08-18-2014, 01:55 PM
[guh, i am so sorry to drop the ball on closing this out, folks. gonna post us a wrap!]
Elijah offers his hand and a smile blooms across Sally Starling's face, making her glow just a little. Of course she's still in. They are going to grant her last wish. Maybe they won't get to ride the roller coasters (Lucy, tired as she is, advises strongly against it), but she'll at least get to go inside. Someone, Elijah maybe, figures out how to turn on the old carousel and the three mages and a ghost ride the carved and painted horses around and around.
Twice they run the risk of crossing paths with a security guard. But Lucy is there with her mirror to warn them of the danger, and so twice three Mages crouch down into the shadows, stifling smiles and giggles, with Sally crouching down beside them even though she doesn't need to. These are the things she wanted to do in life. She is going to enjoy them in her last moments on this plane.
They stay there until the sky begins to lighten in the east, the blackness turning a dark and murky shade of grey. That's when Lucy puts her hand on Sally's shoulder and tells her that it's time to go. Sally, her smile dimming for the first time all night, nods. It is time. Six years trapped here, forced to relive the moments of her death, is long enough.
Waving, she smiles wider for Lucy and Alicia, but widest for Elijah. She starts to turn, as though to simply walk out of the land of the living, but she stops. Turning back, she closes the distance to the mages in only a couple of steps, and she throws her arms around each of their shoulders in turn. To each of them she whispers the same thing:
"Thank you!
Thank you!
Thank you!"
When she steps back from them, she is not the only one with watery tears causing her eyes to shimmer. She takes a step back from them and, waving, disappears.
It's quiet when the ghost is gone. The sun just breaks the far horizon line when Lucy climbs into the back of Elijah's car, where she curls up and promptly falls asleep, leaving the apprentices to talk about what they witnessed tonight or travel in a silence broken by the radio or Lucy's quiet, rhythmic breathing.
Elijah offers his hand and a smile blooms across Sally Starling's face, making her glow just a little. Of course she's still in. They are going to grant her last wish. Maybe they won't get to ride the roller coasters (Lucy, tired as she is, advises strongly against it), but she'll at least get to go inside. Someone, Elijah maybe, figures out how to turn on the old carousel and the three mages and a ghost ride the carved and painted horses around and around.
Twice they run the risk of crossing paths with a security guard. But Lucy is there with her mirror to warn them of the danger, and so twice three Mages crouch down into the shadows, stifling smiles and giggles, with Sally crouching down beside them even though she doesn't need to. These are the things she wanted to do in life. She is going to enjoy them in her last moments on this plane.
They stay there until the sky begins to lighten in the east, the blackness turning a dark and murky shade of grey. That's when Lucy puts her hand on Sally's shoulder and tells her that it's time to go. Sally, her smile dimming for the first time all night, nods. It is time. Six years trapped here, forced to relive the moments of her death, is long enough.
Waving, she smiles wider for Lucy and Alicia, but widest for Elijah. She starts to turn, as though to simply walk out of the land of the living, but she stops. Turning back, she closes the distance to the mages in only a couple of steps, and she throws her arms around each of their shoulders in turn. To each of them she whispers the same thing:
"Thank you!
Thank you!
Thank you!"
When she steps back from them, she is not the only one with watery tears causing her eyes to shimmer. She takes a step back from them and, waving, disappears.
It's quiet when the ghost is gone. The sun just breaks the far horizon line when Lucy climbs into the back of Elijah's car, where she curls up and promptly falls asleep, leaving the apprentices to talk about what they witnessed tonight or travel in a silence broken by the radio or Lucy's quiet, rhythmic breathing.