undergrounds | time for a check up (open post)

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time for a check up (open post)

KNOW CLARA?

You may then know, more or less, the incident of her granddaughter getting kidnapped by the vampires. It distressed her but she's fine. Honest to goodness she's fine.

It's normal for her to worry for people she cares for. It's pretty normal for her to think of all the worst case scenarios some of them could find themselves in due to their personalities/their histories/their everything.

It's very normal for her to suddenly check on them one day out of the blue, just appearing next to them without a warning or a heads up.

"Are you okay?"

She's totally calmed down about the incident last month. Really.

DON'T KNOW CLARA?

What do you mean by that?

Now you do as she suddenly phases through the wall and looks directly at you during her search for everyone she knows.

It doesn't matter where you are or what you're doing. It doesn't matter if there are people there or you're supposed to be by yourself. Suddenly you have a woman staring at you in confusion for a second before it registers in her head that no. You're not someone she knows through passing.

"Um. Oops."

[ OOC: Or make your own scenario in your comment! Prose and brackets welcomed! ]

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Heiji jumped and shoved his magazine behind his back, looking around wildly until he spotted Clara. "M-Miss Clara? I'm fine! Totally fine. How's Magra doin'? Probably a bit shook up, eh?"

Yeah, that wasn't suspicious.

~~Oh my goodness Heiji what are you--~~

Knowing better than to snoop that much, Clara gives him an apologetic smile for surprising him that much. Whoops. Sorry about that.

"She's bounced back from it by now," she admits. Clara relaxes a little bit when talking about Magra since, well, that is a source of good news. "Doing quiet well, really. She learned lesson from that incident and always sticks by her friends whenever they head out. Which isn't for too long these days since she's still recovering. And you? Are you okay?"

Edited 2015-07-07 02:48 (UTC)

He had a super guilty look on his face, all right. The magazine, should Clara happen to catch a glance of it, was opened to an article on Universal Studios Japan. The shame.

"Yeah, well. Kids recover fast. I'm glad she's healin' up, though, she looked a bit banged up when we lifted her from that hotel. I-I'm okay, really! Just a little surprised, is all. Uh... what about you?"

He should be ashamed. Very ashamed. California's will always be the crowning glory of Universal Studios and don't you forget it.

She huffs, still worried but there's lightbulbs are no longer in danger around her. That's quite a plus.

"Well-- I'm opting to stay in the school a bit longer. Actually speak to the dean, see if I can help around." Partly to watch over Magra and partly to watch over the other students. In order to make sure they were safe and sound from dangers. "It's the least I can do if I keep visiting them all the time. I don't want anyone to get hurt if there's something I can do."

If there is anything she can do.

Look, it wasn't for himself, okay? It was for a friend! Yeah. A friend...

"You mean in an official capacity?" A ghost with a job, hmm. "I think you'd be great at watchin' over people, if that's what you wanna do." He frowned a little as he looked at Clara.

"But aren't you a little worried about yourself? You're here 'cause you have unfinished business, right? You start takin' on work, you're gonna have even more of it."

~~Judge.~~

Clara nods at his question of official capacity, beaming at the idea of her being part of the faculty. It won't really be a job-job of course. More like volunteering her services for free and being put on the list of names so the night staff would know what on earth she's doing there at night. The dean would probably like it. There would be no need to pay her or get health insurance.

His question has her smile falter a little bit, the idea of doing her official unfinished business never coming to mind. "Me? I never put much thought into it, honestly. Trying to look for the reason why I'm still here. I thought it was to look after Francisco but I'm still here.

"But! I'll be fine! I have all the time in the world and no one will bother me. I mean-- Who would really want to hurt a silly old ghost?"

They should really pay Clara in something. Assurances that she wouldn't be ghostbusted, at least.

Now Heiji looked a little worried. "I dunno if anyone would wanna hurt you in particular, but there are folks out there that'd target ghosts. Witches, maybe, and some fae eat ghosts. I know you're worried about everybody, but I'd hate to see somethin' like that happen to you."

That caught her attention because fae eat what.

She knew of the other dangers having experienced that herself. From witches trying to use her in rituals to people trying to trap her in circles or trick her into giving them power. The knowledge of someone trying to eat her for their own gain is something new and something she rather not want to know but now does. "E-Eat me? Why would anyone want to eat a ghost? How do you even eat a ghost?"

Heiji, trust her, she would hate for something like that to happen for her too.

"Well, I mean. I've never eaten one, so I wouldn't know. But there's one that eats dreams, so I'm sure there's a way..." Maybe they just slurped them up, like with a straw?

"A-anyway, I"m just sayin' that you should be careful, that's all." Unfortunately, he couldn't really offer her tips on how to avoid getting eaten. Stay away from abnormally pretty people, maybe?

Heiji please.

She calms down after the initial rush of fear and she smiles at him, this time the smile ofhers a bit more grateful and understanding, while she shakes her head with affection. He meant well, warning her about the dangers of others. Not everyone is going to be a good person out there.

"Well, thank you? I didn't know about this at all so this could be useful in the future." Clara pauses. "I should tell Aradia and Willard about this too if they don't know. Oh I wish there was some sort of guidebook to all of this this. Like a brochure or something."

"Aradia and Willard?" Heiji tilted his head over at Clara. "They ghost friends of yours?" It certainly would be convenient to have a brochure, though. Or a book. Like in Spiderjuice.

He smiled back at her. "Anyway, no problem. Just thought you should know about it. Guess bein' a ghost really ain't easy, huh?" Like so many other things.

"One of them is, Aradia. Willard is a friend to us both and they're a bit prickly but they're good people." She doesn't want them to get hurt over in case neither of them knew this. Already she's beginning to fret over their safety because, really, who wants to eat a ghost?

"No-- I suppose is isn't easy but one could say it has the least pressure from... outside parties?" That's it. No one would pay much attention to a ghost. They're affect the world around them as much and are unable to form a group or organisation to help each other out like how the others can thanks to a lot of reasons.

She droops a little bit at that point, recalling what Mrs. Sommerset told her. "I don't know if that's a good thing or bad thing these days. Being able to avoid trouble. I was told there were... powers coming here."

Hmmm. "They wouldn't happen to be a dark-haired ghost who likes puns and a weird fella with gold eyes and a patch of dyed hair?" No, that would be too much of a coincidence. WAY too much.

"'Powers'?" Heiji looked confused. To a fae, 'powers' sounded rather ominous. Maybe someone even more powerful than the courts? "Where'd ya hear that? You mean like another vampire? Or a whole bunch of dark witches?"

"You know them!" Clara claps her hands together and her eyes sparkle, happy to see the three of them knew each other in a way. What a small (other) world after all! "That's them alright! In advance, I'm sorry for Willard but he means well. He isn't weird at all! Just, ah, intense."

Like how the sun is just warm.

"I need to find them soon after this. Let them know about the powers-- in the city. Apparently 'they're' moving in. Whoever they are." Now she needs a moment to recall the name of the nice lady she met, mostly to make sure she'll say the name right. "I spoke to a... a Ms. Sommerset! Yes. That's her name. She warned me of it when we met in Coffeers' Shop."

Even Heiji looked surprised. Seriously? Well, at least he knew their names now. "Miss Clara, isn't intense just another word for weird?" Especially in Willard's case. Intensely weird.

"Ms. Sommerset. That name don't really ring a bell. What'd she look like? She tell ya anything else?" Actually, it was a bit of a sinister name in how ordinary it was. He hoped it wasn't some sort of Eldritch abomination coming to town. "I haven't heard anything 'bout any 'powers'..."

"Heiji!"

… she didn't deny it though. And she's happy to focus the topic on something else but poor Willard who, she knows, has a lot on his plate as it is. "She was very pretty! Such lovely green eyes and she was very... um... What's that word people here use again? Posh, that's it."

Not much of a description of the woman and it could be because Clara is deliberately(?) holding back. "I never did too until she pointed that out to me that things are changing, so to speak, and don't you think that makes sense? Considering what's been happening for a while?"

The vampires. The witches. The hunters. Something is happening among the groups and it was something big.

He laughed a little, but turned a bit more serious when Clara went on to describe the woman. Well, he did know a few people with green eyes...

"I s'ppose so. Course, I haven't been here as long as you have. But times are always changing. Le vent se leve!.... il faut tenter de vivre!" If anything, his upbringing had taught him that. The human world was changing faster and faster, with a million little developments all happening at once. Of course, now those changes were more incremental. A smaller computer, a more fuel-efficient combustible engine. Not like the leaps and bounds of a few decades ago. But perhaps that, too, would shift.

She blinks, a little surprised. Partly from the language -- was that Russian? -- and partly because of how certain Heiji is that this will all be better, sooner or later.

It's nice. Clara smiles at him, glad someone is hopeful that this will, in a way, blow over and all the changes that happen are things that should happen. That's a way to look at it. "I have no idea what that means but I'm sure that that Russian saying is true! Maybe I'm being a bit paranoid but... it doesn't hurt, I like to think. Being more careful about things and people."

He laughed. "It's French. Means 'the wind is rising -- we must try to live'. Sometimes things are set in motion, yeah? And the best you can hope to do is try and live the best ya can."

Whatever was on the horizon, he'd face it when it came. Of course, Clara was right that it didn't hurt to have concern for your friends...

"Oh!" She looks embarrassed that she got that wrong, feeling foolhardy that she didn't know that but nonetheless charmed by the saying. "That's a way to live."

Or, in her case, live the most she can. She likes to think she lived a long and fulfilling life in its own way. It brought her happiness, her family, and brought her to this point when it should have ended in 1998. Strange how life works at times. "Right! I want to live the best I can! I want to help by becoming a security guard and I'll also ask them for weekend breaks too during the talk!"

Living the dream, Clara. Truly living the dream. "--Huh. I just realised something, Heiji."

"Way to go! They can't make ya work every day; you gotta demand benefits!" And unionize! Did ghosts have unions? In any case, Heiji clearly thought this was an excellent idea, especially if Clara was fired up about it.

A lot of spirits were sort of listless and depressed -- without much purpose. That Clara continued to find ways to be connected to this world was perhaps not so good from a moving-on point of view, but at least it made her happy.

"What is it? Nothing bad, I hope."

It's going to take either a long time or a lot of convincing for Clara to seriously begin looking for what is keeping her tied to the living world still, to do what she needed if she wanted peace while she still could do it. For now, she's happy with the pace of her life and with the goals she's setting up for herself.

Plus ghost unions and ghost union meetings. Whenever the idea comes to mind, of course.

"It's nothing bad. Not at all! I just never know what you do with your free time now that I think about it." She has a faint idea he works at a eating place of some sort. Frightening as the first few hours of Magra's disappearance was, she remembered the earlier parts of it before the rescue. "What do you do for the most of the day if I can ask. You always seem to be on the go somewhere."

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

This question was a little hard to answer. It wasn't as though fae had jobs. Well... not most of them, anyway. "I used to work at that one cafe part-time, but I ain't had much time for that lately, so I had to turn in my notice. I help the cops out on cases sometimes, I talk to people, and I explore the city!"

He crossed his arms. "So I guess you could say I got a lot of free time. Recently I got a promotion, though, so I might get busier in the future..."

Hopefully not too busy, though. He enjoyed chatting people up and wandering around, even if sometimes he wandered exactly where he shouldn't.

Can you see the stars in Clara's eyes, Heiji? Can you?

Because there are stars in Clara's eyes when she hears that he works with the authorities, not questioning the other things he said. (Or putting much thought to them, really.)

"You help the cops with mysteries? Ohhh! Like from that TV show, Addock?" While she's not the intended demographic, Magra being the ideal viewer for it thanks to the handsome stars and stunning melodrama, Clara has become enraptured by the show that is a modern adaption of the beloved Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's detective stories.

How exciting!

Wow, those were some shiny stars. "Kind of," said Heiji, looking rather gratified that finally someone appreciated mysteries, mystery-solving, and all similar investigatory goodness.

"Of course, I try to keep a bit of a lower profile! Can't go around solvin' cases if everyone recognizes ya, right?"

Someone stop him.

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