"Ah. I understand. Worry not, to love the world is a delusion - we can only truly care for so many living beings. Breaking these chaotic things to establish your own order with their power at your side - is not a bad solution. Certainly more elegant than humans burning through the laborers of their own kind to achieve any kind of order. So, you break them, and graft to your soul. I wonder if that's the abnormal bit of volatility in your thoughtways that I couldn't see before." the creature echoed, seemingly more intrigued than disturbed, a friendly smile on her lips thinning them into a line, barely making folds on the gaunt cheeks. "To have friends, you need them to be your kith. The oldest friend and minion of my kin is like that. I hope he is back to me soon. Perhaps, another couple cycles."
The glasses reflected sunlight in a blinding flash.

"Why are you not keeping it? If it is too feisty..." One of her thin hands gestured strangely in the air, fingers pressing together into a stairway, or a curved blade of sorts, moving down. "We can put it into something mostly harmless. Like a chicken I have inside. Put it in a coop and have you watch it until it mends its ways."

The line-smile remained, but the thought flooded like a wave, almost forcing the brain to visualize how it would look if the creature was smiling. Wide, happy grin over not being quite so helpless with the bodies and minds that she could touch. A little macabre glee at rendering something so hard to stop powerless when it would become fused to a body in the prime plane, and all the laws that came with it.

Eyes without pupils had their own light dance in them, the patterns like irises some moments, like stone with imperfections or fungal webs in sunlight in others. Her skin shone with a light sheen of amethyst-pink, not quite skin oils and not quite sweat. There was no sweat odor, but ever so lightly, now and then, the mingling smells of the street would deliver a hint of lilacs.
"You know, I think I like you. You're strange enough. And fluffy." She must have been staring at Momo's ears again as she said at, the attention almost palpable like a squishing pinch. "So, when you call on your thralls, where are they kept? Where do they go? What's to be done with this one?"
 
Within the crater, the creature finally stilled—whether from exhaustion or the slow realization that its struggle was pointless. It had taken longer than Momo expected, which told him what he needed to know: this one wasn’t clever. Pure instinct, no thought. A hammer. It didn’t question, didn’t wonder, didn’t plan. It simply existed to destroy. Most cursed spirits were the same, so this was no surprise to the foxkin.

But others… others were different. There were cursed spirits with intelligence sharp enough to rival humans—malicious, yes, but calculating. They baited, stalked, planned, deceived. They asked questions. They learned. Those were the dangerous ones. This creature, by contrast, was predictable. Easy to counter. It didn’t even have a special ability. In truth, they were lucky. Momo’s ears flicked, and he made a face as the thought lingered.

He turned his attention to Krava, studying her with narrowed ruby eyes. There was something about her he couldn’t place—something unfamiliar, strange. Questions piled up in his mind, but none of them carried suspicion. He sensed no danger from her, no hostility. Only curiosity. Hopefully, there would be time to ask.

Her comment about the chicken pulled a chuckle out of him.

“Unfortunately, I don’t know how to do that—or if it’s even possible,” he admitted. “I can take them into myself, but that’s the extent of it. And I’m not keeping this one because it adds nothing to my arsenal.”

The words were glib, maybe even dismissive, but true. He only absorbed spirits that served a purpose. The process itself demanded as much—but that wasn’t something he was ready to share.

Then, unexpectedly, he caught a faint whiff of flowers. He couldn’t name the type.

Her compliment disarmed him for a moment, but he recovered quickly with a smile.

“Look at us,” he said softly, “both strange in our own ways. I like you too.”

When she pressed further, his eyes drifted back to the thrashing spirit. Rising from his crouch, he folded his arms across his chest.

“I think they nest inside my soul,” he said after a pause. “Which is why I believe their nature bleeds into me, whether I want it to or not. But to be honest… I don’t know for certain. As for this one…”

Momo gave a subtle nod to the elephant spirit behind him. The thrall raised a massive hand and formed a ritual sign. In an instant, the gravity around the crater surged. The cursed spirit shrieked once before collapsing in on itself—flesh, smoke, and bone crushed into a red-black mist that splattered across the stone. The ground quaked under the sudden release of force.

The spirit’s remnants lifted gently from the earth, drifting upward as soft specks of light. They floated like fireflies on a summer night, rising higher, scattering, and fading into the air—until all that was left was silence and calm.


 
"You have no use of those parts. I see." the not-elf echoed, deep in rumination. Her still bespectacled eyes seemed to turn to the spirit with a tilt of the head. "I'm not used to acknowledging the Shroud as separate from the world that I can touch... that I am blessed with dominion over, to an extent."
What she did not say is that she accepted the outcome, as it was Momoshiro's challenge. The first after the first mind-swim, at that, the poor thing might feel the weight of it very soon, and yet, braved the fight anyway. Good. This... in a roundabout way, could reinforce the simple truth of capability.

"I don't know much about exorcisms," the voice was slightly breathy, not a lot of inflection, articulated so very carefully that it was like measure beads falling onto the wing of the scales. No accent - or, rather, all accents melded together until there was that perfect middling pronunciation. The elven-looking creature was alien... and yet, it posited a quiet sort of dignity, a fullness without pressure... and a tone of wistful detachment. She levied no expectation, and withheld hope from interactions.

The ground quaking didn't seem to shake her balance. The not-elf's body simply remained as it was, upright, floated ever so slightly up and then gently down again once the tremor subsided. Face tilted to watch the dissipating glimmers.
Beautiful, in the way that some destruction is.
Infinitely sad, when things lose their essense on death.
She walked a step, another closer, the stick-like spidery fingers extending. She didn't feel collision - the light simply attached to her fingers, like fluffy wisps of blooming poplar, then slowly drifted around, fading into nothing.

"I don't know much of exorcisms," she uttered again, picking up the thought, "but where there is a body being made, it requires Shroud. I used to think Shroud was simply fused to mind, or body, from the beginning - it's easier to think that way, considering where my limitations are. To me, destruction of a mind, however foul, seems..." Speech lingered again without snagging, a breeze frozen mid-flow.

No perfect word to finish that thought, so Krava shook her head instead.
"Do you think that you must take a piece of mind from them when you attach them to you? To resonate?" she asked instead, still looking at the empty space, the crater formed. What a pity.
 
Ruby eyes lingered on the last glimmers as they drifted upward, fading back into the Shroud. They rose like fragments of starlight, scattered on an unseen wind until nothing remained. It was the law of nature—nothing created, nothing destroyed, only transformed. He liked that. The idea of transition. The cursed spirit, once claw and malice, now dissolved into essence, waiting to be reborn. A cycle unbroken. A flow that felt right.

Without ceremony, Momo recalled the Elephant spirit. The crater stilled, silent again. Turning toward the hut, he found the other spirits lingering nearby, watchful as always. With a sweep of his hand, the protective veil unraveled into a thousand motes of light. They shimmered as they rose, fireflies fading into the dark until even their glow was gone.

He breathed in, slow and deliberate, his chest rising and falling in rhythm. His white tail swayed lazily behind him. For a moment, balance settled over him like a calm tide. His gaze slid toward the one who had worn Omella’s face.

Crossing his arms, he let a crooked grin play across his lips, his fangs catching the faint light.

"I don’t know if it’s their mind, or only fragments of their essence, that bind to me. It’s a good question," he said.
"Feels like I should know the answer. But all I’ve ever understood is the how—not the why."

Then he turned to face her fully, his posture straightening, his eyes sharp and searching.
"Omella was just a mask, wasn’t she? So tell me… who are you, really?"
 
Now that the threat seemed to be gone, eyes involuntarily flicked over to the tail, though it was hard to tell with how the creature's eyes were. Still, her head tilted slightly, the face turned that way, ever so slightly, as the not-elf seemed mesmerized by a fluffy cloud of fur drifting weightlessly at the will of the vertebra, the little fluffs between coarser longer hairs rippling at the slightest movement or breeze.

She then recalled herself. Shuffled, gaze evidently dropping downward, but where one steeped in human norms would imagine a clearing of the throat, a compliment, apology for staring, perhaps - there was instead a soft, dreamy sigh of slight envy.
"I should detect if it is fusion or adaptation as easily as I breathe," the not-elf offered.

And then folded her arms, wrapped them tightly around herself, staring somewhere.
She knew the tone.
She knew it well, and while there weren't any regrets to be had - homes were burned because of that tone.
They'd come in swinging dead steel and wielding magicks, and purge what didn't answer to their views.
A slow inhale filled her chest, thin lips turned into a line pressed together. The creature's countenance dropped, deflated somewhat. She looked tired. Gaunt. Sickly. Half an inhale to a sigh, arms unfolded, though fingers curled, long and thin, suddenly cold.

"Omella lived here, once," Krava gestured behind her. Noticed the abundance of small spirits that didn't even think to scatter. "I knew her briefly. Kind, tired soul. Forgotten. Didn't have anybody to take care of her, not even the burial. I don't make a lot - the locale is a bit discouraging, as you'd imagine," a chuckle. "but she gave me shelter, and I paid my respects. Who am I? Someone who is used to getting sharp eyes, biting questions and pointing steel if I show my face, even though I rarely mean harm. Why?"

The fingers unfurled. Her posture didn't tense in the way most would, didn't ground itself properly. Perhaps, she wasn't a fighter as she then stated calmly, eyes fixed to the exorcist's hands,
"I can defend myself."
Colors flared brighter, as if a dusty grey veil was pulled away from the scenery around her. A shiver passed through the air, her mind flooding the periphery outside her body, unfolding, ready.
"There's a lot of small spirit things all around my working room, have those always been there or did you bring them along?"
 
Momo arched a brow, then lifted his hands in a quiet gesture of surrender, realizing his tone had landed heavier than he meant.

"You have nothing to fear from me," he said gently. "I only wanted to know who it was that helped me. At the very least… what to call you."

A warm smile softened his features, an attempt to show the gratitude that had been in his heart all along. Even if the effort hadn’t gone exactly as planned, she had still tried. And that mattered. The attempt itself meant more to him than success ever could.

Truthfully, even if she hadn’t offered him aid, he wasn’t the sort to raise torches against those who were different. In a world where spirits roamed openly—strange, monstrous, and often dangerous—he had long since learned not to judge by appearances. What mattered to him was character, nothing more.

At the mention of the gathered spirits, he scratched his head and gave a small shrug.
"They were already here when I arrived. Unusual, to see so many gathered in one place. I assumed it was connected to you—something you’ve done, or something about you that drew them. Like moths to a flame."

He stepped lightly toward the hut, tilting his head as his crimson gaze flicked back to her.
"I don’t think you have anything to fear from them… but if it eases your mind, I can try to disperse them."
 
Eyes moved from the hands to the face. She didn't smile back, but a nod followed.
"Very well." Shoulders lowered, somewhat, and hands wrapped around her gaunt form. "...oh, right. You can have these back." She exhaled, then seemed to ponder needing to unfold the warmth pocket created with her own arms and thought against it, instead ducking a tiny bit and stepping back. Leaving the glasses to hang in the air where her face was, slowly rotating. The air shivers ceased, colors lost the bloom.

"I am not a flame," her voice was leveled, but the shudder - very obvious. "I am the tidal pulse. They have a good reason to be here if my theories prove right." A wrinkle on the forehead. She struggled with words, for a while, bit the inside of her cheek, and offered, "Call me Krava. That's the approximation in mouth-speak."

She squinted up at the sky, painfully, sighed, shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and turned attention to Momoshiro.
"Where are you headed now? Staying in Crorefell?"
 
Momo arched a brow and smirked as she ducked away, leaving the glasses hovering in the air. With an easy motion, he reached out, plucked them from their invisible perch, and tucked them neatly back into their case before sliding it into his robes.

As he did, her mention of the flame and tidal pulse caught his attention. For a moment, he considered explaining that his earlier comment had only been an analogy, but thought better of it. If she’d corrected him, she likely had a reason. Maybe her perspective was simply more precise than his own.

When she offered her name—or at least some version of it—he repeated it under his breath, testing the sound of it like someone savoring a new flavor.

“Krava. Kraaaava... Krava.”

The smile that followed was wide and genuine, his red eyes narrowing into soft crescents. “Trying to get rid of me already?” he teased.

A quiet chuckle escaped him as he tilted his head back to look at the sky. “Not too fond of this city,” he said after a beat. “Too dense. Far less interesting than Kharsaga.” He paused, reconsidering his words, then nodded to himself. “Yes, far less interesting—and much too dense.”

His tail swayed behind him as he glanced back down at her. “Though I’m pretty sure I stumbled across the most interesting thing about this place,” he added with a playful wink.

For a brief moment, his expression softened as he looked skyward again. “I’m grateful for your help, Krava,” he said quietly. “I don’t know where my path leads after this, but I won’t forget it.”

Then, as quickly as the sincerity came, it was gone. His grin returned, bright and mischievous. “Now, I suppose I need to find another healer to bother. Any idea where I should go next? You seem well-traveled, and I’m still new to the wider world.”
 
"Krava'quiloor," she confirmed absentmindedly.
A slightest shiver against the mind. A pressure dissipating. The full extent of meaning restrained.
She glanced at the wall of the nearby building, almost as if looking through it. Such a noisy city, she was not a fan either.

"I am not trying to get rid of you," came a calm response. "I woke up in this city, haven't traveled far. Me and mine were in the mountains, last."

The lips pressed into a line for a moment, and the waif swayed, shifted weight from one foot to the other, hands wrapping around herself again, eyes wandering, as if tracing invisible pathways of stray thought resonating through the Shroud. She didn't elaborate, the heavy, clumsy pause spoke for itself.

"Giving up on me after the first dive?" she mirrored at him, and, with a small pause, the grin came, teeth very pale and neat, unnaturally so for the squalor behind her that Krava seemed to call home.

"I used to know a few capable of altering minds. Entities and substances. Places, too. I don't know how long I... whether the information is still robust. Regardless, I'd like to go alongside you a ways. I'd like to keep this form, and you haven't run in fear yet. Besides, I have curiosity in this spirit matter research, and you could lend those spectacles. Unless you do not think an alliance productive." A dry pitch, pragmatic, delivered articulately but without much change in tone - but her eyes flicked to the tail, a couple times, whenever it moved.
 
When she teased him back, a shadow of a grin crossed Momo’s face. His lip curled just enough to reveal the edge of a fang, and as her grin widened, so did his.

Was it possible he’d actually made a friend—here, of all places? Back home, it had always been difficult to connect with anyone outside his family. Yet now, in this unfamiliar, noisy city, he’d met someone who resonated with him in a way few ever had. Maybe it was their shared tie to the Shroud… or maybe something deeper he couldn’t name. Whatever it was, a bond had begun to take shape, fragile but real, and he found himself eager to see where it led.

“Krava,” he said with a small, earnest smile, “you’re more than welcome to join me for as long as you’d like. After all, we’ve still got work to do on that dreary place I call my mind.”

As he spoke, he noticed her arms wrap around herself again. For a moment he wondered if she might be cold—or perhaps she simply carried a chill within her nature. Either way, he hesitated only briefly before slipping out of his mustard-yellow haori, leaving the black sleeveless shihakusho beneath. Gently, he draped the robe over her shoulders and offered a playful wink.

“Well then,” he said, straightening, “best gather your things. We can head to the port—The Beggar’s Choice might still be there. Unless, of course, you’ve got another route in mind?”
 
She inclined her head slightly. A small degree of that dignity flowed back into the tension of someone used to bracing for misfortune. "An intelligent choice. My help, and my Creed's gratitude, are yours."

She watched the spirit-whisperer shed the coat, and wrap it around her shoulders, adding another layered hue to the oranges and yellows. It harmonized. Reminded of a different time, and sky so bright under the dome that every star was visible, and floating above the tri-spire watching the fishermen drift into The Sea on their eldritch, sail-less boats, their lanterns like distant cave glow worms. The perfect body, grafted and nurtured back into its glorious true form, and the robes of silk as lustrous as gold, as rich of hue as honey. The bright eyes clouded over as a thin sheen of moisture veiled them, color flushing and retreating from the face in a freckle-like pattern.
"Thank you."

The yellow cloth hung in large folds around the willowy limbs and on the ground, as the not-elf was hardly as tall as the beastkin. She drifted upward, to his eye level, legs bending at the knee, as if in a really slow jump, in an attempt to keep the garment dust-free.
"My things... should be few," she echoed back, slowly descending back onto the ground. "I do not fear most terrain - save for the land east, where they had dream of a city afloat in the sky. A dangerous ambition that will ripple through the Shroud, beyond the shadow of a doubt, once at attempt is made. I'd rather tread Blight."

Another slowed, weightless bounce, the yellow robe carrying upward, sticks of legs bending closer to the body, in thought and comfortable flow of musings. Her hand rose to the face, curved around the lower part in some habitual sort of dynamic, an index finger tapped against the brow and pointed somewhere upward and forward. When she landed next, she headed back to the abode, the mantle drifting behind her as if in water.

"Let's make it north-west, through the Free Cities to that kingdom, and then their portion of the mountains. Or, we could sail to your home, first. So long as I have some privacy during that journey, I can complete the work necessary. What you remember, and is ingrained inside your mind, is important, but it could also help if I could see what what left some imprints."

She went to where the wall seemed to have some sort of blurriness in the pattern of grey plaster. Only, it wasn't plaster.
The grey skin with a plaster pattern - dissolved away into dust at her touch, revealing a hole carved into the ground.

Several thick, shiny, chitinous cocoons emerged, pulled out with gentle care and strung together by what seemed like leathery-sinew belts. Each cocoon was different - one speckled with red on eggshell-white, one shiny like metal and green, one iridescent with a pattern of thousands of strands, lines and nodes. None were transparent as to the contents, but each had an odd pattern of six lines and bumps at the top, coming into some sort of a symbol. Krava put the sinewy belt around her waist, though with how bulky the things were sitting or even running comfortably was out of question for the moment.

The sinew extended upward, wrapped on top of Krava's own clothes to better distribute the weight, while the waif pulled out the last container, a bulbous, slightly translucent orb of pinkish cartilage with darker bone frame caging it. She walked to the cage for livestock beside the fire, where a chicken and lamb were waiting. Pondered, with a slight frown, and lowered the orb. Something splashed inside, thicker than water.
It would be a shame to have bought these and not use them. Especially now. Taking them along would be a liability.

The spirits around the hut swarmed, peeking into every crevice inside, as if something in the thoughts barely kept untouchable to the body-shackled minds filled them with anticipation.

"The local coin things are on the mantlepiece. I worked dusk to dawn as a healer on occasion. Do you think it is enough to get passage on the ship?"
The regular-looking, leather strung coin purse had quite a few coins in it, though very few were gold, and more than half were copper. She stared at it opened, and offered it to Momoshiro, approaching in a few heavy steps - the cocoons must have weighed more than they looked like they could.

"I will need some eggs," she mused out loud, "and some edible mushrooms. This stock will have to do, though it is not nearly as complex as I need... hm. Foxen weaver, would you care to carry the two pots of plants from my windowsill? Don't worry, they will not burden you for long."
The only way to preserve a variety of optic nerves and bits was, strangely enough, to modify certain plants until they weren't fully plant matter, and adapt from there.
 
Momoshiro watched her in silence as she moved about the shack. The cocoons immediately caught his attention, a brow arching as they came into view. They sparked his curiosity, of course, but he kept his thoughts to himself, simply observing as she gathered her things. His inquisitiveness was plain enough on his face—the way his ruby eyes tracked her every motion. The objects she handled looked… alien, yet not strange. Not to him. He had seen spirits monstrous and grotesque beyond comprehension; nothing in the mortal world could truly unsettle him anymore.

Or so he liked to believe.

When she mentioned the coins, his gaze followed her, noting the deliberate heaviness in her step as she retrieved the purse. Those cocoons weighed on her—perhaps in more ways than one. This gave him an idea, but for now he said nothing. Instead, he listened as she continued on, speaking of eggs and mushrooms, until she handed him the potted plants and called them a burden. That drew a quiet, knowing smirk from him.

Momo tucked the coin purse safely into his robes, then turned back toward her. She looked smaller now, wrapped in his large yellow haori—its weight making her seem almost fragile beneath it. The robe was thick cotton, heavier than silk, but built for travel and for weathering the elements. For her small frame, silk would have been better. He put a mental pin in that thought for the moment.

“Krava,” he said, his tone playful, “did you ever wonder how I travel without a satchel or any luggage at all?”

The smirk deepened as he reached into his robes and pulled out the familiar glasses case, offering it to her once more with a light gesture.

“You’ll want to keep these if you’re coming with me. Trust me—it’ll make things much easier.”

After a moment, he lifted a hand and summoned a new spirit: a squat, purple caterpillar-like creature with the face of an old man. It crawled lazily onto his shoulder, blinking slow, droopy eyes. When Momo brought his hand toward its mouth, it opened wide—unnaturally wide. He reached in and withdrew a heavy-looking satchel that should have been far too large to fit. Then a suitcase. Then, with a grin, a small tanto blade.

Momoshiro knelt and unlatched the suitcase with an easy motion. The hinges gave a soft metallic click as it opened, and a faint scent of cedar drifted out. Inside, neatly folded among other travel-worn pieces, lay a silk haori.

He lifted it carefully, the fabric catching the light in warm hues that shifted like the sky at dusk—amber bleeding into rose, rose into deepening violet. It was light as a whisper compared to the heavy cotton one Krava wore now, and smooth enough to slide effortlessly between his fingers. Across its length, a cascade of falling leaves danced along the hem and sleeves, their pattern almost alive in the glow of the fading day.

“This one’s a bit lighter,” he said quietly, more to himself than to her, as he brushed a thumb over the embroidered leaves. The silk shimmered beneath his touch. “For travel where the air’s warmer, or when you don’t want to feel weighed down.”

He gave her a knowing look, folded the garment carefully and set it in front of her. His intention was for her to swap his big heavy one for the lighter one.

Then, as he returned each item to the creature’s maw, he explained, “This one’s my Holding Spirit. Think of it as a pocket dimension I can use for storage. If you’d like, you can store your things here too. They’ll be perfectly safe…” He paused, flashing her a teasing look. “…so long as nothing happens to me.”
 
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No protest, the not-elf's spidery fingers wrapped around the glasses case.
"My elder used things like that, for calculations," she murmured in agreement. It would probably make her head hurt to wear those for long, she mused, but at the same time - be a splendid augmentation. At least until they'd find an eye of something that could see spirits naturally. That would be a sample and a graft... hopefully. Not without the facilities she needed, she mused, then.

The dimension pocket brought something light to her face. Recognition. A little bit of excitement. Nostalgia. Head tilted curiously as she studied the caterpillar, lips parted as if about to ask which part of it produced such an effect, then mind catching up. It was not bound by laws of the material plane. Its weave was probably a stabilized, and so consistent, result of some magical laws that these 'weavers' practiced and wrote down.
"I've never this manner of a dimension pocket," a notion of a chuckle rather than a chuckle, resonated through the comprehension. "In a creature? Oh, he would chew on his own...mouth if he'd seen this, it's certainly unique. Most likely something I could not create without some very specific parts. Hm, hm."

The silk robe flowed and shimmered in the light, the colors on it shifting like dawn. Eyes widened in appreciation.
"Beautiful." And yet, she shook her head. "I cannot accept it. It would be a shame to damage such a thing, and I doubt you have a spare as intricately made."
She floated out of his haori, leaving it behind her in the air, then stretched out the hand to guide it by the collar, raised above the level fo the floor, back to its owner, carefully and trying not to dirty it more.

"You have the benevolence of a lord, Momoshiro. I would not wish to insult you by denying you - but I must not part with sensitive materials." She gestured at the bandolier of cocoons, patterned and opaque. "Their state of animation is that of a pupa, ready to transform to my needs, but it needs to keep attuned to the currents and tides of my thought, preserved in a specific substance. I have been collecting these, and keeping these, for so long that I've gone hungry more than once. I can't... can't risk them going inert right now if I split away from them. If the echo fades, all that's left is dead matter, and dead is no good. But... once I have some more things, clothes and proper accoutrements, it would be very gracious of you to lend the storage now and then."

A slight frown, an inhale.
"If you would help me carry the spawning cage? I'd bring it into the air and push it, but I have no strength these days." A glance to the livestock. "I can make it walk, too, but I really don't want more attention."
She picked a rag up from the sleeping spot and put it over the bandolier like some kind of pauper's cloak, then ripped the bedding to try and pull it over the bone-caged orb.
"Do you have a cabin, on the ship? A space in the cargo? I will only need it for one night, but I must not be disturbed. I promise it is honorable, and will not have involved criminality... other than impersonation," a slight gesture to her own face, in reference to Omella. "It's just, not everybody has the stomach to observe my work, and I do not want trouble."

The spirits clung to the bandoliers and especially the orb, like moths drawn to the warmth and light, but whatever was inside did not seem to be hurting them. Like metal dust around magnets, the ones that got too close would attain a strange, alternating pattern of flotation around Krava and her materials.
The 'luggage' was not dead, either. There was no visible sign of life from it, but the eyes of a spirit-attuned could catch... threads, of sorts. Like a perfect groove for the last part of a puzzle of three parts, the last section of an intricate pattern. And the spirits that gravitated towards the not-elf - seemed to yearn to complete that pattern. Death did not resonate like that. Nor did undeath.

Krava opened the livestock cage. The chicken and the lamb stepped out, the bird immediately taking nest on top the lamb, and the lamb stepping beside the waif. Those did not attract the tiny things of the spirit realm. No more than normal animals would - even if these seemed quite calm, the chicken not spooking at the sight of fox-like features, the lamb acting no different from a trained dog.

The green eyes looked at Momoshiro.
It felt like something should have been in the process of being said, like that silence was meant to be filled, but for a beat there was only a hollow space in the air. The tidal wave not reaching, the wind's current bending around the exorcist carefully.
An audible inhale followed.
"This is all of my luggage... well, all that matters. We can go."
 
As if a cloud had drifted across the sun, Momoshiro’s brightness dimmed. The easy warmth he carried in his eyes faded, their ruby sheen dulling as he cast his gaze toward the ground. He gave a small nod, slipping the mustard-yellow haori back over his shoulders. The motion felt heavier than it should have. Her refusal wasn’t cruel or unexpected, but it still landed like a weight across his chest.

His white fox ears drooped, vanishing into the ash-white strands of his long mane. “I understand,” he said softly, and for a moment, it was hard to tell whether he meant it for her or himself.

His tail stilled, the once-steady rhythm of its swaying lost. It settled quietly behind him, and his whole frame seemed to sag under an invisible pressure. When he looked toward the port, his nod was perfunctory—mechanical, as though going through the motions of conversation might disguise the sudden stillness in him.

“Mmm… no, sorry. I slept in a spare hammock below deck with the other crew. Might, um, be able to find… somethi—” His words faltered, unraveling into murmurs. “But maybe… no… that won’t… well…”

His hands rose to his head, fingers digging into his scalp as though to steady himself. He crouched low, his posture curling inward. His tail wrapped protectively around him, a reflex born from something deeper than thought.

His breathing hitched—shallow, quick. The world spun. His eyes widened, pupils contracting as the edges of his vision darkened.

“I can’t… I’m not…” The words came in gasps, barely audible. He swayed, then collapsed backward onto his tail, the plume cushioning the fall.

For an instant, the chaos receded. A memory flickered through the storm—his mother’s face, soft and steady, her smile as calm as sunlight through leaves. He drew in a breath, trembling at first, then steadier. Another exhale, slower this time.

When his gaze lifted again, it found Krava. His expression was dazed at first, then sheepish—as if waking from a dream he couldn’t quite explain.

“S-sorry about that,” he murmured. “Not sure what happened. Felt like the world was spinning and I couldn’t breathe.”

He dusted off his robes, straightened, and forced a smile—the same gentle one that had lived on his mother’s face.

“I’ll be fine,” he said, his voice lighter now. “I’ll carry whatever you need, and… we’ll figure something out for the room on the ship.”
 
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It was an interesting thing to observe to some, Krava mused. Her practicality seemed to have been taken much deeper, as rejection. She watched the exorcist struggle with an issue she requested aid with, not a single muscle moving on the face as he entered a full on panic meltdown. Like a child left alone in the middle of a market, where not even confusion remained at what looked like a pang of terror.

It wasn't that her nature, nor how her kind reproduced, was different from the beastkin. It was simply the fact that, by now, she'd been in enough minds to accumulate what felt like far more time than had passed in the primal plane. Within the timeline, a lot of differently vibrant lives overlapped.

She drifted closer, and patted the tall man on the head. A bit of an awkward gesture, but her focus had to be on the- luggage. As the not-elf moved, the lamb walked behind her, as if on an invisible tether.
"Collect yourself," Krava spoke softly. "You aren't a failure because I didn't take your coat. What you had was an emotion, anxiety, seizing control of your faculties for a moment... Just point me to the captain of the ship, and I will handle the rest. Help with the core cage," a stick-like, knotted finger pointed at the semi-opaque orb within a square frame container. "Don't put it away. Put- er, put the flower pots on top."

She lingered on the threshold, took a deep breath.
By now, tiny spirits were swarming the bandolier like bees do the hive, climbing, slithering and skittering over each other to stay attached. Something that was awakened inside every container the creature in marigold clothes carried - was attractive to the point they plastered over it, fused into one another like wet putty, just to keep proximity to the flow of... something within.

That inhale was like a vortex that sucked all lesser spirits towards her, solidifying the gravitational pull. Part of the Shroud that the presence of these small things in numbers naturally recycled into and from the ambience - seemed to now be shared with the system. Perhaps, it was for the better that Krava wasn't wearing glasses - she, and every single container, were under a thick layer of hundreds of silhouettes, connected by strands of lesser spirits chaining with one another and hanging weightless in the air.

The waif swayed on her feet, unsteadily, just like she did before, and touched the outer side of the palm to her forehead. Pink sheen glistened on it like sweat, tiny carmine, fuchsia and wine-colored spots pigmented the center of her face darker.
"Let's go. I won't talk much. Can't. Very delicate."
She stepped out onto the dirt road, and the lamb walked calmly behind her. One foot in front of the other, assisted with some floating but not enough to lift her off the ground. Hair and clothes swayed weightlessly, the rag draped around her shoulders covering the bandoliers for the most part but making Krava herself look a weird shape, unnaturally thick along the entirety of the torso with willowy limbs sticking out.

"Once I have proper mobility," she offered, cutting speech short for a few moments to make a turn down the street, and glanced at the now abandoned hut. A short sigh. Then, she kept moving, and offered an equally belabored enunciation to the rest of the phrase, "Once I have... proper mobility, It will be that much easier. But I need my kith back at my side first. The silence is... I can't stand it. Mouth-speak is not the same."

There was anything but silence on the street. Birds chirped and people clattered, clamored and talked, weathervanes squeaked with the shifts of the wind that howled around the corners and through passageways too narrow.
Some of Krava's pull accumulated more spirits as she passed, veiling behind the main swarms in tendrils once they hit a certain closeness.
 
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