wandering the song

the little sprite + the scaled-up version

When Kiwi is struck by Audrey's sword in Act 3, it does more than just hurt them—it completely separates their spirit from their body, leading to them becoming a ghost for the rest of the game.

Some may call this 'killing'...heh...simpletons...it's a little more Complex than that

They're essentially dead, for now. But their body is still alive (still breathing!), just completely comatose, and with Kiwi's spirit unable to re-enter. That's because organic creatures aren't supposed to be able to be killed with the sword. The sword is specifically for killing spirits, so while it can harm physical things, it's never actually deadly, as the body typically serves as a barrier to the soul.

In Kiwi's case, though, they have a piece of the Earthsong with them, giving them more 'spirit essence', I guess you could call it, than anything organic usually would. This gives the sword more of an opening to get to their soul—not enough that their soul disappears, or that their body dies, but enough to separate the two.

Now, of course, this is Not supposed to happen. Kiwi’s circumstances are really unique—successfully getting a piece of the Earthsong is already a pretty rare feat in and of itself, and that along with happening to have a Hero that shoots you while you have that piece is even rarer. So rare that it has never happened before in the history of Any Universe Ever.

Eyala senses something being Wrong after Kiwi falls and quickly goes to check up on them, about the same time that Miriam enters to wake them up, and they both get to witness when Kiwi shoots up from where they were laying—and still are laying, at the same time. Nobody is having a good time.

Miriam's incredibly confused and concerned about everything. She has absolutely no idea what's going on. Kiwi is, understandably, in even more in shock than in canon. Which leaves Eyala to have to tell Miriam the whole story (which does not make Miriam endeared to her). And Eyala's panicking, a bit. Juuuust a little. Nothing like this has happened before and she doesn't entirely know what she's supposed to do about it.

She can only theorize that it's because of the Earthsong piece that they had. She doesn't actually know if they can fix this. But she can't just leave that cute little bard all sad and dead like that...so she does her best to give them a little bit of hope. They can still collect the Earthsong pieces, they're still technically alive, and there's a chance that they could be brought back. It might sound impossible, but this was supposed to be an impossible circumstance anyway, so they might as well try, right? (And I like to think they could...singing the Wandersong would unite their body and soul again. They just have to Get There)

It works temporarily and they collect Queen Chaos's piece but there's still a longggggg way to go before they're actually feeling any better. Their depressive episode is deservedly even worse than canon. I'm debating with myself whether they'd go straight to Chismest or if Miriam would circle back to Saphy for help, considering they're already at sea...it certainly wouldn't be pleasant for Miriam to show up with Kiwi's body to their mom's house, haha

I think because of this that Eyala becomes a little more pushy with suggestions on where Audrey should go next. Go for the scenic route. Take a few more detours. Oh, no, we're in no rush at all :) (she is not supposed to delay The Hero's quest like this). Because she both wants to give the other two some more time and especially she doesn't want them to meet again, considering she is actively hiding what happened to Kiwi from her. (But can't we all just be friends? Can't we all just get along?

Audrey has no clue that she basically killed someone. Eyala knows that she didn't mean to, and would be upset if she found out, so she figures the best way to spare her feelings is to not let her know at all, so she doesn't doubt herself as The Hero. Gotta keep her focused! (She says, while actively distracting her from the quest.) And she's sure this will never backfire.

It backfires because she ends up just being REALLY bad at timing, and with the extra time both sides took they ended up meeting in the Orderscape anyway (at least, that's how it was in one of those older comics, but I dunno. Maybe it would be good to change???? Unsure!!!!! There's also the possibility that they actually go somewhere other than Chismest first, considering the fact that it's possibly farther from Tatango than Rulle or Chaandesh and Kiwi could have requested to go. But!!! idk i'd have to think about it more lol).

Audrey finds out what happened and confronts Eyala about it, who concedes pretty quickly. They'd have their fallout even sooner, with Audrey feeling both betrayed right after finding out she'd been misguided by her a second time (and after this time she'd said she could be told anything!!!) and guilty at what she'd done, along with her complex about being the Hero.

She could either get more aggressive, or soften up a little towards them—maybe a bit of both. She's a complicated woman and currently doing horribly mentally. But she really did not mean to do that and Feels Bad. She might even go try and say sorry. The terrible feelings are perfect grounds for her to lash out at things, though. I think she'd stick to her quest, but lots of interactions would change. Kiwi and Miriam still don't really like her. Miriam wants to kill her. Kiwi doesn't but finds it extremely hard to be around her.

Kiwi's appearance in the living world gets less detailed as time goes on (as seems to be the case for the ghosts in-game), while in the Spirit World they look pretty normal. And also in the Spirit World I like to think that their color palette changes for each Earthsong piece they collect—the reason their spirit looks green in the first image—until they look rainbow at the end!

OKAYYYYYYYY and for the rest of your ask: imagining an evil Kiwi like that is often hard for me, I just can't picture them doing it most of the time...they're a terrible liar...but I actually do think I can fit that sort of thing into the ghost AU. In this scenario, I'm thinking, since now they're a spirit with the Earthsong in addition to everything else, they could corrupt. The Earthsong is the pure part of an Overseer, but. Like. We can mess with that it's an AU haha

Personality changes before anything else when it comes to this type of corruption, so I think that works nicely with how you described! They wouldn't look any different (yet), but they sure would be different...maybe they just get corrupted into Actually being good at lying I think that's funny. Of course there also comes the angst when they're fully corrupted and that's wonderful as well...i love torturing that bard (affectionate)