A Lesson of the Soul

by **Maro** on September 13th, 2014, 9:20 pm

10th of Autumn, 514 AV

Maro woke to the cool morning air of early autumn. Slowly, he opened his eyes to the gentle light that was pouring through the open window of his small, white marble home. The day felt perfect, just cool enough to add comfort but not so cool as to be chilly. Rolling over, he faced the other side of the bed. Though he could see no one there, he knew it wasn’t empty.

“Autumn?” He knew she was there. She always was.

A shimmer darted through the air over the sheets on the empty side of the bed like a hummingbird moving from flower to flower. With the slow build of the growing light of a rising sun, a ghost materialized, lying down facing him with her eyes closed. She was beautiful, long hair spilling over her shoulders and arms, hands clasped beneath her head to give her something soft to rest upon. Her entire body was shadowed in a sepia tone, masking some of the details of her body as it swept farther down.

A smile spread across her lips, and her eyes blossomed open. They were the only part of her that had any color, and they were breath-taking to behold. As light a blue as graced the clearest of summer skies, they carried her hope and her kindness in them as well as a great weight that could only have stemmed from the tragedy she had experienced in life. She blinked several times, as if the light coming through the window was too bright for her waking eyes.

She stopped blinking and locked gazes with him. “Maro.” Her face brightened when she said his name. “Good morning. How did you sleep?”

Maro rolled over on his stomach and, with his arms extended, stretched backward like a dog rising from an afternoon nap. He groaned as his tensed muscles slowly released. “Wonderfully. How about you?”

She rolled over and imitated his stretch. “The same.”

Staring at her, he cocked his head to the side, something he always did when curious or pondering something. He couldn’t believe that he had lived with her for the past two years and had never asked her this question, that it had never even surfaced in his mind. “Do you actually sleep?”

Autumn smiled but looked away. “Of course, I do.”

Maro cocked his head in the other direction. He didn't believe her. “Do you?”

She met his gaze again and shook her head once. “No. Not since I died. There’s no need.”

“So what do you do at night?”

Autumn shrugged. “Nothing. I just wait for you to wake up.”

“I’m sorry.” Maro felt a sudden shame that he had never queried this before.

Autumn smiled and shook her head. “Don’t be. It’s not something that concerns you. Besides, I find ways to keep myself entertained.”

“Like what?”

“I dream, Maro.”

He squinted his eyes into a gentle glare. “You just told me you don’t sleep. How could you dream?”

She reached out and set a hand on his shoulder. A cold tingle spread from where her hand rested against his skin. While most would find such a touch discomforting, Maro had always found it familiar. “I imagine I’m sleeping, and when I do, I always give myself the best dreams. It is a gift that the living could only hope for. I never have nightmares.”

This answer was satisfactory. The glare left Maro’s face, and he smiled. “What did you dream about last night?”

“I dreamt of the day I met you. You were so small.”

Maro laughed. “I’m still small.”

It was true. He had never been very big. In fact, he was shorter than most people and scrawny as well, but this had never stopped him from doing anything he wanted. He wasn’t much afraid of anything, and the bad combination of his courage and not having the body to back it up had gotten him in trouble a few times.

Autumn laughed with him. “I also dreamt of today and all the things it would hold for us.”

“And what things would that be?”

Autumn took on an air of mock offense. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.”

It took him a moment, because Maro had forgotten. He soon remembered though and shivered in excitement. Autumn had told him of a form of magic she had dabbled in during her life and had promised she would teach him. The day before she had had him buy a long list of supplies, including a plethora of glass vials and several different foods. The magic was spiritism, and it would serve them both well and make their interactions far easier.

Today, he was going to learn something new.

by **Maro** on September 15th, 2014, 5:28 am

A Lesson of the Soul

Maro sat patiently at the table amidst the ingredients and tools Autumn had had him buy. There was a bag of flour, eggs fresh from the market, a jar of honey, a knife, and several vials to store things in. One thing had been made clear when he was searching for an appropriate knife; it had to be made of glass of one sort or another. Having a sharper edge would make the entire process much easier, and nothing was sharper than glass. To this end, Maro had managed to find an obsidian knife among the wares that the Svefra were selling.

Autumn looked over his supplies and gave a single, satisfied nod. “Good. It looks like you have everything. Shall we begin?”

Maro nodded eagerly, sitting forward in his chair, locking eyes with Autumn, and awaiting her instruction. His heart was beating rapidly in his chest, as it always did when he was about to learn something new. He could feel a heat in the tips of his oversized ears, a sign that he was also fearful he would fail. Usually, he learned by watching first, but without a physical and astral body, Autumn would not be able to demonstrate the skill for him. She could only walk him through this first attempt.

Autumn smiled at Maro and began her explanation of how the odd and ancient magical art worked. “Spiritism is as old as ghosts themselves. Since the first person died and decided not to continue on to the afterlife, spiritism has existed. People wanted to understand the spirits that stayed, to help them and keep them in check. They were frightened of apparitions, of what it could mean that the cycle of life and death they had so long understood no longer functioned with these spirits. But even more than they were frightened, they were curious.”

She reached out and slid her hand over Maro’s cheek. The same cold tingle that always accompanied her touch spread across the one side of his face, chilling his brow and settling the heat in the tip of the one ear. He smiled back, knowing she was comparing his curiosity to the brave inquisitiveness of these long-passed explorers of the world of spiritism.

Autumn went on. “The first spiritists questioned the first ghost for days on end, forsaking food because the ghost had nothing to eat. They wished to have no commodity that was not afforded to the apparition before them. They strived to understand why the spirit had stayed and made great progress through the first three days, but their strength began to fade from the lack of sustenance, just as the light that seemed to make up the ghost faded slowly until it was barely visible. The ghost feared its own end but had compassion for those who had shown compassion for it and urged them to eat, to continue living, and to tell others of its story.

“The spiritists obeyed and consumed what they had on hand. It was not much, flour and egg and honey, and they had nothing to cook it with. Their fire had long ago burned out, so they made a raw dough from the supplies and ate it. As the food returned their strength, they continued to question the ghost to learn as much from it before it faded to nothing. However, one of the spiritists could not keep the raw dough down. He vomited, but what came back up was not what had gone down. The dough had become a white, glowing gel, and it didn’t take long for the spiritists to realize that the gel was a result of focusing on the ghost and of the pureness of their thoughts and intentions.

“The ghost itself showed interest in the gel. Something about it called to the spirit. Something about it seemed relevant to the ghost, and it held its hand out hesitantly toward the substance. The ghost looked to the spiritist, the question if he could investigate the gel evident on its face, and the first spiritist nodded. The ghost picked up the gel, the first physical thing it had been able to move since its arrival, since its death. Together, the ghost and the spiritists ate, and the spiritists then understood what the gel was. It was a part of them, a part of their soul, a part useful to ghosts, and over the years, they passed on their trade to anyone willing to listen.

“Or at least, that’s the story I was told.”

Maro watched her as she spoke, completely transfixed by her story. Whenever she told fairytales, they seemed so real, so much like they were fact, and Maro never doubted them. This time though, he would become a continuation of the story, the next chapter of the fairytale.

by **Maro** on September 17th, 2014, 4:33 am

A Lesson of the Soul

Autumn’s story came to a close, and she had Maro’s undivided attention. This was one of her favorite ways to teach him: begin with a story to captivate him and, once he was hers, teach him the important parts of whatever they were discussing that day. And because her stories were so great and because she was the one telling them, it worked. Maro learned best this way, though he was a quick learner, regardless of how he was taught.

“Let’s begin.” Autumn pointed to one of the glass vials. “Get a few vials ready. Then get your knife.”

Maro quickly pulled three vials toward him, unscrewed their lids, and set them in front of him. Reaching across the table, he picked up the knife from where it was sitting in front of Autumn. It was a good knife, knapped from a single hunk of obsidian, the chipped blade running flawlessly into the smooth black handle. Holding it up, Maro inspected its edge.

“What you are going to do now is one of the less pleasant parts of the whole process. You need to draw the knife across your palm and draw blood. Once you do, you need to fill the vials.”

Maro’s eyes widened. “You want me to stab myself?”

Autumn laughed. “Not stab, just slice. A glass knife is so sharp you will barely feel the initial cut.”

Maro looked at the knife hesitantly. If there was one thing Autumn was right about, it was that this would not be pleasant. He looked back up to her, and she met his eyes gently. “I don’t know about this.”

“Trust me, Maro.”

His hesitance was still clear on his face.

“Please. I wouldn’t tell you to do anything that I knew would hurt you. Trust me.”

Blood flooded his ears, making them burn in shame that she had had to ask him to trust her. “Of course, I trust you. I’m sorry I made you ask.”

“I’m not. It shows you grew up smart, just the way I raised you to be. Shall we continue?”

“Let’s.” Maro wasn’t sure how she did it, but everything she said came out as a compliment, and she could turn any bad situation good. He set the knife against his palm and wrapped his fingers around the double-edged blade.

“Woah, woah, woah!” Her sudden exclamation stopped him, and she set her hands on his. “Don’t do it that way. You’ll slice your fingers open, and that will hurt.”

He followed her guidance, and she uncurled his fingers, lying his palm open and flat so the skin was stretched lightly.

She continued to instruct him. “Don’t cut too deep. All you need to do is make it through the skin. You don’t want to cut any musculature or tendons though.”

Maro nodded and readied himself. Taking a deep breath, he slipped the knife quickly across his open hand. Autumn was right; it didn’t hurt at all. That, or he had pulled the blade up and missed his hand completely. He looked at his hand and could see no mark where the knife may have cut. Spreading his palm open as wide as he could, he watched in amazement as his palm suddenly split open from one side to the other and a pool of blood filled the valley between the skin. Tightening his hand into a fist, he held it over the vials. The blood was dripping freely from his hand, and the three vials were soon full.

Earlier, he had cut up a sheet into strips, and Autumn was now holding one of these out. Wiping his hand on a clean towel, Maro held his hand out to her. This was a sign of how much she cared for him. While she was great at materializing, projection was something she had never grasped very well and was extremely taxing for her to attempt. That she would offer to do this for him meant the world to Maro, and he accepted her kindness without question. With the scrap trembling in her hands and sometimes falling through them, Autumn managed to wrap the scrap around his hand twice before she readied herself to tie the knot. Her focus never broke the entire time, and though the ends of the cloth kept slipping away from her, she never appeared frustrated or angry. Every so often, he would offer his finger to help hold something in place, and she would smile her thanks and continue on with what she was doing. Soon, he had a tight bandage with a snug double knot at the back of his hand.

“Thank you, Autumn. Shall we go on to the next part?”

“Eager? I’m glad. The next part is the dough. The most essential part of the dough is that it is created by the mixture of at least three foods, all from a different source.”

Maro took stock of the ingredients before him. “Hence, the honey, the flour, and eggs.”

“Precisely. Now, many people will tell you that an exact recipe is required for the creation of Soulmist to work.”

Maro leaned in, ready to hear what the secret of the recipe was.

Autumn shook her head. “It’s lies, complete shit. I’ve never heard anything more ridiculous in my life.”

Maro shook his head, immediately clearing the notion of a perfect recipe from his head. “What is required, then?”

“Nothing more than your soul, your intentions, and your focus. The dough is simply a medium for your soul to make its art with.” She placed her hand over his heart. “You are the key to the creation of Soulmist. It does not work without you. It is a piece of you, and the dough is merely the vessel.”

Maro smiled. “All I need to do is make a dough then? I think I can handle this part on my own.”

Taking the bag of flour, he dumped a significant pile into the bottom of one the mixing bowls. Three eggs were cracked open on the lip of the bowl and added, and finally, the jar of honey was opened and drizzled across the top. Looking at the mixture and deciding it was too dry, Maro took some water from the pot over the fire, trickled it in until he was satisfied, and mixed the dough with a large wooden spoon until it all held the same consistency.

Pulling up a fist-sized lump of the dough, he looked to Autumn. “What now?”

“Now, you add a vial of the blood and mix it thoroughly. We want it spread through the entirety of the dough.”

Dropping the dough onto the tabletop, he opened a vial and trickled its contents into the hollow portion he had made with his fist. The blood was already beginning to clot, but Maro mixed it in quickly, kneading the dough until he was satisfied that the blood was spread throughout.

“Does it look good?” He sought as much praise from her as he could get. Something about it seemed more precious than any riches the world could offer.

Having already been watching the entire time, Autumn nodded. “It’s perfect. Now, you need to eat it, just like the first spiritists did. Without cooking it. This is essential. Cooking will destroy what little life these ingredients still contain, and your soul will know that and not lend itself to imbuing the dough with its life.”

Maro picked up the dough in his hands, pulled off a bite-sized piece, and put it in his mouth.

by **Maro** on September 19th, 2014, 5:07 am

A Lesson of the Soul

The dough was sweet in Maro’s mouth, the honey overpowering any of the other contents. Immediately, saliva built up, making the dough even soggier and easier to swallow. Quickly, he made his way through the entire ball, knowing that the consumption of the dough was one of the least important parts. When he swallowed the final piece, he finally realized how heavy the food was in his stomach. It felt like a weight in the pit of him and made him uncomfortable.

“What now?”

She sat down cross-legged on the floor with a foot over each knee and patted the ground next to her. “Sit.”

He did as he was told and, with his knees out in front of him, sat between his ankles.

“Are you comfortable?”

Meditation. Maro recognized instantly what Autumn was guiding him to do. His comfort was one of her interests in their meditation sessions. This was always her first question when they began. He let her know he was with a nod. On a deep inhale, Maro extended his spine, sitting tall and regal. Lifting himself slightly with his hands, he scooted his butt backward, setting his hip bones farther back and deepening the bend in the bottom of his spine.

Lifting herself, Autumn swung herself around so she was sitting facing Maro from the side. She inspected his posture, sliding her hand down the length of his spine to ensure it had the right curve.

“Good. Now, close your eyes and let the air flow into your body, filling first your chest, then sinking deep into your core, and finally flooding your limbs to the very tips of your fingers and toes.”

As his chest flared open, Maro felt his ribs separate and his spine lengthen even more. His abdomen expanded, rounding extensively and giving his skinny frame an odd silhouette. Imagining the air flowing rapidly into his arms at the end of his inhale, he marveled at the tingle that followed it along.

“Now, let the breath leave you, flowing out through holes that are now appearing in the soles of your feet and the palms of your hands.”

Maro let his abdomen sink in on itself, pushing the air from his body. Imaginary holes erupted through the bottom of his feet, and the air rushed free, tickling the skin around them. His toes curled in at the sensation, and his thumbs twitched inward to scratch at the itch. As the thumb on his left hand twitched, the cut across his palm was scrunched together, and a twinge of pain shot along its edges. It was the first time it had hurt, and that caught him off guard.

He flexed his hand as tightly as he could, and slowly the pain subsided. Autumn saw the reaction and addressed it straight away. Sliding across the ground so she was sitting in front of him, she reached out and set both of her hands in his upturned palms. “Your body hurts. Acknowledge that. Think of nothing but that. It is there, in the very palm of your hand. Pain. Hold tight to it with your mind. Recognize it. Acknowledge it. Now let it go. It is inconsequential.”

The cold of her touch along with her omnipresent guidance calmed him, and over the next several chimes, he let the pain go. It wasn’t as simple as Autumn made it sound. The acknowledgement had to be made multiple times, and it seemed that as many times as he released the pain it returned to make him begin the process again. It happened near a dozen times before he managed to keep it from his mind, though it seemed to threaten at the edge of his consciousness as he continued his meditation.

Autumn’s voice was a constant companion through his meditation, and as they moved deeper into the meditation, he lost all track of time. After what seemed like only a few chimes, she brought him back to an awareness of the moment and the world around him. He must have fallen asleep, because the sun was no longer pouring in through the eastern windows.

“Come back slowly to the present. Acknowledge the moment. Hear the sounds about you.”

There were sounds of three ghost children playing together with several of the living youngsters on the street outside.

“Feel your body. Notice any stiffness or pain and any pleasant sensations as well.”

His spine had slumped during his meditation, and a dull ache was pulsing in his lower back. Also, his return to his body was greeted by the sharp pain of the cut across his palm.

“Open your eyes and take in everything you see.”

He did as she asked and was greeted by the singular most beautiful vision in the whole of Mizahar. Autumn was staring into his eyes, the corners of her lips pulled almost unnoticeably back into a soft smile. Her hair was spilling over her shoulders, and her bright blue eyes were shedding any barrier he could put up to look into his soul. The soft angles of her face seemed even gentler with the calm that reigned over her every feature.

Her hands were still in his, and the cool built until his hands felt almost frozen. This was his comfort.

“Now comes the last part, the least pleasant part, the part where we find out if you were successful.”

“What do I do?”

“Like the first spiritist, you must bring the dough back up.”

“How do I do that?”

Autumn shrugged. “It’s not very pleasant, but it’s the only way I ever figured out how to do it. I stuck my finger down my throat.”

“Just like that?”

Autumn smiled. “It works much more quickly than you would think.”

Maro shrugged, opened his mouth as wide as he could, and stuck his finger into the back of his mouth. Luckily, Autumn was prepared and had brought down an empty mixing bowl from the table. As soon as his finger hit the flesh at the top of his throat, his stomach clenched powerfully, and his esophagus widened, starting at the depths of his stomach. His stomach clenched again, stronger and longer this time, and the contents of his stomach cannoned up through his mouth and out into the bowl. Burning worse than the cut in his palm, his stomach acid burned his mouth and the back of his nose. Vomiting had cut off his air, and as he tried to take a breath, he vomited again, emptying the rest of his stomach contents into the bowl.

A cup full of water was sitting next to him. “Go ahead and rinse,” Autumn told him. “Then we’ll try again.”

by **Maro** on September 21st, 2014, 12:18 am

A Lesson of the Soul

His ears were burning bright red now as he washed his vomit out of the mixing bowl. Not only was retching in front of Autumn embarrassing enough by itself, but he had also managed to fail. It was vomit that had come out of his stomach, not Soulmist, and he felt ashamed that he had not impressed Autumn by completing his task the first time. She was waiting on the floor where she had been the whole time, still practicing her yoga and her meditation.

She called to him. “Maro. I’m sure the bowl is clean enough now. It’s time to try again.”

“I don’t know if I want to try again.”

“Maro.” She didn’t need to say anything else; her tone said it all. Frustration was something she could understand, but giving up, abandoning an endeavor, was something she would absolutely not stand for. With her single word, she had chastised him and let him know she felt disappointed in him.

He felt a weight in the pit of his stomach, one heavier than the dough. Shame. Ultimate shame, one far purer than his mere embarrassment. He had let her down and forsaken one of the greatest lessons she had ever taught him.

It wasn’t something so simple and naïve as “Never give up.” Only fools thought that way. There were some obstacles that people were never meant to surmount, and to ruin oneself and to destroy one’s life only to be left with nothing to show for it was not the mark of a smart man. So rather than teach him to never give up, Autumn taught him that a wise man always knew when it was time to quit.

By acting how he had, Maro had traded wisdom for fear. He hadn’t even bothered to think about the benefits and consequences of continuing; he had abandoned the task due solely to his embarrassment. Taking a deep breath, Maro knew that he had never intended to quit this; he had just needed Autumn to remind him of that.

He turned back toward her and hated the look she gave him. Her smile was gone, and her calm, loving eyes were filled with judgment and condescension. Though it was something inconsistent with her character and her beliefs, Maro didn’t blame her. He had faltered and deserved her righteous indignation.

“Sorry. What do I need to do?”

There was a moment of hesitation, and then the smile cracked across her lips again. Her eyes softened and brightened, and he knew he had regained her favor. “Think, Maro. I’ve already taught you this part. You know what to do.”

Maro went through the process in his mind and soon found the answer. “I need to mix more blood into another lump of dough.”

Not even waiting for her affirmation, he started into the process again. As he tipped the vial toward the divot in the dough, it plopped out in one congealed lump. “It’s coagulated. I’ll do my best to mix it, but we’ll have to figure out some way of keeping this fresh in the future.”

As Maro kneaded the dough and mixed in the blood, Autumn offered an idea for a solution. “I’m sure there are some herbs that will keep the blood from clotting. You should go to the Apothecary and ask Mortimer tomorrow. I’m sure he’ll know of something that will work.”

Maro nodded and, having finished with the dough, ate it. Walking back over to where Autumn was sitting on the ground, he sat down once again with his knees in front and his butt between his ankles. Once his posture was proper, Autumn started him into meditation again. This time, though, she started with the pain in his hands.

“Acknowledge the pain you feel.”

Maybe it was that he was getting better at meditation or maybe the pain in his palm had just subsided enough on its own, but before Autumn even told him to release it, he had.

To counter the slump that he had encountered in his earlier meditation attempt, Autumn gave him a new method to keep his body aligned as it should be. “Imagine now that you have a string attached to the back of the roof of your mouth. This string runs straight up through the top of your head, and somewhere far above, someone is pulling lightly with just enough tension that your head feels constantly afloat. Your head will never drop, but you are not the one who must hold it up.

A grin tugged at the edges of Maro's lips as his brain tingled at the thought of something running through it. Clean and painless, an imagined hole formed in his skull where the string exited and ascended into the heavens.

“Now, focus on your breath. Let the air fill you….”

The meditation moved deep into the next bell, and Maro was pleased with how well it was going until he began to realize how hungry he was. He had had no food since an early dinner the day before and had vomited up the last thing he had put in his stomach. Now, the heavy ball of dough in his gut was beginning to feel less and less uncomfortable and more like a meal. All of his thoughts of hunger and food made him salivate.

Autumn’s voice lost the airy tone it always carried when she was guiding a meditation. Her hand came up to his cheek and swept across the corner of his mouth. “Maro, you’re drooling.”

She sighed. “I’m glad you’re focusing on the dough, but right now, you’re focusing on it the wrong way. It’s not food. Remember that for the next time. Open your eyes.”

“But we haven’t been meditating near as long this time,” Maro objected.

“It’s not going to work. You lost sight of what the dough was supposed to become. The purity of your intentions was broken.”

Maro opened his eyes, and the bowl was resting in front of him.

Autumn gestured to the bowl. “Bring it back up. Then we’ll try it again.”

Maro glared at the bowl, sending it his every ill intention. This was definitely more unpleasant than the knife.

by **Maro** on September 21st, 2014, 10:08 pm

A Lesson of the Soul

That had gone terribly. His abs were already beginning to hurt from vomiting, and he had only done it twice. This last time around had been rougher than the first though. Something about the act of retching told his body to retch more, and the cycle just kept on repeating and building on itself until he was doing nothing but dry heaving.

Autumn looked at him with some concern. “I’m sorry, Maro. Are you alright?”

Maro rinsed his mouth and spat into the mixing bowl which now reeked of bile. “I’m fine. Or at least I’ll survive.” He set the cup down on the table. “We have one more vial of blood. Let’s do this.”

Autumn beamed in pride at Maro, knowing she was the reason he had grown up as determined as he was. Maro mixed the last vial of blood into the remainder of the dough and ate it.

This time when he sat down, Autumn began him a different way yet again. “Forget the pain. Don’t think of the dough as a food. Focus on the task at hand. I understand that it’s not easy, but if you put your mind to it, I know you’ll get this.”

Maro watched as Autumn’s long hair was suddenly given color, the color it must have had in life. It was rare that she did this, because this part of materialization was taxing on her as well. Her waist-long hair was a light brown that had a red sheen to it when the light struck it right.

“Just focus.”

This time his pain and his hunger were never even on his mind. The string appeared without Autumn having to mention it, and Maro felt as if he was floating in the air. The air flowed into his chest, expanding his ribcage and flaring his stomach. Like water in a vase, his breath filled every part of him from his toes to the top of his head. As his diaphragm relaxed and his abdomen tightened, the air leaked out from the tips of his fingers and the soles of his feet. All this time, Maro’s concentration never wavered from the dough, but this time, he thought not of what it was but what it could be. He thought of himself, his soul, and the part of it he would be giving. Above all, though, he thought of who he would be giving it to. He thought of Autumn, and his minded rested in the comfort of that thought.

It took Autumn several attempts to finally bring him back to awareness of the present moment. Maro opened his eyes and realized that the sun was beginning to set. He blinked in surprise.

“Welcome back. You looked like you went somewhere.”

Maro laughed. It felt good to laugh, as if the laughter was a final act of cleansing his soul and purifying his mind. “No. I was just focusing on the outcome, what I wanted it to be anyhow.”

“Well, you know what you need to do. It’s the last bit before the task is finished. Then we’ll see how well we did.”

Maro stood up. “I actually have an idea about how I could make this easier on myself.”

Grabbing the bottom of his shirt, he pulled it off over his head.

“Maro!” Autumn acted shocked. “Have some decency. I might be dead, but I’m still a lady.”

“You? A lady? Hardly.”

Autumn feigned she was insulted but didn’t object anymore. The only reason he understood clothing was because Autumn had said it was necessary. His animal instincts felt much more comfortable without clothes, but for her sake and the sake of public decency, he wore them.

“Trust me this time, Autumn. I’ll be decent soon. You can turn around if you like.”

She didn’t, proving his earlier point on the question of whether or not she was a lady. As soon as he was naked, Maro made the change to his Kelvic form. There was a flash of light, and Maro was sitting on the ground in front of Autumn as a jackal.

He had felt the instincts kick in every time he made the change to his animal form. Many of them had become useful shortly after their discovery. This one’s purpose though had eluded him. It was a parental instinct, that much he was certain of, and though he had no children, he did have someone to feed. The instinct was a simple one: eat something and hold it in one’s stomach until they reached the pup that was to receive the meal. Then, the food was regurgitated.

Maro tapped this instinct and regurgitated his stomach contents. It was much smoother as a jackal than it had been as a human. Looking down at what had come up, Maro tilted his jackal head to one side and stared. It was beautiful, a white gel that glowed slightly.

Maro changed again and smiled at Autumn. “What do you think? How’d I do?”

Autumn smiled and picked up the gel in her hands. “You succeeded. Well done. May I?”

“Do you even need to ask?”

She smiled and stuck the gel in her mouth. Coughing, she pursed her lips and made a face.

Maro was concerned about his final product now. “Is it that bad?”

An apologetic smile broke across Autumn’s face. “I’m sorry. I should be complimenting you for your success, but it is kind of bad.”

Maro frowned.

“Don’t beat yourself up over it. Nobody makes good Soulmist their first time. It’ll get better as you practice though. Thank you for making this for me.”

“You’re welcome. I think I’m going to get some food and join you.”

The two sat, eating on the floor and talking late into the night. Leth’s glory filtered in through the window, the full moon just beginning to wane. Both enjoyed their meals, as simple as both meals were, and Autumn, invigorated by the Soulmist, let color flood her entire self, showing the delicate green patterns that swept across the white dress she always materialized herself in. When the exhaustion of the day finally hit Maro, he wandered over to the bed, pulled out a book of fairytales, and read one to Autumn before falling asleep with the book still in his hands.