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 Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 5:46 pm
 Jie had gone trick-or-treating this evening with a group of friends. Originally, it had started off as a plan with her friend, Oriset. Oriset had asked her lab partner, Naihilus, if he’d wanted to come, Naihilus had asked his roommate, Kunibert, to join them, Ori had invited her roommate, Wyrdda…
They had ended up as a big group. But they’d all ended up in themed costumes, with Jie, Ori, Kuni, and Nai dressed as the four elements, while Wyrdda was dressed up as a witch casting elemental spells. Everything had worked out quite well! Until someone had had the brilliant idea of going to a local haunted house. There, Jie had had the fright of her life several times in a single evening, culminating in an incident in a room full of dolls when a porcelain doll had started to move…
Poor Jie had been scared out of her wits, but the doll—well, the actor dressed as a doll—had invited her to come back later so that they could meet. It was a little unusual, but to be honest, Jie had been intrigued by the invitation. The “doll” had wanted to comfort her, and she wanted to get to know someone who offered support to a random stranger. They seemed really nice! Jie agreed to meet the “doll” at nine PM behind the haunted house. After that, she’d return to campus, where she and the rest of them would watch movies together to detox after that scary event.
Now at the back of the house, Jie made her way over to the table where the porcelain doll was sitting. Now that they were in a brightly lit place, Jie could see that the appearance of a ball-jointed toy really was just makeup. She could also see a white cane leaning against the chair the “doll” was sitting in. Had they been blind this whole time?
“H-hello,” Jie said. “Um, it’s me, the Bakeneko who got scared earlier?”
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 5:49 pm
 Ciel had joined the haunted house crew to have something to do on a Haunted Hallows night. She was long since too old to go trick-or-treating, and she lived in a neighborhood that had hardly any children in it at all. It had been easier to just come here and do some light acting. It had been a foregone conclusion that she’d be dressed up as a porcelain doll—people told Ciel that she had just the right look for that.
She’d never meant to frighten someone as badly as she’d frightened the teenager walking through the haunted house, though! She felt bad that she’d frightened the student so badly, so she’d offered to meet them during her break to make sure that they were okay. Ciel felt terrible for frightening them. I’m never working in a haunted house again, she told herself. I’m terrible at this!
She recognized the voice of the teenager and sat up even straighter in her seat. “Hello!” she said cheerfully. “Sit down! I think there’s still a seat there. Um, my name’s Ciel. I’m sorry I scared you earlier.”
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 5:50 pm
Jie took a seat across from the hybrid and smiled, even if they couldn’t see it. “It’s nice to meet you, Ciel,” she said. “My name’s Jie. I’m sorry I screamed so loudly—I hope I didn’t hurt your ears.” She watched as someone else walked out of the haunted house. She tensed up as she recognized the terrifying Litch that had chased them in the later rooms. The Litch didn’t seem to notice her, and was instead making their way over to a cooler, where they picked up a can of soda and took a long sip. Jie relaxed. Right. Actors. She just…had to remind herself of that.
So…what now? “Where did the kittens come from?” she said, remembering Nai’s question. On their way back to campus, Nai had mentioned that the “doll”—Ciel—had told him that she would explain the kittens to him later. Jie had promised to ask about them during the meeting. To be honest, Jie was pretty curious what so many animals had been doing in the house. Flitterrats she could understand—they got everywhere, and bred explosively—but why so many vespercats? And why were they all so young?
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 5:52 pm
Ciel smiled. “It’s nice to meet you, too, Jie! And don’t worry about it, you didn’t hurt my ears. I was kind of expecting it already.” She flicked her tail. “Honestly, don’t worry about it—serves me right for scaring you!” She shivered in the cool night air and drew her shawl tighter across her shoulders. “I don’t think working in a haunted house is for me, honestly—I probably won’t be doing this again. I don’t like scaring people.”
Ah, the kittens, yes…well, she’d expected to be explaining that one sooner or later… “Well, we picked this house to set up our haunted house in because of its interesting construction. No one lives in it, either—it got foreclosed a couple years ago. We’re just renting it from the bank, but yeah, there have been some feral animals using it as a home for a while now. We got out as many as we could, but there were a couple families of cats living in the house, kittens and all! We got the parents out, but we were still trying to catch all of the kittens fifteen minutes before we opened!” She sipped at a cup of tea in front of her. “How many did you find, incidentally?”
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 5:54 pm
Jie poured herself a cup of water from a pitcher on the table. It seemed like they were prepared for guests—were they? Expecting guests, she meant. Did they get a lot of guests out behind haunted houses? She’d never thought about it before. She’d been too caught up in being frightened by haunted houses to think much about what went on to set one up! “We found two in the end,” she said. “Nai found one under the shelves where you were sitting, and I found one later in the torture chamber, or whatever it was.”
Jie sipped the water. “If you don’t mind my asking, why did you sign up for a haunted house if you don’t like scaring people? That doesn’t seem quite like the right thing to do.” She shivered. “Sorry, that was rude of me to say, but—I am curious why you’d work at scaring people if you don’t like it that much.”
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 5:55 pm
Torture chamber? She tried to think. Which torture chamber? Her brows furrowed, then relaxed. “Oh, the extraction chamber?” she said. “I thought we’d looked down there…well, that’s kittens for you. They get everywhere! I’m glad two of them got found. I hope you give them both very lovely homes.”
Ciel sighed and wrapped her fingers around her cup. She’d been afraid it would come to this. She simply didn’t have any good reason for being here, certainly not as much of a good reason as her new friends and acquaintances at the haunted house did. “I didn’t have anything better to do?” she said. “I mean, on Haunted Hallows. Our neighborhood doesn’t get many trick-or-treaters, and I didn’t want to be alone. I like being with people,” she explained. “I don’t like sitting around alone on a dark night listening to other people have fun. I figured that scaring people at a haunted house would be more fun than moping around at home.” She smiled. “Besides, I didn’t think I would be that scary, really! I don’t even know how to be stern, let alone scary. That’s a handicap in its own right,” she added while her smile turned into a grin. “But maybe that’s a subject for another day.”
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 5:56 pm
Jie nodded, then remembered that Ciel probably couldn’t see that. “Yes. We’ll definitely be giving them good homes! Nai’s a little worried because he has three spectrefoxes at home, but he thinks that Khwarizmi will settle in sooner than later. I’m naming my kitten Tui-yin,” she added, but she wasn’t sure why she was mentioning that. Idle conversation?
Handicap? Jie tried not to think about the fact that her new acquaintance was blind. That was plainly not the “handicap” to which Ciel was referring. She was obviously talking about something else, something far more subtle that Jie just didn’t get the reference to. “Well, it’s nice to have someone to spend time with on an evening like this,” she said. “And I can see how setting up a place like this would be fun—you’d get to spend a lot of time with other people, helping them set things up, hunting kittens, that sort of thing.”
Jie sipped her water. “What do you mean by ‘handicap’?” she said.
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 5:57 pm
To be honest, Ciel had been hoping that she’d be asked about that. It was sad to think that she was acting so…well, so narcissistic and vain like that, but she wanted to extend the conversation as long as she could. She wanted to set herself up in Jie’s mind not as that terrifying doll, but as the nice conversation afterwards. She wanted to nightmarize herself, to become a person in Jie’s eyes. She listened to Jie sipping from a glass of water and twitched. “Oh my goodness! I’ve been so rude—can I get you anything to drink? We have tea, hot cocoa, we have some coffee if you’d like, and we have soda. Please let me get you something.”
Ciel got to her feet and lead the way over to the concession table, where there was not only a selection of drinks, but some snacks and sandwiches as well. “Oh, that—well, I’m studying to be a caretaker right now,” she said. “Maybe I’ll even get to work at the Academy—who knows! But yes, it’s nice to be able to be stern if you have to with children. I don’t like bossing people around, but as a caretaker, well, you sort of have to sometimes!”
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 5:58 pm
Jie nodded. Right, right. “Um, some tea would be lovely,” she said. The scent coming from Ciel’s cup was just heavenly. She would love something hot to drink. She got to her paws and followed Ciel over to the table, where she poured herself a hot cup of tea and picked up a cookie to nibble on. The more she talked to Ciel, the more she wanted to get to know Ciel. She wanted to be friends with this pretty and nice Hallowed. She just needed some things in common. It wasn’t necessary for a friendship, but it helped.
And she didn’t have to wait long to get one, either. “Really?” she said. “I want to be a caretaker, too! It took me so long to figure out what I wanted to do, but last summer, I did some volunteering at the Academy orphanage, and I just can’t get over how nice it is to watch kids grow! Which…actually reminds me,” she added. “I have to get in an application to Asphodel Community college soon. I mean, I guess I don’t have to, but I like getting things done as soon as possible. It’s supposed to have a top-notch program for caretaking, even if it’s ‘just’ a community college.” Before she could say anything else, something buzzed in her purse. She reached for her phone automatically, setting the cup of tea down.
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Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2017 6:00 pm
Ciel refilled her tea while she was at the concession table. There was no reason not to, after all. She picked up a cookie as well while she was at it. As she listened to the (apparently) Bakeneko talk, she ate the cookie.
The more she talked to Jie, the more she felt like this was a kindred spirit, someone who would be a good friend. She was glad that they’d met—even if it hadn’t been under the very best of circumstances. Jie seemed like a nice person, a real treat to hang out with—and they even had an interest in common! “Oo, the Academy orphanage!” she said. “I grew up there, actually! That’s when I first decided I wanted to be a caretaker. I want to pay back the people who helped me so much when I was a child.”
She was about to say something more—mention that she was a student at Asphodel Community College, that it was a great place to learn, ask her if she would be graduating soon, make a comment that they might end up in the same classes—when her own phone rang from her purse. It was probably the manager telling them to get back into position.
But then the phone started to chirp at her. “Emergency!” it said in a disconcertingly calm tone. “Get to the nearest emergency shelter immediately—emergency!”
Ciel swallowed hard against rising horror. She scooped up her tea—and another cookie—and held out her arm in Jie’s general direction. Her knuckles tightened on her cane. “The Academy,” she gasped. “Hurry!”
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