Ghosts.
My first encounter with them was when I was still young, naïve and still in the magic school, when I visited the town for gold dusts to carve runes, enchanting every stuffs I could. Then I heard a crying voice in the dark alleyway. I walked into it, only to stare at a floating figure, her hands draped over her eyes, crying and sobbing.
“It’s so cold, please help me…”
The voice sent chills through my spine and a pang, the all-too-familiar old pang, pity. I wanted to help her, and she said she was cold? Then I would help her to be warm. And with that, I walked away from the alley, buying a bag of golden dusts and quickly into my dorm.
I took a stray robe. One of my many, it only took hours, carving the robe like a psychopath working on his ‘art’, and it only took a day and a night, and it was done. I don the robe, and quickly walked into the dark alley whence I met her.
If I had Nero back then, I wouldn’t probably do this. It was, honestly, a stupid idea.
And when I saw her, crying and sobbing the same lines over and over. “Hey,” I began softly, touching her back, and it felt… well, physical. Elated, would be the best description of my feelings. How could I not? I just created new runes. That, however, quickly shattered as the ghost turned around, and let loose an earth shattering screech.
Terrified, I ran away, not giving a second glance. Since that time, I’ve ignored ghosts and shed my first layer of innocence, the hero complex quickly forgotten.
Second encounter wasn’t much different. It was before I stole and learned Soul magic. I ran into a man of a ghost, a bloodied ethereal axe on his hand, and a perpetual sneer on his face. Without thought, I quickly threw a fireball, and ran. Presumably, said fireball only phased through the ghost.
The third was the same, as well as the fourth, and fifth, and then, it was the sixth, when I was on the run, and already learned Soul magic. I quickly threw a Soul fire at him, and he quickly burned into oblivion. And the rests of them weren’t that special. It lost its flair in my tenth encounter with one of them.
Needless to say, I don’t have the best opinion about ghosts.
And yet, here I was, sitting on a podium with a small filly ghost named Ruby in my lap, taking in the heat that ghosts usually don’t feel. Probably a new perspective is needed, I mused. Scratching the back of her ears, eliciting a purr of bliss from her.
She glanced up at me, her bright yellow eyes dimmed slightly as she fidgeted under her hoof, ergo, on my lap. “A-are you going to leave?”
I frowned. That’s right, I was getting attached by the little ghost. Looking around, my eyes caught the pile of bones, an idea quickly formed as a grin replaced my frown. “I will,” her eyes dimmed until it wasn’t bright anymore, “but, you can go with me if you want.” I added with an amused tone.
Her eyes from dim yellow turned into bright again in surprise, “What?! But—“
“You don’t think I’m just a normal human aren’t you?” I shook my head in amusement, I arched an eyebrow at her, “Well?”
“Yes! Please, I would!”
The happiness in her voice was so thick that I was tempted to just hug the life (or whatever ghosts use) out of her, instead, I chuckled, perhaps an extra companion would be okay, and besides, she did say she’s good at looking for things. A good tracker if I ever met one.
Lifting her from my lap, I noticed Nero looking at me with amusement from the corner from my eyes. I shook my head; she’s going to exercise sooner than later. I took a small bone from the pile, small enough to fit on my palm.
I eyed it for a while, looking for any splinters. Seeing none, I reached down my bag for a knife, slashed my palm, eliciting a gasp from the filly. I turned to her, a smirk on my face. “Calm down, Ruby. I may be a soul mage, but they didn’t call me for a runic prodigy for nothing.”
I put a finger across my bloodied palm, swiping my now bloodied finger across the bone. “Now, I’m going to make something special,” I cleaned the blood with my robe, cauterizing it with a small fire. Before grabbing the knife with my right hand while the bone interlocked between the fingers of my left, showing the smudged blood on its gray surface, “this,” pointing the bone with my knife, “will be your anchor,” I began carving small ancient words on the smudged blood, concentrating to not mess it up, lest something bad will happen. “It does help with the fact that I’m also a soul mage, so it adds understanding about the nature of these runes,” slowly, one by one, tiny intricate runes were etched across the smudged bone. “And finally,” I gave the runes a look, satisfied with it, I put the knife away, and began feeding the bone with my mana, the blood glowed a bright red, while the runes a bright blue. “This is done.” I nodded at my newest creation, giving a grin as I looked over it.
I turned to Ruby, giving her the sight of the bone, her head cocked in confusion. I rolled my eyes. Children, I mused. “Wait.” I took out a strand of necklace-rope from my bag, tied it with the bone, and wore it over my neck. “Now, wherever I go, you would follow. You could wander, but you couldn’t go far, except others held this necklace.”
Her mouth opened in an ‘o’, showing her comprehension. I chuckled before I stopped, berating myself for forgetting something important. “Right, my name is Psyche, you could call me that.”
She nodded, seemingly remembered that I hadn’t give her my name, she giggled, “What a weird name.”
I sighed, “Children, always doesn’t understand the meanings of name—“
“Cain!”
My head snapped to the source of the sound. My familiar stared at me with white eyes filled with panic, she gestured to the window whence she had took the chance to perch on. I quickly walked over, Ruby floating above me.
“What is it?” looking through the window, it was already dark… huh, guess time do pass. “And just call me Psyche, I rather like the name.”
“Whatever,” she hissed, “just look at that!”
I squinted my eyes, “Is that…” a gasp came from Ruby, but I ignored it for the sake of seeing the creatures under the dark… “Undead…”
I leaned back; a hand slowly draped my face, “Yes. It is indeed a group of undead, or zombies, whatevs. Why am I surprised? I shouldn’t be surprised.” I chuckled grimly, a note of resignation on my voice. I sighed, pulling my bag of souls and a white glove from my bag. I frowned. It was somewhat depressing, it felt like everytime things were good, there would be something happening… it’s like the gods were playing with me.
I strode to the door, blue eyes calm as I stared at the door. I wore my white glove; the runes glowed slightly as I did so. Taking a deep breath, I vaguely heard Ruby whimpering.
“Ruby, we’re going to be fine.” I assured her, because I be damned if I get killed by a low class zombies, when I fought a higher-class one… damn thing nearly zombified me.
“Just don’t let them touch you!” She warned, voice filled with fear and dread.
“Oh,” I smirked, pushing the door open, my familiar by the side of my leg, “they won’t be touching me anytime soon…” and I don’t feel like being touched, especially by undead, or by anything, in fact.
I walked outside. Seven undead ponies grouped around me as I stood, their dead red eyes glaring at me, their charred dark flesh, oddly, didn’t stench. I mentally shrugged, probably a good thing too.
“Give up, Psyche, you’ve known too much…” the one in the middle spoke, his voice gritty, somewhat reminding me one of the few night when I needed to clear my mind. Killing vampires, and undead. Especially vampires. “You could be with us, just stay here, and besides, we have you surrounded…”
I smirked, “You would think that wouldn’t you?” I chuckled, my gloved hand reaching down for a soul, and mentally praying that whatever I would do will succeed. “You know, I hate people like you, reminded me too much of Imperials,” I held the soul by my side, vaguely noticing that it was a soul of a thief. “Chasing, murdering, fucking, killing, shitting, and stealing just for the sake of their fun and God,” I squeezed the Soul, it squirmed under my hold as I poured mana into it, shaping the soul into something… else. I cracked my neck, a smile on my face as the Soul changed into something I hoped. “No… I’m not trapped with you…” I held the black, almost ethereal, dagger in my right hand, switching the handle, “You’re trapped with me.”
I quickly ran. And jumped over them, leaving the confused, my familiar by my side, and Ruby looking at me strangely. “What did you do?” She asked
“Oh you’ll see.” I snapped my right finger, and an explosion could be heard from far away, whence the zombies stood. I frowned, “Unstable.” I shrugged; I guess that’s a good try than nothing.
“You killed them!”
“Yes, yes I did, and it would be us or them. And I prefer us than them.”
“But-“
I stopped, blue eyes quickly caught her bright yellow eyes as she floated just right above me, I quickly held my arms and pulled her down. “Ruby, it’s either us or them, and if they caught us, they would kill me and Nero and turned us into undead, and I don’t plan to be like that. They’re already dead to begin with, I just did them a favor…” She was nearly crying at this point, I sighed, eyes softened as I regarded Ruby, “look, we don’t have much time… we’ll talk about this later.”
I quickly ran again, with Nero in toll and Ruby floating above me. I grimaced; I didn’t want to do the… talk. Especially when she’s still a child, I mentally chuckled, oh well; I’ll cross that bridge later. I stared straight, a few zombies crawling out from the bushes. I jumped one of them, and side stepped as another one was about to hit me.
An ice ball, a liquid condensed ball of ice formed onto my left hand and threw it at the third zombie, quickly freezing it as liquid ice made the zombie into undead flavored popsicle, and fell into pieces of broken ice.
I barely noticed Ruby’s look of horror just in the corner of my eyes. I grunted. We’re going to have a long talk soon if she wanted to go with me… I shook my head, staring ahead just as the town came in sight.
“We’re almost out,” I said, grunting as another zombie suddenly appeared from the side, I quickly rolled, blasting the zombie with a fire ball, and ran again.
I mentally chuckled, if I was any mage, I would probably die right there. Warding is overrated anyway, and who needs them when you can dodge and roll your way out? Certainly not me, only fat and ugly people use warding, like the old magic defense professor, died of a heart attack. Pigs, that’s what they are, and it’s not totally because I sucked at them.
Reaching the town, I jumped one zombie who was standing straight at me, rolled to the ground and threw a fireball to the zombie before running again. The sky was, oddly, red, for some reason. I didn’t question it though; I blamed the gods and the forest for their love of dramatics.
I turned around the corner, not wasting any breath to stop. My heart pumped faster as my lungs tried to convert the residue with air. Still, I didn’t was time, I could rest after I was out of this undead-filled town.
A fast one ran to me, and I quickly sent a spike of ice to its leg, comically tripping it to the ground as its flesh scrapped on the road, leaving dirty black… thing. Stomping my head on its head, producing a squishy sound, I ran again. Dodging zombies, jumping, and casting ice and fire spells on the occasion to kill the few of them.
It was when I reached the gate that I stopped. Wheezing and panting painfully, as my eyes looked behind, where several zombies were chasing me. Taking a big gulp of air, I ran again. Sweat drenched my robe as I rolled under a sweep from a zombie. Mana began to diminish as small spells were casted, and eyes were blurry from the pumping blood on my heart.
I took one soul, converted it into another dagger and threw it backward, resulting another explosion. Unstable it may be, but it would still be good considering the situation. I would think that if I touch those flesh, something bad will happen. And if the panic in Ruby’s eyes meant anything, then yes, it would.
“C-Cain--!”
I glanced down, Nero was gasping for air as she ran alongside me, I grunted, “You really need to exercise more!” I shouted, stopping a moment to look behind me.
“Behind you!”
I immediately rolled to the side, and from where I stood, was another zombie, its hooves marking the ground as it growled at me.
“We will be friends…”
I scowled, “Nay.” And for badass points, spears of ice began to form in sky behind me, “I don’t do undead.” And with a flick of my wrist, the spears impaled the zombie. I took a moment to burn the zombie before jogging lightly, since there were no zombies in sight.
We-no, I, since Nero is a lazy adorable bastard who decided to perch on my shoulder- jogged in silence, no undead coming our way, no growling nor were there danger… yet.
I stopped when we reach a good spot, after far away from the cursed town. Was it not for the fact that there’s a filly, even if it’s a ghost, and that my robe wasn’t correctly enchanted. I would rather not risk it.
I took a moment of surprise when I saw Ruby floating above me, fidgeting nervously as I leaned against a tree, breathing slowly as I tried to calm my nerves and heart. Her eyes were not bright yellow anymore, but instead there’s a pupil in there, almost golden, as well. I shrugged, the town was more to a curse to the filly, and she couldn’t even pass on. Whoever cursed the damn place definitely didn’t think about the small filly.
“P-Psy-Psyche,” The silence was broken by Ruby, she stared at me almost fearfully.
I sighed, I guessed I should try to do the talk then… I patted my lap, and she slowly descended into my lap, almost fearfully and sat there.
“Listen, Ruby, about out there…” I sighed again, I didn’t want… no, I didn’t expect to be doing this. It was supposed to be a normal job, with a high payment. Not… this. “You know that I would die if I didn’t do anything, and I would rather me than them. They were already dead, and they tried to kill me and Nero,” said familiar purred warmly as she nuzzled me, “and where I came from, you don’t simply let others kill you.”
I didn’t know if I did good, but the voice in the back of my head, said, No, I messed up.
I sighed, and propped her up, her golden eyes looking at me, there were no fear in them, but worry. “Look, Ruby, I don’t know how to say this, but it’s the way of life… pun unintended, and well… you know…” I finished lamely, hearing Nero slapping her face with her paw.
She stared at me, “Just… promise me one thing…”
I chuckled mirthlessly, “Now you’re asking promises?” I shook my head, a small smile bloomed on her face, I nodded, “As long its within reason.”
She nodded, and tried to stare at me sternly, only succeeding in making her more adorable, “Just don’t use… violence, and let me… follow you.” Her face softened as she said the second sentence.
I just chuckled, “That’s two things,” I said, chuckling again as she pouted at me, “and, yes, you could follow me.”
She grinned, struggling from my hold and quickly hugged me, “Thank you!” She shouted, giggling, as she nuzzled me, careful not to hit Nero. “You’re warm…” She mumbled before falling asleep.
I cocked an eyebrow, I didn’t know ghosts can fall asleep, I mentally shrugged, the more you knew, I guessed.
“… Daddy.”
I went stiff, wide eyes, staring at Nero, who had the same expression.
“Aw, prairie shit.”