Somewhere far, far away from anywhere...
"Well, haven't been here in a while..." Duncan mused sleepily, sitting with his back to a boulder under the light of the vast tapestry of stars hanging over his head, given chance to shine by a new moon.
Around him, a serene forest of trees and rock that thinned out as it went downhill toward a mirror-like, yet paradoxically mist-covered lake, a long-since disused path leading straight to an old stone bridge that led... somewhere.
He'd been having this dream on and off since he was a kid and he still had no idea where that went.
Still, it was comforting, in a weirdly primordial back-in-the-crib kind of way, and he hadn't dreamed of this place sin-
"Hey. Get up."If ever there were a moment for a record-scratch, that would be it.Very quickly, Duncan was on his feet, spun around and staring at the intruder, instinct telling him to fight; He'd had the same damned dream of the same damned forest since he was little, extraordinarily lucid and clear every time... but he'd never had company, and the very thought of it was somehow primordially offensive.
This place, whatever the hell it was, was his. No one else's.
Though his anger quickly melted into dumbstruck confusion as he beheld what he saw.
"Oh, if you could only see the look on your face right now..."Sitting on that boulder, legs crossed and with nary a care in the world was
another him. Same face, same eyes, same shiny goddamn scalp, but scars in places he had none and none in places where he had, visible on his face and poking out from the edges of the old tunic he wore.
Also, woad tattoos. Woad tattoos everywhere.
The two stared at each other in silence for a few painful moments, before Duncan finally collected his bearings and broke it.
"Okay, I'll bite. What kinda Freudian shit are you then?"
Said Freudian shit just snorted indignantly and rolled it's eyes half out of a mix disdain and amusement, and half because it clearly had no idea how to explain it's existence.
"Well... how do I put this..." The woad-painted one began, looking into the back of his own head and scratching his chin in thought
"I am and I am not your uncle. Just like I am and am not your grandfather, his father and his fa-""You're fucking cryptic is what you are." Duncan interjected.
"And you're kind of a dick." The man fired right back
"But I can't say much because I am and am not you too.""Oh. Well, that clears up absolutely nothing."
The man seated on the boulder visibly seethed for a moment, then sighed a little, letting go of what was clearly to be some vicious string of profanity.
"Look, whatever. Just get your ass up already." The painted man continued dismissively
"I smell bacon and you need all the protein you can get."Duncan cocked a brow at that one.
"...The hell does that mean?"
"Wait, you mean you've been here a full day and still haven't tried punching something yet?""No. But I thought you would've known that." Duncan replied dryly "You
are me after all."
"I'm also not you, smartass." The painted man growled, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration
"Now seriously, wake up. You're hungry.""Fine, whatever. Fuck." Duncan growled, turning his back on his Celtic-looking doppelganger with a raised middle-finger and starting off away from him "But if I come back here next time I hit the pillow, I'd better be alone."
"Pfft, Fuck you. I was here first.""Oh you can just-"__________________________
"-Go STRAIGHT TO-" Duncan stopped. He wasn't in his calming forest by the lake anymore, he was in bed. In his underpants. Sitting up, pointing and yelling at a wide-eyed alley cat that had just happened to poke it's head through the open window at that exact moment. Also, it was daytime. "...What the hell?"
"Lunch is ready!!" Sang a voice from downstairs, accompanied by a siren smell of bacon that made his gut let out a yearning growl.
Oh, right. After an evening of getting blown up in magic fantasy-land, running around in dark alleys looking for a
Japanese girl in a maid outfit (he still hadn't gotten over that one) and then helping a bunch of Militia guardsmen (and they were quite adamant about calling themselves
Militia, and not those apparently hoighty-toighty Knights of some Iron Gong or whatever) heave corpses and patch up maimed magic fantasy-land dwellers, he wound up here, at the tavern he'd met Ease at and where the blond man told him to head once he was done dealing with that mess.
Duncan sighed a little as he heaved himself out of bed, old wounds making his joints and back echo out a loud series of 'pop!'s and 'crack!'s as he did so, before he reached over, shooed the cat away and closed the window.
That guy... seemed an alright sort. That's why when he saw the look on his face when they found that...
whatever the hell that mess was in the alleyway, he'd been quick to grab him and tell him to walk Yoshi home. Might've been a bit harsh about it, admittedly, the sight of...
that... bringing old army habits back out of his psyche, but he needed an excuse to get him out of there and away from something he clearly wasn't ready for and, with how much stuff had been blowing up that night, he needed to make sure the girl got home safe, too.
...
Well, the guards
had sent him on his way with a wee pouch of coins for his trouble, so he could at least buy the guy a beer later.
That resolved, he threw on his pants, undershirt and suspenders, deciding to leave his red serge, hat and gun-belt hanging off the coat-rack for now. As he slid on his boots he took one last look in the mirror to make sure that, especially after that night, everything was still attached and where it was supposed to be. Satisfied that the scars, muscle and the one slightly-faded blue
tattoo covering his right shoulder hadn't suddenly fallen off or vanished over night, he made his way through the door and down the stairs... admittedly looking like he'd spent the night running a marathon. On the surface of the sun. While shoulder-carrying a fully-loaded minivan filled with a family of screaming Texans.
He looked like hell is what I'm driving at here.
Though, that didn't stop him from letting out a friendly, if a little tired "Mornin'" as he came down and saw Yoshi at work with the food.
Something itched at the back of his mind though; That prick he'd dreamt about mentioned an
uncle and, as far as he knew, he didn't have one.
Shaking his head, he dismissed it for what it plainly was, some stupid dream.
...Yet, for whatever reason, he could almost hear that painted man laughing his ass off somewhere far, far away from anywhere...
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