without the rain." Auldwin took a moment, giving pause to the way the woman was emphasizing her 's' words, keeping the 'sss' sound flowing when normally with a typical Human it would have been cut short. Was it just the cold causing such a speech impediment? "There's not much for a Ghost around here, is there? I thought Black Rock would have all the answers. Seems I just ended up with more things to ask questions about."