The Dracula Principle

"And, (and here is the evility to recognize) it would [the serpent], and does, eat its very own in order to stay alive.

"It is verily the Dracula principle, one which holds contempt for every creature considered frail or beneath them, dismissing their existence mercilessly, as no more than sustenance or sacrifice for their own ends.

"Those who have given over to this reptilian coldness can be recognized in this World as being faithful to only one, and self-serving at the core.

"They may lie very well, professing altruism, or mimicking charity, yet they are but two faced forgeries.

"In truth, their own arrogance draws them into the serpent’s hole, as they justify harm to even they of their own kind. Thus the Dragon devours its own tail - the ultimate self fulfilment - closed to all else within an infinite cycle of self love and acquisition.

"Cannibalism is universally unworkable. It is a practice that comes from the invert worlds - and make no mistake, it is pure evil."


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Circle of Endless Cycle

The great Lion raised its paw and pointed to an invisible wall where a motif appeared there before them. It was of a dragon that had become a circle, eating its own tail.

“See the Ouroboros. Do you know what it represents to many?”

“Infinity” came the reply.

“Yes. And its imagery is apt - for the Dragon lives on.

"Firstly, this circle of endless cycle, represents a continuum of the same i.e. a constant death of sorts - an enduring world that refuses to break down or give way, one that clings to its own existence … a Luciferic sphere, that does not seek or tolerate change … wishing only to maintain that which it already is."


- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Infinity times Two

"There is not just one type of infinity my child - but two. I shall explain to you now the very mystery and truth about good and evil.

"Yes, it can be told: one from the other. One is not the same as the other, as evil might have it … the principles of good and evil are indeed very clear, when you know them.

"And, equally, there are two ways of infinity."


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Ouroboros Serpent

Vlad would hold his inner gaze on this Serpent for hours at a time.

Later in life he despised all who he considered to be less than he. Weakness, he perceived, was a sign of unholiness. The weak did not conform to God.

In his alignment to the unnamed one, Vlad walked a lonely path - for no other came close to his private and personal elevation. He hid well this secret alliance. His certifiable smugness. This extreme and inverted egotism. He took his own counsel, and agreed with himself, that Vlad, and only Vlad, was worthy of the highest prize.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Young Vlad

When young Vlad knelt again and again, on calloused knees, he became a human compass aligned with the magnetism of those also in devotion; when the youth scored the holy script into his recall again and again, he would often, most often, fixate on a wall in the Mosque, where embossed into stone, was a circular dragon eating its tail.

When his body cried from the violations he had endured, and the shame that he inwardly hurt with, thoughts of revenge, and the ultimate might of the Holy one, soothed his upset and reinforced his rage's righteousness.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

This Elvish Man

“Take heart that your mother is around and knows exactly how you feel.”
“Do you think she is in the room with us now?” Charlotte asked dolefully.

“I can’t really say,” said Puck, who was genuinely aggrieved at his own shortcomings. Of all the things his vision could not penetrate, it turned out that he was not omnipresent after all.

Marley was in the room with them, as often was. And she was seriously rethinking her own absence. Loving this Elvish man was easy from afar, but in reality, how would they be together now? She never really understood the attraction in the first place. But one thing she did know, especially from what this ghostly oversight had revealed: although unconventional, and otherworldly as well, he truly was a good man - one who kept the best interests of this world and its humanity close to his heart.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

A Good Man

"She said you are a good man.”

Puck warmly smiled at this. Even with his telepathic skills he had had no idea what Marley had thought of him now. And, she had called him a man. He wore that word with pride and was clinging to this phrase rather awkwardly.

“Dad, I don’t want that encounter to be my one and only with Mum - I have had so much to say and ask, and I feel that I just wrecked it.”

“It wouldn’t have been you that made her go”, he said consolingly with a small kiss on the forehead.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

In the Ancient Mirror

Charley was left alone in the room once more. She had cried out the eyelash and felt crushed with herself. Of all the things she could have said, her accusative negativity had driven away the one who she had longed to see the most. Would she see her mother again? It had been a bitter sweet vision, but one she would cherish.

“Mum,”she said quietly to a seemingly empty room,

“I know you can hear me now, and I just wanted to say, that I am so glad you came by and that you are near me.”

She tried another peek tentatively into the ancient mirror once more but just caught her swollen eyes from crying staring back at her. She shuddered. “Pick yourself up girl”, she said to herself, putting it safely back into her red leather bag.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

The Spirit Retracted

“He’s a good man … your father” the woman said.

Looking more closely as she was, Charley could see a girl in her early thirties perhaps, with bleached blonde hair and shining skin, dressed in just a tshirt and jeans.

Charley knew all at once who she was. She wanted her to be sad - sad as she had been for all of her years mourning for her mum … but the spirit in the room was radiant and full of happiness.

“Why haven’t you come before?”

Charley broke down and started to cry. She was ashamed to be seen to be like this, but the mirror had invoked an honesty from within her. The child inside, that had always wanted her mother close by, was speaking now.

The spirit retracted and its presence dissolved.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Vision in the Mirror

Charley had a pesky lash irritating her eye. She reached into her handbag to find her mirror, and pulled out the magic one that had been gifted to her awhile ago, she had forgotten about until now.

As she held it up to find the light’s direction, she saw, looking in the corner over her shoulder, a figure watching her. It was a woman.

She was not startled, just curious.

My god, she thought to herself, this woman looks a lot like me.

She put the mirror down and turned around.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

A Tear Fell from her Aqua Eye

The Phoenix’s partner, the Almighty Dragon, had been subdued for far too long. Puck had sought to go to the source and take her head on. He then noticed that her golden feathers were turning brown at the edges.

Suddenly a tear fell from her aqua eye.

“I am old” she said, as if that somehow became an excuse for infecting the whole of Humanity with her malaise.

“I too wish for rebirth” she sighed.

He perceived a way out that would please them both.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Phoenix & Dragon

Bob Eggleton 

The Phoenix glared at Puck - she was a proud creature and did not appreciate being denied.

He rubbed his forehead in an agitated manner … the stress of late had really got to him - nonetheless Puck refused to give into it.

“It can’t be done” he said as plainly as he might.

She menacingly stamped her foot and bowed down her head to face his gaze directly.

Telepathically he winced.

“Yes, life is about renewal, but no, not more of the same - that would be a living death by any definition.

"I realize you want me to keep the Pharma work going, and that you have invested a lot (and here he emphasised "a lot") of time and energy doing just this - but, I say to you respectfully: you are wrong.”

The influence from Asia had been one of copying, duplicating forgeries with repetition. Tradition was also just that: an affection for the past that stifled any prospect for change.


- Gabriel Brunsdon AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Dark Nights Accumulated

Theo’s aspirations were both complex and mundane.

He had been content within the confines and routine of his dutiful work, peppered with salutations and self-admonishments - however, he did find himself throughout the night, wishing for the soft company of a woman. In the midnight hours Theo desired desperately to replace his cold monastic life with the comfort of a warm and wanting wife.

Try as he might, Theo was restless and confused. The dark nights accumulated, and, on the eve of his fortieth birthday, this middle aged Monk took himself out to the uppermost ledge of the enclave and wrapped his stringy belt around his neck.

Murmur, on his nightly rounds had found him dangling in a hapless way.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

In a Prior Life

Pietro was not the only one to whom Murmur had ‘healed’ and had subsequently made landlocked, earthbound, shut out from passing through the gates of the Heavens as one would normally do after death.

The starry gates were closed also to Vlad - who, in a prior life had worked as a civil servant of the Church: seeking obeisance, piety and personal accord. His name known by the order was Theo, like the great physician who was yet to be born.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Go Back

Humankind has its captains and champions; adepts, masters, bodhisattvas and beyond - and the Fey, they too have their accomplished few, ahead of the rest … and Puck was such a one.

Francis recognized Brogan with the happiness of the familiar.

A white light appeared ever so strongly and almost blocked him from moving forward. He reached out towards, but Brogan stepped back into the light and could barely be seen.

“You must go back.” he said softly, yet firmly.

And with that, Francis clamoured his way once again into his earthly consciousness to find something that even he could never have guessed at, waiting for him to wake.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

An Uncanny Connective Tissue

In the spirit world all beings can, and do, shape-change. They can project, or be perceived, in images relevant to their essential self, or as how they wish to be perceived.

When Brogan had passed over two decades earlier, he had been wearing a rabbit suit at the time. And so, when he returned back into the earthly sphere he could still appear as he had left - looking like a 6' 3” rabbit. It was not intended as a comment as to Francis and his congeniality with the animals.

Life can be like that: it can knit together people, places and circumstances, with an uncanny connective tissue - finer than that of our own designing.

Brogan also, was a dear friend of the deep past. He had been helped by Puck, and was conjoined with Charlotte’s (Charley’s) mother, Marley (Marian) as a partner, lion-hearted benefactor, and close companion throughout.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

The White Rabbit

Josep Benlliure Gil

Death to the Saint is but a blessed release, for the Heavenly airs are alike to the fragrance of coffee in the morning, or jasmine in the eve: the inhalation of the new life beyond this one, brings a joyous complexity both rich and sublime.

He could see a tall white rabbit waiting there to greet him. This rabbit equalled him in height. Francis thought to himself that the end of his life was signatory to this sight.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

His Nemesis

He [the Dark Master] had had his eye upon Francis for some time now … as he had known him to be the hope of the world. Years earlier he had morphed into a rabid dog and with the taste of the boy’s flesh within him, he now had a physical connection to the man, having assimilated some of his blood into himself, it now bore their union.

Hode knew of his nephew’s evil stalker, yet refused to use his name, lest he invoke the evil one - calling his attention or giving power to his menace - and so, in the stead, he only referred to him as ‘the Dark Knight’.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

The Dark Master

Every hero has his nemesis, and for Hode there was an Elvish Master that was so evil that even the history books could not bear to make mention his name.

His shadow stank with a putrid smell - for it was not of the sun, but made of the astral light - and it carried the particles of death all about him.

He wore his hatred of the Humankind dark, just like the stars embedded upon his cloak. His long hair streamed sleekly down upon his back in black waves, with a fine beard cropped short - his appearance was compelling.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Teleportation

“If you can manifest the tea” she said looking at the steaming teapot, with the mugs and milk and cookies too - “how come you don’t just manifest those fire ants also?”

“Good question my girl!” he said with a broad grin. “Why do you suppose?”

She drew a blank.

“Well well,” he said, “inanimate and animate. Teleportation is so much harder with things on the move - especially those with a mind of their own. The ants are going places with their own ideas - but the teapot I can find exactly where I last left it … which was the common room of the treehouse yonder.”

“Makes perfect sense” she said, helping herself to an oat crispy.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Fire Ant Tea

Goober was out upturning rocks. Charley asked him what he was looking for.

“Oh, fire ants. They make a great tea - very zesty.”

Having grown up with Uncle Goober, Charley was well familiar with his eccentric taste. She had discovered years earlier never to ask what was in his satay stir-fries.

He got up from the ground, unfurling his lanky body with a snap - wiped his hands on his apron and produced a tea-tray in front of them.

She looked at him with a hint of sadness - he had been a bachelor for as long as she could remember, and she felt a loneliness around this kindly soul.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

A Sign

Calvin had not confided his thoughts of religiosity to Robyn since the grand healing on that terrible day of Francis falling.

The ‘miracle’ he had witnessed, and even felt a little involved in, had opened his eyes to a completely different plane of being. In that moment, the veils were pulled back, and there he saw himself bathed in the light of Christ.

Faith now preceded everything. His inner wanting was now calmed - for his faith persuaded his fractured nerves back into harmony. He felt whole.

Robyn was looking at the empty box in his good hand as they alighted from the metal cage.

Perhaps this was a sign, Calvin thought to himself.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

On the Ferris Wheel

Calvin and Robyn were balanced high on a ferris wheel - Robyn clutched Calvin’s hand hard, and he returned in kind.

Over the months past Francis’s death, the two had dated constantly, and it had been decided that Calvin would soon return with Robyn to Australia to see the country she loved most in the world.

He pulled his hand back suddenly and reached for his pocket … he had planned this moment, when at the very top, he would bring out a package and present it to his love.

The great wheel jerked forward and down, and his weakened hand lost his grasp of the small velvet box - it happened so quickly, he did not even see the Tiffany diamond ring fall into the night.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Signs in Nature

Tiny droplets began to fall.

The Elves loved the rain, and the mists and the clouds, and the dew. To the Elvish the cloud water was always shot with rainbow colours - each little sphere or orb of moisture had a rainbow exterior - a film of hues that were fluid, just like the soap bubbles with their play of light.

This is how the Elvish saw the heavenly water - that the stagnant fluid from the dark wells and bottles had their colors evaporated from them, whilst the vapors of the sky were enriched with their vivid hues.

“Methinks the sky would cheer us” quipped Francis who observed signs in all nature ordinarily.

“Agreed. And therein is perhaps our answer:

"That love, as with its beauty, is to be interpreted with esteem, and not rationale - wonder, not intellect - thanksgiving, not demands.”

“'Tis so.”


- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

A Cliché

“What is ‘cliché’?” asked Francis despondently.

“It is a confectionery - a very sweet confectionery that appears as a food, yet is not.”

“Oh … you mean like the flour turds they call dough-nuts?”

“Not quite.”

“Or the syrup they name honey, yet it is but a forgery of burnt cane and water?”

“Not exactly.”

“Or the cure-all tonic, they herald a medicine?”

“No, no, a cliché is more like the bread they tie in knots and serve with creme.”

“Oh yes, we used to have them on the Sabbath. They were very good.”

“Yes, but it was just bread - only knotted.”


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Energetic Love

Edmund Blair Leighton 

"No love is truly chaste: as Love is fertile, sincerely energetic, and attractive - a force preceding all else.”

The Hode was counselling Francesco who was sorely torn between his holy life and the family way.

It pained him to think of his beloved being only miles from where he would lay down his head at night; and she, being exiled to a womanly commune - a veritable ‘franchise’ of his own.

“Is it natural to live without one’s love?” he quizzed.

Hode also bore this very question upon his beating heart.

“You know it was forbidden for those of our kingdom to mix and match with the mortal kind at all.”


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Kismet

It was down that road from Antipathy, that the pretenders jogged. With tools of torture, and the most modern of weaponry, Richard's emissaries rattled their way into the busy town, seeking out the Hode and his company.

Hode's enthralment with the Lady Marian had sorely bruised the King's sensibilities. He was fired to the point of making his view now known; and had sent the party of assassins all the long way into Italia, to either capture or kill this fickle adversary in love.

The politics between them had always been taut ... 'til this episode the one had tolerated the other. Richard, of course, did not understand any of the Fay, and had no mind to realize just who Hode was beneath his daily enterprise.

Hode had forgotten all, when seeing Marian as he had. It was an ancient memory that had swept over his commonsense, and he longed to be able to share this with her.

Did she know him, or of him? And why now, why here? He believed in Kismet, and would not allow the King get in the way of it.

The continuum of love persists …


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Love's Conundrum

Marianne Stokes 

Puck sat with his hands in his lap, trying to meditate. It was not working. His stillness kept getting interrupted by the conundrum that ever followed his thoughts - one that had him perplexed and vexed - and presented time and time again, whenever he was quiet … human love.

Elvish love, Spritely love, Elemental love, was predictable. If something or someone was loveable, they responded - and the heart knew what it knew, without needing consultation or argument.

But human love - now that was complicated. He sighed, and a daisy patch fell over beside him. Absentmindedly he waved his hand over the faerie ring and it sprang up again.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances