Ghost Girl (for Aradia)

[kleptofaeniac]

Kenzi had been doing research on a specific spell for a month now. And in her research, she had come across hints that maybe the Midnight Circle was more involved in history than she thought. The barest traces of people existing. To the point that she wanted to actually follow up and see if she could find them now.

Most of them were dead. Some were living, and they were either converted to Daybreak or had left the country. Good to know that Sylvia had done a good job of driving them out.

There was one name in particular that she was attached to. Aradia Megido.

She remembered the ghost she ran into on her 'fake exorcist' job. Remembered her name. The Megido name popped up a few times in her records. Enough that she was curious.

Sure she had never actually done a proper summoning of a spirit. But she was willing to give it a go. What better, and more stereotypical, place to do it than at the grave site? It wasn't hard to track down with public records being what they were.

Kenzi sat cross legged in front of Aradia's grave, bent over a book with candles and looking like your average Goth girl. Only difference was, she was the real deal.

"Shit how do I do this -," Kenzi tried reading from the book again, but there was enough wind that she started eating her own hair instead of reading the page she meant to. And it decided to flip to a few pages before.

Comments

[megidoomed]

She's never really been summoned before. Oh, she knows the general idea of how it goes, but all that experience was from the other side of the mortal coil. Actually going through it herself was a whole different kettle of fish.

It starts as a soft tugging at Aradia's thoughts while Kenzi gets her bearings, disrupting her focus with hard-to-spot ripples and completely ruining her latest attempt at manifesting for longer then five minutes. Which is pretty rude, and she's mostly sure it wasn't even her fault this time. She'd been doing so well so it makes no sense, but whatever, shelve the thought and keep practicing. Time's a-wastin'.

The next pull from the spell isn't quite so gentle.

Her disorientation grows worse as the spell builds in power - it's so close to the weirdness she felt throughout August that she can't help but panic, but it's not like that at the same time, and it's harder to ground herself against it when she can't think straight. Freaking out doesn't help, obviously. But freaking out is also a wonderful option that everyone should try sometime! It's fun for the whole family.

While the world starts to blur she has some time to regret her un-life choices. Because she broke her promise to Not Get In Trouble already and it hasn't even been a whole month and-

- and for a moment everything flickers cold, grave-cold, and... oh. Suddenly everything makes slightly more sense.

"There's nicer ways to get someone's attention, you know." Kenzi has obtained one tiny ghost, knocked to the floor inside the summoning circle and thankfully too out of sorts to be properly annoyed. Not that she could actually do anything inside a circle. But at least now she knows why most Fae hate the idea so much. "Like a letter. Or a phonecall. Not that I have a phone, but it's the thought that counts."

[kleptofaeniac]

Kenzi falls onto her back when Aradia manifests inside the pentagram and the ground is wet enough to make her lurch forward again with a shriek and a wide, pleased grin.

"Oh holy shitballs, I can't believe that worked!"

Kenzi sounded pretty pleased with herself. So much so that she's forgotten that she's summoned a ghost and is keeping her waiting.

[megidoomed]

She'd expected a cranky older witch, once she'd worked out what actually happened. Someone who'd heard of her history or what she'd done since and wanted to disapprove of her life choices to her face. Someone who, frankly, would've had every inclination to summon-and-exorcise her on the spot.

What she didn't expect to see, when she pushed her head back off the dirt, was that one fake exorcist she'd run into.

"Of course it-- wait, you!" Aradia scrambles to her feet with a snap of protest, disorientation falling away now that she has something to properly glare at. "I thought you said you weren't a medium. This is-- this is pretty medium-y!"

Oops. At least she's not immediately trying to escape, instead glowering in the center of the pentagram in all her totally-intimidating 5-foot-and-some-change glory. Which... actually isn't all that impressive, but it's the thought that counts, right?

[kleptofaeniac]

Of course it counts! Not that Kenzi is that much taller herself, but she can appreciate the level of sucking that this has to be for her.

Kenzi waves a little guiltily at Aradia as she accuses her of meidum-ness. She has a point, but:

"To be fair this is like...the first 'meidum-y' thing I've done, soooo."

Kenzi thinks that wraps up that part of the conversation and claps her hands together. She has questions, son.

"I didn't know you were a Midnight girl!"

...Way to ask Kenzi.

[megidoomed]

Whatever retort Aradia had intended to fire back, it's dead in her throat now.

Kenzi's opening question immediately stops her cold. Her control on her emotions slips and the anger fizzles out, replaced by alarm and a decidedly unnatural drop in the ambient temperature around her headstone.

It's not like her past allegiances were well-hidden, really. But having it dragged into the open so bluntly doesn't reassure her about the pentagram at all, and that leads into other panicking theories - they met before at a fake exorcism. This still has a chance to turn into a very real one if she's not careful. No pressure, then.

"I- No! Kind-of. Maybe?" Welcome to the land of antsy ghosts and bad liars. Please take your free brochure at the door. "But that was before I died. I'm not anyone's girl now."

She doesn't bother asking how Kenzi found out. That can come later, if she makes it through these first few minutes intact. Aradia cautiously steps backwards, one foot brushing against the ethereally solid wall of the circle. Which rules out that line of escape without needing to ask. Drat.

"Why do you care? You don't look like Daybreak. And nobody else ever looked into it, so..."

Because, obviously, the only people who'd look into that were witch hunters or Daybreak, and Kenzi certainly didn't look like the former. Flawless logic.

[kleptofaeniac]

Kenzi gets the hesitation and she doesn't really care that Aradia is giving her non-answers. What matters is reading between the lines, and Kenzi nods in agreement.

"Yeah, I'm not. That's sort of why I care."

She still had a problem saying where her alligences lay out loud, the closest she could get now was:

"I guess that sort of makes us sisters or whatever."