“____” speaking

‘____’ thoughts

*____* telepathy

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It was that dream again. The one that tormented and taunted me every time I had it. That same woman, the red dress, the grey hair, the tired wrinkle worn face, the voice so seductive yet not a single work of it understandable no matter how many languages I had learned.

I went through the motions yet again, it was as if I was reliving a moment in time that my mind refused to let me forget a single detail of. A warm hand, rough from work, tenderly caressed my face, stroking my cheek gently as if afraid I was made of glass and too much pressure would break me into a million tiny pieces. It felt nice, hell it felt good, but it never lasted. The hand would drop and the woman would lean in close and stare at me. Her eyes, a blue so clean and clear it was otherworldly, seemed to look at me and see everything that I was and would be. Unlike so many others those eyes accepted that, wanted that, and it hurt to know I would never remember who this woman was or ever meet her.

Then she would croon, the words so harmonic they made a lullaby that could put anything to sleep. My eyes would grow heavy and I would start to lose sight of her as she faded into the blackness of the dreamscape before she would say those final four words in a voice quiet enough to be a whisper. The thing that hurt.

“Violetta paden jeehatoe ameh.”

They were a command using my true name, I couldn’t disobey them but I couldn’t understand them either. It was a paradox I had been trying to end for years. Each time they repeated, the same feeling of guilt hung in my gut and made me sick. None of that was what hurt though.

It was the expression on her face as she spoke; the same one a mother wears when she knows you’ll disobey her. Not disappointment, but the similar lingering sadness of futility that you can see in the eyes even if it can be concealed in the voice, but she didn’t try to hide it. Saying those words hurt her and seeing her in pain for me made me feel awful, like dirt. I didn’t deserve it. I never would.

She faded into nothing as my eyes in the dream shut, the woman no more but her words and image would remain burned into me forever. I knew I would be crying if I woke up now, I always did. I felt more of a loss here than when some of my soul was taken. The dream would then loop, forever standing as a testament to what I hadn’t done. This time was different thank to the painful nudging that was rousing me from my much needed sleep.

I opened my eyes to the familiar sight of the room I had been in before going to the ethereal plane. The four whitewashed walls with animals painted on them in bright lively colors were still partially block off by the heavy wooden furniture in the room. Ormonde’s crib stood next to the only window in the room, a shade currently pulled down halfway to darken it. While I hated the room I was happy to be there until I saw who woke me.

It was the spirits of Ormonde’s parents. The floaty one and the hard edged one that I had seen when I first woke up. It seemed they wanted a word or two and that’s what they would get.

“What?”

I couldn’t tell if the look of shock was from the fact that I spoke or from how tired I sounded. After recomposing themselves, the female spirit, the hard edged one, spoke.

“Where were you?”

“Ethereal plane.”

Her brow creased in slight frustration, but I didn’t care if she was annoyed by the vague answer I was sleepy. The answer also seemed to placate them, I guess they were worried about Ormonde.

“Why did you take him along?” She gestured to the sleeping babe underneath me.

“Accident.”

“Let me back up a bit. What’s your name.”

“Vio.”

‘No way I’m telling you my true name, I don’t care how tired you think I am I’m not stupid.’

Both spirits seemed to understand I had only given them a name to call me by and continued.

“You were gone for a week, did you know that?”

“I didn’t.”

They seemed to find it interesting that I had been unaware of how much time had passed, but the interest faded and they resumed questioning me.

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“How many trials have you completed?”

“What are trials?”

My question seemed to answer hers and I was left with yet another thing I needed to figure out on my own.

“Can you take on a form so we’re not talking to a ball of fire?”

“Probably not.”

The floaty spirit spoke for the first time, I hadn’t caught his eyebrow raise curiously. If I remember correctly I think his name was Tanzi.

“Why?”

I repeated his question back to him in an attempt to buy myself some time to try and fall back to sleep; I didn’t care about his answer. The trick was duly noted and the female spirit prodded me again to keep me awake. My lack of cooperation was wearing her patients thin and she knew I knew this. I sighed in resignation and formed an illusion that looked like myself.

“What do you want from me? I’m trying to sleep.”

“We want an explanation.”

“I’m gonna last about ten minutes before I pass out so you get the super short abridged version. I don’t care if you can’t follow it.”

I took a deep breath and began.

“I died, was bonded to Ormonde, tried to establish a link to the ethereal plane, did it and went there but drug him along. I visited a friend, killed a spirit, made a monument and almost died three times while dealing with a corrupted spirit before sending Ormonde back and joining him sometime later. You each get three questions.”

“You fought a corrupted spirit?” There was disbelief aplenty in Tanzi’s question.

“Yes.”

“And you won?”

“You could say that.”

“Explain.”

“That’ll be you third question is that alright?”

A nod and wave of the hand to continue.

“Well the spirit died but not before doing some damage of his own.”

They both read in between the line well enough to not need to ask another question to know how badly it had gone.

“How much damage was done?”

Although they couldn’t see it, I was biting my bottom lip hard enough to taste blood. I really didn’t want to answer this question.

“You sure you want to know that?”

“Yes. Now what happened.”

“Ormonde’s soul may or may not have gotten a little corrupted.”

My voice was a nervous squeak that very quickly lost all its volume as I spoke. I could feel the rage pouring off the female spirit and unconsciously shrunk myself and backed up.

“Let me make sure I heard you correctly. You got Ormonde corrupted!?”

I nodded my head in a timorous manner being very apprehensive of the seething spirit in front of me. She started to shout and lecture me and my rebuttal was so meek not even I heard myself say it. Fortunately Tanzi had heard me speak, he seemed use to the shouting too.

“Maka calm down for a moment. Vio, please repeat what you said just now.”

“I said that I healed him.”

“How?”

The suspicion on her face was clear as day and I didn’t blame her.

“Do I have to answer that? Because I really, really don’t want to.”

“You do.”

Tanzi looked over at Maka.

“Well technically she doesn’t.”

“If she doesn’t tell me I’m going to make her life a living hell.”

I failed to stifle a laugh and became the target of Maka’s glare.

“What?”

“You can’t make my life any more of a hell than it already is trust me. By the way you have one question left.”

“No I still have two left.”

“You just asked me ‘what’ a moment ago.”

“That wasn’t a question.”

“Sure sounded like one.”

The sneer on my face was something to behold, something not very nice if the fuming coming from Maka was any indication. She looked at Tanzi and I in quick succession before returning her attention to me.

“I’ll let that count if you tell me how you healed Ormonde.”

I was done dealing with this woman and her crap. Even I can only take so much before I get fed up, but this was mainly my sleep deprivation talking though.

“I’m going back to sleep. Night.”

“Wait!”

I ignored her and her attempted grab at my illusion and made a beeline for Ormonde so I could hide inside him, a small perk due to the chunk of my soul he had.

“What if I told you about the trails?”

I froze mid flight almost ready to accept if not for the fact that it was easy to see what she would do. Akhan had ruined me when it came to knowledge; I hungered for it almost as much as he did now. A small bit of deliberating and I decided to take control of the situation and get what I wanted. Turning I pointed a finger at Tanzi.

“Only if he promises to either tell me or get you to tell me.”

“What you don’t trust me?”

“Honestly? No.”

My frankness pissed Maka off even more and I knew I was digging myself into a hole that she would very quickly try to fill in on top of me. She turned to Tanzi and the two talked for a few minutes before turning back to me. Tanzi spoke first.

“I will and do promise that I, Tanzi, will tell you, Vio, about the trail if you tell both Maka and myself about what was done to save Ormonde, not how you did it, just what you did. Deal.”

He had basically said the contract for a promise between spirits and only needed my confirmation for it to be valid.

“Deal.”

I paused due to the thickness created by the tension and readied myself for their reaction.

“His soul was damaged in some places so I cut them out. I then had to get his soul back into his body after healing it without it being rejected. It was initially rejected but I got it to work.”

Too late I realized the mistake I had made and could feel the air in the room freeze. If they asked I would have to tell them as it was part of what I had done to heal Ormonde. Tanzi voiced the question both of them had.

“If his body was rejecting his soul how did you get back into his body?”

I stopped make eye contact with both of them and started to fidget, tapping my pointer fingers together while trying to hide behind Ormonde’s crib.

“I may have done Seele Ehe.”

Once again my voice slowly died as I spoke, the final word being a mumbled whisper. It felt like my face was on fire from embarrassment. There was a deafening silence in the room before Maka began to speak, her voice raising to a shriek.

“Seele Ehe?! Do you realize what you’ve done? Seele Ehe between a mortal and a spirit is the second most illicit action you could have taken! You’re going to have so many spirits after you if this gets out. It ‘s practically a death sentence! Plus that’s not even taking into account what Seele Ehe is and means between those who’ve done it!”

“ ‘Bout that. See I’m hoping to use a sort of loophole in that rule to not get myself killed.”

“And what might that be?”

Oh gods the glare I was being given.

“Well the rule states that you can’t do Seele Ehe between a mortal soul and a spirit soul, but Ormonde’s soul isn’t exactly human anymore. So no problem right?”

This wasn’t going to go over well; I knew that and shrugged halfheartedly to hid my anxiety. I didn’t think it was possible for me to get any smaller, but let me tell you I felt so tiny before that woman’s increasingly angered gaze. Her words were cold as ice and filled to the brim with venom.

“What did you do.”

“Well I had to replace the pieces of his soul that I cut out with something didn’t I?”

Both of them could easily see I was extremely uncomfortable on multiple levels.

“Did you use your soul to fill his in?”

“I didn’t and please don’t ask me why, you won’t make any headway there.”

“So you used some other soul that you knew nothing about, assuming that’s even possible, and then did Seele Ehe? Unbelievable!”

Maka threw her arms up in a huff. I may have been uncomfortable, but I’d be damned before I let someone question me on this.

“Would you prefer I let him die?”

She lowered her arms and pulled her focus from the ceiling with a stupefied look on her face.

“What?”

“I said; Would you prefer I let him die? It would have been great for me you know? No longer being bound to anything, but I didn’t do that. I even went so far as to bind myself to him even more than when I was forcibly bound to him.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t want him to die!”

Both of them back away a step from my sudden flare of anger. I’m sure my eyes went pure red as well. With nothing more to say, I dispelled my illusion and went into my spot within Ormonde’s soul. No one could disturb me there and I would be free to my thought. I had wounds on different levels that needed to be healed and had thoroughly made a fool of myself in front of both of them. With nothing else to disturb me, I slowly drifted back to visit the woman that I knew nothing of.

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AN: Hello Readers! Hope you've enjoyed so far. If you think there's anything that could be improved let me know. Also it would be great to know if you found the conversation followable. Until next time I'll bid you adieu.

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