Nervina Watched

A gleaming Knight, head to tip in full metal, came out from the mists and strode over to one of the ghosts who were holding fast to the host group.

He tapped him on his shoulder, and the spectre fell loose from the mass. His eyes were but sockets unfilled as they had been dug out at the battlefield where he had fallen, and one of his arms hung heavily down in a dead weight twisted to the side. The ethereal Knight lowered to collect him from the ground, and no sooner had he lifted him up, the ghost of the other disappeared.

Beings of light started appearing in the dozens.

One, a fair young woman - or very possibly just a girl - stepped forward. With a handsome modesty, her face gave serenity its name. She went over to a teenager who was lying folded on the ground, naked and bleeding from the thighs. Her hair had been pulled out, revealing bare patches on her skull, black with dried blood; one ear was torn where her earring had been wrenched.

The girl of light did not go straight to her as one might have guessed that she would. Instead she walked on past, going northwards around the outside of the stack.

Nervina watched her picking through the huddle, until she stopped and leant into puzzle of bodies, picking a bundle from the mass.

She went back to the naked girl and showed her a very tiny unborn that had once been lost to her. Unfastening her cloak at the throat, she covered her infant as one might do with a blanket. The mother and child wraith evaporated, just after the girl of light had knelt down to unite them both.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Puck in Hell, Azlander Series