6/26/11

If Not Love, Then Pity
By Joe Jones


The hour chimed in its crisp throat of noon, and the sun had just begun to settle its tired body across the horizon, leaving the sky a scattered mixture of confused shades of dreary blues.


The scene of the descending sun could be seen by two fair-headed persons, one a man and the other a woman. These two were located in a city quite like those seen and heard of today, but this isn’t a tale of ordinary ones such as these.


Somewhere far off in a place made many times transparent to all alien views, a wonderful star, pointed and studded, twirled soundlessly in the void of space.



Within this star, situated on the banks of a timeless river that had twinkling rocks which littered its surface, could be found one figure of a girl.



This one, she watched the river, as the hour struck the cord which held back the throngs of morning.



In a short time, the sky, which had just as much a sparkle to it as the river, began to shine with a subtle glow.


The girl was stunned, utterly captivated by all she saw such that she hardly noticed the coldness of something that slipped about her neck swiftly.


She spun about fast, her eyes wounded with shock.


“My apologies. I shall take my leave now.” said the tall, limber man that stood there. Though he was fairly covered in many manners of knitted tops and overly baggy sweats that covered even his shoes, a heavy cloak that was a russet of vagueness, and a hood that hid his face, the girl had recognized him.


“Hupbettle,” she called to him. “Why have you come?” And then, she remembered, as she had drawn upon a step which agitated it, that there was something foreign upon her neck.


Her hands went to it, but he had called for her to stop.


“Don’t look at it.” he said. She heard something awkward in his voice, but couldn’t really place upon it any labels.


“Why not, Hupbettle?” she asked, truly wanting to know. Her hands had fallen back to her sides, but they itched to palm the substance clinging to her neck.


“Because. I just changed my mind is all.” he said.


Hupbettle was quick, and in a second he had snatched whatever it was back without the girl feeling so much as a thread of the item’s fabric.



“But, Hupbettle, wait.” she called after him. He stopped in mid-slump, for he walked along with a slight hunch in posture, and he turned around.



“What is it?” he asked. The glowing from the rising celestial crown had spread its ivory touch to the waters, shining over the already shimmering rocks beyond the brilliance that caused instant blindness, and now Hupbettle’s outfit shone also in this vibrant light.



Except his torso and hood.



“I think I deserve to know what that thing was at least. After all, you did throw it on me without asking or anything.” said the girl.



“What good is asking, Sareene, when the answer is always no?” Hupbettle said.



She nearly gulped, repulsed by a thought that had warped her away from her standing-spot and into his strong arms. Sareene looked away, but, fearing blindness, she immediately turned back to him.



“Well, at least tell me what it was. My mind has become troubled thanks to it.” she said.

Hupbettle sighed, but he agreed at the same time. His one hand held itself out, allowing a chain of loose-fitting silver to dangle from his fingers.



“It’s a charm. I bought it to ensnare you and bind you to me, for my heart beats each day for you, Sareene.” he said. At the mention of heart, her own began to rapidly endure its keep. But, her stomach violently refused this with a groaning whine.



Sareene observed the chain until Hupbettle hid it away in a pocket.


“Why not use it then?” she said. Hupbettle sniffled, while the glow from the sky worked its way up through the buttons in his cloak.



“I feared its defects and losing even your friendship if it failed.” he said.



Sareene advanced to him, noticing that he had drawn backward with each spoken word.

“But, what shall you do? If this of your heart is true, and you are reluctant to try your charm, what will become of you?”



Hupbettle turned his back on her, sniffling and stifling a further outburst.


“Do you remember me from long ago?” he asked.


"Yes.” Sareene replied.


“Whenever I needed to drink or hide from bullies—”


“I helped you.” she finished.


“Yes. I think this is why I love you so. I simply cannot imagine a world without your existence, possibly because my world cannot exist without you in it. You breathed life into me.” Hupbettle said, seemingly astonishing himself with the words as if he had never seriously thought of what he now said.


“And this is why you refuse to harness your charm?” Sareene asked.


Hupbettle, without moving his body, gestured an arm behind him, seemingly pointing beyond Sareene.


“Just look. I made all of that for you. Unlike those suitors who will quarrel for your hand, I care of your desires and your dreams.”


Hupbettle was crying now, a painful sound to hear from a large man such as him.


“Hupbettle…I don’t know what I should say to you.”


“Because you find no love in your soul for me.” Hupbettle filled in.


“No! No, that’s not it at all.”


“Yes, it is.”


Hupbettle turned back around. The light from above immediately sank underneath his hood, illuminating the dull, coarse edge of a chin and several jagged crags above it that might have been a mouth.


“Hupbettle…”


“It’s fine. I knew as much. I had thought it over before I bought the charm. But, I shall not try it.”

The burst of glass shattering sounded as the charm fell in little pieces into the grass of the bank.

“Hupbettle, did you ever plan to use that on me?” Sareene asked. He shook negatively. “So your visit, and this magnificent light and sparkles were all for nothing?”


“They were for you. And no. This visit wasn’t for nothing at all. I have one final thing to ask of you, Sareene Almir. Please take my hand.”


Sareene reached out and clasped her small hand onto Hupbettle’s large, rough hand. She winced when a callus of his palm sliced into her frail skin, but did not let go.


“What is it you ask now of me? I have told you I cannot bless you with love, Hupbettle.” Sareene said, desperately trying to free her hand from the sharp teeth of Hupbettle’s. He held more tightly.


“I ask not of love. You have already spoken of that, and your heart has agreed. But, I still have one thing to ask of you, even though I am sure I shall never see you wed to me or pregnant with my underlings. This thing is of a small, measurable token. Surely, you can permit me this. Surely!”


“What is it?” Sareene begged, her eyes painfully welled up with fattened tears.


Hupbettle fell to his knees, his shoulders trembling, his hand free from Sareene’s bloody palm.


“Just…bless me with…if not love, then your pity, which is the closest I’ll ever see of your fairest of gifts. Might I receive this or is my soul too tainted for this reward as well?” he said.


Sareene felt something jab at the inside of her chest, and then, the world as she saw it, after another such jab, went black.


Hupbettle heard her falling, and though he had not beheld it, he zoomed to his feet and caught her. He could literally see the life pouring from her face as the color drained out, faster than the tears ran down his face.


His fangs slid out from under the crags of his lips, and these oozed wickedly, but, he did not sink these into the fair Sareene. Instead, he only watched, though this was especially painful for him.

In a mere several moments, her mouth no longer forced in breaths and her eyes were free.

Hupbettle looked down and scooped up a handful of glittering pieces of silver, and then he carried her, up the hills, across the bridge, and back to the small village where she had lived.


And those who saw him there all tried to shelter him and care for him, for he spewed out vomit uncontrollably, and his skin had become pale and discolored.


Gray tears streamed down from his eyes, and though it was well-known to them that this man could devour a person in an instant, they could not hate him.


Hupbettle was roped down, but he broke through the fetters, frightening everyone. However, once he was free, he only voiced a painful sorrow to the sky, which had brightened further.

No one dared to stop him, for how could they?


“Sareene! I’d die a thousand miserable deaths if you’d return to life!” he cried. “Sareene! SAREENE!”


He went on until the sky dimmed hours later and Sareene’s corpse had been taken for cleansing.

“Pity me.” said Hupbettle. A narrow slit across his throat began to heal, and the wounds he had inflicted on his wrists had already sealed themselves shut.


He didn’t know if she heard his desperate cries or his promises, but he was certain that the gods ignored him completely.


And so, it was then that Hupbettle placed himself flat on his back. His purpose had been lost to him, and yet there was still a faint glimmer of something resting within his soul that informed him of revival.


Unfortunately, the voice of this had not come from Sareene, and Hupbettle would hear none of it.


- - -
Joe, when he's not cloud-surfing or planet bungee-jumping, can usually be found in a classroom snoring in a puddle of drool. Still, he's a good student (somehow) and when he's not bored, he can really make it happen (depending on what "it" is). He also enjoys chocolate statues and Mluinian Mu cakes. His work appears in Eschatology, Yesteryear Fiction, Orion's Child.