Tallying Favors

February 23, 2017:

Elinor Ravensdale deals with the dead after Red Robin and Jessica Jones rush off to take care of their respective duties.

Hell's Kitchen, NY

Tonight, a remarkably well-behaved place, really.

Characters

NPCs: Various ghosts, NPC'd by Jessica Jones.

Mentions: Jessica Jones, Red Robin

Mood Music: [*\# None.]


Fade In…

Cecily would have followed Elinor and the others outside of the Abyss; she is not, it seems, tied to that location. She has been describing her problem, which is twofold. "First, darling," she says. "I never got real love in life, and I'll be damned if I go the rest of my entire existence just being everyone's cheap throwaway. Second, I don't particularly want to go to Hell. I'm sure I don't know why the fact that it was my profession or starvation makes me a bad person, but it's certainly been said more than enough that I'm not moral enough to go anywhere else. All the same, I don't want to live this life of lonely torment any longer."

Typical ghost fare…circular arguments, uncertainty, fear, and nothing like a direct path to resolution. But…the price of her help was that Elinor would, somehow, help her.

—-

"No I can understand that, no one wants to just be used and tossed away. Look, I know this gentleman, he's a little old fashioned, French and knows his way around a good verse. I can't promise that love will blossom, but it definatly won't if you don't meet him." He ended up giving Elinor more flowers than she knew what do with. Most of them ended up on the graves of those who were long forgotten. "I'll send him your way if I get back before dawn." Pausing for a moment she reaches over to lightly put her hand on the ghosts shoulder. "However I do need to know what happened, it's very important that I help them find their friends."

—-

"Oooh. The French are very romantic," Cecily says hopefully, and it seems that with that she's been mollified.

"I gave the image to Preston to give to them, but it didn't mean much to me…"

Preston is suddenly ambling on Elinor's other side. "Their friends were sent straight to Hell by way of Limbo, darling. Bodily. If you get too much more tangled in the webs of these people you might well end up having the same sorts of problems. I don't know that this will stop you, necessarily, but…it's at least worth mentioning."

Cecily gives a dramatic shudder. "I saw the limbo part. Terrifying. Ashes everywhere, dust everywhere. Everything rotting. I've seen it before. It never gets any less awful."

—-

"Indeed they are, I don't believe you'll be disappointed. Besides, he likes a long and proper courtship, I am sure you will find it very refreshing." She squeezes Cecily's shoulder again before she turns to Preston. "Hell? That's… well I guess that's one way to spend Valentines day." Elinor says dryly as she continues her walk. "I know, if I keep getting involved they're going to want me to keep helping. That's the problem with the living right? Once the dead are helped they leave you alone, the living keep coming back for seconds." She awkwardly smooths down the wrinkles in the fancy dress before looking toward the dead. "Either way, I can't leave them stranded. Do we know how to get in and out of limbo with out actually dying, or whatever magical artifact that they used?"

—-

"They're going to have to find the caster. It was a very specific spell," Preston says ruefully. "I suppose you could go piss someone off enough to do the same to you, but you wouldn't end up in the same place. Hell's a big location, darling. Only by finding the caster will the resonances match up to give them anything to fix to. Were I you, I'd help them do that if you wish to help at all. The woman— Miss Jones? Said something about looking for gangs, and a specific man. She's been scouring the docks for that one."

—-

"Yeah that's not on my bucket list, but I am sure I could probably help her find the man she's looking for. Or at least point them in the right direction. Don't worry Preston, I'll stay out of harms way, I know you won't let me live it down if I get myself killed and unable to fulfill my dance card." Though she pauses at a near by allyway entrance and thinks to herself. "It is a very big place, I just hope they don't suffer too much damage down there. I've heard even a short amount of time there could lead to a life time of problems."

—-

"A death-time of problems too," Preston says dryly. "But good. I prefer you working from the shadows, darling. I shudder to think of you flinging yourself face-first into a gang rumble, or pitting yourself against Haitian madmen intent on sending you to the down below. But perhaps if they do suffer you can help them. You've got a knack for alleviating it, and truthfully, one who has gone to Hell bodily has essentially walked through a form of death."

—-

"Yes, it's my hope I won't have such problems myself." Elinor has thought of her own death, it's hard not to, and just where she'd end up, or if she, like Preston would linger on Earth. She has yet to find the answer. "I'll do what I can, if not with magic with words." She does lightly nudge Preston with her fist. "Careful, if you keep talking like that I might think you have a crush on me."

—-

"Haven't I made it patently obvious I have a crush on you?" Preston says, feigning a rather aggrieved expression. He sweeps off his hat and says, "I have practically flung myself at your feet."

Granted, ghosts have a weird sense of humor, so he adds, "I suppose given that logic I ought to push yourself to punch a gang member right in the face. Then we could be together forever in a state of lively undeath."

Cecily makes a highly dissatisfied sound. She'd been walking beside them all along, but seeing all this courtship is making her grouchy. A street lamp pops overhead, showering them with sparks, as she loses control of her own abilities to impact the waking world.

—-

"I bet you say that to all the Ectomancers you meet." Elinor says with a smirk, though she shakes her head. "If you kill me before my time, I'll make the rest of your unlife miserable." Still she seems to enjoy the back and forth with the other ghost until she hears the second one getting impatient. "My apologies." She says carefully to Cecily, pushing herself off of the wall and looking her over. "Jacques might be at my apartment now, if you'd like to meet him. Unless there is something else you require of me."

—-

"I should very much like to meet him now," Cecily says primly.

Preston rolls his eyes and mouths 'such a bloody…'

Another street light pops. "Fine fine," he says, waving a hand at them both. "I've got a card game in a few anyway. Kiss kiss, Elinor." He makes a few kissy noises at her, then poofs.

Cecily sniffs. "He's such a cad."

They've had dealings before, these two ghosts. "Does Jacques prefer that I play hard to get? I've never gotten to play hard to get before."

—-

"Very well, I will take you to him." Turning toward Preston she blows him a kiss. "Don't cheat too hard Preston." With that she'll turn and start heading back toward her apartment. "There in lies your problem right there." Elinor says quietly. "True love isn't a role you play. It's not a costume you put on or a dance you perform for entertainment. The role he will like the best is the one of Cecily. Find that girl and you may have an easier time finding him as well."

—-

This makes Cecily stop, and she bites her transparent lip as Elinor just cuts straight to the heart of the matter. The street lights flicker for entirely different reasons this time, and she says, "What if…what if I don't know who she is?" After all, in life that was her entire survival mechanism. Playing roles. Being whomever she was expected to be, whomever someone else wanted her to be.

—-

"And you wonder why you never found the love you craved?" Elinor says lightly as she slips back into Hell's Kitchen. She is staying to the shadows, especially dressed the way she is. "Perhaps that is a journey you need to take. Find Cecily, and perhaps Jacques can help you do that." Honestly she's hoping they keep each other busy, giving her some piece of mind for once.

—-

For once, Hell's Kitchen does not produce trouble. Or at least, not the area of Hell's Kitchen that Elinor is walking around in. When she gets to her apartment she'll find another envelope tacked to her door. It's just a note, but it reads:

"Sorry I had to dash. This is really freaking me out. That's 3 I owe you. Don't forget to collect. I pay my debts, even if you seem to be the type that would never track them. -JJ"

The handwriting is messy, but it's legible enough. Cecily hovers over her shoulder, reading shamelessly, but…most ghosts are pretty curious about the affairs of the living.

—-

Elinor spies the note on her door and frowns. When she reads it she shakes her head. "We've barely scratched the surface and she's freaked out, and now she's tallying favors? Humans." She says quietly before she opens up her apartment door. True to her word, there is a tall, long legged french man with a puffy shirt sitting on her couch. He is reading a romantic novel and gets to his feet to bow to the woman of the house. "Cecily, meet Jacques, Jacques, this is a woman with out romance in her life, can you fix it?"

Jacques gets to his feet and looks at both of the women in the room. Slowly he walks over the the once courtesan and gives her a charming smile. "Twere there such beauty to enter my abode. I shall mark this day as blessed."

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