Herbalists' Cache the gunslinger watched as the world moved on

the young ghost did not even blink as she broke her stoic facade. he did not need to tell her that she was wrong – that he had broken his childish bonds long before she had ever even entered the wilds. she did not need to know the trials that he had suffered through in order to stand where he stood. the verbal tirade was not something that he believed to be effective. up to that point, he did not believe that words had the power to injure him in the same way that a man's fangs did.

but he was wrong.

“you know nothing of the soul!”

he could not help that his eyes fell away from her – that the fire within them had died down to nothing but smoldering embers. it was as though her words had taken the form of a stake and had found a way to wedge between his ribs and into his heart. she could call him a boy and a child until her face turned blue. she could tell him that he was stupid, that he did not understand anything of how the world worked.

… but she had called him soulless.

she had called him soulless and he had no way to combat that, because he was not certain that she was wrong. even before he had found the means to speak again, she had been gone. it seemed that she had found what she'd needed to say and left promptly after. the young ghost stood in his place until snow began to flutter through the air. his eyes trailed to where the pale woman had been with a stinging feeling in the pit of his stomach.

maybe he did know nothing of the soul.