WIP - Will be renamed

The Consumed Wraith
"Time withers all."

---

“It's interesting, The only part of this I do not understand is-” Vaeiour suddenly shook his head violently with a snort. His eyes snapped back to the stark ruby red and his eyelids remained locked wide.
“Is something wrong Vaiour?”
Vaeiour shook himself out of his momentary shock, “I...I do not know.
"So many years I have been investigating the past out of simple interest in the history. I've always enjoyed hiding the secrets of the past in my mind, unraveling even the strangest mysteries down to a simple string of events.
"Yet there was always one mystery I couldn't chase. There were times where my nostrils would twitch for a scent that somehow didn't exist, and my ears would shudder for a sound I didn't hear. I did not think much of it at first. It was only natural that a dragon capable of watching the past at any point he choose would feel any such oddities.
"Before long I began to notice a dangerous lack of uniformity among those patterns. The times that my spine shivered at the feeling of a presence were unique, and not tied to the past. Resetting the events did not have it happen again, and the unsettlingly familiar presence would not return for days at a time.
"This time I saw her, and she saw me.
"Those dragons I had been watching for you, there was one that didn't respond like the others. I froze the progression and she still walked, I reset the event and she wouldn't revert. She was watching it just like I had, and vanished once her eyes met mine. She vanished and did not come back."
Vestis thought for a moment, "It is possible she could be like you."
Vaeiour shook his head. "No, she would have to have been standing directly beside me." He twisted a brow to Xha'thal, "Unless I am wrong, we are the only two here."

---

Only Vaeiour has been able to see her. So many times he has thrown himself into the past, so many times he has felt the fleeting trace of a presence.

It has taken him many years to finally lock on to her trace, to master his skill enough to not only land in one moment of the past but to drift like she does. Only once did he manage to resonate with her well enough to see more than a fleeting vision of her.

The events of the past spiraled around him in a incomprehensible blur. It spun into a confusing sphere of events that circled him like the walls of an empty dimension, with only him and the spirit standing there. She regarded him with a smile, then vanished once again and threw Vaeiour back into his natural consciousness with a jolt.

Ever since, Vaeiour has been chasing every trace of her he could find, feeling her presence the strongest whenever histories events were the strangest. In a way, she has become his greatest curiosity. Who was this spirit that somehow chased and guided him even as she fled his gaze? She was trapped in the past, by all rules of existence should be counted as dead, but she behaves like she is alive. Was she like him, or was there a deeper mystery to her somehow still intact existence?

Note:
-Nothing to Vaeiour apart from being an irresistible curiosity. He is still very much open to another female that comes his way.
-Fierce defender of her research when she was 'living'?
-Maybe like Vaeiour, but she is a corrupted form of him. Perhaps she tried to turn herself into a dragon that could actually watch the past like him, but her efforts went horridly wrong and ended up trapping her consciousness in the past. From that point on, the power she tried to invoke released itself into the world, resulting in one like Vaeiour, the very kind of dragon she wanted to be.
-At first spent time exploring the past that was now her permanent home, but she was alone. Her solitude soon became a crippling loneliness that dismantled her sanity piece by piece, until her passion for learning about history became an addled rationalization that she was a mate of time itself. This and her fierce drive to defend her discoveries transformed her spirit into a vengeful wraith that desires to consume every spirit she comes into contact with, especially the spirit of one like Vaeiour. Vaeiour doesn't yet know it, but she is toying with him, luring him into a place that she may taste his screams.
-Any dragon unfortunate enough to somehow find her claws reaching out from the past will learn suffering. Few pains are more intense than a feeling like you are dying alone and forgotten. A death by her claws is a torrent of misery in the form of unimaginable physical pain and the same lonliness she has felt for an eternity. As she is trapped in time, so will her victims- the suffering neverending.
-Has the ability to occasionally invade dreams where her presence is the strongest, often transforming them into horrendous nightmares- laughing as her victims twitch and squirm in utter terror. This is the only link she has to those that live in the present, and is harmless aside from the mental strain it can place on one she chases like a haunting spirit.

-Like the ever elusive secrets of the decaying past, she has mastered the art of tantalizing her prey by always remaining just out of reach until they are at a place where she can sink her talons deep in their mind. There is no healing a scar left by her touch, for she will still be there- still be waiting. Corrupting and tainting their mind until they are nothing but wailing wisps of spirits, doomed to wander in a tormented half death until her own existence is dispelled at last.