[Closed] A Rose to the Living

[Raksha]

65th Roalis, 2719
THE EAST GARDEN | MORNING

The spellwork wove and bound through the air, building the Ward with steady confidence, though the two companions would feel a jarring in the monic force around them. A strange reluctance, though the spell worked the mona weren’t happy. They were unsettled, like dogs pacing a too small cage, jittery in their own sense of placement. The wind whispered against them harder now, tugging not quite so gently at red and black hair, like fingers catching in the gnarls. The leaves didn’t move though, on those hedges around them, the roses still in the morning sunlight.

The voice carried again as they moved closer, perhaps words, perhaps not. Maybe nothing at all but tricks of the wind, the creaking of branches or the rustle of small creatures. Though, there was no evidence of such creatures, the place was void of any small life. No bugs, no ants, no birds, no reptiles. Nothing but the vibrant crimson flowers that tempted with their full, rich petals and almost sickly sweet scent. It smelt too much, overwhelmingly floral, as though all at once the deep perfume of the blossoms was being released en masse.

As Tom’s blade pressed against the stem, the wind stopped dead, as did the whispery noises in the depths of the maze. It was as if the garden was holding its breath, and in that time they would both feel it through the Ward, fainter perhaps then if they’d entered without it. An urge, a wanting that came from within, a suggestion that tickled at their subconscious.

Come inside. Come closer.

The blade pressed against green woody stem, crushing it so that dark chlorophyll seeped out, oozing like pus from a festering wound. Around them, the sound of creaking branches continued, but there was no breeze, none at all. The blade continued its assault, and the dark sap-like substance pooled around the cut that had been successfully made. It marred the blade, each up and down motion streaking a muddy color across the edge. It was sticky, thick, and seemed to get darker with each deeper cut.

From within the depth of the maze, just around the first bend, on the very peripheral of their vision both gentlemen would catch something. Just there, but if you looked at it there was nothing there, but for a second it looked like someone was peeking ever so slightly. For a brief moment it looked like pale fingers against green foliage.

There was no wind, but faintly, beyond the wall of green and red, there was a sound. So soft, so very soft it could have been nothing at all. But if they were to imagine hard enough, they may think it sounded like weeping. Maybe.

Or maybe nothing at all.

At the same time they heard, whatever it was they heard, the rose broke away from the bush. It's sap was dark, brown maybe, though the way the morning sunlight caught it there was a red tinge to it. It dripped, just one drop, like molasses, onto the grass underfoot.

And around them, the garden felt as though it drew closer, creaking and rustling and pressing heavy on their fields.

[Ezre Vks]

The East Garden

Midday on the 65th of Roalis, 2719

The Hoxian smiled when Tom's borrowed voice joined him in casting, dark eyes straying from the hedge maze that had seemingly appeared just to greet them and taunt them with its mysteries to study the raen as he spoke Monite words in chorus with the student. He heard the lack of surety in the other man's tone, but his own confidence was apparently satisfying enough for the mona to acquiesce to their joint request, Ezre feeling the shift of invisible pressure at the success of his warding. Gaze drifting from the older galdor's face down to the knife he'd shared, he smirked.

Of course he'd know what to do with it.

"Two, then." He murmured at the returned challenge, the brief amusement an admittedly welcome distraction to the growing concern that the haunting of the East Garden had not only been neglected for too long but was one of a scale he'd not previously been capable of imagining. The roses glistened invitingly. Sounds filled his senses. A breeze blew but leaves refused to rustle. It was all a very strange blurring between expected reality and illusion, at least in his mind, and in that revelation, Ezre realized the full extent of power available to ghosts had certainly not been documented in anything he'd read.

Yet.

Making their way into the hedge maze proper, the Hexxos Guide kept close to Tom, not only for the sake of the ward they'd created together but also to prevent any opportunity for separation. He looked back at the path they'd followed to get here before letting his attentions turn on the overly fragrant roses, their scent almost oppressive while he concentrated on the upkeep of their somewhat intangible form of protection, Clairvoyant mona thick and flowing around them.

The raen moved to reach for one of the roses and the Hoxian watched his hands as he did so, caught off-guard when the not-Incumbent returned to unfinished conversation. While the dark-haired boy's calm facial expression didn't falter, the faintest hint of color warmed his cheeks and he reached up to wipe his forehead with the back of a tattooed hand, chuckling quietly,

"Oh—zjai. As Hexxos, I am cxîl. I am neither male nor female. There is no Estuan translation, directly, but I have surrendered my claim to socially-defined gender in order to touch the bodies of the dead without dishonor. That is, at least, the historical justification to Hoxian culture at large, though I am sure the root of such a personal form of identity sacrifice is far more complicated than that. While I am not a Vessel and will never be asked to bear the soul of a raen like my umah, an existence without concern for pre-defined gender makes transition between bodies much easier, and, to be fair, Hox is not a Kingdom where gender roles are as ridiculously rigid as here. I am aware of my anatomy, however, which I must rely on to define myself and my role here in Anaxas for various, admittedly ignorant reasons, from dorm habitation to uniform dress code to—"

Ezre paused, noticing with surprising suddenness the stillness that fell so heavily upon them, upon the garden itself, when Tom cut the first rose. His delicate features drew into a frown of concentration and consideration, and his eyes drifted to the stem, reaching inked fingers to wipe dark sap onto the pads of his thumb and index finger, rubbing it curiously, smearing it purposefully. It was dark, almost red, and while he was certainly not squeamish when it came to blood or bodies, this was strange enough to elicit some noise of surprise, caught though it was in his throat.

His glance to the raen was one of recalled collective memory—the thickness was reminiscent of ectoplasmic residue left behind on his person after his possession.

His frown deepened—could a ghost really have this kind of reach?

It was completely undocumented and the Hexxos' pulse picked up in his ears, sweat that soaked his bright clothing hardly providing any comfort against the rush of dizzying warmth while his mind attempted to sift through ancient texts and experience.

"—I am not ashamed of my body, either way, and while most of Hoxian culture assumes Hexxos to be as asexual as they are agender, well, I am evidence of that untruth, considering both the circumstances of my birth and also, my, uh, personal interests. No one can really pronounce cxîl well when not fluent in Deftung, anyway." He couldn't help but add the rest despite his distraction, whispering without shame so much as ardent honesty. Looking past the other man, he caught the hint of movement, felt the hint of whispers as if he thought he'd heard someone spoke. Reaching for the first rose in order to tuck it away into the fold of his layered shirt while making sure to keep the residue on his fingers, he looked to the numerous other ones as if to encourage Tom to continue.

Shifting on his feet, he looked back toward the rest of the maze as it disappeared around an overgrown bend,

"I suppose we should make a bit of haste." Ezre admitted reluctantly, aware that it was probably an understatement to the other man as he narrowed his eyes and exhaled slowly, unwilling to lose the upkeep on the ward that hopefully held whatever was in the East Garden at bay from actually reaching into their personal space, the hand that had set the rose so carefully in a pocket withdrew from the same fold a small, round-looking flask. It was almost a perfect sphere, and as he spoke, he twisted half of the sphere open carefully, revealing it to be mirrored on the interior and partially filled with liquid: portable scrying equipment, naturally.

He rubbed the thick, red sap from his fingers into the water with almost ritualistic purpose—he clearly knew what he was doing,

"I do not believe it is in our best interest to venture too far into the hedges, just the two of us, no matter how much I would like to. I am stating the obvious when I say this is all very unusual, even from my experience." The Hexxos Guide wasn't about to lie and there was a contrite edge to his tone, a hint of regret because had he been alone, he probably would have explored without any regard to his own personal safety, but Lilanee and Madeleine were waiting for them in the Library and the raen next to him had cast so beautifully.

"One more rose, Cooke-vumash. Meanwhile, I wish to repeat a previous experiment with different variables." Had it been at all Ezre's personality, the boy might have winked, but instead, he smirked and positioned the small sphere in his tattooed hands, finding a comfortable position for it in his scarred palms. His eyelids fluttered for a moment, the galdor re-centering himself within the already very present haze of Clairvoyance that surrounded them, reaching out not with his physical senses as granted by his physical form but with his magical senses, quiet Monite once again leaving his inked lips.

Ezre began his invocation, the subject left purposefully empty, requesting from the mona to show him who—or what—exactly, he was looking for as a target instead of searching for a predetermined witness. Looking down into the mirrored sphere and seeing his own tattooed face, distorted and discolored, he continued his spellwork, which was a simple aquamancy-based spell for visual contact, seeking though he modified the Monite on his own, reaching not for the mind of a living, sentient being but searching for the broken, distorted existence of something that shouldn't be.

It was risky and untested, but the Clairvoyant student offered the strange substance in the water as his point of reference to the mona, already quite aware of their objection to the entropic existence of spiritual anomalies. His final closing, of course, was further protection for the raen next to him—just a quick exclusionary clause which he hoped the mona would honor. The last syllables breathed, Ezre looked back down into the water, the slightly tangible aura of protection around them rippling like the surface in his hands, all of his senses open while he sought an unknown vestibule in the garden, as he sought contact with the unknown itself.

Rolling for AquamancyShow

AvraeBOTToday at 1:34 PM
Muse
Result: 1d6 (6)

Sorry, Sho, but Ezre is a very good boy. Critical success on contact with whatever's in the garden, and while he only requested visuals, please give us some sound for extra scariness, mmmkay? Hehehehe.

[Tom Cooke]

The East Garden • Brunnhold

Late Morning on the 65th of Roalis, 2719

Tom was conscious of the wind ruffling through his hair, plucking at his hems. The clairvoyant mona’d acquiesced to their wills, but they didn’t seem too pleased; Tom could feel the unrest, and it made his skin prickle. A deep frown carved into his face, he tried to ignore it, set himself to cutting the stem. The smell of the petals was cloying, and it mingled with other scents. Sap, he knew, sticky and sour and green. Earth and leaves. Something else sweet, he thought, sweet and coppery and dark, feeling the wet under his fingers as he pressed the blade in deep.

The breath froze in his lungs, just as the breeze dropped into stillness; he could feel his throat tighten. “Fuck,” he whispered, low and wavering. He fought a gag.

Flood it all, Hulali’s tits, but it couldn’t be. Some kind of funny ghost sap he could believe; that wasn’t so far-fetched, that ghosts could leave some kind of residue. But plants didn’t – Tom realized he was clenching his jaw and tried to relax. He realized he was holding his head down, neck achingly stiff, his eyes fixed on the rose in his hands and nothing but, so he couldn’t turn and see –

The lad was talking. The lad was saying something. His ears rang, but he tried to listen. The meandering lull of Ezre’s voice took him out of himself, if only a little; he found he could focus on what the lad was saying. Lad? Tom blinked, stiff hand near slipping on the ivory.

“Ssscs—ill,” he tried, mangling the pronoun. “Cssx… ksil. Ksksil. Sxil.”

Wincing, Tom jerked his empty hand away from the thorny stem, bringing it to his lips. He hissed a curse, sucking at the bloodied scratch. Focus, he told himself. On what? A grim frown carved itself into his face; he wiped off his hand on his pants and held the stem more carefully. “I, uh,” he muttered. “I didn’t… know that.”

Neither female nor male. He reckoned it made sense, though he didn’t understand the part about touching the bodies of the dead; he didn’t know what gender had to do with it. Not ’til he thought about it, for a long moment. He sniffed and shuffled, uncomfortable, then decided to think about the other part of what Ezre’d said.

“It would make it easier,” he conceded, brow furrowing. “I’ve just never thought about it. About… being anything other than a man.” That was a blatant lie. He’d thought about it plenty — plenty enough, even, before he’d died. He hadn’t grown up around any men, not proper; it was a raw, tender memory, that, hard to think about. He’d become a man, it’d seemed to him, before he knew what a man really was. There were things he’d had to learn the hard way, things about how men were supposed to be. Things he still didn’t half understand.

He shot another glance over his shoulder at Ezre, and, despite everything, smiled, just a pina.

He turned back as the rose broke off, and the smile didn’t quite fade away from his face. Not right away. He remembered Ezre’s soft chuckle, and the warmth in his cheeks, and the way he’d said, I am not ashamed of my body, like it could ever be that simple. Maybe it was, for him.

“The way we do things, I reckon it is – ignorant,” he mused, trying out the word, pleased at how it felt in his throat. It felt like pushing back. And he smiled more at the way Ezre talked of his personal interests, and felt a little bad for how poorly things’d gone for him today.

He took the cut rose in a shaky hand, and watched as a single droplet of something thick and dark plopped to the grass. He wasn’t smiling anymore. As Ezre reached to touch the stuff on the stem, he busied himself trimming another rose. Again, he found the stem tough as a hatcher’s vein, and he cursed, and he sawed the blade in deep.

There was more he wanted to ask, in his fumbling way. He wanted to get better at saying that word, at least; he wanted to ask, at least, if that was what Ezre preferred. He thought about how he felt when he got called Incumbent Vauquelin, and he thought – far as he could help it, he’d try to keep it in mind.

But the time for such talk was over. They’d settled into silence, and Tom thought he could hear, just out of reach through the still leaves, the hitching of breath. He didn’t look up from the second rose, though, not ’til Ezre spoke of repeating a previous experiment, and then he looked up. Sharply.

“Godsdamn and flood it,” he muttered, stopping his tongue before he could say lad. The edge of the knife perched, quivering, against the half-cut stem. One red eyebrow shot up.

He watched Ezre take a sample of the rose-blood, then watched him take out some kind of shiny ball and twist it open. To his inexpert – but learning – eye, it looked like scrying equipment. That didn’t help the churning in his guts. Who the fuck was the vestibule supposed to be? Tom didn't like the answer that came to mind.

Reluctantly, he turned back to the rose, doing his damnedest to steel himself as more Monite filled the air between them. This time, he couldn’t quite follow the spell, but he made out the change clause. He felt the clairvoyant mona shiver in the air; he felt Ezre’s field go etheric, even against the backdrop of the ward.

Then, with a soft snap, he clipped the second rose.

[Raksha]

65th Roalis, 2719
THE EAST GARDEN | MORNING

The weeping continued on the breeze-less air, barely audible but definitely the sound of crying, a woman maybe? Or a child? It was so far away, like it was beyond the rose-hedge maze. Somewhere unnaturally far away. As the Incumbent took the second rose, and Ezre withdrew his little bowl of water, the sound would shift.

It would sound, for all the world, as though just on the other side of the thick green thorns and leaves that there was a woman crying softly. Just on the other side of Tom’s vision.

As the Hoxian cast his spell, there was a tangible shift in the air, like the monic force around them was twisting away in pain. It trembled, as though it was going to deny the young man’s request, before rushing towards their fields with force. The water in the bowl rippled, its surface clouding over darkly, like looking into the depths of some stagnant pond.

From the hedge, the crying stopped.

It would seem, for a moment, that the teenagers spell had done nothing but perform a neat trick in his bowl. But then, a form appeared in the corner of their vision, a silhouette against the hedges that turned the corner. It was tall, as tall as the top of the foliage, and difficult to make out. The form wavered a little, like black smoke barely held together, though it didn’t move. It was simply standing there, as though watching the two companions.

From the bowl of water, a single pale hand rose from the darkness, fingers pruned from too much time submerged and once manicured nails blackened. It reached for Ezre’s wrist, holding him with a wet clammy grasp that was firm, but not firm enough to bruise. The voice was a whisper, a pleading ask, and it seemed to emanate from the bowl.

“Help us.”

The creaking of the garden was suddenly loud now, a cacophony all around them, and from where they had stolen the two roses there seemed to be more of the crimson red flowers. If they were to look around, it would seem as though the thorny vines were reaching like clawing fingers towards them both, and the mona around them drew back. A sound like the edge of a scream would begin, a whisper at first, that built and built till it was a screeching horrific thing that came from everywhere.

The shadow at the edge of the hedge made a sound, a word that it roared in a strange not quite there voice, and where a mouth should be the two men would see a glow. Like hot coals, or burning magma. It got brighter, and brighter, as the mouth got wider and wider. Suddenly the shadow moved, rushing towards them, smoky tendrils flowing from it.

“Leave!” The word reverberated around them, and the hand held Ezre desperately for a second, before withdrawing as the shadow approached.

“Help us…” The voice pleaded, audible even over the screeching and the roar.

[Ezre Vks]

The East Garden

Midday on the 65th of Roalis, 2719

"Cccchhhhkssəəəl." Ezre drew out the sound of a hard-ish sort of c, adding to it a guttural inflection for emphasis that softened at the x—one of Deftung's many (too many) x-sounds. The L at the end was an afterthought, a breath, more than any real addition to the word. He caught the briefest of smiles, still blushing, before proclaiming that he did not have a quarrel with the body he'd been given so much as with the perceptions of those who chose to only see it in such boring, rigid role restrictions as most did in Kingdoms like Anaxas.

"I cannot say that my homeland is necessarily any more enlightened than here. We merely see things differently: blurrier in some places, and clearer in others."

Explaining his decision almost demurely, the Hexxos Guide could only smirk at the raen's expected response to his admission that he would be attempting to communicate.

He heard it then, just before he inhaled a slow breath and exhaled words in Monite: Why anyone would want to cry in a garden that had once been clearly very beautiful was beyond Ezre's comprehension, both because tears on public display was not something he would have considered proper and because he needed to remind himself that what he heard as he once again found his center of being within Vita's ebb and flow of mona was just an illusion. A powerful illusion which meant powerful ghosts, but still an illusion none the less: the ghost in the crypts had been strong enough to rend his very emotions, and it appeared as though whatever haunted the East Garden was somehow even more powerful.

Why hadn't anyone bothered to write any of this down before? Where were the books on this sort of extraordinary phenomenon? Had he not searched enough in the Crypts? Had he not found the right stack in the Library? Had he not been shown the right records chambers in Kzecka?

This seemed important.

Someone needed to know about this.

For a moment, glancing down into the rippling surface of his small, portable aquamancy cup, the Guide wondered if anyone had attempted to categorize spiritual anomalies on any form of scale—perhaps someone should—

Silence fell rather suddenly as the mona seemed to hesitate despite the Hoxian's respectful, almost meditative casting, his dark eyes focused on the surface of his small cup, very much expectant of even the briefest of visions or most distant of sounds. When the liquid swirled and clouded, Ezre frowned, squinting as if he hoped he could see better only to feel more than see the sensation of shadow out of the corner of his vision—looming and black, incorporeal and seemingly unwilling to speak or approach. This was not the Clairvoyant experience he had planned for, unsure as to whether his spellwork had failed or succeeded, as to whether the mona had obeyed at all or the entire garden itself had simply rose up in objection to his presence.

It was while he was not looking at his cup that he missed any sign of connection through his scrying equipment, not until he felt the now-familiar sensation of supernatural touch—

"Shit!"

Hissed the normally reserved Hoxian in clear, loud Estuan, unable to properly put expression to the strong, primal surprise that consumed him in his native Deftung because there were no short, easy expletives to be had in a language filled with so many superfluous consonants and so little vowels. In fact, if there were expletives at all, they were long, complicated, and hardly suited the moment of very real, very palpable panic that filled the Hexxos Guide who'd just a second prior been very sure of who he was and what he was capable of.

The tight grip from something emerging from a communication device that was meant to be mostly visual and somewhat auditory was—obviously—so highly unanticipated and outside of his studious expectations of normalcy that Ezre released the cup, tattooed hands falling slack even though his airy, etheric field remained bright and vibrant, somehow managing not to drop any form of concentration on the upkeep of his ward despite the very real, very pressing moment of terror he experienced.

It would have been an interesting feeling to analyze, honestly, had the apparition that had just enough strength to become corporeal around his tattooed person spoke with a voice:

Us.

The plea for help did not immediately register, though neither ignored nor forgotten, but the Hexxos Guide was grasping for focus as the strange sounds began to build in the entire garden.

He did not, however, take a step back to flee. He did not reach up to cover his ears to block the noise.He did not even cower, actually, though he wasn't at all without fear. His face gave him away for once, slack-jawed and breath ragged. Just as the terrible screeching noise reached nearly unbearable levels, just as Ezre was wincing, gritting his teeth while his heart attempted to crawl its way out of his throat, he realized just how oddly invigorating this level of raw, unfiltered fear felt.

This was being alive!

That revelation was in truth just as fortunate as it was unfortunate, and he gathered his field swiftly, taking a careful step toward Tom.

The hedges and roses felt as though they were reaching for their bodies, moving with a life they should not have possessed. The irony was lost on the ninth form student in the heat of the moment, and yet it was unlikely he'd have the opportunity to look back on it all with humor later so much as with a need to analyze every detail he hoped he'd be able to recall should nothing terrible happen between now and ... later. The looming shadow that seemed incapable of entirely coalescing into anything truly recognizable shifted and changed, and the dark-haired student's eyes widened—not at the bright glow and open maw but at the reaching, smoky form of the thing. This thing—this ghost—was a far more powerful example of any restless spirit he'd personally experienced or read about.

Ever.

This complicated everything. It was a ghost ... right? Surely.

The suddenly elevated level of risk and the seemingly strange gathering of more than one spiritual anomaly here in one location was something so completely out of the Hexxos Guide's burgeoning supernatural knowledge that he honestly had no answers. Brunnhold was ancient and probably permeated with not only monic memory but the memories of countless souls, after all.

Shifting his footing, delicate jaw clenched in a grim but determined expression that hid all of the sudden chaos of questions and revelations that writhed and churned beneath his tattooed exterior, Ezre Vks stood his ground.

He risked a glance at the spectral fingers still curled around his tattooed forearm, watching as they slid away with the kind of morbid fascination that probably was ridiculously unsafe for anyone in his vicinity, looking back up again just in time for the shadowy force to be just too close.The Hoxian pulsed his field, pressing it forward, stalwart and defensive as if bolstering the magic he was still maintaining, though he was well aware of his exception clause for Tom's sake—

"Do not think for a moment that I will not return. You will be dealt with. All of you."

The words felt like an empty threat instead of a soothing promise, his voice soft and even, steady beneath the volume of strange noise, a soothing undercurrent in the frightening cacophony. He took a measured, respectful step back and then another, carefully wanting to exit the hedges without turning his back on the maze or the restless spirit that threatened them. Like in Bethas, just as shameless as he was protective, inked fingers brushed the hand of Tom Cooke's, making sure to place himself between the raen and everything else, even if he'd promised it was theoretically safe.

"This is incredibly abnormal." He murmured the obvious as matter-of-factly as the weather, attempting to leave and very aware that if the ghosts in front of them weren't threatening and angry enough, well, the not-Incumbent he slowly backed out of the East Garden with would probably be even angrier than he'd been before once they were anywhere remotely safe.

[Tom Cooke]

The East Garden • Brunnhold

Late Morning on the 65th of Roalis, 2719

Tom felt the distress in the mona, first. Pulling, almost, tugging, twisting. Even with the brace of their ward, it grated him – even with the awful buzzing of his porven, he could feel it. Ezre couldn’t speak the poetry fast enough, but Tom didn’t dare do anything to stop him; he remembered the last time he’d brailed, in the ghost town, and he didn’t want to repeat the experience.

Soon as he’d got the rose cut, he stood up, grunting as he stretched his aching knees. Still, the Monite wove its way through the air. Slow but sure as the grass grows, he found himself easing back. A shuffle here, a small step there, a totter.

He heard it clear enough, now, under the monotony of Ezre’s voice. If he hadn’t known better, he might’ve felt for her, whoever she was; but he knew better, and the prickling at the nape of his neck, the icewater down his spine, told him that dusting was more important than whatever they’d gain denking around this gods-forsaken place. He couldn’t look round, ’cause he felt like if he looked too close, he’d see something he didn’t want to see. From the shadowy gaps between the leaves and the roses, now fair still, to the place where the path disappeared round the corner, he was scared to let his eyes settle on one place for too long.

He clamped his jaw shut tight when he noticed it. He ground his teeth. Ezre, he wanted to say, but he didn’t want to make the Hexx brail. Not again, not here, not now. Even if the galdor hadn’t been casting, he felt like all the muscles in his throat’d turned to iron; his heart hammered in his chest, but he couldn’t seem to make himself move. Ezre, he wanted to say, you got to be seeing this; if you ain’t seeing this – you got to look up, look up, for godssakes –

Shit!

It was maybe the only thing in the Six Kingdoms that could’ve torn Tom out of his frozen vigil. He jerked his head to look at Ezre, so hard he felt a sharp lance of pain; a wince spasmed across his face, but he didn’t have time to dwell. His eyes went wide. “Fuck,” he hissed, “fuckin’ – floods,” through his teeth, under his breath. For a moment, he couldn’t even try to focus on the dark figure at the edge of his vision, getting closer, he knew – he couldn’t look at anything other than the pruned hand rising out of Ezre’s funny bowl, reaching with its blue-black suffocated nails.

Ezre looked afraid, Tom realized.

Help us, something was saying. Clear as day, clear as he’d heard the drowned ghost back in Bethas. Clear as he knew what he was. He managed to make his frozen throat move; he swallowed a painful lump, then set his jaw. A nerve twitched round his left eye, and the eyelid fluttered.

The whole garden was creaking, now, creaking and popping like an old tenement in winter. The world was motion, and for what felt like a dozen breaths, Tom couldn’t will it still or make sense of it. He knew that the thorny vines were curling outward, reaching. The thing at the far corner seemed to’ve coalesced, though Tom couldn’t make sense of it. It was getting closer, and a pair of eyes were burning their way out of it, scalding themselves into his vision – a pair of eyes and a big, gaping maw.

It bellowed, and he froze. He felt Ezre’s field go sigiled, then, and brush closer with his own field; he knew the Hexx’d taken a step closer, had come up behind him. That soft clairvoyant field pulsed and flexed outward, filling up the space.

When Ezre spoke, it seemed to Tom to break the spell. It surprised him so much that he had to take a step back; he fell even with the younger galdor, and he looked over.

He couldn’t’ve said what he felt, just then. Maybe it was the ward, and the way he could feel the mona stirring around them, and how it felt like nothing a natt from the Rose could’ve imagined; maybe it was how he held onto the upkeep himself, too, in his own small way. Maybe it was something he saw in Ezre’s face, impassive as it was, or something he'd heard in his voice. Something familiar, from not as long ago as he liked to make it out to be. Not very long ago at all.

His soul’d been a cacophony of panicked terror – and anger at Ezre, for putting both of them in harm’s way, for pressing deeper when he should’ve stepped back. Of a sudden, all that evaporated. He felt fear, oes, but he felt it in the hammer of his heart and the rush of his blood, warm and alive. A knife in his hand, no less.

A cold hand brushed his, and he found himself shuffled round behind the Hexx. They were backing up now, one step at a time. “You fuckin’ think?” he whispered.

Tom stared at the thing from behind Ezre. His jaw was set hard, and his breath was ragged and fast, in and out through his nose. He raised one arm and jabbed his middle finger up in the air with a flourish. “Havakda!” he snarled, guttural.

[Raksha]

65th Roalis, 2719
THE EAST GARDEN | MORNING

The screeching screaming sound howled in their ears as the two companions stepped back, slowly making their way out of the confusion whilst maintaining Ezre’s ward. The tall black smoky figure moved with them, one slow step at a time, maw closing and two glowing fiery eyes watching them from the abyss. Where it's torso should be, they would see the roses on the other side, ringed with a molten glow.
​​
​​As they stepped backwards under the archway of the entrance, the deafening sound faded slowly into nothing at all. The smoky mass stopped, standing at the opening like some mythical guardian. It stared, watching them, the figure of a man now more tangible in its shape. From beyond its ethereal form, they would hear the weeping again, just past the hedges where they could see. It moved, fast, fading with distance till it seemed like nothing more than a whisper of some soft insect on the wind.
​​
​​Gently, the garden creaked and rustled, and the dark apparition stood its ground. It watched until it seemed to be satisfied they weren't reentering, finally turning with what seemed to be a sagging of shoulders, a bodily weariness that held echoes of humanity in its shape. It moved towards the roses, and without hesitation, through them.
​​
​​Once more, the garden was still, a light breeze teasing their hair and the morning sun hot on their shoulders. Ever so softly, like the memory of a whisper, they would hear her before it was gone.
​​
​​Help us…

[Ezre Vks]

The East Garden

Midday on the 65th of Roalis, 2719

The Hexxos Guide had at least possessed the presence of mind to tuck the roses away, shoving them in the bright saffron folds of his shirt, tucking them far too close to the racing tempo of his swiftly beating heart. He did not, however, have the dexterity in his surprise to hang onto his portable aquamancy kit, and it was most disappointing to see it there on the unkempt grass and out of reach. Ezre's normally reliable calm of his delicate features had faltered in his concentration, in his concern, and in his shock at the power the Hoxian and the raen found themselves confronting.

It was with reluctance that he took a step back. And another. Fear was not sufficient motivation for the child of the dead, for he was just as fascinated as he was terrified. Was this experience a hallucination or did this ghost have so much residual power as to have control over living plants? Was this restless spirit warping their perceptions or did it really have physical reach here in the material world? He'd felt the other ghost's hand, reaching through his Clairvoyant equipment—

It was all very impossible. It was also very wrong.

He wanted to experience more of it, to understand it. He wanted to fix whatever had unraveled to cause it, regardless of what measures that required. He felt the press of this ghost's entire existence against the magical barrier he'd created and it was heavy, all shadows and smoke with a weight like the kind of darkness found in the most isolated corners of the Crypts he'd explored beneath the Church of the Moon. Fierce and hot, Ezre pushed back, the Hoxian as focused as he was curious.

The dark-haired boy would have smirked at Tom's retort, feeling the sharpness in the older man's voice, but instead, from behind him, he felt the shift in the raen's steps and watched his gesture out of the corner of his eye. While he knew very little Tek and had so little interest in learning, the context was enough to let him know that the growled syllables so close to his shoulder were very much an explicit expression of displeasure and dismissal.

The shadowy spirit did not follow them past the threshold of the hedge maze and it flowed with a speed that was more than just merely disconcerting. He watched as the ghost began to coalesce into a more recognizable form—Couldin's form, perhaps?—and the Hoxian refused to flee while it seemed to glare at the warm bodies that had disturbed the roses he'd claimed as his own in undeath, attached as he must have been in life. Attached to something else, too, apparently—was the weeping this ghost's own illusion or did it truly belong to another restless spirit? Did it belong to more than one?

Help us.

Help who?

Help how many?

Ezre needed to know these things. Smoldering in his tattooed chest was a burning sense of duty, not only to the dead, but also to the living. What was left of the man there in the hedge maze was no longer alive, the Hexxos Guide reminded himself—at least he was mostly sure it wasn't another raen, given his familiarity with a few of them—and the ghost there in the hedge maze was just a lost fragment of whoever he had once been, lost and confused.

While his new title was indeed Guide, not every path led to the brightest of places. Sometimes one had to snuff out flames instead of lead by candlelight, and that realization stung a little. There was only one solution for dangerous remnants: destruction.

As much as he wanted to study it all, as much as he wanted to find a way to deal with the problem right now, maintaining his ward had begun to make Ezre's ears ring. He felt the unwelcome creep of fatigue as if he'd carried on too long a scrystone conversation over great distance, as if he'd spent too long in rhythmic meditation. Exhaling slowly, he held on just that much longer, unwilling to yet leave the East Garden. He stood his ground with equal, perhaps foolhardy, determination, listening to the sobbing, listening to the creak and whisper of plant life, and holding in his sights the dark, powerful ghost that seemed to have some kind of inexplicable control over it all.

Seemingly assured that the pair of living bodies would not reenter its claimed territory on the esteemed Brunnhold campus, the shadowy spirit warily crept away from them. He waited for longer than was likely necessary as if frozen in place, reaching out through all of his senses, attempting to commit the entire experience to his memory, carefully deciding when he could release both his ward and the breath he'd held.

Instead of taking another step back, however, instead of turning on his heel and rushing himself and the not-incumbent from the Garden, he took a step forward forward, quick and sudden, disguising the unexpected movement with quiet conversation, though none of his words contained a hint of chagrin for the danger they'd just been in. If Deftung contained only a few expletives, it contained fewer apologies.

"I must admit that I assumed this to all be a much lesser, uh, issue. I figured it would just be a bit of hearsay and a mostly fading old ghost more easily dealt with. I do not think I have even ever read of a haunting like this one. It seems to involve multiple spirits, connected persons, and I am very concerned—" Murmured the dark-haired boy, bending toward the ground as if he was going to pick up something from it, as if he needed to sit and rest, "—we will leave for the Library with our rather disturbing discoveries in just a moment."

He curled fingers into untended grass, aware that his inked digits trembled with adrenaline and excitement, with fear and concern, and set about clearing a small palm-sized circle at his feet until it was nothing but bare, dry dirt,

"While I do not think that ghost has left the hedge maze in a long time, I will at least make it a challenge to do so."

Without thinking, he reached to where his knife should have been but wasn't, huffing a consonant-filled sound of self-admonishment before sheepishly glancing up to the raen and holding a dirty hand up toward him, asking for the blade, scarred palm already marked with thin lines of previous experiments held between them, The precision and straightness of fading, purposeful cuts were impossible to mistake, though Ezre thought nothing of their appearances to someone like Tom Cooke in his distraction, filled with too many thoughts, a bit of horror, and perhaps too much immature exuberance for his own good,

"That and I would also like to keep a connection to this place. May I?" Dark eyes flicked to his knife and back to Tom's face, ignoring the sweat that tickled past his temples and crawled between his shoulder blades.

[Tom Cooke]

The East Garden • Brunnhold

Late Morning on the 65th of Roalis, 2719

For just a moment, it’d looked like a man.

Her voice was feeble and fleeting as it was articulate — help us, he’d heard someone say, clear as day, clear as the weeping — and he felt it ripple through him like a spray of ice-water, like maybe somebody’d stepped over his grave. He wondered, briefly, if he had a grave to step over, or if there was a patch of unmarked earth over which folk trod and under which a thing that’d once been Tom lay. He shut his eyes for just a moment, after the dark shape disappeared into the shrubs, and he thought about what it must’ve been like for a ghost proper, trapped neither-here-nor-there, trod on and passed by.

He was conscious of the late Roalis warmth, then, on his skin. He was conscious, too, of the ward’s upkeep, tugging at the back of his head like a tether between him and Ezre. He tried to center himself; it was all he could do. The anger drained out of him, leaving him tired.

When he opened his eyes, the lad had already taken a step forward. “Godsdamn,” he breathed, and just about grabbed Ezre’s arm to yank him back out of the maze — except Ezre was talking, so he set his jaw and stood fast and listened. But he stared at the side of the Hexx’s face the whole time, teeth grit.

“You figured,” he repeated, very softly.

Ezre started to crouch, and Tom’s eyes followed him. What the hell was he doing? Tearing up the grass? Tom kept glancing up, down at Ezre and then back up at the maze and then down and then back up — his eyes flicked over the roses, nestled in the shrubs, fixed finally on the shadowy bend round which the apparition’d come.

He licked his lips. “Why the hell don’t we…” His mouth was fair dry; another chill took him, and he shuddered in spite of the heat. “In just a moment, nothing, Ezre. Clock the whole Circle, we need to — maybe they didn’t believe this Strutenbroke chip, but she’s just a lass,” he went on, finding his voice again. “Hell, maybe I could… do something — maybe I could make them understand. They need to close this place off…”

Tom broke off, and blinked down. Ezre was holding up a hand.

For what? He went over the last thing Ezre’d said in his head. Make it a challenge. His eyes came into focus on Ezre’s hand, tracing the lines of old scars across his palm, much older than the newest lines of ink. He didn’t have to wonder, not too hard, what they were from; he’d read enough now of clairvoyance to’ve come across sanguimancy. He wondered why he hadn’t noticed them before, but he reckoned they weren’t the sort of scars he looked for, when he looked for scars on a man. A little chill went down his spine.

Make it a challenge.

Ezre spoke again; his glance flicked down, and Tom followed it to the knife in his hand. He looked back at Ezre’s inked face, and his frown deepened. There was something comforting about the weight of the knife in his hand. He ran a thumb over the smooth ivory. “I, ah,” he grunted, hesitant.

He heard himself in his head, rambling in Anatole’s voice about weaving through red tape; he felt the knife in his hand, solid and present, and the rush of his pulse in his ears. What the hell was he saying? What, he asked himself, were the chances Brunnhold bureaucracy’d care about a couple of students gone moony? Even if the incumbent could bypass some of it, where would it get him, rambling about ghosts? And since when had Tom Cooke ever had faith in any authority?

In a strangely graceful motion, he turned the knife round in his hand, offering it to the Hexx hilt-first. He nodded once. “There anything I can do to help?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

[Ezre Vks]

The East Garden

Midday on the 65th of Roalis, 2719

"I have made rather sweeping assumptions about Anaxi ignorance to the supernatural, or at least their scientific dismissal of such things." Ezre murmured, still very puzzled about the seemingly entwined lives of what appeared to be two ghosts, perhaps more. Us. The weeping, more effeminate voice had said us. This disturbed the Hexxos greatly, for he had never encountered such a gathering of such spiritual proportions outside of the small conclave of raen who'd willingly found their way into Kzecka over the centuries. Ghosts were not supposed to have so much free will. Ghosts were just imprints. Fragmented memories so strongly burned into the leyfabric of existence that parts of their previous existence continued to play itself out in the material world long after their bodies had ceased functioning. Were they sentient? Were they more powerful than previously studied?

The Hoxian had so many questions, gritting his teeth as he curled inked fingers into the unkempt ground, tearing out grass and digging through thick roots to expose dry, summer-baked earth in a circle the width of two breadths of his palms, maybe three. He did finally pause to wipe his hands on the bright fabric of his wide, flowing pants without any apparent concern for the mess he made of them,

"I do not expect anyone but perhaps the Clairvoyance professors or maybe the Clairvoyant chair to believe us. Even then, what would you say? If they have not closed the East Garden and dealt with the ghosts in all of this time, given their surprising power, I do not see them stepping into it now. It is alright. I do believe that we can come up with a solution, but more research is necessary. It is my duty to at least make an attempt." He added in calm response to the not-Incumbent's verbal way of processing their most recent experience. The dark-haired boy's pulse still thrummed rapidly against his temples and his heart fluttered against sweaty, tattooed skin. He cleared the circle, the small plot, balanced in a well-practiced squat on the ground, feeling the heat of Roalis settle on his shoulders and attempt to drag him into even more of a hunch than he wanted.

He had missed the crisp mountain chill of his homeland. Anaxas was oppressive on so many different fronts.

Glancing back up toward the hedgerow, he exhaled a slow breath and released his hold on the ward they'd cast together, feeling the tingle dance over his skin and blinking at the brief shift of pressure that made his ears feel like they were popping. It left them vulnerable, but the shadowy manifestation had left them alone for now and the Hoxian was willing to take the risk of concluding that particular ghost did not leave the hedgerow much, if at all. Once one hand failed to find the knife on his person, he reached up to Tom, studying the borrowed galdor body's face, arching an eyebrow in his wordless request,

"The evidence I found in the Crypts and my encounters there have, for the most part, spoken of a woefully unprepared Everine when it comes to handling restless spirits." Ezre offered in his otherwise even tone of voice, eyes widening for a moment while the raen made a smooth, well-practiced motion of reversing his grip on the student's folding blade. Tom's connection to his former life was so palpably strong that for a moment, the Hexxos sort of hovered there, staring, drifting into a tangent of thought and observation, only to be interrupted by the glint of the summer sun off the metal, bright and sharp,

"Not to say I am yet a superior option, but I have experience, awareness, and resources they do not. I have confidence in our effectiveness versus doubts about how much trust to put in academic faculty and staff." The young Guide quickly made sure to point out his own lack of extensive experience with a surprising inflection of self-deprecation in his tone, bringing his fingers up to curl around the handle gently with a careful awareness of the other man's grip.

He paused, sharp edge left in the space between them for longer than would have otherwise been considered necessary, and smiled gently at Tom's question. Ezre had not missed the glance to his palm and that self-awareness blossomed in his expression as a faltering in his delicate features and a hard swallow, but there was not a hint of shame or hesitance in his tone, "Zjai. You can write Monite, can you not? We have cast together once now—I think we can do it again with continued success."

He had heard Tom speak it now, felt the raen cast with a bit of honest excitement he knew he had to keep to himself. Drawing his knife away from the other man's hand, he didn't immediately make a move to close it and tuck it away. Instead, he shifted, scooting a little to one side and making room for the not-Incumbent to move closer, indicating with a tilt of his head that he could join the Hexxos around the small circle he'd made in the dirt.

Ezre had dropped his small, portable aquamancy kit, leaving it in the hedge maze in his surprise and now much to his disappointment. He did not have another suitable container on his person and his jaw clenched while he mulled through spell options,

"You have an idea of my intentions—" Smirked the dark-haired boy knowingly, making a motion with his free hand to curl it into a cup and indicating with a nod of his head for Tom to do that for him, "—hold out your hand for me, please. Like this. This is unconventional magic for an unconventional situation, but I do not think you are uncomfortable with the site of blood, are you, Cooke-vumash?"

Pure mischief, that brief twinkle of wisdom someone his age should not posses that reflected in the shadowy pools of his eyes and flickered over his usually less than expressive face. It wasn't with a politician's grace that the once-human had handed him his knife back, after all. Ezre, true to his Hoxian heritage, did not apologize for the direct question whatsoever.

If the raen complied, he would make a fist with the hand he'd used as an example, opening and closing tattooed fingers a few times and resting the knife on one of his knees with practiced ease while he balanced and rolled up his wide, voluminous, and brightly-dyed sleeve, explaining as he did so,

"It is widely disputed that all monic energies are merely channeled through the ley lines of magical beings such as galdori and, to some lesser extent, wicks when spells are cast. My people in Hox have over the centuries often attempted to prove that the mona flows through all of a body, through all things, just in more powerful ways through ley lines than, say, through blood. While it is an important part of our physical life force, it is clearly not the whole of our being—you are proof of that."

It was without wincing that Ezre sliced his hand, the motion uncomfortably well-practiced. He probably could have wiped the blade first, aware it had been used to cut possessed rose stems, but perhaps he made a risky, conscious decision not to. Perhaps he wanted all of whatever that was mixed in there, too, whether under his own skin or dripping hot and fresh and red into Tom's waiting hand,

"Some parts of Clairvoyant conversation are strange in that many wards do not require an everspell or upkeep, depending on the situation. They are not permanent like Brunnhold's protections are permanent, but we can walk away and know there is a small barrier for a short period of time because Clairvoyant mona seems to move differently than others. The simple scrystone is another example—ah—"

He curled his cut hand and squeezed, finally hissing in discomfort, but quite determined to gather enough for the writing he seemed to have planned for the small plot he'd created. The Hexxos held his knife loosely, looking down at it as he attempted to decide whether or not to close it instead of staring at the steady drops of his own life force pooling slowly,

"—normally, I would have water also, but I was a bit, well, uh, surprised by, uh, contact. Or whatever that was. Clairvoyance is not normally such a physical magic." Ezre's voice wavered, revealing both his still-present surprise and his now-passed fear that had been in that moment. Tilting the blade to catch the sun, he looked to what was collecting in Tom's hand as if judging whether or not it was sufficient, "We will make do, I suppose, for it is not my place to request your contribution. Not that I am not curious."

Was Anatole's blood different because it was a body now kept alive by someone else's soul? There was, obviously, no science on such a thought. The Hexxos Guide doubted even the Carriers of the Dead had spent much time on the study of such things, though perhaps his umah had her own thoughts on the matter as far as he son was concerned. All of this was uncharted territory and what Ezre lacked in experience, he more than made up for with insatiable curiosity and indomitable interest in fixing what he saw as broken,

"Unless you are willing to volunteer, of course."