crowspace | call me out v. 14.0

[At least she doesn't sound quite so angry now. And Gershom will never begrudge warning someone about Salvador.]

Salvador Michel. He's about six foot, tanned, blond ponytail, usually wears suit jackets and that kind of thing...

[She takes a deep breath- entirely unnecessary, but the habit's hard to break- and makes a shot in the dark:]

And is he the one you need such a powerful warding to keep out?

Ah - yes.

[No point denying it if she's noticed.]

He's very... fixated.

[Oh thank fuck, they're not dancing around the supernatural elephant in the room anymore. That's a relief.]

Undead, or just a necromancer? [Look, it's keeping her out pretty well, she's assuming it's probably intended for beings at least somewhat similar in nature.]

[It hasn't occurred to her that it's holy in nature as opposed to some kind of magic she doesn't recognize. In her defense, the last time someone attempted to ward her off with an article of faith was the time a man chucked an extremely tacky plastic White Jesus bobblehead at her head while running away and screaming. She hasn't really encountered the genuine article very often.]

Both?

You - you know about those things already?

[Well, this is awkward.]

...Er. [Yeah, this is just awkward now.] What did you think I meant by warding? Whatever it is that's keeping me from walking through your door, I mean.

[And she does very literally mean through it.]

[There's a pause, and then Gershom unlocks and cracks open the door.]

You can come in. Sorry for the trouble.

I'm beginning to think maybe I should be the one saying that to you... [Still, she slips quickly inside, not wanting to linger in case a neighbor comes out and starts asking awkward questions.]

[She looks ordinary enough, herself- pretty in an unthreatening girl next door sort of way, dressed with the prim precision of an old-fashioned schoolmarm.]

[Her reaction to finally getting a good look at Gershom is just:] Oh.

[That... does explain a lot about why he didn't want to meet her face to face, at least.]

I could have sworn that Momo wasn't aware of... [She briefly searches for a tactful way to encompass "at least two different kinds of undead, also magic", and awkwardly settles for:] ...our sort of people.

She's always been a bright girl, though. And curious. If any of the children was going to catch on, I suppose it would be her. ...Although if she was that determined to keep quiet about you, I suppose she hasn't figured out me yet.

[She trails off, looking vaguely embarrassed. She has a bad habit of trying to think out loud sometimes. In her defense, it took a few years before she could make living people hear her voice at all, she sort of got used to being able to monologue out loud.]

I don't think she was before she met me? I'm sorry about that too, I try not to get any notice. A-at least, I'm glad that it hasn't caused trouble for you...?

[He can figure that she's some kind of undead too, but only because of what she said, not through any ability to actually sense that kind of thing.]

[Her embarrassment fades into a sort of wry humor, as she says:] Well, I suppose they have to find out the facts of unlife at some point. At least it wasn't on the internet.

I'm not terribly worried about myself- I've been haunting the group home for a while now. If the management were going to notice anything, they would have noticed years ago. And as for the staff... in the first year I was there, a caseworker walked right through me on their way to the coffee machine and was so focused on getting their coffee and finishing their shift that they didn't even slow down.

[She winces slightly.] A necromancer, on the other hand... that's more of a worry. How likely is he to go after her, do you think?

Not very, I don't think? For better or for worse, he is mostly focused on me, so if we can convince her not to pick a fight with him again she'll be okay.

[Whether Gershom will be okay is another matter, but that's not her problem to worry about.]

...Are you going to be okay? [TOO LATE, SHE'S CONCERNED.] Not that you're not very capable, I'm sure- you're clearly very good at keeping out hostile spirits. But if he's a necromancer, too...

[Listen, she's spent most of her afterlife fussing over small children and setting terrible people on fire. The concept of just letting an issue be someone else's problem isn't something she's had much opportunity to consider.]

Ah - I think you're overestimating me, actually. I don't know any magic.

[This is not a reassuring thing to say, Gershom.]

...Oh dear. [Okay, this is definitely not making her less worried about him.]

Wait, then what was keeping me from...? [She turns around to look at the door, deeply confused.]

It's the mezuzah. I don't know if you're familiar with them...?

[Like, there is a reasonable Jewish population in DC, so it's fairly likely that she's seen them before at least.]

Huh! [She blinks, looking mildly surprised.] I don't know what it says about my afterlife that I thought of magic before I thought of religion.

[She was brought up half-heartedly Catholic, but the only time in her thirty-odd years of undeath she's even looked at a rosary was when she was briefly haunting a priest.]

[Well, it's not as though anyone can tell her grandmother she hasn't been to church in the last couple decades, now.]

I don't think anyone on the staff is particularly devout, so that probably rules out protecting the group home the same way. [Even as lax as she is on the subject, she can guess that a holy symbol without any actual faith behind it isn't going to do much.]

I think you have to actually believe for it to work... Sorry.

[He would happily recommend places to get a good mezuzah if he thought that would keep Momo safe, but alas.]

It's only fair, I suppose. [You can't get something for nothing.]

Those are only for hanging up in doorways, though, aren't they? What do you do for protection when you have to leave your apartment?

[Look, she's only known this guy for like a minute and a half but she's increasingly concerned that he seems to have very little concern for his own safety.]

I don't. Leave my apartment, I mean. If I went out looking like this, I'd have more problems than just him, nu?

[IT'S FINE, THIS IS FINE]

[...She really, really hopes this guy didn't become a lich until after the internet was a thing. Because "internet" is about the only answer she can think of to how he's possibly managing to get by without ever leaving the house.]

You mean you can't- [She frowns.] I'd heard liches could disguise themselves, but I guess I don't really know a lot about them. I know I can only make myself look like this at night, in sunlight I look... [She trails off, expression briefly uncomfortable, before settling on:] ...different.

But I shouldn't expect you to work the same way ghosts do, right?

[Privately, she's not entirely sure that other ghosts are specifically revealed by sunlight, either. Maybe they are, she hasn't met a lot... but she quietly suspects that her own complicated relationship with fire might have something to do with it. Whatever else the Sun is, it is burning.]

Most liches can, but it comes from also being a mage or something like that, not from anything innate to the lich...iness. I wasn't a mage before I was turned into this and casting spells is... a little bit frowned upon in Judaism?

So I just look like this all the time. A couple times a year I get a goy friend of mine to disguise me so I can go to synagogue for High Holidays.

call me out v. 14.0

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didn't get a notif, rude

No worries. :D

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