✈001

[dragonsmith]

[There are a few extraneous scribbles across the page, with a handful of minutes between each of them before he actually writes any words. His handwriting is small, messy, and slants hilariously sideways, regardless of whether or not the pages have lines on them.]So can anybody else actually read this, or am I crazy for believing that see-through

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[ridestherider]

Yes, we can all read it. [More or less.]

[dragonsmith]

Right then. And who constitutes "we" and "all" these days?

[ridestherider]

There's Reno up there, and Mitsuru and Hope, and myself ... there are quite a few of us here, but I haven't really spoken to many of them.

[dragonsmith]

Reno, yeah. Kind of a funny name. [Not that we're one to talk.] Mitsuru and Hope... are also funny names.

[ridestherider]

Reno is sort of an unusual name to me too, but I've heard of people being named Mitsuru and Hope before.

I'm Natsumi, by the way.

[dragonsmith]

Natsumi. Reno, Mitsuru, Hope, Natsumi.

[Beat.] Well nice to meet you either way, I'm Hiccup.

[ridestherider]

[A pause, long enough to giggle a little. "Hiccup"?] Nice to meet you too, Hiccup.

[dragonsmith]

[Yeaahhhh, great name. We know.] So what exactly does a person do around here? I'd have to say Hide and Seek with the transparent locals might be a little unfair.

[ridestherider]

Not a lot, right now. Trying to stay warm and alive is pretty much it. The "locals" are often hostile, so playing games with them at all is probably not a very good idea.

[dragonsmith]

[Nods at the journal.] Warm and alive. Gotcha. I feel like I have an unfair advantage, this temperature is pretty normal to me. ...And no games with the locals.

...transparent and hostile locals. Man, I have got to be dead.

[ridestherider]

[There's a long pause.] I don't know if you're dead, but they may be.

[dragonsmith]

[A possibly comparable pause follows.] Don't think I'd thought of that. I could be dead, but I'm considerably more opaque than the guy at the door was, so maybe not.

[ridestherider]

Most people seem to agree they're probably ghosts. There's one other possibility I could think of, but I haven't had an opportunity to test it yet.

[dragonsmith]

Can't say I've ever met a ghost before, so I wouldn't know. What's your theory?

[ridestherider]

Neither have I, which is why I'm hesitant to believe it.

Have you ever heard of a Mirror Monster?

[dragonsmith]

Can't say I have, but my dad's reflection when he gets woken up before he wants to might be comparable.