I am a fire and I must burn today; gail

[Ramiel]

ghost king of the dale >>

Like Gail, the weight of it all becomes a comfortable load for him to bear.

It settles somewhere between his shoulder blades, nestles and grows roots deep down into his spine. It controls his impulses: steers him, drives him, and doesn’t let go. It promises to stay a long time – possibly forever – and he becomes accustomed to its presence.

He doesn’t have a name for it. He cannot invoke the exact word that pushes him down and down, further into the ground with its heft. He only knows that it is there, guiding him every day. And for all that he’s gone through, for all the miles of hell he’s walked, he is glad to have it. Because maybe he would go off the deep end without it. Maybe (and he thinks about it often enough to believe it) he is actually the monster. Maybe he is barely reined in, barely contained with the responsibility that sits astride him.

It makes sense.

Because who agrees to the whims of a dark god? Who signs a blank check for a ticket to the end of the world and all the universes before it? What kind of man (he’d been a boy, of course, but it was only a preview to the man he’d become) sells his innocence for adventure?

Ramiel blinks against the blackness of his thoughts, warding them off as best he can. It’s easier, he thinks, it’s so much easier with her. And perhaps that’s why he’s come back. Gail is the easy answer but also the most effective. She guides him – unwittingly and unknowingly, perhaps – as she’s always done. It’s easy to look for her in his darkest hours now because it’s what he’d been told to do before.

A smile dawns slowly and low on his face when she accepts Graveling’s current status. That part of his last visit had been the very best of all his trips to the afterlife. Giving life to the lifeless and a home to the homeless girl had been a gentle weight added to him. He only hopes he is doing right by her, that he hasn’t failed to live up to Gail’s expectations. But she doesn’t comment further, and he takes it as her desire to move on. Unfortunately, there is little to move on to besides his wash of grief.

Even if he wanted her counsel and compassion (the open wound he leaves for her to wash), it is hard to say as much in the secret, salty air of the dead. The grey ghost struggles to find the words for a moment. But then she touches him, and all the right ones come pouring forth, the weight finally pressing them out. “My brother was murdered. My family is in shock. I don’t think my father can cope with the loss, he’s guarded, distant. And my mother – “ He pauses, breathes in the spray of the water. There aren’t words to describe her, none that can properly convey her grief. And all the while, he worries more for them then himself. It is just another weight to add on. He doesn’t think it will be the one to finally tip the scales. The part of himself that is a monster thinks nothing will. Ramiel leans into Gail’s touch, warmth radiating from the point of contact. “Of all people, death shouldn’t frighten me.” He finds her gaze then. He is quiet, sad in his revelation. Fearful, too, because he doesn’t want anyone else but her to hear. “But it does.
 

ramiel