undergrounds | a little conversation (aradia and clara)

Entry tags:

a little conversation (aradia and clara)

SOMEWHERE OUT THERE

There are times that Clara isn't the brightest one in the box. She isn't dumb. Not by any means she likes to think. She's practical and patient but she isn't bright like Magra or clever like Willard. It takes time for her to connect the dots of some more obscure things, notice the clues to people or items that, to some, would be considered right in front of her face and yet she never realised it until the very lost moment.

Like right now. Just as she watches some of the kids play tag, something in her head just clicks as overheard snippets of others in Redbright to gossip from elsewhere finally falls into place and she recognises it as something coherent, solid, and being about what Aradia had done in regards to some lightbulbs. The people never said her name but she can extract enough hints and information that it was her.

It immediately causes some alarms in her head to ring, ever so faintly, as a sudden bubble of guilt and concern gets the best of her.

While the children need to be watched over, Clara thinks that they can have one day of their ghostly guardian not watching over them as they pal around in the park. This is an emergency. They'll understand. So she excuses herself on deaf ears and heads off in order to look for her fellow ghost.

It takes her a while to find Aradia, exploring more than she's ever explored before, but she finds her soon enough after enough false stars and dead ends that would frustrate some but not Clara. Not when it concerns someone she worries and cares for.

"Aradia?" It's her. Of course it's her. Not wanting to waste anymore time she quickly adds, "Can we talk?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Up until now, today was fairly normal for the younger ghost. Check to see if she'd accidentally slipped back to her Haunt while meditating, fuss over her laptop if she hadn't, work up the energy to manifest, bum around London to see the sights, accidentally break a street lamp...

You know. Normal ghostly happenings.

It was at said streetlight that Clara would eventually find her, perched atop the frame and prodding the dead bulb with her foot. She hadn't meant to snap, honestly, but her thoughts wandered too far and the frustration had nowhere else to go. Luckily it doesn't attract a crowd - the living don't care as much about lights during the day, and nobody else hears the crackle-fade of dying electronics like she does, so perhaps it could go unremarked--

Except there's Clara, fretting, and she probably saw it didn't she? Crap. "That's always such a loaded phrase. People never start with that unless it's something bad."

Light, what light, there's no light here. Aradia loops back upright in a hurried swing, trying to pin down where Clara's voice is coming from. Hearing other ghosts is so much harder then the living. "Did something happen?"

Edited (fusses over my post forever) 2015-06-13 18:43 (UTC)

"I was going to ask that much myself," she admits when she's able to catch the other ghost's voice, trying to keep up her good spirits(!) for them both. "Nothing too serious. Only a chat between just us ladies, I swear."

She knows how she it at times, ever fussy and worried, and tries to tone it down for people's sake but all the same. She approaches her closer where she thinks it is, doing everything she can to be noticed and heard. It's hard for ghosts to notice other ghosts but Aradia was a special girl and Clara has been around for a long time. They can do it.

While it is exhausting to keep herself this grounded it is worth it in her opinion. All it done so she can talk to Aradia. "I noticed that the bulb over there is now broken. Earlier it worked just fine and look at it now! That's a shame. Some poor soul has to fix it early in the morning now. There goes their beauty sleep."

It's pretty clear that Clara isn't angry or annoyed by this. Only puzzled, trying to figure out what is happening and what she can do to help.

There's an awkward moment of silence from Aradia when the broken bulb is brought up, the immediate flash of guilt too hard to ignore even if the older ghost's voice remains neutral. "At least they'll get paid for fixing it, though. It's a cleaner job then some people get."

That. Was probably not the response Clara wanted. It's too late to change her phrasing, her usual monotone present even as she shoves down a wince, so she latches onto the earlier topic instead. "I don't mind chatting though. It'd be nice."

Ghosts can't normally interact without a mortal or a fetter as a go-between, but Clara's experienced and Aradia's determined and she thinks she's got an idea of where the elder is standing. Maybe.

They can wince together at least as it makes her realise how thoughtless her comment is. Goodness. It's been a while since she's done this sort of thing, isn't? Trying to suss out what's wrong without being too overbearing and too nosey. Clara pauses, trying to find a good balance to her words and her approach, and hopes that maybe all this concern is just coming from her head.

Opting to stay in one place, keeping near post to keep herself grounded and more easy to detect, she of course begins the conversation with a gentle, "How have you been lately? I haven't seen you since the party."

"I've been okay," is her first, reflexive reply, because why wouldn't she be? Nobody's tried to exorcise her in over a month and she's finally making progress on manifesting properly. Not to mention her tentative steps towards being less antisocial. It's a livelier month then she's had in a while.

Admittedly, every step forward slips away if she doesn't focus on it exclusively and she's no more stable then she was the day she died, but she's come to expect that by now. Undeath is nothing if not consistently bloody annoying.

"I usually don't go to the Redbright side of the river, that's all. Most days I can't manage the water thing," and the casual acceptance is punctuated with a shrug, because she really can't and that's okay too. She knew about the weaknesses of ghosts already. "Have things been alright on your end?"

"Oh. That's right." She 'raps' her knuckles across her forehead out of habit, feeling silly for having forgotten that. Not everyone can cross the Thames. Especially ghosts. "Well! I'll definitely keep that in mind and visit you more often then now.

"We spooks have to stick together." Clara radiates careful optimism, wanting to spend more time with her fellow spirit and hoping she'll be alright with that happening in the future. It's nice talking to her despite the limitations they face. They'll find a way, she's sure of it. "Me? Nothing too special, I think.

"Just making sure my granddaughter doesn't get into too much trouble," she confides in Aradia. There's a tone of wry amusement in her voice now, recalling the girl's attempts to sneak off and go into pubs despite needing to study more. "Keeps trying to sneak out and go into pubs with her friends. Sometimes I wish I could do more than just float nearby in worry and be anchored to her."

It takes a moment to place 'anchor' as something other then a awkward boat pun, which is a pretty simple example of Aradia's priorities, if you think about it. The phrase is dimly recognized from past conversations with Clara, and it's still an annoying blank spot in her growing understanding of ghostly life. But asking would be painfully rude, even by her usual standards, so the topic drops in favour of shameless gossip.

"It'd be nice to chat more often, but I don't want to be a hassle and drag you across the river without cause. Especially if your granddaughter's such a handful." Clara's lingering connection to her family is important, if somewhat baffling, and Aradia would hate to take time away from that. "Though it sounds like she's trying to have fun, not worry you, even if I'm sure she appreciates you looking out for her all the same."

Unspoken is the assumption that the elder ghost's oft-mentioned grandchild can see the dead. The alternative feels too depressing to pry into, despite being more likely.

"It's not a problem at all! I have to do something with my afterlife than just haunt a coffee shop and push strangers around children's park because they lingered there too long." It's nice to spend time with others. She doesn't regret the effort it takes to get past the river and other obstacles for a second for little chit-chats and talks like these. They're always worth it.

Though the understandable assumption that she and Magra knew each other's existence does make her laugh a bit nervously, rubbing the back of her neck. "Oh yes... She doesn't know-know that I'm around still since she can't see us and I would hate to bother her but that's alright. She doesn't need to really know-know because--"

Then she stops herself from launching into a talk that may or may not be needed, looking for the source of Aradia's voice. There is a good chance that she had a better grasp of this than Clara after all. She was the one who saved her from that overzealous exorcist the first time they met. "You know how anchors work, don't you? I would hate to bore you since it'll just be spouting out facts like 'the sky is sometimes blue' and 'water is wet' and things like that."

"Sort of? I've heard them mentioned, but..."

An awkward silence hangs in the air after Aradia's stilted reply. Clara makes it sound so obvious, and while it's something she's picked up pieces of around the place, it's never been fully explained and it gets a bit embarrassing after a while. She's long since accepted that it's impossible to know everything about being a ghost, but the gaps are still annoying to deal with. "I guessed it was a social thing. Shorthand to refer to people who can see you, or something like that."

Which, in hindsight, still makes perfect sense. It's easy to forget sometimes that most people didn't spend their childhood having morbid tea parties with the dead.

Aradia leans against the lamppost, having given up on scanning the area for Clara in favour of examining the pavement. "I'm sorry she's not spiritually sensitive, though. That must be hard to work around."

"Ah. I see." If there's any comfort to be found, it's the fact the awkward silence isn't of Aradia's own creation.

Now it's Clara's turn to sound embarrassed and fall quiet for a few seconds, feeling awful for not considering the possibility that Aradia didn't know and it'll be awkward for her to be asked like this. She really needs to remember that not everyone else is going to know more than her. Or, at the very least, remember to have more tact when asking questions.

"Um--" There's no real turning back now, she thinks, and who knows? It could help in the long run. "--It is a social thing, in a way. A connection with a possible anchor. It really helps if there's something between you two already, one way or another."

Realising how solemn those last words may seem, she smiles nervously and waves her hand a bit in case she's seen, trying to assure Aradia that it doesn't have to sound that serious. Oh no! "It can be any bond, really! A friendship, a relationship, or even a kinship like Magra and I. I'm a bit surprised it stuck at all truth be told. She was a baby when I passed away and only heard me from stories."

"So it's like a nickname?"

Clara's explanation diffuses the awkward tension a notch or two, curiosity helping to break down the prickly waves of embarrassment threading through Aradia's voice. There's something akin to worry settling in her stomach like ice, because she's not entirely stupid - there's enough clues now to stitch together what 'anchor' might mean, and it's definitely not an idea she's fond of.

Because if she's right then it's meant to be something grounding, something tangible, and letting something tie her down only makes things more complicated later. Far more painful for all involved, too. It's kinder to play innocent and hope for the best. "A ghostly word to show that someone means something to you, except with less words in the way. Seems a bit weird to have a specific term for something like that, though, unless my guess is wrong."

Being her usual tactless self helps, in this case, to dodge around her actual assumption while still indulging curiosity. Even if it doesn't stop that awful feeling that she's missing something painfully obvious.

She thinks about it for a second before slowly nodding, seeing the logic in it being a nickname or simply a label. Not an actual clinical term to use nor is it a title, really. Definitely not something one could put on a resume if they wanted to.

"I guess someone out there coined that word because best describes the relationship between a ghost and a living person who keeps them together: One person anchors the other down." Quite literally seeing how anchors seem to help keep a ghost keep it together no matter the distance, possibly. It makes sense.

Clara recalls feeling adrift at times when her husband passed away, her strongest and only known anchor up until that point. "It's a relationship between two people and it happens to carry more significance for them both."

Not just the ghost. They have a lot at stake when they find themselves with an anchor but the living has some perks too. It means the anchor means a lot to the spirit. They must if the spectre feels comfortable enough to, in a way, seek shelter in their presence. Guaranteed ghost partner for sure. "It's not something done out of the blue too, to let you know. No sudden 'whoops a bond' here from what I understand. It really has to be with someone you trust and care for."

"... Keeps them together?" That phrasing in particular stands out amongst the rest of the assurances, fitting in neatly with her pieced-together guesses, and Clara makes anchors sound almost idyllic even with the over dramatic delivery. "So it helps ghosts manifest, or something?"

For a moment, the idea is toyed with. It wouldn't be hard to reach out to her old friends, or put in that extra stretch of effort with the new faces in London - several jump to mind immediately, and that's what shatters her enthusiasm before it has a chance to grow. The possibility is tempting, but it'd mean lingering long enough to cause impact, and impact means people would mourn her all over again. Ghosts aren't permanent, after all. It wouldn't be right to inflict that on anyone.

Besides. It's not like it's necessary, or anything that ridiculous. She did just fine before she'd heard about it.

"It sounds like there'd be a catch. Like finding out it leeches off their soul," except that implies Clara would willingly chew on her granddaughter's spirit, and Aradia's skepticism trails to a stop out of sheer embarrassment. Crap.

Edited 2015-06-27 16:58 (UTC)

"In a way?" She tilts her head, considering it. "It helps us because it keeps us connected to the real world through our connection with them. Reminds us of where we are, who we are. Things like that."

The nice smile she has on her face briefly morphs into a look of shock and terror when Aradia speculates what's the cost of being an anchor to the ghost. She looks genuinely horrified at the idea, covering her mouth and shaking her head vehemently. "Good gracious! No!

"I mean-- No. I'm sorry if I overreacted for a second but-- Um. Just. It's not like that. Nothing like that at all. If that was the case, I would never anchor myself to my husband or Magra." That's the last thing she'll ever want to do to them. The idea of doing that to either of them would have made her shove the notion of anchoring altogether, outright become a hermit to avoid doing that to anyone. "Something like that happens if the ghost is too dependent on the anchor, I think, but beyond that it's merely a line. Like a balloon string keeping the balloon from floating away."

That's a good metaphor, isn't it? She hopes it is and still feels bad for her outburst so she tries to ease the tension she feels by remarking, "I must say, you have a lot of things to ask or say about this, Aradia! Nothing wrong with that but I'm quite surprised is all. This is the most time I've spoken about this to anyone."

Mostly because people she's met either didn't know it that well themselves or weren't as interested in speaking about it.

"Sorry! I didn't mean..."

The hasty apology is out as soon as there's a moment to sneak it in, redesigning that entire idea from the ground up. Whatever anchors are, they're clearly not that drastic, otherwise Clara wouldn't have reacted so negatively.

But it does force her to re-examine the issue, readdress it, abandoning her line of questioning in favour of a shrug and another admission. "I've never heard much about them, that's all. And you sound like you know a lot about the topic so it makes sense to ask you? But if it's a bother, I could stop."

Because that wasn't her intention, at all, and she's already visibly crossed a line with her stupid lack of tact. Clara's too genuinely sweet to risk on silly questions. Nope.

After she calms down from her sudden burst of emotions, she looks remorseful at her outburst and her voice suggests as much. "No. It's alright and I'm sorry. You were only asking a question."

"I should have handled that better." Because goodness gracious she should have. No ifs, buts, or whats there was a better way to have respond than almost panic like that. She knows that's not how it works. She knows and should have kept a levelled head and explain it better. It wasn't fair to her at all when she just wants to know how it works and who it works with and why it...

...

....

.....

Oh.

Then it clicks. You could almost see a literal lightbulb flicker on over Clara's head when she puts two and two together after all this time. Maybe she should have been quick on picking it up. "... Aradia? You never had an anchor before?"

"I..."

How does she answer that, really? 'No' sounds rude, being dismissive is rude, dodging the subject is rude. There's no way to avoid talking about it that doesn't run the risk of making things even worse.

But at the same time, tackling the topic would probably require explaining so many things, so that's completely out the window. She's not doing this. She doesn't want to do this, nobody can make her, she could just leave - but that would then disappoint Clara and

Can she not exist right now. That'd be lovely. For once she's actively wishing she was really as tactless as most people think she is, because then she wouldn't be as concerned for upsetting one of her few remaining friends. "No? I don't think I have, anyway. Are... they that necessary?"

Oh dear, oh dear. Clara does her best to not looked too panicked or worried when Aradia says she doesn't think she says one. Mostly by looking around and keeping her voice calm. There's nothing wrong with it. Honestly. Truly.

Alright that maybe bit of a lie but she tries her best to keep calm and explain this bit without making it sound terrible or scary or something out of a PSA announcement.

"At the beginning? Not really. It isn't important when you're still new and figuring things out." Like how Aradia is and how Clara used to be. "Though in the long run I like to think they're needed. I've seen others who didn't have an anchor just-- How do I explain it?"

Clara makes a few vague and stranger gestures in the air like that would make sense or give her the words she needed for this. This is harder than she thought. "Faded? No. Weaker? Yes. They weaker in a way. Become more disconnected overtime. Definitely less stable meaning they had less control of their powers. Which made them to get noticed by people and since they didn't have proper control or even full control of their powers, they were either banished o-or worse."

Aradia listens silently as Clara explains, the driving force behind the elder ghost's worry becoming evident. She's worried that the same thing'll happen to her, then - which is likely. There's cause, and now that the symptoms are clear it matches to past cases she's seen, where ghosts became hollow shells of who they used to be.

But even then it's only a possibility, and an unconfirmed one at that. And if it ends up being true, then she'll just have a deadline to deal with. A strangely indistinct and hard-to-define deadline.

Crap.

"That sounds... bad." Understatement of the year, but she's not an idiot. It does sound drastic. "But that can't be the only cause of them weakening, right? Being a ghost is all willpower and focus and stuff. Maybe they didn't want to stay any longer."

Edited (whoops grammar fail) 2015-07-01 15:37 (UTC)

"Ummm..." The questions and comments are good questions to ask, to say. She wishes she had real answers to them. "Maybe? I don't know much myself, honestly. Only things I learned from other spirits and from things I saw."

Clara never understood the strange rules the spirits had to live by. Vampires? Werewolves? She had a rough idea what they had to abide to. Fairies? A little obscure but if you look hard enough, you'll learn.

Ghosts? There's not a lot of things said about them besides the type of ghosts out there and why there are ghosts. There are no rules of how to be a ghost, how to interact with other ghosts or vampires or people who turned into different animals. One find themselves just as a spook and need to learn everything from the ground up, no knowledge gleaned from the past one could trust. Anchoring is a concept she learned 'fairly' recently -- Around fifteen years back.

Maybe someone should write the next young adult series on ghosts. Spread awareness. Make the public interested in knowing more about ghosts besides trying to speak and/or banish them.

"Listen: If you're not interested in it now, Aradia, then don't feel pressured to do it." Really. There'll be no attempts to set her up on anchor dates or the like. "I want you to know because I care for you."

What little progress Aradia had made into ghostly studies before her death had been just that - before her death. There was only so much she could learn from the living side of things, and all these little details were easily missed when her flesh was in the way. Not that she'd wanted to die, but... it's best to take the good points into consideration when one can.

So admittedly, the topic draws at her in ways she can't really describe. It's an opportunity she would've pounced on as a medium, a chance to explore the limits of what she could do and help others avoid the same mistakes. And maybe it wouldn't be that bad. Maybe it'd actually help her work towards her goals, finally get some closure--

-- but then the moment passes and she shuts down again at Clara's worry, because she can't leave anything behind. She can't. "I'm okay. Really. It sounds like an interesting topic but... I should be fine? There's no real guidelines for how it works. Maybe I don't need one."

Too late does she realize that her instinctive denial comes across as callousness. But at least this is a bridge she can mend later, if she has to.

Clara doesn't seem to believe those assurances one bit as she tilts her head to the side while her lips thin in worry. All the same, she doesn't want to push too hard thanks to her experience of raising too very stubborn boys.

"Could you-- Could you consider it at least?" Clara asks her, believing that's the only thing she can think to ask right about now.

She doesn't want to pressure Aradia if she ultimately decides that, yes, she is better off on her own with no anchor -- And maybe she is! Maybe an anchor is only for weaker ghosts and Clara thinks Aradia has proven to be much more stronger than her in many ways since meeting each other as spirits. -- but surely it wouldn't hurt to weigh the pros and cons.

Especially the cons if there is a risk of danger to the ghost being more vulnerable to harm. "You can just sleep on it for a little bit," she says and she finally cracks a smile at this point. "Or 'sleep' on it since we don't need much of that anymore."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

a little conversation (aradia and clara)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

and the 'late tag of the century' award goes tooooo....

no subject