Author's Note: The end of chapter 2 is still annoying. I'll return and edit it when I figure out how to get around it without compromising the story :x Also, how is it that everyone other than me seems to be able to get so many words in a chapter? D: (struggling to get 2k words per chapter T.T)
When you have non-POV changing POV changes, you insert 100 word drabbles in between! I'm so smart! (dies)
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Ragnarok Online
The Spectres of Amatsu
Chapter 3
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It should be noted that people living in the hotter lands on Rune-Midgard have characteristically darker skin, while those living in colder climates have pale complexions. The only exceptions to this rule are the Yunoans, who are the exceptions for almost any general trend or universal law, the long-haired bastards.
-Enves Tan'gari
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Of course, it was typical that she wasn't able to find the damnable ghost the next day. Neither was she able to find him the day after that. It was only five days later Lise ran into the ghost again. This time he was waiting for her in that secluded room, sitting cross-legged on the short table. It seemed almost blasphemous; tables were not made for sitting on. Lise was torn between interrogating him, or telling him to get down from the table like she used to do with little kids in the Chuch.
"I guess I can't stop you from coming here." He mock sighed.
There was no sign of anger anymore – thank God – and any signs of advancement of the wrong kind were dispelled. If anything, he looked happy to see her; there was a casual ease to his posture. Even so, she chose to question him before he ran off again. Just in case. She had hundreds of questions for him and she wanted to know the answers to them all. "Who are you? Who is your wife? How did you meet?"
The ghost laughed, interrupting her. His face split into that infuriating grin of his and she could see a glint of amusement in his visible eye. "Why are you asking me questions I know the answers to?"
Lise resisted the urge to hit him for being so stupid or stubborn or both…or was he pushing her buttons on purpose? She didn't trust that grin of his. It looked as smug and misleading as the Cheshire Cat's toothy smile.
"Because I want to know the answers." She managed to keep her voice perfectly even, despite the frustration that was bubbling underneath.
"Why don't you use that brain of yours," he tapped the side of his head, "and tell me who you think I am and everything else?"
Lise blinked. Was he going to tell her what she wanted to know after she gave her opinion? She sat herself down on the tatami mat a little distance away, eager to get the weight off her feet. Bringing a finger to her lip as she thought, she said, "If your wife looks like me, she's probably a priestess. Maybe your wife is a good and holy priestess and you were a dark and mysterious…" She trailed off.
Mysterious what, though? Definitely not a wizard; the fight with Incantation made that obvious. "Well, maybe you were someone who grew up on the streets. A thief, or," his clothes were distinctly Morroccan, but she hadn't seen it before. She made a guess, "an assassin maybe?" That sounded logical. Opposites attracted after all. "And I guess she helped you overcome your sins and you couldn't help but be drawn into her light and–"
She was cut off by a loud burst of laughter. "Ahahahahaha, you've been reading way too many romance stories, priestess. You're not even close, priestess."
Lise frowned. She didn't think he was lying; he seemed far too open to be lying. The ghost looked rather like a rogue, but there was something about him that told her he wasn't. It was worth a shot anyway. "Are you a rogue then? You look a lot like a rogue."
"No, I'm not a rogue." That grin-she-wanted-to-punch-so-hard grew wider.
She gave a sigh of exasperation. It was like playing a guessing game with a child. "I give up. Tell me the answers."
He pouted, somehow managing to look cute – she didn't just think that did she? – even though he was wearing a spiked dog collar. "You're no fun. Go find out yourself."
"Well, escuuuuuse me, but you haven't exactly given me a lot to work with. I don't even know your name."
He snorted, the smile fading from his face. "Names aren't important. Only Rai'den called me by name in Morroc anyway."
She blinked in surprise. He was a long way from home. "You were born in Morroc?"
The ghost rolled his eyes. "Of course not. Do I look like I was born in Morroc?"
Lise had to admit he had a point. His skin was far too pale to be Morroccan. Al de born perhaps? No, he was too tall to be from the alchemist city. Not Yunoan or Geffenese; his face did not match their aristocratic features. Pronteran maybe? He seemed to fit their physique although he was on the lean side. But his eyes…she had never seen anyone anywhere with eyes like his.
There was a frustrated twist to the corner of his mouth. "You're always asking questions, questions, questions, priestess. Think of the answers yourself."
He vanished, leaving Lise to ponder over fragments as small and insignificant as the grains of sand in a desert and the faintest memory of saltwater rain. And they all slipped past her fingers, like flour through a sieve. He was a ghost, something that was not alive. She had to remember that. He was a book to be read, not a stranger who could become a friend. He is ashes and dust held together by memory, but is that all he really is?
…Lise thought she could smell rotten eggs.
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"Go find a woman or a man – don't look at me like that; I know you've tried it before – to love. It's much more satisfying."
"Is doing it with someone you love different or something?"
"You could say that."
"So, what is this love thing?"
The assassin tried to explain, but he didn't understand. Later, he asked around for answers, because he had nothing better to do and he wanted to know. But the replies he received were unsatisfying.
He decided love wasn't worth his time.
But the angel with the heavy boots showed him how wrong he had been.
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Morroc's vast expanses of land were rivalled by none. Prontera's territory was large, but the other cities had a share in it; Al de Baran, Geffen, Payon, Alberta, the list went on. But unlike Prontera's fertile fields and valleys, Morroc's land was stretches and stretches of inhabitable desert. The desert cut Morroc off the rest of the world like a castle surrounded by its moat. The city's deserts held the other cities away from it at arm's length; close enough to tell them it wasn't going to disappear, but far enough to keep its distance. There was nothing like standing in an undulating mass of sand as far as the eye can see to appreciate the empty isolation of Morroc. If haughty detachment was a city, it was Morroc. Even though in these times, people no longer had to trek through the desert to reach the city, Morroc did not even attempt to accommodate tourists to its harsh conditions. Its motto was 'deal with it.'
Lise had come a long way to find Enves Tan'gari –though the Kafra made intercity travel much easier with their teleporting services – and even now, the person she was sitting with was not him. She couldn't make out any of the man's features (although his voice was definitely male) as he was draped in a dark cloak and his face was covered by some kind of mask. Even the eye holes had some kind of mesh over them. So while he could see her perfectly fine, she couldn't see his eyes. There was no doubt in her mind that this middleman didn't show up in the inn wearing that garb. It would attract too much attention and inform others that someone was contacting the enigmatic Tan'gari.
Enves Tan'gari was no fool. But his services were also very expensive to hire.
"I expect fifty thousand to keep your contact with me secret from the Pronteran Church, regardless of your request." The Church did not look very kindly upon those who associated with scum from the human underworld.
Lise glared at the tiny crystal ball on the table before the middleman. She had seen similar, much larger, scrying devices in the homes of rich wizards. However, those crystal balls would show faces on the surface. This one simply contained mist. Lise had began to think that Tan'gari had been given a defective crystal when she realised he may have made it like that on purpose. The crystal would not reveal his identity, and even the voice that came from the crystal was distorted. She could hear his words clearly, but she would never be able to recognise his real voice if she met him in the streets.
"I may a priestess, but I'm no longer with the Church," she lied, looking at the middleman where his eyes would be.
"You are Lise Ravella."
The simple statement revealed the lie for what it was, losing any advantage she could have gained. Lise had not used her real name while she was in Morroc, where Tan'gari's information web was at its tightest. The enigmatic Tan'gari was known to have little interest inter-city politics. Because of that, she had assumed he had little information of people outside of the desert city. But Lise was obviously wrong; the web of information was larger than she thought. And Enves Tan'gari sat in the centre of it all like some grossly misshapen spider pulling the strings.
Tan'gari's distorted voice spoke again. "You are here for information."
"I'm looking for a ghost. I encountered him in Amatsu, but he's from Morroc, or at least lived here for some time. He has a pale complexion, Pronteran perhaps, bright golden eyes and looks similar to a rogue. He mentioned someone who knows him, a person called Rai'den. I want as much information on who he was when he was alive."
"Your request is very vague."
She knew she was trying to find a single grain of sand in a vast oasis of pebbles. "I know you have pieced together a whole picture from a few dots."
"I require a down payment of one hundred thousand. You need not worry about how you will give the money to us; we will handle it. The final price will be delivered to you upon our completion of this task."
She was slightly disturbed that Tan'gari seemed to be implying he could take money from anyone as he pleased. But there was little she could do about it now. Lise rose and nodded to the cloaked man and the crystal ball. "Thank you for your help." A thought struck her as she turned to leave. "I was wondering," she tossed over her shoulder, "do you ever feel lonely in your line of work?"
"I am only as alone as you are," was his curt reply. "Goodbye, priestess."
--
He fidgeted, feeling self-conscious for the first time in his life. Spotting the person he was looking for, he gave a questioning glance to his old friend. His friend, guardian, gave him an encouraging grin, as if to say, "Go on, you can do it."
Confident, he ran up to the auburn-haired woman. Exchanging greetings, he kneeled before her and said the four words that would change his life.
The sound of heavy boots on pavement as she turned to give her three word reply was the closest he had come to heaven.
Golden eyes fluttered shut under heavy eyelashes.
--
"This would be a lot easier if you have a name. A name will narrow things down a lot."
The tall sage put her stack of books on the table nearby and began to shelve them. Feather was the Head Librarian of Yuno and had a near perfect recall on well known facts. Harder to find information would take a little longer for her to remember, but if there was any information of the ghost in the shelves and shelves of books, Feather would know. When she wasn't running the library, the bright sage had her nose in a thick book.
Lise sighed and idly ran a hand through her auburn hair. "I would have," she replied, "but it's hard enough getting him to tell me anything about himself."
Seconds, minutes passed while Feather shelved books and Lise listened to the soulful tick of the library's grandfather clock. Lise lost herself in the faintly musty scent of the library and the sounds of life that were barely there. Even in the City of Wisdom, the library was so quiet, so big, so…empty…
"Do you know how he became a ghost?" Feather suddenly asked, interrupting the priestess' thoughts.
Lise refocused her eyes on Feather. "No, why?" It never occurred to her to ask.
The sage delicately picked out a book and opened it. "I, personally, am interested, but there is another reason. Very little information is known about how ghosts become ghosts in Yuno's library. There are only two known humanoid ghosts mentioned in all," she waved a hand at the rows and rows of bookshelves, "these books; Geffen's doppelganger and Amatsu's Incantation Samurai. If I could talk to him, maybe I could unravel the secrets behind ghosts and add to Yuno's vast wealth of information." She sighed. "Pity my duties here don't allow me to leave on whim."
Lise knew Feather well enough to understand the implied, "unlike you," at the end.
The librarian licked her fingertips and turned a page. "I'll see if there's anything that may resemble your so-called ghost."
The dust had settled. It was up to Lise to sweep it away.
"I'll get you a name." It was a promise.
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Author's Notes: (pulls out WarCraft III and starts playing xD) Comments and criticism welcome :D