Lanterns Lit

EARTH
U.C. 115

I never dreamed I’d become a newtype, much less one untethered by time and space.
Before the wars broke out, I had nothing, fingers raking through the warm air and the warm Earth, not closed in a grip around Mobile Suit controls. But in times of crisis, my priorities shifted like sand slipping through my hands.

I remained at Side 7 after my death. I had read reports of other Newtypes, moving beyond the realm of the living. Hell, the boy who opened Laplace’s box had crossed beyond the time and returned in the name of love. I was not given the same luxury, my body destroyed when the Packmaster’s reactor exploded. But don’t misunderstand my intentions as some misguided act of penance or escape: Carmine was always strong. She could continue without me.

I remained because of selfishness.

As a spectre, I cannot interact with anything around me, only move and observe. Carmine had left what made her human in the same explosion that took my life. In the shape of an animal, she made hasty zig-zags along Earth’s surface, searching, hunting, fighting anything that resembled an enemy in her path. She was surviving. I could not bear to watch her.

SIDE 7, L3.
GRYPS II
U.C. 118

I turned around to the light footfalls of a teenage boy. He rustled clumsily through Side 7’s groomed grass. In the distance I heard Tolentino’s obnoxious baritone call out to the figure, but the boy would not answer. When I turned to see the teen, I at first saw a green spectre, like me, overlaid the image of a man I had met once; dark eyes and short auburn hair that held close to his head in short waves.

The living mirror image of the White Devil pulled me backward -- before I had died, before I could even comprehend the difference between newtype and oldtype. He held life, despite the man he heavily resembled. And perhaps, as I am dead, I remembered what it was to be alive.

“My family told me about you. My adoptive father and my blood father.” The boy folded his arms behind his back. His newtype field faded, leaving only flesh and blood. He could see me as I am, what I had become. “Why haven’t you moved on?”

Pain.
My left hand found my chest, below my throat. The boy brought more emotions bubbling up from my core. I wordlessly extended my right arm, showing that in the palm of my right hand there was still a smear of red. It remained, despite the fact that I was a ghost.

“I’m waiting for someone.” I told him. He gave me a knowing expression; I had seen it on the face of Amuro Ray before him.

“The wolf,” He noted. “I know the one. She’s like you, with an arrow where your hand is now.” He mirrored me, left hand to his own chest. I let my own arm drop. “I could take you to her, and you could touch her through me if you wanted. I’m going back to Earth soon.”

I felt another sensation that I had nearly forgotten; my middle bunching with sudden anxiety. “... What’s your name?” I asked him.

“Amour.”

EARTH
U.C. 118

I had heard of newtype spirits possessing the bodies of the living. Full Frontal was an example, a ghost made real due to psychoframe influence. Perhaps if the Packmaster had not been destroyed, I could have done the same on my own. But Amour willingly allowed himself to be a vessel for me temporarily. The blood of Amuro Ray running through his veins ensured that there would be no physical strain on his body.

I felt the Earth shift under him. Amour did not enjoy wearing shoes, but in a way I was grateful. I had forgotten what it felt like to touch the ground. I forgot what the air smelled like, or how cold water feels, or how bright the sun is. I had rarely seen Earth when I was alive and regret not remembering it in detail.

He crossed into a desert outside of a city in Senegal. Posters within the walls of Dakar warned of a dangerous animal living outside of the borders. The sun was setting: the boy picked the right time to walk through the sand where it would not scorch his bare feet, but it wasn’t cold enough to chill us both to the bone. At the edges of twilight we sought a path outside of humanity.
 
In the shadow of a dune I saw her, asleep on the ground. As was the first time I saw her with my own, living eyes, my heart dropped. But it was not the same.

Her body was overgrown with black fur, making a mane around her upper half like a lion. Her claws were twisted and uncared for, and a wound at her lower lip opened the front of her muzzle into a permanent sneer.

We knelt in tandem, Amour’s right hand shook as he held it out over Carmine’s head. My spirit made his limb tremble. I swallowed hard.

For the first time since I had died, my fingers intertwined with her fur. For the first time since I had died, I felt the warmth her body gave off. For the first time since I had died, I felt my lover’s body touching my own. 

I looked down to her chest. Fenced between her front legs was a familiar silver gleam. I reached down with the same hand that I held her with, trailing down the side of her massive, shaggy head to the object at her neck. Amour’s fingers closed around a necklace with the light click of metal on metal.

My dog tags.

She still had my dog tags.

--

Tears flowed freely from Amour’s face. My hands clutched at his chest, bunched up over his shirt. 

I prayed we wouldn’t cry out; it looked like all Carmine wanted to do was rest.