Fraudulent Mirror

Ghosts, cold and unfeeling, fleeting as they are. Not that they don't pense, emotionally, but that they are literally cold and grim-cast. Chilled, if you will. Only a rare few are chill.

Febronia is, of course, well used to not being seen - or, if she is seen, not being believed. Not being presumed real nor even the afterimage of anything that actually mattered.

As if one, with no basis or prompt for it, would imagine her as a hallucination, offhand, and shake their head once to clear it before moving on.

Imagine someone stopping, wondering and worrying.

She hasn't seen a soul yet who might answer to that description of duty.

But, like it or not, the most pressing thing about Febronia, by anyone's definition, really is that she's dead and ghostly and ghastly and fleeting.

So she sighs a lot. She tries to make her peace.

Her Realian nature, her being purpose-made for taking care of anything and anyone that was there to be tended - this included everything from churches to flowers to children - at any cost, no matter how unsubtle, is no doubt what makes her so quiet to the fact of her own death and unappearance.

It simply is. It's not that she doesn't care; it's that she's really not sure what she could do about it if she did. Because she does, rather.

A woman comes into the church now, carefully leading a small group of children. Her eyes are keen, quick to survey the room for safety (really, for danger). Just because this ruin keeps quiet doesn't mean it's not the perfect place for trouble to lurk.

There's no telling when life will stir here next, or ever again. Febronia decides to make a circuit of the pews, pretending the students and teacher aren't there just as they will fail to see her.

The children cling to the woman's skirt, not because they're afraid but because she is soft and comforting. Her dress is of a much simpler cloth than even the lost civilization of Miltia's past-generation garb.

"You're doing an excellent job at being quiet, everyone," she praises them. "This is a place where people go to pray, and to think big thoughts about important feelings. That makes it a place of great respect."

Then, to herself, she murmurs, "Peaceful. Sacred. Fragile. And most of all, ancient." Miniature fingers fluffing up the dust on every slim wooden surface emphasize the pensive woman's point: no one actually prays here, nowadays. It's a miracle, or some kind of strange trick, that she even knew it was here.

Febronia turns at the back corner of the room, now preparing herself to walk directly behind the woman's back.

Then, "Miss Flora!" one of the children cries, ignorant to their peers' shushing. "I heard a noise!"

A shift of the rug; a piece of the real world not half so imaginary as Febronia.

Now Flora turns, eyes narrowing until they blink wide open again, weight likened to the undramatic bounce of a ceramic upon hitting the carpet. "You..."

Febronia smiles at her, expression only marginally pained. If that's all it is to be, just that faintest sliver of light cast by the moon, then so it shall be.

"Remember, it's an old building," Flora says, nodding distractedly like she's hesitant to shake off her own soft-touch dust. "All places like this have their own peculiar creaks."