[Open to All; Multiple Threads Welcome]

[modernholmes]

The more baffling a mystery was, the more interested Conan became.  But this was just too baffling.  He could remember all those weeks of believing he was somebody else.  How had that happened?  Had it been a dream?  Reality?  And if it was reality, how much did Neal
remember of that confrontation?  He kept turning all of these questions over and

Comments

[ledfromthepath]

Kat is outside the wall, prowling the fringe of the woods. She hasn't gone in yet- she's not sure she wants to, given how many mixed scents there are inside, only a few of them familiar. This must be where everyone else ended up.

Then there's a scent that's particularly familiar and particularly close, though... It's weird. Different. She raises her head to get a better whiff and spots Danny at the top of the wall, hesitates a moment, and then drifts out from under cover to look up at him. Her nostrils flare, she squints, and then says, "You smell more today. The hell is that about?"

sorry, forgot to switch journals

[invisibill]

Danny tenses and nearly fumbles the device when he that sudden comment. He hastily shoves it into his pocket and looks around nervously to find the source of the voice. That... that was the werewolf girl he'd met in the forest? And he smelled? What?

"Um, what do you mean?"

[ledfromthepath]

"You smell more? More like a person and less like where a person stepped? And you look..." She trails off, squinting at him. "What happened to the-" she waves at her eyes and her hair. "All that."

Kat's eyes narrow suddenly and her voice goes sharp. "You make a deal?"

[invisibill]

Oh this was so not good. About the only bright side Danny could see at this point was that it was Kat. Not a human. If anyone here could get the whole 'secretly only half-human' thing it would be a self-admitted werewolf.

None of which would matter if he couldn't get her to stop talking about it. Which meant admitting to what he really was.

Some days Danny hated his life. Sure all the ghosts back home knew what he was. But he'd never had to actually tell anyone. It was something all the non-humans knew.

He stands up, hastily glances around for witnesses, and hops off the wall to land next to her.

"Look, you can't mention this to anyone, okay? And I didn't make any deals." He rolls his eyes. "Give me a little credit. I'm not that stupid. This is just something I've always been able to do. And none of the humans around here know I can do it. I'd kind of like it to stay that way."

[ledfromthepath]

She hunches her shoulders in a shrug. "I dunno how stupid you are," she says, her lips twitching into a tiny smile. The rest of it makes her go quiet. She nods, slowly, looking up at the wall instead of at him. "I get you. And I won't. Promise."

[invisibill]

"Oh, ha ha. Very funny." He gives her a flat look. "Look, I've dealt with a wishing ghost before. Enough to know I want nothing to do with whatever these 'deals' are."

He blows out his breath and relaxes. "Great. That's great. Being dissected really isn't on my to do list."

[ledfromthepath]

"A wishing ghost." Kat shivers. "How do you even fight a ghost? You can't be an exorcist."

She squints at him. "Never heard of a... you know, who was an exorcist." As though she'd heard of real ghosts at all before now. Kat hugs herself a bit, looking up at the barracks wall with uncertainty on her face. "You really think the people here'd do that?"

[invisibill]

Danny shrugs uncomfortably. "Simple. I'm a ghost. I fight the troublemakers, trap them, and send them back to the Ghost Zone. It's kind of my job. Besides, who else is going to do it?"

He hesitates and follows her gaze back to the barracks. "I'd like to think they wouldn't. But I don't know. People do weird things when they're scared." Danny drops his voice and looks around them worriedly. "And last thing I remember from home was getting this part of me found out. They sent the government ghost-hunting goons after me. Wanted to take me in for experimentation. I'm not willing to risk that here."

[ledfromthepath]

For a second she just stares, and then swears under her breath, arms wrapped tighter around her own shoulders. "I thought I had it bad," Kat mutters. "All I was worried about was gettin' stuck in a zoo."

[invisibill]

He hunches his shoulders in nervously. "Reason number one I'm not exactly eager to find a way home. Even getting turned into a pelt on Skulker's wall would be better than that."

[ledfromthepath]

"You're gonna stay here?" Even given the way things were back on the other side, she can't imagine wanting to stay in the woods. It gives her time to think, to plan, but she's not saying - hell no.

"...Who's Skulker?"

[invisibill]

"Maybe? I don't know? I mean, I don't exactly have great options here." Yeah. Great choices. Stay here with the evil scary fairies or go home and spend the rest of his life as a fugitive from the entire planet. Possibly even from his own parents.

"Ghost I know. Thinks he's some kind of great hunter." Danny rolls his eyes. "He wants my pelt. Or possibly my head on his wall. It changes depending on how much I've pissed him off recently."

[ledfromthepath]

She grunts, scratching an itch on the back of her head. "I'll be in a cage when I go back. The guy that caught me, he doesn't want my head or my pelt or anything - just wants me to fight other Weres, for bets and prize money and stuff."

Kat walks to the base of the wall and plops down, changing subjects again without warning. "There's got to be some way to get them off your back, right?"

[invisibill]

Danny winces. "Geez, that sucks. Any way to get out of it?"

He sinks to the ground and joins her.

"I'm open to ideas. It's legal for them to do pretty much anything they want to me. I'm a ghost. We don't get human rights. Even passed a law about it. Technically it's illegal for me to exist. And considering I'm currently front-page news on every newspaper and tv station in the country, hiding is going to be difficult."

[ledfromthepath]

Kat shrugs, a tiny feral smile on her face. "He had me collared so I couldn't change back into a person. If I go back and I'm still out of the collar, then I can get out of the cage."

Then there's the matter of getting out of the building, but she'll cross that bridge blah blah blah. She growls and thumps her fist against the dirt. "That's like. Salem Witch Trials type wrong. It's not fair. They can't just decide you don't get to exist. Can't you fight them? Like, the same way you do ghosts? Maybe the other ghosts would fight too."

[invisibill]

He grins a little viciously. "Good. There's no excuse for collars."

And that was the problem, wasn't it. Most people though ghosts weren't aware. Couldn't feel. Didn't have emotions. What was it his Mom had called him once, an odd manifestation of ectoplasmic energy and post-human consciousness?

"...I don't want to fight them. I mean, everything I do is to protect humans."