A BP&G adventure - Pockets; Heretic

[joegoda]

"Well, that's just great." Bags said, pacing back and forth. "Pockets is stuck somewhere else, maybe dying, and we're stuck here."

"Daddy, it'll be ok." Esmeralda said, sitting near the closet door.

"Do you have any idea how long it will take to get to him with just horses?" Grizelda asked.

Bags stopped pacing and thought. "Not quite 80 miles... probably four days."

"Four days!" Capitani was standing next to Grizelda. "He doesn't have any water. He doesn't have any food. Four days! He could die in four days!"

"Honey," Thom comforted. "I'm sure the centaurs saw what happened. Surely they'll help him."

"Thom," Bags said, "There's no guarantee they saw anything. For all they know, we might have decided to just keep going. They had completely disappeared from the path by the time we got even started."

Grizelda moved from where she was standing by the tree and said, "We've got to go after him now, Bags." She opened the front door, only to be stopped by the last person she would expect.

Beegle, the Chancellor of Tears, or rather, ex-Chancellor, as the case may be, stood at the door, smiling through his evil teeth. He looked more weathered than he had when last seen, being booted out the front gates. His life in the desert had not helped his complexion any, as his face had a weathered and lined look to it. His brown eyes shone, though, with something akin to a fever, and his smile was broad and showed great white teeth.

"Why hello, your Majesty," he dripped honey from his lips and bowed from his waist. He was dressed in a green tailcoat and green trousers. Even his shoes were dyed green.

"What a pleasure it is to see you home, at last. A few of my boys come looking for you earlier, but when they looked in the windows, they saw not a soul around. May I come in?"

"What in the bloody seven hells are you doing here, Beegle?" Bags came to stand next to Grizelda. "You were banished, remember? Never to show your ugly face around here again, or else it would be up on the pikes for you." Bags reached for his sword, then remembered that it was upstairs.

"Your Majesty Bags." Beegle spoke calmly. "You are looking well! The life of royalty certainly has done right by you, I must say." He chuckled then, a sound like grub worms rolling around in a tin can. "Put on a little weight, have we?"

"Forget the nice stuff," Bags spat. "You being here is not a good thing. You should have died out in the desert."

"Daddy," Esmeralda popped her head between Bags and Grizelda. "Who is this nasty man?"

"Esme, you just go somewhere else, okay honey?" Grizelda gently pulled her daughter away from Beegle's smiling and baleful glare. "Mommy and daddy will make the bad man go away." She looked directly in to Beegle's eyes. "Forever."

"How delightful!" Beegle clapped his hands with glee. "You two were blessed with a daughter." He winked at Grizelda. "She looks just like you, fortunately."

"What do you want, you snake?" Grizelda shot at him. "Why aren't you decently dead?"

"May I come in?" Beegle asked, still smiling. "It's dreadfully hot out here."

"Stay out there and fry, for all I care." Grizelda said.

"You can say your bit from there, bub." Bags muttered darkly.

"Ah." Beegle simply said. He turned around, looked up at the sky and squinted his eyes. "The sun is frightfully bright, you know." He turned back to the King and Queen. "It was even more bright in the desert. I wandered for quite a while, I would think. Maybe a week or so." He smiled. "Fortunately, I know that that water table is not terribly far under the surface here. At least I had that, and the few lizards and birds that I could trap and eat." He winked at Bags. "You know how it is, being an ex-military man and all. You do what you can to survive, and then you re-group or die."

He brushed the dirt off a large rock near the doorway and sat down. "Funny thing about dying, or nearly so. Just when you think you're about to give up, something always appears on the horizon." He sat there quietly, plucked a red daffodil and sniffed it. "Life is full of little surprises, don't you think?"

"The preacher." Bags tossed the words out as if they were garbage.

"Preacher?" For a moment, Beegle looked confused. Then his face cleared and he said, "Oh, you mean Milton? You mean the Green man? Surely, you must. Well, let me tell you my story, and then you can tell me yours. I do so want to know where you've been."

From one of his coat's pockets, Beegle pulled a small flask. It was colored green, and matched the rest of his clothing. He opened it and took a drink. Closing it, he put the flask back in his pocket.

"Silly thing never goes dry. Can you imagine that?" He shook his head. "Now, where was I? Oh yes, I was in the desert, dying." He chuckled again. "Well, I obviously didn't do so, did I? No, I didn't. But I did find a small town, very far to the south of here. Not much of a town, really. More like a village." He shook his head. "Not really a village, either. More like a collection of hovels. Maybe fifty or sixty people lived there, scratching a living out of the desert." He looked up at Bags. "Can you imagine? Out there in the desert."

He stood up and rubbed his backside. "Rock is not as comfortable as one might think, and I've had plenty of time to get that experience, let me tell you."

After he had stretched, he continued with his story. "Those people were not your average people. No, they were not. They were, for lack of a better term, pirates. They would wander up into the hills and mountains and rob anyone they could find. They would send look outs into the desert and search for wagons moving goods between village and village, and they would rob them, too. They were not, as you might imagine, nice people. Not like the people of Tears, oh, my goodness, no." He laughed lustily at his own joke.

"No, these were my kind of people. People who saw what they wanted and they took it, damned be the cost. Granted, they were poorly trained and fairly under-nourished and not to terribly bright, but they had the general idea of what it took to get what they wanted. All they needed was a bit of direction."

Bags pushed Grizelda behind him. "I'm glad you found friends that could stand you, bub. Me, I've had just about enough." He started to close the door. "Griz, go get my weapon. I'll kill this bird myself, if I have to."

"Oh no, your Majesty." Beegle interrupted. "I wouldn't do that if I were you. You see, I brought my friends with me." He whistled, high and shrill. A mob of men, heavily armed, appeared from bushes and trees. "You see, I could force you, I could...," he paused, smiled, and then finished, "kill you. But I'd rather not."

"Bring 'em on, you snake." Bags hissed. "I'll take 'em all on, with or without weapons."

"Ah." Beegle rubbed his chin. "Think of your daughter, your Majesty. Surely you wouldn't want to see any harm come to her? Surely you wouldn't want to see her die before your very eyes."

Grizelda gasped. "You wouldn't dare."

Beegle just said, "Of course I would. But I would rather not." He turned and bade his men to lower their weapons. Back to Bags and Grizelda, he said, "May I finish my story?"

Bags nodded, tersely.

"The leader of these men, whose name was Grumpo, or Guapo, or Gumbo... I forget which, was a rather rough-hewn character. He controlled mostly from brawn rather than brain." He looked at Bags. "I'm sure you know what that's like. Regardless, I ingratiated myself to him after a few months by giving him some very valuable ideas on tactical strategy. He grew so trusting of me, he never noticed that I poisoned his ale one night. I, of course, took his place."

"Of course." Grizelda choked the words out.

"Oh, it was a fine time, for a while. The next few years we pillaged up and down the mountainside, raided a few of the villages, and the more we raided, the more we found an amazing thing." He cocked his head and asked, "Would you like to know what that amazing thing that we found was?"

He stood, looking at the two in the door, dressed in green, head cocked, smiling and waiting.

"What did you find, Beegle." Bags asked at last.

"I'm so glad you asked!" Beegle said, straightening up. "I found that almost every village we raided knew of you, your Majesty!" He pointed directly at Bags. "It seems that you are a well known personality in that area." He reached up and touched his nose. "And just between you and me, I will have to admit that not all of them are your friends."

Grizelda touched her husband's arm. "What's he talking about, Bags?"

Without taking his eyes off Beegle, Bags answered her. "In war time, honey, not everyone likes the military. Especially when you are a mercenary."

Beegle clapped his hands again, as if he were a child at the circus. "Exactly right, your Majesty! Eggs-actly right! Especially if you are a mercenary. Even if you are with the... ahem... good guys, there will be that contingent of populace that will look at you as if you are nothing more than a low paid thug."

"Yeah, so?" Bags said. "It was just something you got used to. Being spit on and denied room. It's part of war. War is not supposed to be a popularity contest. That's why I got out of it. It got tiring."

"Even so." Beegle agreed, nodding. "Even so." He raised a finger and shook it in Bags direction. "Still there are a great many people that remember you, and you would be amazed at how quickly they joined my little group when they found that my eventual plans included the overthrow of Tears and the end of you."

"But still, I didn't feel it was enough." Beegle's smile faded. "I knew that, even with a few hundred men, it would be hard to just walk in and take over the kingdom. I knew that you would be training a small militia to protect Tears from such an event. Especially after I heard of your little run in with Bangala a while back." His face grew grim. "Speaking of militia, how is my old friend Briggs?"

"I don't know," Bags answered. "I haven't seen him. Maybe you should ask him yourself."

"I will," Beegle said, murderously. "When I find him. I was thinking you may have known where he was."

"Nope." Bags shook his head. "Your outta luck here."

"Oh!" Beegle slapped his hands together. "Luck! No, your Majesty, I have very good luck!" His evil grin returned. "Let me finish my story."

"My little gang swelled from its original fifty or sixty rag tags to nearly one hundred and fifty and more! Once certain people heard of my dislike for you personally, it was amazing how far they would come to join. Even then, it was not enough. I knew we would need something... divine, so to speak, on our side. You see, even though there is quite a bit of dislike, and some absolute hate of you in the world, they were all fearful of you, and no matter the amount of cajoling I would do, no matter my assurances that the defenses here were weak at best and that you were no longer the Timothy Bags of your youth, you were and are still considered to be one of the most powerful and dangerous warriors around. You do, your Majesty, have quite a reputation for a brawler, I must say!"

"So..." He took his seat on the uncomfortable rock once again. "Time passed. The day came and went. My own little kingdom grew and prospered. The men there grew lazy with not having to scrabble for their existence day to day. The people there grew complacent and I found myself in the position of the ruler of a group of men and women that had forgotten how to take what they wanted." He shook his head sadly. "Can you imagine? They had completely let our goal of ridding the world of you pass clean out of their heads. I had to remind them with a few executions and a couple of imprisonments. I explained to them, as only a father can, what our goals were and that we must not ever forget them."

"You're a mad man, Beegle."

"Oh, please, your Majesty." The grin grew wider, if that was possible. "It's not like I haven't heard that before. Briefly, before they died, that is." Beegle paused, a cloud passing across his face, remembering.

"But then," he continued, "the strangest thing happened. One day, while I was standing on my parapet, I saw a blue flame appear out of the south. The sky turned many different colors, and the ground shook. It was quite fearful, I can tell you! Many of my people thought it was the end of the earth." He chuckled. "I knew differently. I knew that it was the sign I was waiting for, that my time would be coming soon. So I stepped up the military training, sometimes recruiting more men from not completely willing villages and I waited."

"A few weeks after the earth shook, a stranger came to my little kingdom. He came in the dark of night, and he came straight to my humble house. To be honest, I wasn't too keen on being awoken at that time of night, so you can imagine that I was not too pleasant. That is, until I saw his face. And his eyes." His smile faded.

"Pewitt." A simple statement from Bags.

Beegle nodded. "You really shouldn't give the story away like that, your Majesty. But I suppose you can be forgiven. I would have to admit that the identity of my partner, of my savior would be obvious. It was Pewitt, and we talked that first night. We talked long into the morning. He told me of his imprisonment in the forest. Of the pain and the anguish and the torture of his soul. He told me of the quest that, as odd as it seems, you, your Majesty, sent him on. Granted, he doesn't hold you to blame for it. Much, anyway."

He winked again and said, and that is why you are still alive, you see? He, Milton, the Green Preacher, doesn't want me to kill you outright. He feels that you were not aware of the evil that you had done to him, and therefore you should be spared for a different fate."

"And what would that fate be, Beegle?" Bags was getting tired of listening. He never liked long stories.

"Divine retribution, I would imagine. He hasn't exactly told me what he had planned for you, only that it would happen at noon, when the sun was the highest." He looked up. "Unfortunately, it appears we shall have to wait until tomorrow. I was told by him that, if you were to be found after the noon hour, that you were to be... detained... in your house until the following day." He scratched his bald head. "I suspect his... talents... are greatest at noon, and that he has something spectacular planned for you." His evil grin reappeared. "Doesn't that make you feel very, very special?"

"Just peachy."

"There is just one hitch, however." Beegle stood up and dusted his trousers off. "If I found you, I was told to also find your insignificant half, that Pockets fellow. Apparently, Milton has a very large bone to pick with him." He attempted to look past Bags and Grizelda. "I don't suppose he is in there with you, is he?"

"No." Bags did not elaborate.

"No matter." Beegle pulled his flask out again. After a drink, he said, "No matter. From what I understand, where you are, he is not far away. Apparently, you two are like each other's shadow. He'll be found, don't you worry." He turned away and started to leave. "I shall be back at noon tomorrow. Sleep well!"

Bags muttered something under his breath. Beegle turned back. "What was that?"

"I said, you putrid pile of excrement, that, if I was you, I wouldn't count on it."

"Oh!" Beegle turned to walk away. "No worry, your Majesty. I'll leave enough men to guard you, just to make sure you won't miss the excitement. I'd hate to have you do that!" As he walked away, his laugh, like a hundred crows crying and cawing, echoed back.

"That wasn't what I meant." Bags muttered. "If you're gonna find Pockets, you're gonna have quite a search on your hands."

"Daddy!" Esmeralda cried from behind him.

Bags turned to find her huddled near the closet. "What is it, Esme?"

"Sssh." Esmeralda lifted her tiny finger to her lips. "Listen."

Bags, Grizelda, Capitani and Thom crowded around the little girl who sat on the floor near the closet door, and listened.

There was an odd smell, and the sound of bacon frying. Bags said "What the ..." and Esmeralda shushed him again. "It's Unk," she said.

"Almo..." Half a word came from behind the door.

Grizelda grabbed the latch and pulled the door open. There was just a closet. Then there wasn't. Instead, an image of a banged up Pockets appeared briefly, replacing the jackets and the boots. "Damn it," was what he said before they heard another sizzle and the closet once again resumed it's closet-like appearance.

"Pockets!" Capitani cried. "He's alive!"

"Yeah," Bags said, grinning. "He's always been hard to kill." He looked at Grizelda. "If I know Pockets, when Beegle shows up tomorrow, he's gonna be pretty disappointed."

Comments

[not-an-oracle.livejournal.com]

I love your stories, however, this one left me lacking, maybe I need to go back and re-read. Don't get me wrong, it was good, I just felt there was more that could have been developed with Beegle and why everyone hates him so much. Did I miss one?

[shackrlu.livejournal.com]

Beegle was the bad guy in the City of Tears. The first story. He and his goons are the ones that almost killed Pockets the first time around.

[not-an-oracle.livejournal.com]

Oh *face smack* *duh* Somewhere between being half awake and ditzy, sheesh, I just didn't even think of the other story. Not quit certain how I missed thhaht though. *ducks head*

[capi.livejournal.com]

This is a transition piece, taking us from yesterday to tomorrow.... at noon. *shudder*

[capi.livejournal.com]

*snort* I thought about this more in the shower, cuz really, isn't that a good time to think??

Beegle... i once had a beagle, but Beegle is much closer to the ground than Ginger ever was. He got an A- in Snake Class, but that wasn't good enuf for him, apparently, cuz it's very clear he's been studing up. He's definitely improved his grade. I think he might be going for a PhD.

[joegoda.livejournal.com]

Beegle is an interesting character to me. Very not a nice guy, firmly believing he is right in what he does, and does it in the most callous way possible. I knew he would pop back up, I just didn't know when. Yes, he's a nasty one, worse than the Grinch, even.