Your regularly scheduled creepy visitor

[killedwithlove]

Who: Cole and anyone who needs him... or wants to chat to him
Broadcast: No
Action: On any ship except Marsiva, Tourist or Red Fish because he avoids visiting two and can't visit the third.
When: While the fleet is moving and probably a bit after

[There is this thing Cole does.

He visits other ships. Sometimes he put the Pathstone alongside to visit and sometimes he takes a shuttle, but he's constantly wandering all over the fleet, being with people, circulating.

He hasn't done it in a while. He got a nasty fright and went into hiding for a while.

But the creepy psychic being is back! Sticking his large nose into all the business.]

Comments

[killedwithlove]

No, I know you're not a person! That's why you shouldn't be in that body! Dead bodies aren't homes!

[That's a simple, basic fact.

He flickers back several steps, hand pressing to his chest. It hurts. His hands throb. He can't help the sing song words that follow.]

My mother said, I never should, play with dead books in the wood.

[fuga]

If I am not a person then what am I?

[ It's said snidely, but a part of her is desperately curious. She knows she is cursed, she knows she is damaged and broken and dangerous, but she also wants to know what she is.

Her hands clench and she stares, until he starts to sing. Then she stops, taking a step back, memories of a book in a library, with a dark spine and pain, so much pain when she touched it - ]

What are you?

[killedwithlove]

[Cole twists on the spot, tugs the brim of his hat and screws up his face, but she needs to know, it will hurt, but it will help, in the long term...]

Revenant.

[He hates the word. Doesn't entirely understand it, but it grates against his spine and sparks of wisdom.]

I'm Cole. Spirit-boy. Compassion.

[fuga]

[ The cold that runs down her spine is dangerous, and she almost falters. The word is - she knows it, of course she does, undead monsters of fairytales that eat the flesh of those that live and devour those that have died. Mayr had given her books on the world and she had learned so much, but the idea of it makes her sick. ]

You know nothing, spirit-boy. I am Lauralae of Alvanja, once-elf and cast out. I am no Revenant.

[ Her eyes are dark but afraid; she doesn't want to accept it even if it seems to fit into place. ]

[killedwithlove]

Why do you think they cast you out?

[Why doesn't she listen? She hears him, but she's not listening.]

I was like you. Broken, because I didn't know what I was, couldn't accept it. It hurt. It hurts less when you know, because you can start putting yourself back together.

[fuga]

Exile for breaking their laws! It has always been known.

[ But he keeps going, keeps speaking, and it makes more and more and more sense. Horror surrounds her and she can't breathe. ]

I am cursed, a true monster, but it is not so. I do not need to know a lie.

[killedwithlove]

[He watches her. Not with pity. He doesn't know pity. With heavy compassion and grief that she's tearing herself apart because it seems too awful to contemplate.]

What you are doesn't make you a monster. it's what you do that matters.

You can be a revenant and not a monster. But you'll keep lashing out and hurting yourself and hurting others if you stay blind.

[fuga]

The world knows me as a monster, a witch. I care little for their opinions, or what they see of me. I care for my own mind and nothing else.

[ She bares her teeth, though, wolflike and dangerous, leaning forward. ]

I am not blind. I see more than any other.

[killedwithlove]

[He vanishes again, appearing once more in the doorway.]

That will make you a monster quicker than the book ever managed.

[And then he's gone. He won't stay and argue. She'll believe it, or she won't. He can't make her see it.]

[fuga]

[ When he disappears she makes a strangled noise, but she knows he is gone this time. There is nothing there but the hollow feeling in her heart, and she moves away.

She runs to hide, because there is nothing else she can do. ]