Private Tales Head in the Clouds

[Chasmine]

His words made her feel decidedly unhurried, and Chasmine paused where she was to look up at Dorian appreciatively. It was not the climb itself that was the trouble, no. Were she a tangible girl she might've kept up relatively well with him. Despite her waifish appearance, Chas was well fit as any Dreadlord Initiate should be. She simply had a difficult time maintaining any semblance of muscle mass. At times it felt as though her bones were disdainful of her existence and wished to press on without her.

She did not feel that way as a ghost. In this moment, she simply felt ... tired.

It was an exhaustion of the spirit, not of the body, marked by the ephemeral state of her spectral self. Some moments she was a shimmer, some moments she was gone from sight completely only reappearing again some few steps up from where she had been.

When they reached the half-way point she had to stop, her faded figure a wisp of itself.

"Do you hear that?" she asked faintly, "I can hear the stars."

 

[Dorian]

"Oh, Gods," Dorian said under his breath, "Hear the stars, Chas? I don't think they would deign to speak to us."

He stopped to rest with his hands on his hips and watched her closely. Watched her form blink in and out.

He wondered what if one day, she never came back, and frowned.

Why not humor her? Who knew how long they could share moments like this? So, Dorian looked up and listened. Closed his eyes and strained his ears as if that would make a difference.

"Nah," he finally said, "Nothin'."

 

[Chasmine]

"Stars don't speak, silly," Chas smiled as she looked up at the night sky, "they sing. Like a gentle hum."

She could feel the gentle vibrato in her spectral soul and it was soothing in a way that a warm bath was.

"When I can't sleep, sometimes I climb onto the Academy roof on clear nights and just listen to them. I wonder if they will be louder on the cliff." The cliff was quite high. Higher than she could climb on the academy.

"Perhaps you just don't know how to hear them."

 

[Dorian]

What a bizarre thing to say. Singing stars?

If there was one thing Dorian knew with absolute certainty, it was that somebody like Chasmine did not belong in such a dreadful place. Of course, he wasn't alone in thinking so.

"If I could hear their songs, I would listen to them with you," Dorian stated, "But, I can't. Maybe one day."

 

[Chasmine]

Chasmine's gaze shifted back to Dorian, a warmly uncertain look about her.

"Maybe one night," she corrected him gently, then with a small deep breath she began her trek once more.

It would take some more for her to reach the overhang of the cliff. A long and silent wait for Dorian after he reached the top. Chasmine was moving slower yet, and ever so much more fading from view. By the time she faded up and over the final step she was as faint as the fog of breath on a window.

"You didn't have to wait for me," she said, her voice so distant it might've been shouted from back at the Academy. Her ghostly form weakly flickered, barely a spent wick on a dying candle, "now the night is nearly gone."

 

[Dorian]

Dorian almost regretted the time it took for him to reach the top. Usually, he would have the time to rest for a while, but he would have to begin the descent soon after arriving at his destination. When Chasmine caught up, he turned back to face her and just smiled. Well, this was fine, too. Dorian was almost always so focused on destinations and where paths ended that he'd never take the time to appreciate what it took to reach those points.

Slowing down for Chasmine let him savor the journey with welcome company rather than speed to the end alone.

"Come closer," he said from the edge of the cliff, legs dangling over the perilous drop. As she drifted closer, he watched her carefully, "You feel alright?"

Dorian looked forward, "I bet we could catch the sunrise."

 

[Chasmine]

The wisp of a ghost drifted forward slowly, fading from view just behind him and then faintly reappearing beside him. He would feel the cold presence of the geist along his skin, raising the hair on his arm and sending tingles of its otherwordly presence along his spine. Something he might be quite familiar with, given his own gift.

"I am," said the voice, "so very ....tired."

And as night faded so did the ghost and its presence. By the time the sun peaked over the horizon, Chasmine had disappeared from his company.

 

[Dorian]

For a while, after Chasmine disappeared from his side, Dorian lingered on the cliff. Perhaps she would return if he waited long enough. Also, for the first time, he took in the sunrise.

Long after roll call, Dorian would finally return to the Academy. When he saw Chasmine next, he greeted her with a wide smile.

Several weeks later...

On a particularly cold night, Dorian lay awake in his room staring at the ceiling. He could hear as the ongoing rainstorm pattered against the Academy's walls and sometimes the distant boom of thunder. The noise was calming, and welcome compared to the usual silence. He thought if he could manage to rest his eyes, he would drift off to a rare good night's sleep.

 

[Chasmine]

Every single day Chasmine came across the ghoulish residents of the Academy grounds. For the most part they ignored her, but sometimes she was approached by a new ghostly presence she'd not seen before. They came to her to communicate their stories - the tales of their lives or last words for loved ones. Chasmine listened to them as well as she could, but often they interrupted her daily routine.

During class. During spars. During meals. During study. It wasn't all the time, but it was often enough for the girl to leave the impression with her fellow corporeal Initiates that she was exceptionally distracted. Or perhaps unattached to normal life. They'd see her talking to no one and nothing in the oddest places. Or find her sitting alone, doing nothing in particular but staring off into the distance while she listened to a voice they could not hear spoken by a presence they could not see.

For the most part, the spirits of the Academy were harmless. Every now and again, however, they weren't.

Those were the ones that drove Chasmine Grey to blood letting and warding of her private chamber. Or sent her running from an otherwise normal social situation as though she were quite frightened of the other students. The truth was that Chasmine feared the other students far less than she feared those uncommon entities she could not escape from.

She could always phase herself out of a threatening situation with a bully, but she couldn't escape the demons that haunted her step, ghostly or physical.

It was just this sort of presence she had found herself stalked by on this particular evening. What had started in the library in the later hours had pursued her through the halls in its measured, slow, but relentless chase.

Chasmine found herself phasing back in within the boy's wing, hoping to come upon a Proctor on night hall duty. No such luck. But there was a door here she recognized now as belonging to Dorian, and there was no one else she felt comfortable enough calling upon for a bit of emotional support. So when that hideous fiend appeared at the far end of the hall with its beady, glowing red eyes, she quickly but quietly moved to his door and knocked.

"Dorian?" her knuckles rapped lightly and hurridly, "Please may I come in?"

It was getting closer now and she panicked, phased, and startled right through his door as a bolt of lightning cracked just outside his windows.

 

[Dorian]

Dorian sat up as he heard Chasmine's airy voice call out to him and twisted his head around his room, expecting to see a translucent apparition of his friend standing there. Then he heard the knocking.

"Please may I come in?"

It wasn't often that Chasmine asked things of Dorian, especially with such a tone of pleading. So, he hurried to the door to open it, but she saw herself in. Dorian couldn't remember exactly the last time he'd felt that electrifying chill - the firing of all his synapses at once and the feeling of being doused in ice-cold water. It was like he took frigid air into his lungs.

The boy gasped, and he spun around to a materialized Chasmine. Several months ago, he would have bitterly snapped at her. What the fuck? Don't do that shit! But things were a bit different now.

"You alright, Chas?" Dorian shivered from the lingering chill of being passed through, "What's the matter?"

Thunder boomed again. Ah, that must've been it.

 

[Chasmine]

She stood there in his room, not for the first time, looking as though she'd just escaped a rather harrowing encounter with Proctor Harkenov. In fact she would have much rather been dealing with the errant, furious Harkenov than the demon presently in pursuit.

Lightning flashed through the windows of Dorian's room again and Chasmine watched the shadow entity rising up through the doorway behind him, engulfing the entirety of that corner of his room in darkness. She flinched in the illumination, withdrawing into herself in fright.

"Please make it go away..."

 

[Dorian]

A cowering, scared Chasmine wasn't an unfamiliar sight to behold, but it had been a long time since Dorian had seen her this way. He quickly reached out and took hold of her wrist with a firm but gentle grip.

Entirely unaware of the malevolent visitor, Dorian wondered how he was meant to comfort Chasmine amidst the torrential downpour. Some Dreadlords had control over the weather, but people boasting such abilities were few and far between.

He pulled her in close and wrapped his arms around his dear friend in a tight hug. For being a person known for sound strategies and quick thinking, the tiny gesture was all he could think up.

"Do you want to lie down for a while?" Dorian whispered to her.

 

[Chasmine]

It was a gesture she hadn't received in some time and likely one that Dorian hadn't offered for far longer. The last person to have hugged her, that she could recall, was her mother just before the Anirian Guard had taken Chasmine away from her family. It was the last time she'd seen them and now, after so many years and so much torture and abuse at the hands of the Proctors, she could hardly remember them at all.

Memories stored away in a mental safebox, buried deep deep down in her subconscious.

Chas stood rooted to the spot for several moments, forgetting how to breath and staring blankly into the material of Dorian's shirt. The sudden sensation of safety and warmth stilled her quaking and calmed her thoughts. She offered his whisper a nod in response.

If it meant she could stay with him a bit longer, then the answer was certainly yes.

 

[Dorian]

It shouldn't have been an issue. Of the apprentices, Dorian was one of the few that excelled in wrestling. Being tied up with another body was an entirely normal thing. So something like a hug should've just been, well, bland. He shouldn't have felt the fluttering that he did.

"Okay," Dorian murmured and, with Chasmine still in his arms, awkwardly returned to his bed. After some rolling around and adjusting, Dorian just laid how was most comfortable for himself and let Chasmine do the same.

He was on his back, with his arm around Chasmine, and the girl curled into him, leaving not even a hair's worth of space between them.

Dorian took note of the aromas clinging to her; earthy herbal notes mixed with something faintly sweet. Chasmine had spoken of burning... sticks or something in her room. He tilted his head down and nuzzled into her hair, slowly taking the smell of her in. Beyond the combination was the scent of the natural oils in her hair. It made for an odd mixture, but Dorian didn't hate it. It was hers, after all, so how could he?

 

[Chasmine]

No expectations were had so far as the mechanics of getting from hug to laying down in comfort, and certainly Chasmine would not judge on how it came to be, but she got the distinct impression from Dorian that he didn't quite know how to manage it. Being more distracted by the mixture of strange new comforts and familiar old nightmares, Chas went along for the ride without complaint or comment.

Curled into his side with her head resting on his chest just under his chin, she tried to let the resonating thump of his heart lull her mind. But the flashes of lightning threw into relief the shadow figure still lurking within the corner of Dorian's room, and she flinched as she caught sight of it. Chas buried her face into Dorian's chest with a frightful shiver, silently wishing the demon would grow bored of lying in wait and move on to some other unsuspecting victim.

 

[Dorian]

Dorian pulled his face away from the tuft of platinum hair he'd nestled into and frowned. Maybe the hurricane that struck in the middle of their forest drill some years ago had left its mark on her, or perhaps it was something even before that? Of all the things to strike fear into an Apprentice Dreadlord, thunder was one of the last things Dorian expected.

He gently patted Chasmine's head once as a bit of an experiment. Did it feel right to do so at the moment? Was it even a comforting thing for her? Further observation was needed.

Pat. Pat-pat. This continued for longer than it should have.

Dorian concluded that patting was awful and began to stroke the back of Chasmine's head, running his fingers through her mess of hair (somehow without snagging his fingers on any wild knots).

"Hey," he whispered and raised his free hand to his chest, "Look'it this."

Dorian closed his hand and opened it to show off a pair of small, azure butterflies after a few seconds. They cast a bright glow across his room's walls, and with each flap of their wings, tiny shimmering particles floated away from them.

 

[Chasmine]

The patting was ... awful, yes, and had it continued for much longer she may have been compelled to say something to that effect. It stopped, thankfully, and was replaced by gentled combing of her hair which was far nicer to experience.

At his whisper she carefully turned her head to peek back out, watching with curiosity as he formed the small butterflies in his hand. What a wonderful ability to have ... to create such lovely things at will. She stared as they fluttered serenely about, casting their lovely glow across the walls and scattering the shadows still clinging in the corners. The glimmer was magical beyond the sake of magic.

How often did one create magic here just for the sake of beauty?

Chas shifted and slowly relaxed against him, lifting a hand gently toward the fluttering wings, "I didn't know you liked butterflies."

 

[Dorian]

"I think they're graceful," Dorian said as the glowing bug floated just beyond Chasmine's touch before perching on her hand. It didn't even have the weight of a feather.

"They're handy, too. I could call upon a whole swarm of them if I wanted."

Handy just for lighting up a dark place. But useful was useful. Dorian's strength wasn't in having spirits that boasted remarkable individual power but rather that there was seemingly no limit to the spirits he could possess. The boy's potential was quite literally endless, and thus far, he had amassed a collection spanning far beyond what he reported to the Proctors. Of course, it would've made him unstoppable if every spirit hadn't been so weak. But Dorian was resourceful and made the most of a repertoire of seemingly feeble spirits.

The ability to have an answer for every problem was very much a Dorian thing.

Dorian's hand slid down and came to a rest on Chasmine's back. Laying with her was a very natural, comfortable feeling.

"This is nice," he thought aloud.

 

[Chasmine]

Chasmine felt whatever vestiges of fear remaining of the demon filter away as the spirit settled onto her outstretched fingers. It felt cool to the touch, but not in an uncomfortable way. More akin to a gentle, welcome breeze on a hot summer day. A pleasant energy emanated from its luminescent wings.

"This is nice."

Chas smiled softly to herself, gently bringing her hand and the butterfly down for a closer view, "Hello Nice, pleased to meet you."

 

[Dorian]

Dorian snorted, then squeaked with an outburst of laughter, rendering him teary-eyed and breathless.

"That's a silly joke," he said, sighing and wiping the corners of his eyes with the side of his hand. Had he ever laughed so hard? Dorian's arm tightened around Chas, and he smiled at the ceiling.

 

[Chasmine]

Dorian's outburst sent the spirit fluttering away from her hand and even managed to catch Chasmine off-guard. Pale eyes wide, Chas lay there with mild alarm, blinking it away as he hugged her tighter, and turned a warm smile up at him from where she lay.

"You have a wonderful laugh, Dorian." The reverberations of it within his chest was a lovely feeling, being snuggled against him so.

 

[Dorian]

"You think so?" Dorian's smile widened, his teeth peeking through, and he shyly turned his face away, "Thanks."

His face relaxed as suddenly contentedness in being alone with the girl washed over him.

"Why don't you stay with me tonight, Chas? And if you'd like, we can lay together like this again."

 

[Chasmine]

Chasmine's outstretched hand returned to rest against his chest, fingers curling lightly into the nook beneath her chin. Her smile persisted and a nod answered his curiosity and she was content to lay there for a little longer. The demon seemed to have moved on, or perhaps been shunted away by the spirits and pleasantries. The strength of positive energy could never be underestimated when it came to entities such as that, but sometimes it was difficult to keep them at bay when one was alone so often.

With another it felt so much easier. So much safer.

Quiet and faintly uncertain at Dorian's offer, Chasmine's smile faded slightly for a momentary lapse of awareness. People often took advantage of her naivete and kindness, and for a brief second she wondered if perhaps Dorian were playing tricks. Yet a blink washed that away and there were no doubts permitted in her mind that he was being sincere.

"I would like that," she nodded, snuggling back down against his side again, "very much so."

 

[Dorian]

Some time later.​

Hunched over a long, stone basin in the communal washroom, Dorian furiously rubbed his hands in the lukewarm water, then up to his arms, scrubbing with his nails to remove grime and blood. Cleansing himself had left the water murky, and he splashed his face and rubbed where a smudge of dried blood smeared across his face and onto his neck.

"Fuck," Dorian hissed.

Aside from scrapes and bruises and his clothes mangled and dirty, the boy was unharmed.

 

[Chasmine]

It was the end of the boy's wash hour, but that did not deter Chasmine Grey from stepping into the bath hall. Despite new rules that had separated the boys and the girls within the Academy, for those that had spent most of their lives here under the pre-revolution rules and Proctor regime, some habits or lifestyles were hard to break. Most all, if not everyone in her age group and class, had seen one another's naked bodies on a daily basis growing up.

The communal wash hall was no different from the communal mess hall or the communal study hall or the communal sleeping quarters. Only here instead of reading books or eating meals or sleeping, they washed. As normal a thing as doing one's homework, Chasmine did not even blink twice when she came upon Dorian hunched over one of the basins.

"Hello Dorian Reeve," she greeted him as she always did, her voice gentle and steady as it always was, "have you just returned from a mission?" He'd been away for several days ... or at least he'd not been in class. Chasmine often noticed these things about her fellow students, given how most of them were pulled away from days to weeks at a time for missions ... and she never was.

"Did it go well?"