Responsibility was a necessary evil, sulking after the foolish boy who sought to outrun it. He knew the burden that would be looped and knotted around his neck as soon as he conceived the improbable idea of approaching Morgan alongside Kiira to replace the now-resurrected medic, and his ever-present hunter finally managed to seize him by the arm, yanking him back to reality. Beck had a job to do now; no, he had multiple jobs to do. There was only one flaw in his grand scheme of bettering himself, a nasty blemish of his logic taking the form of the label "high-position". As the one who established the rank hierarchy in the first place, he could recall the obligations required of those unfortunate enough to be promoted. While his main responsibility -- oh, how he hated the loss of freedom with that cruel word -- was to ensure the health of the group, both physically and mentally, Tanglewood needed as much help as it could get to rise back onto mud-slathered legs.

    So the reclusive ghost volunteered to assist with the unthinkable: arranging a social event to welcome newcomers and strengthening the tedious bond between the group of misfits. In all honesty, he was the worst choice for the assignment, with centuries of isolation having built a cage around him to keep the world out. Beck failed in the easiest of conversations, melting into a fumbling, awkward, stuttering puddle that more than likely weirded his peers out. Social cues often times sailed over his head completely, and he couldn't count on his digits the number of times he blurted out a morbid or inappropriate observation. But the boy could adapt, and he could learn, as he had done most of his existence, even if he staggered like a drunken vagrant to the finish line.

    His plan to accomplish a nigh impossible feat was simple, having sprouted in his brain after flipping through his collection of stolen antique photographs and skimming across a particular image. A festive scene of a long-dead family posing in front of a decorated spruce captured by a primitive camera lens, albeit he previously defaced the family members with white-out to mockingly paint them as sheet ghosts. Yet the important details remained: electric lights on garlands, bulbous ornaments, and a crooked star at the tree's pinnacle. Easily recognizable to anyone exposed to the modern culture. Christmas usually came after the pilgrim feast, right? What month was it again? Whatever. Tucking the holiday photograph back into his apparition's convenient pocket guts, he embarked on his mission to introduce a holiday he neglected to care about to the rest of the clan.

    Finding a suitable tree was considerably more difficult than imagined. Only so many species of trees could survive in the loose mud, their roots specialized to hold fast even as floodwater threatened to wash the soil away. Cypress, willows, maples, aspens, tupelos, mangroves, ashes, elms, oaks, birches -- none were similar to the picturesque spruce from his various memories. Defeated, Beck resorted to uprooting a scraggly young oak hardly taller than a human, digging around its base to expose wriggling roots. Transportation would have been a hellish struggle, if not for his malleable apparition. Outstretching an extra pair of clawed hands from the ragged wound in his back, comprised of the same shadowed matter he truly was, otherworldly strength allowed him to hoist the sapling out from the mud with a pop of released suction and drag it to the town plaza mostly intact. Save for a few lost branches and wilting leaves, that is.

    While he could pull the weight of the young tree, it still was heavy and unwieldy. Beck nearly tripped over himself or the swamp's undergrowth multiple times as he limped backward, dragging the tree after him. He'd have to check for any sprains or new bruises later, considering no nerves were able to alert him of injury via pain. Judging by his wheezing and panting, however, he was overexerting his wimpy body again. After a long and grueling trek, the poltergeist hauled the pathetic tree to the nearest patch of dirt next to the overgrown sidewalk and once he forced the tree upright again into a hole hastily dug, he promptly flopped onto his side with a sickly huff. Why did his lungs have to be so mean to him? TIlting his head to the side and spitting out the first of a blood-filled coughing fit, he pushed himself back to his feet and pushed most of the soil back into the hole, patting it down with a bandaged paw when finished. The ornaments were the only thing left to retrieve, and fortunately, he placed them nearby before almost burning all his energy finding a stupid tree.

    Shoving forward the mildew-stained cardboard box with his head until it skidded to a halt next to his slanted oak tree, Beck unsheathed a pearly claw to slit open the taped flaps of his box, exposing the dusty ornaments inside the cramped container. Although many showed signs of cracked shells or tarnish, they huddled together in a wide variety of different statuettes depicting all shapes and sizes. Fishing out a strand of light bulbs arranged on the cord like jutting thorns, the grimy feline croaked to anyone within earshot, "Guess what, y'all a-are gettin' that -- that meet'n'greet as pr-romised so get over here!" His gauze-bound paws gripped the lights tighter as he waited, the miniature filaments flickering back to life with the electrical current pulsating from his touch and illuminating his dark features despite not casting a shadow. Once enough people sauntered their way over for instructions, he bit his tongue and mumbled a hasty explanation, "It's, uh, December now, right? So why not de-ecorate a tree like most folks do, 'least from what -- what I've seen. All ya gotta do is pick out one of these... thingies that ya think represents ya, and put it up on the tree while sayin' somethin' inter-restin' 'bout yourself. G-got it?" His shrill voice scratched his throat raw; he couldn't remember the last time he spoke this much, and this loudly. After hastily wrapping the lights around the tree's lower branches, he paused to reach for an ornament of his own, although it was chosen at random. His blind choice gripped around a porcelain reindeer with one antler broken and one hoof held aloft as though preparing for flight. Dangling the ornament from his claws for a nonexistent heartbeat and admiring the chipped paint while attempting to remember where exactly he had stolen the reindeer from, Beck finally shrugged it aside with a jerk of bony shoulders. It didn't matter anyway. He hooked the ornament's string to a wobbly branch, having to rear onto his hind legs and teeter on tiptoe just to barely reach. The boy slouched back to allow for others' turns, but not before following his own loose guidelines with a monotone wheeze spoken out the unscathed side of his maw, "If ya don't know already, just call me Be-eck, nothin' more 'n' nothin' less. I'm, um, o-one of the new medics, too, so I guess come to me if ya need help. And, yeah, I'm a ghost, but y'all have probably seen weirder folks tha-an me by now." Punctuating his aloof introduction by cracking his neck to the left, he stepped back to observe everyone's selections and speeches. An excellent opportunity to assess his peers, both old and new, along with memorizing their individual scents. His gaze inevitably drifted to the flimsy excuse of a Christmas tree, inwardly cringing as he compared the attempt to the photograph. Yet while the tree looked ready to shake off its leaves and keel over, it was the thought that mattered, right?