Chapter Text
Fai had never actually seen a ghost before. Hauntings and exorcisms were typically the domain of priests. Wizards could perform exorcisms, but most didn’t consider them a valuable use of their time. In his current state, though, Fai doubted he could perform an effective exorcism anyway. And besides that, he was a little interested in the phenomenon. After all, he’d never encountered it before.
He wandered the castle hallways in the early morning, exploring a bit. He wasn’t very hungry, but he hoped to be able to catch the baroness or her seneschal to find out whether they knew the rooms they had given him were haunted. If so, Fai doubted it was an intentional slight – his best guess was that they hoped that by placing him in those rooms he would take care of the ghost problem without them having to ask him to. People were often wary of asking wizards for favors, which suited wizards just fine.
He was surprised, then, when, after learning from a maid which hour the baroness usually broke her fast, he wandered into the great hall to have Lady Sakura invite him happily over to sit beside her, and then lean over and whisper to him, “Did you sleep well? Did you meet our ghost?”
Fai blinked, and replied, “Yes, but why are we whispering?”
Sakura looked around. Only Syaoran was within hearing distance, seated at her right, and he nodded solemnly at them.
“Well,” she continued in a more normal voice and handing Fai a tray of sweet rolls that he ignored, “he’s sort of a family secret. Most people can’t see him, I’m the only one now, and he mostly stays in that wing, and he only appears at night, so I don’t get to visit with him very often.” She looked up at Fai with the most deeply sympathetic expression he’d ever seen. “I was hoping that you wouldn’t mind being his friend? I should have asked first, I know, I’m so sorry! I was going to tell you about him at supper, but you were so tired, and I wasn’t able to.” She fidgeted guiltily with her fork. “I can give you different rooms, if you want.”
Fai thought about it.
He wasn’t there to make friends, no matter how soulfully a pretty young lady begged him with her eyes. But it would be something to pass the time.
Sakura seemed to have had the same thoughts, because she continued, “I know Clow will probably be very boring for you. Sheep aren’t very grand after you’ve lived in the capitol.”
Fai winced inwardly. It would be unpleasant to live here if the lady of the castle felt insulted for any reason, and he opened his mouth to say something reassuring, but the baroness continued hastily.
“Oh no, it’s fine! I wouldn’t blame you at all. I’ve been to the capitol too, it’s very different from here, and the wizard’s college is just incredible.” She seemed utterly guileless, and Fai stared. “I like our sheep and wool, but if I’d grown up with the College I’m sure I wouldn’t like Clow as much.”
Fai’s smile was closer to genuine this time. “Now, that I don’t believe. You seem like the kind of person who likes every place she visits, my Lady.”
She blushed, and her clerk spoke up. “You’re right about that, Master Flowright. Her Ladyship is the kindest person I know.”
Sakura blushed harder, and Fai said to the lad, “Please do just call me ‘Fai.’ And, that reminds me, you were telling me some of the castle history yesterday, and I wasn’t listening very well. Would you do me the kindness of telling me again?”
Syaoran looked a little embarrassed. “I was trying to be subtle, and work my way around to the ghost slowly. I suppose you don’t really want to hear the entire lecture?”
Ultimately, there wasn’t a whole lot they could tell him about the ghost. They just didn’t know very much. Family records had been lost, or never mentioned him at all, and to say he wasn’t talkative was an understatement. They knew that his name was Kurogane, and that he’d been part of the castle guard back when the castle really had been in use as a military fortification, more than five hundred years ago. The ghost kept to himself, never troubled the staff or frightened livestock. Most people couldn’t see him, after all, so there weren’t any rumors associated with him, apart from speculation about why rooms in that old wing were seldom offered to guests. Sakura said that he seemed surprised whenever she tried to talk to him.
“Lady Sakura, though,” Fai said at one point, “I’m surprised that you can see him. Does your family have magical ability?”
She nodded. “All of my family have a little bit of spiritual power. When my ancestors make mention of him in their journals, usually it’s just sightings in his rooms, or the wing that used to be the barracks. We try not to put guests or visitors in his old suite, just in case. And Syaoran has magic too, but he’s never studied formally.”
Fai looked at him questioningly, and Syaoran shrugged. “I’d rather stay with her Ladyship than go to the wizard’s College. Anyway,” he continued, “I can’t actually see the ghost myself, but I’ve heard him up on the battlements. We don’t keep a standing guard in Clow anymore, but sometimes when I’m up there at night, I hear him giving orders.”
Fai hummed. From what he’d read, that wasn’t unusual. Ghosts tended to replicate commonplace actions that the living person had done. There was scholarly debate on the subject, but most meta-philosophers agreed that ghosts were nothing more than very stable psychic residues, patterns of something that had once been living that had left an imprint of itself behind on the fabric of existence. They manifested visual representations of themselves based on the dominant self-image the pattern still held, but they were no more sentient than a reflection in a mirror.
He looked down at his hands. He was holding a roll and picking at it.
Fai knew he needed the good graces of the household if he was going to live there. Everyone had been so welcoming that clearly not a hint of the story behind his exile in all but name had made it this far. He doubted that he would continue to have peaceful accommodations if ever word of “magical explosion kills 32, dimensional rift barely sealed in time” reached anyone’s ear. He couldn’t be run out of town, as his was technically an official crown appointment, but everyone would learn soon enough that this wizard barely qualified for the name, and things could become...unpleasant. If he did this for the baroness, she would be more inclined to accept eccentricities from him, and possibly not question too closely if he didn’t seem like a typical wizard.
Perhaps this way he could avoid more trouble than he felt like facing yet. Sakura was watching him hopefully.
Fai put on his most charming smile, and said, “Well, then, what have I got to lose?”
Fai had no idea how to go about interacting with a ghost. He liked to know as much as possible going into any situation, but information here was scanty.
At least it seemed he didn’t have to worry about the apparition being hostile, based on Sakura’s family lore. He could scarcely defend himself against a child with a crooked wand now, let alone a malicious shade.
So Fai dithered until he decided that since he didn’t really care, it didn’t actually matter what he did. If the ghost never appeared, he could simply tell the baroness, with a shrug, that perhaps the restless spirit had finally moved on. And if it did appear, he would improvise.
He flopped onto the bed. It was late afternoon. Perhaps he should nap before evening. Fai closed his eye, and if this time his dreams were filled with ravening spectres, all to the good, then – at least they wouldn’t be filled instead with his brother’s screams.
Fai woke to the sound of a disgusted snort, and someone saying, “Shameful.” He sat up and rubbed his eye, gummy with sleep, and blinked until it cleared. He’d obviously overslept, and had neglected to light any lamps.
The bedchamber was dark, but the room was on an upper level exterior wall, and moonlight streamed in pure white bars through the narrow windows. There was someone sitting in the chair near the bed, illuminated quite clearly by a moonbeam.
Fai noticed the eyes first, a deep red color that it seemed he hadn't imagined the night before. The figure’s arms were crossed, and it was wearing armor, a scarred and damaged breastplate over torn chainmail. A tattered red cape hung from its shoulders, and an empty scabbard hung from a sword belt around its waist. It was more or less translucent – Fai could make out the back of the chair through its form, and, judging by the fact that Fai could also see a small embroidered cushion sharing actual space with the ghost’s left thigh, it was incorporeal as well, despite seeming to be able to occupy a chair.
He stared at it.
It glared at him.
Fai had always had to take a while after waking up to achieve much coherency. Yuui used to tease him about it – he could spring out of bed, refreshed immediately and able to recite magical formulae backwards and upside down. Fai would never get to grumble good-naturedly to him about it again.
He stared at the ghost some more. His brain clicked a little more fully into place, and he said, “What’s shameful?”
The ghost gestured at him. “You. Asleep in my bed with boots on.”
There was one thing Fai did intend to get straight immediately, in no mood to humor the ghost’s fixation on ownership of these rooms – no matter how much it couldn’t help the inherently fixated nature of being a ghost.
“Actually,” he told it, “these are my rooms. Which makes this my bed, and therefore the desk and chair outside are mine, too.”
The ghost looked disgruntled. “Well. You still shouldn’t sleep with boots on.”
It wasn’t arguing. Had it already understood that these hadn’t been its rooms for a very long time? Had it just been trying to convince Fai to leave, then?
Now that Fai was starting to wake up properly, he was becoming interested despite himself. The ghost wasn’t showing any signs of disappearing, so clearly it wasn’t that upset by Fai’s presence here. And this was a phenomenon he’d never studied before. Briefly, he entertained an idle thought or two on taking notes and publishing something on them, before remembering why he wasn’t interested in magical scholarship anymore. He stood hastily and walked into the sitting room to find a lamp.
He got one lit on the second try, doing his best to think about nothing at all. Fai turned, holding the lamp, and startled back immediately. The ghost was standing - looming, really - right there in front of him.
Fai hadn’t heard it move at all, and mentally kicked himself when he realized that of course he wouldn’t have.
Goodness, it was tall. And Fai had never been stared at with such relentless intensity for so long in his life. It was frankly unsettling.
“Er, so,” he began, and maybe he wasn’t completely awake yet after all, because after having drawn a complete blank all day on the subject of conversation openers with a 500 year old ghost, he still had thought himself capable of improvising something more elegant than, “what’s your name?”
The ghost honestly looked surprised to be asked, and Fai hadn’t known ghosts could show surprise. Fai already knew its name, of course, but getting it to introduce itself did seem like the polite thing to do.
“...It’s Kurogane.” The ghost’s face was a complex mix of emotions, and Fai didn’t really know what to do with that.
So he held out a hand and said “Fai D. Flowright, at your service.”
The ghost raised its own hand to Fai’s proffered handshake, reflexively, and it passed completely through Fai’s, leaving a chill and faint tingle in its wake.
They both stared at their hands, and Fai spoke first. “Ah.. I really am sorry about that. I didn’t think that one through.”
The ghost shrugged one shoulder, looking uncomfortable. “You surprised me. Talking to me. I wasn’t thinking either.” It rubbed its incorporeal palm against an incorporeal thigh, and really, how did that work?
Fai asked, “Does anyone else talk to you?” mostly to fill the silence, but also to confirm what lady Sakura had told him.
The ghost nodded. “There’s a young lady who says hello to me sometimes. Asks me how I’m doing, if nobody else is around. She probably doesn’t want to get spotted talking to ghosts.”
Self-awareness, another surprise. Fai was beginning to wonder if the people who’d written what little he’d read on the subject had ever met an actual ghost.
They stood there awkwardly for another few moments, until Fai began to feel silly standing there and holding the lamp. He set it on a table, and sat down, curious to see what the ghost would do.
It had followed him to the table, and after a bit it sat down across from him.
Fai was intrigued. “How are you doing that?”
“Doing what?”
“Sitting. In a chair.”
The ghost gave him a look said quite clearly, ‘I think you’re an idiot but you probably can’t help it so I will be patient’.
“Chairs are for sitting.”
Fai had very clearly seen the ghost pass through the edge of the table to position itself in the chair. But he gave up, and tried to come up with anything else to do. The silence was stifling - even when it spoke, the ghost's presence was completely unlike that of a person's. There was no creak of wood when it sat down, no faint rustle of clothing against skin, no sounds of breathing. The shadows began to seem heavy with the weight of ages, and suddenly he really wanted to get out of those rooms.
“Let’s walk around for a bit.”
The ghost eyed him suspiciously. “Why?”
Fai shrugged. He didn’t really have a reason, other than that it seemed awkward to leave the ghost there alone, waiting for him to return.
“Well, it’s either that, or watching me unpack the last of my things. So, show me around? I’m new to the castle. You can help me learn my way around, show me all the secret passages, that sort of thing.”
The ghost gave him that look again. “There aren’t any secret passages. It’s a castle, not a romance novel.”
Which, really opened up questions like, had he read romance novels in the past?
“Well, do you have anything better to do, Kuro-ghost?”
The ghost narrowed its eyes. “It’s Kurogane, wizard.”
Fai couldn’t help himself. He put on an expression of surprise and said, “Ohhh, I beg your pardon, Kurogane, Wizard!”
The ghost made a noise of disgust at the word play.
Fai actually was curious, though. “How did you know I’m a wizard, by the way?”
A shrug. “You smell funny.” Fai had no idea what to make of that, or what possible sensation could be interpreted as scent by a ghost. It glowered at him some more, before standing and saying, “Fine, then. Come on.”
Fai stood. “Come where?”
“You’re the skinniest bastard I’ve ever seen. We’re going to the kitchens. You’re probably pathetic-looking enough that they’ll feed you this late.”
Fai hurried to open the door. He wanted to feel affronted, but he was more relieved than anything that they were doing something other than stand – or sit – uncomfortably watching one another. And he supposed he ought to eat eventually, though he still didn't see much point.
The next night the ghost really did watch Fai unpack the few things he had left. It followed him around like a translucent, unhappy puppy, and complained mistrustfully every time Fai pulled something out of his case that shouldn’t have fit inside it, or eyed with suspicion the elaborately-bound tomes Fai arranged on a bookcase.
Eventually, the case was empty except for the chest of Yuui’s things. Fai looked at it bleakly, and tried to ignore the presence standing over his shoulder and examining the chest as well. There had been very little that he and Yuui had not shared, and now the entirety of it was packed into that single chest. Fai shut the case and slid it beneath the bed. He wanted nothing more than to lay down right there and sleep forever without dreams.
He wanted his brother back.
“Hey, mage. Get up.”
Fai didn’t bother moving. “I’m not hungry.”
“Too bad,” the ghost said, bluntly. “If you starve to death in my rooms, you’ll probably turn into a ghost and haunt them, and then I’ll never be rid of you.”
Fai tried to glare at it, but the ghost didn’t seem impressed. So he let himself be badgered into standing and walking through the empty hallways to the kitchens, and the part that hurt most was that he did feel better afterward with some food in him.
It felt like betrayal.
The ghost seemed satisfied, though, and let him go to bed without comment when they returned.
Fai woke after dawn, shaking and miserable after nightmares he couldn’t even remember distinctly.
Kurogane showed up the next night, and the next. As soon as the sun was below the horizon, the ghost would appear. It quickly became a routine that it would follow Fai around and watch or comment grouchily on whatever Fai was doing, and then badger him into visiting the kitchens.
The cookstaff were friendly, and never said a word of surprise when the one-eyed wizard showed up, sleepless at strange hours, to ask for whatever was available for a meal. And if they heard him talking to himself any? Well, wizards were peculiar, and it was certainly no business of theirs.
Fai got into the habit of retiring close to dawn, and sleeping part of the day. And perhaps it was the altered sleeping patterns, or perhaps he was simply tired enough after spending most of the night hours wandering the castle with a ghost, but after those first few nights, he did notice an abating of night terrors. He didn't know whether to allow himself to feel grateful about it.
Later that week, Fai was poking at the fire grate as the sun went down. He felt the wards on the door tingle as something tried to pass through them, and looked over his shoulder to see the ghost looking thoroughly irritated.
“Mage. What the hell did you do to the door?”
“What?”
The ghost tried to walk through the door again, and was stopped by a crackle of magical energy. It turned to glare at Fai.
“Oh,” Fai shrugged. “I guess you can’t pass the wards I put up.”
“Why do you need to ward my door?”
“Well, Kuro-ghost, I live here. It’s been that way the whole time. Just walk through the wall instead.”
Kurogane looked scandalized. “What do you mean, walk through the wall?”
Fai cocked his head. “You’ve really never done that?”
“Why the hell would I try walking through a wall?”
A pause. “You’re a ghost. You walk through doors all the time, and I do mean through them!”
Kurogane stared like Fai was an idiot. “They’re doors, you dolt. They’re meant for going through.”
Fai couldn’t tell if Kurogane had honestly never noticed that it didn’t open doors to pass through them like a corporeal person. The ghost seemed truly baffled, and Fai supposed it was possible that some of the realities of undeath simply didn’t register on the leftover psyche. It probably wasn’t possible to even explain it in a way that would be understood, so he didn’t try.
“Why do you even want to go out in the first place?” he asked, curious.
“It’s my night for patrol duty,” Kurogane replied. “Three nights a week.”
Fai had been unable to find much about ghosts in the books he’d brought with him. His library had focused on other magical topics. But it was probably futile to try to disrupt their routines, he mused to himself.
This one was looking agitated enough already, so Fai got up to open the door for it. Kurogane nodded gruffly, then stepped through, and paused. “How am I going to get back in?”
Fai was both irritated, and impressed that the ghost was capable of extrapolating a current circumstance into a future need. He was sure he hadn’t read any accounts mentioning that degree of presence.
“I’ll adjust the wards to let you through,” he said.
Kurogane considered that for a moment, then said, shortly, “Thanks,” and left.
Fai watched the ghost stride away down the dark hallway, nonexistent cloak swirling around its legs, with determined footsteps that didn’t make a sound.
Fai could tell when he woke up that afternoon that it was going to be a bad day.
His head throbbed behind the eyepatch, and he could feel the thing there moving restlessly. He could barely pull himself out of bed.
It had been a bad idea to fiddle with his wards, and he should have known better. It would have made more sense to take longer and modify the existing matrix than to do as he had, taking it down to re-apply the wards with an exception for apparitions.
As it was, he had used more magic than he should have, and it had woken the creature.
He did his best to ignore it, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to do so for long.
Fai didn’t have a name for the thing. As far as he had been able to learn, nobody did. It came out of the rift the accident had torn in space, and it had devoured his left eye before any of the other mages had made it to him through the rubble and bodies, to discover it and seal it up where it was before it could spread. It wasn’t something from their world. It was mindless hunger backed up by incredible strength. It had ignored or absorbed most of the magics thrown at it, and since it had latched itself to Fai's very being it could not be banished. So it was kept within the seal. And even tightly contained as it was, it drained his magic passively, leaving only the barest trickle for Fai to use. Usually that seemed enough to content it. But if he tried to draw more of his own power than that thin stream, it disturbed the thing. Nothing he had tried soothed it. It would stir, and chew at his being, seeking more and more magic until there was nothing remaining for it to consume, and only then would it slumber again.
It felt like being eaten alive.
Early, while Fai still had some presence of mind and enough composure to be seen in public, he went to the kitchens for a pail of cold water and a towel. He returned to his rooms, locked the door, and did the best he could to soothe his head and meditate through the worst of it. It didn’t help for long.
The sun dropped steadily towards the horizon while the creature shredded Fai from within, and he slipped in and out of consciousness.
Ghosts weren't really people, Fai knew. And any emotions displayed by one were only echoes of the feelings the living person might have had. Talk of sentience, or souls, or agency, was most likely superstitious hogwash.
It was very convincing hogwash, though, Fai thought distantly as he lay on the bed, sweating and gasping against the pain of the ravenous creature where he used to have an eye, while this ghost sat, looking worried, by Fai’s head, and laid cold hands to his forehead and spoke to him to try and distract him.
Kurogane told Fai at length about the place where he grew up, described the green of the trees in summer, the colorful, happy festivals held in autumn after the harvest. He spoke about his mother and father. He didn’t seem to mind when Fai was too far gone in agony to hear him, but continued speaking in a steady, low rumble. He talked about living in the castle, riding horses, playing strategy games with generals, and most of all he talked about a baroness named Tomoyo.
It helped. It helped. Fai was only marginally present throughout, but it gave him something to focus on even when actual comprehension was beyond his reach, and the chill of Kurogane’s hands on his brow were better by far than lukewarm wet cloths that wouldn’t have stayed anyway with Fai's tossing.
And after an eternity, the thing finally, finally quieted, releasing Fai to blessed darkness.