CH768

Thera was more than happy to agree, wanting the change of pace that would come with a quick trip through the sky and with that sorted they grabbed the other three and went off, taking his gate to the magic towers from there and the world’s gate network beyond before Ben helped Thera spend her mana, working together to materialize a cart for them to use to take them to their final destination under her power.

Which only left the ride there to deal with. Sachel was fine, she could manage herself but there were two children with them, one significantly more complicated than the other.

Just hearing from Thera was enough for Ben’s heart to go out to the young soul spirit, brought into the world for someone else's convenience and abandoned when he didn’t immediately make himself useful but that was a fact he couldn’t help but be curious about too. From what Thera had told him, it didn’t sound like Mora was incapable of using his powers but was instead choosing not to for whatever reason, a wholly different topic that was going to need to be explored eventually.

But not then. He wanted to use the time to talk to the boy a bit himself when he had the chance but the child had already been pulled into a one-sided conversation, with his young apprentice showing she was just as capable of being social outside of her village as she’d been within it and continuing on with what Thera had asked of her before they’d left, saying whatever came to mind.

“So, you’re not a ghost then?” The girl asked, her eyes wide with curiosity that Mora barely reacted to.

“No.”

“But you’re a little see-through.”

“I am.”

“But nothing can go through you?”

“Unless I let it.”

“Really? Let me try!”

“...Fine.”

Delair immediately reached out, watching with pure interest as her hand went through Mora’s chest while Ben smiled, hoping a friendship would bloom there for whatever bit of help it would bring while he did the small bit he could, cheating by reaching out with his skill to glimpse into the great spirit’s mind.

He wanted to get a sense for the boy to see if there was anything he might do or anything Mora might need, but what he got went beyond that. The mental structure he was feeling was somewhere between the other great spirits’ minds he’d touched and that of any young incubus he’d passed walking through the streets of Anailia, his senses more attuned to life and death and souls yet holding a far more mortal mental structure despite that as a few of Ben’s minds wondered briefly on just why that was.

He would have thought that even if it was unnatural for the species, two spirits would have produced something that would still be a spirit, through and through, but when he looked at the hybrids that existed before Mora had been born it was clear something more was at play.

A great spirit was still a collection of mana, same as any of the regular ones but Thera had been born with the appearance her father would use when interacting with the rest of the world instead of as just a normal succubus with overwhelming power. In Seren’s case, his mother just shaped the mana that made up her body to resemble the form of a succubus but that had led to the boy being born with a tail despite neither of his parents genuinely having one on a biological level and then when it came to Insia, other than the colour of her flames being different from a regular fairy, she looked like any other of her mother’s race, almost certainly because her father had changed his own form to match a typical fairy’s before she’d been born.

So where did that apply to Mora? Ben knew that Vividus had taken the form of a succubus the way so many of the other great spirits did, following Abrus’s lead, but as for the boy’s father, the great death spirit Nox, he’d taken it a step further. From seeing Thera’s past and getting a glimpse of him right after his return to the world with Ogilt, he knew the man went farther, acting as the soul for the corpse of an incubus in a way that perfectly matched his affinity. Given that tied into the rest he knew, it painted a picture of how someone like Mora might have been born.

Ben had to assume that his form was likely dictated by the forms his parents had taken when he’d been conceived and given that one of them had been residing in a body with a genuine brain while the other would have been able to replicate the structure with her own mana, it had to have had an effect on the child, imprinting on and dictating his psych in a way the life and death spirits couldn’t have predicted, ending with the merged thought structure he felt within.

But none of that was more than a curiosity compared to the problems that existed within that hybrid mind. Ben may not have been a psychologist but he’d been in enough heads to know that the child in front of him was suffering from depression, not on the scale of Ogilt but enough that it worried him, filling his thoughts with questions about what to do. Thera may have taken the boy in but Ben wasn’t going to do nothing, it was just a matter of how he could help.

If I can help. He thought with a sigh. I can’t do anything for Ogilt, I can’t do anything for all of the other prisoners who were too mentally broken to be released to the world, what am I supposed to do here?

Okay, no being defeatist. It’ll take some time but getting to know the kid is the first step.

A step he’d lost the advantage on. While Delair seemed happy to keep peppering him with questions, Mora looked over to Ben before cutting himself off from the connection between them.

Caught, damn. I guess it makes sense a soul spirit would notice and be able to stop me.

Still, the boy didn’t say anything about it and if that was the case then Ben would act the same, instead smiling and speaking up.

“So Mora, my name is Ben. I live with Thera so you’ll be seeing a lot of me.”

“Okay.”

“And I’m not sure if she mentioned it yet but her aunt Sonya also lives with us. Well, we technically live with her, it’s her house.”

“Okay.”

“We also have a very sweet house plant named Fredrick. At least he was a houseplant, he’s still inside but he’s growing big enough that I seriously need to consider making him a greenhouse of his own. I technically already have a greenhouse but I don’t want that plant in it being a bad influence on him.”

“...Okay?” He said again, only this time sounding confused in a way that at least seemed to break the monotony of his other responses.

“When we get back later I’ll introduce you, it will be great. Other than that though, I saw Thera showed you a card game or two, did you enjoy them?” 

“I didn’t see the point.”

“Ha, fair enough, they aren’t for everyone I guess. Still, it’s a way to chat and pass the time so while Thera is unfortunately stuck driving, do you think you’d be up to play a couple games with the rest of us?”

“...If you want.”

It seemed like obedience more than anything else but it was something to do while they flew that he hoped might entertain both kids a bit so he materialized a deck which at least brought some reaction from the young spirit before passing the last bit of time they had, making the most of the small journey.