Kyanoko's Travels Across the Paperverse: A Ghostly Encounter Turns Out to be Mundane

Lyra Prompt 3- Volai

Word Count: 1473

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For the first time since entering Lyra, Kyanoko felt cozy. She was resting on Hedda’s polar bear belly and felt soothed by her breathing. Hedda had her arms around the tanuki, lightly, but enough to keep her from sliding off into the snow as she slept. Kyanoko smacked her lips and rubbed her eyes.

She felt a gentle breeze tickle her ear and she flicked it. But then she felt something cold and wet touch the inside of her. Kyanoko jolted back at the sudden slimy feeling and bared her fangs. She saw nothing before her, just dazzling spots of light from rubbing her eyes too hard. She pushed herself up and skimmed the lake for what bothered her.

Kyanoko had to repress a startled scream when she noticed the ghost of deer had been staring her down the whole time. It made its own noise of fear as it pivoted on its back legs and scurried off. It didn’t take long for Kyanoko to lose track of the ghost deer. Somehow, Hedda had slept through the whole encounter and Kyanoko wasted no time in shoving the bear beneath her.

“Hedda. Hedda!” Kyanoko hissed. Hedda snored louder at first, but a mighty shove finally made the slumbering bear shifter wake.

“Huh? What? Are we being attacked?” Hedda asked after one last snore, louder than all the others. She looked around her, saw nothing, and relaxed. “Just wanted me up?”

“I saw a ghost!” Kyanoko couldn’t keep the fear out of her voice. She looked over her shoulder to where she last saw the deer.

“Ghost? What?” Hedda sat up and Kyanoko slid sideways into the snow to avoid being crushed. Somewhere between her laying on her back and Hedda looking at the ground beside her, the bear became a human. She laughed when she saw the three-toed glowing tracks beside her.

“What’s so funny?” Kyanoko demanded, her brow furrowed.

“You didn’t see a ghost, you just saw a volai,” Hedda explained. She didn’t even wait for Kyanoko’s expression to show her lack of understanding before continuing, “They’re a herd animal. They like visitors. It probably just wanted to check you out.”

Kyanoko wasn’t happy with that answer. She knew what she saw and it was a ghost deer. She went to her cask and poured herself a hot cup of tea. The tanuki sat in silence, looking over the lake that the night before was covered in running lights. Maybe the deer was some lost spirit that got separated from the Borealis? How does she help an animal spirit find its way back home? Hedda scooted to sit next to her, sensing Kyanoko’s upset.

“Want me to take you to see a herd? Would that make you feel better?” Hedda asked. Kyanoko nodded. She stared into her tea cup. She couldn’t bring herself to drink, but the warmth between her hands and the aroma felt nice.

“They’re easier to see at night, so that’s when we’ll go.” Hedda watched as Kyanoko’s face dropped and hers promptly followed. “What’s wrong?”

“I hibernate.” Kyanoko bluntly told her. She’d be lying if she didn’t feel smugly happy that she managed to make Hedda give her the same dumb face she had to keep giving her. “It’s cold and I’ve been having difficulty getting food because no one here wants to buy my stuff. My body is slowing down and I’m sleeping longer and longer each day. I need to leave soon.”

“How soon?” Hedda asked, trying and failing to make her disappointment.

“In a few days. Maybe sooner. Why?”

“I wanted to show you more,” Hedda answered, drawing in the snow between her legs. “I’ll just have to narrow it down to the really good stuff. Tonight, the volai.”

The day was spent with Hedda gathering up different foliage. She would consult a book, one that Kyanoko tried to read, but couldn’t get past the different script. Instead, she looked at the illustrations. Passing through the pages, Kyanoko saw triangular stickers in the corner of some of them. 

“I think this is good for now.” Hedda nodded to herself with a sack full of plants. She tossed it over to Kyanoko, who, hungry as she was, started rummaging through it. Hedda raised an eyebrow. “Help yourself, I guess.”

“Oh, sorry.” Kyanoko opened her mouth and allowed the uncrushed berries in her mouth to fall back into the sack. Hedda pulled her mouth in disgust but didn’t say anything.

 

Kyanoko was sleeping long before nightfall. Just like the night before, Hedda had to fetch her from bed. But unlike last night, Kyanoko was expecting it. She still didn’t like being woken up from her slumber, but at least it stopped her from going into hibernation. Hedda held Kyanoko’s hand as she lead her back out into the snowy and crystalline landscape of Lyra.

As Hedda said, it was far easier to catch the glow of the volai’s tracks at night. They were old and faded, but following them would lead to brighter and fresher tracks. Hedda was giddy as she slowly walked faster and faster the closer the women got to their destination. More tracks would be seen conjoining with the ones that they were already following. 

The snow floor would be completely trampled and lit up by these ghost deer’s activities when Hedda finally slowed to a stop. The human swept her arms to present the scene to Kyanoko, who stepped past her to look down into the valley. There, hundreds of lightly glowing ghost deer were grazing. Quickly, Kyanoko realized that the light spots she thought came from rubbing her eyes were actually the volai’s antlers.

“See? Just normal critters.” Hedda prompted. Kyanoko felt like this didn’t disprove that these were ghost deer. They were also translucent and despite their light-refracting horns and bioluminescent lion tails, she still had difficulty focusing on one. There’s no way these were anything but spirits of the wild.

“Do you want to feed them?” Hedda held up her sack full of the foliage she foraged earlier. “Ghosts don’t need to eat.”

“What ghosts do you have on your world that don’t need to eat?” Kyanoko raised a brow at her.

“What ghosts do you have that do need to eat?” Hedda rebutted with horror in her eyes. She shook her head and waved away the question. “Look, they aren’t ghosts. Let’s just feed them, okay?”

“Sure,” Kyanoko shrugged. Hedda went through all of that effort, it’d be a shame to waste it. As they climbed down into the valley, the spirit deer closest to them slowly began to approach. They watched as the two women situated themselves before a few at a time walked right up to Kyanoko.

She didn’t realize the size difference between all of them until she was down here with them. One that approached her was the size of a whitetail deer, another was as small as a large dog and the one shoving her hand was the size of a moose. Kyanoko felt fear clutch at her heart when she felt it drawing its lips over her hands and fingers. Kyanoko began to back up and bumped into Hedda.

Hedda put a hand on her shoulder and wordlessly put a branch of some berry bush into the palm of her hand. Kyanoko held it out at arm’s length and looked away. She felt them sniffing at and then tugging on the branch. Slowly, Kyanoko looked back and saw the three deer didn’t have any interest in eating her. They stripped off the berries from the branch in short time and immediately went back to bumping her hand with their heads.

“What do they want?” she whispered to Hedda.

Hedda cupped the head of a smaller volai in her hands and was rubbing its cheeks. The volai’s head was rolling gently around and its eyes were closed. Kyanoko felt the volai on her rubbing their cheeks against her hand. She released her breath and began to pet them. It was offputting seeing her hand hazily through them, but she quickly got used to it. 

As the night went on, Kyanoko felt her nervousness melting away. If she was going to be attacked, the herd would have done it by now. And now that she was close enough to try and observe their details, they were really cute. She found herself almost wanting to keep one, but the heavy PR from the Adventurer’s Guild had it beat into her that volai don’t do well off planet.

Slowly, the herd dispersed and Kyanoko and Hedda returned to town.