A Sign

Calvin had not confided his thoughts of religiosity to Robyn since the grand healing on that terrible day of Francis falling.

The ‘miracle’ he had witnessed, and even felt a little involved in, had opened his eyes to a completely different plane of being. In that moment, the veils were pulled back, and there he saw himself bathed in the light of Christ.

Faith now preceded everything. His inner wanting was now calmed - for his faith persuaded his fractured nerves back into harmony. He felt whole.

Robyn was looking at the empty box in his good hand as they alighted from the metal cage.

Perhaps this was a sign, Calvin thought to himself.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

On the Ferris Wheel

Calvin and Robyn were balanced high on a ferris wheel - Robyn clutched Calvin’s hand hard, and he returned in kind.

Over the months past Francis’s death, the two had dated constantly, and it had been decided that Calvin would soon return with Robyn to Australia to see the country she loved most in the world.

He pulled his hand back suddenly and reached for his pocket … he had planned this moment, when at the very top, he would bring out a package and present it to his love.

The great wheel jerked forward and down, and his weakened hand lost his grasp of the small velvet box - it happened so quickly, he did not even see the Tiffany diamond ring fall into the night.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Signs in Nature

Tiny droplets began to fall.

The Elves loved the rain, and the mists and the clouds, and the dew. To the Elvish the cloud water was always shot with rainbow colours - each little sphere or orb of moisture had a rainbow exterior - a film of hues that were fluid, just like the soap bubbles with their play of light.

This is how the Elvish saw the heavenly water - that the stagnant fluid from the dark wells and bottles had their colors evaporated from them, whilst the vapors of the sky were enriched with their vivid hues.

“Methinks the sky would cheer us” quipped Francis who observed signs in all nature ordinarily.

“Agreed. And therein is perhaps our answer:

"That love, as with its beauty, is to be interpreted with esteem, and not rationale - wonder, not intellect - thanksgiving, not demands.”

“'Tis so.”


- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

A Cliché

“What is ‘cliché’?” asked Francis despondently.

“It is a confectionery - a very sweet confectionery that appears as a food, yet is not.”

“Oh … you mean like the flour turds they call dough-nuts?”

“Not quite.”

“Or the syrup they name honey, yet it is but a forgery of burnt cane and water?”

“Not exactly.”

“Or the cure-all tonic, they herald a medicine?”

“No, no, a cliché is more like the bread they tie in knots and serve with creme.”

“Oh yes, we used to have them on the Sabbath. They were very good.”

“Yes, but it was just bread - only knotted.”


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

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