Private Tales A Life to Live

[Chasmine]

This garnered Edric no small amount of curious and strange looks as the man sat alone, reading a menu aloud. Chasmine, of course, was entirely ignorant to such since she was still occupying the book and merely listening to his words. She'd only been expecting him to summarize some things, maybe pick one or two from the list that looked interesting.

Not read the entire thing.

The spirit stirred in her book, equally endeared and enthralled to hear such a great variety of things. There was so much. The Academy had not provided a very robust menu to begin with, so Chasmine had found it quite difficult to eat a full meal with her otherwise limited diet options. This is what had forced her into practicing plant magic on the side and lead her into growing gardens of herbs, vegetables, and other things of dubious nature.

Wishing to be alive was a daily thing, but now more than ever she wished she could partake in the selection.

"Ohh," she sighed wistfully, "that all sounds lovely. What a wonderful place to live."

 

[Edric]

"Seems like a pretty big intersection." Edric agreed, placing his order not soon after.

The conversation was simple, quiet, even if everyone around him thought him insane. Ed had never much cared about what others thought, least of all folk he'd never seen again. His meal came not soon after he'd ordered, and by the time night fell completely he'd already paid.

Stepping out onto the street, Mallian seemed colder than he'd thought it would be at night. The sea air coming from the eastern seas cutting harsher than those of the west. He wondered why that was. "Glad I got that cabin."

He murmured.

Edric couldn't freeze or nothing, but that didn't mean he liked being cold.

 

[Chasmine]

She would be thinking about that list of produce for a long time.

So much so, Chas asked Edric to slip a copy of it into his bag so she could read over it again another time. If she couldn't actually partake in the eating, she could do the next best thing: imagine it.

"It will be nice to leave the book for a bit," she said in reply to his words. Cold made no difference to a ghost, but even ghosts apparently got cabin fever. For her, there was nothing she could discern between occupying the book versus occupying the previous amulet Edric had worn. They felt the same - simply a safe pocket to retreat to where others within the spirit realm could not easily find her.

But if incorporeal entities could feel cramped... well, she supposed that's what she was feeling. A restlessness to move freely and experience at least a little bit of the realm beyond.

As Edric walked along the streets and took in the evening view of the waters beyond, he'd notice some uniformed officials moving about. Some were hanging wanted signs while others were mingling among the foot traffic.

"Have you seen this man?" spoken in near a dozen languages.

The poster showed a very familiar face upon it.

 

[Edric]

They had talked about this.

Edric had been in the middle of saying something back to Chasmine when he noticed the voices calling out. His muscles tensed, but they had known that it might come to this. Mallian was a big trade city, nothing like Alliria, but the only thing like it on this side of the world.

There had always been a chance. At least the posters of him were old, making him look like he was still seventeen. These must have been just made after graduation. It made sense, they would have been made with old prints. "This was a good idea."

He remarked, looking at the poster while scratching his beard.

Lingering only for a few moments longer, Edric shook his head and then headed towards the docks.

The Rogue Dreadlord didn't rush or run. He didn't sprint or hurry. Instead he meandered slowly through the streets, letting the small bit of alcohol he'd drunk stumble through his step. By the time anyone thought there was a resemblance between himself and the poster he would be long to sea.

As Chas had said, there was no need for violence.

 

[Chasmine]

Before leaving port, Chasmine bid Ed to do one small favor: collect one of his wanted posters.

"Why not?" she said to him when he presented said poster and asked the obvious question of why.

"Now we know what they know," Chas continued, manifested in his cabin with a great amount of form and detail for the fount of energy available within the city. She gestured to the poster so that it drifted up into the air before her, hovering just beyond her ghostly reach, "and clearly they do not know you have a beard."

That was good. But also he looked much more like what she remembered of him from her last days at the Academy. The depiction was that of a younger Edric, before joining the exiles and striking out on his own. Chasmine turned to face Edric, the poster following, and looked between the flat ink version and that of the real version standing before her.

"I prefer the beard," she said then as if telling a Waitress she preferred house salad over Cobb, "although it does make your eyes stand out more. Perhaps we should find you a hat."

 

[Edric]

"Not while in Tyr." Place was too hot for that. Especially this time of year.

The Isles of Sheketh would be practically roasting, especially with the lava flows. Least it wouldn't be cold though, he'd be thankful for that even after only a short while at sea.

Gently, he leaned back against the ship's hull. The wood was cold, but not enough to get through his cloak and armor.

Outsider the porthole, nestled in the corner of his room, the clouds were turning gray. Slowly they obscured the light of the moon, casting shadows from the sky as rain began to patter down. Lightning flashed not soon after, the echo of thunder erupting out.

The storm would sweep them south quickly, the winds favoring their passage. Or so Edric had been told. "We'll just get in and out."

Edric reasoned.

"No need to linger." The Rogue said as he wrung his hands. "Vel Anir will give up eventually. They've got bigger problems than just me."

 

[Chasmine]

Chasmine could not speak on the stubborness of Vel Anir in its pursuit of those that had wronged it. She suspected he was both right and wrong in this - that they did, in fact, have bigger problems than him, but that they likely would not give up. Not after what he did in that tower at the nobles party.

He'd killed too many of renown and noble blood.

Being an accomplice of Gilram's only solidified his status as wanted criminal. As if they'd ever give up the chase after Gilram himself.

Aside from that, she had no qualms. Much as she would have liked to linger any of the places they went, it would amount to nothing while she was as she was. For now, she had time in this cabin for the duration of the journey across the narrow sea to practice a new skill taught to her by Ma'Ziri.

"Edric," Chasmine gestured to the poster and it flitted away like a bird, sifting itself back into his bag, "I require a small amount of your blood to test something."

 

[Edric]

Edric knew he was being overconfident, but he had to be. Had to believe that everything would turn out alright. That they could get Chas back, and that eventually things would just...settle.

There was no basis in fact for that belief. Nothing in his life that would lead him to believe it would all just work out, but Edric wasn't sure what else he could think. Giving any ground, even in his own mind, was just like giving up.

He couldn't do that.

"Hm?" The Rogue Dreadlord intoned. "Of course."

There was never a second of doubt. A moment where he wondered if she was about to hurt him. Such things never occurred to him, not now, not like there might have been a few weeks ago. "What is it?"

Edric asked, pulling the knife from his boot.

 

[Chasmine]

"I began learning a new skill while I spent time with Ma'Ziri," she said, "after asking her about her protective web. I have never before come across something like it ... the web crossed between realms and touched both the spirit and the living realm." Edric had not felt any of its effects because he lacked a soul to be affected - Chasmine decided she did not need to clarify this. His lack of soul was a tender subject.

"It was made of Spirit Ichor and it requires elements of both realms to create. Blood of the living and spiritual energy. I do not need much."

 

[Edric]

The tip of his knife cut into the edge of his palm. "Okay."

He agreed simply.

"What exactly will this do?" Edric trusted her, but that did not mean he wouldn't ask questions. After the...incident, he hadn't been allowed back in the Shaman's tent. In truth, he hadn't minded, after all Chas would understand it all better than he would anyway.

It did mean he had fallen behind though.

At least they had plenty of time for him to make it all back up. Tyr was still days away, and the other trips would take weeks. Edric had a lot of time left to learn.

 

[Chasmine]

Chasmine furrowed her brow as he cut into his hand, a short vision of her own blood-letting at the Academy shifting across her mind.

"I can use it to create objects like the web that can interact with things within both realms," expression thoughtful as she recalled Ziri's words (though even she had difficulty understanding the Shaman at times) Chas watched as the blood welled beneath the tip of the knife in his palm.

She reached down to her right side with her left hand and willed her colichemarde into being. This action was slowly becoming easier as she learned that her weapon was also within the realm of Spirit Ichor objects, though she had little understanding of the how or why. The sword appeared alongside her, though it glowed an acidic green in contrast to her pale blueish form. Unsheathing it, Chas held it up horizontally upon both hands.

"I can use Spirit Ichor to make my sword whole," she said, "and it will cut a breathing man as well as it cuts a shade."

In one fluid motion, she parroted Edric's act with her own by dragging her right palm across its honed edge. It rang a strange sound that made anything glass within the cabin ping. Chasmine winced but made no sound of pain as it sliced into her own palm and opened a wound from which a miasma of energy poured like smoke.

Her eyes shifted back to Ed, "Drip your blood over the blade."

 

[Edric]

"Oh." It didn't take a genius to understand why that would be handy.

His gaze flickered over the sword as she gently drew it over her palm. Lips pressing to a thin line as half a dozen questions about ghosts flickered through his mind. Deciding it was better to keep them to himself for now while she answered his first query.

The blade in his hand flickered away as her ghostly sword was held out to him. Edric's fingers curling inward to press against his newly wrought wound.

As crimson speckles spilled onto the wraith blade, a thought occurred to him. "Just my blood, or any?"

Edric asked, looking up at her in the strangely intimate ceremony.

 

[Chasmine]

His blood hissed against the surface of the blade.

Chasmine blinked.

His blood hissed against the surface of the blade.​

A glance was given to him as he spoke, "I do not know..." she admitted, "we did not get that far in our lessons."

But she would note that mentally as a good question to pose next time they stopped over at Maui's camp. Chas took the same hand she'd cut and slowly smoothed her sliced palm along the same surface of the blade. Eyes shut, she concentrated on the duality of the living and spiritual essence now coating the blade.

On its own, she could not interact with Edric's blood, but upon melding it via magic with her own spiritual ether, she could sense its presence and even touch it once fully coalesced. It felt like tree sap, much how Ziri had described. Sticky, viscous, but workable. Maleable.

Spirit Ichor. So aptly named.

Her hand pressed it along the length of the blade, smearing the strange substance while in her mind she envisioned her intent and the purpose it would hold. To make her weapon whole. To hone its edge that it might slice into the realm of the living and take a life ... or perhaps save one.

She wasn't entirely sure how she was to know that she'd finalized the process. "Ziri says it is an innate skill of the spiritually bound and requires honing and practice to learn the subtle cues. Like pottery."

A good potter knew when the clay mixture was perfect for shaping and molding, and spent years learning how to create something out of seemingly nothing. The two skills were very similar.

"I've never tried pottery before."

Chasmine opened her eyes as her hand reached the tip of the blade and looked upon the colichemarde's acidic glow. It did not feel any different to her. At least, not at first. She twisted the blade with practiced finesse taught to her by the soul of Blademaster Proctor Basmarc in the spirit realm. Testing the weight and movement of it yielded no results, and so without a better idea she tossed it lightly into the air, caught it underhanded and heaved it like a javelin across the small chamber.

THUNK

The blade sunk into the door of the cabin and rang as it shivered in place.

Her brows arched high along her forehead, "Oh."

 

[Edric]

Edric listened to every word Chasmine said, watched every little thing she did.

Over the last few months after leaving Vel Anir, during his time with Gilram, he had more than learned that paying attention was half the battle for anything. He'd always known it was important on missions, around the other Initiates, but he'd never paid attention to things like...this.

Lessons that could be learned, information that could be used for more than killing.

It was a thought that most people would have arrived at as children, but for Edric it was almost earth shattering. The Proctors had never bothered telling him lessons of a classroom mattered, he'd been shaped for other things.

So he watched, he learned, he tried to understand as much as he could.

His eyes flickering, and then going wide as Chasmine's blade buried itself in the wall. First a strike of elation going through him, a shout of; "Fuck yes!"

Echoing in the tiny cabin before a sudden realization dawned on him.

"Shit." Edric declared with a frown. "I'm going to have to pay for that."

 

[Chasmine]

His excitement brought about an exceedingly rare smile to his companion's face. One that, despite being a spirit, gave her a rather lively sort of appearance - spritely and bright. It disappeared as he suddenly realized the consequences of the damage, wilting like a moon lily with the sunrise.

"Oh," she blinked and looked to her sword-in-the-door with a faint frown, "oops."

Chasmine moved across the small space, reached to the handle of her weapon and gave it a sharp tug to pull it from the door. Sure enough it had left a small, colichemarde-sized hole. It was minuscule, but the keen and familiar eye would notice it. She considered it for a moment, head tilting slightly, "...I could put one in every door."

The ghost looked back at Edric with a dubious raise of a brow. If every door had a hole then who was to say Ed was to blame? No, they may just abandon ship for fear of being haunted.

 

[Edric]

For a brief moment he paused to think.

"Eh." Edric appreciated the thought, but he did not think that more property damage would be the way to go. In his experience the more you destroyed something the more likely someone was to come after you for it. "I'll just slip the guy a silver."

It would be honest at least, though their supply of coins was going to need to be addressed sooner rather than later. Perhaps they'd have to find another pit for him to compete in. Though it wasn't like it was really that much of an issue.

Edric wouldn't starve, wouldn't be cut by frostbite or tainted by disease. The only thing they really needed money for was passage, everything else was just comfort.

And he'd done without that for most of his life.

"This is great though, Chas." Edric said as he gestured towards the door. The note of excitement flickering back into his breath.

In truth, he didn't really know what this would mean. How much progress they had just made, but that didn't really matter to him. This was progress. The first step they had taken to actually bringing her back. "Couple more weeks and you'll be punching holes in doors.”

Offered with a grin.

 

[Chasmine]

Well that was certainly the more responsible route and Chasmine conceded as much with a sound of agreement on the matter. A silver was far easier than making more holes and, really, she didn't like poking holes in things that weren't hers to poke holes into in the first place.

With his encouragement her smile did return, softer now as she looked down at the sword and considered it. That she had succeeded meant a great deal considering she'd only practiced very little with Ziri.

"Punching?" she intoned with some bewilderment, "I think I will just walk through them and leave the punching to you. You're much better at it."

There was a hint of teasing in her smile as she turned her sword this way and that. Chas tested the flat side of it against other surfaces with gentle taps, just to see if it truly was tangible and she had not just hallucinated the last several minutes. There were still many portions of days that she could not quite recall if she had dreamt them, imagined them, or if they were simply the remnants of memories from a mind addled by mushrooms.

"I would like to practice this on something ... less aggressive. Do you suppose you could ask the Captain for parchment and ink? I want to try making a quill pen."

 

[Edric]

Edric grinned at her comment. "I'll teach you to be better at it when you're back."

He told her, sure that he could do better than any fucking Proctor ever had.

As she slowly moved the blade, Edric simply stayed quiet. Reveling in the moment of their accomplishment. Utterly pleased that they had finally managed to actually have a tangible benefit to the weeks of dreaming he'd gone through.

"Sure." He said with a smile, slowly pushing himself up. "I'll grab em now, been cooped up here for a bit anyway."

Edric continued as he stretched a little. "I'll find out how much longer till we get there too."

Within the span of half an hour the rogue Dreadlord returned. In his hand he held both Inkwell and parchment, though neither of them were particularly well made. Though he was pretty sure that was because it was all the Captain had on hand, not because Edric had also chosen to share about the fact there was now a hole in the door.

Least the silver piece had been enough for all of it.

"Think I'll get some sleep, if you don't need anything else." He said, a yawn echoing from his throat.

 

[Chasmine]

She would need nothing more than simple implements for the task and what he produced for her worked perfectly. Chas looked upon them brightly where he'd set them on the small table, a wayward glance his way as he yawned and made to tuck in. Was it nighttime already? Mostly she tracked the hours of the day based on Edric's activities, so whenever he decided to take a nap it stood a good chance of setting her mental clock wrong.

It didn't matter. This would keep her occupied for quite a while.

"No, this will do," a simple answer to him as she moved to fill the space of the only chair in the room while he made himself comfortable and dozed off.

Luckily her work caused next to no noise, leaving him undisturbed as she puzzled out the technique for drawing forth spirit ochre and forming objects. Ziri had told her that actual live blood only made the process easier, but that it could be done without. She simply need concentrate more, put more energy into the task. Not so easy to spare energy that she didn't necessarily have of her own. All energy she used was borrowed - whether from the natural elements around her like heat, storms, or life itself; or from that which she siphoned from the emotion of living beings. The ship wasn't terribly large, but it was packed full of deckhands.

Chasmine took from them in small increments all day long in order to manifest, but now she required more energy to fulfill the task. So from the men and women working the deck, singing a tune or exuberantly going about their work, she siphoned away what they already spared in the effort.

Little by little.

She collected it and concentrated that energy through herself, willing it to form within her spectral hands. After a time, the faint green glow of a small orb had manifested between her palms. It was more opaque than what she'd seen Ziri create, but the Shaman had many more years of practice over her and the added boon of creating in the living realm. Chasmine had to create within her own realm and then will it to cross the threshold.

More time passed. She'd formed the small orb into a long, rudimentary shape that somewhat resembled a feather. This was as much mental as it was ... metaphysical. The formation happened in tune with her intent and as she focused on the form of a feather, her fingers managed to mold it ever more clearly into shape. Soon enough, she had a quillpen. It was not pretty, but it would do the job. Now she simply had to will it to bridge the gap.

Intent and further energy. She thought on the same idea of how her sword worked when she'd raised it into the air, and with her hands took the quillpen in the right, setting it ready to draft a letter, and like unsheathing a sword moved to place the tip into the open inkwell.

Ting.

She blinked, glanced to Edric who remained undisturbed, and lifted the quill from the inkwell to watch with fascination as the ink dripped from the end of the glowing object and onto the parchment. She set the tip down at the top and wrote the first thing that came to mind:

Edric,​

Chasmine gave that a moment of quiet consideration, her pale gaze shifting back toward the exile with a frown. When she looked back to the parchment again she wrote the next thing that came to mind.

And then the next. And the next.

On and on until the parchment was full of words written to him. A letter she'd never quite intended to write until she was suddenly given a chance to do so. Now thoughts that had littered her ceaseless stream of consciousness were finding a place to settle. Things she'd wanted to say to him but either couldn't drum up the bravery to speak them aloud, or simply couldn't find the right moment to do so.

When was the right time to spill these kind of feelings? And would they really matter coming from her? A ghost? No one of consequence.

Either way, the deed was done. The page full. Her handwriting was quite a bit less neat than it once had been, but it had been several years since she'd held a quill or written ... anything. Nevertheless, she took a moment to ponder how to sign off and remembered the promise they'd made to one another. That felt right. A reminder to herself as much as it was to him.

Till the end.​

And now at the end, she could feel her own energy wane. That was enough for the day - she'd over exerted herself with the endeavor. Chas placed the spirit ochre quill back in the inkwell and with a sigh slowly dissipated from sight, returning to the sanctuary of her book sitting out on the table nearby.

Ed would wake later to find the letter right where she left it.

 

[Edric]

By the time Edric found the letter, it was already well passed dawn.

Though no one had ever really ever complemented him on it, Edric's greatest skill had always been sleep. As a general rule, he didn't need it. If he wanted to the young Initiate could stay awake for weeks without ever being tired.

A fact of course which had presented a problem more than once while living at the Academy, and thus the Proctors had strongly encouraged him to learn to sleep. A talent that he'd cultivated, and ultimately become a complete expert in. Edric could sleep anywhere, anytime, and anyhow.

Didn't matter if it was on a pile of bricks surrounded by screaming tavern wenches, Edric would be snoozing away.

Thus when he awoke, it was already near mid-day.

Their small cabin was quiet as he pulled himself from the bed, shoving the small scrap of blanket to the side as he stretched. Frowning slightly as he noticed the inkwell still sitting on the cabin's little desk. Slowly he stood, glancing at the parchment for a brief moment and wondering if he should even read it.

Then he noticed his name.

Edric frowned for a moment, a small spark of anxiety flickering through his chest as he stepped forward.

Fingers curled around the edges of the parchment as he picked it up, eyes slowly drawing over each carefully scrawled word. An emotion he could not quite place flickering through his heart as he continued through each and every line.

By the time he finished, a smile had set upon his face. Not a cocky grin, not an expression of elation or mirth, but...something else. He felt, he felt like he hadn't bef-no, he'd felt this way some other time, though Edric could not remember when. "Chasmine."

He said softly, calling to her in her own sleep.

"Chas." Edric beckoned again gently. "You there?"

 

[Chasmine]

"Yes," said her voice from the book, faint in the way he knew it when she was low on energy, "I am here."

 

[Edric]

The smile on his face did not disappear as he spoke. "You didn't have to write this."

He offered her softly, but it was clear from the tone of his voice that her letter had struck at something deep within him.

"I mean I-" Edric stopped himself with a frown, taking a breath as he stopped himself. "What I mean is..."

His voice cracked for just a split second. "You never had to thank me."

Not for this, not for any of this.

 

[Chasmine]

Chasmine was silent for a few moments, having the desire to manifest so she could look see him and look him in the eye, but not having the strength to do so.

"You're my friend..." she said at length, feeling more sure of that fact now than ever before with anyone, "and I wanted you to know what that means to me."

"I tried to tell you many times before but... my thoughts are not easy to keep straight. I wasn't certain how to say them and until now I didn't have any other way to do it."

 

[Edric]

"Well." Edric said softly. "It's nice."

His fingers gently clutched at the piece of parchment, frowning slightly at the frayed edges. Lips drawing to a thin line as he wondered how best he could make sure that it stayed in one piece. Especially while they were still at sea. "Thank you."

He offered softly, finally looking away from the words and at Chasmine.

"I don't think..." Edric frowned. "I don't think anyone's ever said anything this nice about me."

The Rogue Dreadlord admitted softly.

 

[Chasmine]

"It is difficult to say nice things about people you believe to be cruel," Chasmine replied quietly, "or people you do not know well."

For many years she would not have said much of anything about Edric. Chas liked to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but it had been rather difficult where Ed was concerned, especially while they were at the Academy. She preferred reticence on a subject when she had nothing nice to say of it. Negativity had a way of recoiling when you least expected it.

"But you have changed very much. You have grown," she continued, "and I know you better now than anyone I knew at the Academy."

Still, sometimes she wondered if things would have turned out this way had she not been a ghost. Would Edric still have opted to ask her along with him when he left? Or would a living, breathing, tangible Chasmine have been more trouble to deal with than she was worth? A ghost didn't require... anything, really. Not even companionship, though she did get terribly lonely.

"I am glad I chose to come along with you. I would have missed out on this friendship."