The Ghost And The Girl (Elaine)

by **Kit Rowan** on August 25th, 2013, 4:29 pm

Day 20, Season of Summer, 513 AV

Kit made her way across the docks on quickened feet, her true face, true body concealed by latticework illusion. Still, it would be wrong to assume that the docks of Ravok were safe. They were, perhaps, one of the least safe places for her to wander. In the inner districts, the Ravokians took great pride of the false peace they had built in the name of their black god. But this was not the inner districts, this were the docks, the outskirts, where their peace came from pretending that crime was a problem that happened to other people.

And yet, Kit felt more comfortable here, where the buildings cluttered closer and showed signs of wear and tear and use. After days and days of sitting and waiting on Nitrozian orders and ferrying little messages around the city for them, it was relaxing to simply walk the streets. Perhaps it would have been safer in her room, quiet and peaceful and safe, but bells upon bells of sitting alone in a room, doing nothing would make her crazed. Kit stuck to the side of the canal, kept her head down as she walked, doing her best to look as insignificant as possible, her leather shoes making soft sounds against the canal below her as she walked.

Her eyes flickered up, saw a pair of men marching in her direction with armor dark. Her shoulders shrank inward a little more, and Kit took the next opportunity she had to slip into a little alley between buildings. She tucked into the alcove of a door out of sight and waited, breathing even. The murmur of voices rose and fell away to nothing. Kit loosed a long, relieved breath and straightened her shirt.

Kit had a sudden impulse. She bit down on her lip and stepped out from the alcove, looking up. at the building behind her. An impulse to climb. Kit twined her fingers together and held her arms as far above her head she could, feeling the pleasurable burn of the stretch in her muscles, and smiled.

She slipped off her shoes, bent over so that she could press palms to knees and stared up at her job. The little alcove around the door had a wooden frame, taller than Kit was, taller than Kit could reach. But she jumped, and her fingers caught the lip, slowly slipping while feet flailed, looking for some purchase.

But then the found it, pressing into the side of the wall. Kit found that, without shoes, her feet had better purchase on surfaces. A little advantage, but it counted for something. She grunted, adjusting her grip so that it was stronger and pulled herself further, further up.

Kit threw her foot onto the roof of the frame and then it was easy to pull the next one up. She stood precariously on a bit of wood no more than half a dozen inches thick. That old thrill was welling up in her chest again, driving the corners of her lips up in a smile.

The roof of the building above her was too high to simply jump too, but across the alley . . . Kit licked her lips, bent her legs and threw herself across. She didn't make it; didn't have to. She caught the roof with her fingers and the jolt of the fall ran through her whole body but still, still she hung on! Kit gritted her teeth in a snarl of effort, pushed her feet into the side and again forced her way up, up . . .

Then she was on the gently slopping rooftop, panting hard, grinning wide, crawling over the ledge and rolling over so that she could see the clouds. Her body sang with relief while her heart sang in satisfaction, and Kit held out a hand toward the evening sun, clenching her fist around it as though meaning to seize it like a great, molten coin.

by **Elaine Spade** on August 30th, 2013, 3:29 pm

Wandering around Ravok was like going in a labyrinth expect she knew exactly where is the beginning and the end. But she still wanted to lost somewhere, and find the treasure. She found one, she found a friend. Although something was still missing, and she was still searching for it and she didn't know what was it. Maybe Life. She always stared at the people of Ravok what do they do what do they talk about. It didn't appeal her. Life could be not her thing, but she forgot that thought, she had to try harder.

Then she noticed a girl who was climbing. Elaine thought she is going to fall down and didn't pay attention. But she was standing there and was staring at her. The girl was trying hard and she managed to do it. Her age could be around the age when Elaine died. She went to the same spot and tried to try what Kit did. She was doing the same things she saw. She used her soulmist to feel the wall and she was going up. She went up only a little then she stopped.

She didn't focus her soulmist anymore to her limbs and she went down to the ground. She wasn't climbing like her, she was only floating. She forgot she wasn't living... she didn't have weight. She was staring in front of her for a moment. What was she doing? Then she looked up and floated up to Kit.

She was looking at the sun too like her and slowly sat down next to her like it was a normal thing to do and whispered to her."Why did you do it? It could be dangerous! " She asked, she wanted to know the answer. Why was it good to risk it? The life she had.

by **Kit Rowan** on September 14th, 2013, 4:19 pm

Kit was happy to simply lay on the sloping roof for a while and let her body rest, closed her eyes and reveled in the rise and fall of her chest, the sweat on her forehead. She braced her hands against the singles to prevent herself from sliding but after all her experience climbing and clamoring it felt no less natural than adjusting her footing on the ground.

A voice? Someone had followed her up here?! Kit opened her eyes, turned her head . . . And her whole body jolted with shock. "Colorandshade!" Kit spat, so fast the words rolled together into a nigh-unintelligible mess. A ghost, a ghost was sitting right beside her! She was small, oh so very small, with the evidence of youth plain on her dead face, wearing a white shirt and a black skirt that fluttered in imagined breezes; her edges blurred, and white smoke swirled around her body, and Kit could see through her to the other side.

Kit sat up straight, hugged herself closed, rotated her right foot in its socket. Ghosts may have been a well and natural part of the world, but so were spiders, and snakes, and other things that hurt and killed. She watched the dead child with wary eyes. What was its aim? Was it a lost ghost, seeking companionship to lessen the tedium of forever? Or something else? ". . . To show I could?" Kit shrugged. What more of a reason did she need?

by **Elaine Spade** on September 19th, 2013, 12:47 pm

She didn't get any answer. She wasn't sure if she was really expecting one or not. She just looked at Kit with her empty eyes. But maybe she would have reacted the same like her if she would be in the same situation. She was thinking what to do to make this situation less awkward for both of them. The answer was obvious, she had to materialize herself.

And so she did. She used her soulmist to look more solid, she looked like painting. She looked at her hands. She tried to focus her soulmist to make it more clear. Nothing happens, her hands were still not like when she was alive. She tried to again. Fail, she didn't want to insist it, otherwise she gets too tired. Elaine hoped that way Kit won't feel so uncomfortable.

She was pointing the place next to her as a gesture that Kit can sit down next to her. "If I would wanted to attack you, I would have already done by now." She talked again. Her voice was more clear. Oh what manners, she introduced herself to her. "I'm Elaine Spade. They also used to call me The Silent Lady. "

by **Kit Rowan** on September 19th, 2013, 1:26 pm

The mist around the girl coiled tighter and tighter, consolidated into an opaque image of a girl. It was less like a true seeming, and more like an a child's imagined image of itself. Simply colored, with clear gradients, pure colors and thick contour lines that made her stand out starkly against the very real world all around her.

Kit supposed that what . . . Elaine said was true enough. If there had been reason to harm, perhaps the ghost girl would have been better off doing it while Kit was still clamoring up the rooftops, or in the moments when Kit might make a jump down. Which was good, all considered, for she was relatively sure that there was nothing that she could do to ward away a ghost save run and run fast.

It was curious to think of anyone who would call Elaine 'Lady,' and so far Kit had found nothing about the diminutive ghost silent excepting her approach, but still it did not seem wise to vocally dispute the dead thing. "Hello, Elaine." Kit said. She licked her lips, shifted where she sat. "My name is . . ." Kit Rowan, she almost said. ". . . Shy Carsma."

"I wasn't lying," Kit touched her neck, looked at Elaine sideways, cricked it to the left and right and pulled her legs up close to her body. "I came up here cause i wanted to. Cause it's fun."