October 20, 2011 - 4:13am — GingerNut
[Gonna play it safe and put a maturity warning on this sucker. Gore and bad stuff. You know, the usual.]
So here he was, caught between a madman, an imbecile, and two birds whose accents were nearly impossible to decode.
Needless to say; Pert wasn't exactly happy with being thrown into a completely different objective than he had intended. It couldn't be helped though. What would Malware think of him if he came back with Jergens and knowledge of Faith's existence... but no Faith?
That and it just seemed beyond immoral to just leave someone like this in the dust. Pert wasn't heartless, by any means. If anything, he could be undeniably sympathetic, but this was a race against time. Jergens might just be getting farther and farther out of his reach...
The crows led them a little farther off before they stopped, more or less due to the fact that Credit had become completely exhausted under the weight of the golden wax upon his feathers. Panting, his coal black tongue practically lolled outwards from his lower beak, his twig-thin legs quivering from exertion.
"Here... You mind if I get that for you?" Pert craned his neck downwards and gently nudged the crow's back. Credit tiredly bobbed his head, sighing in relief as he felt a smooth, velvety tongue brush his feathers. "Thaanks hinny..."
Debit rolled his eyes in annoyance, his talons digging into the soft earth below, endlessly clenching and relaxing. "Right Purcee. Les staht simple. Why'd Mahlwahre send yoo?" he asked, fully intending to go right down to business. Much like his species, Debit was a no-nonsense type. His brother on the other hand was unusually empathetic, earning him a secondary title in the pair... though they still both had the same lowly status as avian servants.
Pert slowly nipped away the dried globs of wax, only pausing once to speak. "He sent me to find this guy, Jergens. All he said about Faith was that he was looking for him..." he mumbled. The taste in his mouth was positively revolting, but it was bearable at the very least. Hopefully he'd get on the birds' good side by being nice to them.
"Wot? Jergeens?" Credit rolled his neck around to look at the buck, his white beak clicking in surprise. "Caan't say fer shore, but thaat's whoo wor looking fer too... right Deebit?" he asked his brother, who merely raised his wings in a dull, bird-like shrug.
"Haard to teel." he replied, eying Pert suspiciously. "We've been oot ere' fer over a moonth joost roamin' round'... Master joost talks to imself' moost the tyme."
Pert drew his head back, admiring his handiwork in cleaning off Credit's wings. They were slick with his saliva now, yes, but they'd definitely be a lot more comfortable for him. At Debit's words, the piebald glanced back at Faith, watching as the buck seemed to occupy himself in staring at the clouds. "Why is he acting so weird then?" he asked. "I mean; People don't just... go insane..." Perhaps 'insane' was too strong a word though. 'Disoriented' or 'muddled' might have been better options. Bartleby just didn't look like he was really mentally aware of what was going on around him, from his random bouts of violence to his slurred words and inappropriate pauses in conversation. "And what you mean 'that's who you're looking for'?" he shook his head in hopeless confusion. He could barely understand the crows to begin with, and the endless stream of information they spat at him only further muddied the situation at hand.
The crows seemed to cast an uneasy glance at one another before Debit spoke. "Mastaer has ad' a lot on is' mind lately..." he started, only to be interrupted by his sibling.
"He's never been outta thees bluidy forest before... tha's why he ad' us to try and find a way out all ese' years. He's been aroond... ow' long, Deebit?" Credit clicked his beak, almost as if he was acting out a smile (which of course, is an expression that a bird can't make).
"Master's been alive fer a loong... loong tyme, he teels us." Debit picked up the slack, trying to relay as much information as he possibly could. "He's been lookin' fer a waay out of the forest fer decades... N' nahw that e' foond eet... weel..." the crow trailed off, only to be picked back up by his brother. It was almost as if they shared a basic mentality, one that would frequently lapse only to be picked up by the other party.
Credit continued off from Debit's words. "Master saw thees leetle hinny jus' walk outta the forest - jus' like thaat!" he croaked, more or less out of jealousy than anything else. "Wot waas is' name?" he flapped his wings, much like a human would scratch his chin in thought.
"Crybabee!" Debit exclaimed, violently bobbing his head to and fro. "Jergeens leetle friend... n' he... Oi... Percee, yoo alright?" he faltered, turning to the buck with as much of a concerned expression as a bird could manage.
The piebald seemed to stare into space, much like Faith himself, his mouth slightly agape.
"Crybaby...?"
One of the lost names. The one he couldn't remember. The man he had spoken to at the graveyard in his dream.
Unearthed memories crashed through his head.
The buck slumped forward, at mercy to his own deluded mind.
---
His own meaningless dream world had turned positively chaotic.
No more blackness. No more will-o-wisps.
Pert had been thrown right into a whole new world, much like the monochrome graveyard.
He was in a house now... or at least some sort of living room. There was a couch... a coffee table... pretty much all the basic things you'd find in a living room. It was dimly lit, betraying the time of day to be late evening.
Pert looked to his side to find a window... the blinds of which were tattered and thrown to ground, almost of if they had been ripped away in a rage. The sight unsettled him slightly, and he bent down to lightly touch them with his fingertips. Yes, fingertips.
He didn't question being thrown into a human form. It felt normal to not be a deer in a setting like this.
"Get out..." a voice rasped. This time; Pert was able to tell who it belonged to.
Crybaby.
As to whom Crybaby even was; Pert didn't know. He only knew a name and a voice, and a supposed connection to Jergens.
Pert felt no urgency or concern despite the desperate tone in Crybaby's words. He didn't feel anything. The surroundings were much like himself, washed out and devoid of any real detail.
Slowly, the man stepped forward. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a small pile of clothing... a shirt? It was crumpled in a heap, wedged between the couch and the coffee table.
Out of no real will of his own; Pert bent forward to pick it up, and in the back of his mind, he instantly knew what it was.
The army green color was gone, completely washed out to give way to a sickly algae hue. It was tattered, the ropes holding up the hood in the back of the neck completely frayed at the ends. There was a hole in the pocket on the front belly of it.
Pert ran his hands over the rough fabric, and an echoing, separate dialogue erupted in his head... It wasn't related to the house as far as he knew. This was different, a tiny flicker of the past.
"Hey, I got you a Christmas present."
"What, yer hoodie? What the hell, ya cheap bastard? Tryin' to short-change me?"
"No; I'm trying to be practical. It's getting cold and I don't want you dying on me."
"...How weirdly sweet..."
"You mean I can't get you something nice for once?"
"Nice?! Perty... there's a goddamn mustard stain on the shoulder..."
"Indeed there is... I think it gives it a more homely feel."
And so on and so forth. Memories flooded through his brain, each one saturating it more than the last. Everything was being uncovered to him at once... everything about Jergens anyway.
We won't talk about what these memories consisted of, or what they meant. Pert's childhood and early adulthood consist of a tale all their own, certainly not fit for here.
And even so; Pert didn't see everything. Beyond a certain point; there was nothing. He didn't know how they had separated... what Pert had done or even when Crybaby had come into all of this.
At the thought of the name, Pert snapped out of his daze, the hoodie still firmly clutched in his fingers.
"Give it back!"
Crybaby's voice rang from down a nearby hall, piercing through the dream's tranquil environment like a rusted dagger. He sounded frantic... like he was being attacked...
"STOP IT!
"I'm sorry!"
Pert could only walk and listen, his movements labored and slowed as if he were submerged in a pool of water. Walking down the hallway; he noticed a gentle light beckoning him towards a room to the right. The door that led into it looked as though it had been ripped off its hinges.
He tried to stop, to cease his movements and go over the possibilities, but his legs were working on their own. Upon attempting to move his fingers; he found that he couldn't control anything, not one part of his phantom being.
"Why are you being so stupid?! You think Jergs would want to see you like this? At least he was smart enough not to pull a stunt like that!"
"I don’t want anyone to get involved in my actions! I didn’t want to cause you pain! I don't care if you hurt me, just don't hurt yourself y-you... y-you damn idiot!"
"“And why did you do it? Why did you hurt yourself when I was right there? A-Am I not good enough? Did I do something wrong? I thought we were friends..."
Pert reached the door's opening, his eyes involuntarily casting themselves to the linoleum floor below. He was in a bathroom then, not like it particularly mattered.
The tiles were covered with a grotesque mixture of blood and soaked feathers, their frayed ends crusted and caked with it. They carpeted the ground, not a single one rendered pure white.
"You’re not… You're not from here... are you?"
"..."
Pert didn't want to look up. He knew well enough that there would be something terrible waiting for him. Some monster or ghoul that his mind had birthed to cater to its own sick tastes.
"Were you trying to...?"
As soon as his voice from the past uttered that half-question, Pert's phantom body forced him to look up.
A pale, frail man stared back at him, eyes wide and uncomprehending. His back was slick with fresh blood that tricked down his torso, only to be soaked up by the waistband of his jeans. His hair was a pure white, tainted and pasted together at the ends with the endless gore that seemed to shroud him.
The source of the mess was two large, circular gashes along the backs of his shoulders. They looked almost like red blossoms, the flesh practically dug up from underneath.
A small, unsuspecting kitchen knife was clutched in his palm, gloved with blood.
“Cut.. c-cut them out, useless things.”
Pert stepped forward, his mouth agape, his stomach churning in disgust.
Perhaps it was the imagery. Perhaps it was the shock.
Perhaps it merely his squeamishness.
Whatever the case, the last few bits and pieces of Pert's memory had finally showed themselves.
And the world, along with Crybaby's mutilated form, faded to black.
...
"Ya get it now, Perty?"
The inky black oblivion had returned, with nothing more than Jergens' voice to accompany him.
However; it wasn't really Jergens. Pert knew that. It was his hallucination of Jergens, an embodiment of everything that he knew about the man.
"Quiz time; Tell me everything."
Pert felt as though he couldn't answer him, simply because he himself still wasn't entirely sure what he had just discovered. Even so; he felt himself answer, even if the words weren't truly his own.
"We were lovers."
The hidden enigma seemed to chuckle. "Ew, no." he replied, his voice reverberating from every small nook and cranny of the void. "At least, not really. Perty, we were business partners. We had our strengths and our weaknesses, and we played to them in order to survive. Ya think livin' on the streets was some happy-go-lucky affair? Sure; we were... kinda together I guess, but yew know as well as I that we didn't have much time fer that shit."
In a way, Pert found that relieving. Even if he knew what their relationship had been; he was still in the same, biased mind-set that only made matters all the worse for him.
The false Jergens continued on. "Keep goin' Perty... yer not done yet."
Indeed he wasn't, and Pert was smart enough to know that he wouldn't wake up until he had weathered every last bit of what his mind intended him to.
"You ran away."
"And do yew know why?"
Yes, Pert knew, and he didn't want to verbalize it.
Such horrible things should never be spoken out loud.
Even his own phantom image of Jergens knew this.
He felt himself nod.
"Now, about Cry..."
"He's an angel."
The enigma seemed to grin.
"Very good~... and one more thing..."
Pert swallowed.
"His wings..."
...
"I could touch them..."
It was then that Pert awoke, looked at his surroundings and vomited, the ghost of Jergens' grin ever branded into his psyche.
---
End of Act III and OH MY GOD ONLY ONE ACT LEFT GUIZ EEEEEEE~
You have no idea...
You have NO idea how much I have been craving forest time ;; and rps... and... gahhh... everything...
Be prepared for an insane roller coaster ride in Act IV. Seriously, shit is gonna get INTENSE.... but I hope all the loose ends will be nicely tied up by the end c:
As for this part...
Debit and Credit... oh my god... I don't think I missed writing out that tedious as hell dialect... not to mention inconsistent. As always; I hope you can at least understand it. They're pretty much saying what you think they're saying.
Pert's dream (apart from the end segment) is from an rp done with Munkel, and Cry's dialogue is taken from there (though some of it is spliced together for the sake of space).
So yeah... I'll shut up. c':
Adajlghajsghdlzjhvbks;jcl/v.
Signature by Roo ♥
F*cking love this! And the
We want more. We want
Seriously, this is getting so exciting. I got really happy when I saw you had written a new part. :'D
Skits;
Munk; f*cking thank you man! f*ck yes! :'>
Snow; omgthankyousomuch ;; Personally; I don't find them all that much exciting, and then I wonder if people find them entertaining and then I see comments like this and then I feel all warm and fuzzy inside<3
*spazflail*
*flailswithyou*