-Neith-

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" I yelled at whoever was knocking at my door whilst the sky was still dark. I didn't understand how they could be so persistent and loud. Surely, the guards would've been alerted to any danger? By the way this person was knocking, they were desperate.

The rain pelted against the wooden ceiling of the house which my father and I lived in. It was a simple, two-bedroomed house made of glass, wood, and stone. It would have collapsed years ago if my father hadn't known a spell to keep the foundation sound.

Which made me even more suspicious of the knocking which came at the door. Our house was in the middle of the village, so it wasn't a wanderer who was knocking on the first house which they saw. It had to be someone who lived here, but then they would know where to go if there was anything wrong.

I hugged my robe closer to my body as I opened the door, the cold chill making a shiver go down my spine, but that could also have been due to what I saw standing a few feet in front of me.

There was a very tall girl, who looked no older than me, with her fist raised and black hair clinging to her face. She wore a white dress with red patterns cascading down her chest. Her eyes were the lightest blue I had ever witnessed. They almost looked white in the light of my candle.

"Can ye help me?" she yelled over the rain. Her voice shook and her colourless lips quivered. "Please, I can't run much longer." She turned to look behind her. That was when I realised that her dress didn't have a pattern on it. As there was a large pool of red on her back. "Please."

I nodded and cleared my throat, I ushered her inside and looked out of the doorway. I looked at each of the houses in the small circle at the centre of town. I lived here all my life, so I could tell if there was anything out of place. "Who was following you?" I whispered as I shut the door behind her. She looked deathly pale, emphasis on 'deathly'. I felt an inch of pity for her, which was strange. I wouldn't consider myself to be the type to pity anyone.

"My boyfriend," she answered, raising a shaking hand to remove some hair from in front of her face. "He said that he was taking me on a trip this weekend, that we would be visiting some of his family." She held onto a nearby table.

"Come into the living room." I put an arm around her shoulders, to try and keep her steady in case she fell. She looked as though she could drop at any moment. "Where are you from?" I asked and let her sit down in one of the tattered armchairs by the fire.

"Seastown," she replied quietly. "It's about a day away." So she had probably been away for twelve hours or so, I think. Unless something happened along the journey.

I nodded, I was familiar with the place. Occasionally my father or one of the other elders would travel there to get supplies. It was one of the most popular shipping and boating locations due to how close it was to the open ocean. A lot of their culture is built around water, fishing, and working on boats. It was also one of the richest places in the world, because it's a hot spot for business. The ships would bring in the goods, and whoever got first dibs would probably get twice as much in return as opposed to what they'd paid for the goods.

That also meant that it was home to many pirates and beggars who wished to steal anything they could get their hands on. It made me wonder what role this person had there. She was wearing quite a fancy dress, it must be expensive. She could be the daughter of a rich businessman, it would suit her.

"How badly are you hurt?" I asked and pointed towards her chest. It was almost as though she hadn't noticed the amount of blood she was losing. I tried my best to stay calm, but I wasn't the most comfortable around blood. I could handle a cut or gash, but this was an ocean in comparison.

"Hurt?" she asked and followed my hand with her eyes. Her mouth dropped open and if it was possible, she paled. "How did that happen?"

"I was hoping you'd tell me," I admitted and crouched in front of her. "What's your name? I'm Neith." This wasn't the first time I had to do something like this, interacting with people in this way. It was almost as though I was talking to a child, or someone who would crumble at any second.

"Akuji," she answered. I was surprised that she could comprehend what I was saying. She stared down at herself, her entire body shaking.

I kicked myself. I really shouldn't have pointed out the blood so soon. "Wait," I said and grasped her chin gently between my finger and thumb. I lent forward and looked at her closely. My hazel eyes trailing across her freckled face. "What colour of eyes do you have?" This was always the second test.

"B-brown," she responded. "Why?"

I ignored her question and stood up. "I'm going to get my father. Just...try to relax." I left the room and headed upstairs. I resisted the urge to laugh at myself for how absurd the suggestion was.

"How am I meant to relax?" Akuji yelled after me. That time, I chuckled. At least she also knew how ridiculous that suggestion was.

I burst into my father's room, causing him to sit upright and fall out of bed. I dodged the book which he used as a weapon and clapped my hands. "Dad, wake up. There's someone here."

My father rubbed his hazel eyes, a deep frown on his face. "Tell them to fuck off," he advised with a groan. "It's the middle of the night. If they want to talk village business-"

"You'll be at the council chamber at six am. I know," I replied and walked over to his bed, stepping over some of his discarded items which lay on the floor. "She's not a villager."

"A stranger is in our house?" he asked, all tiredness gone from his voice. He leaped up and grabbed his dressing gown from the back of a chair. "What have I told you about inviting strangers inside?" I had only ever let one stranger inside, which ended up in a small fight. The damage was quickly reversed, but I will never get the image of an arrow in my shoulder out of my head.

"She's dying." That was the only explanation I needed to give.

"Does she know?" my father asked, inching towards the door. He gave off an air of giddy madness.

I shook my head. "She didn't even know she was bleeding out." I was certain that I may not be explaining this right, but it was an odd situation. I felt like I was acting too calm, but staying calm is one of the only ways I knew how to stay focused, and able to deal with my father.

My father tapped his chin. "This might just be the answer we were looking for," he said with a spark of excitement. "What are you waiting for? Take me to her." He gestured from me to the door and then back again, as though I had to carry him down the stairs. That wouldn't work in any way.

I huffed, turned around and headed back downstairs, where Akuji was looking at everything apart from the red stain on her dress.

"Hello, miss," my father greeted warmly. His blue hair looked like blue flames in the candlelight. "My name is Nairn, welcome to our house." He spread his arms out wide. He couldn't go two minutes without being dramatic.

Akuji tried to stand, but her legs were too shaky so she hit the chair again with a thump. "Hello," she stuttered. "I'm sorry for the intrusion, but-"

"-No need," my father interrupted. "Neith, would you mind lighting a few more candles?" He gave me a sickly sweet smile, to show that I couldn't argue.

"I would," I replied, but picked up the matches anyway. I lit some of the candles by the armchair Akuji was sitting in, as well as some on the tables beside and in front of her.

"We might as well feed the fire too," my father said as he sat down in a seat beside Akuji's. "I doubt I'll be getting any more sleep tonight."

I sent him a glare, playfully making the candle next to him flicker a few times. "Might as well," I agreed and put a few more logs into the fireplace.

Akuji looked down at my father's earlier comment, but then quickly moved her head so that she was looking at the fire."Your hair's blue," Akuji stated, pointing at my father's head. "I've only seen magic people with blue hair."

I hummed. "She's not as clueless as I originally thought." I knew it was mean, but I didn't care all too much. I was comforted back to my normal self by the presence of my father, who was significantly more socially 'strange' than myself. I leant on the arm of my father's chair, trying to stay calm.

"She can hear you," Akuji said with a small huff.

"And she bites back, lovely." I finished provoking the flames. "You don't seem too concerned about the fact you're bleeding to death." I felt the need to remind her after that comment, which was probably a bad idea.

"I'm bleeding?" Akuji asked and looked down, replicating her expression from the first time she found out that she was bleeding. "How'd that happen?" The Deja vu made a chill go down my spine. I always hated that feeling.

I met my father's gaze. "Amnesia," I mumbled. "This isn't good." I didn't check to see if there was any blood in her hair, it would've been very tricky to see in the minimal light.

"It seems she's already gone," my father whispered to me. "It's only a matter of time before she crosses planes." He was being overly eccentric, but that was one way to describe him. He meant that she was dead, and she might not be conscious for much longer.

I nodded. "What are we going to do? She wasn't born here." Of course, it would be an incredibly different story if she had been born here. We would simply calm her down and make sure she knew nothing about being dead. "We've never been in this situation before."

My father cleared his throat and patted my hand. "You haven't, I have." He then stretched his arms over his head. "Which is why I'm leaving you to deal with it."

My jaw dropped open and I crossed my arms.

Akuji was staring at us with blue eyes which would only get lighter. "Excuse me, what's going on?" She raised a single finger. "I'm very confused."

"Yeah, I don't blame you." I pushed myself off my father's chair and crouched in front of her again. "So, you know why you keep losing track of things, including the fact you're dying?" She nodded. "Would you like to know why you're forgetting things and why you came to the best house in the village?" She nodded again, Albeit a bit hesitant. "You're already dead."

Her eyes rolled back into her head and she fell backwards into the chair. Her face didn't lose any colour, but her hands had stopped their shaking. That was probably a terrible idea, but I was certain she'd remember this now.

"Well done," my father said with a snicker. "Your first ever deceased and you made them faint. I didn't even know they could faint."

I groaned and headed into the kitchen. "I'm making tea." That was the code in our house for 'be quiet', a rule which has existed since I could remember. Tea had always been the solution to all our issues. My father even implemented this into his business at the village council; no decision was made without a cup of tea. I needed time to figure out what I would say to Akuji when she wakes up.

By the time the water had boiled, my father's voice drifted into the kitchen.

"Yes, hello again dear. I'm sorry about her. You see, my daughter isn't the most social of creatures,'' my father said in an annoying tone. He only used that tone with strangers, or if he was teasing me. Both of which he was doing right now. "I'm sorry for her bluntness."

"Wait, so she's right?" Akuji asked. "She wasn't joking, was she? She didn't sound like she was." Even her sharp inhale reached my ears. "What does that mean?"

"It means precisely what I said," I said before my father could. I took the tray of three tea cups into the living room and placed it on the coffee table, handing my father his cup, the same emerald green one he always used, and Akuji the guest cup, a simple white porcelain. "I'll probably have to explain everything, but for now, just drink please."

She took the cup off me gently, as though it would break at the slightest of touches, which it would if it didn't belong to my father. "Thank you," she whispered and grasped it with both hands. Steam erupted from where her skin made contact with the material, but she didn't seem to notice. "So, what is this village?"

I inhaled and closed my eyes for a moment. At least she wasn't asking about being deceased. "It's just a small village really, a bunch of old people settled here around a hundred years ago, and we just stayed."

"It's very pretty," Akuji said and looked towards the window. "What I saw of it anyway."

Awkward silence filled the room.

"Okay, out with your questions," I said with defeat. "I'd like to sleep at some point tonight." Even though that's unlikely.

"Okay," Akuji said with more enthusiasm than I would've ever thought a person who found out they were dead could have. "If I'm dead, how can I be talking to you?" I realised what she was trying to do. She was trying to find the lies in my statements.

"Well, most dead things around here don't stay dead," I said. My father nudged my side with his elbow, so I continued with a sigh. "Or rather, things don't really die. I don't know the scientific or magical ins and outs of it, but around here, if you have life-threatening injuries or something, you don't die. You just keep living your life with a bit more magic in you."

"Am I a vampire?" she asked.

Her serious tone made me laugh so much I nearly spilled some of my tea. "No, though they do exist. You would be the first to know if you were a vampire. You seem to have a reflection and still have some blood in you, for now."

"For now?" she squeaked.

"Yeah, for now. Since your heart's not beating, it can't really circulate. So the magic would just get rid of it for you," I said in an attempt to be more cheerful. "It's not too bad. It's all just done for you. There's no way you could make a mistake or anything." I was clutching at straws. I was trying to assure this girl that she couldn't suddenly collapse at any moment,

My father put his hand over his mouth to stop himself from laughing.

"But, I want my heart to beat blood around my body. Not magic or anything like that." Akuji's hands began shaking again.

"Please, put your cup down if you're going to get worked up," I glared towards my father. "He's usually the one who explains it. I don't really see what the fuss is about."

My father put a hand on my knee, revealing his wide grin. "I suppose Seastown doesn't see much magic, hmm?" There was a gleam in his eyes.

"No, sir," Akuji responded, despite it being a rhetorical question. "We don't." She still hadn't put her cup down, the brown liquid dripping onto her dress, which was already ruined.

"I've only been there a handful of times, due to business." My father's eyes wandered around the room, just as they always did when he talked about business. "I saw a few magicians who dyed their hair and performed tricks of the light. Though, I also saw beggars taking money out of people's pockets with their mind." My father shrugged. "I suppose it is a bit more subtle."

Neither my father nor myself talked until Akuji finished the cup of tea. Her hands had stopped their shaking and her light blue eyes scanned the living room.

"Where'd you get all this?" Akuji asked.

I didn't know what she was talking about. She hadn't gestured to anything in particular. The living room was cluttered with all kinds of things, from books, to empty bottles, to taxidermied animals, to live animals.

Speaking of animals, a soft meowing came from the top of the stairs. As it did every time Dalila was going to leap down the stairs. It was adorable, it felt like she was giving the stairs a warning before she bounded down them.

I opened the living room door wide and let the small black and white cat strut inside. Her blue eyes were narrowed and her head moved slowly, until she saw Akui. Then she hissed and arched her back.

"Oh, it's okay," I said and sat on the floor beside her, stroking her back. I reached under the chair my father was sitting on and grabbed some rope I kept hidden, lying it in front of her. "Dalila doesn't like strangers."

"Which is why she's perfect for you," my father commented. "But, yes. I gathered a lot of equipment on my journeys and brought them back to the village. Some of them were also my own creations."

"What kind of things do you make?" Akuji asked.

I snorted. My father's experiments weren't allowed to be kept in the house, save for the ones on the fish. He had a tendency to mess up, so the corpses which he brought back to life had to be destroyed. They were always animals, my father refused to work on humans. That was something I'm grateful for. Yet, this entire situation felt like payback for all of it.

"I restore things," was all my father said.