"I don't want eyes and hands of my own I've had enough of eyes and hands! I'm here to get rid of all of this from my life not take up ghost hunting as a hobby."

Hawkflesh drew his weapon and prepared himself, much as he could before extending his hand to Kuuga ready to receive this *sight* she spoke of and not looking forward to it one bit.

This was work and like most of his past endeavours he did not have to like it.
He often did not like the things he did.
He did not like being a Knight.
He did not like chasing bandits through the countryside.
Certainly he did not like ghosts.
The light was fading, sundown happened fast here, a trick of the stars and in the last orange rays of the sun as they past his face his features hardened to gather from that place within that let him do anything, to anyone.

"Let us be done with this."

@Kuuga.
 
Oh she had a quip ready to shut him up, but there was no need. The grip would be enough. As their hands met, it wasn't only warmth that was shared.

Blink.

And the thicket in front of them transformed to the way Kuuga normally saw it. Where there was once stillness and grey, now came motion and sound. Everywhere. All at once. Dozens of spirits were all moving at the very edge of the grove, carefully inching the edges.

Some wore faces of the dead, not as ghosts, but as memories made spirit.
Others took the shapes of tall trees, floating, their translucent roots curling midair.
Another humanoid one was crouched by the path inside, crying, flowers coming out instead of tears.
A cracked jug with human legs moved around in circles muttering prayers Kuuga recognized.
And then there were those that were barely things at all.
Droplets in the moss, working together to move to the edge, reforming in many different shapes.
Song in the branches that occasionally gave itself form enough to be considered anything other than sound.
A scent of nettle with eyes.

But none of them came close. They all stayed at the edge of the grove they inhabited, wary to step further inside. Wary of something lurking deeper in.

Something that was not hiding.

„Come“ She moved forward, ready to pull him along.
 
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It took his eyes a moment to adjust but he saw them all clear enough.
Such strangeness he had never thought, from odd to obscene and all in between.
"These, spirits reside here?"

It was looking at a warped reflection of reality. A window into another stage of existence.

He allowed Kuuga to lead him, taking in the spirits that surrounded them.
The language of fear was universal it seemed, stay away from it was it's only voice.

Only they two approached the center.

@Kuuga
 
„The one we've come for was of mist once.“ She saw the ambiguity in that answer, so she clariefied.
„Weather, not the clan.“ Her voice became almost sad as it kept on.

„Used to be a spirit of silence, gentle, older than the Ashgrove. Helped guide the dying here, once. Hid tears and held breath.“

She looked at him eyes sharp, like he was partially to blame.

„But the sailors kept whispering. That the mist cries, wails even. That it steals. And spirits eat what they're fed.“
They kept sidestepping spirits. She knew they couldn't really inflict hurt without intent, but it felt disrespectful to do otherwise.
„Now it's a scream. Too much echo to simply remain mist. It can't help what it's become. But it still remembers what it was. Still remembers how to prove the sailors right.“

She pointed in front of them. Air became colder, trees decided they had better things to do than sway. And there it was. Small at first, flowing mere inches above the grass. Mist, but thicker. The creature didn't stand, it flower like a creek instead.
The air thickened like the visibility would drop, but no such thing followed.
The fog was denser now, slower – pale tendrils snaking between root and stone. Doing its best impression of harmless.

„Don't doubt. As long as you hold my hand, you can touch them, cut them. Be ready!“

The mist rose into a shape it had no right to know. Upper half humanoid. Torso tapering down like smoke funneled into an opening. No legs to speak of, but it compensated with arms too long and thin for its size – following along like soaked cloth. It was followed by a thousand small sounds, the quietest screams kept whispering as it glided. Its head was the worst part. Face absent, it wore only a cavernous emptiness in place of one. Inside of a scream made flesh.
All sounds that met the hollow echoed back – distant sobs of the flowercryer, sea winds, Kuuga's own words wrapped by retelling.

„Sharp now.“ Her grip tightened as she produced a short blade of her own.
 
"Wonderful!"

Hawkflesh held out his sword, at the ready, fencing while attached to someone was new and bothersome.
Despite this his hand was steady in the air as a stone on the earth and he wondered about the story he was told, this thing was once gentle if Kuuga could be believed.

"Hardly seems fair, it's not its fault."

The quiet howls draped in woe hung in the air as they wafted closer.

"Are you sure we cannot just, I don't know, leave a offering or something? Wash some headstones? Appease it somehow?"

It smelled awful, at least he hoped that was it, the wet damp of grief clinging to it. Still he was not close enough to strike and he would rather be done with it in a single blow, so he waited, like a cat in the reeds waits for a mouse ready to strike.

@Kuuga
 
Kuuga would've slapped him if she had a hand free. Decorum be damned!
Men were such tangled messes of weakness. Simply squeezed his hand tighter and hoped it hurt.
„We are not here for fault.“ When she finally spoke, her calm had caught back up.
„We are here for the end.“ It wasn't only the spirit's curse she was talking about.
If he wanted to smell the flowers and be nice, he could well do so on his own time. They were here to accomplish something.

„Are you hungry enough for your own freedom?“

This time what echoed back was an unfamiliar voice. „Hungry.“

And that's when it surged towards them, like a bird of prey. Forward and down.
 
"I'm hungry for this to be over."

She had some strength in her for such a short woman and as he glanced at her to acknowledge the pain in his hand the creature came upon them in a spectral swoop thinking it had it's chance.

The sound mingled with the smell foul in the air about them and in a reflexive move Hawkflesh held out his weapon straight and long and instead of ducking and weaving, which was his typical way, he lunged forward the pain in his hand forgotten but reinforced as he tightened his own grip, almost dragging Kuuga forward with him to meet the fallen spirit right in the centre of what might be called its chest, so far as it resembled such.

Part of him expected the thing to pass through his steel as it might any other time and strike at his soul and another part, smaller and drunk and full of self pity but no less there, wanted it to.
So it was with some surprise that he beheld it give a cry of pain and anguish as it impaled itself on the sword, so infused with whatever ability Kuuga had gifted him and there it stuck, as much as a foe of flesh and blood would be stuck.
The deafening wail cut into his ears like they had been stuffed with barbed thread.

"Whatever you are going to do, do it now!"
He advised, partially stunned by how this magic was working.

@Kuuga
 
She hadn't expected him to be so resolute, but she had little time to appreciate the outcome. The blade struck true and the spirit screamed louder, raw. Kuuga, dragged forward, robes flaring, only blinked in quiet approval. Perhaps the drink had steadied him.

But the real test was coming.

„Once I let go of you.“ Her voice was quiet as the hand began to slip from his. The grip was stronger than expected, urgent. „You won't see it anymore.“ She braced herself as she pulled away. „So don't let go of the sword.“

As they separated, nothing changed for her, but she didn't have time to watch how it changed for him..
Her free hand reached into the robes, searching. The offering bowl clinked, empty and half forgotten, but still remembering the work. She dropped it to the moss, steadying it with her foot.
The scream tore louder now, amplified by bark and bone. Spirits edging the grove turned away, ashamed to witness the unmaking.
The short blade in her hand moved down to drink from her own palm. A crimson bead welled up, then more. She let them drip into the bowl, careful not to steal the drink.

„Remember this taste.“ She whispered in her own tongue.

Her bloodied hand pressed against the Elf, returning his sight, binding the blade. Because the sword was no longer a sword – it was a siphon. From the spirit's chest mist peeled like old skin. Curling at the edges, it flowed toward the emptiness shaped like a bowl in all living things.
Kuuga held her breath and watched. The hollow was opening.
She felt pride in the offering she was about to make, marred by only the smallest flicker of fear. But fear was for later, for when the job was done.

The spirit buckled and wept into the steel, pale runes forming as it descended. Its final cry came in too many voices.
Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor... And then silence closed over it like a lid.

Even in death, the grove didn't dare make a sound.

She only hoped the knife would hold out however long it took to drain it clean.
 
"What?"
She let go and the thing disappeared.

"Fuck!"
Affixing both hands to the handle of his sword Hawkflesh tried to keep steady, tried to keep the knowing of the thing he could not see there anymore.

"Be quick!"
Not daring to look away from the absence before him he tread to keep steady, holding firm despite what his senses told him as the etherworld vanished from his perceptions.

As Kuuga began to speak her unknown words that feeling came over him again, the tingling at the back of his neck that let him know something wholly evil and terrible was too close to him.

"Quicker than that please!"

@Kuuga
 
Kuuga did not scream, but she did stagger.
The blade was meant to be a siphon. Her blood a catalyst. The bowl – the mouth. But some spirits... clung harder.
The spectral limb struck as the echo peeled away. Shard of an old prayer, a sharpened memory. A line of wet warmth cut through her left shoulder, robes darkening. Her breath caught more from shame than from pain. She had known failure before, but this was unexpected. The preparations were supposed to be enough.

Her bloodied hand reached for his knee in wounded desperation. It wasn't a gesture of comfort, but a need for help. A warning.

„Keep it from lashing out.“ Her voice was quieter now. Less priest, more woman.
„It won't be long now.“

She turned her face back to the bowl, jaw clenched. The pain she could stomach, the failure was a more bitter medicine.
If Honzui approved, It refused to let her know.
 
It was not a reassuring scene.
Even without looking Hawkflesh could smell the blood seep into Kuuga's clothes and spill from her shoulder.

"Are you sure about this?"
The sword held in the air before him looked foolish in his eyes until it bucked and he suddenly felt the strange creature on the end of his blade. It had weight and if it had weight he could move it.

"It better not be long now!"
Bringing his sword down was a peculiar effort, as if gravity wanted to pull it up instead of down. Against the struggling phantom Hawkflesh knew there was only so much he could do even as he brought the tip of the sword to the nearest tombstone, hoping to wedge the spectre there.

His hands ached and sparing a glance to look at Kuuga she looked the worse for wear.
"Stop, stop the ritual..."

She looked pale, near death. It was one thing to destroy a spirit or a thing already dead but he was not wanting to leave a corpse behind if he could help it.
"I said stop, it's killing you!"

@Kuuga
 
Her breath grew shallow. But the bowl still drank, and the phantom still shrieked. All work came at a cost, and she refused her own weakness to be the end. As she forced her spine straight, her shoulder throbbed. Pain was a welcome reminder. She was still there. The dead couldn't hurt. Still here.

„I've already given too much.“ Her eyes fixed on the sword. „Stopping won't return it to me.“ Because stopping meant all this blood had spilled for nothing. All the suffering was pointless.

She couldn't keep fear from her voice as she leaked into the ground, much like the spirit leaked into the bowl.
„I'm not dying.“
A breath. A lie.
„Not yet.“

They only needed a few moments longer. The scream was cracking, losing shape. Edges no longer its own. It was ready to become mist again. Almost small enough to stomach.

„Just hold.“ Air sucked between her teeth. „A little longer.“
 
It could not happen like this.
He'd lie and cheat and steal if he had to but he was not going to buy his freedom with murder.

The quiver in Kuuga's voice was as loud as a churchbell to him and it wavered like a paper boat in a storm.
Both hands on his sword he did not know anything about rituals or spirits but he knew a magical focus when he saw it and if this damned woman would not spare herself, he would stop her.

He needed her alive either way and dead she could not summon forth the entity needed to remove his curse.

Desperation was a powerful motivator, so there under the dying light Hawkflesh pleaded with her a threat to make her stop.
"I need you alive, you're no good to me dead or dying. Stop or I'll stop you!"

She was running out of time, her pale skin was going grey and the light from her eyes dimmed as it became clearly hard for her to focus. Whatever terrible power she served was using her as a means to get its sustenance and to Hawkflesh that sounded like a parasite, not a god.

That terrible feeling took hold of his guts like an icy hand and promised this time that it would never let go again.

@Kuuga
 
She rested on the ground like poorly folded laundry. Her eyes no longer had time for the scene. Only the bowl, and the unfamiliar reflection in the blood. In but a moment, the spirit was reduced to little more than noise. Or was that ringing in her ears? Enough to feed It, she hoped.

Her voice struggled to find a way out, chin resting on the airway.

„Ash.“ A swallow of air and worse. Metallic taste. „Someone from Ash Clan. They'll...“ Voice grew heavier, and she heard herself less with each word. „Know...“

Kuuga wasn't sure if he heard her. Wasn't sure if she could hear herself anymore. Knees dug deeper into the moss, too heavy for anything else. Her hands trembled without leaving her sides. Didn't even have strength enough to gather the offering bowl. Whether the ritual faileed or finished, she didn't know. Only that it was over.

She had more to tell him.

But words...

Her head tilted forward, and she went still.
 
He moved faster than he thought possible and managed to be there just as Kuuga's slump landed her in his arms before he tilted her back.

"Wake up! Wake up damnit I didn't hear!"
He did, clear as a whistle at night he heard her say *Ash Clan* but he wasn't about to let up and besides he didn't really know what that meant or where to find them.

Silent curses helped him lift her up limp in his arms and he wondered in a mean spirited joviality if he'd ever meet a woman again that he didn't end up carrying somewhere.

The sun was down by the time he made it to a small shrine that looked to him more like a shed but it was shelter. There he did his best field dressing with what he had on hand.

The cut on her shoulder was by far the deepest, going right to the bone, her arm would need a sling. Her torso was ravaged by present and passed wounds that came from no blade he knew of but seemed to have opened all themselves.
He used water and lemon powder to wash her and with needle and thread knitted her up with delicate red stitching. It took time and ever one ear listened for the howling things that he'd seen before. The spirits of this place that cowered and he hoped were now able to return to whatever it was such creatures did.

When she was as mended as Hawkflesh could make her he waited out the final hours before dawn in the shrine. The figure of the statue looked gruesomely ornate to hi and when he lit what he thought was an odd looking candle it gave only thick wafts of stinking smoke that filled the air.

When are last dawn came he opened the sliding doors again and checked Kuuga's breathing and temperature.
No sign of infection made him grateful for the intangibility of spirits but she was far from recovered.

"You need a better job!"
He told her as he remembered her scarred body and wondered how many times she had been brought this close to death.

@Kuuga
 
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