undergrounds | got a feeling like a ghost (september catch-all)

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got a feeling like a ghost (september catch-all)

A. generic bookshops r us [Open]

[ Practice makes perfect, and Aradia is downright sick of her control being on the fritz.

She'd picked libraries, this time, and was slowly working her way through all sorts of official public buildings and tiny hipster bookshops in the name of getting her focus back up to scratch - books were usually the same size regardless of topic, and didn't really break if she dropped them too hard. Much easier then lightbulbs. Less expensive, too.

So frequenters of this particular locale might notice a teenager walking in circles clutching a stack of books, occasionally tossing another ontop of the pile whenever she feels confident enough, and... eventually vanishing into thin air when her manifesting ends up giving out. Oops. ]

What was that, about... three minutes? [ Talking to herself isn't weird since usually, nobody can see her. And it's a fun habit regardless. ] This is going to take forever.

B. old bones don't sleep [Open]

[ Despite all attempts to avoid making new friends, she had - only a handful, admittedly, but it'd been enough to bring a little bit of Aradia's old cheerfulness back to the forefront. And then they'd left, one by one, with not a word of warning.

She'd only found out after the fact when she'd tried to reconnect now that she'd patched up her holes, finding silence on her in-person visits and getting no replies from the handful of texts she'd managed to send out, and it kinda hurt. But slipping back into a cycle of sulking and shutting herself away was out of the question, so... she'd work something out.

Eventually, anyway. Today she's just not really feeling it, and anyone visiting the graveyard featuring her headstone might notice a fair bit more ghostly activity then usual. Do be careful of the weeds being systematically shredded by an annoyed ghost. She's not meaning to aim it at anyone. ]

C. fire festival [Backdated to 5/9, Open]

[ Aradia usually avoided the festival itself - sure, watching Straw Jack go up in flames was fun, but it'd been a lot more fun when she was alive to make her own miniature version and burn that instead.

Alas, she's still working out the details of whether ghosts can cause spontaneous combustion. For now she's getting her daily dose of mayhem by lingering in bars near the Festival's shenanigans, spooking patrons and keeping tabs on who can see her and who can't. ]

Soooo, how many fingers am I holding up? If you get it right, maybe I'll help you get the next one for free.

[ Alright, maybe she's tried this one about eight times already, but so what. Shoving her hand in people's faces to see how they react will never not be funny. ]

D. and the cat came back, the very next day [Closed to Willard, dated to 30/9]

[ She couldn't find Clara.

Sure that wasn't too unusual by itself. Ghosts often struggle to find each other even on good days, and she's still not consistent when it comes to manifesting. But Clara was experienced enough to reach out to others. Clara was capable of keeping herself together and staying cool under pressure.

And Clara still left signs that she'd been around, usually, even when she'd been having her own troubles. Except now she couldn't find any, and Aradia'd spent all her life talking to the dead. She knew enough to put the pieces together.

She'd done a remarkable job of not lashing out, for the most part. A few lightbulbs were to be expected, but the usual catastrophe was mercifully avoided because she's fine. She's not thinking about this. She's--

--traumatized a cat, if the ensuing muffled yowl is any indication. The box it'd been hiding in had been blown backwards during Aradia's internalized freakout, spilling a pool of water to the sidewalk and a cat to the middle of it. Which spared no time in staring up at her with the biggest, saddest eyes she'd ever seen and kicking her hard in the guilt. It looks so small... ]

[ Approximately ten minutes after the kitten has been awkwardly shuffled into Will's apartment and dumped on the couch, the following text gets sent by one very baffled ghost: ]

so i think i just stole someones cat
in my defense it really wasnt on purpose

E. wildcard!

[ Or, choose your own adventure/ask me to write up a specific hook! I don't mind either way. Prose also available for any of the above hooks on request - hit me up at

elimyx if you'd like to plot something out in particular. ]

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[ There had been a reason he'd never gone.

If he never went, it was easier to pretend that it wasn't true. That she was still there, that she was just out of reach and fine. Living it up somewhere else, forgetting to call him, leaving him behind in her pursuit of adventure. If he didn't see it, it didn't have to be real, and all the fantasies he had of her racing through Egypt to uncover the mysteries of ages untold were true.

He liked to picture her there.

Warm.

Vibrant.

Alive.

But there comes a point where you can't deny it anymore. Tavros doesn't really know what to do when he's back in town, and after a while, he's exhausted all of his usual escape tactics. His temper is worsening as the moon draws closer to full, and when he's angry, he likes to walk. Letting his feet take him to where they think is best for him to be while he stews in rage about some inconsequential thing. A stranger shouldering by him too roughtly. Little things add up, and you gotta take them out before they do.

Maybe it's an accident. Maybe it's fate. But by the time he snaps out of his fugue, he's looking down at his feet. The toe has burst through one of them, the sole of the other had been left behind at the station, and there's a name staring at him from between his toes and bits of grass covering the headstone. ]

Oh.

[ He bites his lower lip.

( Oh )

and bends down to try to clear it off. ]

Hey. [ How does he do this? No one he really cared about has ever died - well, barring this, but he'd never... Well. There had been too much going on to visit. Too much going on to think about it, and when he finally had, he'd had miles and miles to pretend that it wasn't so. Some of the older wolves that had mentored him had died, but... that was different. Really different. He rocks back on his heels and shoves his overgrown mohawk out of his face. ] It's been a while, I guess. I, should've come earlier.

Edited (i accidentally words) 2015-09-22 05:22 (UTC)

[ She'd gotten used to people not visiting.

It was only a small grave, after all, not too different then the hundreds of others laid to rest across the graveyard - there hadn't been much left of her body after everything was said and done. Weeds weren't that uncommon on the more unpopular graves and hers only grew worse without anyone to help her prune, became a self-sustaining cycle; nobody visited, so she stopped trying to keep it tidy, and because she didn't keep it tidy nobody gave it a second glance.

The people she'd wanted to come see her never had. It was easier to pretend that didn't hurt, easier to keep insisting that was what she really wanted.

Eventually she even believed it herself.

Except- today is different. Today hands other then her own, ones with actual flesh and blood, are tending to her grave by the time she arrives. The sensation is weird but not all that unwelcome, and it's enough to make her wonder why some random stranger would care. It doesn't occur to her that it's Tavros, at first, even with the eerily familiar mohawk. He was off somewhere happy, moved on from her death like the others - she's yesteryear's news. Not relevant. Not important.

So all the "stranger" gets is a ghost watching from the edge of his senses, not allowing herself to manifest until she has a better idea of why he's here. More of a suggestion of a person then anything concrete. Though he does look pretty familiar... ]

[ He used to believe in Heaven. Used to believe in a lot of things - back when he could afford to believe. Back when believing in a Heaven didn't necessitate believing in a Hell, and believing in faeries and magic was an option and a wish and not a cold hard fact.

His indoctrination into the supernatural was not thorough. He knew what he thought he needed to know and closed his ears to any more, refusing to let any more childhood fantasies be ruined by how close they ran to reality... or how far from it they went. The sensation of being watched earns a suspicious glance over his shoulder, a rumble of a growl low in his throat as a warning just in case but nothing comes of it. There's nothing there.

So he's back to pruning weeds. Slowly he shifts from squatting to sitting, bunching dandelions between his fingers and braiding them into a flowercrown when there were no more obstructing the name and dates he tried to pretend weren't related for so long. ]

So, uh...

[ He looks up. Down again. Somewhere for answers. ]

Mom and Dad are fine. And so is my brother, and... Also, me, I guess. I'm fine and, expanding my horizons. I, uh... I wasn't actually stuck, in a wheelchair, and, that's probably because of... Well... I guess, you probably know. So, there is that, on the side of things that were good in this debacle, which is actually mostly, just that... And I, didn't actually lose my license, so, I drive. A lot, actually. I've, seen most of the North, and, eventually I want to go all over the country. And I've been helping people - or, actually, animals, really. But also people, when they choose to. Which, is because, oh. No, I got ahead of myself, uhh... Remember that Youtube channel we had? Well I, sort of took it in another direction, and...

[ He has to stop. Really stop. Scrub a hand over his face, suck in a shaky breath, scrub his eyes and try not to let his emotions boil over. ]

Oh, God. This is so hard. I'm so sorry, Aradia.

[ The growl clues her in, digs up a memory of those first few weeks after that happened but before she- no, before everything changed, and she can't go there yet, she's not ready. A mental thread quickly gets pruned before it can take root because thinking about what caused that means she'll stop to remember why she stayed. It's too prickly an issue to navigate unless she's at her best, which she definitely isn't, and the odds of dodging a second Door aren't favourable to anybody. So maybe another day.

Maybe it'd be best if she left him alone. He clearly has the wrong grave, even if she doesn't mind someone helping to clear away all the mess, and she gets about three steps away before his stilted confession sinks in properly. It's the wheelchair remark that does it, really. They're not that uncommon but the last time she saw anyone in a wheelchair it was-- ]

Tavros?

[ It's only a quiet whisper, part of the background noise of the graveyard unless one's particularly listening for it. The mohawk was easy to rationalize away when she was expecting someone half his size, but the other details are harder - little things, like their old channel, like wheelchairs and brothers and it doesn't feel real. It can't be real. But it has to be, because it all makes too much sense for it to be anyone else.

And she made him cry.

Something twists in her chest, and her normal excuses of 'it's better if they don't know' and 'they shouldn't need to mourn me twice' suddenly feel painfully hollow. She made him cry and she doesn't know how to fix it without revealing herself. Revealing herself means inevitably making it worse. Either path leads somewhere she doesn't want to go, but doing nothing is out of the question.

In tune with her distress, the temperature drops around the headstone. Several birds go nervously silent. Antsy ghosts aren't fun to be around, and few have Aradia's knack for accidental destruction. ]

I-- you're here. You're actually...

[ Captain Obvious, thy name is Aradia. Her first attempt at visually manifesting stutters like an old TV, all static and skipping grayscale as she regrets it halfway through her opening sentence, but it's too late now to completely back out. Mostly. She could try, but it's Tavros.

There's lines she still won't cross. ]

[ Every hair on his body stands on end. Something is coming, something is here and Tavros isn't sure what his instincts are trying to tell him to do. Run, maybe - or stay. The silence is eerie but it's the voice that cuts through his thoughts like a razor, stealing the breath from his lungs and sparking tears in his eyes.

This has to be grief talking.

It has to be. There's no way.

No, there's no way that's her. He's losing his mind, he's wishing too hard, there's no way it's her. Tavros doesn't turn immediately, he waits, tenses and waits for the presence to pass.

When it doesn't, he slowly lifts his head. ]

Aradia.

[ His voice comes out small and broken, cracking pathetically. It's her - it's really, really her. ]

[ It's the cracking voice that really spurs her into taking that first step forward. And then another. And another, and it's only a few heartbeats before she's an awkward arms-length away - not quite close enough, but she feels an awful lot like a deer trapped in headlights. She shouldn't be here, look how distressed he is over her appearing. It'll only get worse if she stays.

But she can't. It's Tavros. Out of everyone, she missed being able to talk to him most of all. And besides - it's not like she's known for making stupid decisions on a whim or anything.

One hand fidgets at the hem of her shirt, for lack of anything else to do. ]

Um.... hi.

[ What do you say, in situations like this? "Whoops, sorry about that dying thing"? Or, "I hope my funeral was nice"?

The latter at least sounds funny in her head. It probably wouldn't be as funny if she actually said it, but it's a nice thought all the same. And it'd break the ice too, but... no. She's not quite that tactless. ]

I'm glad things are... going okay for you? You deserved a bit of good luck, I guess.

[ Her voice sounds stilted, hollow, even to her own ears. That probably wasn't the right thing to say but the silence was worse.

He looks so different and she can't stop staring. Two years has never felt like such a long time until now. ]

Oh, God... Hi?

[ That is the actual worst thing to say. The worst. He could hit himself right now, just, absolutely strangle himself with his own shitty conversational skills. ]

Yeah, I -- it was, sort of rough going, for a while. [ He swallows tightly, reaching up to scrub at his eyes - but his hand just pauses there, the fingers half outstretched. He's not sure if she's real - and even if she is, he's not sure he could touch her. ]

Sorry again, for, not coming here sooner. I... [ I didn't know. ]

Rough going is still better then nothing.

[ And Aradia misses poor Tavros's internal conflict, stumbling instead over possibly bringing up her own death again by accident, and wow. This is a trainwreck. Why is a simple conversation so hard to work through?

But progress is progress, however slow it might be. Maybe it'll get easier if she keeps talking. ]

It's okay. Really. You were busy, with recovering and adjusting to everything, and... [ Her voice trails off, the awkward silence punctuated with a shrug as she tries to pretend it doesn't hurt. It's stupid and irrational. He didn't have to come and she doesn't blame him for not wanting to. ] It's not like I was going anywhere.

[ That. Sounded less awful in her head, oh geez. She freezes mid-shrug, her brain catching up to her mouth a second too late. Scratch that part about this getting easier - that was assuming she could avoid screwing up for two seconds, and that's clearly too much to ask!

Taking it back wouldn't work and she can't think of how to fix it. Quick, say something-- ] B-But it's okay! I didn't think anyone was- wait no.

[ That wasn't better. ]

... I should probably stop before I make it worse. Sorry.

Gilbert Norrell is a man who is very fond of books.

Books are, in fact, something he greatly prefers to people on the whole. His library of magical books is one of the largest known in England, and Gilbert Norrell has every intention of making sure it stays that way. He buys up every copy of any remotely magical book, or book on magic (the distinction is important, a book about magic as a concept is not the same as a book detailing actual magic) and makes sure -- if he can -- that no other copies are available.

It is not a thing that makes him popular, but he believes this is for the best. Magic should not be readily available to just anyone, and plenty of books are dangerous! It is better if he is to handle these things.

He is waiting, very impatiently, in the small second hand book shop while the proprietor goes to find the book he reserved for a great deal of money. It was the best way to make sure nobody else claimed it first.

Then he hears the crash, and notices the range of books that have fallen to the ground haphazardly.

He stares at Aradia for a moment in what appears to be genuine horror before gesturing to them, almost angrily.

"But you will ruin the bindings, girl! The spines! Pick them --"

Which is when she vanishes altogether. He blinks, draws himself up to his full (minimal height) and lofts his eyebrows. At the very least, he does not seem frightened.

Most people, upon being yelled at by a odd little man in the middle of a small back-alley bookshop, would react with perfectly normal emotions like panic or utter confusion instead of almost bored apathy. Most people also haven't spent the last four-ish months haunting someone who gets unreasonably fussy over mystery novels, so clearly she's the sane one here.

Aradia doesn't flinch when the books slip through her hands, nor does she freeze when the stranger dives into a lecture on the proper care and maintenance of someone else's property between so much musty shelving. Instead she just regathers the scattered threads of her focus, spins on her heel to stare with all the intimidating grace a 5-foot-something dead girl can muster, and completely forgets to check that it's someone she actually knows before snapping back. It's reflex by now, any delays lose points in the great ongoing Argument. Fact checking can come later. Maybe. If she feels like it.

"They wouldn't be ruined by something so stupid as being dropped, honestly-" and there's an invisible snap of not-quite-tangible energy as she fades back into view, latching onto the conversation to keep herself grounded. "And if they did, it's not really my problem."

A pause, as Aradia scrutinizes Gilbert's apperance - notes his age, how entirely unsurprised he is to see a vanishing teenager, and seems to realize that he is not, in fact, the person she was expecting. "Oh, hello. You're new."

He stares at her a moment, entirely astounded by this answer. Wouldn't be ruined? Stupid? Not her problem?

He regards her a moment in what can only be described as utter contempt before looking away, expression twisting into a mix of irritation and distaste. For a moment he cannot decide how to react, so incensed as he is, then he fixes his eyes on her again with a frown.

"Name?" he prompts, clearly expecting her to give hers. He can hardly make a formal complain about her without it, after all!

Aradia stares back, entirely unfazed. As far as she's concerned, she's stared down far worse, and therefore he doesn't really rate - nevermind that she has no clue who or what this stranger is. If she actually knew, she'd be a bit more cautious.

Only a bit, though. It's more fun to mess with people, and now that she's aware of it, it's far too tempting to prod him until something blows up in her metaphorical face.

"Wow, rude. That's not a very nice way to ask." So maybe now she's being a brat on purpose. Nobody can prove anything. "Tell me your name first, then I'll tell you mine. It's only fair that way."

And with that, she bends down to start rebuilding her haphazard book pile. Her stubbornness has a grain of sense to it, in all honesty - names are power, and giving hers away to someone so clearly annoyed by her presence could only end badly. She's got enough of her common sense left to work that out.

Tell her his name first? He takes a breath at the challenge, puffing himself up a little further like a startled animal trying to appear a good deal more of a threat than it is.

"My name," he begins, with as much ire as he can channel while keeping his voice at a respectable volume, "is Gilbert Norrell -- and I've a mind to see you exorcised if you keep up that tone."

Maybe. Probably. It's also entirely possible if she gave him a good fright he'd flee himself, yet all the same the principle of the thing --! A ghost somewhere so public! What if she was seen, if she drew attention? Admittedly most such things with credence are covered up, but the thought! Oh, he would not be able to come here again! People might think him involved!

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got a feeling like a ghost (september catch-all)

b. the dead live on in the hearts of the living

ahhhh im sorry this took longer then i said it would! moving boxes happened D:

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1/2 whoops this got long for barely any dialogue, i'm sorry

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A -- Prose before hoes

gah, sorry i took a few days!! life happened, and normally im faster i swear ;;

No trouble!

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