Jack

Jack stands on ceremony, shadows of a strange etiquette ingrained in him from life he cannot place. He only knows he should, as she glides into the room, so he does.

”I am, my lady,” he answers from his bow, tipping his chin up to peer at her curiously as she steps forward into the light. There is a pregnant pause between them, the inhale of a breath, as they size each other up. He is startled by her. Not only her petite frame, but the directness of her candor. So self assured. Very few souls are first to approach him, some fearful he possesses some superior magic or secrets that might be used in malice. Most are simply afraid of what he cannot do for them. She however - like a true spectre of myth, she’s as if the shadows have birthed themselves into a fairy body. She moves without sound and with the confidence of a woman who does not know the word ‘no’.

He initially doesn’t know how to react. Slowly, with a distant politeness, he moves to sit back in his chair and gestures to the empty one across from him. She promptly swoons into it before the invitation is finished and Jack blinks, taken somewhat aback by her dramatic flare. He has not yet met another corpse so….lively. But her pain seems real and for that, he feels a twinge of guilt. Has he been holed up in the library so long he has begun to neglect his duty for those recently departed? Has he been so distracted by his own ghosts that others have started to suffer due to his selfish laxity? ”I am sorry to have kept you waiting, it was unintentionally done,” he offers with a chastised tilt of his head. ”I was unaware of my reputation. You see, most of the time, I am the one doing the seeking to offer aid that is often unwanted.”

She makes no move to remove her cloak, so Jack discreetly boosts the soft light output from the candle, expanding it’s radius to capture her features fully.

He is stunned by her beauty.

Celestial. It’s the only word that comes to mind. She’s as if a marble statue of a woman, romanticised and over-exaggerated in perfection, has sprung to life and draped itself in the finest velvet. There is no angle to her, whether it be soft flesh or delicate bone that is not refined and polished beyond any master craftsman’s work. She wears no paint or rouge upon her face, there is no need of it. Even in a thousand shades of grey, he can pinpoint the exact location of rosey flushes on her cheeks and lids and mouth. In full colored spendor, he can see where she might serve as a foundation for other women to vainly try to copy her onto their own faces. And there would later be a hot streak of shame that the title of most beautiful woman he’d ever seen through his mind, a title previously reserved only for a beacon-bright woman with gold eyes.

He’s missed some of her words, staring so blatantly wide eyed and enraptured at her face. ”Wait, initiate...no,” he shakes his head, breaking the spell and frantically trying to piece her pleas together into something that translates. ”No, you’re mistaken, my lady. I have no power to contact the living. It is they who contact us. I have merely tapped into the magic of a strong enough user.”

It stings, the reminder that for a whole year he has struggled and failed to find a way to rebuild bridges and replicate magic he does not fully understand. She is not to know, of course, but it has him biting the inside of his cheek nonetheless. ”And I have not been able to recreate a connection. Much to my disappointment.”

It is then he notices the only flaw on her body - scars upon scars of ruined skin. She wears as many enough to be a blouse and Jack’s face crumbles in pity - no, empathy - because he remembers clinging to a single word. He remembers the absolute fear of forgetting one thing and the sheer animalistic desperation that demands any action, any solution to avoid completely surrendering one thing of yourself to the grey. ”You poor thing,” he mutters to himself (or about himself, it’s unclear), hand outstretching of its own accord to linger over the upturned expanse of her forearm. He does not touch her, having learned that lesson already, but hovers shakily a long moment before he can meet her eye.

He has been gifted back his one word by a radiant angel of mercy. He cannot in good conscience deny the chance for this breathtaking beautiful woman to reclaim her own by his hand.

”Of course I will help you find her, if I can,” he promises, voice quiet but steely as resolve returns to his gaze. ”It’s extraordinary you’ve been able to remember her for as long as you have. Or anything from your past world. Tell me, how long have you been dead?”