[baby it's cold outside]

[sevenhorrorsmods]

Who: everyone!
When: the weekend of September 5
Where: around
What:
Warnings:

[The "staffing issues" from last weekend have seemingly resolved themselves; the food at the cafeteria is back to normal levels of mediocrity! Which is good, because something else seems to be stalking the school hallways today]

[You hear it before you see it. Footsteps that echo behind yours, perfectly in sync with every step you take. Turn around and there is no one there. . . but you do see a set of bloody footprints trailing after you. They aren't your footprints (they belong to someone's bared feet, while you're presumably wearing shoes), and they slowly vanish the longer you stare at them. Creepy! Weird!! Unsettling!!]

[But maybe not as creepy as the ghost of a hand you feel brushing against your shoulder. It's a light touch. It's a cold touch, ice flowing through your veins as it chills you from the inside out, sending your teeth chattering and your body trembling. No matter what you do, for the next 24 hours, you cannot seem to warm yourself up. Blankets don't work. Physical activity doesn't work. Hell, even a steaming hot shower back at the dorms doesn't seem to thaw you out. You're not quite hypothermic, you may be close!!]

[What does work to dispel the cold, however, is. . . . . . . . . . . body heat. Snuggling up with someone else and/or sharing a blanket will warm characters up in a pinch. Maybe it's pillow fort and/or sleepover time?? Go find a partner and take care of yourself]

[The footprint ghost will linger throughout the weekend before disappearing on Monday morning]

[ALSO PLEASE USE THIS POST FOR ANY AND ALL MINGLE THINGS EVEN IF THEY ARE NOT RELATED TO FOOTPRINT GHOST. I'M NOT THE BOSS OF YOU]

Comments

[velluminous]

[ ugh. she wasn't asking him to justify. ]

Don't. Not everything you speak of must be tailored to my life before you speak it.

[ratiocinations]

“Tailored.” Please. I do believe most people call it “consideration.”

[velluminous]

Do not wrap me up in semantics when I am trying to be gracious, Mister Adair. It is rare for me.

[ratiocinations]

[OR she could have just accepted his apology, but they could go in circles about this all day.

So, instead. Backtracks a bit, taking advantage of her grace, if she’s going to claim it so readily.]

…will you really not tell anyone about this school when you return home?

[velluminous]

[ her face is turned away from him, but perhaps that is, in itself, the most telling. for as tightly as she holds onto his arm now, it is strange to deny then the intimacy of looking at him. but this is not an intimate moment. in fact, it feels as though the breadth of an ocean lay between them. ]

No. [ very decisively, without hesitation. but quiet. ] No; no one. There are none who deserve to know it.

[ratiocinations]

[None who deserve it, or none she’s close enough to? Are they one and the same?

The fact that he loses her gaze does little to abate his belief about her loneliness.]

What, then? You will continue on as though nothing had happened?

[velluminous]

When I get home— [ if she gets home; the thought feeling more and more like a fantasy ] —I will continue to live. Yes. This is real. It happens to me. But that day, it will also be "past".

[ratiocinations]

So you will simply treat it as though it were… nothing more than a very feverish dream.

[velluminous]

No! I will treat it as everything else in my life which is gone by! Are you listening even little bit?

[ratiocinations]

Of course I’m listening. It merely seems to me that an experience like this is not one where you return home, think back on it with fond [or not so fond] musings, and say, “Oh, what a strange thing that happened to me. Now, what’s on the docket for today?”

[velluminous]

[ what is she supposed to say? she already said: she has no one. only enemies and, in every sense of the word, burned-out flames.

a shivering shrug. ]

It will have to be.

[ratiocinations]

[With no other recourse, it must be.]

Well. [Well. He doesn't know what to say to that, really.] You may write your classmate letters on occasion, letting me know precisely what you are up to. How the research goes, et cetera. We need only find a post that delivers multiversally.

[velluminous]

Yes. Only that.

[ratiocinations]

[Ms Fairplay please 😭 He's trying.]

It was a joke, of course, but it would not be so bad actually to receive letters from you.

[velluminous]

[ with sudden emotion, now turning to face him, ] Well, of course I would want that!

[ratiocinations]

[The sudden surge of emotion surprises him, though it shouldn't. In many ways, this part of her reminds him of when he was younger, so certain that he didn't need anyone else, that the human connection did not need to be anything more than distant. These days, he is certainly old enough to know better. That distance was not always pleasant.]

Then write to me. And I will write back. Heaven knows that you cannot allow all the connections you've made here to sever so easily.

[velluminous]

[ feels as though there are burrs in her throat ]

Good! I will.

[ another woman might close the sentiment out with a lighthearted joke: you will be sick of before the week is out. Severine—Sprezzatura—can think of nothing so witty to say. only the promise she desperately finds herself wanting to keep. ]

[ratiocinations]

[Poor Ms Fairplay.]

Good. Then it is settled.

[Is it? As though a thing would be so easy; as if it doesn’t feel like an epoch away. But he can see how quickly she clings to this promise, how important it must feel in this moment, and so… that’s that. It will be done. Somehow.]

[velluminous]

[ settled, she thinks, is a laughable oversimplification. and yet it warms her, too, in an emotional place.

she adjusts her hand so it lays atop his, again.

and...

turns her head just slightly, so that it leans on his shoulder almost hardly at all. ]

Let us hope your landlady does not discard any letters to "Mister Keiran Adair"...

[ratiocinations]

[Hardly at all, and yet for a man like Holmes, so very perceptible. Still, he notably does not stiffen awkwardly; he might not relax, either, but remaining as-is is perhaps its own sign of acceptance of the situation. This is for her physical comfort, her warmth. And, in some ways, the conversation has strayed towards providing it emotionally, too.

The warmth grows, ever so slightly.]

Hmph! [A noise of amusement, that.] No doubt she has received even stranger things [theme music playing] in the post. Besides, when we are truly free of this school's influence, there will be no need for aliases any longer.

[velluminous]

[ to go back to her own name, uttered darkly by those once-professors and peers and said with disdain by her family.

Severine Fairplay is hated by no one. ]

We must be careful we are truly free of it, first.

[ratiocinations]

[Mr Sherlock Holmes wouldn't hate Ms Sprezzatura Vaux, at least. 🥺]

Indeed. But that day will come. And how nice it will be to return home again, without ghosts dogging at my heels.

[velluminous]

Ha! I am more shut-in here than I am at home.

[ where she does not want her face and name to be recognized. but perhaps she gives too much away with a comment like that. ]

[ratiocinations]

[It certainly gives away that she prefers to avoid the public, at the very least.]

And what sort of scrutiny do you fear?

[Here? At home? Yes.]

[velluminous]

Family connections.