The Woodland Mansion

Kit, surprised and a bit taken aback, followed the axe lady out of the room. She stood still in the hallway, watching as the door slammed in the woman's face.

Leo stepped out of the bathroom, extremely careful so as not to slip. He wrung out his clothes the best he could over the tub and glanced toward the door. He was aware that there was some sort of scuffle and conflict, but hadn't been paying attention long enough to catch what it was over.

"Okay, I guess I'll go find some dry clothes."

Sevy nodded and made a move to follow him.

The words being shouted at him registered just as he went to turn the corner, and he was so startled that he walked right into the wall in front of him. Which hurt, and made him stumble back a bit, but he was ultimately alright. It did, however, give his follower enough time to get considerably closer to him. This was something that he only realized when he glanced back behind him to see who had spoken. It had been the woman with the axe, and she was currently rushing down the hallway towards him. Which might have been a bit terrifying if he was stuck in that decaying body, but this body could handle an axe.

Especially when he could avoid being touched by her in the first place. It wasn't hard to get to that point - all he had to do was think about his body suddenly taking on the attributes of a ghost, and he was good. The moment she tried grabbing onto him and doing whatever she planned to do, she'd go right through him. And then he could keep on walking until he found someplace he could get a good view from, find his house and return back to there because he was sick and tired of this place.

In retrospect, it should've been suspicious that skeleton man didn't pick up the pace on turning back and seeing Marisol approaching. But Marisol was more focused on catching up to him than wondering about what he was doing, and she'd almost succeeded in that goal. After rounding a corner, she was only a few paces from him, and she quickly closed that gap.

She jumped forward, reaching out to grab him by his long coat. Marisol had just enough time to widen her eyes in surprise as her hand went through the skeleton man. Then she crashed onto the floor, ax flying away and embedding itself in a wall.

"S***," Marisol grumbled, pulling herself up. She'd bitten down on her tongue, and so could taste blood in her mouth. Other than that and a few rashes, she felt okay. Still, she clenched her fists and gritted her teeth as she saw skeleton man fleeing. "Stop!" Marisol called, hearing Arlais running up from behind her. "I just want ta talk ta ya!"

He came to a sudden stop, having not expected the words that came out of the woman's mouth. People were afraid of him when they saw him like this. She should have run. Should have tried getting away from him, tried getting away from the death she was convinced was coming. Because everyone knew who he was when he looked like this, and no one would ever want to deal with the Grim Reaper.

Unless, of course, she was part of that group. The group that talked to him because they wanted an escape from their inevitable demise, the ones who would bargain with everything they had to change their fate.

So he turned to face her, taking a deep breath he didn't need as he found the right words to say. "If you want me to stop you from dying, I can't. It doesn't work like that. And if you want me to tell you how you die so you can avoid it, I can't do that, either. I can only see the time you have left, and I'm not telling you what it is."

Kit watched wearily before turning around to find Sevy and Leo. She figured that if she were to also confront Griffith- if that was really his name- he would only feel cornered. Though she was interested in what exactly he was. Judging by the conversation she had picked up on, perhaps a death god of some sort?

Leo walked through the hallway, leaving a long, wet trail in his wake. He peeked his head into each room he came across, finally finding a bedroom of some sort. He walked in and closed the door, slinging off all his wet clothes and hanging them to dry across the headboard. Upon inspection, the closet and dresser were filled with both men's and women's clothes. The trouble was, all of the men's clothes were a handful of sizes too big for him- he would have to either make do or search hard for smaller clothes.

Sevy was waiting outside, leaning up against the wall when Kit found him. He glanced wearily at her and inclined his chin in acknowledgement.

"Have you been able to tell what's going on?" She asked, leaning next to him.

He shook his head and sighed, "No- it's some sort of magic, that's all I know." He turned to her and casually broached the topic that had been on his mind, "Kit- as far as I can tell, you were the only one of us who looked the same after the transformation."

She closed her eyes and laid her head back against the wall. Of course Sevy would be the first one to raise questions. Frankly, she was surprised that he hadn't long before.

"Yeah. That doesn't mean that I wasn't changed." She opened her eyes again and stared at him, almost challenging him to guess what she was.

On the bright side, he stopped. On the downside, he was either insane or her hearing had failed her.

"Ugh," Marisol said, standing up and wiping the blood off her lip with one hand while waving off Arlais with the other. "You think I give a f*** when I die? Unless it's five minutes from now or somethin', I don't give a s***. Stop pretendin' you and your bony butt are anythin' special. Ya aren't even in the top five weird s*** I've seen. So, ya either get back here, or I'll drag ya back here."

No matter how hard he tried to wrap his head around the situation, he just couldn't. He was the Grim Reaper. How could she say something like that when he was the dealer of death and the taker of souls? While that was far from the truth, it was how people viewed him. Anyone would cower in fear when they saw him coming, or at least would do a bit of begging if they thought their lives would be reaped next.

"I'm the Grim Reaper," he slowly said. It wasn't really a good response to her comment, but he couldn't think of anything else to the say. He was simply in too much disbelief about this current situation.

"So?" Marisol said, walking over to the ax on the wall. "Should I know you or somethin'?" It looked too embedded in there to be easy to pull it out; she decided to wait until later.

Sevy blinked, and then opened his mouth. He promptly shut it again, squinting at Kit in confusion. If her appearance hadn't changed, then what else would? Maybe she had received some sort of power that she had concealed from everyone else. Whatever it was, she was acting very dramatic about it. He didn't understand why she wouldn't just come out and tell him whatever it was she was hinting at.

"What's that supposed to mean?" He frowned at her.

If Kit was planning on answering, she didn't. At that moment, the bedroom door opened and Leo stepped out. He looked over at his friends and sighed.

"Don't laugh, Kit, or I swear I'll-"

Kit looked Leo over with an amused smile. He was wearing a loose, salmon-colored button-up and what looked like women's jeans. They were mostly generic, aside from the bejeweled patterns over the front and- she peeked around behind Leo- back pockets.

"Who's laughing? You look wonderful." She smirked, "if you want, we can look for a bedroom with pants that fit you."

"You should," he said, awkwardly watching as she went to where her axe was embedded in the wall. He had no idea how to deal with this situation. Everyone that he met was terrified of him. Those too young to have heard of him were scared because he was towering skeletal man with piercing, glowing pinpricks of light in the place of eyes. Those who knew him were scared of him because they were certain his appearance meant they were going to die.

So why was she still talking to him?

"...Aren't you scared of me?" he hesitantly asked.

Marisol peeked over the edge of the ax. Now that he'd finally stopped running, she could see him clearly. Tall, long coat, skeleton body, spots of light for eyes. Charming. If she hadn't known he was a total coward, she might've been intimidated. Even then, she was fairly confident in her skills with her ax. But she knew better.

She snorted. "I've seen some lady crumble to dust," she said, placing a hand on the ax handle and testing how much it could move. Only an inch up or down. Eugh, she definitely would have to pull it out. "I got yanked to some freaky world for a while there, and then woke up half-dead. I've seen little miss princess when she gets angry. Ya ain't s***."

"I don't get it," he said. He stared at her as she tried to move the axe, trying to take in what she had said. He was still having trouble with that, and he doubted he would get a good grasp on the situation anytime in the near future. "I'm the Grim Reaper. You're supposed to be cowering in fear, or begging for life. That's what they always do. That's why I left, because you guys were eventually going to realize the truth about me and then be as terrified as you've always been. How can you be taking this calmly? How-how can you not know who I am?"

"I don't," Marisol said with a shrug, "Simple as that. And I ain't a fan of that beggin' an' cowerin' thing, so I'm not gonna do any of that neither."

He should have kept asking her questions to figure out how someone could be so oblivious to who he really was, but his initial shock had been replaced with a euphoria he hadn't expected. He felt so elated that he almost started crying from joy-No, wait. He had. He could feel a tear rolling down his cheek.

"If I-If I told you who I was," he hesitantly said, frantically trying to wipe away the tears that were quickly falling. "You wouldn't be scared of me, would you? You're actually not afraid of me. I-I can't believe it. I've never met someone who wasn't afraid of me when they found out who I really was."

"I'm not sure she knows what fear is," Arlais hissed from behind Marisol. "Or how useful it is."

Marisol rolled her eyes and ignored the comment. She also tried not to wrinkle her nose on seeing the skeleton man's tear. What was his deal? "Probably not," she said to the skeleton man. "Ya already told me some stuff 'bout who ya are, anyways. A death god or somethin'? You haven't killed me yet, and I don't think ya would" - she was so tempted to say that he didn't have the guts, but decided it would probably scare him away, because the cowards she knew didn't like to be self-aware - "So I ain't scared. Why should I be?"