Some things don't change.

Silently, a stag walked through the forest, his head held low, weighted with new antlers coated in fresh velvet.

His curly red fur ruffled as a chilled breeze rushed past him, though his only reaction was a small shiver.

In his mouth were copious amounts of flowers of every sort. A couple of lilacs here... some goldenrods there...

Though it didn't seem to matter what they were to begin with. After all, they were flowers. Not like it mattered unless they smelled good.

Occasionally a deer would walk past and acknowledge the large caribou with a polite bow, to which Jergens would just continue on, not even bothering to pass a glance.

They didn't matter right now.

Eventually, he reached the ruins, pausing for a minute at the right side of the graveyard, letting his single eye scan over the lichen coated slabs of granite.

He paused; bending his head down even further to gently let his small bouquet drift to the ground, keeping a single lilac between his teeth.

With slow, practically reverent movements, he walked over to one of the smaller graves, leaning over to place the flower onto the top rim of it's gritty surface.

He stared at it for awhile, occasionally moving to adjust it before he walked back to his pile to take another flower to place on yet another grave.

And so he did this.

Again and again and again.

When he was done, the stag circled around the perimeter of the graveyard, making absolute sure that every grave was given a single flower to keep.

Satisfied, he turned and walked a little ways back, turning around so he could survey his handiwork.

He sat down

and looked at the sky.

"I'm sorry..." he whispered, closing his eye. "I'm sorry that I didn't make sure that yew and Bri were buried..."

He lowered his head, looking out to the furnished graves.

"I... I hope that some other nice deer did... Cause... I'll never know if it's true or not... yew know I can't just go up and read the squiggles on em'..." he croaked, letting his scarred head rest on his hooves. "And... it's not like I'm gonna go up and ask someone if yer here... cause if I find out that yer not..."

He paused, shaking his head.

"So... I'm gonna assume that yer here... if that's okay..." he sniffed. "Is it pretty? I'm no good at decoratin' shit. Ya know that... but I tried right?" he forced a tired smile.

"I need to move on. I know I do..." he mumbled sleepily, eye closed, his entire being relaxing.

"Thanks... fer hearin' me out..."

And with that his breath evened out, a neutral expression forming on his face.

...

Some time after, an emerald stag walked towards him, carefully laying himself in front of Jergens, his burlap bag neatly plopped on the ground below his neck.

"Master Bartleby told me what has happened to you over your time here." he stated flatly, though kept his voice low.

"Needless to say that not at all happy with how you've treated him..." he narrowed his eyes. "Yet at the same time... I can't help but pity you..."

With a practiced motion, Malware lowered his head, unhooking the button of his bag with his teeth to pull up the flap. As silently as he could, he dumped out all of it's contents in front of him.

"I'll admit, Jergens that I've thought of you as nothing more than a vagabond..." he murmured, picking up a small tin canister in his mouth.

"It's a shame that you'll never think of yourself as something more than that..." he unscrewed the cap of it with his teeth, cautiously moving his head forward to take one of the arms of the sleeping stag's mask in his teeth, peeling half of it away to reveal a clogged eye socket and heavily scarred skin.

Slowly, he dipped his nose and chin into the open can, coating his own face with a cream colored poultice. He rubbed it onto Jergens' face, making sure that all of his mutilated skin was coated.

"I'll apologize ahead of time... I can't regenerate your lost sight or your hearing..." he mumbled, placing some of the cream onto the nub of the stag's severed ear.

"But I can at least make replacements."

With this, he got up to his feet and looked around, smiling when he saw a fresh goldenrod flower sitting on one of the gravestones behind them.

Not even bothering to note that it was on a grave, he picked it up in his mouth and carried it back over to his 'workstation'. He took individual blossoms into his mouth, transferring them over to mix them into the poultice on Jergens' face.

Satisfied, he slid the contents and instruments set before him back into his bag before moving on, making sure that the button to the latch was firmly secure.

Without hesitation, the symbol atop his head began to glow radiantly. Malware concentrated his aim, letting a burst of light expel from his body to Jergens'.

He kept his eyes peeled shut, finally cracking open an eye to look at his handiwork. Frankly, he had never attempted to heal scarred tissue before, much less replacement eyes or ears...

But it worked quite well... apart from half of Jergens' chin lacking the bristles of his ginger beard, he looked... normal.

And all the while he slept just as soundly, his new eyelid closed just as well as the other... his new ear twitching just as nicely as the other.

With a controlled smile, Malware pasted the mask back to the stag's face, forcing himself back to his hooves with a heavy groan.

He walked away, pausing just for a moment to look back at the stag's sleeping form.

"You're welcome."

And with an uncontrollable chuckle, he was gone in an instant.