{Open} All the words I need to hear.

[Talia Winchell]

Misty, clear rain and auburn leaves drifted down onto the dank, wilted grass, falling down like puzzle pieces into perfect place, and Talysus Winchell sat above them and watched them as they came down. It was about a quarter past three in the afternoon, three weeks after Bobbi and Luke's funeral had ended, and the looming overcast clouds had overlapped the border of the camp for what was not the first time in the last few weeks. Its power was weakening, the seemingly perpetual carefree feeling of the camp was diminishing, and the daughter of Hermes herself was no exception to that. She didn't know what to do with herself anymore, not since three weeks prior to that day, which was the last time she had ever seen her old friend. Luke. Just the name echoing through her head, over and over, was hard to bear and listen to. It sent a lump down her throat and sometimes so much as chills up her spine, and Talysus knew that it was ridiculous. She needed to stop thinking of him, but she knew deep down that it would be a long time until she could bring herself to feeling that apathetic about the amazing yet departed child of Ares.

If she could so much as apologize to him, tell him that she had loved him, it wouldn't be as bad. But she couldn't, really, she knew that; and who was there to talk to? Jamian would just sit there, unsure how to deal with his sister. Bailey, though he had been acting better lately, would most likely just inwardly roll his eyes and only listen to half (if even) of the things that Tal was going on about. Not that she could go on about them anyway. If she couldn't think about anything without feeling herself welling up, forced ten to push those thoughts away, then how would she be able to speak of them out loud? The thoughts poured out into her mind uncontrollably, a torrent, wave, and then a crescendo that flew and then dropped into low, sporadic staccatos. Too many sensations for a girl like her to handle, especially as of late. She was often left breathless by the intensity of everything she thought. It took her over, even. It hadn't been like this before, but now it was. Why? she sometimes thought to herself, hoping that somebody would swoop down and provide her with so much as a cryptic answer in the form of a mere sentence. Why did she often feel the way she did when it was obviously so unnatural?

Maybe it wasn't the best idea to be up in this tree. It made the place where the scar on her stomach was ache when she climbed up, and it was basically a rule that the daughter of Hermes would scratch herself on her way up. But even with its rough bark, thick limbs, and perpetual presence, it comforted her. She felt sometimes as though she were five years old again, constantly regressing. Whenever she wandered over here, she asked herself the very same question. How special could a tree be when all it was was an adult version of a seed? But it was one that she and Luke had sat under, the place where they had shared their first kiss of many, and one where she and Bobbi had shared a pack of layered fruit gum and a few of their innermost secrets. It brought back memories of things that were gone, but Tal knew that the tree would most likely always be there in that very same spot. The Demeter kids would never let anybody so much as peel off the bark, and that was a nice thought. She felt strangely at peace, there, sitting on the branch of a tree with her legs dangling and shoelaces - one neon green, one bright orange - untied and dirtied at the ends. But of course that came with sloshing through muddy puddles. And then… there it was. There he was.

Tal.

Smiling inwardly, Tal answered the familiar voice out loud. It was real enough for her, perhaps it was all-around real. "Hi," she said, her voice soprano and ringing clear through the nearly empty vicinity. "I miss you." She could talk to either Bobbi or Luke anywhere she wanted, but this was one of the only places where she could hear one of them speak back to her. Luke's place was here, and Bobbi's place was near Em's abandoned vanity in the cabin. She had designated this a long time ago, though it hadn't even been thirty days since two of the people closest to her had exited her life completely. It was a system. She could tell them almost anything that she needed to; knowing that nobody except her could see or hear them felt almost reassuring instead of troubling. Nothing either said could be whispered about or passed on unless Tal herself made it so. And nobody really cared about Tal herself, then, did they? She knew that. The worst thing they would do was tell each other that she had been talking to dead people, which happened often. It wasn't anything new, was it?

I miss you, too. The four words rang through Tal's mind as clear as a bell, his voice so close she could almost feel his breath on her ear, see his watery blue eyes. The words were for her and nobody else. And she felt partly reassured. She'd been horrible to him near the end, in her mind. She knew that. But he missed her, and it was good to know. Her heart seemed to swell, full and fit to burst.

"How is it? How are you?"

Everything is fine. He sounded almost annoyed. I miss Camp. How's it there? This wasn't how Luke would normally reply, and Tal knew it deep down; she knew almost everything there was to know about him. but just hearing his voice again… he could be cursing her to Tartarus and she wouldn't care in that moment. She could drown in the sound of his voice that ricocheted through her mind, remnants of their relationship that was now done. Staying lost in it forever could only be so bad. She missed hearing it paired with the sight of him, clearer than day. He didn't leave when things went sour, and Tal still remembered how long the two of them had lasted and how nice all of it had wound up being. The lines between reality and her mind's made-up tales of Lucan Lucchesi were a little bit blurry for her, but she could remember the last things he had said to her at that spot at the volleyball court. She could recall the entire conversation; her brain had locked it away as though it would be needed at another time. Tal breathed in, but it was as though her lungs didn't want to oblige; she could only catch a small breath before having to let it go back into the air. She needed a deep breath right now, her head was spinning and her eyes were hurting, but she couldn't grab one. Staying still, she realized that Lucan - or whatever was out there - was probably just sitting there in the air, waiting for her to reply. Back when they had been dating, Tal remembered that he had had a tendency to zone out too. Sometimes it had been exasperating, other times cute.

"Well, the quest is still being organized," she replied out loud again, losing the sound of a distant bird's song in her hastiness to reply to him as though her memory of him would slip away if she did otherwise. "You wanted to go, right? I think I heard something about that. You were considered, at least." She could feel a lump rising in her throat again. "Seri might go." in reality, Tal had no idea what Seri Winchester's plans were, but something about being able to talk to Luke again made her feel like, well, she needed to keep him happy. He would have supported Seri going on the quest, she knew that much. "She probably misses you too." Wishing afterwards that she could scratch out the word probably, Tal trained her eyes on the clouds that were lumbering nearer and nearer to the center of camp as though swallowing it. "The colors are coming back, you know," she added, sounding like a twelve-year-old who was trying to explain a point to a close friend.

Well, tell Seri I say hey. At the end of the sentence, his voice sounded as though it were coming from underwater. Somehow, Tal knew what was going on. He was leaving her.

Stay here, she chanted though silently and merely in her mind, but it didn't work. When she spoke his name one last time, after ten seconds of silence, Tal knew that he - or his voice, or whatever had been there and speaking to her - was gone. A chill ran down her spine, and her momentary happiness rapidly diminished. He had been here, with her, and now he was gone.

As soon as that thought formed clearly in her head, Tal began to see and feel everything more clearly. Just a little bit at first. The distant aromas of the plants that grew prominently and thrived near the fields became stronger, and then the world spun. She was sure that she was going to fall off of her branch, onto the cold, hard ground and maybe into that murky puddle. But then, everything stopped and there she was. Still perched on her branch. Eyes darting around in amazement, she stopped to take everything in. The smells penetrated her nose in a way like never before, it was stronger than anything she had sniffed at camp even in the crescendo of summertime when everything seemed to be in bloom. The world in general had sharpened to perfection; Talysus could see everything far away and close as though she were wearing brand-new glasses. The colors were back for good now, stronger than they had ever been. The wintertime cold nipped at her skin, but it felt strangely wonderful. What had been painful before was nice to her now. Wondering if these images were here to stay, Tal breathed in. "What?" she couldn't help but say aloud. Maybe Lucan was listening. "Where are you? What did you do?" Her mouth seemed to work of its own accord again. She turned around, searching for his smile, but found nothing but rustling leaves. The occasional darting squirrel, its cinnamon fur on end as it ran to find its winter hiding place. "Please, come out." She didn't know why, but she was so sure that he was there. He had been there moments before, speaking to her; why was he gone now?

The bark was rougher and the colors were brighter, dank though New York winters were, and Tal's eyes spun slightly before resting on a shining puddle of rain almost directly below her branch. This time when she drew breath, it could be as deep as she wanted; as long as the stretching sky, it seemed. She could see herself in the puddle, dangling shoelaces and all, a girl with curious eyes that were grey in some lights and hazel in others; she was this girl in the puddle. For once, she looked content and happy.

In that moment, she realized for the first time in months that she had missed that delicious feeling. A small smile crept up onto her lips and she pushed her hair back, staring down at the place where hers and Luke's ghosts sat. For a moment it was as though she could still taste those kisses.

words; ~2,000. <333 asdjfkl. whoa.
notes; EEP. I guess this is a result of feelsy residue from depressing icc, no internet, and a few minutes of spare time. I'm sorry if it's rambly and the quality itself sucks (and if it sounds too dreamy; I just reread the piece Date a Girl Who Writes lol), but if you're looking for a thread to join, I'd love if someone participated in this. I have a feeling my muse for this thread is going to last for awhile. ALSO. Yes, she's kind of going insane. For those of you who are curious, sometimes people can't see color after going through a traumatic experience, so that's normal. >> Considering what I've put her through she's been through for the past few months, that's realistic enough. xD I don't think talking to your dead ex-boyfriend in a tree is normal, though, so...
muse; i can't even
outfit; CHB t-shirt, dark wash skinny jeans, and black converse, one with neon green laces and one with neon orange ones.
tags; anybody!
listening to; when you're gone - avril lavigne.

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[James Darkwood]

i walk a lonely road ,

It was unbearably cold. James's eyes shot open and he sat up, gasping for air. After sitting there like a doofus for thirty seconds, panting, James finally grasped reality. It was just a bad dream. He let his head fall back onto the pillow and just lied there, his chest rising and falling. James turned his head to look at the clock. It was three thirty in the afternoon! Then he remembered that he had been sitting awake tossing and turning until seven AM. He let out a breath of relief. So he didn't suddenly have some sort of sleeping disorder all of the sudden. Lovely.

James quickly got out of bed and surveyed the cabin. Everyone was gone except for a few people who were just lazing around lazily. James grabbed jeans a gray thermal and made a beeline for the shower. He stood there for about ten minutes, letting the warm water rush over his skin and completely wake him up. Then he got dressed in the quickly-selected clothes he had pulled out of his trunk. He quickly ran his fingers through his hair, attempting to mat it down in some way. He styled it so that he had some sort of bangs angled down his forehead. He yanked on a pair of black DC sneakers and left the cabin to go on with his day.

Outside he was blasted by anything but the usual Camp Half-Blood weather. An occasional but strong wind blew around, causing fallen leaves to fly in a sort of beautiful format. The sky was a blank white sheet, as if it had been wiped clean by an eraser. No sun shined anywhere. Instead of being mysterious, the trees looked solemn and ominous. They could be described as frightful to a small child. A light rain splattered delicately, coming down with inhuman grace. The rain made everything wet and nasty and a few leaves made a home in James's hair. He hastily picked them out of his mess of hair and flicked them down to the ground.

The camp was even quieter as of recent events. Three weeks ago, he had found Bobbi Koester and Luke Lucchesi dead in the forest with this water nymph chick, Arinne. He had just been walking in the forest with her, talking about whatever, when he stepped on something lightly. He looked down at it was Luke's body. The son of Ares had been bloodied and everything. It had been so incredibly nasty. Seconds later, they found Bobbi's body, and Arinne wept like James had never seen any girl weep before. It took James a fair fifteen minutes to get Arinne away from Bobbi's lifeless body. It was the most scarring experience he had ever been through.

As James walked onward, he felt love radiating off of someone. He had this freaky power that he discovered. Now he could sense love. Heartbreak, crushing, affection. You name it, he could feel it. Sometimes it was extremely annoying. James had learned to stay away from Chase Taylor, because that kid radiated affection when he was near that Zeus girl, Olivia. It was just ... ugh. He could feel Chase's love from a mile away, he swore he could. But this was different. It was the love of someone who lost someone and the person they lost ... it was as if he could feel spirit love. Being a son of Eros, he preferred to be near where there was affection, and he gravitated toward the unidentified person like a magnet. Until he found himself looking up a tree.

Sitting in the tree was a girl. He knew immediately who it was from there. It was Talysus Winchell. He could see the blonde head and depressed expression from where he was standing. Except she wasn't that sad-looking right now. In fact, she looked extremely happy. It was so weird. He could feel the love coming off of her, but the heartbreak, too. And there was someone else, but their's didn't feel correct. Like they weren't real.

"What the heck are you even doing up there, Tal?" he called up to her, obviously puzzled. She was smiling and laughing and ... was she drugged? She looked either a) drunk or b) drugged. Whatever she was on, it was doing its job. Talysus Winchell looked as if the weight of the world had been lifted off of her shoulders.

James gazed up at her, his nose scrunched up against the rain. He would have thought that she would extremely depressed after losing her boyfriend, especially in the bloody form that he had been in. James had seen it firsthand, and it had been nasty. That had to have been hard. And Bobbi ... didn't Tal like Bobbi, too? Losing both of your lovers ... that would suck big time. Something wasn't adding up here. James pondered on every thought that crossed his mind. What was wrong with Talysus Winchell after the death of her lovers?

wordcount , 841
ooc notes , This post sucked big time, but I still love writing about James's trains of thought. He thinks in such cute, Eros-y ways! The guy who can feel love coming off of spirits should totally be the one to find out that Tal can talk to ghosts. Because right now he thinks he's certifiably insane.
outfit , dark jeans, a gray thermal and black DC sneakers
lyrics , My five words of lyrics were from Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day.

[Talia Winchell]

When a voice drifted through the biting wind up into her ears, Tal was caught by surprise. She swayed on her branch, nearly toppling off of the tree and into that puddle that she had been gazing into mere moments earlier; steadying herself at the last second, she looked around for the source of the disturbance. And then she settled on them, her oddly wide eyes trained on the child of Eros who went by James Darkwood. With his normally neat dark hair mussed by the wintertime wind and rain and the absence of his usual cocky grin, he seemed completely disconsolated. How she knew this, Tal didn't know, but it seemed obvious all the same.

What was she doing up there? That had been James's question. He seemed puzzled, and he had the right to be. Talysus herself had no idea what made her feel so happy. She shouldn't feel this way, not when the current situation had unfolded; as soon as she began to think that, the smile escaped her lips and the colors reverted back to their normal states. An improvement over how she had felt directly following the recent happenings, but slightly horrible nonetheless. "Hi," she responded to the male voice, not quite looking at him in the eyes and full of irrational fears. Had he been here before, silently watching her? "Nothing," she added hastily as her brain processed what he had asked her. She'd never really been caught - no, found, she corrected herself - in this place before. Not alone, in any case. "I mean..." she continued, choking slightly as the words stumbled clumsily off of her tongue. "I don't know." She didn't know what she was supposed to say. He had asked a simple question, and it scared her that she didn't know so much as how to answer; much less the answer in itself. For whatever reason, shock had traveled through her, making her nearly lose balance again. It started at her feet, sending a wave of unsureness through her that was painfully straightforward. When it reached her eyes, she felt the all too familiar tears welling up. Biting her tongue until it ached, the daughter of Hermes told herself not to cry but was betrayed as the tears began rolling down her face and into her upwards-facing palms. They partly obstructed her eyesight, making everything blur severely and before she knew what she was doing, she'd slipped off of her branch and her feet landed with a what seemed unrealistically loud slash. Water seeped into her shoes and she stared down at them before stepping away from the puddle in horror.

She wiped at her eyes, not permitting herself to look at the surely frightened son of Eros just yet. "Oh my gods," she breathed, shuffling her now-drenched feet in the dry grass. Her hair slid into her face, sticking thanks to the salt water of her tears, and the daughter of Hermes made no attempts to push it away. "I am so sorry." Her voice curved upwards near the end of the statement; again, against her own will. "I don't know what's wrong with me." Her words were nearly unintelligible now; she made no attempts to enunciate or even make them the least bit clear. The last part of her would-be monologue stayed locked in her head as her urge to begin crying again overtook the need to talk. But there's definitely something wrong with me, and I don't know what it is. I can hear Luke and it's just me. That's not normal. I'm not normal. It was the first time she had so much as addressed the issue, though it wasn't aloud; she'd been avoiding the thought for... months now? But whatever was going on with her, it was becoming drastically worse. Talysus was aware of it, but what was there to do about it?

Her breathing shaky as she attempted to regain control of herself, her eyes traveled until she unintentionally made eye contact with James. She bit her lip and forced herself to hold it.

words; 680.
notes; //sigh. I'm so sorry, James. .__. And by the way, it's not Luke's bona fide spirit she's hearing; just a hallucination kind of thing. Unless Damiano actually wants it to be Luke's spirit? but idk.
muse; still great. ^^
outfit; CHB t-shirt, dark wash skinny jeans, and black converse, one with neon green laces and one with neon orange ones.
tags; anybody/james!
listening to; when you're gone - avril lavigne.

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[James Darkwood]

i walk a lonely road ,

She seemed extremely uneasy with her hasty, quick answer. James blinked. Then she actually started crying. James climbed the tree with skill and grace - he was surprisingly coordinated - and sat on the branch next to her. So she wasn't so happy. James looked around. He still felt a presence ... was it some sort of hallucination. He kept her gaze, his sight never leaving hers.

"We're you ... talking to someone?" he asked her, knitting his eyebrows together. It felt like the spirit was coming from her mind, as if it were a creature of her own imagination. Was she dead? James's eyes widened "Are you dead?" he asked her breathlessly. He took in her features. Her skin was pale with a sad, almost ... translucent texture. She looked off. Holy crap. Was she dead? Was she insane? Was she ill? Questions flooded through his head.

Suddenly, the "spirit" connection faded away. The presence was gone. James blinked. What? It was as if someone had just walked away from him. His lips parted in silence and he narrowed his eyes. His eyelids fluttered, blinking repetitively, but staying narrowed when they opened. He sucked in a breath. A slightly awkward silence grasped the air, suffocating it. James looked down, breaking his eyes off of her.

Then a thought crossed James's mind. It was obvious that Tal was falling apart like she was now. Luke and Bobbi had died. She would be even more a "moodswingy killjoy" as he had heard that Bailey put it. Because right now she was definitely moodswingy. Or maybe it was just PMS. He would probably be sitting around sulking if Cinder went and died. All though he would never let her go into the forest without him, and she probably wouldn't want to go in that death trap, anyway. So he was good in that department.

James looked up, and tried to look Tal in the eye. If he was going to get anything out of her, he didn't want it to be so odd that he run away screaming. He was a firm believer in looking someone in the eye when you speak to them. It was only polite and calm. He knew from experience that girls could get emotional, rambly and sobby sometimes. He was very careful about looking people in the eye and trying not to awkwardly break a gaze.

wordcount , 405
ooc notes , I incorporated that he felt it off of her mind now that he's closer to her. And for a second I pictured Cinder walking up and being like "...Jamie?" xD
outfit , dark jeans, a gray thermal and black DC sneakers
lyrics , My five words of lyrics were from Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day.

[Talia Winchell]

It was easier said than done to do something like stop her crying. Tal thought, in that moment, that even if she had truly wanted to she wouldn't have been able to. Her breaths remained shaky and uneven and the world still looked a little bit tipped and messed up, and she wasn't sure what she was supposed to do. She couldn't so much as regain control of herself or her emotions partway, and when James opened his mouth to speak again, she lost control again. She didn't know how it was so, all she knew was that it happened spontaneously. The daughter of Hermes was very nearly back to normal but, when she heard the words "Were you...talking to someone?" the tears cascaded back down her face, warm and salty and forming watery trails in her otherwise dry skin.

"He wasn't real," she gasped, the emotions once again obstructing her ability of speech. "I don't think he was real...but I swear." She took a shuddering, gaspy breath and dropped the eye contact ashamedly. When she spoke again, her voice was louder and her thoughts tumbled out of her mouth unplanned. "I - I swear...his ghost was right f*cking th-there." And now he was gone, and who knew if he was coming back? The tears still came fast, all the ones she had held in from days, weeks, and months past - they came streaming out all at once, as if they'd just been waiting for the opportunity to exit her. "He was talking to m-me... and, and, and then he left and I..." She trailed off, unsure what she was going to say.

"Are you dead?"

Since she'd been bombarded with unusual questions for weeks now, Talysus didn't think anything of it. But she seemingly couldn't help pouring her heart out to this partial stranger, the boy whom she had only sparingly spoken to before today. Before now. "N-No." Her voice came out with an undertone of gravel running beneath it. Clearing her throat, she tried again. "I'm not dead. But I..." Another gasping breath, and she continued. "I feel d-dead... and weird... I can hear him and I can hear Bobbi and I feel a-awful and..." Blinking back the salt water again, she trained her eyes on a nearby rhododendron bush that had been issuing a pungent aroma moments before but now seemed to be anything but real. It was flat and she didn't care about it. It wasn't special anymore. "I think I killed them." Tal hadn't known where that came from, but it was as though she could feel it in her blood. "They're dead."

Oh gods. They were dead. What she had been hearing and feeling was all her. It wasn't really Luke, back from the Underworld to talk to her. It was just her, making up her own lies and bathing in them. Gasping shallowly as the world spun, Talysus turned to face the son of Eros who sat beside her, taking in every word. "Did I kill them?"

words; 509.
notes; Well, that escalated quickly.
muse; Amazingtastic.
outfit; CHB t-shirt, dark wash skinny jeans, and black converse, one with neon green laces and one with neon orange ones.
tags; anybody/james!
listening to; when you're gone - avril lavigne.

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