“____” speaking

‘____’ thoughts

*____* telepathy

translated from Eldritch

---------------------

As far as I’m concerned, regardless of what type of spirit she was, Vio is currently chaos incarnate. I understand how she thinks, it’s not hard to emulate really since it’s always survival first everything else second, but some of her actions still boggle my mind.

First she taught Ormonde how to do the same corporality thing she does and he fell through the second floor of the mansion into a lower room scaring the crap out of me. Teaching is fine and dandy but, according to a forced confession I got out of Ormonde, she told him not to tell anyone about what they were doing.

There was no reason to keep something that simple a secret and in the end I had to forcefully interrogate Vio; she was not happy about that. I had to find out why she was so skittish and aggressive around others, even for a wild spirit she acted erratically to the simplest stimuli.

It was depressing to watch her break down but afterwards I understood her a little bit more and that was all I needed. I could predict to a point how she would act and now I had a reason for why. She needed socialization with people who weren’t going to do anything but talk.

When she started to have Ormonde use Arcane he always came back tired or irritated but still practiced like she asked him to. Now he keeps coming back covered in dirt or mud; I swear he’s doing it on purpose. Following her loss at the hands of the freaky ass Eldritch dog thing she seemed to open up a tiny bit and created a link with me, but I don’t know if that’s from her actually trusting me or something else.

From the small interactions I had with Vio after that she seemed to slip back and forth between depression and her normal state of being. As far as I could tell, the loss had rattled her; maybe it was the Eldritch itself that shook her up, I can’t say for sure.

It took weeks for her to actually talk to Ormonde’s parents and even then I’m confident that she only did so because it was unavoidable. Cecil’s judgments and guess work about Vio was fairly accurate as well; he’s a good person to work with when you’re trying to understand something but at times that causes him to come off as cold and aloof.

She slipped into very reclusive habits after that and the chances of her showing up at the mansion were infinitesimally small. When she did show herself the bloodshot eyes and the large bags under them told a straightforward story. Something was keeping her awake and it was honestly worrying. She was slightly outside the parameters that I had defined her with and I wasn’t sure how to deal with that.

Then imagine my surprise when Ormonde came me to his room and told me that Vio was under his bed crying. The person I found under the bed was not Vio, just a shell in the shape of Vio.

She looked emaciated, unnaturally pale, and the bags under her eyes had become a dark purple and swollen from constant sleep deprivation. The changes seemed to parallel the growth I had seen from her. She had become more protective of Ormonde but she was wearing herself down and it was apparent she didn’t know how to handle the influx of emotions that I doubted she ever experienced.

I had Ormonde leave her be and she slept for a full day with no signs of waking. The few times I checked in on her it was as if she was in a coma or hibernating as opposed to the sleep one would get at night. One of the times I was there with Ormonde she started to move and it only took a few words of encouragement to get him under the bed to wake her.

Vio seemed to be in the clouds when she finally woke, as if even though she was talking to us her thoughts were elsewhere. Her eyes looked like those belonging to a trapped animal and when she refused to leave it wasn’t hard to figure out that it wasn’t out of a want to stay under Ormonde’s bed.

She fell asleep after I took Ormonde away and we left her alone. I was able to hold a decent conversation with her when she did wake and the reason for her being there was unexpected but not surprising. What was surprising, was that even after she stopped using Edin she seemed to get even paler and sicker looking.

Then a portal of all things appears in the middle of nowhere. To say I would expect less from Vio at this point would be a lie, strange things seem to happen around her even if she’s not the cause of them.

It didn’t even take three minutes before I got a mewling call for help from her. She knew it was dangerous but to only last for a few minutes even with that knowledge meant whatever she had come up against was serious business.

I was fairly confident in my abilities but if there was anything I had learned over the decades it was that having someone to watch your back was always beneficial. Tanzi was always easy to find and our link only made it even easier.

*Tanzi? Are you free for a little while?*

*Should be soon. Whatever is the matter?*

Our conversation started before I could even see him and when I did get to Cecil’s study Tanzi was there lording over his host like normal.

“Hello Cecil.”

A grunt of acknowledgement was all I got as Cecil continued to fill the page in front of him with barely legible writing.

“So what did you need?”

“Vio’s gone and gotten herself into trouble and needs some help.”

“Did it sound urgent?”

“A portal showed up and she went through it.”

Cecil interrupted our conversation with some input of his own and it was quite appreciated.

“Unless you know what type of portal it was, I can say with confidence that it shouldn’t have led to anything dangerous, most are used for transportation.”

“Thank you Cecil, that’s good information to know before we go after her. With that being said, I think it will be a few more minutes until I finish up here and can go with you. Meet in our usual spot?”

I nodded.

“Sounds fine. I’ll figure out where we need to go in that time and calculate out how long the trip will take us.”

Tanzi bobbed his head in agreement and continued to converse with Cecil as I left the room; it may be a bit longer than a few minutes knowing the two of them but it wouldn’t be enough of a difference to influence the outcome of us going to help Vio. The gate was our usual meeting spot and Tanzi was only two minutes behind myself.

“Do you know where we need to go?”

“About three days Northeast from here by horse so about an hour for us on the Highway.”

“Any idea of what’s going to be waiting for us there?”

Tanzi was putting on his customary gloves that he always wore into combat; I didn’t have any physical rituals but I had an order to how everything had to be done before I fought.

“Not a clue.”

The two of us left the mansion behind almost immediately and all that was left was the journey and thoughts about what was going to meet us at our destination.

In order to pass the time the two of us talked about the last time we had been out like this; it had been a date that had been interrupted by some hostile individuals who sought to force us into making contracts with them. We both had a grand time teaching them proper manners when dealing with spirits before leaving to a better location to finish our time together.

All in all, there wasn’t much to do but reminisce about the past and talk about what the future may hold; not that I really cared as long as I was happy and with Tanzi.

Our conversation ended when we got close enough to our destination that walking was preferable to overshooting it on the Highway. I also wanted the opportunity to scout out what we were up against. Leaving the Highway was always slightly disorientating for me as the world seemed to rush from nothing to a sudden assault to every sense as the surrounding area snapped into place.

This time the surrounding that popped into place was an incredibly dense forest of mixed evergreens and oaks. The trees that formed the overhead canopy were old, so old in fact that I couldn’t infer their age, and because of this little light penetrated through the foliage thus rendering the ground underneath ill suited to more that small shrubs, small flowering weeds, and an indistinguishable mesh of moss and wild grass.

The air here was clean and free of any outside pollutants aside from those that nature provided by itself and there was the aura of something ancient here. It felt wrong to be here, like I was trespassing on the land of something far beyond my means and measure. It wasn’t threatening but it made me think twice about wanting to enter deeper into the area beyond what was needed.

“Are you getting the same feeling that I’m getting?”

“Of being the size of an ant amidst a sea of giants? Yes.”

“Vio’s just up ahead of us. Do you think she angered whatever lived here?”

“Let’s hope not.”

We advanced at an aggravatingly slow pace while covering every angle we could as we got closer to the area where Vio was located. The oppressive air became thinner as something else replaced it and the trees began to become spares. At one point I stepped on something that crunched only to find that I was standing on what had once been that door of a house.

“Do you feel that?”

“Edin. But where is it coming from?”

“It seems to be in the air naturally. Keep your guard up, this trip just got even more dangerous.”

The thinning land abruptly opened up to a large flat area that extended beyond what we could see, the ruins of wood and stone houses filled the area like a child’s toys left unattended. There was no sign of nature trying to retake this place and a few more steps into the area told us why.

Edin was normally a force derived from life and as such it had prolonged its existence by eating away at any new growths that tried to take root inside its area of effect. Time had then slowed here; the ground was dry as if water hadn’t touched it in years and scents that should have faded long ago lingered.

“What is this place?”

“I have no idea, but Vio’s here somewhere. Want me to lead?”

“If you would be so kind since you know where she is.”

It didn’t take us long to find Vio, she was near the edge of the settlement near a rundown cottage that had somehow survived better that its neighbors. What worried us was the black figure that stood over her and kept looking around as if it was waiting for something.

*Do you think it’s hostile?*

*Well Vio seems to be fine although she is curled into a ball.*

*Let’s wait and see what it does.*

Like the shadow before us, we sat and waited. The shadow’s actions became more and more impatient over time and a booming yet raspy voice startled both of us.

“Will the two of you come out from there already? I don’t have all day and neither does she.”

A pointed gesture towards the curled up Vio made it quite clear that whatever this thing was it wasn’t going to hurt us at the moment.

*Be wary of a possible ambush from the sides or behind.*

*Got it.*

The distance between us was crossed quickly but carefully and it didn’t take long before we were standing over Vio’s body like that figure that had called us over. She was shaking slightly and every joint on her body was white from continues strain and pressure. Her eyes were fully dilated and glazed over, like those of a dead fish, as she stared out into nothingness. There was no response to my hand waving in front of her face, it was as if her eyes refused to focus on anything but what they wanted to see.

“Now that you’re finally here we can get this over with. I’m Akhan. Maka you know about me but I assume, Tanzi, this is your first time hearing about me. Is that right?”

“That’s correct but if you don’t mind me asking, what are you?”

“I am an Eldritch.”

Tanzi tensed but Akhan had yet to finish speaking.

“And it would be more precise to say I am her Eldritch or at least a part of what makes her Eldritch. You knew about that right?”

“Yes we did. But I thought that Vio had just made up a name and that you were just a figment of her imagination.”

“I may be, I may not be. Though in all seriousness, I am my own being; I just happen to inhabit a small portion of Vio’s soul. But I’m digressing and this is all a conversation for another time. For now I need to watch over her and you need to tour this place and learn about Vio so you know how to help her. Mark get your lazy ass out here.”

Another shadow pulled itself from Vio’s and stood beside Akhan; aside from the red eyes on Mark and the overly large head that belonged to Akhan there was no way to tell them apart.

“Is Vio aware that you can do this?”

“Not in the least and I would prefer to keep it that way, makes it much more convenient for us.”

Akhan waved the question off and answered in a succinct manner.

“Now, no more delays. Mark off you go.”

The shadow named Mark started to walk away while gesturing for us to follow it. I looked at Tanzi and he returned the stare before we both set off after the meandering body that was to act as our guide. When Mark finally spoke it was in clear and cold words that held no emotion whatsoever.

“This area that we’re walking through used to belong to Vio. It was her territory and her home. This forest has been left alone for the most part but a certain group of people caught wind of the area and decided to move in. The resulting year of conflict was not pretty.”

Mark kept a steady pace as he led us around the outskirts of the ruined settlement and continued to fill us in.

“At first the fighting was trivial and there were enough spirits that were willing to protect Vio but as the attacks continued the younger spirits left to resume their own business. That’s when things got messy. Spirits started to be bound and eventually Vio was left fighting all by herself with no explanation as to why everyone else had disappeared. It is easy enough to see how confused that would have left her as she was five at the time the conflict started.”

Mark paused as if to catch his breath even though her didn’t seem to be more than an illusion.

“The humans started to win by slowly destroying her home and in a less direct way her. She would push them back and they would destroy a little more of her home with each attack until there was nothing left. In the entire fifteen months of conflict she didn’t kill a single person yet they sought to bind her and thus did so in the least humane way possible.”

The shadow turned to us and its red eyes scanned our faces before he continued.

“Are either you aware of the process used to bind a spirit to an object?”

“No. I’m afraid I can’t say I know.”

I too confirmed my lack of the knowledge in question.

“Binding can be done in many ways but doing it against the spirit’s will is only the second worst type of binding. You see, just like there are things that can bind the souls of mortals, spirits and other things together, there are ways to permanently bind an object to someone. The bound individual loses all control to the one who holds their vessel and must do as they command as if their true name had been spoken. Vio resisted every other type of binding for four weeks before she lacked the strength to resist. She was then made to hunt down other spirits once they bound her. That was just the start though.”

Mark started to lead us inward going through the town’s center.

“The Eldritch were attracted to this place and they ripped it and the people who lived here apart but we’ll get back to that, there’s an order to these things.”

The ruins were covered in pearl white bones that appeared as if they would turn to dust if looked at wrong. It was a bad scene but it could have been worse since it was impossible to tell what had been done to the people that left the bones behind. Mark stopped walking when we reached a run down church, one of the windows near the front was broken and the front door seemed to have caved in on itself.

“I know that neither of you have heard of Bone Walkers so let me explain them to you as we enter the church. Bone Walkers are the product of infusing a just dead corpse with Edin. The body wishes to remain dead but the Edin brings it to life and tries to repair the damage. A constant stream of rotting and growing flesh is the result and like a bound spirit, once issued a command they will follow through until they complete it even though they are limited to one command at a time. Another interesting thing to note is that it is impossible to destroy a Bone Walker through conventional means and the souls itself must be destroyed or it will just keep regenerating. Disrupting the Edin also works but it’s much harder to do and not worth the effort. Follow me.”

Mark stepped over the ruins of broken pews and fallen chandeliers and walked to a door in the back of the room.

“The first Bone Walkers were created in this church and they needed a goal in which to test their abilities. Down this staircase you will find the testing grounds.”

Below the stairs was an area that would have been pitch black if not for the collapsed piece of roof that had fallen giving a clear view of layers upon layers of bones filling every part of the room. Not a single bone was free of damage.

“Vio was their target and the test was simple. She would be let free to try and escape and they would hunt her down and subdue her. Needless to say this test had to be changed when she refused to run from the mental trauma caused by the Bone Walkers.”

He waved a hand at the scorch marks and gashes that covered the walls.

“This area later became Vio’s holding cell of sorts when she became an Eldritch plaything. These bones, aside from a very small number, all belong to her.”

“How is that possible? A body only has one skeleton and Vio would have been intangible.”

“True on both accounts. But Edin breaks these rules. It can regenerate an entire body and it can allow for contact with spirits. Vio of course was a being that was sustained on only Arcane at the time and had to find another source of survival within the dense Edin that covered the area once the Eldritch arrived.”

“Her physical body.”

The words fell from my mouth at the realization.

“Correct and, unlike using material Arcane, it belongs to the world of flesh and blood. In short, it is like the body of a witch; an immortal soul in a mortal body. Now tell me, what do you notice about all the bones here?”

I looked around and couldn’t see anything off at first.

“There are no skulls, the skeletons only make the bodies.”

“Once again you two are right on the mark. This is where Vio was kept when the Eldritch turned her into a torture experiment. Having a mortal body that needs sustenance and being starved with nothing but your own corpses around you, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what happened.”

He was right, the teeth marks on the bones spoke for themselves.

“Any questions before we move on?”

“What church is this? Who does it belong to? I don’t see any markings or signs of faith.”

“That isn’t important and if you truly want to know you’ll have to ask Vio; neither of us were awake at the time. Anything else? No? Moving on then.”

Mark led us up the stairs and to the raised area where a priest would have stood while giving their sermon. His pacing stopped at a small table that had fallen apart from exposure to the elements and small rusted artifacts held the remains from touching the ground.

“This is a binding altar. Most of the time temporary altars are used out in the field but there do exist some like this one that are stationary and require the spirit to be brought to it. Both types of altars have their pluses and minuses; the main thing to keep in mind is that stationary ones are stronger and able to binder spirits that would normally fight back.”

Mark knelt and picked up a piece of the rusted metal on the ground leaving a red outline behind.

“The altar requires a second component to work and that is the vessel; something in which the captive spirit will reside. A vessel usually has no ties to the type of spirit that is bound to it but if the spirit and the vessel are too opposite it can hurt or permanently damage the spirit it houses.”

The metal in Mark’s hand began to shake and the rust fell off it as a like new flask formed from the crumpled metal.

“I mentioned earlier that Vio was made to hunt down other spirits and by doing so they would be bound here like she was. I’m sure the two of you have figured this out by now but she’s clever and knows how to utilize her assets properly; even if at times the decision is ultimately juvenile in plan.”

Mark released the flask and it fell to the floor while losing the luster it had gained in his hands. It thudded dully and the sound echoed around the inside of the tattered church; a now rusted hunk of metal lay in the place the flask had fallen.

“When the Eldritch came it served as an opportunity for Vio to free herself and other spirits that had been trapped against their will. Even with the mentality of a six year old she knew that she needed to do something to make up of the fact that she had helped imprison other spirits. So she let them go. I don’t know what she did but she was able to rewrite the altar to work in reverse to free instead of bind. All of these here.”

He kicked the rusted heap of metal that must have held at least three-dozen separate objects.

“Are the vessels of those she freed. There was a catch though with how the unbinding worked. It required someone else to do it for you.”

Mark signed before looking up at us, the red eyes on his face where undulating slightly and his voice seemed to catch in his nonexistent throat.

“Not a single spirit she freed stayed to repay the favor. Instead they held a grudge against a child that that had been stripped of free will. She had worked on the idea for weeks and had even sought the help of other spirit that were bound in order to ensure that everything would go as planned. And they left her.”

The tension left Mark’s body and he started to walk away from the altar

“Things just went from bad to worse after that.”

Mark led us out of the church and back towards the area we had found Vio in while continuing to talk.

“The Eldritch came and, as you can see, killed everything before moving on for the most part. There was one Eldritch in particular that stayed and noticed the change that Vio had done in order to not be eaten by the rampaging Edin. It was a spawn of Volm and like its brethren sought destruction. However it had a different type of destruction it pursued, it was not the destruction of the physical but the mental and intangibles that define us. You’ve seen Vio and I’ll let you decide on your own if he failed or succeeded.”

We had returned to Akhan and Mark turned to us again and bowed.

“My job is done and I will leave the rest to Akhan.”

His body became amorphous before sinking back into Vio’s shadow and leaving no trace except for the words it had told us.

“Let me start by telling you were the two of us came into all of this. The answer is the beginning. We have always been here and will continue to be here as long as Vio needs us but even then we still don’t know everything she does or thinks. The next thing would be better shown than told but I warn you it is not for the feint of heart as it is the remains of what Vio went through. Look inside the hut.”

Both of us walked to the door and looked inside. Tanzi lasted ten seconds and I lasted three more than him; the image was still burned into my mind though and most likely would never be forgotten.

The floor had been covered in a now decaying paste made of ground flesh and bone, partial limbs sprouted from the gunk like budding plants. To the right of the door the wall had been covered in twisted metal objects, each with a use that escaped me and covered with enough blood to shine red in the dim light that filtered into the room. The wall that stood facing us simply had multiple places you would have hung a person by either affixing them to the wall with metal spike or braces or one of the varied sets of hooks that dangled from the ceiling like vines.

Lastly was the most grotesque wall and it had held only one thing; uteri. Each was nailed to the wall and had something wrong with it. The first was inside out and others were burnt, bloated from something, deformed, or had had some other unspeakable thing done to them. In total there were thirty-nine of them with one nail placed into the wall with nothing on it near the bottom; obviously the last one.

Akhan spoke to break the silence that had formed during our attempts to expunge the vileness we felt and threatened to remain unless taken care of.

“Vio thinks that she was only tortured for a year; truth is that she’s off by nine. She doesn’t remember those years because we simply don’t and won’t let her. There are, however, things that even we could not prevent from getting through.”

I managed to find my voice again and the questions I had seemed endless.

“Why? How is she sane? Alive even?”

A shadowy finger was placed over my mouth.

“The why is because the Needleman, as Vio calls him, wanted to, although eventually his goal did change but I’ll get to that. How is Vio sane? She’s not. It doesn’t show often but her perception of reality is vastly skewed. As for how she’s alive? Edin kept her alive and physically functioning.”

He left and walked back over to Vio, kneeling down as his fingers followed the line that defined her cheek.

“For each one on the wall three months passed. From that point on Vio became more and more broken, shattered if you will, into parts that could do something and couldn’t do others. Her mind, body, and maturity never passed that of an eight-year-old’s.”

Akhan stood and motioned for us to get near Vio.

“There are something you need to see as I explain them. I can’t actually move her so I’ll need you to do it. If you could put her on her stomach and take the dress off we can begin.”

We followed the instructions and I wanted to speak about what we saw and ask questions but knew that answers would be coming if I waited; there was an order to these things.

“First is the scar.”

A line was drawn just below Vio’s neck and carried onward to just before her shoulders started before going to the other side of her body. It took me a few minutes to actually find and trace the scar by myself as it blended in almost perfectly and was thin enough to avoid discovery even under a trained eye.

“Each time the Needleman was done with her current body he would separate her head from it and forcible grow her a new one. Ten year of this left a scar that not even Edin or healing Arcane can fix.”

“Unless you knew it was here I don’t think you could find it.”

“Even if you did know it was here you wouldn’t be able to find it. Vio hides it the best she can and very rarely inhabits this body as she now uses other methods to become physical. Next are these.”

Akhan traced the four slits on Vio’s back, one on each shoulder blade and the other two beneath their predecessors, each was partially opened in the center resembling a cat’s pupil and they were all tilted to ensure that each one pointed to the same place on her spine. A red material that looked to have both the color and texture ruby filled the cuts.

“With the thousands of years worth of knowledge I have built up, I have only seen one other being do what he did. He did permanent damage to Vio’s soul that will show up regardless of the form she takes. This is how they express themselves while she’s like this and the red gemlike coloring always applies. They’re extremely sensitive to temperature changes and contact.”

“They look like they’re filled with a gemstone.”

“True but the area is flesh and should feel the same as any other part of her body. Now, flip her over.”

Tanzi rolled Vio over and it was impossible to hold back my gasp. Three symbols rested around her navel in an inverted triangular pattern with a fourth sitting at the center. The skin that made each symbol was a chalky white color textured like ground meat; an obvious blemish on the lovely copper coloring that was Vio’s normal skin tone.

On closer inspection it was clear that two of the symbols were the same while the symbol in the center was nothing more that an empty circle. Akhan waited till we had looked long enough and then began to explain.

“By using Edin and a branding iron one can do the same thing a spirit does with Arcane runes. This was the final thing that Vio had to experience before the Needleman left with her spirit crystal subsequently breaking her even further. Before you ask I’ll outright tell you there is no way to remove these brands unless you had the strength of an Ancient and I know that you don’t. Let’s start with the identical ones. Although they share the same shape they have different meanings.”

He pointed to the top two symbols the resembled capital ‘y’s with a dot between the branches. His finger slid to the leftmost symbol before continuing.

“This one means protection and was made with the intent of preventing any change from being done without the will of the one who laid these symbols here. Its match.”

The rightmost symbol was now the focus of our attention.

“Is preservation and is meant to keep the imprinted object in the same state it was when marked. The bottom most symbol.”

A mirrored four placed at the lowest point of overall shape was gestured to.

“Represents dely. It’s a requirement that will keep the other symbols working and others stopped until certain conditions are met.”

Akhan stopped talking and removed his hand from Vio’s stomach before standing.

“What about the last one?”

I regretted asking the question but either Tanzi or I was going to have asked anyway; it was a morbid curiosity that we wanted, no, needed to satisfy.

“Before I do, let me remind you of the wall.”

I felt myself grimace and did nothing to hide my distaste.

“I’m sure you noticed that the last nail was different. Quite simply, like the others something was done but that one never left her body. The last symbol is the one used for impregnation. After a few years of repeatedly ripping her body apart the Needleman figure out that Vio was different from your normal spirit. It was a trait he liked and sought to include into his kin. He intends to turn her into his broodmother once she’s mature enough to bear children. Thankfully the damage she took from losing her home stopped her growth and thus she has a very long time till she reaches that point.”

The shadow slumped and sat on the ground while radiating an aura of tiredness.

“She’s falling apart and regardless of what she thinks getting her soul crystal back from the Needleman isn’t going to help her. When her soul shattered it became unstable and she has yet to bring any of those pieces together and is instead under the misconception that eating other souls will keep her alive and help her. It’s an unnecessary habit that she formed as a way of coping with the stress her soul and her mind are under. I fear that if she can’t bring at least half of her soul together within the next ten years then she’ll be truly dead and there will be nothing that can save her.”

“But what about right now? She’s practically comatose.”

“True. Currently she’s reliving what she remembers of her time here in nonsequential order; a mess of memories all jumbled together. Give her about a month and she’ll be close to how she was prior to coming here again. As for long term healing; could I ask you to try and prod her in the direction of moving past what happened to her? The more she does that the more I can slowly bring pieces of her back together and once I’ve done it enough times she’ll pick up on it herself.”

“I can help her but what do you get out of this? It seems to me that you’d want her to die so you can be free. You can’t be doing this for nothing in return.”

“Fortunately the payment for my services has already been given and all that is left is for me to carry out the promise I made.”

An Eldritch making a promise held no contract to it like it did with spirits and I could see Tanzi’s eyebrow raise out of the corner of my vision. He was going to question Akhan to try and get some validity with which to judge the Eldritch off of.

“And who did you promise?”

“That is something I will take to my grave. Lets just say that there are ways to make even an Eldritch follow through with something they’ve agreed to.”

Akhan moved closer to Vio’s shadow and started to merge into it.

“Oh. One last thing; when she wakes up please tell her something for me would you?”

The shadows had completely merged together and there was no way to know if Akhan could hear us but we agreed nonetheless.

“Tell her that the past cannot be changed, forgotten, or erased and thus should remain in the past. It has no power over her and thinking of how things could have been will only lead to losing sight of what’s important.”

Even when disembodied the Akhan’s voice carried with it the same age old tone and texture. With the last echoes of Akhan’s words dying in the distance Tanzi and I were left in silence and the same oppressive aura that we had felt earlier began to encroach on us.

“Ready to go back?”

I simply nodded and followed Tanzi back to the mansion after redressing Vio; he was much better than me at processing things and moving past them and I was still trying to wrap my head around what I had just been shown and told. I felt terrible for having not come as fast as possible; a lesson for next time.

Our return trip was unnaturally quiet. Neither of us talked to the other verbally or otherwise and instead chose to come to terms with the information and job we had been given. Nightfall came and went by the time we arrived at the mansion; slipping in and putting Vio in one of the guest beds was easy enough to do.

Seeing her lying there inert under the sheets as I pulled them up to cover her contradicted the Vio I had in my mind. The one I knew was always moving and doing something; stillness and silence were her antitheses.

After making sure Vio was in the bed and as comfortable as we could get her without her telling us otherwise, Tanzi and I both turned in for the night. Neither of us needed to sleep, but it had become a habit and it would help us mull over the plans that would need to be put in place.

The next day came too quickly and started the same as any other and Tanzi decided we should tell Cecil and Twila about what we had learned. We traded the responsibility of telling the story back and forth when the other needed a break and by the time we finished all parties involved were speechless. Cecil took the news like I expected and Twila was like myself in her reaction.

“So what should we do?”

“For now, nothing; although I would like to hear more about this Akhan character. Tanzi can you help me look into some of the lore book I have lying around in the library?”

“Of course sir.”

“Great. Maka. . .”

Cecil froze for a minute, his face twitched slightly as if he was torn between choosing an idea that was bad or one that was worse.

“Just. . . Keep an eye on Vio and Ormonde. We don’t know how he’ll react if he finds her in her current state. Other than that, I think we just need to wait this out and let it pass.”

The four of us parted ways and tried to go about the tasks we normally did to occupy our time in order to distract our minds from wandering. Nothing felt right; the house was too quiet, the air seemed stale, and there was a small hurricane of emotions each of us was trying to deal with that upset the natural order I was used to.

It seemed strange to voice the thought out loud but Vio had become part of the day-to-day activities I was used to and not having her there left a void. Checking on her was easy to do and for the first few times I checked on her she showed no signs of improvement. She lay there like a rock with the bed sheets in the same position they were left in when she was placed into the bed while staring at the ceiling as if it held the answer to all of life’s questions.

Although we had been told Vio needed food while in her mortal body when we retrieved her, her body had shifted by itself back into the normal spirit form I was used to with the same physicality to it that she got when sleeping after the first day back at the mansion. That didn’t stop me from bringing her water to try and at least keep her hydrated. Vio couldn’t drink by herself so a wet cloth had to be used as a medium to get the liquid past her locked jaw.

Later during the same day I closed her eyes for her. It seemed like such a trivial thing, but in our stupor we had forgotten that her body wasn’t under her control and neither was her mind. Constant half hour check ins dwindled down to once an hour by the fifth day; Vio still wasn’t showing any signs of improvement but the occasional fidget or move slightly showed she was gradually waking up and she could at least open and close her eyes by herself.

Being able to at create a ritual of some sorts to restore the daily pattern around the house helped me deal with my uncertainty of the last few days. I could feel the stress in my chest and shoulders diminish significantly after I found her sitting up later that day; she was coming back to us bit by bit and hopefully the dead look in her eyes would leave sooner rather than later.

As per the agreement we had reached, I went and got Ormonde’s parents so they could see how Vio was doing now that she was actually in minimal control of her body again. None of us were expecting what was waiting for us and we all froze in the doorway.

Ormonde was standing there by the side of the bed looking at Vio his shoulders were quivering slightly and he was shifting his weight continuously. He turned to look at me and his parents following closely behind me; his eyes were red and threatening to release the water they held back at a moments notice.

“What wrong with her?”

His voice was raw and he was on the verge of breaking into sobs; the quietness with which he spoke was more frightening than the answer we would need to give or make up.

“She hurt honey. She’s been getting better it’s just taking time. Come on let’s go somewhere else okay?”

Twila’s attempt to calm Ormonde did nothing and his voice rose to a shout in panic.

“Then why can’t I feel anything from her?!”

None of had an answer for him and he kept talking, he was breathing faster and his eyes had reddened further behind the layer of water, his voice cracked as he spoke.

”I can see her but she’s not there!”

“Ormonde . .”

His body was shaking at this point; he wasn’t trying to hold it in anymore. He had known she was here since we had brought her back even if none of us wanted to admit to that fact.

“There’s nothing! No anger! No sadness! No pain! Nothing that I can always feel from her!”

Ormonde’s voice trailed off into tiny sobs as he slowly dissolved into unsuppressed tears while asking why continuously. Throughout the entire outburst Vio had remain stationary in the same position, her gaze still unwaveringly focused on the air in front of her. There was nothing I could do except force the lump in my throat further down and let Twila try to console Ormonde to the best of her abilities; I had never been good in these types of situations.

He didn’t calm down for an hour and was a mess for the rest of the day and the one that followed it. To say his outburst had no effect on the rest of us would be a blatant lie and I found myself fighting harder to not think about Vio’s condition. The small voice in the back of my head kept telling me that even if I didn’t want to admit it I wasn’t going to be functioning correctly until Vio was back to normal; she had become too ingrained into my life in a very short amount of time.

Finding Ormonde in the room when I went to check on Vio was quickly becoming a common occurrence and not finding him watching her was an oddity. He slowly started to show the same signs of withdraw that Vio was recovering from as he spent more and more time around her. It got to the point where we had to force him to go somewhere else and to eat or sleep instead of watching her at every waking moment.

Over the course of the next week Vio slowly seemed to start showing larger signs of improvement. Along with being able to blink when she wanted and sit up, she had started to regain small amounts of control in her arms and legs. In addition, she lost the glaze that had covered her eyes and they got a little bit of life back in them; they were still void of the usual fire they held. Her ability to recognize things was slowly returning as well and she responded to sounds and movement around her albeit rather cautiously and anxiously.

At the end of the second week Vio was up and walking, though it wasn’t as much a cause for celebration as we would have liked. Her eyes were still dead to the world and she walked around like a toddler, stumbling almost every third step and each step was taken as if she was afraid to tread on broken glass or have the floor give out from under her. The look she had on her face was one of being lost no matter where she was. It wasn’t unusual to watch her take ten minutes to walk across a room and then look around in absolute confusion as if she had no idea how she got to where she was.

Ormonde was happier when she started to walk but from what he would tell us, Vio was still emotional dead. The few times she did start to show emotions it was always joined by either one of the attacks I had witnessed before Vio became so blank or was caused by a nightmare. Worse still was when she would cause herself to bleed from scraping her hands against different parts of her body in fear of some imaginary thing crawling on or in her.

Vio’s voice seemed to return to her at roughly the same time. It was never nice to listen to. Whimpers of pain and fear, muffled screams of excitement or surprise, joyful laughter followed by hysterically crying; every single emotion seemed to be explored in quick jolts before leaving her empty and it was as draining for her as it was for Ormonde.

When the constant nightmares started Vio seemed to go through more and more emotional breakdowns each day and the large bags and bloodshot eyes I had seen prior to her entering the portal resurfaced. From what I could tell, and what Cecil guessed, Vio was basically relearning every emotion in its extreme and the constant back and forth of mood and uncontrolled feelings were the driving force behind all the outbreaks we were seeing.

As Akhan had said, at the end of a month Vio had returned close to normal with some very dramatic changes. She was much more subdued, almost timid, in her contact with everyone in the mansion as if she was fearful of the contact hurting her in some way. It was very clear that her mindset was much more animalistic than what we were used to seeing from her; a part of the feral nature Vio had told me about if I had to take a guess.

Another few weeks and Vio was the same as she was before she left and she resumed teaching Ormonde. I still hadn’t told her what Akhan had asked me to relay; I wanted to make sure she was back to normal before telling her something that held the chance of sending her into a frenzy. Her perception of Akhan was off from what I could tell but I had only talked with him once and had listened to what Vio thought of him and the picture of the person each event painted was drastically different.

I had reached a point were delaying to talk to Vio was now out of my own want to keep the balance that had been struck from changing and that wasn’t fair to Vio.

*Vio we need to talk.*

*Does it have to be face to face?*

*No, but it’s a message from Akhan.*

*Lazy ass couldn’t tell me himself?*

Her message had a hidden fire behind it of more than anger.

*Guess not.*

*Fine. What was it?*

*The past cannot be changed, forgotten, or erased and thus should remain in the past. It has no power over you and thinking of how things could have been will only lead to losing sight of what’s important.*

Vio didn’t respond and after five minutes of silence I was beginning to get worried.

*Vio you okay?*

*Huh? Yeah. I just need some time.*

*Alright. Let me know if you need anything.*

*Will do.*

Several days passed without incident and the limited contact I had with Vio resumed, though that didn’t mean she stopped causing problems for me. Ormonde still came home covered in dirt from head to toe and there was the occasional injury here and there. I had gotten used the familiar pattern again and wasn’t expecting it when Vio sent me a message in the late evening.

*Hey Maka?*

*Hmm?*

*I, um, I have a question.*

*Go on.*

*Do you think there would be room for a ah, umm, a tiny pond in the gardens around the house?*

*There might be. I’d have to look to be sure though. Why?*

*Promise not to tell?*

*Sure.*

*Ormonde’s lonely and it’s making me lonely.*

*I’ll see what I can do to find some room for you.*

*Thanks.*

It wasn’t going to be difficult to make room for a pond and it would keep both Ormonde and Vio much closer to the house and thus safer. There were going to be problems with positioning and I was going to have to talk to Cecil and Twila about their opinions on getting a pond in the middle of their yard. Although honestly, the usual chaos had returned in full swing and I’m not sure I would have it any other way.

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