KATE

[foreverphantom]

Comments

[foreverphantom]

...huh.

And you just live...normal lives among humans?

[sootprints]

... It's a little more complicated than that. Shadows have a sort of... isolated, rules-based society. All of the shadows I know of live in a single grand manor, under the rule of their Lord Grandfather.

[foreverphantom]

Must be a big manor. Or, there's not that many shadows.

Is he actually their grandfather, or does he just call himself that?

[sootprints]

It's quite large. In the children's wing alone, there are 49 shadows, and an even greater number of servants. I'm not sure how many adults there are...

... I suppose it's to give him the image of a patriarch, but no, it isn't literal.

[foreverphantom]

Hmm.

Sounds limiting.

[sootprints]

It does?

[foreverphantom]

You spend your whole life confined to a single building? No matter how big it is, that's stifling.

[sootprints]

... It is. Very much so.

[foreverphantom]

Well. I'd say congratulations on getting out, but this arguably isn't much of an improvement.

[sootprints]

... It means little to get out, when so many others are still trapped there, anyway.

[foreverphantom]

It's not like you can do anything about it.

[sootprints]

[ more smoke rises from her head... ]

... I should have been able to.

[foreverphantom]

[ waves a hand through the smoke...does it feel like anything ]

Is that so.

[sootprints]

[ feels like... smoke! it's slightly warm, but not hot. his hand is now sooty. ]

I suppose that's one of the things those "auditors" would take from us.

You're... "Dante," are you?

[ she also read the passports. ]

[foreverphantom]

[ oh right, usually when you ask someone's name you also give your own in return. this is what happens when you don't interact with new people for like 8 months ]

Yes, that's me.

[sootprints]

What kind of place do you come from?

[foreverphantom]

Do you mean just before this, or originally?

[sootprints]

Originally, I suppose.

[foreverphantom]

Hmm. No fairies, where I came from. Just ghosts. Although plenty ghosts can be fairy-like. I knew one that looked a lot like you, actually.

[sootprints]

Really? What were they like?

[foreverphantom]

Their name was Shadow--yes, original, I know. And they were a literal shadow, of another ghost named Johnny 13. But the shadow was also its own person. It could act as his physical shadow, or it could become its own entity acting on its own. It didn't really talk, and it caused bad luck to everything it touched or fought.

[sootprints]

Interesting. They don't sound exactly like the shadows I know, but... not entirely dissimilar, either.

... Do you often encounter ghosts?

[foreverphantom]

Well. Back where I first came from, yes, all the time. I am a ghost myself, after all.

[sootprints]

... Huh?

[


pokes him to see if he's solid? ]

[foreverphantom]

Well, not right now. Obviously I don't have any of my ghost powers here. And I've...been shoved into a human body. But inside? That's all ghost.