[SRP] Graveyard Trespasser

[Strifeling]

This is a solo private RP for November 2019 for the following:
Yolotl
Sepulchre (official WIP)

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WIP removed in 2023 - slot is valid but I am not comfortable with freely putting my OCs on the internet at the moment

 

[Strifeling]

Yolotl trotted past rows and rows of tombstones, swift and light-footed. She tossed her hair nervously and held back a shiver. Her intricate armor and jewelry was bitterly cold against her short coat -- the air was freezing, and night had already fallen -- but the cold wasn't what made her tremble. She was alone, far from her jungle home, in an eerie foggy cemetery. Yolotl mentally cursed herself for turning down the offer of a traveling companion. She could almost see ghostly shapes undulating in the swirling late autumn mist, and hoped it was only her imagination.

Ghosts were certainly real, she had no doubt about that; she knew individuals who could see them, hear them, talk to them, even! Yolotl believed them. She didn't know if she herself was as spiritually in tune as the soquili that could commune with such beings, but she didn't particularly want to find out. Ghosts couldn't harm or touch the living, could they? Yolotl didn't know. Even so, other dangers lurked in the darkness, especially after nightfall and in this season. She looked back over her shoulder nervously, making certain she was alone. If not ghosts, there were certainly ghostly soquili. And if not them, then there were things even worse.


Yolotl Word Count: 209  

[Strifeling]

Sepulchre moved through the graveyard with silent paw steps. Despite her massive size, she was ghost-like, graceful to the point of nearly gliding. Her coat, green-gray like the moss on the tombstones, and dark, night-black wings allowed her to blend in with the cemetery. Her cracked ram horns and wrought halo gave her a frightful appearance, just like one of the gargoyles guarding the tombs.

Not many came this way, but even those who did did not remain long. Sepulchre didn't interact with others much, not necessarily by choice. This night was just one more night of solitude and loneliness, guarding the graveyard she had known to be her home all her life.

Sepulchre Word Count: 113

 

[Strifeling]

Yolotl continued uneasily, leaving the path to weave between the grave markers. She really regretted agreeing to come here alone, or better yet, to come here and fetch the nightshade at all. There had been rumors that plenty of the Atropa belladonna shrubs grew here in this cemetery, but there was also word of a graveyard haunt, a ghost or an immortal undead. Maybe they were just rumors, but Yolotl couldn't shake the unease or the cold shiver going down her spine.

She stopped, and her ears perked up. Did a twig just snap? "Who's there?" she called out to the fog, her voice sounding stronger and firmer than she felt.


Yolotl Word Count: 112  

[Strifeling]

Sepulchre heard the call through the fog, and she stopped, lifting her head. She did not have eyes on her head, and despite her face, her ears functioned just fine. The call came again, reaching her ears once more. A visitor? Sepulchre could feel her heart rise in her chest, and she began trotting in the direction of the voice, folding her wings so that she could pick up the pace, careful to avoid the gleaming blade of the scythe strapped to her side. Maybe, just maybe, this visitor would stay a little longer and not run away. It had been quite some time.

"I'm here," she called back to the other voice, hoping the other mare would be able to hear her. Her own voice was naturally nearly breathless, almost whispery, but had an unusually girlish pitch and quality to it that did not match her physique and appearance.

Sepulchre Word Count: 150

 

[Strifeling]

Yolotl jumped at the response. She hadn't actually expected someone to answer back, but she supposed this was good. She didn't know much about ghosts but they didn't usually speak, did they? Yolotl squinted through the fog, trying to make out a face, or another figure, but saw nothing in front of her and nothing behind her. Assuming the voice belonged to a soquili, it sounded like a mare, but then Yolotl realized that although the other had responded, she hadn't identified herself. The voice had sounded weak.

"Who are you? Where are you?" she called out again. Somewhere around her, out of sight, she heard the gentle pads of what sounded like paws trotting on the humid ground.

"Better question, what are you doing here?" she asked to the fog, feeling cautious again. It never hurt to be on guard.


Yolotl Word Count: 141  

[Strifeling]

Sepulchre's dark, mossy coat and black hair camouflaged her with the setting of the cemetery. If she stood still, she could almost be mistaken for one of the statues in it, if not for ring of green flames swirling around her neck. The flames foretold her appearance from the fog before anything else.

"My name is Sepulchre," the mare said as she emerged slowly from the mist in front of the other colorful mare. A black veil covered her face at the moment, but it was translucent and did not hide her skull. She hesitated, waiting for the other's reaction.

Sepulchre Word Count: 100

 

[Strifeling]

The moment Yolotl saw Sepulchre's face, she jumped back in shock and fear. This was no skinwalker, but perhaps it was something worse. Yolotl's family had always taught her not to discriminate but the mare in front of her was surely out of a story meant to scare children. Yolotl had never seen such a creature and didn't know what to look at first -- the fearsome horns, or the fire, or the roses bizarrely growing on her body? Or maybe the massive multiple wings (demonic or angelic, Yolotl didn't know, perhaps both), or the halo, maybe the gleaming scythe shaped with roses, or the multitude of exposed bones: skull, vertebrae, ribcage and wings! The semitransparent black veil and cloth only partially hid the mare's features from view. Sepulchre, she had introduced herself, and the name was fitting indeed. She looked like one of the undead.

This explained the mare's whispering voice, Yolotl thought, staring at the skull. The mare looked fearsome and terrifying, mostly a result of all her bones and that massive scythe, but she didn't seem aggressive. Just in case, Yolotl took another step back.


Yolotl Word Count: 187  

[Strifeling]

'Ah,' Sepulchre thought to herself, 'So this one is frightened too.' She couldn't quite understand. Was she so fearsome?

"I'm the guardian of this place," she told the other mare, who hadn't yet offered her name in return. "It's all I've ever known." Sepulchre supposed she was born somewhere else -- after all, everyone was born to parents, weren't they? The flock of crows that stopped by the graveyard from time to time had told her as much -- but the cemetery was all she could remember. She couldn't remember any parents in her life. Maybe they hadn't wanted her, and that was why she was here, pitiable and alone. No one else seemed to want her around either.

Somehow, Sepulchre had some sort of dim vision through her skull and proprioception that guided her head position, but she could better see through the additional eyes on her body and at the apex of her wings. She looked at the other mare's shoulders, tight and tense, then at her feet, which were positioned ready to run, and lastly, in fascination, she stared at the tree on the other's back.

For a moment, there was silence. Then Sepulchre asked, "Are you going to run away too?"

There was no anger or accusation in those words; they carried the neutral tone of a simple question, in the way someone would ask what the weather was going to be like tomorrow.

Sepulchre Word Count: 236

 

[Strifeling]

Yolotl regarded the other mare cautiously, ready to bolt away but hesitating while the other introduced herself as the graveyard guardian, Sepulchre. 'What a disturbingly fitting name,' Yolotl thought, unnerved, still at war with herself over her urge to put some distance between herself and this creature.

She didn't seem aggressive, but she did look pretty dangerous, and Yolotl supposed that trouble often didn't seem like trouble until one was already caught in the midst of it. Did ghosts and other unnatural creatures lay traps for unsuspecting travelers?

Sepulchre's skull gleamed in the lurid light of her ghastly flames, and she looked like something Yolotl would find in her nightmares, scythe and monstrous wings and all. But the other mare made certain to keep her distance, as though understanding the thought process and instinctive fear in Yolotl's mind. She was a soquili, wasn't she? Yolotl didn't know much about the supernatural and didn't know if ghosts had voices. Or if they frequently asked their prey if they were planning to run away. 'That was a creepy question, though.'


Yolotl Word Count: 178  

[Strifeling]

Sepulchre continued to watch the kirin a few paces away from her, but did not try to approach. The other mare still looked like she was set to run away, weight balanced oddly over her legs with one lifted hesitantly. So far, she hadn't spoken up to respond. Sepulchre would have thought it rude and cold if the circumstances were different, but she gave the mare some more time, not wanting to spook her again.

In the moment, Sepulchre took a chance to analyze the other mare again. She was a strange one, but perhaps not as strange as Sepulchre herself. Not many came by her graveyard, but those who did didn't usually have the traits this other mare had. Strange scales; a tree; branched horns. She was certainly part-kirin of some sort, but not like any Sepulchre had ever seen before. Then again, Sepulchre was not familiar with the outside world; she hadn't seen that many. Mostly, the sentient crow familiars brought news from other parts of the land and would warn her if a storm or some other form of danger was on its way. Strangely, the crows didn't react to her like soquili tended to do so.

Sepulchre Word Count: 200

 

[Strifeling]

After a moment, Yolotl started, realizing she had spent several long moments rudely staring at the mare's skull instead of responding. Yolotl wondered if the mare could actually see out of that thing. Was it some sort of black magic? Or, she noticed, did Sepulchre watch her out of those extra eyes she had, abnormally placed on her flared wings? She took a moment to glance at them, but those eyes didn't blink back, staring fixed right back at her.

It didn't seem like Sepulchre would approach her, so Yolotl began to feel a bit braver, or at the very least brave enough to speak up. She cautiously eyed Sepulchre's funerary regalia again as she spoke.

"Er, no, I guess not, you just took me by surprise," Yolotl said, but that wasn't the entire truth, "My name is Yolotl."

"So... you're the guardian here?" she asked lamely, gesturing with her head at the expanse of tomb markers to the side. This place had such a creepy atmosphere that Yolotl couldn't imagine someone actually lived here.


Yolotl Word Count: 175  

[Strifeling]

"Yes," Sepulchre answered simply, but then an awkward silence fell, with both mares maintaining an unusual social distance between themselves, with neither looking the other exactly straight in the eyes, but Sepulchre supposed her unusual structure was to blame for that.

It looked like the other mare expected her to elaborate, so Sepulchre did, trying to keep her voice even and soothing.

"I grew up here. As I've said, I've never known anything else, so I've lived here all my life. The crows here help me take care of this cemetery and keep it clean. Together we take care of the graves and everything else here, but sometimes it's difficult to keep up... there aren't enough of us. The crows taught me how, and they also helped raise me and kept watch over me when I was a foal, so I consider this my duty and also my home." She wondered if that was too personal to tell someone on their first meeting -- she was still naive when it came to other soquili -- but, most likely, it wouldn't matter in the end anyway. Sepulchre didn't expect to see Yolotl back again.

But, she wondered, what this mare was doing here. Few came by nowadays, usually only when Sepulchre was out of sight, and only to pay their respects to those who had passed. Yolotl's face was a new one, however.

Sepulchre Word Count: 232

 

[Strifeling]

"Oh. Nice place you have," Yolotl responded lamely, not knowing what to say next, or even if there was anything else to say. Truthfully, Yolotl had many more questions for the mare, but in all honesty she would prefer not to get mixed up in any business with skull-faced semi-demons, however friendly (or rather, non-aggressive) they seemed to be.

She hesitated again, torn between asking Sepulchre a question to politely keep the conversation going -- preferably on the topic of small talk, and not on the apparent lonely history of the mare's origins -- and between respectfully extricating herself from the other's company.

"I'm sorry for intruding on your place, I'm sort of in a hurry, so..." Yolotl trailed off, having a feeling Sepulchre wouldn't pick up on the hint, but in her heart she felt slightly guilty.


Yolotl Word Count: 138  

[Strifeling]

"Oh! No, not at all, you're not intruding," Sepulchre responded a bit quickly, ears perking up. "Thank you, I do my best to keep things tidy, but it's difficult with just myself and the crows." She pawed at the ground shyly with one foot.

"Why are you in a hurry? Maybe I can help?" Sepulchre lifted her head in the direction of Yolotl's, as if she could see the other mare.

Sepulchre Word Count: 71