Nova Rose

The Reef was beautiful. The stories had done no justice, but the ghost didn't think justice would be possible. The expanse of clouds and rippling reality stretched beyond the cliffs, leaving the ghost overwhelmed with the sight. She followed the arching white paths into the middle of nowhere and looked over the remaining wildlife in awe. The nameless ghost wondered if finding her Guardian would make the beauty feel less empty.

She ventured along the bluffs, winding in and out of caves and crevasses, and she was admiring a jutting slab of the glittering purple stones when something… itched?

The Ghost could never know what a chill up one's spine could feel like, but that was the only way to describe it. If she had skin it would crawl, if she had a stomach, it would have butterflies. A sound she could not hear, a song without music, called to the ghost's very inner being.

But there were no bodies here. No corpses, nothing, not even bones. The ghost looked around, then began to circle. She heard it, she felt it, she still felt it!

It wasn't getting any louder, it didn't make sense that there would be a noise that didn't have a source-- But nothing!

Out into the open mists, back into the caves, the nameless ghost circled and searched until she found her way back to the purple slab where she felt it the first time.

She didn't have eyes to water, either, but she was still going to cry. She didn't even have a Guardian. It made no sense to miss someone she never met and then mourn their loss because she didn't meet them, but it ached too much to deny.

One last go around, the ghost decided. If the song stopped, she'd come back but if it was just going to feel like this now, she would resurrect the next corpse she encountered.

The ghost ventured to the top of the slab for a better vantage point. Mists. Rocks. More rocks. more–

By sheer chance, the sun glinted off a piece of shattered visor and caught the ghost's eye. She dropped to its nook in the cave and discovered the visor, the helmet it once belonged to, and the dome of the skull sticking out of the sand like so many stones surrounding it.

The ghost scanned the dirt frantically, biting down a scream. A litter of "rocks" she looked at a dozen times were bones jutting from the dirt, hidden by detritus and decay.

A simple scan revealed the crushed skeleton barely holding shape under a thin layer of sand. The body was decades old. Sinew clung, calcified tendons and ligaments remained, but she'd be dust in twenty years. The ghost scanned the corpse again, studying.

The "song" was still the same. The ghost hoped it would get louder when she found the guardian. What if another body was around here? Another accompanying this one?

The scan of the corpse showed nothing interesting, but the connection kept calling. The ghost was afraid to take the chance, but she couldn't bear to think this wasn't the right one, whatever gut she had was screaming at her.

Despite that, she wasn't certain until the resurrection process began.

It felt so natural. She didn't know how she knew, but using the Light to weave the body back together, to inject life where it once belonged... It was easy. Even building from the ground so that the sand was pushed away, the flesh knitted together as though she had done it ten thousand times.

The ghost felt like she was being her guardian's soul, putting life back into the body like that. Recreating the image of the person she once was to exist anew. It was magic, of course, but the center of the ghost's little metal being was swelling with such joy, she thought she would burst.

The frame was certainly Titanic, though she wasn't especially tall. That speculation could wait. Bright red hair. Awoken! The skin was gray with the pretty swimmy light. The ghost laughed at herself for caring, but she always hoped her Guardian would be. The marks on her face might have meant something but the ghost wouldn't know and the guardian wouldn't remember. She wasn't wearing a corsair's uniform. You're not supposed to speculate on their previous lives...

The Awoken woman's silver eyes opened slowly, but she was already pushing herself upright and shedding the inches of sand.

"Hello? Hello! Eyes up, Guardian!" The Ghost giggled and bobbed into her guardian's line of sight. "Sorry, I always wanted to say that. And now I get to! Because I found you!" The ghost failed to contain herself and flew laps around her guardian's head with another overjoyed giggle.

The Awoken felt her face and head as the ghost came to a halt, front and back petals spinning while she waited for her Guardian to finish her self-examination.

A serious crease hardened the woman's brow as she took in their surroundings. "I don't remember... Anything. Do. Did. Do I know you? You found me? I feel like I know you, but I don't know myself right now. Where am I? It smells wet. What's your name?"

The ghost's petals spun like a mad clock, and she couldn't make them stop. "I don't have a name, yet, and neither do you, but that's okay! No one remembers who they were. And we don't need to. What's important now is…" The ghost had to recalibrate, the words were so much to say. "I'm your Ghost. And you are my Guardian."

The newly risen Awoken relaxed her creased brow, and she held her hand out. The ghost hovered over like she'd seen others do, finding a comfortable sense of the guardian's hand and leveling with the silver eyes. The blue iris gazed into the shining silver, and the ghost felt the song like an embrace.

The guardian held her hand up higher. "Can I hold you? I won't hurt you, I just want to see you up close."

The ghost landed gingerly, not sure what to expect. She'd never been held before. The shell felt funny with the pressure applied like that, but nothing was uncomfortable. The woman gently cradled her with fingertips, lifting carefully and looking beneath, then holding her palm out flat for the ghost to take off when she was ready. The ghost stayed, enjoying the fit, and the guardian seemed content with this.

"I'm sorry I'm not being more informative," the ghost remembered to say. "I feel like I should be telling you more, but I'm so happy to meet you! I've been looking for you for so long! Forever! My entire life! And I found you!" The ghost's voice cracked, she couldn't help it, she didn't even know how it did that.

The guardian smiled sweetly but was obviously confused, which was perfectly reasonable. The ghost spun her petals on purpose this time, trying to get herself under control. "Do you want to name us?"

The guardian looked surprised by the question, then frowned with thought. The brow only briefly creased, this time. "Not now. I don't want our names to be the first noises that popped in my head after I woke up from the dead.” The Awoken frowned again and looked at the dust still covering her clothes. "That is what happened, right, I was dead and you. Uh, Am I a zombie?"

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