Hallowe'en

[inanhour]

The Sebastian who enters the bar is dressed in plain black -- for a step.

Then he startles, his clothing completely replaced by a suit of Messaline finery, like he wore once. Mayhap the same suit, even, though logic dictates otherwise.

The whole room is done in finery, mostly of a kind he has not seen, and there's laughter, and plates set out with foods, and --

"I've no stomach for it," Sebastian murmurs. He acquires a wineskin, and goes to explore this outdoors he has heard of.

A few steps out into the mid-afternoon, he catches the scent of the sea. Giving the lake a considered stare, he turns and instead heads to the relative safety of the trees.

Comments

[livinginmyglass]

Viola is not amused.

Stepping into the bar, she found herself abruptly dressed not in Orsino's livery, but a rather nice gown-- not quite like any she used to own, but not far from in, in the sorts of browns and blues she favored. Favors? Oh, she hardly knows anymore. But for now, she's in a dress, with a cap disguising her short hair, though at least Bar was kind enough to also provide a mask, so that she can go relatively unnoticed.

The mask is pushed up and away for now, however, for she has wandered off towards the woods. Even if no one can recognize her, it still feels too strange to be seen this way.

[inanhour]

Sebastian has been sitting in the crook of a tree's roots, because there seemed little reason to wander further, as quick as he tires. He's been drinking, on and off, and considering what he can see of the leaves above.

The sound of feet rouses him to straighten, though he cannot yet see who is coming.

"Hello?" he calls, uncertain.

[livinginmyglass]

The voice makes her stop, sends a shiver down her spine. Oh, that's too familiar.

But no, she must be mistaken.

"Who is there?" she calls back.

[inanhour]

Sebastian is still for a long moment, then he scrambles to stand, dropping the winesack as he does.

He breathes, unevenly, trying to even it out. This is a fairy land, or a dream, or a strange purgatory.

He swallows his words, throat dry.

[livinginmyglass]

Hm. Maybe she misheard, and there's no one there at all?

(But then again, it is the eve of All Soul's Night, when they say sometimes the dead walk the earth once more.)

She raises her skirts just enough to keep them from catching on the bits and branches below and draws closer to where the voice seemed to come from.

Then she sees him, a man--

--she stops, frozen.

[inanhour]

He swallows, again, as she walks into view.

That's her. The unknown dress, and the cap -- strange, but not strange enough to disguise her.

"Are the daughter of the late Sebastian of Messaline?"

To be sure. Perhaps some other ghost bears her face.

[livinginmyglass]

--well, she can't say she wasn't half-expecting it.

She's frightened of ghosts, of the very idea of ghosts, but for some reason she isn't frightened now. Perhaps because, again, she expected this, because it's known to happen on All Souls, because she's in such a strange place already where she knows the dead may move about as freely as the living.

"O, Sebastian, am I so changed?"

[inanhour]

Sebastian laughs, sharp, then covers his eyes with his hand a moment. He draws it away, having wiped some of the tears out of his eyes.

"No, thou lookest -- like thy own self." Not like him, still recovering, but that must be the way of spirits. He steps out of the shadow of the tree, hesitant, as if he might somehow scare her off. He doesn't know what to say, but he drinks the sight of her in.

[livinginmyglass]

Viola laughs, too. She isn't crying-- she never cries when Sebastian does, out of some subconscious inner logic that insists only one of them can be crying at a time. She takes another step closer.

"Art thou-- well?" She doesn't know how else to ask it. At peace?

[inanhour]

Sebastian shrugs, and looks down himself. "As well as I may be, given --" he hesitates. Likely it is best not to touch on the after effects surviving drowning has left him with.

"I am," he says, and smiles at her, though his eyes are still wet. "Art-- art thou?"

Should he walk to her? No, she can come at her own pace, as close as she'd like. He's heard -- tales, of ghosts grown shy.

[livinginmyglass]

She laughs a little and nods. Oh, if he knew what she was doing now!

"Ay, I am well indeed, better protected than ever I have been." There, that should please him.

She takes a hesitant step closer-- they're something like a normal distance for conversation now-- but does not reach out to him. She doesn't think she could stand the thought of seeing him fade away, or her hand pass through him, were she to try.

[inanhour]

Is there a fog rising? How strange. Sebastian doesn't notice it, curling gentle fronds around his ankles.

Sebastian glances side long at her. "Thou needs much protecting, for all of thy claims to sense."

[livinginmyglass]

She wrinkles her nose. "I have found the surest way to keep myself, I do assure thee."

Viola doesn't have her eyes on the ground, doesn't notice the fog either. Her gaze is fixed on Sebastian's face.

"But hast-- hast been here long?"

[inanhour]

"In this forest? An hour, no more," he looks away from her to his tree, which has disappeared into the fog.

He already knows, with a sinking feeling, before he looks back -- she's gone, with only thick fog in front of him.

"Viola?" he asks, urgent, sound muffled.

[livinginmyglass]

"Here, brother!" She advances a few more steps. The fog, so sudden and thick, casts the eerie pall over the whole scene that was missing before. "Sebastian? Art gone?"

[inanhour]

He hears her voice, weirdly distorted, and distantly to the right of where he's standing. He looks there, and peers, but sees nothing.

"Stay still! I will find thee," he calls, as carrying as he can manage, and puts a hand out in front of himself as he makes his way towards where he heard her. If she is not yet disappeared, he won't leave her.

[livinginmyglass]

"Here, brother! I am just here." But as she moves forward towards where he was a moment ago, she finds that he is gone. She makes a small circle through the fog, to see if he simply stepped aside, but to no avail. But she was so certain this was where his voice had come from.

[inanhour]

Sebastian is a few dozen feet out when he realizes this was likely a bad idea. He cannot see his feet. He cannot tell if this is where she is though now and then he is certain he hears her -- to the left, to the right, and occasionally behind.

"Viola?" he calls, as he has at regular intervals, this time far more uncertain.

But then there is a noise, again, ahead of him -- and he steps, and trips across a root, and goes crashing down a hill.

[livinginmyglass]

Viola jumps at the sound, but distorted through the trees and the fog, it sounds distinctly like something she should run from, not towards.

So she does.