Strange and Stranger (Necromancer & Yakut)

[JetAlmeara]

Spring, that was what they called this dreadful time of year Necromancer reminded himself as he trod down the pathway. All this life flourishing around him made the grey stallion almost sick with annoyance ... winter was more his pace, even fall had some semblance of sanity to it. But Spring...spring was just nonsense. Everyone jumping about, reveling in the warm weather and abundance of food. How quickly they forgot the suffering, the hard times ... the great equalizer among them all. Death, death linked all living things together, it made far more sense to celebrate that which they all shared then this nonsense of flowers and tree buds.

'You think such ugly thoughts all the time' Came the waspish voice in his head, a flicker in the corner of his eye, barely seen but there..always there accompanied the voice and Neccromancer's ear laid back against his skull and he snapped at the wispy form ... a pointless task really as his dam's spirit was far to fleet to be caught in such a manner and Necromancer doubted he could do any damage to her even if he could catch her. Still...the display of annoyance at the ghost made him feel better. Slightly.

"No wonder." He told the ghost in a sour tone and while he had had more to say to her his voice trailed off as he caught a scent upon the shifting wind. There ... somewhere over there ... something had died. A while ago know..the scent was musty and old, bones that would be picked clean, glaringly white against the soil. Beautiful. Necromancer ambled in that direction so that he might find them, his mother's irksome spirit all but ignored now.

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*Disclaimer for shop RP rules - Necromancer is crazy, He believes himself haunted by the spirit of his dead mother and thinks he see's ghosts. He thinks the ghosts talk to him and occasionally try to lead him into dangerous situations but he is cray cray and the voices are all in his head.

 

[She-Ra of Etheria]

Note to Niss: Yakut is maxed out.

Spring had arrived and last and while most of the others were enjoying life's return to the land Yakut was suffering from this blessing and curse. Life was good, of course it was, but life also nattered in her ears constantly. The trees would whisper to her, telling her intriguing things while other times fooling around with her, leading her on. The rocks, twigs, grass and other items on the ground would complain to her if she stepped on them or got too close. The water in rivers and lakes would laugh when she approached, delighting in the fact that they could flow freely once more and the animals that took refuge under their ice or in their muddy bottoms were once again out and flourishing in them. Oh yes, spring was here and that's all Yakut could hear. She could try to block out their voices but it only lasted for so long.

Then again, Spring wasn't the only time she heard nature talk to her. Summer the plants would complain about the heat, the storms, the lack or over abundance of rain. In the fall the trees would cry as their leaves changed color and began to fall from their branches. The rivers would complain that soon they would be forced to remain still. But winter was almost as bad as the spring, for throughout she had to listen to everything whine about he cold, the amount of snow, how they wanted nothing more but for spring to return so they could come fully to life once more. All the seasons had their annoyances, but winter and spring were by far the worst. "I do not care what you wish to tell me." She stated to a large oak as she passed by. It was insistent though, it wanted her to know something and it wasn't about to let her ignore it. Yakut glared at the tree as it continued to go on, but then another tree joined in, and the bush beside her and finally she had no choice but to listen, for there would be no escaping their voices until she was well clear of the forest.

She paused to listen, their voices fighting for her attention. When this many things were talking at once it was hard to understand what was being said. "One at a time!" She told them but of course trees were stupid and didn't listen. Eventually she heard enough to get the basics from them. "Something walks among you." She said and the trees let out a chorus of appreciation that she had listened. Damn trees, she thought, there are always things moving about in the forest. With a shake of her head she continued her journey. There were things for her to do before she returned to the herd. As she left the oak and it's minions behind Yakut heard another whispering among the pine cones. Something lay ahead, something linked to life and yet lacked it. Intrigued she turned to search out this spot and see what all the fuss was about.

Note: Yakut is crazy and thinks she hears the trees and other objects talk to her and thus she talks back to them, no one else hears them because she is crazy.  

[JetAlmeara]

'Neccy' The voice tormented him while he rooted through the soil for the source of the death scent. Necromancer's ear's flattened at the sound of the oh so hated nickname but otherwise he attempted to ignore it. The allure of that beneath his feet was far more interesting then whatever it was she had to say.

'Neccy!' The voice came again, much more persistent this time, a nattering buzzing sound that just wouldn't leave him alone, he shook his head in an attempt to banish it.

"Let me be you wretched soul...I look for something." He finally told her. The death scent was growing stronger, it clung to the moist leaves his hooves dug up, a tempting mixture of mold and decay. Wonderful ... perhaps a part of this dead creature would wish to come with him, join his collection, travel once more as it did in life. Necromancer often wished that he could take the entire skeleton with him..but he had tried that once and the effort required had been to taxing..plus the ghosts had complained far to much. It was easier to deal with a fraction of them, the spirit was less irksome that way..smaller, easier to ignore.

His hoof scraped against something hard, something while, a sharp contrast to the brown earth and decaying leaves that surrounded it. Wonderful, he told himself and sought to pull it further from it's ill concealed and completely insufficient grave. His mother was still trying to tell him something but with the bones before him she was easier to ignore. It was a beautiful skeleton .. a deer if he guessed correctly and fallen sometime in the early fall, perhaps to wolves, perhaps to a late season flash flood, he supposed that he would not know unless it decided to tell him. Not all dead things chose to do so, some were quiet, accepting the deaths that took them with grace ... if only his mother would take a que from such creatures and join them in silence.

"Do you have a story to tell deer who has traveled beyond?" He asked the bones, flaring his nostrils to better take in the scent. "Perhaps you wish to travel farther still?" He asked, his eyes drawn to a bit of antler he had uncovered. An antler would make a fine addition to his collection. Was that a whisper? A quiet voice? Deer were often quiet and hard to hear and the stallion shushed his mother with a snap of his tail in her direction before tipping his head closer to the skeleton. "I will listen." He promised the deer, ears flicking as he caught the sounds.  

[She-Ra of Etheria]

The mare moved through the trees quietly. The trees and rocks still continued to natter in her ears, but she did her best to ignore their pesky voices. She had heard what they said earlier so why wouldn't they be uiet already? Sometimes being able to hear them was not all it was cracked up to be, and yet she wouldn't trade it for the world. The forest was a wealth of information and only a select few every truly knew everything that the trees and rocks and dirt had to tell, and she was among those few.

She had been trying so hard to not hear the trees as she sought out what they were talking about that she nearly missed a voice that did not belong to them. Yakut paused, lifting her head and listening closely. The voice had been faint. After another moment she heard it again. 'I will listen' the voice said. Could it be another who heard the forests voice? Wouldn't that be something. She had yet to meet another one who had her gift, at least not since her apprentice had died in the war. Turning towards where the sound had come from she picked her way through the trees keeping her footsteps nearly silent.

It did not take her long to come upon what she had heard. Stopping among the trunks of huge trees Yakut's eyes settled upon a grey stallion, his head bent down to the ground as if he was listening intently to something. She could not make out what it was he was listening to, but it was obvious that he was listening quite intently to it. Though she was curious she remained where she was for now not wanting to interrupt the conversation he was having with the object. She personally found it irksome when some unknowing fool walked in on an important conversation between a tree and herself. The stallion didn't really deserve her respect, he was lesser than her after all, but with the possibility of him having the same gift as she did then she gave him this rare opportunity to listen and learn before she would make her presence known.  

[JetAlmeara]

His mother had fallen blessedly silent for once although her form flitting about in the tree's nearby was still annoying - at least it wasn't quite as irritating as the sound of her scratchy ugly voice. He closed his eyes so that he wouldn't have to see her and so that he could better hear the whispering deer from beyond.

"Ah yes...I see your plight little deer beyond, it is indeed a tragic tale but never fear I will complete your journey for you." Necromancer told the deer's bones after a few moments of careful listening. The deer had been going somewhere when she died, somewhere important and Necro would ensure she got there by taking a part of her with him and leaving it where she desired. He did not always do such things - but the deer had been polite and quiet, nothing like the irksome sometimes wretched ghosts who pestered him - like his mother. Those he tried to ignore.

Lifting his head and opening his eyes he spied the brown mare watching him, he blinked at her for a few moment's glowing silver eyes taking in her form and the pelt upon her head. "You bring the dead with you as well?" He finally asked before turning his attention back to the bit of antler at his feet. Hooves scrapping it further free while he waited for her answer.  

[She-Ra of Etheria]

Yakut watched the stallion closely. He was a strange and yet curious creature. Had he been just another stallion like all the others she never would have taken the time to spot and watch him. But this one was special and it didn't take her long to figure out what made him so. It appeared, if her observations were correct, that he spoke to the dead. Which in essence made him very similar to her. After all death and life were intertwined together so that one could not exist without the other. This would explain why the trees and rocks had been so insistent on her search this stallion out, because he had a gift much like her own.

Having been spotted by the stallion, somewhat that was inevitable to happen, Yakut stepped from the trees. She hadn't really been hiding from him anyways, just staying back enough to keep from interrupting him. His words made her smile. He had seen her pelt headdress which indeed represented death as much as it did her rank in the herd. "We all bring death with us, some more obvious than others." She told him, noticing now the necklace of bones that he wore. "You are one who sees the truth behind death."  

[JetAlmeara]

Necro concluded that this was a wise mare almost as soon as she was done speaking her first sentence - how rare it was to find another who knew the truth about them all.

'She knows nothing' His mother whispered in a jealous sounding voice 'She lies to get your attention' The dead mare continued but Necro silenced her with a snap of his teeth in her direction. His mother hated mares in general - she was a jealous and petty creature in death though he had been told that had not been the case while she had been alive. Necromancer put no stock in what he had never been able to see however and was fairly convinced that those others had spoken wrongly.

"Death is the only thing that eventually joins us all as one." He told the mare - and it was true though many refused to believe it, they argued the point, pointed out how they all lived..but Necro knew that not all lives were equal - but death, death held claim over everyone regardless of law or gender or age, even species. Having freed the antler from the dirt the stallion hooked it on his necklace. "The deer's journey was not finished with her death, I will finish it for her as she asked politely enough for a ghost." He told the mare before him - it wasn't often that he openly spoke about the dead but this mare seemed to know of the beyond and so he felt oddly comfortable admitting such things to her.  

[She-Ra of Etheria]

Hearing him speak so plainly, so obviously about death, made Yakut respect him. It was not the same respect that she would give her Sisters from the herd, for no stallion could earn that respect, but this was a different kind of respect, the kind between kindred spirits. Her gift and that of this stallions were intertwined, connected so deeply that even she couldn't put it to words. Yet she knew that connection was there, knew that was why she had been sent to find the one who was in the forest for this stallion held her gift - well the opposite of her gift. She spoke to and heard the voices of life and it appeared he did the same but with death.

She had seen him snap at nothing, and while others would find this strange, Yakut accepted it as a part of his gift. Perhaps there was a voice pestering him. Sometimes she would snap at the trees and rocks to quiet their voices and in a forest there was bound to be as much death as there was life - though the death wasn't always as obvious. "Without death life would cease." It sounded odd and yet was true, for life could not exist without death. She watched him place the antler on his necklace and then nodded her head. "The others.." She said and motioned to his bone necklace. "Are their journey's complete? Or are they the symbols of your gift?"  

[JetAlmeara]

"The world can only hold so much life." Necromancer agreed with this female. There were more detailed explanations of course but the simplest was simply that some things had to die so that others could live, Necro did not pretend to understand all the underlying factors surrounding this truth but he knew that it was a truth and that was all that mattered to him.

'Its none of her business why you carry them around.' His mothers voice stated, prodding at him like a sharp stone under his hoof - annoying and hard to get rid of. Necromancer ignored her, snapping at the ghostly mare made him feel better but it rarely did anything to actually chase her away for very long - a pointless task. "Some of them wished to come with me and see more of the world, others desire to go somewhere." He told the mare, glancing at the collection he carried, the collection shifted regularly as he left some where they decided to stay and picked up others along his travels. He couldn't recall a time when he hadn't carried at least a few of them however.

"What of yours? Do you carry them for a reason?" He asked,his eyes looking towards the headdress she wore.  

[She-Ra of Etheria]

She nodded her head both in understanding and agreement. It was refreshing to speak to someone who truly understood how the world worked and also understood what it was like to have such a deep connection to it - even if that someone was a stallion. Well the world wasn't perfect, so she would just have to accept that he had the gift and if she were to know more about it and spend time with someone who could do almost the same as what she could then she would need to 'suffer' through the presence of a male.

When he questioned her pelt she smiled lightly. "It is a mark of my position. I am Shamaness of my herd, healer, keeper of rituals and the connection to life. The trees, rocks and other things in the forest speak to me...much like the dead do to you. It is a tradition in itself to wear the horns of a deer." And she felt lost if she did not wear them. Once she had lost her horns and it had been a tragedy until they were found once more. "I am Yakut." While she wouldn't normally share her name with male this one was special and she had no issue telling him who she was. "What name do you go by Ghost Walker?"  

[JetAlmeara]

Necro nodded slightly, a symbol of position was a suitable reason to wear a hide as far as he was concerned and he had seen it done before. It was intriguing that she belonged to a herd - as his own experiences with such things never went well, as soon as they noted his oddities the stallion was generally chased away. It seemed that most mares and stallions, those who looked after young foals especially, did not appreciate his free and easy manner when it came to death. Perhaps this one did not have the same problems because she spoke to life instead.

"They called me The Necromancer. It is the closest to a name I have" He told her, as always giving the title he had been known as, though as far as he knew he had never been given a proper name, his mother had been killed before she had the chance and her ghost seemed content to stick with the title - though she had an annoying habit of shortening it.  

[She-Ra of Etheria]

"The Necromancer." The name was strange and yet seemed oddly fitting as well. Even so, she decided that most likely she would continue to call him Ghost Walker because that name too was an appropriate fit for this odd death connected stallion. Her eyes roamed about the forest for a moment, the voices had gone nearly quiet since she had come upon the stallion, so it was an obvious sign that the forest was happy that she had listened to them and that she was standing here talking to this stallion. If he had not had such an interesting connection to death she may very well have left by now, but he was too similar to her to pass up this opportunity...even if he was a male.

"Have you always had the skill to communicate with the dead?" She finally asked him after returning her gaze to his dappled hide. She was curious about him, wanted to know more of his skill. Perhaps, like her, he had been born with the gift. If so, he liked had also struggled with it and with others who thought the gift was anything but a gift and looked down upon him and his ways like some had looked upon her. Her herd was accepting of her oddities...at least for the most part, some did still keep a distance unless absolutely necessary. That was fine with Yakut though, in the end it meant one less voice to listen to.  

[JetAlmeara]

Necromancer considered for a few moment's, attempting to align memories that he rarely thought of anymore. Some would likely find such memories distasteful but to the stallion they simply were, they had happened and there was no changing it and so there was no point in worrying about them any longer.

'Don't you dare tell her about me Neccy! She has no right to know! No right!' Came the irksome and nasal tones of his mother, her ghostly spirit flitting about in a right rage and while he flattened his ears slightly at the mentioning of the always hated nickname the thought of her being annoyed that he told this mare his story made him oddly keen to do so. Small bits of revenge were sometimes worth more in the long run and his ears pricked forward again as she howled her dismay at him.

"For as long as I can recall, the herd who kept me alive said it was due to my birthing, my mother was a queen who fell in love with a lesser stallion and I was the b*****d product - mother and her lessor were killed before me at the moment I was born by the King but I was spared at the pleas of another - however when it became apparent that the killings or my tainted bloodline - they could never decide which - had altered me , made me different I was passed along to whomever would feed me until I grew and repaid my debt. I was used to overthrow a rival herd and then cast aside as unwanted...which I was not all that upset about to be honest. Better alone then with the likes of them." The stallion told her, his words somewhat disjointed as it was not a tale he often told.  

[She-Ra of Etheria]

Yakut listened to his story, her head bobbing slightly at his explanation. He had certainly had a rough go of it from day one. Having ones dam and sire murdered right in front of them, especially a foal straight out of the basket, was a horrible thing to go through. But then again the world was full of horrors when one stopped to truly think about it. Her own life had it's very own horrors to it, though the biggest one had happened only months ago when the herd was ripped apart during the infighting.

After a few thoughtful moments Yakut spoke. "They saw you as a curse when they should have seen a gift." Few possessed gifts like herself and Necromancer did, in fact so far he was the only other one she had come across in all her time. Granted she stayed with the herd and rarely traveled but even so they did get the occasional visitor and they told them of the lands beyond their territory. But there was one thing she wanted to know. "Will you go there again, when their death calls to you? They will have little choice but to accept you then, for you will be the only one who can speak to them."  

[JetAlmeara]

Necromancer considered for a few long and silent moments, it was not a question he had ever thought of before and yet now that it had been asked it seemed like an important one - would gloating over them be worth while? Likely not ... and it would come wit hthe risk of them following him, frankly Necro did not think he wanted to deal with another irritating spirit such as his mother following him around for the rest of his life.

"No - my presence seems to bring comfort to the dead and I have no desire to bring them any such thing." He finally told the mare, perhaps that was not the kindest of answers but no one had ever accused Necro of being kind anyways. "Let them wander in the cold and the dark alone for a time, perhaps then they will see the truth of things."