A BP&G adventure - Pockets; Heretic

[joegoda]

Bags closed the door and left Pockets to his own devices. He wandered back to the breakfast table where Grizelda and Thom were discussing Forest Edge. Esmeralda was playing tiddlywinks with Bren. It looked perfectly normal and perfectly... perfect. There wasn't a hint of fear or desperation among any of them, despite the belief that back in Tears there was a gang that wanted to kill Pockets for what could only be termed as 'Evil Acts'.

Esmeralda looked up from her game and saw her father. She jumped onto the table, scattering tiddles hither and yon and causing a 'Hey!' of alarm from Bren. Grizelda had time to bark a warning of 'Esme!' before the little girl launched herself, full bodied, at Bags.

"Daddy!"

With an easy one-armed catch, Bags snagged the flying bundle out of the air. She flung her arms around his neck and Bags kissed her cheek and blew a raspberry on it. "Morning babygirl. How's the world according to Esmeralda?"

"Esmeralda says the world is just fine!" she said. "How is the world according to Daddy?"

"Daddy says the world is... very weird at times." Bags unwrapped the body from around him and placed Esmeralda on the ground. "Why don't you pretend to be a three year old and go help Bren pick up your game?"

Esmeralda placed her fists on her hips, which was apparently her signature expression these days, and said in a very adult sounding voice, "Daddy, you know that I'm only biologically three years old. Pockets says with my cranial development, and the way my vocabulary has grown that I'm much closer to a ten or eleven year old."

Bags looked with suspicion at his daughter. "Wasn't it just yesterday that you were just going goo-goo and gaa-gaa?"

Bags looked at Grizelda, who just shrugged and said, "She's your daughter."

"Aw, Daddy that was last week." Esmeralda giggled. "It was yesterday that I was mangling words so bad that nobody could understand me, so last night I dreamed myself into being able to speak better." She joined Bren in picking up the red and green chips that had bounced off the table.

"What?" Bags "You did... you dreamed yourself...?"

Esmeralda nodded. "I dreamed I could talk right and so this morning, I did. Unk told me how to do it."

Bags sighed. Pockets had been, forever and a day, complicating things just to make them easier. He sat down next to his wife and gave Thom a 'See what I have to put up with?' look. "Is this something that anyone can do, pumpkin? Or is it just between you and your uncle?"

Esmeralda thought for a second before answering. "He says that it might be something that anyone could do, but not sure if it's something that anyone should do or would do." A bit more thought, then, "He also says that most folks who tried would probably end up with their brains exploding." She made a scruncy face and finished with "Yucky! Brains exploding. That's just ugly, Unk."

Grizelda looked at Bags with mild concern. "You know, I think we may have to have a heart to heart with your side-kick."

Bags grabbed his mug from the table, went into the kitchen and got more coffee. "By 'we', I'm assuming you mean 'me'?" He came back and joined them.

"That would be the ideal situation, yes." Grizelda said. "You know how to talk to him, Bags. I'm not so sure he would understand my ranting and raving. He's got to quit fixing our little girl."

Thom, who had listened quietly, joined in. "Wait a minute," he said. "You mean that Esmeralda is the way she is because of Pockets?"

Bags sadly said, 'Yeah." and sipped his mug. "Pain in the ass at times, though."

"I thought she was just a bright little girl." Thom said. "I mean, if Pockets can do this for your daughter," he nodded in her direction, where she laughed and clapped as Bren expertly flipped one of his tiddles into the waiting cup, "then why couldn't he help my wife? This thing she has is slowly eating her away."

The sadness in his face broke Grizelda's heart. She reached over and placed a hand over his. "I don't know, Thom. Pockets is...." Her voice trailed off. "Teaching Esme how to talk is not the same as curing an illness. I'm sure that if he could, he would."

"Yeah, I guess so." Thom nodded sadly. He looked at Grizelda with tears in his eyes. "Do you know that when Capi and I first got together, before Bren was born, we were had a tumbling and balance act? That's how I met her, actually. She was this pretty little thing, dancing pirouettes across the sawdust floor, all arms and legs and the brightest smile. Her hair flowed around her face like a halo. It melted my heart and stole it all in one glance. I knew I was destined to be with her, right then and there."

Thom sighed, soft and deep, a ragged exhale. "Three years later, Bren was born, so we decided to do a comedy juggling singing act. I was the juggler and she was the harlequin. She charmed the audiences wherever we went. When Bren was old enough, he was right up there with us, singing his little heart out. He must have gotten his voice from his mother, because he certainly didn't get it from me." He reached across the table and stroked his son's long brown hair.

"Aw, dad, quit it. You're embarrassing me." Bren complained, but not too loudly.

"Son, that's what father's are for, didn't you know?" Thom's brief smiled faded slowly. "Anyway, we did pretty good, made a good living, until we ran afoul of some military moron a few years ago." He looked up at Grizelda. "Something got him pretty riled up and he decided to take it out on the troupe we were performing with." He paused. "We were near Forest End."

Grizelda started. "Forest End? You were performing near Forest End?"

Thom nodded. "Yeah. We had set up tent outside the town, so we could grab the townies as well as any miners or hunters nearby. Major hardass came up on our second day and demanded to see our permit. Permit? I asked, which I found out quickly was the wrong thing to ask. He locked us up in a dark, dank little guardhouse for about three weeks."

Bren nodded. He had been listening to his father tell the tale while Esmeralda played with the tiddles. "I remember that, dad. Wasn't much fun. Mom got sick pretty soon after that." The boy turned his eyes down and muttered. "That guy was an ass."

"Yes he was, Bren. And that's why we will never grow up to be like that, will we?"

"Nothing to worry about, dad." Bren smiled brightly. "I have the best roll models in the world."

"He's a good kid." Bags said. "Mine could take some lessons from him." Esmeralda looked at her father, blew him a kiss and gave him a raspberry on top. "Love you daddy," she said brightly.

"Maybe it was something in that guardhouse," Thom said. "Mold or moss or something. It started with a little cough, and then she would lose her balance on occasion." He looked askance at Bags and Grizelda. "Not something a balancing act should do. So we quit that for a bit. We continued singing, and I juggled, and Bren, Bren does a bit of magic now and again." He smiled at his boy. "He's gotten pretty good, too." Bren looked up from his game and smiled back across the table.

"Well, she should be about to get up." Thom stood up from the table. "She takes lots of naps or just lays and rests. Her bouncy routine is just to keep people from knowing she's ill, you know."

"We know," Grizelda said. "As long as you three are under my roof, she can rest as much as she wants. She doesn't have to put on a show just for our account."

"Thanks Griz," Thom said as he went up the stair. "I'll pass that on to her."

After he had gone up, Grizelda looked over at Bags. "We're pretty lucky, aren't we?"

"Yeah," Bags agreed. "I reckon we are, even if we do have to deal with angry Pocket killers." He took Grizelda's hand in his. "You do remember why we started on this trip, don't you?"

"Yeah, yeah," Grizelda said. "Townsfolk want to kill Pockets, blah, blah, blah. So what else is new? The important thing is we're back on the road, and we're going to Forest End!"

"Glad to see you haven't lost your perspective, honey." Bags stood up and stretched. "Pity we never stocked any beer in this place."

The closet door opened up, cautiously. Pockets poked his head out, his face wearing a small and worried look. "Um... Bags?"

"Yeah?"

"I hate to bother you, but we have company." Pockets looked over his shoulder.

Bags stopped stretching. He listened to the sound of no gears ticking, no springs unwinding and no wheels turning. "Okay. How many are they?"

"Bout fifty, I think."

"Fifty! Good lord!" Bags strode to the closet. "Are they on horseback?"

"Sorta." Pockets head disappeared back into the closet.

"Sort of? What does sort of mean?" Bags opened the closet door and went to the window marked "Here". He looked out the window and started nodding. "Yep. Sort of most assuredly fits, doesn't it?"

Out the window, crowded around the wagon, was a large crowd of ... individuals. In fact, all of them were on horseback, because they had no choice. They were centaurs.

Bags scratched his head. "Now that's something you don't see every day."

Comments

[capi.livejournal.com]

Since i'm re-reading and all....

"Nothing to worry about, dad." Bren smiled brightly. "I have the best roll models in the world."
Well, i suspicion roll model is amusing in acrobats, but you prolly really meant role, eh? *grin*

[joegoda.livejournal.com]

Fixed in the hard copy, dear. I gotta go buy some ink so I can print out one of these and send it to publishers. The short story that BP&G's world came from is just bout right for magazines! 17 thousand words, give or take 700.