Another Day

"Well." Bartholomew got up, still rubbing his face. "Listen, mister… what's yer name…"

"Sanguine!" The Count de la Sanguine Marque's face snapped back towards Bar, facing him now with that stupid smile. "At your service."

"Yes, yes, right, Sandwich. Powers, I'm hungry…" Bar looked at his stomach, which was gurgling louder by the second.

He looked around for any way off the high grey plateau and saw a forest at the bottom of a steep, rocky grey slope.

"Look, Mister Sandbun, I do appreciate the… help…" Bar was reluctant using that term to describe the Count's actions. "...that you do generously provided me with, but I'm starvin', an' I'm hungry enough an' thirsty enough to drown a Great Fish, eat it, and then drink the river I drowned it with. So I'll be goin', I think."

The Count assumed an expression of amused bewilderment. "O-oh. Well then. Odd example, but I suppose it suffices to demonstrate your point. I could have a nibble of fish steak myself, I do say…"

"Agh, enough with your blather, you odd man." Bar started walking away, waving off the annoying Count.

"Wha- Wait!! Why, you can't simply just wander off on your own!" The Count hurriedly followed the red-haired man in his birthday suit.

"Why, we have so much to discuss, you and I! The ramifications of your new abilities, what this means for science and alchemy and Arcanists everywhere!" Sanguine talked into his ear as Bar attempted to storm off toward the hill, but the persistent man only kept pace with him, no matter how fast he walked nor how many times he turned to the side.

"I'm the only one within a dozen leagues that knows as much as I do about the Arcane and it's principles, I could teach you and help you understand your new faculties! Why, at the very least, I could help you get yourself some pants!"

"That's right, I ne'er did find out where ma pants went, or ma shoes for that matter…" Bar shook off the stray thought. Pants could wait. For now, his family jewels would just have to dangle for a while until he found some food first. He felt like he would die of hunger if he didn't eat something soon.

"Och, give it a rest, won't you, you blighted bugger? You've explained ta me plainly my situation, now it's up ta me to remedy it, innit not?" Bar reached the cliff side and stepped off.

A bad idea, in hindsight, as he immediately slipped on the precariously piled pebbles and fell into a roll down the hill. The Count saw it happening and reaching a hand to grab him, but by then he was already halfway down.

The Count could only watch and wince as the poor man rolled like a log for a few seconds until he reached the bottom with a loud crack, as if that same log had now just split.

"Ah… Are you alright down there?" Sanguine tentatively shouted at the prone body curled around a tree. "Really do need to get that poor boy some pants…"

LATER

"Agh… really shouldna' have tried ta… climb doon in ma conditio- OW!"

Bar had just stepped on a particularly sharp rock while the self-proclaimed nobleman physic held him up on his shoulder, as the odd pair walked through the thick forest at the bottom of the cliff face together, stumbling over roots and stones alike. It was late afternoon, and they did not have much time left before the day gave way into twilight.

"Quite right, dear boy, quite right. Attempting to descend the very vertical cliff was not the wisest course of action. After all, you are extremely hungover, have sustained numerous cuts and bruises in your transportation to the site, not to mention a stab wound to the chest, the Powers only know how you're not bleeding out internally-"

"Would ye just *shut up*! Gods, I ken hardly hear meself think when you talk!" Bar's temper was rising higher and higher, and it didn't help that he was absolutely ravenous for some food. His stomach felt like it was digesting itself.

In fact, he hadn't been this hungry since his first week in the city as a lad, when he was forced to beg for scraps from passing strangers. Some gave him crumbs, some entire loaves of bread out of pity, and still others kicked him back into the ground with more force than was necessary for their trouble.

"Why, don't you want to hear my diagnosis? I am, after all, an acclaimed physician with credits and honors from numerous universities and academic courts! I could examine you, give you a little check-over, understand your very.." The Count gave an excited shudder. "... *unique* condition."

Bar was vaguely horrified by the Count's eagerness to 'examine' him, whatever that meant, but even he recognized that he needed help to get back to the city, in his state. Especially since he kept blacking out for small instants after he wrapped himself around a tree, and he was in no way, shape or form, keen to be unconscious again in the "good doctor��s" presence.

"Fear not, my dear… I'm sorry, I never got your name…?"

The Count waited for Bar to respond.

Bar took a moment to painfully hop over a large root while Sanguine simply shimmied over. Every movement brought pain now.

"Bartholomew. Most call me Bar."

"Ah! Careful!" The Count grabbed the slowly toppling red-haired before his face could make acquaintance with the ground again. "Steady on, good chap, we'll be back at the village and on my carriage in no time. Bar, you say? Surely you haven't been given that moniker because of your penchant for establishments of the alcohol-serving sort?" The Count covered his mouth with his fingertips and gave a little "ho, ho, ho" as he steered Bar away from an incoming tree.

"Wha' did I deserve to have such traveling company inflicted up'on me poor self?" Bar sluggishly thought to himself. "Is this the Powers Above's punishment for tha' time I bit that man's ear off? Not like he was usin' it at the time anyway…"

The man Bar was referring to was a certain vagabond who used to beat Bar whenever he was caught "stealing" from the rotten leftovers tossed out every night behind one of the taverns when he was a boy. Why, he could hear the grimy, skinny man now. "That's my food, pipsqueak! Ain't no room in this city for the likes a' you!"

Bar remembered how his pleas and cries went unheard as the vagrant laid into him with a rat club in that dank alleyway behind the tavern. "Now scram, and if I catch you out 'ere again, I'll do worse than my billy-club next time!" Then the man stinking like fish and wet dog would leave. And then Bar would lie there in the muck for some time, letting the bruises fade away before trying his luck at the fishing harbor. At least, that's what usually happened.

On this particular night, after getting beaten nearly into oblivion, Bar was so hungry and filled with rage that he decided to pay back the man what he felt was due, and put something in his stomach in the process. In his pain-filled delirium, the scrawny red-headed boy got off the grimy cobblestone, got on all fours like a hellcat, and *pounced* onto the man's back.

The man made a surprised howl, and flailed his arms trying to reach the beastie that was clinging to his back. Snarling like an animal, Bar grabbed his face, dug his nails into his tormentor's eyes, and chomped on the man's left ear. The vagrant's yells quickly turned into panicked shrieking as he tried desperately to get the little demon off his back, but it was no use. Bar jumped off the man, using his back as a springboard, taking a good portion of the man's ear with him. He remembered seeing his loose tooth flying in the air, and the man's yells as he ran away, clutching his bleeding, ruined ear.

Meanwhile, the Count kept talking, blissfully unaware of his companions' reveries. "...and we must get you proper accommodations for the night, yes indeed, it won't do to have you spending your nights in the rank gutter again. I can recommend several excellent inns for you to lodge in while you recuperate from your wounds. I will expect compensation, of course, but I am generous, thus I am willing to receive it in the form of studying your extraordinary physiology, if it so pleases yo-"

The Count turned around another massive tree and suddenly stopped, and sharply elbowed Bar in the side.

"Och, what now, you madman?" Bar's next words (which were not very kind) trailed off before he could start them as he saw what was directly in front of them. Three rough-looking men in patchy leather armor around a doused fire armed with knives, short swords, and hatchets abruptly halted packing their things. Count Sanguine and Bar had just stumbled upon a road bandit's campsite.

Both parties saw each other at the same time, and both parties took a second before reacting. The armed men were faster. They dropped their packs, unsheathed swords, and unhooked axes in the space of a breath, and then began to advance menacingly upon the weary travelers.

"Oh no." Count Sanguine quickly turned pale, and dropped Bar from his shoulder like a sack of grain before throwing his hands up. "Please don't hurt me, I'm not armed! Mercy, have mercy!" The thugs surrounded the pleading Count with his back against a tree, ignoring the half-naked red-haired man lying on his face in the dirt.

"Where'd you come from? Who else knows you're here?" The bandit in the middle said, swiftly putting his knife against the cringing Count's throat. He had a rough-and-tumble kind of face, with the too-square jaw, pockmarks, and blockly nose of someone even a mother could punch. "Nobody!! No one, I swear! I was just helping my patient here get to the nearest road, I'm a physic!!"

The leader scowled, revealing a set of very neglected teeth. "Oh yeah? Then why're you and your friend all the way out here in the first place? Are you manhunters? Bounty men? Answer!" The bandit's close proximity to the Count's face coupled with his simply terrible breath caused him to gag a little.

"Boss, 'ese don't look loike bounty men tah me.", the grizzled bandit on the right said. "Ey've got no weapons, and barely any clothes either." The lanky bird-nosed ruffian on the left circled around the leader and the shaking Count, giving Bar a swift kick in the side while the man was trying to get up. "Oi think Sike's right. Methinks these sorry sods were 'avin a wee ge'away in the woods, away from tha pryin' eyes o' high society, if'n you get my meanin'." He gave the leader a pointed look, while jerking his head to Bar's noticeable lack of pants.

The Count gasped in indignation, knife still against his larynx. "Why I never- I resent that accusation, good sir!" He pointed at the lanky bandit, who was bemused at this. "Never in my life have I harbored fantasies or fancies for the same sex! Well, to be honest, I've never harbored *any* fantasies towards a particular sex, but that's besides the poiiii-" He trailed off into a wheeze and the bandit leader socked him in the stomach.

"You, lil' maggot, will only *speak* when spoken to." The leader, holding the Count by the cuff, waved his knife in the gasping man's face for emphasis.

"Now, ye've got to tha' count o' five to answer all my questions, or you'll find yourself wi'out a nose. Savvy?" The fearful-again Count gulped as a bead of sweat rolled down his forehead and onto the tip of the blade that was now pricking his nose. He nodded.

Meanwhile, that kick in the ribs had jolted Bar back into semi-wakefulness, and it made him angry. He looked up at the whorseon who had just kicked him, and he remembered the ear. Something rose up from within him, a deep, black, hungry thing, and suddenly all he could think about was how *famished* he was.

The lanky bandit noticed Bar staring at him from the forest floor. "What're you lookin' at, whelp?" he sneered at the red-haired man wearing just his shirt, and became increasingly disconcerted with how the man was eyeing him like a fine steak dinner. He gripped his hatchets a little harder.

"...uh, hey, Boss, mebbe we should jus' get outta here."

"Aye", the grizzly bandit called Sikes concurred. "Les' just gut the both of 'em and go. That caravan is due any moment now, we gotta move if we don't wanna miss it."

A deep growl, like that of a panther, rose from the bottom of Bar's throat. The shadows of the forest deepened as night took hold. His shoulders started bunching together while his elbows drew back, arms tensing. "Stay put, now…" The lanky bandit threatened, eyes darting between the beast-man and his leader.

"Of course I don't *want* to miss the caravan, stupid!" The head bandit snapped at his subordinate, still holding the knife close to the Count's face, who was doing his level best not to move. "But I also don't want any loose ends." The leader looked back at the Count. "Maybe these sons of bitches have people out lookin' for them, or maybe they're missin' or summat, we don't know!"

"Yeah? Well, all *I* know is that it's already dark and we still haven't gotten on our way!" The brigand named Sikes retorted. Bar was only getting hungrier. He felt tugs at the corners of his mouth, like his face was pulling itself apart.

"King's bloody corpse!" the lanky bandit cursed in shock, stumbling backwards. The beast-man's face was stretching open, revealing a hollow maw full of too many teeth sharpening into wicked points. Bar roared, a gutteral hissing sound, and leapt.

"BLOODY HELLS!" The panicked bandit swung one of his hatchets in the way of the demon. It struck him, sending chunks of the monster's fangs flying with a snarl of pain. It did not stop Bar's charge, though, and he crashed into the terrified thief, tackling him to the ground before ripping the man's throat out with his teeth, the poor man's lifeblood spraying in an arc.

"Sweet Gods, get offa him!!" Sikes rushed forward and tried to pull the beast off while the bandit leader and the Count simply watched in shock, one a mask of horror and the other of pure glee.

Bar simply whirled around and grabbed the brigand by the throat, the skin of his arm ripping open to show coiling and unfurling red muscle, growing and lengthening to the height of a full-grown man. Sikes, choking seven feet in the air, had the displeasure of beholding this unnatural crime against nature. His other arm, having shed it's mortal covering, stretched and shifted, the flesh and tendons rearranging themselves into what resembled a giant's arm without skin. Bone talons emerged from the monstrous hand's fingertips, the size of butcher's knives. The lipless, fanged nightmare stared back up at him, ghastly lit by the moon above, it's only human features remaining above that hideous mouth. The monster seemed to grin devilishly, and Sikes tried to scream.