Elysiel was in Halloweentown, again, relaxing at a spa she had flirted her way into for free. It was way better than the petty drear of Amityville, at least superficially-- and besides, there were memories here. Her very first ones. She wasn't far from she'd awoken, faced with a grave new world and no identity at all. Up and out of the catacombs, she'd stumbled, in a pair of bedraggled heels that had seen better days and cobwebs in her hair and wings, wobbly like a newborn elnin fawn.

It wasn't uncommon, apparently. For creeple to stumble out of nowhere, with no idea who they were or where they'd come from.

Some, the NSIB agent had explained, appeared in Halloween newly formed from fear and little else, naked as they day they were, well. Born. Others were reused bodies from their humans days, or the lingering shade remnants of such. Others still were born from pumpkins, the fruits of the labor of two to four parents collecting fear together to bring a new life (or unlife) into Halloween. There were other ways, she continued, but they were one-offs and exceptions rather than the rule.

Elysiel had a feeling she was one of the exceptions. She felt old in Halloween, like an old embroidered decoration, or a piece of furniture from a different era. There was nothing obvious, and no direct memories to support it-- not even one!-- and so they assumed she'd just poofed into existence like most of the others.

But that wasn't right. She didn't know what was, and that made it all the worse. She was nothing and she was no one, she was scooped out and clueless of everything in a way that her bones belied. It lingered, heavy like a cloak over her wings and draped down her shoulders, this sense of loss and emptiness, and there was nothing she could do about it.

The emptiness was the worst of them all.

At first she'd thought that fine things could fill it: clothes and jewels, silver seeds used as currency and possessions. But as her collections grew, Elysiel found herself feeling just as hollow as before. And then she'd thought maybe it would be best to be cruel, because if someone could feel even half as empty as she did, then it would make the world all the more bearable-- But it didn't.

If only her head wasn't empty, of everything that used to define her. There was no way to know what had, and so she was going to have to try everything once to see if it stuck. It was a miserable thought: every new thing just felt wrong and ill-fitting, like she'd been old enough to try everything once before, to find all of this out already. But it was just that: a feeling, and a fleeting one at that. Like most thoughts, they filtered out of her head with no resolution, lacking anything to really hold on to. There were no footholds in her memories for the past to resurface in, just a smooth vacancy that left no room for lingering thoughts.

That was what they'd called her, at the NSIB. A Lingering Seraphim. She had the wings of a demon, of a seraphim, and floated and grew translucent like a ghost. It felt accurate enough: like she'd stuck around too long, where no one wanted her and what she had to offer-- which, right now, was nothing anyway.

It wasn't a pity-party: Elysiel knew she had no marketable skills and nothing to offer the world of Halloween, save for an unpleasant disposition and an empty mind to be filled. She hated school more than anything-- it felt juvenile and immature-- but...it was where she belonged. There was nothing else she could do, except maybe crawl back into that crypt and go back to sleep. Just the thought of it was enough to make her skin crawl and her core prickle.

That just wouldn't do. None of this would do.

So there she laid, in the spa: staring up at the ceiling, idly combing fingers through her feathers, mindlessly singing:

There once was a Great King. He was the Greatest King, and in his hand he held seven legacies. Creation, Protection, Pride, Grief, Destruction, Reflection, and Revenge. Each was given a purpose, a task, to be fulfilled.