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
[ 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
“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
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
[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
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
 |
| 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
