Energetic Love

Edmund Blair Leighton 

"No love is truly chaste: as Love is fertile, sincerely energetic, and attractive - a force preceding all else.”

The Hode was counselling Francesco who was sorely torn between his holy life and the family way.

It pained him to think of his beloved being only miles from where he would lay down his head at night; and she, being exiled to a womanly commune - a veritable ‘franchise’ of his own.

“Is it natural to live without one’s love?” he quizzed.

Hode also bore this very question upon his beating heart.

“You know it was forbidden for those of our kingdom to mix and match with the mortal kind at all.”


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Kismet

It was down that road from Antipathy, that the pretenders jogged. With tools of torture, and the most modern of weaponry, Richard's emissaries rattled their way into the busy town, seeking out the Hode and his company.

Hode's enthralment with the Lady Marian had sorely bruised the King's sensibilities. He was fired to the point of making his view now known; and had sent the party of assassins all the long way into Italia, to either capture or kill this fickle adversary in love.

The politics between them had always been taut ... 'til this episode the one had tolerated the other. Richard, of course, did not understand any of the Fay, and had no mind to realize just who Hode was beneath his daily enterprise.

Hode had forgotten all, when seeing Marian as he had. It was an ancient memory that had swept over his commonsense, and he longed to be able to share this with her.

Did she know him, or of him? And why now, why here? He believed in Kismet, and would not allow the King get in the way of it.

The continuum of love persists …


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Love's Conundrum

Marianne Stokes 

Puck sat with his hands in his lap, trying to meditate. It was not working. His stillness kept getting interrupted by the conundrum that ever followed his thoughts - one that had him perplexed and vexed - and presented time and time again, whenever he was quiet … human love.

Elvish love, Spritely love, Elemental love, was predictable. If something or someone was loveable, they responded - and the heart knew what it knew, without needing consultation or argument.

But human love - now that was complicated. He sighed, and a daisy patch fell over beside him. Absentmindedly he waved his hand over the faerie ring and it sprang up again.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Not Francis

Charley had been avoiding her father for days now - her phone was turned off and she had arranged the staff to bring their meals. Surely they could do without her for a few days? Besides, she had little idea what her role was ‘moving forward’. Sure, she deserved some time away.

There was a sharp rap at the door. Her eyes went to Franco who was plugging his pipe, sitting beside the balcony window, wearing just his long kaftan. It was her father tapping loudly. He let himself in.

“How is our miracle boy today?” he said somewhat sarcastically.

She detected the unease.

“Dad, you can't just walk in here - Franco needs his rest, and a little privacy …" she stopped - he had his face on.

“This is not Francis” he said bluntly, and at the same time lit a spark in midair to ignite the packed pipe.

“It's Pietro - or Chips as you knew him - it is Francis’s father from some time ago. The real Francis departed at the bottom of the cliff three days ago."

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Dangerous to try to understand the workings of Evil

"Dost thou remember the old witch? The one with the tangle of skulls and the bevy of bones? It appears you have effected her burial in the church ground with a finger missing."

It is dangerous indeed to try to understand the workings of Evil ... nay even the character whether it be of mild or major form.

The witch Vivien was a strange one who delighted in the corruption of the innocents. One can never find reasons for the dark behaviours for in truth there is no reasonable light to explain the evils that drive their will. Suffice to say and be done with that, that evil worsens the more it is fed and the beast that it is holds no merit and no stoppage.

When Vivien was placed into the sanctified ground there had been a nob of her finger that became separated from her corpse and the little bones from her finger had fallen away into the trail of the little cart. Francis, Murmur and Tobias all missed this occurrence.

Granoldi however did perceive a good many things - he could see the fairies in the forest as well as the Demons in the trees - but around the monks with their lives of prayer he was unafraid.


- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

He Read Her Thinking

Her grace walked in step with the motions of the Cosmos - it was as though this woman moved in perfect time with the natural world around her. And, she saw him. When he caught the Lady’s glance, he found her to be looking right at him.

“What is yon halo?” he read her thinking to ask.

How could a mortal see anything of who he was?

She had been summoned by the keepers: two who stood protectively close by. The sound of their armour grated on his nerves. It was a little known antipathy he kept - metal on metal anguished his elven sensibilities.

“How could they tolerate their own noise?” he thought of the chatter and grind of the men of the town.

The Lady Marian laughed a gentle laugh …

“I wonder this also,” she whispered quietly to the enamoured Monk.


- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

The Worry Beard

He stroked his beard and its prickly resistance felt good across his fingers. It helped him to think, to plot his course, to ponder. Sometimes his fingers became his consciousness and his beard was the worry beads - the worry beard. If you rub your fingers along something coarse or smooth it draws the thoughts down and out of the overladen head. He needed this relief - now.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances