Life of the Strange

Got a Little Grit on You

Grit stalked the dimly lit halls. She normally started on the east, spiral half of the castle and made her way carefully to the west, skirting near the outside. Each few paces had a porthole of thick glass that had a view of the outside. If one were to look through them one would see there was at least a small field of cracked, vine-strewn concrete before it hit the trees, undergrowth, and more than a handful of potentially unnerving creatures.

It was quiet. She was one of the only people usually up at this hour. Her job was midnight bodyguard incase any monsters got too close to the castle. She wasn't the only one with this job, but it did require a bit of a preference to solitude. Grit did enjoy the silence of the night. The only sounds alive at the moment were crickets and the calm hum of the wilds that surrounded the castle. It was nice. She slept mostly during the day so she was used to not being around people often. The carpet hid her footsteps.

Even though she had the muscles on her body to be a very successful wrestler, she still carried around a bow and arrow. Most of the time, she's never had to get too close to her target to kill it. She could shoot a mean arrow from one of the portholes if a monster was getting cocky. The bow was heavy and tuff, a great melee weapon in a pinch if she needed to clock something on the head. The arrows slung over her shoulder could be used as a staby staby-type weapon as well. She was good with the staby staby.

Now Grit had moved along the front parlor, where the tall, thick front doors had been closed shut for a good while now. The locks on the doors were large and many. Good for when a beast is ramming up against it to try to eat the people on the inside. There was a large, cherry-wooden staircase at the back of the room. The floor of the parlor was old checkered tile. A chandelier hung from the ceiling with twinkling little lights flickering, as well as the dim light that streamed from the portholes.

She did a check of the door and moved on to gaze through a glass porthole, which was large enough to look out of and shoot arrows from but small enough to where even if it did break not many monsters could get through--and the monsters that could were probably toy sized anyway. Maybe a small bird-monster or something. It's happened before in the past.

Through the glass she could see the wild forest. A sea of different shades, green brown and other colors. The castle was built on an elevation so she had a nice view of the surrounding area.

Grit thought about what Duke said he thought he saw. The light he mentioned. Was he looking through the glass around this spot?
Well, she didn't see such light-- but what she did see was something big and ugly lumber into view from the scattered tree line. Her breath exhaled and her hand holding her bow tightened.

It was sniffing the air. It's body was tall, it's front and hind "legs" were long and skinny. The legs had hand-shape like things at the ends, and it walked on all four of them. But she wouldn't classify them as straight up legs, that would be stretching the definition.

The body was absurdly pale, like a sheet of paper or solid bone, which was unsettling to say the least. Like a plump skeleton with sharp teeth. It's lower jaw was larger than the upper one, and it's head was round and bald at the top which connected to a long, slender neck.

It's eyes were large and sunken.

It looked plain nasty. A few more feet closer and Grit would definitely put it down. Not a nice thing to do, but not a wrong decision either. She started to unlatch the metal lock that was sealing the porthole closed.

The monster stood still from its place next to the tree line, sniffing the air with it's tiny, animal-like nose.

Grit waited with the glass opening now unlocked. She wasn't about to open the pothole yet. She waited.

The monster snapped its jaws at the air above it. It's slimy tongue licking its chops a moment later, and then it sniffed the air again.

Did it smell her through the window? Or something else? What was it doing?

There was a tiny spindle of light above the beast, or maybe it was movement. It was hard for her eyes to make out, but it seems like as the monster sniffed the air above it, something would float down to it and the monster in turn would snap and lick at it in the air. Kind of like a dog waiting for a treat, or trying to sort of eat the treat? It was hard to tell, whatever had caught the monster's attention was invisible to Grit.

Sort of like the monster...was trying to eat a spider web... Or human hair, that was slowly floating it's way down to it from above.
Grit sighed. She latched the lock back onto the porthole and turned to climb the ornate staircase that was sitting at the back of the parlor. She needed to talk with a certain someone.

Grit soon reached the top of one of the lower spires of the castle, a place she guessed that someone she needed to talk to might be. The spire she climbed was right at the front of the castle and more directly above where she saw the monster.

Grit emerged from the spire enclosure to the stairs and went onto the raised terrace that was exposed to the splattered-starry night sky.

There was a young woman standing next to the rail. She had rich, sepia toned skin that grew taught at her shoulders like stress was hiding within her frame, and was wearing a loose white dress that looked ghostly in the moonlight. Short, silver hair ran to her shoulders. The lady had a pair of scissors in her hand.

"Veil. What are you doing?"

"Look at how the creature acts." Veil said, looking down from the railing to the front yards of the castle. She cut of a piece of her ashen hair and let it go into the air, it caught the light of the moon before glided down away from sight.

Grit walked up to the railing beside Veil and watched the wisps of hair float down to the monster she saw earlier. The monster snapped its jaws above itself just as she saw Veil's hair reach out of her vision.

"It's back to normal but it's not back to normal." Veil's deep eyes watched the monster as it sniffed the air, probably searching for more of her hair. "It wants to change."

Grit felt a chill go through her but didn't show it.

"Veil, no. Feeding it your hair won't do nothing special. I'm all for crazy ideas, but I don't like attracting monsters to the castle."

Veil was quiet for a second. "It acts different when I do. Like it remembers itself."

Grit shook her head. "Unless you want to become its lunch it's not going to change. Which I really don't want you to do, by the way." She sighed and scratched her head. Then she slid her bow off of her shoulder and offered it to Veil.

"Here, you can be the one to put it down if you want."

Veil took the bow from Grit's hand. Next she took an arrow.

Veil's arms were skinnier than Grit's, and she normally didn't work a bow and arrow, so it took her a couple tries before they heard a distinct thunk noise from bellow.