A C T II : E L Y S I U M

Hello! My name is Molly, my pronouns are she/her, and I’m 22 years old. This blog is a low activity and predominantly plot-based, meaning; I’m not often here but when I am, it’s usually because I’m replying to pre-established threads rather than just lurking around on the dash. Michael is actually a sort of side muse and older brother to my main muse, Morgan MacVeigh, located over @noblewitch. 

Please read up on my muses’ CANON and check out this blog’s GUIDELINES as well before interacting. If you have any questions pertaining to my muses’ or their backstories, please do not hesitant to ask via my inbox or IM! Mutuals only can message me for my discord information. 

    “ Yeah? You’re not joking? “   Hands clapped together before darting up into a quick shrug,   “ ‘Cause, listen… same here, like learned about the whole helping the spooky thing before I even said  ‘ da da ‘, it runs in my family. Learning how to fight, though? Not a thing in my house, unless you count water balloon fights, which… don’t do a whole lotta good in a real fight. Can’t just, “   arm rose and pretended to chuck one said balloon at an invisible foe,   “ y’know, sploosh, and scare the bad peeps away. Can’t really do that with bad ghosts either, come to think of it. Unless!! Holy water hand grenades. There’s an idea, gonna patent that…  —– Uh, anyway, yeah. If you wanna teach me something? I’d be cool with that. Just nothing too violent, though, okay? I squished a bug yesterday and cried for two hours, because I felt so bad… that’s the kinda padawan you’d be dealing with, just as a fair warning, pal. “  

Oh, I could toss so many bad Star Wars related pick-up lines her way right about now. That the first thing that ran through Michael’s head when the word “padawan” was uttered. Page’s sense of humor was a lot like Morgan’s      Ew, no, no, just don’t even fucking go there, dude. Don’t even think about it       In the sense that her lighthearted, bubbly personality carried a familiar sense of warmth with it. Michael found himself grinning again, and even went as far as to come to the closest point of giggling than he’s pretty sure he ever has since he was about the age of six. Was he being genuine? Maybe. Would he start waking up at six in the morning again and go back to life how it used to be during his old boot-camp days? Hell fucking no. Did he mostly promise to teach Page how to fight on the off chance that it might warrant them going out to dinner one of these days? You got me there.

“Nothing violent,” Michael repeated with a quirk of his bushy eyebrows, “You do realize that learning how to defend yourself against an attacker is in fact, inherently violent, right?” 

Did she say something… bad?  Judging from the way his face fell, Seven had to assume she did… wasn’t sure what, though. Sad. He was sad. And she was just about to ask him what it was she’d said that’d made him that upset, what she’d said that was so wrong, when he spoke, again. And the telepath’s expression shifted from one of mildly confused and guilty… to concerned in the span of an instant. She leaned forward, eyes widening, hands splaying open on the table in front of her, like she was preparing to snatch his hand to stop him. As always before, she took each word literally, at face value. And, unfamiliar with the phrasing, she could only take the worst from it: 

                               ‘ ——- You’re… going to shoot them? ‘  

Michael was just taking a zip of bear when the girl asked about shooting the table of failed-conquest-attempts. He had meant to laugh and swallow his beer at the same time, the former being an involuntary reaction to what he assumed was just the girl trying to be funny.  The witch made a sound as if he was choking to death, or drowning, and beer went spilling out from the top of his mug only to drivel down the edge of his bearded chin. Michael coughed and gagged and sputtered for air while still laughing. Now the girl who had been laughing at him, looked upon the witch now as if he were bat-shit crazy. 

“Oh...oh, man,” Michael chuckled lowly, pretending to wipe a tear from his eye, “Oh, no. No I’m not gonna shoot them. Besides, I would never bring a firearm into a place where they served beer. That’s like mixing fire with aerosol.” Besides, what good would a gun do him up against demons and faeries? “You never heard that expression before? Shoot-your-shot?” 

     “ I mean, I held my own! Just a right hook there! “   As she so readily mimed, as an example,   “ and a kick there, and —–  okay, no, I gotta be real honest with you here, can’t fib. I hid like a little mouse, just kinda burrowed my way into a pile of pallets and held my breath until they went away. Like a coward? But… I’m not a good fighter. So, that’s really a better idea for me, y’know? I help ghosts, I don’t actually wanna… be one, yet, okay? And not sure I’d want to have anybody become one in front of me, just because they wanted to get in on the action? Not that I don’t think you’d be a good fighter, but these guys had knives. Big knives. Like, carve a whole turkey knives. “

Michael’s smile only grew even wider, watching Page nearly reenact the entire fight sequence as a one-woman-show right before his eyes. He clamped a broad hand over his mouth to stop himself from laughing. Occasionally, he would nod agreeingly, as if he was vastly impressed by her story when in reality...watching her bounce around was just too damn cute. “I learned to help ghosts and people before I could even walk. Fight them too,” Michael would go on to insist, and rather arrogantly at that. “Knives are awesome. Like...really awesome. And swords? Well, they’re just really big knives. If you ever want...I could show you a thing or two about what I do? Fighting, I mean, of course. And, you know...knives. Big knives.” 

Dark gaze shifted slowly between him and the neighboring table, lids blinking slow and brows creasing into a slightly questioning frown. One hand rose. Finger pointed toward another woman, laughing in the corner of the room with her friends.     “ She… “    Seven’s voice was rough from disuse, but she swallowed hard, determined to force them out,   “ she just thought you were ugly. ”    Enough of speaking aloud, her hand dropped, the next words sent his way in the form of broadcast thought.      “ You aren’t. You look funny, but you are not… ugly. “  

Furrowing his brow, Michael followed the direction in which the other girl’s forefinger was pointing towards. When he saw what she was directing his attention to, his heart sunk, and the smile slowly began to fade. It was the table of girls whom he previously had tried to make a move on. They were laughing now. Normally, any other guy would have tried to rationalize the situation and make it seem as if they couldn’t actually be laughing either at or about him, right? Right? Well...unfortunately Michael was not blessed with the gift of divine ignorance at birth. Quite the opposite, actually.

 “Ah...” Michael pressed his lips together to form a flat smile then offered the girl a light hearted chuckle, “Well, if we’re all being honest here, then in that case, I’ve been called worse. Much worse. Can’t blame a guy for shooting his shot, right?”