closed to long_live_the_queen.

[dreamflowers]

Comments

[dreamflowers]

The campfire crackled through the otherwise silent night, smoke rising from the piled woods where Jade sat cross-legged on the ground, with a pipe of peaceweed in hand. The Powder Desert was usually hot during the daytime in a way she was usually accustomed to, but the nights were particularly chilly that the warmth of the flames was necessary. On the other side of the camp, the mysterious apparition stands, silent and unmoving, as though waiting for something.

"You're an odd one, aren't you?" Jade asks the specter, drawing a breath from her pipe.

No answer, of course. The dead don't talk, not even to the Phasmalists who summon them.

It's a shame, really. Jade would have liked to have known where this girl came from. With her shock of pink hair and horns on her head, she's certainly unlike anybody Jade has ever encountered, or even read about in books. Perhaps she's a soul from a much earlier Cycle, or another Eventality altogether. Perhaps she'll never know for as long as these apparitions remain as nothing more than shadows of their former selves.

After a moment of silence, Jade imagines an answer in her head that maybe the girl would have said... and laughs to herself as though the ghost had just told an amusing anecdote.

"Yeah, I can imagine."

Purple smoke draws from her exhale as Jade lowers the pipe from her lips, not looking away from the unmoving spirit.

"Still. Wish I could at least see your name." The only thing that came to mind when she cradled the lost soul she had found in the old lighthouse near Duneville was some kind of tree. Jade had encountered a few like that before, whose names were muddled to her, so she kind of had to come up with names of her own for them instead.

For this one, for now, all she can think of is 'Tree'. Which is probably horseshit, but it's all Jade has to go off on. Could she have at least thought of something more creative? Maybe. But she's haggard, exhausted, and a bit too battered from her recent fights to be creative at the moment.

Moments pass until she decides to turn in for the night. As she starts to put her pipe away, Jade suddenly picks up the sound of something crawling in the darkness. She freezes, catching the shape of a giant Desert Spider approaching the camp.

Some of her gear goes sprawling in Jade's swift scrambling to her feet, arms out and backing away from the sight of the creature's too many eyes moving quickly towards her with its too many legs.

"NOPE," Jade firmly tells it... Before realizing that she's been backing towards the desert cliff. Her foot shuffles towards the edge, before the rest of her goes sailing over the edge.

Well, this is certainly going to be one of the most stupid ways to die... Scared by a fucking spider.