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