The Bear and Barnacle

“Of course it would be you,” Val says crabbily to the transparent figure. Crabbily because he's painfully aware of his smallness, of his still-faltering speech; also because on Val's personal list of favorite fellow-servants, Rigo is exactly two spaces from the bottom. “Couldn't be anyone else.”

Rigo stands with his arms folded and says nothing. He's a tall, dark man, lean and well-built with eyes that burn an uncanny deep red around diamond pupils. This is if one is lucky enough to see his eyes; he rarely makes eye contact, preferring usually a point in the vicinity of the left ear or shoulder of whoever he's speaking to.

Val crosses his chubby arms right back at him and at last Rigo sighs and speaks. “What happened to you, Val-san?”

“Got shrunk,” is the succinct answer. “So what? You're dead.”

Rigo nods, once, measuredly. And does not speak.

“This is gonna be a long month,” Val mourns softly, and hops off his bed to go tell Jack and Zel (and Amy, and Amelia) that they have yet more company.

Rodolphus was sound asleep when an unexpected noise woke him. He’d long since developed the ability to go from deep sleep to animal alertness in seconds and that had saved his life on more than one occasion. He reached under the pillow for his wand. He wasn’t quite sure what the noise was. It hadn’t been thunder or anything like that though. It had felt like his bed was actually shaking. Muttering lumos softly, he shone the light around the room. Not seeing anything suspicious, Rodolphus lay back down. He wasn’t going back to sleep however, but he did close his eyes and slow his breathing, just in case. After half-an-hour by his internal clock had passed, Rodolphus was ready to go back to sleep. Still holding his wand, he turned over. And kept turning over until he fell right out of bed! Something or someone had pushed him! Leaping to his feet with a snarl, he brandished his wand, stunning spell on his lips. Words failed him utterly though when he saw who was sitting on his bed. “Bella!” he croaked. “Oh my Bella, you’ve come back to me!” He made to scoop her up into his arms, but they went right through her. She gave a laugh at his bewildered expression and perched herself on the pillows. “I’m sorry my love, but I’m still dead.”

Cesare doesn't see him, at first.

It's Miquel who does, and Miquel's flinch speaks volumes. There is only one, one who could make Miquel glide aside to dodge him without causing offense. One who still commanded politeness, a semblance of friendship even (What, don't we both serve him? Should not our differences pale in the light of our devotion to him?) yet raised Miquel's hackles like that.

The scars may have faded, but then Taddeo is Taddeo.

And Taddeo still thinks Miquel is not worthy.

God - or Hades - only knows how Taddeo got here. Why he sits, uninvited, after a curt, soldierly bow, down at their table, the slashed sleeves of his farsetto showing white muslin, his giornea lined in Cesare's colours. "Excellency," he says, fighting with emotion, "I prayed to God that he keep and preserve you, and he has deigned to bend his ears to my prayers."

Miquel has slipped behind Cesare's chair, a hand on his shoulder.

"And Don Michele," Taddeo smiles up like the fox he is named for. "I see you are hale."

Since the day Miquel first nurtured him back to life, since the day they got here, Cesare hasn't felt Miquel tremble, but now his fingers are fluttery, his grip - meant to be reassuring (reassure, whom?) - is weak and growing weaker. Worried, Cesare looks at him, afraid to see him fade.

Then he rallies himself into some outward show of lordliness and rises. "We thought you lost in Arezzo," he says hoarsely. "We feared you had perished in a Baglioni prison, or suffered under Giuliano's all-too-heavy hand."

Taddeo smiles sadly and tilts his head. "All true, Excellency."

Not him, Miquel freaks quietly. Not he. Do not welcome him back.

"I don't think I can handle this."

"I don't think you have much choice, darling."

Lucius was on his second cup of tea, and about to reach for something stronger. When he'd woken up this morning, there she'd been, standing at the edge of the bed, watching him with a soft smile. He reached for her hungrily, desperately, only to have his hands go through her. She walked toward the window, and in the morning sunlight she was translucent, almost transparent.

"You don't look like a normal ghost. Please don't be dead." he had said, pleadingly, as if begging could change anything.

"I don't think I am...I think I'm more like a memory."

She looked like Narcissa, talked like Narcissa. It was sweet torture, to be able to be sitting in the kitchen, conversing with his own dear wife, but not touch her, know she wasn't really there. She went from loving and kind to hurt and reminding him of his failures and her pain. The emotions running through Lucius were threatening to break him apart.

It was hell, but he would take it.

9:06 A.M.

“Hey!”

“Sorry! I'm sorry ...”

“How the hell did you --”

“Jack?”

“... Amy?”

( Read more ... )

"Hello, Jack."

Jack turns at the familiar-but-couldn't-be voice down the alley and sees it speaker matches it. "Oh, not again."

Leaning against the brick wall in same cream-colored trenchcoat she died again in, Suzie watches him, smirking. She even has the bullet holes and blood riddling her coat, appearing black thanks to the night leeching away the reds. "You aren't happy to see me."

"Why would I be? What'd you do this time? There aren't any gloves left."

"I didn't do this, Jack."

"Like hell." He turns to walk down the sidewalk more for effect than any real intention to leave her there. If it's really her, really there, then he can't risk letting her run loose on Margate. She may not have any motivation to murder again, but then she hasn't shown she wouldn't.

Just as he thought, Suzie comes walking out of the alley to fall into step with him. It's irritating. She should be dead and in cryo, or if she did get pulled her, a corpse lying around. She shouldn't be walking and talking again. And they hadn't left her corpse dressed in that, anyway. Where was the bodybag?

"You know, I never did believe in ghosts," Suzie says. "In spite of everything we saw, I didn't believe in that. The existence of ghosts would imply some sort of life beyond this life, and we both know it's just darkness."

"What's your point?"

"Can you smell me, Jack? Can you smell the blood, the death on me?"

He looks sidelong at her and frowns. "No."

"Surely you'd smell it if I was here in any corporeal sense. I guess we were both wrong that there's only the physical life. Something's brought me back without my body."

"So you got dragged back out of the dark, whatever of you was in there. And you came after me? Go haunt someone else, if that's what this is. How about a relative you didn't get around to murdering?"

She says without malice, just matter-of-fact, "You killed me. You shot me, and told Toshiko and Ianto about destroying the gauntlet, and killed me, just like that. Like it didn't matter. I never did matter enough to you, did I? Never mattered enough to ask—"

"Spare me the pity party. In fact, why don't you spare me listening to you at all? You brought it all on yourself. You can try to blame me again for it, but it's not my fault. You could've talked to me if you wanted to."

"Could I? Nobody could talk to you then and have you care." She laughs mirthlessly.

It snaps something and Jack turns towards her, hand going out to— something, pin her against a wall and stare her down, maybe— but it just goes on through and he nearly stumbles into the wall himself. She looks almost as surprised as he feels to see that.

"That's inconvenient," she says. "I wondered if I could only physically interact with you. I guess not. Face it, Captain Jack. You can't make me leave, and I'm not going to choose to. You're stuck with me unless something else changes it."

Jack groans.

Spike blew out a puff of smoke, casually flicking the butt of his cigarette down on the ground in front of him. His boot crushed it as he took another step forward. Morning fog was rolling into Margate in waves, and he knew it was time to head home, before the sun rose. As his pace quickened slightly, he swore he heard a chuckle. Glancing around, he saw nothing, shrugged, and continued on. The pre-dawn light was beginning to creep over the buildings, trying to poke through the dense fog. As Spike lit up another cigarette, he had the distinct feeling of being watched. He slowed his steps slightly, listening for footsteps. Despite his keen hearing, there was no sound to be heard. And then, a voice, with just a hint of Irish brouge, made him stop cold.

"Pushin' the limits a bit, aren't we, William? Almost sunrise and all. But then, you always did like to push the limits, didn't ya?"

Spike turned slowly, cigarette still in one hand, and stared at the man behind him. "Angel? What the bloody hell are you doing here?" But no, something was wrong with the smirk, and the eyes, the way they were boring into him. Oh God. "Angelus?" How'd he lose his soul this time?

"And who else would I be, I might ask? Course I'm Angelus." He jumped merrily forward towards Spike, smirking. "Just comin' back from a night of mayhem, are you?" Angelus started to reach out towards Spike, and Spike raised his hand to block the touch...except his hand went right through Angelus' arm. If Spike needed to breathe, he would have gasped. He jumped back. "You're not soddin' Angel OR Angelus. You're the bloody FIRST!" He shook his head, backing away further. "Can't make me do anything, broke that power. You can't be here."

Angelus laughed. "What are you talking about, William m'lad? I'm the first WHAT?" He was dangerously close, leaning toward Spike's ear, voice lowered. "I mean, other than THAT first, but you weren't talking about that, were you?"

Spike yanked back again, and turned away. "This isn't happening." He glanced at the brightning sky, and started walking again. "Gotta get in." He quickened his pace to almost a jog, but Angelus' kept up, laughing all the way.

Sherlock Holmes was not a man who was overly concerned with tidiness. In fact, if you were feeling petty, you’d call him a slob. It wasn’t that his house was dirty, it was just…cluttered. Very. He was loathe to throw anything away, and papers, books and newspapers were everywhere. At least there weren’t any bullet –pocks on the walls of this house. Still, he did keep cigars in a coal scuttle (bought especially for that purpose; no one used coal heaters any more) and his unanswered mail was indeed transfixed with a jack-knife to the mantelpiece. The Persian slipper for tobacco had been forgone, as it was now much easier to smoke cigarettes that had been rolled rather than getting loose tobacco. All in all, his house was a mess, but Holmes didn’t mind in the least. He knew where everything was and could lay his hands upon any document with a minimum of fuss. However, today he was expecting company (not clients; clients had to take as they found), so he felt a bit of dusting was in order. Holmes bounded down the stairs, exceeding grateful that whatever malady had afflicted him last month seemed to have cured itself. He glanced around the lounge and started to gather the newspapers into a neat(ish) pile. As he straightened the papers, his eyes narrowed. He felt as if he was being watched. He’d long ago cultivated the habit and it had never failed him. He had no weapon; he certainly hadn’t thought he’d need one. He could, however, throw the newspapers at the intruder and distract him while he went for the poker. Holmes turned, drawing himself into a crouch, papers at the ready. Instead of throwing them however, he dropped them. He gaped at what stood before him. “Watson?!” he inhaled the name. “I say Watson, is that you?!” He started forward and the shadowy form turned toward him, an expression of bewilderment on the familiar face. “Holmes!” he cried, though the voice was rather faint. “Is it really you?”

The usual disaster area of journals, yearly catalogues, parcels of ingredients, and work orders comes, today, with a grubby, much-handled, once cream-white envelope that makes Severus want to burn it away, starting with the stupid, ornate seal and ending at the hands of the senders, using just the ice-hot daggers from his eyes which he keeps especially to shoot at people. Who deserve it. Like whoever sent him an official envelope. Even the people who can't transfigure one should know how to make an ordinary one from paper and glue, and have access to both. It is to snarl, yea, and possibly bite heads off in the return post if they bleeding well manage to deserve a reply.

Because why would he (that is to say, Veris P. Braendon-Clayborn) be getting letters from Hogwarts? He was home-schooled. He has no connections there except for Slughorn, through his late cousin Severus, who had made Slughorn promise to use the official Slytherin stationary on all harmless outgoing mail, that people might begin to dread it less again (best not to ask when this promise was required of him, mind), and the occasional owl from Poppy--again, on the infirmary's stationary--ordering potions. Neither of them would send such fingerprinted mail, and the occasional idle note from Filius or Pomona is, at his request, on unmarked paper, in unaffiliated envelopes.

( So, clearly someone needs to die. It's obvious. One or two someones. )

"I'm still considering, you lantern-eyed, infinitesimally elephantine piece of irritatingly obsequious misery," he snarls at the first letter in frustration. Although it's tempting to put it up on the wall for a dartboard, he leaves it out for Minerva to see. The two questions it raises do rather invite her input, and this is as good an excuse to bring them up as any. Not to mention potentially finding out out whether she knew the elves all call her Mistress Queen (Mrs. Norris not qualifying for the title, having been long since spayed).

"What a cozy little triumvirate of house-elves, Snivvy!"

His face doesn't twitch a single muscle, but there's nothing he can do about the color going out of it. He was never going to have to hear that loud, jovial, smirk of a voice again. Black--Sirius--had shown him that he wouldn't. There are not expletives foul enough. He will not turn.

Minerva's brewing a cup of tea in the kitchen, as is usual for her in the morning, listening absently to the beginnings of morning traffic. She likes this place better in the less crowded winter, she must admit. She taps the kettle with her wand to make steam hiss from the spout, pours the boiling water over the tea strainer, adds milk and sugar and turns to go to the desk she's finally moved into her decidedly Spartan lounge, since Severus was apparently suffering for not being able to cook around her books.

And barely retains her hold on the teacup when she falls gasping against the counter. It feels quite literally like her heart misses a beat.

A small girl wearing a Gryffindor scarf over a slightly-too-small flannel nightgown is curled up in one of the kitchen chairs, her knees tucked to her chest, her carrot-red hair falling around her shoulders, her brown eyes enormous in a pale, freckled face.

I always said Weasleys would be the death of me, she thinks in a distant cynical part of her brain as she tries to get herself breathing again, and more dimly yet, one day I'll have to admit I'm going to someday be too old for all this. Breathing. Setting down her teacup. More breathing. It's slowly becoming possible again. Now work on blinking. Pulse will take care of itself.

She still sounds strained and frightened when she speaks, but it's under control. "Ginny? Ginny Weasley?"

The girl looks as frightened as Minerva feels. "Professor McGonagall?"

Minerva nods, and sets down the teacup before she crushes it. She's already cracked the handle with the force of her clutching hand, she notices, and she's bleeding a little. "Yes, Miss Weasley. Don't worry; everything is fine." It's not fine, and it may show; comfort does not come naturally to Minerva. Ginny is small, young. Eleven, isn't she? Of course, yes, bloody well eleven. And the scarf and socks with the nightgown, it must have been winter. "One moment and then we'll sort things out."

She returns to the sink to wash away the trickle of blood. She'll call Victoire -- no, Victoire is heavily pregnant and might still be resting at such an early hour. She's the only direct family Ginny has here, but with the baby -- well, Ginny can spend a few nights with Dora until they work something out. Minerva will sort matters somehow.

But when she turns around once more, bloody hand pressed into a folded cloth, Ginny is off the chair and standing huddled in the mote-filled beam of morning sunlight that streams through the kitchen window. And the dust that dances in the light dances through her. The brilliant red of her hair, the bold stripes of the scarf, the pale rose of the nightgown and even the charcoal gray of falling-down knee socks are clearly apparent, but Ginny is transparent as any ghost, bisected by the warm light.

She raises her head, and her eyes appear curiously pale and blank. She smiles sweetly. "Dear Tom says hello too," she tells Minerva.

Minerva tries very hard not to faint dead away.

Dora wakes slowly- as usual, though the light is streaming around the edges of her curtains. The Minister's perch is empty and she hears nothing outside her room. Everyone must still be asleep. She's about to slide out of bed and make her sleepy way to the bathroom when she sees it. The large, rangy wolf curled on the end of her bed. She starts, eyes going wide. It's not Navarre- the colouring's all wrong. This one is grey and brown. Her hand curls into Teddy's back, closing on her wand, just as the wolf's eyes open- a familiar shade of gold that makes her heart turn warm. She reaches out for him, but her hand passes through him. His head inclines at this then he lowers it in a sage nod. Her expression flickers, hair along with it, and she breathes out a single name, "Moony". They stare at one another for a moment but when his tail picks up a quiet rhythm against her bed Dora giggles and the tension dissolves.

"I'm going to the loo! But you have to stay here! And when I come back we can play," she announces as her feet hit the floor. The wolf gives a soft yap of assent and Dora slips out the door.

For the July-August event, Margate residents will be followed around by the ghosts of someone from their past.

For ease of coordination, let the conditions be thus: Ghosts are apparent to everyone, but they are transparent to the point of near-invisibility in full sunlight. They can speak in voices audible to all. (Duca, as a special case, you may choose that Don Michele be visible to others, or add a second follower, as you choose.)

Depending on the personality of the individual in question, some may be more biddable than others -- i.e., it could vary from "Sure, I'll wait outside so you can use the bathroom" to the ghost telling others embarrassing stories about the character's childhood. That's entirely up to the player.

Ghosts can be persons living or dead, and their degree of importance to the character is also up to your choice -- no nervous collapses necessary unless you really want to. :) Friends, enemies, lovers, parents, teachers -- anyone goes! OCs are fine, but after some deliberation, we've decided on one restriction: no one who's already in Margate can be a ghostly follower. Dora, for example, couldn't be followed by Teddy.

EDIT: You will not need a separate journal for your ghost. They're attached to your character, and you'll be writing for both of them, i.e. godmodding your own ghost.

Have fun, and remember: If you don't talk to your ghostly followers about ghostnip, who will?

And on an RL note: Iago's, Dora's and the Joker's players are all off to Azkatraz, so those and associated characters are hiatus-ed. We'll all be back on the 24th. Additionally, Iago apologizes profusely to everyone, most especially Xel, for his absence but his damned host body is so reliant on that stupid machine that when the motherboard goes kapooft, he is helpless to maintain his life. Forgive him.