Hiya guys, I seem to have found my inspiration for the time being, but be warned, somehow this chapter got very deep and very morbid while I was writing it. I don't know what happened, it just kinda flowed out of me. Maybe it's my sub-conscious trying to make up for not writing this fic as often as I should be. Well whatever the reason, it's written I hope you enjoy it.

Chapter 12 – The Meaning of Death

A few days later Ember found herself in the park once again, trying to dodge or deflect the ectoplasmic energy blasts being thrown her way by a feminine form clad entirely in black flames. Since that first day in the Ghost Zone, Ember and Spectra had spent as much of their free time as they could training together. Ember had progressed a lot in the short time she had been trained, she could now fly three times as fast as she used to be able to, she could form and shoot ectoplasmic blasts, go invisible and intangible. Today's training session was donated to defense, rather than offence.

For the past two and a half hours Spectra had been shooting anything and everything she could at Ember in an attempt to make her block them. For the first hour Ember had suffered many blows to her body before Spectra has been kind enough to tell her how to block, since then very few of the blasts had gotten through.

Masterfully Ember dodged and blocked the numerous blasts coming at her until she saw an opening, then she dropped her shield and lunged, a ball of energy formed in her hand. Just as she released it the ebony figure before her disappeared. Ember floated stunned at what her mentor had done. Then, collecting herself, she began to spin in a circle trying to locate Spectra before Spectra located her and struck first.

She was too preoccupied with looking around that she forgot to look up. Her adversary didn't even make a sound as she gathered her energy to her palm and fired at the teen with the jade hair. The only warning Ember got was the growing amount of light from above and behind her, her eyes flew wide as she span towards the light. The ball of energy hit her square in the chest and sent her flying back 10 feet into a tree.

"Okay, I think that will do for today" Spectra said as she landed and transformed back into the less imposing façade of a young businesswoman. She waked over to where her charge was sitting, her back supported by the tree and her eyes closed. When her shadow fell on the teen, Ember opened her eyes, smiled and held out her hand for assistance in getting back up. Spectra complied, took hold of Ember's hand and helped to pull her to her feet before leading her over to a nearby bench where she had stashed a bag with their lunch in it. Ember smiled gratefully as she accepted one of the sandwiches offered to her and sat on the bench next to older woman who had begun to eat her own sandwich.

The two sat in silence, Spectra contemplating what the next training session would hold while Ember watched the other inhabitants of the park. Her gaze fell on a particular group who looked as if they really didn't belong there. Everywhere she looked, she could see groups of small children, all easily under the age of eight, running around playing happily with their friends. Something about that bothered her. She swallowed her mouthful before tuning her gaze back to her mentor who had already stopped eating and was just sitting waiting for the question she knew was forming in the teen's head.

"Spectra, why is the world so unfair?"

"In what way?"

"Why do children as young as them…" she indicated with a tilt of her head "…have to die, it just seems so unfair to me"

"I'm not sure to be honest; I've heard people having this sort of discussion in this very park. Some think it has something to do with Karma, that they were spectacularly bad in a previous life, so they didn't get the chance to live very long in that one to make up for the negative energy they poured into the universe. Some are less philosophical and say that it was because they didn't have very good parents if they could leave they're child alone in the house to pull that kettle on top of themselves. Some like to think that they died so young to stop them from encountering the evils of the world, so they think that whatever entity they call God was actually being very fair to them. I tend to go with that last one, the rest just sound awful to me."

Ember fell silent after Spectra's speech and went back to eating her hard-earned sandwich before another thought hit her. Once again, she swallowed and waited for Spectra to finish before giving voice to this new comment.

"Do you know how they died?" she asked the woman, knowing that she would have been the one to introduce them into the Ghost Zone, and with them being as young as they were they must have needed a parental figure for quite some time, they might have confided in her.

"I know how some of them died, yes. Why do you ask?"

"I'm just being morbid; could you tell me how the ones you know about died?"

"I know that a couple of them did have horrendous parents who did leave them alone in the house to get up to all sorts. Some set the house on fire by accident, some drowned in the bath while their parents were on the phone, or in the river when they went wondering on their own. Some got into cupboards that they shouldn't have and ate or drank something poisonous. Some where abducted and killed, some were victims of their own parents' frustrations, whether it was over a manner of years or one cruel incident."

"How can you call any of that fair?" Ember asked, almost under her breath while keeping her gaze fixed on the children who were playing happily on the Ghost Zone's version of grass. Spectra heard it though, and spoke once again to try to bring the teen's mind from such a morbid topic.

"Not all of them died like that, some of them died with their families, I think that's fair on the child because then the family never has to be broken apart. I've seen it Ember, I've seen what happens when the parent or young child dies. The parent goes mad, whether they are here or on the living plain, and the child never really gets over the shock of either dying or being left without a parent, neither one can be healed until they are reunited here."

Ember nodded and continued to watch the children playing. Then something flew in front of her, obscuring her vision for a brief few seconds. She had seen them everywhere. They looked like a little tiny comet, a ball of light with a clear tail, shot through with all the colors of the rainbow. They reminded her of the bubbles children like to blow with washing up liquid and wands. (A/N: FFX fans think pyreflies) once more, she shifted her bright green eyes to Spectra and asked another of her questions.

"Spectra, what are they?" she asked as she indicated one of the little comets

"That is the result of a soul never being housed in a body"

"What?"

"Those particular souls must have never found a body" Spectra explained with the patience of a saint.

"I don't understand, how could they have never found a body"

"A soul is only pared with a body in the womb. The body must have died before the soul had a chance to inhabit it."

"So what, are they the souls of unborn children?" Ember asked stunned

"Got it in one, those are the souls of the children who were the victims of abortion, miscarriage or stillbirth, poor souls"

"Literally"

Spectra smiled a little at the observation and went back to eating and periodically watching the teen sharing the bench and her lunch with her. Amazement crept into her mind at just how deep this teen was, but then again, it wasn't all that surprising considering the fact that she wrote all of her own songs while she was alive, and even continued to do so after her death. Spectra knew she was still writing because she was the one who kept leaving notepads in her home for Ember to find and fill with her thoughts.

Ember just sat for the rest of lunch, content to dwell on the information Spectra had given her and watch the children, trying to work out how some of them could have met such a violent end and still continue to play as if nothing had happened. Fifteen minutes later student and teacher finished their lunch stood to say their farewells in unison.

"So, same time tomorrow then?" Ember asked hopefully, she had improved greatly over the week and was keen to continue.

"Maybe not same time, could you come about an hour later than usual, I have a couple of new arrivals I need to take care of"

"Yea okay, see you then" Ember raised her hand, gave a quick wave and took to the sky, heading to the store for more supplies as she had almost run out of food, her pens and pencils were hanging on by a thread and she was getting bored of the same clothes day in day out. She had saved up enough credit for a new top at least.

She came home later that night, the shopping taking longer than she had expected as she had spotted a beautiful strap for her guitar to replace the one that stupid Shadow had destroyed, and had therefore found herself with a dilemma, the strap or the clothes as she couldn't afford both. She had settled on the strap.

She opened the door to her house, which she now had no problems finding no matter where it decided to drift itself away to. She placed her bags of shopping on the carpet just inside the door and was about to flick the lights on when she was confronted with the shadow of something very large with glowing green eyes who was holding some kind of weapon in it's hand.

End of chapter

Wow, that big philosophical discussion has just totally drained me, I think I need to go try to bring my creativity levels back up before I can continue with anything. I've had the ending written for about three chapters but never managed to bring the story to that point and I really wanted to put it in instead of leaving it for another chapter. And I wanted a proper cliffie, though I bet some people can guess what's in her apartment. The rest will just have to wait until I can be inclined to write the next part.

Thanks for reading, reviews, comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated

May the Angels Bless you and keep you safe

Anawiel