Come Clean, All Around Me [Open]

[ghost_bait]

Miku was a fairly religious young woman; you didn't go through life seeing the dead on a constant basis without needing, no, wanting, to put your faith in something. Unfortunately, Miku knew she'd been a little remiss in her duties to her family members. She sat in a small, created room in the sensoriums, a 10-mat tatami room with wood-barred

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[lilyofthedrills]

Realizing what she'd stumbled in on, Yuri quietly slunk back. This feeling was familiar, as old as childhood, as attending the funeral of grandparents she hardly knew. It was a melancholy yet warm feeling, and in it was the slow uncurling of maturity within her.

She stepped slowly backwards, not wanting to disturb Miku-neesan, trying to get out the doorway. However her heel bumped the hard oak of a low table and she looked up.

Nervously smiling, she made the two claps for the dead.

[ghost_bait]

Miku smiled and patted a spot next to her. "It's okay, Yuri-chan, I was almost through. I was just telling them not to worry." She wasn't sure if Yuri had anyone to pray for, but if she didn't, it would be rude to keep her in the little altar room. "Were you looking for me? I'm sorry."

[lilyofthedrills]

Yuri sat next to her and bowed deeply enough to the altar that her pigtails flopped forwards. She didn't ask who they were, but gave Miku a gentle glance. "No, I just stumbled in here by accident. Miku-neesan, did you have any nightmares?"

[ghost_bait]

"A few, but, it's okay." They were a little more wild than they used to be, but it was still a nightmare. She could still wake up, even if she was scared and breathless and had twisted the sheets around her.

"What about you? You know you can always come to my room if you're frightened."

[demon_alessa]

The recent conversation with Nanoha had made Alessa a little more unnerved than usual, but she felt, at least, that she'd overcome a milestone. Now she knew that there was an Alessa, a different one, that may have had a hand in the creation of this King, she felt confident that he could be beaten. After all, she knew that even she, at full strength, could be beaten, that meant the King could as well. All it would take, it seemed, would be the galvanization of the crew. After all, while her fears could not be played on her by a thing like the Nightmare King, he could certainly play on the fears of the crew and eventually harm them

[ghost_bait]

"Ah!" Miku looked up in surprise. "I... It's Buddhist." That was the nice thing about family altars, and her fluid religion in general. Buddhist funerals and Shinto everything else. Even if some of the rites were extraordinarily and terribly bloody not to mention out of character for the whole of the Shinto beliefs.

In the back of her mind, something crackled with static, sending a warning little thrum deep into her heart. She'd take care. "My tablets and altar are all gone now, but, even an illusion works well."

[demon_alessa]

Alessa watched her carefully. This was definitely a curious girl, and there was something about her that was definitely a little different from the humans that she'd met. She gazed at the altar a moment, then back at the girl.

"I've always preferred a more open, flowing belief than that concentrated on human improvement rather than an all knowing being," Alessa remarked. "Spirits are certainly real, and should be acknowledged as such, but giving power to a solitary being is a bit much."

She paused, "What is the purpose of what you are doing anyway?"

[ghost_bait]

"The purpose? Hm... Well, it's to tell them that I'm doing well, and not to worry. " Miku looked back at the portraits of her family members and smiled. "So I can them rest easier, I suppose. No earthly attachment means no ghosts, after all."

"And..." she trailed off, as though she were about to say something else, and brushed her bangs from her eyes. "Besides, funerary rites are more for the peace of the living, too.

[diana_inthecia]

It wasn't often Diana found herself in the Sensoriums, but today was one of those days she found herself there. Following the voice, the Amazon soon found someone speaking to something. Was she speaking to herself? The dead? Something which wasn't there?

"Are you okay?" Diana spoke up.

[ghost_bait]

Miku jerked in surprise and squeaked. Her shoulders stiff, she turned around and smiled sheepishly up at the tall woman. "I... I'm fine?" Well, startled, but there wasn't anything wrong with her. She'd just been...

Well, she supposed it would look weird to a foreigner. Yuri-chan hadn't been very bothered by it, but Yuri was also Japanese.

[diana_inthecia]

Everything tended to look strange to Diana. Just when she thought she understood American customs, she found she didn't truly understand them at all. Maybe it was her lack of understanding of humans in general. That, of course, didn't mean she wasn't open to learning more about different cultures.

She offered Miku a calm smile. "Are you alone here?"

[ghost_bait]

Miku nodded, feeling sheepish, "I am." She had a little feeling in her heart that this person was probably someone important. She certainly seemed to hold herself in a confident manner. Miku bowed deeply, showing great respect and deference to Diana.

"My name is Miku Hinasaki. It's very nice to meet you."

[feelnothinatall]

"I don't think you're that strange," Ahava spoke up from her position in the doorway. She hadn't intended to interrupt whatever it was the girl was doing, but the fact she was talking to herself alone in here was unusual to say the least.

[ghost_bait]

Miku stiffened turned around slowly, "I... Ah, thank you." She furrowed her brow, as if internally berating herself for saying thank you, when she wasn't sure what she was thanking. "I was... just... talking to my relatives..."

[feelnothinatall]

"But there isn't anyone..." Ahava glanced around, the pictures obviously catching her eye. "Oh. I see. I can leave if you need time alone," she said quietly.

[ghost_bait]

Miku looked back at the iei portraits and smiled. "No, I was finished; they're always with me, anyway." Not in a creepy, haunting way (any more) but it probably sounded that way. It didn't occur to Miku to correct herself.

[deep_sky_diving]

With the heels of her suit retracted for the moment, Tess moves surprisingly quietly across the tatami. Her lips purse, as she catches sight of what Miku's doing-she pauses just barely into the room, not wanting to interrupt something that seems like it could be very important to her friend.

[ghost_bait]

Miku reached up and pushed her loose hair off her shoulders. Yuck, there was a reason she kept it up all the time. It got in the way, otherwise. It also made her feel like she was all of 10, and that was to be avoided at all costs, what with her baby face of unaging. "Mom, I tried making your okayu, but I still can't; maybe some day."

There was something that suddenly changed in the air around her. It smelled faintly of some kind of flower, but chilled. Miku's shoulders stiffened, then relaxed. "Hello, Tess-chan," she said and looked over her shoulder.

[deep_sky_diving]

"Hey-uh," Tess says, snapping a sudden smile back at Miku. "Sorry if'n I got in the way've anythin'," she adds, and a mildly awkward note hovers at the edge of her voice, unsure whether to leave or stay. And Miku had wanted to talk to her about something...

[ghost_bait]

"No, it's fine, I was done anyway..." Miku smiled, though no less awkward than Tess. Still, bolstering her courage by talking to her dead relatives had helped a little, little bit.

Miku patted a space next to her, though it didn't immediately occur to the girl to wave away the room around them.