Anchan Matcha の幽霊 2

You remembered your question?

I did. Also, I am going to avoid direct eye contact if that is okay.

Whatever makes you most comfortable, my dear.

…Thanks. So uh… when did you become a wraith?

How droll! And here I thought you were going to ask something personal.

Okay… How did you become a wraith?

Ah. I wish the story was as fascinating as you might think, but alas no. It was pure recklessness.

Reckless talent. Reckless dedication. Reckless shortsightedness.

I was an enchantress in a coven of advisors. We served a matriarch of great renown, practicing sigaldry at her behest.

I was always particularly gifted, in both the craft of summoning and in other, lesser known arts of a macabre nature.

Curses.

If you must put names to such grim matters then yes. But I only ever directed them at myself.

You cursed yourself ON PURPOSE!?!

I did. It was the only way I could fend off death at the time.

I suppose you didn’t have the circle bringing you back… But what was killing you?

What kills us all: time. I needed more than a life span of it.

I knew if I could persist across generations, see war, famine, plague… I could learn from each tragedy.

I could prevent history from repeating.

I was wrong.

Well, I was right. I am always right. But it is not enough to be right, one must be heard to alter history’s course.

My words fell upon deaf ears.

…oh.

So empires rose and empires fell. And I was cursed again and again with the dreadful foresight of knowing the end times were approaching with no way to stop it.

At first I was wrathful, then distraught. I mourned millions.

But after enough apocalypses… it became repetitive. It all blurred together into nothing at all.

I’d grown so exhausted of the very notion of civilization that I thought it best to simply seclude myself away.

So I laid to rest in the cold embrace of solace and silence. Even the Circle’s invitation wasn’t enough to coax me from my chambers.

Except you couldn’t have rested… Wraith’s don’t sleep.

Well I suppose I just lay there… waiting for the sweetest little creature to trot through those stone doors and-

Goodbye, my sweet.