Vampire Thing

“Please don’t be upset with me Cal” she said. This new familiarity was something different also. Ever since he had stepped down from management, giving over the share majority to Charley’s people, she had seen him in a different light…. as being more approachable.

His head cast low. He was not proud of some of the things he had done. But then …

“I just had the horrible thought - you know … if we are using human materials - even human ‘waste’ to make up these cements and plasmas, well, what is the difference between that and what vampires do? It is kind of a vampire thing, isn’t it? To live off other humans - to take their blood, their life, for your own?”

“But if you say that, then what about organ transplantation and fetal donation?” he said almost triumphantly.

“Same same” she said meekly. Robyn sensed she was now on dangerous ground.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Several Moons Later

Outwardly the Church had appeared generous and supportive - and in their own words, they were ‘inclusive’ to the fringe communities. But every gift has its price - either to the giver or the gifted, it comes with its cost.

There was an unsavoury undercurrent between the two men. There existed an anger fuelled by an unrequited passion. Francis had become the obsession of the curious Pontiff. It was as though he wanted to get inside Francis, and watch him succumb - he wanted to know him, body, mind and soul.

There became a complex scent between them.

Francis refused to go back.

You cannot know what you simply cannot understand.

Several moons later the Pontiff took poison by his own hand.*

His death was recorded as being due to ill health.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances



*Innocent III died suddenly at Perugia on 16 June 1216.

Summoned by the Pope

Giotto 

When the elderly Pope summoned him [Francis] one last time, he had refused. This was something no child of the Church would ever do. But he did. He flat out refused.

Firstly, there had been the argument about the gentle creatures and their places in heaven. The Church had been adamant that animals did not have souls, and therefore his services with the small creatures, were considered to be no more than an empty bluff - a charade - a performance - a novelty. Francis was ordered to address the mortals only.

The Holy Father, added to this, had placed stipulations, and confinements upon the activity of his Brotherhood.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

"In 1209, Francis of Assisi led his first eleven followers to Rome to seek permission from Pope Innocent III to found a new religious order which was ultimately granted....

After several days, the pope agreed to admit the group informally, adding that when God increased the group in grace and number, they could return for an official admittance. The group was tonsured. This was important in part because it recognized Church authority and protected his followers from possible accusations of heresy, as had happened to the Waldensians decades earlier. Though Pope Innocent initially had his doubts, following a dream in which he saw Francis holding up the Basilica of St. John Lateran (the cathedral of Rome, thus the 'home church' of all Christendom), he decided to endorse Francis's order. This occurred, according to tradition, on 16 April 1210, and constituted the official founding of the Franciscan Order." 

Detachment

Perhaps Francis could renounce much of the world, simply because he was not of this world.

It is possible that his detachment, and ability to see with spiritual eyes through the glamour of the material existence - possible, that this was a wisdom known by an ageless heart; one that could sense the need of the many, that would far outcry the needs of his own.

Yet he was not without his own want or will either.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Dangerous Discoveries

It was unnatural for a human to endure this - and Puck felt a little responsible. For it had been his arrow that had caught the man in the first place.

It was only meant to sail past his head to get his attention, but instead it nicked him from behind.

Being also an elvin arrow, it very possibly contributed to the magic which was to follow.

Puck thought of Pietro rather fondly really. He had showed great kindness to Francesco - had always given his best to him. He was a good man, and now an earthbound ghoul of a kind.

Puck had gone after him that day to take him to see Francis where he was camped, but it ended rather poorly. He really did feel responsible - mainly because he was.

And then there was the problem of Johnstone enterprises. Taking over the greater shareholding was one thing in the short term, but not enough to stop its momentum as before.

Johnstone Snr had made some dangerous discoveries just prior to his death. And Humanity, in his opinion, would be better off without these evolutionary contributions. He sighed. It was definitely time for a holiday away from this place.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Soul Migration

It all came down to this: Pietro had suffered an accidental death, and was resurrected by a very gifted simpleton who was touched with the ability to restore life, when life was depleted.

Murmur had helped Pietro reconstruct a human form from the materials in the ditch in which he had died - but (and this was the important part) not all of his new body exhumed had been human - there had been dead animal and leafy matter as well - and the new Peter had in part been all things - at least his body had been.

And this was fine, yet for some inexplicable reason when it came for that body to die, the soul could not leave the worldly realm to depart as it ordinarily might, flying free into the cosmic spheres. It was, as it were, detained.

Pietro then went on to find another, and another form to inhabit, and as the years went on, right up to this century, and to great angst, his soul was still forced to migrate thusly.

Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Prayer Box

The great lion shook his head, and stared very hard at the following.

No-one moved. They did not, they dared not.

"Please can you tell us just one thing?” they asked - for they knew that just one good truth might carry them through to the eternal life.

“I cannot tell you just one thing. I cannot tell you anything. I can try to explain. I can sometimes describe. But I cannot tell you how to live your life, or how to find the eternal answer.”

“Yet we have heard your ear is close to the door of the gods … and so therefore, can you tell us what it is the gods speak off in the silence, and in their meetings?”

“I do not listen, I dare not listen, at their great door - for caution my own ears will explode.” He said this with a rumbling purr, and then continued:

“Give me your prayers and I will put them in a box, and I will keep them for a century in safekeeping; and then at the end of this age we will take them from their safe-nest and you will see each one will have been fulfilled. This, I can tell you.”

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances