Uncanny Phenomenon

When Peter had been brought to the community by Murmur after his first turn-about from death into his newly forged body, he had lived contentedly until his next death … following the routine of a simple life, and blending with the brothers quite happily until his body simply had tired and died.

His funeral was held in the town in the Abbey grounds, where he was to be interred. Murmur was far away on the other side of the country at this time living in the Franciscan community … whilst Pietro-Peter was being sung his final song.

It was an uncanny phenomenon, for his soul to have taken the form of another as he did. And during this second chance at life, Peter-Pietro had quite forgotten much of what he had done in the years earlier. Yet when he was released yet again, his spirit remembered the will and wishes it had carried before - and the great desire to find his son, as he had had, when he had died by arrow the first time in the forest.


- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Earthbound

There had been twenty-two transformations Pietro had undergone before becoming the dog known as Anon- twenty-two body-hopping slides into a life that would not let him go home into the other-words - the heavenly afterlife, after each time that he died..

When his soul yearned for the stars, all he had got was the cold hard reality of more hunger, more pain and more restriction, within a ceaseless cycle of immediate incarnation - conspiring to keep him earthbound seemingly ever more.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Find a new Body

He hastened down the corridors to the hatchery, finding Francis on his knees in morning prayer.

Not wanting to disturb him Puck backed his way out of the door, but then heard his friend calling as he did this.

“Pook get in here - I need you now”. Pook was short for ‘Pookhah’ a nickname of Francis’s from long ago. Their familiarity was something reserved for in private. But the two went back almost a century and they had evened out to equals long ago.

Puck heard the urgency and went immediately to Francis’s side to see him on the floor bending over the dog whose head rested limply placed across his knees.

Chips had been whining of late of being weary, and the two had just thought it was his usual complaining which seemed to be a large part of the Weimaraner’s temperament.

It was plain to see that the poor beast was labouring with his breathing. His eyes looked frightened beneath it all. Puck knew exactly what this meant.

“Well, it's lucky you have me here this time” he said with a mock confidence.

The truth was Puck had no idea how this would go, yet had promised Francis he would help if he could, the next time Pietro had to find a new body. Looks like now was this time.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Two Unicorns

Everyone knew that the sighting of two unicorns together was a rare occurrence. It was obviously going to be a good day.

Puck had long been planning to shut down the questionable divisions of the phytogenetic Company he had acquired. He was still answerable to the lesser share holders and had to go about his sabotage discreetly. They must not know that his sole intent was to put a stop to what he liked to call their ‘Frankenstein range’ before it was released into the world.

When he had tried to explain to Charley where he was going with all of this, she had dismissed him out of hand. He reluctantly realized that there were some core concepts she simply could not grasp as yet … her thinking was intrenched in materialism, and she could not comprehend the finer points of any esoteric implication.

Not all advancements were a great idea, and certainly ‘finding a way forward’ was not always the best way to go.

Some places one does not want to go, or need to go, or would safely go - and he had a lot of experience firsthand of trying paths he later wished he had not gone down.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

The Drill

The drill made no sound - it had a fine jet of tooth dissolving liquid that also lit the tooth remaining with a purple light which made it obvious to what was being targeted. Within a minute it was cleaned out and down to the gum. With precision, then, the Dentist (who was around Calvin’s own age of not yet twenty) clamped a mould onto the area and injected it with a ‘tooth paste’ that hardened under UV light. The whole procedure was over in less than five minutes and Calvin was being told to sit up and rinse.

“That’s it?” he asked with a jaw that was like chewing gum still feeling fuzzy.

“Yes, unless you would like any of your other teeth looked at”.

“No, fine for today. But thank you.” he added thoughtfully. As Calvin walked out from the building he realized that he really did love his father’s business and had a fixation for the innovations which lay ahead. He did not want to leave at all and whilst the responsibility may have felt too much, this was where he belonged.

His father’s ghost walked beside him as he was thinking this, and was pleased.

“I knew you’d come around” he said proudly to his son.

For not only had he invested his life in this business, he had also invested his spirit. Johnstone Snr could not leave now either - even if he had wanted to.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Dental Project

"I have only fifteen minutes before I have to go in”, Calvin said, a little nervously.

He was not looking forward to this: a dental appointment arranged by Symes, the chief chemist in cements/dentures.

Nerve death and tooth loss had been one of the priority projects his father had financed just before passing on.

Once upon a time Calvin never questioned the trials he would put himself through for the Company, but now it let loose of his reins, he began to feel very differently about it.

His jaw twinged - that damn needle had hurt more than it was worth, and with the numbing block kicking in, he felt like Moonface from the Faraway Tree.

“Just lie back Mr Johnstone” the male nurse had said authoritatively whilst tying a bib around his neck and clasping it uncomfortably tight. He then slid a pair of charcoal dark sunglasses onto the bridge of Calvin’s nose.

A clamp was placed in his mouth before he could say much, and the bright light above still managed to stream into his eyes. Calvin thought of all the places he would rather be right now.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Magic began the World

Not all magic is a perversion of the fixed and natural world. It was magic that began the World.

And it was a higher magic that brought the harp into the hands of the shepherd boy David, to play before the power of the modern world; of pure note, of pure thought, bringing the movement to change.

Saul listened because he understood the higher language.

The voice of the harp delivered a prophesy he had beseeched the heavens for, and as it foretold to his soul, it transcribed that which needed to be deciphered from within and above, and then he knew.

But how could a young, lowly boy, have been given this power?

It is where it is. It is where it is. He could not deny it.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Aeolian Harps

There have been many legends told of the Aeolian harps that sing with the voices of the other-worlds - some of gold, of some of bone, of some of gut, of some, enchantment.

Sages have long argued that it was never about the materials of the fantastical lyre, but its tuning that made it significant - the perfect note - and a succession of such perfect notes that could ripple out into the world in a concert like no other.

A concert, by definition, is of combining, where things come together. And this can be more than the tumble of melody, but when it is divinely worked, it is about how the melody combines with the ethers, and with the souls about, who are so moved that they become transported into realms of imagination and dream worlds that inspire them thereafter.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

The Behemoth

The behemoth’s leather tunic barely covered his groin - he constantly mopped his brow and peed in public unashamedly. He even peed on the children who watched nearby - the only act that indicated there might have been a sense of play or humor - it was hard to say. He did not laugh. He did not speak. He grunted and raged, he mumbled in an indefinable dialect, but never smiled, or if he did, the great beard did not show it.

His hairless legs were tattooed with scars. His hands were missing their finger nails, and the giant’s skin was so dry and cracked it looked like living parchment. His blue eyes watered, and his hair was tied back with a fox claw clasp.

On this day he was thundering through the market, with a cart forcibly acquired, filling it with meats and fruits, before retiring back to his fort which was secured just five miles from the city’s entrance.

On this journey he had not been alone. As he rattled through the countryside, a group of timid soldiers stalked his pathway, keeping a sly distance following to find the truth as to whether or not this Heathen camped alone.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

At Odds with the Gods of the Paradise Lands

The Northmen with their legs as long and wide as tree trunks, and their beards unkempt and wooly; had no mind for the gentler politics of a refined society. Their currency of religion (which looked back into Atlantean times) was at odds with the gods of these Paradise lands.

One such usurper had imposed himself upon the town of Antioch, where he had set up camp and terrorised the locals for an entire moon cycle.

Wits were frayed, for the giant would storm into the metropolis and make his demands.

He stood double the height of the average man. His colour was anaemic - so white was he that the villagers superstitiously thought him to be dead and yet still walking.

This added the fear that he might never be vanquished, being already deceased. When he angered his face would flush, and the change to red frightened them all the more.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Northern Giants

The giants from the North, had spilled over into the hills and caverns far from their homelands, into the paradise that was greater Egypt and Assyria.

The airs were temperate all year round there - a desirable climate, with a wash of fragrant winds, green landscapes, tropical trees and Mediterranean fruits - this was no desert, but rather a plump vital landmass whose energetic fields were swollen with prosperity.

God had graced these plains with a prosperous overflow - the trade routes leaked assay of the abundant treasures to be had there - as traders found their ways in, and wound their ways out, with cartage of dried fruits, teas and cordials, precious cheese and wine and sweets; jewels and linens; musks, oils and balms - and the surrounding world looked jealously on.

The marauders placed their hope in theft, being not natural born, and unsympathetic to common ownership.


- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

How it really went

“Very well”, said her dad, adding “do be careful who you show that to, won't you? It seems to have an uncanny effect on some.” he paused - and then added “like the time, it was said, when a small boy took on a Goliath after seeing his spirit in it and being encouraged thereby.“

“Oh really?” Charley taunted playfully - “and how do you know that? “

“Well, the small boy was me at the time.”

He wasn’t teasing, but looked very serious - almost important.

“It was Mother’s mirror you see.”

“Uncle did not tell me that.”

“I am guessing he did not get the chance …. she would have wanted you to have it you know.”

A flicker of melancholy passed over his face momentarily. He squeezed her hand.

“There is so much I don’t know about my family, isn’t there? So much that has gone on … will you tell me how it really went?”

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Gifted Mirror

Before long, Charley and her father were reunited and Puck was studying the small mirror in his hand, brought back from her adventure.

“This is truly a gift indeed”, he said admiringly. Charley half wondered if her father would have liked to keep it for himself.

"Dad, perhaps you would like to hold onto it?” she asked, dutifully - if not a little ruefully.

“Of course not Chook” (this was a pet name on occasion) “no, this piece was clearly meant for you … but we could break it into several pieces and share them around - and maybe set them into amulets or something?”

“Father!” she exclaimed, half laughing and tugging it out from his grasp - “no, I think it is better as it is” she said firmly. Charley looked quickly just to double check it was intact before landing it into her handbag’s small pocket. Its little light smiled back at her.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Papal Bulls & Bears

If the Pope was in ‘divine contemplation’ and wordless - even thoughtless here in the world … he would be consciously clarified, and most aware, on another plane, in another realm, somewhere. For consciousness is an unbroken continuum, and it never takes rest, as it knows not how to. Its flame never expires.

And this was precisely why the sage trusted Robertus Hode. It was because he could follow him in thought - wherever he wandered.

The two sat in silence, but communicated well.

“Francesco of the Forest …” he whispered, in spirit to the abiding Hode.

“Yes” Puck replied questioningly - as if to say “go on”.

Honorius said nothing more. He slumped. And in his mind’s psychic eye Hode could see the old Pope out in the woods dancing with Granoldi in the evening light.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Heaven Bent

The Holy Father had been occupying more of his day of late ‘in prayer’ for which Puck could see was also the deepest of slumbers.

Frequently his soul simply up and went, yet with its anchor still bodily staid, more and more this holy man became heaven bent - barely conscious in this world for any length of enduring time.

To Puck this was the natural order of things. Senility was merely an alcove to a doorway. True consciousness, he knew, manifested somewhere at all times. Whether present before us or not, it is awake and knowing in a place that it chooses.


- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Dressed for Court

His green velvet had been embellished with gold - real 24kt gold, embroidered into the gown, of golden leaves, with peridot and sapphires sewn at their points. It was a glorious cape, concealing well the smallness within. This Pope, innocent to Hode’s stare, all the while, had been praying.

He himself was dressed for court - Puck had a flair for regalia and wore it well. It was a change from the over-large sacks that the black Monks travelled in. He looked today neither like a reverent or a vagabond - adorned in a fashionable suede that was simply embellished here and there with threads of silver, sporting his indefinable charisma, that said subliminally: ‘you may love me’.

However, the elderly Pope’s attendants were not so enamoured.

They held a thick distrust for anyone within the Vatican walls who was not immediately related to their society. It was a rare occurrence to have such visitations from an outsider. And recently, there was a skepticism rife concerning the Pontiff’s reasoning - which was doubly troubling.

Each had vowed to keep an eye on this visitor lest he was a trickster … and thus they refused to leave the two alone for any confidences that might be shared.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Here’s to you Mum

The key was on a hook by the side of the door, and Charley immediately unlocked it - looking over her shoulder at the fat furry animal that quietly crouched there. She half wondered if she should take it with her and opened the door widely showing it a way of escape.

What she did not know was that this was in fact the Troll groundskeeper who had thus been responsible for locking her there in the first place. He had caught sight of himself in her magic mirror, and had been diminished to his ordinary self, having seen his true nature within and been reduced by it.

It was made all the worse for him when Charley had found him almost adorable.

She walked back out into the park and down the idling pathway to the main road - feeling more certain of herself than ever before, now content to meet face to face her uncanny future as it stealthily rose up to greet her.

“Here’s to you Mum” she quietly said.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Round like a Ball

The narcotic Troll dust had now worn off, and with a clear head she found the neck of the sack, pushing her slim hand through, she worked the knot until it gave way.

Charley stepped out of the scratchy enclosure, shook the weevils from her coat, found the electric light switch, and turned it on.

To her surprise she could see a small creature sitting in the corner, looking up at her, quite frightened.

It was round like a ball and she could not figure what it was exactly - sitting or standing, it was about two foot high - more or less. Because of its ill defined shape it was near impossible to see just how big it was - yet this fellow was quivering worriedly in the light of the globe above, staring at her, with what seemed to be great fear.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Mystery Begging to be Explored

John Bauer 

When Charley came to, she had found herself back in the gardener’s shed, clutching the little mirror that Rastofarius had given her.

She was much relieved not to be dead after after all, yet a part of her was remiss all the same, to have left that paradisiacal place with those warm feelings that had enveloped her. The experience had been unquestionably pleasant, and the souvenir she had come away with, was a mystery begging to be explored.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Black Thoughts

"It's time to put our cards on the table" he said obliquely.

Puck nodded in agreement. The scrying ball had offered nought.

His telepathy was completely failing him - all contact with Charley was down, and the etheric web ether-net was giving him nothing. It was almost as though Charley did not exist - all trace of her had vapoured.

He pushed his black thoughts aside, but they quickly pushed back a moment later.

Goober got up, opened the door and ushered them briskly out, with a firm incantation and a stick he used to crack over their scrawny heads. The black thoughts scurried on their spindly black legs into two groups running for the corner near the door, hoping not to be seen, but with a clap of his hands and very firm words, he squeezed them all out of the room, closing the door abruptly behind them.

Puck had not even noticed this commotion - his head was bowed over the cards laid out before him on the crystal coffee table.


- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Searching Spirit Realms

The procession lined the pathway through to the cosmic dance - the spirit folk in their spirit clothes, travelled their incline with divine formation - onto the starry path, through to Heaven’s pearl encrusted gates.

The tides of the lunar force had swept over these pearls, as they formed in the oceans of Earth, and same substance now shone with their iridescent rainbows, at this portal of the Moon, that the souls would travel through.

Puck was frantic as he had ventured its length leading up to the entrance - looking to see if his daughter was queued, waiting to go yet further into the spirit realms beyond.

Was she amongst these pilgrims of the sky?

Suddenly Goober (Dr Fabaceae) appeared by his side. They were back at the flat - Goober had an apartment on the banks of the boggy marsh beside Lake Windermere. He sat back poised on his feather filled couch and handsomeness flashed momentarily across his long thin face. Puck noted this change distinct from his own sadness and confusion.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Fairy Blood

Trolls have long, yet selective memories. They carry with them a catalogue of complaint that spans aeons in human time.

It is no coincidence that the persistent stalkers of the internet are named after their disgruntled counterparts.

In point of fact human nature holds within it a small host of particles that are of the etheric realm … and some might well carry the characteristics of any one of its curious folk who inhabit the Land of Faery.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Calvin & Robyn

Robyn squinted, staring into the red dust swirl to see Calvin flourishing his arms. She would not have recognized him but for his voice at that distance.

“Is it casual day?” she said jovially as he approached.

Robyn had not seen Calvin wear anything but a lab coat, or Armani, and the sight of him in a T-shirt and jeans, put him in an entirely different scope … he almost looked like a normal man.

Unconsciously she was attracted to him. Robyn decided then and there, that she wanted him.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Rastofarius

Someone, or something was pulling on her toe. Charley yelped.

“Rastofarius!” she exclaimed in pure delight seeing her old uncle, now for the first time, since he had died.

“Rasty,” she hesitated, “this does not mean what I think it might mean does it?”

She searched his weathered face for an explanation. His blue eyes shone back at her and watered over.

Although of Elven heritage, Rastofarius barely wore the height of a dwarf and his form was stout like the tree stumps of the grange. He was not dressed in his usual work-a-day garb, but in a cloak of feathers pinned at the neck by a scorpion clasp toggling its weight with great style.

In his left hand he held up a mirror and she could see that it was of the Glock. 

These mirrors did not reflect back any image you might expect were you to turn around and look behind you … they were mirrors of a different nature, painted with the metal from a different moon; and they showed images of what could not ordinarily be seen: windows into other worlds, usually it was only the dead who could see them.

“Oh God!" she said abruptly. “Then it is true? That bloody troll has ended my life?”

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Songs of Long Ago

Cicley Mary Barker 

The air was so light and warm you could almost feel the angels in its surrounding ethers.

Charley was possibly in the most perfect state of bliss that she had ever felt. Although alone and in an unfamiliar place, her heart was glad, and she was not frightened - she was at peace….

There was an exceedingly small orchestra standing around her head where it lay, playing music from their very tiny instruments, that scratched out their notes, barely audible. Charley recognised this little band from her childhood, when her father would summon them to entertain her to sleep. They looked like little men wearing fur pants - with the tallest being but three inches high. It cheered her to see the fairy fauns and hear their tunes once again - she was happy to lie back on the grass listening to their songs from so long ago.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

A Hill of Soft Sweet Grass

One minute Charley was trapped in a sack in a shed in the middle of a park, and the very next she had found herself in the most beautiful of surroundings imaginable. She was free of her constraints and nesting on a hill of soft sweet grass, lilacs and chamomile.

It was a lot like the very hill in the park she had been seated on before being taken, but this place was brightly lit and warm, and there was no city to be seen below - just paddocks with a stream, and trees that looked like over-large pineapples.

Dragonflies as big as sparrows glittered in the air about; and birds as small as the hairy-chest moths clustered the branches above.

There was a tray of fruits beside her, and a picnic hamper beside that; on the top of which slumped a long leather skinned book. It bore no title and was bound by a single red ribbon. There were two letters deeply embossed in gold - M.E. - and she half wondered who the author might be. A mobile phone at her feet started to ring ‘Good Vibrations’ and she sat up from her repose to answer it.

She unflipped the handset gingerly and said tentatively: “Hello?”.


 -Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

The Experience of Beauty

 

They say that the experience of beauty, and that of feeling loved, and in love, is one of the same: and that the gods have made it thus.

From the wild to the woodland, Nature herself is both - beauteous and loveable - and both its grandeur and serenity lie embedded in the soul of this truth.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Mind-blurring Effect

“Wot’s with the noise?” came a voice not far from her.

She had thought she was left there alone, but now realized there had been someone, or more, nearby her all along.

Charley had not a chance to catch sight of her captor, but if she had, she might have been a little scared by his size and demeanour.

Trolls are unappealingly brutish in nature and form - they perspire onions, and from their noses leaks green snot.

And yet, their ancient torsos still house a beating heart within, which one day shall appeal their lot, and refine to the ways to compassion and love. This troll however, had a long way to go.

Rombardo was a merchant of sorts. His thinking was plain.

Charley sneezed. “There must be pollens in here” she thought to herself ordinarily.

And with that her sense of calmness returned. Yes! the sneeze had cleared her head. All she needed to do was think of the very next thing to bubble, she said to herself. To bubble? No, that can’t be quite right. Fumble.

No, not fumble. What was it she was trying to think of?

Rombardo had sprayed her through the weave of the bag, with an opiate that he carried, which in itself was no more than a breath freshener to his breed, yet had the overwhelming, pacifying, mind-blurring effect on humans. He used it constantly.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Long Memories

Marc Potts 

Trolls, like most of the Fay, have very long memories, and do not forget or adapt, or change their minds very easily.

The brief had been to kidnap Marley - Charlotte’s mother - some decades before - from that place in the park, on that very seat, where Charley had been sitting.

A few decades in worldly time, feels like yesterday to the enchanted beings, and the woman’s names and features were so very similar.

She had been sorting through her thoughts, trying to get close to the mother she never knew, when he had come across her. Now she found herself surrounded by hessian, literally captive in a sack with a knot tied on top, in the dark in the gardener’s shed with the overwhelming dusts of grass and fertilizer.

Charley literally had no idea of what to expect next.

She felt the top of her head for a small cut that was sticky with blood and to her disgust something crawled over her hand from a fold in the sack and down onto her neck. It had many legs.

She let out a scream.


- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Psychic Connection Dropped

A moment later his own phone lit up - it was Black. 

"Ah er, let me look it up ... I think it was the Hotel Babylon ... or is that a TV show? No, no it was the Trafalgar - I thought I would check with you before calling them. So you aren't with her yourself?” he said, realizing at the same time the stupidity of his words.

There was a difficult silence. Calvin kept the conversation going.

“Where are you positioned right now? Are you far from London yourself?”

“Enchanted forest”, was the gruff reply, which Calvin took to be sarcasm.

“Give me an hour and I will phone you back .... I feel sure she will be in touch really soon, nothing to worry about.”

Puck was not so sure.

He and Charley never lost touch with one another. It was as though their psychic connection had dropped out - and this could only mean one of two things, or both.

His memories of yesterday swept over him. Puck had to remind himself that this was not that time, and that Charley was not her mother ... and surely things would be different this time…


- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

A Conundrum

In point of fact Calvin did not project well - his mind was neatly balanced in the present, and he rarely indulged in imaginations of any kind, to relieve him from the mundane.

The only time he left his ‘here and now’, was to contemplate some scientific possibility ... and even then he was rooted firmly in what he knew.

When the call came to say that Charley was missing, he had been working on the seventh aspect of his tissue repair - its shelf life.

People underestimate this conundrum. Often the longer any material is kept its components break down, and whatever the matter is, it will change. If you change its aspects, its very life will devolve.

Corruption, contamination and corrosion - the three 'C's Calvin wryly wrestled in production, and there wasn’t a chemist in the world who could beat them.

An anxious Robyn kept repeating words to the effect that she simply did not know. Calvin thought she was on some kind of loop with this thinking. 

“Well, how long ago was it that you last spoke with her?" he said, staring at his phone.

"It's only been a day, but that's not the point - she missed a meeting at the London office yesterday afternoon" she sighed impatiently.

“We talked in the morning and she was intending on going then.” She waited for him to say something, but he did not.

“Have you phoned her father?” he asked reluctantly.

“Perhaps he has heard from her, or better still is with her?”

“No, that was going to be my next question ... do you know how to contact him?”

“Sure - I’ll message it to you now. No, wait - I will phone him myself. Is there anything else? Give me five, and I will get back to you.”

For some reason his creeping anxiety had taken hold. He did not want to phone Mr Black, but it was the only thing he could do, and chances were Charley was with him anyway.


- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Resurrected Forms

Murmur slapped Peter on the shoulder, proud of himself for this most perfect resurrection. Well, near perfect, it was. His faith had been steadfast, when he had found the abandoned corpse laid out beneath its shroud of shrubbery - and exhumed it from the thorny bracken, sensing the lively pulse of the soul still strong, holding on by an astral thread, as it were.

Pietro had died all too quickly, unfulfilled and alone.

His longing to find his boy had persisted. And when Murmur petitioned the Heavens on his behalf, Pietro’s soul leapt at the opportunity to regain its way back into this world. And he did.

Only this time his muscle and bone was reconstructed - made up from the decayed remains from which he had lain in, in the pit, with all that emulsified around him.

Already, unbeknown to him, he was partly beast, and tree, as well as human. His body had drawn the living memory for its form, but its substance had come from the grave itself.

Murmur, the young and hopeful Monk, had no idea of the forces he was accommodating - his faith was pure and his intention was good, but he was naive believing that within this world was the "be all and end all’ of existence. And, to knit life out of death, would have unnatural consequences.

Resurrection takes on many forms - and that need not mean reform by mere repetition. Nor, that it is, of itself, a blessing.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Melancholy & Sufferance

“Francis continued: “My Father, we must find a way once and for all to get you back into the human form. And I, well I, needs find myself also. I am not Man, I am not Fay, I am not Saint.”

He continued: “In this country, in this time, I am called folksy, or rustic - but the charm of it is wearing thin. I feel it too, the need to leave - but our purpose has not been fulfilled, it has … staggered.”

“Son” the dog sombrely said in thought, “I could die again any day - this dog body is aged, and what of it? I will be born back into a litter of mutts and what, if in the name of God you cannot find me this time? Or, worse still, I am destined to become a cow? or a fish? or a cloud?” He sounded beyond despair.

“Let me bathe you. The air out here is drying. It is this heat and the itch that talks through you.”

The old dog put his heavy head onto his paws and closed his eyes - he mentally shut Francis out as well, diving deeply into his dog-consciousness of melancholy and sufferance.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances