Completed Gathering Mists

Hurik materializes in the City of Illusion... He's dead, but he can't quite remember why.

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Considered one of the most mysterious cities in Mizahar, Alvadas is called The City of Illusions. It is the home of Ionu and the notorious Inverted. This city sits on one of the main crossroads through The Region of Kalea.

Gathering Mists

Postby Hurik on February 11th, 2017, 8:11 pm

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74th of Winter, 516 AV

He sensed a tugging sensation from nowhere. His mind was clouded. The breathing, pulsing, echoing feeling had begun to fade. The winds of change were blowing strong it seemed. He could see a light. Light growing, expanding, blinding...

The tugging intensified and he felt the world fall into place around him. And what a world it was... The buildings looked odd, the people still more so...

"Hurik." He said it automatically, and in an instant he recognized it was his name. He tried to look down, and realized he didn't have a head... In fact if he focused, he could almost see in all directions! No, I definitely need a head. That is essential. Hurik thought. The tugging sensation was quietened, but still present, and he drew upon it once again. With effort Hurik formed a head, and somehow he knew it was his own head, the one he'd had before he–

'I'm dead." The thought did not so much surprise him, as did the fact that it had taken him so long to notice. A sudden surging desire to be alive again spurred on the tugging until he felt his torso, limbs, and clothing fall into place about him. Even still, a kind of mist was twisting and coiling about him, and seemed especially to encircle and thicken around the amulet that Hurik had also materialized. A family heirloom. Something of mine. I have a family? Why don't I remember my father's name? My mother's face?

The questions yielded no answers, and Hurik felt as though he could cry. Except, it seemed in a distant sense to be impractical to waste whatever it was, this mist that seemed to make up his essence. In hindsight, he could now recall that as the world had fallen into place, he too had in a way. The mists were he, and he the mists...

Hurik decided to try and move down the street, and found he could drift just above the ground at a slow pace, which unsettled him so much that he decided to go about moving the old-fashioned way. Thankfully, he met the ground with the expected resistance, and barring the streams of mist which ran all across his form, he almost felt... alive. True, he didn't have a heartbeat, or any need to breathe, but as he walked along the sidewalk, people moving around him and talking amongst themselves, he could pretend that he wasn't all that different.

The streets all seemed to go everywhere and nowhere, and so Hurik just walked, and walked, and walked. An all-together different sensation, one of burning curiosity had taken hold of him. He knew there was something he needed to find, to know, to discover. But he was damned if he knew what it was... This particular street corner was blossoming with evening lights, and Hurik paused to admire the glistening of glass reflecting beams of red, orange, yellow, and gold. All things said, it was a beautiful city. The colours reminded him of warmth, fire, and blood. A chill went down Hurik's ethereal spine.

Why was blood the first thing he thought of when it came to the colour red? He looked down and brought his amulet up to his face, and examined the garnets embossed in the piece. They too gleamed like freshly-spilt blood. Hurik rubbed his shoulder and began to look for somebody who seemed open to talking with a dead man. In a city like this one, Hurik hoped it wouldn't be a long search.
Last edited by Hurik on May 4th, 2017, 2:58 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Gathering Mists

Postby Madeira Dusk on February 12th, 2017, 1:18 am

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From a little vendor on the streets of Alvadas Madeira bought a paper bag of sweet black berries disguised as hazelnuts. As she held out the copper coin needed to pay for her treat, a chill creeped it's way up her spine. It was a familiar feeling.
 
"Miss?" the vendor prompted, as his outstretched hand hung empty under hers, waiting for her to hand over the coin. 

“Oh, I’m sorry”, Madeira looked back from over her shoulder and dropped the coin in his hand. “Have a good night.”

“Same to you child.”

The young Spiritist turned back to the crowded street and popped a berry into her mouth. Her brow puckered over her narrowed eyes as she scanned the flow of people. It was the time of day where the tides of the evening changed from those coming home after a long day of work, to those going out for a long night of leisure. She saw shop keeps and shipbuilders and tailors slide past prostitutes and gamblers and revellers, but between them all she felt a ghost.

She walked out into the middle of the cobble street and held a hand against the glare of the windows illuminated with candlelight. There was a spirit here, she felt it pass her, she was sure of it.

There! A ghost was meandering his way down the street, looking like a painting of a tall, red headed man superimposed on reality. People moved out of his way superstitiously, though nobody would think to raise a fuss over a quiet, well-behaved ghost. But Madeira could see trouble brewing. His soulmist was flickering rolling over his form in a way that made her uneasy. It wasn’t riotous enough to be angry, but wasn’t controlled enough for him to be at ease, either. If she had to guess, she would say that the ghost of the red-headed man was… stressed.

She popped another berry into her mouth and licked the purple stain from her lips. This might the one time that she could fix a problem before it started, rather than be called in later to clean up a mess.

Making a snap decision, she trotted after him. Her free hand was at her throat fixing the high collar of her white blouse and smoothing the lank blonde hair back from her face. Her leather boots tapped a staccato rhythm against the cobblestone. A few meters ahead the ghost suddenly stopped in the street and raised a pendant on his chest up to his eyes. Madeira took the chance to approach him.

“Excuse me! Excuse me, sir, can I speak with you?”
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Gathering Mists

Postby Hurik on February 12th, 2017, 1:57 am

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74th of Winter, 516 AV

Hurik flinched, when a voice seemed to respond to his inner thoughts in so immediate a fashion. In fact, as he lowered his amulet back down and examined the speaker, she appeared to be almost as ghostly as Hurik was. At the very least, this girl –or woman?– seemed quite frail looking.

"You look like you should get out more," he said plainly.

Hurik drew closer to her, at least so as to make the parting of passersby around them more uniform. He looked at her reddened eyes, which seemed to hold much alertness and wit behind them. Hurik wondered how much she could read from his own eyes, spectral as they might be.

"Do you know where we are? Also, who are you? And what are you eating?"

Hurik eyed the bag of food in her hands and a queer feeling overcame him. It was as though he reflexively braced himself for a feeling that was missing, and the void was palpable. His mists, whatever they were, seemed to lurch and wriggle at the sensation he felt. Suddenly, his mouth was wet with spit. And a vibrating sensation rippled within his middle. Hurik supposed that if he were still alive, that was the closest approximation to being hungry. Still, he didn't actually need to eat, what with being dead and all... He frowned at himself, wondering whether he should try and stop pretending to be alive. It did seem rather childish. That being said, he also didn't want to let go of life.

"Petch it all, I think I want one of those." Hurik said testily. A niggling sensation pricked his brain, as though some long sleeping beast had woken at his words.

"Er, please," he added as an afterthought, realizing most city-folk were rather particular about manners. Hurik grinned lopsidedly. His mind was bouncing in all sorts of directions this evening, and he'd barely been around for much more than ten chimes!
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Gathering Mists

Postby Madeira Dusk on February 13th, 2017, 4:05 am

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“You look like you should get out more.”

A muscle twitched in Madeira’s affable smile. Seems her mystery man was not a smooth talker.

The ghost closed the distance between them and Madeira was able to get a closer look at this new spirit. He was human, that much she could tell. And on the younger side of middle age. She tried to look him over surreptitiously for signs of what might have caused his death; there were no rents in his dark clothing, no punctures on his skin, and she couldn’t see abrasions on his wrists or neck. His eyes were clear, he had no signs of disease. He must be choosing not to manifest his death.

The human inside her was pleased to think he might not be as obsessed with his death as other restless spirits. The Spiritist inside her wondered if he was intentionally hiding it.

Soon his mouth was open and he was firing questions at her. She was prepared for this, but the last one caught her by surprise.

“What am I… eating?”

She raised a brow and casually shifted the paper bag from her right to her left hand. His eyes followed it’s movement, and his soulmist shifted to match. The ghost was checking out her food. That was new.

He demanded one for himself, tacking a polite ‘please’ at the end like a scolded child. The grin he gave afterward didn’t quite match the way his soulmist was coiling restlessly.

“Sir, you cant eat.” Madeira explained patiently. She had a sinking feeling that maybe this ghost wasn’t aware it was dead. Or, if it was, it was very, very new to it’s new un-life. Two women brushed passed them then, smelling strongly of sweet smoke and leaving a smear of glitter on the sleeve of Madeira’s blouse. Madeira could sense that this was not going to be a short or easy conversation with this ghost. This was not something she wanted to do in the middle of the street.

“But why don’t I make you something that will satisfy you?” she prompted, thinking some fresh soulmist might wash away his ‘hunger’ and slow down his obviously racing mind. If she dangled this carrot she might be able to bait this poor soul into sticking long enough for her to help.

“I just need to talk to you first. Really quick.” she beckoned him with the hand that held the bag, making her deceptive little treats rattle intentionally. She backed herself off to the side of the street, under the shadowy awning of a closed shop, to at least somewhat get themselves out of the ebb and flow of the city.

She chewed on her words for a moment, and when she was ready, she spoke carefully.

“My name is Madeira Craven, I’m a Spiritist here in Alvadas. Do realized what has happened?” she prodded delicately. “What you are?”

She needed to ask him how he died, and why he stayed as this sad imitation of his life, but figured that she should give him a chime to cool down. She would start with the easy questions:

“What’s your name?”

There was diplomacy in her smile, and a douse of reassurance, but little else. She was a perfect little machine adding up the facts, trying not to rile the potentially unstable creature in front of her. But there was a little spark of the curious in her too. This was her job, but she liked this. She liked unraveling the enigma of strangers.
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Gathering Mists

Postby Hurik on February 13th, 2017, 4:21 pm

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74th of Winter, 516 AV

Hurik bristled at the woman's statement, as though it were matter of fact, that he could not eat. Clearly it would be simple enough for him to put one of those morsels in his mouth. She shook her bag of somethings, the contents of which she had rather annoyingly neglected to reveal. Hurik stuck his tongue out, and licked his lips. Something that will satisfy me...? Hurik thought curiously, wondering what this woman could possibly have which could be more enticing than whatever was making that tempting shaking noise in her small brown bag.

Hurik chuckled throatily when his mind turned to lewder thoughts as he imagined what she might have in mind to "satisfy" him. She led him underneath the awning of a closed-up shop and the almost clandestine nature of it, despite the flow of people just a few strides away, almost gave him pause. However her serious expression and tone reaffirmed Hurik's guess that he was alone in being an immature idiot.

Immature idiot or not, Hurik's mists were beginning to gather in a slightly more... southerly direction. Hurik might not have been cognizant in this state for long, but he sure as shyke recognized that archaic feeling of arousal in life. With a vicious restraining force, he managed to beckon the mists back to curling moodily about his amulet. Hurik was almost certain that he had to be dead now, knowing that any full-blooded young male would be incapable of the same level of restraint that he had just displayed. Crisis averted, his attentions were once again placed fully on the words the girl spoke.

"Madeira Craven... is a mellifluous name." Hurik replied, repeating it a couple times to savour the feeling of it in his mouth. "Madeeeeiraaaa...the Spiritist. So you're an expert on ghosts hmm?" Hurik nodded sagely, as he began to recall stories of evil dead, risen to malign the living. Of course, he didn't feel terribly malign, just ignorant. And that ate at him, not knowing things. It seemed that the more contact he had with the living, as he supposed he should now refer to them, the more that his mind came alive with memories and recognition of what it had been like, to live. Hurik decided in that moment that in order to cling to life, he would have to keep doing this, try as he might, to find out why his thoughts drifted to blood so easily...

"Alvadas! I remember! The city that petches with people!" Hurik exclaimed, looking around the city with new eyes. "Not that I would remember any of it properly, since that shyke-spinning half-sane god of theirs doesn't do standards." Hurik grinned once more at Madeira, "I'd bet a cool Miza that you've gotten lost at least a half-dozen times in this fool's maze."

He realized he'd missed what she'd said after she'd mentioned Alvadas, but thought that once again, she seemed to be waiting expectantly for something. The groggy beast of manners prodded Hurik to consider that he knew her name, while he had yet to introduce himself.

"Ah, my name is Hurik, a pleasure to meet you Madeira Craven."

Then Hurik's hair began dripping hot blood, which steamed as it slid slick from his hair onto the cobblestones at his feet. The mists had thickened, and taken on a red tinge. A distant wave of emotion roared in the far reaches of Hurik's awareness. He felt...rage. Hurik stumbled, and then fell on a knee. He raised trembling hands up to his locks of hair and found them dry as bones. The mists quietened, and Hurik clenched his teeth. He felt sick.
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Gathering Mists

Postby Madeira Dusk on February 14th, 2017, 6:46 pm

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The longer she spoke to the ghost, the more cracks appeared in her mask of professionalism.

She had to breath deep and count to three when she led him to the awning and turned to recognize that spark in his eye and the way he licked his lips. Previously she had only ever seen that look on living men, and only then focused on a very specific kind of woman.

By the gods, he thinks I’m a prostitute, she realized belatedly.

A ghost prostitute. A prostitute for ghosts.

With some effort it seemed he turned himself around to her line of thinking. But not before she saw his soulmist coalesce around his groin, making the rest of his form become less defined for a short moment before he righted himself. With effort the mist drew up his body and manifested itself around the striking ruby amulet around his neck.

With a kind of mystified horror the Spiritist wondered if she had just witnessed her very first ghost erection. Her first thought was to ask another Craven if they’d ever seen such a thing in the deceased. Then she thought about it, and within the deepest parts of her now soiled soul she vowed to never, ever speak of this again.

As she was still recovering from that madness, he loudly exclaimed that he remembered Alvadas, using an expletive that made her frown like a disapproving mom. He looked around with bright eyes and wonder, and then proceeded to insult the god in who’s city they were standing.

At that point her professionalism disintegrated completely as she made frantic shushing gestures with her hands.

“Damnit, Hurik. It’s not their half-sane god it is our half-sane god” she whispered, hissing like an angry goose. The disrespect for her god was making her angry and nervous at the same time. She looked over her solder like she might find Ionu lurking in the bushes ready to smite them both. “And I have to question your insistence to insult an all-powerful deity in said deities own backyard.

She was opening her mouth to school him on respect and how ‘standards’ were a useless construct from other cities, when Hurik’s body started to change. At first she thought his wild red hair was melting, before it dripped onto his shoulder and she recognized it as blood. Was he beginning to manifest his death? Why here, and why now? His soulmist flashed into a pearly red, and Madeira felt a prick of panic. They were still out in public, with people, and she had not a single Spiritist tool on herself.

But whatever attack he was having was gone as soon as it came. He fell to a knee and held his shaggy head in his hands.

Madeira crouched in front of him, her eyes narrowed in concern and washing over him to look for damage or another manifestation.

“Hurik, are you alright? Are you hurt?” Did another Spiritist get to him before she did? Had he lost part of his soulmist?

She knew what the cure would be, in any case. But could she really risk empowering an unstable ghost? Though she wouldn’t peg him as unstable, really, just stressed and a little bit confused…

Damnit.

“Hey, I need you calm, ok? I’m going to go down the street to find something that can help. In the mean time-”, she put the little bag of hazelnut-berries at his feet “I want you to pick up and hold as many of these as you can. It can be a game, just so we can keep you focused until I get back. The more you can carry the more Soulmist I will give you as a reward.”

She got to her feet, looking up and down the cobble street.

“Please stay here. I’ll be right back.” With that she left down the street, leaving the suffering ghost behind.

She followed her nose to find what she needed. The air was filled with a cacophony of smells. The late diners and the early drunks were all stopping at the little vendors on the side of the street, who hawked there wares with voices that cut deep swaths out of the quiet evening.

“Hot cob! Try some buttery hot cob!”
“Get your spicy sausage here!”
“Roasted nuts! All kinds of roasted nuts!”

Madeira ignored them all. She needed something very particular…

“Eggy in a basket! ‘Oo wants an eggy in the basket!”

The woman turned on her heel and half walked, half ran to the vendor in the brightly painted cart. He had a stack of hollowed out buns next to a bubbling vat of oil. He smiled when he saw such an enthusiastic customer.

“‘’Ey there missy, would you like a-“

“What are in those?” she interrupted brusquely.
“Ah, well. I got me buns ‘ere. Then I fill ‘em with fried egg and cheese. Best meal in the city, I say!”

“Two please. And fast.”

“Good for ya! I like a girl with a ‘ealthy appetite”, he said jovially, missing the raised brow from the skinny waif of a teenager in front of him.

He put together two fresh buns with egg and a healthy sprinkle of cheese. Then packaged them up in two sheets of wax paper before handing them over to Madeira, who slapped two copper miza’s in his hand. With a quick ‘thank you’ called over her shoulder she was walking back to her ghost, juggling the two hot packages in her hands.

As she got close, she called out for him. Hoping to Ionu he was still there.

“Hurik?”.
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Gathering Mists

Postby Hurik on February 14th, 2017, 10:46 pm

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74th of Winter, 516 AV

The spiritist... Madeira was saying something to him, but Hurik could only hear a rushing sound in his ears. The tap tap tap of feet slapping against mud and the sounds of roaring flames. He felt sweat on his brow, and all of a sudden he saw the field. It was covered in corpses. The blood was streaming through his hair once again, and yet all of a sudden he knew that it was not his own. In his hands were a deadly looking axe, and a massive shield. He couldn't have placed where the field might be, somewhere in Kalea perhaps. Still, he was running towards a few individuals standing in the middle of this hellscape, and he reached them. They were standing over a body, a shroud laying over it. Hurik threw the axe to the ground, and knelt down to lift the shroud...

He blinked, and saw that Madeira had left him with the bag of treats she'd had. He could see what lay inside, through the opening of the bag, and it appeared to be some kind of nut. That's what had been shaking so temptingly when she'd held them out in front of him. Not knowing where she'd gone, Hurik figured he might as well try to eat one of these nuts. Maybe ghosts could taste food at least? He hoped for the best, and began to stick his hand into the bag when–

Hurik brushed her face, cold with the rigidity of the dead. Her beautiful hair, as raven black as his own blood-red mane, hung limply on her ruined shoulders. She had died painfully, and the rictus of a smile in her death-mask tore open his heart. This woman had been his life. And now they'd taken her from him. Whoever they were, they'd pay in blood, of that Hurik was petching certain. However as he lowered the shroud back down onto her face, he spotted the amulet he'd given her, a hammer with three garnet stones glimmering, and stained with her blood. The chain had snapped where the blade had cut her. He picked up the amulet and stifled a broken sob, holding the piece of jewellery close to his chest. He looked down at it, not wanting to meet the eyes of his companions, tearful as he now was...

Hurik's vision refocused once more, and to his shock he saw a tendril of mist suspending one of Madeira's nuts shakily above the bag where its companions resided. It was spinning rapidly, and Hurik's brow furrowed as he actively concentrated on keeping the mists from shooting the nut off in a random direction. With a greater pressure on the tugging force that seemed to tether his will to the substance of the mists, he urged it to draw closer to his mouth, pressing his face forward and opening his mouth ever so slightly to put the nut in his mouth–

The woman, full of life and a hundred times more beautiful than before, was kissing him. Hurik's concentration snapped, and the vision of her disappeared in a flash, and so did the nut which his mists had been suspending, as it careened off towards the street, bouncing around through the steps of passersby.

Hurik cursed, and actually reached down to touch the bag. The mists shot from his amulet to wrap around his fingers where he brushed the papery material. He could feel it in his nerves, ghostly though they might be. Hurik had at this point, a rather innovative idea. He thought back to his accidental arousal, the experimentation with his amulet, and his grumbling stomach. Perhaps this would work. Hurik reached into the bag, still enswathed in mists as he felt around for a nut. The sensation of the physical was unnaturally strong, and he quickly grabbed a nut and brought it up to his mouth. The tugging sensation was lessening... Something inside him seemed to say Hurry up!

Hurik popped the nut in his mouth and with it went the mists, seeming to feel like a warm quaff of liquid yet also lacking the weight and texture that said liquid ought to have. Hurik's tongue played around with the nut, and he was surprised to taste a delightful blackberry, despite the appearance of the food. And while Hurik spat out the nut, he concentrated on keeping the flavour of it on his tongue. He savoured it a few moments longer, and then released his mists. They seeped out of his mouth and gathered once more about his amulet. Strangely, he felt fuller than when he had been trying to consume the nut. He noticed that the nut seemed to be glazed with residue, and he strongly doubted that any living person would taste the sweetness of that nut-berry were they to now try it. Looking down at himself once more, Hurik also noted that his mists seemed to be much less active. His amulet and clothes remained visible, but his hands looked fuzzy. His fingers even, melded into one indistinct blob at the end of his arm.

Hurik tried to call on the tugging sensation, and found that as though a dog had been put on a shorter leash, he could not pull as far as before. "Eating then, or I suppose tasting, should be reserved for special occasions..." Hurik mused aloud. His mind seemed to have relaxed after having that delightful game of trying to eat Madeira's treats, and he tried not to fixate on the violent, passionate, and emotional visions which had caused his hair to run bloody.

"Bloodmane..." Another word that popped into Hurik's head as he knelt there. "I was called Bloodmane." Hurik heard Madeira's voice drawing closer to him, and her calling out his name. She was carrying two steaming pieces of bread filled with... eggs? And cheese? Once she'd gotten close enough to speak to, Hurik looked up at her. The setting sun, radiant before, now gleamed sultrily. The dusk light framed her pale hair, and seemed to counteract her thinness and fragile constitution.

"I take it back," Hurik murmured huskily. "You're beautiful." He paused... And then coughed. "Ionu, half-sane though he may be, understands beauty well enough. I don't trust my eyes, but they please me well enough."
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Gathering Mists

Postby Madeira Dusk on February 16th, 2017, 2:43 am

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Madeira paused and looked behind her, for one wild moment thinking he was speaking to someone else. Hurik seemed to be in even worse shape than when she left. The physical damage seemed to be limited to the blurring of his hands, but she could see the toll of some unseen thing in the hardness of his jaw and the tension in his shoulders. She had no idea what could be causing such distress, but she was ready with the only physical cure a ghost could use.
 
"Thank you." she said kindly as she lowered herself to sit cross-legged on the cobblestone in front of him. She had known the manipulation of ghosts for too long to take him for his word, and he looked borderline delusional besides. But even a lie had the ability bolster the confidence of the unguarded, and she found herself smiling.
 
"Can you tell me what happened?" she asked as she unwrapped a steaming bun on her lap. She kept a creepy, unblinking stare into his dark eyes as she did, determined to pry the truth from him. "I want to help you, but I need to know what's happening to you first. What was that episode you had?"
 
She took a huge, unladylike bite of the bun. The cheese scorched her tongue, making her eyes water, but she soldiered through and worked the food in her mouth. The egg, flour and cheese were all ingredients to make soulmist. Even so, she had only ever used them in their raw state, never cooked and spiced and salted like this. She silently prayed to Dira that it would still work.
 
Without a proper knife in which to harvest her blood, she tore a strip from the thick wax paper and folded it several times across it's serrated edge. Then she rolled up her right sleeve, choose a fresh patch of skin on the soft underside of her arm, and drew the edge of the paper across until she got a trickle of ruby red blood. She put her lips to the wound and sucked hard. Years of tasting her own blood left her immune to the sick, coppery taste as it flooded her mouth. 
 
Once done she wrapped the bun back up and left it on her lap. She was still looking at Hurik with the kind of unflinching intensity that would make a stone statue turn away, and she was absorbing what he had to say, but part of her mind was notably elsewhere.
 
Even when a troop of children thundered past, chasing a dense flock of illusionary stone butterflies down the street, Madeira did not for a moment drop her focus on him or the soulmist brewing in her mouth. Even when two of the illusions broke off from the flock to circle his soulmist-amulet, weaving in and out of his chest as they did. Their wings were made of the same sort of jewel as his mist was materialized as, she did notice. Though if she had to guess their bodies were made of marble, or something similar. If she tried to shoo them away she might just break her knuckles in the attempt.
 
The part of her that was not focused on him was looking inward on her soul. She was coaxing and gently drawing the astral part of her spirit out of her body to infuse and transform the dough. Making soulmist from a living soul was a delicate feat. She rolled the dough around her mouth, feeling it slowly change into something a little less than physical through her mind and soul's gentle coaxing. When an icy chill began to bloom in her mouth she had a moment of silent celebration. It had worked!
 
She brought her right hand to her lips and bent at the waist. When she she drew it away, she had pearly, off-white soulmist coiling gently in her palm. It was an odd thing, an impossible union between gas and liquid that behaved like neither. It was identical to Hurik's in almost every way, except that it wasn't his, and strangely that made all the difference. It was marked as hers, like a handprint from her soul.
 
She held it out as an offering, and wiped the residue from her bottom lip with the back of her opposite hand. She was willing to bet the inferior ingredients would make for inferior mist, but she was doubtful he would refuse any soulmist that was offered.
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Madeira Dusk
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Gathering Mists

Postby Hurik on February 21st, 2017, 12:44 pm

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74th of Winter, 516 AV

Hurik blinked, his mists pulsing slowly. He heard Madeira say something more, but he let his head fall and the lines of the street etched themselves in his mind. Things were fuzzy. He saw something shiny and red pass through his chest. The living didn't have things pass through them... Not things that didn't kill them anyway.

He was dead... Should he even be here? The amulet? It was floating above the stones and unlike before, the stains that he'd washed out when he'd taken it had reappeared. Raw, wet, steaming.

No, that was something else. Something else was frothing... Pulsing. Coiling. More mists... The evening light had almost gone out. But the mists lingered. They always did. He remembered mists that night. It had been clear at first, and then... Hurik couldn't focus. Some instinctual sense in him drew him to this new mist. The tugging sensation intensified and he felt lips coated in crimson form stronger than any other part of his body had before. He could feel droplets of the mist gathering on his lips, and his mouth gaped open. A hunger that felt real, raw, and rapidly increasing made his lips part inhumanly wide and the new mist sucked into his being in a blink. His essence felt fuller at once. And more so, he could tell that in a way it was Madeira's. It was rapidly transforming and reintegrating into his own being but he could tell that it was uniquely hers. It had something of her identity to it.

Hurik drew another breath. He felt replenished. His mists were strong once more, as they had been when he'd first materialized. His clothes were back, his amulet was clean, and his form was sharp. The mists jerked and stiffened. A wave of sensory input bombarded him all at once. Smells of egg, cheese, and hot bread. The vivid lights and smoke and colour of the city. The feeling of fabric on his skin, and stone under his fingers. The sound of Madeira's breathing and the entire city's activities behind her. And Hurik tasted the hot dish that she had bought in his mouth, and it tasted delicious. Hurik's mists relaxed, and while the senses faded into the background, Hurik's mind was quietened. His mists fell to his amulet and hung loosely, and with almost, a swagger.

"Petch me." Hurik said. "I feel good. Thank you Madeira."

Hurik stood up straight, looked at her wound and whistled softly. "Are you used to doing that? Looks like it stings like a Widow-bite." Hurik smiled easily, and nodded. "You're a brave girl, or...woman? How old are you anyway? You look like either an extremely youthful courtesan or an embarrassingly old farm girl." The beast of manners roared in protest and Hurik brushed it off. "What I mean to say is, that you have a very youthful face and figure, but your experience seems very deep or–" Hurik groaned and shook his head. He refocused and looked Madeira in the eyes. Her pale, intelligent eyes.

"I would like to know the person behind those eyes."
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All credit goes to the amazing Arisia!
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Hurik
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Gathering Mists

Postby Madeira Dusk on February 25th, 2017, 8:19 pm

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"There, feel better?"
 
Her eyes sparkled with a selfish kind of satisfaction to see Hurik's soulmist settle and replenish with her help. His frequent mood swings and delirious episodes were going to give her whiplash, but she was willing to ride his sudden good mood as long as she could.
 
When he asked if the cut hurt, her lips twisted into a sardonic smile. Chimes ago he was bleeding from a gash to the head. He obviously died brutally, and probably lived brutally too. But he was worried about her self-inflicted papercut? How strangely kind. She turned the soft part of her arm over to catch the fading light behind her, highlighting the thick thatching of small scars.
 
"Magic isn't cheap, but my particular branch is not so bad."
 
She took another bite of bread in order to make more soulmist. Though he had exclaimed that he was feeling good, she doubted that the meagre amount she was able to produce was all that helpful. She brought the cut on her arm once again to her lips, and she was nursing gently at the wound, when the ghost's mouth ran away with him for the second time.
 
She snorted in surprise and blood shot out of her nose. With difficulty she was able to swallow the dough in her mouth before succumbing to a coughing fit.
 
Who speaks like that! Who insults gods in their own territory, only to turn and insult a woman in the next breath? Was he testing which could be more wrathful? Some shred of Craven pride was making her puff up like an angry pigeon, but she deflated almost instantly to hear him organize and finish his thought.
 
He found her interesting.
 
Good.
 
The thought bloomed unbidden in her mind. If she could keep him interested she could keep him close. And growing up in the Craven manor, surrounded by the servants of the greater Spiritist's, gave her a good indication of how useful a ghost can be to someone like her. Even more, if she could forge a bond with this man, she would have an easier time taking him apart to see how he ticked. And once she knew more about him, she could send him to Dira as gently as possible.
 
The heavy hand of guilt was resting on her soul, but she mentally shook it off. She was contemplating using and deceiving him, but she had done worst things in the effort to move the dead on to their next, hopefully better, life. If she went down this rout she just had to make sure not to get too attached to the man. One day she would have to talk him into suicide.
 
"I'll be nineteen in the Spring", she answered truthfully. "And a grown woman, thank you", she couldn't help but be miffed about the question, though she did her best not to show it, instead focusing on the harvest of soulmist in her belly. "And I'm sure what I've seen hasn't come close to what you've experienced. I'll tell you what, why don't we meet later? I'd like to know you better."
 
Should she flirt with him? Some tiny shred of him found her physically attractive, at least the part that still thought he was still human. Unfortunately, she had no idea what she was doing with the living, much less the romantic dead. She settled for smiling at him under her lashes like she'd seen some women do at dance parties and festivals. The effect was awkward and unpractised, but earnest in the attempt.
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