fandomtownies | Streets of Fandom, Friday evening

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Streets of Fandom, Friday evening

After discovering Jono possessed by the world's most unpleasant ghost, Raven had had every intention of going for help. She needed to call Karla, go to Dr. Lecter's home, contact anyone who might be able to help.

She'd caught the reflection of a small girl in a store window and stopped short. The reflection was gone, and it must have been just her imagination, for the girl looked much like she had as a child. Then she heard the singing, the source of which remained unseen, and the sound of the girl's voice made her shiver.

Round we go, the world is spinning,
When it stops, it's just beginning.
Sun comes up, we live, we cry
Sun goes down and then we all die.

Then images of the film she'd seen began to flash before her, a glowing ring, a woman who combed her long dark hair, the little girl she thought she'd seen again. When the thing with the tongue or whatever it was appeared, she'd instinctively jumped into the netherverse to avoid it. Even there she wasn't free, as a sudden cramping forced her to her knees, and to her horror she coughed up what seemed to be long black hair and several wires with pads attached to them.

Hallucinations plagued her for the next several -- hours? days? -- she wasn't sure how much time passed. When she finally managed to drag herself back to Fandom, she still wasn't certain what was real and what wasn't, so it was a very freaked out Raven that was now trying to make her way to Hannibal's house.

[Open!]

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Would seeing a woman with a skeleton face near that streetlight help, or hurt, Raven's sanity?

Raven gasped when she saw the woman, but she closed her eyes and shook her head. "You are not real. You are not real," she repeated to herself.

Constance flickered, and looked more like she had in life.

She tilted her head, studying Raven. "Are you sure?"

Brrrrr!

"Leave me alone!" Raven cried, shivering as she took a step back.

"I'm so cold," Constance whispered. "I want to go home."

...she couldn't go home, ever....

"If I help you, will you leave me be?" Raven pleaded.

"Yes," Constance shivered out. And she meant it in the moment.

"Very well," Raven said, trying to gather herself. "I will help you. Where is your home?"

"By the bridge," Constance breathed, leaning in closer, rubbing her arms. "That's where I live now."

...an errant memory of two children crying Mommy Mommy Mommy! hit her, and she shivered again.

"The causeway?" Raven said. "To the mainland?"

She sensed something -- grief? -- coming from the woman, but her own senses were muddled at the moment.

"I-- yes." That was right. That was where she'd...

"My husband left me. Alone. With the children." More shaking. Rage, as well as grief. And fear.

"Are the children there?" Raven said slowly, trying to sift through what she sensed and what the woman was saying.

"...they drowned..."

Mommy Mommy Mommy!

The cold was even more settled now. And Constance was beginning to look panicked.

Talk of drowning was making Raven feel a little panicked as well.

She tried to let her natural compassion rise to the surface instead. "I am sorry," she said gently. "You could not save them?"

"I was looking for him. I came back--"

No, wait. That wasn't the order it happened in.

"No, they were gone, and I-- went looking for him..."

Wait.

Panic got the better of her, and Constance wailed, suddenly assaulted by memories--

and vanished.

Hannibal (and Bob) had gotten the e-mailed invitation to the town hall meeting, and after a few magical safeguards had headed out.

And wasn't too far before they saw...

"Raven?" Hannibal hurried over to her. Damn, had she been possessed as well?

She felt a surge of relief when she saw Hannibal. "Doctor Lecter?" she said. "Is that really you?" She really didn't know if she could trust her eyes any more.

"It is," Hannibal assured her. "Mostly, anyway." He reached out a hand.

You really do have the most fascinating friends! Bob said, eyeing the currents of energy around Raven.

And her figure. What? It really had been a very long time!

Raven was shaking as she took his hand. "Can you hear her?" she said. "Can you hear her singing?"

He wouldn't, of course -- only she could hear Samara.

Hannibal stopped and listened, then shook his head. "I don't hear singing."

He questioned Bob, but got a negative back from him as well, and an offer.

Bob slipped forward just enough to do a bit of divining, drawing a single glyph in the air. Not possessed, precisely, but there is something.

"There seem to be ghosts everywhere these days," Hannibal said, offering Raven a hug. "Bothering the living."

"Ghosts?" Raven repeated, gratefully accepting the hug. "I keep seeing a little girl.... She looks almost as I did as a child. And then I am cold and wet and drowning and it is dark and I am trapped and I cannot breathe and there are things crawling all over!"

Her voice started to rise in pitch as she remembered the hallucinations.

Bob winced. The one who wanted to kill everyone. Charming.

Hannibal just held Raven, soothing her. "A ghost," he confirmed, "sending you these images. Can you block them out?"

"I have been trying," Raven said, trying to breathe and calm herself. "But it is like whatever it is has wormed its way into my mind and taken root there."

"Hm." There were things Bob could possibly do to help, but if she were already spooked by ghosts...Jono had been only a minute behind him; the vote of confidence would probably help.

Hannibal hugged her tighter. "I'm going to fetch Jono. Wait here; I won't be a moment."

Raven almost clutched at Hannibal's arm and begged him not to leave her, but she fought back the fear and nodded. She'd been through Azar only knew how many invasions in Fandom, and fought a war in Glacia. She could handle being alone for a few minutes.

Jono was loathe to be out and about, considering the possibility that something else would grab him, but there was clearly a crisis of some sort around the island, and he wasn't going to just sit idly by and let it take over.

... Besides, he was no safer at home than he was wandering the streets, and at least this way he wouldn't have to worry about terrorizing the cats if another ghost, or even the same one, showed up in his bedroom.

Jono felt Raven before he saw her, not quite able to ignore the chill about her mind, as though something dark and... wet?... was trying to worm its way in.

And that was why he was sending a pulse of warmth and affection and reassurance her way, before he even managed to round the corner.

Raven was choking again; her lungs felt like they were filling with water. She clutched at her throat even as she felt Jono's presence and clutched frantically at that as well.

Later, she'd be horribly embarrassed about how she'd crumpled to her knees and vomited up water. And centipedes. And flies.

At least he hadn't just said 'I love you,' this time? Though he really did seem to have that effect on her, didn't he?

//... Bloody hell, Raven,// he was in a jog for her before he was even quite aware that his legs were moving, crouching down to wrap his arm around her shoulder, and... pulling her hair out of her face? What was the protocol for centipede vomit, anyway? //Looks like I'm not the only one who's stepped in it this week, am I?//

Well, then he was going to open his mind right up, give her access to every ounce of comfort and strength that he could offer. He wasn't currently in desperate need of them at the moment, after all.

Raven stopped shaking as she felt his comfort sink into her. Her mind slowly cleared as the awful visions faded, for the moment at least.

"Jono?" It took her a few moments to consciously recognize him and where she was. And being Raven she had to ask, "Are you all right?" As if she weren't the one who was throwing up bugs a moment ago.

He would have given an incredulous laugh at that, if he didn't know Raven. As it stood, he was going to shrug his shoulders, rubbing little circles on the small of her back with one hand.

//Been worse,// he reported. //Been better. This is bloody near par for the course around the island these days, I think. So long as my head's my own, I'll consider it a win. What about you, luv?//

He wasn't the one puking up insects, here.

Not that he could, but still.

"I am sorry I could not do more to free you," Raven said quietly. "I fear I allowed my temper get the better of me when I should have been better at bargaining."

Not that Betelgeuse would've kept any bargain, but still.

She tried to piece together the fuzzy memories of what had happened after that. "I wanted to get help. I was going to call Karla and get Doctor Lecter. But I started seeing and feeling such horrible things."

Jono gave his head a little shake - there was no need to apologize. As far as he saw it, he was the moron who had gotten himself possessed in the first place.

//He isn't the sort of person you can bargain with,// he pointed out, gently. //I found Hannibal, yesterday. He's picked up a ghost as well, but his is... slightly less malevolent. A necromancer, he said. So you don't need to worry about me.//

There was a long pause while he tried to puzzle out what to say next.

//The, er, water? And bugs? Those would be part of what you're seeing and feeling, I'm guessing?//

Sherlock Jon was on the case.

Raven nodded, trying not to gag as she thought about what had just come out of her. She rub her mouth with the edge of her cloak. She was never going to get that taste of out of her mouth now.

"There is a little girl -- she looks much as I did when I was her age, though she has no chakra. Sometimes I see her. Sometimes I think I am her. It feels so real, that I am locked in a white room all alone or in the dark, under water and drowning. And I see flashes of things that were in the film I saw at the theater. It must be connected somehow."

//Wouldn't be surprised if th'little girl was using the cinema as a channel to find victims to target,// Jono murmured, sending her another pulse of calm. //Th'way my ghost used writing on the wall.//

He furrowed his brow a little.

//All th'more reason to get them the hell off of our island.//

And after walking in a (mercifully small) circle - honestly, even this island's normal self was a bit insane - Hannibal caught up with Jono after he'd already found Raven.

Bob sighed internally at Jono's words, but didn't protest. "That little girl is very angry," he offered. "She wants to kill everything."

//That doesn't actually make me feel any better about the lot of you,// Jono pointed out, giving Bob a side-eye over his shoulder. //In case you were wondering.//

Just, you know, putting that out there.

//Unless you know some way to make Raven stop spitting centipedes. In which case, you're more than welcome to get on that.//

"She's a child with a lot of righteous anger, and a ghost with a lot of well-deserved rage," Bob answered. "Inconvenient, but hardly unusual." He drew the revealing glyphs over Raven and pondered what they showed him, tweaking them a bit as he thought.

//Well deserved as that rage is, that doesn't excuse anybody taking it out on innocents,// Jono snapped. //If somebody hurt her, that's bloody awful, and I'd be more than happy to do something to help her see justice for her pain. But that somebody wasn't Raven.//

... Bit of a sticking point, there, for a mutant who had spent a good deal of his life trying not to loathe humanity, no matter how many times they had violated him, tried to kill him, or had successfully killed people that he cared deeply about simply because of what he was.

...Bob was just going to be over here pondering those runes and thinking of useful spells.

"No, it wasn't," Hannibal agreed. "But pain is rarely rational, even for living humans. It doesn't excuse her behavior, but it may serve as a partial explanation for it."

"I would take away her pain if only she asked," Raven said. She leaned on Jono as she tried to struggle to her feet in an attempt to regain some of her dignity.

A centipede crawled out of her hair, and she quickly batted it away with a shudder. How the bugs had gotten inside her, she really didn't want to know.

"I know you would." Hannibal held out a hand to help, too. "But it doesn't seem as though she wants help."

Jono was silent for a moment, before quietly venturing, //My guess is she's been shown, time and again, that help isn't something to be trusted.//

She was a very angry, but very dead small child, after all.

Jono didn't imagine small dead children made people hallucinate and vomit centipedes for the entertainment value.

"She is consumed by Wrath," Raven said softly, unable to help thinking of the times she had given in to her anger.

She could hear the girl singing again, and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to ignore it. Sun comes up, we live, we cry. Sun goes down and then we all die.

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Streets of Fandom, Friday evening

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