A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 48

Jonas looked over as Sully lit a cigar, "Huh?"

"You're a bastard, Jonas. It's a little hard to stomach for me, that's all," he said, "We've been through a lot together, you and me. That's why I'm finding it a little hard to stomach -- to find out that Jonas Bull is a bastard and a low-down prick. What the fuck was all of that 'cowboy' shit?

You lied to her, is that it? On top of everything else, now I find that my friend is a lying dog?

That lady back there loves you, Bully-boy, and you don't love her. That's alright I guess, but you won't tell her, will you? Not when she'll take you back into her home and her bed every month because she can't help but hope that you'll decide one day."

"Decide what, Sully?" Jonas asked as he tried to see through the eye which was still threatening to swell shut.

Sully looked over and it was obvious that he was a little angry. "Try to think with the one part of you that never gets much use, other than your fool brain. Try to imagine for a moment that Jonas Bull actually has a heart.

The world is a cold place, Jonas. It's cold and it's cruel to most of the ones trying to make their way through it. From what I've read about in the history books, there used to be a lot more people here at one time. Now there are a whole lot less humans, but I'd guess that there are even fewer mountain goblins. Those three back there, I'd guess that they know that pretty much, Bully-boy.

That girl Lizzie back there, she's just accepted that she'll probably never have a man for herself. Caroline hasn't yet because she's in love with you."

Sully was a big man, though he wasn't quite as muscular as Jonas, who was still in love with the gifts which nature had given him. The build was still there, however, shaped from years of hard work as a sailor. He was one of the very few people who'd come here, far from the place that he'd been born in the dingy dockyards of his native Ireland.

He had a rough, workingman look to him and he'd come by it honestly. Jonas was a handsome dandy by comparison, the kind which all the girls fell over and all of the older women entertained naughty little thoughts about as soon as they laid eyes on him.

Sully knew that Jonas had a few falls waiting for him in his future. For one thing, nobody -- not even the great and mighty Jonas Bull could keep doing the things that he'd been doing forever, though Sully knew that there was no point in telling him that because he'd never believe it until he was ready to. When you're young and strong, Sully thought, it's not that big a stretch to think that you're immortal.

So sad that youth is wasted on the young, he thought.

And when you're young and before you've had the stupid smirk beaten off your face by life at large, things just come easy. But we all have the same needs in us, Sully thought. Even the homeliest man wants someone. Even the ones who have never had anything come to them easily -- even the poor dockworker's sons who'd shipped out to man the large sailing ships because it was the only work that they could get. Even the ones who could tell a tall tale of being married once when they'd never, ever had the chance for it, because they weren't pretty enough to stir the hearts and loins of the girls who'd never been able to see them because they never looked at those men.

He looked down at his cigar and flicked the ash off carefully, remembering the times that he'd been hopeful and had gotten looks back as though they thought that he must surely be a little vapid to be trying to talk them up. He remembered the times when somebody like Jonas appeared. It still happened. If he was talking to any woman about anything, not even thinking about anything other than offering to do some work in exchange for a small bag of potatoes -- once Jonas appeared on the horizon, Sully became invisible instantly.

For another thing, Jonas had never had his heart handed back to him in pieces. It saddened Sully a little to think that it was a lesson that the young fool sorely needed now, and that until it happened, Jonas wouldn't be complete as a person. He took a puff of the cigar that he was enjoying a little, though his right hand was feeling the chill from being bare in the cold air so that his glove didn't pick up the smell. He sighed then, knowing the way that this would go -- because it needed to.

"She's lovely in her way," he said, with a hint of his old Irish accent coming through, "If I was only five years or so younger, I'd tell her that too. She's a goblin and you can't hold her to the standards of human women, but if you're not a fool and you have eyes to see with, you'd know that a whole lot of the men there didn't come because they wanted to see an idiot get thrown around."

He smirked at the horizon for a second, "Sorry for having to tell you this, Bully-boy, but a lot of the men there came to see Caroline and her sisters.

There's a whole lot of females around in this world, and they all love with different parts of them, and most with a combination of those parts pushing things for them. Some are just like you and they only use what's between their legs. You need to meet up with one of them one day. You might learn something, though the lesson will be hard, I can tell you.

I find that human girls tend to let their heads get into it too much for my taste. I guess that's why I never married again. Well, after the first three. I've had to learn my own lessons along the way."

Other than the fib about being married at all, it was true, though Sully had been married once in a rather unconventional sense that he never spoke about.

He looked at the sky for a moment, deciding that it would snow soon and that they'd better be finding a place to hunker down in before too much longer. He thought that he knew that the goblin women wouldn't be living in a conventional house.

They'd live in a home underground, accessed most likely by a door in the base of a large tree. Wherever it was, Sully thought, he knew by looking at them that it would be clean and brightly painted. He also knew that in a few hours, it would be the kind of warm and cozy place that he'd love to be in when the weather turned to shit, especially if he had someone like Caroline there who loved him as much as she loved Jonas.

"Some girls love with their hearts and those ones are the kind who need a man who is no fool himself. Your opponent back there is the kind who loves with a combination of the two; her heart and her cunny, and if you had a heart and a brain, Jonas, you'd know what it was that you just rode away from. She'll do whatever she has in mind to do today, and late sometime tonight, she'll give in to what she really feels and it'll be her pillow that's the only one who'll know how hard she aches to know your love."

Jonas sighed, "Sully, she's a goblin, for Christ's sake."

Sully smiled a little as he tossed the end of his cigar into a snowbank and pulled his glove back on.

A second later, he leaned a little and his fist cracked Jonas across his already bruised cheekbone and knocked the young man clean out of the saddle to land with a cry of pain from his aching and beaten body looking up in amazement.

Sully looked down, "If you even ask me why, Bully-boy, you'll find yourself alone here. When I found you, you were a small and skinny kid who was on his way to starvation. I took you along with me and I taught you what I could. I just never got much of a chance to get my lessons about feelings through your thick skull, mores the pity.

I'm finding that I'm losing the patience to try to teach you much more after what I saw today. It's not worth my time anymore since you never listen anyway. Jonas Bull thinks that he knows it all, and that's another shame, because I know what's inside you to give to somebody.

So she's a goblin. So what? A lot of men think she's got a touch of a wild look to her and they find it beautiful. I happen to be among them. But she's been handed a raw deal, living here among humans who look down on her for what she is.

I'm thinking that this will be my last sermon to you, so I think that you'd better be listening to it a little carefully, Jonas.

One thing about us humans, and we're all the very same, not matter who we are or where we're from. None of that matters one little bit, oh mighty Jonas Bull. We each of us, deep down in our black little hearts that we spend so much time and effort trying to prove that we haven't got; every single human there is now, ever was, or ever will be Bully-boy ...

We've all got to have somebody to look down on.

We need to have them so that we can tell ourselves that we're better than they are in some way. Most of those people there today came because they might want to see a little blood and murder when one of you idiots finally manages to kill another one for their entertainment.

Why they'd shudder, most of them, to think that you might be fucked by one of those girls in that cage when really, they'd all love the thrill of that. They just won't admit it, even to themselves because that's what decent, God-fearing folks do, isn't it?

So fuck off, Jonas Bull. That's my verdict and decision to you. If you were worth anything, you wouldn't look down on those girls at all. And maybe the greatest sadness to me here," he said in a bit of disgust...

"I wouldn't be needing to be here telling you."

Jonas' horse had stepped ahead in a little confusion and Sully leaned over and looked down and his face wore a look of impatience and even anger now. "I'm getting long past tired of telling you the obvious, Jonas. You're a fool.

Do you really think that in a dark bed, that girl looks any different? Does she feel much different to you then, other than how her cunny is actually hot when you fuck her? Do those tits feel any different to you? Do they taste different somehow? When she wraps those long legs of hers around you and makes her happy little sounds just to have you there, does it make you want to get out of the bed and leave?

Fuck no, it doesn't. She's plenty good enough then, isn't she?

Tell me, how does it feel when she drags those tusks of hers over your prick before she opens her mouth to please you, because she loves you so much that she'd do that all night because she likes the way that you feel to her and half the next day if you'd only ask it of her? Does it make your stupid dick shrink away in disgust?

He nodded once, "Damn right, it doesn't, because that's the wisest part of you then, isn't it? And before you start to tell me that you don't like the thought of seeing that face looking at you when you wake up every morning, I'll tell you a bit of a little secret because I've been around and had women most of the world over, Bully-boy."

The statement wasn't incorrect in the strictest sense, but Sully was leaving out the little detail that he'd paid to have those women, some of them doing nothing more than sleeping beside him because that had been all that he'd wanted at the time.

"I don't care who it is that you might really long to wake up with, they all look like that in the morning, more or less, and a lot of 'em don't have a nice word for you then, either.

But that one will, every time. Because she knows what she has if she knows that she has a man's heart. I don't know that girl from anyone, but I'll tell you this -- if she ever finds somebody to love her the way that her fine heart needs, well then, Bucko, don't you be getting into any cage with her to fight her.

Because she'll kill you then and you'd deserve it.

Now get your fool ass up out of the snow and get on your nag here. It's gonna snow something awful soon. I can feel it."

He rode ahead a little to make it clear that he had no intention of helping Jonas anymore. "And from now on, you can get yourself mended all by yourself. I won't be there."

-----------------------

"Your mother?" Randi asked a little incredulously.

He had no easy way to explain it, but Rudhi saw everything clearly in a few glances as he'd tried to say it. She explained it to Randi, who got it then. "And now?"

Billy shrugged, "She tries to carry my child and she wishes to meet you both." He looked at Rudhi, "She cannot understand why she does not feel any presence from Beyl'eth inside her. She hopes that you might tell her if she is there at all.

In the meantime, she tells me that she is my female." He looked at the old wood stove there in the warm kitchen, "I see the body of Beyl'eth there, and I hear the sound of her voice, but it hurts me because it is not Beyl'eth anymore. The way that she speaks to me carries the patience and kindness of my mother, so I can never look too hard.

She is like Beyl'eth was -- hopeful that we do not die out here, but I think that we already have. All that is needed is more time."

He asked, trying to change the subject and they told him everything as the afternoon passed into evening. Randi tried and failed to say what she'd become a little of, so Rudhi explained it.

He thought about it and shrugged, "I think that a lot of people would be a little frightened of this. I am a little glad. I liked you when we met, and I'm happy that you lived though all of the challenges. If you don't mind having demons for neighbors, I'd offer my friendship. I don't really know anybody here."

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They rode on as far as they could until the failing light of the day and the rising wind of the late winter storm showed them that the idea of further travel was a foolish thought, now that the heavy and wet flakes began to pelt them.

Not a word was said as they set up their little camp in the shadows of a group of boulders. Jonas could see that they wouldn't be tying their little tents together that night as Sully worked on getting a bit of a fire going. They ate their evening meal in silence as well and though he'd been angry and indignant over it at first, Jonas was beginning to have a few thoughts seep into his brain.

He thought about the things that Sully had said and he suddenly wanted to be back in the town. He still didn't think that he wanted Caroline, particularly, but he did want to talk to her now and tell her how he felt. He stopped then and asked himself how he really did feel, and he found a desire in him to get to know her and Lizzie a little better, and if he could manage to get it across, well then, Jonas wanted to tell them that he had an earnest desire to be a friend to them.

Another thing that came to his mind made him sad. He knew that however much Sully's heart had held for him as a friend and mentor after all of the time that they'd traveled together, he'd likely exceeded the brimming horn of goodwill that Sully had for him now. More and more, Jonas was coming to see that he'd lost something, and he knew that very soon, Sully would part company with him.

Sully wiped off his metal plate and he got himself into his tent, turning away from Jonas -- something which he'd never done, even if they didn't join their tents for a bit more room and warmth. He threw a little more wood on the fire and fishing into his coat, he pulled out a cigar and looked at it for a moment.

It was one of the ones that Caroline liked to smoke very occasionally. She'd given it to him the day before and told him to smoke it and have a few nice thoughts about her.

Well he was having those thoughts now, he decided, though not perhaps the ones that she'd intended. As he puffed a little, he saw that he'd been fortunate to have a few people who cared about him. He knew Sully well, and he knew that there was very little chance to fix this with the Irishman. When he liked you, the sun shone down on you. But if you weren't his friend anymore ...

He thought about that for a long while and when it was almost gone, he tossed the cigar butt into the flames as he sat for a while longer until his attention was drawn by a noise, and as he listened, he knew that it was getting closer.

He reached for his shooter and thought about waking Sully, but the man turned over then, his old Colt already in his hand.

What came to them a minute later was something out of a nightmare until they could see past the distractions of the snow and the blood on it. The thing spoke a few words in a weak and wavering voice before the last of the micarriage began. As the small mess oozed and slid to the snow-covered ground, the creature looked down and moaned piteously before falling to her knees and then onto her face before she pulled herself into a fetal position, weeping softly.

"That's a demon," Jonas said while Sully rolled his eyes and bit his tongue.

As Sully got to his feet and walked to where Narreth lay, he nodded, "No matter who you are or even what you are, this is a cold and shitty place to be all alone."

Jonas stared as Sully put his gun into his coat pocket and knelt down to try to turn her over. He even knew that to do this at perhaps any other time was asking for it. But somehow, he just knew that this creature was a little past that. He turned her over very gently and she was still crying quietly as he reached to brush some of the wet snow from her face.

Jonas was about to ask if they ought to just shoot her, but he knew what the reply would be as he began to think in the way that he knew Sully would in this. Sully turned to look at Jonas, prepared to tell him to put the fucking gun away, but he saw that Jonas was already doing it.

"A little help here, Jonas," he said quietly as he tried to wash some of the blood from her loins with handfuls of snow. There wasn't anything there in the snow but the small mess that he assumed was the very underdeveloped placenta and he judged that she hadn't been very far along if it was that small, not that he knew more than a little about the plumbing of demons, he told himself. Sully picked her up a few moments later and carried her nearer to the fire.

"What was that?" Jonas asked as she opened her eyes and looked up into Sully's concerned face.

Sully spoke quietly as he looked down. "She was pregnant, Jonas, and for whatever reason, it took but then she lost it. It happens sometimes. If she's like a lot of human girls, she's hurting in many ways now."

Narreth began to cry harder then, thinking of the way that this all went for them. She'd tried, but Ayt'han was obviously reluctant to couple with her, though he did if she asked him enough. It took her long minutes to know that the human who cradled her gently was speaking to her and she eventually opened her eyes to learn a little more about her predicament.

"There there," he said in words which meant nothing to her as he stroked her cheek a little, and without knowing it really, his accent came to the fore because he wasn't really thinking about it, just the way that it often did when he was in the middle of things and his mind was on the task at hand. "I know we're not anyone that you might hope to see in a time of trouble, but you could have done a lot worse than us.

Jonas, "he said over his shoulder, "I'm needin' you to do a thing for her. Gently try to get her knees apart and take a handful of clean snow and then swipe at her cunny a little to get more of the blood away. If you can do that, then I'm needin' you to look a little carefully by the light of the fire, if you can. Try to tell me if you see any more blood weepin' out. I expect a little, but I'm worried if you see a lot, so say it if you do.

Can you do that for me?"

Jonas shrugged, "I guess so, Sully."

As he began, she resisted feebly at first, but the sound of Sully's voice as he spoke to her in low tones had a bit of a calming effect and so she finally allowed it and Jonas was as gentle as he could be. "Here's the cold part," Jonas said as he did his best.

She was about to try to push him away with her feet, but Sully did something then that surprized them both after he thought hard, trying to remember something that he hadn't tried to do in years.