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Music is a foreign thing to them, always lost in a tangle of thoughts and objectives. It is easy for crawling and hissing and the whistle of claw and nail cutting through the air to drown out a melody, but it is easier still for a weary body to absorb it.
It is not Soul. It does not heal; it doesn’t even provide the respite that a bench does. But it is soothing, and it makes a trill of something warm rise in their chest.
For that, it is enough. The Knight bows their gratitude after every visit; it quiets the stir of all the words they want to say in thanks, performing them in the gentle, downwards sweep of their head.
Myla does not seem to mind their silence. They think she might even like them, just as they like her and her song. Even when the dark matter of the Knight’s being weeps through the splinters in their shell and their bow is more akin to a slump, she still sings to them, even though they cannot answer her concerned glances.
When she starts to slump, too, they do not react.
Soon after, her singing stops. Her dark eyes adopt the glint of a colour too familiar.
They do not have words, nor wisdom. They only have their nail, and a stir of something in their chest that makes it hurt to look at Myla.
Still, they draw their blade when the moment calls.
She is as the others were; easy to put to rest. Infection pools at the Knight’s feet.
The husk that once was Myla is silent, but they still hear whispers of her song echo through their mind. It is nonsensical, but they cannot kill that rhythmic phantom of a lullaby unsung. No one is singing in these empty mines, they tell themself. And it is likely no one will ever sing here again.
It is for the best, maybe, that the last proper sound they should know is Myla’s carefree song. It is more than anyplace in this Kingdom deserves.
Later the Knight would bring what’s left of her a flower. It does not fix anything, even if they want it to. It cannot. It is selfish and apologetic, but it remains nonetheless. She would have liked it, the Knight thinks. They bow to the silence and receive nothing in return.
But then, it is not just Myla. Hers is not the only regret marked by the twine of a pale flower’s stem.
They look at the nail, its sharp tip embedded in the stone. It stands encircled by shards, like offerings at a tilted shrine.
The Knight understands how goodbyes feel now, even if they’re not accompanied by a corpse they can see.
Beyond that, they understand what it means to be taken by something, be it infection, or power, or fear. Or grief. That one, too, will make you its own. That one especially.
Is the very flower they’re holding not proof of that?
They leave it by the nail, wishing for it to mean something, and knowing just as deeply that it doesn’t.
In the end, it is not just the Blue Lake’s waters lapping at this lonely shore, having foreshadowed this not-a-farewell. It is not just the mist of essence fading in the place of a friend. It is not just the flame and their kin and Heart, warping and vanishing in a strange, confusing dance. Not just their sister’s mother, unresisting in the face of their own nail as they cut her down. Not just their sibling back when they were falling apart, woven and held together by dream and infection alone. It is so much more.
It is everything they cannot have and everything they do not want to do. It is frustration and selfishness and bitterness. It is want.
.
The Knight wants so badly. They wanted for their sister, and so they took what they could of what she gave, and built themself a name out of a throwaway title. They want so badly for more of her, even if it means fighting. They want back the little moments of closeness with anyone at all, moments they hadn’t thought to hold onto back when they were still under the illusion that they could keep them, keeping getting more of them.
How easy it would be, to solve things without just the blade of their weapon if they hadn’t been destined to silence and sacrifice?
How much easier, to bring life to fading towns and preserve one’s friends from sickness? From themselves?
They want painfully for the small things like the shinier map markers, like the odd affectionate touches Quirrel used to give the top of their mask. Like Cornifer’s humming, or the warmth of Mato’s room, or the bright splotches of colour dotting Sheo’s canvases in entrancing shapes and figures, or the sight of their flower in Mato’s vase; in the corner of Sly’s cupboard, too, and in Iselda and Cornifer’s shop behind where they keep their quills. They want to ride the Old Stag because he tells stories and they like it, and they especially like the swift run through the dark and shifting passages that run under the ancient kingdom.
But just as with this new flower that's become another gravemarker at the symbolic tombstone of another friend, none of this want means anything at all.
It is clear, this: they are a being of wanting. And they are regret, too, born of Gods and Void, tucked and shaped into a frame too small to hold all this need. It is no surprise when the hairline fractures grow into cracks, nor when the cracks widen into gaping holes where the shell has begun to collapse.
Whereas all the Knight had been was desperate desire that yielded no answer, the Lord of Shades is claws and anger and bitterness. They tear and slash and take from the Dream until it is pouring essence, then trickling with it. They bore into it with too many eyes as it chokes with its last breaths, wavering towards silence.
It does not take much effort.
So easy. So easy, this, after all they’ve gone through. So much simpler than sating the other wants, the smaller, selfish ones.
Killing Gods is nothing. These hands haven’t known much beyond the killing through their metamorphosis. And now it is achingly familiar, like the beating of a second heart. Perhaps it had never been a stranger at all.
It is quiet now. Even the shriek and crackle of essence in the air makes no noise.
The Lord of Shades does not like this. They watch, dispassionate, as the Old Dream stops its breathless writhing and goes to its rest. Permanently, this time.
(A soft vibration quivers within the mass of Shade, muffled only by the sound of gently bleeding essence. If one strains to hear, it sounds like the first notes of a song.)
They ask to be called ‘Ghost’.
It is difficult to communicate this at first, but then Sheo allows them to paint it. Even when the colour they choose is bright chartreuse rather than the standard black, he doesn’t stop them. He’s been allowing them much recently. Sheo’s doors are always open, so he says, although his hut is more crowded now that he has someone with which to share it.
Neither of them minds Ghost, anyway. Sheo even lets them take the canvas with them.
They like to look at it when travelling gets weary. Often, they will trace the dry pigment with their hand, feeling bits of it flake and come apart. Sometimes they even draw smaller things in the corners: little flowers and old signs and lumaflies humming with soft white light. Hornet, too. Many Hornets, slumped and resting in stag stations, cradling weaverlings in open palms, spooling silk and polishing needles. Less frequently (they are too big) though with just as much heart, there is also Sibling- the bigger one, with all the flowers they liked so much woven around their horns, with their new cloak and their new nail, with the little mosskin they’ve befriended that likes to sleep in their lap. The travelling and recovering, as they trudge across the empty land, are pictured in splotchy silhouettes of black ink pressed against the corners when the rest of the canvas gets too crowded with reds and pinks and greens and blues.
Ghost starts leaving doodles in the small notebook Iselda had given them when they wish to conserve canvas space. It is not so much the art as the memory of it, captured in the skin of these pages and bringing them to joy when it cannot be brought to them.
On their way to the Howling Cliffs, they pause. Near the Southern intersect where Greenpath meets with the Cliffs is a small cove.
It is a smooth stone formation just big and comfortable enough for Ghost to slot into. Safe, too, now that there are no infected beasts to hunt them. They crawl inside it, relishing in the cosiness for a stretch of time. Slowly, with no pressing duty to begrudge them the leisure of comfort, they begin to lay out their items.
The canvas, first, bursting with records and colour. Then the bottles of ink, one after the other. The new quill, long and purple, its tip stiff and stained from its last use.
They only have a little red left in their bottle, and the grey they have isn’t anything close to what they need. Still, when their quill dips into the ink and starts to make shapes, each stroke paints a streak of warmth through them. They are happy.
The shapes aren’t nearly as good as Sheo’s, of course, seeing as Ghost’s hands are not those of an artist. (They don’t have to be. It’s all right.) Still, they are recognisable. The happy couple stares up at them, their smudged, joyous faces beaming from the top-left of the canvas, surrounded by all the other things that had brought Ghost the same happiness.
They linger until they feel sated by the content it brings them. Then, bit by bit, they recollect their items and tuck them under their cloak, ready to finish their trek.
The sound of a door creaking open. Quiet footsteps, one after the other.
The Nailmaster is slumbering, wrapped in the warmth of his cloak. Ghost closes the door behind them soundlessly. They rest the back of the canvas against the far wall. They are sure he would like to see all the lovely things they’ve seen since they last visited. More than that, they are certain he’ll be happy to see how his brother and his partner are doing.
He will call them his child again. He will say he is proud. He will ask questions, too, and be patient with the answers in whatever form they come.
It is warm here, especially now that there is sunlight sometimes. Ghost sits with their knees bent beside Mato, facing the canvas.
One, two, three. Counting silly mindless patterns, counting the petals, the leaves, the family, the strangers, all while they wait for drowsiness to come. It falls upon them in waves, bringing with it the promise of dreamless rest. The counting grows slower.
Before the recollection is complete, a tired eye opens beside them. They are too far gone to properly notice at first.
The shuffle of fur and fabric phases through the silence as Mato stirs. The Nailmaster’s laugh is quiet, softened at the edges by sleep.
“So soon you come to visit me again…?” His gaze shifts to the canvas, and he is silent. When he speaks again, Mato’s voice is heavy with something Ghost cannot recognise.
Softly, he says, “What wonderful surprises you bring each time. Although… I doubt the surprise of your presence can ever be usurped, little one.”
He reaches his hand towards them. Ghost leans into the warmth of it, their head lolling to the side as Mato brings them closer. They curl up there, pressed to Mato’s side. He draws the cloak around both of them this time.
“You can stop here anytime you want,” says Mato.
Anytime they want.
(Anytime, anytime, anytime. )
(They want so badly, all the time, with all that is in them. They want for things so much it kills them sometimes. It wears them down to the core of their shade, claws with fervour at the God hiding beneath their shell.)
They have never been held like this before, come to think of it.
Ghost’s hands clutch at Mato, sleepy and pointlessly needy in their search. He doesn’t deny them the gentle respite of warmth.
(Against the wall, their painted memoir is full and bright, though they can barely see it above the cloak that swaddles them. They have so much to do and so much to love. They do not want to be a God. They want this, now, forever. Sister and sibling and Mato and every happy memory kissed between their notebook pages, inked into the heart of their canvas.)
They drift into a comfortable slumber.