Ghost Story

Cast: M!Corrin, Lilith, Felicia, Flora & Jakob
Prompt: Corrin and his servants take turns writing a ghost story.

"The meeting is now in session!" Corrin declared. The little boy looked around his table in the fortress library. Everyone had arrived: Felicia and Jakob. Though today he had managed to talk Lilith and Flora into attendance as well. It was time for another book club meeting. "What should we read this time?"

Corrin examined the others' expressions. From Corrin's right to left: Jakob sat attentively, Lilith wilted in uncertainty, Felicia bounced up and down in her seat, and Flora was focused on her sister.

"Felicia, do you have something to say?" Corrin asked.

"I do, Lord Corrin! What if this time… we write the book!"

Corrin blinked. "…As in, all of us?"

"Yeah! It'll be fun! We can write the book, and we can all take turns! Father and Flora and me did it all the time back home!"

"Okay!" Corrin turned to Jakob and Lilith. "Is that okay with you two?"

"Whatever milord wishes."

"Yes, that sounds fine."

"All right!" Corrin already had some sheets and a pen ready. He promptly slid them over to Flora. "You can go first, Flora."

"Huh? Err, wouldn't you rather go first?" the older twin asked. Corrin shook his head.

"I want to hear all of your parts of the story first."

Flora shrugged. "Well, okay." She then took the pen and paper. "What should we write about, milord?"

The prince tapped his chin. "Hmm… Let's make it a ghost story! Yeah, and after you write a little bit of it, you can pass it along to Felicia. Then, Felicia, you can pass it to Lilith when you finish, and Lilith can pass it along to Jakob, and then he can pass it to me."

Flora simply nodded. Felicia immediately watched her sister's writing. Lilith looked upward, as if contemplating ghosts, while Jakob appeared to be undergoing some form of meditation.

"I must prepare myself. Lord Corrin deserves a passage of the highest caliber," Jakob whispered.

Lilith smiled reassuringly. "I'm sure Corrin-"

"Lord Corrin," Jakob corrected. Lilith sighed.

"I'm sure Lord Corrin will appreciate whatever you write for him."

Corrin beamed. "I will. Don't worry about it, Jakob."

"That may be true, milord, but you still deserve my best." He narrowed his eyes. "Is that understood, Felicia?"

"Hey! I can tell a good ghost story! Just you wait!"

"Okay, I have an idea," Flora announced.

…

Once upon a time, there were two children. A boy named Ephraim and a girl named Eirika. The brother and sister lived in a small village, playing and studying as children do. One day, their friend, Ike, challenged the twins to spend the night in the cave in the woods. Ephraim and Eirika were too proud to back down, thus they went into the cave that very night.

The night passed without incident, and come sunrise, the twins returned to their village. But something was wrong, very, very wrong.

Their village had disappeared. The forest was there, the rivers were there, but there was no village.

…

Ephraim and Eirika walked around the woods for a long, long time until it was dark. They still couldn't find the village. So they just kept walking. Suddenly, they come across a house! Ephraim knocked on the door, and an ugly butler answered.

The brother asked if he and his sister could stay the night, because they were lost and it was dark. The ugly butler told Ephraim and Eirika to wait a minute, and he would ask his boss. After a few minutes, they were allowed inside.

An old lady was there, and she told the twins that they could spend the night if they do not touch anything. The kids agreed, so they were allowed to stay. But Eirika woke up in the middle of the night, and heard someone crying! She found a girl crying about losing her favorite doll, and the girl asked Eirika if she knew where it was. She looked around, and found the doll under the sofa. Eirika reached for the doll and took it, but the girl wasn't there anymore! Only the butler was there, and he was scared!

He kicked Eirika and Ephraim out of the house right away and told them not to come back.

…

At first, Ephraim was furious with his sister for breaking the rules. But then, they both noticed that the doll was not a doll, but a bar of gold. They were rich! If the two of them could find civilization, they could sell the doll, and live comfortably for a while.

Then, there was rustling in the bushes. Skeleton soldiers appeared, and began to approach Ephraim and Eirika. Their bones creaked, their jaws were angled in the right way to resemble wicked grins, and they had a horrible purple aura about them. The twins screamed and pounded on the door, begging to be allowed back inside. But the only response was the butler's voice, calmly telling the twins that they had brought this on themselves.

They ran. They ran as far as they could, not once looking back, for fear that the skeletons would be right behind them. Eirika tripped, and dropped the gold. She called out for Ephraim to help her. But Ephraim saw the state his sister was in. Her leg had been wounded, she would need to be carried.

Instead, Ephraim recovered the gold bar and ran away, believing his poor sister would get them both killed. Her screams echoed through the woods as Ephraim made his escape.

…

The boy eventually found a tree with an opening at the bottom. He crawled into the tree and hoped to get some rest for the time being. He eventually dozed off, but when he awoke, the scent of smoke had invaded his nose. He appeared to be tied to stake, as the skeletons formed a mob around him. One of their number spoke for the rest.

The skeleton spoke of finding demons in their forest, threatening to corrupt their soil, poison their crops, and spread plagues. As demons do, they had stolen the soul of the elderly forest hermit. They had captured one demon, and now they were ready to burn the other.

For, you see, Ephraim and Eirika were truly demons. The cave was a forbidden, cursed den, and their stay in the cave had allowed them to cross the barrier to the mortal world. That doll or gold bar or whatever it was- it was actually the crone's soul. The skeletons were no skeletons at all, but actually the town's guardsmen. They had captured and executed the demon Eirika, and were ready to do the same to Ephraim.

And when the fires consumed Ephraim's body, he saw only one thing- his sister's phantom, hovering above him, glaring.

…

Corrin's lip trembled. "I… I don't think I like this story anymore… It's… it's so sad!"

"Whatever do you mean?" asked Jakob.

He sniffled. "It sounds like the twins didn't even know they were demons! And they didn't mean to take the lady's soul!"

Flora sighed. "Way to go, Jakob."

"W-well, Felicia wrote the 'stealing' part!" Jakob defended.

"Really, you've made the story too dark-"

"And now they can't go home again!" Flora winced, hearing Corrin refer to her passage. "They don't have a home anymore!" He looked over at Lilith. "A-and how could Ephraim be so cruel to his sister?" Tears ran down Corrin's face. "This is the most tragic story I'd ever… I'd ever heard!"

The four writers all had the same guilty face at that point. Felicia spoke first. "W-we're sorry, Lord Corrin. We didn't mean to."

Lilith gave him a sympathetic smile. "Hey… It's still your turn to write, Corrin. It's not too late to give Ephraim and Eirika a happy ending."

"Huh? Oh! You're right! I can fix everything!" With renewed determination, Corrin grasped the quill and set off to conclude this tale.

…

Before the villagers could burn Ephraim, Ike interrupted. He told the villagers that it was his fault the twins had crossed over, he didn't know that this would happen. Ike asked if they could let them all go back to the demon world unharmed in exchange for the hermit's soul.

The villagers agreed, and took the soul back from Ephraim. Then to repay Ephraim and Ike's kindness, the hermit used her magic to heal Eirika. The three demons went back home. Eirika was upset with Ephraim for what he did, and so was Ephraim himself. He would do whatever she wanted for the rest of their lives. The twins and Ike then returned home and all was well.

The End.

…

Corrin smiled. "What do you guys think?"

"It's… good!" Flora flattered.

"Er, yes… Top notch," Jakob added.

Felicia scratched her neck. "Y-yeah, good job, milord."

"That was a lovely conclusion." Only Lilith seemed to have any appreciation for this. But Corrin did not care.

"You know, that was actually fun in the end. We should write more often!" And with that, the servants could not help but smile back. Corrin had this infectious positivity about him. Even as he butchered their ghost story, it was worth it to see him happy.

A/N:

I wrote this for Halloween. I thought it'd be a cute idea to imagine Corrin and his servants writing a round robin ghost story. But then I realized I had to write a ghost story. Not just that, but I had to write it as if five children with their own personalities had to take turns with it.

But then Corrin, sap that he is, got too depressed by the end, so the servants had to let him "fix" the story.

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