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 Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2014 5:25 pm
Pack yer bags and be gone from 'ere. Go t' th' school and learn what ye need t' be a true Bean Shidh. Then y' may return t' be my attendant in this dwelling.The words still echoed in Keen's mind as she drifted down the halls, looking at the new school she was to attend. Everything had happened so very fast, one moment she was joining her fellows and wailing for a newly dead mortal, the next she was being packed up. Packed up wasn't really the right term though, it was more like tossed out on her ear with her belongings already there ahead of her. Shaking her head she continued drifting, checking to ensure her note pad was still around her neck by a chain. It wouldn't do to be caught without a way to communicate in this place, it wasn't like anyone would like it if she even tried to open her mouth. Trying that never goes well. Finally finding a place outside a library she sat down, or perhaps hovered above a bench is more fitting and she let loose a silent sigh. Now that she was here she had no idea what to do. She was supposed to have gotten a sheet telling her what she needed to accomplish or something of the like but she must have lost it on the way. Stupid me, how in the world can I have lost my agenda already? She wrote in a neat script on the paper. And just my luck the school map would be with it. I am lost!She had no real need to write this, but it made her feel better to do so, something like a person ranting about their bad luck out loud for others to hear. Groaning she bowed her head and rested it in one palm, elbow on her knee, and ragged robes flowing around her. This was going to be one hard school year.
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Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2014 6:06 pm
Brand, for his part, had also been tossed out. He liked to build, where his fellows liked to tear apart. He didn't mind, so long as he could make a lot of friends, and fast-- he had a ton of siblings, a huge family, and a very tight-knit community back where he came from.
School would have to match at least several of these conditions, if Brand was ever going to last.
As he walked down the hall, he was in one of his trance-states. He was turning a piece of paper into a scarf, and back again, marveling at the change of words on the paper every time he swapped it out. It was also kind of exhausting, but it was very fun. This particular trance-state looked a lot like being drunk: his face was flushed, his steps stumbled. His black boots with their snakeskin sides clacked against the floor in a satisfyingly dramatic way as he stumbled towards and past the library.
That was how Brand accidentally tripped over the ghoul sitting on the floor, or else coincidentally stumbled exactly in front of her. He was still in his trance, lying there for a second, before he woke himself up from the pain of the fall. "Oooh, I fell over," he said, shaking his hand. From where he was lying on his back, he turned into his side, leaned an elbow on the floor, and rested his head into his hand.
He tried not to think about how dirty his clothes were. "I'll just have to burn them when I get home," he accidentally said aloud, referring to his dirty clothes. He was joking. His piece of paper, which was currently a scarf, had fallen somewhere. He didn't know where.
"Helllooo, I'm Brand. Do you sit on this floor often?" he asked, smiling. He still looked a little drunk, and he seemed to be trying a little too hard to enunciate.
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Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2014 8:36 am
Keen sighed deeply at the despair starting to eat at her, but before she could do something stupid like start wailing, a boil fell over her. Keen's mouth dropped open in silent shock as she looked at the rather fancy looking boil laying with a dazed look on his face. She frowned a bit and leaned over him slightly from where she was still hovering slightly. Uhh, did you hit your head? She was seriously concerned, he sounded kind of strange? She held the note out for him to look at the confused look clear on her face. His name was Brand, how interesting a name, it seemed to suit him some how. She started to write on a second paper. I am Caoineadh, but most call me Keen, when they call me anything at all.She shifted a little, crossing her legs letting her tattered death shroud fall better around her. Keen recalled that he had said something about burning something when he got home, and she had to wonder if he was a student here or not. Was home a room, or was he going to leave this place? She didn't feel ready to ask yet, so she just arched a brow and waited for him to respond to what she already offered.
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Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2014 9:11 am
Brand looked at the note, and then felt the back of his head with his other hand. "Maybe?" he practically purred, still in his trance, and unsure whether or not he had in fact hit his head. "Don't you talk? The voice is a beautiful thing," he said, and his head nodded back, as he fell back onto his back and stared up at the ceiling.
He started to laugh.
One hand shot up, pointing at the ceiling, as if an AHA! gesture. "Keen, Keen, Keen... do you have anything hmmm about as big as a vial? Or maybe bright blue? Or how about the weight of a biscuit? Oooh, or even salty..." Brand snapped his fingers, sat up, and dug around for the scarf he'd dropped. He balled it together, scrunching it up, licked it: "Yep! Salty," and then used his remaining trance-state to turn it into a bottle of smelling salts. He sighed.
"Not looking forward to this," he told Keen, and then uncorked it, inhaling the smell and starting to cough. He grimaced. Corked it again, and pocketed it. "Well! Now I'm back to my right self, that was a bit deeper of a trance than I meant; I guess I lost track of the rabbit hole while I was messing around," Brand admitted.
He smiled at Keen.
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Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2014 9:46 am
Keen parted her lips a moment thinking about speaking then shook her head a little. It would not be a good idea, she didn't want to risk sending this boil away when she hardly had time to get to know him. He still seemed a bit out of it as well, which was a double no situation. When he started to ask her for items she chewed her lower lip and glanced around herself. She had her note pad and pencil but to give those up would stop her from being able to communicate. She was just thinking about handing them over when Brand turned his scarf into a vial of some kind. Whatever he did seemed to have worked though. She widened her eyes and leaned toward him curious. What was that? Her graceful hands pointed to where he had secreted the vial. What a strange boil, but he seemed rather nice at least. No screaming no pointing and gibbering and fear that she was going to scream at him and kill him. Such strange things that worry others, it was as if others didn't bother to find out WHY banshee's wail. No matter. Brand had showed her some of what he could do, maybe she could befriend him a bit more if he knew what she could do. You made the scarf change! Would you like to see what I can change?
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Posted: Mon Sep 22, 2014 9:21 pm
Neither the pencil nor the notepad would have worked, and Brand would have merely politely refused either of them in any case, so she would have been safe. The objects had to hold at least one quality in common with whatever he wanted them to become.
"Psychonauts-- that's what my family is-- go into trance states to see, hmm... It's hard to explain to outsiders, actually," he admitted, smiling sheepishly. "The way I think about it is I can talk to the soul of an object, and I can convince it gently that it's really something else, and has been all along. But I can't convince things that are too big or things with living souls, because they don't listen, and I can only work off of something that already has an inclination to be that other thing-- does that make any sense?" He asked, shrugging, a smile on his face.
That was about as well as he could explain it. It was very unlikely he would be disturbed by a banshee; Reapers, after all, were pretty safe from ghostkind. "Sure, so long as it doesn't hurt," he said, with a wink.
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Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2014 5:03 am
Hmm, actually his explanation did make sense to her. She had heard of one who could take cloth of any kind and texture it like his skin to repair damage for a time, so what was so hard about what he was doing? Then again, she couldn't do it, so for her it would be impossible. She nodded and wrote down that he had done a good job letting her know about it, but now it was her turn. Concentrating she made herself invisible for a moment, restoring herself to the form of a very pale white ferret. It sat on the floor and chirped cutely at the reaper standing on her back feet. This was the other form she could take. It was great for spying or just watching a person who was her target. She flicked her tail a bit and scurried close wondering if she could get petting.
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Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2014 7:50 am
The only hard parts were all the rules involved, and then the trance states it took to use his abilities. He couldn't do it sober and alert, for example, so he was kind of in danger while he used it. That was another reason Psychonauts always travelled in groups. Pretty cruel of his family to send him off without a sibling or two, in fact.
"Cute," Brand said, smiling and reaching out a hand, "Fine to pet you? Chirp once if it is, twice if no," he said.
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Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2014 11:39 am
Keen could hold the form for quite a while but it kind of went transparent if she moved too much, which was why this was a great form for riding on shoulders or getting close to people who liked animals. She chirped once and moved under his hand, arching her back to get petted. So nice to have contact once in a while. She enjoyed the petting for a while before turning back to her normal form, using the same vanish and reappear method. She smiled and wrote down. That form is great for spending time with some people who don't mind animals. Her eyes sparkled a moment as she looked at Brand. People don't seem as scared of ferrets as they are of... well banshees. The last caused a bit of a whistful look on her face. Shaking her head a bit she tried to force away any sadness and just pay attention to the boil before her. So why did you come here? I was packed up and kind of... tossed here to learn or to .. well I guess I don't know what happens if I don't learn. I guess become a lost soul. That was a terrible though, to have nothing to go back to. Ugh, she had to make friends just in case she didn't return to her home.
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