Bartleby’s hand was still bleeding. Jergens, being the understanding and kind gentleman that he was, shrugged and hoisted Bartleby onto his back.

“Wha… What are you doing?! Unhand me!” Bartleby struggled against him his kidnapper casually ran down the halls at a casual pace of casualness. “Hell no, man. Besides, you think I want to carry you? Yer freaking blood is leaving a stain on my shirt.” Jergens didn’t even know where the ‘infirmary’ was. Hell, he didn’t even know WHAT an ‘infirmary’ was. He hoped he was going in the right direction, but knowing his own luck, he probably wasn’t.

After a while Bartleby, growing a bit faint from blood loss, lightly tapped Jergens’s shoulder. “Do you even know where you’re going?” he almost whispered. “The infirmary is well behind us now; you see the plaques on the walls, don’t you?” Jergens turned around without a word and doubled back, noticing that there were indeed little sheets of metal on the wall with unrecognizable scribbles on them. Jergens guessed that these were probably words telling one where to go to get to somewhere… or something like that. Hell, he didn’t know.

After a bit more of running and pushing away bewildered servants, Bartleby tapped his shoulder again, this time barely moving. “You passed it again…” he managed to mumble out. “You can’t read… can you? I should have known…” he faltered and fell limp against Jergens. The red-headed youth promptly began to panic and took a random turn into another hallway.

It wasn’t very well lit, and the whole area seemed to be giving off some bad vibes. At least to Jergens it was. Unlike the rest of the estate, it didn’t look like anyone maintained it. He saw that there was a large door at the very end of it all, and he walked towards it, exhausted from carrying the extra weight of Bartleby around. His hands were supporting both of Bartleby’s legs, so knocking was out of the question. Not that it mattered anyway. Knocking with one’s hand was not the Jergens way. Jergens raised his foot and promptly kicked at the door repeatedly, definitely the Jergens way.

After much kicking there came a muffled sound from the other side. Something like someone muttering in mild annoyance. The door cracked open and out came a large stag, obviously from the nearby forest. “Yes?” he muttered, looking down and tersely snuffing at his new visitor.

Jergens always thought, from the first day that he had wandered into this town, that these deer were pretty creepy. Not only could some of them talk to people, but some of them had freaky as Hell human faces as well, like this one did. Admittedly though, they weren’t near as terrifying as dogs. This stag in particular looked almost like a normal deer minus the human countenance. His antlers had been broken, and pelt looked a bit grey, betraying his age only a little.

The stag noticed Bartleby and snorted in surprise. “Ah? The Master I see…” he looked back at Jergens. “Is it the bleeding sickness again?” he asked. Jergens, who was all for ignorance, just stupidly nodded his head. “Of course, what else could it be?” the stag muttered as he ushered the two through the large door, closing it behind him with his teeth. “Lay him over there.” The stag politely commanded, nodding his head over in the direction of a flat cot. Jergens walked over and laid down his burden, uneasily noticing that the cot had old blood stains on it.

“Now, tell me where the cut is.” The stag walked over and examined Bartleby’s unconscious body, his hooves clicking rhythmically against the hard ground. Jergens noticed that the stag, like all other deer of the forest, had a glowing pictogram floating atop his head. Jergens awkwardly fished around and picked up Bartleby’s pale arm, the small graze from Nippers’s pen still bleeding. The stag nodded and bent his massive head down, nosing Jergens away as he did so. He let his nose gently touch the cut, letting the blood paint it.

Jergens was looking at the deer curiously when a sudden flash of blinding light made him shield his eyes with a small cry of surprise. The stag’s pictogram had flared up and died down, in only a few seconds. The stag looked over at his guest and urged him over, bidding him to look at the cut. Only the cut was no longer there, it had been healed. “Our magic.” The deer said, only half explaining the curious phenomena that had occurred. Jergens was about to ask something when the stag continued, “The bleeding sickness runs in the Bartleby family. They bruise easily and when they bleed, the blood never clots. It’s more common in males, but the Lady Bartleby has it herself.” He trailed off, talking more to himself than he was talking to Jergens. He nosed Bartleby’s cheek, leaving a small imprint of his blood from earlier. “He will wake soon.” The stag mumbled.

Jergens was still creeped out, but decided to wait with the stag for Bartleby to wake up, for his own sake. Neither of them noticed that the door behind them had opened, and that a young woman was peeking shyly in the wake of them.

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Ha! See? NOW it's related to the endless forest! I TOLD you it would one of these days! >D
Sorry for more than likely spelling errors and missing words, I gotta go. I'll fix them up later.