Ch: 263 I Wanna Be Sedated
Jocomo sat down on the barbarian style ‘sofa’ and placed his hands in his lap, sitting rigidly erect and still. “That will do, I suppose.” Thirp muttered. “Can you not relax… at all?”
“I am at ease, lady Thirp.” He answered… stiffly.
She scuttled in a circle around him, focusing entirely too many wise, kind… spidery eyes on him. “I’m going to need to take more drastic action. You simply must unbend a little before we can continue.” She sighed. “Marduk, we are going to need to get creative.”
“Really…” He muttered crossly. “Gabbie… Jocomo… I am going to give Becky a set of instructions. You will obey her… or else. I’m sending you into normal sleep now… do not forget. Becky is in charge.” He tapped each of them between the eyes and stomped off to find Becky while they were still vanishing.
#
“I dunno… they’re… weird.” Gary mumbled.
“Gary, she’s my friend, and Shai’s too. The kids love her…” Becky scolded him gently.
“I know, love… I could deal with Gabbie… but Jocomo… he’s so broken he can’t see the damage anymore. I’ve been there and it’s hard to look at.” The big musician grumbled gently.
“That’s why you’re the only one he can relate to. You’re the only person he knows he can’t kill out of hand.” Becky said encouragingly… or so she thought.
“Yeah, we know this ‘cause he tried twice. Not a fan, Becks. That eagle claw to the kidney thing sucked!” He sank down on his stool like a petulant child. “I don’t wanna. I’m on strike from Adventure and I have other work to do.”
“Amy keeps asking me why Gabbie is sleeping so much… and crying so often.” Becky murmured. “I’ll have to figure out a way to explain…”
“All right… I’ll do what I can.” He grumbled. “Have them ready by second bell. You owe me kiddo. Bigtime.” He kissed her on top of her head and sighed. “I have a new banjo on the bench… If anybody’s looking for me.” He vanished downstairs, humming something familiar.
Rubber ducky, you’re the one…
#
The basement workshop rang to a series of sweet, chiming notes just a half hour after fourth. Gary finished tuning up and gave it a last strum, before tucking his new toy away.
The Foggy Mountain Breakup, Enchanted banjo, Etheric and spiritual enchantments. Rank, copper. Rarity, Unique.
Effect: That Dang Twang, beings incapable of perceiving sound or for whom the concept of sound is alien will perceive this instrument when played by or near a source of etheric magic.
Effect: Emancipation Vibration, the sonic and magical vibrations, harmony, resonance and dissonance created by this instrument are highly abrasive to invasive spells, compulsions and geas effects.
Effect: Deliverance, hostile magical and curse effects exposed and damaged by Foggy Mountain Breakup will corrode and degrade while exposed to music from this instrument. Complementary and synergistic effects will increase this process.
#
In The sacred throne chamber of the Empire of Light, a tiny baby girl cried piteously, lying on the cold, gleaming ‘seat’ of the cubic throne. Generations of imperial bottoms had failed to wear down or warm up that frigid block, would be empress Claudine Rex was not enjoying her afternoon at all.
Around her, seated in a circle sat twelve young men and women each holding a small bowl of their own freshly drawn blood on their laps. Luxor, Tully and Greggor, the high clerics of Order, War and Craft finished their ritual and each snuffed their candle of human fat, rendered from executed prisoners. When the human bone chimes failed to rattle and the sacred gong did not resound its doleful single note, the clerics signaled the young people, who all rose and quietly left the chamber, again.
“Another failure…” Greggor spat with displeasure.
“What are we missing? It’s never failed before!” Tully grumbled, as he collected his weeping great great granddaughter and swaddled her in a blanket.
“Those damn taxmen! This is all some plot of theirs!” Greggor sulked and dropped his stifling hood. “I never trusted them!”
“Yes you did, so did we all… only now do I begin to wonder why… much as my troops have begun to wonder where their bloody empress is!” Tully started to raise his voice, until the child protested. “We need her back… at least for a while.”
“We must redouble our efforts to recapture the former empress…” Luxor said confidently. “What have we learned?”
“The former empress fled with George and her first Whisper, Spider: escaping through the secret peephole passages Greggor had installed in all the bed and bathing chambers.” General Tully answered drily. “They took ship with a vessel of barbarian make… ‘Kingfisher’. It was last sighted sailing north… and I quote: ‘Fucking fast and fucking loud’. My informant was insistent on that point.”
“After that?” Luxor demanded.
“Unknown.” He answered curtly. “The ship flew no flag and could not be caught. My agents are currently investigating the northern ports.”
“Your agents… they haven't even been able to track down this barbarian witch that started this whole mess!” Greggor fumed. “The Light demands one little murder, of some foreign hedge witch and that bumbling… What was his name?”
“Curlew… He was forgettable, he makes a fine brace of candles though. It seemed appropriate to render him down for this debacle.” Tully grumbled sourly.
“Not that idiot, barbarian the witch! The one we sent the Left Hand to slay … What was his name?”
#
“Gary Ward… nice to meet you, Jocomo.” The two men shook hands under strict supervision from both Shai and Gabbie.
“Touching hands with another person is unsanitary.” The small, muscular man said quietly.
“Dude! You jammed your fingies into my abdomen…!” Gary snapped.
“Gary, hush! Jocomo! T’was rude an ill done.” Shai scolded both men ferociously.
Gary grumbled and walked off around the back of the house, still grumbling. “I’ll be right back… Unsanitary…”
“Jocomo… no one is going to take your head here! I order you to stop trying to get people to decapitate you!” Gabbie paced and fretted nearby, circling round and round under a rose arbor. “That’s an order from your empress!”
She tugged at her trousers and grumbled. “This feels odd. I liked skirts…”
“Aye, but we hae errands an chores tae do this day… and ye shall hae the helping of them!” Shai cackled at the pair.
Jocomo simply nodded and stood there, awaiting instruction, while Gabbie tried to figure out what she meant, from context. “I give up, Shai, what does that mean?”
Before she got her answer, Gary rolled around the house, high up on the driver’s bench of a fair sized wagon, pulled by Annie. The back was filled with a few large carefully wrapped pieces of furniture, along with a number of large crates.
“We have a few deliveries to make, then a picnic lunch and we’ll forage in the back woods for an hour or two. You’ll see some of the town and get a better sense of your ‘barbarian’ neighbors.” He said with a grin.
“I will perform whatever menial tasks you wish… Her radiance will not sully her hands.” Jocomo stood at attention, glaring at Gary like he’d suggested ending with a human sacrifice.
“I will, because Becky asked me to. Jocomo, you are my guardian, not my…” She sputtered to a stop… at a loss for words.
“Yeah… I’ll be doing most of the work, you guys are just along for a ride in the sunshine.” The mad witch sang cheerily, as Shai clambered up beside him.
The small black haired assassin looked over the cart and shook his head. “No room. Certainly not befitting my empress.” He announced.
“You guys are riding in the Mystery Machine, with Sandi.” A dust brown pony trotted out of the barn, drawing a bright blue cart behind her. Pastel colored hibiscus flowers and a block of some strange text on the side were odd… a light canvas cover strung over bent wooden hoops completed the odd little two wheeled wagon. Slats and wide gaps in the sides and cover provided a fine view out, and a modicum of privacy in the dimly shaded interior.
The high sided cargo bed was piled high with fragrant hay and wildflowers, with a few pillows and blankets… with no provision for a driver.
“Climb aboard you two. Sandi knows where we’re going.”
Standing on the porch with her arms crossed, Becky watched the empress and her assassin awkwardly clamber into the silly little hayride together. Jocomo did everything he could to avoid contact with the empress, while she hesitantly tried to figure out how to get him closer or to even… touch her. Tangled up in taboos, cultural restraints and general fucked uppedness, they were unprepared when Sandi started moving. Jocomo, graceful and lithe, swayed and bent his knees, staying on his feet. Right up until Gabbie toppled into his arms, windmilling her limbs every which way and slapping his face repeatedly.
He wound up flat on his back in the soft, sweet smelling hay, with Gabbie sprawled on top of him in an undignified and pretty unsexy heap.
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There were no comical face to butt or boobs mishaps, not even any wardrobe malfunctions. She flopped over bonelessly, once she began falling and crashed onto the small warrior in a jumble of loose limbs.
He still flushed scarlet and did his best to carefully escape without touching his empress inappropriately…
“Jocomo! We were expressly forbidden to carry weapons!” Gabbie fussed, rubbing her tummy and frowning. “Give me whatever that is you have hidden this instant!” She scolded, holding out a slender, dark hand, imperiously.
“I have no weapon, Empress.” He answered, while shifting into a new spectrum of embarrassment. The small man’s face went all blotchy and red, while his forehead went chalk white.
“You do! The hilt of something poked me!” She insisted.
His ears seemed to radiate physical heat in the cool morning, as the wagon kept trundling along and Sandi towed her cargo behind. “Empress…” He gasped, barely holding himself together. “That was just… me.”
“Oh… In that case…” She flopped down beside the diminutive warrior, landing in the hay beside him with a smile. “I know all about boy parts now… Thirp explained everything!” She sighed happily. “I can’t thank you and Rolf enough for showing me yours…”
The wagon took a sudden lurch, hurling the two back together gently. Jocomo’s quick, strong hands caught his empress by her slender, smooth shoulders, before their lips could meet by accident.
“Forgive me, empress of my heart… these are trying times…” He murmured, misinterpreting the look of disappointment that crossed her sweet, smiling cheeks.
“I understand. We are in a strange land, perhaps some of the rules need not apply here. Between just you and I…” She whispered softly, so close that he could feel her breath on his cheek.
The cart shook again, pitching her lips into his…
#
“Gary me love… what be that?” Shai asked softly. “Are ye playin wi a wee toy wagon?”
Her fool had a tiny model of the Mystery machine in his hands… at irregular intervals he would press down on one side or the other of his toy cart. He’d even faithfully modeled the complex suspension in his toy, duplicating the cart exactly… very exactly.
“Nuffin… and I’m uncle Gary now.” He lied poorly. “I’m gonna be an uncle… auntie Shai.”
“Mind me… ye foolish boy!, I’ll be keepin’ thee frae disturbing me wee new brother’s mind wi yer moontouched ways… creepy uncle Gary. Now show me this toy.” She sassed, holding out her hand. He placed his toy in that beloved, scarred mitt and sighed.
“It’s a magical tool designed to make the cart pitch and roll when I fiddle with it…” He murmured, deeply embarrassed to have been caught. “I’m using it to mess with them.”
“Ye are just buffeting them about? Fie, lad…” She grumbled.
“No… Xyll, my bat friend is roosting in the canopy… She’s telling me when to roll them into each other. I’m not just being a jerk… it’s all part of the plan.” He grinned at her and nodded. “Push down gently on the right side of the model…”
She shrugged and slowly flexed the toy’s suspension, dipping it to the right.
Behind them, the small blue cart swayed drunkenly to the right, bobbing on its suspension of torsion bars and captured springs. The high, sweet, oddly clanging notes of his new banjo darted into the sky like startled birds, ringing against the tempo of the hoofbeats on Wheatford’s gleaming, smooth paved roads.
Though I've tried before to tell her,
Of the feelings I have for her in my heart…
Every time that I come near her,
I just lose my nerve as I've done from the start!
Every little thing she does is magic!
Everything she do just turns me on!
Even though my life before was tragic,
Now I know my love for her goes on…
His song rolled on and on, chiming, cheerful and sprightly, yet still passionate and intense. He shook the birds from their trees, calling them to sing and dart from tree to tree as they drove on down the road.
#
Gabbie rolled over and grabbed him up in an accidental hug, throwing one long, slender leg over his deeply upset form. “Ester says I should simply take you as my lover…” She murmured.
“As my empress commands.” He answered calmly, while still turning new and exciting colors.
“I don’t want to command it! I want you to want me!” She sulked quietly, rolling away in a huff.
“As my empress commands.” He answered again.
“No! I want You to want Me!” She fussed, sitting up cross legged and glaring at him.
“I am yours… body, mind and soul, my empress.” He answered in confusion and growing distress. “If you command me to desire you…”
She cut him off with an inarticulate huff and spun on her pert backside in the loose, comfy hay. Once she was faced entirely away from him, she sniffed disdainfully. “Thirp says that a lack of ‘parity in the relationship dynamic’ is your problem.” She complained. “You need to start taking some initiative… That’s an order!”
“Yes, my empress, it shall be as you command.” He answered again, waiting calmly for instructions.
“The condition of the roads in this barbarian land must be awful.” Gabbie complained, when another sudden lurch hurled her into his lap… where she bumped into that ‘hilt’ again…
She remained sprawled on top of him for a timeless moment, their limbs entangled, like the lovers on her favorite naughty bathing screen.
“Perhaps smooth roads are not so important after all…” She murmured, intoxicated by the warmth and solidity of him. And deeply intrigued by the thing poking her in the side, no matter how he tried to squirm away from his empress.
Her hand closed on the back of his neck, in a deliberate and affirmative embrace.
She gasped at her own audacity, reaching out and touching him… ‘Accidentally’ brushing against him in these circumstances could be ignored…
Her hand tingled with the warm, pulsing vein beneath her fingertips, as she gently pulled his lips to her own trembling throat.
“Empress…” Jocomo whispered, his lips moving against her skin in ways that made her tremble, as her heart struggled to beat in time with the wild, soaring music outside their little rolling nest.
“Here, I am Gabbie… Jocomo.” She sighed in the dark, swaying confines of their hayride. “Just Gabbie and Jocomo, like when we played as children…”
#
Gary pulled up outside a farmhouse, surrounded by a low fieldstone wall and hedgerow lined pastures all around. He hopped down, as his banjo vanished, replaced by a wide smile. Shai pretended to have difficulty climbing down, so she could wave her butt in his face and demand his assistance… his hands on her hips led to a brief interruption in the day’s chores.
A short break later, while Shai adjusted her bodice, Gary dropped the tailgate and started carefully shifting one of a pair of large, blanket wrapped objects.
Together the giants hauled their burden up to the small home and vanished inside, returning a moment later for the other large object. They re-emerged, smiling and waving to an old couple with deeply tanned faces and wide smiles.
The morning continued that way, the two would roll up to a common farmhouse or cottage, unload something and sometimes replace it with additional cargo. A broken plowshare, scrap metal, rough cut lumber, even baskets of live poultry and a few goats.
The little blue cart followed along, with the occupants watching the sights and scenery roll by, when they weren’t… ‘busy’.
They made a full circuit of the town, picking up and dropping off as they went. The poultry went into a noisy, squawking farmyard filled with feathered friends, the goats joined a herd on the stony hillsides, cropping the sparse foliage happily. When the wagon rolled back across the bridge to the mad inn across the river, the wagon bed was filled with rough, green lumber and large, rusty or corroded farm junk.
Shai and Gabbie darted off for the baths cooing and chattering as soon as the slender, dusky beauty emerged from the cart, glowing with excitement. Jocomo looked like he had been dragged behind the cart for a mile.
“This is what you do? Trade goods for trash?” Jocomo asked the big madman, while he was unstrapping the load of junk. His face clearly said he didn’t care one way or another, he wanted an excuse to not go inside yet… Any excuse, even helping this barbarian witch unload his garbage cart.
“Kinda. I’m in a legal dispute about my status… whether or not I’m a slave, public property or an undocumented immigrant. I have to barter for goods, since I’m not legally allowed to trade privately…” He shrugged aimlessly. “I don’t really care anymore. At this point I’m about to just light it up and let the world of men burn.”
As he spoke, objects slowly began vanishing from the cart bed. Nothing happened while Jocomo was watching, but by the time the fool shut up, the cart was empty…
The huge brown horse ducked herself out of her harness and tack, leaving the gear dangling there and strolled into the stable, after fondly nuzzling the fool’s hair.
Jocomo kept watching, as the man worked and chatted, calmly unhooking the tack and storing it… somewhere? The assassin took a moment to reflect back on his interactions with the witch… He never fetched, carried or searched for… anything. It was always right there, no matter what it might be.
“What are you, witch? What is the meaning of all of this?” He hissed softly, from behind the creature.
“Meh, I’m just a maker of shiny, noisy toys… if you clowns could leave me alone for just a little while, you’d forget all about me and my silliness.” He sighed and knuckled his lower back, like a workman after a hard day’s labor.
“Your empress has had a taste of my gifts, she won’t want to leave me be either…”
“If my empress demands something of you, it would be a greater honor than you deserve, to fulfill her every desire even at the cost of your very soul.” Jocomo answered coldly, accompanied by a frigid glare.
“I get the whole, ‘Loyal Shinobi’ aesthetic you have going on here… But your princess is in my castle now… As my guest… You should consider carefully…” He paused with an odd look on his face and grumbled to himself.
“...Got me doing evil villain monologues…”
Gary ground to a stop and stood there, calmly waiting for the man to get himself together… he stood there looking uncomfortable, nervous and somehow still dangerous…
“Gods damn it… All right buddy. The girls are in the private bath, so we have a little while… come on.” He grabbed the compact warrior by his collar and dragged him away, toward the fruit and vegetable garden on the other side of the house.
As he walked so purposefully, the red haired lad with the chain whip fell in, smiling brightly. A moment later the ginger giant stomped out of the house, dusting his hands off and smiling.
A muscular man with spiky black hair and devilishly handsome angular face joined up as well, emerging from a potting shed, wiping his hands on a cloth. He realized belatedly that this was the competent warrior he had scuffled with so briefly at their first meeting. “I have a fresh strain for you to try…” He said cheerfully, holding up a small ceramic jar.
“More headband?” The witch asked cryptically.
“No! Well, yes… I have others… I just really like this one…” He smiled and winked at the gathered young men. “To the secret hideout!”
They all trooped over to a small copse of trees with a cold, sweet spring bubbling up from a rocky cleft. In the shade, by the babbling stream, a number of mossy stumps and fallen logs provided seating. The witch produced a pipe and began filling it from his friend’s little crock, while the others did the same.
“Cannabis…” He muttered, recognising the smell. “Imperial Whispers are forbidden to indulge in drugs that dull the senses.”
“Nope, new rule, doctor Becky’s orders. We’re going to smoke ourselves stupid, splash around in the public baths while we straighten out, then go for a picnic lunch in the woods with my kids.” The madman mumbled around his already smoldering pipe.
“It is more of a guideline…” Jocomo grumbled.
He passed it over with a grin. “Go on. You’re in barbarian lands now… smoke up.” He leaned back and sighed a vast cloud of gray smoke into the sky, after a few long moments.
They sat quietly for a while, passing the pipes around in a circle, sharing an odd form of camaraderie.
“You are skilled warriors… for barbarians.” Jocomo muttered finally, nodding to the three men who were definitely humans. “That whip of yours is strange…”
“Yeah, you saw the training version, it’s a lot safer to use around friends and… absorbent surfaces.” The small warrior with red hair said with a grin. “The real one gets… messy.”
“Nope… nope…” The stoned witch chattered. “Keep yer weapons tucked away boys…” He giggled foolishly at something or other and shook his head. “There’s been enough sword measuring in my house for a while.”
“You seek to shame me, witch. If my empress commands, I will show you my butthole and make it wink at you, without embarrassment.” Jocomo grumbled.
“Ahh there we are… Guys, could ya’ leave me an Joco alone for a bit, we need to have a chat and I think he’s ready now. Meet you in the bath for floatsies in… ten minutes.” The smoked out creature murmured happily.
When his new friends had vanished into the baths a scant thirty paces away, but seeming miles off, Jocomo once more felt a profound unease in his bones. The discomfort of being alone with this thing shook his usual confidence to its core.
“What do you demand of me now, witch?” He asked as pleasantly as he could manage.
“All right Jocomo… It’s Gary. Not witch, not creature… get your head out of your ass. I’ve been bending over backwards for you and Gabbie ‘cause my lady and my kids like her. They like her; you are wearing out your welcome rapidly.”
“Very well… Gary. My empress does not wish you slain for what you have done… so be it. I will accommodate your wishes, since I must remain by her side. Despite what I sense; the evil in you, the unnatural creatures stalking your shadow… I will refrain from slaying you, for the moment.”
“Dude. You're not the first person to decide I must be ‘cleansed’ or some such… Most of them have either gotten on board or are learning new perspectives the hard way.” With startling suddenness, the aura of menace and sinister, lurking doom vanished, replaced by a whimsical smile and a tiny stringed instrument. “You are a guest in my house and the retainer of my sister, but hospitality has its limits. Now come on. It’s bathtime, then we go for a stroll in the woods.”
Jocomo followed the mad fellow into the public baths, as their little smoking grove vanished behind them. “Can’t let the girls find out where we hide for boys time…” He muttered with a grin.
The odd giant draped a friendly arm over his small companion and chuckled wryly. “I don’t know about you… but I’m having a grand time being on strike…” He chattered. “My contract customer thinks that they own me and are planning to take ownership in slightly more than a year. I’m refusing to work until then, it’s all very stupid.”
“Yes, it sounds truly idiotic.” Jocomo agreed firmly. Your lord should have you beaten, publicly. Obedience is the orphan’s code, obedience and service!”
“Ohh, buddy… I really need you to hang out with my kids… They need lessons in obedience and service!” He cackled madly as he disrobed in the bathing and changing room.
“The three children in this house? I’ve seen them… yes, very disruptive and troublesome.” He agreed grimly.
“Jocko… I wasn’t being serious, but I am now. If you try to ‘discipline’ my kids… I will tear you to pieces, even if it makes Gabbie sad.” With mercurial swiftness, he was once more a jolly clown, grinning and naked. “Now shower up and into the bath, you smell like Bob Marley’s guitar case.”
Jocomo washed and slipped into the bath, contemplating his mad host and his ever shifting shadow and face. His hideous purple and red scars suggested that the dangerous man was the real face of this trickster. No simple fool could survive such… and yet the man was a lunatic, beyond question.
The red haired giant launched his small, muscular, black haired companion through the sky, displaying the terrible might he had experienced in their brief battle… While the small red haired boy took a tumbling leap off the tall rock formation the spring gushed from, slicing the water like a plunging blade.
“These all bear watching…” He murmured softly as he watched the men bob about and make fools of themselves in the water. It took a while for him to notice the smile on his own face, at their antics.
‘It must be the drug.’ He thought, as his smile widened.
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