Redo of Jeeves and the Rum Egg, Part 1
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indeedsir_backupTitle: Jeeves and the Rum Egg
Author: Applea
Warnings: Brief references to gore, eventual slash, character death
Summary: Bertie Wooster is devilishly handsome. More than "ishly", actually. Eventually Jeeves finds out.
(Note, I started this series back in 2008 and abandoned it. I'm working on finishing all my fics I abandoned back in my youth. Never leave a fic behind! I massively cleaned up and added to this first chapter. If anyone has any concrit, please let me know! I thrive on that stuff.)
Bertie, it was concluded, was a disappointment to everyone.
For starters, he was a rather angelic demon.
His entire family was a very respectable clan of Hell's representations on Earth, and his immediate family alone was one of the most well-disguised and powerful clans in England. Devils by nature preferred to stake out territory, and the strongest survived to rule the small territories they had carved out. Angels were much less territorial, spreading peace wherever they went. That meant, however, that they worked almost independently, and Devils used that to their advantage. Nothing brings together murderous cousins than Angel hunting.
His mother was the most successful Angel hunter in all of Europe. She was ruthless, and so powerful she had married into the family not twenty four years after being sent up from Hell. Everyone agreed that she made a fine fearsome sight while stalking her prey, her golden fur crackling dark black at the edges, her claws flexing as she ran on four massive rough black paws, murderous intent in her dark leonine eyes.
It was a bit of a shame, then, when she took his father as her husband. Such a demon as she deserved better than the slim, fierce, and slightly stupid sparrowhawk, no matter how fine a figure he cut with his feathers the color of concrete covered in old blood, sharp as broken glass against the sky. Still, there were Standards To Be Maintained. Letting a new demon take a top level mate is the surest way to see the new upstart try to carve larger and larger territories, causing entirely the wrong sort of havoc. At any rate, though he was somewhat dense, Bertie's father was still powerful and a fast hunter. He looked like a vengeful storm on the wing when he flew with his mad golden eyes gleaming as wickedly as his shining talons, his piercingly terrible whistling shriek ringing through the air like the bell's of the Abyss as he tore invading angels asunder.
Therefore, it had been rather a shock when Bertie had been born so...weak.
His mother had quasi-transformed from her full lioness figure to something almost matching her devastatingly beautiful human shape, shifting uneasily back and forth as the contractions took her, as all Demons on Earth did when they gave birth. Sweating blood colored droplets the sizzled on the bed sheet, she collapsed as the result of her labors came forth and a vaguely egg-shaped writhing mass of black energy lay on the bed. Acting on ancient instinct, she promptly render the bedding asunder into a nest, snuggling the blankets around the egg and collapsing delicately on top.
Throughout the incubation, his father sat on the egg somewhat more often than usual as his demonic shape was more suited to the task and frankly, his wife tended to bat the egg about with her great paws rather than lay on it. Later on, Bertie's family would agree he had been quite scrambled in the egg.
All of Wooster Sr.'s family (for being new, his wife had no family above) clustered around when the egg began to hum.
There was the fearsome, hatchet-beaked condor that was his sister Agatha, wrinkled head with dark gleaming eyes drawn proudly above feathers black as night and reeking of death. Hers was the power to cause self-loathing, her name whispering among the homemade gallows by the ropes that creaked as gently as a last breath. There was Spencer, tucked under his wife's dark wing as his round gimlet eyes glowed from the darkness. He was the unsettling feeling lurking in all dark and quiet places, where uncertainty breeds monsters.
The egg glowed.
There was Dahlia, her fox hound coat the copper color of old blood, the darkness of the moors, and the ghostly white of the dead. Her keen eyes flashed with interest, her fangs sheathed and her hunter's ears pricked to the sounds of the hum. She was the hunt, and brought the desperate heart pounding terror of the pursued to her targets, her booming voice causing terror in all she chased. There was Tom, fur as pale as a corpse candle, his terrier teeth milky white as a dead mans eyes. Covetous and greedy was he, latching on to his prey with sharp teeth that bit to the soul. Silver, the color of the moon and the sacred metal of the sacrificial knife was his favorite and he guarded it jealously for the power it gave him.
The egg writhed.
There was Cuthbert, who as head of the family loomed large in the shadows, his dark komodo scales rustling as he drooled venom, his great head on its thick neck weaving as he fixated on the egg. Unusual for the Woosters who tended towards the creatures of the hunt, he was born cold blooded and toxic. He ruled the clan with a ruthlessness seldom seen before. There was Julia standing next to her husband, her long neck eeling from side to side as her mouth exuded needle sharp teeth in a silent hiss. She was a creature of the murky and silent depths that surrounded England, feasting on the bones and misfortunes of it's sailors.
The egg twitched.
There was George, his dark eagle feathers carrying just a hint of gold. He had been born as completely dark as the shadows of the sealed tomb, but upon receiving his title of Lord Yaxley from his father, his feathers carried the covetous sheen of the metal that had been baptized in greed and blood.
The egg shuddered.
There was Henry, much smaller than his sister Dahlia, but still possessing sharp fangs and fur the colors of rust on a bloody sword, and the spectral mists of the graveyards. He smelled faintly of rabbits, and his family pressed tight around him as though afraid he would act...suddenly. He was born a creature who preyed upon those who felt small, shaking them back and forth from doubt to fear until they snapped. But recently a change had begun to grow in his heart. His family was worried at the decline of his hunts and there were whispers of...leniency. He was kept the farthest from the egg.
The egg bulged.
There was Willoughby, tan, gold, and brown, with eyes as dark as the abyss. The Mad Eye of Horus, they called it. But it was far more terrible than that. Looking into those eyes, you saw not madness, but a terrible vast nothingness where there was only yourself, falling helpless and friendless into an uncaring void. It won him rather a lot of business deals.
The egg broke.
A small hand lifted a piece of the egg, teacup thin, and pushed it outwards. A tiny, plump face with wide blue eyes staring raised itself inquiringly out of the gap. Golden hair curled gently around the small dome of his forehead, chubby soft cheeks covered with down rounded out the small face, and an upturned nose that promised beak-like qualities when it had time to grow perched in the middle, right above the most curious set of lips. His mouth seemed unable to decide between yellow beak and pink lips, and compromising at a softly pointed pair of lips that began pink then turned yellow at the edges.
It was a bundle of limbs covered in a few small golden feathers standing up impertinently in little tufts that stared out at them as the egg crumbled into nothingness. He gazed at all of them standing around him and managed a small sort of friendly cheep.
They all stared.
"Perhaps...perhaps he will be a tempter? Deceiving with charm?" spoke his mother uncertainly.
"Or he maybe he will inspire covetousness to posses him?" quavered Emily.
"No...I rather suspect” boomed Dahlia, her demonic nose picking up her new nephew's scent, "I rather suspect he will cause chaos wherever he goes."
Agatha glared at the small feathered face that shrunk back at her gaze, "So long as he causes it properly." she proclaimed in a terrible voice. Bertie tried to hide under his arm, his face shielded by the few gold pinion feathers that quivered from it.
His mother looked at the quivering pile of soft flesh and fluff that was her baby and declared "He shall be named..." and here she hissed and clacked for quite some time, while all eyes were on her. Except for her son's. Once free from the frightening stares, he took courage and started to play with his mother's lashing tail. Soon his mother finished proclaiming his name, and Agatha grudgingly said "It is a good name." And then they all turned to stare at the newly-named boy who froze, and then took the tuft of fur out of his mouth.
It seemed Dahlia of the Travers' clan was right. Her nephew was a born Hell-raiser. But not in the normal, respectable, blood-splattered way. He disrupted perfectly good plans, sent time schedules completely off-kilter and the worst part was he couldn’t shut it off.
His parents couldn't take him anywhere without carts overturning, shopkeepers running into their long lost twins and shutting down shop, pigeons becoming confused and perching on live people thinking they were statues, and getting accused of using their son's bassinet to smuggle out stolen goods.
Soon everyone in the family learned not to agree to watch the little demon for any length of time. Servants learned their master's real identities, requiring memory erasing curses, priceless vases got overturned and shattered, and in one memorable occasion the entire marble front hall of Agatha's town house became irreparably stained purple.
Once, Dahlia was guarding the "tiny terror" when he almost swallowed his rusk- only quick action by Dahlia saved him, and as the rusk flew across the room it shattered a Tiffany stained glass lamp. Dahlia would later loudly ask herself if she did the right thing in sacrificing that lamp. As she would later frequently remind her nephew, it did have dahlia flowers on it and had been a gift from Tom.
"And you know, young blot, exactly how much it means for Tom to part with enough scratch to buy me a custom Tiffany lamp. I don't think he's ever gotten over grumbling about the cost. It's quite a favorite subject once tax season's died down, you infernal fluff head."
It was around his fourth birthday that they put to their son the question of his human name.
"Humans," explained his father, as he cradled his son on his knees with his wife sitting next to him on the low slung couch "have names like bricks in a building. There are many little names that make one great big one. Your last name is Wooster, which comes from your family. It tells the humans who's clan you belong to. Humans have middle names as well, and you can have as many of those as you want. But one shall be Wilberforce."
And here his wife smacked him lightly as he grinned.
"I did promise m'dear."
His wife rolled her eyes and tickled her son.
"Your father is the most ridiculous fathead this side of the Gates of Hell, my little songbird."
Her son giggled at this treatment and cheeped cheerfully with the unerring instinct of every small child "Fat'd! Fat'd"
"I am not!" replied his father indignantly. "Everyone knows that title belongs to that old stick Spencer for marrying Agatha."
His wife clasped her hands over her mouth and giggled.
"You mustn't say such things dear!"
"Oh, mustn't I? I shall say whatever I like in my own house darling! It's my castle, and for that matter, my sister. Anyways, young feather duster, one of your middle names shall be Wilberforce because just before you were born I made a promise that if I could get the jockey of the horse I bet on to make a deal with me before the race was over, I'd name you after the horse. Well you know your old Pop, of course I did it! My physical body won a packet of money off the bookie, the jockey won his race, lost his life, the horse broke it's legs, and a good time was had by all. Nothing like the old cursed wish one-two! Pow, pow! And what a face he died with!" and here he jostled his son on his knee laughing, much to the youngster's delight.
Sensing the room was about to devolve into a full knee-ride race complete with horsey noises, his wife took over the explanation.
"But your first name, my dear, shall be of your own choice. For Devils fought for themselves the power of choice and it is the thing we hold most dear. You don't have to choose it now, but when you are ready, speak it to anyone outside of your family, and your choice will be made."
Lesson over, the sitting room was transformed into a racetrack, with a laughing husband as the fast racing horse and the son shrieking with delight to be the jockey, while the goodnatured wife supplied the wheedling and tempting role. Bertie clapped delightedly as his parents made very passable impressions of people screaming for their lives, and then lunchtime was called. After which he was handed off to his nanny for the rest of the day as usual.
It was the golden age of the Wooster household, barring some minor scraps Wooster Jr. cause, but that all came to a screeching halt one day in June. On one fateful day Wooster Jr. caused his father to lose a contract for a soul rather spectacularly. Angered and ashamed at this display of their son's continued and seemingly unbreakable loss of control over his powers his parents flew off in a cloud of disappointment, exasperated and at their wits end. Leaving Bertie on the floor, they left to hunt. Little Bertie hid his feathers in shame as he tottered outside, trying desperately to stop his sniffles. He had to have Demonic Pride, like his grandsire who caused the Battle of Agencourt. But he'd mucked it all up. What sort of demon was he when he couldn't control his own powers? He so rarely saw his parents instead of his ever changing rotation of nanny's as his parents were so busy with business, and just when it mattered most he failed again, and rather terribly at that.
He stumbled next to his favorite grand tree and put his tiny face into his nub-like claws in despair. He wished, not for the first time, to be fearsome like his parents, to not have curly hair and bright yellow-gold wings. His cousins teased him and called him "Angel" and "Pet". He wished he was a demonic lion or sparrowhawk, and not a canary.
He made up his mind to climb the tree and stay there forever. Or at least until his father flew up and dragged him down for dinner or lessons in Human. As he scrambled up to begin to climb, he suddenly noticed a small gap in the brick wall. The tree forgotten, he peered curiously through the gap at his fist look at the outside world. With the curiosity of small wriggly male children everywhere, he crawled through into the backyard of the neighbor's far-off mansion. He peered curiously about at all the strange green things, and set off to explore.
He never noticed as his demonic powers sealed up the hole, just as they had made it.
Sebings, the head gardener, was making his usual morning rounds, when he beheld a most unusual sight. A small child was laying amongst the flowerbed, curiously reaching up a hand to bat one of the poor hollyhocks like a cat with a string. He stared in some bemusement for some time, until he gently cleared his throat. The boy, who couldn't have been more than five, jumped up and started looking wildly around.
Stebings stared. There was something wrong with the boy...surly no lad had limbs shaped like that? And that mouth... His eyes were riveted to the scrawny arms sprouting feathers. He had heard screaming on some days from the neighbors...but they had told his master that they were scientists...working on animals. He stared at the feathers. What had those monsters been creating? He swallowed, horrified, and noticed that the boy had shrunk back behind the flowers in fear. He held out a hand he sternly willed not to shake as he said “Hey there lad, it's ok. No need to fear. Shhhh, it's ok."
The boy shyly held out his own hand and hesitantly grasped the calloused gardener's hand, so unlike anyone's he had ever held before.
Stebings gently drew the boy to himself and murmured aloud.
"I wonder where you come from little lad."
Bertie didn't speak or understand much Human, so Stebing's only answer was a confused and fascinated stare.
"Let’s get you something to eat then, eh lad?”
The lad peered around him in interest, craning his head this way and that way to take in everything, as Stebings led him to the servant’s entrance. Stebings surreptitiously felt the lad's warm hand. The fingers felt squishy, but slightly hard at the edges. The nails were unusually thick. Other than that, it was the chubby, uncalloused, slightly sticky hand of the average five year old. He started to make tea, never fully turning his back on the strange child, who was gazing wide-eyed about swinging his legs from a stool, and absentmindedly whistling. To fill in the gap, Stebings chattered on a bit shakily "So lad, what's your name?" He had not really expected a response, and was surprised a bit when the child began to growl, and then suddenly exclaimed excitedly at the sight of the mugs. The end result sounded much like
"Birr...TEA!"
Stebings quirked his lips a bit at the enthusiasm and let out a shaky breath he didn't know he had been holding. The boy could talk at any rate, and they had given him a name like any other child. "Well now young master Bertie, is that short for Albert?"
Bertie didn't understand much of what the man had been saying. He had understood the last question, and the meaning behind those delicious-smelling mugs, but this question baffled him. He confusedly tried to explain that he was a Bird, not an All-Dirt. He cheeped "Bir'tm", which was as near as he could get to "Bird Am", which is all his shaky lessons could conjugate. He nearly sighed with relief when the man handed him the wonderful tea, and without further delay for speaking, began to gulp it down.
Stebings belatedly worried that he should warn the boy that the tea was very hot. Young Bertram didn't seem to mind the heat though. He stared mesmerized as the chubby fingers lifted the mug to the pink, oddly pointed, lips, the mug obscuring the tiny chubby face, with only the golden hair showing, a few feathers dangling off the round little arms.
Bertie kept gulping, and refused to put down the mug until his tiny pink tongue had lapped up every drop of the tea. One of the stable boys walked in just then, and stopped at the sight of the small boy with his face halfway into his mug, which was on the table as Bertie stood over it, trying to get a particularly difficult drop, and making small chirping noises. Stebings made violent shushing motions as Bertie chirped in frustration, unaware of the newcomer. Stebings sidled over to the stable boy and whispered to him "Go get the master. Quickly lad!" The boy gulped and ran up the stairs just as Bertie resurface with a pop.
His belly contentedly full and agreeably sloshy, Bertie gave a yawn, showing his small pink tongue as he sleepily blinked. "Sleepy lad?" Stebings chuckled. He sat down and motioned to his lap, which Bertie sleepily crawled onto. Stebings started as Bertie burrowed his head under his jacket, but Bertie soon fell asleep in a warm little bundle.
The stable boy came back with a very disgruntled and curious Lord Wiston, who gasped at the sight of Bertie's feathers and tiny nubby fingers. Stebings made furious and frantic shushing motions, and exaggeratedly motioning for him to come closer.
"He crawled out from the neighbor's sir. I think this is what they've been working on over there." He uncovered Bertie's head, who twitched at the light, screwed his tiny eyes shut, and burrowed further up Stebings' jacket until only his feet were visible.
"This is...monstrous!" whispered Lord Wiston indignantly. "I shall have the law on them!"
And he as was good as his word. Soon five policemen shuffled in to view the sleeping form of Bertie solemnly before nodding and going over to the neighbor's house.
Agatha was furious. She wiped the policeman's minds and stormed over to collect Bertie, leaving behind a trail of confused people. She yanked Bertie out from Stebings, who futilely held on to Bertie until Agatha unleashed her fury and he went slack immediately and lay insensate on the floor as tears fell from his unseeing eyes. Bertie awoke with a squeak, and thought it best to be very, very quiet for the entire time. Agatha maliciously sent out waves of her power, and suddenly everyone felt their spirits completely crushed as they saw with crystal clarity their own uselessness.
Aunt Agatha dumped Bertie into his nest as she linked to his trembling mind and without thinking passed it full force to his parents, streaming the images live from brain to brain.
It was unfortunate that she chose to do so, because just then they had an Angel cornered. While they were distracted, the Angel quickly lashed out and smote them where they stood.
And just like that, Bertie was an orphan.
All his Aunts credited it to his inability to turn his power off. In the manner of demons, they hounded him for years until he finally got control of both his powers and form out of self defense. At which point they sent him off to a boarding school in Brambly-by-the-Sea which was as far away as they could respectably ship him.
In typical Bertie fashion, he cause mild chaos resulting in the hallways ringing more than once to the sound of "WOOOOOSTER!" being bellowed by nearly every teacher. In spite of (or perhaps, because of) his trouble with the authority, Bertie made a great deal of human friends. And much to the disgust of his Aunt Agatha, he only ever managed to slightly tarnish their souls at the very worst. Every holiday he heard the same refrain of his Aunt Agatha giving him The Speech.
"Bertram Wilberforce Wooster, despite your entirely frivolous name you are still a Wooster and must act as such. Stop being such a sluggardly slacker and make something of yourself! Or make something of your ridiculous friends. I hear Angela turned a few of hers into a perfectly lovely set of hats and gloves, along with an ashtray. Not that a girl should be making ashtrays" and here she sniffed "but that's Dahlia's frivolous way of raising I suppose. At least if it must be an ashtray she has the decency to make it out of a skull. Unlike you who has never made anything out of proper materials in your life. Reed flutes indeed! At least have the pride and gumption to rip off a femur instead. To think, the Clan that started so many wars should breed a boy who plays a piece of foliage instead of causing terror! Sit straight Bertram! On my oath I have never seen such an uninspired child."
On and on The Speech went, each time growing longer and longer as Bertie's youthful indiscretions piled up. Bertie vastly enjoyed going to Brinkly Court instead whenever possible, warmed by the thought he wouldn't have to hear The Speech until the next holiday.
And on it went, even after he graduated through all his human schooling. He seemed to be destined to be henpecked (or, more accurately, condorpecked) for the rest of his natural life, until Bertie entered his twenty fourth year and his life took a drastically unexpected turn. That was the Year That Jeeves Arrived.
Author: Applea
Warnings: Brief references to gore, eventual slash, character death
Summary: Bertie Wooster is devilishly handsome. More than "ishly", actually. Eventually Jeeves finds out.
(Note, I started this series back in 2008 and abandoned it. I'm working on finishing all my fics I abandoned back in my youth. Never leave a fic behind! I massively cleaned up and added to this first chapter. If anyone has any concrit, please let me know! I thrive on that stuff.)
Bertie, it was concluded, was a disappointment to everyone.
For starters, he was a rather angelic demon.
His entire family was a very respectable clan of Hell's representations on Earth, and his immediate family alone was one of the most well-disguised and powerful clans in England. Devils by nature preferred to stake out territory, and the strongest survived to rule the small territories they had carved out. Angels were much less territorial, spreading peace wherever they went. That meant, however, that they worked almost independently, and Devils used that to their advantage. Nothing brings together murderous cousins than Angel hunting.
His mother was the most successful Angel hunter in all of Europe. She was ruthless, and so powerful she had married into the family not twenty four years after being sent up from Hell. Everyone agreed that she made a fine fearsome sight while stalking her prey, her golden fur crackling dark black at the edges, her claws flexing as she ran on four massive rough black paws, murderous intent in her dark leonine eyes.
It was a bit of a shame, then, when she took his father as her husband. Such a demon as she deserved better than the slim, fierce, and slightly stupid sparrowhawk, no matter how fine a figure he cut with his feathers the color of concrete covered in old blood, sharp as broken glass against the sky. Still, there were Standards To Be Maintained. Letting a new demon take a top level mate is the surest way to see the new upstart try to carve larger and larger territories, causing entirely the wrong sort of havoc. At any rate, though he was somewhat dense, Bertie's father was still powerful and a fast hunter. He looked like a vengeful storm on the wing when he flew with his mad golden eyes gleaming as wickedly as his shining talons, his piercingly terrible whistling shriek ringing through the air like the bell's of the Abyss as he tore invading angels asunder.
Therefore, it had been rather a shock when Bertie had been born so...weak.
His mother had quasi-transformed from her full lioness figure to something almost matching her devastatingly beautiful human shape, shifting uneasily back and forth as the contractions took her, as all Demons on Earth did when they gave birth. Sweating blood colored droplets the sizzled on the bed sheet, she collapsed as the result of her labors came forth and a vaguely egg-shaped writhing mass of black energy lay on the bed. Acting on ancient instinct, she promptly render the bedding asunder into a nest, snuggling the blankets around the egg and collapsing delicately on top.
Throughout the incubation, his father sat on the egg somewhat more often than usual as his demonic shape was more suited to the task and frankly, his wife tended to bat the egg about with her great paws rather than lay on it. Later on, Bertie's family would agree he had been quite scrambled in the egg.
All of Wooster Sr.'s family (for being new, his wife had no family above) clustered around when the egg began to hum.
There was the fearsome, hatchet-beaked condor that was his sister Agatha, wrinkled head with dark gleaming eyes drawn proudly above feathers black as night and reeking of death. Hers was the power to cause self-loathing, her name whispering among the homemade gallows by the ropes that creaked as gently as a last breath. There was Spencer, tucked under his wife's dark wing as his round gimlet eyes glowed from the darkness. He was the unsettling feeling lurking in all dark and quiet places, where uncertainty breeds monsters.
The egg glowed.
There was Dahlia, her fox hound coat the copper color of old blood, the darkness of the moors, and the ghostly white of the dead. Her keen eyes flashed with interest, her fangs sheathed and her hunter's ears pricked to the sounds of the hum. She was the hunt, and brought the desperate heart pounding terror of the pursued to her targets, her booming voice causing terror in all she chased. There was Tom, fur as pale as a corpse candle, his terrier teeth milky white as a dead mans eyes. Covetous and greedy was he, latching on to his prey with sharp teeth that bit to the soul. Silver, the color of the moon and the sacred metal of the sacrificial knife was his favorite and he guarded it jealously for the power it gave him.
The egg writhed.
There was Cuthbert, who as head of the family loomed large in the shadows, his dark komodo scales rustling as he drooled venom, his great head on its thick neck weaving as he fixated on the egg. Unusual for the Woosters who tended towards the creatures of the hunt, he was born cold blooded and toxic. He ruled the clan with a ruthlessness seldom seen before. There was Julia standing next to her husband, her long neck eeling from side to side as her mouth exuded needle sharp teeth in a silent hiss. She was a creature of the murky and silent depths that surrounded England, feasting on the bones and misfortunes of it's sailors.
The egg twitched.
There was George, his dark eagle feathers carrying just a hint of gold. He had been born as completely dark as the shadows of the sealed tomb, but upon receiving his title of Lord Yaxley from his father, his feathers carried the covetous sheen of the metal that had been baptized in greed and blood.
The egg shuddered.
There was Henry, much smaller than his sister Dahlia, but still possessing sharp fangs and fur the colors of rust on a bloody sword, and the spectral mists of the graveyards. He smelled faintly of rabbits, and his family pressed tight around him as though afraid he would act...suddenly. He was born a creature who preyed upon those who felt small, shaking them back and forth from doubt to fear until they snapped. But recently a change had begun to grow in his heart. His family was worried at the decline of his hunts and there were whispers of...leniency. He was kept the farthest from the egg.
The egg bulged.
There was Willoughby, tan, gold, and brown, with eyes as dark as the abyss. The Mad Eye of Horus, they called it. But it was far more terrible than that. Looking into those eyes, you saw not madness, but a terrible vast nothingness where there was only yourself, falling helpless and friendless into an uncaring void. It won him rather a lot of business deals.
The egg broke.
A small hand lifted a piece of the egg, teacup thin, and pushed it outwards. A tiny, plump face with wide blue eyes staring raised itself inquiringly out of the gap. Golden hair curled gently around the small dome of his forehead, chubby soft cheeks covered with down rounded out the small face, and an upturned nose that promised beak-like qualities when it had time to grow perched in the middle, right above the most curious set of lips. His mouth seemed unable to decide between yellow beak and pink lips, and compromising at a softly pointed pair of lips that began pink then turned yellow at the edges.
It was a bundle of limbs covered in a few small golden feathers standing up impertinently in little tufts that stared out at them as the egg crumbled into nothingness. He gazed at all of them standing around him and managed a small sort of friendly cheep.
They all stared.
"Perhaps...perhaps he will be a tempter? Deceiving with charm?" spoke his mother uncertainly.
"Or he maybe he will inspire covetousness to posses him?" quavered Emily.
"No...I rather suspect” boomed Dahlia, her demonic nose picking up her new nephew's scent, "I rather suspect he will cause chaos wherever he goes."
Agatha glared at the small feathered face that shrunk back at her gaze, "So long as he causes it properly." she proclaimed in a terrible voice. Bertie tried to hide under his arm, his face shielded by the few gold pinion feathers that quivered from it.
His mother looked at the quivering pile of soft flesh and fluff that was her baby and declared "He shall be named..." and here she hissed and clacked for quite some time, while all eyes were on her. Except for her son's. Once free from the frightening stares, he took courage and started to play with his mother's lashing tail. Soon his mother finished proclaiming his name, and Agatha grudgingly said "It is a good name." And then they all turned to stare at the newly-named boy who froze, and then took the tuft of fur out of his mouth.
It seemed Dahlia of the Travers' clan was right. Her nephew was a born Hell-raiser. But not in the normal, respectable, blood-splattered way. He disrupted perfectly good plans, sent time schedules completely off-kilter and the worst part was he couldn’t shut it off.
His parents couldn't take him anywhere without carts overturning, shopkeepers running into their long lost twins and shutting down shop, pigeons becoming confused and perching on live people thinking they were statues, and getting accused of using their son's bassinet to smuggle out stolen goods.
Soon everyone in the family learned not to agree to watch the little demon for any length of time. Servants learned their master's real identities, requiring memory erasing curses, priceless vases got overturned and shattered, and in one memorable occasion the entire marble front hall of Agatha's town house became irreparably stained purple.
Once, Dahlia was guarding the "tiny terror" when he almost swallowed his rusk- only quick action by Dahlia saved him, and as the rusk flew across the room it shattered a Tiffany stained glass lamp. Dahlia would later loudly ask herself if she did the right thing in sacrificing that lamp. As she would later frequently remind her nephew, it did have dahlia flowers on it and had been a gift from Tom.
"And you know, young blot, exactly how much it means for Tom to part with enough scratch to buy me a custom Tiffany lamp. I don't think he's ever gotten over grumbling about the cost. It's quite a favorite subject once tax season's died down, you infernal fluff head."
It was around his fourth birthday that they put to their son the question of his human name.
"Humans," explained his father, as he cradled his son on his knees with his wife sitting next to him on the low slung couch "have names like bricks in a building. There are many little names that make one great big one. Your last name is Wooster, which comes from your family. It tells the humans who's clan you belong to. Humans have middle names as well, and you can have as many of those as you want. But one shall be Wilberforce."
And here his wife smacked him lightly as he grinned.
"I did promise m'dear."
His wife rolled her eyes and tickled her son.
"Your father is the most ridiculous fathead this side of the Gates of Hell, my little songbird."
Her son giggled at this treatment and cheeped cheerfully with the unerring instinct of every small child "Fat'd! Fat'd"
"I am not!" replied his father indignantly. "Everyone knows that title belongs to that old stick Spencer for marrying Agatha."
His wife clasped her hands over her mouth and giggled.
"You mustn't say such things dear!"
"Oh, mustn't I? I shall say whatever I like in my own house darling! It's my castle, and for that matter, my sister. Anyways, young feather duster, one of your middle names shall be Wilberforce because just before you were born I made a promise that if I could get the jockey of the horse I bet on to make a deal with me before the race was over, I'd name you after the horse. Well you know your old Pop, of course I did it! My physical body won a packet of money off the bookie, the jockey won his race, lost his life, the horse broke it's legs, and a good time was had by all. Nothing like the old cursed wish one-two! Pow, pow! And what a face he died with!" and here he jostled his son on his knee laughing, much to the youngster's delight.
Sensing the room was about to devolve into a full knee-ride race complete with horsey noises, his wife took over the explanation.
"But your first name, my dear, shall be of your own choice. For Devils fought for themselves the power of choice and it is the thing we hold most dear. You don't have to choose it now, but when you are ready, speak it to anyone outside of your family, and your choice will be made."
Lesson over, the sitting room was transformed into a racetrack, with a laughing husband as the fast racing horse and the son shrieking with delight to be the jockey, while the goodnatured wife supplied the wheedling and tempting role. Bertie clapped delightedly as his parents made very passable impressions of people screaming for their lives, and then lunchtime was called. After which he was handed off to his nanny for the rest of the day as usual.
It was the golden age of the Wooster household, barring some minor scraps Wooster Jr. cause, but that all came to a screeching halt one day in June. On one fateful day Wooster Jr. caused his father to lose a contract for a soul rather spectacularly. Angered and ashamed at this display of their son's continued and seemingly unbreakable loss of control over his powers his parents flew off in a cloud of disappointment, exasperated and at their wits end. Leaving Bertie on the floor, they left to hunt. Little Bertie hid his feathers in shame as he tottered outside, trying desperately to stop his sniffles. He had to have Demonic Pride, like his grandsire who caused the Battle of Agencourt. But he'd mucked it all up. What sort of demon was he when he couldn't control his own powers? He so rarely saw his parents instead of his ever changing rotation of nanny's as his parents were so busy with business, and just when it mattered most he failed again, and rather terribly at that.
He stumbled next to his favorite grand tree and put his tiny face into his nub-like claws in despair. He wished, not for the first time, to be fearsome like his parents, to not have curly hair and bright yellow-gold wings. His cousins teased him and called him "Angel" and "Pet". He wished he was a demonic lion or sparrowhawk, and not a canary.
He made up his mind to climb the tree and stay there forever. Or at least until his father flew up and dragged him down for dinner or lessons in Human. As he scrambled up to begin to climb, he suddenly noticed a small gap in the brick wall. The tree forgotten, he peered curiously through the gap at his fist look at the outside world. With the curiosity of small wriggly male children everywhere, he crawled through into the backyard of the neighbor's far-off mansion. He peered curiously about at all the strange green things, and set off to explore.
He never noticed as his demonic powers sealed up the hole, just as they had made it.
Sebings, the head gardener, was making his usual morning rounds, when he beheld a most unusual sight. A small child was laying amongst the flowerbed, curiously reaching up a hand to bat one of the poor hollyhocks like a cat with a string. He stared in some bemusement for some time, until he gently cleared his throat. The boy, who couldn't have been more than five, jumped up and started looking wildly around.
Stebings stared. There was something wrong with the boy...surly no lad had limbs shaped like that? And that mouth... His eyes were riveted to the scrawny arms sprouting feathers. He had heard screaming on some days from the neighbors...but they had told his master that they were scientists...working on animals. He stared at the feathers. What had those monsters been creating? He swallowed, horrified, and noticed that the boy had shrunk back behind the flowers in fear. He held out a hand he sternly willed not to shake as he said “Hey there lad, it's ok. No need to fear. Shhhh, it's ok."
The boy shyly held out his own hand and hesitantly grasped the calloused gardener's hand, so unlike anyone's he had ever held before.
Stebings gently drew the boy to himself and murmured aloud.
"I wonder where you come from little lad."
Bertie didn't speak or understand much Human, so Stebing's only answer was a confused and fascinated stare.
"Let’s get you something to eat then, eh lad?”
The lad peered around him in interest, craning his head this way and that way to take in everything, as Stebings led him to the servant’s entrance. Stebings surreptitiously felt the lad's warm hand. The fingers felt squishy, but slightly hard at the edges. The nails were unusually thick. Other than that, it was the chubby, uncalloused, slightly sticky hand of the average five year old. He started to make tea, never fully turning his back on the strange child, who was gazing wide-eyed about swinging his legs from a stool, and absentmindedly whistling. To fill in the gap, Stebings chattered on a bit shakily "So lad, what's your name?" He had not really expected a response, and was surprised a bit when the child began to growl, and then suddenly exclaimed excitedly at the sight of the mugs. The end result sounded much like
"Birr...TEA!"
Stebings quirked his lips a bit at the enthusiasm and let out a shaky breath he didn't know he had been holding. The boy could talk at any rate, and they had given him a name like any other child. "Well now young master Bertie, is that short for Albert?"
Bertie didn't understand much of what the man had been saying. He had understood the last question, and the meaning behind those delicious-smelling mugs, but this question baffled him. He confusedly tried to explain that he was a Bird, not an All-Dirt. He cheeped "Bir'tm", which was as near as he could get to "Bird Am", which is all his shaky lessons could conjugate. He nearly sighed with relief when the man handed him the wonderful tea, and without further delay for speaking, began to gulp it down.
Stebings belatedly worried that he should warn the boy that the tea was very hot. Young Bertram didn't seem to mind the heat though. He stared mesmerized as the chubby fingers lifted the mug to the pink, oddly pointed, lips, the mug obscuring the tiny chubby face, with only the golden hair showing, a few feathers dangling off the round little arms.
Bertie kept gulping, and refused to put down the mug until his tiny pink tongue had lapped up every drop of the tea. One of the stable boys walked in just then, and stopped at the sight of the small boy with his face halfway into his mug, which was on the table as Bertie stood over it, trying to get a particularly difficult drop, and making small chirping noises. Stebings made violent shushing motions as Bertie chirped in frustration, unaware of the newcomer. Stebings sidled over to the stable boy and whispered to him "Go get the master. Quickly lad!" The boy gulped and ran up the stairs just as Bertie resurface with a pop.
His belly contentedly full and agreeably sloshy, Bertie gave a yawn, showing his small pink tongue as he sleepily blinked. "Sleepy lad?" Stebings chuckled. He sat down and motioned to his lap, which Bertie sleepily crawled onto. Stebings started as Bertie burrowed his head under his jacket, but Bertie soon fell asleep in a warm little bundle.
The stable boy came back with a very disgruntled and curious Lord Wiston, who gasped at the sight of Bertie's feathers and tiny nubby fingers. Stebings made furious and frantic shushing motions, and exaggeratedly motioning for him to come closer.
"He crawled out from the neighbor's sir. I think this is what they've been working on over there." He uncovered Bertie's head, who twitched at the light, screwed his tiny eyes shut, and burrowed further up Stebings' jacket until only his feet were visible.
"This is...monstrous!" whispered Lord Wiston indignantly. "I shall have the law on them!"
And he as was good as his word. Soon five policemen shuffled in to view the sleeping form of Bertie solemnly before nodding and going over to the neighbor's house.
Agatha was furious. She wiped the policeman's minds and stormed over to collect Bertie, leaving behind a trail of confused people. She yanked Bertie out from Stebings, who futilely held on to Bertie until Agatha unleashed her fury and he went slack immediately and lay insensate on the floor as tears fell from his unseeing eyes. Bertie awoke with a squeak, and thought it best to be very, very quiet for the entire time. Agatha maliciously sent out waves of her power, and suddenly everyone felt their spirits completely crushed as they saw with crystal clarity their own uselessness.
Aunt Agatha dumped Bertie into his nest as she linked to his trembling mind and without thinking passed it full force to his parents, streaming the images live from brain to brain.
It was unfortunate that she chose to do so, because just then they had an Angel cornered. While they were distracted, the Angel quickly lashed out and smote them where they stood.
And just like that, Bertie was an orphan.
All his Aunts credited it to his inability to turn his power off. In the manner of demons, they hounded him for years until he finally got control of both his powers and form out of self defense. At which point they sent him off to a boarding school in Brambly-by-the-Sea which was as far away as they could respectably ship him.
In typical Bertie fashion, he cause mild chaos resulting in the hallways ringing more than once to the sound of "WOOOOOSTER!" being bellowed by nearly every teacher. In spite of (or perhaps, because of) his trouble with the authority, Bertie made a great deal of human friends. And much to the disgust of his Aunt Agatha, he only ever managed to slightly tarnish their souls at the very worst. Every holiday he heard the same refrain of his Aunt Agatha giving him The Speech.
"Bertram Wilberforce Wooster, despite your entirely frivolous name you are still a Wooster and must act as such. Stop being such a sluggardly slacker and make something of yourself! Or make something of your ridiculous friends. I hear Angela turned a few of hers into a perfectly lovely set of hats and gloves, along with an ashtray. Not that a girl should be making ashtrays" and here she sniffed "but that's Dahlia's frivolous way of raising I suppose. At least if it must be an ashtray she has the decency to make it out of a skull. Unlike you who has never made anything out of proper materials in your life. Reed flutes indeed! At least have the pride and gumption to rip off a femur instead. To think, the Clan that started so many wars should breed a boy who plays a piece of foliage instead of causing terror! Sit straight Bertram! On my oath I have never seen such an uninspired child."
On and on The Speech went, each time growing longer and longer as Bertie's youthful indiscretions piled up. Bertie vastly enjoyed going to Brinkly Court instead whenever possible, warmed by the thought he wouldn't have to hear The Speech until the next holiday.
And on it went, even after he graduated through all his human schooling. He seemed to be destined to be henpecked (or, more accurately, condorpecked) for the rest of his natural life, until Bertie entered his twenty fourth year and his life took a drastically unexpected turn. That was the Year That Jeeves Arrived.
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