High Spirits

[ c. 13th Century ~ ]

The moon splashed its light onto the stepping stones before him - a shining path that sat barely above the river's lick. To those watching from afar it appeared that Francis was walking upon the top of the water, as he balanced nimbly upon each polished pebble.

Behind him followed Murmur, who had left Hannah-Mary with her child safely in the care of a community east to where they were camped. The women there spoke the language of babies, and taught the motherly craft. They had welcomed them both with open arms.

Tonight, he and Francis performed the Midnight Mass, and with the night air being comfortably warm, and their purpose strong, the two were in high spirits.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

An Entity of Darkness

“Pull a rabbit out of a hat my boy, pull a rabbit out of a hat!”

That's precisely what was needed right now for sure. These words he reheard in his mind, just as though his father was saying them.

On his very first experiment, where he had to light the burner beneath the shining beaker, his father had said this with gusto. But where now are the rabbits?

Ever since that day Johnstone Senior had imparted to him the confidence to try for things that he never thought possible. At an early age Calvin had the ability to believe that he really could pull a rabbit out of a hat - that he could manifest the extraordinary. Having also the confidence of a multi-millionaire's son didn't hurt either. His sense of expectation was always strong.
And, from a complicated industry he had been shown the extravagance of Nature's own designs.

He had mixed and mingled fluids and vapours, cells and their nano's - to find that bacteria had personality; and that life could spring up as though out from nowhere. Spontaneous generation was a reality, even if the doors to the other-world that they came from were invisible.

However all of this magic had turned upon them now; in ways they could never have foreseen or invited.

The ‘rabbit’ became an entity of darkness, and Calvin felt it quiver in the empty sack of his stomach.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Lion's Head Ring

[c. 21st Century ~]

Calvin didn't pay much attention to the stranger who brushed by him on the bus. It was unusual to see a man in a kaftan, but the area was in no short supply of hippies, especially the kind who lived in the communes shouldering the native land close by in the desert.

What he did register momentarily was the bronze ring that this tall man wore ... it had a lion's head that resembled a miniature door-knocker. Calvin made a note to himself to trawl the markets when all of this was over, to find one for himself.

Looking briefly for a seat, he half noticed some alarmed faces staring at him. This had happened before. It was because of of the green stain still visible on his right hand. People most likely thought he was a bank robber with a dye stain like he had, yet he had not given them, or it, a second thought …

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

A Blessing & a Curse

The body that the spirit inhabits becomes its companion of sorts, a companion that remains linked in a kinship, even after a death, after the body itself has dissolved. For it too has a nature, and an indwelling character of sorts, that has collected experience and memory, and a binding and renewing karma in the service of the two.

And so, when it happened that Murmur had reawakened Pietro from his death, he had given him a chance to have days in the world he would not have had ordinarily.

But this was to be living in another form other than his own. For the body Pietro had worn had now deceased and dissipated.

There is an expression to say that some things can be both a 'blessing and a curse’. The innocent Monk was unaware of the deep and potent magic he had been performing with his resurrections.

With this embodiment came a sorry consequence: that now the door to the Heavens had closed for those he had saved - and Pietro could not find his way back, as he might have done with an ordinary departure into death.

His chance to exit the starry path had come and gone, and its exact configuration was unknown to him, and he subsequently became earth-bound thereafter.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Life is not what it appears to be

When a soul is dislocated from its original habitat - from the body that housed it and gave it warmth in the world - when it is displaced and placed into yet another form, another body, another mortal flesh - it becomes confused as to where it should be, and has difficulty finding the pathways back into the heavens that it would usually return to periodically.

The science of the spirit and its relationship to the body in which it indwells, is a complex conundrum.

Life is not what it appears to be. Life is wholesome, and this unison of synergistic amalgamations persuade the common view that one thing is the other.

But one thing is many things - at the one time - and this simple truth goes to the essence of all life with its manifold complexities.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Welcome to this World

Looking sternly at her tear stained countenance, he asked "What name would you have christened this child?"

"Mirabella" she said, staring at the ground.

The young monk made the sign of the cross upon the little brow and softly whispered in her frilly ear.

"Mirabella" he said, "welcome to this world”.

And with that so said from the healer monk, the tiny girl blinked her shining eyes, and turned a pearly pink all over, as new blood had now fortified her inspirited body.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Murmur began to Pray

Hannah-Mary screamed an unearthly scream.

“You will not take my baby!" she whimpered.

With a push and a shove the door was forced open. It was Murmur, her twin brother.

Word had reached him from Francis that Hannah’s time was soon due, and he had sought his sister straightaway because of it.

With the door atilt, the early light came flowing through in golden beads.

He caught sight of his poor sister and what lay there beside her - of the little face plain staring - quite grey, yet very beautiful.

Upon seeing her brother, Hannah-Mary began once again to sob.

He knelt by her side and held out his arms reverently.

She gave over the bundle solemnly. With his arms around them both, Murmur began to pray.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Limp upon the Floor

"Mary" she rasped, "you are alone and there is no one but me to help you in this world - let me take care of your bastard child. You can come for it later when it has grown. Let me in now, that I may do as I will.”

It was then that the pain came upon the young mother. Mary clutched her cramping girth and cried, "not now!”

There was a muttering to be heard on the other side of the door. The witch had started cursing an evil mantra, issuing such blasphemies as are spoken by her kind.

It had started to rain.

Mary felt trapped - she could not leave by her one and only door, for fear of the Vivien - yet neither could she safely stay.

She needed help.

A fit of unconsciousness draped over her trembling form, as Hannah collapsed into the darkness, hitting her head on the cold slate floor. She felt nothing.

Come the morning the young mother lay in her mess, with a cold infant between her legs still tied by its cord.

Pitifully alone in her bewilderment she lay for many hours, without the will to do anything but wail.

There was blood all around, and yet the cottage smelt of roses. The sun was streaming through the little stone window, and illumined the naked child limp upon the floor.


- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS, Second Chances 

The Opportunistic Vivien

[ circa 13th Century ~ ]
The old witch rapped and tapped at the window pane so abruptly that Mary was startled from her sleep.

Her dream-life had been troubled this night particularly, disturbed by some gawking gibbering demons sent to her bed, by the opportunistic Vivien.

"I've come to deliver your baby" called the old woman from behind the bolted door.

“Leave my home and go back to what hell you came from!” Hannah-Mary replied nervously - “You will not take my baby from me!”

She shouted this as loudly as she could, fearing that the old witch might not be able to hear her. The hag rattled the latch and pushed menacingly on the bulk of the old oak door.

Vivien was impervious to reason or consequence; being both wilful and determined in her wants. She had come to get the infant child and would not leave until the baby was in her bony arms - hers to steal away.

Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

At the Gate

“I think it might be time for you to retire George", Francis had said telepathically, placing a gentle, steadying hand upon the old inspector’s shoulder. George slumped further. He knew that Francesco was right.

“But where would I go? What would I do?” he asked meekly. Even as a ghost he felt tired - more tired than he had ever been in earthly life.

He continued: "I don't know … anywhere but London" he sighed to himself, an old man's sigh.

That is how it began, that George became a constant companion to Francis - and after that, following him everywhere he went.

Although as a spirit George was invisible to the ordinary world, he still had a large community that followed close by him, of the animals that he had collected from the restaurants, and they, added to this, were drawn to Francis as well.

Francis of course, could see and hear George, as he did with most ‘other worldly’ souls that would accompany the two.

They buzzed at the entrance, hoping that a gate attendant would answer, but the compound looked desolate.

George fiddled with the intercom, taking a handkerchief out of his pocket, he began to wipe the dust from its buttons.

There was a click of a door and a woman approached with Chips slinking behind. The grey dog sniffed at the gate and licked Francis’s hand happy to see his old friend again.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

His Natural Abilities

Arizona was unseasonably hot, even for the desert’s days, and the sight of a man in a Kaftan was not the most unusual thing that could be seen around the town.

Francis still held an uncanny talent winning over animals and plants. Back in his flat in Utah there were pot plants all over his shelves and floors. He would bring a little sapling home and within the week it was overgrown.

His natural abilities surpassed the best of the mortals in this modern age, which was not surprising, for as did his virtue.

Elvish blood can carry you so far, however it is true righteousness that appeals to the heavens and their graces, for the bestowing of their higher powers.

It really seemed to go hand-in-hand: that the more accomplished the soul (be them elvish or man) the more that they heard the hearts of others and loved them well.

Although Francis had an idea of the approximate location that Anon was in, he really could not tell what building or what person, might be holding him. His intuition brought him to the gates of Johnstone Bio-phio Chemicals, where inside the compound his beloved friend lay at the feet of the woman in red.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

 

Here - or Other-where

[circa 21st Century ~]

At the very same time that Calvin had set foot on the 804 to leave, Francesco stepped down into the red specked dirt with his desert-dust sandalled feet. He had been travelling miles across the country to find his beloved companion, Anon - a Weimaraner who was taken to wander.

The journey out from the Middle Ages had been relatively short - not at all the long period of history you would expect, compact with centuries and time spent in between - for Francis had rested between his lifetimes, and returned into the earthly realm quite fortified throughout.

Unlike other Elvish men, Francesco did not come and go as he pleased from the worldly realm into the other-realm and then back again whilst on Earth.

For the best part of his days he was bound to live as any mortal might do - with the exception of his elvish talents, his superior perception, and blessed comprehension.

He could also recall all of the days in the world that had gone before - even the ones he had had no part in. It was as though the history of the world lived within him.

He was intimate with this world, and she loved him in return, giving him those akashic imprints that embossed her girdle and glitteringly reflected in her crown.

He understood what it was to be human, and empathetically felt everything that was around him - alongside the hopes and disappointments construed by the spiritual worlds and its entourage of beings besides.

Rarely was he self aware however. He did not sense or comprehend just how different he was to practically everyone else, here - or other-where.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Sequestered Reliquary

Something happened while Francesco was picking the flies from the hive’s sticky exterior (some which were still alive and buzzing tenuously) … he had a vision.

This, in itself, was not unusual, as Francis had many visions frequently. But this episode was very different to the usual strand of images that would flit in and around his head parading their stories - this one was sombre and unrecognisable.

With his mind's eye he saw a line of army trucks following each other through his cathedral of trees ... on a road that was not yet grooved.

He had no reference to what a truck with wheels was - let alone a line of them. He heard in the ethers of this future event, the dreadful rumble and thunder as they followed one another through the forest - six, perhaps seven, each alike and quite obviously machines that carried men - who he could see were riding upon their shaking frames.

A chill went through him on that bright wintery day - for Francesco always gave visions their due weight, realising that insights hold a place somewhere in time, however implausible these presentations might appear in the present.

There was a sickening feeling that pervaded this sighting - an ominous sadness - as he knew there and then, that sometime in the centuries to follow, these men with the iron helmets would come to this quiet glade and search for his remains, later to transport them into a darkened tomb of sequestered reliquary.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

The Hives

Hans Thoma

Francesco suspected that the hives were being tapped in the night, for their sticky glittery residue now coated the trees beneath - and come the morning, chunks of their wax had been sucked dry - littering the ground beneath in a tatter of white.”

At first he thought it was the lesser Elves, who had a partiality to all things sweet. For if something was there for the taking, they usually considered it theirs for the taking.

Yet it was not common for Elves to leave a telltale mess behind, as this was done, night after night.

He then considered that perhaps it was the smaller animals, whose winter fare had encouraged them to sample foods outside their normal fare.

But these hives were intact from the outside, and paws and claws would make scars and scores. No, he thought, it could not be them.

It was not Hannah-Mary, he considered - for he delivered her more than enough staples every day, which included the honey as she required.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Elementals

Just as visible Nature is populated by an infinite number of living creatures, so, according to Paracelsus, the invisible, spiritual counterpart of visible Nature (composed of the tenuous principles of the visible elements) is inhabited by a host of peculiar beings, to whom he has given the name elementals, and which have later been termed the Nature spirits. Paracelsus divided these people of the elements into four distinct groups, which he called gnomes, undines, sylphs, and salamanders. He taught that they were really living entities, many resembling human beings in shape, and inhabiting worlds of their own, unknown to man because his undeveloped senses were incapable of functioning beyond the limitations of the grosser elements.

The civilizations of Greece, Rome, Egypt, China, and India believed implicitly in satyrs, sprites, and goblins. They peopled the sea with mermaids, the rivers and fountains with nymphs, the air with fairies, the fire with Lares and Penates, and the earth with fauns, dryads, and hamadryads. These Nature spirits were held in the highest esteem, and propitiatory offerings were made to them. Occasionally, as the result of atmospheric conditions or the peculiar sensitiveness of the devotee, they became visible. Many authors wrote concerning them in terms which signify that they had actually beheld these inhabitants of Nature's finer realms. A number of authorities are of the opinion that many of the gods worshiped by the pagans were elementals, for some of these invisibles were believed to be of commanding stature and magnificent deportment....

Literature has also perpetuated the concept of Nature spirits. The mischievous Puck of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream; the elementals of Alexander Pope's Rosicrucian poem, The Rape of the Lock, the mysterious creatures of Lord Lytton's Zanoni; James Barrie's immortal Tinker Bell; and the famous bowlers that Rip Van Winkle encountered in the Catskill Mountains, are well-known characters to students of literature. The folklore and mythology of all peoples abound in legends concerning these mysterious little figures who haunt old castles, guard treasures in the depths of the earth, and build their homes under the spreading protection of toadstools.

Fairies are the delight of childhood, and most children give them up with reluctance. Not so very long ago the greatest minds of the world believed in the existence of fairies, and it is still an open question as to whether Plato, Socrates, and Iamblichus were wrong when they avowed their reality.

-Manly P. Hall

Shaken from his Fantasies

[c. 21st Century ~]

Crouching beneath the bottom-most branch, with its brazen fingers drawing lines on his back, he held his breath, he felt tense, panting as slow and long as he could - daring not to move more than he had to.

He sensed that in this moment he should remain extremely quiet - it was all about sense right now. His instincts felt enlivened, enlightened. He was present, he was living this moment - he was transfixed.

Watching the young woman water the saplings with a tear dropper, he could smell her undergarments beneath her dress. He divined her floral perfume, and the light residue of a kiwi spritz hairspray. He was infatuated.

"Chips, come out from there you bad boy" she called playfully.

Shaken from his fantasies he remembered yet again, that he was a dog.

"Chips, get out of there NOW!" This time the voice was unkind and commanding, and he complied, with his head down, the old Weimarner slunk out from under the bush. The siren had called, and he defeatedly obliged.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS, Second Chances

Bless & Mend

His Elvish heritage had bestowed many powers of grace, and one especially was to "bless and mend" as he liked to call it.

Torn claws, fractured wings, foot rot and painful mouths; rheumatism, kennel cough, weeping eye, seeping wounds - all of these he could cure, in the name of the Father of the All.

A feast was then laid out afterwards - mainly consisting of nuts and grains. A soft rain drizzled, beading their furs and scales. Mary was well sheltered by the arms of her tree, which was now worked smooth at its base by her leaning.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

His Diverse Congregation

As he looked around his diverse congregation, Francis could perceive the strife that had afflicted each one sorely.

Every animal present there had known both grief and trial - experiencing loss and hunger, pain and fear.

Some were now separated from their families, a few had old and fresh wounds, many were desperately afraid of the night. The life of the wild was not as easy as the mortals might have thought, and so often the seasons were unkind to the creatures also.

Such sorrows bourgeoned when the hunters and farmers would take their liberties upon these gentle beasts.

And so, persecuted by both the elements and the carelessness of men, these down-hearted souls were drawn to the one who loved them as he did.

A donkey wandered into the huddle and took his place beside a balding ram. Some black hens shuffled over to make room.

Francesco made a point of greeting each one individually and took time in doing so. It had become a solemn practice that often involved some healing as well.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

The Language of the Heart

With no books to recite from, he [Francis] had by accident found that this beastly gathering preferred their stories and songs to come directly out from his imagination, whereas repetitive verse and second-hand thought had no meaning for them.

Creatures understood the language of the heart; fresh from the spiritual worlds, he conveyed the higher emotion, which in turn awoke their higher instincts ... for it was not so much the words he spoke (for which they could not understand) but rather the meaning living within, that he could impart to them.

Franco had tried to recite the common prayer, but even this had lost their attention completely.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

The Woodish Folk

A nest of hedgehog and assorted hares; woolly wild goats, an aged domestic brown cow. There were fourteen fox, five wolves and ten tall deer; three tree snakes, two brown, one green, and a weathered horse who had retired from the army.

A cluster of rats to the left, field mice to the right - impossible to count because they kept changing places with one another. Two scraggy sheep beside an old cracked turtle, and an assortment of scrawny wild dogs.

Francis's face was lit with the love of it all - his handsomeness over-ceded by his affection for their souls.

He seemed to be stronger and healthier during these months as Hannah had got to know him more and more. Francis was most at home in the company of the woodish folk and cherished their presence at this special resting-day Mass.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

He had a way with Words

Mary's girth had exaggerated with the swelling from an infant pushing tightly from the inside. She sat with her back against her favourite tree, listening to Francesco chant the morning's prayer.

Around the two was a great group who had seemingly appeared from out of nowhere. In the absence of human parishioners, there came the creatures.

He had a way with words, she thought scanning the crowd, who were sitting surprisingly still and appearing quite penitent.

There was a strangely uncommon communal peace there within that glade.

Some of the animals had come from the surrounding farms, pushing through the fences to join them, still in tether.

The small lambs twitched with an excited quiver. It was a big turnout for this Sabbath.

At the very front sat the smaller creatures: spotted bullfrogs with oily hides, butterflies and drowsy bats, puffed up sparrows, chatting wrens and black backed squirrels.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Papal Lace

[ Circa 13th Century ]

The ivory lace dripped from his arm and over his wrist; with the black satin folds of his weighted cassock, concealing well the withering frame beneath.

The candle was almost down to the nub and his tired mind, in likeness, was fast exhausting of thoughts - having so many papers, warrants and bulls yet to be sealed.

A succession of yawning deliberations - of moral chasms, of blind ponies, of barbed Christs, in an endless stream of holy determining.

There was a taut rap at the door - 4.00 am: the time for early Lauds ... Charley boy (known formerly as Father Paul) had arrived to dress the frail and failing Pope.

Two blanched feet idled from slipper into soft mule sleeve, and three layers of tunic and gown now encased him. The weight of the cross had become intolerably heavy to bear - its cold metal chain bit his pale wrinkled neck, shining in contrast against the anaemia of age.

The temperature in those halls was always so cold that any drowsiness one had, fast evacuated.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Johnstone Industries

Johnstone Industries had a gloves on approach, packaging mysterious substances that were so far removed from their natural beginnings that they had become almost other-worldly.

Calvin genuinely suspected that the company itself had supernatural leanings - for how far can you go … extracting life from a substance before it becomes just an animated corpse?

He liked to think of preservatives as anti-matter, an invention of the dark gods ... but he kept these suppositions to himself.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Happy Wacky

Privately the old man was very fond of dogs, having come to know quite a few during his days of vivisection (vivisection: from the Latin 'vivus' meaning alive, and 'sectio' meaning cutting). No one actually used that word anymore since the lobbyists had it censored from the industry, leaving replacement phrases of ‘analytical experimentation’ and ‘investigative live screening’ - to mask just about anything and everything involving the torturous trials the animals were put through.

Calvin glanced over to his watery-eyed friend and said blandly, "his name is ... er ...Chips - and he is staying with me."

Before any objection could be made Chips lumbered down and then sprinted through to the entrance of the compound with the three following quickly behind.

Recently the massive building had been effaced and replaced with a much friendlier Chemical Company do-over.

Futuristic styles had become passé - outdated - and they had been advised to ‘change with the times’, finding that businesses everywhere were now preferring the mom and pa, happy-wacky, pretty-pretty, slightly tacky imagery to promote their earth-friendly bleaches, deodorisers, vaccines, tissue-culture baths, tissue fixatives and boutique preservatives.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Wind-chime of Miniature Skulls

Now quite aged and frail, with only a meagre frame and failing eyes, she cursed them twice, packed up her tool kit, and left for the refuge of the dank and the dark, where she lived comfortably concealed from her trolls.

It had proved too troublesome to pursue her, and so Vivien was left to live her following days in chosen solitude.

A feint green mist glowed around her timber home, and a wind-chime of miniature skulls tankled in the sullen breeze.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Vivien

As the town's midwife, Vivien had delivered more still-births than she had those alive - and partly her evil reputation was because her stock of healthy infants had been but a few.

The past year had produced sickly babes and a very cold winter - the Bishop had blamed Vivien for this blight of misfortune and its inevitable consequence.

This nurse was also the go-to abortionist, and everyone knew publicly of her having practiced this black art.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

"Go back, go back"

There are dark parts to any forest wherein the woodland creatures hesitate to go - where the overhang exceeds the light, and the corporeal meets the common world in a synthesis of Goblin, bravado and dearth.

In a place where few can laugh, and vagabonds hide within ... stumbling into those shaded parts that drip with moulds and slippery slimes - where the thorns and brambles whisper: "go back, go back" with their limbs in twine, blocking the wayward from pushing their way in any further.

"Go back, go back" echo the crows with their gurgly throats, with a cough, and a shriek "go back, go back, before the Vivien sees you!"

The formidable Vivien was a witch who found sanctuary in the shadows of this darkest of places - where in the innermost parts, the ancient trees still steadfast remained.

She had absconded from the villagers who previously had shunned and then hunted her: with the Church having signed a paper in support of her accusers.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Bee Attack

With an organized mind, the swarm went straight to the attacker's head, filling his nose and ears, then piercing his groin, his bulbs and his spear. He dropped to the ground, convulsed, and died.

The other two ran fast away with the bees still following closely behind.

Francis helped the young girl from the ground.

"I am Francesco.” he said.

"I know" she replied sobbing, "I am Mary".

She had outright lied to Francis, calling herself Mary - for the shame of what had befallen her had told her to.

As he carried her back to the camp an old grey wolf followed beside, and the bees returned, flying in and out of the pathway surrounding.

Her pale white arms were scored with scratches, holding on tight around his sun leathered neck. Hannah’s fear lifted momentarily, and she felt safe once again.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

An Uncanny Hum

Francis sighed. He did not want, or enjoy, confrontation.

“Brothers you are far too wild for this country habitat - go back to the town where you belong. Leave my land or it will not go well for you."

"An empty threat" spat the young girl's attacker as he moved a step closer to the monk.

"We have greeted thee in friendship and yet you refuse our fidelity - who are you to interrupt our recreations? A crazed wild man who denounced his very own?" He added this emphatically.

He had said this standing up, and was still naked waist down. The soldier picked the spear from the dirt and drove it hard into Francis's foot.

Straightaway there came an uncanny hum from close by in the trees. Seconds later a dense black cloud fell upon them. It was the swarm still following behind.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Their Envy Spiced & Spiked their Lust

“We have missed your company Brother, of late - what has become of you?" one asked as casually as a midsummer’s day.

This superficial tone had come from the youngest among them who kept looking sideways as he spoke. This soldier held a cunning, wondering if a better sport could be made with the madman, as it was with the girl.

For it was that their jealousy of this handsome man still freshly lived within their recollections of him.

Francis had a way of making every other man feel inferior and less fortunate. And now, this gave them a growing pleasure in the thought of taking him down.

The excitement was rising. All three were smirking. Each thought to themselves that the once mighty Francis now appeared very easy to overwhelm. They could hurt him, yay even kill him, and no one would miss this lunatic prince.

Their envy spiced and spiked their lust, and their desires dangerously excited their wits to conform.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Many a Soldier's Madness

The tallest of the two lay down his spear, moving forward to embrace Francis in genuine greeting, but instead Francesco pushed past him, knelt down and caught the semi-naked man by the roots of his hair. Francis said nothing but yanked the shank of hair even harder.

"Desist from this party, now!" he hollered menacingly.

The young girl beneath the soldier was bleeding at the breast, her long hair was caught around her arms, which were tied above her head. She looked up at Francis with a pleading that made him revolted to see her upset.

The wars had been the cause of many a soldier's madness. The three instantly pitied the lay monk who was standing before them clothed in a sack. It truly disturbed them to see their former friend so unkempt and obviously penniless, now living in witless solitude.

Yet he did not return back to them their familiar smiles.

Instead, commandingly, Francis asked for a tunic from the smaller of the three - to which he obliged. He then gave it over to the girl for a covering, and loosened the rope from her wrists.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

The Basest of Brutish Men

Francesco, once of the army himself, was not shocked by the basest of brutish men. He perceived crudity to be nested within a much higher nature, and therefore, most usually, he could forgive the coarse folly of ruffians. However, he could never tolerate cruelty dealt upon others, and to this end, he calmly, yet fiercely cried out:

“What for!”

The two standing by threw a puzzled look his way, and then realized who exactly it was calling to them.

The young men were genuinely pleased to see Francis, full knowing his unusual voice.

However, the third man was so enraptured with his frenzy, he gave no attention to the interruption of this past acquaintance.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

A Disturbing Chorus of Mocking Mirth

Francis would scarce be noticed as he moved quietly about the trees. He preferred to be unseen, especially if strange consorts were passing through.

On this day, the sobbing of a youth could be heard nearby the waterfall. It was alarmingly followed by uproarious laughter - a disturbing chorus of mocking mirth, made all the worse due to its fickle purpose, advertising the relish of a devilish taunt taking place under the cover of the shadowy trees.

Francesco felt compelled to intercept. He strode through a break in the briars to find three soldiers - two of whom he knew.

The other soldier was difficult to discern - revealing but a bare backside broadcast upon a small pale figure who was pinned beneath his flabby bulk.


- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Honey & the Bee

The air hung dank; its moist outreach heralding the rains to come, floating above the forest, with its festering, corrupting leaves, and expiring refuse.

Francesco sensed woefully that the group of men who were approaching close by were undesirables.

A cluster of starlings hurriedly confided their concern with a sharpish call.

This camp had become Francesco’s home, around which hung enormous bulbs of beehives, that drooped from the trees like heavy lanterns, thickly fragrant when the warm winds coaxed their sweet waxed scent from their cells.

He lived wholesomely feeding from their honey, utilising their greasy matrix for the confectionary of balm and candles - their tacky amber was alight with life, and this etheric goodness sustained him well.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

The Attack of the Soldiers

The dark and dubious forest was framed with reeds and spiky trees from which the razor ivy climbed.

Fungi adorned their pillars, bracken wove its way in a thick and knotty tangle, scratching her skin as she tentatively made her way through to higher ground.

Hannah had gone only a little way into the foothills when she was set upon. The attack of the soldiers was fast. They had come upon her from behind.

The danger of this happening had not been within her naive catalogue of possibility.

Hannah’s family had comprised of gentle folk with sober ways, and her schooling about marriage and its coupling, had never been explained. They had saved her from the thrust of it, for it was assumed that a maiden's purity was protected by her innocence, and that such information should wait its proper time.

With one slap she was felled to the ground. So shocked were her senses, all of a sudden, she became displaced. It was as though her soul had temporarily abandoned her body, just to escape the soldiers’ brutal invasion.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Seeking the Nomad Francis

When Murmur sought an answer to a pitiable need, and dove the dark depths to find the pain of another - that he might carry it into that light - she [Hannah] suffered as he suffered, also.

He would often wear the disease or discomfort he divined, and transfuse it with the very charity lying deep within his being.

These things she came to know firsthand, and secondhand, through his experience - and for all of his strange ways, she loved him all the more.

And so Hannah also was to depart from the familiar, to go and find her brother, that she might live near him as before.

Yet he, unlike her, could never see the world through her eyes.

He did not comply with her thoughts or feelings, and although he did love her as a brother might, his view was always turned outward to others and beyond.

Finding him would be difficult. There were so many small communities in the state, and the people of her town perceived the far reaching Holy Orders to be one and the same wherever one travelled.

Every community was so similar to the local villagers, that when Hannah had asked their advice as to what direction to go, they had pointed to the woods to the south, where the pilgrims were seeking the nomad Francis.

However Murmur had settled far from this area; and was being cared for by the Brethren of the Bells - a farming community that lay west of the village.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Hannah

Hannah, Murmur's twin sister, was disconsolate that her sweet brother had abandoned their birth home, to now walk the holy path that led away from her and home.

She could not understand what grieved her the most: her brother abandoning her, or that she would be left behind.

Hannah did not feel Murmur’s authority of faith, and nor could she invoke his power of healing.

Yet now and then she could see through her twin’s eyes, as he would see … and during these times, it was almost as though she was actually in his body looking out.

Hannah had experienced the most poignant of moments, and had been witness to Murmur’s miraculous insights - the strength of which had forged his beliefs from from deep deep within.

And often when his inner sight was lit with a holy vision, it illumined her mind too.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Gnomes- Earthbound Creatures

Since gnomes and human beings are alike earthbound creatures, we will probably find gnomes—or cobolds, or goblins, as they are sometimes also called—the fairy race closest to our understanding. .

Their habitat is one few other forms of life would care for, for gnomes live down below the surface of our planet, where roots take an anchor-hold on earth. If you should chance to wonder how any creature other than a worm gets about through a medium so dense you need only consider how easily thoughts pass through the hard heads of human beings and
you will at once understand the matter. Thoughts are not of flesh, though they must live in it for us to know them, and neither are fairies.

Gnomes are immensely clever Little People, with large heads out of all proportion to their tiny bodies: Fairytales tell how they carry lamps to light them on their subterranean wanderings. This is, of course, just a way of speaking, for the light cast is not an outer brightness, but rather inner light, shed on the nature of what they find about them by their keen intelligence. They have what we might call a “knowing eye,” which understands at a glance everything it falls on: They do not need to go through a laborious process of “figuring things out.” To see a human being puzzling to solve a problem prompts them to make rather rude remarks, “What fools these mortals-be!” is, I'm afraid, only too typical of their attitude. They constantly admonish us, “O Human, awaken!” For to them anyone who has to think to get at facts is half asleep. Indeed, they consider thinking as we know it just a means of pulling oneself together from a bout of
dreaming. Since they are wide awake already, they perceive what is without having to mull it over in their heads.

Tradition has been inclined to picture gnomes as wizened, little old men with bent backs and knobby, spindly  limbs. There is more truth than fiction in this portraiture: gnomes are a very ancient race; they are tiny in comparison  with human beings (dozens can come packed in a rock like sardines in tins); and they do, indeed, gravitate to dryness,  both in their surroundings and their sense of humor. They shrink from the damp cold of the earth in which they work and from the chill creatures that inhabit it—most particularly frogs, which, being the antithesis of gnomes, fill them with loathing. Frogs are invariably pompous characters, which is something no gnome would ever let himself  become. Frogs are, moreover; rather formless creatures—soft, squashy, bulbous all over—whereas gnomes are  sharply distinct in form, and built in mind and body on the principle of spareness. This tends to make them beings "of few words," and those words pithy, frogs, quite the opposite, are garrulous and, like those with garrulous natures  wherever we find them, given to utterances of no startling significance. They drive gnomes to distraction with the endless repetition of their mindless chant. Isn't it sad that the cheery harrumphing which sounds from wet places on spring and summer nights should strike so disagreeably on the ears of gnomes that these otherwise sensible beings  shudder when they hear it! Even the thrilling note of the "spring peeper," Hylo crucifer, lacks the power to charm them.

Gnomes detest frogs for a further reason: they see in them creatures they might themselves become were they to fail even for a moment to maintain the sharp vigilance that belongs to gnomehood. Never yet has a gnome been transformed into a frog. But so neurotic are they on this subject that you could not persuade a single one of them that such a fate may not overhang him.

The tide-and-rain-related moon, is equally anathema to gnomes, who regard it as the creator and ruler of the watery element. They cannot bear its rays upon their bodies. When the moon fulls, flooding all the world with its soft light-ocean, gnomes so harden their exteriors against it that they go about on the surface of the earth looking like tiny knights in suits of armor.

But gnomes have their pleasures, too, incomparable ones, which certainly outweigh any suffering they may have to endure from moisture. These little beings, from tip-to-toe a tingling sensor, have as their own special part of fairyland the subterranean realm of metals and crystals through which they wander, tasting all manner of delights. Mortals see this realm only as a finished world—still, hard, and unchanging—hence possessing a deathlike quality. But to the subtle sensing of gnomes it is all alive, a world of moving forces, rather than of rigid matter, and still endowed with the music and colorfulness of is cosmic origin, We mortals can share this experience in part if we are fortunate enough to witness the melting down or, more accurately put the melting-up of metals. For this process wherein he frees metals from the solid state returning them to he flowing and then aeriform condition in which they existed when the world was young and they had but lately issued from primeval fire. Crystals have kept material reminiscence of their primal color. And to guess at the music imprisoned in them we have only to see the crystal-like figures produced by musical vibrations, first discovered by Ernst Chladni. Geometric form is always frozen music!

But gnomes have still more incomparable joys. They are the “knowers” among the elementals. As such, they possess a strong affinity to inner light (indeed, their very bodies are formed of the light-stuff of intelligence). So it has naturally fallen to their lot to receive a special gift of insight: the ability to see ideas as we see objects. The whole world of creative thought lies open to their observation: They behold the working of the mind of God bringing into being some new form of life—whether it takes shape as a spiral nebula or a new species of plant or animal—and they behold the working of the human mind—whether it be creating the geodesic dome, Shelley's Ode to a Skylark, Brahms's Lullaby, a philosophic insight, or countless other inspirations fully as worthy of being mentioned. Nor do gnomes fritter away this endowment, only “putting two and two together” to come out with trivial bits of understanding. Rather, they use their love of knowing as a magnet to draw down to themselves, and thus ground in our planet, the shaping thoughts that flow into evolution from the mind of God. It can scarcely be a negligible
experience to be made thus privy to divine imagining!

And how are these visions carried to their destination in the souls of gnomes? Why, they are conveyed to plants in the rays of light, and plants serve as their further conduits into earth.

-Marjorie Spock 

A Keen & Concerting Empathy for All

Francis truly felt responsible for the salvation of the material world - as if its feeble axis rested on his character solely - that it was as his Lord before him had done, that he might transmute all sin, and bulk load Humanity onto the path of virtue's eternity.

Small animals would often congregate in his camp, drawn to this saint in the making.

Francis had no knowledge of his true parentage, as Pica subscribed to secrets. She had feared that because the Fey were outcasts from normal society he would be even more misunderstood if it were known. And so Francesco thought himself to be a mortal as any other.

Yet he never saw things as other boys or men did see: colors and shapes revealed their auras of longing; everything he saw he perceived to have a soul. Creatures could speak to him; visions would appear in the water and the air; and worldly concerns were quick to evaporate when he watched a flower open, or the sun reveal its morning face.

It could not be said that Francesco was a dreamer - for the marvels he fathomed were all very very real.

He was however, a Fey-man dislocated from his own, interpreting the manly sorrows with a keen and concerting empathy for all.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

The Advances of Grace

[ c. 13th Century ~ ]

Francis had two goals before him: one was to stay alive long enough to please God and prove his life's worth; and the other, was to die piously, that he may be blessed with the providence of his Heavenly Father thereafter eternally.

His reform was entirely personal. Francesco was not ambitious for the souls of other men, as he did not trust in their ability to hold onto them.

Although he considered men’s fate to be of their own deciding, he also recognized that only by the advances of Grace does any man really continue his existence.

His faith embraced the flowers at his feet; it would celebrate the twig-legged sparrows as they pecked the dew from their engorged bulbs.

In a green glade sanctuary Francis committed his soul for the good of all, and with the self-centred confidence of a holy-man, he completely believed that he alone could lift up the hearts of men and save them from themselves.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Pietro/Peter

Masaccio 

Murmur observed that Pietro now was wearing the countenance of an apostle. One could have said, that his features were more in likeness to his soul, rather than to his forebears.

Murmur led the newly formed man back to the Brothers' camp and introduced him as Peter.

Simple as he was, Murmur had learned that the world of men had little capacity to comprehend the workings of heavenly miracles - and that being so, providence was always best un-talked about.

In the meanwhile, a travelling merchant of the Cloth imparted the solemn news to the cloister at Marseilles, telling of Pietro's demise, and of the bronze plaque that had replaced him.

Pica took herself into the heart of the monastery to the halls of silence, where in a solitary cell, she wept quietly to herself for many months to follow.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Pietro's Death

[ c. 13th Century ~ ]

Pietro got stuck by a hunter's arrow.

It was on the third day of his expedition into the countryside when the random missile had caught Pietro in the back, causing him to collapse, fever, and die.

The Society of Weavers awarded him an epitaph on a public plaque.

However it also had happened that Murmur, the saintly monk, had found Pietro laid out in a shallow grave that was covered only by forest refuse.

There had been no one, and no money, available to afford the proper funerary, and thus he had been left there for the sake of posterity, and convenience.

Although without breath, the soul has a constant heartbeat all of its own - and Murmur could hear this subtle life coming from the wasted man.

Murmur held unusual perceptions about the world, and he believed categorically in resurrection: that it could occur in every place and plane of being.

His experience saw resurrection to be a possibility everywhere, rather than belonging only to a distant hope in yet another time and realm to come.

Once again his faith was proved, and from a touch and a prayer Pietro mysteriously sat up awake to the world again.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Adventure into the Countryside

[ c. 13th Century ~ ]

Francesco's father could not bring himself to disown his deranged son for leaving in the manner that he did. Instead he paid soldiers and troubadours handsome commissions to recall him - yet although many stories came back, nought could actually help to locate his youngest child.

Within a year Pietro's anguish had increased. He was a successful man used to winning results - yet none had come. He had invested so many hopes in his boy, and was not prepared to take the loss.

And so, resolute with sadness, he decided on his sixtieth birthday, that he should adventure into the countryside himself, that he might locate Francesco and bring him home.

Men of measure would never usually attempt to penetrate the outlying forest. The countryside was complex with dangers: vagabonds and wildlife - unknown terrors and possible hardships.

Most folk lived in the towns for their entire life without so much as a day trip into the country - they rathered to stay on the roads when travelling, and never departed into the thick of the green skirting their province.

Pica had been disconsolate at the thought of him leaving so. She was bewildered by the sudden madness that had overtaken her son, and now privately wondered if her husband had been infected similarly.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Rufus Redgrave

Rufus Redgrave loved porcupines, bird whistles, and watching ants crawl.

With his belly and beard to the ground, prone flush to the sun-soaked concrete, he would lie outstretched, dozy with the warmth, following their formations as they scuttled over the ground, all around and up past his nose. With olympic precision, and team tasking, their queues shuttled backwards and forth, without any consideration for the curious dog watching these drills.

Rufus looked exceedingly old for his years - all three of them. Weimaraner’s tend to look elderly from birth. He had semi translucent grey eyes, silver fur; and shook when he walked - half his ear was missing, torn on the flap by a snappy bitch with razor teeth … one sniff of her rear, and she had turned on him.

Chickens and cats frightened him terribly, as did small children when they squealed. His flanks would tremble with any high pitched noise, so much so, he would have to sit down.

The pads of his paws were sensitive to grit that would stick, and he often reminisced to himself, that the one thing he missed most about being human, was the shoes.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Murmur

[c. 13th Century ~]

Murmur was a pedestrian monk, who preferred living an uncomplicated life: going about the world saying little, and helping where he could.

Little was known of him, except that he did have a remarkable talent for healing, and at times with miraculous circumstances.

His father and brothers had all been gifted similarly. Within his family this talent was referred to as ‘the touch’ - being an abbreviation of ‘the touch of God’ - however this expression, in humility was shortened, when it was rarely referred to.

This same power that had lived through his father and brothers, had also taken them down a certain road to death.

For although their influence was uncannily restorative to others, it had held no protection for the conditions that they themselves took on. With a mantle of scabs, or the fury of a fever, it appeared that death had clung fast to these healers, during their evacuations of the sickness and ailments then transmitted.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Creatures Congregated

George fully believed his role as an inspector was needed, and that his judgements mattered. And even after his death in '97 George took but a few weeks leave, before returning to his duties once again.

With spirit-eyes he would watch over the cooks as before, often standing beside a hundred or so spirit-chickens, who would watch their little body's final moments being pulled apart, braised or roasted - consecrated in gravies and wine.

Sometimes it was the ghosts of the Quail, the Deer and the Crab - there was practically every creature to be eaten remaining in that cookhouse, still astrally attached to its former body ... that same body that had swum the rivers just a day before; or sailed the sky - felt the breeze on their woolly cheek; or mother's soft lick.

These creatures congregated in the hot and crowded kitchens seeing their bodies burn. And George stood with them, watching on.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances