Dementia was wandering between the headstones, giggling happily. She'd spent a lovely teatime with her beloved little sisters just that afternoon - though they still sat a bit too far away from her for her liking.. after all, Tia just wanted to love them!
But 'they' understood her. 'They' helped her free people of the taint of their flesh. The little silver knife she carried at her hip had become a treasure, one she never let go of. The sight of spilling blood was a mark of salvation to her, and she'd occasionally even cut her own flesh just for the thrill. But 'they' told her that she must never damage vital areas, so she was careful not to. After all, 'they' knew what was best for her!
"I wonder if we're gonna make any new friends.. I think there are a few fresh graves here but Tia hasn't seen anyone coming out from them yet.." she pondered in a sing-song manner as she sat on one of the heavy stone fences surrounding the cemetery, waving her legs playfully.
"Don't know why their child's a failure, can't be the one to take the blame... No, nobody wants to save him!" Jinx was singing to herself, dragging a body behind her. The man was a little heavier than what she was used to hauling around, but she didn't seem to mind it all too much. She wore a grin on her stitched face, her tail wagging excitedly. Now to find a good place to set up the body for the authorities to find.
"Hmmm~ Should I prop you up by a tombstone? Oh, oh! Or hang you from a tree? Yeah! That'd look really cool... Or from a lamp post!"
Dementia's ears perked at the sound of singing, coming from somewhere around the cemetery. She hopped down and wandered in the direction of the sound.
Soon enough, she spotted a female, dragging around a corpse. A look of disgust flashed across her face, but she soon regained her usual curious smile as she approached the other. "You helped this poor person be free of their filthy flesh~?" she asked, again speaking somewhat melodiously. "But what are you still doing with the tainted carcass, I wonder? I prefer leaving them."
She skipped a little closer, orange eyes wide.
Jinx squeaked, startled by someone suddenly speaking to her. She inwardly whined, hoping it wasn't a ghost, but kind of hoping it was one. She turned to face where the sound had come from and she relaxed with a sigh, a small puff visible in the cool air. It was just another girl, and she seemed harmless enough. At the other female's question, the glowing swirl in Jinx's eyes brightened and her grin returned.
"Well, ya see... I like displaying my handiwork to people." Jinx let the corpse drop with a loud thud. "So you do this too? Killing, I mean."
She tilted her head, seemingly a little confused. "Oh, you like letting others know you help people? I guess that's fine!" she exclaimed, hopping closer and prodding the cadaver as if she was expecting it to jump up and attack.
"Oh, I like to set people free! They're trapped in their tainted flesh so I help them be rid of it", she explained with a sagely nod. This girl probably understood her views! Her sisters always seemed bothered for some reason, especially when she was so chatty with the more violent spirits, ones that Memsri tried to exorcise.
"You think she and I could be friends?" she then said, seemingly talking to nobody.
Jinx was a bit taken aback by the other girl talking to herself, but she didn't make a comment. After all, she had a couple voices in her head, though the only one she ever paid any mind to was the voice of her great ancestor. This girl looked close to her age, and she seemed rather friendly.
"Friend?" Jinx blinked slowly. "Are you talking to one of you friends right now, little lady??" She smiled, not the least bit judgemental. Jinx was the last person to judge others on hearing things, and this one seemed to understand the desire to take the lives of others.
The kirin smiled sweetly, turning back to the stitched female. "Oh, yes, my friends are all over the place.. they keep me company and tell me secrets", she said nonchalantly. "They told me to help Mama by setting her free. Mama was cursed and I helped her."
She clasped her hands together behind her back, looking innocent yet something about her was clearly.. off. Her eyes were still wide and she kept staring at her new acquaintance.
"Oh, my name is Dementia Hollow. You can call me Tia, they do too!"
The patchwork female grinned, seemingly not bothered by the staring. She got stared at a lot, and it was nothing new to her. She puffed out her chest proudly. "Jinx Jackripper, at your service! Pleasure to meet ya!" Her own swirled eyes looked at Dementia curiously.
"Not that I mind, but you're staring at me awful hard... Something on my face?" She appeared self-conscious for a moment, picking at one of the stitches on the corner of her mouth.
"Nice to meet you, Jinx~" Dementia said happily, her smile wide. She thought the other female was rather cute, and it was great to meet someone similar to her at last! Other than the spirits, she didn't really have friends. Everyone was driven away by her strange habits and the fact she often had blood spatters on her..
"Oh.. I was? Sorry, I guess I do that sometimes", she replied, tugging on her ears sheepishly. "Didn't mean to make you uncomfortable..."
"Oh! Oh, it's okay, Tia... It's not the staring I mind, the stitches just sort of throw people, ya know?" Jinx scratched her cheek with another smile. "So, you like helping people..?" She was hoping to get the kirin to explain. It was obvious she meant killing. "You don't like the living?"
Her tail twitched and she glanced down at the corpse still on the ground. Jinx could understand hating people and thinking more than most shouldn't be alive.
"I'm not bothered by the stitches at all!" she immediately responded, smiling. "I think they look kinda cute, like a ragdoll~"
At Jinx's question, she nodded eagerly. "Flesh is dirty. It's much better without it, though they say I should still keep mine", she said in a matter-of-fact tone. "They're happy when I help others and get them more friends! Though some of them also yell at me for a while, but I can make those go away."
She dusted off the hem of her tattered dress, then returning her attention to Jinx. "So you like helping too, yes?" she asked, leaning forward a little, her head slightly tilted to the side as she smiled with childlike glee.
Jinx blushed faintly when Dementia complimented her stitches, and called her a ragdoll. She continued listening, her tail swaying happily. When the kirin finished, Jinx put a finger to her lips in thought. "Well, for me... I don't quite see it as 'helping'. I do it because it's fun and because it's a family tradition. My big brother isn't too fond of killing though..."
She tilted her own head this time, looking at the other girl. "You keep talking about your friends. Who are they?"
Dementia listened to Jinx, wondering what she found fun in killing. For her, it wasn't so much that she enjoyed the act itself.. but rather what she thought it symbolized. Once the spirit was free from the confines of the corporeal world, only then could an individual be truly happy. That was the conclusion she'd come to over the years she'd spent in that small, locked room, anyway.
"You have a brother? I think my sisters get upset when they see blood on me", she responded nonchalantly.
"You don't hear them, then..?" was her first reaction to the question regarding her friends. "They've been with me since I was little. There's a lot of them in places like this. That's why I like cemeteries!" the kirin explained happily.
Jinx nodded, listening intently with little flicks of her ears. "Yes, my brother is sort of a killjoy. What about your sisters?" Her tail swayed again, stilling for a moment before resuming its movement. So the kirin was talking to ghosts? "So... Are your friends still alive?"
"Oh, I have two baby sisters!" Dementia said happily. "I only heard about them from Mama before she went away, and I looked for them for a long time!" she explained. "I really love them, but they don't want to live with me for some reason.."
She kicked up some dirt with a pouty expression. Her middle sister was an exorcist, and it made her a little sad that Memsri would exorcise her precious friends. Finally, at Jinx's next question, she shook her head firmly, still smiling. "No. They're just always there. Some of them are a bit mean, but a lot of them are really nice if I do what they ask!"
The patchwork female smiled in an almost mad fashion. "Your sisters sound like they could use some 'helping'. Not quite the helping you do, but a lesson maybe? I think they're scared of what you can do..."
Jinx's ears twitched concerning Dementia's friends. "Oh? What sort of stuff do they ask you to do? Help people?"
"One of them is an 'exorcist'.. she makes the lingering ones go away if they 'cause trouble' to the living. I think she can also force them to do what she wants", the darker female said. She loved her sisters, but didn't understand why 'they' would be considered bad and Memsri would make them move on to the next world if they wanted to stay.
She nodded, smiling in a childish manner. "They told me it would make Mama happy if I killed her. Then she wouldn't have to worry anymore. She's at peace now. I've been helping others since then", she explained with a hint of pride in her voice.
Jinx hummed to herself as she listened to the other, nodding now and again. "Have your friends told you to help your sisters at all?" Her tail flicked and she glanced back at the corpse for a moment, still considering what to do with him.
She looked back to Dementia, smiling. "Maybe we could... Help people together? I think that would be fun~!" She held up her left hand, which was a different color than the rest of her, and attached with stitches. "Do you want to?"
Dementia had to stop to think for a moment. Now that she started thinking about it.. they usually got rather quiet around her sisters. She knew both of them could communicate with 'them', too, and yet.. maybe they were wary of Memsri, perhaps?
"They don't really speak when I'm visiting my sisters.. I think they might be scared of being overheard - both can also hear them", she finally said, tilting her head a little.
The following suggestion made her eyes light up and she giggled with childish glee. "You would? I think it could be fun, too!" she replied, bringing forth her own left hand to take hold of Jinx's. "I'm sure they'll be really happy that there's two of us taking their advice!"
She nodded in understanding at Dementia's explanation and decided to move on to the more exciting part of their conversation. She gave the kirin's hand a squeeze and grinned so wide a stitch nearly poppped. "I can't hear your friends, so you'll have to tell me what they say."
Jinx looked over her shoulder. "But first, I should string this body up in a tree, then we can go start helping people. Care to help me hang him up?"
The girl nodded in confirmation as well - of course she'd be there to pass the message if the other couldn't hear them! She squeezed Jinx's hand, shaking it slightly, excitement written all over her face.
Suddenly she remembered the corpse Jinx had been dragging around earlier. Of course it wouldn't do to simply leave it there, oh no. It wasn't very aesthetically pleasing just lying in the middle of the graveyard. "Of course I'll help! It'll be a lot easier to get it up with the two of us, yes~" she said in a sing-song manner and skipped over to the cadaver, poking it playfully before grabbing hold of an arm.
Jinx grinned and threw a rope she pulled out of her bag over a thick tree branch a few times before climbing up to tie it properly. She slid down the rope and knotted it into a wide noose. At last, she walked over and grabbed the man's other arm. "Okay, we'll put him through so the rope is under his arms, then he'll just end up swinging. Should be on TV tomorrow!"
She made sure her new friend had a good hold on the corpse and began dragging him over to the dangling rope.
Dementia giggled excitedly as they dragged the dead man along to where Jinx had set the rope. "I wonder who will find him~?" she wondered, trying to imagine the reaction the sight of a corpse hanging from the tree would trigger in a passerby. Before she had been locked up, she had always liked playing pranks that her invisible friends came up with - although her parents didn't enjoy them quite as much.. something she never understood.
"I think it's good you've got a strong rope.." she mused as she pulled the arm she'd been holding on to through the noose. "Just imagine how silly it would be if he was too heavy and it snapped!"
Jinx tightened the rope before hopping down to stand beside her new friend with a laugh. "I've had that problem before, actually! One even fell on top of me!" She laughed again and dusted herself off. "It would have been funnier if they had landed on the one who found them rather than on me, he smelled awful."
She held out her oddly pristine-looking right hand. "Shall we go help some more people now?"
Dementia looked up at the body that was now hanging slightly above them, swinging slightly from having been moved. The sight was somewhat grotesque but the girl was highly amused by it.
"I hope he falls on whoever discovers him, that would be funny!" she said with a giggle before turning her childishly gleeful face towards Jinx.
"Okay, let's go look for people who need help~ Tia wants to hear more about your family too", she continued, taking Jinx's hand in hers, even her voice reverting to a more childlike tone.
Jinx gladly took Tia's hand and the two walked along the sidewalk, ignoring the people looking at them. "You want to know about my family? What do you want to know?" She smiled brightly, her tail almost wagging. She was happy to have a friend with her.
"Well Mama didn't spend much time with me, and Papa came to see me even less", she mused, seeming somewhat thoughtful. Her happier childhood memories had grown hazy over time, all she really remembered was that 'they' were always there.
"What are your parents like? I'd wanna hear about you too. Do you like other things aside from /that/?" she said tilting her head back in the direction of the cemetery they had just been in.
"This is the first time Tia's made a friend who can be touched!"
Jinx hopped for a moment, a sign of her excitement. "Well, my mom and dad are dead now, but they used to be murderers just like me! My dad taught me ways to kill and my mom taught me fun cleaning up methods! My big brother didn't take to killing, and he's a psychiatrist now..."
She made a little huff. "As for me, I don't do much but sit at home and read scary stories or read about the bloody history of countries. Other than that, 'helping' people is all I really do."
"What about you? What else do you do?"
Tia tilted her head a little, looking at Jinx as they walked, keeping a bit of a smile on her face. "Mama and Papa I think were pretty important people.. but they had me taken to that small room because I talked with /them/ a lot", she said in a matter-of-fact tone, without a trace of bitterness. "It was a little lonely and apparently I had sisters while I was in the place with lots of white coats."
"I like reading all kinds of stuff.. and tea. Tea is always nice, I really didn't get it often, only when Mama came to see me. So teatime is special. And I love Mama so I helped her get rid of her worries." Her face was practically glowing with pride, knowing she had done something 'good' for her parent.
"So, your mama isn't around anymore, then? What about your papa?" Jinx tilted her head towards Tia as she walked to hear her better, still holding her hand. "I don't see why they'd send you away for talking to them. They're your friends, right?"
Her tail swayed and lightly brushed the kirin's gently. "If you don't have a place to live, you can come live with me. Your friends can come, too."
"I don't know where Papa went.. he likely is never coming back though. Our mansion's abandoned now, last time I went. I just took some books with me then", she calmly replied. "Mama and Papa.. they didn't like me talking to them. Said that I was ill and then I was in that room for a long time. They always came around and talked to me, at least."
Her eyes lit up somewhat at the suggestion, her tail wagging a bit. "Tia could really live with you? I'd love to get to live with a friend, then we could always go out together!" Her voice reflected her pure, childlike excitement over this. Having a physical friend was so different, and really fascinating to her.
Jinx slid away from the subject of parents and focused on the idea of living with Tia. "It'll be so much fun! I live with my big brother, Jesse, but he might move out soon. I'll make sure he doesn't say anything mean to you!"
She hopped again. "And we can go out helping people whenever we want!" She giggled excitedly.
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