ghost

[shesepankh]

Kindergarten teacher Renée Higgenbotham Swan (36) was killed in a car crash one mile from her residence in Phoenix, AZ, January 9, 2005. She is survived by her daughter Isabella (16). Her service will be held at -

Bella has the entire obituary pasted into a page of one of her compilation notebooks but tends not to re-read past the first lines. It's repellent. The concept of obituaries is repellent. The funeral is over. Renée's vibrant brief life has been summed up over the course of a paragraph, and is also over.

Bella pretends to sleep on the plane. Her neighbor is talkative and she doesn't want to say shut up, my mom just died, because - what if it doesn't work? What if this news doesn't have the power to bludgeon everyone else into stunned silence the way it does Bella?

Charlie collects her. Charlie hugs her. Charlie doesn't make her talk. Good wonderful understanding quiet Charlie does not say a word. He takes her home. Her room's where she left it last August.

It's raining.

Bella stays home, moving in, moping, for a day, and then she shows up at school, gray-faced and withdrawn. First class is English. Okay, whatever.

The teacher wants her to introduce herself. Bella wants to yank on the skinny end of his tie until he regrets making her.

She stands at the front of the room and says that her name is Bella Swan and she's moved here to live with her dad. The teacher makes an impatient go on gesture and she stands there for a moment before robotically saying the same thing she produced at the beginning of the year in her old school in Phoenix when they were doing go-around-the-room-and-share-facts. "I'm one of those people who actually likes Shakespeare."

He lets her sit down.

She sits.

Comments

[shesepankh]

"Thanks." Pause. "Do you know any other mystical creatures hereabouts?"

[castmyown]

"Aside from my sister? Off of the top of my head there's a few griffins around, decent people but kind of dull, and I think one of the teachers is a bugbear?"

[shesepankh]

"...one of the teachers is a bugbear. Right, that makes perfect sense, of course that's a thing that happens. Is there a list of the kinds of creatures there are someplace?"

[castmyown]

"There's a few, and they disagree with each other sometimes. Generally? What I did when I was informed was just assume that all mythical creatures were real, with some exceptions. Dragons, unicorns, vampires, some others but those were the main ones that I remember."

[shesepankh]

"...Okay, so how much racist crap am I inheriting by being a sphinx? Should I pretend to be something more popular than a sphinx? Can I realistically pretend that or is it customary to go around in fullform with one's medallion showing all the time if one interacts with other mystical creatures?"

[castmyown]

"Some, I guess? If there's a dragon running around conspicuously not being extinct it will probably be racist against sphinxes at you. I recommend pretending to be a winged lion or something with people you don't know if you can get away with it, just so people won't - freak out and say you are a super magic fairy princess. Don't tell demons, if they already know I recommend booking it. Most people won't give you much trouble, different places have different cultures - I think lots of places find midform the norm. Others are snippy about being in fullform, and some have lots of people that like being human. Generally, no one will look at you funny if you run around in human form if you have the medallion on, though they might try to guess what you are."

[shesepankh]

"How common a problem are demons? How good are people at guessing?"

[castmyown]

"Not extremely common, but um - they might be for you? I kind of felt a huge magic thing when you turned, I'm betting I wasn't the only one. So demons might show up and do nefarious things. They do that, they are kind of terrible. People are usually pretty good at guessing but most won't think to guess sphinx. If you say you're a winged lion or something close to sphinx, I doubt they would look twice at you."

[shesepankh]

"Okay. If I'm unable to book it versus demon or demons," she says, starting to move away from where she turned to demonstrate that (within the context of the dream, anyway) she's taking him seriously, "what's the procedure?"

[castmyown]

"Call me, scream bloody murder, and defend yourself with whatever you can. Possibly all at once. Hope an angel shows up and smites the hell out of them, too."

Darren follows away from the spot she turned. Because he is nervous about being here, too.

[shesepankh]

"Angels and demons and sphinxes, oh my." She trips, catches herself on hands that become soft landing-friendly paws halfway down the fall, says "I'm going to have to learn not to do that in public," stands up and retrieves her opposable thumbs, and says, "But they're reasonably vulnerable to things like being clawed, if that's my only option?"

[castmyown]

When she falls he winces and moves to assist - but he's too late and just shuffles back awkwardly. "Yeah, takes a bit of practice."

"Well I haven't tried it, but I assume so? I'd have to go ask, I was just vaguely nervous about demons and not terrified that they would show up eventually. So it might be something weird like something holy, or blessed, or made out of the right type of tree."

[shesepankh]

"Okay, that sounds - useful to know, although I do rather doubt I'll be any good in a physical altercation it probably couldn't hurt to have something holy on my person. Does this have, like, religious implications that I should know about or are 'demon' and 'angel' just more or less facetious names for some appropriately-shaped mystical creatures that don't like each other in loosely the manner of sphinxes and dragons such that 'holy' is a property you can nonspiritually apply to objects, the way you can make things 'nonstick' or 'laminated'...?"

[castmyown]

"That was just a hypothesis, I don't know if actual holy things would even work. Never even seen a demon, I've just heard about them from my dad. I'd need to go be a magic nerd and study it. I have no idea what religious implications there are, though. There are probably some but I'm not particularly religious so I just kind of politely ignore them?"

[shesepankh]

"Well, I'm not particularly religious because I didn't think religion-y things existed in the world, but you've now issued fairly serious warnings about demons after demonstrating your ability to turn into a flying deer while I'm recovering from apparently being a sphinx, sooooo it might be time to reevaluate that."

[castmyown]

"Fair point. I can ask dad about the specifics of demons, he's seen them and was extremely serious about staying far, far away from them, I thought I should pass it on. It's also possible that religion-y things existed in the world and humans saw them be super magic and decided to worship them. So, I continue to have no idea and would need to do lots of studying to get an opinion on the subject."

[shesepankh]

"Right. This is going to be interesting if I don't just wake up." She sighs. "If I wake up I'm going to regret not trying to fly but if this is actually my life now it's kind of important I don't worry Charlie."

[castmyown]

"It's not a dream," promises Darren, again. "But yes, you shouldn't worry your dad. You can always fly later, this isn't going to go away. I can help with that, too, though Savannah's better at flying than I am."

[shesepankh]

"You keep saying that, but you realize that's not actually evidence? It's not really less likely that you'd say that if I'm dreaming."

[castmyown]

He snickers, a little. "Okay, fine, want me to start spouting out facts you can't possibly know that you can look up when you get home? To prove my sentience and how I have my own knowledge base."

[shesepankh]

"Well, if I'm not dreaming, I will continue to be able to trade in human parts for sphinx ones at will even after taking a nap, and that's going to be more convincing than something I could have forgotten I knew."

[castmyown]

"Right, which was why I wasn't trying that earlier and just saying, 'No this is not a dream.' I don't exactly have a way to prove that this isn't a dream other than to keep existing and not being a dream. So. Not a dream?"

[shesepankh]

"I don't expect you to singlehandedly prove to me that this isn't a dream. Look at me, operating in ways that will leave me safe and stable even if it is not instead of deciding to flap around for kicks. Just, be aware that I'm reserving judgment till I've woken up in bed and tried the tail thing."

[castmyown]

"Sure, I was in a daze right after I found out. Just sort of wandering around following dad and asking lots of questions. You're taking this remarkably well, considering."

He adds, wryly, "Despite insisting that I am probably a dream."

[shesepankh]

"Oh, I'm pretty sure there exists a real Darren. I think I fell asleep sometime today, not two weeks ago or whatever. Although to be perfectly honest with you if the last two weeks were a dream that would be kind of great?"