graveyardsmash | TDM: MARCH/APRIL

Entry tags:

test drive

TDM: MARCH/APRIL

TDM: MARCH/APRIL

Welcome to the Ryslig Test Drive Meme! Below are a few prompts to get you started, but you may make up any prompt you desire! Please take a look at the navigation page for rules, setting information, and links to reserves and apps. Have fun!

SCENARIO ONE

You wake up in a dark ditch, the sky cloudy overhead. Dirt cakes into your cuts and scrapes. The air is clammy and damp, and it smells like rain.

You’re in a grave. And when you sit up to inspect the tombstone marking your spot, it has your name on it. Maybe the graves next to you have the names of familiar friends, family, acquaintances. Not all of them are open like yours are. RIP.

There’s a light dancing in the distance, and you hear the jingle-jangle of heavy keys, or worse still, the gravekeeper’s massive pitchfork or shovel. If you're lucky, you can sneak out beyond his notice, and get out alone. If not - you might find yourself on the wrong end of a shovel’s swing, or worse yet, tripping headfirst in front of a pair of monstrous eyes.

SCENARIO TWO

You've stumbled your way out of the graveyard, and you're promptly besieged by the overwhelming sights and sounds of the city. Cars honk at you to get out of the street, and strangers try not to look in your direction for too long. They see your dirty clothes and scraped faces, and pretend to busy themselves with something else. Rarely, a look of pity is cast your way.

But some people try to reach out. Enterprising citizens and those that hope to curry favor with the newcomers pass out new clothes and bundles of food, asking if you have a place to stay the night, wondering about the details of the world you came from. Some are even handing out pamphlets which vary in how helpful they are--"What To Expect When You're Expecting (To Turn Into A Monster)", "Wolpertinger: Fact or Fiction?", "100% ACCURATE MONSTER QUIZ ASSESSMENT: GUARANTEED TO PREDICT YOUR MONSTER!", and "Ryslig Law In A Nutshell".

Then there are the people who aren't happy to see you at all. Glares and silent, judging stares if you're lucky, torches and pitchforks attempting to drive you out of the town if you're not. You may need a friend to help you.

SCENARIO THREE

"Seek us out," the voice whispers in your head, and before you have time to question it you've found yourself in someplace entirely alien.

Maybe it's the Fog God's ghostly town of Dyster, where exultant followers dance around bonfires and sing their praises to the skies above. Maybe it's the Fourth God's arcade, with small robots wheeling about amidst the lights and colors of old pinball machines.

Only one thing is certain: you are not alone, in this sacred place.

SCENARIO FOUR

The time has come and you've found yourself becoming a monster. Is the change instant, or gradual? Are you familiar enough with monsters to know what's happening, or is it a complete shock? Does it fit you, or does it feel incongruous with your nature? Feel free to pick any monster type for this prompt, but note that you may not get the same one in game.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Won't You Spare Me Over 'Til Another Year? - Graveyard

Well, here's a bit of irony.

Glittering blue eyes narrow at the headstone, broad shoulders squared and taut after clawing their way out of the grave.

'Der Tod,' the name reads. That suits fine enough. They've always been fond of that variation. The dates, on the other hand...they're simply unreadable, garbled, scraped, like they've been carved and scratched and carved again ad-nauseum.

It would be funny, almost, if it weren't so irksome that someone had tried to classify their existence at all. Like a human. They may have taken an appearance for ease, all fine and angular features, bright eyes, golden hair...but that doesn't make them human. They are beyond that, the chill that reaches across the veil, the force that binds all.

Pointedly, they are trying to ignore the sting in their skin, the heaviness to their form, the ache in their bones. This cannot be. It simply can't.

No one can bury Death itself.

Nothing Satisfies Me But Your Soul - City

More than the bustle of the City, what strikes Der Tod about wandering through Bavan is the eyes upon them. They are not used to being seen unless they mean to be, unless they ALLOW it, and...here they are, being gawked at. It's hard to say whether they like the attention or not. It's...new, and so few things have been new to them since time immemorial.

They stop nearby a burger stand, taking a seat upon a bench to collect themselves - and then their brows knit together, a gloved hand pressing to their abdomen. They can smell food cooking, and their gut churns, an unfamiliar feeling.

"I'm...hungry," they breathe, to no one in particular. Their voice is like the hiss of wind through a crypt. There is confusion there, and in the set of their lips, the tilt of their head. They have never been hungry before.

Leave the Body and Leave it Cold - Changes - Vampire - cw: tooth stuff, and Death, but like, the actual act of dying, not the character I'm writing a test drive for because I can see how that would get confusing

So this is what it's like.

They're on their knees on the sidewalk, the books they had been carrying back from the library scattered on the ground. Sweat beads on their forehead, sticking pale blonde hair to even paler skin. One hand is over their heart, feeling the beat getting more and more labored by the moment. It hurts. It hurts, and they are such a stranger to pain in this way. They knew this was going to happen, but - nothing could have prepared them for being on this end of it.

They aren't aware of your presence, really, their blood rushing in their ears. There is a wrenching in their jaw, and they hiss, a cornered rattlesnake, a dangerous animal about to strike.

They spit out a canine tooth, and it rattles along the ground to land at your feet.

O' Death - Wildcard

((Surprising absolutely no one, this is Vin! Feel free to hmu for a wildcard on Plurk at LadyVincira or Discord at Vincira#8472))

"Hi, Hungry, I'm Lawrence." It was impossible to resist, even in the whirl of new emotions and experiences, the urge to be annoying.

A filthy man clad in stripes stands nearby, half a burger in his hand, the other half smeared on his face. He chews with his mouth open and seems perfectly delighted to have Der Tod settled within his view. They were easy on the eyes!

There is a very slow turn of the head in response to that, followed by a slower blink. That was...meant to be a joke, no doubt. They do not appear to have found it funny.

"...Cute," they sigh, in a tone that implies they did not find it cute at all. Dropping their hands to their lap, they size up the stranger, lip curling a little in disgust at the open-mouthed chewing.

"But not what I meant. I have never been hungry before. I have never eaten before. This isn't right, not at all."

A beat.

"You have something on your face, by the by, should that be a concern for you."

Being called cute just gets a bat of those lashes in Der Tod's direction and a slight incline of his chin to his neck. Gawrsh, this stranger knew all the right things to say to get on BJ's good side. On one long leg he scooched closer. And then just a little closer to Der Tod's seat there on the bench.

He extended the half eaten sandwich. "S'pretty good, this whole human food thing."

Of course Beetlejuice is going to use every opportunity to drop that he's not--or at least wasn't--human. It was a brag. Not that it would get him anywhere now.

The set of their jaw sets even harder at the offered food - they look from it, to BJ, and then back again. They've never eaten before, but they're pretty sure it's ill advised to take food from someone so grimy.

But then their stomach gives a guilty growl, and - grimacing a little - they reach out with gloved hands to break off a bit of the sandwich. Bringing it to their nose first to sniff at it, they begrudgingly pop it into their mouth. It tastes...good, and would even be enjoyable were it not for the provenance. (The provenance being one of the filthiest men they have ever seen.)

"Thank you," they finally respond, after chewing for a little too long and swallowing awkwardly.

"...You weren't human before? Did you arrive here out of turn as well?"

"Sure!" Beetlejuice shrugged and helped himself to another bite. He never broke eye-contact. As though suddenly remembering the mention of something being on his face, the ex-ghoul dabs at his lips with the end of his tie before letting it fall against his shirt.

"Dead. Dead as a doornail. So this? A step up. Be thankful. Smell that?" He sucked in a deep breath of smoggy city air. "You don't get that in the Netherworld."

In retrospect, they should have expected that.

At the word 'dead,' they visibly tense - bright blue eyes going from bemused to sharp as a raised guillotine. They cant their head to one side, eyeing BJ up and down for a long moment.

"You were dead? Dead, and already passed through to the afterlife?"

Their tone is suddenly considerably less impersonal, though it remains arched, chilly.

"More like never alive in the first place." He breezily offers this information up between bites. Damn Bavan could make a good sandwich. If he notices the change in Der Tod's mood, he doesn't show it. "But I wouldn't say I'm as new to the scene as you--even the dead get hungry."

Hungry ghosts could drive a man to madness after all.

"Never alive," they echo, the words bouncing off the walls in an empty morgue hallway.

"So you were either an angel or a demon, then, it would follow. I may well be able to guess which."

They don't appear to be angry, precisely - but they are certainly paying more attention, fingers of one hand tracing a very old hairwork ring on the other. A demon, here? If that could happen, anyone could be plucked from the afterlife and set down in...whatever this is.

They don't like being preempted.

"I have never been alive, either. Nor have I been dead. I simply have Been, so long as life has existed. New to this, yes...but calling myself new at all feels facetious."

Beetlejuice finished off his burger, wadded up the wrapper in his hands and tucked it away in one of his coat pockets. For reasons. There was something in this person's tone, this target of his current attentions, that was starting to grate on Beetlejuice.

And so he swipes a thumb across his chin to clear away any stray ketchup and says, "Sounds boring."

"Does it?"

Dryly, they watch him, reaching into a pocket to procure a black handkerchief. They offer it out, calmly, thinking it fair as this stranger had offered them their food. The cloth smells of dust, of crypts, of funerary flowers and graveyard soil.

Shrugging a little, they finally reply:

"I've never known anything else. I have exactly one purpose, and it's been taken from me here. Your name is...Lawrence, you said?"

Beetlejuice had been tottering dangerously close to ragging on Der Tod for being so stoic about all this. They were together in a new dimension and their fate was to become flesh-eating beasts. They didn't even seem a little excited. What a party-pooper!

But the hanky that they offered got a tip of his head. He plucked it from Death's fingers and brought it up to his nose to take a deep indulgent whiff.

"Yup, Lawrence B--" He winced. He couldn't make himself say it. Even after centuries of not being able to. If something sounded too good to be true, it usually was. And so he let it be. "Or BJ if you wanna be pals."

"BJ," they repeat. It sounds awkward on their tongue, a tone too formal and enunciated - but they do try it all the same. The wince and the recoiling from his surname is...interesting, but it's unsurprising, a demon stopping short of giving a full title. Names have power over celestials and spirits, after all.

They watch him sniffing at the handkerchief - a good thing they could care less about it - before finally deciding to tip their hand.

"I don't have a name, exactly. Different people and different cultures have different titles for me. The one I favor - and the one this...place put upon my headstone - is Der Tod." They smile, a weird, angular thing that doesn't quite reach their eyes.

"You may know me better as Death."

Beetlejuice listened to that preamble, his brows lofted high on his broad forehead. It was a shame that such a brilliant introduction was wasted on him. Pearls and swine and all.

There is a pause between the two beings before Beetlejuice speaks in a soft voice. "Death." Then he brays out a laugh and doubles over at the waist. A hand swings down to slap his knee as he heehaws at the very idea. "YOU? FABIO?"

And oh, to laugh. It feels so good! To have breath in his lungs and the blood rush to his cheeks. Something something endorphins.

They do not flinch at the laughter, nor at the disbelief.

They just blink a couple of times, staring BJ down for a long moment of stern silence. They fold their hands together. The smile fades, turns eerie, fixed.

"Is something funny about that, Lawrence?"

Oh, here come the tears. Beetlejuice takes that same filthy tie he'd used to wipe his mouth and dabs at his eyes as he struggles to stand upright. That felt good. He sucks down a few dramatic breaths and gets himself under control.

"Hooooh, I needed that." He sniffled a bit. "Ahhh. I love it."

Then, it's Beetlejuice's turn to snap to attention and fix Der Tod with an intense stare. "I've killed plenty of people and you've never showed up once. So yeah, I find that a little funny. So, Big D, you rub elbows often with Ma down in customs?"

Perhaps this much is to be expected, really. It would be a wild claim for someone to make, after all. A bit of strangeness.

But disbelief is one thing, and disrespect is another. The rest of the smile falls away for a moment, their expression turning calculating before sliding smoothly back into an eerie grin.

"That wouldn't matter - I am not seen unless I want to be seen, BJ. What is funnier still is that I have never seen YOU, if you are who you say you are and have killed as you claim."

They lean back on the bench, a casual affect.

"So there are three possible truths here. Either I am lying - and why would I lie about this? - or you are lying...or, perhaps, the worlds we each came from did not intersect.

So in short, no. I have never met your Mother."

Edited 2022-03-17 08:29 (UTC)

"Lucky bastard," was all Beetlejuice said at first. One hand rested drawn up to his side in a sort of involuntary raptor position while the other fingered the handkerchief. The gears in his mind were turning now. He slowly tilted his head and raked his eyes up and down the figure that was Der Tod.

Other worlds. He hadn't really stopped to think about that. He'd just accepted that somehow he'd turned up alive after falling off the Maitlands' roof and sure, he was possibly going to turn into a monster or something and that was all there was to it. If he let himself think about it, the yawning void of possibility opened up and he was not about to get all existential before he found a steady source of cocaine.

"Huh."

They can see they've at least landed a point somewhere in that grimy head of his - so they relent a little, taking the intensity down just a notch.

"You can believe me, or not. It matters little. I, however, believe what you are saying. I see no reason not to. It does sound as though the After works a bit.. differently, where you are from. I have never before heard of...customs."

They shuffle over, just a bit, making room beside them on the bench. An invitation.

Admittedly, they are...curious.

Beetlejuice is never one to pass up any kind of invitation and so he drift over and plunks himself down, hands on his knees. He is fighting so hard not to thing about the infinite fractal of worlds that comes from there being more than one. Now, the world of the living and the world of the dead were connected.

But wherever this shiny fellow was from was nothing like his own world if they didn't know how the basics of going through processing after you die went. Beetlejuice felt a little dizzy.

"Oh...oh, yeah. Red tape all the way down," he says a little distractedly. Then, in a sudden burst of violent determination, Beetlejuice slaps himself hard across the jaw. "AAHOW! Wow, okay! Whew! Enough of that!"

He slung an arm over the back of the bench, trying very hard to put it over Der Tod's shoulders.

"So, where are you staying?"

"Paperwork? Peculiar."

It seems, perhaps, as though they might have thrown dear Lawrence here for a loop with their observations. It wouldn't be the first time that a conversation with them has resulted in-

A slap across the face.

Huh.

Well, there's a first time for everything.

They can see that the man is trying to get closer, drape around them...and, perhaps surprisingly, they do not flinch away. What does it matter, after all? The grime is...unpleasant, but it's all vaguely unpleasant right now, anyway. Perhaps they will regret it, but for now? Being touched is sort of...novel, really.

They raise a brow at the question, humming a moment as they consider their answer.

"...I hadn't thought about it. I have just arrived, and I do not...ordinarily need a place to sleep."

That allowance would only encourage the ghoul to scooch in closer and press them together, side to side. Real cozy!

"We-hell you better start thinking about it. You need a guy like me, Big D, to show you the ropes! I might not have ever been alive, but I've had to find a place to crash on short notice plenty of times! And since I'm so nice, you don't even have to worry about repaying me--right now. We'll call it an I.O.U."

He leaned forward so that he could look up into their face with that big, high ticket grin.

Ah, yes, there's the regret.

But they don't flinch, all the same. The worst of it is probably the smell, but...well, they've smelled their share of corpses, in their time. If anything, being called 'Big D' is more off-putting than the contact - and the wheedling in those words doesn't go unnoticed.

They raise a delicate brow in response to the grin.

"...I would appreciate the aid, BJ...and I suppose fair is fair. You would, of course, not possibly be stupid enough to try to cheat me, after all."

Their voice is level, given the edge in what is actually said.

From the path among the rows of headstones Harry squints at the name on the gravestone, surprised he can read it.

ENCYCLOPEDIA - (This is Walder, the language of the nation of Gottwald. It borders Oranje on the Mundi isola.)

LOGIC - (The Walder accent seems analogous to Alfred’s own. Also don’t expect to be fluent- not that it really matters here. You can’t exactly think of fully formed Walder sentences. Just a few recognizable words you’ve picked up…somewhere.)

ENCYCLOPEDIA - (Gottwald is well known for its advances in communist theory, you could’ve picked up rudimentary terms from such books.)

[Is this guy a communist?]

RHETORIC - (Sniff him, find out.)

“Hey, need a hand, …The Death? Also, weird question but humor a large bird’s curiousity: are you from Germain or Gottwald?”

[The speech is met with a slow turn, a calm glance - that turns to something closer to surprise at the sight of Harry. Not human, clearly. Just where...are they, exactly?

Pace casual, they approach, movements like a cat on the prowl. Their head tilts a little to one side, questioning before they even speak.]

Germain? Gottwald? Those sound very much like places I know of, but I am not from either, as a technicality. I suppose you would say I'm not quite from anywhere. I just happened to be near Austria, the last I recall.

...Now...I do have a few questions, if you would humor my own.

The first of which is - what are you?

[Not an ounce of fear in those glittering eyes. Only calculation, curiosity.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

TDM: MARCH/APRIL

Der Tod | Elisabeth das Musical

City

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Graveyard (finally thought of something silly to say)

no subject