Anna was panicking. I was panicking. We were not panicking for the same reason; we were not the same.

Anna was panicking because I told her I was holding a ghost, and she was obviously not having a good day.

I was panicking because I was holding a crying ghost that had chosen violence and had bitten me. I was holding a hostile ghost, and I had no idea what to do.

Oh, gods, do I throw it? Do I like pray?

“Stop that, no biting,” I told the child.

It screeched, the feel of it somewhere between the original and somehow… Hungrier. It was a horrible, evil-sounding thing.

It had gone from a child to a monster over the course of half a second.

My face must not have been very reassuring, because Anna started to go from panic to mouse panic. Frozen in place, she did not know what was going on, and she did not like it one bit it.

I also did not like it one bit. I decided to do the first thing I thought of, I tried to force it.

The thing resisted, screaming its defiance from my hands as it started to claw at me, bits coming out of the blazing sphere to form little floating digits. The flame that I had seen it start at began to crust over, the fire leaving to show a hard, icy gem-like interior shining a phantasmal wrong light.

I am not trained for combating a vengeful ghost child that wants to eat me. Damn you, Death, I don’t know what to do here. I was supposed to do shit, but I have no idea what the hell to do with this thing.

I, of course, didn’t say that out loud to the demon child. I tried to sound important and went with, “Child if you want to meet your mommy and daddy in the afterlife, you will cease this at once.”

I feel like a character in a play, what in all the hells am I doing?

The child, of course, appears to be too far gone to do something like acknowledge what I say with something approaching conscious thought. Instead, it decided to do the worst possible thing; it started letting out a hungry, thirsting noise like it was giddy to fill its nonexistent belly.

I threw the child across the room.

There is no way I’m going to become a demon ghost things dinner, no way, no how.

The soul bumped against the wall before falling to the floor and kind of sat there. I stared at the demon baby flame thing resting at the baseboard of the wall, towards a corner closer to Anna’s room.

“Think it ok now,” I told Anna, scooting towards her with an arm out. I never took my eyes off the thing in the corner.

It was still screeching for food, but Anna didn’t know that this was firmly me problem, not an Anna problem.

I would not give it a snack, especially when its food was likely a living, breathing person. I would not let the demon thing nibble on me or Anna, that was for sure. I wasn’t going to let it get out of my sight.

Anna’s panic wiggling left her open for me to pull her in and close the door behind her.

“I cook, food is ready,” I told her, not even looking at her.

“We're not going to talk about the ghost?” she asked me.

“Both? We can do both. You out all day, not hungry?” I asked her a little pleadingly.

I could tell she looked over to where I was looking, presumably staring off into the corner of her house where she couldn’t see the ghost child doing its best ‘Give me the blood of your innocent shtick.’

We just kind of stared off at it, not knowing what to do about the thing in the corner.

We did, in a fashion, settle down for dinner. It was a thick soup. It was not the greatest, and it could have used some more creaminess. Tops 5/10. Anna at least calmed down a bit, I certainly couldn’t. It never stopped screeching, never, not for a single moment.

It was letting out its sound of hunger non-stop. Whatever the poor soul was now, it was a thing of terrible hunger, and I had no idea what to do with it.

So, Anna and I sat and ate, first the soup, then some bread, then we just talked.

“Visited brother today,” she told me, “told him about the fog. He took it… Bad.”

I couldn’t help but raise my eyebrow, “Strange brother took badly? Spooky,” I told her.

She hummed at that before realizing something and held up two fingers, “Two brothers, no hair and hair. Strause and Clause, saw Clause's first day, old brother.”

Ohhh, that’s who came to see her. But Strause and Clause? What kind of names are those?

“What’s with names?” I asked her.

She gave me a smug kind of look, with a little smirk. “Father is not imaginative, Mother named me, and we were both Anna’s. I blame her for being tired.” She told me.

“Huh, that's almost silly, but I am named after a shiny rock,” I told her, keeping the thing in the corner of my eye while I talked to her. “Also, never named child, no…” I said, looking for the word that was on the tip of my tongue, “Experience.”

She nodded in agreement, “No experience either, no baby for me.” she said.

There was something in her statement that sounded… Sad, or at least a little disappointed. I could relate somewhat, although considering what was going on at the moment, my thoughts about having a child were at an all-time low.

I didn’t even know if I could have a kid, assuming that I wanted to have one the old-fashioned way, I was a [Saint of Death] now, not a [Saint of Fertility]. Maybe I would raise a kid later on in life, and adopt a little one, but I doubted I would give birth.

I didn’t give her a look, I wasn’t going to give Anna a loaded look and try and rip out every insecurity.

“Oh, just remember, finished tea, can make, is tingly,” I told her in an attempt to break the tension.

She seemed to perk up at that, she nodded, and I measured out the ingredients for the tea. I had to take my eyes off of the soul, but it didn’t suddenly skitter around, thankfully. The spirit seemed downright immobile, so I took my eyes off it and focused on brewing up the tea, carefully mixing the ingredients into the pot in the same way I had done earlier. The same amounts, the same weights, with the same movements to try and make sure I wasn’t distracted.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

When I boiled it down for her, and she finally drank it, I was a bit nervous.

Please be useful; please be useful. I hope it helps her with her stuff. I probably stressed her out enough with the ghost, I really don’t want to go getting her hopes up only to let her down because the tingle is something totally worthless.

I watched her drink it, tensely waiting for her take on the funky tea.

She made a face, “What is with that taste?”

I could feel chagrin at her words, “It smells strange too, colour purple.” I told her.

She took a sniff and blinked, "how does that work?"

I shrugged, "no idea, should feel tingle in a bit, means it working."

We waited. I could tell it started to get to her while we washed stuff up. She started to move less tensely, she even stretched after we were done.

“Tingle?” I asked her.

“Tingley.” She agreed.

“Feed me.” the demonic child cried.

I cringed as it drew my attention, and I returned to looking at it.

“So… A ghost?” she asked me.

I nodded, before awkwardly confessing. “Yes.”

“From where? How did it get here? Was it already here? Please explain.” She asked.

The answer was slightly uncomfortable to answer, but it was better to own up to it now.

“I… Brought here, on accident.” I told her, lowering my head and flattening my ears in shame.

“How?”

So, I told her. I told her in my broken speech about how I had gone to a place north to get the stone. I told her the whole tale, from when I left to when I got back.

It wasn’t exactly a particularly well-told story. Nor was it particularly easy to follow. I was not an [Orator]; I was never great at telling a story, and the way I described it was slow as I used my words.

“And, when I put the stone in hearth, I found the chip in the bag and released it to let pass on. But it didn’t. Then you came back.” I finished, still looking down with my ears flat.

Anna hmmed. Obviously thinking of something.

“A [Necromancer], there is still proof?” she asked, softly.

“Yes, the bag has chips, and other undead, same chips,” I told her.

“And they are old.” She murmured more to herself than a question to me.

She started to murmur things to herself, not quiet enough to escape my hearing, but quickly enough that I couldn’t quite catch it.

Then she seemed to come to a conclusion and hummed again.

“Stop looking so afraid, it’s ok. Come on, to the study, let’s talk.” She told me.

I looked up, confused at her. Utter bewilderment. Anna did not freak out, nor did she kick me out. Instead, she went, ‘ok, that’s that then,’ and got on with it. It was like Anna was a figment of my imagination, an esoteric need to be accepted in Human form. She was almost unreal.

I followed her into the study and still reeling from the confusing acceptance, she started to grill me. Not aggressive in the sense of anger, but like a man dying of thirst aggressively sucks down water, or a [Sage] a source of knowledge.

She questioned me like a scholar; she wanted to KNOW something. She wanted to have the pieces and form her answer from the puzzle pieces.

I had been wrong when I had thought It was Kindly that would like Anna, it was both of them. The two old farts would have loved to talk with Anna, she was like a young female amalgamation of them. Loved books and magic the way Skip loved books and knowledge, and also came off like Kindly, just a little, I’ll be it, one that I was interested in romantically. She always kept me on my toes, never got angry, and made me feel like I could rely on her.

That was not an image I wanted. That is a cursed thought. Incredibly cursed. So, cursed. I don’t want to think about Anna like I do Kindly, he was like a grandfather. Ugh gross.

The thought made me shutter.

Anna didn’t seem to notice it, or if she did, she didn’t pick at it.

I kind of answered questions like, “What were the skeletons like.” Only for my answer to be not quite what she was looking for where she would follow up with, “Yes, but what about how they moved.”

She brought in the chips to look at them and asked me about how the mana worked. I had no idea how the mana worked, but I could tell her it was like a net. She was looking for If it was sloppy work or not, so I wasn’t helpful there.

She asked me about ghosts. I didn’t know what to tell her.

“Describe it, what was it like? Why were you shushing the ghost.” She asked me.

How do I even describe the thing without scaring her? I can still hear the thing, even with the door closed. If I didn’t know what it was, I would be afraid there was an honest to gods demon in the fucking main room.

I took a breath to gather my thoughts. “Ghost is… the wrong word. They are just soul, can’t tell much. Little flames. One in the room is a child.” I told her, gesturing towards the door.

She slowed down for a moment, a stop-and-think sort of expression overtaking her face. She cradled her head in one hand, tapping her temple with one finger.

“My mentor told me never to infringe upon the soul, and I won’t be doing that. But I might be able to walk you through it without doing that.” She told me.

That caught me off guard.

“Walk me where?” I asked, confused.

How was she going to… Oh I’m dumb, she’s using walk poetically. Wait, is she trying to help me with the child? How?

Anna had point by point, dragged a story out of me, and then pivoted to the other thing in the room in no time at all.

“I think I get it, are you talking about… thing in the room,” I told her, disregarding my speech just to get the idea out of my mouth faster.

She nodded, “Yes, I have time today, and you have been helping me while you were recovering, so let’s work through it together. There has to be something I can help with, also, I don’t want a ghost or spirit living in my home. If anything, it would be a favor to me.” She told me.

I looked at her with such incredulity that it should have given me a title. Not because I didn’t think she was capable of helping me, but because she had somehow dismissed that I had brought a captured soul into her home, it had gone rouge and was now hostile, and that her helping me get rid of it was not only a favour to her.

That figuring out a tea to help her with her time of the month, was enough to disregard that I had brought something possibly dangerous into her home, and that her helping me was a favour to her, and not the other way around.

There was no way that that was a balanced deal.

It was entirely directed towards me.

I… I can’t accept that. This is just ridiculous. I don’t want to take advantage of her, I can’t accept that.

“Anna, are you ok? You are acting strange. I was… expecting, angry, or cross, but you are… calm?” I asked her.

She was caught off guard by that but immediately began to wave it off.

“It’s fine, I’m not angry,” she told me, waving her hands evasively.

“Anna, it’s ok to be angry, if angry.” I told her, “too selfless, think about you too, it is not good to not speak up. Not good to make yourself the one missing out.” I told her, holding out my hand.

She looked at me, and my hand and a little hesitance crept into her face before she said quite simply, “I don’t understand, I am not selfless, I am greedy.”

I couldn’t help scoffing a little at that. “Anna, how have you been greedy? Tell me.”

“I,” she stuttered a bit, “I only brought you in because I thought you were interesting.” She told me.

“And?” I asked.

“And, wanted to know about you. Made up needing help as an excuse to keep you here, so I could know, and because I wanted to and stuff.” She told me, her face taking on a flush.

“So,” I started, “You took in a random person you didn’t know, gave them what they needed… food, and water and… home. Provided. Gave clothes, and book, and cleaned. Keep safe, and… instructed. Instructed with words and writing, and taught magic… because you wanted to talk and stuff.” I told her, tallying up what she’s done.

I stopped for a second to ensure I was thinking about the right thing to say next.

“Yes, very greedy. Not you, but me.” I told her. “Accepted all, because I wanted or needed. Needed food and water and home. Wanted to speak, to bathe, to do magic. Wanted money, but could have moved after coin, could have left. Didn’t, because also want to be here, and accept your hospitality. I stayed because I wanted.” I explained in the most honest way I could.

And then I stopped and hesitated.

Is this where I tell her? It doesn’t feel like the right time… But I feel like I have to. Damn, my stupid heart.

“Want more too, want more magic, want more stuff, want more time with you. Want a place. Want to stay, and keep getting food and water and home. Not home without you here,” I told her, “Want more of you. Want to hear you laugh, want you to depend on me as I do you, want you because it’s you and wants to know all about you.” I spoke, reaching out my hand to her again.

She was flushing, her lip trembling. Now that I paid attention to it, she was shaking a little.

We sat there for a long moment.

It felt like the whole world was trying to press down on me. My heart, the coward, was beating like it was running a marathon, making my lungs work overtime with the short breaths.

Her hand inched out but didn’t leave her knee, and she asked, “What are you trying to say?”

I looked her straight in the eyes and said, “Give me your hand.”

She lifted it up, reaching her hand to mine, and I took it.

I leaned down and gave it a kiss, then I leaned back and looked her straight in her eyes.

I didn’t know her enough to tell her feelings just by looking into them, I wasn’t some kind of [love guru]. But I took a leap of faith. The moment could have been worse, I supposed, my language wasn’t great either, and I felt unworthy to even say it. But I did. Because at the end of the day, I didn’t want to keep the feelings from her. I liked her a little when I met her, a kind of shallow feeling based on her appearance. Then I had gotten to know her, and I wanted to get closer, I wanted to get to know her.

So I asked her.

“I like you, Annabeth, and I want to know if you would accept me as a suitor.”