[OPEN] Dreams & Ghosts

[sharpjustice]

Who: Mayaka & you !

What: 2 open prompts (reviewing dreams from last month + attempting to get over her fear of ghosts) and wildcard option

Where: Around Bottlecay Bay + Skull Town

When: Beginning of Feb

Warnings: none atm


a. dream review

Perhaps you're passing through the Archives, or the living hall in Skull Town when you spot a Sneasel sitting at a table furiously scrawling out various drawings on paper. Mayaka's gloves have been set aside neatly beside her for now, because she finds it easier to hold onto the charcoal pencils using her bare claws. She's experienced some weird dreams from last month. Though she doesn't remember the exact details, she's been dutifully drawing out the images that lingered in her mind upon waking up. Now, it's time to try to make sense of them. On the table you'll find the following drawings:

1. What appears to be a spaceship, though Mayaka's drawn it to look more like a truck with four wheels underneath.

2. A primordial-looking fish creature. She has given it a pair of cute, anime-sized eyes to make it look more approachable.

3. A black cat with an extra pair of eyes on its stomach. More cat-like than Mimikyu at this point.

4. The drawing she's currently working on, and struggling to capture. She's trying to remember what the alien beings in the final big nightmare looked like, though the large and erratic shapes on paper may not look recognisable to anyone. Mayaka is finding it difficult because she doesn't have an image in mind to associate with what she saw in the nightmare.

She's too caught up with this to notice if someone were to approach...


b. how to deal with ghosts

If you're wandering around Bottlecap Bay, you'll find Mayaka outside her house in the Lum Berry housing area, rooted on the spot.

Her attention is focused on a small clay sculpture she's placed in the garden of her front porch. It's a little handmade ghost figurine with a hairbow on its head. While it might look strangely cute, the more you look at it, the more you'll notice that it's two eyes seem to be gazing directly at you with an unblinking Stare™.

This is the ghost that's been chasing her in her dreams, but she's too scared to get rid of it! (Also, the fact that it was a gift to her from Catrina doesn't help!)

The Sneasel is shaking a little, and it's not from the cold weather. She's standing a safe distance away from the figurine, muttering to herself: "It's just a doll... it's just a dolll..."

(Dolls are creepy too, though??)

c. wildcard!
for any other threads or ideas that come up!

Comments

b

[paperceptive]

Odile doesn't usually stop to chat with her Lum neighbors just because. She's not necessarily unfriendly, just...not the most social person in the world. But the Weavile does slow down to watch...whatever this is.

"...having trouble?" With some weird little statue?

odile !!! *grabby hands

[sharpjustice]

Mayaka spins around, a spark of relief appearing in her eyes when she sees that it's Odile. She'll know what to do, right?

"Yes. Well..." Nothing's actually happened to her yet, so the Sneasel feels a bit silly.

Nevertheless, she points to the small sculpture before whispering: "That creeps me out, but I don't know what to do with it."

[paperceptive]

Odile peers at the sculpture. She's not one to get creeped out by such things easily. It's really no worse than some of the more unusual Change God statues she's seen in her travels. Still, it doesn't seem like a difficult problem! "Get rid of it."

[sharpjustice]

"I can't, Madame! It was a gift."

Mayaka fidgets with her claws, before deciding to provide more context to explain the nature of this 'gift': "From Cat-chan. Uh, Catrina?"

[paperceptive]

Ah, social etiquette. Odile hates that she understands it, but she does understand it. She doesn't know this Catrina, though, so she just replies with a shrug. "Shove it somewhere until she comes over, then."

[sharpjustice]

"This is the somewhere!" Mayaka says, perhaps a bit too forcefully.

"It used to be in my room, but I just don't feel comfortable with it being in the house with me. Now, I get a chill whenever I leave the house and see it."

She looks up at the Weavile, who seems wise and worldly given her age. Odile must have an idea on how to deal with this tricky situation!

[paperceptive]

Odile glances past her, towards the door. "You don't have a box or drawer or something?" Outside seems good enough, but if she's really nervous enough of the thing to get jumpscared by walking past it...

She shrugs. "Smash it and say it was an accident, then."

[sharpjustice]

Mayaka furiously shakes her head when she hears the first suggestion. The idea of putting the doll into a box, and then checking back and finding that it's no longer inside freaks her out. The possibility of that happening isn't 0, after all.

She flinches a little at the second, more drastic suggestion.

"That sounds kinda extreme, Madame."

It makes Mayaka feel a little bad for the sculpture. Oh no, is she starting to develop an emotional attachment to it?!

[paperceptive]

"Does it? It's just a statue."

She probably wouldn't smash it, granted, but she's also not all that freaked out by it. It's just...maybe a bit ugly. Odile wouldn't really want to keep it in her house, either. If she weren't on the road and had a place to keep such belongings at all, she'd likely have gone for the "hide it in a closet" strategy, if she cared that much about whoever gave it to her.

[sharpjustice]

"Right! It's just a statue."

Maybe all she needs is someone to reassure her that that's all it is.

Just then, a huge gust of winter wind blows past them, causing the doll to teeter and shudder a little. Mayaka instinctively grabs onto Odile as she attempts to suppress her panic. Despite how strong the wind had been and how much it's been shaken, Catrina's sculpture does not topple over.

"N-nothing scary about it at all..." she mutters half-heartedly, while clinging to Odile's arm.

[paperceptive]

Odile blinks at her, bemused. "Can you cover it with a blanket?" Surely that's minor enough to be acceptable?

1/2

[sharpjustice]

"Oh! Give me a sec."

Mayaka disappears into her townhouse and re-emerges a short while later with a square white cloth she's been using to wipe dust off surfaces. She cautiously inches closer to the doll, throws the cloth over it, and scurries back to Odile's side to see what it looks like.

While the creepy eyes are now covered, the cloth has given it the shape and colour of a more traditional 'ghost', albeit a tiny one that is no taller than a flower pot.

2/2

[sharpjustice]

"..."

"It's better than it was before," Mayaka concludes diplomatically.

[paperceptive]

Odile watches this whole overcomplicated process, bemused. It doesn't much help. But then again, this was far from her first suggestion.

"You can still smash it."

[sharpjustice]

Mayaka shakes her head. As much as this sculpture has terrorised her, she can't ignore that it was given to her with good intentions.

"I'll leave it like that for now and see if it works," she decides, before smiling at the Weavile.

"Do you want to come in for a cup of tea? As thanks for the help."

She still has the tea she made when Firoza dropped by earlier in the day, so warming it up again shouldn't take too long at all.

[paperceptive]

Odile snorts. It's just sort of funny, what a silly problem that is! She doesn't really mean to mock, though; it's more teasing. "Alright, I'm not busy." She's hardly busy, most days; quests are more of an occasional thing for her, and her own research efforts can happen at whatever time she chooses.

[sharpjustice]

Odile will find the main sitting room to look familiar, given how standardised Lum Berry housing is. Mayaka hasn't done much to dress up the place, though Odile will notice that by the wall is a small basket containing the odd trinkets Mayaka's received including rocks, and fangs (Kris'?). The door to the Sneasel's room is shut, avoiding any chance of the manga drafts she's left on her study desk to be found out.

Mayaka places a pot of tea over the small crackle of fire in the fireplace.

"I have lemon ginger tea today. Is there a particular kind of tea you like, Madame?"

[paperceptive]

"Lemon ginger sounds fine, thank you." She doesn't want Mayaka to make something just for her. Odile glances around the room curiously, but doesn't go to investigate anything. She's not that nosy, okay?

[sharpjustice]

Mayaka takes a seat opposite Odile while waiting for the tea to warm up.

"I've not done much to dress up the place," she says after noticing Odile looking around.

While she's certainly thankful to have a roof over her head, Mayaka doesn't want to get too attached to this place. The thought of planning where to put certain things, as if she were going to stay here in the long term, unnerves her.

"Since this is just a temporary place to stay, y'know? Until I get home."

[paperceptive]

"That makes sense to me. Better to travel light." Even before coming here, Odile had long grown accustomed to having few possessions. She still has a home in Ka Bue, granted, with some more possessions inside...but she hasn't been there in years. It doesn't really feel like anything she needs.

"I haven't done much with mine, either. I'd like to move to something larger at some point regardless." Too bad she keeps getting hurt on these quests...

[sharpjustice]

Mayaka pours the warm tea into a ceramic cup for the Weavile before handing it to her.

"Hm? If you don't have much, what's the point of moving to a bigger place?" she asks candidly.

Mayaka is aware that if Guild Members do well, they'll get rewarded with better housing. She hasn't seen a need to work towards it, but maybe it's because she doesn't have nosy roommates currently. The Sneasel scrunches her brows together as she thinks about what she'll do if she gets a roommate she doesn't get along with.

[paperceptive]

Odile accepts the cup carefully, mindful of her large claws. They don't really retract, a fact that Mayaka probably knows just as well. At least hers are smaller; at least Odile's aren't venomous. There's tradeoffs.

"I'd like to have Siffrin come stay with me," she replies, taking a cautious sip. "I don't like them living up in those canopies. At least back home we'd gotten them in a tent." Where they used to sleep before meeting the party...the outlook is dire there. "But we'll need space for another bed, of course. Preferably another room entirely." At least, those were always the arrangements before, more or less. Has...anything changed, with this Siffrin? With either?

[sharpjustice]

Mayaka perks up at the mention of a now-familiar name.

"Rin-san! I've met them!"

Just recently, before she returned from Skull Town. The big white hat had left an impression on her, and they'd asked her for her to draw a sketch of Shoka.

"That's nice that you two are so close."

[paperceptive]

"Hm, yes." Her ear-feathers may flatten slightly, but what of it? "We traveled together for several months, before all of this. Us and the rest of the group, of course." It wasn't just the two of them! Both of them being who they are, Odile doubts they ever would have just formed their own party. She traveled on her own for a long time prior, after all.

im goin on hiatus so will be slow to reply ; feel free to wrap this is u want !

[sharpjustice]

Mayaka straightens her posture, giving her full attention to Odile now.

"Both of you came from the same place?"

She would probably feel less lonely if someone she knew from home were here with her. And yet, she wouldn't want any of her friends to have to go through this.

"I wonder if that makes all this a bit more bearable, then," Mayaka can't help but remark, sounding just a bit envious. She knows that Akechi and Ren have each other too.