Garrick awoke to the sound of birds—well, one bird in particular.
“CAW!”
It was the sound of a raven cawing mercilessly outside his window. Turning his head, he sought Ember’s familiar form but found her usual spot empty. Off again with the rising sun on some adventure, he thought to himself with a resigned sigh. It seemed she had her own quests to embark on already today, leaving Garrick to face the day—
“CAW! CAW!”
—and the raven’s persistent noises, alone.
Stretching his limbs, Garrick made his way to the window, where the bread-thieving raven (among other culinary heists, recently including a freshly grilled mushroom kebab snatched just as Garrick had reached for the sauce) was perched on the sill.
“CAW! CA—”
Garrick wrenched the window open, leveling a stern gaze at the bird.
“You’re not allowed in,” he declared firmly. “So whatever you need, it better be outside.”
“CAW!”
Garrick sighed.
"What do you want, then?" Garrick asked as he stared down the raven.
The bird flapped its wings energetically, hopping back and forth on the windowsill in a manner that seemed deliberate. Then, with a swift turn of its head, it gestured toward Garrick's garden.
"The garden?" Garrick inquired skeptically. “Listen, I’m not giving you any tomatoes. You know the rules.”
However, despite his statement, Garrick had long accepted that the raven did not, in fact, know the rules.
The raven simply tilted its head, adopting a look that, had Garrick not known better, he might have interpreted as confusion. Or was it exasperation? With a raven, it was hard to tell.
"Fine. Wait there," Garrick grumbled, closing the window with a soft thud. He quickly dressed, the day's unexpected turn prompting a supreme sense of loss.
I was planning to sleep in before heading to Maretown to shop. I’ll consider that sorted.
What could possibly be so important in his garden to warrant this early morning disturbance?
Exiting his cabin, Garrick found the raven had not waited on the windowsill, but was instead perched on the arm of a chair on his porch.
"You're terrible at following directions, bird," he remarked, though the comment was met with nothing more than a defiant caw from the raven.
"And what's so important then?" he asked.
True to form, the raven cawed once more, then fluttered off with a sense of urgency that left Garrick no choice but to follow.
Led by the raven's insistent guidance, Garrick found that the final destination was not the garden at all, though they did pass by it. Instead the route brought him directly to the steps at the bottom of the bluff. Thoroughly over this little journey already, Garrick ascended the steep staircase carved into the rock, leading to the windmill overlooking Respite.
Upon reaching the summit, Garrick paused to rub his knee (it had started to ache a bit on the climb,) his gaze lifting to take in the sight before him. There, in front of the windmill, was a figure so out of place that it took nearly five seconds for Garrick to process what he saw.
Tall and slender, the being stood at least ten feet high, enshrouded in what appeared to be a dark, flowing fabric that defied the morning light, absorbing and reflecting it in equal measure. It was as if a child's ghost costume had been reimagined by someone with a deep well of darkness to draw from—or maybe had been kicked into a mine shaft and covered in coal dust. In either case, the figure's two glowing blue-white eyes, visible through ragged tears in the…fabric? —scrutinized the windmill with an intensity that suggested a purpose beyond mere curiosity.
The raven, now properly satisfied at having done its duty, flapped over to a rocky outcropping above and settled upon it, watching intently.
What is this thing? Garrick wondered, then corrected himself. Well, maybe not ‘thing.’ That might be rude. I’m sure whatever it is…is a very delightful…entity.
Approaching with a nonchalance born of countless encounters with the weird and extraordinary, Garrick cleared his throat.
"Ahem. Can I help you?" he inquired, his tone casual, as if he was addressing a neighbor rather than some sort of spectral entity examining one of Respite's landmarks.
The figure didn’t seem to notice. Instead, it changed the angle of its perusal to a slightly bent one. Whatever it was looking at, it was fully engrossed—and apparently requiring several different perspectives to get a handle on it.
“Anything I can do for you, friend?” Garrick called again. After another long moment, a voice spoke up from within the…sheet?
“Is this your winged building?”
Winged building? Garrick wondered, looking up at the blades of the windmill curiously. Oh. I guess someone’s never seen a windmill before.
“Sure is,” Garrick said, taking a step forward. “Built it myself, in fact.”
“I can tell,” the entity said, then turned to gaze upon Garrick with its glowing white-blue eyes. “It is…ugly. Yuck.”
Garrick had to double-take. Not only because the light coming out of those eyes was very strange, indeed, but because that was a pretty rude thing to say to someone outright. Especially someone you’d just met. The creature was apparently quite blunt—and unnecessarily so. Though Garrick noticed no malice to the voice of the being when it delivered those words, just as though it was relaying a fact. However, the way it spoke was also strange—stilted, as if it wasn’t used to speaking a common tongue—and emphasizing weird sections of words.
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“Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” Garrick said. “I suppose every opinion is worth taking into consideration—”
“It is not an opinion,” the creature said matter-of-factly. “It is objectively bad."
Garrick's initial instinct was to bristle at the critique—it had taken him years to build it, after all—but the creature's forthrightness still played more to his curiosity than his annoyance.
"And what do you know about windmill aesthetics?" he asked his tone light, smirking.
The creature returned to the windmill, its gaze lingering on the rotating blades.
"I have seen many structures in my time," it said, its voice devoid of any warmth or humor. "This windmill—as you call it—is particularly unappealing. It might be the ugliest building I have ever seen."
Garrick let out a snort.
"Is that all you came here to say? To insult my handiwork? Or is there something you want?"
At this, the creature shrugged its nonexistent shoulders—a gesture so distinctly person-like and yet so alien in its execution—and returned its attention to the windmill.
“Well, I don’t want to be rude—though I’m guessing you wouldn’t notice if I was—but unfortunately, you happen to be on my property. Which means you’re technically trespassing. I’m not one to mind too much about that sort of thing—unless you’re a rock dragon—but I think I’d appreciate it if you told me why you are here.”
There was only silence from the creature. Garrick cleared his throat again.
"I wish to observe the ugly tower more," it stated plainly, "but it is difficult to do when an old human is loudly making phlegm."
Garrick chuckled. Here was a being, clearly not of this world—or at least not of his understanding of it—critiquing his construction skills and complaining about his bodily noises. And yet…Garrick sometimes didn’t know when to leave well enough alone.
"Other than the ugliness, what caught your attention?" he asked, trying a different tactic.
The creature's glowing eyes flickered slightly as if amused by the question.
"I have business in the ruins in the mountains," it began, its tone taking on a slightly more conversational cadence. "This settlement is the closest. I was flying overhead when I saw this…afront to beauty. This winged building intrigues me because it is so ugly and badly made that I would like to sleep inside it. To rest here in between my navigation of the ruins."
Garrick stared at the creature, trying to determine if it was joking. But the earnestness in its declaration and its earlier blunt assessments convinced him of its sincerity.
“Ruins, huh?” he asked. “Would those be the ones on the top of the mountain or the ones in the crags?”
The creature was suddenly in front of him, having moved so quickly that it even startled Garrick.
“There are ruins in the crags as well?! Tell me which crags—I request it now.”
Up close, Garrick could see that whatever the entity had wrapped around itself was not a sheet but actually looked like some kind of shroud made of interconnected threads.
Well, that’s just describing a sheet, Garrick mused. But this is altogether different. The scent it gives off is…
He sniffed the air.
Ozone. Like when a powerful Chant is cast. This entity either has a lingering connection to astara, or…
He focused on the shroud obscuring the finer features of the creature.
…it’s made of astara itself.
Apparently too lost in his ruminations for the creature’s liking, it prompted him further.
“You will take me to these crags and show me the other, better ruins you are selfishly keeping to yourself.”
“Look,” Garrick said. “I don’t mind telling you where the crag ruins are—it’s really not my secret to keep. Nor is it my business to know why you want to go to there—”
“I am seeking knowledge from the past,” the creature said in response. “To learn as much as I can so that I can leave and never have to be here ever, ever again. It is bad here. There is too much light all the time, and then there are the noises; they are overpowering and stupid.”
“Hmm,” Garrick muttered. “Noises, huh?”
“Oh yes,” the creature continued, shaking its…head. “The people here make all sorts of racket, from all of the holes in their bodies, all of the time. Especially when they chew their food—the smack, smack, smack as big food becomes little food inside their mouths is a sound I would not even wish to torture my enemies with.”
I’m really not sure how this became my problem, Garrick thought. But it doesn’t sound like it’s going to go away until I give it the information it wants.
“The crags are about a five-hour walk from here—well, you said you fly, right?”
The creature, in response, simply began to levitate, floating up and above Garrick. Garrick thought that seeing something like that might actually make the average person soil themselves if they saw a freakishly tall specter like this one suddenly hovering around ten feet off the ground.
“A simple ‘yes’ would have been fine,” Garrick said. “Still, it’s good to know. How fast do you fly, then?”
The creature suddenly lowered itself back down until it was—well, not eye level, but back where it looked like the hem of its sheet was scraping the ground.
“Not very fast,” the creature said—and for the first time, it sounded like it actually had some emotion in its tone.
Apparently, that’s a sore subject, Garrick considered.
“Well, if you can fly up and over, it probably won’t take you very long,” he said. “You’ll just need to look for the big boulders sticking out of the trees—the ones with a distinct reddish hue. Don’t confuse them for the ones with the green tint, though, unless you want to have a very indirect conversation with a group of fantastically long-winded druids. Regardless, the reddish rocks are the ones to aim for. You can't miss them if you're looking from above.”
Garrick considered that.
Probably.
“Anyway,” Garrick finished, “the crags are just north of that.”
The creature dismissed this information with a wave of its hand—or what Garrick assumed was its hand—hidden beneath the dark shroud.
"Your directions are as poorly constructed as your windmill. The people here are exceptionally bad at explaining things. It is decided: you will take me there yourself. Let’s go.”
Garrick laughed.
"I'm afraid that's not possible. My days of going off on wild goose chases are long behind me.”
He paused, realizing the irony of the statement. In fact, he’d seemed to encounter nothing but tangents since Dashiell Montrose had shown up asking him to join the road-building project.
Still, this creature doesn’t need to know that.
“Besides,” he continued, “you seem capable enough to find it alone. Just follow the directions I gave, and you'll be just fine."
The creature hesitated, then, with a tone that suggested it was making a significant concession, said, "Fine—but since you will not take me, then I will still sleep in your embarrassing windmill. This decision is reasonable since you have refused to provide adequate guidance."
Garrick snorted, amused by the creature's logic.
"You can sleep in the windmill, sure. But I don't want you trawling around the property. Stick to the windmill—the upper level—and that should be more than fine while you spend your days perusing the ruins."
Just then, movement out of the corner of his eye caught Garrick’s attention. He looked over to find Ember had found her way up the long stairway to the windmill, her bright eyes curious as she looked up at the strange, towering figure. Garrick's face broke into a smile as he saw her, the conversation with the creature momentarily forgotten.
"Ah, there you are, Ember. Been off on your own little escapade, I see?"
As Ember approached, the spectral creature's white-blue eyes narrowed into what Garrick interpreted as a scowl. The sudden tension made Garrick's demeanor shift; his voice became serious.
"Is there an issue?” The weight seeping into Garrick’s tone would not be missed by most—save for the entity, who merely tutted disapprovingly. It looked down at Ember, who was now blissfully unaware of the tension, rolling on her back in an attempt to catch a beetle buzzing by.
"We have already encountered one another once today," the creature explained. "It is rude and threatened me earlier. I was merely examining the fruit patches near the large sword when this creature approached, telling me I was not allowed there. Then it said if I didn't leave, it would tear me to ribbons."
Garrick, surprised by this revelation, but not only because of the claim. The idea that this…whatever it was, could communicate with Ember was a very intriguing notion.
He glanced down at Ember again, who seemed far more interested in her insect quarry than any spectral visitors. Looking back up at the creature, Garrick couldn't help but snort, allowing his moment of protective instincts to fade.
"Well, it seems like she's forgiven you for whatever transgressions transpired. She’s got a short memory for grudges, thankfully. Still, though, it's good advice. You should never disturb another man's garden."
The creature scoffed, the sound laden with disdain.
"Forgiveness? That is irrelevant. I was merely conducting a survey of the area. But, as is typical with creatures of this world, aggression is the preferred method of communication. How... quaint."
Garrick, amused by the creature's snarky dismissal, spotted the raven still perched above, watching the exchange with what could only be described as rapt attention. An idea sparked in his mind, then, a mischievous grin spread across his features.
"Perhaps you should take that raven along as a guide? He's been near that way before," Garrick suggested, nodding towards the crags.
The raven, inexplicably, seemed to pick up on this suggestion, and Garrick couldn't be sure, but it almost looked... upset at the prospect.
The ghastly creature considered the proposal momentarily before agreeing, albeit reluctantly.
"Very well. The bird will serve as my navigator. Come along, bird."
Then, the creature turned to Garrick.
"Given the inadequate instructions and your inability to accompany me, I will go to the ruins immediately. Subsequently, I intend to return and explain my discoveries to you. If you are asleep when I return, do not worry; I will wake you.”
Garrick tried to interject, to say it wasn't necessary to report back, but the creature was already floating up into the air, commanding the raven, in a dismissive tone, to attend to it.
"You, bird, ensure I keep my way. And be swift about it."
As the creature prepared to leave, Garrick called up to it, asking, "By the way, do you have a name? I’m Garrick."
The creature scoffed again.
"Call me whatever you wish, Gare Ick. My true name would be impossible for your fragile human tongue to produce."
Then, almost as an afterthought, the creature shouted back down to Garrick.
"Oh! Also, I just remembered that I broke the door of the little house with all the tools. Consider it an improvement. Farewell!"
Before Garrick could respond, the creature and the reluctantly compliant raven sped away towards the crags.
Garrick, left standing in the wake of the creature's departure, could only mutter sadly, "...my woodshed?" He looked down the bluff to see that, indeed, the door was hanging at an awkward angle from the hinges. He sighed.
Well, if I have to fix that today, I guess I won’t be getting to go shopping until tomorrow.
“Well, Ember,” he said, gesturing to the stairs. “Sounds like we’re going to have a guest for a bit.”
Why do things like this keep happening lately? He wondered. Was this what I sensed? A lack of peace and quiet?
His stomach grumbled. “How’s breakfast sound?”
Ember wiggled her nose at him, and he nodded, smiling, as they made their way back toward the cabin to make themselves something to eat.
“What do you think we should name him, anyway?” he mused. “I was thinking of calling him Levi–you know, short for ‘levitate?’”
He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw Ember wince.