Pretty Worlds and Pretty Hooves - I

(Cursing and themes and all that rot. Then again, when do I not have that stuff?)

Alone.

Pert was used to that sensation, to being an outcast in both society and the forest. As far as he knew, he never had any real friends apart from Jergens, and even then he had failed in maintaining a stable relationship. Unable to be accepted and assimilated, he had wandered the world on his own accord. A sad existence, but the only one he had an option to.

But now; now he could live a normal life. A life with little to no pain. A life with no enemies that only he could see. The world was washed out, dead and grey and lifeless.

Beautiful.

But it was not the sort of beauty that could hurt and tear away at his head. It was a gentle, merciful beauty, and Pert sucked in every possible moment that he could visualize.

The landscape was a breathtaking field of... what were they? Flowers? Yes, flowers. They were built much like reeds, their stems flexible enough to flow with every burst of wind, their petals tiny clusters of soft pollen. They were goldenrods, but with a lack of color vision, Pert could only see a sea of grey.

He walked along as if he were in nirvana, his eyes bulging outwards, drinking in the scenery. Occasionally his hooves would stumble, and he'd snap back to reality only to revert back to his drugged state.

And so this went on. Pert kept in a straight line, just as Malware had instructed, and it wasn't long before the line of trees from behind was completely out of sight.

The piebald stopped for a moment, uneasily looking around at the sea of flowers. He wondered how massive the landscape really was... and for once he had doubts in his mind.

Malware... who was he, anyway?

Funny, here Pert could have just been conned into going out in some wide open space only to get lost. Then again, what would have Malware gained from having him leave the forest? Away from Jergens? No... that couldn't be right. Pert had never seen a stag that looked even remotely like the enigmatic boy that had followed him around.

And besides, even if the elderly stag had tricked Pert, it wasn't like the piebald cared any. After all, Malware had even gone out of his way to remove his handicap! This repetitive field was almost like a heaven compared to the forest. No one to bother him... no one to look at him strangely.

As he traveled on, it soon became apparent that this out-of-touch world had a day and night cycle. The sun had crept downwards in a slow, gentle arch. Even if Pert was blind to color now, he could still see that dusk was crawling up on him. That was good then, he could have a sense of how long he was traveling.

He stopped when it had grown too dark to see his hooves. That seemed to be a negative aspect of these new eyes, no real night vision to speak of. Granted, if Pert really wanted to keep going, it probably wouldn't have hurt any to continue. It wasn't like there were any obstructions in the path so far, maybe a hill or two. Still, the piebald didn't want to run himself into exhaustion. After all, Malware had said that he would be going without much water for the time being.

Hesitantly, Pert settled himself to the ground, curling his hooves neatly underneath his belly as to escape the night chill. Fall was coming closer and closer it seemed... even here. Soon the leaves would start to change and bleed into red and orange and all sorts of colors... and Pert wouldn't have to see them.

With this satisfied thought in mind, the piebald slowly drifted off to sleep.

---

...

....

...

The void again. The same place as before when all the memories has rushed through his skull. He was here.

It was a sickening place despite its apparent peacefulness, even more so now than it was before. Instead of falling downwards, he simply levitated in one spot, paralyzed from movement. Dark purple will-o-wisps entangled his form, clogging his nostrils and ears. There was no pain, but the sensation was ghastly. Where did it come from? Or did no rules of logic apply to this dream world?

"P-Pert... please..."

Jergens' voice crept through the darkness. It was another memory unearthing itself, and just like the first one, it was completely auditory. No visuals.

Pert flicked his ears, and could hear the quiet, muffled sounds of sobbing. Jergens was crying, much to the stag's surprise. Why on Earth would he, of all people, cry? Pert couldn't remember much of the ginger, but from what he had seen and heard; Jergens seemed like the tough skinned type. Curiously, he listened on.

"God, Jergs... what did they do to yew?"

The sound of rustling fabric echoed around the chasm.

"Don't touch me. I just... don't touch me..."

For a brief second, a flash of panic jolted through Pert. Had he hurt him? Was that why he was crying? No... because Pert had mentioned something about 'they'. A small, selfish sense of relief washed over him only to be replaced with worry. Jergens' words weren't hostile. If anything, he sounded unusually helpless, even terrified.

"I shouldn't have left... Did they do anything?"

"No..."

"They called ya names again?"

"Y-Yeah... I flunked the phonics test again and, well, y'know..."

"I'll take care of it, okay? Calm down. Those guys probably flunked it too and they're just takin' it out on yew. "

Pert soon realized how young their voices sounded. This must have been from his childhood, then. Why did he have an accent, though? He slurred over his words just as much as Jergens had been doing. Actually... how come he didn't have an accent now if they grew up in the same region?

"Yer gonna beat em' up then?"

"Sure... if ya want me to..."

"Yeah! Ya wanna go back to my house when yer done?"

"Of course..."

Pert was vaguely unsettled by this turn in the conversation. Even at this young age, Jergens was outright ordering him to hurt people. It was just like that last memory with that one man... only even more so twisted since they sounded so little... they couldn't have been older than seven or eight.

So they had been childhood friends... no wonder Jergens held such an emotional value to Pert.

He waited to hear more, but the memory was evidently over. The darkness was lazily fading away, giving way to dull shade of grey. Ah, he was waking up then. That was good. Pert didn't think he'd be able to take another memory-dream, even if that one was fairly tame, even reassuring in some ways.

He could hear the steady sound of breathing. His own? More than likely. It was a peaceful sound. The gentle sensation of air inhaling and exhaling.

---

Sun bled through Pert's eyelids. It couldn't have been that late in the morning, could it? Then again, the stag had never been that good at defining time just by the position of the moon or sun.

The sound of breathing could still be heard, but it was harsh, almost breathless, like the individual was catching his/her breath. Whatever it was coming from, it was close... probably just a few feet away from where he was laying down.

Pert didn't panic, though. Instead, he faked sleep and relaxed his tense muscles, praying to whatever God that was out there that the intruder didn't notice his movements. Unlike other deer, and humans for that matter, Pert was a survivalist. He had been through similar situations before as a human, and he knew how to deal with them. If he 'woke up' in front of this thing, there was no telling what would happen to him.

After all, what was even out here to begin with? Malware had neglected to explain any threats that the piebald would encounter along the way.

The breathing continued on, and it seemed like the creature wouldn't be leaving anytime soon. Pert decided to risk cracking open an eye for a quick glimpse, just to get an idea of what was there.

It was a deer... or at least some sort of cervine creature. Pert couldn't see much apart from some hooves and a long, gangling pelt. Okay... so it wasn't that bad. Maybe this was just another deer that got conned into going on some long bullshit quest.

Should he risk it? Well... why not? After all, what did he have to lose? If this deer meant harm, he/she would have just ambushed him in his sleep by now.

So, with a small, admittedly theatrical yawn, Pert rolled over to the side and stretched out his limbs. His eyes clenched shut as he heard a few satisfying pops in his knees before he lazily opened his eyes and looked at the deer before him.

"Oh! You woke up! Did I wake you up... I sorry..." a bright, cheerful looking stag stared back down at Pert. He was a forest deer too, easy to tell from the pictogram dangling over his scalp. "My master always tells me that you shouldn't wake people up when they're sleeping. That's right, right?" he cocked his head to the side, his expression rather puzzled.

Despite his slow, awkward sounding voice, the stag was absolutely gorgeous in appearance. Pert didn't even need to see colors in order to see that. He was huge, for one, nearly eight feet tall. That didn't even count his enormous, bone-white antlers that neatly sprawled from his skull-cap, the tines curling in on themselves. His pelt was long, much like a Persian cat and would nearly touch the ground if the stag were to stand up.

However, it was the stag's eyes that caught Pert off-guard. They were wide and brimming with childish curiosity, incredibly odd considering how old the stag looked like.

Pert had to stand up in order to meet him eye-to-eye, and even then the stag had to lower his head slightly. He tried to come up with something to say, anything really, but there were no words he could think of that sounded acceptable for a first impression... especially with a deer so odd-sounding...

The stag seemed to notice this, in his own simplistic way, and he lifted a hoof towards Pert as if asking for a handshake.

"Hi! I'm Turkey! What's your name?"

The phrase sounded rehearsed, like the stag didn't even know what the words meant but rather rattled them off for the sake of a positive reaction. Pert raised an eyebrow, feeling more and more awkward. "Um... I'm..." he stopped, and immediately bit his tongue.

Malware had said something about not giving out his name to one specific stag. One that was grey with... what was it... golden hooves? Yes, that was it... Was this the stag that he was talking about? The elderly stag should have mentioned something else other than colors to him. Were Turkey's hooves golden? Or at least yellow? Pert couldn't tell. And grey fur... Well, everyone had grey fur now, technically.

After a quick second's thought, Pert decided to play it safe.

"I'm... I'm..." Come on, Pert! How hard is it to come up with a fake name?! Pert faltered slightly, but Turkey didn't seem to notice (or care).

"I'm... uh... Per...cy."

Percy.

...

Seriously? That was the best he could come up with? Oh well, at least Turkey didn't seem to mind (or care). Actually, Pert had already got the impression that the stag was a bit slow, to put it nicely.

"Perrrrrrceee... Okay! I got it!" the stag smiled warmly. "Where ya going, Percee?" he asked, jumping into the obvious questions, just as Pert suspected.

"I'm... exploring." the piebald lied, and lamely so. No one would buy that, not even Turkey. He had never been that much of a trickster or deceiver. If anything, it wasn't even in Pert's nature to lie.

Turkey accepted it either way, nodding along uncomprehendingly. "Uh-huh... so's my master. It's real pretty here. Lots of flowers..." he craned his neck down and nosed though a small patch of goldenrods, coating his black nose in yellow pollen. "He... He asked me to go looking for other deer, so here I am! I found one!" he grinned, his longish tail thumping against the ground. "I dunno how to get back, but don't worry! Debit n' Credit'll be by and they'll take us back! Don't worry, don't worry~" he rolled to his side and waved his legs in the air, chuckling softly to himself.

Pert didn't like the sound of that. At all. As friendly as that was, Turkey essentially just said something along the lines of 'I found a survivor to forcibly take back to my leader... probably for reasons of cannibalism'. It just sounded creepy to him. Not to mention, he couldn't get out of the straight line he was going in... leaving with Turkey would just needlessly throw him off his course.

So what could he do? Escape? Hell no. Those antlers were huge. He wasn't going to get into something like that. Even if Turkey wasn't the brightest thing around, he could still just as easily gore him without even knowing.

Any other options? Any at all?

No.

He'd just have to sit this out and hope for the best. Not even two days in and he was already, technically, a prisoner of war.

Thanks Malware.

Thanks a whole fucking bunch.

---

Told you things would happen... I hope this turns out more exciting than Act I at least >w>