[Video]

[lightsoflife]

[It's unusual for Naomi to use video on the network, but this time she starts out by holding up a Pyrex bowl containing a single lighter.]

If anyone sees a lighter like this one lying anywhere, I suggest that you contain it. Strange phenomena cropping up in this city are hardly new, but I suspect this thing in particular is something I've seen before. A living lighter of sorts, which can move around and start fires on its own. Hardly something you want running around your home. I don't know if these are precisely the same, but at least it's possible.

If anyone manages to get their hand on one of these, I'd be willing to take them for examination. That goes for anything related to the incidents around the city, for that matter. My last look at a lighter wasn't particularly fruitful on its own, but with other pieces together perhaps there's some more information to be found.

[A pause. Naomi chews her lip, hesitates, sets the bowl down offscreen, and takes a deep breath.]

Anyway, aside from that...it seems I have the ability to hear the dead's final words. That is, what they say just before they pass away. The condition is that I need to see the body, or...or something, some personal element. It isn't as if I've have any opportunities to test it out. But if anyone may have need of it, I'm available. If there's a time limit I haven't remembered it yet, and...I know that people on this network have been lost.

[Naomi falls silent again, looking unsure of herself. Then she yelps and jerks back as a foot-long toothpick warrior dances across her desk thrusting a normal-sized toothpick at her arm like a sword.]

How on earth--

[Naomi steps back and falls to the ground; for a few minutes the sounds of a scuffle punctuated by occasional yelps can be heard, ending in a snap. There's a quiet "Damn" as she stands back up and ends the video.]

Comments

Text (sorry for lateness)

[evowhisperer]

I'd agree.

Do you remember if you ever used this ability in your past life?

Text; no problem!

[lightsoflife]

Not yet. She was a surgeon, so I can't imagine any scenario where it would be desirable.

Re: Text; no problem!

[evowhisperer]

Neither can I. It sounds like something that would be more useful for forensics, or detective work, to be honest.

[lightsoflife]

Detective work, but forensics work varies. If you're handling evidence it won't be of much use, but say you were a medical examiner...

And I believe that's hit on something, because I've just remembered that she was a medical examiner. Although, how anyone can be a surgeon and a medical examiner is beyond me.

[evowhisperer]

Are the fields really so contradictory? I admit I'm no doctor myself, but it would seem to me that they'd be dealing with opposite ends of the same spectrum.

[lightsoflife]

At the least, you'd need further education as one to work as the other. Those opposite ends are specialized in themselves, after all.

[evowhisperer]

That is true. I suppose another question is why anyone would want to practice both focuses at the same time. Maybe she alternated between the two?

If I found myself with talents in two different fields, I would look for a way to combine them. It would make it possible to go into more depth in any given thing, with more time and resources.

[lightsoflife]

Combining the two? Curious.

Although it seems like it would make for a good TV show. Life and Death: the title practically writes itself.

[evowhisperer]

Life and Death: The show everyone always wanted, dead or alive?

I think I'll leave the details to you, actually. Any more one-liners like that, and the ratings will go down.

[lightsoflife]

As if it hasn't already tanked. In any case, I'm hoping for something more mundane for myself.

[Relatively speaking anyway, considering her memories of unsavory dealings.]

[evowhisperer]

You're not planning to start your own detective agency or funeral home, then? I don't blame you.

Even if the situation between the Numbered and not Numbered weren't what it is, your abilities sound very emotionally draining.

[lightsoflife]

I bet they are. I'll apply them if needed, but so far I'm glad I haven't had cause to use them on the truly dead.

[evowhisperer]

Does that mean you've had cause to use them on anyone not truly dead?

[lightsoflife]

There's someone here who is "half" ghost, although what that means exactly I can't say.

[evowhisperer]

A 'half' ghost?

I'm afraid I don't quite understand. Does this mean a ghost that's half there, and half gone? Or--how else do you mean that, if you can tell me anything more?

[lightsoflife]

The person I'm thinking of says he's able to switch between being alive and being a ghost, but I don't believe he understands it fully himself.

[evowhisperer]

I see. Perhaps more time and echoes will help answer these questions, then.

[lightsoflife]

Yes, that's what I hope. For his sake especially.