It is only natural that those who venture into the slimy depths of the marsh will attract the attention of its inhabitants. Dark eyes watch the intruders, curious and wary. They smell vaguely familiar, hot and arid, like the angel beast he had met before, the one who came with the flaming demon. Are these two angels? He doesn't know. As always, the ghoul is indecisive, shifting weight from hoof to hoof as he ponders approaching, listening as they speak to one another. Neither one seems overly dangerous, and the dirty one, the one on the ground, is coated in the muck of the swamp. He knows from experience that the only way to get that muddy is to splash in the stagnant pools, to submerge yourself in the filthy mud-water, down among the dead, and he wonders why she would do such a thing. For him, it is normal behavior, for how else would he get his friends, but what did she gain from it? Did she fall, unaware of hidden danger of secret pools? He has seen others stumble into them, after all. Yes, he decides, that is what happened. It is too bad that she escaped, she would have made a beautiful corpse, and once all the flesh had rotted away, he would have fetched her bones from their silty bed and kept her, hidden away with his other friends.
Had she drowned, he would have loved her.
But she didn't, and the slate-mixed-with-cloud one has come to lead her away, take her from this macabre place and back to the sunlit outer world. Except, they don't know the way, or so he deduces from her question about the exit. He could show them, of course, he knows the marsh, knows exactly where to step to avoid the deepest bogs, and where the ground looks safe, but isn't. He could tell them, guide them. But does he want to? Thick tail slithers through the underbrush and thick gunky mire, and he thinks, thoughts turning and turning in his brain like the restless dead deep underground, sleeping fitfully in their earthen graves.
These two will not die, he finally decides, will not fall victim to the waiting water and hungry beasts. And he will help them, prancing ahead, a ghastly will-o-wisp, except he will keep them safe, not leave them stranded, until they reach the edge of his Underworld and return to wherever they belong.
And maybe, one day, they will return.
He steps forward then, a zombie emerging from the trees and shadows, but he is intact still, putridly tinted pelt giving the appearance of grave-mold, of moss creeping over a lifeless form, and the black framing his equally dark eyes seeming as empty sockets in the pale light. Not true, though he thinks it is, sometimes, when he is alone, and has only the dead for companions, creeping through the swamp like a wraith. Not true, but it could be, one day will be, and these morbid musing delight him, putting a spring in his step as he approaches. His voice is released, tolling forth like a funeral bell, like words from a long dead king, deep and dark and eerie, echoing slightly before being swallowed by the trees. "I know the way."
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