August Free Post; I'm on a Carr kick I'm sorry

[alethiological]

[A; Till Jet Lag Do Us Part]

It's just one of the usual boring evenings on the stations, waiting for your train to arrive. The usual terrible conditions, unhelpful staff, and random hobos sleeping on the benches. Or random tourists passed out from jet lag waiting for the train. Maybe you're one of those people nice enough to stop someone from stealing a suitcase. More likely, you're the one stealing it.

In any case, you're immediately treated to the siren sounds of accented swears and the person you are hypothetically trying to rob glaring at you. Gold eyes are suitibly intense for that. "What time is it?"

---

[B; Behind the Crimson Blinds]

Hillingdon is known for many things, mostly the fact everyone in it is crazy, or assholes, or both. What is less known is that, like any proper association of crazy assholes, they keep records. Kills, assignments, random receipts, half-finished letters. A pit of madness no sane person would enter of their own free will. Said Will can be found in the pit of madness, surrounded by piles of organized papers and flipping through another one with the ease of a mindless drone.

---

[C; And So To (Almost) Murder - first come, only served]

Later in the month, Lewisham is now a safe haven to the Fae. Which is a total load of nonsense, who leaves overseas for a month just to come back to their claimed No Man's Land being filled with a bunch of flighty, irresponsible monsters? They don't even have the decency to be subtle about it. Which is surprising, considering how subtle the takeover itself was.

Someone else masterminded it, obviously. Getting a name is easy. All that needs to be done is follow protocol: get one of the abominations to confess, remove the sin as is required, track down the one responsible and Fix It. It's just another in a myriad series of mistakes, and Our Purpose is to fix mistakes.

The only thing you hear is a sharp shout, cut off far too fast, but no one minds one person missing. Unless you do, which means you find one (count, 1) Fae held out swordpoint by one (count, 1) psychopath, bright gold eyes and black roiling smog. It also means you get immediately glared at because, honestly now, who interrupts an Equalizing. Rude much.

---

[D; Wildcard]

> insert words receive subpar tags


((apologies for slowtags for aforementioned reasons))

Comments

D, like this was gonna be a thing that got avoided lbr

[megidoomed]

Being back in London was surely a busy experience. The sudden re-acclimatizing to it's atmosphere, the bustling annoyance and discordant accents, the jet lag. It's a drastically different place than America, after all, with it's own idiosyncrasies and habits. And after so long away, surely one could be forgiven for missing the little details.

It'd started with simple neglect. Without the subtle support of an anchor that she'd grown used to, her progress towards anything tangible crumbled. Then came her run-in with the Fae, and her energy faded further. She'd tried to contact him over the month he'd been missing gone, occasional Skype pings and half-started conversations abound - but every single one ended with the same kind of frustration, landmines tripped and a feeling that something was wrong that she didn't know how to fix.

Eventually it just... stopped, as her attempts stalled all together. Which meant she missed Will's eventual return to London, but that was surely okay. Maybe she'd finally broken the laptop. No big deal, right?

aradia why you do this

[alethiological]

There had to be a single few moments spent on the apartment, dropping off suitcases and verifying his stuff wasn't liberated by the tax collectors. Yet it was easy to see the remains of something that went wrong - all the lights in the hall are shorted out, all the lightbulbs in his own apartment are absolutely shattered, broken cups and keyboard keys littered on the floor. Both laptops are powered down.

That's Wrong. Even the air itself is Wrong - there's none of her usual residue of annoyance and hype. Instead it's... blank. Too blank. Focusing on anything else turns up blank, the very sensation drowned out by anyone nearby.

Okay, this is upgraded to Very Wrong. Solution is to drop off his suitcases and immediately beelining to her house. It's not far, nor hard to find with the disarray it's in. Except she's not in the main room. Shit. And her weird residue has changed from her normal aura to something entirely despairing.

Concerning, but easily spotted. The doorframe gets knocked on. Loudly. "Aradia?"

because she feeds on his tears

[megidoomed]

In her defense, this really wasn't how she intended today to go. Or this week for that matter.

One of the small advantages to being a ghost was that, no matter how far she tries to roam, sooner or later she'll always go back to her Haunt. There's times where she'd wish her haunt was elsewhere, somewhere with more life to it. But right now the quiet is appreciated, honestly, as it lets her recover in peace. Her manifesting is too out of sync to leave, but that's okay. That means she's safe here. The weird Fae can't find her if she's not leaving trails everywhere.

For a given value of safe, anyway. She's not an idiot. She knows that was a stupid mistake and she can't tell if she escaped in time, she doesn't know how much is that anchor thing Clara mentioned and nothing's making sense. Everything's out of focus again, and-- no, she's fine. She's okay. She's--

--there's a knock. Everything grows still, the moment between the alert and her name stretching out awfully long until time starts again.

She doesn't need to stare at the door, as the voice behind it registers immediately, but it's something she feels like indulging in to ground herself. The little details are important. "Oh. You're back. That's good."

poltergeists why

[alethiological]

That took a while for her to answer. She responded in the positive, so she's not going to immediately explode a lamp in his face or scream at him for going missing for a week. Or she's waiting for him to open the door. Which is easy. It's just a door, it's-

A threshold. With iron as a conduit. Shit. There's a sharp inhale as the usual mental walls are thrown up. Come on, don't be a coward, you can handle that much silver in your veins, iron isn't that much harder. The magic binding it is harder to deal with, but not much. Same as every other time, just brace the same amount of effort against it- forgot the gloves, iron burns, it doesn't hurt, it doesn't hurt, how dare they try to refuse Our presence-

Aradia gets the wonderful sensation of her sister's comforting threshold magically getting its door kicked in clear off the hinges. In reality, Will just opens the door enough to lean in and stare at her. The deadpan might be tinged with concern the instant there's eye contact.

"Yeah." There'd be an attempt to walk in but. She's hiding in a corner. That's weird. The lightbulbs, the power outtages, and now this. He doesn't enter yet. "Has everything been all right?"

his fault for feeding her everyone knows they follow you home

[megidoomed]

Hiding in Damara's room had been the best idea, okay. It was the only room that had kept a functioning threshold when the rest had faded in neglect, so it made sense to curl up there until the danger had passed. Nevermind that the localized chaos only got worse the longer she hid - it wasn't too hard to notice the change in the borough's atmosphere, even spooked as she was, which only became an excuse to drop contact altogether. And that's fine. It'll be easier to make sense of when her manifesting comes back.

Which means when Will cheerfully smashes the threshold aside like it's made of cardboard, she can't help but flinch and sink further into the corner. Walls are barely noticeable to her at this point, she can leave if she has to faster then he can-- no, it's Will, he's safe. Right?

"I'm okay." Blatant lies, but if she stares at the door instead of him she wont have to talk about it. He's probably trying to freak her out on purpose with how well the sharp gold stands out in the gloom of her apartment, anyway. "Just wanted to hang here for a bit. Less things to break."

... She. Didn't mean to say that last part out loud, but whatever. It's still a valid answer. Fight her.

nope he's innocent

[alethiological]

Really annoying cardboard, since it takes a constant even output of focus to hold back that instinct of get out. No. He's not going. If you ignore the creepy yellow cat eyes, there's nothing odd about the steps it takes to get to her desk. Just to knock everything off the top and sit on it. Who needs manners.

"I noticed." Kind of like how he notices her starting to spacially twitch back and forth through the wall like a graphics glitch. It's weird. Thankfully, Will is smart enough to save that topic for later. "If you were that stressed, why didn't you contact me?"

Well about that.

is he sure about that i mean she's seen his laptop

[megidoomed]

Will casually sweeping off the desk gets watched idly. The room has nothing left of value to break so it's not worth getting upset over, but it's still weird. Why is he sitting, she doesn't understand-- oh.

There's the first flicker of emotion since he entered the room, a mute sort of confusionworryhurt that gets stomped out just as fast as it shows. It shouldn't be surprising that he's being ridiculous, given how the last few weeks went, and clearly she should ignore it because it's dumb to get upset over things like this.

"I did contact you," and it's stated with the toneless weight of an immutable fact. The usual stubborn anger that should, by all means, be building in her voice by now is conspicuously absent. "You stopped replying after a while, so I figured it was easier to deal with it alone. That way I wouldn't be causing a problem."

wow excuse you his laptop is a saint

[alethiological]

The flicker of emotion is par the course - she's always careful to try and stomp her feelings before she shoots them in all directions - but the latter is concerning. Even if she keeps her voice toneless, there's always that slowly rising anger that ends with her floating his possessions off the floor and shattering lightbulbs. Now there's just. Nothing.

Unfortunately, this will not be analyzed at this moment because wait what?

"What?"

No, inhale, try again, exhale. Just like Aradia, that first glimmer of genuine feeling smashed into ashes before it could compromise rationality. "I never replied to anything." Because there were no messages. Were there? He doesn't remember, so they didn't happen. That thought is highly concerning up until it actually isn't.

"Either way. I've told you that messaging me isn't a problem."

lies and slander his laptop isn't free of sin either

[megidoomed]

"You answered a couple. Earlier. All the later ones got ignored." Yeah, no. Aradia doesn't even notice the obvious contradiction at first, as extracting herself from the wall was quickly deemed more important now that she'd noticed her tangibility slip-up. Gross, she's supposed to be better then that, what a rookie mistake.

But the exact moment her thoughts catch up is clear. She freezes again mid-movement, head snapping back around to watch Will properly, and her hesitant not-quite-correction is oddly quiet. "Or I thought they were?"

She knows they sent, as she remembers staring at each timestamp to make sure. Remembers the backlash from the broken lights when frustration bled past her shaky control, too, and there's another muted flash of guilt over realizing that his apartment probably looks like a trainwreck. But that means either his weird memory problems got worse when he vanished, or he really didn't see them somehow - yet he replied to the first bunch of inane texts, so that makes no sense.

The possibility that it's a lie and that their current conversation is fake pops up and immediately gets overruled. Dwelling on that charming outcome will only lead to bad things. Shrug, move on, it's not worth the hassle- "But that's okay, I guess. It ended up being pretty irrelevant anyway."

don't talk shit it totally is free of sin. hater.

[alethiological]

Ignored? The removing herself from the wall is ignored, because he's too busy glaring at the floor. That entire time period blends together in weird ways and it comes out in his voice, words chosen and spoken with an almost robotic care.

"I remember the first few, before I had to file my reports. Nothing else." Except that last one rolls off weird, stings in a way, brings a flash of something more- "Ah. No. At the end of the week you sent a weird text. It was out of character for you, so I got worried and left early."

Is that right? There's a frown right after. It feels wrong, but that's all that's remembered, everything else is just black spots or frozen movie frames. Thankfully Aradia says something dumb to be a distraction, and an excuse to joss the whole concern before migraines start popping up-

We apologize, whatever was going to be placed here has been redacted.

The house is a mess, she's hiding in this witch's room, and now that she's removed herself from the building, the glitching movements and total missing segments of her body become obvious.

Well, it does qualify as a distraction.

"Yeah. Irrelevant," a bit too terse, on account of "What happened? And don't say 'nothing' or 'im okay'."

it's about as free of sin as her *foot*. dumbass.

[megidoomed]

"But I'm-" okay, and he can probably hear the way that halted sentence was originally intended to end. A hasty word-swap doesn't count for rejection purposes, synonyms be damned, fighting her is still a valid outcome, "fine."

And there's the unconscious snap of feedback that follows anything she does; except it's way too weak without the usual whipcrack of temper backing it, nothing left to break but another degree of warmth leeched from the air. Aradia barely notices, still staring at Will like he's grown a second head - or maybe lost his old one, truthfully, he's sounding about that level of ridiculous.

Please ignore how she's almost fading into the background. The narrative is doing it's best to forget, too.

"Sorry about it being weird. I think that's about when my hands started going through the keyboard again." A beat, because wait no she's trying to steer the conversation away from the obvious pitfall. Crap. "I didn't realize a month counted as early for vanishing routines. I'll try to remember that next time."

If she turns it back on him again, she can get by without talking about it, without thinking about it, she's okay. Aradia's not quite so out of it that she didn't pick up on the monotone, buddy.

but her foot's free of sin because it's 100% full of Dead

[alethiological]

The glare Aradia earns is legendary. There's that metaphor about stabbing people to death with a stare, and this would be a perfect look to use as a textbook example. The more she speaks, the more harsh it turns, up until when she finishes and she can probably make out how his hands have gone white-knuckled.

He's not stupid. Something went wrong. Incredibly so. It needs to be fixed. What can even damage ghosts? Asking her is out of the question, she's so single-mindedly focused on pushing the topic back to him. Look it up maybe? No, cross reference. Why is it this room in particular she hides in? Not her room in her haunt, but the sister's that she's refused to enter before now? Most likely answer: Threshold. Way too strong, still nagging at the back of his head, sizzles like pop rocks across every nerve ending, almost impressive. Would be worth hunting her down, the fight would be something worth the time put in. Narrows down culprits to a weak vampire or a fae, and vampires can't hurt ghosts.

The gears to a far-too-efficient machine click across the motions, but to Aradia the glare only lasts until a few seconds after her last comeback. Because the most logical analysis is calculated in heartbeats, the faint ghosts her Heart leaves supports it, and there's multiple ways to call her out on it. She's dodging, so obviously, failing in ways she's never done. There's chunks of her body missing, she moves like she's a glitching CRT monitor on its last legs of life.

(And he's a Fae.)

Let her have the point. The glare doesn't ease off (she'd catch it too fast) and instead switches to squinting at her in suspicion. Or at least a horrifyingly accurate portrayal of it. "It wasn't a month. I would've noticed a gap that large."

i guess that means her sole was worth dying for

[megidoomed]

The glare stings and she doesn't know why. She's not afraid, so that can't be it - admittedly its intimidating, though closer to someone pressing ice into the bones of her spine then anything actually painful. But it's enough to make her hesitate and her control slips, twists that awful hollowness lodged in her ribcage and



-and Aradia immediately clamps back down on the fact that she's entirely okay and ignores how reality flatlined for half a second, tops. It felt like early August on repeat, all confusion and sudden fluctuations in her control and she remembers Clara mentioning that, once. How ghosts tend to fade after a while if they do stupid things like unanchor themselves entirely. But she swore she fixed that, didn't she?

When Will switches topics and goes for her terrible attempt at a distraction, it's almost a relief. Even if she can't really shake the feeling that she skipped something important.

"It was." At least she's starting to break away from the dazed monontone, like a radio slowly being tuned - it's stilted and offkilter but it's something, at least. Unfortunately, 'something' is entirely flickers of concern over the apparent time-loss on Will's part. "Unless you forgot to look at a calendar the whole time."

why the puns why this

[alethiological]

he doesnt want to talk about it he doesnt want to talk about it he doesnt want to talk about it he doesnt want to talk about it he doesnt want to talk about it he

has to.

Because if he doesn't, the topic is Aradia's Problems, and she doesn't look like she can handle that right now. Quite literally, considering that moment where she shorted out from existence to the point even his own eyes couldn't spot her. Concern is a grounding feeling, even if her aiming it at him is stupid, he doesn't want it, but it's helping her? Flesh sloughs off invisibly in tune to Damara shouting at him to leave and his old Overseer shouting at him to stop dragging others down in his mistakes.



To hell with both of You, he's doing neither of those.

"I did. ...Or I thought I did." A landmine immediately appears after that thought, is mentally evaded on reflex-

And then kicked out of sheer spite of getting yelled at by hallucinations. "Certain areas don't allow timekeeping methods of any kind. 'You'll just keep looking at the clock waiting for the day to end.' And you say my logic is bad."

idk but you really walked into that one

[megidoomed]

All of the internal conflict presented in the narrative ends up wasted on Aradia. Now that there's something concrete to focus on, it's easier to ignore the not-quite-numbness pressing into her senses, and so much harder to notice little details like landmines. Which means she misses the cause of the neurotic snap, but on the plus side she's mostly sure that she's worked out how to switch from 'detached staring' to 'unimpressed staring' again.

"But your logic is bad," and naturally the pot continues to call the kettle black, because it's not hypocrisy if nobody brings it up. "Keeping track of the date isn't the same as waiting for a shift to end. How are you supposed to know which days you have to show up for otherwise?"

There's a single, innocent moment after her question where nothing hurts and everything is fine.

It's promptly ruined when Aradia remembers the stupid hours she's seen him keep over the months they've been friends, and this time she's not quick enough to block out the muted feeling of kicking herself in the mental shins before it takes hold. "... Whatever. Your logic's still dumb if you seriously think that was a week."

You're killing me here

[alethiological]

There's a similar long pause after her statement, for the exact same reason. Whatever logic she stumbles on to make her backtrack is, for once, not even bothered with reading into. The Overseers have their reasons and it's not his right to question them. That's how it is.

-But she's not really questioning them, it's his stupid logic she's nitpicking. It's the usual thing Aradias do where they lambast his life choices because That's What Megi-do. Ignore the pun, that's all the narrator's fault, what a jerk, that's not the important part.

The important part is the justification clicks into place, a heartbeat's switch of finding a loophole in so short a time, only those looking for it would catch on. Ignore the fact that even that itself counts as an answer. Or maybe a hint.

"More like we're not supposed to leave."

... Well.

"But you're right. Whatever. My perception of time went off," again a bit deadpanned, but that's not weird. The weird part is admitting she's right in the first place. "You win the house prize, which is nothing."

Or not.

i cant think of any puns this early in the morning but jfc this took me three weeks this isnt bueno

[megidoomed]

"Why wouldn't you be allowed to- oh, nevermind."

The narration has encountered a slight but noticeable problem. That problem is Aradia being far too out of sorts to realize why Will let the argument go so easily, while simultaneously being coherent enough to catch onto it being A Problem in the first place - landmines aren't worth dodging in the face of stupid like this, after all, why would those ever be relevant. The very idea is absurd. Shame on you for thinking this would ever make sense.

What all of that actually translates into is more confusion and a half-hearted squint. The snap felt uncomfortable-familiar that time, but it's quickly chalked up to the differences his absence left behind instead of something useful, even if that doesn't sit quite right the longer she thinks about it. Eugh. "It's still pretty ridiculous, but... I guess it's okay? Maybe leave notes or something next time, though. That way I'm at least warned about stupid absences instead of... whatever."

Aradia neglects to press her accidental advantage, instead trailing off into stilted acceptance, the blank half-eaten static seeping back into her thoughts. But for the first time since her unfortunate brawl, she's managed to forget her own problems long enough to pull herself together a bit. So even with the missed hints, maybe they both win-

"... wait, if the house prize is nothing, why does it even count."

Or maybe nobody wins. That works too.