Solo Dancing On My Own

[Madeira Dusk]

18th of Winter, 517

"And one and two and three", Frode Varlet-Craven sang as he waved his invisible conductors baton.

A misty evening light was filtering through the high windows in the cavernous entrance way of the Craven manor. On the bottom stair a violinist busker Frode lured in off the street with the promise of silver and a warm place to play seemed to be regretting his decision as he warbled out note after note in his quaking hands. Ghosts loomed in from all sides, attracted by the sound and the spectacle. The space before the wide curving staircases was the most spacious in the house, something Madeira desperately needed. She just wished the floor was made of something softer than marble.

The violinist hit a high note, and the Spiritist soared gracefully through the air with an ambitious leaping pirouette. yet her soul heaved with apprehension to see the ground getting farther and farther away.

Lady Renee Kelling, the ghost of an Inverted dancer and acrobat, struggled to keep Madeira's toes pointed and hands aloft as the Spiritist struggled against the instinct to brace her legs and windmill her arms. The grace of their possession stretched to breaking point as both souls tried to push their reaction on the shared body.

Renne's soulmist laying aside Madeira's astral body tightened it’s grip, trying to crowed out it's host. Madeira responded by peeling away the invading spirit. She wedged herself between the spirit and her body, winding herself deeper into her muscle and bone. Renne tried to steer her body away, Madeira pulled energy deep from her core and blocked her. And together they quietly and instinctively tried to dominate the other.

The result was a body not in seamless dual control, but rather tangled in the strings of two incompetent puppeteers. It landed hard on its left leg that was both arching its feet and braced for impact, and crumpled.

x

[Madeira Dusk]

The ghostly audience tittered in delighted laugher, and the jumpy violinist scraped out an awful sound at the noise.

"No no no!" Frode wheezed, banging his cane for the impact his rusty voice failed to inspire. "That was all wrong!"

Madeira climbed laboriously to her feet, spitting blonde hair out of her mouth and feeling every bruise on her knees roaring in pain. "She's not listening", she hissed, her voice low with a thrumming frustration.

"No", her voice switched to a high, aristocrat voice dripping in venom. "She's not giving up an ounce of control!"

"Then stop trying to show off!"

"For Ionu's sake, show some trust."

"You're going to break my neck."

The violinist watched as the skinny blonde woman argued with herself in two different voices, and wondered if he could make it out the door before someone caught him.

Madeira could feel the proud Renee's soul burning with indignation as they squabbled. They had been at odds for years. As one of Frode’s favourite servants she was often called upon when a ghost was needed in Madeira's training. The budding Spiritist sensed that the ghost took a kind of vindictive pleasure in smearing her across the floor in hostile possessions. Then when she finally managed to keep out the possessing spirit, Renee doubled her efforts when Madeira was learning to trap souls in her body. When it was finally time for Madeira to learn invoking, the now slightly desperate Renee was the one who put up the most fight.

The two had been pitted against each other for years. And now, at the end, Frode Varlet-Craven demanded that they work together and become one with a graceful possession.

It was impossible.

There was a loosening, unwinding sensation as fed up dancer threw in the towel and tried to leave the possession. Madeira shut herself down, her soul expanding itself through the edges of her body to trap the soul inside. Renee stabbed her soul at the inside of her cage, causing Madeira to gasp and her determination to waver. Sensing the weakness, Renee pushed hard, feeling the iron grip bend like a drum.

The Spiritist breathed evenly through her nose, closed her eyes, and pictured herself as a fortress. The stone was her soul, the mortar her body, and when melded together they were impenetrable. She could feel the soul raking at the stone, searching every corner for cracks. But she was a fortress, and Renee was trapped.

"Ladies, ladies", Frode tapped Madeira on the forehead, and she opened her eyes. "Did you know the Akalak have two souls?" he began, with a measured, gentle tone that was so unlike him both souls managed to ignore each other to listen. "They're born together, spend every waking second with each other, and die together. They have a bond more intimate than a lover, or even a Kelvic. They are two separate individuals that spend centuries as one being. How do you suppose they manage it?"

"Control", said Madeira.

"Perseverance", said Renee.

"Necessity." Frode spat. "Now pull up your big girl panties and learn to share, or I'm going staple you two together permanently with a ghostnail. Again!"

x

[Madeira Dusk]

The first note of the violin filled the foyer with a nervous tempo slightly to fast for the waltz it was playing. For what felt like the hundredth time that day, Madeira stood straight and got into position. Renee flooded through her mind and laid alongside her soul. The grace was a slippery, fumbling thing. Madeira could feel the years of dance and training from Renee’s experience, yet lose it in the next tick. It was like something you see in the corner of your eye that you lose the instant you look at it. She tried to shift herself away from her body and let the ghost fill the empty space, but years of doing possession as an all-or-nothing affair was working against both of them as they worked against their instincts.

Experimentally, Madeira reached out to the mind so intimately aligned with hers. She could feel the simmering frustration in Renee that she felt in herself. But through it she tried to push more than feeling, but intent and meaning. She shaped them into words, and pushed it towards Renee in a way similar to talking in her own head.

He'd do it, you know. she said.

The colour of Renee's thoughts changed at this new form of contact. Using the connection that Madeira opened Renee responded. The words were somehow misshapen as they clumsily learned together.

It would kill you, she said simply. Madeira noted that her feelings weren't exactly opposed to the idea.

And you'd be trapped in my corpse, but he'd still do it.

Both souls hummed with a feeling of agreement, and ruminated on Frode's well recognized madness.

Take my legs, Madeira pressed. The grace isn't working. Have the waist down, I'll have the upper half. We can fool him.

We can't fool the Master.

We have to try.

Madeira threw thoughts of ghostnails and and eternity trapped together at the mind aligned with hers to implore her to listen. She wasn’t sure if worked, but she did feel the spirit draw away from her mind, and pool in her legs. Madeira immediately pulled her soul away and let Renee have complete control.

And like that they began to dance.

Renee had Madeira up on her toes, her legs more graceful than they had ever been, as she pushed her through a ballet. Madeira for her part tried not to look like a fool as she waved her arms about in a cheap imitation of what she had seen on stages around Alvadas. And for one glorious second, as the audience went quiet and the violinist found his stride, the two souls thought that they just might make it.

Then Renee did an arabesque that sent a line of fire down Madeira’s thighs, and Frode threw his cane at the leg still on the ground.

Renee nimbly hopped out of the way, leg still in the air. But Madeira, who had no dancers instinct and was not prepared for the jarring motion, nearly broke her back as her hips and shoulders went in opposite directions. The motion tipped them over, and she landed in a heap on the cold marble.

x

[Madeira Dusk]

The ghosts around them burst into laughter to see such an sight, and even Frode let out a few wheezing chuckles. Madeira’s cheeks burned with embarrassment as she crawled to her knees.

"Shut up!" both Madeira and Renee shouted at the same time.

Both souls startled to hear their voices merge seamlessly. It was the sharp, bell-like middle ground between how they both spoke.

Frode was making his slow way across the floor to retrieve his cane and presumably to chew them out for thinking they could fool him. But Madeira held up a hand to stop him.

"One moment, please, Uncle."

To her surprise, he did stop. His glittering grey eyes were unreadable as he considered her. Madeira turned herself inward and spoke to Renee.

Lets try it gracefully again.

It doesn't work.

Trust me, she said, rather ruefully. The spirit's feelings shimmered, but with what Madeira couldn't tell. She pressed on. Come on, one more time. We are both trying to appease Frode. Focus on that. Once we get out of this we will vow never to train together again.

The ghost gave a hopeful stir. Never?

Never.

Mollified, she wordlessly agreed. The human and the ghost poured into the shared limbs, and their was something determined about the way the body stood straight, arms extended.

"Again!" they demanded.

Madeira didn't have enough control over the possession to access the skills Renee learned from her time with the Inverted, so she sat back and trusted the ghost. Yet when the ghost pushed the weak body she couldn't feel beyond it's limits, Madeira took control for a tick at a time and corrected her. The spun around the entranceway, not quite effortlessly, not quite gracefully, but by sacrificing them both they began to work together. The body wasn't the object of a spiritual tug-o-war, but the see-saw in a strange back and forth that was very close to the graceful possession he wanted.

When the last not echoed off the high ceiling, Madeira came to a stop. There was no laughter. All they heard was the nervous breathing of the violinist.

Then Frode brought his hands together in a dry clap that couldn’t shake the dust off a moth. Yet both souls flinched at the sound, only to sigh in relief when the mad Craven announced: "Well done!"

Renee ripped herself from Madeira, pulling out of her limbs and torso as a dense, shapeless mist so it looked for a moment as if the Spiritist was dissolving. There was a muffled thump as the violinist fainted on his step.

The tall, regal red-haired woman materialized as Frode approached with his retrieved cane, but didn't wait for him to speak. She turned to Madeira with a familiar look of distain. "You're a possessive, demanding child, but you're an acceptable spiritist."

"You're an egotistical bitch, but you're a decent dancer." Madeira retorted, but smiled, knowing she might not have to count Renee out as an ally anymore.

x

[Madeira Dusk]

Grades Awarded!

Don't forget to edit/delete your grade request!

Madeira Craven

Skills

• Spiritsim: 4xp
• Dance: 3xp
• Negotiation: 2xp
• Persuasion: 2xp
• Rhetoric: 1xp
• Meditation: 1xp

Lores

• Lore of graceful possession

Awards & Retribution
+Item gained
+Trait recieved
-Injury
-Mizas spent

Notes
Notes here.