The tour guide wound her way through the statue garden to perhaps what was the second oldest statue there, it was a depiction of two bipedal figures with odd looking weapons in their hands and wide grins on their faces; some said they looked creepy, others avoided the area all together; feeling like they were being watched.
Not Gilda though, she liked the statues.
They were pretty cool, even if they were named lame names. Which were "The Undertaker" and "Jack The Ripper", though Gilda didn't mind. Seeing as she had visited the statues almost every day since she discovered them, not that she'd let anyone know; being the "cool" griffin she was.
Currently, Gilda was waiting for the group to move on so she could dawdle and stare at the statues for a bit longer. Oddly enough, they made her feel safe; she wasn't creeped out like some ponies, nor was she weirded out by what they were.
The statues were misunderstood, like herself.
Which, was probably why Gilda had taken a liking to them.
Gilda glanced up at the guide then back at her favourite statue/s, she slowly slunk into the shadows behind the statues; as to not cause any suspicion she held her breath and counted to a hundred before moving.
She came out from behind the pedestal type thing and sat down in front of the statue, trying to figure out what the creatures were; and why they made her feel safe. The creatures looked like deformed minotaurs, they seemed to have a mane and wore clothing. Their weapons seemed odd to say the least, one was recognisable as a scythe; the other... Gilda had no idea.
Gilda's lion tail flicked back and forth as she stared at the statue, trying to find out it's secrets. Not that she'd find any the way she was going about it, it was like she expected the statues to speak or something of the sort.
Gilda's head shot up as she heard a cracking sound from the statues before her, she watched the stone crack before crumbling into dust around the two figures and who seemed to be stretching.
"Hey, Griffin; don't let anyone use the Elements on you, it hurts like hell when you free yourself from a stone prison." The one with the red cloak-like thing said, Gilda nodded dumbly; her eyes wide as she watched the scene take place.
"I do believe that is Gilda, I wonder why she's the one to witness this?" The other said, twirling it's scythe.
Gilda shook her head.
"What are you?" She asked, not bothering to be polite.
"Well, we're... Um, Undertaker; are we Shinigami or humans?"
"Shinigami, no human could survive being stoned." The silver-haired one began to snigger hysterically, while the red-haired one just sighed in disappointment.
"Anyway, I'm Grell; this is the Undertaker. And we've got no idea what time it is." Grell said, it's odd weapon seemingly had disappeared; the Undertaker's scythe had as well.
"It's-"
"Is Twilight an Alicorn yet?" The Undertaker asked, it jumped down from the pedestal and smirked.
"What?"
"Y'know, the purple unicorn who lives in Ponyville?"
"Oh, her. Yeah, she's an Alicorn." Gilda said, her disgust apparent.
"Grell?"
"Mhmm?"
"We are totally screwed if word gets out."
"That's true." Both broke out into giggles, Gilda just stared at them both incredulity.
"Okay, I've got some questions. One, why was it; when I visited where you were 'stoned' I felt safe?"
"Huh, seems you've been drawn into the fold. Welcome Gilda, because now; whether you like it or not, you're stuck joining us on an epic quest!" Grell said.
"What."
"What she means to say is, you were somehow drawn to us; so if you want answers, you'll be joining us in our quest as we adventure across Gaia." Undertaker said with a chuckle.
"Wha- tha- I-I-" Gilda closed her beak, staring at the two; they both grinned back. She realised that they both had what seemed to be very sharp teeth, and the Undertaker had referred to Grell as she; so Gilda assumed Grell was female.
"Undertaker, I do believe we're the first type of our 'kind' that Gilda's seen. So let's get this straight, I'm female; Undertaker's female for reasons I don't know, and you're female. 'Kay?"
"Uh, okay."
"Now let's go adventuring! Preferably away from Princess Stone-All-Unknown-Creatures."
"Who?"
"Celestia." Grell deadpanned, Gilda looked sheepish.
Grell turned to face the city; Canterlot and she smirked.
"Say, who wants to go adventuring in the Everfree?" She asked, snickering slightly.
"Oh! I do, I do!" Undertaker said, jumping up and down like a foal.
"Why are we going there?"
"Because before we were stoned-" the Undertaker let out a snicker- "we hadn't explored much, so that's what we're doing today!"
"The Everfree! Haven't you heard what goes on in there?!"
"Is the chicken, chicken?"
"I'm no chicken!"
"Then prove it... Chicken." Gilda let out a cat-sounding growl.
"Fine."
"Okay! Let's go!" Undertaker said, breaking her quiet snickering to stop the teasing.
Grell quietly snickered as the trio walked, more of jumped and in Gilda's case flew. They were avoiding Canterlot for obvious reasons and they had decided to go straight down the mountain, and head straight for the Everfree; which to Grell and the Undertaker, seemed more like "home" than anywhere else on Gaia.
"I wonder how long it'll be before Gilda finally asks why we decided to let her come along?" Grell mused, the casual grin her face replaced with a line; which made her seem more terrifying.
"Oi, you two; just what exactly is a Shinigami? And why are you letting me tag along? I'm obviously slowing you down."
"Shinigami are Death Gods, Grim Reapers if you will; and we're letting you tag along because you were the first creature in under a hundred years that didn't bolt, scream or freeze up when you saw us. And you said you felt safe with us, so it's a best bet if you continue to stay with us so we can figure why."
"...I guess that makes sense." Gilda replied to the red-headed Reaper.
"It kinda does, and most of the time; who can understand the sense you make?"
"Bassy can!"
"I don't believe we got lucky enough to be sent to a Equestria with Sebas-chan on it, and since when are you fantasizing about him?"
"We might've been, who knows?" Grell said, doing a series of backflips to avoid a few sharp rocks- midair I might add. "Perhaps." The Undertaker trailed off, before glancing over at the town near the forest they were heading to.
"Isn't that Ponyville?"
"Yeah it is." Gilda answered the silver-haired Reaper.
"What else did you think it was?" Grell asked, trying to sneakily adjust her bra which was digging into her skin. "I know what you're doing."
"Gonna stop me?"
"No." The Undertaker said, a wide grin on her face. Grell rolled her eyes and pulled the coat on properly, the wind was slowly gaining in strength.
"I didn't realise there was a storm scheduled for today." Gilda said, glancing up at the stormclouds; not realising they had finally reached the Everfree Forest.
"There isn't, we're in the forest." Grell said, pulling her cloak tighter around herself.
"Undertaker, think our little home survived 1200 years?"
"The magic little Golden Shield used couldn't be broken by anyone other than the caster and the owner of the thing being shielded."
"So it should've, 'kay." Grell said, spinning happily.
They tromped through the forest going slowly but carefully, after an encounter with a few timberwolves both had their weapons out; Gilda got to see Grell's Death Scythe in action, and she also got told what it was; and chainsaw, and her Death Scythe.
After an hour or so, the trio stumbled upon a cottage in a clearing; it seemed small, but once you stepped inside it was quite bigger than expected. You expected it to be a one-roomed cottage, but in reality it was a 3 bedroomed house with a kitchen, living room and workroom with several machines in it. Among other rooms, which would only get explained if you found them.
The Undertaker giggled when she saw the expression on Gilda's face; it was priceless, she didn't break into full blown laughter though; that was best saved.
"Great! This place survived." Grell said, she headed into the workroom before coming back out with a bottle and rag; she grabbed a chair from the kitchen and placed her Death Scythe on the table in front of her, she carefully started to clean the chainsaw and started to hum while she worked.
"What's Grell doing?" Gilda asked, she watched in mild interest as the Reaper cleaned her weapon.
"She's cleaning her Death Scythe, I have no need to clean mine; nor does she really, but she does anyway."
"Oh." Gilda said, the room lapsed into silence for a few minutes before Grell let out a giggle.
"I wonder if we can find one of Golden Shields relatives? I know she got married, and had kids; Undertaker, can you track the family tree?"
"Eh, why not." She said, the Undertaker's eyes closed and Grell ceased humming.
My eyes slowly opened and I watched as ponies flicked pass my face, I found the one I was searching for; Golden Shield. A young white golden-maned pegasus, surprisingly she could cast shield spells which were nearly as powerful as the Alicorn's. No one knew why though, we had befriended the slightly brash pegasus when we had first landed on Gaia. Her cutie mark was a metal shield that looked like it was growing out of the tree behind it. It represented her personality quite well, she was a strong believer about nature and how the world works and loved working with plants; the shield stood for her drive to protect others.
She got it in protecting the trees around her home from a unicorn who wanted to destroy the lot to build a store to get more bits, the shield she had made that day had been quite impressive; or so I've been told.
I quickly flicked through her family tree hoping that her family didn't die out, it hadn't thankfully. But her Great (Plus several greats) Granddaughter was quite surprising, I knew exactly who the pegasus was.
The Undertaker's eyes opened (Not that you could see it.), she gave a sigh.
"I know who it is."
"Who is it?" Grell asked,
"Fluttershy."