They cross over, but this time, it’s not as easy.
Perhaps physically it is. The cliffs, so solid and unyielding at first, soon melt at his touch. He hopes they will for Graveling, because this is the crux of the mission. If she cannot pass through here, Ramiel realizes he will stay until they can find a weak spot where she can. He will do anything, because disappointing Gail is a cross he cannot bear again. She does, though. He watches, stuck halfway in the granite (the rock an opaque curtain between them) as she makes her way in. He remembers the last time, the first time, when he’d been too shocked to really take in the details. Now, he scrutinizes every part of it with an almost scientific curiosity. It shouldn’t be possible; he shouldn’t be able to meld into rock, to go from dead to living (nor should Graveling for that matter) but he can and he does.
They cross easily into the meadow from there, but Ramiel leaves a piece of himself back on the sands. He knows he will return to it (return to her) but the loss pulls at him all over again. Something else pulls at him as he stands, blinking in the light of day. Some heaviness tugs on his legs as he moves, more than the guilt he’s accumulated over time. A sudden weariness overtakes him, and he turns slowly to Graveling. Is it because of her? Is this his punishment for breaking the rules, for plucking the dead from their eternal rest? As he watches the girl take in the world for the first time, he finds that he doesn’t mind in the least. If the price for her life comes at the cost of his discomfort, he will still pay every time.
But there’s something wrong with her, too. Like him, she shifts. But unlike him, she becomes less of a ghost and more like the undead corpse that she really is. It’s gruesome and terrible and completely unexpected. Has he brought her all the way back just to suffer? The smile he’d worn watching her watch the meadow falls from his face. “Graveling,” he steps closer, concern weighing his gaze. Her organs shine carrion-pink; her muscles race to cover them. The process is quick but incomplete. She’s no longer a ghost, but he thinks maybe she’s still not truly alive. “Are you all right?”
His mind is slow, so sluggish. What should be a grand moment of celebration is stunted by her grisly appearance. She seems relatively unfazed, though, and only this stays his feet from returning her promptly from whence she came. Not that anything can be hurried now, in his current state of exhaustion. He thinks he will sleep for a very long spell once he returns home. Graveling looks at him, almost as surprised as he is that it has worked. He shakes his head lightly at what she says. “No,” he says, unable to keep the wistfulness from his voice, “if I were magical, Gail would be standing there alongside you now.”
Their dark god hadn’t tried enough, hadn’t had the same stamina for the task Ramiel does. He’s thought about it so often that he’s confident in these thoughts – he’s marinated himself in the belief that Carnage simply doesn’t care like he does. The ghost-man wouldn’t give up; he’d find a way. But he focuses on the corpse girl for now. His limbs quake a little as he accesses her. “What now Graveling?” He smiles at his charge, leaning his weight heavily on one side. It’s likely all so overwhelming, but he wants to be her guardian, not her controller. “I have a home where you’re welcome to live, at least until you get your bearings on Beqanna.” She’s hardly old enough to be on her own – he can’t imagine leaving her behind. “This world is a wonder, but it can be very unforgiving as well.”
r a m i e l
what a day to begin again