feigns | ► two → video/action。

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► two → video/action。

[When the video first clicks on, all that's visible is Will's face and the top of his shoulders. The feed shifts slightly, and from the angle it's being held at, it would be reasonable to assume he's led down, and even more reasonable -- from the slight squint and the admittedly somewhat dirty red bricks visible in one corner of the screen -- to think that he's outside and on a wall. After a moment, he appears satisfied that the device is, in fact, turned on, and places it somewhat clumsily behind his head, slightly further along the wall.]

I assume if this were normal, it would have been mentioned somewhere in between the rampaging wooden animals and the impromptu, temporary marriages ― perhaps just after cats, but before the clones. I shan't complain, though I feel as if I ought to be speaking of― [he pauses for a moment, waving a hand vaguely and briefly adopting something approaching a passable West Country accent] ―thic faraway lands, visited only by a daring, and arguably foolish, few on gurt maggoty ships.

[He sits up suddenly, and turns round to study his device; he looks cheerful, albeit slightly grubby and fairly nonplussed by the situation as a whole, although it soon fades into poorly concealed irritation.]

Perhaps Bristol's only up the road, or Teignmouth to the west and Torquay just below that. I suppose we shan't ever know; in a few hours more, we'll be somewhere and somewhen else entirely, taking part in a wholly ridiculous scavenger hunt. Why would it be as simple as playing along in what amounts to a bastardised children's game?

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[He presses his lips into a line, eyebrows quirking at her remark. He tries to ensure that people -- all people, even Jem -- hold a poor opinion of him, even if part of him sometimes wished the opposite, and another part found irritation in assumptions being made based on his other habits, real or fictional.]

If it weren't such a nice day, I'd be offended by that. [Since moving to London, he'd always found he preferred the inevitable grey and rain that seemed to accompany most days than the sun, and here was no exception. It wasn't that he disliked the sun -- far from it, in fact -- he just found it wasn't particularly interesting as far as weather went, and people expected far more socialising when it was bright and warm.] But you're in luck; I'm feeling far too lazy to bother.

[It worked. A silent exhale of relief and an equally silent clap on the back for the youngest Weasley (as well as a mental word of thanks to paying attention to the twins' various tactics in avoiding Mum's questions). Ginny shrugs again, idly kicking the heels of her boots against the wall as she remarks, ]

Mm, yeah. I expect it's the weather. [She glances up to the sky again. Her favourite place.] But you'd be offended anyway, wouldn't you?

[Though there's little malice behind the words, just quiet observation. If she were younger, there would be a trace of a grudge held over their last conversation, but she's grown slightly since. Now it's more curiousity, though it tends to border on too curious.]

Would I? [He looks at her for a long moment before averting his gaze.] Have we grown to know that much about each other in such a short amount of time? It's almost scandalous. [Although his tone is level, polite even, it's likely not difficult to notice the fact that he attempts to refute most claims to know him on any level beyond that of 'superficial'.]

[Barely waiting for a response, he hops down off the wall and turns in the direction of the ocean. Wherever they were, it was noisier, busier than Tenby had ever been, and that alone is enough to destroy any nostalgia he might have felt at being on the -- a -- coast. Changing the topic abruptly, he continues:] A lot of coastal areas are rumoured to be haunted, did you know that? Bindon Hill at Lulworth Cove supposedly has Roman soldiers that march up and down the hillside at times of national crisis. I imagine most of the stories came about to deter late night wanderers away from the area, or to persuade the impressionable into ignoring the smugglers that decided natural coves with doorways made of limestone were the best places to make port.

―Or to add a bit of romanticism into an otherwise unbearably dull geographical location. I've never been fond of the sea.

[She doesn't exactly respond to his first comment in a heartbeat, merely shooting him a Look that is all at once dry, mildly irritated, and vaguely amused. Then she murmurs under her breath with a trace of something difficult to place,]

Don't talk to me about scandalous.

[Because dating the Boy Who Lived brings nothing short of it. But that's two years in the past, now. Oh, Merlin, has it really been two? Ginny sighs a little, passing a hand over her face for a moment, and when she glances over to Will again, he's moved off and over a bit and she takes the moment to study him with knit brows and a slight frown. Of course she notices the subject's been dropped. Of course she can't help but wonder why. But there is a lot of truth to what he had said; or, rather, not said—they don't know each other well enough at all.

She pulls one leg up onto the wall and hugs her knee to her chest, chin perched on top of it as she listens. Hauntings. Ghosts. She isn't afraid of ghosts, they're just witches and wizards who chose a different path because they were too afraid of the first one. But his last sentence gives her pause, and instead of looking out at the water, she keeps her gaze fixed on his back.]

I've a friend who's in love with it. Why aren't you, then?

[He cocks his head to the side, only half bothering to look back at her. It's a lie, to say that he's never been fond of the sea, but equally, he's never been fussed about either lying or being caught lying, and he sincerely doubts that Ginny would be able to tell.]

Why should I? All it is is water that tastes horrifically awful if you're unfortunate enough to swallow it. The most interesting part of it is that it separates one stretch of land from another. I'd even prefer to sit on the shore and build sandcastles.

[He pauses thoughtfully.] Or sit and eat ice cream. I don't recall Billy Bones ever confessing to a fondness for ice cream, though, so I can only assume that pirates lack a fondness for it, or simply fail to know what they're missing. Of course, it may simply have been because Billy Bones had a liking of alcohol to the detriment of nearly everything else.

[Somehow, the thought of him enjoying ice cream on a beach amuses her. Maybe because she's only ever seen seen him as this dry, dismissive thing and she associates a relaxing time on the seashore with someone... not William Herondale. But there she goes again, making assumptions. Not all people are Slytherins, Ginny Weasley, and not all people can be so neatly Sorted into Houses and their rivalries.

Instead, she asks with absolute sincerity,]

Who's Billy Bones?

[He turns and looks at her. Whilst he's not entirely surprised she's unfamiliar with the book, he can't help the part of him that finds it innately odd. But then, he supposes, he's been surrounded with all manner of things he's unfamiliar with, it was only natural that it would happen the other way round, as well.]

He was a fictional pirate. Does no-one read in the future?

[Ginny rests the heels of her palms on the wall so she can lean back a little and shoot him a bit of an indignant look. She's no Hermione Granger, but it's not like she limits her reading material to Quidditch Through the Ages, either.]

Oi, I read loads. I'm sure we just don't have the same... [Books.] Tastes.

[She's sure she knows more than the average Muggle when it comes to Merlin, for instance. Or goblins. Or Babbity Rabbity and Her Cackling Stump. But... details.]

Is Billy Bones part of a ghost story?

[He doesn't bother even to attempt to hide his amusement at her indignation. Popular literature changes; there was no way of knowing what would or wouldn't be remembered. That said, he shoots her a look of mock exasperation at her question.]

He's a pirate, Ginny. It's a book about pirates.

Pirate stories can have ghosts in them.

[And then, before she can quite stop herself.]

Have you ever seen one?

A pirate or a ghost? I assume you mean the latter, since―. [He gestures with one hand at their surroundings.] It would hardly make much sense to be asking about the former. [He stops short of saying it'd be outright stupid and pauses, watching her, his curiosity evident. He'd prefer to believe they didn't exist; he didn't like to believe in any form of life after death. It made it easier, in a way, to believe that death really was the end of it, but he could see why other people might want to believe in them.] No, I haven't. Have you?

[She flicks her gaze out over the ocean, not answering immediately. The details are kept to her society, so she doesn't give them away here. But he does know magic exists in her world, so why not give a little truth.]

Stories like that are always meant to keep people away. Usually children, but they've a tendency to sneak into things that don't concern them, anyway. Secret passages in castles, forbidden forests, that sort of thing. But I reckon there's always some truth to those things, too. Ghost stories and the lot.

[Ginny looks back to him and states quite simply,]

I've seen several. [Then she grins.] As for pirates, though? Today's a first.

Were they anyone interesting?

[He glances at her, mildly surprised by her reply. Although she'd said that magic exists in her world, he hadn't been sure to what extent she'd be aware of anything else, if it existed at all. Not, of course, that the belief in ghosts and being able to see them meant anything; a lot of mundanes believed in them, and they had nothing approaching the Sight, or awareness of warlocks, demons, or anything else.]

Stories with the express aim of putting children off doing something will always have the opposite effect. They'd be better off making up something horrendously dull; no child would want to go near whatever it is then.

A poltergeist, though he's more obnoxious than anything else. And a ghost who's nearly headless. Nearly, mind you; he's got his head attached by about this much skin.

[She holds her thumb and forefinger apart by what looks like half a centimetre, grinning all the while. It sounds ridiculous, of course. Whether he chooses to believe her is up to him, but the whole truth of why she hangs around with ghosts - why she's taught by one, why she has a ghoul up in the attic - is too much for a new acquaintance.

Ginny leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees, and she raises her brows at Will.]

And, well, sure. Kids are too curious for their own good―Merlin knows I was. Am. [She chuckles.] There's this place near my school called the Shrieking Shack. Supposedly it's the most haunted dwelling in Britain and that even ghosts won't go near it. I'd never heard anything there, though, shrieking or otherwise but people still won't go near it.

[He utters a short laugh, looking almost impressed. It's not clear whether he believes her or not, primarily because he's not sure whether he ought to believe her; there's no reason not to, but it sounds rather absurd, similar to something he'd make up just to see how someone else would react.

He shrugs.]

If I'm not mistaken, the entire point of poltergeists is to be obnoxious, so that hardly comes as a surprise. I can't say the lives of the dead interest me, though. [He says lives as if he doesn't consider it to be that at all.]

[Truth be told, more than half the reason she's telling him really is to see how he'd react. People tend to not expect the truth around here and sometimes telling it is the best way to have someone disbelieve you entirely. But really, Nearly-Headless Nick's story is actually absurd beyond measure. The poor man's still upset about it.

Still, the redhead allows herself to look rather pleased and then it's replaced by something more thoughtful.]

So I expect no one's told you about the dead here.

[He murmurs a vague noise of acknowledgement, turning back towards the sea. After Amy had sent him the guide, he'd spent the evening looking over it and memorising what had seemed important. Death, of course, had been something that had been mentioned. Apparently those that died here weren't able to return to their own worlds, but they were resurrected, as were those who'd been killed in their world. It was nonsensical and ridiculous, and he didn't like it, but he could hardly argue against whatever natural (or unnatural, as the case may be) rules governed this world.

Beyond that, though, the concept of death didn't bother him. Privately, he'd admit that there was a reason as to why Gabriel and various other Shadowhunters didn't expect him to live past nineteen, and that realisation -- both that others believed it, and his own awareness of the reason for it -- had never bothered him quite as much as he imagined it ought to.]

They were mentioned in the guide. The afterlife still doesn't interest me; we live, we die, that's all that matters. People in your world might become ghosts, but the people in mine don't. What happens here hardly matters in that respect, the only difference being that I would quite like to leave here at some point so I'd rather not find myself in mortal peril too soon.

Becoming a ghost is a choice in my world, Will. [The defense is soft, but firm.] But very few people choose it. I wouldn't.

[Ginny follows his gaze out to the water, her chin resting in her hand and as the other traces a fingertip along the wall's edge to draw focus away from the urge to take her wand from her hair. It's a comfort thing. But thinking of the war brings a tightness to her throat; she accepted the idea that she may die in the battle long before her future was revealed to her here, by Harry. She knows she'll lose family and friends. She knows she'll wish they chose to stay tethered to the earth for the first few days of mourning, but that's not an afterlife she'd want for them.

When the City gave them Fred with icy skin and a silent heart, it broke hers, but she clung to the stolen time they had. Even in magic, death is death and it shouldn't be tampered with in the way the City does. But she won't lie and say she hates the rules in that regard, either. Maybe it's selfish. But she is also a sister who loves her brother.]

We'd all like to leave here, but speaking from personal experience? Getting caught up in mortal peril in the City isn't always avoidable. I've managed to stay alive and keep my heartbeat―and I've certainly come damn close to losing it, too―but I know people who haven't been as lucky. [Pause.] If you'd call what the City does luck at all.

[And then, riding on the heels of a sigh,]

I've seen the dead leave here, too, though. That's the odd thing.

[He doesn't respond immediately, preferring instead to focus his attention on the horizon. He couldn't imagine why anyone would want to become a ghost. Those that lived longer than you would only die eventually.

Rocking back on his heels, he spun to face her with a grin.]

If that's the case, then I need not make any changes to how I live my life.

[This response shouldn't surprise her, but it does, and it elicits a burst of laughter from the witch. Ginny raises her hand from the wall and prods him lightly in the chest, her ruminative air tucked away and replaced by vague amusement.]

Full of daring, nerve, and chivalry, are you?

[To quote the Sorting Hat, of course.]

[A look of genuine surprise crosses his features and he looks down at her, apparently not entirely sure as to how he ought to respond to the poke. After simply blinking at her for a moment, he shakes his head.]

Chivalry's perhaps going a bit far; I have very little honour, almost no humility, and I doubt whether many would describe me as being both gracious and courteous to the fairer sex. My fear of God is also lacking somewhat. If you really wanted, though, I could pretend to be Sir Galahad -- although I'm without a steed and any semblance of purity.

[Aha. So he can be surprised. Ginny's grin widens a fraction and she gives him one more prod for good measure before dropping her hand away and settling back onto the wall. She cocks her head at him, wondering after this particular response to something she'd said in jest.]

Oi, now. What's all this? Where'd that ego of yours go?

'A maiden knight to me is given, such hope, I know no fear; I yearn to breathe the airs of Heaven that often meet me here.' [He hops back onto the wall next to her, turning abruptly away and walking down it, arms outstretched even though his balance is fine without the action. He doesn't imagine she'll be familiar with the poetry of Tennyson, but he continues regardless.] 'This mortal armour that I wear, this weight and size, this heart and eyes, are touched, turned to finest air.'

[He stops and turns back, grinning at her and shrugging loosely.] It retreated into the confines of honesty. I wouldn't want you getting your hopes up too much in case you ever fancy being a damsel in distress.

Oh, Merlin's beard. He knows poetry, too? I don't know if I can take it.

[Ginny affects the most ridiculous, breathless voice when she says this, and goes as far as swooning almost bonelessly over the wall, a hand pressed to her heart. She can be quite the little actress when she needs or wants to be (see: garroting gas and Ron failing spectacularly at Quidditch), and right now, it fits. She holds that successfully for maybe five seconds before dissolving into laughter, and she rocks back up into a sit with a swing of her legs, grinning widely back.]

I don't fancy being a damsel in distress at all. It doesn't suit me, just like I'm not so sure being a knight suits you. [Her eyes rove his frame once, and she adds,] I can't imagine you in armour.

[Will watches her display of theatrics with amusement. There's a distinct difference in the way that people here respond to him -- people from the future, as discomforting as it was to think of. When she finishes, he announces airily:] If I didn't know any better, Miss Weasley, I'd say you were taking the piss.

And armour gets in the way; it's only convenient if you're not planning on moving at all.

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action; ...literally just got off the plane from japan ;___;

action; aaw :c I hope you had fun!

action; I HAD THE BEST TIME now i miss it D:

action; I don't blame you lmao

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