The Party Continues (Liz x Eldar)

"That's a pretty common occurrence if I only manage to get back here once a year or so. I usually find bugs or the occasional bird, but keeping shutters on the windows and blocking the smoke stack before I go anywhere deters most of the larger creatures. Finding spiders or centipedes in my sheets was probably the worst I've ever come home to, but never before have I come home to find someone else living here, not someone real at least." She paused and took a sip of her drink before elaborating, realizing that she looked crazy enough as things stood.

"Given the eccentric nature of what I do with my life I come in to contact with quite a few things that, on rare occasion, make me question what I'm seeing. Always comes to nothing but leaves me with a sense of embarrassment for a while after the fact. Why do you ask? Scared you'll wake up to some creepy crawly staring you in the face?" she teased lightly. Getting back into the house and warming up was a good idea, at least now she could simply shake out her sheets and blankets and make space for her guest when he eventually wanted to get some sleep. Unless of course he did the obvious thing and slept in bed with her, which was never off the table for him.

"Who're you calling old?" she retorted with a laugh and a snort. "I mean we still might as well be a couple of shut ins but old? I don't have nearly enough wrinkles for that!" She listened as he mused about what he considered doing about getting himself a proper house to keep his things in. "I built this place by myself over the course of a year or two, could be a productive endeavor for you. The best place for a home wouldn't be here though if you want to avoid unwanted non-sentient house guests." When the conversation turned to her keepsake box, her demeanor changed and her eyes began to get glassy before she blinked back the tears.

"You wish to know what that thing is correct?" Her tone was resigned as she set her cup down and procured the box. "I don't mind if you start keeping your precious things here, it's where this box resides after all." She delicately opened the chest and slumped slightly in her seat. "I see no point in hiding anything at this point; it's been decades. Feel free to look through it, I don't know if I can bring myself to talk about it like this." All her letters, her journal, her son's first and only lock of jet black hair: all laid bare for a near stranger to inquire about in her home. "This is what I keep to remind myself of what I've lost and left behind."

"No, no, please don't apologize!" she said quickly as she wiped her eyes. "You asked an innocent question that I just wasn't prepared to answer. You didn't do anything wrong I promise." The hug was so reassuring that after a few short minutes she was calm again and almost smiling. "Thank you, in time I'm sure I'll tell you on my own, but if in the meantime you ever want to look at anything in this box you may. We're both curious creatures, I understand why you asked." She adored him exactly how he was, there wasn't anything about him she would change. Her heart refused to love any individual; but if anyone was to even be considered loved by her it would be Del'ure. Her son was gone, her husband forgiven but also gone, and the rest of her family having given up on writing to her long ago, she had few lasting friends. Fewer still friends that she trusted with much of anything.

"Aside from that box I noticed you surveying my home. Did anything else spark your interest? There are some dusty old books on the shelf if they're still legible, and a few nick-knacks I've collected over the years. Most everything in this place has a story to it, maybe not all of them are terribly exciting to others, but they hold many memories for me." She gestured to a hardback tome-looking book on one of the lower shelves. "That's essentially a book about the art of seduction, it was rebound a time or two prior to my acquiring it and once more after the fact." A smaller book a few items over made her giggle.

"That one is a book of poetry written by a young man who hired me in my early days of hunting. And that green book at the top is one that I actually use rather frequently; it's about the wildlife and botany of the southern wetlands. Those are just the ones I recognize immediately, never mind the ones I keep in storage or we'd be here for days." Her only bedroom was easily distinguished from the rest of the house because it was the only area blocked off by a door. "Of course off that way is where you, or we if you prefer, will be sleeping for however long you decide to stay here." Her home was at his disposal at that point with the tour being relatively brief because it was, after all, a single person home.

Rose in turn yawned and shrugged at the question of the book. "Only the things you can generally manage by yourself. Not terribly often I pick up a lover with how frequently I travel."

She dragged herself from her chair with a tired groan and checked to make sure there wasn't anything already in the bed. There was a scared squirrel in her pillowcase but that was an easily diffused situation. Compared to tiny little Rose the thing looked like a large kitten, but it stayed still long enough to be released outside the bedroom window and that was the end of it. "All clear now. Sorry I don't have any sleeping clothes that would fit you, but something tells me you don't usually wear anything to sleep." Not like it made any difference, but it was comical in her mind to think of him trying to wear one of her shirts. She also halfway wondered if they were going to end up sleeping on the floor because she didn't keep a particularly spacious mattress. Oh well, she'd get her answer soon enough.

Rose rolled her eyes playfully. "Would it surprise you if I did?" She paused and laughed as she shook her head. "No, my night clothes are usually rather sparse during the warmer months." Not to be necessarily outdone she decided that proper summer attire, or lack thereof, was appropriate given her house guest and his naturally warm nature. The feeling of being curled up in Del'ure's arms made it quite difficult to keep her eyes open, and she snuggled up to him as closely as she could manage.

"What in the world made you think I keep anything needlessly frilly in a place like this?" She was highly amused at the idea. "Or keep at all for that matter." She started to wonder if perhaps he wanted a bit of intimate time with her before they properly retired for the night, but decided against asking him in favor of just enjoying the comfort of his embrace. Her thoughts began to drift to what sort of food she'd make in the morning; she didn't exactly have a market nearby to visit, but with plenty of birds and such in the area collecting a few eggs wouldn't be too difficult.

Where did the warmth go...? Rose groaned softly and found herself alone in her bed. Maybe it was just a late night constitutional or something. She tried to close her eyes and go back to sleep, but the night seemed too quiet to let her. Every minuscule little sound in her house was suddenly driving her crazy. Of course things creaked and moaned, and occasionally the faint sound of splashing was heard as night time critters dared interact with the various bodies of water in the nearby area. Why was tonight the only night where they couldn’t sleep? Finally she decided that she’d get up and see what was going on at such an abysmally early hour.

“Hey,” she whispered as she stepped onto the porch, “my ears must be going crazy because every little sound is keeping me up.” It was quite unusual for anything at all to keep her up, unless it sounded like it was in the house with her. The sound that kept coming back was the splashing. Her ears did an autonomous but, admittedly, cute looking twitch every time the sound occurred. What in the blue hell was out gallivanting through the marshes at this hour?! At first it had sounded like a pebble was dropped in the water, but suddenly the sounds got larger. They never got louder, just as if larger things were making the sounds. To her knowledge humanoids didn’t tend to visit her neck of the swamp on foot, and they certainly didn’t do it in the darkest hours of the night. It didn’t seem like the sounds were getting closer, but they were in fact moving.

At this point any talking Rose did was silent, her lips moving but making no sound. Familiar pantomimes of words like ‘what’ and ‘where’ and ‘why’ were obvious if they could be seen. She disappeared into her home to yank on clothing, but decided against shoes for the immediate future. She made her way to the roof with an unlit lantern and sat listening for more of the sounds. When for a moment they stopped, she climbed down onto the porch and addressed her companion.

“Think I lost a little sanity. What’s keeping you up?” She muttered something else under her breath about 'damn splashing', but was more concerned that Del'ure was up and alert in the middle of the night. The man usually slept quite soundly.

"Where are you going? The heck has you all worried?" she whispered as she debated whether or not trousers were required for this task. The part of her that cared about propriety said yes, the rest of her said screw trousers if things were this bad. The only real downside to not being entirely sane was that sometimes she under-reacted to danger, or dismissed the danger as a hallucination. She kept hearing the sound and cringed, if he was freaking out over it then it must be real.

"Wait, you're hearing the sound too aren't you? Ah, fuckin...-" she trailed off and got herself properly dressed in what felt like seconds before going back out to the porch and scanning the area with a lit lantern. There were a handful of unpleasant things that sometimes lurked in the swamp lands, but the land had its ways of getting rid of such creatures: under normal circumstances. She didn't really think to ask what it had to do with him, somewhere in the back of her mind she figured she already knew and just didn't want to acknowledge it. She kept the lantern lit and hanging from the railing; it worked for catching normal night critters, might work for whatever was up and scaring Del'ure. Too bad she wasn't good at ranged fighting like most of her kind, she preferred things up close and personal.

The next sound she heard was, for lack of a better term, a banshee's wail*. Well, the universe in its unending humor had dictated they weren't getting sleep tonight. Hell, if this was something truly horrifying she might just up and move out of the house entirely. The splashing suddenly seemed to stop, and the night was quiet once again, but only for a moment. Now it sounded as if the thing was on hard ground and still moving forward, but she still couldn't locate it. There were really only two directions it could be coming from: the entrance at the front of her property, or worse, from the exit back close to the pond and her son's grave. She checked the front and saw nothing, but she paused, not wanting to know what might be coming from the other path.

"Please not him..." she mumbled. "I already said goodbye once, don't make me do it again."

* This is a hallucination, she sometimes has them but never is cases like this.

Rose, in her haste to dissuade her fears, knocked the lantern off the railing and into the water. With little to no light she was dropping down branches blindly; a bruise on her left knee, the pain spot next to her right funny bone, her hands were scraped to hell, but not a lick of it registered in her panic. If this thing had come from where she feared, this was one hell of a way to put her past to rest. She prayed Del'ure could outrun the monstrosity long enough for her to find a way to get rid of it. If it was attracted to fire, was it invulnerable, or did it just want to return to the earth...? Gods above and below she prayed it just wanted to die. It didn't take long to find where the memorial stone had been upturned, the engraved name casting the barest shadow. Where the stone had been was now a small hole and splintered wood at the bottom of an infant's grave. So many things flashed across her face in the moments that followed: horror that she was right melted into pain that this could happen, the pain turned quickly into red hot anger that her child was unable to rest, and the anger fueled a rush of adrenaline as she turned back the way she'd come to see a large thing lumbering away from her house.

"My son," she choked as she picked up the stone tablet she'd had made into his gravestone, "you deserved better. Forgive me."

The name on the stone was now quite worn with time, but she remembered it so clearly: Erolith, her stone baby. She swore up and down that he cried when he was born, but nothing was ever told to her to prove she heard correctly. She stared at the open grave for a few moments and truly searched her memory for everything that happened that day. Her heart sank into her stomach as she realized the scream she remembered was her own, as it dawned on her that her son had been a stillborn. With that memory now fresh in her mind she sobbed and choked and screamed for all the world to hear. Something, for purpose or by accident, had disturbed her only child's resting place: and her heart trembled with sorrow at the pain her poor son had to be feeling.

Having had her time to grieve the return of such painful memories, she gripped the tablet tighter and set off on wobbly legs in the direction Del'ure had lured the beast. Each stride fueled her determination to see the monster terminated, its ashes scattered to the wind so it couldn't be brought back again. Too many "if" statements rushed through her mind as she eventually took off sprinting abreast of the creature's tracks. If only she'd been strong enough to put him to the pyre, if only he'd survived, if only the poison had been ineffective, if only the boy's father had been a better man. None of it mattered now, what mattered was how to kill the monster that was chasing her friend. Having caught sight of the thing, darkened by the shade of the branches overhead, she forced herself to relax. She wiped her face with her sleeve and slung the stone toward the creature with alarming ferocity.

"You will burn for disturbing my son's grave!" she shouted.

Watching the fireball hit its target was but a blink and the thing was howling again, trying to put out the flames with little success. The mud on its exterior was starting to dry out and crack in places, like it was starting to bake and turn into dust. Once the surrounding area started to dry, the sparks and embers from the massive impact began to spread across the creatures front limbs and down its shoulders to connect with the rather gaping char mark in its back. With so little reliable light it was difficult to see if the thing had any insides, or if it was just a mass of dirt and detritus from the swamp. All the while it was making sounds and trying to put out the fire, but over the course of several minutes it seemed like all the heat it had been exposed to was eroding its form.

She ventured closer and tried to move around it, but somehow even with damaged eyes it still tried to swing at her and knocked her soundly into a nearby tree, though not with much force as the limb it used became further damaged from the impact. Just before the dawn it stopped thrashing and trying to slow the progression of its predicament, as if accepting its fate. In her mind she could only assume this was what it had wanted all along, was to no longer be alive. To put sentiment to it: if her stillborn son was part of this creature, then it made sense that it would seek out its destruction because it wasn't meant to be in the living world. It took her a few minutes to pull herself to her feet after deciding that her back was only bruised and not broken, but she managed with a groan. She finished making her way around the creature after retrieving the headstone by its feet and studied the creature in its dying moments.

"If you can hear me, I'm sorry this is how you had to end. Return to the earth in peace, never to rise again." At least her conscience could be put at ease that she said her goodbyes, even if the creature couldn't understand the sentiment. It made no effort to show that it acknowledged her words, but turned toward where the sun would soon rise and crumbled to dust, detritus, and bone as it did so. A cursory glance told her that her son's bones had indeed become part of the amalgamation, but only charred fragments remained. His hadn't been the only remains, unfortunately, but something told Rose that is was unwise to bury the dead in that particular area of the wetlands. After a moment of silence for the dead so cruelly dragged from their graves, she hesitantly turned to see if Del'ure was still there. She hoped he was, she sincerely hoped he was.

"D-Del'ure...? You didn't run off, did you?" It didn't register immediately why she was so scared of him leaving, but she figured it was because he started off so suddenly and without much explanation. She wanted him to stay, not just because she liked him, but because suddenly there were things that needed explaining and she wanted to share the experience of finding the answers.

"If I bring you oil, will you burn them instead? If even the grave I dug nearly half a century ago isn't safe from being tilled up, then whatever thing made that creature has to be ancient even by our standards. I don't want to run the risk of another creature looking for its own destruction coming up to my doorstep. Least of all with his remains trapped inside it. What in the world could possibly have a power radius that large though, do you think?" She'd heard stories of things not staying dead in the darker parts of the wetlands, but she thought that was all they were: stories to keep kids in bed at night and not out roaming.

She looked long and hard at the headstone in her hands and placed it among the bones carefully, intent on sending it off with the rest. Upon retrieving the fallen lantern, she discovered it still had quite a bit of oil left in it and brought it back over to the dusty heap. Lost in thought as she was, her filter wasn't working too well and she began voicing her thoughts. Something along the lines of, "No beast she'd ever seen could raise the dead. Not many who practiced necromancy ever set out to create abominations like the previously seen mud monster; or if they did they'd get rid of it pretty quickly out of embarrassment." She scratched her head and sighed; she wouldn't have the requisite books in this particular home to find anything useful. She'd need to go back to Harglen and get that chest out of storage in her library.

"I have a few select things about necromancy, but I don't keep them here. I'd need to go halfway across the continent to Harglen and find a chest in my storage cellar to get relevant information. You're more than welcome to come with me, but we might want to make another attempt at sleeping first." She was dead serious about going too. It was one thing to have cadavers resurrected in a lab setting for intentional research (her own convictions aside), it was another to go violating multiple graves and amassing corpses and bones for a creature dumber than a doorpost. It was possible that the land had been cursed for much longer than she'd been alive and there was no undoing it, but she wanted to know that for certain before going around telling everyone not to bury their dead in the swamp.