The Graveyard

[Boo Ghostie]

Vision of the world slowly took shape as Flynn's blurred vision slowly faded. He found himself now awake and clutching on to an old gravestone. The man remained there, dazed and confused about how he had ended up there. Was this the predicament the product of a night of carousing? Or the result of intoxicated mourning? Either way, he had no idea who the gravestone belonged to. He only saw words that he could not read, and a few empty bottles. Why and how the hell did I end up here?

He scanned his surroundings, seeing that most of his possessions have been strewn about. His helmet dangling from the branches of a withered tree, his axe embedded within its trunk, and his rucksack slammed at the base of it. A culmination of drunken frustration perhaps? Flynn took a moment to stand up, barely remaining stable due to the effects of a night of drinking. After some stumbling around, he managed to get his footing. Flynn looked up whilst reaching for his hook and chain. The man lobbed the hook towards the branch hoisting his helmet, only for the added weight of the chain causing the withered branch to snap. With the sound of wood crashing down on the poor sod echoing through the graveyard.

"SHITE!" Flynn hollered out as he was forced on to the ground. With frustrated grumbling abound, he scrambled for his helmet, pushing off the branch in the process. Now with proper head protection, the young lad took ups his possessions. Searching through his rucksack to ensure the safety of his bee jars, which they were fortunately in tact.

"Roland?!" The man yelled out as he began to navigate the graveyard. His first priority being the traversal of this unfamiliar location. How he got there in the first place could be answered at another time.

[Vanitypirate]

[entering from abbey's former reliquary ]

"We shall stop here." Said Florence to Tilly, who refused to stop there on the Hamlet streets.
By some turn of events, she was grasping Florence's hand with her left hand, letting the rightmost one stay limp at her side.

Tilly lead the way up the abbey's steps.

"...We shall stop here." Florence tried again, to no avail; Tilly plainly ignored the statement and pulled the plague doctor through the graveyard gate, heated by the warm, spring sun...
Florence frowned beneath the mask but allowed her to lead the way, unsure of any good way to make the woman stop.

"We shall stop--"

Tilly stopped. Florence was pleased. Tilly took Florence by the arm and pulled her up close, far up close, so that she might peer into those lenses.
Deep brown eyes, exhausted, bagged, but frightfully clear.

Tilly watched those eyes a moment before she asked, in a low whisper, with words finely enunciated,

"Did I just kill my child?"

[Vanitypirate]

Florence craned her head to look at the other woman's arm, squinting her dark eyes.
No inflammation, hardly a scratch on her arm-- it seemed that the protective, leather bracer did its job perfectly well.

So close to Tilly, Florence made an assumption as to what she wanted. She pulled Tilly into a stiff hug, this time having learned to bend her arms, each moving independently to cross themselves over the woman's back in her typical, lever-like motions. Tilly was lax and limp in her arms.

"It is unlikely. I say 'no.'" Said the good doctor, plainly. Florence felt Tilly's arms come to rest on her shoulders. She was trembling.

Florence continued, as dully as ever, "But I must treat the wound."

[Vanitypirate]

Tilly vaguely heard the woman as she held her, burying her face in the shoulder of that Crowgazer.
It felt good, simply, to have someone to hold-- a lover was well enough on its own, but to be without friendly companionship would be akin to starving. While one could hardly call this a friendly companionship, however, she couldn't recall a person who accepted some form of friendly hug or what-not without proceeding to marry her or condemn her.
Her eyes burned. Her arm burned, and she was exhausted.

Florence felt her go limp, and she crouched with the woman in her arms, easing her down onto the ground to rest her back against the rail-fence. She sat beside her and set about tending to the arm, unclicking the oaken box and uncapping the clear vial.

Tilly hardly protested and held her arm out to be tended to, letting her eyes close as she tipped her head against the wrought-iron railing, silently admiring what situation she had found herself in:
The choices she would make today, to put her own child in harm's way, or to condemn an innocent friend to the Pit-- both were were unappealing.

But perhaps it did not have to be one way or the other?

There was a grand list of stolen people, yes-- and she knew that they were stolen quickly. There were tunnels connecting directly to the warrens actively being tunneled through...
Florence tied up the bandage, and Tilly hastily slipped her glove back on.

"Tilly..." Florence began, making to hold her down by grasping her arm.

"I must inform you of something important while there is still time."

[Outisakanobody]

Grace was tired, and she realized suddenly she didn't want to be here. Here in this graveyard, looking over yet another corpse. Not because she didn't care, but because she did. She had seen plenty of "comrades" die in her time. But none of them really effected her, because she rarely ever really cared about them. When the time of mourning and remembrance came she would put on the look of stoic remorse she practiced so much and wore so well, as easily as a set of comfy cloths you might slip into after a hard days work. When called to do so she would say the expected words: "They will be missed" "their sacrifice was not in vain" "we will avenge them" and other such things.

She couldn't summon any of that now. She had liked Roderick, and she had let him die so easily. It hurt her deep. Another scar with the ones caused by so the few other losses and betrayals that had struck her to her core. She sneered under her austerer crimson hood. Mostly she felt disgusted with herself and a few other choice individuals. "Bring his belongings to my quarters." she muttered to a monk before shuffling off back into the abbey to lock herself away in her office, perhaps for good this time.

[Outisakanobody]

Lance had attended a funeral once before. One of his lords died in a hunting accident, and he had been compelled to attend. It was a brief and not very emotional. It seemed very mechanical to him.

This ceremony was obviously more heartfelt, but it also seemed to be a rather common thing, based on the way the monks went about it. He caught the name of the man a few times, but it took some moments for the significance to properly strike him. He considered if this could be the same man he had been sent to hunt down.

Looking around he pondered the idea of asking one of the people, but they all seemed to be scattering quickly. He decided to follow the woman in red robes into the Abbey, intent on seeing what information he could get from her.

[EtherealNoire]

Decades had passed since the Night first claimed her as his own, his promises as steep as the price had been to be his lover. Yet alone in that forsaken darkness, Talea had given him her life, and, in turn, he had given her a home.
Beneath the graves where the departed cried, she sang to him in the language of earth and bones, her solemn promise to ever abide in his wake; the Seraph of Night.
Only in darkness did her footsteps dare to tread upon the waking world, traversing the cold earth painted silver by an aloft and distant moon. She longed to grace its icy surface but a plague of shadows never ceased to asphyxiate the light beneath her desperate grasp.
Even as her fingers clutched at the remains of crumbling marble, strewn amidst battered crosses and stone angels, only Night’s frigid caress returned her touch.

As she stood, listening to a dog’s distance mourning and the whispers that stirred at the sound, her heart ached to escape. How many years had she watched over the stillness? Why had she been sold a prisoner to Night here amidst the graves?
But the question passed as fleetingly as the thought, and she drifted onward to the base of a cracked stone monument, and settled upon its steps. The shadows around her seemed to breathe as she passed.

Alone, she stared out across the sea of graven sentients, her body nestled against the jagged stone and concealed beneath the shadow of a blighted tree. The branches whispered a groan, calling to her, pleading… too warped by hardship and age to dance in the breeze as they once had, yet she understood its cry. It was the desire of all living things: to cherish their time upon the earth before they too descended beneath the stone.
This was her lover’s realm.
She breathed in the stillness, her lungs heavy from a night air so deeply saturated with ethereal chill, and in the silence, with not but the shadows watching, she sang.

[Kidney]

Dewitt slowly pulled himself over the bars of the Graveyard, returning to the place of his scuffle with the knight. It was mostly Dewitt's unfamiliarity with this "Hamlet" that led him here, the only place with an experience attached.

there was a slow building sigh that escaped Dewitt before he caught sight of the woman that lie beyond the bars above the cold red stone. The expanse that extended here was riddled with Roses. Their gaunt bodies scrabbling across the tombstones, their toothed maws opened and closed, their teeth shifted and twisted, tasting the air before them. 

Dewitt slowly readjusted his required trousers, slipping on his loose tunic. Perhaps she saw him, thankfully he didn't seem to care. His bare feet, newly cleaned, collected mud as took steps into this place. His hands pressed against ragged stubble upon his face, and he new stood in silence. 

He turned, walking to a tombstone, sitting upon it quietly. 

A Rose approached his vicinity.

It's maw-like face extended wide, and a hiss escaped it. 

Dewitt simply shrugged, and the Rose slowly backed away, it's fibrous muscles pulling it towards a dark corner. 

It was the sight that Dewitt held, one that peered into the plane of horrific red that allowed this creatures to be seen. If she were to look, Talea would see a man, alone. What she would not see would be the rose holding itself like a gargoyle upon the tombstone near her, staring at her, tasting her aura. 

It was good. She did not see the creatures. All she saw was a man. 

[Outisakanobody]

Given her occupation, Tazia was naturally drawn to music. And considering her desire to meet new and interesting people, somebody singing in a graveyard sounded like someone she wouldn't mind meeting at all. So moving with stealth and uncanny familiarity, she snuck her way over the walls and through the forest of stone and sorrow. She stayed cautions, making sure she wasn't barging in on anyone she wouldn't like to meet. Through the dismal winding rows she crept, like a particularly colorful ghost, seeking her latest encounter.

[EtherealNoire]

Jan 2, 2018 19:02:43 GMT -8 Kidney said:

Dewitt slowly pulled himself over the bars of the Graveyard, returning to the place of his scuffle with the knight. It was mostly Dewitt's unfamiliarity with this "Hamlet" that led him here, the only place with an experience attached.

there was a slow building sigh that escaped Dewitt before he caught sight of the woman that lie beyond the bars above the cold red stone. The expanse that extended here was riddled with Roses. Their gaunt bodies scrabbling across the tombstones, their toothed maws opened and closed, their teeth shifted and twisted, tasting the air before them. 

Dewitt slowly readjusted his required trousers, slipping on his loose tunic. Perhaps she saw him, thankfully he didn't seem to care. His bare feet, newly cleaned, collected mud as took steps into this place. His hands pressed against ragged stubble upon his face, and he new stood in silence. 

He turned, walking to a tombstone, sitting upon it quietly. 

A Rose approached his vicinity.

It's maw-like face extended wide, and a hiss escaped it. 

Dewitt simply shrugged, and the Rose slowly backed away, it's fibrous muscles pulling it towards a dark corner. 

It was the sight that Dewitt held, one that peered into the plane of horrific red that allowed this creatures to be seen. If she were to look, Talea would see a man, alone. What she would not see would be the rose holding itself like a gargoyle upon the tombstone near her, staring at her, tasting her aura. 

It was good. She did not see the creatures. All she saw was a man. 

A delicate harmony hovered in the midnight air, brushing its caliginous wings against every crumbling stone, wayward soul and trembling leaf-blade that dwelt within Talea's abode. She knew each of their faces. Every name was as familiar to her as a favorite song, and every letter, so crudely etched in futile defiance of time, was as vivid as the letters of her own name carved into the base of the crypt door hidden deep within the graveyard. Thus, she sang her spell to them, calling forth the mist and the dew to soothe their aching bones.

Yet there was one face she did not recognize, watching with haunting eyes from a tombstone not far from her own. She sensed his presence well before she saw him, like a stain on the green earth beneath her toes. Her song died on her lips, its last traces fading away into the night as she marveled why a stranger would come there. What need he might have.

In a sudden flurry of tattered cloth and tangled locks, she retreated into the shadows of a gnarled oak, peering out at the stranger from beneath her mess of auburn. She had never seen another person within the graveyard before. Not at least during the Moon’s reign. The very abnormality of his presence made her long for answers, yet the stifling grip of distrust in her heart kept her rooted to the tree’s weathered flank.

Even with the distance between them, there was no mistaking the fear and curiosity that warred within her eyes.

[Kidney]

It was the flurry of whatever person once swelled on shattered stone that brought Dewitt to look up from the creatures the permeated his realm. This woman, he could no longer see, now left his space.

Dewitt tapped the ground with a heavy foot, his rag obscured sockets peering within the dark. He searched for where she had gone, finding nothing but empty space where the singer had once been.

It was all rather strange, stranger than Dewitt could have cooked up in his own heart. This drove him a little towards the expression of chaos that whispered itself into his consciousness.

With this, his crinckled, hoarse whisper filled the air. “Was a nice tune.”

[Outisakanobody]

Tazia decided to throwcaution to the wind as she walked up on two folks, one complementing the other. "I agree." she says to the woman,assuming her to be the singer. She eyed them both up and down, but tried to remain relaxed.

[EtherealNoire]

Voices…
Voices not as pleading as the restless or as gentle as the spirits. Voices brash and clashing in a cacophony of living sound that assaulted her ears and caused her wayward soul to quail. She clutched onto Night’s dappled cloak, praying his shadows could hide her from the mortals’ haunting eyes, but even the shadows were not strong enough to belay their interest.

Her gaze drifted across the glistening, frosted ground and the gravestones damp with Earth’s precipitation, tracing a passage towards the crypt. Perhaps if her footsteps hastened after the oscillating shadows, she could elude the living within her forsaken abode.
Even the Departed longed for her to stay hidden. Their ghost of a mortal; Their treasured secret concealed amongst their graves. A being lost to the world above. Whispers coaxed her forward, cautioned her to be silent, evasive, but even as she slipped out from amidst nature’s dark haven, the moonlight betrayed her.

A baleful cry escaped her throat as the traitorous light fell upon her, revealing her to the two sojourners. Her skin gleamed as pale as corpses freshly laid within the earth, a spectral incongruous with her surroundings. There was no refuge for her, only the mortals’ condemnation. She feared them and their hearts sown with malice.

As she stood transfixed beneath the moonlight, her eyes grew wild. Her fiery locks lashed against the breeze as if her fury could reverse the cursed fate that had exposed her. These beings wanted her to speak! They wanted her secrets, her story, her life! Yet the madness compelled her like a spell. Her fate did not rest so easily in her capturer’s hands.
Hesitation lingered on her lips, daring her to stop, but she could not find her will to listen. This was her retribution.

Talea’s tongue twisted and shaped into the mortals’ strange sounds, taking on a language she did not hold.
“To which desire dost the Shadows lure you here?”

[Kidney]

The cry is what brought Dewitt's white rag to look upon her. He reeled, and as she followed this up, he rubbed his tough finger into his ear, letting out a small grunt as the speaking cleanness of it all made a small noise sound so loud. 

He took a step towards her, a hand out, this was a woman, although she might have been mad, Dewitt's idle compulsions clicked within his mind. He brought his voice low, a quiet disposition he normally only allotted for time spent speaking to himself. He softened his face with a bit of a nod, keeping his head slightly down, nearly below her gaze. 

"It is not shadows that lure a blind man to a grave, but his inability to see where he treads."

He attempted to seem less able, his eye-line moving down, his feet making small taps, as if he were feeling his way around, not being guided by the Holy Red.

[Outisakanobody]

Tazia ducked behind a gravestone at the shriek, caught off guard by the sudden noise in the quiet area. She would peek out to look between the manic girl and the blind(?) man. "I may have misjudged..." she says, mostly to herself as she ontinues to crouch until she was certain she wasn't in danger.