ic Let's All Visit Kimber's Corpse

[Avenger Assembled]

In response, Tarva snapped her fingers and something black and writhing poured itself down into her hand, reshaping itself after a moment into a comically large shovel - comically if not for the look of deadly earnestness in her eyes. "You don't need to trouble yourself with that, Kimber," she assured her friend, reaching over to pat her cheek. "I'm certainly no expert compared to Daniel Storm," she said warmly, "but I'm sure even he doesn't have my experience in midnight forest necromancy, especially not over the cold bones of a friend. You know," she added, "time was I could have grown you a new body out of the bones, but that would require things that are hard to come by on Earth-Prime, oh, ever so hard!" She burst into laughter, then met Kimber's eyes with a big smile. "I certainly don't know anything about pitching tents or the mechanics of, er, raw survival in these woods," she added, looking around with a look of faint distaste on her pretty face. "Or I could just remove some of the trees for you," she hazarded. "We're all friends here! Up to you!"

[Fox]

The 'skin' on Indira's face started to pull back over nonexistent teeth again, but this time she caught the discomfort reflex. "If you attempt death magics on or near Kimber's remains...."

She trailed off, and for just a moment her three eyes closed, body becoming perfectly still; the alien equivalent of a human taking a deep breath. "....no, that is a conversation for another time. We are her friends, and we are here to help, but the task is to retrieve, not to...magic, and not to over-much disturb bones that deserve their rest. ....though I am not sure 'magic' is a verb?" She blinked at that, momentarily distracted by the vulgarities of the English language. "Regardless, I also offer my aid in the digging. I require neither fire nor tent of my own, and can make more...precise, or gentle...digging tools of my own."

[Gizmo]

"It's okay, it's okay!" Kimber assured Indira hurriedly, raising her hands in front of her her as she slid a step's span away from Tarva's touch. "I appreciate the, um, sentiment? But I didn't ask you to come along for that, Tarva. Uh. Any of that." Cheeks colouring a darker blue that blended in with the dark of the night, she decided that the less emphasis placed on the sorceress' peculiar pronunciation the better. She hesitated, looking around the group one by one before admitting, "And, well, I know you're actually all probably better than me at digging, with telekinesis or lots of arms or... It's just... It's been almost twenty years. I don't really want any of you to see that. See me. Like that." She ducked her head between her shoulders, expecting protests but not really wanting to hear them. It was a point she'd been hoping to avoid bringing up directly but there it was.

[Avenger Assembled]

"...of course!" said Tarva, her eyes widening and clapping her hands together, teeth drawing back in a smile. "What a wonderful idea that is, Kimber. Just let us know if you need any help." Hands behind her back, black nails digging into her palms, she turned to Indira. "Oh it's not really death magic, Indira, you can't raise the dead and have them be alive again with death magic!" she said with a laugh - one that maybe went on too long. "It's actually a very simple process in which umbral energies are summoned to animate the bones of the-well, that's not really important because it's not going to happen today!" She turned to Kimber and said, her voice uncommonly serious. "I will do anything you want me to do, Kimber."

[Gizmo]

"Please don't say that..." Kimber plead softly under her breath with a deeply distressed look, not meaning to vocalize the thought as all as she shot Indira a look that plead for patience. Indira and Tarva were both priestesses in their own fashions, she supposed, and she'd have to convince her friend to sit down with the Nihilor refugee at some point to hash out some ground rules, as little fun as she expected that conversation would be. For now she merely floated a few meters toward the Kinigosi and asked, "Just help Becky with the tents for now, okay? I'll fix it. I'll just... I'll fix it." The phantom turned about in the air with her hands raised and Tarva felt a gentle telekinetic prodding on her shoulder toward the edge of the clearing.

Once they were out of immediate earshot - Kimber tried not to think too much about telepathy or alien huntresses or whatever enhanced senses went along with being possessed by a murder spirit - she took a deep breath. "Okay. Okay, so, seriously though, I didn't ask you to come to make you do anything. I-I know that's weird for you after... everything, but all of this is partly for you, see?" Her eyes flicked up to meet Tarva's as she tried to tuck her ethereal bangs behind her ears before resuming wringing her hands. "I was just going to have Dan send the arm bone to me 'cause... I kinda didn't want to have to deal with all this. But in the park with that bald guy I, um, I ended up finding out a lot more about where you came from then I think you probably wanted to tell anybody here, at least not yet, and I know you feel safer when you can keep secrets so... that didn't seem fair." She tucked her knees up under her body, bobbing up and down well off of the ground and looked out into the darkened woods. "I thought that maybe if you got to see where I came from we'd sort of be even and you could feel safe again. It's pretty dumb 'cause it's not like my thing is even that bad but it's all I've got to show and I think I just ended up stressing everybody out, so stupid, but I was trying to help. Sorry I messed it up again." Despite her best efforts her shoulders were starting to shake and she'd begun reflexively fading into the shadows around her.

[Avenger Assembled]

The shadows were waiting for Kimber - a warm, comfortable embrace that swallowed Tarva up too. For the moment, they stood in a version of the forest where black was the dominant color; obsidian trees rose against an onyx sky where glittering jet stars shimmered like impossible jewels. Tarva seemed to blend with the darkness here; the lines of her dress merging imperceptibly with the darkness of the wood where they stood. "The bones are meaningless," said Tarva with authority, her voice blending into the shadows all around, seeming for a moment to come from everywhere. "I have stood on this ground before. This is the place where the person you were died and the person you are was born. I understand." The shadows rippled back, slowly, and the patch of forest gradually returned to normal. "When you were born here, would you have gone away if you could?"

[Gizmo]

"I figured you probably would." Kimber rubbed the back of her sleeve over her eyes but she had managed a small smile by the time she lowered her arm. "I kinda did go away for a while," she admitted, looking away for a moment before setting her jaw as resolutely as her heart-shaped face allowed and turning back to meet Tarva's eyes. "I spent a bunch of years haunting a cabin not that far from here, pretty much out of my mind. Eventually Dan showed up and tried to do an exorcism but I guess you can take the crazy out of the ghost but you can't take the ghost out of the crazy, eh?" She gestured at herself from her shoulders to her feet with a flick of her wrists by way of illustration before remembering who she was talking to and shoving her hands in her pockets self-consciously. "So... so I guess maybe I didn't want to leave in the end."

She looked like there was something she wanted to ask but after a moment's hesitation the poltergeist blurted out, "Your shadows are really nice! I-I mean they're warm. I would have thought they'd be cold and usually I like cold better, really, but... um..." She took her hands out of her pockets and put them on either side of her face in the vain hope of somehow stemming the tide of words tumbling out of her mouth. "Warm can be good too! Yeah..."

[Avenger Assembled]

"A living woman would not survive there for long." Tarva smiled faintly. "Well, not a normal living woman. Time bathing in the stuff of the shadowlands has left me with an inverted soul. What should drain life only strengthens mine - just as it does yours, and all like you." She looked away. "I do not speak of this. Even in the Terminus, shadow worship is considered fell and perverse - though for rather, ah, different reasons than on Earth-Prime. So I do not speak of it here, when..." Her voice trailed off, and she looked back at Kimber, her garments gradually merging with the true shadows now that it was growing darker and darker outside. "If you know what I am, then you know your compassion should be spent on your friend who has heard her god blasphemed and your friend who has spent of her goods and treasures. I will be well."

[Gizmo]

"Oh, they'll be okay!" Kimber assured Tarva with an unconcerned wave, glancing back toward the middle of the campground to see one tent fully set up and the second nearly ready to go. "Indira's annoyed but mostly just because she was worried you might do something that would hurt me." Her tone made it clear that the phantom didn't think that was a remote possibility even if she could understand from whence the fear had sprung. The alien warrior-monk was always a little protective of her less martial friend and for a people who didn't actually have bones themselves the Kinigosi seemed to give them a lot of significance. "You really ought to talk to her later, though. She knows what it's like to be the only person who worships the way you do on the whole planet. Oh, and Eve's just outrageously rich. Like, truly, truly, truly." She stretched her arms wide in an effort to convey the sum of the Frenchwoman's wealth. "She tried to explain just how rich to me once and just ended up saying that even with as much as she gives away she pretty much couldn't ever run out even if she wanted to try."

Floating closer to the witch as if she were sliding along a bannister Kimber added, "Plus she was planning to come visit Becky some time in the next couple of weeks anyway! She flies up here pretty regularly 'cause otherwise they don't get a chance to, um, share a tent much. ...you had that sort of thing back there, right?" It wasn't the most delicately phrased question and she was pretty sure she already knew the answer from Tarva's reaction to meeting the wendigo but she knew it would keep bothering her if she didn't outright ask.

[Avenger Assembled]

A flicker of uncertainty crossed Tarva's narrow features before she said, "We had...every sort of thing back there, Kimber." She looked Kimber in the eye. "Except this." And with that, she stepped close and kissed the spectral phantasm on the lips - she took her time this time, and when she was done, the dark glitter in her eyes seemed to promise more.  "Thank you for what you have done for me. Go and find your bones and bring them home," she told Kimber, so close her breath was warm on her face. "I will be fine. Your friends will be waiting for you when you get back. Everything will be ready then." She ruffled Kimber's hair affectionately, then turned back to rejoin the others as if nothing had happened.

Edited June 29, 2015 by Avenger Assembled

[Gizmo]

Kimber made a soft squeaking sound that was quickly muffled as Tarva closed the distance between them. Where the awkward, hurried mashing of mouths on Steelgrave's station had caught her off guard this completely derailed any coherent thought, the multiverse collapsing in around them. When the shadow witch stepped away the ghost leaned after her, wide eyed and lips parted, completely unable to formulate any sort of response until the taller woman had already headed back into camp. Floating silently in the air she began listing to one side until with a loud crack of protesting wood splintering the forest and clearing in a wide circle around her was abruptly covered in the thick frost of a preternaturally intense cold snap.

"Hhhwoahmyjams," she murmured, fingertips to her lips as her stilled thoughts erupted in a million incomprehensible directions at once. What did--? Did she--? But then--! How could--? If they--! Couldn't be--! Why now--? After a few beats Kimber simply lifted her shovels back into the air on either side of her and bobbed off into the woods, doing her best to stifle a hysterical giggle and trying to just think about hockey.

[Fox]

Indira was simply sitting, idle, by the time Tarva came back - they'd apparently managed to pitch the tents, and from the scuff marks one of the stronger folks had dragged a couple logs into the middle of the clearing as well. It was on one of these that Indira was perched, still alien and bipedal...but, unusually, her head was flanked on either side by a series of long, delicate metal needles that extended up and back a few inches past the top of her head.

She made no effort to hide them, though once Tarva had rejoined the group they retracted, melting back into the rest of her. "We could light a fire, if anyone would like and has a source," she offered, gesturing at the end of her log - the hand that gestured briefly extending out into something a bit like a saw, if the 'teeth' on a saw looked more like their namesake. "I understand that it is tradition, though I confess I am unsure who all of us would need one."

[Avenger Assembled]

Tarva returned to the camp looking very pleased with herself, smiling and practically radiating dark pleasure as she joined Indira by the logs. "I can only summon the Black Flame that gives no heat, gives no light, and can never be put out." She sat criss-cross before the unlit fire, placing her hands in an OK sign on her knees. "A fire should be lit, for the benefit of those who cannot provide their own warmth. But for now, let us sit and entertain ourselves," she said warmly to the others. "Until Kimber returns." She had, naturally, not brought a source of flame with her. Leaning back, she looked up at the whirling pool of stars overhead, her long black hair brushing the ground behind her. "This is going to be a very stimulating night, wouldn't you say?" she asked, her dark outline thicked and empowered by the night around them. "I feel like I could just...jump out of my skin and run into the woods around."

[Gizmo]

"That's... an image," Becky commented diplomatically, giving Tarva a sidelong look as she stooped to arrange an armful of kindling in the recently created fire pit. "I'd just as soon not go full-wendigo just to grow in my fur," she explained to Indira as she retrieved a lighter from her pack, glancing over her shoulder in Eve's direction. "I've got a blanket big enough to share in here, too. Just in case." The grin she gave her girlfriend was decidedly wolfish.

The campfire was lit in short order and crackled away quietly while the True North member took a seat on the end of the unoccupied log. Avro took a seat at Indira's feet - or at least what passed for feet in the more or less humanoid form she was holding - and stared entranced at the flames, not entirely sure what to make of them.

[April]

Eve laughed.

"Why do you have to make everything weird, Tarva," the petite telepath asked with a chuckle, repositioning herself to sit next to the chocolate haired Canadian.  Resting her head against Becky's shoulder, Eve grinned impishly at the shadow priestess.  "When we get home Tarva your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to spend the day in the city.  I want you to see how people talk and act and live."

"I will expect a report, of course," Eve added.  "These are the people we've chosen to help from the shadows.  It serves our purpose if we can blend in among those we protect."

Edited July 1, 2015 by Sorus

[Avenger Assembled]

"...Who, me?" said Tarva with a pretty little laugh, pulling herself out of some inner monologue to follow Eve's suggestion. "Well, if you like, Eve," she said with a smile, stretching one long, pale leg out before the fire, her skirt riding up past the knee as she basked in the warmth of the flames. Her eyes widened suddenly, though, and she put a hand over her heart. "But-but what about that Omegadrone?" she asked, the edges of fear trembling around her voice. She knew Eve had gotten that story well enough. "He told me there are two of them in this dimension," she told Eve. "You know what they'll do to me if they catch me away from your protection," she went on, looking around the darkness of the forest as if those same Omegadrones were about to swoop down and carry her away to some dire fate. "If anything...happens out there, you'll protect me, won't you?" 

[Fox]

"If they find you, then you are not blending in," Indira pointed out, though it wasn't entirely without sympathy. Her leg had grown an arm, which was busy giving Avro skritches, but the rest of her seemed content to sit quietly and enjoy the fire. "Speaking from experience, it is a very important skill. It is...mmm. The phrase does not translate well," she admitted, even her third skritching-hand stopping for a moment as she wrestled with language.

"You have a phrase...'sink or swim'?" the alien attempted, blinking. "It is like that. A chance to learn, under pressure. If you do well, and draw no attention, then you are fine. If you draw attention, then you have done something wrong and can learn - and are unlikely to be badly hurt before one of the city's many heroes intervenes. Omegadrones are strong, but in my experience are not so strong as to kill someone like you outright, even if they could act openly."

The hand resumed its attention to Kimber's pet. "I feel that you could do well, if you chose to. If Eve and Kimber wish to be extra-sure, one of us could follow from a distance. You would not know where we were, or how far away, but we could step in if needed. It is an old trick for training new hunters."

[Avenger Assembled]

"I'll talk to Kimber later tonight," said Tarva, looking away for a moment. "I'm sure we can come to an understanding." She smiled, then, and turned back to the others - her smiling teeth white against the dark outlines on her pale face. "I feel very safe in the company of such mighty heroes as yourselves." She studied the fire for a moment, then suddenly leaned forward, thrusting her hand into the open flame! She didn't flinch or cry out, even as a faint trail of black shadow began drifting up from the back of her hand like umbral mist. "So," she said brightly, flames reflected in her eyes, "here we are. Should I have the shadow demons catch us something to eat?" she offered. "Kimber may be some time."

[Gizmo]

In fact nearly two hours had passed by the time Kimber floated back into the clearing, shovels caked with dirt and other stains that were harder to identify in the dark of night bobbing up and down in the air behind her. The phantom's shoulders were sagging and weariness was etched across her face but levitating just above her outstretched hand was the unmistakeable yellow-white length of a human humerus. Letting the digging tools fall blade first into the ground so that they lodged themselves upright like little imitations of the trees surrounding them, she took a moment to compose herself. At some point she's subconsciously let her ectoplasmic clothes becomes rumpled and her hair disheveled to reflect how she was feeling. With a little exertion of willpower she schooled herself back into a more presentable appearance and surveyed the campsite.

The campfire had been responsibly put out once it was no longer needed, the remaining charcoals cooling in the pit. Soft music coming from a tinny portable speaker mostly covered up the rustling from Eve and Becky's tent and Kimber was glad that the trip had been fully enjoyable for at least some of them. She doubted Indira had been able to sit still for too long with so much new territory to explore around them and if the sleepless Kinigosi was stalking through the woods there was no question where Avro had gotten to. There was no sign of Tarva but the black tent sent up between its red and blue twins was zipped up as surely as the other two.

Not sure if she was disappointed or relieved, Kimber headed for the third tent and undid the double zipper on the door with a wave of her hand. Once she stowed the bone away she could try to track down Indira and Avro or maybe just enjoy the quiet for a while. Emotionally drained as she was, the latter sounded like the better plan.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Hear me, Amarok," Tarva pled in the darkness of her tent, her voice a soft whisper as she prostrated herself against the floor, the wards she'd placed on the walls shielding her words from the others. "Hear my plea beneath your obsidian skies. Guard my steps and guide my mission. And if I fail, let me be devoured in your mighty jaws." When it was done, she rose to a crouch, her supernaturally attuned senses feeling every spiritual presence within the campground. When she felt Kimber approach, she went about the business of dressing herself. First she wrapped the shadows around herself like a blanket, albeit one that cut low in the chest and high in the leg, summoning the spectral garments as opaque as the skies above. That would, she fancied, fit the mood of the evening. She applied a spectral bandage to the wound on her back that had produced the wards, making sure it blended in with what she already wore. 

When it was done, she unzipped her tent and walked out into the night, heedless of the cold and the feel of stones beneath her bare feet, making a beeline straight for Kimber's tent. Once there, she scratched on the side of the structure, loud enough to be heard inside. "Kimber?" she whispered throatily. "Are you there?"

[Gizmo]

"Oh, um, yes! Just a second." Being able to ignore gravity certainly made turning around inside a tent less cumbersome and Kimber had the door to the tent flung open almost immediately, her head sticking out. In a moment of self-conscious embarrassment she looked over her shoulder at the humerus sticking out of the top of her backpack and quickly folded the top flap over the bone with a telekinetic push. "Ah, mission successful!" she clarified with a bit of forced cheer, giving the shadow priestess a smile that reflected a tiny bit of pale moonlight. "I didn't wake you, did I? I-- um. I actually don't know if you even sleep, come to think of it. N-not that it's any of my business anyway! I just meant, that is, uh. ...hi?" She gave a small wave reflectively then clamped her mouth shut for long enough to hear whatever it was Tarva wanted to say.

[Avenger Assembled]

"No, I wasn't sleeping." Tarva smiled back, her eyes dark and deep as she looked into Kimber's - Kimber could practically feel the strong emotions radiating off the shadow witch, like the faint vibrations from a tightly wound spring. "I couldn't sleep on a night like this, not one that's so...important. Eve and Becky are sleeping and Indira and Avro are away hunting for pleasure - I have a feeling they'll both be gone a long time. There are so many things to see in woods this old." Her canine teeth flashed in the starlight, set against the black lines on the inside of her face. She looked over Kimber's shoulder and nodded in satisfaction, her smile broadening. "I knew you could do it, Kimber. May I enter?" she asked with a significant look down at her bare feet. "It's colder than I thought out here..." 

Edited July 2, 2015 by Avenger Assembled

[Gizmo]

"Well, I don't really know if..." Kimber began before losing her train of thought in favour of noticing how starkly the teeth in Tarva's smile contrasted with the pitch black of her... well, dress wasn't really the right word, but... At that point the poltergeist realized she'd been staring silently for long enough to be noticeable and simply slid backward through the air to make room in the doorway. "Mmhmm."

Besides Kimber and Indira's bags packed full of supplied the tent was empty on the inside, with only the built-in lining on the floor making it at all preferable to the dirt and stones outside. "We didn't bring any sleeping bags or blankets or lanterns for in here," the ghost explained with some obvious distress, focusing on not letting any of her inherent chill spill out of her ethereal form as it had earlier. Thinking about earlier made the focusing especially challenging. "Sorry, this probably isn't any better! You don't have to stay up on my account, really."

[Avenger Assembled]

"It's all right, I feel much warmer now," said Tarva, her smile deepening and for a moment looking oddly like Avro. "Kimber, I'm so...glad you brought me here. I've come so far in my time on Earth-Prime, why, I feel entirely like a different person. Do you remember all that silly poetry I wrote for you?" she asked, slowly moving towards Kimber. She was too tall to actually stand up inside the tent, but bending forward seemed to catch the ghost's attention. "About the dark soul roaming alone forever in the forest of solitude?" She reached down and undid the front bindings of her robe, and suddenly the entire garment slipped away into nothingness. Which was what she was wearing with the robe removed. "Well, I'm not alone anymore..." And with that said, she leaned in for another kiss. 

[Gizmo]

Kimber's eyes went wide and her mouth fell open as the robe disappeared but after a reflexive look in the direction the garment had fallen it was Tarva's face that had her full attention. What she found there had her shooting backward through the air to the other side of the tent, undisguised heartbreak etched into her own expression. "Oh-- oh, no, I..." One hand came up to cover her mouth while the other clutched at her stomach as though overcome by sudden nausea. Of course Tarva thought this was something that she had to do, Kimber had said as much to Indira on the plane, she couldn't believe that she'd still let this happen, hadn't fixed things properly before this could happen. "Nonononono... I t-told you that you didn't have to, ever have to, I did, but I let y-y-you..." The rest of the beleaguered sentence became unintelligible as tears filled the young undead woman's eyes and the words coming from her shaking head dissolved into a barely discernible rhythm of, "M'sorry, m'sorry, m's'sorry..."