[Winter - Moonton]

With restrained grunts, J.J. Cool opened his heavy eyelids as the light that pulsed from the open sky, through shattered roof panels, the persistent rays proved brilliant. An interior and exterior world had collided. Insects buzzed, hummed, as dirt fluttered in the wind for a length of attention. He coughed and looked up at a group of faces staring down in unison.

Jennings' face scrunched in agony.

“-Woah.”

His voice dry as a desert, hoarse. The familiar face of Penny was accompanied by the welcomed expressions of Rosemary and Ollie. Jennings wiped his eyes and places his hands back as support, to little avail, coughing as a sharp pain traveled from his chest up his right arm. He slumped backward.

“Oh-!”

Once he was able to settle into the debris, he looked upward. Interwoven amongst their concerned states were a couple unfamiliar ones. Buck was a newer acquaintance, and as such, took a little time to process his portrayal with a cowboy hat and bubbly, clean-shaved face. Near Buck's face, behind a faint cloud of still-dissipating dust was Dr. Sid Calvin in tiny spectacles, beginning to give up on his suture work. He was a balding, frail man whose meticulous nature was evident from his mannerisms.

The doctor removed the medical scissors from around his fingers, placing them on some wooden shards near.

"Alright, alright, give my patient some room to breathe."

The lot stepped back, over each others' feet. Stumbling into place with what little floor wasn't covered in debris. The shack was shabby, but now, it was partially demolished and in shambles. Splinters were now a threat anywhere a hand could rest.

Jennings inhaled deep, filling his lungs with fuel. His voice was weak, yet solid.

"Poni, Wolf… Lou. They're still out there."

Penny rested her hand on his shoulder, it was jagged, protruding within his haggard shirt, dislocated. The adrenaline stifled any agony, instead she saw the outlaw's trance get lost in the external radiance of the seeping nature.

J.J. exerted himself with no announcement while Penny 's surprise couldn't be contained.

"Dr. Sid! Ollie, stop him."

Jennings barely budged himself, yet the lack of shoulder support and the pain associated with such injury leaked from within. His bloodshot eyes swelled, as he turned his head to Penny grasping firmly to stop her wrist still. In an instant, he ripped his torso into unison with a well-angled flail, almost kicking Dr. Sid in the process.

J.J. had rejoined his dislocation, solo with but a grimace. Dr. Calvin scoffed in approval. Jennings whirled his arm in-socket to test its efficiency.

"Clean." The doctor ruled. “Unorthodox, but effective.”

J.J. was confused in pain, dazed, as Ollie neared.

“We got here after the crash, but boy did you take a real tumble again this round- J.J.”

Ollie patted the recently dislocated shoulder, Jennings responded with a death stare, causing the old pal to gulp spit. Penny gasped. The two criminals laugh through it.

“This doc here J.J. has earned me’ trust. Dr. Sid Calvin, a Shark member and surgeon to the most injured in the Western Halfland, I do say something to tha’ accord.”

Dr. Calvin was hardly paying mind to any flattery, he chose to ask J.J. further medical questioning.

“J.J. Cool, is it? Hmm…They’ve informed me you enjoy being called that, correct?”

Jennings pursed his lips.

“Yeah, pisses people off to have to say it. Keeps me warm.”

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“Very well,” the doctor wasn’t charmed, instead continuing his line of inquiry. “On that subject, do you feel any internal warmth as you speak? I can see your saliva is already tinted… well, red.”

The doc leaned in. J.J. patted himself, starting at the torso, then spreading throughout his alternating arms. He stretched each limp limb to its current pain capacity, testing his threshold, while not saying a thing.

"I'm as good as I get, nowadays."

"I don't doubt that."

Dr. Calvin was composed enough to mask his empathy from others. He knew the pain subsided, yet existed within. The doctor placed a warm hand on J.J.'s uninjured shoulder as the outlaw stood up.

“-Look J.J. Cool, don’t forget now, I understand the sentiment. You push yourself before others feel the need, it’s admirable. I recommend looking around, and seeing that you built yourself a foundation of support, whether you’re aware or not.”

J.J. looks down at the frail doc as he fully stands, grimacing. The man continued, but enigmatic and under his breath.

“I may be a cranky old doctor, but I’m also a Shark. We trust our shiver.”

He smiled as he began to put away his tools and drove his attention away from the bruised and battered Jennings. For him to be standing was a job well done. As J.J. shakes the last of the debris off him and onto the sunlit spots between jagged shadows. He turns into an immediate hug by Penny.

“We found you.”

She pivots her streaming eyes downward into Jennings, as she mushes her next words out.

“-I wa- wor-ied.”

Jennings gave in, he was learning to enjoy the sensation of embrace. There was a unique warmth he now solely associated with Penny and her overabundance in admiration. He begins to pick at a splinter under his fingernail, she ended the clutch early and stepped back, center of the room.

“J.J., there’s something you gotta know bout’ the dojo…”

She looks at her feet, as Jennings’ begins to feel that familiar sensation of loss creep from unknown depths within.

[Winter - Moonton]

In the mild streets of moonton, the wind pelted a scarved Eriko. He winced and minimized his steps through the busy streets with long strides and awkward hops between others. Children were startled, as they reached for their guardians hands to expedite their safety of his passing. He whiffed the smell of smoked croc, blanketed in the air around the market of Moonton. Witches would line the sides of the walkways and solicit curses or hexes for minimal charge, but heavy on the conscious.

Instead, The Immortal proceeded with a destination in mind.

Further down the block of vendors laid a red-striped tent. It surrounded itself in flagstaffs of wood and tall green hedges. The adornments were a lace-like material, all black with gold-accented trims. Beautiful by the shimmer. One could have their attention stolen across the market by the contrasting black-white sign that read- ‘TELEGRAPHER’, in a tall, gold font.

Eriko stepped to the front of the tent, ripping aside its red flap-door. He gingerly peered in, the interior was dimly lit by candle. Sitting asleep at the table was a bearish individual. His forearms were dense with dark-black hair like a greenwood, while his skin was as pale as the moonlit evening in the nearby mountains. With a selfish sigh- he reached forward to tap the top of the bell placed for this occasion.

*Ding*

The man carried on, open-mouth sleeping.

*Ding-Ding*

He began snoring.

*Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding-Ding*

It worked. Wiping away the crust in his eyes, he had awoken in professional posture with no intent of rushing.

“Oh- caught me driftin’ off. Name’s Steve, this here is ma’ business. What can I offer ya’?

Eriko looked around the interior.

“You offer a telegram service here, do you not?”

“Oh- oh, of course. That’s gonna be that desk, right over thisa’ way.”

The man hopped down from a stool that had added height. Eriko looked down on the man from behind, before stopping just short of the workbench. Mahogany wood, and kept in pristine condition, atop it was Steve’s business’ backbone and prized possession, his telegraph.

The store owner pulled a small stool from behind the door. He implored Eriko to sit, but he rejected the gesture. Placing his spectacles upon his face, he looked forward and inquired.

“So, what’s the message?”

“Okay, pay close attention…

Dear Mr. Bahr,..”

The working man nodded and leaned into his labor with a smile. His professionalist aura never waned throughout the interaction.

Things aren’t going well yet.

Don’t need more money.

Need to speak again.

Need your wisdom.”

“Right, right. Got it all tapped away for ya’, and now about that payment.”

Eriko turns away and starts toward the door at a casual pace. His smug actions peeved the shop owner, as his demeanor soured in his response.

“Oh, so you’re just a user? Someone that treats life like a- like it should be for you..”

Eriko looks back as he lifts the flap, frigid.

“I got what I wanted, right?”

He drops the curtain after his statement, exiting the establishment without paying.