ic The Strange Case of Room 404 (IC)

[Gizmo]

With such a diverse student body, the Claremont Academy dormitories featured a number of unique rooms. Some of the teenagers living there required specific conditions to better replicate their native environments or furniture constructed of materials that would be proof against their own abilities. Others had cultural concerns or entirely personal preferences. The school went to considerable lengths to ensure that all such considerations were accounted for, but for two of the newer enrollees, even the basic room design was superfluous.

Kimber floated idly in lazy circles just below the ceiling of the room she shared with Indira, making a close study every nook and cranny as she attempted to while away the hours in the middle of the night. The space below was spartan indeed, with neither girl having much to contribute beyond the standard beds and desks that had already been there when they arrive. Of the former, neither had much use as for their own reasons they had no need to sleep; in fact, they might have been cut off from electricity and heat without noticing, the necessities of living humans meaningless to them. Unfortunately, with the vast majority of the city needing to rest for the night, it was very easy to become bored.

Having completed her thorough examination of the long crack in the ceiling for the umpteenth time, the translucent blue phantom heaved a sigh before turning downward to address her Kinigosi friend. For whatever reason, she'd taken to shifting the appearance of her clothes to flannel pajammas at night, purely as an affectation. "D'you think they'd let us paint the room a more interesting colour?" she inquired without warning or preamble.

[Fox]

Indira was, in theory, reading a textbook on...on...something. Math? Math, right, that was it. In practice she'd been staring at the page, letters and numbers kind of shifting out of focus as she contemplated why anybody would base their math system around units of ten.

The young alien generally tried to stay human - or human-ish - during the day but at night so few people were up and around she'd taken to relaxing a bit, dropping the human pretense and not worrying about looking like her physiology was ruled by rigid calcium deposits and meat. When Kimber spoke up she was glad to have an excuse to put the book aside, turning her head all the way around to look up at her equally inhuman roommate. "I...do not know," she admitted, in her mouthless humming way. "It would be interesting for a while, at least. We might have to worry about the smell of the paint."

[Gizmo]

"Oh, but we could open the window, then!" Kimber suggested, clapping her hands together as she warmed to the idle thought with her usual enthusiasm. "It's not like a cool breeze would be much of a problem, and we could get a nice sunny yellow or maybe a pale green!" She sped up her floating loop about the ceiling for a moment before giving her roommate a more frank look. "Besides, it would give us something to do. I am so bored, Indira. So. Bored." She punctuated the words by dragging he hands across her face in a pained expression, stretching a little more than real flesh and blood would have been able to.

[Fox]

"Ugh. I knooow," Indira commiserated, letting her head fall down to splat against the desk. She grew an extra pair of arms just to gesture in helpless frustration. "Everything just...stops at night. I understand that humans go unconscious for hours when it gets dark, but it is...there is nothing to do! We cannot make noise, we cannot - or, perhaps, we should not - break...what was it, 'curfew'? If it is going to be like this until we graduate, I think I am going to go insane."

[Gizmo]

Kimber floated downward as though weighted by her own ennui, coming to rest in a cross-legged seat a few inches off of the floor. "Back in the woods I could at least go out and about at night. There were animals and sometimes I'd sneak up to a campsite all invisible or..." Hair moving about as if lifted by a wind that wasn't there, the ghost made a morose face, resting her chin in both hands. "After sunset is the only time I can really look like I'm still... y'know. Alive. It seems like such a waste to be all cooped up." Kimber seemed to be, for the most part, perfectly fine with her undead condition, but it hadn't taken Indira long to notice that an inability to mingle and meet new people without frightening them wore on the gregarious Canadian.

[Fox]

Indira made the odd little humming noise that usually meant she was thinking about something. "I know - in India it was easier to sneak away and go running, or spy on people who were out at night from rooftops. If I was careful I could be me and not be noticed, and perhaps feel less....what is the phrase? 'Cooped up' in a human body? I do not think I know what 'cooping' is."

She hummed again, tilting her head - still a little deformed and resting against her desk - to look over at Kimber. "There is irony there, I think - that you are sorry you cannot be out looking 'normal' at night, and I am sorry I cannot be out looking anormal. No - 'abnormal'? Still. It is...grimly amusing."

[Gizmo]

Blinking a few times, Kimber's expression abruptly became stricken, her hands clapping on either side of her face. "Oh jams, I wasn't even thinking!" she cried in distress, gesturing with apologetic agitation. "Here I am going on about people looking at me weird when everybody must look weird to you! I-- huh, actually... Lemme try something..." The floating girl's eyes narrowed with concentration then began filling in with black before a third appeared upon her forehead, mimicking her friend's familiar transformation. Within moments the ghost had managed to approximate something not unlike a Kinigosi holding a humanoid form; she still had her usual number of limbs and general arrangement, but her form had smoothed and taken on a gleaming, blue-steel finish. "Ah, how's this?" she asked, a little apprehensively, her voice sounding exactly the same despite her sudden lack of visible mouth. "I've never thought to try anything other than humans before...!"

[Fox]

"Hmmm." This, at least, was interesting - certainly more interesting than her textbook. Indira pulled her head up off the desk and snaked it out, circling Kimber a little to get a better look. "Not bad. The color is unusual, but it isn't unheard of. The voice is not quite right, however - we can talk without the 'hum' but it takes a great deal of practice." She didn't say it, but it was...kind of nice to see something familiar, even if it seemed a little off in the details.

She hummed to herself for a moment before pulling her head back. "That is a very good talent - I think you would fool even some Kinigosi. And...do not worry about people looking weird to me. I am mostly used to it, if I do not think about it too much. I only meant that I understand your frustration, after a fashion: you are frustrated because you cannot look like a normal human much of the time, and I am frustrated that I must."

[Gizmo]

"Sooort ooof liiike thiiis?" Kimber attempted, putting a bit of reverberation into her voice before putting a polished hand to her elongated throat. "Hee, that's hard," she admitted, her faux-Kinigosi visage curving in a very human grin. The ghost was clearly delighted at both the novelty of the illusion and being able to make some token effort for Indira's sake. She imagined being an alien on a strange world was much like being a shadow in the world of the living. Determined not to let either of them wallow in such depressing thoughts, she snapped her fingers in inspiration. "Ooh! If we're going to be up anyway, we should have like a sleepover! You could show me beauty tips from your planet, how rad would that be?"

[Fox]

"Hmm. Sort of," Indira agreed, rather amused. At some point she'd shifted herself around into being vaguely more humanoid; rather than keep her head turned around to look at Kimber she'd opted to reverse all her 'joints' so that she was now sitting backwards on the chair. "Perhaps it will take some practice."

"A sleepover?" Her three eyes blinked, genuine curiosity in her voice. "I...do not think I know what is done in a sleepover; it is a human custom? I hope it is not a literal one - unconsciousness is...very disturbing." She shivered a little bit, the ripple travelling all the way down to her feet. In as much as they were feet. "I think I can remember beauty tips, however."

[Gizmo]

"I guess it's a human custom, yeah!" Kimber nodded agreeably after considering for a moment, tilting her head slightly as she tired to frame an explanation. "It's where you get together with friends and spend all night talking and playing games and stuff, see. Huh. I guess 'sleepover' is kind of a lousy name for it, when I put it like that." The ghost's adopted form may have been fairly convincing, but her excited body language was distinctly human. "It'll be great! You can tell be about Kinigos and how you stay so... shiny! There's no way that just happens."

[Fox]

Kimber's mood and enthusiasm were infectious, and Indra found herself oddly drawn to the idea of the human custom of 'slumber party'. She bobbed her head a little and tried to think up answers - and translate answers - for questions the ghost had either posed or would probably pose. "It is partly diet," she admitted, looking down at one arm and stretching it out a bit. Literally. "I do not eat for sustenance, but if I am hurt or wish to be bigger I have to eat metal. Some are better than others - some taste better than others, too. It is best to have a good mix, but there is some fashion there. When I left I think copper was getting popular again...I prefer steel, and titanium, though I understand that titanium is expensive. Platinum, too."

She glanced up, blinking. "One day I think I would like to try...I think it is called 'impervium'? It sounds wonderful."

[Gizmo]

Kimber placed her hands on her jaw in reflexive sympathetic pain. "Impervium? But that's-- oh. Hm, I guess it's not like you've got teeth to break or anything, eh?" Admittedly the undead girl was still largely thinking in human terms, but the idea of 'you are what you eat' was simple enough. She suspected it helped that she didn't take the usual human bodily functions for granted quite so much as she must have when she was alive. "I think silver probably looks loads better than copper anyway," she asserted with considerable conviction, nodding emphatically for emphasis. "It's important to have your own sense of style, not just follow fads."

[Fox]

"That is very true," Indira agreed, looking pleased to be talking to somebody with some sense in them. "I do have some copper in me, of course, but not enough to color me unless I do so on purpose. I rather like the look of silver metals. They are...slimming, and much easier to make sharp."

She momentarily made her hand into a wicked, curved blade that probably could have cut the air itself, much less anything it was used on, before relaxing it back into an actual limb. "I do not know how interesting other fashion would be. Much of it is smell and shape - I think humans have...it is perfume? Our senses of smell are keener than yours, but we have similar products...and some are so concerned with fashion that they try to stay in a pleasing shape as much as possible. But they are...I think your equivalent would be people who wear very expensive, impractical clothing. It is only important if you want to look like somebody who cares very much about what they appear to be."

[Gizmo]

"If you ever wanna get some perspective on fashion, try being dead and crazy for fifteen years!" Kimber suggested, bobbing up and down in the air a little despite her ostensibly seated posture. "I don't actually remember what kind of stuff I wore when I was alive, but all the things I think look cool now are apparently all tacky or dated or whatever. Even if I owned any clothes, I'd need to buy new ones!" Granted, she couldn't actually wear real clothes any more and her ethereal nature meant she could put forward whatever outfit she wanted, but that was really beside the point. "Perfume is okay, but I guess I can't really use that stuff, either. Nowhere to spray it! Ick, and I don't think you'd want to use it then shapeshift so that it was inside you..." The faux-Kinigosi form rippled visibly as she shuddered.

[Fox]

Indira mimicked the shudder, a little ripple travelling down her body. "No, that can be...distinctly unpleasant, depending on what I end up with inside of me. We traditionally apply scents in a small spot, so that it can be smelled but is easy to...keep on the outside. Putting things inside of yourself is easy if you do so intentionally - I can pretend to eat, for instance - but folding something in from the surface is uncomfortable. I suppose that makes us a very clean people, at least. Nature has...I...do not think that idiom translates."

She furrowed her brow (and interesting feat, with three eyes), and thought on that one for a while. "I think the English equivalent is 'forced your hand'?"

[Gizmo]

"Oh, sure, that makes sense," Kimber agreed easily, nodding her smooth, blue-steel head. "I mean, if you mean what I think you mean than that's what that means, totally!" the phantom elaborated in an ill-advised attempt at clarification. There followed a few beats of thoughtful silence before her appearance faded in and out of focus, as though moving momentarily into the corner of Indira's field of vision, reappearing in her usual human form, pajama clad once more. "You said you didn't really have ghosts of Kinigos, right?" she asked her roommate with a small frown, an expression of sober consideration on the typically upbeat girl's face. "Did you mean you've never heard of a real one or that you don't have any stories about them?"

[Fox]

Indira pulled back into herself a little, more pensive than offended or afraid. She brought both hands up to where her lips would be, thinking. "That is...I think it may take some explaining. It involves religion, which is very private, for us. We have many gods, and Kinigosi who are not...the word is 'atheist'?...who are not atheists worship one, perhaps two."

She hummed a little, still trying to think of how to phrase or translate certain things, and finally just gestured at one of the few items she owned: it wasn't very big, taking up very little space on the wall where it hung, an odd item hand-crafted out of wood, rope, stone, and a couple strange bones. "We have stories, of course. Our ghosts, I gather, are not so different from your own - from you. They are transparent, and can fly; their eyes glow, however. They are not...as far as I know they have not been seen. We have a deity, I think you would regard her as female, and She would not care. She is complex, but one of Her major aspects is that she...um. She hunts the dead, the souls that have not properly moved on."

[Gizmo]

Kimber floated interestedly a few centimeters in the direction of the idol when it was indicated, but kept her distance. She'd been curious about the alien sculpture, of course, but learning that it held religious significance for her friend, she regarded it with measure of caution and respect. She turned back to Indira, floating in a tight circle, her expression sharply apprehensive. "...h-hunt?" Both hands closed slightly as they pulled up to her chin nervously, before she blurted, "You... you don't want to hunt me, though, right? I know I'm not really supposed to still be here but I don't want to hurt anybody and... and..." The spirit's hair sagged at though the literal wind had been taken out of her sails, her lower lip jutting slightly out in earnest distress. "And I don't want to die again."

[Fox]

"No!" Indira held her hands up in reassurance, shaking her head. "My goddess does not charge me with hunting of the dead. If the dead cause trouble, then perhaps, but otherwise that is the duty of Her and Her...you would say 'pack', I think. She is also a goddess of the hunt, and other things. I am charged to hunt the living, and the souls of living things I kill become Her prey. I...do not think She would come for your soul, anyway. In legends, the souls of aliens and alien creatures are left to their own gods unless She is personally impressed."

She blinked, realizing something. "And...I should mention that she only hunts souls who run? Those who face their judgement or afterlife are met with warm welcome. I cannot hope to imagine what She would think of you, or Earth, but there are stories of Her allowing souls to remain with the living when the need was great or their cause was just."

[Gizmo]

Letting out a relieved breath she hadn't strictly speaking been holding in the first place, Kimber smiled broadly. "Phew. Well, that sounds okay, then. I was kinda worried there." Floating a little lower toward the floor so that she was level with her seated roommate again, she balanced her chin in the hands. "I dunno about my cause being just, though. Dunno what my cause is. Amnesia is the pits sometimes." Sighing, she perked up again, apparently through sheer willpower, refusing to be kept down by the distressing subject matter. "Well fair's fair, I asked you a bunch of stuff. Anything you want to know about Earth?"

[Fox]

"Hmmm." Wraith, apparently just as relieved as Kimber was now that she knew this wasn't going to make their shared room terribly, terribly awkward, bobbed her head a little as she thought.

"Do all of your plants just...sit there?" the alien asked, quite sincerely, glancing up. "It is very disconcerting."

[Gizmo]

Blinking rapidly, Kimber gave her roommate a nonplussed look as she tried to frame an answer. "...sometimes you say things that make me think your planet is a very, very scary place, Indira," she noted frankly. The young alien woman tended to treat just about everything like it might suddenly try to kill her; moreover, that didn't seem to cause her any undo fear, only a general state of wary confidence. The impressionable phantom found it a little awe-inspiring on the whole. "Um, yeah, though, our plants don't really... move or anything, for the most part. There's like, some that eat insects, I guess, but that's sorta the exception."

[Fox]

"Oh!" Indira brightened a little at that news, rising up for just a moment before slumping again. "...oh. I had forgotten - your insects are all very small. That is not quite as exciting."

She hummed, frowning a bit as she pondered Kimber's comment. "I...suppose it does sound scary. It is not so bad, really, when you grow up there - and we are very hard to kill. Humans are....fragile," she said, gesturing helplessly. "Not all of them are so fragile, of course, but the normal ones...even the Lor, when they visit, stay in our cities. Here on Earth, I cannot help but feel that your trees are simply...waiting, and biding their time."

[Gizmo]

"Hey, you don't have to tell me about fragile!" Kimber pointed out with a giggling laugh, either oblivious to or simply not bothered by the somewhat macabre sentiment. She punctuated the statement by screwing up her eyes and sticking her tongue out comically while her appearance flickered almost too briefly to notice to that of a translucent blue skeleton with empty eye sockets and an unsettling pearly grin before returning to normal. "I don't think you have to worry about our trees, though. I spent a lot of time in the forest back home and they never tried anything, really."