October 22, 2011 - 7:43am — GingerNut
You ruined the only two friendships you had...
As Pert messily emptied the meager contents of his belly, his thoughts kept trailing back to that one sentence. After replaying the most notable memories, specifically the ones near the end, Pert had felt even sicker to his stomach. No wonder he had lost his memory upon being born in this forest. Why bother coveting a past life that held no real meaning apart from a few lousy relationships?
And what you did to Jergens...
Retching, the piebald lurched his head forward and coughed up nothing more than a few globs of phlegm. His fur was slick with perspiration, his entire being shaking...
And Faith and his cronies were no doubt watching him the entire way through.
"Are you quite finished?" the frail buck muttered, carrying the tone of someone who had been deeply offended. And why wouldn't he be? Pert didn't know what Faith's connection to Jergens was, but it didn't really matter... now did it?
Not after that...
Shoving the thought aside, Pert forced himself look at the little crowd that had gathered around him, his monochrome vision blurry and faded. He ran a tongue over his chapped lips, loathing the horrid taste of crusted vomit upon them. "M-Maybe... I'm sorry..." he apologized. His voice was dry and throaty.
Faith's ears were sharply pressed against the back of his skull, positively revolted by the pathetic sight before him (at least, that's how he saw it). "If you were ill, why come out here?" he asked distastefully. Less than discreetly; he took a few steps backwards, taking care to not expose himself to some false infection.
"Look... I was about to ask you the same question..." Pert breathed, straightening his posture. He stood about a foot taller than Faith, and took full advantage of his height to look down upon the buck. "You look half-dead yourself. Why not go back to the forest and get someone to patch you up?" he spoke slowly, keeping his own eyes on Faith's sunken in ones.
The buck stared back at him, swaying to and fro ever so slightly. "Go back..." he murmured apathetically. "I can't go back... Do you have any idea... do you have any idea how much I hate that place... how much I can't stand it?!" his voice rose, and the three servants gingerly backed away, their heads lowered in submission.
Pert refused to balk away, no matter what this deranged buck tried to do. Instead, he stood firm. "Why do you hate it? Is it really that different from the human world to you?" he asked, his voice as gentle as he could manage.
"Don't you get it?!" tears welled up in Faith's eyes, which had once been so uniformly kept dry... a long time ago anyway. "I... I don't even remember what people look like... I can barely even remember how to read and write, and that's only until now!" he murmured, angrily stomping a shining hoof to the ground.
It was true. Bartleby had always had specific rituals he would carry out in order to keep himself as sane as he was until he had started neglecting them. Over several hours he'd practice scratching out the alphabet in the ground, speak Dutch to himself, write novels in his head... anything really... Of course; it had been a long, long time since he had done any of this.
For once, Pert felt a small pang of genuine guilt. He honestly felt bad for this buck, especially keeping in mind how long he had really lived. It was, frankly, almost dumbfounding that he was in the mental health he was in now to begin with.
The two stared at one another in silence, the reek of Pert's half-digested remains clotting their nostrils. Even so, neither party budged. Such a matter was too petty to take concern over.
"...The crows told me that you've lived there for a long time." Pert admitted sheepishly, bowing his head in a submitting gesture. "How long, exactly?"
Faith's expression turned pained, and a few stray tears trickled from the bags under his eyes. "...Centuries..." he mumbled faintly, and left it at that. "And most of the time I spent stagnating, crouched between those two imitation tyrant statues for so long that I would feel as if I turned to stone myself... The closest to death I ever got..."
To Pert; the frail buck that stood before him looked near death enough. He noticed how the smaller one had begun to sway, his eyelids fluttering tiredly. Without any real thought; he stepped over and silently offered Faith to lean his weight against him, his muzzle draping over the piebald's back. He could feel the cold metal of the necklace stitched into Faith's neck rub against his skin from underneath. "You look like you're about to fall over... come on, let's sit down over here..."
He led Faith a small distance off, to a fresher patch of waving golden rods. The candled buck slid down from Pert's side, his breathing ragged and straining. As he folded his neatly polished hooves he looked up and regarded Pert with a blank expression.
"You're Pert Kambell, aren't you?"
Pert's eyes widened slightly, but not in any real shock. "Well, yeah... I'm sorry for lying." he apologized, settling down next to Faith, not too close, but close enough to offer physical support if the buck needed it. "Was I really that easy to find out?" he asked.
Faith shrugged, looking northwards, where Jergens was. "You were mumbling his name in your sleep... and the name just clicked..." he paused, and then slowly looked at the piebald, his blurry olive eyes staring through him. "You did some awful things to each other... Not just you." he murmured thoughtfully, not intending any sort or offense or meanness. "Jergens never told me... and I never asked. Tell the truth... I probably only know all the bad details..."
"Were you friends?" Pert asked absentmindedly, taking it upon himself to look back and offer the shivering servants a reassuring smile. Somehow, someway he had been able to defuse the situation... whatever it was.
Faith rested his head upon the piebald's back, evidently hungry for physical contact. "What does it matter what we were?" he retorted, needlessly defensive. "None of that matters now anyway..."
"I see." Pert nodded. "Then if it doesn't matter... why are you trying to look for him? And why did... you know... say that I shouldn't tell you my name?”
"He has a daughter, you know." Faith ignored the sudden stiffness of the buck's muscles, his eyes shutting tiredly. "I just... I wanted to talk to him... We didn't exactly last speak in the best of terms... And well... I suppose Malware was only thinking for my own well-being..." he tried to cast a glance at the necklace intertwined within the flesh on his neck, but to no avail.
A daughter...
Well, looks like Jergens had been wrong about himself after all. No wonder they had started to hate each other near the end, too many bad unwanted ties. Pert didn't mind it as much though.
Because in the end, he and Jergens had really only been friends in the first place. There wasn't any saucy sexual tension, nor was there any real 'romance'. Perhaps there would have been in a fairy tale, but not in the real world.
In the end, they had clung to each other for the smallest morsel of emotion affection and acceptance... like any societal rejects.
Pert felt a cold wetness in the space between his shoulder blades, and he realized that Faith was truly crying.
"I'd like..." a discreet sniff. "I'd like to hear about the good parts... I can tell you mine in return."
There was a reason to cry now, but not particularly of unhappiness.
Faith cried because he had met someone to relate back to the human world with, someone other than a certain personified state.
Pert smiled kindly, seeming to completely forget what he had been instructed to do in the first place. Not that it mattered anymore. Jergens could leave if he liked. Unlike Bartleby, his old friend could take care of himself.
And so; the piebald told Faith everything.
Of course, this 'everything' is 'everything' that you may never know of Pert and Jergens. Their life, their struggles... and their ultimate demise. Such a private matter would be unfit for a public eye.
So for now, we'll leave these two with their nostalgic story-telling.
In a few days, they would see a red caribou, a lavender doe, and a bald buck on the morning horizon, homeward bound.
---
"Oh, you're awake!"
"Why are ya faintin' so much?"
"I think ya'd faint too if yew were in my position..."
"Okay... I'm really confused right now, alright? Alright. I feel like I'm getting thrown into something awful, that or I'm just letting crazy nameless rambles make me go all loopy. So there are... two Jergens then? I'm confused..."
"Yew and me both kid..."
(...)
"Shut up Chrissy... Now Sect, was it? I'm really curious... can ya show us where yer Dad is?"
(no...)
"Oh hey! That's a great idea. We can talk to the other Jergens; maybe find out where Sect came from too."
(Peo...)
"Uh... I'm right here, you know."
"Of course ya are! Now; where can find ol' Jergens?"
(Please...)
"Ummm... Well... usually around this time he's at the Ruins."
"Oh... visiting yer other dad?"
"Eh... kinda..."
"Why then? From what I remember, that place is creepy as all hell..."
"Oh, it's my Uncle Jack. They usually like to talk about a bunch of boring stuff around this time... Guy gives me the creeps, to tell you the truth."
...
"...Excuse me?"
---
FIRST OFF; I'd like to apologize for three things here...
1. The boringness of most of this
2. The absolute laziness of the second part by only using dialogue.... dramatic effect?
3. Personally to Alice... I'm so bloody sorry.
I just want this bloody thing to end ;; huhu
WHAT. 8'D
: O I see what you did there
I see what you did there btw
Ahaha the end killed me
'Uncle Jack'? Okay, this is
Pega; Why the Hell not, yes?
Sangineyyy; fff I'm so smooth <3 .w. ...not really ;n;
Munk; Thankyyyeee<3 c': Gah, it was so much better in my head too lol
Snow;
And Auntie Illrose<-- Actually, that explains why Sect would be play sparring here .w. Whoa...Haha, now I had to go back
But, I got it now. Wow. xD
Cha, I be trollin' you guys
UNCLE JACK. AWESOME. *died
I want more. 8| *waits anxiously*
Signature by Roo ♥
Probably tonight 8| *loves on
*loves on you*
*loved on, loves on back*
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