Chapter Text
The sound of footsteps echoed lightly, barely audible. Her blunt nails rested on her hip, her eyebrows furrowed as her pointed pupils scanned the scenery. A large building of quartz rested to her side, a grand building fashioned by the master of their craft. They'd been friendly once. She figured they'd have to be again once more with this builder, against her wishes. She crouched down onto the roof of the vehicle, a fluorescent pink. From her position, she could see the bench outside of the serving window, and could taste the musty smell of brewed coffee in the back of her mouth as she breathed in the scent. To her other side was a multitude of criss-crossing scaffolding as the construction of a building had come to a sudden halt. It was just her, at least for the moment. The hawk's eyes flicked around, her well-exercised body following her line of sight.
No longer kneeling on the truck's roof, her hand was casting a small part of shade on her face, to improve her vision as she looked to the hills. She'd seen movement. It seemed human. On second thought, perhaps not. There was nothing that way, only uninhabited desert. Well, once there was civilisation, but that was a long story. The warm, fulfilling sense of glee, whimsy and awe flittered inside her for a moment, as she recalled the dizzily gorgeous flames reaching for the sky, the sinking clouds of orange as the dusk came by, to mask her deed from the rest of the world in darkness. A tragedy, really.
It had been an artwork of dancing flame, ash ringmasters, smoke trapezists. The only complaint she'd had was the screams of the royal family as they and their home had erupted into a raging, divine, glorious inferno. They'd been ruining the sound of the satisfying crackle as the stone and wood were consumed by the flames with delight. An experience of delight and ecstasy, tarnished only slightly by others. But she found that was just a fact of life. Whenever the world wasn't bending to her will, she'd recall that day. What a day.
A dreamy sigh escaped her mouth as she turned back to the cobbled square the truck had been parked up in. A dark gray-skinned individual was standing in the square. Two sets of spindly limbs stretched from their back, straight hair of the same colour cascaded down their shoulders. Harper's eyes locked with the arachnid's. Hazel eyes glared down those of an icy blue, tainted and washed by death. She didn't show it, but the colour repulsed her, the deep blue would tarnish and quench her dancing flames, it made the hungry pyromaniac in her appalled. Harper smiled cutely and friendlily at the spider, and waved gingerly at them from the truck roof. Confused, the spider cautiously waved back, leaving their hand to drop back to their side. Their eyes darted around, looking at anything but Harper, slouched slightly. Unsure how to react to this stranger.
A set of small cream wings flexed out from a folded position, emerging through small gaps in her armour; which was pulsating with an unnatural, otherwordly, purple transparent colour, moving like an ocean. Beneath the purple, veins of gold sprawled through plates of a mineral mined from the depths of a hellscape, an otherworld parallel to this one. Regardless of the origin of her armour, her outstretched wings gingerly delivered her body to the cobbled ground, her legs tossing some loose pebbles into the air. Once placed solidly on the ground after her glide, she smiled again at the spider, and produced and held out her tanned hand for the spider to shake. "You must be new to these parts! I'm Harper, and you?" The arachnid took a step back from her, keeping a short distance between them. "Um... I go by Ghost."
"Oh, I see! I doubt you have a home, hmm? If you're only just here."
"No, but give me a few days and I'm sure I'll be right on my feet."
"Ah, well, we're one in the same, in that case. I've been here as long as I can remember, but I'm afraid I've never found the right spot to settle. Thought I found it, but no. Couple ‘o times, too.”
“Right, well, look, mate. I'm gonna go, good luck with that." Harper sighed, her face concerned. "Can I be honest with you, Ghost?" Ghost open their mouth as though they had been about to reply, their words being cut off. "It's been in the back of my mind to find some peace with one of my old homes... It didn't end well... I wanted to go with someone, but I haven't felt confident enough to bring it up with anyone 'till now, and you seem like a kind soul."
Taking a deep breath, and massaging their temples, Ghost replied. "'A kind soul' is a first for me, but somethin' tells me you won't let up 'till I do."
"Thank you for this, Ghost. You don't know much this means to me."
Ghost rolled their crimson eyes as Harper fluttered her wings a little as a gesture for Ghost to follow.
“My former home is beyond these hills." Harper closed her left eye and raised a finger to point to the snowy peaks she'd been gazing at earlier. "I see. How long were you there for?"
"Hmm... about a month or so. It was probably one of the nicest places I’ve been.”
“Huh. What happened? Seems a tad random if you need me to go with you on a sightseeing tour if there's nothing traumatic there."
"Very observant, may I say. The place burned down a good while ago when I lived there. I was caught in the middle of the blaze, I still have the nightmares... I just want a look to see what's left. I never figured out how the fire started." Ghost nodded after Harper spoke.