Morte de rigor

A passerby looked into the straw nest and said authoritatively “Morte de rigor”.

Jonathon started to fumble. His shoulders ached and he had no idea what should be done next - he just wanted to pass out with fatigue, and fought the immediate urge to do so.

The courier who was charged to reward him accordingly in exchange for the strange cadaver, was now refusing to do so. Jon gingerly lifted the flax flap of the basket where the remains of his father lay, and looked very quickly inside at its contents: the hay was sodden, but the head was still grey white unlike the other.

“No silver for you, nor this. I’ll take this one instead” the Steward said, snatching the basket of Jon’s father out from its pole.

Within the space of two minutes he had hooked it onto a side nail of his five foot high mount, and ridden away. A hundred feet from where Jon stood dazed, Stuart turned the horse, threw a purse, and then rode fast into the distance.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Like Begets Like

“An orange shall not grow from an apple seed, nor will a healing ever come from a harm"

***

Cor Stuart pulled Jonathon severely by the arm.

“What is this? You have brought me a monkey head?”

Stuart had never seen a monkey in his entire life, but if he had, this is what he thought it might look like.

Jon stared blankly into the basket. The head he was carrying was as black as pitch and suppurating. He remembered back to what it first looked like, when comparing it to the portrait that he was given, and it was not this.

“Ei man, I hear ye, but won’t believe this to be so.”

“This is not blanc! You have brought me a Nubian and expect me to make trade for it!”

“Nay.”

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

The Long Road

For Eve, Needle’s outstanding feature was his ballooning white hair. 

“Oh my gosh” she said to herself, sitting very still, daring not even to breathe loudly. She expected the ‘presence’ to dissipate, with having been seen, but it remained.

“I would like to travel forward now”, said Needles rather insistently.

“Oh my gosh,” Eve repeated herself, she then turned around and addressed the presence with great purpose.

“I can help you,” she said charitably in a whispered voice forgetting her former upset. “Yes, you must go … go towards the tunnel, with the bright light at the end of it” she said empathetically.

“Tunnel’s fine by me” said Needles amiably, content that she was finally going to get the car moving.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Back-seat Passenger

Supernatural beings love a good car ride, and can often be seen as back-seat passengers down the motorways, riding behind their unaware drivers. He sat waiting patiently for her to take off.

Eve being psychic, could sense there was a presence there; but unbeknownst to her, this spirit was born of the Fae, and not of the human kind.

Eve was not really a very good psychic, inasmuch as her ‘flashes of insight’ were intermittent and barely distinguishable. She still had a long way to go.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

All Cried Out

There is a very quiet place one can go to in their mind after having cried for some time. It is that space where there is a certain stillness to be found, when all of the upset has finally emptied, and the being within has exhausted itself, and with this, the tension has drained. Eve had arrived at this very disposition, sitting in her car, riding out the storm, in the grassy lane that ran beside the shadowy state forest.

Behind her seat sat Needles invisibly, who had let himself into the resting vehicle, as invisible Dwarves are wont to do.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Headless Ghouls

Ever since Jon was a young boy he had heard stories of the headless ghouls that frequented the graves. It was the consummate indignity, to be severed from your body - and be so ultimately disfigured, that at the time of the holy rising these souls would have no chance at resurrection. “Oh dear God, I pray this not be so”, he spoke out loud as these fears of this escalated.

The heat was rising from the cracked mud road. Lizards were sunning their scales, and soon every dry branch seemed to grow legs, as the scalding sun made its way to his mind and his eyes blurred with dehydration. Only a few more miles to go, he thought hopefully, as the weight of his parcels increased intolerably.

Jon considered seriously about tossing the second head away, just to ease the ache in his arm - but no, there was a payment waiting that he much needed, for the retrieval and delivery of this Anglish runaway. He drew a deep breath, and straightened the pole across his shoulders from which the baskets swung from, and diligently kept going.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series

Two Heads are Better than One

In one basket lay his father’s head, and in the other, the head of a man whom he did not know, or recognise … but hoped dearly it was the right one, as it appeared in likeness to the miniature portrait he had been afforded before setting out to collect them both.

They weighed heavier than he had imagined they would. His choices had been few - either pay the executioner for their retrieval, or purchase a horse to carry them back - and of course, it was the first option he conceded.

Was a burial complete with just the head? There was simply no way to take the entire corpse home - even if he had been permitted. At the very least, this was confirmation of the event, and something to grieve upon for his beloved mother who was awaiting his return. Jonathon was grateful at this time to have a task to perform; it cased his anger, it calmed his trembling, it quietened his sorrow - he slowly and painfully walked on.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, Finding Self - Second Guesses- Azlander Series