Chapter Two

"Eris, Spirit of Strife"

For several moments, a deathly silence gripped the group as they stared at Ruby's ghost.

Then, Catrain exploded into fury on top of Beck's head, where she had been previously calmly sitting. "What the hell is this?!" She screamed, flying off of his head. A flash, and she stormed over to Ciela and Ruby, wings beating in anger and her glow becoming tinged with black. "Is this some kind of, of, of sick trick?!"

Ruby cut in before Catrain could continue. "I swear, Catrain, no tricks, it's really me… I'm just dead."

"How long have you been this way?" Catrain demanded, gesturing to Ruby's translucent form. "How long?! Since your grave had been robbed or longer?"

"Longer." Ruby paused, before deciding to elaborate. "To give a definitive start, I've been this way since the end of the quest. That night I had woken up where I died and have been here ever since."

Catrain turned to Ciela, eyes dark and face stony. "Is that how long you've known as well?" Her words were clipped with her anger.

Ciela stared right back at Catrain, raising up her head. "I've only found out eight months ago. The night Linette had been rescued."

"So that orb really was you then?" Linebeck said, looking at Ruby while crossing his arms. He really hoped they would get out of this clearing soon, his back was killing him and he's sure that Ciela's was doing the same.

Ruby nodded back. "I would watch you guys, sometimes in my orb form, sometimes as a wolf." Her eyes shifted to Linette. "Even you, Linette."

Linette gave a start, in her mind flashing back to when she was still imprisoned. The ghost wolf she saw stalking the path, the one she drew on her walls. "That was you?" She asked.

"The very same. I would follow each of you for a time, see how you were faring. Lending aide when it had been needed." Ruby explained.

"But you wouldn't actually talk to us, let us know that-" Catrain struggled to find her words, but couldn't, clawing the air in front of her in frustration, before throwing her arms down.

"Let you know what?!" Ruby heatedly stated, the most emotion she had shown since her reveal. "That I was dead? Or stuck as a ghost? I wanted you guys to move on! Because I am dead! And there's no fixing that for me. Just because I'm a ghost doesn't mean that little fact changed. I'm dead. I can't move on, and I would watch you guys grow old and die and I would be stuck."

"You would talk to her, though." Catrain snapped, throwing an arm out to point at Ciela accusingly.

"Actually Catrain, other than the night of Linette's rescue, and when we met in the field the night after, Ruby had refused to speak to me anymore. I tried for weeks, but she refused. This is only the third time I've seen her."

"So why didn't you say anything?" Catrain asked.

"Oh sure, let me just drop that little bomb on you guys in casual conversation." Ciela sarcastically stated, before she could stop herself. Realizing how vicious she was sounding, Ciela took a breath and made sure to be more calm. "Really however, it was the fact that I wasn't even sure if I really had met with her. The first time I had lost a lot of blood. Could have hallucinated her. As for the second, I was still healing. I could have dreamed it, for all I have known."

Catrain's lips thinned, but at this moment, Beck's voice quietly interjected, speaking for the first time since Ruby's reveal.

"Ru… Who… Who really did kill you? Did they also steal your body?" Beck asked, stepping forward. His eyes only looked at Ruby, filled with longing and heartbreak.

That reminded everyone why they were up here in the first place, to figure that all out. Catrain stepped backward to stand next to Beck, her anger melting away to painful remembrance.

Ruby floated to where her grave once existed. "You assumed correctly last night that the Wind Mage was the one to murder me. His name is Vaati. Somehow, he had been freed before we reached the temple."

"When he found me trapped in the tunnels, we fought, and I lost. He stabbed me with a strange and ornate looking dagger."

"And your body?" Linebeck prompted.

Ruby floated down so she was sitting on what was left of her gravestone. "Vaati, accompanied by who I assumed was Bellum, were the ones who stole my body."

"Shit." Linebeck cursed. So his back was acting up for a reason. "So that bitch really is back again."

Catrain held up a hand to shush him. "But why? Why steal your body?"

"There was a reason Vaati killed me personally, rather than just let the temple squish me. That odd dagger? Apparently it housed a soul." Ruby cryptically responded. "But not just any soul. Bellum must have been the one to free Vaati as they seemed rather… romantically close."

"That's… disturbing to hear." Linebeck stated before once again Catrain shushed him.

"And this soul?"

"The dagger contained their daughter's soul." Ruby stated. "When he killed me, her soul took up residence when mine left."

The group looked at Ruby in horrified shock. With the silence, Ruby continued on, beginning to explain the events of her body being stolen.

...One week ago…

Ruby floated among the treetops, gazing out across the dark ocean. It was the middle of the night, the only light being the fireflies that flickered on and off throughout the foliage.

'Resting' on the leaves, Ruby wondered when Beck's ship would arrive. She always arrived a day or two before him. There was only so long one could spend hiding in the ocean. Near the shore was fine, as there was plenty to see. In the deep waters however, she hated it. The endless stretch of dark blue that faded into black, hiding what could lurk in the deep. It unnerved her, even if she couldn't be harmed as a ghost.

Ruby slowly sank until she hovered on a thick tree branch. Reclining back, she gazed up at the fireflies, thinking about the two years since her death. Her un-life was the same as ever, nothing having changed since her death.

"Maybe I should talk to them." Ruby mused, Catrain and Beck flashing to the forefront of her mind. "Maybe they could help…"

Ruby banished the thought. No, she made that decision and she would stick to it. She was no closer to finding out why she stuck around after her death, and if she couldn't give a reason for unsettled business, there was no point in seeking help. Coupled with the fact that there was no way of revealing her ghostly self without causing even more heartbreak and pain, not after two years. And even if they could help her move on, then they have to go through the pain of losing her all over again.

Ruby would not put them through that. Not again.

Her musings were interrupted by the sudden appearance of soupy fog. It disappeared as quickly as it arrived.

A trickle of unease ran down her non-existent spine, and Ruby slowly floated downward, phasing through tree branches until she was a few feet from the ground, disguising herself in a clump of brush beside the cliff wall. As an extra precaution, she popped into her orb form.

Ruby began trembling as she spotted the pale form of Vaati and Bellum, who Ruby recognized from Ciela and Tetra's description of the creature's human form. They were leisurely advancing upon Ruby's grave.

The pair was silent until they reached the end of Ruby's grave. They stopped, and there Vaati remained solemn while Bellum broke out into an almost giddy grin.

"Oh, can you believe it, my moon?" Bellum turned to Vaati, taking his hand. "After so many years, we are finally able to meet our daughter properly."

Ruby felt sick.

Vaati gave a gentle smile to Bellum in return. "As am I, Amiro. My only regret is that we will be looking upon the visage of a hero when we gaze upon her."

One of Bellum's hair tentacles waved in the air, as if to banish Vaati's concerns. "Do not be troubled by that, my moon. Our daughter's soul has been hard at work, changing the wolf's body to her standards with us as her parents." Bellum breathed in deeply. "Oh, I can taste her power, even as she slumbers."

"As can I, Amiro. She is quite the powerful child." Vaati agreed.

Bellum released Vaati's hand, summoning up the dagger that killed Ruby. "Then let us not delay any longer, and let our child return to us."

From her hiding spot, Ruby had ceased in her trembling, becoming frozen with terror and horror as Bellum and Vaati's plans were revealed to her. Unknowingly, she had switched back to her human form. One of her hands covered the area below her sternum, pressing tight against a former fatal wound.

Vaati took the dagger from Bellum, turning back toward the grave. He raised the dagger above him. Focusing on the ground where Ruby's body rested, Vaati began speaking.

"Rise, our child, from your slumber. Rise, to take your rightful place, with us, with your family."

As he spoke, the ground rumbled and a large crack appeared in the ground, at Bellum and Vaati's feet. The wind mage switched to an unfamiliar language, and the crack grew longer, until it stretched across Ruby's gravestone.

The world seemed to pause, and fall silent as Vaati paused.

"Rise, Eris, Spirit of Strife, daughter of Bellum and Vaati!" Vaati and Bellum commanded together.

The ground exploded and it took every ounce of Ruby's willpower not to scream out in fear and shock when her own blade came whipping through the air, through her body and rammed into the stone wall behind her.

Among the raining bits of dirt and the splinters of Ruby's coffin, a figure now floated about the gaping hole in the earth.

Ruby stared in horror at what her body had become.

Pale lavender hair floated around a lithe body, a far cry from Ruby's more stocky and buff frame. Her skin, once a deep tan, was now a pale purple-grey. Vaati repeated Eris's name and her eyes opened, revealing one crimson red and one orange, yellow and black eye, no longer Ruby's piercing grey-blue eyes.

"Mother, Father." Eris spoke in a smooth voice, looking from Bellum to Vaati. Her voice was eerily similar to Ruby's, but not quite it. It was off in a rather unnerving way, even though it would have been more creepy for her to sound exactly like Ruby did.

Bellum grinned once again. "Oh yes, my moonling." She opened her arms, her tentacle hair mimicking her arms. "Come to us, Eris, darling."

Eris floated closer to them. With a flick of Vaati's hand, the now ill fitting pale blue tunic was cast away to be replaced by an off the shoulder, plum velvet dress, with black accents. Resting over that was a thick black and yellow ochre cape, excess fabric pooling around her shoulders and ground.

Bellum wrapped her arms around Eris, Vaati doing the same. Bellum's tentacle hair once again mimicked Bellum's arms, wrapping around the three of them as they embraced. If not for who it was, it could have been a charming and heartwarming family reunion.

Ruby could still only gaze on in horror. "Oh by the grace of Din, Nayru, and Farore…."

When they released one another, Bellum circled her hand in the air, and the thick fog from before rolled in once more.

"Come along, my moonling, and my moon. We have work to do."

Vaati took one of Eris's hand and Bellum took the other. "And there is much to tell you. But not here, where pesky mutts have bad habits."

Before the fog completely encased them, and as Vaati finished speaking, he turned and stared directly at Ruby's hiding place, locking eyes with her.

Ruby gasped in fright and flew backwards, into what she hoped would be the safety of the solid stone cliff wall.

There she waited in the silence and darkness, before slowly peeking her head back out, hoping it was safe.

All that remained was the wreckage of her grave site. The fog was gone, and with it, Bellum, Vaati, and Eris.

…

Plot is slooowly picking up. There's a lot of setting the stage to be done, so expect a few more chapters of material like this, of little hints of what's to come.

Now, I've typed this up the night after I uploaded the first chapter, but I'm gonna wait a bit before I actually post it. Cliffhangers and all, and I don't want to spoil you folks too badly with quick updates in the beginning as they will surely slow down at some point.

Next chapter, back on the S.S. Linebeck, emotional conversations and Linebeck is gonna regret sneaking Aryll on board his ship years ago.

Until the next chapter, Darlings!

~Roses

(Okay, six months later, perfect time to post. Sigh….

But I have a lot more of rough chapters written and I do have exciting news in which I am engaged! So there will be some added craziness to my life which is wedding planning.)