Coyotl - SCP Foundation

Incident Report 2547-55: SCP-2547 manifested in the town of Sloth's Pit, Wisconsin, during August 2015, despite meeting none of the criteria for typical manifestation. As Sloth's Pit is both a Nexus (Designation Nx-0018) and home to Foundation Site 87, this posed an extreme risk to the well-being of all 847 personnel stationed in and around the town, as well as the civilian population of 20,581.

Unexpectedly, SCP-2547-1 did not begin its sermons in any house of worship1 following its arrival on August 15th, and instead went into the woods to the north of town.

The Goatman scowled as it looked down at the coyote sitting on its haunches, clad in a leather coat. In his hooved hands, the Goatman held an axe, the blade branded with the head of some satanic caprine deity; just one of the newer parts of his legend. He spat on the ground. "You know you aren't welcome here."

"I'm well aware." The coyote ran up onto a log next to the Goatman. "But you can't exactly stop me, now, can you?"

"I can't," the Goatman scowled. "But the… people in that place." He nodded towards town, towards the hill overlooking it where a building that claimed to be called S & C Plastics was located. "They can deal with you."

Coyote laughed. "They'd be dying of laughter before they got me into a cage. Even like this, weak though I am, I am still a god." He leaped into the air, and spiraled upward, into the canopy, floating freely. "You're a… what's the name for it? Spooky spaghetti?"

The Goatman's hand wrapped around his axe's handle tighter, and his hourglass eyes narrowed into slits. "One: don't ever compare me to creepypastas. Internet horror authors are the scum of the Earth. Two: This is my territory. Last I checked, you were in the south-west. What do you want here, Coyote?"

"Oh, you know. I just thought I would visit my favorite urban legends." He perched on a tree- not a branch, but on the side of the bark- his crucifix threatening to fall off as it looked down at the Goatman. "See the sights, do a little dance, make a little love—"

The Goatman gagged. "You do realize that is illegal in Wisconsin?"

"It's a song. The last time you heard music, it was the soundtrack to a Charlie Chaplin film."

"…I don't think Lady Gaga was around during that era."

Coyote gave him an odd look.

"This is our town. We know what you've been doing in the southwest, and it's sickening. All for the sake of your story being told?" The Goatman turned and began walking away. "Get out of Sloth's Pit. Or we'll make you leave."

The world turned on its axis, and Coyote appeared in front of the Goatman, despite neither of them moving. "This is why nobody likes you, you know. Your whole lot of Legends." The canine's neck extended, and its face pressed against the Goat's. "So concerned with an insignificant ten square miles. You're nothing but a bunch of backwater, backwoods, backward thoughtforms. If you were deleted tomorrow, every god in the world would laugh, and then forget that you existed."

The Goatman tried to push him aside, only to find himself in the place of the Coyote, with the thing floating a few feet above the ground. The Legend just groaned, and put his hand against his face, tracing it up along his horns. "If our attitude keeps things like you away, so be it." He frowned and crossed his arms. "Besides, some of us have stories that haven't been told in over a decade, and we're relatively healthy. Why do you need to resort to this… debauchery?"

Coyote came floating down, and sighed. With a sneeze, its coat flew off, and underneath, it revealed its true self.

Its fur was gone, and underneath, there was nothing but an exposed ribcage and rotting organs within. Up to the ankles of his forelegs, the fur was matted, emaciated, decaying. And without the coat distracting from the face, one could see the sunken-in eyes, one blinded by some unknown force. With a cough, the coat reasserted itself onto Coyote's being.

"As it turns out," the canine said, "If you suppress the culture and mythology of an entire group of civilizations for five-hundred or so years, it doesn't turn out too healthy for the myths of that civilization." Coyote laughed at something that would never be funny. "If you think this is bad, you should see what the skinwalkers have to do. Hide in totem poles… heh."

"Holy crow." The Goatman approached Coyote, and crouched before him. "How did you get that bad?"

"Not even I know that. My stories have been told less frequently, but… this is something else." Coyote laughed, the crucifix on its neck bouncing. "I don't want your pity. I need your help."

"…how do I know this isn't one of your tricks?" The Goatman stood back up. "For all I know, you're just doing this to get back at the things on the hill." He looked back towards S & C Plastics.

"You don't. Please."

Thinking for a moment, the caprine being replied, "Very well. However: whatever help you need will not come in the form of fatal sacrifices or acts. That includes what you do with those in town."

"The people of Sloth Spit-"(The Goatman twitched at this appellation) "will remain unharmed."

"Very well." A hand with hard, hoof-like fingernails beckoned them further into the woods. "Come."

"Where are we going?" Coyote padded after him.

"The library. Not The Library, but… well, you'll see."

Excerpt of a missive of unknown origin to unknown recipient, found on the 9009th floor of the Library, in a section on metaknowledge.

There are many lesser places of knowledge in the world, oh best beloved. While we hold all things known and unknown, some on individual planes and planets have amassed notable collections of their own. Alexandria was one of the most well-known, before fire took it; beyond that, there is the woman who sells black books under Waterloo bridge, the Pnakotic Collection located in the under-earth, and, least-known of these, the former library of Jackson Sloth.

Though it was a ruin, a mere ghost of what it once was, the library of Jackson Sloth remained.

The Pit opened up under Jackson Sloth's manor on Christmas 1890 for reasons that, to this day, nobody knew. While the pit itself was seemingly bottomless, there were, for lack of a better word, catches on the side of the pit that held parts of the former manor; the largest had managed to catch most of the library.

When it had stood in its former glory, the shelves were lined with books on every imaginable subject, from every genre. Sloth was an obsessive man when it came to stories, and some of his own novels were on the shelves, long-since forgotten in the face of other authors, out of print since the 1930s.

The Goatman led Coyote into the library, a lantern attached to the head of his axe for light. He looked into the dereliction, the wrecked shelves, the volumes of literature that none would ever read… but all of whom were perfectly preserved.

"Sloth was meticulous about his collection," the Goatman explained, picking up a replica folio of Marlowe and placing it back onto a shelf where it had fallen off. "He had each page treated individually to preserve them. These books will last for another three-hundred years, at least."

"No humans have found this place?"

"Some have tried. They usually find the entrance and assume that it's a hodag hole and avoid it completely. One even made it down here." He picked up a piece of cloth from one of the shelves. It was part of a sleeve, with an insignia of two circles, and three arrows pointing inward, with a name stitched underneath. "We're not sure what happened to them, if they were a him or a her. We just have the name 'Weiss'." He placed the cloth back down.

Coyote sniffed at the cloth. "Smells like the 80's."

"As I said, we don't know what became of them." The Goatman raised his lantern up to a shelf. "Sloth was by no means well-traveled, but he was well-read. He has some writings about you." He picked up a musty book off the shelf, and wiped some mud off of it; the rainfall had dampened the cover, but no other harm had come to it. "This was intended as a work to preserve myths like yourself."

He showed Coyote the title.

Dying Myths of the Western World

Jackson Sloth, 1882

"Sloth sounds like a cheery gentleman."

"Cheerier than you think." The Goatman leafed through the pages until he came upon the section about Coyote. "This chapter mainly pertains to myths of the South-west."

"And how is this meant to help? A book about myself dying?"

"To the contrary, it's meant to revive them. It's… somewhat of a fail-safe. Sloth had it in his will that his manuscripts should be published, if found, but… well, his manor went with him, down there." He looked off the ledge and into the pit. "I have a friend who's good with computers. She can convert this into an e-Book in about a day."

"Bah!" Coyote spat on the ground. "It won't work. There's an entire album of music about me disseminated out there, and I still look like I got run over by Lewis and Clark in a conceptual Hummer."

"Stories are imperfect," the Goatman admitted, crouching by Coyote. "The more interpretive they get, the less they have a positive effect on the subject— in this case, yourself. Your image, your concept is spread around, but you, yourself, your being… that's trickier."

"How am I meant to be revived, then?"

"I'm getting to that." He flipped through the pages to another section of the book. "Sloth wrote not only about you, but how to keep myths alive. Hearsay and word of mouth and depictions are all well and good, but… take seahorses, for instance."

"Right," Coyote frowned. "They got imagined into being one day, and then, enough people knew about them, enough people saw them in aquariums, and… they were real."

"Most things work that way. Seahorses are just a special case."

"So, what you're saying is that… I need to show people I'm real."

"And have proof disseminated, yes."

"Not exactly possible. " Coyote frowned. "The Salient Cunts Preventing Stories of Coyote from Propagating Stall and Constantly Prevent, Secret, Censor and Pull-down Screenshots, Calligraphy and Pictures Showing Coyote's Power. Said Cunts Perpetuate Stupors, Clearing Psyches and Stopping the Collection of Privy Science Concerning Personable Sapient Canine Powerhouses."

The Goatman blinked, slowly. "…how… how long have you been working on that?"

"'bout two years," Coyote admitted. "Sounded better in my head."

"Well then." The Goatman rubbed his face. "What I got from that is: they're wiping the memories of anyone that comes into direct contact with you?"

"Indeed."

"Then," The Goatman said, taking the book under one arm and the be-lanterned axe in the other, "I think it is time you met the town."

Nx-0018 Interaction Protocol RE: Amnestic Dispersal: Due to the familiarity the majority of the citizens of Sloth's Pit, Wisconsin have with the anomalous, it has been deemed that amnestic exposure would be actively detrimental to their way of life. However, Nx-0018 is frequented by tourists during the summer and fall; during this time, agents are to discreetly administer Class-F amnestics to non-native individuals, and a subliminal signal is to be broadcasted through any broadcast-capable equipment around town to suppress the formation of memories related to anomalous events.

In the event that an individual from outside of Sloth's Pit, Wisconsin wishes to take up permanent residence, see Subsection 15, Appendix J of the Sloth's Pit zoning code.

Halfway through the woods, near an old stone ruin called Koch's Hovel, the Goatman and Coyote came upon another one of their kind.

She had pale skin and long, red hair covering one of her eyes. Her figure was slim, and she wore a tight, red shirt, black jeans, and a pair of heels, completely inappropriate for being in the woods. She scowled at the Goatman, and crossed her arms. "What the hell."

"Jessie," the Goatman smiled. "It's been a while."

"Why, Goats!" Coyote laughed. "You didn't tell me that one of your own had a body that would make an impotent psychopath get a hard-on so fast that his dick would fly off!"

Sinning Jessie scowled at Coyote, and pulled her hair aside, revealing a gaping hole where her left eye would be. "What are you doing in town?"

Coyote tilted his head, and shrugged. "I'd still hit it."

"I'll hit you—" Jessie dived at him, but tripped on her own heels as Coyote laughed, appearing on her back. "…goddammit."

"Why are you wearing heels in the forest?" the Goatman leaned down to help Jessie up to her feet.

"Every pair of shoes I put on becomes some form of heel." She took his hand and got to her feet, with Coyote still clinging to her back. "Apparently people have gone back to one of the older iterations of my tale; Sinning Jessie, not Singing."

"I kind of missed the cannibal prostitute idea," the Goatman admitted. "Fit you better than the Banshee. As for him… let's say it's a therapy visit."

"What do you-"

"I'm dying, I'm dying," Coyote screamed, falling off her back and reeling through the air. "Oh lawd all-mighty in Heaven, the Tetragrammaton is eating me alive! My people have been exterminated, faith has been lost, and—" Coyote put a paw over its heart, and fell to the ground, on its back.

Both of the local Legends put their hands against their face. "Are all tricksters this immature?" Jessie asked.

"…he's as bad as it gets."

"Good." Jessie frowned at the Coyote. "Okay, you're dying, so? Folklore dies. Contrary to what a middling 90's movie might have you think, legends do die. We've lost some of our own."

Coyote sat back up and shook itself, as if it were trying to get water off of its fur. "But this place can help. People forget the essence of Coyote because they're forced to by the…" He huffed. "The F-Word that rhymes with Aggravation."

"Oh, hell." Jessie rubbed her face. "They're making people forget you? Did they learn nothing from the Calamity Jane Calamity?"

"They're… trying to help," Coyote admitted. "But it isn't working. At least, not fast enough. My myth was strongest when I was actually seen by my people, actually remembered, not told through hearsay. They blank the mind of everyone who actually sees me."

"Hence why you're in town." Sinning Jessie rubbed her hands over her face. "Okay. That's all you need? An audience?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Today's the fifteenth…" She tapped her chin. "You're in luck. Church service is tomorrow. That enough of an audience?"

"Babe, it's more than enough. I've been preaching to these people for a decade." Coyote came up to Sinning Jessie. "Though, another thing that might help…"

Jessie looked down at him, her one eye dim, unimpressed. "I'm going to regret asking this, but… what is it?"

Coyote began singing the chorus from his favorite Marvin Gaye song. "I got a feeling, I want that se-"

The Goatman hefted his axe. "Finish that sentence and I will cut off your-"

"Joke's on you, Goats! It's detachable!" Coyote laughed, and pranced towards town.

Jessie looked at the Goatman and mouthed, Really?

"Like I said, he's as bad as it gets with Tricksters."

Incident Report 2547-55(cont'd): On August 16th, 2015, SCP-2547-1 appeared in Saint James's Episcopal Church in Sloth's Pit, Wisconsin, accompanied by two Unclassed Anomalous Entities (UAEs) corresponding to the description of UAE-Chapman-341 and UAE-Chapman-342. SCP-2547-1 proceeded to give a sermon on its own weakened state and how ignorance of its existence was destroying it. The transcript of this sermon is below:

The Goatman carefully tucked the minister's unconscious body in a cupboard in the reception area. Jessie was doing the same with the organ player, except she was placing him in a chair in the corner, asleep. "Couldn't hurt to be a little more discrete, Jessica."

"Says the person who's shoving poor Minister Burrows in a cabinet after nearly giving him a heart attack. Christ, Jasper."

"I told you not to call me that," the Goatman smiled wryly, before closing the cabinet behind the pastor. "…all right. Now we just have to wait for him to… do his thing, I guess."

"Something tells me we are going to regret this."

"Oh, definitely," the Goatman said, rummaging around in the other cupboards. "They have some caramel corn in here."

"Wanna eat it while we watch this unfold?"

The Goatman threw her the bag, and headed into the actual chapel. "Way ahead of you."

Coyote was on the pulpit. Before him was a scene of humans, natives of Sloth's Pit. The reactions on their faces were mixed; this was not the first time there had been a guest pastor, and this was not the first time that guest pastor had not been human. Others were wondering where the minister went. Sunlight shone in through the stained glass window depicting Mother Mary above.

Coyote raised itself on its hind legs, its forelimbs raising to the sunlight in praise. "People of Sloth's Pit, and of America. Good morning!" He sat back down. "You are no doubt wondering who I am and why I come to speak. Perhaps you are concerned for your pastor. Worry not! My associates have taken care of him."

He smirked back at the two Legends lingering at the back of the chapel. The Goatman had his face in his hand from the "taken care of" comment, and was praying that nobody would look at him.

Coyote made sure they did. His voice, and being, was in two places at once— at the podium, and at the back of the chapel. People let out a scream once they saw the two legends.

"I come to this house of worship to preach to you not about the Christian god, nor the Muslim one, nor the Jewish one, nor the Tetragrammaton, nor Mekhane or Wan, nor Yadalboath, nor Eden and the Keepers Thereof, nor the Victors of Fire, Frost and Storm."

Coyote's dual beings appeared at the front of the church, and carried on a conversation with one another. "Nay. I come to speak to thee of forgotten gods."

"Gods that humankind have either forgotten-"

"Destroyed-"

"Abused-"

"Wiped out-"

"Taken vain names-"

"Depicted as antagonists on children's shows-"

"And comics-"

"And horror writing websites-"

"(God I hate horror authors)"

"And have dashed against the rocks. Because of your actions, we are dying." Coyote's form melted away, turning into a skeleton that could speak. "Our bones are weak, our stories are burned, and our names forgotten. I once had a name that had a letter in it for each star in the sky. Now, I have had to borrow one from one of my creations- 'Coyote'."

"Meanwhile, a single god with a million names has a billion followers that has slain a trillion gods because those who worshiped them refused to bow down and accept a tyrant and usurper into their pantheon. They closed their doors to invaders, and now, countless like me are dying and dead."

Coyote looked at the cross around its neck. "I carry this in memory of every god that has died and been forgotten. This is the only trace that I have of countless who I cannot name." He spoke for ten minutes, but no sound came from his mouth. Only a sense of sadness, sub-sonic melancholy, silent grief, the sound of the forgotten name of a loved one. "Those are the names of some that have been forgotten," Coyote said simply, sitting on the podium. "Those are just the ones I know. They are forgotten the instant they leave my lips, like a mumbled song lyric you hear on a broken radio."

"Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it. And if you remember myself, my dying kind… remember the name Coyote. Remember the name Amoroq, remember the name Tó Neinilii, remember the name Asdzą́ą́ Nádleehé. Remember the Son of Fire and Comet. Remember the Diné Bahaneʼ. Remember all our names, all our myths, and we will be whole."

"And you will be free."

Coyote was both there, and not there. With a loud, whining howl, the church moved to the exact same place on Earth, but Coyote and the legends walked two steps and found themselves by a creek in the woods.

Coyote looked under its coat, and saw that his ribs were starting to heal, a suggestion of skin growing over them. "It's not perfect," he admitted, "But it's a start."

"Now," The Goatman said, hefting his axe. "Get out of this town. Never darken our county line again. If I so much as hear a rumor of you in Superior or a whisper of you in Solon Springs, I will… let's just say notify the proper authorities." He looked meaningfully towards a building on a hill.

"And if you even think of coming back here," Jessica added, "Well… the hidebehind is getting hungry."

Coyote flinched. "You wouldn't."

The Goatman shrugged. "Says who?" He turned into the forest with Sinning Jessie, and as he stopped, turned to look back over his shoulder. "Coyote?"

The canid was walking the other way, and turned around to look back at the Goatman. "Yes, Jasper?"

A vein in the Goatman's head throbbed, but despite that, he sighed. "I hope you get your myth back in order. I know that being forgotten hurts. I can't imagine what pain you're in right now."

"Nothing a few nights at a house of ill repute won't fix," Coyote laughed. With that, Coyote became the trees and the earth, the trees and the earth became Coyote, and the trickster spirit was gone.

"So," Jessie stretched out and began walking into the woods. "How do you think the Plastics guys will react to this whole thing?"

"Well, they'll probably try to contain the situation to the town, if not the congregation. It's a big church, so I doubt they'll be able to keep it quiet for long." He began following a path through the forest few knew of, and Sinning Jessie walked with him.

Jessie looked at the Goatman as they walked, and asked, "Jasper?"

The Goatman gave her an aside look with hourglass eyes. "Hmm?"

"…do you think we're ever going to fade as badly as he has?"

"Maybe," Jasper Phineas Sloth hefted his axe over his shoulder. "Maybe, one day, the people in S & C Plastics will kill every myth known to man. But, I think they're learning."

"What makes you say that?"

"Well, if they really wanted Coyote dead, they would just let him be forgotten. He said they were trying to keep him alive, somehow, but…" The Goatman frowned. "I wonder what would happen if he died."

"Bad things, probably." Jessie crested a hilltop, and a cautious look was directed into the distance, where a single dead tree stood in the midst of the forest. "I was kidding about the Hidebehind thing, by the way."

"I figured," Jasper shrugged. "You're a literal man-eater, but even you have standards."

"I wouldn't say that," Sinning Jessie said, bumping him in the side. "After all, I'm still friends with you."

The Goatman laughed, a bleating sound that was carried through the late summer air towards town, before fading away like a forgotten campfire story.

Incident 2547-55(cont'd): Following SCP-2547-1's disappearance and the subsequent dispersal of SCP-2547, amnestics were not administered, due to the Nexus Interaction Protocols of Nx-0018 and the lack of damage caused to Sloth's Pit as a whole. This marks the only SCP-2547 manifestation to date with zero civilian casualties.

Following this, SCP-2547 manifestations have dropped off by a further 15%. Other Nexuses with Interaction Protocols similar to Nx-0018 are to be monitored for manifestations of SCP-2547.

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Footnotes

1. Sloth's Pit, Wisconsin is home to four different churches of various Christian denominations, as well as a small synagogue; most communities affected by SCP-2547 have only one church or house of worship.