This story begins in a town named Fabletown, a place where many strange people and creatures live. In this town, a pig was carrying a basket on his back, full of recently purchased flowers. This pig’s name is Pete. He has three family members, being his two older brothers, Conner and Joseph, and his Mother, Abigail. Or at least, two of them. Unfortunately, the reason he had to go into town to buy flowers was for their mother, who had recently passed from her old age. He carried the basket of flowers to her new resting place. They didn’t have much, so she was buried in a field, where they were planning to build their new houses. Pete said the basket down, just as his brothers arrived. Conner is a greedy and somewhat clever pig, and was closest to Pete, who was quite lazy. Conner had brought a large rock that could substitute for a tombstone. On it, ‘Rest in Peace’ was neatly, albeit shakily written on it with paint. With Conner was Joseph, the oldest of the three brothers, and it shows. He had a small grey path of hair on his chin, and had to wear glasses. As well, he also needed a makeshift cane to walk. Joseph was the smartest, hardest working, and most patient of the trio.
“What’d you bring for Mom, Joseph?” Pete asked, planting the flowers around her.
“Didn’t bring bull.” Conner replied. “Just made me carry the stupid rock.”
“The rock and paint were mine.” Joseph said, pinching Conner’s snout. “I just couldn’t carry it.”
“Agh!” Conner yelped. “Fine, fine! I didn’t have any idea of what to bring, so Joseph said to help carry the stupid rock…”
Pete helped Conner to plant the rock at the head of the burial site, making it look as nice as they could. Once they finished setting it up, they held a brief funeral. Not much was said or done, they just stood respectfully in silence. After a while, Joseph spoke,
“Well…that’s that then…” He said, in his gruff and deep voice. “Mum wouldn’t want us to be weepin’ until the rain comes to hide our tears. She’d want us to move along…”
“Yeah…guess you’re right…’sides, we need to finish buildin’ our houses.” Pete replied. “Speaking of which, how’s your’s going, Joseph?”
“About halfway done…good thing I started a while back.” He replied. “Which reminds me…I’m gettin’ to work.”
“Of course…Joseph immediately goes back to workin’.” Conner joked, patting his back. “Well…plenty of sticks layin’ about…guess I can make somethin’ outta them!”
Joseph and Conner left to work on their houses, as Pete went back to their old barn. It was never in good shape, especially since they haven’t been back in about 5 days, but he hoped he could scavenge something from it. Memories, at the very least. After wandering around the old barn for quite a while, he stopped at a large pile of straw.
“Well now…I suppose it’d be a waste to leave such fine material ‘ere!” Pete said to himself, knowing perfectly well that it wasn’t ‘fine material’ at all. He just didn’t want to look for something else. “I reckon I could make a perfectly fine straw house for myself outta this pile!”
Pete pulled a wheelbarrow over and started to load handfuls of straw into it, one at a time. After a moment, he snorted. A sign of frustration.
“Ugh…this is takin’ way too long! Gotta be a faster way…” He said, then looked around. After searching for a moment, he found a large shovel. “Aah! Perfect!”
He picked up the shovel, which was a tad bit taller than him, and drove it into the pile, scooping out a large portion of it.
“Haha! There we go!” He said to himself, excitedly.
As he shoved the shovel back into the pile, he heard an audible THUNK.
“AGH-” A young sounding voice exclaimed. “HEY! What’s the big idea?!”
“Eh? What’s this then?” Pete questioned, pulling the shovel out.
As he pulled the shovel out, what looked like a small child popped up from the pile, rubbing his head. Upon closer inspection, Pete noticed that he was made of wood…he seemed to be some kind of living puppet?
“What’s your problem, ham-head?!” The boy exclaimed, angrily.
“Oh! Biggest apologies, lad!” Pete said, putting the shovel aside. “I was just tryin’ to move this here straw from my barn to where I’m buildin’ my new home.”
“Your barn…this is your’s?” He asked, climbing out of the pile of straw.
“Well, it was our Mother’s, but she passed recently, bless her soul.” Pete said, pushing the wheelbarrow out of the barn. “Me and my two Brothers are building new houses nearby, so I guess you could stay here if you’d like. Not as if we’d use it for ourselves.”
“Oh! Alrighty then…” He said, following pete. “By the way, the name’s Pinocchio! My Father said it’s a mix of Pino and Occhio.”
“Ah…and what do those two mean then?” Pete questioned.
“He said Pino meant Pine, and Occhio meant Eye.” Pinocchio replied.
“Ah, I see.” Pete said. “My name’s Pete. Quite a bit more simple, I’d say.”
They both chuckled slightly, as they approached where the other two Pigs were building their new houses.
“You spoke of your Pa briefly…where’s he at?” Pete questioned, parking the wheelbarrow. “He ought to know you’re out here, aye?”
“Oh…well…my ‘Father’ is an old man named Geppetto, but…” Pinocchio said, seeming more down. “We lived in his workshop, just outside of Town…a few days ago, the Big Bad Wolf himself came stompin’ through, and attacked us! I got away safely, but I haven’t seen my Father since…”
“Ooh, that scummy ‘ole wolf! He’s always been trompsing through these parts, roughing up and eatin’ people inside and out of town!” Pete said, gruffly. “He’s the reason it was just my brothers and our Ma left at the Barn! Ate the rest of the animals we had in there!”
While they were talking, Joseph hobbled over, using his cane for support.
“Oi, Pete…who’ve you brought along with ya?” He questioned.
“Oh, Joseph! This puppet here’s named Pinocchio.” Pete replied. “Says the Big Bad Wolf attacked him and his Dad. He was hidin’ in the Barn when I found him!”
Joseph let out a grunt of agknolwedgement, and looked at the wheelbarrow.
“Pete…please don’t tell me you brought a pile of straw to build a house out of…” Joseph said, seeming a bit exasperated.
“Ight then…I WON’T tell ya~!” Pete replied, playfully.
“Ugh…first Conner picks up sticks and makes a teepee outta them…” Joseph mumbled to himself as he limped away to his in-progress brick house. “Then Pete comes along with a puppet and a wheelbarrow of wheat…”
“Straw and wheat ain’t the same and you know it!” Pete yelled after him. “Tosser…”
Pete began to set up his house, using some rope to tie the straw together into a small house made of a couple walls, a roof, and a lazily made Straw Carpet, all tied together with more rope. So, in short, it looked like a piece of shit. But it stayed up, and that was good enough for him. He finished up and went to check on his Brothers with Pinocchio. First was Conner, who had used some rope and a LOT of sticks to set up a fairly big teepee.
“Oi, Conner! How’d your house goin’?” Pete asked.
“Aye, it’s good as a newborn baby!” Conner replied, jovially, while working on the inside of his roof. “Couldn’t be better!”
“Yeah, if newborn babies looked shabby as a housefire.” Pinocchio quipped, gaining a chuckle from Pete.
“WHAT-” Conner exclaimed, banging his head on the ceiling. He popped out from the door, rubbing his forehead. “Agh…which one of you sods said that?!”
Pete and Pinocchio where both laughing loudly.
“Oooh, I see how it is, then!” Conner angrily said, before turning to Pete. “Who’s the pint?”
“His name’s Pinocchio, Conner. Magic puppet or somethin’.” Pete replied, wiping tears form his eyes. “He’s stayin’ in the old barn now.”
“Whatever…so long as you don’t touch my stuff!” Conner said.
“Yeah…you really look like you have something I’d want to take…” Pinocchio said, sarcastically.
“I mean it, ya lump of kindling!” Conner said. “Don’t touch my things!”
“No promises~” Pinocchio said, slyly. Pete was stifling a laugh next to him.
Conner grumbled and walked back into his house. They then went to check on Joseph and when they did, their jaws almost hit the floor! Joseph had been putting together a two-story house out of wood, brick, and cement! It wasn’t fully done, as it lacked a roof and some of the walls weren’t finished, but still it was a masterpiece compared to theirs.
“Holy crap!” Pinocchio exclaimed. “And the guy who made this is YOUR guys’ brother?!”
“Welp, that’s Joseph for ya!” Pete said, laughing. “Hard workin’, and a bloody genius if ever I’ve seen one!”
Joseph peeked his head out of the upper floor, where he was working on the walls.
“Mm…got free time already, Pete?” Joseph questioned, covered in wet cement and brick dust. He then looked over at Pete’s house, and sighed slightly. “Guess so.”
“Ah, it’ll hold!” Pete said, dismissively. “Anyway, how’s your uh…mona lisa over here goin’?”
“Pretty well so far, I’d say.” Joseph replied, laying some cement and bricks. “It’ll take a while longer, but it’ll be done soon enough.”
While they were talking, Pinocchio had wandered off back to the Barn. He wandered around the inside, getting a good layout of the Barn. It was pretty shabby, with some cracks and holes in the walls and ceiling, and definitely had bugs in places it shouldn’t, but it was enough. After around a week, Joseph had finished his house, and went to the Barn to check on Pinocchio, knowing damn well that Pete and Conner likely haven’t. After looking around for a while, he found the boy in the living room, with a pack of firecrackers, and an old rusted pipe from the house’s broken plumbing system. He approached Pinocchio.
“Oi.” He said, gruffly, causing Pinocchio to jump. “Them’s some fierce lookin’ firecrackers. What’re you plannin’ to do with ‘em, boy?”
“Uh…just…” He thought for a moment. “I’m just gonna set them off in the woods! Have a bit of fun, you know!”
Suddenly, what looked like small blue embers formed on his wooden nose, and it extended to twice its length!
Joseph furrowed his brows slightly. “If you’re gonna set off explosives, do it by the lake.” He said. “That way if you start a fire, you can put it out fast.”
Joseph turned and hobbled out of the house, back to his own. Pinocchio sighed, packing the firecracker into a bag, and picking up the pipe.
“Remind me of Geppetto, Joseph…” He said quietly to himself, before running to the Forest.
In truth, Pinocchio had stolen the Firecrackers in preparation to find and kill the Big Bad Wolf. Far as he knew, the Wolf killed his father, and no way in hell he’d let him get away with that! He searched for forest for almost an hour, until he heard rustling in the bushes near him. Cautiously, he picked up a rock and threw it at the bush as hard as he could, making a loud THUNK.
“OW! BLIMEY!” A scruffy voice rang out.
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