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