[ c. 13th Century ~ ]
Murmur knelt steadily on the hard ground to inspect his little seedlings. They simply weren't doing as well as he had hoped.
Hannah-Mary was coming to join them as soon as the days lengthened, and he wanted to be able to feed her and his little niece well with produce he had grown himself.
Some weeks prior, the hives had been stolen, and their other supplies were now very low. The beaded beef and baby turnips had been kept in an earthy treasure chest, while the olives and sugared fruits were long gone. Six sacks of moth-filled grain remained, which would keep them in bread, until the New Moon's cast.
A lizard slid over the tree root and slipped onto Murmur's hand. He contemplated eating it for just a moment, but instead he gave its shiny head a tap and popped it into his tunic's inner pocket.
-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances
“Do you have any family George?"
"Just Francis." George said with significance.
It was that very moment that Francis appeared in the doorway. This was his very first visit to Zone C of the outer buildings. There had been something of a natural revulsion inhibiting him from walking through the doors up until now. George mentioning him had drawn him in.
With one click the magnetic seals on the enclosures relaxed, and thirty doors popped open all at once. Francis gently lifted each of the detainees down, setting them gently upon the ground.
Instead of scurrying wildly about, the rabbits ordered themselves in groups of color, and waited patiently at the laboratory door before making their break to freedom.
- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances
Johnstone Pharma disposed of hundreds of rabbits every month. They found them to be more docile than the rats, and ideal for skin sensitivity tests for the more mundane products, whilst piglets were best used for tissue grafts, being reliably compatible to human dermatology.
Even though Johnstone Senior was himself now clothed in a spirit form, it appeared that he still lacked the eyes to see the cluster of wounded animals around his ankles.
Johnstone’s sight was upon earthly things, and although he saw George, he could not see the rabbit that George would cradle in his arms as they were speaking to one another - or the small fairies that stroked their spirit fur.
Placing a small piglet back down upon the ground, George took his little notebook out from his coat pocket and started to write out again - this practice of note-taking came from forty years on the job - and nowadays it helped him greatly to filter his thinking.
When he was working as a health inspector he also found that it also worked to keep the interviewees honest. Note-taking was powerful, he would say to himself.
Each of the rabbits had a circle of fur shaved from their rear flank with a neon pink number inked upon their bare skin.
''My boy's looking after it all now you know."
George nodded. "Yes. l met him in the hospital a few months back - he's been missing you".
-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances
[c. 21st Century ~]
George was fumbling with the latch of an enormous rabbit enclosure that was divided into thirty individual cells. Instead of using a traditional grid-wire for the front of the cages, there was clear nylon matting through which you could see the animals quite easily.
Johnstone Senior had been giving George the ‘behind the scenes’ tour, along with the usual statistical details, whilst George kept poking his finger through the mesh, in an endeavour to make contact with 'Sooty' no. 1246 - whose face was pleading with him to get her out of there as fast as he could.
At his feet sat twenty or so ghost-rabbits who had deceased from previous trials.
The etherial bunnies usually would remain in the laboratory for some weeks after their slaughter, before realising they were free to go roam the heavenly fields and chew on the sweetest of grasses.
There is not much written explaining Heaven as it is known by creatures; although some early records did map the migration of Ibis as they travelled their way out into the Cosmos after death, with countless hieroglyphic insignias depicting similar parties in the afterlife.
- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances
[ c. 13th Century ~ ]
The countryside at night was alive with the creatures and beings that hid from the people and the beasts of the daylight.
Noses twitched, beaks clicked, paws itched. In the moments before, Francesco would recite the Alma Putto, and the animals who gathered around his spiritual light remained quiet, even though they were so conflicted, by their very real instincts to flee or fight.
Unbeknownst why, it appeared that the smell of one another aggravated the congregation terribly, far more than the appearance of each other. Francis discovered that creatures interpret the world through their smell firstly - and so he took the leaves of the eucalypt [Bay or Linden] and laid them upon the burning charcoals of the camp fire, to help soothe their anxieties.
Amongst the group sat a large snow-white bear. Everyone knew that the white bears of fabled lands did not frequent the woods of the north. There was, however, a troop of songsters visiting the district that had acquired an albino cub when it was young it was said, and they had profited greatly from his performances. It came to pass however, that he had overtaken their height, and was manacled with cutting irons, to keep him harnessed in their employ.
Nightly there was the big reveal, where in the final act Granoldi the Great Polar Bear would lumber out through the canvas curtains, wearing his leathered suit and woollen cap.
This was always a pleasing note to leave on, and quite often the coins would be tossed into the pot, hoping to make him dance. Granoldi did not dance, yet they would collect the coins, dismantle the tent, and move on.
One day, this same bear had been found by Francis secured to a giant fir tree. The troop had left him whilst exploring the prospects of the next village.
His tender skin bled beneath the iron, making dark red patches that were staining his fur. Their unkindness to the beast was evident in this abandonment alone.
And when Francis unbolted his irons, the great bear did not run away, but stayed.
And when the songsters returned to collect him, they found that without the chains and clamps, they had no viable persuasion, and had to depart without their valued slave.
-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances
The thirteenth century, from the ordinary man's perspective was (in both the east and the west of the world) a time when people did not question the extraordinary. And when it came to talents and events that were most unusual, they simply accepted them.
For example: the majority of commonfolk could not draw or write more than their name. Then there were the few who painted their visions and portraits so vividly and realistically that they embodied life - and their skills were so far beyond the ordinary reach, yet they were accepted.
Engineers and composers, whose talents advanced, proving themselves, in fanciful cathedrals, in allegros and concertos - these too were taken to be marvels - and yet accepted.
The saintly and the magician, and yes, the very magic of the Fey, were similarly, and likewise, unquestioned.
If things were simply taken for what they were - what they were seen to be, then they were what they were. The people did not question what they saw.
It was only much later as the centuries progressed that doubt and questions scorned the Holy, the inspired, and the magician's works.
Curiously this happened at exactly the same time that the other Arts simplified - paintings became abstract, buildings, functional, and tunes grew repeated choruses.
- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS, Second Chances
[ 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
