A moment of respite

Meiris broke several tiles upon landing on the roof and nearly got her leg through. Luckily none of the tiles fell down, so there was a chance no one would be alerted.

Until that moment she just assumed the world was as invincible against her as she was against it. Though what happened did make sense when she considered she could interact with anything physical.

On the other hand, very little about her recent life - and "life" - made sense.

The pain seemed to disperse more quickly, but that could have been attributed to her mind relaxing after no longer being trapped in the castle. She crawled behind a dormer and took a while to rest. A long while.

It wasn't really enough to hide her body from anyone on top of the wall due to how high it was, but at least no one could see her from below.

What she was doing wasn't exactly illegal, but the owner of the building could have a different opinion. Additionally the cloak wouldn't cover her whole, so a portion of her legs and face weren't hidden. A kind of an issue when one considered that Meiris' body was transparent.

For now, however, none of that mattered. She just laid there half-asleep and looked at the sky, which was slowly getting covered in orange clouds.

The roof was long covered in the wall's shadow. Too bad, because she felt like seeing her first sunset outside after so long.

Then it was over and the sky darkened.

***

When Meiris still went to the academy - what stopped abruptly with the accusations - she wouldn't waste a second.

Etiquette, administration, dance, mathematics, history... She would learn everything that made her an ideal trading card for her family. She wanted it. She liked that role.

There was so much she wanted to learn and the social scene was a playground like no other. Back then she would treat her - assumed - friends directly, but there was a different strategy she employed against opponents, enemies. She would keep their relationships ambiguous, slowly wearing out the other party without taking serious measures.

Not like she had much power at her disposal anyway. She was a teenage noble, even if her father used to bring her to various meetings. And without inheritance rights at that.

However, that was alright. Meiris was fine with her younger brother becoming the successor. Being unbound to the position meant that she could aim higher, if without any guarantee.

Whenever she wasn't busy with the necessities, she would fill her schedule either with magic lessons, playing piano or reading novels. Sometimes she would ask the knights themselves to tell her their stories. She tended to prefer adventurers, but those were more difficult to talk to casually as a noble.

Most of her life was on display, she was confident in the many connections she made and even helped her family get a lucrative contract.

No matter how long she thought about what happened- She couldn't understand it. At the very least not her family.

All she did then wasn't selfless, but she had been constantly working for their sake as well.

No longer. Now she was just lying on a random roof, watching the night sky. "Wasting" the time away without care.

'Was it always this beautiful?'

She thought while shuffling under the cloak. The breeze felt odd against her skin without the coolness it used to have.

In truth the night wasn't all that special. The sky has mostly cleared since the sunset and the many stars were now unobscured, shining bright. Though their light couldn't match the half-moon's.

The main difference was that Meiris paid it attention she never did.

***

After a long while, Meiris was eventually satisfied with the sight and jumped off the roof.

It was a spontaneous decision she made while reality was still a faraway haze. Not necessarily a bad one. If she attempted to run across the rooftops there were many things that could go wrong with her lack of skill.

"Hahah-"

She chuckled when the pain hit, waking her up completely.

"Haaa..."

'Did I really forget about this so quickly? Or am I a masochist now?'

She closed her eyes, struggling to maintain thoughts, to dull the senses.

'This would be the dream for a masochist, but sadly I don't like this part...'

With the mental paralysis loosening, Meiris finally took a look around. It was the middle of the night, but that didn't automatically mean no one was awake. Good thing she fell in a place out of street lamps' reach.⠀Not too difficult given how few there were. Just enough to navigate the city during the night.

She stood up, a little unsteady, shook off her clothes and vaguely cleaned up the gloves. Most of the dirt was still left from when she jumped out of the barracks.

In terms of her ghostly body she tried to make the dirt pass through herself, but that didn't do much, other than sending a few tickles. Meiris lacked a different kind of understanding to do so.

She got the hood back over her head, and a question appeared. Something she had briefly considered, but it felt like a fantasy back then.

'Where to now?'

In the grand scale, Meiris wasn't keen on going west. That's where her family's land was. It wasn't nearly large enough to cover the entire western area of the Kingdom of Modeva and the chance she would be found out was very low either way, but she wanted to stay as far away from it as possible.

North was fine, though there wasn't much.

East could have been interesting. Especially if Meiris wanted to board a ship, because that's where the coast was.

In the south there was the empire. It was also in the west, but that was already off the table.

The Vaunthon Empire - named after an ancient legend - was without a question, the strongest nation on the continent. It had the most prosperous regions under it's rule, allowing for exceptional quality of life and unchallenged economy.

There have been times when the empire was almost torn from the inside, but that was never enough to make it crumble. Some said that the emperor and his 8 high officials were guided by a god itself.

The empire was also a place Meiris wanted to visit. For multiple reasons. Curiosity was something she always felt towards it, but now she was a ghost. A ghost with no idea about what - and why - happened to her, or if it could be undone without killing her. There was a possibility she would find the answers in Vaunthon.

As developed as Modeva was in certain fields, the empire was far ahead in general. So if she had to take risks, she would rather risk getting into the Great Archives of Vaunthon. And for the last resort- She would rather ask a sage that had access to them.

The prejudice towards asking someone right away didn't only stem from her fresh trust issues or because she thought she would be mindlessly killed before holding a conversation. Though that was a concern.

The main cause was that she already considered something. Ghosts may have never interested her, but after intensely looking through her memories, she found a remark that was repeated a few times. Ghosts were believed not to age.

Immortality was widely recognized as impossible, and yet it was still being researched by some. Whether it was a leader plunging their land into darkness over an obsession, or a sage gone mad, committing atrocities one could consider worse than entire wars. The stories weren't all too common, but Meiris learned a lot of history, hence she knew a lot of them.

So if *she* thought of using herself as a research subject for immortality, someone far wiser and more intelligent would no doubt do the same. She bet such research had already been performed on ghosts in the past, but she was no ordinary ghost with an unknown artifact embedded in her chest.

While she currently planned to look for knowledge in far away places, she also had a mild suspicion that what happened was no accident. But it's not like she could find the person responsible for it.

And even if that was possible, she wasn't sure if she wanted to. On one hand her life was partially saved, hinting that the person might have been on her side. On the other... Nothing about it made sense to her. The location, the method - or what she could make of it - the priceless artifact... The idea it was actually staged by a person was somewhat terrifying.

'Ah, too bad I didn't take my time to take a look from up there...'

Having decided on her destination, Meiris was looking for the God's Compass, a constellation to the north. Which proved difficult with the tall buildings closely following the winding roads.

She didn't need it to leave the city, definitely not at all times, but it would be of great help.

Eventually she managed to sneak a glimpse over the rooftops, a few intersections into vaguely the right direction. She also fell over while walking backwards.

Occasionally she would find herself in a fragment of the city that she knew.

Such as the area near a library she used to visit. It was a small detour, a way of saying goodbye to her old life for the final time.

Meiris stared through the glass pane at the newest books present on display, barely distinguishable in the moonlight.

*sigh*

If she really wanted to, she could grab one. Her arms' reach wasn't limited by the door and the lock was within it.

Gaze shifting to her reflection in the glass, her eyes swept over the cloak, gloves... Lingering for a moment.

'That's not it.'

She shook her head and walked away.

The kingdom held no value to her anymore, but she couldn't blame it on the people.