[open] You always wanted a visit, right?

[highly_gifted]

Who: Feivel and/or Nat and YOU
What: Just opening doors from the ghost zone into places and then?????
When: First half of April, pick your date!
Where: Anywhere!

Exploring the ghost zone is great. It's a weird and new place and a certain set of siblings is having a field trip. Most of the time, they're together, but sometimes they split up or one of them goes alone.

They peek out through almost all doors that they find, unless Nat's Force senses tell her that something bad is behind the door (and then sometimes Fe opens it anyway). Maybe they look out at a street where your character is just standing, but maybe they open a door right into their bedroom too, or something else entirely...

((Please make a note in your subject line regarding if you want to encounter Feivel or Nat or both of them))

Comments

Feivel! Nat too maybe if she wants idk???

[oncedevil]

You know, Feivel, it's typically considered polite to warn people before you poke their head into their room. They could be doing something they don't want you seeing! Personal things, private things! Like reading a cute animal magazine or something.

Which, look, okay, he found it and it looked interesting and really how can you not like pictures of cute animals? Not that Tony's worried about being caught reading magazines that will totally ruin his reputation but more about the fact that a ghost portal opened up his bedroom wall and a head popped out. He lets out a highly undignified squawk and nearly falls right over, fortunately he was laying in his bed at the time, so instead he just ends up clinging to the wall like somehow that will help.

Such dignity, Tony, you are clearly the bravest of us all.

"Shit! Dude, what the hell??"

[alderaanda]

Whoops.

Still on the other side, Nat looks over the top of her brother's head, interested. Unable to resist, she says, "We come in peace."

[highly_gifted]

...going to jump on that.

"We bodly go where no man or woman has gone before, but sometimes other people were faster.

Hi, Tony." And then he peers down to check how far above ground he is (half a metre, it will be easy to get back up) and jumps down into Tony's room.

[oncedevil]

At first Tony just blinks, as it takes him several moments to process just how ridiculous this all is. Then he barks a laugh, alright can't be too upset about being startled if they're going to be silly about it. He's just glad he wasn't caught in the shower or something. He settles back into sitting cross-legged on his bed, peering up at the portal in curiosity.

"Hey Fe, phew warn a guy before you open a portal in his room would'ya?" Squint, man that thing's creeping him out. "How are you guys doing that?"

Both!

[chalicejoker]

Whatever was on the other side of this door was likely flagging as all sorts of awful and bad, but when the door's open, it looks normal enough. Just a guy in a small kitchen in a small apartment making himself some gyoza, no big deal.

At least, it's no big deal until the opening door freaks him out, and he reflexively turns into a gigantic bug, because that's how he rolls. "What the hell?"

[highly_gifted]

There was a man. And then there was some giant... cockroach? Biology has never been Feivel's area of interest (so far, at least, who knows what the future will bring...) but he is pretty sure that this should not be an option.

...Well, looks like they found someone numbered. The doorhandle is firmly in his hand but he doesn't shut the door just yet, instead peering at the bug with interest, copying Nat's greeting from earlier. He's taken a liking to it. "We come in peace.

...you're numbered."

[alderaanda]

"And so are we, don't worry," she adds, annoyed now that he's first. She'd been lagging behind telling her brother she's not responsible if he opens that door and had not seen.

[chalicejoker]

"Kids coming out of a door in the middle of nothing, I'd be surprised if you weren't Numbered." There's an irritated growl accompanying this, but it's really more for show because of the monster form. "Didn't anyone ever teach you two to knock?"

And let's see, there are two more people now...Hajime automatically starts grabbing for more of the gyoza ingredients. Sudden guests means he's making more food. That's just how this works. Besides, cooking is one way he winds down, anyway. And he does need to wind down; he's still standing there as a giant bug like it's the most normal thing in the world.

whoever!

[bythewaves]

[ Arnold's upset, although only Benedict and Liam here probably recognise this behaviour. He's still smiling and happy and cheerful, but he's been stuck in the studio painting for the last few days, not emerging except to eat. He's painting the same picture over and over, painting over it and then redoing it.

It has similarities, to his most recent one, a winged lady with a star at her breast that was displayed at his recent seascapes exhibition. But in this the lady stands at the window of a tower, the room around her slick with blood, desperation in her eyes as she backs towards the balcony and a star clasped in her hands. Occasionally, he paints two frightened boys peeking round a curtain before he paints the whole thing over and starts again.

Arnold has paint smeared on his cheeks and across his fingers and in his hair, spattered on his clothes where he slashed at his work. And there is a stone that sits on a table by the door, shining like a star. He does not seem to register his visitor ]

[highly_gifted]

[Feivel pokes his head into the room and ... just lingers for a moment, looking around. From where he is, he can't see Arnold very well, now what he is drawing, and he recognizes the atmosphere as concentrated working so he doesn't want to intrude - but then his eyes fall on the stone by the door. He is prepared for the echo's side effects of feeling woozy and all that this time, partly because he almost expected it around Arnold, partly because he's experienced it a couple of times before now.

So while he breathes in deeply and put a hand on the side of the door to steady himself, it's not bad. He even leans forward a bit to see what it was that caused the echo... only to be hit in the head twice in short succession. Apparently the universe considered it a good idea to chuck two glowy stones at his head at a fairly high speed.

They clutter to the ground below only moments before Fe himself follows, out and down with a concussion for a bit. Ouch. He'll come to lie under the open door, sprawled out unceremoniously with the two stones buried under him.]

[bythewaves]

[ It's the noise that startles him, a splash of colour (red) slashed across the half-finished form of Elwing (across her throat, he thinks morbidly) and Arnold turns, exclaiming in surprise and dropping his things to hurry over ]

Feivel! How did yo... oh dear, Feivel? Are you alright? Can you hear me? Oh dear, maybe I should call an ambulance?

[highly_gifted]

No.

[It's pained, though, and his eyes are a bit unfocused.]

...I will be fine. [His parents can't know, and besides, he has no abroad insurance.]

Fe only obvs

[invinospiritus]

Gwyneth has requisitioned a room for solo fencing practice. The floor mats have been rolled up and set aside. Large mirrors line the walls, showing an infinity of a woman with an epee performing rapid drills to practice her footwork and attack-lunge combos on a dummy. She's sweating enough to show through her workout clothes, and some hairs are escaping from where she's put it up, but she remains fast and the impacts of her flexible sword on the padded figure are hard enough to hear.

She's caught up in the rhythm of it, in that flowing mental space where it seems like everything is going right, and exertion is nonexistant. It takes a minute before she realizes she's being watched and stops, breathing a little hard. Gwyneth lowers her sword and turns towards the boy, raising one famously expressive eyebrow. "How did you get in here?"

I wonder why XD

[highly_gifted]

"By the door. It wasn't locked." Yes, he's a little shit, but it's not like he's lying. Also the door that he stepped through was in the back of the closet that all the sports equipment is kept inside so he had to step out of the ghost zone and walk around a bit, hoping that an open door wouldn't just vanish on him. No risk, no fun, and all that.

"You gather your concentration well." That's what he considers the thing in himself that other people call 'distracted' or 'too caught up in his projects'.

[invinospiritus]

"I think I would remember if I hadn't locked the door. When I have an exhibition I try to make things more exciting," she informs him as she starts to blot the sweat from her brow. "Give me an actual answer, please."

She's not going to comment on her focus yet.

Feivel or both!

[copper_loved]

Aubriana is hard at work on her latest sculpture, sitting at a potter's wheel, hands covered in clay. At first, she doesn't notice them over the whir of the machine and her own concentration. The piece taking shape looks almost like a tree of some kind, but it's hard to tell just yet. Then she suddenly stops.

"It's not done yet, you know."

[highly_gifted]

"Then continue." After all it's not like he asked her to stop. He only poked his head in and looked around the room while Nat went back home real quick. Passing the time while he's waiting. He isn't one to interrupt other people with what they're doing, unless they're his parents.

[copper_loved]

"It's more that most artists don't show their work until they're done."

She turns to face him.

"So... Did you come here for a reason?"

[Closed]

[alderaanda]

Outside the green dimension, the warp holes could look like anything. From inside, they all looked like doors. Varied doors, but doors. And doors could be marked. Nat had come in with a bucket of white paint to do just that, marking where several of them opened to. If they moved, it would be nice and obvious and easy to note.

She was absorbed in this, and in noting the wheres and whats in her notebook, when she started feeling the insinuations of danger - a sense like a cold wind, like colors had dimmed and she was watched by unfriendly eyes. Nat looked around, saw nothing, and kept writing; she was familiar enough with this area and what lived here. It was probably the shambler again, and she could escape it at a trot as soon as it came in view. No problem.

It was not the shambler. She felt a flash of panic and stumbled to the side. Something very heavy struck her on the shoulder instead of the head. Her arm numbed, Nat dropped her notebook and stared. Someone had thrown a... a gold urn at her. Part of her fixated on that, because she could see the thrower, and for a moment, while she just saw her assailant as another teenaged girl with blonde hair, she knew there was something wrong. The sense of danger was almost as clear as words.

It was another Nat. Her lips were chapped. She'd tied her hair back severely and wound bandages around her arms and legs, and her eyes were pale and gleaming with delight above a wide smile, but it was another Nat. A Nat a belt with bottles and more gold hanging from them, and that was Nat's softball bat with gold plates wrapped and hammered around the end to make it into a club.

The world, and that sight, dropped away for a moment. She remembered something that had happened a long time ago, on a planet far, far away. One of the longest days of her life... As everything rushed back a sensation halfway between pain and a horrible itch crawled across her scalp, leaving it tighter against her skull. Her double grimaced, and a pale line showed near her temple.

"A clone," Nat said, shocked, remembering the tanks and the many copies of herself. The remembered pain and disorientation kept her from running, even as instincts screamed that she should. "Why? I don't want to fight- what do you want?"

"You won't need to know once you're dead!" the other Nat cried and came at her, joy in her eyes.

In another world Nat had fought and accounted for herself well before fleeing, even though her clone had been stronger. Here, Nat did her best. She discovered her shield power, not that it did any good. She bit and bruised the other Nat and dodged as much as she could. As it became evident that she couldn't escape, she screamed.

The bat caught her on the side of her head. Nat fell, stunned, her vision greying at the edges, feeling blood itching her scalp. The world seemed far away... "It really isn't personal," her clone was saying cheerfully, kneeling to look into her face. "There just isn't room in this life for two of us, and since I'm stronger, you have to go. Thanks for coming out alone, I was worried this would be harder."

Smiling, her clone circled Nat's neck with both hands and started to squeeze.

1/2

[highly_gifted]

Feivel had been visiting Locke and just reentered the ghostzone when he heard a scream not to far away, and he ran before his thoughts even kicked in fully. Nat.. Nat never screamed like that. But it was definitely her voice, and as he comes up a flight of stairs and can finally see her he knows why.

Two of her, even, he realizes belatedly, though one of them very clearly isn't his Nat. And it is a huge advantage here that he knows Benedict, so the doppels aren't something that is really new for him, he knows what this is. Just that Benedict is fine and considering that this one is apparently trying to kill his sister

2/2

[highly_gifted]

and he is not going to have that. Fury rises within him, a darkness that he can't remember ever having felt like that before, and he sprints forward, effortlessly bridging the gab between his stairs and the plateau that the two girls are on. The landing is not particularly graceful but only costs him a second before his hand changes the grip on his sword (where did that even come from? He doesn't know, and it is the last thing that he is pondering now) and he swings it around until the tip digs into the skin of the neck of the wrong Nat, piercing it just enough to draw a bit of blood.

"Let go of her or I will not hesitate to take your head off your shoulders."

[alderaanda]

Mischief lurks in her eyes even as she widens them. They're not quite right. Pale, yes, and with a color like sparks flecking her iris and ringing her pupils. "Wow. Okay, Fe. Whatever you say." Carefully she starts to pull her hands away.

He gave her a warning, and touched her with the blade. He can't swing it without taking it away. She knows where he is. She'd gone to a crouch to try to strangle Nat. He's angry, she feels it like a benediction. It makes her stronger. She has options.

There is another heartbeat, and she's flung herself forwards, over Nat's semiconscious body to the other side, not caring if the tip of the sword opened a cut as she did it, and whirls palming something hand-sized and golden that she took out of the dark.

Gold is a wonderful thing. So soft and heavy, and she's spent a reasonable period of her existence pounding it into useful shapes and learning how to throw it. She takes aim, still smiling like a Nat who'd discovered abandoned coffee things were worth money. "Here, catch!"

A little while after the thread above

[highly_gifted]

They agreed that Fe would show Tony London a week ago, and that is why he is waiting outside of the pub that the teleporter sigil is inside of. But his thoughts aren't quite on Tony or a tour through London. They're on the encounter with his sister's doppel from a couple of days ago, and he doesn't comprehend what he is reading while he waits, not at all - he's sure that he has read this page at least five times now.

The thing is - what about his doppel? Would it be like that as well?

\o/

[oncedevil]

To say he wasn't excited would be a lie. While Tony hadn't felt any particular need to go visit London prior to this, he was elated to get to know his brother better. Sure the fact he even had a brother was still sinking in, and those lost memories hadn't exactly been quick to return. Or return at all, but that didn't matter. What mattered now was mending what they could.

Of course he has no way of knowing what might be troubling Fe, but the kid does seem a little distracted when he steps out of the pub, stretching his arms over his head. "Hey, how's it going?"

Sorry Fe, Tony is the idle chit-chat and niceties type.

[highly_gifted]

It is strange, still, to think of himself as someone with an older sibling or someone with a brother. And much more so to think of himself as someone with biological family, actual close biological family. He still hasn't told his parents about it - not because he is ashamed or anything, not even because he doesn't know how he would explain how they found out about it. Mostly just not because he knows that a question along the lines of "how do you feel about that" will come and he really doesn't know.

Having the thing that happened with Nat to think about as well really doesn't make it easier.

"As it does." He nods towards the street, indicating a direction before he starts walking. He prefers to talk while doing something, anyway. And if he can't move his hands, then at least his feet. "You?"