Before Siromsjos, Ruqa never knew a living person could be so much like a ghost. 

The day Ruqa discovered her, the raven-boy had been soaring along the tall, sheer cliffs of the north coast, farther from his tribe’s territory than he should have been. Compared to his home in the Everwinter mountains, the biting highland winds were like a balmy breeze on his midnight wings, and Ruqa had wanted to see the heather fields in bloom before winter descended upon the region in full. In his mind, it was as good a reason as any to have flown so deep into the kingdom of Dymin, and, crucially, he was still too far from any Dyminan settlements to be spotted by the humans and their cannons. Hence why he was nearly plucked from shock, his wings stuttering in their beating, when his avian eyes glimpsed the human girl at the cliff’s edge.

Long white hair and pale grey tunic billowing in the wind, youthful complexion ashen, legs and feet bare, eyes shattered and distant— Ruqa was certain for a skipped heartbeat that he was seeing some otherworldly apparition, a vision of despair from beyond the grave. It was known to happen, just never to him— he’d never been so spiritually attuned as to be able to see the spirits of the dead like some others.

Then, though, he looked closer, noticed how the figure shivered with no plumage to protect her from the bitter cold. How her feet, fingers, and long, pointed ears were stained red. Her face wet from tears, her gaze was fixed unseeingly on the horizon, on the tumultuous waves of the north sea. She stood frozen in place, yet was untethered, buffeted by the strong winds, and so perilously close to the edge. The cliffs were high, the dark grey stoneface severe, and at the bottom, waves as cold as death thrashed against jagged rocks that were like giant thorns.

As the girl took a trance-like step forward, Ruqa remembered with a thunderclap of horror that unlike himself and other kaatoq, humans could not fly.

He plunged through the air before she could, knocking her away from the edge. She landed on her back in the grass, stunned, staring up at him as if she’d seen a ghost. Ruqa hadn’t the chance to say anything— in the instant their eyes met, and Ruqa was distracted by the wine-deep shade hers were, she recovered from her shock. Struck back to life like a spark exploding from the crack of flint on steel, she lunged forward, gripping his sash and speaking frantically in a language he’d never heard. Her voice was hoarse and broken as if from years of disuse, and though Ruqa could tell she was trying to ask him something, he couldn’t understand her. Trying to tell her so seemed to only intensify her despair and desperation.

By all her novelties, Ruqa quickly realized the girl couldn’t be Dyminan. She was too completely unlike them; there was no hate in how she looked at him. There was also her necklace: a thin, braided leather string from which hung many odd ornaments, among them graven sigil-stones, a shard of amber, and some sort of medallion— a thin, nearly palm-sized stone ring carved with tiny, precise runes. It reminded Ruqa of stories of ancient pagan priestesses— certainly nothing any devotee of Dymin’s Church of End would wear. No, this girl was lost and needed help. Bringing her to a Dymin town was out of the question. They hated foreigners nearly as much as beastfolk like himself; she’d be imprisoned at best, him executed on sight. 

Instead, Ruqa led her to his own village. At first, the council was cross that he’d brought before them the first human outsider to see their village in over a century, but regardless of her apparent madness, the girl seemed a peaceful creature, so they took her in. 

No one knew what to make of her. When she was clear of mind, she appeared to grasp the meaning of what Ruqa and others would say to her, but her own dialect was too archaic for the elders to parse. Language was a chasm between them that Ruqa, by wind or wing, deeply desired to cross. 

Her second day there, he’d found the girl kneeling outside the chief’s roost, while inside, the elders discussed the mystery of her circumstances. Ruqa crouched beside her, ducking his head to catch her gaze. It was heavy. Feathered fingers pressed to his own chest, he’d said, slowly, intently, “Ruqa,” then gestured to her in question. 

She’d looked at him and, after a suspenseful moment, uttered, “Siromsjos.”

Excited, he’d repeated it back, foreign syllables falling clumsily from his beak, getting it right the second try. She’d then touched his shoulder, her hand cold, and he’d shivered. “Ruqa.” Low, raspy, her voice was so full of gratitude she could have been casting a spell.

In that one way, they could communicate. “Siromsjos,” Ruqa could say, and she would turn. It felt like a revelation every time. “Ruqa,” Siromsjos would respond, and every time, it felt like victory.

That was a month past. 

Some days, Siromsjos was more stable, present, felt tangible. She’d help around the village, assisting the hens with winter preparations, accompanying Ruqa on hunts. Those days, Ruqa could meet her eyes, knowing she saw him back. But there was still some great, terrible loss plaguing her. Grief sometimes gripped her like fatal illness, having her delirious from fever for entire nights in the healer’s roost, writhing and screaming in agony like she was being ripped apart, while the medicine hens struggled to keep her alive against some invisible malady. Clicking frustratedly, they said she wasn’t sick or wounded… just cursed.

Then, there were days like these. When fury and despair would possess her, and she’d see, hear, nothing but the grief that ruled her. When her rage-blind eyes became fiercely incandescent, as if they glowed from within, her soul a burning star. 

Such days, Siromsjos had an unfortunate tendency to wander off, with no regard for the village’s investment in her safety, or continued survival. As she had done now. Gravely concerned she’d find some high peak to pitch herself from and destroy her own bodily existence— intentionally or not— Ruqa tracked her down. Navigating an early snowstorm, he followed Siromsjos’ tangled tracks through the pine forest.

He could hear her howling like a dying wolf crying out for the pack that abandoned it. The shrieking wind, harmonizing with her, guided Ruqa to a clearing, where he found her thrashing and raging at something only she could see, whitened fingers desperately clutching her medallion.

“Siromsjos,” Ruqa called. She didn’t turn. So faded, even up- close Ruqa nearly lost sight of her in the snow. He reached her just as she collapsed sobbing, and wrapped his wings tight around her shaking form, to remind himself she was real. 

“Ruqa…” Her faint whisper stirred the feathers on his neck, striking him like an arrow to the lung. Ruqa could hardly breathe— he understood her.

Siromsjos couldn’t last like this, Ruqa knew. If she didn’t heal, she would perish, and eventually, one way or another, this girl would leave them. 

And Ruqa would forever be haunted by a wild spectre named Siromsjos.