call me out v. 15.0

[misheard]

Call out one of the characters from my muselist with a starter, a prompt, a general 'hey can we do something with these characters' comment, a smoke signal, etc., and I'll get back to you with some kind of RP thread!

Old CR, new CR, assumed CR, canonmates, AU, crossover, whatever, it's all good.

Comments

you know what this is

[ghostsguysgyuudon]

[So that was it. She got into her modern school uniform, said her goodbyes, and stepped through the portal. The kitsune charm on her phone was cracked; there was no way she could go back to the past even if she wanted to. She knew she would want to, she hadn't been lying back at the banquet hall, but she had to move forward. Everything had been leading to that, hadn't it? So it was fine. It was fine.

...Well, it might have been if she'd stepped out onto the stage again, or into the street, or her house, or anything she actually recognized.

Mei starts to wander the labyrinthine library, but gets herself turned around in no time, looking increasingly more worried and exasperated as she goes. Until she takes a deep breath.]

Come on, Charlie-san! You know this isn't right. Where did you send me?

[strayleaves]

[No Charlie here, unless you're looking for Baudelaire, but there is a weirdo in an eyepatch.]

A young woman, lost and alone in a strange library? How 'bewildering'.

[A weirdo in an eyepatch and with somewhat stilted Japanese.]

Did you come out of a book, I wonder?

[ghostsguysgyuudon]

Wah --!

[Mei startles a little. She coughs, bows politely, and looks around.]

I'm not sure about any books, but, um... it's not something I can really explain!

[Last time, she had kind strangers to bail her out of this. This time, as she freezes, there's nothing but books.]

What -- what do you mean by out of a book? [Maybe that'll help.]

[strayleaves]

The world inside books is a mysterious place!

[Possibly one of the least helpful authors she could have run into.]

But you don't seem to be a character.

[ghostsguysgyuudon]

[She sighs.] It's like I never left... Wait, character? You don't really mean someone who isn't real, do you?

[strayleaves]

Real people don't usually live in books, most of the time!

[ghostsguysgyuudon]

You're definitely reminding me of a few people. [sigh] But I'm not some kind of youkai or anything, really! I just ended up here, and I'm not sure how I'm supposed to get out. I didn't mean to bother you in your... house?

[strayleaves]

Sad, I would love to meet a youkai... But I can show you the way out of the National Library. This way.

[literally all of these bookshelves look the same]

[ghostsguysgyuudon]

[Mei follows along.] Thank you! I hope people don't come in and get lost in here too often. I've never seen a library like this before.

[strayleaves]

Hm, let's see... We had a few alchemists pop out of books and become lost here once. Not the kind of alchemists that work here, a different kind.

[ghostsguysgyuudon]

Wait, alchemists? For real? And you're just saying that like nothing's strange about it?

[strayleaves]

Of course! The world is full of 'mysterious and awesome' things.

[ghostsguysgyuudon]

That's a little... I mean, yes, that's true. But don't people in this day and age try and look away from that? It's not something you can say on the street without people avoiding you, like it was in -- like it would have been in the past.

[strayleaves]

That's true. People do give you the strangest looks sometimes... But here in this library, we know all about the wonders of the world, and what we don't know we're learning.

[ghostsguysgyuudon]

What kind of place is this? [She goes quiet.] Is everyone here a tamayori? -- oh, but you mentioned you hadn't seen youkai. That makes sense, someone I knew lost an eye and then he couldn't see them anymore either...

[strayleaves]

I think we're closer to tsukumogami? Or just ghosts, something like that.

[ghostsguysgyuudon]

Wait, then -- then you're...

[She looks around, and seeing no one, calms down a little. Not much. Still flailing.]

I'm sorry! It's hard to tell sometimes, and since most people can't see them, I just... I didn't expect you to start talking about that sort of thing. [nervous laugh]

[strayleaves]

We're not supposed to, but we're all very bad at keeping secrets here!

[Not a hint of shame.]

[ghostsguysgyuudon]

...Right. So what exactly is this place? I was supposed to come out back where I came from instead.

[strayleaves]

This is a library, where the spirits of past authors are summoned to do battle with malevolent creatures for the protection of literature.

[ghostsguysgyuudon]

Wait, but -- but I never wrote anything myself! The most I did was -- I mean, a few people said I might have inspired their work, but that shouldn't be enough to send me someplace like this, right? And what do you mean, battle?

[strayleaves]

If you aren't dead, you shouldn't have to worry about being summoned the usual way? Whether you wrote anything or not.

[And they'd just established that she was treating him as a normal person who wouldn't necessarily know spirits, so...]

[ghostsguysgyuudon]

I'd better not be dead! And I assume you don't know Charlie-san, if he isn't going around sending girls to different time periods.

[strayleaves]

Not unless you mean Charles Baudelaire? That seems like the kind of thing he might do.

[ghostsguysgyuudon]

Is he a shady magician who appears and disappears when he feels like it?