CHAPTER 61: GHASTLY REVERIE

"Say I was, Cora. What then?"

Her heart started bearing rapidly, and her breath came a little shorter than usual as she had to take a deep breath to compose herself.

It was a simple hypothetical; she couldn’t figure out why she felt so scared for a moment.

As she closed her eyes to gather herself, a vague notion of displeasure crossed her mind at the thought of him being a ghost.

She felt very wrong for thinking like that, hypocritical, malicious.

"What if you were? What would it change?"

She said softly while still deep in her thoughts.

"Miss Cora?"

"... Miss? No.... No, no, no, call me Cora like you did just now."

Coming out of her thoughts her first sentence wasn’t to answer his question but something else entirely.

"Uh.. what?"

"You just called me by my name, don’t go back now. Call me Cora. You’re my friend."

"Friend?"

"Yes. You’re my friend. And what if you were one of them, it wouldn’t change a thing. Some people might get prejudiced but not me."

She said with a determined expression, as if making a sombre tryst.

"I’m very glad you think so highly of me Miss Cora, but could you give me a little more on how the normal populace would react, not everyone is magnanimous like you, after all."

Noctis, still neutral in his expression and tone, replied firmly.

"Um-hmm. Cora. Co-ra. Say it!"

She shook her head side to side, not budging.

"Can you tell me, Cora?"

He sighed softly.

’Silly stuff. Whatever.’

"That’s right. And well.. majority folks, even in such big cities are not very receptive to them. It isn’t as bad as those tribes and clans in the west that... do not let such people even live.. our kingdom does prohibit such gross conduct."

"But other than killing, everything else is valid?"

"Oh no, not at all. In the first place they do not mingle much with humans as they are given separate places to live normally, and anyone that is in human cities is most likely with the permission of the local governor or viscount, so... it is still not like that... Yeah, not in this country, definitely.

Besides, as I said you’re not one of them. Don’t worry about such stuff."

The more Noctis heard her voice, fluctuating between hesitation to hopeful denial, the more his head started aching.

She explained in a way she saw fit for a village kid dealing with possible future tragedy shoved in their face unbeknownst to them, something he could understand from her position.

He was actually glad she seemed to care this much for him, but he couldn’t help reading between the lines.

Just thinking about what he might have to deal with later, gave him a brain aneurysm. He could finally understand just what his mother was worried about.

Noctis exhaled a sigh as he realised now wasn’t the time to brood, besides it could indeed just be some mutation- yeah no he wasn’t going to kid himself.

He said to her,

"Thanks Cora. I know this must be hard on you so I’ll stop with this topic. Just one last thing, you seem pretty sure I’m not one of them because Regina didn’t tell you, why is that?"

The girl looked worried as she saw Noctis deep in his thoughts, his eyes drooping below, making her feel more guilty for saying something without thinking earlier.

She really needed to go back and relearn all the etiquette she seemed to have exhaled away somehow.

"Yeah well it’s just something an awakened does. They can tell if someone was not human, almost instinctively.

They say it’s because humans are more attuned to life force and can tell them apart between human and... non-human."

"Right..."

Noctis nodded a little, going over the reason in his head.

"So is there not a term for these people, or do you just say not human?"

Noctis asked off-handedly, still thinking about the life force thing.

"Generally, we give a name to a race or clan, taken sometimes from what they call themselves or their features etc. I suppose as a whole, there isn’t any term, that I know of at least.

.... Oh, there is one that rural populace use for them, as they don’t really care about the official names of those races."

She gave an instinctive answer, and later added after thinking about it for some time.

"Well, what’s that?"

Noctis picked on it and asked,

"Ghosts."

***

The grass was high near the hedgerows, and the children vanished into it like darting hares, their laughter snapping through the summer air.

Beyond the last cottages, the fields stretched out in a green-brown quilt, stitched with paths the farmers never named but the children knew by heart.

Bare feet thumped over the dust, toes skimming weeds, hands clutching sticks that were swords until they became spears, or banners, or wands.

Now and then, someone glanced towards the far treeline where the grown-ups said not to wander. The group of kids played about, not a worry to mark their naive conscience.

While they were playing, they could notice a child the same age as them, crouching near a tree.

They had seen him around this place before; always watching them from the shade of the tree.

His striking white hair roused their curiosities, making them want to befriend him and play with him, but grown ups always warned them against it.

After repeated scolding, they had stopped inviting him to play with them, but the strange kid with big white hair and porcelain skin remained in the vicinity, sitting in the shade, watching.

While the little kids, no more than 4-5 years old, played together like everyday, there was another addition to the group.

Two kids in their early teens lazed around them, avoiding work on the sunny day.

Seeing him crouching at the tree, they went a little closer to see what he was doing, something to kill their boredom.

Reaching him, they saw a honey badger holding the kid’s knees as the kid murmured something to it.

Strangely, the badger nodded along as if it was understanding every word of the strange kid.

The more they watched the creepier the scene looked to them.

The eagerness on the boy’s face, the human-like expressions from the badger; it unsettled them as one of the kids took a stone from the ground and hurled it towards them as he bellowed.

"What the hell are you doing!?"

The stone striked the kid straight in the head as he winced in pain.

The badger now looked at the kids as Its expression turned menacing, jumping and attacking the kid that had thrown the stone.

The other teen watched in horror as the sharp claws of the badger dug into the kid, deep gashes tearing through his clothes and scoring his skin.

Blood oozed out from mangled flesh, two screams echoed around the place.

One filled with unimaginable pain and another in horror.

The kids playing in the distance saw the scene of a badger brutalising a human and started crying furiously while screaming and frantically running towards the village.

The villagers in the fields closest to the outskirts, ran out of their fields, abandoning their work, muddied and tired, towards the horrified screams.

The scene left them shell-shocked as they came across the scene of mayhem on a child.

One man raced towards it as he kicked the badger with overwhelming force to get it away from the kid.

Kneeling at the kid, the man averted his eyes in an effort to control his bowels from regurgitating out of his mouth immediately, as he saw the bones of the kid showing at numerous locations.

He had stopped screaming for a while at that time, only a voice still echoing that of the frozen teen right beside him.

Forcing himself, the man focused back on the mangled kid as he saw his red bulging eyes staring into him, silently screaming for help.

Unable to control further he vomited everything he had eaten that morning out, right beside the kid as another man kicked him out of the way from behind.

Quickly assessing the situation, the second tore a piece of clothing to cover his nose before picking up the bloodied kid and running towards the man with limited knowledge of medicine in the village.

On the other side, the badger kicked away by the man stood up and had started running towards the kids once again before 5 year old Noctis blocked his path, crying himself and requesting the badger to stop.

The badger stopped for a moment, mortified at the crying kid, glancing once towards the teens before running back into the forest without looking back.

Other people had also started reaching the place, holding and consoling the little ones while housing the teen for reason.

The teen, still horrified, just pointed towards Noctis, watching them with a side eye from a little inside the forest.

Without waiting for a word to be spoken, one of the men interrogating the teen picked up another stone and hurled it straight at the stunned kid.

"You bastard! You did this!"

Another man also took a stone as he bellowed,

"You wicked ghost!"