[SO-Sylira] A Spirit, a Ship, and a Symenestra (Shai)

[Keene Ward]

PermissionGranted by Perplexity, thank you!

The eighty-ninth day of winter, 514 AV

The guest's quarters of the sloop were not spacious, in fact they were very much cramped. The room was filled with the sounds of sleeping both gentle and violent alike that rose from the suspended figures wrapped up in their netted hammocks, swaying gentle to the lapping rock of the ocean. All but one slept soundly, the rest seemingly impervious to the sudden drop in temperature as a man stepped impossibly silent across the swaying floorboards of the ship. His eyes, red rimmed a raw, slowly scanned the room, mute mumbling dripping from his lips like the spray of the sea they drifted upon. His gaze was captured by the fit-ridden sleep of the Spider, her brows furrowed and - despite the veritable cocoon of protective hammock - a look of fear upon her features. The man moved closer, his voice drifting through his lips like a distant whisper.

"Marielle? M...Marian? Maribelle..."

His hand crept further forward, pale hands with worn cuffs extended towards her face, longing to caress the pale, worried flesh. Small tears beaded at the corners of his eyes, sending shivers throughout his frame.

"I can't... Remember... M-Margaret!"

Voice still hushed like the hiss of cresting waves, the man reached forward, running the back of his hand against the woman's face, his frigid touch wrenching her from her slumber. The moment she woke, he stared wide-eyed for a tick before disappearing in a swirl if vapor, retreating away with a distant, muffled moan.

[Shai]

In the first two nights aboard in the ship, the idea of communal quarters gained no purchase in Shai’s esteem. There are a number of reasons, but they all dwindled down to safety. The bodies around her now were comrades, refuges from anarchy and malice. When the woman slept, she was at her weakest. Not just her lack of consciousness, but sometimes she spoke. Face filtered through her sleeping world, always dark and spiteful. Even in her own bed, she mangled the sheets and threw the pillows.The hammock saved some embarrassment but it stopped none of the thrashing.

At first, when she woke up nothing seemed different beyond the other hundreds of nights bolting up. Cold sweat dripped down the canal her spin made in her back. Her lips pressed into a tense line as she held back the scream. Ear eyes wandered through the dimlit cabin, catching only a hint of her rude awakening.

Shai couldn’t stand ghosts. They were one of the few things that truly frightened the Symenestra, in large part because she had no way to defend herself against them. Before this season, she’d only met with ghosts on a single occasion. On the day the mist enveloped Sunberth and death's curse seemed to take hold, Shai had run for her life. The second time, a ghost in tower strange and ephemeral. Now on this boat, and it was simply too much at this point.

Twisting out of the hammock and onto her feet the thief toed out of the room. Though the boat creaked with the shifting waves, the spider still took care; placing only the balls of her feet where the nails mated the boards. It would be unbearable if her friends woke up and found her jumping at specters they had never seen. Years had ingrained the danger of appearing weak, and she avoided it at all cost.

Chell jostled at her breast, sealed as a tiny crystal secured on the silver chain. Shai was never sure if the familiar slept. Over the years together, she had never once caught him asleep while she was not. Chell, did you see someone?

Negative. I was covered by your shirt. There was a voice, it was not saying your name so I disregarded it.

Her eyes narrowed, Very well. Perhaps there was another thief aboard. The Symenestra slipped out of the common quarters, to pursue this person.

[Keene Ward]

As she left the room behind her, a flit of motion disappearing up through the hatch. It didn't take long for her to slip up to the deck in pursuit, and as she peered out over the moonlit plane, the otherwise deserted deck held two figures: a man and a woman. They were too far away for her to hear anything beyond the soft hum of the woman's voice as she spoke, but both figures were detailed clearly in the soft glow of the Leth's face.

The woman appeared later on in her years, short but not without an air of serene confidence. Her white hair was partially hidden beneath a silk scarf wrapped loosly about her head. Skin wrinkled, creased around the eyes that stared with a light of intelligence held by the aged scholars of learning. She was clothed in a simple robe, fabric wrapped about her to create a rounded form. When she spoke, her hands moved only slightly, the majority of her expression held in her eyes.

The man stood with his back to the thief, his dark tousled hair and sailor's uniform the only true distinguishing factors about him.

[Shai]

Shai paused as her gaze rose to deck level. The scene made little sense to the spider. At first, they seemed unlikely thieves but the longer she watched, the more the spider’s mind rationalized. An old woman wouldn’t make a bad cover for a thief. Even Shai had initially discounted her. As for the young man, he was unfamiliar. The journey upon the ship could be better measured in hours rather than days yet, but still he was unfamiliar. Paranoia was her constant companion and she had attempted to catch a glance of ever face on board in the intervening day from setting sail.

Cautious taps of her toes as the lithe woman stepped across the well worn wooden deck. It was a natural habit to step lightly, not just because of her ancestral home but the constant peril Sunberth had provided. The best of Shai’s arsenal remained below deck, but there were few things the Symenestra had encountered that rebuffed her claws. Alabaster digits flexed at the thought.

Internally she self-reprimanded. There were a number of reasons not to outright attack these people. Primarily because hiding a body was simple in a city, but on a boat? Someone might see the corpse go overboard and illicit well-confirmed suspicion about the disappearance of a traveler in open sea. Of the same stroke, these two were trapped upon the boat with her. If they had stolen she would ferret it out, but they were poor thieves for having done so when there were numerous days left to sail.

With a heavy sigh, Shai announced herself. “How fares the night, Madame…?” The spider approached more openly, though her heels never touched floor giving her the appearance of stalking. “Have you seen anything suspicious?” The irony was not lost on the thief, that there were fewer things more suspicious than herself. She was very careful not to provide any unnecessary information. There was power in skirted-truths, and unless called out they caused little harm. It was easier to wiggle away from not having mentioned something than outright lying.

[Keene Ward]

The moment Shai announced herself, the man whirled around, his frame flickering into a soft haze for a few ticks before he took a few steps back. His reddened eyes blinked several times as he regarded her, fear slowly being replaced by suspicion that grew until it seemed he was forced to speak only a few ticks after the Symenestra spoke her question. "Is she the one?"

The elderly woman, however, placed a careful, warm hand upon the man's arm, stilling him for the time being. To Shai, she offered a small bow of her head, a peaceful smile playing about her lips. When she spoke, her voice was strong, a steady, deliberate rate with a slight shake that came from age, though all hints of frailty beyond that were absent, in her eyes especially. "Perhaps that is a question better asked to the night herself?" Her eyes danced in the light, sparks of interest, thought, and appraisal mingling beneath the woman's wrinkled brow. "And of things suspicious, I cannot say. Perhaps once, I would have thought so. But now?" She raised her hands in a small shrug, a short chuckle of laughter to emphasize her point. "Now I am too old for such things." She turned to smile at her companion, the young man's face quite wrought with concern, his dark brown eyes matching the quiver of his short cut beard and hair. "We were merely reminiscing."

The man moved to speak once more, and this time the woman stepped back to allow him. His voice was soft and deep, yet there was a hollowness about it, as if he had been awake for far too long. "You... Are not she, are you?" His voice shook with apprehension.

A small, wrinkled hand wrapped itself around the man's, and her touch seemed to calm him some. She patted the hand, nodding at him. The man blinked, turning to gaze between the two of them for a time before he stepped back, once more uttering an apology. The woman then addressed Shai once more, her voice as curious as her searching gaze. "Perhaps that which you seek is the same as the one this man has lost?" There was a knowing glow behind her gaze, but she asked no more, letting the question hang in the air between them as the man fidgeted with one of his cuffs, his hand still tightly gripping the woman's.

[Shai]

Shai’s eyes trained warily to the man. Something was amiss though she couldn’t place it; perhaps the way he spoke? Briefly she looked between the pair but chose to answer the man first. “I am a she, but my name is not ‘She’ and I do not believe I am the she you are looking for because I have never known you.” She answered his question again, purposefully saying very little.

It was an odd pattern that had presented itself over the season. People continued to appear who seemed to have answers to questions, Shai had never intended to ask. It was a special kind of resignation that permeated her thoughts, things were as they would be. It would be futile at best to struggle against her mortal confines, an exhaustive search for her son had led her nowhere. Then again, she had never searched the world beyond her own sight mundane sight. The old mother wasn’t sure she had another cross continental search in her. Weariness had struck her, and hopelessness devoured the light of possibilities. All the remained was the faith that her son was protected by Viratas’s grace of lineage. Shai had tried on numerous occasions to replace the void in the crook of her arm where a infant had once cradled. Now, the exhaustion at the very idea of search anew was enough deterent.

She relented from her internal diatribe, “I look for a great many things, but I was not yet aware he was one of them. Though I do not recognize him, perhaps I have met his ‘She’. Who are you looking for?”

Waiting patiently was an acquired skill off the seasoned thief. But waiting inactive as not, always there was something going on beneath the inhumane gaze. Chell, do either of these people appear in your memories? In truth they were memories which she might also have possessed had she cared to cement them in her thoughts at the time. Chell had an ability for remembering the otherwise unnecessary, Shai had come to understanding that whether directed to or not he recalled things he had seen with great frequency.

Negative. Chell replied, though it wasn’t at all definitive. There were a number of reasons he might have missed them, perhaps it had been too dark for his reflective surface to see. Perhaps, Shai’s body had shielded his gaze. Regardless it was some small clue.

Shai slowly began to click her fingernails together. The tell-tale sign of her thoughts slowly treading in dark waters. In her unboundless conscious there were any number of options, society’s taboos held little sway over the spider who hid in shadows.

[Keene Ward]

At Shai's reply, the man squeezed the woman's hands, tears brimming his eyes, "Are you not?" He turned to face the woman, stooping slightly to adjust his hight more to her own. "She isn't but... Could she be? Like me?" The woman raised a hand to the man's face, gently patting him before nodding to Shai. The two watched her keenly as she replied, both faces interested though one was far more desperate than the other. At Shai's final question, the man pulled away from the woman, seemingly next to her in one moment and standing over Shai with a desperate plea in the next. "M-Marth! Or... or Minave?" He clutched at his head, shaking back and fourth. "I can't... I-I-"

"Hush now." The woman's voice was soft, calming. The man retreated, seeming to become smaller as well, though it could have been a trick of the light. "What do you remember?"

The man glanced between the two women, a lost look of uncertainty made him appear far more childish than his appearance seemed to indicate. "She was... She is..." He fumbled for the words, as if he were reaching into a murky pond to retrieve something small of value beneath the turbid waters. "Dark hair, soft s-smile... Beautiful." He shut his eyes once more, his face scrunching and his body flickered. "And waiting... She is always... Waiting for..." He let out a shout of frustration, his skin shimmering for a moment before it faded into translucency, his body taken on the sodden appearance of the drowned, skin flaking and eyes shifting to empty sockets.

Immediately the woman stepped forward, bridging the space between Shai and the swirling mist of the man. He turned towards them, hands little more than bone as he extended them towards them, reaching and reaching until they faded into the woman's body. After a few ticks, he was gone, and the woman let out a soft sigh, folding her hands back into her robe before turning to face Shai. "He has been alone for far too long." She offered Shai a full bow then, rising up to offer her a smile that was a bit weaker than the strength she had shone before. "I am Koroko, Spiritist of Zeltiva." Her lips turned down into a concerned frown. "I apologize for involving you, but I had hoped it might help him remember." A small sigh escaped her lips as a wave of weariness seemed to light softly upon her shoulders. "It would seem I pushed him too far."

[Shai]

It took every ounce of will not to jump away as the man appeared beside her. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. Cilia flexed all over her body, bunching the clothing to her skin; defying the sea breeze. Though the moonlight was sufficient her pupils dilated rapidly. Her first response was always fight, but there was no fighting a ghost. Swallowing the slime crawling up the back of her throat she turned to the stately woman as the ghost dissipated again. “I suppose I owe an apology then, but I am not sure whether it is to you or him.” Shai said through clenched teeth.

As her knee-jerk reaction slowly came under her reign, Shai turned her too-wide eyes towards the woman who stepped closer. It had never occurred to her to really question ghost motivations, she had considered them monstrous and nothing more. Oh if the irony had not be palpable before…

“Does he follow you? Or does he haunt the boat?” The woman Shai could avoid for a dozen days, but if the whole ship was the ghost’s domain it would be trying. How much sanity did the undead retain? It was not a question Shai had ever thought to answer, because seeking it would require seeking ghosts or worse. “Koroko, I am Saris.” She gave her alias as a force of habit, identity had far too much inherent danger. Adding to her fear would not ease conversation. “Would helping him remember, calm his wandering?” Part of the ghost’s interactions had been decidedly pathetic, but perhaps if he remembered he would at least leave her alone. Sleep would still not be peaceful though. In a way, it was oddly fitting; a ghost haunted the living realm as the ghosts of her past haunting her slumber.

The strategical thief but her mind to work, the most effective way she knew to banish her fears. “Mistake implies there are no further options, and that is not the case. I can offer my help willingly. A voluntary assistant must be better than an unwitting one?” Not strictly true the spider knew. In the case of a distraction nothing beat a victim out of the loop, but Shai’s estimation of the situation didn’t support that sort of tactic. Of course, the widow had been wrong many times before and would be again in the future.

[Keene Ward]

The woman smiled at the Spider, "Can he not do both?" She moved towards the rail, leaning against it and gazing out into the stillness of the sea as it shimmered below the moon's light. A small breeze had settled in about the ship, gently tugging at the two women's clothes as it passed. "Saris, you say?" Another knowing smile. "What do you believe it might accomplish?" She paused. "And what might you like it to?"

At Shai's offer, the woman gave a small, contented sigh, leaning more heavily into the railing. For a moment, she seemed to embody her age entirely, from the gnarled bones of her hands to the weary skin of face. When she spoke, however, her voice was soft, but vivacious, a dance of humor about her. "Even the most unlikely creature can bring about the most significant of events." She raised a brow, a smile about her lips. "And you..." She trailed off, her eyes calmly regarding the other woman. "You are hardly unlikely." Chuckling, she brushed the statement aside with a little flick of the wrist. "If you are willing and knowing, I have no issues with your assistance, Lady Saris."

[Shai]

Honesty was a strange fruit for the svelte spider. Her head tilted to the side, “What I want is to have the ability to affect ghosts. A number of times in the past I have encountered them and rarely are they friendly. When it is an contrary human, I can easily walk away, but a ghost? I have no such ability.” Shai shifted to lean back against the railing as Koroko had.

It was more comfortable for the spider pull up her legs beneath her and perch onto the rail. For a human the precarious edge into the unfathomable waters would be horrifying, to Shai it was little different than the path outside her childhood home. To face the unknown and preserve, was a literal walk in the park for a Symenstra. No matter how good low light vision was, there were always shadowed recesses that evaded peering eyes. “If helping him remember, stops him from waking me up, then I am more than happy to assist.” That was how it was though, it always came back in the end to what helped Shai. In some ways this was because of Sunberth, but the truth was the trait had manifested years prior. When the boy had been taken away from his mother, it had hardened her in ways she only now began to realize.

A man wondered, restless and hopeless, without anchor in this world. All Shai saw was how to alleviate her own troubles through him. Maybe she had the conscious to be disturbed by it, but as always she had excellent ability to compartmentalize and she shoved the emotion away into a dark corner of her mind. There were things there that Shai staunchly refused to examine, sometimes it concerned her that Chell might do what she avoided. Chell had not once shown an interest in her guilt, only her survival and to a small degree her contentment had ever gave him the slightest pause.

Shai sighed, a concession to her lack of sleep. “Let us begin, if that is acceptable? What would you have me do?”