Albrecht Geistein. The great margrave of the north, heard disconcerting news about one of his children, Arianne. Once cancelling a lot of his plans for today and visiting her he felt something that he wanted to suppress all this time, guilt.

Guilt about his sickly daughter, and more deeply, about her.

He knew it was painful being reminded of her, he knew so much that any images of her he had covered up. But even so, almost forgetting that he was wearing it, he holds on to a pendent that he wears habitually like it was his own body, and tugs it near to his chest, whispering something so softly that no one else could hear it.

"My Lord." The scented man walks forward and asks. "What should we do for the young lady? If I have to be honest with you sir I have run out of ideas to help her at this point."

Albrecht looks at the old scented man and grabs his shoulders. "If there really is nothing we can do now, all I can hope now is bring her back..." Albrecht looks to his side and sees the hooded man. "Your mother. Contact her at once." 

The hooded man nodded, "I'll contact her whenever the bloody blizzard outside will disappear." Pointing back to a window and sure enough, whooshing in everybody's eardrums is a terrible storm of ice and snow raging outside.

But the hooded man furrowed his brows. "Even then, you know how...fickle my mother is these days right?"

"Tell her my daughter's condition then!" Albrecht, visibly annoyed, pinches his hand to his nose ridge. "I know it's desperate but at this point I have no choice, she knows Arianne more than anyone at this palace and her magicks are the only one I can think of that can cure my daughter of her affliction." 

Albrecht turns around and leaves the two in frustration. "We know each other for who knows how long, and I also know your tendency to just disappear whenever you want, but please just listen to me for this one time? I do not have the time right now to use my authority as the Lord of this land to try and arrest her, then using her elf magic to disappear to the frozen tundra and then spend days looking for her in said frozen tundra to try and arrest her again and repeat that forsaken cycle." 

With Albrecht leaving, the two of them stood alone in an empty hall.

"I guess you'll be staying here for a while huh." The man that smells like herbs said with a grin.

"That might be so." The hooded man said while scratching his head.

•••

"How were you able to do that?" I ask to myself.

If anyone else were in this room right now they would call me crazy, not only for talking to myself but also in an unknown language. But since there's no one here I can be as insane as I want to be, which includes technically talking to myself, in a language no one understands.

After a while, "ᛁ ᛞᛟᚾ×ᛏ ᚲᚾᛟᚹ." Which means, "I don't know." 

But she continues. "ᛁ ᛃᚢᛊᛏ ᚱᛖᛚᛚᛁ, ᚱᛖᛚᛚᛁ, ᚹᚨᚾᛏᛖᛞ ᛏᛟ ᛏᚨᛚᚲ ᛏᛟ ᛈᚨᛈᚨ ᚨᚷᚨᛁᚾ." Which means, "I just really, really, wanted to talk to papa again."

Fuck, translating that hurt like hell but I continue. 

In frustration I say, "Is there a way to do that again? But with my command, like in my head so that you can go and talk to them, since I definitely can't do that right now." 

While thinking about what I said even more, I stumbled onto another idea, "Heck, why can't we talk to each other in our heads? We're literally in one body you know, we share the same brain." I told her my groundbreaking idea. But then—

Crickets.

I waited and waited in silence for Arianne to respond to me.

I know that I said a lot and that I have to wait for it all to be translated, so I waited.

And waited.

And then—

"FUCK!" I just had the biggest, most excruciating headache in my entire life, well both of my lives.

But that's not the fucking point. "AAaaaARGH!"

It hurts so much that I fell unconscious immediately, with me foaming at the mouth.

•••

"Sorry." 

When I woke up I wasn't in the sort of fancy medical room I was sent to earlier, but nothingness, the void. Purgatory.

Just like when I first died.

"Well that was fast—" Except in front of me there was white.

A white, ephemeral mist, more akin to a white nebula-like smoke rising from who knows where is forming shape right in front of me, at the front are a pair of glowing, magenta-colored fires that imitates the eyes.

"Wait..." I'm rapidly piecing together this absurd situation. 

"Sorry again Mr. Kim." The white mist talked, "It seems that my attempt in speaking directly on your consciousness caused you to sleep." She bowed her head slightly.

"Arianne?" Arianne bowed. It had to be her.

The mist simply nodded.

After a moment of silence, "So...where the hell am I now?" I ask her.

"That, I don't know at all." She said. "I'm guessing that this is our consciousness, but I do not know, I'm just a child after all." She chuckled at the end there.

Everything you just did isn't childlike at all! I pointed out in my mind.

Looking around again, I finally realized something obvious. "So what do I look like to you?" I told her, curious since I feel like a blob again.

"You look like..." She ponders. "A dark spirit, I think."

...

I shudder at her answer. Just as she said that I suddenly became aware that all around me there were streaks of black smoke-like things. I thought they were just part of the environment but due to Arianne I realized that they were all coming from me. 

And just as fast as well I suddenly have a sensation, a sensation of arms again, forming. A pair of misty smoke tendrils became the new substitute for my arms in this realm.

"Wha—" I felt a rumbling so I immediately stop.

I would have screamed under any circumstances, but instinctually I realized that if I were to panic, have an extreme emotional outburst my form right now would collapse. And with Arianne in front of me I dare not face that consequence.

I feel extremely unstable right now, the most unstable I had been in my entire life and there's a dread that if I collapse here my entire being would also collapse.

So after finally calming myself down. "Arianne." I mutter. "Copy me, think about your arms right now." I instruct her.

Just when I said her to do so I can feel a shining sensation around me. I look up and saw her, her mist-like form condensing just a little bit and long tube-like things that are the equivalent of arms.

"It's bright." I mutter.

Then I begun pondering. If I am dark—that is a reflection of me, I can fully admit that I did things that would warrant me to look like an evil spirit. 

Then there's her, a shining bright mist. If she were the opposite of me, then I realize at this point she's the total opposite of me, a good person.

If I were to repent for my actions—which I won't because I don't regret anything, then protecting this being in front of me would be a must. Which I would do so anyways because I owe her my second lease on life and also it would benefit both of us.

I guess just seeing her in this form just strengthen my resolve. I mused in my thoughts before going back to reality.

"I'm ready." She said with conviction.

With both of our forms having arms now we stared at each other again, having a vague idea what to do but both of us were too awkward to start.

After what felt like eternity, Arianne spoke first. "Mr. Kim? I know this is weird but you asked why can't we talk in our heads right? I feel like there's a reason why we're here." 

And also, "I mean, we can talk right now without any need for translation." She told me something obvious.

"That's right!" I totally forgot about that!

Now that I also noticed that, I feel like all this time I wasn't really speaking with her. Moreso I feel like we're just sensing each other and then mutually understanding what we're feeling like now.

It's like a universal language, almost.

There wouldn't be any delay in our thoughts if that was the case. I thought.

"If we can communicate, I feel like we can read each other's thoughts in here." She points to me. "That's why you got unconscious, it must be really hard on the mind if we were to attempt it while we're awake."

That...kinda makes sense. In my reality that would be pseudo-science bullshit but it does have internal logic in it, at this point though I'm really grasping at straws here.

"So...what should we do then?" I ask.

"Well," She looks at her ephemeral hands. "You did say we should connect our minds right? All I can think is..." And then she looks at me, specifically my own hands.

Making a quip, "We should hold hands?" I asked in a lighthearted manner, not expecting her to consider it seriously.

But she did "More, uhm, connect it I guess." And then—

From her utterance I noticed something, the tendrils that already were her hands started to grow...root-like things that honestly looks creepy.

But well, in an esoteric way I need to follow her lead. Right now I'm in a situation where I need to understand at least her to be able to communicate in this world. Because if I don't I'll be find out and who knows what the people here would do to me.

So I begin to do the same thing, I reach out to her and the both of us held our ethereal hands together.

If any others would see this it would truly be a strange sight, a large dark cloud in the vague shape of a person touching hands with a smaller, bright white mist that's also shaped like a person, and slowly...

"Fuck, this is damn creepy." I mutter under my breath.

"I agree." She smiles softly.

Looking at what's happening in front of me, I realized that I seem to be in a world of thoughts and imagination. Because just the thought of something will appear in this reality, and right now—

Tendrils. I imagined black root tendrils coming out and going into the white mist that is Arianne. Conversely, the same thing is also happening to me with her white tendril slithering in my misty smoke hands.

"Tell me if it's gonna hurt okay?" I made sure to reassure her, and to an extent myself as well.

Even if I am calm on the surface, something as bizarre as this couldn't help but make me panic inside, and as I thought.

I'm feeling a little trembling around me.

"You ready?" I look at her and sure enough.

"Yes." She told me and both of us speed up the spread of our roots to each other.

Our goal right now is to be able to talk with on our minds and I have no clue as to how to do that, all of this is pure speculation and I dunno what will happen.

Calm down, calm down. I took a mental breathe in and relaxed. 

Although this is an entirely new road it is still a road or else I wouldn't have agreed to this in the first place. I have no choice but to trust my instincts or else I would be discovered. It's uncomfortable to do something like this without any sort of planning or back up but...

Looking at myself, a black spectre of evil, I feel like I need a change if this is what I look like on the inside. This is a new life after all and I wanna do something that me in my first life would never do, jump in without any preparations.

Then I felt it. "Is that—" My tendrils have reach her 'core' for the lack of a better word.

"Wait—" Almost at the same time as well Arianne also reached me. 

I can feel that within me someone has touched some at the very core of my being.

Both of us went silent. 

•••

Without both Arianne and Kim realizing, something is happening with their physical body outside.

"W—what is this!" For the first time in a long time, the hooded man was in shock, or in awe as to what's happening in front of him. 

Arianne was glowing.

•••

In another part of the palace,

"Lord Albrecht, is it really fitting for you to attend this one's preparation of the lady's meal?" A servant asked nervously as her literal boss is supervising her every move.

"Yes." Lord Albrecht nodded. "I'm aware of the many dietary quirks that she has, and it is also my desire to do so as well."

The servant nodded and made a straight face as she continued to prepare the dish, being careful not to sigh as it would possibly offend the lord of this palace.

But—she noticed something and turned back to him and the knife she was holding fell from her hand. "My Lord!" She shouted. "Y-your glowing!" 

"—What?" Confused, he went to a nearby tray and saw his reflection and sure enough.

His eyes too were glowing.