Recheov made it a point to stay out in the woods that night. He could have gone and broken into someone's house, made use of their bed, and had at least one more night of decent sleep ahead of him--but the whole idea made him feel a little sick. The family would've never seen him, never known their home was invaded, never known how they were taken advantage of. Now, it was early morning.

"Recheov th'friendly ghost," he mused as he thought it over, string of barley held between gaps where teeth once were and teeth still remained, "Hah."

The noise behind him came as predicted. Slow and methodical, but not wavering. Confident. Determined. Yep, that was him. Recheov didn't even need to look behind him.

"Ready t'set out?"

He'd met Eld at the southern edge of Hillcrest. Further down the road, Galaens awaited. They had a long walk ahead of them. Or, at least, Recheov suggested the walk might be long. Or it might be short. The distance to their destination was effectively up in the air. Nevertheless, it was expected that Eld might bring a fair amount of supplies with him. Recheov could only hope he brought cigarettes for later. He knew, of course, that he didn't. It was a good thing they were heading into Galaens, then. He knew he was going to need a pack later.

From the presence he felt on the road ahead, Eld thought he was going to have some business to take care of on the way to the Unreal City. At least it felt like a ghost and not a Voleur d'Ame; he brought some first aid stuff in his backpack but if he got seriously injured before he even got to the place, he doubted he had much of a chance. What he wasn't expecting was for Recheov to be there rather than some kind of ghost.

"You're coming too?" he asked uneasily. It wasn't that he didn't trust him, but...actually, it was that he didn't trust him. How could he trust someone who admitted that he wanted to bash his skull in? But at the same time, Eld had only vague directions on how to get to the Unreal City; he had little doubt that, if Recheov was being honest with him, he could get him there faster.

It was a gamble, but he had to take it. He had to get to the city, and as far as he knew get back in time too. If the trip could vary greatly in length, he couldn't afford not to take any opportunity to shave some time off his journey.

He did have one question though, one that boggled his senses and made him even more uneasy than even the threat of Recheov turning on him. "You're a Memory, right? So why do you feel like a ghost?" Not even Illorex, who could use Qi, felt like that.

That question was bound to come up eventually. In fact, that it didn't come up earlier was a bit of a surprise. At least, it was a surprise awhile back. Some parts of the future didn't make perfect sense to him, if only for the lack of omniscient view. Reasoning, rationality, and internal emotions of all these key players . . . if they never came out, Recheov could only try to infer them from context clues, and he was surprisingly bad at that.

"Y'know 'ow Memories work, right?" Recheov asked rhetorically. "Or, at leas', wot we're-- they're --all after an' the like."

He opted to walk and talk instead of wasting time standing around, discussing something he hardly cared about anymore. What's done was done, and he long since accepted it. He was just fine discussing it, though, he just wanted to know how much Eld knew to determine how little he had to explain.

. . . well, the truth of the matter was that he did know how educated Eld was on the matter, as he inevitably answered the question Recheov just asked. Recheov just liked humoring the situation sometimes.

Eld fell into step without question; indeed, he wouldn't have stood still long anyway. Every second not spent moving forwards was a second wasted right now. "...You said that enough souls would give you 'regular existences.' So that's why they want Kageko, who can devour souls--and in order to give that to all Memories, they'd kill all of humanity."

That about summed up larger angle of what was at stake. Not for the first time, it occurred to him that he was likely walking into a trap. He was going to the home of his enemies, and bringing with him exactly what they wanted. If he failed he could doom all of humanity, though it was hard to truly believe.

If it was true, though, then what he should've been doing was running and hiding, trying to keep Kageko out of their hands. That was the original plan, after all. But to do so was to leave Etsu to die.

He wondered if his refusal to do that made him a good person or just a selfish one.

"What I don't understand is why you don't have normal existences to begin with. You all seem human enough to me." Well, Recheov seemed like a ghost, but his point still stood.

"We're jus' remnants of people," Recheov replied to Eld's inadvertent question, "When a soul's destroyed, there's nothin' left but its memories. Enough of those, an' you've got us. S'all in the name, kid. Memories."

Recheov talked with his hands. It was a habit he always had, though he usually had a cigarette in hand when he did so. Or a drink. He'd long since abandoned both habits, though.

"Problem is, Memories ain't real. Just a big ol' collection of wot remains of lost souls, given some kinda form from a place that's just an error in the universe. By that, Memories are jus' errors. Never meant t'be. Always meant t'be corrected. Erased, y'know? So, when a Memory dies, they don't go nowhere. They jus' stop existin'. Everyone forgets 'bout 'em. World 'istory even gets reconfigured a bit, as if they never existed. 'Cause the truth is they never did."

He paused a moment.

"Now if that don't make a damn sense to you, consider y'self the second to 'ear all that an' think 'wot the fuck does that even mean?,' 'cause I really ain't got a clue, either," he was really wanting that cigarette, now. His hand felt empty. The string of barley just wasn't doing the trick. "Gettin' to the point: makin' a Memory real is jus' reversin' wot made 'em. 'Cept a soul's are pretty specific, an' y'need one 'ell of a lot of 'em pushed t'gether to make a blank soul an'--yeah, y'need a "nothing soul" t'make a Memory real."

He paused again. Recheov was talking a lot. Eld didn't know that much. He wasn't gifted with the appropriate information to handle his situation. Recheov was just helping him out, was all. Still, he needed to pause sometimes to let him catch up and absorb it all.

"That bein' said," he continued, "I'm livin' proof of it workin'. Well . . . dead proof. Got t'see wot bein' human was like. Wasn't really that great."

"So you became human...and then died...and now you're a ghost, but still sort of a Memory," Eld repeated, trying to clarify.

Really, that was not the most important thing. The most important thing was that they needed souls to become fully human, and Recheov had apparently done that, which technically made him a Voleur d'Ame, he figured. Perhaps that explained why Reapers were apparently supposed to hunt Memories?

Truthfully, it should have been his duty to pass on Recheov as soon as possible. He wasn't actually sure he could do that; something about the way he felt suggested it wouldn't be as easy as it sounds, even taking into account that as a Memory (or former one?) he might have had some kind of crazy power like Illorex. He didn't look like he'd be terrible in a fight, either.

But above all that he seemed willing to help him rescue Etsu, or at least guide him to the Forgotten City, and that was far more important to him than any duty he felt to the Reapers. He'd save her, even if it meant he could be labeled as a Voleur d'Ame himself.

"What's a 'blank soul?'" he asked. It was not something Etsu had ever mentioned, and he not something he could recall encountering himself. He'd think if anyone knew anything about a special type of soul it would be the Reapers. But then again, there was another special type he'd notably learned from an outside source, so...

"Memory in name," Recheov replied, "I got my reality. I'm jus' like you. 'Cept tougher, maybe. Eh. Y'know 'ow it goes."

It was really a lot simpler than Eld was giving it credit for. Recheov became real, so he was just like Eld and any other human around. Then he died. So, he was just the same as any regular wayward spirit--only particularly strong and unwilling to move on just yet.

"Anyway, a nothin' soul is just wot I said: bunch of souls collected t'gether 'til they're one solid thing, an' they've all blanked eachother out--y'know, all the noise of personality, memories, and all that happy stuff that remains with a dead person is just gone 'cause it's all way too much an' way too dense. Jus' one big powerful thing a Memory can take in itself an', well, become real."

Judging by the scale Recheov, and a couple others earlier, had discussed, that probably meant hundreds to thousands of human souls . . .

"I...see..." The number of souls required for that to occur had to be enormous; how many souls needed to be sacrificed in order to make a Memory a human? One hundred? More? No wonder the Memories would potentially wipe out humanity.

He wasn't sure if he really wanted to know the answer, but curiosity forced him to ask the question on his mind. "How did you do it? Right now, everyone's after Kageko; why would they need her if there's another way?"

It was a more reasonable question than even Eld realized, as the danger of going after the "Dusk Remnant" was quite great due to its current owner. He was more dangerous to them than he could remember.

"Try an' think of another soul-sucker that's as easy t'control as a weapon. Sure, maybe y'could find a beast out in th'dead lands, but it ain't gonna listen to you. Your girlie's the only thing you can count on t'be obedient and completely reliable. An' even if she ain't? She's stuck in that stick there. She ain't got a choice in th'matter; it's obey or obey for her," Recheov reasoned.

Not that he was either fond of or not fond of the idea of taking advantage of a poor girl like that. In actuality, he disliked the idea, but he didn't do a good job of making that point clear, and he probably never would.

"'Sides, she showed up in 'illcrest 'bout the same time we did. Lot of Memories were t'gether, even our would be "king," an' 'round there is your girlie. They all came 'ere for a reason, way back then. I'm pretty sure it was her. Not that they succeeded, obviously, but still--it ain't no coincidence that a goddamn convention strikes up right when a fabled means to an end happens to show up."

Even in his current utilitarian tolerance for Recheov, Eld couldn't help but snap a little about the comments about Kageko. "She isn't just some tool to be used like that!" he said indignantly. It was true, she was obedient...but he wasn't about to take advantage of that. As long as she wanted to help it was fine, but he wasn't about to make her do something she didn't want to, even if it was somehow ingrained in her to put her own wants aside for his sake.

It took a minute for him to realize there was something wrong with what Recheov said. "I don't remember anyone unusual showing up in Hillcrest around that time." He was a little less than entirely sure of this; Kageko showed up about a week after the bandits had struck, which was when his life had suddenly turned upside-down. At the time he'd been a bit preoccupied trying to figure out why he could see ghosts.

It has hard for him to believe that was only a season ago; it seemed like ages had passed since then now.

In all honesty, Recheov had it in him to agree with Eld. He didn't like the idea of using someone unwillingly, just like he didn't like to be used unwillingly, himself. Really, he and Kageko had a good deal in common. Much more than anyone might think. Nevertheless, he didn't say anything in response to Eld's outburst, just let him cool off a little, come to a conclusion, and ultimately respond to that instead.

"'Cause you were snoozin'," Recheov replied.

He recalled it all quite vividly. A town filled with sleeping people, all unable to wake, no matter how much one tried to stir them . . .

"Everyone was. Still ain't got a damn clue why. Couldn't wake any of y'all up. All I know is it was, I dunno, a few months ago," Recheov shrugged his shoulders. He wasn't so good at keeping track of time, either.

"Everyone was asleep? That's odd...unless..." A few months ago, around the time Kageko first showed up. Indeed, it could only have been that night, the night shades had attacked Hillcrest, and he and everybody in the town had died trying to fight them off. The only reason they were still alive is that a god had visited them, visited Eld, and offered him a choice: let everyone die in village die, their souls consumed by monsters, or have the god save everyone.

The latter choice came with only one condition: Eld's soul would be given to Death. It wasn't until later that he found out what that truly meant, that he would be collected by the Reapers someday to serve them, to spend the rest of his life guiding souls to the afterlife, and hunting down any creature that dared defile those souls.

The day he was taken was supposed to have come some time ago, but the Reaper sent to observe and collect him was the very same girl he was now saving. She had fallen in love with him, and had taken his powers so that he could live a normal life, returning to her duties alone.

But he had fallen for her too, and after all he'd been through it had been difficult to return to anything resembling normal. But by an act of mercy fate had reunited them, for the price Etsu paid for robbing the Reapers of his service was to exile her and strip her own power from her, but despite that she had managed to find her way back to Hillcrest.

Since, Eld powers had slowly returned, and how he they were likely stronger than they ever were. It was probably only a matter of time before Etsu's exile was over, and this time he was determined to go with her to the Reapers. Even if it meant leaving his home, he wished to stand by her side.

Besides, given everything that had happened since that fateful night, he'd begun to realize that his presence in Hillcrest was only attracting trouble to it. Nearly every situation he'd solved or helped solve he'd been the root of to begin with.

Not that he'd explain this to Recheov. It wasn't any of his business, really, and it wasn't often he got to feel like he knew something someone else didn't. Fate seemed to conspire to keep him ignorant.

"I guess that must have been to keep anyone from seeing him work. It's not important, in any case."

Whatever the case was, Recheov was just fine with guesses. He hated knowing the bigger picture. It went against everything he ever held dear. He knew a guy that deserved this power much more than him. Unfortunately, that just wasn't how things worked. Recheov had been at the right place at the right time (more like the wrong place at the wrong time, though). Now there was no taking it back. Still, though, he took ignorance over knowledge whenever the opportunity came.

"Probably," Recheov shrugged his shoulders.

They continued to walk in silence for a bit, Recheov spending a good deal of time yearning for a drink or a cigarette. He thought dying would've taken care of those urges. He didn't feel bad, not like he did when he didn't drink or smoke for awhile, but he still felt a want for them.

"Any other questions 'fore I get to th'point?" Recheov asked. Just out of friendliness, really. Thus far, Recheov was probably the friendliest and most helpful Memory (or former Memory) Eld had ever encountered. That he could remember, at least.

"...No, not right now."

Recheov's story was filling in the blanks about the Memories, but at the same time Eld was partially beyond caring what they were and what they were after. They could be the nicest people in the world, but now that Illorex had Etsu he wasn't about to play nice. He would get her back, and anyone who stood between him and that goal was going to feel the full brunt of his wrath.

It took all his willpower not to break out into a sprint; he wanted to get there as fast as possible, but he tired himself out too much he'd either need to rest longer or risk fighting while already exhausted. Time was of the essence, but all the time in the world didn't mean anything if he failed.

"Whelp," Recheov said as he started ahead a little faster.

He turned around once he was ahead of Eld, faced his back to the road upon which they were walking, and walked backwards at the same pace they were walking before. This was just the easiest way to talk to Eld without slowing them down any. Noticeably, though, he was missing just about every kink in the road that could possibly trip him up or whatnot. He had the same level of caution walking backwards than he did walking forwards. Uncanny, really.

"You're goin' to a place that technically ain't real," Recheov preambled, "At least, not real in your sense of the word."

He paused, passed over a small ditch in the road as if he'd been able to see it the whole time.

"So, some shit's gonna happen that can't technically happen. Like, y'might start gettin' weird feelin's, lose feelin's, lose power, gain power. Some of those identities ol' Illorex 'as might even be wanderin' 'round like they belong there. Just want you to know: not a damn thing's gonna make sense. Th'more you try an' make sense of it, the more of a 'ome it's gonna be f'you."