The Specter’s resquest
There were many things that had signaled that day would be a bad day; his son had a fight with his wife, she broke several plates, his neighbors kept complaining about his son’s pranks, among other things. They were minor things, yes, but the fact that such simple affairs had not been settled easily ⸺as they should have⸺ kept bothering him. But a bad day is just that, right?
Ethan wished that had been the case.
He unburied himself from the debris and found out that his body had been spread about into pieces. Only his left arm and head were attached to his torso. Knowing that the blast had left him in such a state, he abandoned any hope of finding his wife ⸺or anybody else⸺ alive. It was a sad thought, but physical pain kept depression at bay. He dragged his body painfully with what little energy he had left.
Thus the search for his limbs started.
The first thing he found was his right arm, then slowly but surely, Ethan kept finding the rest of himself. It took a lot of effort and time, but he collected most of himself. Sadly, Ethan was too damaged to restore himself into completion. The blond looked up at the dark clouds of ashes and smoke covering the sun ⸺his main source of energy⸺ and decided that a recovering nap was in order.
Laughter awoke him not too long after, however. Specters collecting souls, Ethan thought when he saw the various figures floating about with many balls of light ⸺souls⸺ following them. One of them got closer to Ethan, a woman with bright, blue fire around her. She regarded him with laughing eyes, but the ones speaking her mind were her spectral familiars.
“Poor thing, fallen from grace.” Said one.
“Lost all he loved and fought for!” mocked the other.
“Should’ve thought better about abandoning his duty.” Added the first one with pity in his voice.
“Bet he didn’t think their time together would be this short!” moped the other. The silvery woman shook her head in disapproval, then picked part of him, her fire servant followed taking what was left of Ethan. Ethan had not said anything in hopes they would leave him alone, but now was a different story. If a collector of souls had plans for him, they most likely were not good ones.
“What are you doing?” Ethan asked, trying to unite his limbs to no avail. Her servants laughed at his futile efforts. She looked back at him with sharp eyes and said:
“Fixing you” Her voice spoke straight into his mind, and it felt like being inside a chiming bell. Two words and Ethan felt disoriented, tormented and ⸺overall⸺ with a big headache.
That was enough to shut him up for good.
She took him to a cottage that appeared the moment they arrived. The specter dropped Ethan on the floor and left her servants attaching him. They put him back together with their fire, though Ethan had to wonder how it had worked as he knew that specters did not have an affinity for healing or fixing.
“Flare! Something is missing!” Ethan stared at them with mild anger. All of his fingers were missing and he did have them all when they kidnapped him.
“Our Lady has ’em” said Flare with disinterest and not caring to hide the finger he was munching on. Before Ethan could point out the obvious, he added: “Blaze, tell ’im to stop glaring”
“I’ll stop if you stop eating my finger.” Both flames burst out laughing.
“This isn’t yours” Blaze explained waiving the severed finger in front of Ethan. “It’s someone else’s”
Indeed, it was not Ethan’s; he did not feel the pull of ownership from it when he focused his attention on the finger. The fact only brought more questions, though.
“Why did she take them, then?”
“For this.” She said in her tormenting voice. In one hand she had not only his missing fingers but his hands and feet. In her other hand she had a lantern. The servants awed, but Ethan was simply confused. If she had his hands, whose were the fingerless ones he had?
“Oops!” Said Flare, embarrassedly detaching the strangers’ parts.
“A little mix up.” Apologized Blaze fixing their mistake under their master’s intense gaze. At this point Ethan’s body and mind were numb; he didn’t feel anything anymore and for that, he was quite glad. He would have stopped functioning otherwise
He wondered if that was good or bad, though.
The Specter bathed Ethan in the lantern’s light which renewed his energy a little. Just enough to enable him to restore himself and move around on his own.
“Sleep” She ordered, then left. Blaze and Flare cheered at his recovery; they got him pillows and sheets for him to sleep on. However, Ethan’s kind did not need to sleep like most creatures. In fact, basic functions like eating, sleeping and feeling strongly ⸺among others⸺ were things that Ethan did not need to do. As such, his body did not ask for them because they are not essential. Nonetheless, if he tried them out, Ethan was quite capable of performing them… Just not as naturally as anybody else.
So, Ethan laid on the pillows and wrapped himself in the sheets and… stayed awake for hours until he simply decided to render himself unconscious. He dreamed of his wife and son, happily making spells and potions at the workshop. His wife teaching witchcraft to children and his son studying new spells to mess with people.
“Wake up” The specter command startled Ethan awake from his nostalgic dream. It gave him a headache and made him dizzy. Before his attention fell fully on the ethereal woman, she tossed him a skeleton, ⸺bones fully connected, clean of flesh and nerves⸺ it was cold like ice and some of his fingers stuck to it. As before, Ethan did not utter a word, giving a questioning stare instead.
“She wants you to fix it!” Blaze explained, earning himself a satisfied smile from The Specter. Ethan put the skeleton next to him.
“Restore it. Put flesh on it” Flare elaborated, lazily circling around him.
“Is that how you want me to repay you?” She nodded. “I can do it, but it will take time and without a soul it won’t last.”
“Don’t worry ’bout the soul.” Flare dismissed with a movement of his tiny, flame-like hands. Blaze laughed cheerfully. “My lady has it all planned.”
“It’s alive!” Blaze shrieked when the skeleton moved after he poked it.”M’lady, it worked!”
Both servants yelled and circled The Specter excitedly. Ethan observed with interest how the skeleton moved slowly, as if waking up. He helped it sit up and all movement ceased.
“What are you planning?” Ethan asked carefully letting go of the skeleton.
“I’m bored.” She answered with a smile and a shrug. As expected of her kind… Ethan thought with a sigh.
The Specter motioned him to start working and, as usual, left in vortex of blue flames.
“Nice to meet you, buddy. I’m Ethan.” He had expected no reaction, so it was a surprise when the skeleton shook his hand softly. The blond man smiled softly in response.
From then on, Ethan spent his days talking with the skeleton, or playing with the fire servants. He never left the cottage, Blaze and Flare would not let him, but he guessed it was an order from The Specter so he would stay focused on restoring the skeleton.
From time to time, The Specter would appear to check his progress. She never stayed long, always silently seeing Ethan work on her project.
One day, he was talking about his wife’s pregnancy to the little skeleton; he told it how happy they were when they discovered they would be having a boy. That’s when a thought occurred to him:
Was this a boy or a girl skeleton? Ethan never learnt how to tell them apart from one another; it was the same to him. He stared at the undead playing with blocks Ethan made for it. So far Ethan had fully restored its bright, red hair and crystal clear, blue eyeballs.
“We just pick a skeleton from a pile!” Blaze said to his inquiry.
“A random skeleton with a random sprite.” Added Flare running away from the redhead. Just out of curiosity, Ethan asked the skeleton, but because it did not know how to speak yet, ⸺or maybe it didn’t understand⸺ the question remained unanswered. The blond even asked The Specter, but the silvery woman simply shrugged and left after a small telepathic chat with her servants.
After long hours of pondering and examining the undead redhead, Ethan settled on it being a girl on the account of it being small, with slender bones.
“M’lady says you can name it!” Blaze announced cheerfully one day while Ethan worked on the skeleton’s face; a suggestion made by the skeleton herself. She just kept pointing at her skull whenever Ethan casted his magic on her whole body. Surprising enough, the process went faster this way and her face was half way done.
“You mean her, right?” Ethan corrected. Blaze made a noise, but didn’t change his sentence. The redhead seemed content with the correction. “Does it mean I can adopt her?”
“Master is no longer interested.” Said Flare from afar. “You’ve taken too long.”
“Am I free to go, then?” Both flames laughed, shaking their head no.
“Gotta Finish what you started.” Flare explained hovering around to the girl.
“She still wants to know how it looks like.” Blaze added chuckling evilly. Ethan frowned at the servant’s antics.
“I you finish it this week, our Master will tell you something interesting.”
“Perfect.” Ethan looked at the skeleton, ⸺who had the upper part of her face complete⸺ and smiled. “Your name is Winter, ok?” She shrugged, a smile on her eyes. “She has a name and it is Winter, do you understand balls of fire?”
“How unoriginal!” Blaze said and if it had eyes, he would’ve rolled them. “Just cuz it’s cold and creates ice, you call it Winter.” Blaze shook his head in disapproval.
“Bet your wife had to name you son,” Flare mocked. “before you called ’im Wizard.”
“She didn’t, though.” Ethan replied, calm and unaffected. “She actually had worse naming sense. She wanted to called him Ether or Silver.”
Ethan continued the restoration of Winter from the head down. Turns out Winter was a cute girl with a face full of freckles. Her red hair grew past her shoulders and her teeth got prettier. The flame servants enjoyed combing and braiding her hair whenever Ethan taught her how to speak. Her voice was neither high nor low pitched and Ethan found her laugh enjoyable.
“Fa…fadah” Winter repeated after Blaze, who got smacked by Ethan’s hand. Winter laughed, clapping her hands. “Faiah servant’z funny.”
“aww, he’s embarrassed!” Flare mocked, bringing a woodcarving from who-knows-where.
“You’re weird.” Out of nowhere, The Specter appeared from a bunch of flames. Winter let out a yelp and hid in Ethan’s embrace.
“Says the collector of souls who reanimated a skeleton with a sprite instead of a soul.” The woman crossed her arms with a smile on her face.
The Specter extended both of her hands and under her meaningful stare and the servants’ mild insults, Ethan and Winter took one each.
The world became a vast space full of blue flames. There, the woman’s voice echoed but wasn’t painful and disorienting.
“You’ve done well, fallen guardian.” Winter stayed close to Ethan, looking around scared. The blond stayed still, calm with a small smile adorning his face. The Specter continued; “As promised, I have good news for you. Your son is alive. He was one of the few survivors of the catastrophe. Know that many years have passed while you slept under the debris.” She stopped and waited, expecting a reaction from him, yet he did nothing. Unexpectedly, Winter started cheering and shaking the man happily.
Ethan stayed frozen in place, not quite believing what the woman had said. He had resigned to never seeing any of his family alive. Now that he was being told his son was alive, Ethan didn’t know how to react.
“He’s alive and well.” The specter said with a smile. “He was last seen in Cloud City.”
Just as they got into the flame world, they were back in front of the cottage. They were standing in the middle of a barren landscape, ruins peeked from a distance. The Specter and her servants were nowhere to be found.
Finally, the good news kicked in and Ethan hugged Winter. He spun around laughing. Ethan had a new objective now. Better yet, he wasn’t alone; he had Winter to keep him company.
So the two departed to Cloud City.
