Touch of Ethereal Hands

[Shae]

The ghost had come to the Forbidden Forest once again, and once again stood in the clearing where she had died. Where she had been killed, her heart ripped out through her throat and - once her murderess had taken a bite - been buried. It had been a dawn filled with revelations and new reasoning.

Now she was sitting on the grassy earth, covering it in frost because of her own frozen aura. It was something she couldn't help, the ice. It followed her everywhere. No, that wasn't exactly right. She was part of this frozen state, dwelling in the ether was like that. She didn't complain much, she had been able to take advantage of the freezing temperatures her touch caused to spread, but sometimes it was irritating.

She had been considering all the things that had happened to her since and because of what had transpired in this very glade just as dawn broke, and of what she might do with herself if it ever came to pass that the despair of not being able to touch people overwhelmed her completely.

It had been touch - and her last memory of it - that had drawn her out here to consider all this, rather than just sitting in a wall inside the castle and thinking. Twice, her murderess, a demonic princess called Mai Le Rosa, had called up a blood-red rose from the place the girl's heart had been buried, and had been able to touch her. On both occasions, the phantomess was glad that Mai had done that.

She had just been wondering if she might be able to raise such a rose, and keep it - perhaps dried - and give it to whoever she had a need to touch, when she heard the sound of something moving in the Forest around her. She never assumed what might have made the sound, in the Forest it could be absolutely anything.

"Who is it I wonder," she said to herself. Her bright green eyes searching the surrounding trees, trying to locate the source of the whisper of sound she had heard. Of course, if any creature of the forest did not wish to be seen, she wasn't going to see them.

[Maí Lé Rosà]

Thoughts were such amazing things really. Through telepathy one could speak without moving the mouth, simply by thinking, and in those who did not share the ability of telepathy, they could sense thoughts through body language, or lack thereof in this case. The demoness watched silently, from between the leaning, creaking trees of the forbidden forest.

The beautiful existence before her brought light to the forest when all else was dim. Shae glowed, a transparent girl, a darling girl, cold right down to non-existent bones. Her very essence kissed the ground with frosty icicles, and Mai shivered, simply by staring at the wondrous being. Shae was certainly one of her favourites, and Mai had to compliment herself on formulating such an incredible being.

Before the demoness was the ghost's grave, the place she had buried her heart, if that was enough to call it a grave. Mai was glad Shae had been put to rest here, for no Graveyard would do this girl justice, she was unlike all the rest. She was special. Mai's special. Weaving out of the trees, Mai approached Shae quietly, letting her own aroma of dying rose-petals float around the clearing.

Coming to stand beside Shae, Mai's arms uncurled from behind her and in the lithe, black-gloved fingers of her right hand she held a sanguine rose, the same blood red of the liquid that had seeped down Mai's chin once a bite had been taken from Shae's pulsating heart. Mai smiled down at Shae gently and knelt beside her.

"I knew it was only a matter of time before you would miss at least one thing from your mortal life and admit it." Mai said softly, reaching out her hand to push a lock of Shae's gorgeous violet hair behind her ear. Taking Shae's hands up in her own, Mai carefully placed the rose between them, then let go. "You may keep it. Always." She said simply, rising.

[Shae]

The scent of dried roses did indeed waft around the beautiful demoness, and the ghost could hardly help but soften when she saw her killer. It had been a long time since they had time and oppertunity to talk or just spend time together.

The demoness produced a rose, it was familiar, and exactly as red as the Romani girl's life-blood had been. She closed her green eyes when she felt Mai touch her, brushing her purple hair back into place. Opening them again when she felt - it was glorious to touch again - Mai take her hand and place something in it.

When Mai let go, the rose remained in the girl's hand, and she could feel it. She was entranced by it for a moment, and the way that this one thing she was holding, actually holding rather than keeping it in place or making it float or hover with her ghostly magic, was not actually becoming covered in frost.

"I admit it, I've missed touch. It's taken me a year to get around to thinking of finding a way to touch, but it is what I have missed most. Thank you Mai," the ghost said, smiling softly to the rose, and Mai, and the clearing she had died in. A soft smile that was just sitting on her face to grace anyone who she turned her face to.

"Have you been well, Mai? I understand you created a little bit of havoc recently," the phantomess asked, tucking the rose into her own long pale violet tresses.

The small dead girl studied the demoness, the way her ivory locks flowed and her perfect skin dimpled lightly when she smiled. She was beautiful, wonderful, attractive, and of course deadly. The girl knew all those born of hell to be attractive and deadly, it was part of their nature.

One day the girl knew she would leave all the things of the world behind, it was a day she sometimes longed for. Perhaps the only tie that would keep her in this world would be the concern she had over the well being of her killer, but who was to know that? Love was something she still strive to perfect her exectution of, and she would continue until the day came that she left the living behind her forever.