[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

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.]

[bythewaves]

That's a pretty big knot you have on your head. [ Arnold retorts dubiously and offers him his hand ]

Here, come lie down on the couch, and I'll get you some ice, at least.

[highly_gifted]

[He still isn't quite sure what happened - one moment he looked into the room and the next he was on the ground - but he will roll over, revealing the silmarils, take that hand and unsteadily get to his feet.

It's hard enough to stand and not throw up, he really has no eyes for anything else right now.]

[bythewaves]

[ Arnold pales when he recognises the two silmarils, identical to the one on his desk (he was going to lock it away, but he needed it, for this painting) - but for now he has other concerns and he helps Feivel to the couch slowly ]

Easy does it. Should I grab a bucket?

[highly_gifted]

And quickly.

[He's pretty sure he'll need that bucket very soon. ...sinking down on the couch very carefully.]

[bythewaves]

Okay. [ FRET FRET FRET ]

[ buckets, at least, are easy, being in an art studio as he is, and he simply grabs one of the empty ones from nearby ]

I'm gonna go grab an ice pack and some aspirin... you aren't allergic are you? Will you be alright?

[highly_gifted]

I will be.

[Closing his eyes against the brightness of the room. ....a pause, and when he speaks again it is a bit mumbled and definitely not English. It also doesn't sound particularly pretty to people who aren't endless. He's mumbling in the next best language that springs to his mind, and that is the recently echoed Valarin that he doesn't actually understand yet.] Just get that and be quiet.

[bythewaves]

[ Breathe and hold ]

Ow, that's horrible sounding I don't want to learn it da... um. I mean. I'mma go grab that ice pack now. [ FLEES ]

[highly_gifted]

[When he returns he's met with the smell of bile and Feivel still leaning over the side of the couch, dry heaving into the bucket.

He stops when he notices Arnold, though, and asks, in English again:] ...I taught you that language? [Also you called him Da. WOW.]

[bythewaves]

[ Instant sympathy and Arnold comes over to sit with Feivel and offers him the icepack and some water ]

Feeling better? And yeah... well. Past-you did. Tried to. Past-me didn't like it at all. Said it hurt his ears.

[highly_gifted]

No.

...A bit.

[He'll grab the icepack and... hold it for a moment. What do with icepack.

He'll drink the water, though.]

...does it still?

......................what happened? [Because he for the life of him can't explain how he got from the door to the ground, and with such a headache to boot...]

[bythewaves]

[ Here, let him pop it on that bruise for you ]

I can fetch some ginger, if you're still feeling nauseous. Um, it looks like you got beaned on the head. With those things. [ He nods over to where two silmarils are cheerfully twinkling at them ]

Does what still? Hurt my ears? Kinda? It sounds... weird.

[highly_gifted]

[...squint.] How many of them do you have?

Yes. It's... not beautiful. But interesting.

[bythewaves]

One showed up in an echo. With the oath-thingy. [ Arnold eyes Feivel worriedly but well, he's talking, so not confused or overtly drowsy, and he's squinting, so pupils are reacting to light... so far so good ] So that makes three, all up.

I... guess? I'm not a language person, so I wouldn't know.

[ Behind them, unseen, the doorway ripples. Something's on the other side ]

[highly_gifted]

[He mostly squints out of habit, but yes, it isn't terribly bad. He's only feeling like shit, he'll be good again in a few hours.]

...But there's three. [Okay, he might be a bit damaged, being a bit slow on the uptake and all that.] You got three.

[bythewaves]

[ Arnold blinks at him and crooks an eyebrow, does he count that as confusion? ]

Yeah? And no, I got one... the other two, I suspect, are the cause of your headache.

[highly_gifted]

I got them?

[...well, they are pretty, but whyever would his precarnation have something like that?]

[bythewaves]

Apparently? [ Arnold shrugs at him ] How's your head feeling? I dunno if you got them then, or now or whatever, but they're yours now, I guess? The oath-thingy specified 'Feanaro or Feanaro's kin' right? So...

[highly_gifted]

...I still haven't looked at it. [It sits in his notebook and ...and. He just feels like something terrible will happen if he looks at it, which of course is ridiculous but the feeling is there and he can't get rid of it.

...Or considering how echoes work, it might not even be all that ridiculous.]

What are they?

[bythewaves]

[ Arnold nods ] Well. It's not... pleasant reading, when you think about the implications. So. Yeah. No rush.

[ And if Feivel is his other self's father... considering what Arnold remembers doing... yeah. No. ]

I dunno? Really shiny glowy rocks, as far as I can tell. Really pretty shiny glowy rocks, but that's all, so far as I can figure. Maybe they do other things, but I don't remember yet. [ He shrugs ] These ones certainly don't seem to do anything other than act like very bright paperweights.

[highly_gifted]

Give them to me.

[He very slowly rolls onto his back and closes his eyes though. Sleep. Yes, that would probably be the best idea now. But rocks shouldn't glow, so he's curious and wants to see...]

They need no light source at all?

[bythewaves]

Sure.

[ A part of him feels like he should be... upset? But Feivel is... Feanor too, so it's fine ]

So far as I can tell? Absolutely none. They do seem to... I guess soak up natural light. It might be my imagination but they seem brighter under moon or sun or starlight than they do inside.