Encounterlogs
Korinas Odd Encounter Sr Rachel 240727
In the early hours at the Thirsty Toadstool Tavern, owned by Korina, an eerie quiet is broken by a ghost child's presence, leading to a series of disturbances. Initially dismissing the odd events as nothing serious, Korina realizes the importance of addressing the ghost's presence when it becomes more intrusive, engaging in a playful yet disruptive game of tag throughout the tavern and market. Despite the ghost child's mischievous antics, including insulting Korina's dress and making demands for attention, she decides to tackle the issue head-on. The story takes a poignant turn when the ghost child reveals he is stuck in the realm of the living because he misses his dog, Maggie, setting the stage for a quest of closure.
Determined to resolve the ghost child's unfinished business, Korina reluctantly agrees to search for Maggie, despite her disdain for dogs and the ridiculousness of the situation. The odd quest leads Korina to impersonate Maggie, through a magical transformation, to provide the ghost child with the comfort and closure he needs to move on. This tender moment of farewell, facilitated by Korina's unexpected act of kindness, allows the ghost child to finally rest in peace. Despite her initial reluctance and the comical nature of her transformation, Korina's actions demonstrate a deep, albeit begrudging, compassion. The story concludes with Korina, once again in her own form, contemplating her actions and their secrecy, humorously vowing silence over the lengths she went to for the ghost child's peace, hinting at personal growth and the complexities of her character.
(Korina's odd encounter(SRRachel):SRRachel)
[Fri Jul 26 2024]
In Thirsty Toadstool Tavern
This is a brightly lit, bawdy bar. There are always patrons here, mostly faelings and faeborn, but plenty of other travelers as well. The air smells of booze and pipe smoke. To the south is a discrete back door, and to the east is a curtain of beads leading into a darkened room.
A mirror is placed in one corner of the tavern, tall and free-standing with an ornate wooden frame.
It is morning, about 86F(30C) degrees,
(Your target encounters a ghost who's fixated on some past tragedy from their life, they need to either give the spirit some sense of closure, or send it on it's way through more violent means.
)
The tavern is eerily quiet at this early hour, its (presumably usual) bustle replaced by a stillness. Warm light floods the tavern, not by dint of the sun - which it could be, if Korina didn't want to waste electricity or magic or whatever it is the Other runs off of - but by lamp. The air still carries the scent of alcohol, smoke, and sweat from the previous night. The temperature's comfortably warm.
There's a gradual shift in atmosphere, the longer that Korina remains to clean.
The air feels heavier.
The lights flicker.
The beads of the eastern curtain sway, as if moved by an unseen presence.
Nothing happens.
Korina may continue on with her work undisturbed. Surely it's just a fluke of electrical wiring.
A giggling starts up, associated with the pattering of feet. Immediately after, metal creaks, a bolt loosening behind Korina. A puddle of water begins to accumulate beneath a pipe. It's not much; after a few hours, they might be in a millimeter of standing water.
The bartender, Jareth, doesn't notice. He's still listening to Korina give him a laundry list of food and drink to purchase, all for a too-paltry (he thinks) wage. In the middle of shining a glass, it shatters. Could've been him. He has reason to be annoyed.
"I'm sorry," he says with unquestionable politeness. He dips under the counter, starting to collect shards. Please don't make him cook apology steak at 7 AM in the morning. The kitchen isn't open. He has errands to run, made double by Korina's nagging.
And might get away with it, too, if Korina doesn't notice that a variety of bottles seem to have vanished from the shelves and counter - most of them quite expensive.
Jareth could be looting from Korina. It'd be rather inadvisable, given that she could tear him limb from limb, but hey, that's good stuff. Worth the risk.
Korina pays for electricity in here, thank you very much. /And/ she pays for a connection to the internet too, which is where she spends most of her time while 'watching over' the tavern, when she's not busy napping instead, or trying to pester the bartender as she was just now. It really is a huge pain in the ass to have to get some or the other meat for him to cook from the nearby forests - it would be better for him and for her and for everyone else who comes by this place if she just gets a constant supply from one of her other ingredient-suppliers, right? Then all Jareth has to do is cook it up, and also he should really get baking too, for when she's in a rare craving for honey cakes, and he also has too much wine and not enough milk and-
Korina breaks off at the sound of giggling, squinting out the nearest window to see which faeling children are out there making noise. It's the early morning, and they're certainly up to mischief as they always are, while their parents work around the commune and visit the market, and- there's a glass shattering.
"Be more careful," Korina tells Jareth, but it's even-toned; for someone who owns a business, she definitely doesn't keep too much track of where expenses are coming and going. Really, as long as she's gaining money instead of losing it, who cares, right? The wildling moves over to take a seat right atop the bar counter, legs swinging back and forth through the air, and looks over the tavern from this vantage point, "We should get new chairs and tables too. Maybe I will break the wooden women for it," she claims; those wooden women really do have it coming though. As an aside, she tells Jareth, "Tell children to not be so noisy when you are throwing that out." That being the shards of broken glass, of course.
Korina can't possibly know whether she's gaining or losing money unless she keeps track. Please. She's supposed to care. That is, in fact, the primary point of owning a business - unless what we're saying is that the Other isn't subject to capitalism, and here there's UBI.
But anyway, yes, sure, Jareth can bake and throw trash out and procure more food and listen to Korina drove on and on and on. It's always 'what are you doing, Jareth?' and never 'how are you doing, Jareth?' He puts on a brave, 'good soldier' face and roundabouts with all the glass shards collected into the dustbin. He might as well take all the trash out while he's at it.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'll be right back." He hefts the bag into the air and--... oh god, it breaks. The smell is putrid. There's rotting food in there - is that a maggot wriggling? - alongside what might be puke.
"..."
Jareth can explain himself.
He turns toward Korina.
"...Am I fired?"
He's joking, but with a nervous laughter that hints at real concern.
Now at this point, there does happen to be what looks like a kid in the distance - the cute, cherub kind, on the smaller end, with round cheeks, a flat cap of brown hair, and knobbly fingers.
He disappears.
"Tag," a little boy's voice says. "You're it."
Some things don't change across material planes.
He shows up just behind Korina. She could swear she feels a tug at her skirts.
And then Korina and Jareth are alone again.
The giggling picks up. Feet pitter-patter on the floor again.
"Right," poor Jareth, who surely isn't paid enough, says. "Do you still want... me... to..." He glances at the ripped trash bag. He could clean it up. Who's to say it wouldn't just happen again, though?
Korina's method of keeping track involves checking her bank account every few days, and extorting her employees every other few days. Surely one cannot argue with the effectiveness of 'number go up', especially when some- okay, many of them have received some subtle mental nudges to /not/ cheat Korina out of her rightful money. Just standard business practice, you must understand.
The Other is certainly not subject to capitalism though. Maybe totalitarianism when the Fae stop partying in their Golden City and remember they've got subjects to fuck with. Either way, definitely not a democracy out here, that's for sure. It's called Elik's Commune and not Korina's Commune for a reason.
Whether or not Jareth is fired is a question that will have to be answered later; for now, Korina's distracted by the kid who appears in the doorway, immediately earning a narrow-eyed look from the proprietress. She's tagged as it.
"I am it," she tells Jareth in response to whether she wants him to '...' and hops off the counter, stalking over to the doorway in search of a wayward child who may or may not be a ghost. And maybe just to get away from the stinky trash smell. Probably mostly just that. That should be answer enough for him, if Jareth's learned anything by now.
Whether asked to or not, Jareth gets to cleaning up the trash. One - although maybe not Korina - truly does have to commend him on his diligence.
If Korina's stalking after the kid, she'd find him in the market, popping in and out between stalls. "Here," he says by a red-topped stand, like a whack-a-mole with sound effects. "Over here!" he exclaims, then popping out from inside a big basket of apples. The benefit of being dead is a phenomenal ability to hide where unexpected.
This goes on for a while.
Up and down, down and up his little head goes. It's dizzying.
Ultimately, though, Korina's a predator - and there's only so long a cat-and-mouse game will go. So it's only a matter of time.
To be fair, ghosts aren't the usual prey Korina goes for. There's only so much fun she can have with something that doesn't bleed and something she can't actually sink her teeth and claws into, and so she just lets out a big yawn, watching the kid pop up here and there with a detached gaze. The only thing keeping her here is the knowledge that this is /her/ territory goddammit, and since there's nobody else around to take care of it - does she need to hire a dedicated ghostbuster? - it's up to her to get rid of this annoying fella. Or just chase him around until he gets tired and runs out of manifestation juice.
On she goes, standing right in the middle of the market, all her senses keeping track of the ghost's movements. Apple basket. Market stall. Clothes vendor-
There. She waits for him to be relatively clear or anything that would get damaged beyond repair, and shoots forth a lance of prismatic light to pierce the boy-ghost.
The beam of light opens a hole in the boy's chest before he reforms around it. He looks down. Back up. His lower lip starts quivering. His big, brown eyes open wider.
Oh, no. Korina's done it.
Any time now, the waterworks are going to start. If this were a cartoon, maybe there'd be big gushes of it coming out in arcs to spill onto the floor. This isn't a cartoon, though, and this isn't a normal boy. He doesn't cry.
Instead, he marches over, sure-footed, and stands akimbo. "That's not polite," he lisps. "And I don't like your dress."
Kids say the darndest things - and they're usually far too honest. Maybe most people are afraid of Korina, but this little guy's too young (in a manner of speaking) to know any better.
Hook, line, and sinker, as they say. Korina may not have succeeded in blasting the poor boy to smithereens - which, to be fair, she could have if she'd wanted to, considering how tiny that beam of light was, unless this is a super-ghost - but she did succeed in making him stop running around everywhere and fucking up her things. She watches the boy as he moves closer, eyebrows arching at the defamation of her dress, and tells him, "I don't like your clothes either."
Now that the boy's actually coming to her though, she can start a slow, steady walk to the outskirts of the commune, and towards the little gravesite there, marked with mounds of graves - hopefully he'll follow her there as well. "Which one is yours?" comes the question idly. May as well deal with the root of the problem, instead of banishing him to the graveyard to linger around for ages and come back with a vengeance in a month.
"Your hair's funny." He takes after Korina, ripping holes (although in his case, metaphorical) through her self-esteem. There's a bit of irony in the fact that he's nagging her, the way she was Jareth. "Did you eat too much ice cream?" He does have to follow to keep this up.
"Your collar looks like Maggie's. Do you know Maggie? Maggie's my dog."
He grows morose.
"I miss Maggie."
He points as they pass by the line of graves. What he's indicating is a little plot - without a tombstone. All there is is a cluster of wildflowers, long wilted, to suggest that someone's buried there. "That's me."
Korina is much too vain for those insults to have any effect - the little ghost boy would need to be at least three times more savage to do any damage to her self-esteem, or know what actually hurts her. She knows her hair is fabulous, thank you very much. Tell her she smells like a dog or something, and she'll shred him to pieces right here and now. "I did not have any ice cream," she tells the boy in genuine response, looking as though she might go back and nag Jareth for it soon. Soon, right after she's finished dealing with this boy here. They should definitely have ice-cream in the tavern.
She comes to a stop in front of the grave without a tombstone, glancing at the boy and back. "I don't know Maggie. And I don't like dogs," she tells him, instead of offering any sort of consolation. "If you go to sleep she will come join you. Dogs are stupid like that."
"I tried that already," the boy tells Korina. "Yesterday. Maggie ran away and - and - I went to look for her in the forest, but she's too fast. I was tired, so I went to sleep. But she's still not here." He looks to Korina, as if expecting her to manifest this dog for him. Surely she can. She's an adult, and adult's are infallible.
"You would like Maggie," he assures her. "She's cute. She has a big tail and she likes to eat grass."
He considers with all the power his little-boy-brain can muster. "I think I'll wait here with you until Maggie comes back, okay?"
Korina would not like Maggie. She stares at the little boy for a long moment, fixing him with a thoughtful look - should she just get this over with, splash some blood around, banish the ghost boy for a month until she has to deal with him again?
... no, then she would have to deal with him again in a month. While it's always fun to fuck with future-Korina, she's trying to run a business here, if badly.
She sighs.
"Fine, I will bring Maggie, and /you/ will go the fuck to sleep forever," she tells the boy, no room for argument here. "Deal?"
"No one can sleep forever," he tells her. "But I can sleep for TEN hours! That's my record. I missed dinner. It was squash. I don't like squash, though, so that's okay." Some would call this comeuppance. Maybe now Korina will develop empathy for Jareth; the pestering isn't fun when she's on the other end, now is it?
"I'll sleep for eleven hours," he bargains with her. He holds up... five. No, six. Eight! Eight fingers. "Eleven hours," he confirms.
"Thanks, weird ice cream lady!"
Korina will not develop empathy for Jareth. Who ever heard of self-improvement and personal growth? Not her, that's for sure. She just stares at the boy again, as though she's really trying to decide whether to say 'fuck it' and get rid of him without looking for the dog, but - no. She's made the deal already. There's a sigh. "Wait here," she tells the boy and goes into the treeline to hide behind a tree.
While she's there, she ponders the atrocities she's about to commit. If this ever comes out, she's going to kill everyone she knows and then herself.
Look, it's Maggie. Definitely Maggie and not Korina(dog) who comes bounding back out from the trees and up to the boy's grave, her tail wagging back and forth joyfully. There, you have your stupid dumb smelly dog, now go the fuck to sleep, little boy.
"MAGGIE!!!"
The boy wraps his arms around the Korina(dog)'s neck and squeezes tight. If this were a cartoon, her eyes might bulge. It's out of love, but look, children don't know boundaries. "I missed you. Don't ever run away again, okay?" He presses his cheek against her head.
"I love you," he tells her with a purity that only children and animals know.
And then, still locked in that embrace, he starts to fade. His feet go translucent first.
Then, his legs.
His torso.
His face.
His arms are last to go, still clinging to his beloved Maggie.
The color blanches from his clothes and skin, little by little, until - at last - there is peace. He's gone.
The dog gasps for breath a little, but as dogs are dumb and /this/ dog in particular was designed to have no more than three brain cells, she puts up with it until the boy starts to fade and then disappears from in front of her eyes altogether. She lets out a quiet little whine, her tail wagging back and forth and back and forth and back and forth long after the embrace of the child is no longer felt, and there's the pawing of the grave's dirt with one little doggy paw.
And then Korina(dog) shifts back with a sigh, and marches straight off back home for a shower. She needs to wash the doggyness off her. Eugh. Bluh. Shudder. Hopefully she never sees the boy again.
Determined to resolve the ghost child's unfinished business, Korina reluctantly agrees to search for Maggie, despite her disdain for dogs and the ridiculousness of the situation. The odd quest leads Korina to impersonate Maggie, through a magical transformation, to provide the ghost child with the comfort and closure he needs to move on. This tender moment of farewell, facilitated by Korina's unexpected act of kindness, allows the ghost child to finally rest in peace. Despite her initial reluctance and the comical nature of her transformation, Korina's actions demonstrate a deep, albeit begrudging, compassion. The story concludes with Korina, once again in her own form, contemplating her actions and their secrecy, humorously vowing silence over the lengths she went to for the ghost child's peace, hinting at personal growth and the complexities of her character.
(Korina's odd encounter(SRRachel):SRRachel)
[Fri Jul 26 2024]
In Thirsty Toadstool Tavern
This is a brightly lit, bawdy bar. There are always patrons here, mostly faelings and faeborn, but plenty of other travelers as well. The air smells of booze and pipe smoke. To the south is a discrete back door, and to the east is a curtain of beads leading into a darkened room.
A mirror is placed in one corner of the tavern, tall and free-standing with an ornate wooden frame.
It is morning, about 86F(30C) degrees,
(Your target encounters a ghost who's fixated on some past tragedy from their life, they need to either give the spirit some sense of closure, or send it on it's way through more violent means.
)
The tavern is eerily quiet at this early hour, its (presumably usual) bustle replaced by a stillness. Warm light floods the tavern, not by dint of the sun - which it could be, if Korina didn't want to waste electricity or magic or whatever it is the Other runs off of - but by lamp. The air still carries the scent of alcohol, smoke, and sweat from the previous night. The temperature's comfortably warm.
There's a gradual shift in atmosphere, the longer that Korina remains to clean.
The air feels heavier.
The lights flicker.
The beads of the eastern curtain sway, as if moved by an unseen presence.
Nothing happens.
Korina may continue on with her work undisturbed. Surely it's just a fluke of electrical wiring.
A giggling starts up, associated with the pattering of feet. Immediately after, metal creaks, a bolt loosening behind Korina. A puddle of water begins to accumulate beneath a pipe. It's not much; after a few hours, they might be in a millimeter of standing water.
The bartender, Jareth, doesn't notice. He's still listening to Korina give him a laundry list of food and drink to purchase, all for a too-paltry (he thinks) wage. In the middle of shining a glass, it shatters. Could've been him. He has reason to be annoyed.
"I'm sorry," he says with unquestionable politeness. He dips under the counter, starting to collect shards. Please don't make him cook apology steak at 7 AM in the morning. The kitchen isn't open. He has errands to run, made double by Korina's nagging.
And might get away with it, too, if Korina doesn't notice that a variety of bottles seem to have vanished from the shelves and counter - most of them quite expensive.
Jareth could be looting from Korina. It'd be rather inadvisable, given that she could tear him limb from limb, but hey, that's good stuff. Worth the risk.
Korina pays for electricity in here, thank you very much. /And/ she pays for a connection to the internet too, which is where she spends most of her time while 'watching over' the tavern, when she's not busy napping instead, or trying to pester the bartender as she was just now. It really is a huge pain in the ass to have to get some or the other meat for him to cook from the nearby forests - it would be better for him and for her and for everyone else who comes by this place if she just gets a constant supply from one of her other ingredient-suppliers, right? Then all Jareth has to do is cook it up, and also he should really get baking too, for when she's in a rare craving for honey cakes, and he also has too much wine and not enough milk and-
Korina breaks off at the sound of giggling, squinting out the nearest window to see which faeling children are out there making noise. It's the early morning, and they're certainly up to mischief as they always are, while their parents work around the commune and visit the market, and- there's a glass shattering.
"Be more careful," Korina tells Jareth, but it's even-toned; for someone who owns a business, she definitely doesn't keep too much track of where expenses are coming and going. Really, as long as she's gaining money instead of losing it, who cares, right? The wildling moves over to take a seat right atop the bar counter, legs swinging back and forth through the air, and looks over the tavern from this vantage point, "We should get new chairs and tables too. Maybe I will break the wooden women for it," she claims; those wooden women really do have it coming though. As an aside, she tells Jareth, "Tell children to not be so noisy when you are throwing that out." That being the shards of broken glass, of course.
Korina can't possibly know whether she's gaining or losing money unless she keeps track. Please. She's supposed to care. That is, in fact, the primary point of owning a business - unless what we're saying is that the Other isn't subject to capitalism, and here there's UBI.
But anyway, yes, sure, Jareth can bake and throw trash out and procure more food and listen to Korina drove on and on and on. It's always 'what are you doing, Jareth?' and never 'how are you doing, Jareth?' He puts on a brave, 'good soldier' face and roundabouts with all the glass shards collected into the dustbin. He might as well take all the trash out while he's at it.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'll be right back." He hefts the bag into the air and--... oh god, it breaks. The smell is putrid. There's rotting food in there - is that a maggot wriggling? - alongside what might be puke.
"..."
Jareth can explain himself.
He turns toward Korina.
"...Am I fired?"
He's joking, but with a nervous laughter that hints at real concern.
Now at this point, there does happen to be what looks like a kid in the distance - the cute, cherub kind, on the smaller end, with round cheeks, a flat cap of brown hair, and knobbly fingers.
He disappears.
"Tag," a little boy's voice says. "You're it."
Some things don't change across material planes.
He shows up just behind Korina. She could swear she feels a tug at her skirts.
And then Korina and Jareth are alone again.
The giggling picks up. Feet pitter-patter on the floor again.
"Right," poor Jareth, who surely isn't paid enough, says. "Do you still want... me... to..." He glances at the ripped trash bag. He could clean it up. Who's to say it wouldn't just happen again, though?
Korina's method of keeping track involves checking her bank account every few days, and extorting her employees every other few days. Surely one cannot argue with the effectiveness of 'number go up', especially when some- okay, many of them have received some subtle mental nudges to /not/ cheat Korina out of her rightful money. Just standard business practice, you must understand.
The Other is certainly not subject to capitalism though. Maybe totalitarianism when the Fae stop partying in their Golden City and remember they've got subjects to fuck with. Either way, definitely not a democracy out here, that's for sure. It's called Elik's Commune and not Korina's Commune for a reason.
Whether or not Jareth is fired is a question that will have to be answered later; for now, Korina's distracted by the kid who appears in the doorway, immediately earning a narrow-eyed look from the proprietress. She's tagged as it.
"I am it," she tells Jareth in response to whether she wants him to '...' and hops off the counter, stalking over to the doorway in search of a wayward child who may or may not be a ghost. And maybe just to get away from the stinky trash smell. Probably mostly just that. That should be answer enough for him, if Jareth's learned anything by now.
Whether asked to or not, Jareth gets to cleaning up the trash. One - although maybe not Korina - truly does have to commend him on his diligence.
If Korina's stalking after the kid, she'd find him in the market, popping in and out between stalls. "Here," he says by a red-topped stand, like a whack-a-mole with sound effects. "Over here!" he exclaims, then popping out from inside a big basket of apples. The benefit of being dead is a phenomenal ability to hide where unexpected.
This goes on for a while.
Up and down, down and up his little head goes. It's dizzying.
Ultimately, though, Korina's a predator - and there's only so long a cat-and-mouse game will go. So it's only a matter of time.
To be fair, ghosts aren't the usual prey Korina goes for. There's only so much fun she can have with something that doesn't bleed and something she can't actually sink her teeth and claws into, and so she just lets out a big yawn, watching the kid pop up here and there with a detached gaze. The only thing keeping her here is the knowledge that this is /her/ territory goddammit, and since there's nobody else around to take care of it - does she need to hire a dedicated ghostbuster? - it's up to her to get rid of this annoying fella. Or just chase him around until he gets tired and runs out of manifestation juice.
On she goes, standing right in the middle of the market, all her senses keeping track of the ghost's movements. Apple basket. Market stall. Clothes vendor-
There. She waits for him to be relatively clear or anything that would get damaged beyond repair, and shoots forth a lance of prismatic light to pierce the boy-ghost.
The beam of light opens a hole in the boy's chest before he reforms around it. He looks down. Back up. His lower lip starts quivering. His big, brown eyes open wider.
Oh, no. Korina's done it.
Any time now, the waterworks are going to start. If this were a cartoon, maybe there'd be big gushes of it coming out in arcs to spill onto the floor. This isn't a cartoon, though, and this isn't a normal boy. He doesn't cry.
Instead, he marches over, sure-footed, and stands akimbo. "That's not polite," he lisps. "And I don't like your dress."
Kids say the darndest things - and they're usually far too honest. Maybe most people are afraid of Korina, but this little guy's too young (in a manner of speaking) to know any better.
Hook, line, and sinker, as they say. Korina may not have succeeded in blasting the poor boy to smithereens - which, to be fair, she could have if she'd wanted to, considering how tiny that beam of light was, unless this is a super-ghost - but she did succeed in making him stop running around everywhere and fucking up her things. She watches the boy as he moves closer, eyebrows arching at the defamation of her dress, and tells him, "I don't like your clothes either."
Now that the boy's actually coming to her though, she can start a slow, steady walk to the outskirts of the commune, and towards the little gravesite there, marked with mounds of graves - hopefully he'll follow her there as well. "Which one is yours?" comes the question idly. May as well deal with the root of the problem, instead of banishing him to the graveyard to linger around for ages and come back with a vengeance in a month.
"Your hair's funny." He takes after Korina, ripping holes (although in his case, metaphorical) through her self-esteem. There's a bit of irony in the fact that he's nagging her, the way she was Jareth. "Did you eat too much ice cream?" He does have to follow to keep this up.
"Your collar looks like Maggie's. Do you know Maggie? Maggie's my dog."
He grows morose.
"I miss Maggie."
He points as they pass by the line of graves. What he's indicating is a little plot - without a tombstone. All there is is a cluster of wildflowers, long wilted, to suggest that someone's buried there. "That's me."
Korina is much too vain for those insults to have any effect - the little ghost boy would need to be at least three times more savage to do any damage to her self-esteem, or know what actually hurts her. She knows her hair is fabulous, thank you very much. Tell her she smells like a dog or something, and she'll shred him to pieces right here and now. "I did not have any ice cream," she tells the boy in genuine response, looking as though she might go back and nag Jareth for it soon. Soon, right after she's finished dealing with this boy here. They should definitely have ice-cream in the tavern.
She comes to a stop in front of the grave without a tombstone, glancing at the boy and back. "I don't know Maggie. And I don't like dogs," she tells him, instead of offering any sort of consolation. "If you go to sleep she will come join you. Dogs are stupid like that."
"I tried that already," the boy tells Korina. "Yesterday. Maggie ran away and - and - I went to look for her in the forest, but she's too fast. I was tired, so I went to sleep. But she's still not here." He looks to Korina, as if expecting her to manifest this dog for him. Surely she can. She's an adult, and adult's are infallible.
"You would like Maggie," he assures her. "She's cute. She has a big tail and she likes to eat grass."
He considers with all the power his little-boy-brain can muster. "I think I'll wait here with you until Maggie comes back, okay?"
Korina would not like Maggie. She stares at the little boy for a long moment, fixing him with a thoughtful look - should she just get this over with, splash some blood around, banish the ghost boy for a month until she has to deal with him again?
... no, then she would have to deal with him again in a month. While it's always fun to fuck with future-Korina, she's trying to run a business here, if badly.
She sighs.
"Fine, I will bring Maggie, and /you/ will go the fuck to sleep forever," she tells the boy, no room for argument here. "Deal?"
"No one can sleep forever," he tells her. "But I can sleep for TEN hours! That's my record. I missed dinner. It was squash. I don't like squash, though, so that's okay." Some would call this comeuppance. Maybe now Korina will develop empathy for Jareth; the pestering isn't fun when she's on the other end, now is it?
"I'll sleep for eleven hours," he bargains with her. He holds up... five. No, six. Eight! Eight fingers. "Eleven hours," he confirms.
"Thanks, weird ice cream lady!"
Korina will not develop empathy for Jareth. Who ever heard of self-improvement and personal growth? Not her, that's for sure. She just stares at the boy again, as though she's really trying to decide whether to say 'fuck it' and get rid of him without looking for the dog, but - no. She's made the deal already. There's a sigh. "Wait here," she tells the boy and goes into the treeline to hide behind a tree.
While she's there, she ponders the atrocities she's about to commit. If this ever comes out, she's going to kill everyone she knows and then herself.
Look, it's Maggie. Definitely Maggie and not Korina(dog) who comes bounding back out from the trees and up to the boy's grave, her tail wagging back and forth joyfully. There, you have your stupid dumb smelly dog, now go the fuck to sleep, little boy.
"MAGGIE!!!"
The boy wraps his arms around the Korina(dog)'s neck and squeezes tight. If this were a cartoon, her eyes might bulge. It's out of love, but look, children don't know boundaries. "I missed you. Don't ever run away again, okay?" He presses his cheek against her head.
"I love you," he tells her with a purity that only children and animals know.
And then, still locked in that embrace, he starts to fade. His feet go translucent first.
Then, his legs.
His torso.
His face.
His arms are last to go, still clinging to his beloved Maggie.
The color blanches from his clothes and skin, little by little, until - at last - there is peace. He's gone.
The dog gasps for breath a little, but as dogs are dumb and /this/ dog in particular was designed to have no more than three brain cells, she puts up with it until the boy starts to fade and then disappears from in front of her eyes altogether. She lets out a quiet little whine, her tail wagging back and forth and back and forth and back and forth long after the embrace of the child is no longer felt, and there's the pawing of the grave's dirt with one little doggy paw.
And then Korina(dog) shifts back with a sigh, and marches straight off back home for a shower. She needs to wash the doggyness off her. Eugh. Bluh. Shudder. Hopefully she never sees the boy again.