@King Tai Esperanza is kind of an oddball, so she'd probably be delighted by him regardless unless he just upright smacks her in the face or something. Either way, looking forward to the post!
EchoicChamber
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Something Forgotten
STATUS: Much to the surprise of everyone, I am not dead. 4 yrs ago
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Much to the surprise of everyone, I am not dead.
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Bio
I'm EchoicChamber, though I mostly go by Echo.
I'm in my twenties, and returned here on a whim.
I have no idea what's happening at any given moment.
I'm in my twenties, and returned here on a whim.
I have no idea what's happening at any given moment.
Most Recent Posts
@King Tai Dude, your character is dope as all hell. Looking forward to interacting with him via Esperanza! :D
While interacting with people outside home may have been a bit of a new experience, it didn’t take a social butterfly to figure out that the stranger was not having the most pleasant of times right now. Esp blinked, then immediately gave the man an apologetic smile. “I am sorry. It is probably me you are smelling, and not Chu.” She fumbled in the pockets of her cloak for a moment, feeling about, before beaming and fishing out an amber vial. “Peppermint oil. It helps with the smell of corpses. You just,” she paused, squeezing out a few drops of the liquid onto her fingertips, and smearing it below her nostrils, “rub it like that, and it makes it less terrible to be smelling.” Capping the vial once more, Esperanza offered it to the stranger, scent now a mingling mix of death and mint.
And...seawater. Marcus might notice, however, that the smell of salt didn’t come from the slight woman before her, but rather the creature lying sprawled about her shoulders. Lounging in the shadows offered by Esp’s hood, Chu ran his tongue along the front of his teeth, grinning up at Marcus.
Before slowly running his tongue along the side of Esp’s face, leaving a trail of opaque grey drool that smelled oddly of melon.
Esp’s only reaction was to quickly wipe her face clear with her sleeve with the deftness of someone who had done so many times before, and then reach out to shake Marcus’ hand with her left, the nub of her missing finger passing against his grasp. “It is nice to meet you, Marcus. My name is Esperanza, but you may call me Espie or Esp if you would like.” She paused, gesturing to the creature around her shoulders. “And his name is Chupacabra, but I call him Chu. He is a very good boy.”
If Esperanza was in any way bothered by Marcus’ chatter, she showed no sign of it, smiling broadly. “I come from very far away, yes. Do you think you could be helping me find a good place to stay? I haven’t learned where everything is yet.”
It took a few more seconds of prodding and excited murmuring, but eventually, the warmth beneath Esp’s cloak stirred. A dull black glow fanned out at her like spotlights. All too human teeth glinted in what minimal light reached the inner folds of the fabric. And then Chupacabra crawled out from her neckline, yawning, and curled about Esp’s shoulders like a particularly horrifying scarf. Or a parrot that had been run over by a paint truck, been subject to terrible inhumane experiments as part of the recovering process, Frankensteined together with bits of other creatures, and then hung out to dry. Esp gave him some fond scratches under the chin as he settled, nuzzling her nose against his.
“Mi bebé,” Esperanza crooned. ”Mi querido corazón.” She drew her face away, planted a kiss above his hundreds of eyes, and stood from the bench. “It is time for us to see the world.”
Chu didn’t say much in response. He tended to be far more selective with his words than when he was younger, and his voice was like the babbling of an infant instead of the silvery hum of a woman. “Esperanza,” was all he said back, before curling even closer to her shoulders and gurgling deep in the back of his throat. His mouth was still affixed in its permanent, ominous grin, but the sight was common enough that Esperanza wasn’t bothered by it.
It didn’t take long after Esperanza had left the bench for her to realize that she was completely and utterly lost.
She was dwarfed by the size of the warehouses, made insignificant by the signless concrete and constant dead ends. There was no map for her to follow, and she found herself walking around in circles more often than not. She was getting the feeling she would have to send out some of her ghosts out to scout when she came upon another person- a man- roaming around and muttering to himself. Brightening immediately, Esperanza rushed up to him, the faint scent of death hanging from her cloak.
“Hello, sir. I am sorry for bothering you, but I am new to the city and very lost. Do you know where I could be finding a hotel, or the place to stay?” Her voice was heavily accented, words choppy and awkward, but distinguishable enough. Hopefully, Esp thought, the man would be friendly.
Sorry for taking so long to post! Was spending the day running around.
@Rodiak It's fine, doodle! c: I just gotta figure out how to bring Espie into interaction, and then I'll work from there.
@Rodiak Truth. A lot more difficult to get freaked out when you can't see what's supposed to be freaking you out.
Location: City Streets
To some, the scent of rot would have been almost suffocating. Especially so with how long it had been out in the sun. Sharp, acrid, sickly-sweet. It was the sort of scent that worked its way deep into your lungs and burned them from the inside out, pulling at the windpipes until they were taut. However, Esperanza found herself paying little thought to it as she rode for the city, the muscles of the horse beneath her visible through and past the skin. Part of it was the fact that she had been riding for a few hours now, and by this point it was just about a part of the scenery now. Part of it was the fact that this wasn’t the worst corpse she had smelled by far.
Still, that didn’t keep her from reminding herself to air out her clothes some before she entered the city itself. Esperanza was well aware that other people tended not to take to the smell of decay as well as she.
Her companion, nestled within the folds of her cloak and dozing away, was not one of those people. Although he wasn’t really a person at all, even as he spoke like one. The warmth of Chu’s fur gave a familiar sense of comfort in these unfamiliar lands, and with the one hand she chanced away from her steed’s reigns, Esp ever so gently held him ever so closer. Her best, dearest, only friend. She hoped that would change soon, however.
Upon reaching the borders of the city, she dismounted, stroking the horse on what was left of its muzzle as she did so. Some of the fur and skin sloughed away in her hand with the movement, but she stroked anyway, whispering her thanks to it. Esperanza held its head in her hands as the life she had granted it slipped away, and, slowly, its legs gave out and it laid its mangled body to rest on the earth beneath. She whispered again, a hushed, quiet prayer to Death for the safety of its soul, then stood and left it behind as she entered the city.
She wiped her hands clean with some disinfectant as she did so, of course.
As the buildings rose around her, towering, Esperanza found herself promptly gawking at everything. She was supposed to immediately find herself a place to stay and go from there, but the urge to explore was burning in her chest. Everything was just so loud, everything so new and bright and fast and fresh.
“Chu!” Face split in a wide, goofy grin, she went to plop down on one of the benches, nudging the mound within her cloak as she did so. “Chu, wake up! You must see the city with me!”
He was dozing a bit deeply, but that was fine.
Esperanza had all the time in the world, and they would explore this bright, splendid, incredible new land together.
@Rodiak Esperanza probably doesn't have [i]the[i] La Llorona on hand either, but she does have a lot of freaky ghosts at her disposal? If that's any improvement.
And Esp is all about being weirdly cheerful to people who are incredibly distant, haha.
And Esp is all about being weirdly cheerful to people who are incredibly distant, haha.
@Rodiak Hooray for making nightmares a reality(?)!
And that sounds good to me! Esperanza is a really friendly young lady, so she'd probably delighted to have friends. Especially female necromancers, cause she's just a smidge sexist in her beliefs about gender roles in the practice of necromancy.
And that sounds good to me! Esperanza is a really friendly young lady, so she'd probably delighted to have friends. Especially female necromancers, cause she's just a smidge sexist in her beliefs about gender roles in the practice of necromancy.
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