A/N: ARGH Late update cause my computer decided to shut down whilst I
was in the middle off it. No, I'm not dead. In this chapter and in the
next, Banjo reveals some of his hidden past while Tooty remembers what
horrible things happened to her in the dungeons of Gruntilda's castle.
Anyway, thanks for all the kind reviews! I'm asking for a bit of
constructive criticism this time so I can know what you guys think
should improve in this story. Thank you again.
- PACRAT
--
"Shrouding all the ground around me
is this holy crow above me.
Black as holes within a memory
and blue as our new second sun.
I stick my hand into his shadow
to pull the pieces from the sand.
Which I attempt to reassemble
to see just who I might have been.
I do not recognize the vessel,
but the eyes seem so familiar.
Like phosphorescent desert buttons
singing one familiar song..."
- Third Eye, Tool (Banjo's theme)
---------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------
T H E F O U R T H I N S T A L L M E N T: 'T i m e R e p e a t s I t s e l f . . .'
Kazooie lay upon her side, eyes faintly sealed and breaths hushed and calm, against a mound of prairie grass and tumbleweed. Her newly bandaged wound faced the rock ceiling of the cavern, the bear watching as the white strips of rags blotched with crimson stains. Banjo had taken shelter inside a small outcrop with enough room to crawl about within. He smirked softly at the innocent phrase the young breegull took on in her doze, cocooning her army jacket against her form and nudging some of the bramble to cushion her further. Kazooie snuggled in deeper and hugged the makeshift blanket closer for warmth. Banjo untied his boots and tossed them towards a rounded corner across from where he sat. Creakily rising to his feet, the bear shambled over to where his own resting place was, which was merely his trenchcoat flattened on the cave floor. He nestled his cheek on his backpack and grunted as sleep weighed down his eyelids, creasing them shut slowly, slowly, until they were still in the manner of slumber.
The void of ebony soon faded into the silhouette of a little honeybear cub against the brilliant tangerine radiance of sunrise, his legs dangling over the overhanging branch of an oak wood tree. Banjo was seeing himself, in his days of childhood, of blue skies and hills upon hills of rolling emerald fields. The cub's familiar sapphire eyes glimmered orange in the light of dawn. A dragonfly tickled the tip of his pink-blotched nose, making the cub giggle sweetly and bat at it with one of his paws, watching as its opaque, skinny body flittered into a patch of cattail reeds. He rubbed his nostrils on the back of his paw and soon wiped it off on the chest of his denim, faded blue overalls.
A gentle smile lit up Banjo's face. He hasn't had a dream like this in a while.
The cub rolled over on his belly and hung from the limb by his paws. He let himself drop like a ripe apple, landing on his bottom soundly with a high-pitched grunt. His ears wiggled once to the noise of purring engines from across the horizon. An outline of an oncoming caravan bounced along the dirt path. The eyes widened with joy and the little cub bumbled over the loose soil of the sowed farmland, crying out in joy.
"Mamma! Mamma! Papa's home!"
"...mamma..." he let the word escape from his lips in a whispered breath.
Then he saw her. A long mane of golden locks covered her neck and shoulders, glinting almost heavenly in the rays of the freshly-risen sun. Her sweet endless pools of flickering turquoise and azure were coated with tears as she gazed down at her son. Cradled in her slender arms was a bundle of pink blankets, held close to her chest. A soft grunt came from deep within the layers followed by a placid coo. The mother lifted the flap that concealed a tiny beauty.
The squinty blue eyes of a newborn cub blinked groggily, the fuzzy peach nose wriggling feebly as it took in the new scents of the outer world. It was a girl, her daughter, little curls of blonde peeking from the downy layer of brown fur. She yawned, her tongue and toothless gums exposed. The baby smacked her lips while gazing up at her mother. Mamma's smile grew and she planted a small kiss on the little one's forehead. She laughed an angelic laugh and watched her son barrel towards them.
"Slow down, Banjo, I have Tooty here with me."
"Mamma, Mamma, I saw the van! I watched all day today and I saw it! Papa's here!"
Banjo rolled onto his side, sighing dreamily.
A knock on the wooden door caught all of their attention. The knob twisted and the lock clicked open. A great outline stood in the doorway, his burly shoulders scarcely hitting the sides. Even through the shadows, a joyous grin materialized on his snout and opened in a hearty laugh. The solider had come from the war.
"Papa!" Banjo bolted down through the living quarters towards his father. The figure knelt down and opened his arms to welcome his son. The cub was enveloped in muscular arms as he was embraced warmly. Still holding Banjo, the bear strode out into plain view, features revealed by the rays of the sun. His face was similar to that of his son's, with the exception of a glazed scar running from his eyebrow all the way down to his jowl. Banjo wrapped his arms around his thick neck and buried his snout in the dark brown pelt. The eyes found his wife and then trailed down to her baby.
"....Sonata...."
".... Legato..." Sonata lowered her face down to the infant. "Come here and meet your new daughter, honey." Legato had left to fight in the war when his love was pregnant with the cub. He had felt guilty, not being there for the birth, and often tried to put it behind him in battles. But now he was satisfied, seeing his babe and her prettiness for the first time.
"What's her name?" he asked, amazed.
"It's Tooty...just what you and I agreed on."
The dream shifted to a hideous nightmare. It was in the house basement, gloomy and crowded with food and boxes. He could see his mother crouched in fear, hugging Tooty close to her breast for security. Her eyes bulged and her body trembled as she stared at a small opening in the ceiling. He watched as his young self pressed his body to her stomach, he too shaking violently with swollen eyes. Roars and shouts exploded from above, one he recognized was his father's.
"Get the hell away from there, bitch!" the fighter bellowed, firing a round of bullets at some unknown creature. There was a screech, followed by more ruckus.
Banjo grunted and dug his claws into the cavern floor, his jaws clenched and snout contorted.
Like thunder, a single gunshot rattled the family's eardrums. Legato's dying roar reverberated in the entire household, and a pleased cackle came soon after. There was a thump and mocking words from the enemy above. Banjo buried his tears in his mother's dress in his horror. A tiny whimper was emitted from Tooty's mouth, and Sonata gently hushed her.
"Hey, Goreleech, I 'eard somethin' down 'ere!" a gruff voice shouted. There was a thwack and a yelp. A scolding, reedy voice screeched into the bear family's ears.
"Open tha door then, stoopid!"
Sonata murmured inaudible pleads and squeezed her eyes shut. Banjo did the same. The head of a rifle jammed through the hinge and sent the door rocketing through the air until it collided with the wall. The milky, sightless orb of an obese, grubby yellow Minjo stared viciously down at them. The beast beamed with plague-ridden teeth and cried out to his comrades in the living room.
"We gots oorselfs a mummy an' 'er baby bears! Haw haw!"
He dragged Sonata by her nape viciously, ignoring her pleads and the wails of Tooty as he pulled her body against the ladder. Banjo, terrified and panicked, sobbed out for his mother.
"Mamma! Stop it!"
"Stop....mamma..." Banjo was rolling feverishly, tightening and relaxing his fists as the scene in his thoughts continued. "....Mamma..."
"C'mere, yew lil' brat, yew'll do fine as a nice coat wif yo' fathah fer me! Hawhawhaw!" The Minjo grasped for Banjo with filthy claws. Rage took over the little one. He gave a screeching growl and dug his canines deep into the bad-tasting flesh on the back of the hand, the evil creature yowling in pain and punching the cub in the cheek. Banjo shook his skull, a bruise frothing under his eyelid, and ducked behind a barrel of olives. The Minjo hissed, the jaundiced eyes glowering ferociously in the dark.
"If'n we ain't gonna getchyoo, the damn desert will!"
"...no...No...Stop.....no more..." he mumbled, half awake.
The memory flashed to one he has never seen before. An outline dressed in a shroud wafted across the desert horizon. It ceased walking its path, looking in his direction. The eyes.... so blue, so affable, they greeted him. A voice, so weak and tiny, seemed to dominate his hearing.
"...Banjo...help us... please...Before..."
Gruntilda's glowing orb peered over smoldering ruins, flashing green. Her metallic cackle rattled his brain and her massive shape seemed to be birthed from the smoke of her wreckage.
".... Before victory is hers...."
Three letters faded before him... ones that seemed so familiar, yet lost in the depths of his brain:
"B.O.W
BROTHERS OF WAR."
"...NOOO!!!" Banjo roared into the murky dark of the cave. His fur was drenched in perspiration and tears, the shirt he was wearing now soaked to the seams. The bear massaged his temple and shuddered. The dream...nightmare...whatever, it seemed as if he was watching a video of his past. The reddened eyes glanced at Kazooie and were thankful she was still asleep. Banjo lay back down, snout buried in his pillow with a throaty sigh. It didn't mean anything...It was only a dream...something his brain did to keep itself occupied. Just a bunch of random pictures brought up from long ago.
So he thought.
Banjo wiped sweat from his locks, struggling to get back to sleep.
- PACRAT
--
"Shrouding all the ground around me
is this holy crow above me.
Black as holes within a memory
and blue as our new second sun.
I stick my hand into his shadow
to pull the pieces from the sand.
Which I attempt to reassemble
to see just who I might have been.
I do not recognize the vessel,
but the eyes seem so familiar.
Like phosphorescent desert buttons
singing one familiar song..."
- Third Eye, Tool (Banjo's theme)
---------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------
T H E F O U R T H I N S T A L L M E N T: 'T i m e R e p e a t s I t s e l f . . .'
Kazooie lay upon her side, eyes faintly sealed and breaths hushed and calm, against a mound of prairie grass and tumbleweed. Her newly bandaged wound faced the rock ceiling of the cavern, the bear watching as the white strips of rags blotched with crimson stains. Banjo had taken shelter inside a small outcrop with enough room to crawl about within. He smirked softly at the innocent phrase the young breegull took on in her doze, cocooning her army jacket against her form and nudging some of the bramble to cushion her further. Kazooie snuggled in deeper and hugged the makeshift blanket closer for warmth. Banjo untied his boots and tossed them towards a rounded corner across from where he sat. Creakily rising to his feet, the bear shambled over to where his own resting place was, which was merely his trenchcoat flattened on the cave floor. He nestled his cheek on his backpack and grunted as sleep weighed down his eyelids, creasing them shut slowly, slowly, until they were still in the manner of slumber.
The void of ebony soon faded into the silhouette of a little honeybear cub against the brilliant tangerine radiance of sunrise, his legs dangling over the overhanging branch of an oak wood tree. Banjo was seeing himself, in his days of childhood, of blue skies and hills upon hills of rolling emerald fields. The cub's familiar sapphire eyes glimmered orange in the light of dawn. A dragonfly tickled the tip of his pink-blotched nose, making the cub giggle sweetly and bat at it with one of his paws, watching as its opaque, skinny body flittered into a patch of cattail reeds. He rubbed his nostrils on the back of his paw and soon wiped it off on the chest of his denim, faded blue overalls.
A gentle smile lit up Banjo's face. He hasn't had a dream like this in a while.
The cub rolled over on his belly and hung from the limb by his paws. He let himself drop like a ripe apple, landing on his bottom soundly with a high-pitched grunt. His ears wiggled once to the noise of purring engines from across the horizon. An outline of an oncoming caravan bounced along the dirt path. The eyes widened with joy and the little cub bumbled over the loose soil of the sowed farmland, crying out in joy.
"Mamma! Mamma! Papa's home!"
"...mamma..." he let the word escape from his lips in a whispered breath.
Then he saw her. A long mane of golden locks covered her neck and shoulders, glinting almost heavenly in the rays of the freshly-risen sun. Her sweet endless pools of flickering turquoise and azure were coated with tears as she gazed down at her son. Cradled in her slender arms was a bundle of pink blankets, held close to her chest. A soft grunt came from deep within the layers followed by a placid coo. The mother lifted the flap that concealed a tiny beauty.
The squinty blue eyes of a newborn cub blinked groggily, the fuzzy peach nose wriggling feebly as it took in the new scents of the outer world. It was a girl, her daughter, little curls of blonde peeking from the downy layer of brown fur. She yawned, her tongue and toothless gums exposed. The baby smacked her lips while gazing up at her mother. Mamma's smile grew and she planted a small kiss on the little one's forehead. She laughed an angelic laugh and watched her son barrel towards them.
"Slow down, Banjo, I have Tooty here with me."
"Mamma, Mamma, I saw the van! I watched all day today and I saw it! Papa's here!"
Banjo rolled onto his side, sighing dreamily.
A knock on the wooden door caught all of their attention. The knob twisted and the lock clicked open. A great outline stood in the doorway, his burly shoulders scarcely hitting the sides. Even through the shadows, a joyous grin materialized on his snout and opened in a hearty laugh. The solider had come from the war.
"Papa!" Banjo bolted down through the living quarters towards his father. The figure knelt down and opened his arms to welcome his son. The cub was enveloped in muscular arms as he was embraced warmly. Still holding Banjo, the bear strode out into plain view, features revealed by the rays of the sun. His face was similar to that of his son's, with the exception of a glazed scar running from his eyebrow all the way down to his jowl. Banjo wrapped his arms around his thick neck and buried his snout in the dark brown pelt. The eyes found his wife and then trailed down to her baby.
"....Sonata...."
".... Legato..." Sonata lowered her face down to the infant. "Come here and meet your new daughter, honey." Legato had left to fight in the war when his love was pregnant with the cub. He had felt guilty, not being there for the birth, and often tried to put it behind him in battles. But now he was satisfied, seeing his babe and her prettiness for the first time.
"What's her name?" he asked, amazed.
"It's Tooty...just what you and I agreed on."
The dream shifted to a hideous nightmare. It was in the house basement, gloomy and crowded with food and boxes. He could see his mother crouched in fear, hugging Tooty close to her breast for security. Her eyes bulged and her body trembled as she stared at a small opening in the ceiling. He watched as his young self pressed his body to her stomach, he too shaking violently with swollen eyes. Roars and shouts exploded from above, one he recognized was his father's.
"Get the hell away from there, bitch!" the fighter bellowed, firing a round of bullets at some unknown creature. There was a screech, followed by more ruckus.
Banjo grunted and dug his claws into the cavern floor, his jaws clenched and snout contorted.
Like thunder, a single gunshot rattled the family's eardrums. Legato's dying roar reverberated in the entire household, and a pleased cackle came soon after. There was a thump and mocking words from the enemy above. Banjo buried his tears in his mother's dress in his horror. A tiny whimper was emitted from Tooty's mouth, and Sonata gently hushed her.
"Hey, Goreleech, I 'eard somethin' down 'ere!" a gruff voice shouted. There was a thwack and a yelp. A scolding, reedy voice screeched into the bear family's ears.
"Open tha door then, stoopid!"
Sonata murmured inaudible pleads and squeezed her eyes shut. Banjo did the same. The head of a rifle jammed through the hinge and sent the door rocketing through the air until it collided with the wall. The milky, sightless orb of an obese, grubby yellow Minjo stared viciously down at them. The beast beamed with plague-ridden teeth and cried out to his comrades in the living room.
"We gots oorselfs a mummy an' 'er baby bears! Haw haw!"
He dragged Sonata by her nape viciously, ignoring her pleads and the wails of Tooty as he pulled her body against the ladder. Banjo, terrified and panicked, sobbed out for his mother.
"Mamma! Stop it!"
"Stop....mamma..." Banjo was rolling feverishly, tightening and relaxing his fists as the scene in his thoughts continued. "....Mamma..."
"C'mere, yew lil' brat, yew'll do fine as a nice coat wif yo' fathah fer me! Hawhawhaw!" The Minjo grasped for Banjo with filthy claws. Rage took over the little one. He gave a screeching growl and dug his canines deep into the bad-tasting flesh on the back of the hand, the evil creature yowling in pain and punching the cub in the cheek. Banjo shook his skull, a bruise frothing under his eyelid, and ducked behind a barrel of olives. The Minjo hissed, the jaundiced eyes glowering ferociously in the dark.
"If'n we ain't gonna getchyoo, the damn desert will!"
"...no...No...Stop.....no more..." he mumbled, half awake.
The memory flashed to one he has never seen before. An outline dressed in a shroud wafted across the desert horizon. It ceased walking its path, looking in his direction. The eyes.... so blue, so affable, they greeted him. A voice, so weak and tiny, seemed to dominate his hearing.
"...Banjo...help us... please...Before..."
Gruntilda's glowing orb peered over smoldering ruins, flashing green. Her metallic cackle rattled his brain and her massive shape seemed to be birthed from the smoke of her wreckage.
".... Before victory is hers...."
Three letters faded before him... ones that seemed so familiar, yet lost in the depths of his brain:
"B.O.W
BROTHERS OF WAR."
"...NOOO!!!" Banjo roared into the murky dark of the cave. His fur was drenched in perspiration and tears, the shirt he was wearing now soaked to the seams. The bear massaged his temple and shuddered. The dream...nightmare...whatever, it seemed as if he was watching a video of his past. The reddened eyes glanced at Kazooie and were thankful she was still asleep. Banjo lay back down, snout buried in his pillow with a throaty sigh. It didn't mean anything...It was only a dream...something his brain did to keep itself occupied. Just a bunch of random pictures brought up from long ago.
So he thought.
Banjo wiped sweat from his locks, struggling to get back to sleep.