Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2022 21:01:29 GMT -5
[for @warren , bones]
“Wait, Ber, he was in the chest?”
“Yep.” Ber made a face as he remembered the smells and sounds and sights of Frederick Long decaying in his own bodily fluids. “Super dead. Like, I don’t even know, there were flies and he barely looked human and his skin just—“ He shook his head, disgusted. “And the smell, especially once he opened it. Duncan, I promise you’ve never smelled anything so foul in your life.”
Tucked away out of immediate sight from the most well-traveled walkways, the two of them were leaning up side by side against the wall of the training grounds, watching the newest batch of twelve year olds being put through their paces. Caught up in their lesson, the kids looked tiny with their little training swords and boundless energy that showed just how few laps they’d really run. Ber thought the small group of particularly wide-eyed children that lingered toward the back were commoners.
“I’ve smelled the food that gets snuck into the barracks and then forgotten about,” Duncan pointed out skeptically, drawing his friend’s gaze away from the trainees.
Ber shook his head. “It’s so much worse than that.” He tried to explain, but he couldn’t find any words that seemed strong enough to properly describe the putrid odor that he sometimes thought clung to him even now, over a week later. “And that’s not even the most disgusting part, Duncan, because then Woodwick goes and he just rolls up his sleeves—“
“No, he doesn’t—“
“He does, because we still don’t actually know if it’s Long at this point, but he apparently had a scar on his arm—“
“So he just—“
“Yep.” Ber let his head thunk against the wall behind him as Duncan made a sound of disgust. The other soldier had wanted to know what had happened, but that didn’t mean he had to like the answer. “It gets better, because we’ve found Long, right?” His friend nodded. “So I’m expecting we’re going to go because that’s what we were there to do and any reasonable person would want to leave as soon as possible. But no, we have to stay around and try to solve every last mystery for no good reason, Mr. Stormcrest.” He did a poor approximation of Woodwick’s voice, accompanied by an eye roll. “He already knew the answers to half of what he was asking me, and in the end, we didn’t even get all the information from everything else, anyway.” Ber shook his head and let out a frustrated sigh. “But that’s why I’m avoiding him even more now, and if you’re smart, you will, too, before he drags you into something like that.”
He put his head in his hands, peering out at his friend through his fingers as the other soldier gave him a commiserating pat on the shoulder. Another heavy sigh. “Duncan, why me.” The question was half-rhetorical. “I was just minding my own business. What did I do to deserve this.”