Eastern Threshold The Hundred Kingdoms 27nd Moon of Resplendent Wood, Saturn's Day,  768 T he winds on the plains picked up as the young woman pulled her cloak tighter around her with one hand. She used it to hide the stump of her other arm as she walked. She didn't know where to – that monster had gotten the best of her. Then those... people had saved her. Why...? She was a monster. She couldn't figure out why strangers wanted to help her. After she treated that village the way she had. “You tried to help them regardless.” A voice spoke softly from her right, and she instinctively turned away from it. “You wanted to make things right even though they couldn't pay. You want to be accepted .” Her fingers gripped the hem of the cloak tighter, pulling on it harder as she tried to ignore the presence with her. “ Go away .” She barked, her pace speeding up, a slight limp forming as the magic binding her leg began its inevitable decay again. “If only I could. But you won't let me.” The voice continued, before she grit her teeth. The hand disappeared into her cloak, pulling a small black crystal from a pouch, and looking at it. “You could free me, you know. I'd disappear.” Her fingers gripped the crystal tighter, “Or, finish the ritual. Seal me inside and make me someone else's problem.” Staring down, she moved unconsciously, walking towards whatever drew her. The dying earth, she imagined, there was a Shadowland that direction. She always found herself in them. “I can't. I don't remember it. I don't know that I ever did.” There was a sigh from the voice as the source drifted closer, “Oh, you do. You knew enough to get me in here, and I knew enough to bring you back and make sure you finished it .” The voice grew raspy, with a growl, as she spun, turning to face the apparition that haunted her. The hazy form of a man she had once knew. In a life. A different life. One that was gone. “ I am not that person.” She snapped, as the ghost smirked, “You made me steal someone's face. Their body. And now I have to keep stealing from the dead just to stay alive . You cursed me, and now I'm cursed with you.” Her hand slipped back into her leathers, pushing the crystal back into some pocket to keep it out of sight. Hazy, the ghost shook his head, as if disappointed, “You keep saying that. You've even gone to extents to attempt to ruin that face so that I wouldn't recognize it.” The immaterial form circled her slowly, his steps methodical, and planned, ignorant of how unnecessary such things were in that form, “But you keep the yasal crystal anyway. Somewhere, you're still her. Despite your insistence on being someone else.” “Alabaster Ghost.” She twisted her head to keep eye contact with the spirit, “Not whoever you say I am.” “Right, Alabaster Ghost. Still.. somewhere, deep inside that dying heart of yours, the one you so desperately desire to tear from your chest if you knew it would kill you. In there somewhere is Soa Rumi.” He stopped, to let the words linger and sink in for a moment. There was a mixture of fear and confusion in the eyes of the resurrected woman as she tried to process this, again. “Doesn't matter who you say I am.” She looked forward, avoiding his gaze once more as she began walking, “I know I am Alabaster Ghost. Soa Rumi is dead. Her heart died the night you killed her. The night you replaced her soul with mine.” “Of course, of course.” The ghost smiled widely, drawing back slightly as his voice grew smaller, “So she did.” The ghost looked up at the night sky, as the last hours of darkness loomed and he'd be gone again until the next night. This night, however, was fruitful. She confirmed that somewhere – deep, deep within the corpse-made-animate, Soa Rumi thrived. Somewhere, her soul never moved on. She wasn't right, but Alabaster Ghost wasn't alone in there. They were now one.