Taharqi appears again and lifts a hand, breathing heavily. "I need," he says, taking in a shivering gasp, "a moment." His skin is glistening with sweat and he's no longer managing to keep his face cool—probably some of the water on his face is tears rather than sweat.

...he's wide open. Anyone could sneak up on him. 

She guesses the thing she's feeling but multiplied a hundredfold might explain it? But it seems like a very maladaptive reaction, to become worse at surviving when he needs it most.

Still, she can wait for him to get over whatever it is he's going through, and watch his back for him.

If he were on his own he wouldn't have let his guard drop this far. It's only because she's here that he's allowing himself to show this much vulnerability.

Being visible... helps. Annika having visible reactions to his presence helps. He had been starting to feel intense amounts of unreality, like he didn't exist and the world was just moving on without him, like he died at some point and didn't notice and his soul just kept walking. This, here, feels more like he's part of the world, even if there's still constant external pressure to convince him otherwise. There's another person right here and it. Helps. A lot.

He takes another deep, shuddering breath, tries to focus on the feeling of the air in his lungs and the dirt under his feet and the clothes and sweat on his skin, then nods. "Okay. I'm... ready."

She peers at him. "Are you sure?"

That makes him smile. "Yes, but I appreciate your concern."

"...you are my party member. If you die I will need to teleport away."

Whatever you need to tell yourself, buddy. 

"Lead the way," he says again, and vanishes into thin air, trying to hold onto the feeling of being alive as he does.

A few more steps forward, still slowly, still making sure to be ready to fight at a moment's notice—

"Wait."

"Again?" she asks, impatiently.

"No. Can you see her?"

Her? She looks in the direction they've been walking towards and... yeah, actually. She can vaguely see a silhouette she could believe is a woman. ...girl? It's small. "That's the source of the disturbance. A ghost?" A really powerful one, if so.

"I think so." He doesn't vanish again, though, and starts walking towards it. His discomfort seems mostly forgotten, or ignored, in favour of getting to the ghost quickly.

"—what are you doing," she says, catching up with him after a dumbfounded moment.

"I think she needs help."

"...it's a powerful spirit that has been agitating and empowering the dead."

"Maybe. Those things aren't contradictory. And I don't want to not even try to help."

"That'll get you killed."

"Then I guess I'll die."

This is really stupid. But he's her party member and she shouldn't abandon him, even if he's being really stupid.

He's not sprinting—his sprinting speed would require Annika to actually run to keep up—but he's walking at a brisk pace.

The silhouette does eventually resolve into a young teenage girl, sitting cross-legged on the ground.

...a teenage foxgirl sitting cross-legged on the ground.

She's holding a long wooden stick with a bell at the end, and the bell's jingles happen whenever she adjusts her sitting position. Her chin-length, golden hair hides the spot where ears would be on a human, but a furry pair of fox ears poking out of the top of her hair suggests there wouldn't be any. There are various patches of golden fur on her body, and her hands and feet are replaced by digitigrade paws (with opposable thumbs in the case of the hands). Her eyes are red and slitted and reflect light like a cat's.

She has nine fox tails, each about as long as her whole body.

...some kind of cross between a ninetails demon and a ghost? She really doesn't think they're prepared to take that on, and gets ready to teleport the both of them out at the first sign of trouble.

Taharqi seems to have, if anything, dropped his guard completely, seemingly completely ignoring that this might become a fight. He slows his steps, too, and extends his hands slightly out, palms forward. This of course doesn't make him any less dangerous, it takes a fraction of a blink of an eye for him to have his daggers in hand, but it's the thought that counts.