Page 10

A time unknown, but a day of bonding

It’s finally... peaceful, Weldir thought, and his mist spread out from his body, as if with relief.

He could feel his very essence spreading out as tension bled from it, and he basked in the quiet that had him growing dazed and groggy.

How long he’d been awaiting the silence was far, far too long. His darkness felt empty, but not lonely. It was tranquil, and what it should have always been.

Restful.

For him, and for the souls he’d collected.

And it was all due to the female who slumbered amidst his shadows. Even she looked peaceful as she lay curled up in a ball, her knees to her chest, her hands tucked up near her full breasts, while her white, bloodied gown floated around her.

He drifted closer and hovered next to her in the nothingness – like they were metres below the ocean’s surface. Neither breathed, and yet her chest continued a pleasant rhythm as if life still coursed through her.

It did not.

What lay before him was a white spectral form. This female, whatever her name was, was dead.

Yet when he opened his hand and called her soul to appear in it, what should have been a colourless white was a mixture of red and orange. He’d eaten it, but there was the evidence of life still present in it by its mesmerising colour.

I have never eaten the soul of someone living before.

He’d felt its startling heat; it was an odd sensation he’d never experienced before. Hot and cold were not things he’d ever been able to perceive – and still couldn’t. Once he’d consumed it, the heat that came from it faded as if he’d grown used to it.

He missed it already, but would always remember the sensation when it had moved through him.

The souls of the dead felt like... nothing . Like body temperature, their warmth or coolness was inconceivable to him.

But, unlike theirs, hers brightened up the centre of his conscious realm, and it was comforting, the light staggering. He’d become fascinated by it in the time he’d waited for her to reach his side. Or rather, her spectral self to reach him.

Although he’d swallowed it, he could move her soul around his realm and its many offshoots – which he couldn’t do freely with other souls. Like it was a part of him, it was free of the confines of Tenebris, his stomach.

Rather than placing it in that lonely, saddening place, he placed this female’s soul elsewhere. Somewhere he would always be able to see it if he so chose.

She brightened up nothingness, and it was like his realm finally had a centre he could find.

He stroked his transparent thumb up its abdomen, between its breasts, before rubbing under its jaw while being careful of his claw.

The soul remained asleep, much like its owner, as he took in the hues of its life.

How the orange and red swirled like lava before its citrine flames flickered all over its body.

He ran the tips of his claws through the wisps of its long, curling hair, and he wondered if the pressure pulling on his face was a smile or some other expression.

He released her flame, and it hovered beside him, seeming to halo its owner. He flew closer to her through the lightness of his large, emptier self – his entire realm a part of him, as well as separate at the same time. He brought his face barely a hand’s width from hers and peered at her features.

She’s rather pretty.

He was thankful a pretty female had given him her soul, although he didn’t know what justified as beautiful to him. He’d yet to see a human female he deemed otherwise, but he was rather fond of a few of her features in particular.

The medium brown in her skin reminded him of his people – the Elvish.

Although its base was much redder than the Elvish grey undertone he was used to, he liked this facet about her – the familiarity of it.

It was a shame she lacked their pointed ears, a trait he also wore upon the sides of his head – from what he gathered of himself. No, instead hers were small and round.

He liked the brunette of her long hair, and the way its tips moved within his larger essence, floating as if in water. The loose curls were glossy and held just a hint of auburn when he brought the light of her flaming soul closer to shed further illumination.

Her nails were long and pink, her fingers nimble and delicate. Her feet were small and proportionate. Her legs were long, lithe, but there was a strength in them he could make out in her muscled calves and soft-appearing thighs.

Since she was his female, he’d gone diving beneath her dress to see what lay beneath it, finding she had a round and perky backside, wide hips, and a flat abdomen. He hadn’t seen much else, as her gown was tighter around her breasts, although he’d seen their generous mounds from below.

Since her arms weren’t visible through the long sleeves, he’d taken to inspecting her face.

He’d done so a few times, waiting for her to open her eyes and once more reveal those deep, mesmerising pools of molten brown with flecks of honeyed amber.

Although, when she’d been in the sun, he had seen peeks of a lighter yellow in them.

He liked her eyes the most.

They’d hinted at many emotions when she’d spoken to him, not all of which he was accustomed to, and he was curious about them. Then again, he was curious about humans in general.

Now that he had one to spend all his curiosity on, he was excited to do so.

Solidifying what he could of his physical self – which was very little – he used a tendril to poke her cheek, trying to stir her into waking.

Her rounded nose scrunched before she drew her hands up and buried her face against them in disapproval.

For a moment, her full, pouting lips disappeared as she thinned them in annoyance before they pushed forward and loosened.

She fell back asleep.

He pinched her cheek with his tendril and pulled it until he revealed even teeth.

Her long, dark eyelashes flung open, uncovering those molten pools of mixing browns, and she gasped.

Only to fucking scream.

Weldir shot back in surprise.

“That is wildly unpleasant,” he snapped, his mist collecting against his transparent, intangible self in irritation. “I demand that you stop that noise immediately.”

He’d had enough of screaming to last him eons.

Her scream ended when she slapped both her hands over her mouth, and her eyes widened beyond what he thought should be possible. She stared directly at him, only to squint and lean forward on a singular hand.

Since she floated in nothingness, he let her weight settle on an invisible platform so she could feel the normality of solidness below her.

It was only enough to support the side of her backside and legs, and he gave her an additional one where she placed her palm.

She didn’t seem to notice the change in her weight’s pressure.

Seeing she was looking upon him, rather intently, he raised his arms to the side. Pressure pulled on where his face was, but he was unsure of the expression, as he couldn’t feel its intricate details.

He thought it may be a grin of some kind.

Although he’d had many souls look upon him, it had never been a pleasant conversation.

They were spectral echoes of their past selves, their personalities alive enough to react to their current predicaments but not remember them.

They spent every day resetting and forgetting, just to re-experience their terrifying first moment of realising they were dead – every day. .. forever.

He’d given up on befriending them when they’d only forgotten him and screamed upon him introducing himself.

This felt different.

This female was his mate, and her soul was alive. She should remember her life and the way it ended properly. He already liked that her gaze appeared curious rather than frightful, and like she was really... seeing him.

“What am I looking at?” she stated, instantly stealing the pleasantness he felt.

It deflated him enough that his mist spread out and lost the layer it’d created against her. Although he could control his mist, it required he spend much mana to do so. He felt as though he’d wasted it by her reaction.

The pressure in his face deepened, but with no true face to pull on, he merely felt it as a stroke across his consciousness.

Her lips pursed as her eyes trailed down in a zigzag pattern. “Where’s the rest of you?”

Weldir knew what he must look like to her then.

He could see himself perfectly, but also saw where his flesh was darker in some spots.

Like inky stripes that moved across the body of his soul, they were the parts of him he perceived the most pressure.

The rest just felt light, rather than dense.

Outward, rather than surrounding a body. Everywhere, except for those spots.

His mist was thick, like it was supposed to surround his body like flesh, but he was too weak, broken, and ill-formed to do so.

That which was physical was like oil moving across water, and the rest of him would appear as nothing more than a puff of black mist. That oil moved across him constantly, and sometimes dispersed to reappear elsewhere, but it never covered the entirety of the surface.

He could control where his physical manifestation collected to, congealing where he needed it to, but he preferred to let it move over him like oil on water freely. Except just now – for her.

He chose to do it again. Not reveal himself, but his vexation.

Weldir grunted and drew his mist tighter so he could fold his arms to show his annoyance – an action he’d never had to do before. But he knew it was human nature to move in reaction to one’s emotions.

He was hoping to experiment with this now that he had someone to talk to. To act like an interactive being rather than a floating consciousness.

What else had he seen of humans? Not much. What else did they do in reaction to irritation?