"What are those like?"

"They're mostly not harmful. There's actually one in this building I was working with. She's pretty much just lonely... Though most people don't become ghosts."

"When do they become ghosts and - you mentioned immortality as a special, legendary power, why does being a ghost not count, it'd be inconvenient but -"

"Most ghosts aren't very happy, for a lot of reasons. And we're not actually sure why some people become ghosts, so it's hard to count on."

"Bummer."

"Should we go somehwere..." She looks around the dilapidated house. "...else?"

"That might not be a bad idea? I don't think she minds us being here, though my car is also pretty close, and I wouldn't mind getting back..."

"Yeah I don't mean is the ghost evicting us this just isn't, uh, an especially hospitable structure."

"Oh yeah, it's not very dangerous, but it isn't exactly cozy…"

Xander helps his sister up and they head for the door.

Her car is just outside. It's bright orange, in an overgrown lot that probably used to be graveled. The trees are mostly yellow and orange and red, with barely any green remaining, and there's a nip in the air. The woman pulls something out of her glove compartment - crystals and twine - and makes rough bracelets for them both. "Here," she says. "These will give you both some basic protection, and also give me something to hook an illusion to for you..." she turns to Bella, then pauses. "Oh, I'm sorry, names slipped my mind - I'm Nausicaa Uzun. What should I call you two?"

"Xander."

"Isabella."

"Xander and Isabella, then." She gives them their charms. "I'm going to need to circle Isabella a few times, chanting, to cast the actual illusion properly."

"Do I need to do anything?"

"Don't walk around - you can shift and such, but you need to stay roughly in the same spot until it takes."

"Can do."

The language she uses isn't one Isabella recognizes. Still, the casting's fairly quick, and seems to involve calls and pauses and a few gestures.

Isabella feels some pressure change around her, like her ears are about to pop, which then subsides. Still, colors now seem a bit unusually bright, like someone turned up the saturation on the world. To Xander's eyes, Isabella briefly looks like a normal girl, utterly unexceptional, neither particularly notable nor ignorable, until Nausicaa gestures to him and pulls her hand over her eyes and then his sister looks like her usual self.

"That was weird."

"Illusions are kinda strange! They're easier to break if you notice they're weird, though."

"I designed her outfit and her feather distribution! It's supposed to be striking!"

"The design's really good!"

"Thank you! If I ever go home I will do it professionally but perhaps your magic does not care what you wear."

"Hm, it does a little? We have to dress as women, whatever that means to us, and people used to thinking of themselves as male can have a harder time of convincing the magic they're sufficiently female. We also have to have the evil eye," she gestures to the creepily realistic eye on her midriff, "uncovered to use magic, or even sense it properly. But it gives us away in our normal lives, so we keep it covered when not actively witching. And if you're raised in a coven, or initiated early enough, there's things you can do to control where it forms, but there's still some randomness, and people do care about things like 'fashion' and 'not flashing anyone.'"

"Girls get all the luck."