[meme] test drive

[citycouncil]

A bit late. Sorry, folks!

Tag into this post with characters you're thinking of apping to the game (characters who are not currently in-game or currently reserved by someone else). It can be just a tag, a brief EP, whatever you want. You can be new to the game, or simply want to test out a fresh pup. Tag each other with these characters or those already in game, and have fun.

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[echokeeper]

Not exactly a familiar face, but familiar nonetheless. Norah feels vaguely drawn to the girl in a way that's starting to become recognizable. She's met more ghosts now than she could once have imagined.

So many of them children, which is painful to consider and difficult to engage, but so it goes, apparently. She approaches, catching the girl's eyes — or perhaps they've caught hers. "Hello?" she says. It is best to start simple.

[roadside_rose]

Rose has been running through the onion-skin layers of the twilight long enough to have seen a lot, and to know she hasn't seen everything. That she can't immediately categorize the ghost approaching her (not a road ghost, not a homestead, not a haunt) doesn't have to be alarming. Said ghost appears lucid and peaceful — at least for the moment — and that's a hell of a lot more than can be said for some.

"Hey." Rose offers a cautious nod, keeping her posture loose and nonthreatening. "Are you one of the locals?"

[echokeeper]

Norah lets out a soft huff of a laugh at that. "In a manner of speaking," she says. "I suppose you could say I've become part of the locality, through no choice of mine." She gives the girl a considering look. She seems to be sizing her up, or keeping an eye out for something. It's difficult to tell if this is good caution on the part of a child meeting a stranger, or something else.

"My name is Norah," she says after a moment, then hesitates. Does this girl know she's dead? She's a little bit translucent right now, so she may as well cross that line first: "I am a ghost."

[roadside_rose]

Through no choice of mine, the other ghost says, and Rose thinks: shit. She's been trapped before — drawn into an abandoned truck stop like a moth to a flame and locked in a Seal of Solomon — but she's yet to find any telltale arcane marks here. And while the twilight has plenty of ghost towns that would happily ensnare more residents for themselves, this is the daylight. A daylight town shouldn't be able to hold any ghost with enough sense to recognize that they're being held in the first place.

But Norah here seems sensible. And it sounds like she's been stuck here for a while.

"I'm Rose." Despite her own impatience for details, she does manage a wry smile over the unnecessary clarification. "And... yeah, I figured." Nothing wrong with being a little translucent if you're not the kind of ghost that regularly passes itself off as the living, but it's not exactly subtle. "Can't say I know what kind of ghost you are," she adds, figuring she might as well lay a few cards on the table. It doesn't seem likely that another ghost is the mastermind behind whatever the hell is going on here, and one of the first rules the twilight teaches you is that lies are for the living, not the dead. "I'm a hitcher, so I know you're not a road ghost, but that doesn't narrow it down much."

[echokeeper]

Rose's matter-of-fact acknowledgment earns a wry, somewhat relieved smirk which all too quickly shifts into an expression of dull bewilderment as Norah finds herself bombarded with details and questions she could not have anticipated. How she detests finding herself on the back foot in such matters, for how often it seems to happen.

"What kind...?" she blurts rather stupidly. "I was not aware there were different kinds, but then, I suppose I haven't met very many others. I am the ghost of myself. I have a haunting place but I am now free to leave it if I wish. Does that help?" She tries to temper her tone between mildly arch indignation and genuine curiosity, one eyebrow raised.

[roadside_rose]

Her eyebrows creep up a little at Norah's snippy response. At first, the ignorance surprises her more than the defensiveness, but 'haunting place' does provide a little clarity. If any kind of ghost can fairly claim ignorance to what's going on in the rest of the twilight, it's a house-haunter. They don't get out much. And they skew close enough to homesteaders for more mobile ghosts (especially the ones that want to stay mobile) to keep a respectable distance.

They don't get out period, actually, which makes Norah's newfound freedom both interesting and potentially alarming. "You can leave?" Rose asks, sounding about as dumbfounded as Norah did a moment ago. It doesn't sound like said haunting-place was destroyed (a word which only means anything in the daylight, anyway), and it takes Rose a dragging second to imagine another reason why a house-haunter might find herself suddenly at liberty to wander. Her expression darkens. "Shit. Were you exorcised?"