A Single Thread (Solo)

[Aello]

Winter 15, 511 AV Aello sat quietly in the ring of bone, connected only by her dampened hair. Her legs had been curled beneath her, as she assumed the lotus position and simply allowed herself to breath, in through the nose, and out through the mouth. Her arms rested across her legs, her hands cascading over her knees. Her bag sat in the space her huddled mass created. The flap hung open, making it all the more simple for her, all the more likely for her to reach inside her bag of tricks. Her eyes remained level, her gaze cast at the line of trees that lay before her. The forest that surrounded her. Low lying branches, fallen, becoming tumbleweeds as the gentle winter breeze trickled through, and tossed them across the terrain. They made it seem easy, like a human batting away an incessant fly. The light that trickled down through the trees, golden streamers of sunlight, only illuminated the things the forest cast in shadow. What the long, spindly lines of several sticks created. Even though she could not see him now, Aello could still sense him. The ghost that had shown itself but a bell before. She wondered if he thought her foolish. Wondered if he thought he was the first of her kind that she had seen. The thought made her smile. She knew she hadn't been born yesterday. That she had a deep understanding of ghosts and how they functioned, and if the being was new to death, she had no doubt in her mind that she knew more about their kind than he did. Despite his being a member of their ranks, and she one of the truly living. As she sat, in silence, Aello chewed that which rested against her tongue. A small strip of meat. A small portion of the rabbit she had had the night before, for dinner. A small mint leaf, a drying bit of vegetation she had found just before the first winter frost, and a single blue berry, also drying out, devoid of juice. It was better than what she usually had at her disposal, to make the mist, but still, the combination was a bit strange to her. So dry. So dismal, so very dead. The textures of the semi-masticated substances rolling across her tongue. Sticking to her raised taste buds, which were screaming out in terror. In frustration, and pain, for they didn't want to go on any longer. They had yet to meet the worst of it. After another few moments of chewing the horrid mixture, Aello slipped her hand past the slit of fabric that ran up the length of her leg. Her fingertips danced across her cool skin, to her scabbard. Her cursed dagger's bed. Finally, they wrapped around the hilt, and extracted the blade, sending a soft ring bouncing off the walls of her magical cage. Aello gave the blade a flick with her fingers, spinning it about, so it ran sideways, the point directed towards her left shoulder. Slowly, she raised her left hand, and held her palm out before her. Without so much as thinking about it, or batting an eyelash, Aello drew the metal across her left pointer finger. She felt a familiar sting, but it seemed dull. Cool as opposed to hot, with the blood that dripped out. Slowly, Aello lifted her finger to her lips, and then turned it, as she opened her mouth and held out her tongue to catch the droplets. A few drizzled out, plopping on her tongue. No more than three. That should be enough, Aello thought, as she dropped her hand, and wiped it off on the ground, as she returned her dagger to its scabbard. She closed her mouth, and resumed chewing. Inwardly cringing as she did so. For now, the taste and the texture of the mixture that danced across her tongue seemed at least a hundred times worse. Now, her taste buds were screaming. Dying. Wailing, and pounding their hands on the walls of her mouth, begging for mercy. Please let this be over soon, Aello thought, as she kept on chewing for several chimes, until her mouth grew cool. It felt like each bit of her saliva had turned to ice. Crystallizing across the length of her tongue, and then crackling, into thousands of tiny shards which glided against her flesh whenever she bit down. Her teeth were chattering, the roof of her mouth aching with the chill which drifted up from the lower reaches of its confines. It was then, and only then, that the girl knew it was ready. Instantly, she reached inside her bag, and fished around until she found an empty glass jar. When she had it within her grasp, she tore off the lid, and lifted the glass to her lips. She parted them a little, and then blew delicately, with the strength one would give when trying to extinguish a candle. Slowly at first, and then faster as time wore on, a pale white gel cascaded out of Aello's lips, and into the jar. After a few times, the contents of Aello's mouth had spilled into the jar, leaving her feeling a great deal warmer. As she lowered her hands to stare at the jar, she realized that she had filled it nearly to the brim. Hopefully this is enough, she thought with a small sigh, as she pulled her right hand away from the jar, and then dipped her fingers inside, scooping up a small portion. She guided her hand, then, over to several tangled strands of hair, that which hung between the bone, and gently, spilled the contents of her hand over it. When all had left her, she dragged the mist across the hair, to the nearest bone, careful not to make the string snap. Careful not to break her protective ring. OOCIn case it is unclear, Aello is sitting inside a ring of bone ghostnails. She is reinforcing the shield they produce from ghosts with freshly made soulmist. Strands of her hair are what keep the nails together.

[Aello]

When Aello was done spreading the handful of soulmist out, she dipped her hand into her jar again, and scooped out a little more. This, she spread across another portion of her protective ring, and when she ran out, she returned for more, making sure to reinforce every portion of her circle. After everything had been covered in the cool mist, Aello put the lid back on her jar, and shoved it into her pack. She then, ran her hand through her hair, tugging away any fallen or loose strands. After having run her hand through her hair a few times, she lowered her hand and peered at what she had gathered. A ring of dark brown, which had woven itself through her pale fingers, clung to her hand. Aello smiled weakly as she plucked the hairs away, and set them on her right knee. One by one, she pulled the strands off her curled bone, and held them delicately between her fingertips. She thread them through the bone. Wove them in with her structure, reinforcing it, to make sure the ghost she sensed stayed out. When she had run out of hair, Aello pulled her fingers away, and gazed out at her surroundings. "You know," Aello said in a clear voice, which rang across the forest, "I know that you're here. I can sense you." Aello's eyes sparkled as she waited, peering from left to right. She could hear leaves tumbling across the earth, carried by the breeze, as her long brown hair was swept off her shoulders, and then, set back down when it died out. "Even though you are choosing not to be seen, someone like myself can sense your presence," Aello said again, as she kept on looking. Kept on waiting. She knew it was only a matter of time before the ghost gave up. The wind seemed to pick up again, howling as it came through. Screaming at the ghost to show itself too. As though it, like the spirtist herself, knew it was there. After a time, the ghost finally materialized. The spiritist could feel the chill it cast upon the back of her neck, even before he shouted "boo." "Thinking to startle me?" Aello asked, as the ghost glided around her circle, to her front. It was the first good look she had gotten of him. His shorter stature for a male. His dark eyes. His pale skin. But what ghost wasn't pale? They were shrouded in mist. A white glow. Always fading, and never coming back. Each and every one of them. "In a fashion," the ghost replied simply. "Apparently it didn't work." A small smile crossed Aello's lips as her eyes sparkled. She shook her head lightly. "Care to tell me why that is?" the ghost asked. Again, Aello shook her head. "Very well then. Care to explain why I can't pass? And come close to you? Why you feel the need to shield yourself from me?" Aello chuckled as she held out her hands to the bones at her side, laced together by her own hair. "Ghostnails stranger. A lovely invention, designed to keep me in, and you, out," the spiritist replied, as she widened her smile. "Apparently, you're not strong enough to lift them, which means, that I will be safe until you can prove yourself. If you seem trustworthy, I can easily leave my circle, if you prove yourself dangerous... well... I am sure you don't want to find out what will happen." "Are you threatening me?" the ghost asked. Aello chuckled. "In a fashion." "But I'm a ghost, it doesn't mean anything. You can't hurt me, I'm already dead." Aello smiled. "Oh but I can, and trust me when I say you don't want to know how. Perhaps that is why, it is best you cannot lift these." The ghost growled at her. "I haven't even been trying that hard." "That is why you can merely get the bones to rattle," Aello said simply. "If I actually tried I could move them and get in there to see you," the ghost responded. Aello lifted a single brow. It curled into an arch which matched the shape of her father's old bow. "Is that really what you want?" she asked. "For surely, you don't really know what sort of danger awaits you in here." "No danger, just answers. I want to know why your leg glows. Why it calls to me so..." "Ahh," Aello said simply, as she lifted her arms, and set her elbows on her knee. She wove her fingers together, making a pillow for her hands, which she rested her chin upon, as she leaned forward, and stared intently at the ghost. "An interesting thing to pursue. To stick around for. Not that it really matters to you, seeing as you have all the time in the world." Her eyes sparkled as she glanced down at her thigh. "A weapon rests there. A dagger. It was cursed by the gods. It calls to your kind. There is nothing more to it than that." The ghost said nothing for a long time. Allowing an uneasy silence to settle between them. "There is always more," he said simply, causing Aello to unravel her fingers, and set her hands in her lap. "Perhaps you're right, there is always something more..."

[Aello]

Aello glanced down at the space below the ghost's flickering form. His hovering mass. It was just a patch of dirt. Cold, hard, unwelcoming earth. A patch similar to that which she supposed his body was buried beneath. "You'll probably want to be seeing it," Aello whispered, as she mechanically drew her right hand across her thigh, and slid it underneath the fabric of her dress. Within seconds, her fingers had wound around the hilt, and extracted the dagger from its scabbard. She eased it out of concealment, and into the open, showing it off to the ghost. "That's strange... it glows..." the ghost whispered. Aello merely nodded, she had heard it many times before. "It doesn't just sparkle or glow. It's not merely ornamental. It's not a toy," Aello commented. "It's a dangerous weapon, which tends to get its owner into just as much trouble as it gets her out of. If not more." She paused, twirling the blade in her hand. Watching as the metal flashed in the sunlight. "This could cut you just as easily as it could cut the living." The ghost scowled. "I'm dead, it can't hurt me. Or at least, it can't kill me." Aello's eyes sparkled as she leaned forward, twirling the dagger in her hand still. "How much do you honestly understand about death?" she asked. The ghost shook its head, clearly not understanding her question. "Obviously, you are dead, but how much do you really understand of it? Of life for that matter? How frail we are? How great our mortality is?" Again, the ghost shook his head, causing Aello to guide her free hand forward, towards her protective ring. As she neared it, she curled all her fingers into her palm, save for the pointer, which she pressed lightly into a strand of her hair, causing it to dip towards the earth. "You see this?" Aello asked. The ghost nodded. "Think of this as your life's thread. Single. Solitary. Alone. This thread," Aello continued, as she drew her finger across its length, "represents you. It may at times, become woven into another person's thread. Tying you two together. Binding your futures, and your fates, but for the most part it is yours, and yours alone." Aello paused, just to be sure the ghost was listening. "You, just like everyone else, have a set amount of time on this earth. Yes, you may extend it through magic, or other nefarious means, or by becoming what you are now. Although dead, you have a life here, now, in that state. In a way, but it is limited. Should you have become a nuit, you would have rested between life and unlife. Now, as a ghost, you rest between death and the next world. A world in which you will be guided back into the cycle of life and death." Aello paused. "That life, the life you lead now, may be taken away from you just as easily as my life may be taken away from me. You see this thread here?" Aello asked, as she pointed to it. The ghost nodded. "It is small. Singular. Flimsy. With others beside it, it grows stronger, but not by much. Should something powerful come along, it may easily be snapped, or even, cut. Thus ending its existence, your life." "You say as a ghost that you cannot be harmed, but that is not true. Should something become infused with soulmist, the living can harm you with it. Should a spiritist become strong enough, we could touch you and turn you to dust. We can keep you from completing your unfinished business, that which binds you here, forever keeping you from the cycle. Completion. Continuity." Aello paused. "Just as you may be harmed and hindered, the living can. We can be cut. We can grow ill, and we may be destroyed. So easily, and in so many different ways. We could die in a fire, or a tsunami. Drown, or sink into the earth as it crumbles at our feet, and trembles beneath us. We could be buried alive, or stabbed to death. Shot with arrows or javelins. Other projectiles. We could be strangled, or trampled beneath a horse's feet. We could be destroyed by magic- leeched, overcome by the elements, sent to other worlds. Other places. We may be killed by the gods, our fellow man. We may die by our own hand. Or even old age. There are many, many ways for the string to be severed. For all to go up in smoke." "It is all too simple. The greater scheme of things so very delicate," Aello whispered, as she pressed down on the strand of hair with her finger. "You see how this bends beneath my weight?" The ghost nodded. "That is the pressure that life's obstacles put upon you. A dead loved one. An injury. A sickness you may overcome. An illness in the family. A betrayal. An inability to find food to sustain yourself. When these things build up the string sinks. Life comes to a grinding halt for man is caught up so much in his problems, that he cannot think himself out of the cage he put himself in. Should man fail to find his way out, and he continues to succumb, the thread may snap, causing everything to end." Aello paused. "Life is fickle. Life is fragile friend, and so easily misunderstood." Aello pulled her finger away. "You never know when it may come to and end. Isn't that right?" The ghost simply nodded. "Care to tell me as to why your life ended and became what it was now?" "Hunting accident," the ghost replied simply. Aello nodded, thinking there was more to it than that. But she wasn't about to press the matter. "So now that you understand how weak the things that keep us alive are, how easy it is to lose, and mess with the grander scheme of things, why don't we perform a little demonstration? Find out just what happens when you sever the strings?" Aello paused, "shall we?" Aello asked, as she whisked her right hand up, twirling the blade in her palm as she pushed her hand forward rapidly, bringing it underneath her wall of soulmist covered hair. When the tip of her blade had begun to push some of the strands up, Aello flicked her wrist, bringing her weapon upwards, severing the strings. Instantly, the brown strands jumped up. Curling into themselves as they did. Rolling away swiftly, towards the nearest bone nail. "Don't you see love?" Aello asked, as she peered up from her work into the ghost's dark eyes. "How easily everything unravels?"

[Aello]

The ghost nodded. "I see everything," he replied simply, as he glided forward. Aello could feel a chill run up the length of her spine as she sat silently, and watched him inching closer. Slowly, menacingly. Drawing out the time it took. "And I know how easily everything unravels. How things change when all comes undone..." The ghost was no more than an inch away from her. The soulmist that pooled around his feet licking Aello's flesh. Aello's eyes had settled on his own, watching, waiting, until the time when he glided into her. Ramming their bodies together. Sending an ice cold wave through her senses. Chilling her very flesh to the bone. To the core of her soul. "Isn't it wonderful to watch that final moment? That last second as that string is severed?" the ghost asked. "There is beauty in that. In knowing it was snipped, and all has come to an abrupt end." Aello could feel her right hand shaking. It was as though he were trying to move it, and she wasn't letting him do so, on a more subconscious level than anything else. "It's almost as lovely as when a new string is made, and added to the others. Creating a larger picture. A greater painting, a greater story." The more she concentrated, and stared at the back of her hand, the veins that bulged, like coursing green rivers, the muscles that tensed, the more Aello came to realize that the ghost was trying to draw her hand down, towards the dagger. "Almost as beautiful..." Aello whispered. "No, you are right, just as beautiful as when new life is brought into the grander scheme of things," the ghost responded. "For the old is cleared to make way for the young. Those who have far more potential, to do great things with their lives, than those who are merely a bag of bones, rattling around in a self-imposed cage." "That's not true. The old teach us what the young cannot inherently know. What their minds do not possess when first brought to this plane. Their lines have been crossed, so many times, that they themselves have lost count," Aello responded. "Because they have infected us all with their presence, their knowledge, they left us all with but a taste of their whole person. It is a shame to see them go." "But their minds and their bodies grow weak with age. They are no longer as they once where, when time had not caught up to them," the ghost responded. "That is true, but it is not necessarily a bad thing. Their minds expand, and contain things most of us could only guess at. Their bodies grow weak. Their skin wrinkles. Their hands and their legs tremble. They struggle to support their weight, the burden life and knowledge, true understanding, has placed upon their shoulders," Aello whispered. "They pass when they can contain no more, and it is a pity to see them go. It is a trial to have to bury their memory away. To be cut off from what they know." "Unless they come back," the ghost commented. "Unless..." Aello whispered. "But even then we are not great like this, we have to borrow what the living still has, and what we can only truly long for. Wish for. For we can never have it again," the ghost went on. "Not if you choose to stay here. Not if you refuse to go on," Aello retorted. "But then we lose everything we once knew, and become weak in mind for a long time, and in body too, until we mature again," the ghost said. "Why does that matter? For you may grow to be even greater in your new form than you once were," Aello responded. "Because that time of depending on others is weakness. It is like old age- being weak, and brittle." "It is not a weakness. It is simply natural, a test of the times," Aello whispered. "It is, for your only true indicator of strength lies in the power of your arm. What you are capable of doing to another life. Bringing it out into the open, or snuffing it out," the ghost replied. "Is that what you are doing now?" Aello inquired, "testing your strength against mine?" She paused. "Do not think for an instant that I don't know what you are trying to do with my body. That you are trying to move my hand to get at something. The dagger, I'd suspect." The ghost chuckled. "It calls to me in more ways than one." "What is that supposed to mean?" Aello asked. "Care to find out?" the ghost questioned. Aello shook her head, prompting another chuckle to escape from her own lips. But it was not her own, it was of the thing inside of her. The thing she was just beginning to know, but had yet to truly understand. "Afraid?" the ghost asked. Aello shook their head again. "I know I am stronger than you. It is why you haven't reached it yet. That's why everything only shakes. You have no true power like this."

[Aello]

As soon as the words had left the young spirtist's lips, a chill washed over her. Inching up the length of her spine, towards her neck, causing the short hairs that lingered there to stand up as she was pulled away from the present. It felt as though she had been hit over the head with a bat, as she soared away, through the web of time into memory. The ghost's memory. In his memory, the ghost was still alive. An unimpressive looking man to Aello. Simply, a less pale and all the more tangible version of what she had seen hovering in front of her only moments before. He was standing over another man, in a crowded room, dimly lit by a single candle he held in his hands. The light flickered across the dark walls, as the ghost loomed over him. His shadow crawling across his form. "It's time that candle went out," the ghost sneered, as he threw himself at the man, thrusting his dagger into him repeatedly. The man curled into himself as blood spurted out of his body, and the light went out. Dousing everything in darkness. Drowning out the screams. The room seemed to spin as Aello was drawn back into the light. Another memory. Another one of the ghost's for she did not recognize the scene. The time, the place. She didn't see herself as the figure clad entirely in black, who was stabbing an old man in the shelter of an alley. She didn't see herself as the one bathed in blood, muffling a helpless man's screams with the hand she wasn't using to force her knife into his chest. The scene spun away as Aello watched the old man finally close his eyes. She was drawn into yet another memory. Her own. It was a day she remembered clearly. A day in the Silver Silver when two city guards had come to her table, and placed their hands on Alenias. The day she had fought them both, ending one of their pitiful lives and greatly wounding the other. The day she had wound up in jail. Inwardly, the woman cringed as she re-watched the scene. The moment she had thrust her dagger into her opponent's back. The moment he crumbled. It seemed to move so slowly. Not as rapidly as she remembered. After a time, Aello found her way back to the present. She was gasping for air, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Her eyes wide open. Her hand was curled around the dagger's hilt. She stared at it, knowing it hadn't been there before. "You should be afraid dear child," the ghost taunted. "For I like to snuff out candles. Sever strings. End all things." Aello forced her fingers to unravel, allowing the dagger to fall at her side. "You're a murderer," Aello whispered, her voice shaking a little. "So are you it seems," the ghost responded. "Only because I have to be. You kill because you find it pleasurable," Aello replied, as her stomach churned. She felt more than ready to simply vomit. "You seem to derive some pleasure from it," the ghost said simply. "No," Aello growled, through grit teeth. "I don't." As soon as the words spilled out of her lips, Aello imagined the ghost standing next to her. Her dagger in her hand, her body moving towards him and stabbing him repeatedly. Cutting him. Forcing him away from her. When she opened her eyes, there he was, staring at her. Instantly, Aello swept her dagger up off the ground, and held it tightly in her right hand. The metal blade directed behind her, as she rose to her feet to meet the ghost.

[Aello]

The ghost chuckled as he took note of Aello's cold gaze. Her defiant stare. "What are you going to do girl, punish me for my wrongs? Hurt me? Kill me?" he asked. "You know you can't do that, seeing as I'm already dead." The ghost paused, taking note of how her thumb danced across the hilt of her blade, how her grip tightened about it, causing her knuckles to drain of the blood they contained. Causing them to appear even paler than usual. "You can't make me pay for the past. For severing the string that ties this all together." Aello growled. "Silly ghost, you simply do not understand, I can torment you even more than you tormented them. Inflict a greater sense of pain than you can ever come to understand." Aello chuckled as she whipped her right arm out to the side, and then swept it back in, dragging it across the ghost's exposed chest. A spurt of white oozed out. Soulmist. It billowed like a cloud around the ghost's middle, as it spilled out and onto the spirtist's hand as she dragged her blade across, finishing the clean sweep before returning her weapon to her side. Her fingers trembled against the ghost's cool touch. Her gaze hardened as the ghost howled in pain. "That is the least of what you will feel. The torture that is to come," Aello hissed. "You made a mistake coming here. Trying to kill me. Letting me peer into your past. You made a mistake ghost, thinking that your pathetic little games could work on someone like me, and now you're going to pay for it. You're going to pay for everything. This will make sure of it," Aello finished, as she swept her blade forward again, raking it across the underside of the ghost's right arm. She pulled it down, through his flickering flesh, spilling another line of white. She watched it dripping as she extracted her blade and pulled it close. Watched the droplets disappearing before they hit the forest floor. The ghost screamed as his form drifted away. That only caused Aello's eyes to sparkle, for a sinister smile to cross her lips as she made another incision across his chest, forming a line parallel to the first she had inflicted. Her hand was trembling now, not from exertion, but from whenever the soulmist licked her flesh. It felt cooler now, worse than when he had possessed her. "You will suffer more than this. A thousand times for what you have done," Aello growled, as she pushed her chest through the ghost's heart. Or the area where it would have been, should he still have one. The aurist was surprised the ghost wasn't doing much to defend itself. She didn't think the wounds crippling, at least not physically. Perhaps psychologically, in the sense that until recently, he felt as though nothing could touch him, but not physically. She pushed the blade deeper, thinking little of it, deciding to take advantage of the ghost's flaw. His one true weakness. More soulmist leaked from his form. Cascading onto her flesh like a waterfall. Aello grit her teeth, trying to ward off the cold as her hand took on a purple tinge. It was freezing, so much so that she was forced to draw her hand away in pain as she simply watched the ghost. Listened to him scream and rage at her, about how he could just possess her again and finish what he had tried to start. She could see him coming closer, to try, and wasn't at all afraid, knowing that she could expel him again, easily, if she wanted to. She was just worried about the cold, as she watched the dagger fall from his chest. She supposed he had used his power to extract it, but she couldn't be sure. The flow of soulmist may have done it. Startled, and defenseless without her weapon, Aello took a few steps back. Simply watching the ghost's flickering form, silently wondering how she would get her dagger back before it came to her, without hurting herself in the process. She stared at it on the ground. It seemed so distant now, as he glided over it, as he threw his head back and screamed, and then blinked away. Confused, Aello's muscles tensed as she looked around in each direction. But she couldn't see anything. Nor could she sense him. The ghost was simply gone. Her business with it left unfinished. Frustrated, Aello glared at her ring of bones. Her soaked hair. Every single strand. So many had been left un-severed. Tied together. But not for long. OOCI don't know if you knew, so I figured I'd post it, a property of Aello's dagger exists in its always being covered in soulmist. Along with all the other insanity.

[Chevalier]

Aello

LORE

• Spiritism Defensive Measure Preparation
• The Mind of a Murderer

EXPERIENCE

Skill	XP Earned
Meditation	2
Spiritism	3
Philosophy	3
Teaching	2
Dagger	1

Storyteller Notes

Secret :

Lots of philosophical debate, so the points seemed appropriate there. Meditation and Spiritism for performing her arts, teaching for attempting to instruct the Ghost on the interactions of Spiritism, and dagger for some dagger work..