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What is the color of a soul?
To Marigold, the soul was a glistening white. It flashed sparkles of color like a diamond. The poor creatures left behind in battlefields and abandoned houses were the dead, but not quite souls as she knew them. She didn’t see them, exactly, more akin to feeling them.
The Lifestream was close. Marigold felt souls skim across her hands like koi in a pond. Sometimes they were fresh, still clinging to memories of life, which felt like catching snatches of a conversation. A lady who loved to dance, a man who enjoyed poetry. Sometimes they were old, old souls, ready to be reborn again, nudging her hand for a ghostly pet for a split second. Those were the souls that simply felt. They were. That was all.
She walked through Eorzea and felt the souls of the dead follow in her wake. If anyone had known, they would’ve told her to become a reaper. But Marigold did not want to raze and reap the dead, nor did she wish to touch the voidsent. Souls were meant to be left in peace, to be petted when they requested pets, to be given kisses, to be prayed for. Voidsent were meant to be avoided at all costs.
Some days, she wondered if her family knew, or if they chalked up her conversations as a child as fantasy and therefore forgot all about it. They never directly asked about it and she never spoke of it once she turned nine and realized she would much rather keep the sensations a secret. The way life and death flickered around her in a prism.
Marigold wondered, once, if the man in the shrine’s portrait were still around. But what would be the point in seeking out a soul long-since laid to rest, a past life her mother had put behind her? No such soul lingered near their home, so she had no way of knowing. Curiosity would only hurt her mother. Her father wouldn’t know what to say, either, and her father had seen death from a perspective nearly the same as hers.
Her brother, Rahn, had a very slippery presence. Souls in living creatures didn’t touch her the same way the dead did, but she could still clearly feel the aura of life, of something more. And he, in particular, was blurred around the edges. Marigold adored him and could always tell when he had slipped away. She didn’t have to be told. She just knew, and waited for him to come back.
The soul was precious. It was beautiful. It was loved. Marigold cupped them in her hands and nuzzled them close, feeling an outpouring of love. The people they used to know left imprints of love, an indelible mark, and through the souls that swirled around her feet, she felt it too. Her heart was warm as she released them. Did they know they would feel love again?
Marigold was not a reaper, but she could sense death. She knew the touch of a soul. But the soul was nothing to be afraid of. For love was as strong as death, and she knew the touch of the Lifestream.