Spirits — ( Courtesy thick on his tongue, tar-like and trickling. Ghosts are mere traces, white noise, debris. Insults, carried by common tongues, only assigned a wretched shape post-mortem.

Spirits were of the body, once. Spirits live even past flesh. He nods gently, once, where the dungeon's dark hints at the cluttered home of hundreds of waiting things, alive or suspended. )

— are their own. ( Singular, dignified, possessing identity and purpose. Never merely another's duty, or a third person's assignment. ) We may transgress. Better, when invited.

( ...forgive him the assumption that an invitation to cross is not soon for the coming. )