October 3, 2011 - 12:49am — GingerNut
"After all this time and yer still not mature enough to call me yer dad..."
Jergens couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at that, but not unkindly. The shock had pretty much worn off by now anyway. The stag had been preparing an inevitable meet-up with his soon-to-be-dead parents anyway. After all, if his siblings were here, then why not his parents? Granted, it was a little awkward seeing your caretaker younger than yourself, but it was unavoidable. He hadn't been expecting any more strange meet-ups out here though. Wasn't Malware enough?
Slowly, his smile creeped back up his lips. It wasn't a threatened smile, or even an angry one. It was more indifferent than anything else. "Fer one, Yer not my dad. Olay's, yeah, but not mine." he corrected brashly. "Seriously, ya always keep puttin' me on guilt trips..." he muttered.
"Mhm..." Christof wasn't listening. Rather, he was too busy staring at the little doe on the stag's side. Peony kept her eyes low, occasionally flicking them upwards to meet the bald deer's scrutinizing looks. This had suddenly taken an uncomfortable turn for the worst, at least for her. She sat down, neatly folding her pointed hooves underneath her belly. The other two deer took this as a sort of signal and followed her example.
"Odd..." Christof mumbled to himself as he gently set himself on the ground. A few dozen more questions shot through his head. Well... better to ask about that later. He straightened up slightly, a vain attempt to reach his step-son's height, or at least somewhere close to it. Even sitting down, the stag towered over him. "So..." he tried to think of some introduction, or at least a good question to set things going. And he had been doing such a good job too! Now that the buck seemed to know the stag's identity, things just got weirder. What was he supposed to say...?
Jergens watched him flounder around for a little while, and, like always, he saved the conversation. "So ya died, right? There ain't any other way to sucked into here." he ventured off, his grin turning more and more genuine.
Unlike his actual biological father; Jergens liked Christof. Sure, the man had stabbed him in the back a few times. At the same time, it was he who taught the stag the art of pickpocketing and theatrics.
Christof had been pretty eager to win the boy's affections, quite simply because he had always wanted a son of his own. So he spoiled him. When Jergens' one friend came over, the one with the peculiar mental problems, he'd hide all of the artwork he was working on, just to win his step-son's favor. Little things like that had left a pretty positive impact to Jergens’ life, even if the stag had once felt a little more than bitter towards him.
He was a 'self-proclaimed bohemian', a young man who had flunked out of college and decided go through life via the 'starving artist' route. The sad part was; Christof was a terrible painter, and singer, and actor, and everything in-between that had anything to do with art.
Because of this, he had been a fairly high-strung type of individual, taking criticism as an insult and working at skills that just wouldn't improve. Then, of course, Jergens had left all of a sudden... leaving Christof with little to no contact apart from the occasional letter from his mental friend. He hadn’t had a particularly good life, acting as the butt of everyone’s jokes rather than the envy of his peers.
"Died?" the hairless buck blinked for a moment, seeming to gather his thoughts in a bundle before speaking. "Oh yes... I don't quite remember. The whole thing is a bit of a blur." he mumbled, scrunching up his eyebrows a tad. His voice continued to crack and rise at every inopportune word. "I remember what happened to yew though, Jergens." he offered an odd half-smile.
Jergens rolled back his shoulders in an easy shrug. "All I remember is not lookin' both ways before crossin' the street. Not like it matters now." he chuckled easily. Really, he could have cared less about all that stuff now. His human life had long since become a blur to his mind, giving way to his new life as a deer. As hard as it was, he had accepted it, as much as he didn’t particularly like it.
Christof nodded vehemently, his bare skin twitching. He opened his mouth as if to make a comment, but instead got interrupted by Peony, who was feeling a tad forgotten (and lost in translation) in the conversation. "What's a street?" she looked up, specifically aiming the question to her own father.
"I'll tell ya when yer older." Jergens replied good-naturedly, brushing her off as easily as one might a fly. To be perfectly honest, he kind of wished that Peony hadn't spoken up. Now Christof would notice her again and-
"So ya said that was yer daughter?" the buck questioned, his voice more disbelieving than anything else. He didn't wait for an answer; instead he trotted up closer and stuck his face into the doe's, his eyes squinting in examination. "Hnmm... Yes... I see the resemblance." he murmured, nodding approvingly at the flower laden antlers she carried. Quite picturesque, really.
Peony cringed and fidgeted around on the spot, but didn't back away. The buck unnerved her slightly, but at the same time, she was also 'technically' older than him. Why should she be nervous? "Uh Well..." she mumbled, "I think I look a lot more like my mo-eep!" she felt a sharp jolt of pain as Jergens brought down a hoof down on her tail, and she clammed up once more.
"Found her rummaging round the area when she was little." the stag explained coolly, shooting an apologetic look to Peony. "She's not really mine, right? More like adopted." he added. Hey, at least that was half-true. He wasn’t necessarily lying when he said that.
If there was one thing that Jergens really didn't want to steer the conversation into, it was his sexuality. As far as the stag had recalled, Christof had been a bit more open-minded than most people about the subject. Still, it was the only real rift that stood between them, that and his mother's ever looming presence. If they started talking about him, they’d talk about her and the less said about her, the better.
By all means was Christof not an unintelligent man. Airheaded at times, yes, but not completely stupid. He pressed his lips in a fine line and raised his eyebrow in annoyance. Even so, he had always treated Jergens like an adult, which of course, often led to some negative consequences.
The doe so obviously came from him in one way or another, the buck could tell that just from looking at her stocky build. While her face was that of an actual deer, her head still carried a more angular shape, much like Jergens'. Subtle similarities like these made her existence all the more disconcerting and mysterious. Still, he was the patient sort. At least Jergens didn't seem particularly bitter towards him. "Huh. Right then." he forced a smile. "I have to say Jergens. I wasn't prepared fer this." he chuckled nervously. There wasn't much more to say unless Jergens wanted to dig deeper in the past, but Christof seriously doubted that the stag was ready to go that far. Too many sticky subjects they could get into…
Jergens himself really didn't know what to make of this. After all, he hadn't seen the man since he was a twelve year old boy. By now he had just shoved Christof out of his head for more important matters. If he had met the man a year ago, he wouldn't have acted near as calmly as he was now. Like it or not; the forest had changed him for the better. He was capable of acting like a mature adult, some of the time at least.
The stag's grin softened. "I'm not mad at ya Chris." he chuckled, putting the buck's worried mind at rest. "I'm a little weirded out though. I mean yer younger than Peo." he cast an inviting glance down to his daughter, urging her back into the conversation. She didn't take the invitation, understandably, and instead opted to turn her gaze over to the looming forest ahead.
Christof's smile turned more genuine, a rare occurrence for him. "I'm glad. he nearly whispered, and for once his voice didn't crack. "Ya know none of what happened was my fault, right?" he suddenly said, his expression twisting into a nervous panic. "Y'know how Crystal never really liked ya, always lookin' fer excuses and stuff. And how she hated that weird friend of yer's... Pert, was it?" he stopped, looking up at his step-son with concern. "Yew okay?" he asked.
(pert…?)
Jergens expression was blank. His body had turned stock-still, even to the point where he had stopped breathing. His lips stood slightly parted, his ears hung limply at the sides of his head. The change in his mannerisms was so sudden that Christof hadn’t even noticed at first.
(pertpertpertpertpertpertpert)
He had not heard that name, not even in his thoughts, for all of his life as a deer and nearly two decades as a human. It was a name that had long since been shoved away from his mind, much like a malicious, torn memory that one could not help but think about.
(pertpertpertpertpertpertpertpertpertpert)[i]
Friend's string of repeating thoughts streamed through his brain, ebbing away at his consciousness. Scars that no longer existed burned with a new life of their own. He felt hands wrap around his throat, cold skin pressed against his curled locks of fur. His heart rate skyrocketed, and the stag almost gasped with instinctive fear.
Needless to say, if Friend had not existed, then Jergens would have taken the name with a small warning glare, maybe even a snide comment to get the conversation back under his own control. But with an ulterior personality, one that existed as a pure manifestation of repressed memories...
"Dad! Yer mask!" Peony's shrill cry brought the stag back on the plane of reality. Grimacing, he noticed that the left arm of his leathery butterfly mask had begun to peel away from the side of his head. Muttering a weak curse, he leaned over and pressed his head against the flowered ground, gluing the covering back in its spot. He didn't say anything. Instead, he clenched his eyes shut and blocked out the two deer that now loomed over him. Their murmurs of concern were faded and distorted in his ear, and if anything, the added sound didn’t help much.
Friend was having a complete ecstasy trip. Never before had so many people that he had been connected to have stepped up, much less people that he didn't outright despise. Along with Bartleby, Friend obsessed over Pert just as much if not more so, but he had never mentioned the man's name until now. Maybe he had simply never had a reason to.
As for Christof, Friend regarded him with respect. As a representation of Jergens' childhood, Friend held Christof in the same reverence that Jergens had as a child. After all, despite his occasional neglect, the self-proclaimed artist had treated him with as much kindness as he was allowed by his wife. Even so, his respect could be as well trusted as his supposed allegiance to ‘Smiling’ Jack. After all, dogs had a habit of biting their master’s hands.
If Jergens had been in any other mental state, it would have been easy for the personality to manipulate him with this. After all, the mask upon the stag's face was a physical representation of his will to survive, a barrier that separated them.
Take the mask away, and you have either a hideous mingling of personalities or Friend in his purest form.
Jergens shook his head and tried to block off Friend's incessant blurbs of thought. It didn't hurt as much now, if anything it was just similar to the sensation of having a ringing sound in your ears. He could ignore it though, or at least he could try.
Suddenly, to even further jolt him back into reality, he felt something barrel into his side. Yelping in surprise, Jergens flopped over, jumped to his hooves and spread his fore-legs. He instinctively lowered his cumbersome antlers, the two dagger sharp point that rested on their curves glinting back at his attacker.
Peony had backed away slightly, her ears pressed against her skull and her tail curled between her legs. She had seen her father like this before, even if she didn't understand what it really meant. Christof, on the other hand, had taken the liberty of ramming his spiraled horns into his step-son's side. When he saw Jergens lower his antlers at him he scrambled back slightly, his face contorting in fear. "Jesus kid!" he sputtered, his voice cracking into an unbearably high falsetto. "Come on, put those things away. Ya wouldn't gore yer old man, would ya?" he pleaded. "Had to knock some sense to ya. Yer face was startin' to freak me out a little."
"Nah... It's cool..." Jergens' side throbbed with pain, and despite how annoyed he was that Christof hadn't just tapped him or something, the stag impressed him more than anything else. Christof had a bit of a reputation for being non-confrontational and, dare he say it, a bit of a cream-puff. "Guess I needed to get some sense knocked into me, right?" he chuckled and put on the most convincing fakeish smile he could.
Christof and Peony were less than pleased with his half-baked explanation. "You sure yer okay...?" the doe spoke up. Whatever it was, it was gone now, and Peony was smart enough to know that her father's mask had something to do with it. Jergens glanced over to her and nodded reassuringly. "Eh, just a headache. Nothin' bad." he mumbled, not even daring to look up at Christof's face.
"I'd hate to know what kinda migraines yer havin' then..." Christof murmured, obviously not convinced. He knew Jergens well enough to know when he was lying. He was one of the few that could always manage to look through him, even if his step-son had gotten a lot better at the 'craft' since he'd last seen him. Still, he'd buy it for now. Maybe they could talk about it later, alone or something. That was just one more matter to discuss added to the pile then.
An uneasy silence fell among the trio, and Peony tilted her head in the direction of the obscured line of trees. "You said yew were goin' this way, Mr. Christof?" she asked politely. "Why?"
The hairless buck shrugged and followed the doe's gaze. "I got a little bored with the repetitive scenery here and decided to go back fer awhile." he explained. "At least, this is the right place, right? I don't really remember the river but I do remember that queer looking line of trees." he stumbled over his words slightly and seemed less and less sure of himself. Overall, even the outskirts the incoming forest seemed a bit foreboding. It was almost as if it was encouraging them to turn back around, like they didn't belong.
Jergens couldn't help but smile smugly at him. "Heh, wrong. It's behind us, Peo and I just came from it. So yer way, way off there." he almost had to bite back laughter at this. Nothing much had really changed about Christof (apart from the awkward age difference), he was still just as directionally challenged as before. "We were gonna go do some investigatin'. The place has kinda gained a pretty weird reputation." he looked towards it himself. Hell, why even bother standing around if they were all going the same place?
"Guess yer gonna be comin' with us, right?" Jergens asked the buck, leaning his neck over to look at his step-father face to face. If Christof wanted to go back to the actual forest, then he might as well follow them for a while.
Christof had barely even let Jergens finish before he stepped forward and lightly pressed his hairless cheek against his step-son's chest. "Course I will." he murmured, pulling back just as quickly. Jergens hadn't even really had time to register the gesture. "Not every day ya see yer own flesh n' blood all grown up." he added, his expression taking on a sad forlorn look. None of it had even really hit him yet; that after all these years his son had come back from the dead.
Jergens didn't have the heart to remind the buck that he technically [i]wasn't his flesh and blood. Instead, he offered him a tiny half-smile of acknowledgment and looked to Peony, who simply smiled in response. She didn't mind if Christof went with them. If anything, he was a new point of interest for her.
Seeing that the negotiations were all smoothed over and settled, Jergens resumed his easy pace towards the unknown forest. His curled pelt was still sopping wet from the river, but he didn't seem to mind any. Christof and Peony followed behind, catching up to him until they were neck to neck in a neat, horizontal line.
For a while, they walked in silence, each of their heads spinning with thoughts and anticipation. Eventually, it was Christof's hitching voice that broke the silence. "So... what is this place, anyway? Do ya know? Is it just a variation of the place I started out in? It has a similar exterior..." he mused.
"I don't really know..." Jergens answered honestly.
"Good. That'll make it more fun." the buck replied.
---
It was dusk by the time they reached the wall. Even close-up, the orderly line of tall oak trees looked almost, if not completely identical to the ones in the Endless Forest. Looking both ways, the deer could see no evidence of a curve or end to the line in sight. Much like the actual forest it seemed to replicate, it was endless.
The mist had lifted by the time they arrived, leaving a fairly clear view of their surroundings. The field of goldenrods was forever unchanged. In short, on the outside, it didn't look particularly special.
"Out of mild curiosity, Jergens, how long exactly did yew two travel to get here?" Christof asked. He stepped forward and experimentally bumped his horns into one of the many thick trunks.
Neither Jergens nor Peony paid any attention to him. They were too focused in looking for an opening. The one thing they were hoping that the two forests had in common was the actuality of breaks in the forest wall. Whether or not the Gods had known they existed was anyone's guess. Maybe they were defects, or maybe the trio was making a grave mistake by risking themselves in being shut out of the forest for good if the cracks ever sealed themselves. Whatever the case, there was no going back now.
"Dad... you see that light over there?" Peony was looking over to their left. Her muzzle pointed to a tiny flicker of light that bled through the wall, piercing through their darkening surroundings.
Jergens had to squint before he could see it, which surprised him a little considering how poor Peony's eyesight really was. "Yup. Let's just hope that it's bigger by the time we get there." he nodded approvingly at his daughter and started towards it, glancing over her shoulder to his step-father. "Come on, Chris!"
Christof had so steeply engrossed himself in carving out a small doodle with the tip of his hoof that he barely even noticed that he was being called. When he finished, he followed behind at an easy pace and didn't bother in racing up to catch them, humming a small tune to himself.
Their pictograms acted as flashlights as the last bit of sunlight finally gave out, gently bobbing up and down above their heads. Christof still had no idea on what they were, or what they represented, and he took the time to study both Jergens' and Peony's from behind. They didn't seem to have any particularly meaningful qualities about them; they were just a random assortment of shapes and lines. He was about to ask what they were before Jergens interrupted him. "Looks like we'll be able to make it." he mumbled hopefully. "Might be a tough squeeze, but we can manage."
Peony nodded. When they reached the gap between the trees, they could see that it was plenty large enough, and more. The opening was positively massive compared to the smallish cracks and breaks that littered the wall of their own forest. For the way it was formed, it almost looked like the opening had been intentional, like the forest wanted visitors rather than discouraged them.
From what the three could see, the gap led directly into the birch section of the forest. There weren't any particular milestones either of them could see, nor were there any deer around. Then again, Jergens wasn't all that surprised by this. Only he and a few choice others knew about the breaks in the forest wall, and how to get to them. It was no wonder that they couldn't see anyone.
However, as they stepped towards it, Jergens caught a faint, familiar scent lingering from the edges and bottom of the gaping hole. Ducking his head down, the stag noticed a pile of dampened fur coating the ground. Thankfully, there was a greater source of light from the forest than their pictograms could ever manage, and Jergens could see that the fur was a dark green hue, furled with grey at the edges.
Malware's fur.
Jergens recoiled backwards in disgust, noting just how much of the ground was coated in it. It almost looked as if the stag had shed his entire coat in the matter of a few seconds. Peony sniffed a few lone strands and looked back at her father with an uneasy smile. "I guess... Mr. Malware never said anything about this, did he?" she asked.
No, no he didn't. And for that, Jergens hated him for it. The stag had no idea what had caused it, nor did he particularly care. They had come too far just to be disappointed.
Christof didn't particularly care either way. After all, he was completely hairless. He even lacked eyebrows and eyelashes. Being bald for the majority of his life as a human, he had just assumed that this was God's way of playing some sick joke on him. "So are we still goin' in or what?" he asked.
"Hell yeah we are!" Jergens replied. No way was he going to back down from some little disconcerting thing like a measly pile of fur. "Come on, it's big enough to where we can go in together." he urged them, taking up the middle position. "Ya ready?"
Peony nodded in affirmative, and Christof didn't even bother to say yes. His answer was obvious enough. Why the hell not?
And so, if keeping in relative terms, three generations stepped through the welcoming gap.
---
The next few minutes were a blur, and murky at best.
As soon as the deer stepped into the forest's boundaries a small, numbing sensation ebbed away at their bodies. It was almost as if they were being drugged. They stopped in their tracks, spreading their hooves to gain their footing, swaying uneasily back and forth.
Jergens tried to say something, but his voice was overpowered by a hideous series of snaps that ripped at their skulls. It didn't hurt, but it did feel indescribably ghastly. The stag forced his eyes shut, only to crack them open when he heard a dull thud. His head suddenly felt lighter, and not in a good way.
A pair of large, dark grey Argus key antlers stared back at him from the ground. His own.
Biting back a terrified yelp Jergens swerved his head to the side. Peony's own beautiful flowered antlers had been torn from her head as well, leaving two sizeable gore-streaked holes in their wake on her skull. She stared back at him, her bright purple eyes mingled with fear.
Christof screamed, and Jergens whipped his head around to see dull brown patches of fur coating his step-father's bare skin. "What is this?!" he cried, his own ram shaped horns resting easily beside Jergens' own. "Oh God make it stop!" he threw his head to the side and tried to rip away the growing strands of fur with his teeth.
Jergens looked at his own body with mounting horror, and saw that his own curly red pelt was falling away from his skin, giving way to a wiry coat of chocolate brown.
"Dad!" Peony shrieked. Her muzzle was being grotesquely sucked into her face, her bright lavender fur long since fallen away. It didn't hurt. None of it was particularly painful, but she suddenly seemed to realize what was happening to them.
"We're turning into namelesses!" she cried, noticing at once that her small size was increasing. Fresh antlers were sprouting from their skulls, snaking their way from the established holes.
"Namelesses?!" Christof violently shook himself from side to side. "What the Hell is a nameless?!"
Jergens' mind was so muddled and fuzzy that he could barely even remember what a nameless even was. Wait... they were all of average size, average antlers... human face.
No masks
The realization was so powerful that the stag nearly screamed. He tried to move his legs, to do something that could reverse the process. But no; they were visitors to this forest, and for some reason, the change needed to be done. It must have been like this from their forest as well, normal deer turning into dull looking cookie-cutter beasts.
Jergens' mind tried to think of some mean to escape. Anything really, but nothing came up. All he could do was fight back. It usually helped, but it made his other self all the more violent and unpredictable.
He felt himself growing smaller, his bones shortening and compressing in on themselves. No wonder they had been drugged. Such a process would have been unbearable otherwise.
Still, he didn't have time to worry about that... Friend... why wasn't Friend saying anything?! Not even a word of triumph? It was unlike him, and the silence in his brain drove Jergens into near hysterics. His daughter was right there. Right there.
Finally, Jergens felt the comforting presence of his butterfly mask peel away from the edges of his face, loosening bit by bit until it finally fell to the ground, with Jergens following directly behind.
(weneedtotalk)
The stag felt himself being forced into unconsciousness.
But before his eyes shut, he caught sight of his pictogram, just the bare bottom ring of its ethereal glow.
He had fought with this pictogram, traveled with it, lived with it. Like it or not, the symbol was his true name, even if its name could not be spoken. It was a symbol of his individuality as a deer of The Endless Forest. The only real I.D he would ever need for the rest of his life.
And without any fanfare or ceremony, it slowly faded away.
---
I'm actually really pleased with how Christof is turning out. I wasn't so sure at first, but he's pretty fun to write out, especially since he's 'technically' not Jergens' real father. It gives him more of a sense of individuality, and I'm not constrained to giving him similar traits to Jergens.
-applauds- awesome work
awesome work gingy~
Oooooh. @-@ *glued to edge of
Signature by Roo ♥
Duuuuude. *doesn't know what
Ah this idea~ awesome and
Poor them rofl.
I loved the light creepiness in how you described it while it's happening.
Mick; Why Thankya thar
Skits; Hu, you won't be seeing them again until act tres~ Anticipationnn~
Pega; Your presence is enough <3
MunkaDunk; Hurr<3 Thank you dear c: I dunno, there's still a ton of kinks that I need to work out, but I guess it's a good start<3