Monuments

There were Roman lions cast in bronze, carved in sandstone, and sculpted in marble, almost everywhere all over the great city.

There were so many, one could say, that it was almost expected, when passing by a fountain or an public place, to find one or two of the giant cats lying stretched across a pillar or a gate.

When Francis had been summoned into the Holy City he had been transfixed by the lavish empire of artists, with their great works around the colonnades and vestibules, in houses large and small - detailed paintings and engravings, mosaics and marvellous effigies. It was apparent to him that the entire populace was touched by this beauty.

The faces of the folk dwelling in the city were markedly different, he had observed also. Perhaps it was that the wear of poverty, or the shadows of ale, did not afflict the countenance there.

No farmer or miner could be found in these streets. The merchants, and the soldiers who ventured the roads, appeared refined and well kept. Everywhere there were cassocks and shrouds, and an uncommonly vast number of Muslims who were taking quarters at the outskirts on a pilgrimage all of their own.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Big Sack

This Troll sported the smile of an imbecile, and stood far too close for her liking. His head was too large and his spiky hair unkempt and greasy. Charley could smell it from where he stood. She was not familiar with his kind, and because he was not dressed in traditional fay costume, she took him to be nothing more than an unfortunate vagrant.

She rummaged through her handbag as though to find some change to give him - it also gave her the excuse to look away. She hid her expression with her the curls falling down - for some reason this odd fellow really bothered her. Charley admonished herself for these unkind thoughts.

He had interrupted her contemplations. She had come to this park to find some time for herself, and to be able to finally be alone with her memories.

“Typical” she thought, “just typical that someone would turn up and interrupt my peaceful moment like this”.

Upon looking up she saw he was holding a large dirty sack. She could smell something farm-like coming from him, or it, or both. She tried to smile, holding out a five pound note.

“Are you from around here?” she asked in the friendliest voice she could muster.

He did not say anything but pointed to a gardener’s shed not far. She relaxed. Oh perhaps that's all he was, some untidy groundsman out cleaning up.

“That’s a rather big sack” she said cordially - edging up the bench to get a few inches away. She then moved to get up.

“Big enough” he grunted.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

The Troll

Charley was sequestered out to each city’s head office, and it was this that had brought her back to the UK, returning to the story of her own beginning.

She watched the mists skip around the trees below, the random flash from the lighting of a cigarette; a trundle noise of the caretaker's trolley; the intermittent jogger winding their way to the lake for their final mile; the park was a'buzz and a'hum with the new day’s activity.

The more absorbed she became in staring out at the wildlife around, she drifted far from her own melancholy, from this vacuous feeling that nothing really made sense any more.

It was there and then that the troll appeared.

He came as though from out of nowhere, staring at her expectantly. He stood fairly tall for his kind, five foot eight or so; and was extremely wide, with his belt straining around his mid-drift, in the fashion of Tweedle-dee.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Neutering the Beloved Plants

Walther Roggenkamp

The companies responsible for neutering the beloved plants offended the etheric world and its occupants terribly.

To the beings that so closely attended these crops and their offspring, the genetically modified seeds were of the worst sorcery imaginable - for both the world of the Fay, and the etheric vitality of the plant kingdom, had but one driving and determining force: Life itself.

A plant that could not naturally re-seed itself was a veritable zombie, missing its soul, its future, and its connection into the World from the outset.

And, for those plants so injured, the fairy folk who would usually stay close, instead up and moved to but another field, another source … finding no attraction with the first now depleted patch.

A plant that could not naturally re-seed itself was a veritable zombie, missing its soul, its future, and its connection into the World from the outset.

And, for those plants so injured, the fairy folk who would usually stay close, instead up and moved to but another field, another source … finding no attraction with the first now depleted patch.

Very soon these same crops could not sustain the humans that ate of them - because their true vitality of life-force was bereft also. And just as the starved starch was parched and stripped of any goodness, the one-time crops became a food in name only.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

The Kernel

Florence Harrison 

Puck had given the day-to-day management of Johnstone Pharma to Charley just three weeks after the exchange. He returned to his usual business back home: the seed bank.

It was of an impressive size and housed many rare species he documented and kept ‘alive’.

Goober would jokingly refer to him as ‘the Kernel’ as Puck’s passions had grown into obsession, with both the collecting and disseminating of his hybrid and heritage saplings, seedlings and coveted seeds.

Pouches and packets of crop ‘gold’ would mysteriously manifest into farms whose harvest had fallen genetically infertile.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Nothing Came

Charley felt heartbroken.

As she sat on the park bench at the top of the hill, looking out over the rolling grounds beneath her, crowded with clusters of shivering trees, she tried to feel what her mother might have felt, sitting there as she did, so many years before.

She strained to remember something - anything - of those early years before her death. But nothing came.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

The Boat "Hubris"

In ancient Greece, Puck rode in a boat that sailed backwards.

The people named this voyager ‘Hubris’ for they held great fear of it reaching places that the mortals were not meant to go - the very ends of the earth - where, it was said, one could meet face to face with the gods.

Of course this was only partially correct, as the vessel would take him and his passengers through the channels, and further on, to find passage into the lands of Faerie.

He travelled to those most special of conjunctions, a nautical wormhole, where ships could disappear into, never to return.

In reality, the boat would sail its weight right into the harbours of the etheric realm, emptying its occupants right onto the shores of Faerie land.

It was not so easy these days to take human beings on board, or into, an adventure such as this.

It seemed that those gateways on earth and sea had closed - and at best when found, they could only inspire visions of the faraway dreamlands … no longer providing a proper en-trance in, anymore.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances