Going Solo
6511
THREADID
59
POSTS
51 - 59
DISPLAYED
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The Wendigo looks down at the reavers, one of which was trying to drag itself back to its feet and failing.
"Dunno, don't care. I caught them several miles away trying to snatch passers-by. Been following them for days, when there were a couple of dozen." His eyes flash as they lock back onto Sam's
"Tough bastards for sure. Where are you headed now, Sam?" He asks in one breath.
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The Wizened nods at Chuck's explanation and looks at one as it tries to get up. Appearances aren't always deceiving. If these Reavers are the equivalent of Hedge highwaymen, then justice had been done. They're lucky to have the opportunity to crawl away into a hole somewhere and completely re-think their current business paradigm.
"Me Hollow. I left me staff there when things went all pear-shaped, an took me rifle instead. I need to get it back before some nasty buggers like these ransack the place in me absence." He grins widely at Chuck. "It's sentimental. I killed me Fetch with it."
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Chuck nods also. "I don't blame you. I done the same, many years ago," he confessed before adding rather swiftly, "I dragged it into the Hedge and crucified it on the Thorns." The Ogre chuckled at the thought, reminizing. "You should have seen its face. I watched it die over the course of several days, even fended off a flock of Vileshrikes that had come to pluck its eyes out. Guess what I told them?" he asked and quickly answered, wanting to finish his own story.
"Ger'off ya vultures, there mine!" Chuck then begins to wheeze and laugh, clutching his side from where one of Sam's attacks had cut deep. He then tugged at something at his neck and showed it to the Wizened. It was a piece of cord with two black marbles. "Yeah, I plucked 'em out myself before he died. The last thing he....it ever saw was me. Ain't that a doozy?"
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Sam listens to Chuck's story, examines the trophies, and erupts in side-splitting, malicious laughter. Wiping sap from his eyes as he regains his facility for speech, he tells the Ogre, "Yer alright, Chuck. It's too bad yeh never got to meet Harry Turkleton, ye would have got on like a house on fire." Sam sighs, thoughts of his mentor and friend derailing his mirth. "I beat mine to death in its own bathtub. Crazy piece of shit started hurtin' his wife. I couldnae suffer him any longer," Sam says grimly, then his demeanor brightens a bit. "It's too bad ye can't stay. I own a bar over in the real world, we could tie one on after I get me staff back. Ah, well." After a moment's silence, Barkley asks, "So, yeh got any other advice for the new kid on the Doomed block?"
OOC
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OOC
"I knew Turkleton. Was sad to hear him pass," Chuck admits. "He could have been a damn fine Dusk Courtier but he was pure Summer through and through. I bet he never mentioned me, right?"
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Sam smacked his forehead. "O'course. Yeh said yeh'd been here before. Sure yeh knew him." Part of him stings when Chuck tells him Harry had been Summer through and through, as though Barkley had failed his friend somehow. No one ever said that about me. Had the strength of me Mantle been overcompensation for the fact that, deep down, I knew I never truly belonged among them, that I wouldn't be accepted otherwise? Is that why Harry made me Hunter, to keep me away from the rest of the Court as much as possible?
I've been walking in the Dusk all this time an' never knew it. The shock of these self-revelations cause the little hairs on the back of the Wizened's neck to stand on end.
"No, he never spoke of yeh to me," Sam says keenly, entreating the Ogre to continue. He was eager to hear any different perspectives or new stories about his friend that Chuck might share. "Was he King when yeh knew him?"
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"No, he wasn't. He was the champion-thingy," Chuck replied while munching another handful of coupnettle. "I never really understood all the titles and that. From what I heard, he was forced to take the head of his predecessor. The curse of Sacramento lives on, just look at you. How long were you king for again?" he asked rhetorically. "Anyway, you'll see a pattern forming soon enough. So, wanna go get your staff?"
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"No more titles? That's a relief," Sam enthuses. A pattern, eh? Chuck gets Sam's wooden noggin' in a tizzy, but he backburners it for now. There will be plenty of time to chew on that. "Just a sec, Chuck." Sam cuts four coupnettles off the briar and shoves them into the deep pockets of his jacket. "Now, I'm ready." When you're used to wearing a watch, and you forget it one day, so you keep looking at your unadorned wrist all day...that's how Barkley felt without his staff. He kept imagining it in his hand, and finding he was leaning on air. It was pure luck he hadn't fallen over yet.
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Chuck waits for Sam to collect some of the precious Goblin Fruit, and as he does, he begins to shrink in size to something more normal size; albeit being nearly seven feet tall. Once ready, the pair begin their trek through the Hedge towards Barkley's Hollow, one at the pinnacle of Doom, the other just starting along the path of consequences.
Who knows where it may lead?
End Scene
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