Library, Monday

[intotheout]

Tip was trying to get actual library work done this week, she really was. But every time she focused on it, she kept seeing flashes of something dashing by out of the corner of her eye. She never saw what it was, exactly, and when she asked Bill he just gave her the bubble version of a shrug. It didn't matter if she was at the front desk or in the stacks. She tried just staring vaguely into space for a bit to see if she could track it down, but it only every happened when she was actually working.

"Right," she said. "Either there's a ghost in here who wants me to be a slacker, or I'm losing my mind."

[open!]

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[intotheout]

"Crazy on this island is super relative," Tip pointed out. "I mean, I go around talking to inanimate objects on the regular on the off chance they've developed sentience, so. . . ."

[always_someone]

"So I'm in good company," Norman mused. "How often does it turn out you're right, around here?"

Because he wouldn't be super surprised if the answer was 'really, really often.'

[intotheout]

"I don't actually have any proof here, yet. But my sword teacher totally talks about his sword like she has a soul, and the music shop guy thinks I'm nuts but I'm betting his stereo is nicer to him now." Bill blew an anxious wreath of bubbles around her head. "Also there's Bill. But I met him before I got here."

[always_someone]

Norman chuckled a little and waved hello to Bill. It was hard to deny something had a mind of its own when it was right there communicating, even in its own way.

"Bill totally counts," he decided. And then paused. "Sword teacher?"

Oh no. Was Tip officially basically the coolest person Norman knew, now?

[intotheout]

Tip would be absolutely astonished to hear that. She wasn't a cool person, she was intimidated by cool people!

She was learning to sword fight, though.

"This guy who works at the diner is teaching me fencing in the park." Tip blinked. "It is much less sketchy than it sounds. He's totally a nice guy. You know, um. Mostly."

Sorry Kanan. At least you'd graduated back up to "mostly"?

[always_someone]

Well, 'mostly nice' was still more than Kanan would have wanted even a year ago, so it wasn't half bad.

"Mostly?"

Norman, meanwhile, was now minorly concerned that this fencing teacher was a 'nice guy,' as opposed to a nice guy.

[intotheout]

"There was this whole . . . thing. With these evil slugs. . . . It's kind of a long story."

[always_someone]

"I'll take your word for it," Norman decided, glancing toward one of the library windows. "I see the slugs around from time to time. The big ugly things with all the teeth? They kind of say it all."

[intotheout]

Tip frowned, blinking rapidly at him for a few moments. "Oh my god, you mean slug ghosts." She shook her head sharply. "It never even occurred to me there would be slug ghosts."

Her eyes shot wide open. "There aren't any, like, really big weird monster ghosts, are there?" Like, say, a giant statue ghost near the post office. Tip wasn't sure she could handle the idea of her other self leaving a ghost behind.

[always_someone]

"Uh." Norman looked faintly perplexed for a moment at that. "You might need to narrow that down a little. This morning I passed by a dinosaur fighting some kind of... half-pony, half-monkey thing, just going to get a coffee."

Fandom Island was full of weird monster ghosts.

"There's a big dragon I sometimes see near the park that I'm pretty sure is made of Jello?"

[intotheout]

". . . Jello?"

Yeah, that one was well before Tip's time.

"I mean, like . . . that weirdly resemble people here. I think one of them was a giant ship shaped thing that used a student's body as a lure? And I heard about a big spider with a teacher's face."

[always_someone]

"Oh. Then sorry." Norman shrugged his shoulders. "Nothing like that, I don't think. I'm pretty sure I would have remembered a literal ghost ship."

Norman probably would have turned around and left the island again if any of the boss spirits were here. Fortunately, technically, they didn't even exist yet.

[intotheout]

"Oh thank god," Tip said, breathing a heavy sigh of relief. "That whole thing was nasty. I'd hate for it to still be hanging out where we couldn't see it."

[always_someone]

"Something like that, I probably would have mentioned," Norman replied, looking thoughtful. "Though I guess I haven't gone running around telling people about the jello dragon, so..."

No, no, there would have been freaking out.

[intotheout]

“Now I’m trying to think of other weird things I’ve seen here that might have left spirits behind,” Tip said. “Oh! Have you seen an alot of ghosts yet?”

[always_someone]

Norman paused for a moment to parse that one.

"An alot of ghosts?"

Look, he saw a lot of ghosts on a regular basis. But he didn't know what an alot was, yet.

[intotheout]

"Yeah! You know, the big hairy things that live in the woods and look like a cross between a bear, a yak, and a pug."

Surely he had at least seen a ghost of an alot, if not a full on alot of ghosts.

[always_someone]

"Oh, that's what they're called? Then sure, I've seen those around. I don't go into the woods very often, though."

Norman shrugged. It wasn't that he didn't like the woods. It wasn't even that he'd been traumatized by that one time he'd almost been killed by a screaming poltergeist in them. It was mostly just that he didn't actually have any reason to be there.

[intotheout]

"It's too cold out to go out there right now. But in the summer it can be fun to go on hikes sometimes."

Tip had never been on a hike in her life.

[always_someone]

"Yeah? Do you hike a lot, then, Tip?"

Norman preferred not to. Really, he was not a sporty type.

[intotheout]

"Not . . . historically," Tip said. "But I also never used to know how to use a sword, so maybe next summer that'll be part of my growth as a person."

[always_someone]

Norman laughed. There was no judgment in it, just an easy acknowledgement of understanding.

"I'm a little bit like that, too," he admitted. "I mean, without the awesome sword skills or anything. Back home I'd ride my bike almost everywhere, but there are too many stairs here for that. But if you want to take up hiking once the weather is better, and you ever want company..."

Well, he certainly wasn't going to go hiking alone.

[intotheout]

"I might take you up on that," Tip said. "Or, hey, maybe we can get mountain bikes and go riding instead."

[always_someone]

"Now there's an idea," Norman replied, giving Tip a grin. "And that gives me time to save up, too."

He paused.

"Uh, do you know anyhwere in town that might be hiring students?"

[intotheout]

Tip grinned at that. "Basically everywhere," she said. "Seriously, you can probably ask even if you don't see a sign hanging up. I worked at the post office for awhile after I got here."

Come to think of it, she'd never officially quit that job, had she? She'd just applied to work at the library and then eventually stopped showing up at the post office.

Oops.