The Crawling Sickness

[Madeira Dusk]

Both Maro and herself, streaked in mud and faces contorted in anger, faced off against each other like they were going to war. Their weapons were their words. Hers had found their mark, she could see it in his eyes. He was furious and hurt and embarrassed. The tops of his ears burned with shame and his curious green eyes were narrow slits of rage. For the first time she could see something in him that was not quite human. Something more primal tempered with a human soul. He opened his mouth to retort and she could see the flash of teeth that were just a bit too long.
 
Even so, she didn't fear he would attack her. Not physically, anyway. He wanted to. She could see it in the knot of his fist. He wouldn't because he was kind. Kinder than she deserved. But he was also wrong. So bitterly, hatefully wrong. And she wasn't going to move on until she had etched it into his soul.
 
Suddenly Autumn drifted between the two, her hand on her companions shoulder. The tenseness he dropped in the face of his friend, Madeira picked up tenfold. She waited for the woman's previous rage to come back in force, and braced herself for the attack she knew was coming
 
But it never did.
 
Autumn spoke with a kind of suffering so complete it could be mistaken for calm. There was a weariness in her soul that moved with the current of her soulmist. And all at once Madeira was ashamed. When did she move on from saving the dead to attacking the living? He wasn't the problem, as grievously misinformed as he was. He was the easy solution, not the only solution. And if she could look past herself and be as tough and as brave as she needed to be, she need not push the man past the barrier of decency set by his own mother figure.
 
The ghost asked that Madeira save her hate for her, for raising Maro as she did. And the Spiritist, coward that she was, looked away so as not to suffer her gaze. 
 
When Autumn turned back to Maro, Madeira watched the dynamic between the two. With a touch and a few words the rage left him in a gust of air and unknotted muscles. Mother or not, they loved and trusted each other in a way Madeira could not comprehend. The man then approached her himself, and agreed to help, with a condition that Madeira found hard to swallow. But swallow she did. Her hope was back in the glimmer of her eye. But it was weak and guarded, waiting for the moment he again decided to snatch it away.
 
"Thank you." She held out a stiff hand to shake. "You are wrong, and stubborn, and I'm not sure I like you. But you are brave and kind and chosen. And I'd be... And I appreciate your help. Djamila will too." Her resentment was not so easily let go as his, but she made the effort to put it aside. She really did need his help, she might as well be appreciative for it.
 
"Lead the way", she stepped aside and motioned with her hand. The beach was long, and full of secret caves and tide pools and hidden crevasses. Madeira had no idea where to even start looking.

[Maro]

“Thank you.” Gratitude wasn’t something Maro expected, not for having done nothing and certainly not from her, but he accepted her outstretched hand and shook it. Normally, Maro found a sort of comradery in a handshake, a warm friendliness, but an odd formality killed any notion of that. The handshake was cold, as if she still harbored resentment or didn’t trust him. Her next words confirmed that feeling. “You are wrong, and stubborn, and I’m not sure I like you.” Maro’s eyes were about to fall, but her next words held a hint of something warmer, kindness or, at the very least, respect. “But you are brave and kind and chosen. And I’d be… And I appreciate your help. Djamila will too.” Madeira motioned to the beach. “Lead the way.” Looking up and down the beach in each direction, Maro inhaled deeply through his nose. The scent of death was fresh about them; his Kelvic nature, combined with Dira’s gift, made it easy to smell. The only problem was he knew this scent. Every death had its own unique odor, a product of the life that preceded it, the circumstances of the death itself, and what the dead did with the time that came after. Maro knew this scent well, because he had lived his whole life immersed in it. It was Autumn’s, subtle and sweet with a illusive bitterness that always seemed to linger at the very edge of one’s senses, and it was overpowering. And even though he knew where Autumn was, he couldn’t tell what direction her smell was coming from; he’d need sharper senses, animal senses, to tell where Djamila had gone. Maro shook his head and looked at Autumn. “I can’t do this, not the way I am now and not with you here. You’re masking her scent. You’re too distracting.” He wouldn’t tell her in how many ways. There was a flicker of fear in Autumn’s eyes when he asked her to abandon him. “Are you sure? This is going to be dangerous.” “I know, but Madeira knows what she’s doing. She’ll protect me.” Maro hoped Madeira would give Autumn some sign of affirmation to that, even if she didn’t intend to stand behind it. There was a moment of hesitation as Autumn’s eyes sought an answer from Madeira, and whatever answer Madeira gave, Autumn accepted and accepted that Maro was doing this regardless. “Be careful.” Maro nodded. “As careful as I can be. I promise. We both already know it will be dangerous.” “Do you have the bell?” Maro nodded again. It had become habit to carry their good luck trinket with them. She nodded. “Good. Remember your decency.” Autumn looked him in the eyes, left a kiss on his cheek that sent a chill sweeping across his face and down his neck, and then blinked away. In an instant, she was gone, leaving Maro and Madeira alone on the beach. Maro was looking in the direction he knew Autumn had gone, but he could feel Madeira’s eyes on the back of his head. Turning back, he smiled his friendliest smile and hoped Madeira could see that it was genuine. His twinging jaw still made it difficult to portray any sort of happiness, and the upward pull of his lips strained the tender bruising along his jaw. “Well, Madeira, shall we find ourselves a ghost?” Retrieving the fish from the shoreline, Maro brought it back over to where Madeira was standing next to his things and tossed it in the bucket with the few others he had. Looking at what was laid before him, he knew he could take none of it while he tracked Djamila but knew he’d want some of it on hand. Pulling the bell from where it had been tied to his belt, he handed it to Madeira. “This could prove useful. It can calm the dead, in the right hands. If you wouldn’t mind grabbing one of the bolas as well, I’d feel much more comfortable having it nearby.” Weapons would do no good against the dead, but there was something about being armed that gave him confidence. He hoped she didn’t mind him asking her to carry so much. It was a lot, and she was already quite burdened with her own belongings. That didn’t matter though. Only the ghost, only Djamila, mattered, and now there was only one thing left for him to do to prepare for tracking the ghost. “If you’ll grab my clothes when we head out, I’d appreciate it.” There was no easy way to tell someone you were going to strip, no way to preserve propriety in that situation. All he could do was continue and hope she’d understand. Nakedness didn’t bother him, but Autumn had taught him decency as others understood it. “I’ll ask you to turn around. Autumn has a thing for being decent in public.” Whether or not she listened, Maro didn’t wait to see. He turned away from her, just to add another level of protection. Then he pulled his shirt off over his head, folded it, and set it in the sand next to him. Dropping his pants, he folded them as well and set them on top of his shirt. Then, as he crouched low to the ground, his naked skin hugging tightly against his bony frame, a single flash of light erupted from his body, and left sitting in the middle of it was a jackal, its big ears flicking to and fro. Maro lifted his narrow muzzle into the air and sniffed rapidly, taking in the scents around him. There were the natural ones, the ones every other animal would smell, the humidity in the air, the plant life, the fish in the bucket, but there were others, ones that none other than those gifted by Dira would be able to smell. It was the scent of death. At the moment, there were two such smells in the air that overpowered any other smell, natural ones included. The first was Autumn’s, as familiar as the sound of his own voice; the other, a less pleasant one, sour and biting, one that left his nostrils burning after every sniff. This latter odor was no doubt that of Djamila and her not so pleasant existence since death. That was the scent he needed to follow. Sniffing in the air as he turned his head side to side, he started to trot off in the direction that the scent seemed to come from strongest. It wasn’t until the scent started to weaken that he realized he was headed back toward the port. Undoubtedly, Djamila’s death had occurred somewhere on the shore, and that was why she had chosen it as her haunt. Sniffing the air again, he started down the beach in the opposite direction, noticing Djamila’s scent swell around him as he did. Progress up the beach was slowed by Maro’s lack of confidence in his animal instincts. While he, like every Kelvic, embraced his animal self, he had never had the need to track anything, and for it, any instincts he should have had for tracking were dulled. The path they followed was a winding one, as it took him a while to notice a change in the strength of the scent. Whenever he did though, he changed his direction. So immersed in the scent, he wasn’t paying enough attention to see that he had wandered to the water’s edge, and a rogue wave broke, splashing water into his nose. His jackal hackles shot up, and he leapt back, sneezing to clear his nose. A few grains of sand had snuck in with the water, and a rash of sneezing took him. When he finished, he could feel Madeira’s eyes on him once again. Sheepishly, he looked up the shore and realized how little progress they had made. Maro could still see the rock where they had left most of his belongings. Ears flicking in annoyance, his eyes darted over to see if Madeira was watching him. Undoubtedly, she was, as he had promised to lead her to the ghost. When his eyes did find her, they stayed on her, trying to figure out what drove her to endure suffering to this degree. She was in worse shape than he had initially thought, but by the way she carried herself, one would never know. Her nails were cracked and torn; Maro, as a pup, had once torn one of his nails and knew the agony that brought. Her eyes were red and still watering some from all the sand Djamila had slathered over her. While Maro was curious about Djamila’s past and the circumstances surrounding her death, Madeira posed the greater mystery. The spiritist gave off a cold and formal air, yet Maro had seen her be fierce and compassionate. There was a wild side to her, something more untamable than his own animalistic nature. It made her frightening and someone to be respected. Maro realized he was staring at her and brushed a paw over his nose as if there was something still in it bothering him to save himself from any embarrassment. His eyes flicked back up the beach as he lifted his muzzle to catch the scent again.

[Madeira Dusk]

"Madeira knows what she's doing. She'll protect me."
 
A thrum of something close to panic whipped down the Spiritist's spine. Both to hear this man she hardly knew vocalize his trust, and to see his ghost turn to her to try and see where this trust was coming from. She did not have the kind of abilities that warranted such declarations, and she did not want the responsibility. But she did want Dijimila.
 
'"I'll keep him safe." she inclined her head to the concerned ghost. 
 
And so Madeira, the ward, the child, and the least of all of the Craven's, promised the ghost of Autumn to bring her man back safe. Whatever that might be worth.
 
Some words were exchanged and Autumn blinked away. Maro looked after her wistfully. Madeira did not miss the sentiment of that kiss they shared. A ghost could not make physical contact with a living being without hurting it. So she went through the ritual of that goodbye incorporeally, even though neither of them would feel it. Why?
 
Perhaps Maro could sense her staring at the back of his head as she struggled to piece together it's inner workings. He turned back with a genuine if painful smile. A red welt was rising under his jaw. In a couple bells he would have a bruise that would fit perfectly under her hand.
 
"Yes, let's find ourselves a ghost." She did not share in his smile.
 
Over the next chime the man organized his belongings. He packed away the fish he had assaulted her with, instructed her to carry one of his strange weapons (two heavy spheres on either end of a strong leather cord), and out of his belt he handed her a bell. Even holding it soundlessly in her hands, she could feel the power behind it. It was a small, silver thing with strange etchings on it's polished surface. She rang it once experimentally, and it's clear sound cut through the noise of the surf and gulls and movement of the sand. How did he ever come to own such a thing?
 
Before she could voice her question, he asked that she would grab his clothes when they left, and also if she wouldn't mind turning around as he removed them. There was a moment of silence as the young Avalad's underdeveloped sense of logic ground to a halt. Why was he removing his clothes? Did he think Djamila attacked her because she removed her blouse? Was he just a massive exhibitionist? In which case this was most definitely not the time.
 
It wasn't until he took off his shirt, while she was still staring at him gormlessly, having not yet processed his request to turn away, that something in her head clicked. His bones pushed hard at his tanned skin, and she caught herself thinking that his prominent shoulder blades reminded her of a cat. All at once she remembered his unnaturally tough palms, the flash of long teeth and that sense of something a little less than human when they were facing against each other.
 
He's not human.
 
He's Kelvic.
 
Not exactly a novelty. She had met a Kelvic leopard just that season, and it was quite a bit prettier than him, truth be told. But she had never in her life seen a Kelvic shift. And as his pants dropped the young, affluent virgin had a moment of internal conflict as her upbringing told her to look away from his shame, while her curiosity demanded that she watch what happened next.
 
She opted to watch through the gap in her bleeding fingers, her eyes alight with interest and her cheeks on fire with embarrassment.
 
A small flash of light, and suddenly Maro the scrawny man was a brindled jackal. So, the man marked by Dira, raised by ghost's and carrying an enchanted death bell, was a jackal. Apparently the goddess of death had a type.
 
She couldn't dwell on the absurdity of it all, though. Maro had lifted his head and was sniffing experimentally at the air. Perhaps the mark let him smell ghosts. Madeira put down her bag and stuffed his discarded clothing inside. She even took a chime to imbued his bolas with a portion of the prepared soulmist. She couldn't use the weapon, and in his current state Maro couldn't either. But years of hunting ghosts had taught her to be prepared for anything.
 
Time passed slowly as Madeira dogged the steps of the tracking jackal. The pack hung heavy off her straight shoulders, her eyes burned with sand and the impossible desire for sleep, and the muscles in her legs screamed with every step. Even so she showed no outward irritation as they lapped back and forth over the long beach. Her dull, guarded hope saved her from disappointment in her partner. She followed him mindlessly, knowing that with or without him she would have been wandering clueless anyway.
 
Suddenly a rouge wave washed over the jackal. The beast hopped back and gave into a sneezing fit. The unexpected sound and movement jogged Madeira out of her apathy. The scene was just so disarmingly, unexpectedly, cute. Her eyes crinkled at the corner and she let out a snort of amusement. A bubble of blood burst in the corner of her mouth.
 
The jackal turned to peer at her over it's shoulder. The moment of levity had left a curl to her lip and a tilt to her head. She watched the twitching black nose and swivelling ears, and wondered what the bristly fur on his back would feel like. But then she caught sight of his eyes, and her face slammed back into a neutral expression with a hint of embarrassment hiding in the stiff set of her neck. That is not an animal, she had to remind herself, that is a person. Apparently Maro had caught himself staring as well. Both looked away and pretended it didn't happen.
 
Madeira slid the pack from her back and rolled her shoulders to momentarily relive some of the pressure. As she did the enchanted bolas clacked gaily. She had his soulmist-imbued weapon in her hand, and her own imbued arrows and crossbow in her pack. While the creature in front of her was unarmed, untested, and couldn't weigh more than thirty pounds. And when they did find Djamila (and they would, she had to believe they would), he would be the first to walk into that proverbial lions den.
 
The woman passed a hand over her face, and a cascade of drying mud sprinkled onto her blouse. Her promise to Autumn came back to her, followed by a dose of regret. Why did she have to promise something impossible. She was armed to the teeth, but how do you arm a dog?
 
You arm it's teeth.
 
The thought hit her like a bolt of lightning. Suddenly she was rooting through her pack, and surfaced holding her half-full jar of soulmist. She shook the jar experimentally, then looked to the jackal by the water with a hopeful, determined expression.
 
"Maro, wait. I want to try something." she beckoned him over and kneeled in the sand. She popped the jar open and showed him the contents. "I'm not comfortable with you meeting Djamila like this. I'm going to try smearing your teeth with my soulmist. Ok? Then, god's forbid, if things get hairy you can look after yourself a bit. I don't care if you object to this. Autumn would agree we need to keep you safe" she figured dropping his ghost's name into the persuasion might eliminate whatever misconceptions he could be having.
 
"Open your mouth" she commanded as she loaded her hand with the swirling, etherial soulmist. "And don't you dare bite me."
 
She paused a tick as she made to peel back his lips from his teeth, hit again with the realization that this was not an animal, no matter what he looked like. She wouldn't hesitate to feel around the mouth of a docile canine, but this was not a canine.
 
"Pardon me", she cleared her throat uncomfortably before forging ahead.
 
She worked one tooth at a time, taking a fingerfull of soulmist to smooth over both sides of his tooth and gum. He had forty two teeth, she counted. All wickedly long, pointed things. Perhaps he really could rip out a ghost's soulmist if he had to.
 
Her thoroughness made it a slow process. The soulmist leeched into his mouth and she could feel the unnatural coolness affect his breath. Finally, after smearing a last dollop on his tongue, she figured she had done the best she could. They would just have to wait and see if it actually worked.
 
She got laboriously to her feet, putting the now empty jar away with one hand and wiping jackal slobber off the other against her trousers.

[Maro]

Sniffing at the air again, Maro caught the scent of Djamila’s death past the burning of the brine. The salty flavor of the sea had cleared his senses, and his direction seemed clear now. He was about to move on when Madeira’s voice stopped him. “Maro, wait.” The young spiritist laid out a plan to give him a weapon should he encounter the ghost in his current form. She brought the jar of Soulmist closer to him, and its soft, off-colored glow brought an odd light to her eyes, one that lent more to the steadfast demeanor she had already demonstrated ever since they had met, a demeanor offset by the wild look her bloodied state gave her. “Open your mouth.” Maro did as she bid and, to give her better access to his teeth, lifted his lips up as if snarling. “And don’t you dare bite me,” Madeira added. Tension eased in the muscles across his face as he let his lips drop back down. He had meant to be helpful, but perhaps the face had been too convincing. He didn’t mind though. Without anything to be truly hostile toward, holding that snarl was taxing on his already weary body. “Pardon me,” Madeira apologized as she peeled his lip away from his gums and teeth. Maro found nothing to pardon but let his face break into a doggish smile to assure her he held no ill will to her for this. As her fingers spread her Soulmist across his first long canine, one finger touched his tongue, and he tasted the iron tang of blood. An instinct surfaced, and his tongue lapped across her hand once to try to clean her wounded fingers. As his tongue contacted the raw, exposed undersurface of her nails, they leapt away in pain. There was a brief change in her eyes that told him not to try again, so he stifled instinct as he had learned to do so well during his brief existence. Instead, he remained stock still and let her complete her work, but his mouth had tasted blood. There was no suppressing the buildup of saliva as his scavenger nature told him there was a meal to be had, and by the time she had finished, her hand was covered in his drool. She wiped it clean on one leg of her pants, signaling she was finished. That was good, as her supply of Mist had run out. A different taste had replaced that of blood, and with the coolness to his breath, he knew it was the taste of her Soulmist. Autumn had tried to tell him that each spiritist’s Mist had a different flavor to it. Part of that was the variety of ingredients that could be used to create the dough, but another part of that had to do with Soulmist’s creation and how the Mist seemed to take on some characteristics of its maker. Maro had only ever tasted his own, as the living had no need to consume Soulmist. Tasting another’s Mist almost felt taboo to him, but he appreciated her efforts to keep him safe and enjoyed the scattered insight that the taste of her Soulmist gave him. Hers was overwhelming. It had a powerful taste, one that demanded attention. Part of that was undoubtedly due to the goat cheese he could physically taste, one of her ingredients of choice for her dough, but another he felt had to do with the power of her personality, her unwavering and steadfast nature, the unbreaking way she held herself despite whatever it was she had to face. There was more to it than that, but those came in only fleeting hints of taste, too ephemeral, too transient to pin down. He let his tongue hang out the side of his mouth as his dog smile returned to show his gratitude. Their direction was clear now, as his renewed sense of smell told him, and he began trotting toward the scent of Djamila’s demise, only occasionally lifting his muzzle to test the air and see if the scent had strengthened. Always, it did. Now, when he turned to check their progress, he could no longer see where he and Madeira and Djamila had all met. There was just empty beach interrupted by nothing but two sets of footprints that would eventually be washed away by the waves. Here, farther from the port, the beach changed. More rocks sprang up, breaking the surface of the sand, and as the rocky shore rose above the surface of the water, hidden caves dropped away beneath them. Maro trod more carefully now as he followed the scent. A few hundred more yards up the beach, the scent changed. Maro could smell the scent Dira’s gift allowed him to smell, but another more natural one began to pervade it, one that set him drooling again. It was the smell of decaying flesh, and his primal, carrion-seeking nature craved to feast on it. It grew more and more powerful as the two spiritists continued on until Maro was certain he knew where it was coming from. There was another drop off into a cave ahead, and Maro could smell the rot of flesh easily, so much so that it overpowered the unnatural one, the one her spirit created. Djamila’s spirit had been here but wasn’t present at the moment. He sat down and, after another flash of light, was his human self again. Holding out a hand to Madeira, he made a simple request to maintain the propriety of the moment as best as he could. “Pants.” When she gave them to him, he slid them on, pointing to the cave ahead. “Djamila’s scent is coming from there.” A dribble of saliva ran down his chin from one corner of his lips, and he wiped it away. He was hungrier than he thought. His last meal had been before dawn. “It’s mostly her corpse that I’m smelling. The scent of her spirit is weak though. She hasn’t returned here, not yet, not since our encounter. I can lead the way, if you’d like.”

[Madeira Dusk]

Madeira was carefully picking her footing over the rocky shore when she was startled by the flash of light.
 
"Pants", the suddenly human Maro requested. She looked away delicately as she handed him his clothing, but not before getting an eyeful of his wiry strong back. She was interested in how his two form reconciled with each other. His teeth and hands had subtle similarities to his animal counterpart, but was there anything human in the jackal? And how is it that she has never seen, or even heard about, a Kelvic ghost that would manifest in it's animal form? Why do they always come back human?
 
The questions would compound if she voiced them, however. So she stayed quiet and focused on the job at hand. Maro had found not the ghost, but the ghost's body. And if she remembered anything about Eiyons, it was that they could see a persons death if they were in proximity to the spot in which they died. Madeira's eyes hardened with determination. She was so close to detangling this mad spirit.
 
The Kelvic offered to lead the way, but Madeira shook her head. That promise she made to Autumn, that she would protect him, was still ringing in her head.
 
"No, I'll go first." She shucked her bag and Maro's gear, and handed the small man his bolas and the little silver bell. “But Maro,” she warned, looking him in the eye. “I’ll need your help again”. She couldn't let him slip away to his comfortable decency when they were so close to answers.

The cave Maro indicated was low and dark. Madeira would have to almost double over to fit herself under the rocky ledge. With her crossbow held loosely at her side, she kneeled by the mouth and peered into the darkness. There was a bright light a couple of meters in, which she took to be some sort of cave-in. That was good. What was not good was the way the cave was... vibrating. The very air was alive with a low droning noise that seemed to crawl into her head like the physical manifestation of a headache.  
 Well, she already didn't like this situation. But if Maro said her body (and her spirit, previously) was there, she would have to trust him. Madeira put her foot into the stirrup of her bow, pulled back the string and notched the arrow. And thus armed, the Spiritist ducked her head and shuffled her way into the cave.
 
She was about a meter in when her weak human nose detected the familiar smell. Under the briny salt and rotting vegetation she associated with the sea, just slightly out of reach, there was something heavy and wet and sweet in the most awful way. The kind of smell that clung to the back of your throat and stuck to your skin. The smell of rot.
 
Just as her spasming muscles were starting to seize, the cavern opened in front of her. It was a long, narrow cave with a shallow, sea-green pool half as wide as it was long. There was a long fissure in the high ceiling, like a rent in a piece of clothing, that let just enough of Syna's unseasonal winter light into the cave to illuminate the scene. Slick moisture glistened on the walls, and the pool was alight with jewel-bright shells and tiny fish. It might have been pretty, if not for the corpse.
 
"Oh, Djamila", Madeira whispered.
 
What was left of the tailor was laying on it's back, with it's head and shoulders pressed against the wall and it's legs in the shallow pool. And at once Madeira could see the source of the ceaseless buzzing. Boflies crawled across the exposed skin like a thick black blanket. The woman's bronze skin had cured itself in the salty air, but the creatures had eaten through her eyes, and what she could see of her mouth through the rigor mortis smile was a pulpy mesh of teeth and maggots. Her belly was disturbingly deflated, and her skin bulged and crawled in strange places. Hermit crabs had taken shelter in her swollen, perforated and waterlogged legs. Her clothing was unidentifiable as anything other than half-rotted rags, though in one of her left hands the handle of what might have been a reed basket was clutched between her fingers. Her hair, long and black and just as cured as her skin, was still styled in an elaborate but frayed knot on the top of her head.
 
And over everything that low, incessant noise. In the confined, hollow place the sound bounced between the walls and was magnified a hundred times. It made Madeira's gut roll and her head pound. Gods, she needed to get out of there. But first, she needed the Eiyon.
 
"Maro," she called to the mouth of the cave. "Maro, what do you see?"

[Maro]

“I’ll go first.” Maro was almost expecting that answer from her. Madeira continued to show that she was more capable at just about everything than Maro was. Her steadfastness didn’t break, despite the fact that the stench of death was potent even to Maro’s human nose. Placing a bolas and Dira’s little bell into his hands, she gave him a hard look, one that said she expected him to demonstrate the same dedication to this that she had. “But, Maro, I’ll need your help again.” The young Craven peered into the low entrance of the cave, readied her crossbow, and crouched enough to enter Djamila’s tomb. Tucking the bolas through a loop in his belt, Maro tied a quick slipknot in it to hold it in place, then took the handle of the bell in his mouth, and waited for Madeira to get a short head start. People were weird about their space, but Maro also wanted a little room between himself and the other spiritist, especially if Djamila materialized between them and Madeira decided to use her crossbow. Not that a few strides would make any difference, but it gave him a small comfort. Once Madeira was a good dozen paces ahead, Maro dropped on to his hands and feet and followed her in. He was just as comfortable on four legs as he was on two, though the intricacies of the human body made four-legged movement a little awkward, but it was better than the ache that his lower back would feel if he hunched his way through the cave. Maro urged himself to see something, something beyond what was there, something only the gift of an Eiyon could show him, but nothing came. Perhaps, just like his instincts, he had stifled this too long, and the parts of him that ought to know had forgotten. He rubbed the mark on his palm, as if doing so would help, but once again, he was greeted with no other-worldly sight, no vision of a time before the here and now. Ahead of him, Madeira entered the cavern and straightened up. Even beneath the fabric of her pants, Maro could see the fibers of the muscles in her legs contracting and relaxing rapidly in angry spasms. He could feel the muscles in his jaw doing the same as he tried to keep ahold of the bell. Giving up on carrying it that way, he let the bell drop into one hand and wiped its handle free of saliva on his own pant leg. There was a sizeable patch of slobber when he was finished. Here, so close to the corpse and in an enclosed space with nowhere for the scent to go, the rot of Djamila’s body was overwhelming. Once again, he was reminded of how hungry he was. “Oh, Djamila.” Unable to see the dead tailor, Maro could only make assumptions on how bad it was based on what he heard in Madeira’s voice. There was a lot mixed into that simple utterance, but what Maro heard most was a sense of heartbreak. It was a compassion that was on the same level as the Madeira that came out of the possession yelling challenges at a ghost. Death was something that Maro was comfortable with, but it seemed to be too often that it came too soon. This was one of those times, and Maro felt a similar pang of sadness that tightened his chest and made it hard to breathe. Considering the corpse for a few moments, Madeira called back to him. “Maro, what do you see?” “Nothing,” he admitted as he emerged into the cavern next to her. He considered what was left of Djamila for several moments, torn between two actions. Part of him wanted to break down and weep. The other wanted to roll in her corpse. The scent was too tempting here, and the instincts that surfaced were all ones that he knew would be inappropriate and irreverent in the eyes of someone completely human. The two urges tore at each other so powerfully for a blink of an eye that, in the end, he was left feeling numb and did neither. Instead, he looked to Madeira and admitted humbly. “I don’t see anything. Not for lack of trying,” he added when Madeira’s eyes flickered through some brief flash of annoyance that said she thought otherwise. “But I do have an idea.” Wiping away the building saliva from his mouth on the back of his hand, he walked over and sat cross-legged facing Djamila’s wriggling body. In a way, the maggots and bots and flies gave an appearance of life to her lifeless corpse. He had an idea, one he had no confidence in, but it was all he had. He looked back over to Madeira and gave her a smile that betrayed his lack of confidence. “Meditation might help, but it could take some time. I’d like to be protected if she comes back while I’m unaware. If you don’t mind, I’d feel safer in the Soulbeads.” He was about to go into his meditation when another thought stopped him. Tossing the bell to her, he pointed at it. “If she shows up, ring that. It can help. It’s meant to calm spirits, but that doesn’t mean it always will. Djamila’s disturbed enough that it might do nothing, but anything’s worth a try.” With that, he closed his eyes, hoping Madeira was getting the Soulbeads ready. Meditation was a regular part of his day. Every morning, before he left to go fishing, he made Soulmist for Autumn, and meditation was part of his process. This time though, the purpose for the meditation was different. Always, Autumn had been his reason for meditating, but now, she would just be a distraction. He set to clearing his mind. The buzz of the flies became a muted background noise, nothing more than an anchor to the present, but as he cleared the many distractions from the forefront of his mind, the noise became more and more muted. As each thought came to the surface, Maro acknowledged it as once important and then pushed it away. One subject kept resurfacing: Autumn. No matter how many times he pushed thoughts of her away, she kept returning, and every time he dismissed her as unimportant, he felt a pang of guilt. That too, he pushed away, but the guilt itself would not be forgotten and was what kept bringing Autumn back to his mind. Maro was several chimes into his meditation now and was getting annoyed with himself. He could only imagine Madeira was feeling that even more so as she had to wait with no idea if any of what he was doing was working. Something different had to be done. The guilt had to be addressed. Without realizing it completely, Maro found the solution. Autumn wouldn’t be forgotten, and she would never be unimportant to him. Trying to lie about that was what brought him guilt. On a deep inhale, he brought Autumn to the forefront of his mind, acknowledging how important she really was to him. He made a note to tell her that more often. Then, with a small amount of regret, he told himself and his vision of her that for now she had to be less important than this new spirit.

[Maro]

And, in an instant, his mind was clear. It was so sudden that it took the meditating Kelvic a moment to find his bearings in his empty mind. Now there was only one person to concentrate on. He opened his eyes to take another look at Djamila’s body to remind himself of what he was here for and, for the second time in mere ticks, was taken by surprise. His eyes opened not to the dim light of the cave but to the bright rays of sun on the open beach. Not his eyes, he realized as he looked down and found himself watching the sand for shells over the feminine curves of Djamila’s chest. He knew it was her body, because her six arms swayed gently around her as she walked. In one hand, she held a basket filled with a variety of seashells she had been collecting throughout the morning. It was morning, he knew, because the sun was directly overhead. Its warm rays and the wispy gusts of a sea breeze danced together across the back of her neck as she had pulled her hair up into a bun. She was gathering the shells for a Konti friend who missed her home back on Mura. Ahead of Djamila was a small cave, and though Maro knew what lay ahead, his heart didn’t quicken, because it wasn’t his. When she reached the cave, she crouched low to peer into its dark entrance. Maro noticed something Djamila couldn’t’ve. There wasn’t the light from a hole in the cave’s ceiling above. Shrugging her shoulders as the cave showed nothing she desired, Djamila continued by it, ascending the steep hill that the cave lay in. In his soul, Maro quieted some, as it seemed any danger had passed. He immersed himself in Djamila’s experience, reveling in the way the wind whipped the strands of hair about that had escaped her bun. She crested the top of the hill and looked out over the water, scanning the beach about her for any signs of a good hunting ground for more shells. Djamila liked finding the more exotic shells, the ones that seemed to be one of a kind, because they always made her Konti friend’s eyes brighten all the more. Ahead, she saw a place where the tide had washed a variety of things up on to a sandy portion. The shells there would be the best, as there were no rocks for them to shatter upon. Everything remained how it was for a moment. The wind, the sun, the sea, the shells, the hill, and the sand beneath her feet. The next moment, something shifted, and there was the sickening feeling of falling, then impact, and finally darkness. When they came to they were in the familiar confines of the cave with Syna’s light pouring in through the hole they had just created. They came to with awareness of a single thing: pain. Djamila had landed with two of her arms beneath her. Rolling over, they gasped in pain as the broken bones of the two arms shifted. Panic rose in them as their gasp brought even greater awareness of pain in their chest. Breath came with great difficulty. Everything hurt. And then true fear set in, as Djamila realized that not everything hurt. In fact, nothing hurt from her waist down, not because it wasn’t injured but because it didn’t feel anything at all. Shoving her pain aside for a moment, Djamila pushed herself up so she could look at her legs. She willed them to move, but they didn’t listen. Hope faded as she tried smaller and smaller movements until even her toes failed to wiggle for her. A sob escaped her throat, and with it came a fierce, stabbing agony in her chest. Something was wrong inside, something worse than broken bones. Every breath came just a smidge more difficultly than the last. Slowly, she used her four good arms to pull herself across the sandy bottom of the cave to the closest wall and propped herself up against it. That’s when she realized where she was. It was the cave she had dismissed earlier as being devoid of riches, but now, with her unintentional intrusion, she could see if it was full of everything she had wanted. Water was moving in and out with the waves from some place underwater. The result was a shallow pool that her unfeeling legs were now resting in. Tiny fish darted about in miniature schools as they tried to stay away from the legs that had just disturbed their usually peaceful sanctuary. Shells of every shade of every color imaginable seemed to litter the sandy bottom of the pool and floor of the cave. It was beautiful, but in that moment, she discovered that beauty didn’t matter. A fly droned lazily around until it landed on the broken arm that had a bone protruding through it. It had sensed blood and had come looking for a meal. She swiped a free hand at it and gasped as the broken bones shifted again. Her attempt worked, but only for a moment. The fly buzzed around her head and then lighted on the arm again. Djamila didn’t bother trying to brush it away again. It could have what it could take. It didn’t matter. As her breaths became shallower and shallower, Djamila realized she wasn’t going to leave this cave. She would die here alone. That wasn’t okay, but there was nothing she could do to change it, and that knowledge sickened them. As her breathing slowed and faded to desperate, dragging wheezes, more and more flies began to gather, and a few curious crabs began to pinch at her legs. Powerless, Djamila and Maro watched as the flies and crabs feasted on their body until life finally slipped away. And then came the next curious sensation or lack thereof. They had just died, and death had released them from the oppressive sensations of pain and suffocation. There was an emptiness in its stead, but it was one that Djamila embraced. She couldn’t let the flies continue to desecrate her body, so she lifted a hand to shoo them away but stopped mid swing. There was nothing in the air in front of her. She looked down and realized she had no form, and with no form, she had nothing with which to scare the feeding flies away. And so, she and Maro were forced to watch as the flies continued to feed and feed. Maro wanted nothing more than to wake up, to come out of this spell, but he had no control. When he finally did come to, it was by no power of his own. It was the most disturbing, most disorienting thing Maro had ever experienced. He sat up, grabbing at limbs he didn’t have. The first words out of Maro’s mouth were, “Where are my arms?” Then he found his bearings, realized he was still alive, and thanked Dira that She didn’t let him pass the way Djamila had. He caught the questioning look in Madeira’s eyes and opened his mouth. Somehow, everything he had seen- Djamila’s collecting of seashells, her Konti friend, her fall, her injuries, the flies, and the inability to do anything about it- managed to make it out before the first of the two earlier tempting actions took over. He broke down and sobbed. Shame that he, a grown man, would cry so openly tried to take over, but the grief and fear overpowered it. He didn’t care that Madeira was watching him cry like a child. He curled up in the circle of beads and hoped this was all a dream, that he had never woken today, that he had never met Madeira, and that Djamila was just a figment of some nightmarish creation of his sleeping mind. He was painfully aware that all of it had been very, very real.

[Madeira Dusk]

When Maro moved towards the corpse, saying he wanted to 'try something' after failing to to see the death vision, Madeira almost moved to strike him.
 
The rippling light reflecting off the shallow pool sparkled off his wet lips, and the string of saliva carelessly smeared across his cheek. She didn't miss the way he kept wiping at his mouth when he found the cave, or the way his nostrils flared, soaking up the scent. She didn't miss the way his green eyes moved down the corpse, with a look that was almost... hungry.
 
"Don't-!" she moved to grab him, but he was already lowering himself to sit on the salt-encrusted stones a few steps away from the tailor. She stopped herself and cleared her throat, embarrassed to reveal just how little faith she had in him. "I just mean... Be careful, that body is sacred." That body had carried a living, immortal soul for decades. Though the vessel was empty and rotting now, having once carried something divine had left a power in it's bones and flesh. She couldn't let him desecrate it.
 
But that was not what he was trying to do. He was going to try and unlock the power of his gnosis through meditation. Madeira nodded eagerly with his plan, before her neck protested with a wave of fire down her spine. Frankly, she was just relived that there was a plan.
 
The Kelvic tossed her the bell, and explained briefly how it worked. Madeira made affirming noises to say she understood, then ducked out of the cave to retrieve the soulbeads from her bag. When she returned Maro's eyes were closed, his chest expanding gently as he breathed deep of the spoiling air.  Doing her best not to disturb him, she uncoiled the loop of jade beads and carefully slotted them over his head to settle around his crossed legs.
 
Then she sat back, and waited.

[Madeira Dusk]

Maro came back to reality with a gasp, clawing at limbs he didn’t have.

He expelled the story of Djamila death in a rush. No, not a rush, a race. He was racing against some powerful emotion that was attempting to drown him. Forcing himself to relay what she needed to know before he succumbed to it. Madeira leaned forward and listened closely, respecting the toll this was taking on him by not interrupting with questions about his health.

And finally, with the last of the narrative, Maro collapsed to his side and sobbed like a child.

Madeira thought of that poor Eypharian, alone in the dark. So new to her unlife, unable to manifest or seek help. She stayed there, day after day, week after week, sleepless, watching herself rot. Watching as her body was defiled by the sick things that crawled in the mud, watched them crawl in her skin and lay eggs in her body. Driven mad by the ceaseless droning.
 
Madeira's tongue suddenly felt heavy and wet in her mouth; a pink, invasive worm poking at her teeth. Her stomach rolled, contracted. Things were starting to make sense. Djamila was trying to save that man on the beach. She was saving him from what happened to her. She tried to save Madeira and Maro, too. She was trying to keep the flies out.
 
"Maro" Madeira kneeled and gripped the Kevic's shaking shoulder, her blunt nails digging into muscle. "Maro, you can't. Not here. Please." Her voice, trying so hard to be steady, cracked on the last word. She swallowed hard, feeling the grittiness of sand in her throat and the raw, coppery taste of blood on the roof of her mouth. Kneeling next to the weeping man, one hand on his shoulder and one clutched tight around the bell, she bent her head to pray:
 
"Dira, our beloved Goddess, given dominion over death. Please watch over Djamila. Give her the gentle comfort she could not find as a spirit, and ease her passing to her next life. What we do, we do in your name."
 
Madeira opened her eyes as she exhaled a sigh of relief. Speaking to her Goddess always left her with a sense of calm. If the worst outcome to anything was death, and death was not so terrible, what was there left to fear?
 
But as she did, she watched her breath turn a misty gold in the gilded light.
 
With a gasp Madeira was on her feet, knuckles hard and white around her crossbow and eyes wide and alert to the shadowy corners of the cave. The already chill air had dropped in temperature alarmingly fast. The ghost was there.
 
"Djamila, darling", Madeira ventured, speaking above the low drone of the flies. She jabbed Maro hard with the heel of her boot, though he was probably aware of the ghost's presence long before she was.
 
"Dja-" Ah, there it was again. Madeira choked on the word as the ghost pushed it's way into her. On an instinct born from years of practise, Madeira's body shut down as soon as that icy, foreign energy touched her soul. Her breath sizzled out of her lungs, and she tottered where she stood as her legs locked. Mental barriers came crashing down around her mind and soul, and she turned inward on herself. Her eyes glazed over and she waited, taking no offensive action, body stiff and unmoving, as the foreign soul scrabbled uselessly looking for purchase to leverage itself between her body and soul.  
 
After a long chime of silence, Madeira's chest expanded with a gasp as the soul gave up it's assault. In the steady tick before the ghost could gather itself, Madeira brought the tiny silver bell up to her chest and rang it once.
 
The sound sliced through the buzzing, clean and sharp and pure. Her own soul, sheltered and safe in her body, shivered pleasantly at the sound. She rang it again, weaving one echo into another. She felt the temperature in the cave slowly level out.
 
On the other side of the pool, Djamila appeared. The manifestation was slow. It started as a silvery incandescence made bright in the low light. The swirling, chaotic soulmist of an agitated ghost gently formed and condensed into a beautiful woman. Six arms wrapped in bangles, a matured body wrapped in a cleverly tailored dress. Her cheeks and brows were high and proud, her nose a straight aquiline bridge. But her eyes, dark and set wide in her face, were crazed. They tried to stay on the two Spiritists, but they seemed to be pulled inexorably towards the corpse. Her gaze darted away every few ticks, only to slide back with a renewed sense of horror.
 
"You shouldn't be here", she moaned, and her soulmist rose about her form like flickering flames. "Don't look. Don't look." 
 
"We can cure you."
 
The words were out of her mouth before she could really comprehend what she was saying. But at once she knew it was the right thing. The flies, her corpse, they were driving her mad. The only way for her to let go was to remove the thing she was holding on to.
 
"We can cure you. Cleanse you. We can make the flies go away for good."
 
The ghost's soulmist gave a jolt at the words, but she was not looking at Madeira, she was looking at Maro. Her eyes searched his for honesty, but she did not speak.
 
Madeira pushed at the Kelvic with her boot, keeping her eyes mistrustfully on Djamila, the bell held loose but ready in front of her body.
 
"Maro, we need to build a pire."

[Maro]

A touch on his shoulder, not gentle but meant to be comforting, brought Maro back to the moment, to the task at hand. He didn’t stop crying, but his subtle, primal mind began to go to work putting all his hectic thoughts into order in order to form some sense of calm in his mind. Her voice came to him over his own quieting sobs. “Maro. You can’t. Not here. Please.” Her voice broke, and Maro couldn’t be sure of why. It could’ve been the raw condition of her throat after having had so much sand crammed down it. It could’ve been exhaustion. It could’ve been that emotional toll of all this was too much. It could’ve been that the smell made her want to vomit; Maro had never understood that about people. Whatever it was didn’t matter, because her voice came again, resolute and calm. She offered a prayer to Dira, asking for peace for Djamila. Maro only wished he could be so brave, but Madeira’s courage and steadfastness were infectious. His sobbing subsided, and as it did, his awareness of the world around him grew. Like the building of the rare, fierce gales that cannoned through Black Rock as they swept off the ocean, a smell entered the cavern, a familiar smell. It was the one he had followed to get here, the one of Djamila’s spirit. The ghost had returned. Steadying his breath, Maro drew in a lungful of air to warn Madeira, but the spiritist was already addressing Djamila. “Djamila, darling.” The heel of her boot found his ribs as she gave him a sharp nudge to warn him of the ghost’s presence. It wasn’t meant to be harsh, just commanding, but his ribs still smarted. “Dja-” When Madeira stopped midway through her word, her demeanor changed completely. Everything stiffened, and for several moments, she swayed, on the brink of collapse. An empty look entered her eyes, and Maro realized that for the second time today Djamila was trying to possess Madeira. The blond was within his reach, so Maro rolled on to his hands and knees and reached a hand out, ready to drag her into the safety of the circle of beads should she lose the fight. It wasn’t necessary; the struggle was brief. With a gasp, Madeira came back to herself and quickly rang Dira’s bell several times. Sending a quick, grateful prayer to Dira that Madeira had believed him about the bell, Maro pushed himself up on to his knees and watched Djamila materialize across the cave. With the ringing of the bell, Maro smelled a change in Djamila’s soul as she calmed. The changes were barely noticeable, but the biting sensation that her scent left weakened. He began to catch glimpses, traces, of what her soul was like before she had passed, and in that moment, he saw not an object of terror but a soul as terrified as he was. She was frightened by her corpse, by the rot and the flies, and by the fact that someone else was seeing her like this. “You shouldn’t be here. Don’t look. Don’t look.” Her voice was desperate, and Maro’s empathy rose. He knew what had happened to her. He had lived it with her, even if only for a moment, and it terrified him. Maro had experienced her death, but he didn’t know how to say so in a way that didn’t sound like he had invaded her privacy. He was still going over ways to say it when Madeira said she had a solution. “We can cure you. Cleanse you. We can make the flies go away for good.” She kicked Maro with her heel again. “Maro, we need to build a pyre.” For the first time since she had appeared, Maro noticed the chaos in the Mist that made up Djamila’s body. Swirls, like wind through fog, scattered through it but didn’t dance the way Autumn’s often did. This was erratic and broken, the empty panic of knowing of an impending doom and not being able to do anything about it. And then he noticed her eyes. They were still for the first time since she had manifested, and they were locked on his, searching for something. Dark and beautiful, her eyes betrayed a hint of trust or, at the very least, the want to give that trust. Maro didn’t feel comfortable with that. He didn’t even know why she chose him as the one to trust. Then he remembered something Autumn had told him. Innocence. She had called it his most endearing, and frustrating, quality. Unsure if that was what the ghost saw in him and unsure of how to convey such a vague notion anyhow, Maro stuck to what he knew, which unfortunately wasn’t much. There were some things he did know about Djamila, and he knew what he held dearest in this world. His family and friends. That had been what had brought Djamila out here. His eyes wandered to the basket. “Don’t look,” Djamila moaned again, an unfathomable exhaustion in the voice that tried to come from her mouth but didn’t quite. In a shimmer of Soulmist, she dissipated, and in another moment, she had blinked between Maro and her corpse. “Don’t look.” Maro stood and stepped out from the ring of beads in a sign of his limited trust of her. “I only wanted to check the basket of shells, see if they were intact still. They were meant for a friend, weren’t they?” Any fragment of trust that had formed disappeared in an instant. She glared at him, and the hostility was almost tangible in the way her Mist permeated the air. “How do you know that?” Holding out his hand, he turned his scythe-marked palm so she could see it, uncertain if it would mean anything to her. “I have a gift,” he started, “one that’s not so much of a gift. A Goddess saw fit to let me see people’s deaths, the events leading up to them, and the few broken moments after. I saw you gathering the shells and, somehow, knew they were for a friend. We can give them to her and let her know what happened to you.” “No.” The shriek was a force in itself that echoed off the walls of the cavern, but the worst part came immediately after. Her Soulmist, roiling in her fear and shame, surged up around her, and for the second time in a day, a ghost’s hands sank through Maro’s flesh as she made to shove him away. “She can’t see me like this.” Once again, Maro forgot how to breathe and dropped back to his hands and knees. Some small part of him had the sense to hold up a hand to tell Madeira to wait before she tried anything. As Maro tried to regain his breath, he felt the cold sensation of the near touch of a spirit on his shoulder. Looking up, he caught the concern in her eyes as she watched him struggle for air. She remembered this sensation, the terror of it, and she was horrified she had caused him to experience it. When his breath finally did come in a ragged gasp, her eyes hardened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. But she can’t see me like this.” Maro nodded. “I know. And she won’t. Not if you don’t want her to. That’s what the fire is for. Just let her come see you when your body is ash. Your friends deserve to know you’re gone. They deserve to grieve.” He hoped she agreed.