The Wraith played and Kidd was forced to play along. Childlike reactions at times, and freakish movements that sent his heart racing the next, the Wraith lived up to his kind. It whittled Kidd’s resilience down. From tag to red light, green light, and finally, hide and seek, time slipped by. The relentless ‘amusement’ for the Wraith was poison for Kidd, it wore him out. In the end, he broke down and had to beg for mercy. The refusal carried a risk, but he wagered on Ewan’s protection and said it.
Yet, the reaction and the aftermath he dreaded never came. Instead, the Wraith stared at him with his hollowed eyes, then dropped his head and moped over in the yard’s corner, hugging his knees in a squat. The eerie air around him darkened, the depressing vibe off him could kill all the optimism in the world.
“I-I played with you; now can you listen to my request?” Kidd asked, walking over. The sketch was a must, and the Wraith proved himself to be docile enough—Boss’s order looked doable now.
The Wraith peeped at him, showing his pearly teeth, and poked him before darting away.
“No, we’re not playing again,” Kidd said. “I need you to sit still for some time.”
His words deflated the child Wraith again, and he went back to moping in the corner.
“Okay, I’ll play with you later, first let me draw a sketch. If Boss gets angry, he won't let you play.”
He stared at Kidd and nodded a breath later, hunkering down. And Kidd began the first sketch of his life with a smug smile on his face. He drew and discarded and drew again for the next dozens of minutes, the crumpled ball of papers soon piling around him. His talentless hands endeavored, the flicking wrists and the gentle sway of the fingers worked the magic, yet all they resulted in was childish doodles with exaggerated contours of the sketch. He acted the part of a painter but couldn’t reflect the result on the paper. Still, the Wraith supported him and didn’t move an inch, letting Kidd practice all he wanted. He was awfully obedient for an infamous menace that had everyone’s knees buckling and teeth chattering.
Yet…
The fog around the villa thinned the next moment, and soon it disappeared. Before Kidd could register the change, a new fog, much denser than the last, enveloped the villa again—a coral lightning thread streaked around.
The Wraith screeched, its shockwave blasted Kidd away, his doodled pages from the notebook ripped apart and scattered in the air. His ears buzzed, the cloudy sky wobbled before him, and his right shoulder ached with a dull pain. He groaned and struggled to breathe. The grass cushioned his fall, but it still hurt him. When his senses straightened, when he could see and hear properly, he dragged his body up and looked around for the Wraith—he found him curled down, hugging his head, and shivering in the corner of the yard where the soil was loose and freshly dug.
“Da…da…Ma…ma…,” the Wraith muttered.
And the rain poured with a flash of lightning illuminating the storm, its rumbling thunder shaking the city a second later.
…..
[Ewan]
The break of dawn cracked the stormy night sky with a shimmering rainbow over the endless ocean, indifferent to the conflict seething at its feet. Nature’s recoil bore its destructive face all night, yet it also rejuvenated where and whoever it touched, providing a break to the harsh months of growth—Flamecrest. Even an untimely rain from the Watercrown season stood true to its name—the months of interlude. It doused the overwhelming crowd of Fire-Anima that reigned supreme for the season, and the Water-Anima gushed in with its support and leveled the weather.
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Ewan carried a hectic schedule, but he still took his time to enjoy the fresh morning breath in his yard, especially with the comforting smell of petrichor the storm had left behind. Naked feet to the wet and soft grass took him away from the stress and anxiety, and the chilled ambience brought a smile to his weary face. Orange had a blast with the abundance of Fire-Anima, and he might sulk with the sudden rain, but Ewan still preferred when nature struck a pleasing balance.
“You’re like an old man, Boss, Lorry used to do that too,” Kidd said, coming up behind him with bird’s nest of a hair and baggy eyes. “He did that every morning when he retired and settled down.”
“Indeed, I might be an old man at heart,” Ewan said, still smiling and enjoying his time with his arms spread. “I do conform to their bearing; I haven’t been young since a long time ago.”
Kidd bobbed his head, scratching his head. “What’s conform?” he muttered.
“Did you finish the sketch?” Ewan asked, ignoring his mumble.
“Ah.” Kidd raced back to the house, splattering the puddles in the yard, and came back with a wrinkled page. “Will this work, Boss?”
It was a scribbled mess with a circled face, scraped black lines for eyes, and random threaded strokes for hair—they almost resembled seaweed growing on the bed of Morinfair. Ewan sighed, sketching a live portrait was too much to ask of Kidd.
“Forget it.” He handed the page back. “Just ask his name and tell me how tall he is.” He wouldn’t be able to describe the facial features to any effect anyway.
Passionate memories constituted a Wraith, preserved and nurtured by the surge in the dark element. Even with or without the remnant soul particles after death, the Wraith would carry the personality of its past. So, if Kidd could communicate with him properly, getting his name was feasible. Although the history Ewan saw with his
“That I already asked. He said he was Walyn Yales, his parents and sister called him Willy,” Kidd said. “He’s this tall.” He pointed to his shoulder and compared, then lowered it by an inch.
“Sister?” The ‘curious child’ massacred his family in the spectral past, but there was no sister among them. He had two brothers instead—the elder brother, he smothered in sleep, while he slit the younger one’s throat with the kitchen knife. “Are you sure he said that?” Ewan asked.
“Yes, he said they’re buried in this yard,” Kidd said, pointing at the patch of loose soil. It was where Ewan found the old skeletons when burying the sacrifice for Iris. “He buried them himself and died after.”
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Status: Healthy
Step-0 [9th Awakening]
Name: Ewan Ayres
Species: Human
Vitality: 2.0
Spirit: 19.9
Anima: [Fire – 19.9 | Ice – 19.9 | Blood – 19.9]
Astylinds: 4 [Potential: 0]
Rolling Cat [Toast]: Step-0 [9th Awakening]
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Fire Monkey [Orange]: Step-0 [Level-9] [Grade-B]
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Imp [Frost]: Step-0 [Level-9] [Grade-B]
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Blood Lotus [Iris]: Step-0 [Level-9] [Grade-S]
Equipment: Common Clothes; Yurn [Neck Gaiter]; Moonkeeper [Crystal-Ball].
Storage: Journal; Elementalist—The Path of Anima [Subtype-Book]; Spellbook; Bloodlust [Spell]; Transmute [Spell]; Anima-Crystals [Novas Coins]; Obsidian Dagger; Hub-Connector; Ingredients.
Novas: 65,145
Crelith: 3,887