...I'll do a catch-all later I promise

[firekiss]

Who: Guinaifen (firekiss) and Peepaw Miller (melnik), in the world's strangest team-up
Where: A restaurant! Of some kind.
What: In which Guinaifen pesters the old man about terrible ghost stories while they eat food that's to be decided, it'll probably evolve from there, mistakes will be made, I'm sure.
Warnings: Probably mentions of canon-typical violence at some point, and also probably mentions of the basic horror tropes which come with ghost stories and legends (death and betrayal), but I can't imagine it'll be too excessive...?

[-anyway, that's the point in which Guinaifen plops down in the seat across from Miller like she belongs there. Like this is normal, and they do this every day, like there's nothing weird about it. (Maybe like she's going to order food and then sprint, forcing the old man to pick up her tab.) But she doesn't gesture for a menu. She just settles right in.]

Finally! Got a question for you.

[She places the three juggling clubs she had been holding on the ground - plunk, plunk, plunk.]

Do you have ghosts where you come from?

Comments

[melnik]

[ It had seemed so easy for Guinaifen to find her bearings here. She never appeared to balk at any of his explanations regarding how their entrapment here came to be, and then decided to tag along with him like it was nothing. While at this point he still isn't sure if she's simply good at masking her anxieties or if this is actually normal to her, for now, he decides to allow it to happen while he potentially figures that out.

More gingerly, he looks around the restaurant — to challenge the gaze of anyone who happens to be looking back or to try to make sure he's not seen? — before taking a seat across from her. ]

Ghosts? Why are you asking me that?

[ Though it must strike some kind of chord for him to find it offensive. ]

[firekiss]

[That- actually was a bit surprising, because she expected the old man to be...

Indifferent? Maybe not indifferent. But not so deeply stirred as he clearly was, and she sort of stares at him for a moment and if she was putting on a performance this would be the point in which she'd try a different tactic. If juggling doesn't work, try breathing fire. If breathing fire doesn't work, try eating a sword. If sword-eating doesn't work, try something else.

But she's not putting on a performance, so she just clicks her heels against the ground, thinking for a moment.]

Well...

[What's a good way of putting it.]

I was dealing with something kind of like that back home? I know, it sounds...strange, but it was one of the last things I was doing before I ended up here. [And, then:] I can change the subject?

[melnik]

[ Were it simply the musings of one invested in idle gossip, then yes, he'd absolutely be taking the opportunity to move things along. However, given the insight that this matter may be personal to her as well, Miller is suddenly more amenable to listen. He brings his elbows down to rest on the table, folding one gloved hand over the other. ]

No, I would like to hear it, actually. What do you mean you were dealing with that?

[ Because before he gives his opinion, it would be better to have some idea of what exactly was going on...

That being said, he does seem prepared not to discount it just because it's strange outright. ]

[firekiss]

Well...

[She leans forward, her voice dropping into a quieter hush, as if she's about to tell peepaw a secret - which, in certain respects? She is.]

So, you know how I said I put on performances? Dancing, singing, streaming...well, it's kind of a long story but there's these things called heliobuses. They glow, they possess people, they haunt things, they kinda sound like ghosts, right?

I was running a- channel, I guess, where me and my friends went around and told people we were searching for ghosts, but we were really helping the commission deal with them. [She leans back again.] So I guess all of this was part-habit, part-"what if all the people acting weird got possessed" which I doubt happened. But you know, uncle? Sometimes a girl's gotta keep busy.

[melnik]

[ He maintains a serious expression throughout this, picking up on the weight she is attributing to it. ]

That is probably the case. However... I don't think it would be possible to truly discount that theory. It wouldn't be the first time that something supernatural has proven to be real here.

[ Frankly, he is about as resistant to believing in that sort of scenario as one can be, but there is only so much a person can deny something that happens in front of their very eyes. He's accepted that this world is one where magic is real, where any conceivable type of person can show up and their version of the world makes his own mundane perceptions look dogmatically conservative.

As he considers what to say, someone has approached them with menus. He takes the one handed to him, and then regroups on the conversation after they walk away. ]

...Guinaifen. I come from a civilization known as Metro. It was established after a catastrophe forced my people to move underground. With no communication from other nations, the urban legends people created began to take on a mind of their own. Your heliobuses, people shifting into distorted versions of themselves... Those things sound like they could be stories from my home. It is just that I never imagined that they could be real.