A BP&G adventure - Pockets; Heretic
Mar. 14th, 2007 01:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joegodaIt's a thing that just will not quit. I'll probably be writing about these guys until they are old, gray and retired.
Drifting down, gently, gently, the anomaly flittered its mindless and organized way down to its inevitable gravity laden meeting with the eyelashes of a three year old girl. She giggled, a melodious soprano, and clapped her hands with joy. She was perched on the shoulders of her uncle, who smiled and laughed from between a fuzzy gray caterpillar he called a mustache, and a limp white napkin he called a beard.
The unthinkable had occurred.
It was snowing in the kingdom of Tears.
It was snowing in Tears, but not around Tears. In fact, it was snowing in only one spot in Tears. It was snowing on the grounds of the Journiey Library, and nowhere else. Every other place in Tears was warm and crisp, as one would expect a kingdom sitting in the desert to be. Every other person was sweating and having that sweat dried almost as quickly as it appeared, as one would expect a person living in a kingdom sitting in the desert would. In other words, it was a normal hot day in Tears.
Normal, that is, except where it was snowing, which was right over the heads of Esmeralda and her uncle, Pockets.
Esmeralda clapped her tiny hands again, trapping another drifting snowflake and giggled again as she watched it melting in the palm of her pink hands. Her green eyes blinked up and down in the local cold and her round and rosy cheeks were rosier than normal. Happy is the child that knows not the future.
"Pockets!" A deep voice rumbled across the green grass of the Library grounds.
"Uh oh, Esme." Pockets muttered. "I know what that sound means." Turning back towards the library, he jogged with Esmeralda on his shoulders. The two almost made it, but another, feminine and much more deadly voice stopped him just before his hands could reach the brass doorknob.
"Stop right where you are, Mister." It was the momma. The fiercest animal on the planet.
"We're screwed, angel." Pockets muttered. "It's your mom and dad."
Gently lifting Esmeralda from his shoulders and setting her down to stand next to him, Pockets let his body droop and put on his saddest face. He gently tapped Esmeralda on the shoulder and she looked up at his miserable face. Smiling up at him, she quickly licked her forefinger and wiped a damp trail leading down from one eye. She turned her smile upside down and gave her uncle a tiny, pink-cheeked nod.
The two turned around to face their judges, jury and peers.
"Oh, hi Bags. Grizelda." His voice was as small and harmless as he could possibly make it. "Uh. How's the kingdom?"
Grizelda stood, arms crossed and foot tapping, as the last remaining snowflakes sifted down from the ending localized snow flurry.
Bags glared, hands on hips, his reddish ruddish hair more unruly than normal. "Care to explain this?"
"What this?" Pockets asked innocently. He batted his eyes and tried to look as angelic as his niece did. He, of course, failed.
"SNOW!" Bags roared, causing Pockets to bow back and Esmeralda's face to cloud up for real. Seeing the effect he was having on his daughter, Bags repeated, in a lower, but nonetheless stern, voice, "This snow, here. Right here." Bags waved his arms around to indicate the melting white. "This stuff. Care to explain it?"
"Uh." Pockets thought quickly. He decided of all the lies he could tell, the truth was probably the safest one. "I was telling Esmeralda the story of that snow storm where we almost died." He looked at Grizelda. "Remember? We had just met you and it was up in that cabin and you saved our lives and Bags was hurt really bad and I was ... Well, okay, I wasn't hurt or anything, but you, Griz, you saved our lives because you knew where that hunter's cabin was, remember?"
He was answered by the silence that happened when the only thing that could be heard was the tiny crinkly, tinkly bells of bubbly sound that occurs when snow melts.
"Okay, okay," Pockets continued. "See, Esme asked me what snow was, because it doesn't snow here, right? Right? So I though, you know, just a little bit, just for her, just for a minute. See?"
A blade of grass tossed its head, throwing the bubble of wet that had held it bent, onto the bare foot of Grizelda. It was a valiant effort, but as her foot was still tapping, the bubble, instead, met the fate of many of its brothers and ended up helping baby grasses grow.
Pockets sighed. "Okay. So a minute went a little bit long. Nobody was hurt, were they? Nobody saw us up here." He looked back at the faces pressed against the library's window, watching their Head Librarian talking to their King. "Almost nobody." He smiled lamely. "No hurt, no foul, right?"
Bags, not saying a word, stood looking at his long time friend as Grizelda stepped forward and picked up Esmeralda. Grizelda bent down and whispered savagely in Pockets' ear, "You aren't supposed to do you know what in front of you know who. Never. Ever. Never ever." She turned on her heel and walked briskly away from Pockets, and as she was passing Bags, she said, "He's your friend. You talk to him." And huffed across the grounds toward the Mansion. Esmeralda smiled three-year-old encouragement at Pockets from over Grizelda's stiff shoulders, and sealed it with an angelic smile.
As heart-warming as the sight of his niece's smile was, Pockets didn't feel that much warmer as Bags walked up to him.
"Pockets," Bags began, "Come with me. Let's sit a bit." He walked across the grounds until he came to a circular bench, Pockets in tow.
Bags sat heavily, folding his lanky frame and feeling all his mumbly-mum years in his creaking knees. "It's times like this I wished I smoked a pipe. It would make me seem like the fatherly figure I want to appear to be when I have to do fatherly like things, like give a fatherly like talk."
Pockets sat on the bench, glumly. His feet barely reached the ground. This was one of the benches that Bags had asked for, and since he asked for it, it was designed with Bags comfort in mind. After all, Bags was the king.
"Grizelda's really ticked off at me, isn't she?" he asked, swinging his feet and clasping his hands in front of him.
Bags plucked a blade of grass from the ground and placed it between his lips, turning it into a grass whistle. "Yep. That she is. She'll get over it, though."
"How bout you, chum? You mad at me?" Pockets' voice carried the tone of a man already condemned.
"Not really. I've known you too long to be mad at you for just being you. The yelling was for Grizelda's sake." Bags tossed the damp grass away. "Ticked a bit, specially since Griz and I have tried to tell you a hundred times not to do any hocus-pocus around the kid. And specially since you told me specifically that you can't do much anymore, since you spread that magic crap around the planet to all those copies of you."
"Well..." Pockets feet swung a bit harder. "I didn't exactly lie, Bags." He grinned sheepishly, a common expression. "I pretty much pooped myself out with the snow. I can't do much, but I can do little things."
Bags looked down at the top of his friends' head. "Like...?"
"Like this snow, for example. Much more and I would have passed out from the drain. And it's not like I could call myself back from the dead this time, either, you know."
"This time?" Bags asked. "You mean you could die from this... foolishness?"
With a grin that contained no sheep at all, and placing his hand on his friends arm, Pockets answered, "Bags, people die from foolishness much less serious than making a little girl laugh." He hopped off the bench, reached around to the small of his back and knuckled there, briefly.
"Gods, I'm tired. I need nourishment." Pockets turned and looked at Bags. "You done talking to me, all fatherly like? Cuz if you are, I hear a beer calling my name. Maybe yours too."
Bags stood, clapped a hand on Pockets' shoulder and nodded. "I don't think I will ever be done talking to you, Pockets. Not that I ever expect you to listen. I guess I do it for the practice." He stretched up and away. "Grizelda is a bit miffed that Esme's acting just like you. I think she's jealous."
Bags started down the well-worn path that lead south into the town of Tears proper. The path was well worn because it was habitual that, after a long day at the library, Bags and Pockets would wander their way down to Swineheart's, which was the local pub and where Bags held court when he had to. This, from Bags viewpoint, was something he wanted to have to do as little as possible.
Pockets ran to catch up to Bags and danced in front of him. "Jealous? What does she have to be jealous of? She's Esme's mother, for cryin' out loud." He strolled merrily next to Bags, his jacket of many pockets flaring like a cape, and looking around at the colors of the town, the faces of people, whatever happened to catch his eye, which happened to be just about everything.
"Well, it's because Esme is... she acts more like your kid than hers I think." Bags unconsciously touched his Neverfull Bag, just to make sure it was there, and it was. Always. "To be honest, Pockets, I think I might be a little jealous too."
This stopped Pockets in his tracks, just long enough for Bags to notice that his absence. Bags turned and said "Beer.", which started Pockets' stalled engine again.
Bags continued, "Don't take it too serious, chum. It's just that from the moment she wakes up, till the moment she goes to sleep, Esme wants to be with you. Makes sense, in a really odd way. At least to me."
They had come to the end of the path, and were walking along one of the many back alleys of the town. Hard and irregular shaped cobbles tapped under their feet and Pockets made a game of stepping on only the light colored ones, this time. He explained that the light colored ones had a higher pitch then the darker ones, and that eventually he'd get Queen's Gamboni to come down to the pub and make some rock music with him.
Queen's Gamboni, the traveling quartet of musical gypsies, had been declared the Royal musicians by Bags on the same day as Bags had married Grizelda. Suzy, the undeclared leader of the quartet, and her mate Bruce, had been very implemental in not only saving Pockets' life, but placing Bags on the throne. That particular day had gone down in Tears history as one of the mostest peculiar days ever, except for today, when it had snowed. But that history hadn't been written yet. But it would be.
It was the day that Jorge, the old king, had abdicated, and Jorge's son, Harv, had declined the throne. The Chancellor, Beegle had been thrown out of the kingdom as a traitor and a thief, banished forever to never return. Jorge, to the surprise of everyone, had named Bags as his successor. It would be safe to say that Bags was the most surprised of them all. Jorge was last seen leaving with Queen's Gamboni, as they headed south to a place that was rumored to be magical and wondrous.
"How does it make sense, Bags?" Pockets reached for the door latch to Swineheart's. "I mean, it makes sense to me, too. I just want to see if we think alike."
As Bags walked to their booth, he said over his shoulder, "Pockets, I seriously doubt we will ever think alike. It just makes sense to me because Esme is a baby, a child. And you tend to be very... um... child-like."
"That's what I thought you were thinking, because that's what I was thinking too." Pockets said.
"And it scares me that I understood that." Bags answered.
Bags sat down, facing the door, at the booth that had been declared his and his alone. If and when anyone new entered the pub, they were gently and firmly shooed away from sitting at that particular booth, just on the off chance that Bags would show up and want his seat. The odds of that happening were the sort of odds that every gambler wants, especially if they are betting on Bags showing up.
Looking around, sizing up the crowd, Bags saw that the pub had the near empty look an afternoon pub would have when normal drinking people were at work to make the money that would enable them to be able to pay for their drinks after the workday was done.
Oddly enough, Bags noticed a few faces looking their way. Now, faces looking their way was not the odd part. Bags was used to having to deal with drunken, or not so drunken, citizens walking up to him and voicing their complaints or asking for favors. Such is the role of king, when you hold court in a pub.
No, the odd part of the faces looking his way was that they weren't looking directly at him. They were looking at Pockets, as he scooted into the booth and was waving at the barkeep to bring two beers. Actually, even that wasn't all that odd. People tended to stare at Pockets because... well... because he was Pockets, after all.
What the odd part was is that the faces were looking at Pockets with a hooded angry look. Usually, when folks look at Pockets, their mouths might fall open at something he's said, or they might look wide-eyed at something he had done, but rarely, hardly ever, unless he had just picked their pockets, had anyone ever looked at Pockets with a look of suspicion or anger.
Brandon, the barkeep brought the foamy mugs and sat them down in front of the two men. Bags leaned over to him and whispered, "What gives with all the mean faces?"
Brandon looked briefly over his shoulder, shot a side-glance at Pockets and whispered back. "You know there's a new preacher in town?"
"No, I didn't," Bags said. "When did he get into town?"
"A few nights ago."
"Uh, okay." Bags took a long drink, which was the only type of drink he took. "And...?"
"Well," Brandon continued, resting his hands on the table, "this new preacher, who is a pretty weird character, has already built a big following. Lots of people are starting to listen to him."
"Why?" Bags asked.
"Did you know that there are a bunch of folks looking at me that have a not to happy look on their faces?" Pockets asked. "Surely they aren't pissed about the snow." He sipped from his mug. "I mean, it was just a little snow. Not very big at all."
"Because," Brandon said, "he's telling them that he has crossed over to the other side, he has seen what's over there, and it's beautiful. He says that he can promise them paradise, if they follow him."
"What other side?" Pockets asked, suddenly interested.
"The other side of life." Brandon answered, looking hard at Pockets. "You know. When you die."
Pockets nodded between sips. "Yep. I know it well."
"Uh... okay." Brandon wasn't quite used to Pockets. He was new to the job. "Anyway," he turned back to Bags, "one of the things he's preaching against is your friend here." He gave a knowing nod in Pockets' direction.
"What?!" Bags shouted and Pockets sputtered foam over the table. Looking around and much quieter, Bags asked, "Why?"
"This preacher is talking about how odd Pockets is. He says that Pockets is evil and must be killed."
"Killed!" A Bags and Pockets duet.
"Yeah. He talks about how odd Pockets is and how strange things happen when he's around. How things tend to go wrong, and he says it's all Pockets doing."
Pockets said with indignance, "Brandon, you know that's not true. If anything, I've fixed more things than I've broken."
Brandon nodded. "The preacher says that you would say that. He says that these new inventions you've created are products of evil. That everything you create to make life easier is going to make people soft, and take away their livelihood. And there's more."
"Oh great. I mean, so far it just sounds like nut case stuff to me." Pockets leaned in and asked loudly and with a tinge of anger, "What else did this moron have to say?"
Brandon stared briefly at Pockets before answering, "He says that you went to the mountains in the south, found God and murdered him. The preacher says that Pockets took God's place and could fix all the bad things, but wont because he doesn't care."
"That's just stupid!" Pockets said, looking meaningfully at Bags.
"Hell, Pockets," Brandon said, hands up. "I know it and you know it, but there are a lot of folks that are starting to go this guy's way. Everyone here knows you disappeared for months without a word of where you went." He scratched his head. "I dunno. There's just something about him, I think, that makes some people just... listen to him. Like I said, he's pretty weird."
"What's his name?" Bags asked.
"He just goes by Preacher," Brandon answered. "I asked the same thing, and Preacher was all I got."
"This is nuts." Pockets looked around. "You mean these folks all want to kill me?" Not waiting for an answer, he stood up, turned to the angry looking faces all looking at him. "Hey!" he cried. "Is it true? Do you people want to kill me? I mean, come on... what have I ever done to you?"
There were a few grumbled mumbles, and most of the faces turned away from him. The few that didn't answered him with questioning stares.
"Bags," he said, when he sat back down. "I don't feel like drinking any more." He pushed the mug away. "Course, I don't feel like drinking any less, but I sure don't feel like drinking here." He slid out of the booth and headed toward the door. The angry stares followed him.
Bags slid out from his side and crossed to the door. Pockets blocked the way as he turned back to the crowd. "I didn't kill any God!" he cried. "The things that go wrong in your lives aren't my fault!" He paused, said "Hell with you.", and left, followed by Bags, who continued all the way home with his hand on his knife. Just in case.
Drifting down, gently, gently, the anomaly flittered its mindless and organized way down to its inevitable gravity laden meeting with the eyelashes of a three year old girl. She giggled, a melodious soprano, and clapped her hands with joy. She was perched on the shoulders of her uncle, who smiled and laughed from between a fuzzy gray caterpillar he called a mustache, and a limp white napkin he called a beard.
The unthinkable had occurred.
It was snowing in the kingdom of Tears.
It was snowing in Tears, but not around Tears. In fact, it was snowing in only one spot in Tears. It was snowing on the grounds of the Journiey Library, and nowhere else. Every other place in Tears was warm and crisp, as one would expect a kingdom sitting in the desert to be. Every other person was sweating and having that sweat dried almost as quickly as it appeared, as one would expect a person living in a kingdom sitting in the desert would. In other words, it was a normal hot day in Tears.
Normal, that is, except where it was snowing, which was right over the heads of Esmeralda and her uncle, Pockets.
Esmeralda clapped her tiny hands again, trapping another drifting snowflake and giggled again as she watched it melting in the palm of her pink hands. Her green eyes blinked up and down in the local cold and her round and rosy cheeks were rosier than normal. Happy is the child that knows not the future.
"Pockets!" A deep voice rumbled across the green grass of the Library grounds.
"Uh oh, Esme." Pockets muttered. "I know what that sound means." Turning back towards the library, he jogged with Esmeralda on his shoulders. The two almost made it, but another, feminine and much more deadly voice stopped him just before his hands could reach the brass doorknob.
"Stop right where you are, Mister." It was the momma. The fiercest animal on the planet.
"We're screwed, angel." Pockets muttered. "It's your mom and dad."
Gently lifting Esmeralda from his shoulders and setting her down to stand next to him, Pockets let his body droop and put on his saddest face. He gently tapped Esmeralda on the shoulder and she looked up at his miserable face. Smiling up at him, she quickly licked her forefinger and wiped a damp trail leading down from one eye. She turned her smile upside down and gave her uncle a tiny, pink-cheeked nod.
The two turned around to face their judges, jury and peers.
"Oh, hi Bags. Grizelda." His voice was as small and harmless as he could possibly make it. "Uh. How's the kingdom?"
Grizelda stood, arms crossed and foot tapping, as the last remaining snowflakes sifted down from the ending localized snow flurry.
Bags glared, hands on hips, his reddish ruddish hair more unruly than normal. "Care to explain this?"
"What this?" Pockets asked innocently. He batted his eyes and tried to look as angelic as his niece did. He, of course, failed.
"SNOW!" Bags roared, causing Pockets to bow back and Esmeralda's face to cloud up for real. Seeing the effect he was having on his daughter, Bags repeated, in a lower, but nonetheless stern, voice, "This snow, here. Right here." Bags waved his arms around to indicate the melting white. "This stuff. Care to explain it?"
"Uh." Pockets thought quickly. He decided of all the lies he could tell, the truth was probably the safest one. "I was telling Esmeralda the story of that snow storm where we almost died." He looked at Grizelda. "Remember? We had just met you and it was up in that cabin and you saved our lives and Bags was hurt really bad and I was ... Well, okay, I wasn't hurt or anything, but you, Griz, you saved our lives because you knew where that hunter's cabin was, remember?"
He was answered by the silence that happened when the only thing that could be heard was the tiny crinkly, tinkly bells of bubbly sound that occurs when snow melts.
"Okay, okay," Pockets continued. "See, Esme asked me what snow was, because it doesn't snow here, right? Right? So I though, you know, just a little bit, just for her, just for a minute. See?"
A blade of grass tossed its head, throwing the bubble of wet that had held it bent, onto the bare foot of Grizelda. It was a valiant effort, but as her foot was still tapping, the bubble, instead, met the fate of many of its brothers and ended up helping baby grasses grow.
Pockets sighed. "Okay. So a minute went a little bit long. Nobody was hurt, were they? Nobody saw us up here." He looked back at the faces pressed against the library's window, watching their Head Librarian talking to their King. "Almost nobody." He smiled lamely. "No hurt, no foul, right?"
Bags, not saying a word, stood looking at his long time friend as Grizelda stepped forward and picked up Esmeralda. Grizelda bent down and whispered savagely in Pockets' ear, "You aren't supposed to do you know what in front of you know who. Never. Ever. Never ever." She turned on her heel and walked briskly away from Pockets, and as she was passing Bags, she said, "He's your friend. You talk to him." And huffed across the grounds toward the Mansion. Esmeralda smiled three-year-old encouragement at Pockets from over Grizelda's stiff shoulders, and sealed it with an angelic smile.
As heart-warming as the sight of his niece's smile was, Pockets didn't feel that much warmer as Bags walked up to him.
"Pockets," Bags began, "Come with me. Let's sit a bit." He walked across the grounds until he came to a circular bench, Pockets in tow.
Bags sat heavily, folding his lanky frame and feeling all his mumbly-mum years in his creaking knees. "It's times like this I wished I smoked a pipe. It would make me seem like the fatherly figure I want to appear to be when I have to do fatherly like things, like give a fatherly like talk."
Pockets sat on the bench, glumly. His feet barely reached the ground. This was one of the benches that Bags had asked for, and since he asked for it, it was designed with Bags comfort in mind. After all, Bags was the king.
"Grizelda's really ticked off at me, isn't she?" he asked, swinging his feet and clasping his hands in front of him.
Bags plucked a blade of grass from the ground and placed it between his lips, turning it into a grass whistle. "Yep. That she is. She'll get over it, though."
"How bout you, chum? You mad at me?" Pockets' voice carried the tone of a man already condemned.
"Not really. I've known you too long to be mad at you for just being you. The yelling was for Grizelda's sake." Bags tossed the damp grass away. "Ticked a bit, specially since Griz and I have tried to tell you a hundred times not to do any hocus-pocus around the kid. And specially since you told me specifically that you can't do much anymore, since you spread that magic crap around the planet to all those copies of you."
"Well..." Pockets feet swung a bit harder. "I didn't exactly lie, Bags." He grinned sheepishly, a common expression. "I pretty much pooped myself out with the snow. I can't do much, but I can do little things."
Bags looked down at the top of his friends' head. "Like...?"
"Like this snow, for example. Much more and I would have passed out from the drain. And it's not like I could call myself back from the dead this time, either, you know."
"This time?" Bags asked. "You mean you could die from this... foolishness?"
With a grin that contained no sheep at all, and placing his hand on his friends arm, Pockets answered, "Bags, people die from foolishness much less serious than making a little girl laugh." He hopped off the bench, reached around to the small of his back and knuckled there, briefly.
"Gods, I'm tired. I need nourishment." Pockets turned and looked at Bags. "You done talking to me, all fatherly like? Cuz if you are, I hear a beer calling my name. Maybe yours too."
Bags stood, clapped a hand on Pockets' shoulder and nodded. "I don't think I will ever be done talking to you, Pockets. Not that I ever expect you to listen. I guess I do it for the practice." He stretched up and away. "Grizelda is a bit miffed that Esme's acting just like you. I think she's jealous."
Bags started down the well-worn path that lead south into the town of Tears proper. The path was well worn because it was habitual that, after a long day at the library, Bags and Pockets would wander their way down to Swineheart's, which was the local pub and where Bags held court when he had to. This, from Bags viewpoint, was something he wanted to have to do as little as possible.
Pockets ran to catch up to Bags and danced in front of him. "Jealous? What does she have to be jealous of? She's Esme's mother, for cryin' out loud." He strolled merrily next to Bags, his jacket of many pockets flaring like a cape, and looking around at the colors of the town, the faces of people, whatever happened to catch his eye, which happened to be just about everything.
"Well, it's because Esme is... she acts more like your kid than hers I think." Bags unconsciously touched his Neverfull Bag, just to make sure it was there, and it was. Always. "To be honest, Pockets, I think I might be a little jealous too."
This stopped Pockets in his tracks, just long enough for Bags to notice that his absence. Bags turned and said "Beer.", which started Pockets' stalled engine again.
Bags continued, "Don't take it too serious, chum. It's just that from the moment she wakes up, till the moment she goes to sleep, Esme wants to be with you. Makes sense, in a really odd way. At least to me."
They had come to the end of the path, and were walking along one of the many back alleys of the town. Hard and irregular shaped cobbles tapped under their feet and Pockets made a game of stepping on only the light colored ones, this time. He explained that the light colored ones had a higher pitch then the darker ones, and that eventually he'd get Queen's Gamboni to come down to the pub and make some rock music with him.
Queen's Gamboni, the traveling quartet of musical gypsies, had been declared the Royal musicians by Bags on the same day as Bags had married Grizelda. Suzy, the undeclared leader of the quartet, and her mate Bruce, had been very implemental in not only saving Pockets' life, but placing Bags on the throne. That particular day had gone down in Tears history as one of the mostest peculiar days ever, except for today, when it had snowed. But that history hadn't been written yet. But it would be.
It was the day that Jorge, the old king, had abdicated, and Jorge's son, Harv, had declined the throne. The Chancellor, Beegle had been thrown out of the kingdom as a traitor and a thief, banished forever to never return. Jorge, to the surprise of everyone, had named Bags as his successor. It would be safe to say that Bags was the most surprised of them all. Jorge was last seen leaving with Queen's Gamboni, as they headed south to a place that was rumored to be magical and wondrous.
"How does it make sense, Bags?" Pockets reached for the door latch to Swineheart's. "I mean, it makes sense to me, too. I just want to see if we think alike."
As Bags walked to their booth, he said over his shoulder, "Pockets, I seriously doubt we will ever think alike. It just makes sense to me because Esme is a baby, a child. And you tend to be very... um... child-like."
"That's what I thought you were thinking, because that's what I was thinking too." Pockets said.
"And it scares me that I understood that." Bags answered.
Bags sat down, facing the door, at the booth that had been declared his and his alone. If and when anyone new entered the pub, they were gently and firmly shooed away from sitting at that particular booth, just on the off chance that Bags would show up and want his seat. The odds of that happening were the sort of odds that every gambler wants, especially if they are betting on Bags showing up.
Looking around, sizing up the crowd, Bags saw that the pub had the near empty look an afternoon pub would have when normal drinking people were at work to make the money that would enable them to be able to pay for their drinks after the workday was done.
Oddly enough, Bags noticed a few faces looking their way. Now, faces looking their way was not the odd part. Bags was used to having to deal with drunken, or not so drunken, citizens walking up to him and voicing their complaints or asking for favors. Such is the role of king, when you hold court in a pub.
No, the odd part of the faces looking his way was that they weren't looking directly at him. They were looking at Pockets, as he scooted into the booth and was waving at the barkeep to bring two beers. Actually, even that wasn't all that odd. People tended to stare at Pockets because... well... because he was Pockets, after all.
What the odd part was is that the faces were looking at Pockets with a hooded angry look. Usually, when folks look at Pockets, their mouths might fall open at something he's said, or they might look wide-eyed at something he had done, but rarely, hardly ever, unless he had just picked their pockets, had anyone ever looked at Pockets with a look of suspicion or anger.
Brandon, the barkeep brought the foamy mugs and sat them down in front of the two men. Bags leaned over to him and whispered, "What gives with all the mean faces?"
Brandon looked briefly over his shoulder, shot a side-glance at Pockets and whispered back. "You know there's a new preacher in town?"
"No, I didn't," Bags said. "When did he get into town?"
"A few nights ago."
"Uh, okay." Bags took a long drink, which was the only type of drink he took. "And...?"
"Well," Brandon continued, resting his hands on the table, "this new preacher, who is a pretty weird character, has already built a big following. Lots of people are starting to listen to him."
"Why?" Bags asked.
"Did you know that there are a bunch of folks looking at me that have a not to happy look on their faces?" Pockets asked. "Surely they aren't pissed about the snow." He sipped from his mug. "I mean, it was just a little snow. Not very big at all."
"Because," Brandon said, "he's telling them that he has crossed over to the other side, he has seen what's over there, and it's beautiful. He says that he can promise them paradise, if they follow him."
"What other side?" Pockets asked, suddenly interested.
"The other side of life." Brandon answered, looking hard at Pockets. "You know. When you die."
Pockets nodded between sips. "Yep. I know it well."
"Uh... okay." Brandon wasn't quite used to Pockets. He was new to the job. "Anyway," he turned back to Bags, "one of the things he's preaching against is your friend here." He gave a knowing nod in Pockets' direction.
"What?!" Bags shouted and Pockets sputtered foam over the table. Looking around and much quieter, Bags asked, "Why?"
"This preacher is talking about how odd Pockets is. He says that Pockets is evil and must be killed."
"Killed!" A Bags and Pockets duet.
"Yeah. He talks about how odd Pockets is and how strange things happen when he's around. How things tend to go wrong, and he says it's all Pockets doing."
Pockets said with indignance, "Brandon, you know that's not true. If anything, I've fixed more things than I've broken."
Brandon nodded. "The preacher says that you would say that. He says that these new inventions you've created are products of evil. That everything you create to make life easier is going to make people soft, and take away their livelihood. And there's more."
"Oh great. I mean, so far it just sounds like nut case stuff to me." Pockets leaned in and asked loudly and with a tinge of anger, "What else did this moron have to say?"
Brandon stared briefly at Pockets before answering, "He says that you went to the mountains in the south, found God and murdered him. The preacher says that Pockets took God's place and could fix all the bad things, but wont because he doesn't care."
"That's just stupid!" Pockets said, looking meaningfully at Bags.
"Hell, Pockets," Brandon said, hands up. "I know it and you know it, but there are a lot of folks that are starting to go this guy's way. Everyone here knows you disappeared for months without a word of where you went." He scratched his head. "I dunno. There's just something about him, I think, that makes some people just... listen to him. Like I said, he's pretty weird."
"What's his name?" Bags asked.
"He just goes by Preacher," Brandon answered. "I asked the same thing, and Preacher was all I got."
"This is nuts." Pockets looked around. "You mean these folks all want to kill me?" Not waiting for an answer, he stood up, turned to the angry looking faces all looking at him. "Hey!" he cried. "Is it true? Do you people want to kill me? I mean, come on... what have I ever done to you?"
There were a few grumbled mumbles, and most of the faces turned away from him. The few that didn't answered him with questioning stares.
"Bags," he said, when he sat back down. "I don't feel like drinking any more." He pushed the mug away. "Course, I don't feel like drinking any less, but I sure don't feel like drinking here." He slid out of the booth and headed toward the door. The angry stares followed him.
Bags slid out from his side and crossed to the door. Pockets blocked the way as he turned back to the crowd. "I didn't kill any God!" he cried. "The things that go wrong in your lives aren't my fault!" He paused, said "Hell with you.", and left, followed by Bags, who continued all the way home with his hand on his knife. Just in case.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-14 07:26 am (UTC)Don't Worry Pockets M'Dear, People Say That To Me Too. lol
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-14 07:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-14 07:36 am (UTC)I think, in this one, I'll NOT kill Pockets, just for a change.
See,this whole story started because of the image of Pockets with Esme on his shoulders. Originally, Pockets and Esme were watching the snow fall from up in the Keep, Bags comes up and says "Are you doing this?" Pockets says "Yeah, but that's about all I can do." Bags says "Good! Don't do it again." and goes on.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-14 07:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-14 07:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-14 07:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-19 05:16 pm (UTC)*banging her mug onna counter*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-14 03:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-03-19 05:15 pm (UTC)More more more!! Altho' i wanna go tell off the sheepy townsfolk who are willing to follow any ol' weirdo who spouts nonsense that's true....
*snerk* I loved that smile without any sheep in it. *LOL*