Page 83 of To Trap a Soul

He eyed the line of her hourglass figure, and how her new position made her side more curved than normal. Her backside was round and tight against her pants, and he tried to appreciate it like many other human males seemed to.

He found it to be a pointless endeavour. He’d never be able to feel its ‘squish’ in the palm of his hand like a physical being.

Once her light breaths resumed and she grew limp, he saw no point in peering into his viewing disc anymore. He waved to dismiss it and turned to the pink flower in his hand. The petalshad a satin finish, and he wondered if it was supposed to be that way or if they should be glossy like a leaf. He inspected it with a brush of his thumb, watching the way it moulded to his touch.

Every detail of his realm was scrutinised thoroughly.

Every new flower species, every different blade of grass, to even the way a mountain was formed and the kind of rock that created it, was carefully sculptured. Such attention took much of his time.

He strived for perfection, as he was an imperfect thing. He wanted utter completion, as he was an incomplete being. He wanted it to be real, despite neither of them really being so.

It felt like he’d only just finished his first thumb stroke when Lindiwe’s voice rang loud and clear. His name, a linked call, was the only thing that could break through his concentration.

He only hastened his pace to bring forth the viewing disc at the frantic tone of his name being called a second time.

“Yes, Lindiwe?” he asked, before it fully formed – the image of her murky but steadily clearing.

“They’re gone!” she shouted, her hair heavy, wet, and clinging to her neck and shoulders as she climbed out of Nathair’s lake. “Orson and Nathair are gone!”

From what Weldir could tell, in the mere second he’d been inspecting the pink flower petals, many hours had passed. The sky was clear of clouds, revealing bright stars and a falling crescent moon. The area was bathed in light, rather than shaded by an encroaching new night.

“I’ll find them,” Weldir informed her, whooshing his mind forward to create two more discs.

In his periphery, Lindi’s drenched form knelt on the side of the deep lake before she shakily rose to her feet. She lagged, her clothing clinging to her torso and limbs, as she wrung the water out of her hair before pushing it away from her worried, crinkled face. Had she dived into the lake in search of Nathair, only tofind him missing? It wouldn’t be the first time Nathair had tried to bring Orson into his favourite place, although Lindiwe was usually quick to stop him.

With his family bond to his offspring, despite the distance and skew of realms, Weldir was able to locate them. The discs brought up their images, overlapping to show they were so close to each other that there was no gap between them.

“They are together. Orson clings to Nathair’s back as they travel through a forest. There is a mountain range in the distance to their right.”

Weldir was unable to tell whether Nathair was aware he had his sibling on his back or not, or if it had been intentional.

He also observed how far the strings of their essences were from Lindiwe, being forever intertwined with her.

“They are quite a distance from you,” he told her. “Northwest from where you are.”

Lindiwe turned to the cliff before her. “How far?”

“I cannot give you a correct estimate. Perhaps a hundred kilometres, or slightly less.”

Her jaw dropped as her eyes bowed in obvious distress. She turned incorporeal to float up the side of the cliff. With her face lifted towards the sky, he could tell by her clenching and unclenching fists that the pace was too sluggish for her.

“How did they get so far in only a few hours?” she muttered in a grouchy whine.

“You forget how fast Nathair can be. He must have left with Orson not long after you fell asleep.”

And not long after Weldir had stopped watching her.

When Lindiwe finally reached the top of the cliff, she didn’t turn physical. Instead, she used the ease and freedom of her Phantom form to cut through trees rather than go around them, saving time as she sped through the surrounding forests.

No matter how fast she was, it was slow in comparison to Nathair, who chased after a scent on the wind.

“Are they safe?” she asked, peering up at the moon occasionally to ensure she was heading in the right direction.

“They are together, but Nathair’s orbs are red. He is hunting.”

“Damnit,” she snapped, seeming to go faster than he thought possible. “Do you know what he’s after?”

In the intertwined discs with black misting borders, it wasn’t long before he watched them come upon a herd of cattle, unfenced, free, and wild. They lazed in an open field asleep, only to spook at Nathair’s growl, and they scrambled up on wobbly legs in a rush to flee.

---