[SCREAMS]

As always, even as a ghost, Ivezho burned with more brilliance than I. Molten ash swarmed his entire body, as if the beautiful light of his soul was softly burning him from the inside out. And it probably was - for he wasn't actually here. He was gone, of course, with Mother. I see Ivezho often, in my dreams and the foggy ambiguous moments when I am restless and my judgement lapses. I must be more tired than I thought, to see him now. And so close!

My gaze regards him uninterestedly; ghosts after all, should not be stared at for too long, lest they tempt you to join them.

He says my name, as he usually does in these moments. My heart lurches, but not quite as much as it once did. I am used to hearing him call my name across the distances that separate us. Today he sounds louder, his voice more powerful in some hard to specify way, but my mind waves away these thoughts. I am tired, I think suddenly feeling much more weary than I realized I was.

I fucked up, brother.

Panic. Anxiety. Adrenaline. Fear. It is a flash storm of emotions within my breast, and my breath hitches in my throat as I now turn to regard him with wide-eyed wonder. Those words ... those were not the words my ghostly brother usually speaks to me. Normally he asks me to find him, to join him in the death that he and Mother have succumbed to. He doesn't ... he doesn't curse, and he doesn't ... his voice doesn't... his smell doesn't...

His words resonate in the air. I smell him in a way that make me joyful. My eyes take in the flecks of dust, of sweat, of magic that line his body. The way his feathers gently brush against the air. He has never looked so real..

Because if he is real ... that only means he will leave again.

Suddenly I am standing on a hill, just a boy, calling to my brother across the sands. We are young, and he has come back. He promises to stay. And then?

He was already a ghost then.

How are you here? How are you .. but please don't go.

I am Rhoa the confused. I only know how to be Rhoa the solitary, and yet I am now whole.

As long as you stay

 "Sometimes that happens.." I respond, now squarely facing him. I want to spread my wings, to embrace him, but don't, out of fear. I expect him to vanish beneath my touch, and stupidly I am allowing this hallucination to last. It would be better to wave him away and to keep my fractured heart preserved beneath its layers of pain and darkness. To let his light in is only to invite inevitable heartache. But I can't turn him away.

I've never been able to.

 "Such is life." I conclude, because really, what is there to say? He can't apologize for what's happened, it couldn't possibly make up for what has happened. Surely he has his side, and I have mine, and never will those stories be reconciled. All we can do is move forward, but how?