applesaucedream | First Night [Open to Multiple]

Jodie Holmes, age six, sits in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room. One wall is lined with a mirror that is not really a mirror. There are cameras mounted in the corners, their power lights like unblinking red eyes in the dimness (not darkness; they left the light in the hall on for her). She surveys the sparsely furnished room with her back against the headboard and her chin atop her teddy bear. There is a flashlight on her bedside table, and she knows Cole is just outside. They should be safe here, and she tries to be brave - brave for Aiden, whose fear shivers the tether that binds them.

"Don't be scared, Aiden," she says, hugging her teddy closer. "We're gonna go to sleep, and nothing bad is gonna happen." The phrase has a practiced cadence to it, like a prayer, or a magic spell. But God hasn't stopped the monsters, and she doesn't know if she believes in the good kind of magic anymore.

She pushes her legs beneath the covers, but she doesn't lie down. Something is coming. She can feel it.

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Of course he can, though not very distinctly. Hang on, did Zagreus just scare a ghost? That's gotta be backwards on some level, possibly several.

"Ah. Right." Briefly he considers arguing, but arguing with a child would probably get unbecoming fast, regardless of the fact that he's in the right. "You don't have to be asleep to dream, you know."

This guy, Jodie decides, is weird. She can tell Aiden doesn't like him, and she shifts her grip on the teddy bear, clutching it to her chest like a shield. "Why are you wearing a mask?"

"I wondered that, myself," he says, and takes a more measured look at their surroundings. It looks like a dwelling, painfully mundane. But that's pure contrivance, it's meant to look like a dwelling the same way he looks like a person. It's for some kind of observation, not that his understanding of such things is very well fleshed out. "Is this more familiar?" he asks, and wills the mask to change. Now it's paper instead of bone china, covering the lower part of his face. Maybe the first mask had been a product of his psyche rather than hers, but it seems likely the second will make him both a source of authority and fear in her eyes. "Are you here because you're ill?" Mad, he doesn't say. And for what it's worth, she isn't--if the thing hovering around her is any sign.

Jodie takes a hasty step back, bumping into the doorframe. "No," she says, more in response to the changing mask than the question. She feels, with a sudden, sick certainty, that Aiden is right not to like this man. "I'm not sick." Then, with a hint of desperation: "Take it off."

He's scaring Jodie. Aiden's scared, too, but he won't tolerate some man scaring her. He doesn't care if he works here. Aiden moves forward, growing in size as the lights in the room start to flicker and the temperature drops.

Zagreus is a little surprised at how easily she scares. It's not like he's trying to be friendly or reassuring, but he's not trying to be very threatening either. Which is more than he can say for the thing currently menacing him, and he glares at it warningly. Incorporeal or not, it better give its current course of action some careful thought. Something about its motion nags at him like it's stuck in his teeth, but he doesn't have time to worry at it.

He pushes down the mask, letting the girl see what he hopes is a less unsettling appearance. "No, you're not sick. It's good that you know it. But then, why are you here?" He can barely spare much attention for her, watching the heat-shimmer creature's threat display. "Is it because of your badly behaved friend, here?"

"You're scaring him," she accuses. He scared her, too, though having the mask pulled down helps a little. "He's just trying to protect me." Which, yes, is partly why she's here. And if Aiden starts hurting people, they're never going to let her go home. "Stop it, Aiden!" she shouts, her breath fogging the air. "You're gonna get us in trouble!"

Aiden thrums with frustration. This man isn't safe - doesn't she know that? Doesn't she feel it as certainly as he does? But he's scaring her, and he doesn't want that, so he begrudgingly retreats. The lights stop flickering, and the temperature returns to normal. He's still glowering at the man, though.

"Indeed. Your friend should be more careful with you." Wheels in his mind turn a little faster at the idea of this thing protecting her. It's very interesting to witness--the thing listens to her, and she even knows its name. Zagreus tilts his head, looking from the ghost-thing to the little girl it seems attached to. Perhaps quite literally attached. "And what is Aiden to you, er--?" he waits expectantly for a name, ignoring Aiden for the moment.

Jodie frowns up at the man. Aiden is careful with her. It's other people he's not careful with - including this man, if he keeps being scary.

Why is he asking for her name? If he worked here, wouldn't he know it already?

"Who are you?" she asks instead of answering.

Children are willing to believe in monsters unconditionally, without any convincing. It's a little refreshing, honestly, but it means there's no uneasy quicksand of politeness and disbelief to stand on and infiltrate. This little girl he couldn't charm if he wanted to. Which is nice. Simple. Honest.

"I am Zagreus. And you are having a bad dream, but not about ghosts."

Something about that name sends a bolt of terror through both of them, and she has no idea if it travels from her to Aiden or from Aiden to her. But they both feel it, and she crushes her teddy to her chest.

He's right. It's not ghosts she has to worry about. It's monsters.

"Go away," she says, voice quavering. "You shouldn't be here."

"I shouldn't be anywhere. And yet, I often am." He can sense the frisson of terror that passes between spirit and child, ever attuned to vulnerability as he is, and with that he feels much more in control of the situation than he did when he was first assigned a mask. It doesn't occur to him to wonder why they fear him; fears are instinctual and justified, in dreams, without any need of evidence or logic.

But first things first. "Tell me your name."

"No!" Jodie retreats into the bedroom. "Leave us alone!"

If Aiden was concerned with getting Jodie's permission to act, he'd take that as permission. But he isn't, and it's enough that Zagreus is frightening her. He darts across the room toward a wooden table and a pair of chairs, then sends one of the chairs winging toward Zagreus.

First Night [Open to Multiple]

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