Hsien: one of a group of benevolent spirits promoting good in the world.
April 21, 1493
Fog swirled over the grounds, parted here and there by a pale ray of sunshine. Spring was rolling over the world. Budding flowers, baby birds, new life. A phenomenon that he would see surely a thousand times over, but would never feel again. What was son wrong with old life?
"You aren't still up here sulking, are you, Nick?"
The transparent essence of what had once been Sir Nicholas de Mimsy Porpington shifted a glum expression to the rotund friar hovering half-through the wall to his left.
"What else is there to do for all of eternity?" he asked desolately.
The Fat Friar shook his head and pulled himself all the way into the room. "Perhaps you might enjoy mingling with the other souls trapped here, living or dead."
"Living souls aren't trapped here," Nick said dully. "They will leave and go on to live out the rest of their long, numerous days, and then they will leave this world contentedly and without shameful fear."
"Ah, a mood of self-pity today, then," the Friar noted, gliding over to look out the window beside Nick. "The dramatic usually gravitate towards such a state."
"Dramatic?" Nick sputtered, momentarily shaken out of his brooding. "Who is being dramatic? I have perished!"
"As have I," the Friar agreed. "Though but half a year ago, you had not. Did I begrudge you your life then?"
Nick said nothing.
"Our troubles have ceased to matter, Nick," The Friar went on. "What desperations we clung to in life are untouchable now. Whatever happens, what have we to worry about? But them – the budding youth – they are at the apex of woe. Recall you not the turmoil of departing childhood? And as you say, they have many a day ahead of them for such troubles to matter very much.
"If you are to be bound to this earth forevermore, might you not at least offer a kind ear and a gentle word to your fellow wanderers? You may have no choice in discarding your body, but humanity is always cast aside. Never stolen."
Nick did not look around at him, made no indication that he had heard. The Friar bobbed beside him for a while longer in silence, but eventually turned and drifted away with a sigh. The newcomers always took ages.
It was nearly nightfall when weeping disturbed Nick's solitude. At first he could ignore it, but slowly it crept into him, into a heart he had not been sure he still possessed. He turned and glided through the wall into a dark stone corridor. In the starlit window at the end of the passageway a figure was curled.
"Wherefore you weep, fair maiden?" Nick asked softly, wafting nearer.
The girl looked up at him with streaming eyes, mouth fluttering like a baby bird's.
Nick offered her a gentle smile, seating himself on the windowsill beside her. "Surely you cannot be in a worse predicament than myself. I do not know if I'm headless or not."
"Perhaps you are nearly headless," the girl suggested, the tiniest of smiles dancing on her face.
A/N: And that is the story of how Nearly-Headless Nick gained his nickname. :) Alright, he was bound to pick it up at some point over the past 500 years. I've been reading a lot of Shakespeare lately. Guess it inspired me. I hope you enjoyed this trifle :)