"Mm…" Atlas was quiet for a moment, pondering the new information. "But I'm human now, so I suppose I would have to go through a process like this in due time. How long do humans live?" He asked curiously. "Do you think I would live that long? Or do I still have the lifespan of a cat?"
You Look Familiar // OxO // CLOSED
Her smile fell. “You’re already thinking about that kind of stuff? Well, I suppose it’s easy to, here.” Her fingers combed absentmindedly through her hair. “Humans live to around eighty years. Cats only live to about ten or twelve. Since you’re human now, it’s hard to say, but…”
Out of the corner of her eye, Magnolia caught a wispy, transparent form float through the door. Her fingers flew from her hair and landed on the desk in front of her as she snapped to attention.
The spirit before her looked to be a woman in her sixties, her plump yet wispy form gliding over to the desk.
“Miss Jane, I see you’re ready?” Magnolia said, her smile coming back a little nervously from being caught off guard.
“Yes, witch, let’s get it over with,” the ghost replied, seeming a little grumpy. ”Ah, but who is that child you have with you?”
"Yeah, I've honestly kinda been thinking about it almost since I transformed…" Atlas sighed softly. "I was worried that I would just age super fast as a human and then die within a cat's normal lifespan, but I guess that doesn't make all that much sense…" He continued muttering to himself until he noticed the ghost coming in, which made him hide behind Magnolia again upon seeing how grumpy the spirit was. This was definitely one he didn't want to trifle with… "U-Um… my name is Atlas, ma'am… it's nice to meet you…"
”Atlas?” Miss Jane raised an eyebrow. ”Oh. I see now. I had thought would stay in your own lane, witch.”
Magnolia’s expression hardened. “We’re not here to discuss my familiar, Miss Jane. You wanted to get this over with, remember? Don’t worry, there’s no witchcraft involved.”
The spirit merely scoffed in reply.
Magnolia pulled out a document before her. “Sign here, and you are agreeing to pass on within the day. If find yourself unable to, we can perform a spell to help you,” she said, her voice significantly drier than it had been with the last ghost. “All the information is in the document, but do you need me to lay out the process of passing on?”
At the word ‘spell,’ Miss Jane shuddered. “No,” she decided. “I familiarized myself with it when my husband and other relatives had passed.”
Magnolia nodded, and gave the ghost a pen.
Atlas watched quietly from behind Magnolia, obviously nervous and uncomfortable. The ghost really wasn't very friendly at all, and he figured the less he interacted with her, the better. At least she's familiarized herself with it so we don't have to talk to her much more… she isn't very nice. I thought religious people were supposed to love everybody and be nice and stuff? He wondered to himself, remaining silent for the time being.
As Miss Jane signed her name on the document, she murmured, ”Before I go, dear, I at least hope you learn from your mistakes and stick with just one branch of your… witchcraft.”
Magnolia sighed and set the document in the new pile. “Miss Jane, could you at least say something kind before you pass on?”
The ghost sniffed. ”Well, excuse me. I like your hair, then. How’s that?”
“Better than nothing,” Magnolia said, suddenly getting the urge to laugh.
”Wonderful.” Miss Jane’s gaze moved to Atlas. ”And I hope you find some way to change him back.”
The urge to laugh faded. “That was a bit worse. We are done here.”
The spirit rolled her eyes, then drifted out the door.
Atlas cowered a bit more, especially whenever the woman's gaze hit him. He was clearly uncomfortable with her. He breathed a soft sigh of relief when she finally left, loosening his tight grip on Magnolia. "Well, she was… interesting…" He said softly. "Why do you think she was so mean? I thought religious people were supposed to be nice and love everybody?"
Magnolia laughed a little. “Well, yes, but not all religious people are the same. I think some of them really don’t like that witches are working in certain areas of society, so they tend not to like witches very much. Or magic in general, for that matter. I don’t really care, if I’m being honest.” Then her gaze hardened. “What was really uncalled for was how she targeted you.”
Eager to change the subject, her expression brightened as she ruffled his hair again. They would have to comb it at some point… “So, about your life expectancy? Let’s think about it like this. As a cat, you were five months old, a kitten. As a human, you look to be around seven to eight years old, a child. If you were aging at the speed of a cat, you would already be an adult and quite old, but you’re not. So by that logic, you must be aging at the speed of a human. Therefore, you have the average lifespan of a human. Does that make sense?”
Atlas listened closely, leaning into Magnolia's hand whenever he was touched. It seemed to relax him as long as he was expecting it, and as long as it wasn't restricting. "Alright… I guess that makes sense. So I'll live longer since I age at the same rate as humans now. That's interesting… we should write that down somewhere. We can do some research on this as well since it's probably not a super well covered topic, right? We could help out other witches and stuff."
Magnolia pursed her lips. “Haven’t thought about it like that,” she said. “We could, but it’s just speculation. We won’t know for sure until, uh, until you die, I guess.” Then her lips spread into a smile. “But doing research sounds like a great idea. It can be like… a science experiment. Or a magic experiment.” She shrugged, chuckling a little.
"Yeah, right…" Atlas yawned and leaned against the desk, fidgeting with his hands. "It's an interesting enough experiment, right? I doubt lots of witches end up turning their familiars into humans, right? So it can't hurt to write some stuff down. Is anybody else coming in?"
“That’s true,” Magnolia mused. “We’ll write it down. I guess it’s like, our hypothesis.” She straightened and stretched; extending her arms in front of her and hearing something pop in her back. She relaxed. “Yes, we have quite a few more ghosts that are coming in. Next up is a guy who applied to reincarnate.”
"Alright…" Atlas kept close to Magnolia, occasionally standing on his toes to look at the papers she was holding even though he couldn't read them. "Okay, when is he planning on coming in, then? And is there any reason why ghosts can't reincarnate on their own? Like, without needing to sign the papers and stuff?"
“Uhh…” Magnolia glanced back at the application. “Soon, but it’s like… 25 minutes. If it gets too boring in here we can get out and walk around a little.” Her gaze moved to Atlas, a brow raised. It was a little unusual for her to hear questions like these. “I… I believe it’s state policy. It’s not that they are unable to, and there are plenty of cases where ghosts don’t sign any documents or go through any application process, and just do whatever. But basically a ghost is required to do that around the time before their funeral, like with Mr. Thompson. It’s basically just for the purpose of knowing how many ghosts are still on earth, among other things.”
"Mm… I would just think that there would be some cases where ghosts just didn't know the rules, you know? Since it's kind of a witchcraft sorta thing to my understanding and a lot of people don't really follow witchcraft. They might not believe that they'll become ghosts after they die regardless, so they wouldn't have looked into such a thing." He hummed thoughtfully, staring at the door. "But I dunno."
“Yeah, I think that’s fair to assume,” Magnolia considered. “Claire’s family is a little like that. I’m not sure how it all works if that’s the case, but she told me her family was approached by the funeral home they were sending her grandfather to and that’s when she first learned about it.”
"Interesting… maybe there's some way to reach more people? Make it more well known so that they know how to go through the proper steps after they pass away?" He wondered aloud, toying with a lock of his hair as he idly paced around the room. "I don't really know a lot about that kinda thing, though."
She shrugged. “Well, funeral homes will advertise themselves and such, but I guess it might differ depending where you are. And I must confess I don’t know much either, I’m not in the advertising department.” A chuckle slipped out as she stopped speaking. “I think there’s more information about it now that we have the internet, though. There’s a lot of stuff written by necromancers and other witches who can inform others about it, but it’s not very mainstream, as you can imagine.”
"Yeah, I guess so. And it's not really my place to be involved in that kinda thing, so…" Atlas shrugged and yawned, hoisting himself up onto the desk to sit on the edge. "But anyways, the next guy should be here kinda soon, right? We should make sure we're ready for him."
“Well, they’re fair questions to ask,” Magnolia pointed out. She checked the clock and shook her head. “We still have some time left. I’d be happy to answer any other questions you might have.” She gave him a small smile.
"Mm…" Atlas considered for a few seconds, trying to think of any more questions to ask. "Um… I can't really think of anything? I'll let you know if I come up with any, though…" He yawned and sighed, fidgeting with his hands.
She nodded. “Okay then. I’m just going to quickly check on some things…” she pulled out her laptop and opened up on the desk. Soon the sound of clicking and clacking filled the room. “We have digital records of these too, so I need to fill those out…”
"Mm?" Atlas glanced up curiously and wandered over to watch what Magnolia was doing on the computer. He pulled himself up a bit to see better, humming softly to himself. "How do you do that?" He asked.
She chuckled. “Oh, so now you have questions?” She said teasingly. “Well, I go into this program here…” she hovered the mouse over the program’s icon. “And then I go into this folder… and look through the digital documents until I find the big list with all the boxes, and then I fill out the person’s name and check the box that matches with the paper they signed, and then fill out the date.”
Atlas flushed a bit and apologized softly, but kept watching attentively regardless. His gaze followed the mouse on the screen, and although he couldn't read, he could at least somewhat tell what was going on. "That's cool… what do you do with it when you're done with it?"
Magnolia frowned a little at the apology, but said nothing of it, merely glancing at Atlas then turning back to the screen.
“Once I get everyone down, I press save, then send it to Mr. Khua and Ms. Atkin at the end of the day.”
Atlas nodded a bit and kept watching, resting his head on his hands as he stared at the screen. "That's cool… how do you send it to them?" He asked. "Do you just bring this to them? Or is it more complicated than that?"
“Well, sometimes I bring the laptop to Mr. Khua in case I made any mistakes or something’s changed. But when I know everything’s good to go, there’s a more… yeah, a more complicated process to go through.” Magnolia paused to think. Maybe it would too much for Atlas to learn about the many aspects of online communication just now… or anything to do with the internet in general. He can’t even read or write yet…
“But don’t worry about it right now, okay? It may be a bit too complicated, y’know?”
"Oh… okay. That makes sense, I guess." Atlas spotted a pen and reached out for it, starting to toy with it contentedly. He kept his eyes on the screen for the most part, still intrigued. "What should we do now if you don't have much more of that to do? There's nobody here yet, and I'm bored…" He whined.
(Hey! Just fyi school started for me so hopefully I’ll be able to respond this weekend)