He sat back down next to me once he was dressed and grabbed his plate of sandwiches, “You look disappointed.”
“I am. You got dressed.”
“You can see more of my lovely body another time.”
“I look forward to it.”
We made eye contact with each other, and we both instantly busted into laughter.
“Has your curiosity been satisfied?” he asked me as we calmed down.
“Not really. I wanna know what I look like in my true form.”
“Nothing like mine, that’s for sure. Most guardians have forms similar to mine but with minor variations. Your true form will look like most nature demons with some minor variations. I’ll introduce you to a nature demon after we visit the Crown District.”
“What are the variations to your true form?” I asked after finishing my first sandwich.
“I grew more hair on parts of my body like my wrist, ankles, and chest, but not all guardians do. Some may grow scales all over their body or get completely covered in hair. The spikes that protrude from the back can vary in where they start and end and how long they are.
Then, you have height and width variations. That pretty much covers the common differences, but sometimes drastic things can happen. Sometimes a true form may lack a tail or claws. There are some other rare features that find their way into the true from or out of the true from at times. We consider them mutations since they do not follow the normal true form traits.”
“So are spirits born in their true forms?” I asked since it was called a true form.
“No, we’re born in our humanoid forms.”
“Then why is it called a true form then?”
“Some old geezer of the human variety decided to call it our true form since we weren’t human, which meant that our human forms couldn’t be our real forms. It was ridiculous reasoning, but the name stuck, and now we refer to it as our true forms.”
I finished my last sandwich, “So what was it called before spirits started calling it true forms?”
“It was just called our beast forms because that’s what they really are.”
“There’s so much I don’t know about my own people.” I sighed and slouched backwards onto the couch.
“That’s okay. You’ll eventually be able to remember everything, but for now, I’ll just teach you what you need to know. By the way, I contacted another nature demon, and he says he’s free today. Would you like him to come over?”
“When did you even contact someone? You’ve been here with me the whole time. You also said that you’d introduce me to one after we went into the spirit world.”
“Well I was intending for it to be after, but he is free right now and would like to meet you.”
“You didn’t answer the question.” I crossed my arms at him.
“I guess that's something I told you before you lost your memory again. Spirits don’t really use things like phones and the internet to contact each other. We use a more mental or telepathic form of contact along a communication leyline of sorts to get in touch with each other. We can use phones and the internet if we wanted to, but generally only guardians use it, and that’s due to them working closely with humans.”
“Can you do that with me?” I asked hoping he’d offer to do so.
“I could, and you could potentially do it as well.”
“Really! I wanna try!” I shouted as I jolted out of my slouching position.
“You’re more talkative than you used to be.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve basically been talking all day, and you don’t seem tired yet. Before you lost your memory again, you didn’t really like talking. You preferred to be silent.”
He got up off the couch after shoving the last of his sandwich into his mouth. He grabbed my plate and left me to sit there all by myself. I watched him as he placed the plates into the sink and quickly washed them. Once he was done, he came back into the living room and sat down next to me.
“So? Do you want to meet him today?” He asked me after getting comfortable.
“I don’t really think I want to meet anyone else today. It was stressful enough meeting Baxter, but I would like to try that communication thing.”
“I’ll teach you how to do that another day. Let’s just relax for the rest of the day. Sound like a plan to you?”
“Okay, I guess I’ll wait. Can I take a nap?”
He looked at me and gave me a goofy grin, “that’s a silly question. If you can fall asleep, of course you can nap.” As he finished this statement, he picked up a couch pillow and threw it at me.
“Hey!” That's not nice!” I shouted at him as I threw the pillow back at him with everything I could put into it.
He laughed at me again, “Whoever said I was nice was obviously talking about my ass.”
“What ass? You’re pretty flat.” I stuck my tongue out at him.
“Really? I’ll remember that next time you’re gawking at my body.”
“You’re the one that stripped. If the t.v. is on, I’m going to watch.”
“You don’t need to get so defensive. You take your nap, and I’ll watch a show or two before filling out some paperwork.”
I layed down on the couch and curled up so that I wouldn’t be kicking Max off while I slept. For some reason, I felt extremely exhausted, and as I closed my eyes, I went out like a light bulb. I didn’t even realize I was that tired until after I woke up.
Max wasn’t in the living room when I opened my eyes. It disappointed me a little bit because I expected him to still be right there next to me. I stretched and realized that a blanket had been placed on me. The blanket slipped off of me, and I picked it up and placed it back onto the couch. I looked around to see if Max was anywhere in sight, but I couldn’t see him.
I walked towards the bedroom and reached to open the door, but it was locked. I knocked on the door, but I didn’t get a response. I wasn’t very familiar with the house and didn't know where else to look. Panic began to rise in me as I realized that it was possible that Max wasn’t in the house.
“Max?” I called loudly into the house.
I heard a door on the other side of the house open. I looked to face the direction of the sound and soon saw Max walking through the kitchen.
“Yeah?” He answered my call.
“Nothing. I just wanted to know where you were.”
“Oh okay. I guess you don’t really know my house that well anymore. I was in my office working on some things for the station. Follow me; I’ll show you where you can find me next time.” He walked away with me in tow.
We walked down a hall that was connected to the kitchen and at the end of the hall was a door in which Max opened and walked into. It was a small room filled with lots of books and papers with a desk right in front of a window that faced the backyard.
“Did you know the bedroom door is still locked?” I asked him.
“I forgot about that, but I can easily fix that. Is there anything you want to do?”
“Not really, but can I go outside though?”
“You can, while I work in the office, I’d like for you to stay in the back yard so that I can see you.”
“Okay. How do I get out there?”
He didn’t verbally answer me, but he did walk back out of the office and motioned for me to follow him. As he walked away, I noticed that he seemed to be a bit tired. He usually had a really strong, confident stride when he walked, but for some reason at that moment, it was sluggish and meek. I followed him into the dinning room, and he stopped in front of the door beside the window.
“Something wrong?” He asked me.
“No, I should be asking you that.”
“Why so?”
“You seem tired.”
He smiled at me, “You don’t need to worry about me. Go enjoy the sun while it’s still up. It won’t be up much longer. Just promise you will come inside before the sun completely goes down.”
“Yes Daddy.” I joked as I turned the knob on the door and stepped out.
The weather outside was very nice and warm. I stepped off of the porch, and Max watched me as I moved towards the front of his office window. Once I had found myself a nice spot on the grass, he disappeared into the house and closed the door behind him. The fresh open air made me feel very at home as I stretched out onto the grass. It was calming to lay there and listen to all of the woodland creatures talk to one another.
While I was laying there, an ant decided to walk over my arm. Fascinated by it, I placed my hand on the side it was headed and let it walk into my hand. Once it was in my hand, I let it walk from one hand to the next and through my fingers. He was an interesting little insect.
Then, out of nowhere, the stupid thing bit me! I yelled ouch even though it didn’t really hurt as much as it surprised me. I quickly slapped the foul beast and killed it. I wouldn’t normally just kill things, but it had it coming.
After killing it, the window to Max’s office opened. “Are you okay? What happened?”
“I’m fine. A stupid ant bit me.”
“Okay, just be sure to come inside before it gets too dark.” He said as he closed his office window.
I went back to enjoying the backyard taking in all that it had to offer. The wind was blowing slightly and gave me a nostalgic feeling. I couldn’t place why it felt so familiar, nor could I figure out where it reminded me of. It made me feel like a giant hole was in my body. It felt lonely and sad. Wind was something I could have felt anywhere at any time, but what about it made me feel this way? Without my memory, I’d never figure it out.
Despite the overbearing idea that I’m not supposed to remember my past, I really yearned for it. I needed to know who I was and where I came from. I wanted to remember my people and how to be a spirit.
The sun began to quickly sink into the tree line, so I got up off of the ground and started heading towards the backdoor so that I would not upset Max by staying out too late. I walked back inside the house, and Max soon walked out of the office and into the kitchen. He started to pull out food items and pots.
While he pulled things out, I asked, “What were you working on in there?”
“Well, I needed to complete the paperwork to transfer your case to the spirit realm. I was also trying to get in touch with some aristocrats to make plans to bring you into the spirit realm.”
“Were you able to find someone?”
“Yeah and no. I found people for what I need, but nobody is free on the same day. This would mean I need to postpone getting you there so that they can all arrange their schedule to be free on the same day. Otherwise, you’d have to be in the spirit realm for a prolonged period of time, and as of right now I don’t feel comfortable doing that: especially so in the Crown District.”
“How long would you have to push it back?”
“Don’t know. It’s really hard to work with aristocrats because they always have something going on or have something else planned. It could be a few weeks, or it could be years.”
“I don’t want to wait years!” I exclaimed at the mention of it.
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