Completed Autumn Within

[Maro]

Autumn Within 80th of Autumn, 514 AV Maro awoke to a chill sweeping down his spine. It wasn’t the typical chill brought on by the cold of mid-autumn. Rather, it was a single, focal area colder than the autumn breezes ever were. The cold stopped just above his waist and disappeared temporarily before beginning again at his neck just beneath the hairline and sweeping back down to his waist. This continued several times but eventually ceased. There was a long pause during which the only cold was that typical of these seasonal mornings until suddenly a cold tingle filled his ear. Maro sat up shaking his head, like a dog might if bothered by a persistent fly. Turning to the other side of the bed, he saw Autumn sitting over him with her finger over his face, ready to stick it in his ear again if he didn’t show signs of waking up. Her face broke into a smile when he looked at her. She laughed. “Finally. I’ve been trying to wake you up for almost an hour.” Maro rolled back over and covered his face with the sheets. “I wish you could have thought of a more pleasant way to do it.” Autumn laughed again, and Maro had to admit he loved the sound. “Oh, you know you liked it.” Maro refused to answer, thinking he would draw this out, but Autumn had other ideas. Sticking her hand through the sheet from the top and through the pillow from the bottom, her fingers found both his ears, and Maro leapt out of bed this time, shaking his head to get the tingling sensation to leave. “What was that for?” “’Cause you wouldn’t get up.” She laughed again, obviously in a playful mood this morning. “Now get up,” she begged him, her voice still full of laughter. She was happier than a child on their birthday giddy for presents. “What’s got you so excited today? The sun’s not even up.” “I know it isn’t, but you know exactly why I’m getting you up. You said today I could teach you more about spiritism.” Maro remembered it and slowly rubbed his eyes. He looked to the table where the supplies for creating Soulmist had already been laid out. She must have moved them while he had slept through the night. Such an act, though simple enough for an ordinary human being, was difficult at best for Autumn to accomplish as a ghost. This must have really meant a lot to her, if she was willing to put so much effort into it. “Alright,” Maro muttered. Normally, he’d be as excited as she was, but he was too tired to have any real feelings about it at the moment. “What do you need me to do?” “Wake up first, Maro.” At least she knew him well enough to give him some time. He looked at her. She was smiling her smile, the one that Maro wished he had because it showed such pure and unfettered joy. Maybe today was something he ought to be excited about as well.

[Maro]

Autumn Within When Maro finally woke up fully, he looked to Autumn. “What do you want me to do?” “I think I’m going to need some Soulmist for what we are going to do today. Do you mind?” Maro shook his head, went to the table, and made a dough with honey, flour, and eggs. Cutting open his palm, he gathered blood in a vial and then trickled the blood into the dough. After mixing it, he washed his hands, wrapped a strip of cloth around the fresh wound in his palm, and tied a knot on the back of his hand, pulling it tight with his teeth. He then stripped and took the bowl of dough and an empty bowl to the center of the open floor in their small home. Sitting cross-legged with the points of his hip bones back, he made sure his posture was good before he took the raw dough and ate it piece by piece. When he was ready, he closed his eyes, meditating on the dough in his gut and the person it was intended for while Autumn began her story. “When the first spiritists had finally been able to give the ghost sustenance, they began to work on ways of making its existence easier. Things that seemed as if they should be simple were not. As had already been seen, the ghost could not interact with physical objects. The only thing it could manage to manipulate was the Soulmist which the spiritists were now making in great abundance for it. “One of the spiritists, wiser and more philosophical than the rest, proposed an idea. The human body was merely a shell for its soul, and ghosts were merely souls without bodies. If space could be made and a host was willing, perhaps the ghost could share the body with its original soul. Much debate went into the idea as many were uncomfortable with someone else sharing and controlling their bodies, but eventually it was decided that it should be tried. “A deep meditation was begun, but nobody understood what to do to open themselves up to the ghost. Few had ever given serious thought to the concept of their body being a vessel, and those who had understood themselves to be water that filled it to the brim. There was no way to make room other than to spill one’s self over the edge, but this was impossible to do. Unlike water that could form droplets and separate from the rest of whatever water it was formed from, the soul was a single piece, an entire entity that did not exist without the rest of itself. Their understanding of the spiritual was still confined to corporeal terms. Still, they continued to try, meditating and walking through the ghost as if their bodies could suddenly snare the spirit, encompass it, and embrace it. “They spent days attempting this with no success, and soon they were forced to stop to eat and regain their strength. What they didn’t realize was that their effort was exactly what was causing their failure. They were trying to reign in the soul with thoughts, but their own desire to control the process was not allowing the ghost to enter them. “It was the exhaustion that came with their efforts and their resignation to their failure that finally allowed the first possession to occur. Disheartened by their failure, the first spiritists seemed inconsolable, and the ghost could not help but feel responsible as it was the one they were doing this all for. Because they could not succeed in helping him, they were downtrodden. The ghost knew this and laid a hand on the shoulder of one. In that instant, the spirit disappeared. None of them knew where the spirit went. Some thought the spirit had passed on, and all of the spiritists mourned together. “It wasn’t until that night that the spiritist who was touched heard the ghost’s voice. He searched for hours on end until finally the ghost told him where to search: within himself. By touching the spiritist while the spiritist was vulnerable, open, and not exercising control, the ghost had entered the human’s body. It was when the spiritist had given up the need to control the situation and when the specter had initiated the touch that the successful sharing of the body had occurred. The spiritist ran to find the others, and they were overjoyed when they heard the news. “It was now understood that possession was something that had to be initiated by the ghost, an action of their own freewill. The first possession had happened, and it was a willing union of two souls in a single body. Those willing to be possessed were much more easily affected by this power than those unwilling.” Maro smiled. He was willing, especially if it was Autumn who would be sharing his body. There was no one he trusted more in the world, and he knew he would be safe even if he wasn’t the one in control. In a beautiful flash of light, he changed into his jackal form and regurgitated the dough into the empty bowl. Every time he attempted the process, it became smoother and smoother. The dough had changed, as it should have, into a softly glowing, white gel. Tilting his head to one side, he watched Autumn as she took the dough in her hands. The excitement in her eyes filled the air, and Maro could feel his own anticipation building. Before she ate the Soulmist, she raised it as if toasting them both and their future endeavor. “To today.”

[Maro]

Autumn Within Refreshed by the Soulmist, Autumn began instructing Maro as to how the possession would occur. First, his mind and soul must be open to the invasion. He had to accept Autumn’s intrusion, essentially invite her in. Secondly, the possession had to be done in a way in which Maro would not know exactly when it was happening. “I never really grasped the concept of possession,” Autumn admitted. “Since I never needed it and never used it, I never got very good at it. As such, I will require this to be done a certain way for the possession to take hold even momentarily.” Maro was hungry for this new experience. “What do you need me to do?” “First and foremost, you must be willing to let me in. Second, you should give up control of the situation. Possessing you must be the choice of the ghost who is doing so. Lastly, I will need you to walk.” “What?” “I need you to walk, Maro. I know it sounds ridiculous, but as I was never good at possession, I found ways to make it easier for myself.” “By having people walk?” Maro was confused and unafraid to admit it. Usually, she made sense, but this was one of her oddest requests to date. “It’s not the walking that does it. It’s the routineness and simplicity of the action. The mind is so at ease, letting the body be controlled by habit more than anything else, that a person can easily be possessed while doing so.” “Really?” Autumn nodded with a smile. “If I possess someone while they are walking, I can continue to make their body walk. The habitual nature of the action puts them at ease and is so easy to mimic that the person possessed doesn’t realize it has happened until they try to stop and are unable to do so.” Maro thought about it a moment and soon saw the genius in the method. The mundane, simple things were those he never thought about when he did them. If someone else were doing them for him, he would never even realize it. He returned Autumn’s smile. “It’s brilliant. Shall we try?” “If you are sure you want to do this.” She took his face between her hands and looked into his eyes. There was a slight concern in the eyes he found searching his own. “Not everyone finds possession particularly pleasant.” He gave her his best, carefree smile. “If it’s you possessing me, I have nothing to worry about.” The concern left her eyes, replaced by a whimsical joy, and Maro realized at that moment how truly beautiful she was. Everything about her, from the curve of her jawline to the way the corners of her lips curled when she smiled, was breath-taking, and he wanted to…. Maro wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. He had never thought about her this way before and wasn’t sure where this was coming from. He was confused but shook his head to clear the thoughts from them. He couldn’t think of her like this. After all, she was…. He wasn’t sure what she was to him and what he was to her. There had never been any solid definition of their relationship. While it had begun as something akin to a mother and her child, it had quickly evolved to something more intricate and complex and, doubtlessly, more beautiful. The love between them existed for more than just necessity’s purpose, and the care each of them felt for the other was something that was a choice and something they gave willingly. Even more confused, Maro shook his head again to try to clear his mind and, when Autumn looked at him curiously for the motion, felt the tips of his ears begin to burn in embarrassment. Luckily, Autumn was sweet enough to not press him when he got embarrassed, and the whole matter was pushed out of his mind, or at least to some corner of it where it wouldn’t distract him. Pushing aside furniture, Maro made a pathway stretching from one wall of their house to the other and leaned with his back against the wall on one end. Closing his eyes, he stilled his mind, opening it to whatever would come, not just opening it but inviting the unknown to happen to him. He opened his eyes and began walking toward the opposite wall. Nothing changed as he walked, and almost to the wall, he decided to turn to the left to avoid a collision. His mind erupted into chaos when his body instead turned to the right. He tried to ask what was going on, but his mouth didn’t open. The hell? he thought to himself. Suddenly, he giggled, but he definitely didn’t feel like laughing, and giggling was generally something he didn’t do. His voice came to him, disturbing him further. “It’s okay, Maro. It worked.” Autumn? It worked? “It most certainly did. Mostly due to your receptiveness, I must add. That’s the easiest it has ever been.” This is odd. He tried to move his arms to no avail. I can’t move at all. “Try to move something,” his own voice instructed him. He attempted to move his foot forward, but somehow, his body ended up stepping backwards, turning around, and walking in the opposite direction. Are you doing all of this? Yes. This time it was Autumn’s voice that answered, and the voice existed only within his mind. I hope it’s not too discomforting for you. Not at all, he replied. It’s almost a relief to not be in charge anymore. He felt his lips curl into a smile but not his normal smile. This must be what Autumn’s smile was like, and she was the one smiling for the both of them right now. Okay, Maro. I want you to try to take control of your body. Push me out. Maro attempted to regain control of his body. He urged his muscles to listen to his command and tried to step across the room. His body never moved. After nearly fifteen chimes of trying, Autumn laughed at him with his own voice. Maybe you were a little too receptive.

[Maro]

Autumn Within “Shall we try this again?” she asked him in his own voice, as if to mock him and maybe spur him into action, but Maro saw her as unable to do any wrong. “You’ll invite me in any time I ask, won’t you?” Yes. Very well, then. We’ll have to figure out another way to get you to learn how to expel a spirit. She responded in his head this time and went silent as she began to think. She went silent so long that when she finally spoke again Maro would have jumped if he had control of his body. Maybe you should try imagining I’m not me. Imagine I’m a stranger and I’ve taken over your body. This was hard to do. He wasn’t a child anymore. He was two and a half, after all, but he knew she knew that. He calmed his mind and set it to the task she had placed before him. Over and over again, he told himself a stranger was in his body, controlling it. Every time he did though, Autumn’s face kept surfacing in his mind, and her beauty distracted him. It’s no use, he told her. I just can’t do it. Maro, I’m not letting you give up on this. We’ll keep trying and experimenting new ways until you get this. You’d better do it soon, too, because you’ll have to go to work eventually, and I hate fishing. He laughed, and she laughed with him, their laughter shared only within the walls of his skull between the two. “In all seriousness, please try, Maro. You’re always open to others, and I don’t want another ghost taking advantage of your kind and gentle nature. I want you to be able to protect yourself and push them out, if ever the occasion should arise that you need to do so.” Of course, I’ll keep trying. Meditation always seemed to be a good way to clear his head and focus him on something. Pushing all his thoughts aside, he imagined his mind was a giant castle, filled with a maze of corridors, and on its throne sat a man who controlled everything that was going on in the fortress. Maro tried to unseat the man, but on his first attempt, he saw Autumn wandering one of the halls and quickly lost focus. But time and time again, he found himself at the throne, trying to usurp the man. Once, he grabbed the man’s arm and hefted him out of the seat. Maro! You moved. Autumn’s sudden intrusion on his thoughts made him lose focus once more. He laughed, told Autumn she was being distracting, and laughed again. He felt his face smiling Autumn’s smile. “At least we know you can do it now.” Yeah. I have one quick request, Maro, before I give your body back. Anything you want. I want to read a story through your eyes. Maro tried to gesture to their books of fairytales, realized he couldn’t, and let Autumn know she was welcome to do as she pleased. They wandered over to the books with an awkward stride. Autumn wasn’t used to a male body or its musculature, and it didn’t walk the way she had remembered her own body walking. Still, they made it to the books, selected one, and lied down on their belly in front of the fire. Autumn thumbed a little clumsily through the pages until she found a favorite of hers. It told of a woman who lived in a tower at the middle of a lake. The lady watched the world outside through its reflection on a mirror in her room. Maro was unsure why Autumn loved it so much, because in the end, the lady died after pursuing a man she had fallen in love with when she had seen his reflection. There was beauty in the tale though, Maro could see that much. Maybe Autumn’s fascination with it stemmed from the lengths the lady of the lake was willing to go to for love. Maro briefly and selflessly wished, for only a moment, that they had never met. It would have meant the love Autumn had found had been true and she could have lived a life of happiness, but it was not so. Love had betrayed her. Her fiancé had killed her, and there was nothing Maro could do to make that fact change. He just wished he could make her happy and make her forget what had happened to her. This brought on another flood of emotions, and Autumn stopped reading. That’s odd. What’s odd, Autumn? This has never happened before when I’ve possessed people. I think I can hear what you’re thinking.

[Maro]

Autumn Within She could hear what he was thinking? That was amazing. And frightening, in more ways than one. Mostly though, it was frightening, because the only thought that seemed to be going through his head at the moment was how beautiful Autumn looked. He had always thought she was beautiful, but this time, there was something different about it. This time it seemed to matter more. Maro couldn’t explain the feeling, but she wasn’t supposed to know he felt this way. He didn’t like this anymore. His thoughts were supposed to be his own; that’s why they were thoughts. But here Autumn was, sharing everything he thought, and there were some things he would rather she didn’t know, at least not yet. He tried to calm his mind and think about something else, something other than how beautiful she was, but his mind would not focus. As dozens of thoughts flooded through his head, only the one kept resurfacing. When Autumn laughed, Maro was certain this brief secret of his had been discovered. He didn’t like her reaction to it either. That he found her beautiful was a comical thing to her hurt him. His fears were put rest though when she spoke. We’re on a black sand beach. I’m in my dress, and you’re a jackal. Maro’s panic subsided. This was a meditation that he often used to calm and focus himself when he was making Soulmist for Autumn. He latched on to that thought and tried to concentrate on it as much as possible. Maybe if she was focused on this meditation of his, she would miss the thought he was so worried about her knowing. He emphasized every detail of the meditation he could. First came the black sand of the beach, the dark grains and the way they felt as they shifted beneath his paws and squished through his toes. This is amazing, Maro. I can see even more detail now. And the sand, I can feel it beneath my feet. Then, there were the boulders that were strewn about the beach, huge gray monoliths trying to withstand the constant onslaught of the patient ocean as it undermined them. Some of these had ended up far beyond the tideline, had escaped the erosive doom their brothers faced. There was, of course, the ocean, sending gentle waves against the sandy shore but filling the air with a briny mist with the waves that crashed against the colossal stones in the water. The sky overhead was overcast, dark gray clouds filling the sky. The storm, far out at sea still, darkened everything, and the lightning that danced erratically through the clouds like drunken revelers was followed by deep rumbling thunder that could be heard above the crash of waves. It’s beautiful. Her tone was awestruck. I can practically taste the salt in the air and smell the rain. Maro himself was there as well, leaping about, the sand spraying from beneath him as his paws struck and kicked to propel him into the air again. The wind whipping off the ocean ruffled his fur that was covered with a fine layer of salty droplets. His thick tail swished about behind him, leaving an odd pattern in the sand whenever it swept low enough. All this combined to create a scene dominated by black and gray and white and brown. Then, there was Autumn. She was materialized in full color. Her white dressed was trimmed with silver and green in dancing floral patterns. Her long reddish-brown hair spilled over her shoulders and down to her waist, tumbling in curls as it went. Above it all though were her eyes, bright blue that would have put the summer skies to shame. And as she threw out a laughing challenge to the threatening storm, the thought he dreaded came. She was beautiful in a way he had never recognized before. Damn it! Her beauty would not be forgotten, and it was the one thing he was trying not to think about. He panicked as he felt Autumn begin to dig through his thoughts. At least, he tried to panic, but as terrified as he felt, his heart was calm, beating as slowly as it would if he were meditating. It was beating for Autumn right now, not himself. The feeling of his thoughts being unearthed was unpleasant, to say the least. He felt as if a million secrets were being brought out into the light for everyone to see and judge him by, though he was certain his secrets only numbered in the dozens. His panic built, and he tried to run away from Autumn before he remembered he didn’t control his own body. Though his thought words needed no breath, he gasped out to Autumn. It was as if his mind understood the panic and translated the emotion into the way he thought. Autumn, let me go. Don’t worry, Maro. Everything’s alright. This time he practically yelled at her, his panic reaching its height. Let me go now! Suddenly, control of his body returned to him, and his heart beat leapt to a rapid patter to match the panic he felt. The sudden sensation of his heart rate going from sixty beats a chime to two hundred hit him like a blow to the gut, and Maro lost his breath. He had collapsed to the ground when his body had become his own again, but he knew he would have fallen when his heart reacted this way. He spent several moments trying to regain his breath, but it would not come. Then, came a frigid touch on his shoulder and his cheek. “Maro, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t think that would hurt you. I didn’t know…” The sound of her voice, hers, coming from her lips outside of his mind, comforted him and calmed him along with her cool contact. He caught his breath and, when he did, began to hyperventilate. This was more frightening than he had expected it to be, and that it was his dearest friend that had caused it only made it worse. Once he had calmed considerably, Autumn left his side, poured him a glass of water, and brought it back in shaking hands. Projection was difficult for her and manipulating the physical world was always a challenge. That she was doing this for him was a sign of how much she cared for him, and it only made her more beautiful. He took the cup from her hand before it could slip out of her grasp and thanked her. They sat in silence for a while, her always with one cold hand on his arm. Autumn spoke after a while. “I’m sorry, Maro. Your thoughts are supposed to be your own and it was wrong of me to go prying through them the way I did. I betrayed the trust you gave me, and I can only beg you to forgive me.” Maro looked into her bright blue eyes. “You know I forgive you. I could never not forgive you.” “Then, I hope you’ll forgive me one more time, because I have to talk to you about one of thoughts I heard while I was in your head.” The look in her eyes said she was displeased. She knew. He was certain of it, but there was nothing he could do to change that, so he nodded to let her know she should continue. He dreaded what she would say and gulped guiltily in anticipation. “It was when I first began to hear your thoughts, Maro. You wished that I had had a different life.” Maro was relieved. His secret was still safe, but he didn’t care about that at the moment. There were tears in her eyes, and his concern was all for her now. “That’s not okay,” she continued. “I wouldn’t trade anything for the life I have had with you. If I had a choice, I would go through my death again and again, just so I could have these few precious years we have already shared.” He wished he could hug her, but she was a spirit. Instead, he used his words to comfort her as best as he could. “You don’t need forgiveness for saying that. I’m happy for the time we’ve had as well, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I don’t ever want you to leave.” She smiled and embraced him, and since he could not return the gesture, he let her hold him as long as she wanted.

[Matthew]

Maro

Experience Points:

• +1 Cooking
• +2 Meditation
• +1 Rhetoric
• +4 Socialization
• +4 Spiritism

Lores:

• Cooking: Basic Dough
• Meditation: Envisioning a Simple Scene
• Story: Legend of the First Spiritists
• Story: The Tower in the Lake
• Socialization: Talking with a Ghost
• Spiritism: The Basics of Allowed Possession
• Spiritism: The Basics of Expelling a Possession

Additional Notes :

This was a rather touching story. It is rare (in my experience) that players weave such a detailed story in a simple training thread. He has quite an interesting relationship with the ghost and it really changes the dynamic of possession utterly and completely. If I could give you extra XP just for moving me with your writing, I would. Well done.

If you have any questions or concerns relevant to your grade, don't be afraid to send me a private message so that we can work it all out! Please remember to mark your Grading Request as Graded.

A shout-out to Ollic Rimesage, who was kind enough to make this template for me.