Was this Enchantment?

He shook himself to toss off the spurs when the blanket came away, and looked steadily at his captors. Jon could not believe his eyes - for right before him stood his stepmother. She was barely older than himself - dressed completely in green with a circlet of pearls around her neck - he almost did not recognise her. Winding up her arm were three beaten gold bangles, with deer and rabbits embossed upon them here and there chasing each other around her arm - and her feet were sandalled as he had not seen before. A perfume reached out to him that was of musk and moss, and forest rain. She seemed to be in good health, and by his judgement, most affluent too.

“Mama”, he addressed her as he had been taught to do.

She fondly brushed the dirt from his shoulders and glanced at the group that had walked him to this hideaway place, and they fell back in obeisance, disappearing into the trees once again. Only the short monk remained. 

“I live with the Elven community now”, she said affectionately - in a manner to put him at ease as quickly as possible. “They took me in and gave me everything I have.”

“Was this enchantment?” Jon asked himself - “Or a madness? Brain embargo? She had, after all, suffered so many blows to her head from Pa …”

“You should call me Isabelle - we both know that I am not truly your mother.” She was speaking plainly with a note of kindness and not in any way being immodest he noted. Thank the Gods. Isabelle appeared to be a relaxed and happy maiden, the likes he had not seen before.

Jon was much relieved to be pardoned from calling her ‘mother’. It had stung his tongue to have to name her such when he had missed his own true mother so sorely.

“Isabelle it is” he said, as he followed her deeper into the forest.

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

Stuck on the Road

Black pitch was melting in the heat - this was an experimental roadwork that had failed and the main arteries connecting the south to the sea had become tacky and unmanageable. Jon stopped to inspect his horse’s left front shoe to pry out the small balls of tar lodged within them.

He would have to cross the country and leave this impossible path. Abandoned carriages, lying sideways with missing wheels lay hunchback at the side of the sweating roadway. It simply would not do well to continue on like this. He was however loath to leave the sticky highway for the woods: it seemed an impossible choice. Recently there had been talk of scrubbers hiding out there (which they were called, as they lived and hid in the thorny scrub).

Jon paused to contemplate returning home - but he could not bring himself to forsake Zithia - who he felt almost sure would never have left him obligingly - and now, it was his task alone to save her.

He turned his horse sideways and pulled Chester from the tacky track into the mildewy forest that was dank with mouldy slime and cloistered in weeds.

* * *

Several tedious hours later he dismounted in a clearing by a brook. His mottled horse was drinking plentifully. Jon unravelled a knob of cooked meat from a linen pocket.

“Care to share?” came a voice from nowhere. Jon looked around yet could not see where the voice was coming from. Perfectly camouflaged, a very small but portly Friar stepped out of the brush towards him.

“Are ye a Chrystian man?” asked the small Monk to Jon, whose mouth was dry and still managing the salty meat.

Usually if no one is trying to talk with you a slow consumption is satisfying, making the meal more adequate. He grunted and nodded and turned his back to pull on a saddle bag, hoping the midget would go away. But the small Monk took hold of the Chester’s rope and tugged him back from the river.

“You canna take my ride! Get away with you now and leave us, by peace!” he blurted. The day was getting worse, and as it was, Chester was all he had left right now.

“I’m not taking your ride from you,” said the rotund man appearing to be quite offended, and with that he flung the saddle blanket from the horse over Jon’s head and three woodsmen stepped out from the trees to wrap the rope around him and bundle him back over Chester like a sack of turnips.

Through the coarse wool he could still hear voices - a deep callous one said: “Is this the one?”

Jon thought quickly … they had not found his purse as yet … nor had they beaten him. There was still yet a possibility in all of this, he surmised hopefully.

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

Heavenly Picnic Boxes

“Have you ever heard of bad fairies?” asked Puck to Eve in a serious tone.

He had found both her and Jupiter, a heavenly picnic box each and they were working their way through the contents. Heavenly picnic boxes can be found all throughout the upper planes of the Cosmos: they have an uncanny ability to change what is inside of them according to the wants and needs of the way-fare-er. It’s a cosmic secret, that one way or another, all beings love to eat - even though you do not really need the provisions for sustenance when going about the upper worlds for ‘energetic replenishment’ is naturally there to draw from just about everywhere.

Eve peered into Jupiter’s box. She had bottled water, he had a silver goblet. She had an egg and lettuce sandwich (which she enjoyed and happened to just feel like eating), while he had clumps of seasoned mango. There were some clots of meat in his box also.

“It's actually vegan (not real) - you can’t get the real stuff here” … he said guessing her thoughts. He continued: “it's a hangover from life as Granoldi.”

“Oh” she said realising a very different side to her once house guest.

“Would you have eaten me?” she asked carefully.

“No … at least I don’t think so.” he said, playfully.

“Where’s your box?” asked Eve to Puck who was tinkering with a bicycle.

“Oh me? not hungry” he said absentmindedly.

He stood up and placed the bicycle leaning against a tree.

“Getting back to what I was saying - have you ever heard of bad fairies? The type that bring curses on circumstances and evil to people?”

“You mean the ones that cause chaos?” She had sensed beings of destruction from time to time in small miseries and upset - and there was an undercurrent of delight coming from somewhere - especially when her internet would drop out.

“Yes, but what I am alluding to are those creatures that are consciously malevolent - not just mischievous or bad tempered - but truly sinister and intentionally harmful.”

“Does such a creature exist?”

“Yes they exist” said Puck grimly. “Those four that were coming to you for free meals were such beings.”

“You mean to tell me that those sweet elderly people were really bad fairies? not even human at all?”

“Well once they were human, but not when you met them. In every one of them the human soul had long gone - they were deceased in a manner of speaking and the fairy took over what was left of them.”

“That is horrible”, said Eve still finding this difficult to comprehend.

Granoldi concurred - “he’s right, I can definitely confirm that. Those four were, well, hobbling drakools.”

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

Portal for Re-entry of Human Souls

“You don’t understand - everything - everything that happens here is played out in the Mortal realm. This lake is a portal for the re-entry of the human souls; and on an average day one can see the spirits in the waters circling, waiting, for their personal cosmic configuration to return back into the earthly realm - that time and into what hemisphere the coordinates determine - and it is from this place in Heaven that their passage begins.”

Eve caught her breath, alarmed at Puck’s low level of panic. She looked across at the bubbling mass that extended into the horizon. It had started to ferment on its own filth.

“How in God’s name did this actually happen?” asked Jupiter genuinely perplexed. He looked like a super-hero who had just lost his strength.

“Well,” said Puck, “clearly this is all your fault.”

“Well”, returned Jupiter, “that explains everything of course”, resenting the comment.

“Clearly” he added a moment later, sensing a pun in relation to the mirk before them. Jupiter was usually living on the edge of a frivolity - his light side would always broadcast in preference to his sober side. And this, in part, was his attraction to becoming Granoldi, if for nothing more than the very humour of it.

It was his mother who had first introduced Jupiter to the divine humours. Firstly in form, and then in behaviours - humour, she had said, was really the absolute key to this Universe - would that it was known … for the great Creator of all smiled as He created, and ever since His Creation manifest, smiles also. The four legged, those with wings, those who stand upon two - the rivers, and the stars - all have a playfulness amidst the bump and grind of cyclical eventualities.

And now that part of the Heavens he dwelt in had become so serious, and dark, and, so very smelly.

Eve had gone to sit under a silver boughed tree. The atmosphere was deeply intoxicating to her she was now in a state of half sleep.

“She’ll remember nothing of this when she gets back” said Puck.

“If she gets back," corrected Jupiter, still miffed at Puck’s blaming him.

Puck, who had transported mortals into the upper worlds at times of great grief to give them a reprieve, generally found that solace was a place, a very real place to take them, beside this once beautiful lake. He shuddered at the thought that the contamination might spreading fast now even further.

“Firstly we need to understand exactly how this done.” Jupiter’s eyes stung with tears, and his alabaster skin flushed with heat. The young god with head bowed was taken with grief. Puck clenched his teeth - he had one dozy mortal and one panicked god - not the best team to work with at a time like this. I wonder where Goober is right now? he pondered, scanning the ethers for his old friend.

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

Stolen in the Night

It was midday when Jon woke with a pulsing head and strained eyes, to see a line of coins … small golden coins - laid out upon his mantle. The fire in the hearth had disappeared, and being Winter’s eve, it was cold, so very cold within his little house. And worst of all, Zithia had disappeared also.

When Jonathon realised that Zithia had not returned, he immediately felt a rock in his stomach, a cold hard rock of upset. Up until now he had forgotten what it had been like to have his loved ones simply vanish from his life - and this felt doubly troublesome … for all of their time together Jon had never acknowledged what she was to him. They had lived so perfectly together the two had blended into one, and he had not thought of it. Now it was that everyone had left him one way or another.

This confusion he felt quickly shed into rage, as it occurred to him that it was Tindle who had literally stolen her from his house in the night - and the coins placed there were nothing but a sarcastic and very sinister token to have been left in her place for exchange, indicating this to be true.

He collected them up into his handkerchief along with the night’s leftovers and stuffed them into his saddle bag. He then filled a flask from the urn, gathered two blankets hurriedly (one for himself and one for his horse), took a few minutes more to relieve himself and say a hurried prayer, before departing out onto the road to go find her.

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

Across a Crowded Room

Ten years passed with Jon living rough with Zithia at his side: an unlikely pair: Jon approaching his thirty-fifth year, and Zithia, her eighteenth.

They had looked after one another as brother and sister do; and although Zithia was almost a woman, Jon did not see her as such, he simply cared for her protectively, as she also cared for him.

Where romance was entertained, Jon still pined for his spirit-love Fatima - who was long gone pursuing the cosmic circuit - carefree, and far from the Mortal world of woe.

He really had no sense of her presence anymore, just the fantastical recollection of their short time together in youthful love.

The day was prosperous as Jonathon had just completed a consignment of two dozen tankards for the Blood and Bone Sheffield Tavern. The establishment itself welcomed the community and travellers alike. It was the town’s best meeting place - it being the one common ground where nobles could intermix with the lower classes freely with true and genuine friendships. Business also was transacted in the Blood and Bone with its low lamps lit, pelts on the whitewash walls and trophies hanging from beams. There was an atmosphere of abundance, with platters of cooked meats (mainly rabbit) and complementary breads well shared.

Zithia followed closely behind Jon carrying a tray of the newly forged tankards. She was always mistaken to be his servant, and this brought a certain prestige to Jon - even though it was not true.

This young woman had all the grace and presence of an Egyptian princess. Her long hair was jet black, her teal green eyes were framed with a natural mascara of luxurious eyelashes, and her complexion was of warm mahogany. Zithia had not grown very much in height, being barely five foot tall, and she was often mistaken to be just a young girl.

She would sing unusual songs that were unknown to Jon … the melody was so intoxicating they sometimes collected income for them, from her street recitals when resources were poorly.

However, of late there had been no need to put the cap out, as Jonathon’s foundry was prospering - so much so, that he now owned a thatched cottage that was situated only two miles from the town, that had rooms enough for them both, and a fireside workshop as well to work his metal.

Theirs was as a harmonious relationship as one could wish for. She anticipated his needs from morning to night, supplementing his day with all kinds of nourishment, whilst he looked after the world and its worries, housing the two of them safely, with clothing and warmth, protection, and the food that they needed.

The tavern was half-lit preparing for the night and already filled with a haze of smoke that carried across its enormous hall within. There was just the one open space inside, and three huge fire grates running along its north wall. The farmers had begun drifting in, and Jon had to push through a small crowd just to empty his cart and go find the patron.

A sharp tap on his shoulder from behind startled him and Jon dropped his tray of eight cups sending them clashing onto the stone floor beneath, rolling under many feet. Zithia had gone ahead. She did not see the giant who proceeded to pick Jon up under his arms and swing him around like a rag doll.

“Tindle? Oh Lord! Tindle!” exclaimed a very surprised and happy Jon, picking himself up from the ground he had been dropped upon. The crowd had moved into a small circle, pressing in, to see what was going down. Zithia tried to see also, but could not squeeze through the men watching.

Meanwhile, Jon decided to play to his home crowd, and rushed at Nathan as hard and fast as he could, head first, grabbing at his knees, and pushing him backwards into the group that then took the weight of his bulk, and were considerably displeased by the bruising that came of it. Jon then took a half empty tank from a tray and tipped the liquid onto Tindle’s head; and to finish off, hurled a bread scone at his chest in jest, followed by another and another, until the joke soured completely.

For what appeared outwardly to be prank had also an undertow of child-like pain for Jon resented his one and only friend (before Zithia) leaving him as he did. Tindle had walked away from him without a thought or care, and this was the first he had seen him in ten whole years. This stung.

Tindle was keenly aware now of the underlying angst when Jon started stuffing lamb’s brains down his smock top. The small gathering had been largely amused, for by all appearances their Jon Jon was attacking a newcomer who dwarfed him by two feet or more.

Tindle did not take the pelting unkindly - he was so pleased to see Jon alive … he surveyed the room, realising that a set of dark eyes was upon him, and he quickly mistook her intent to be more than curiosity. Tindle had never seen such a girl before. The seaside port conveyed exotics frequently, but he had seen no one like this ‘siren’ who was now watching him. Zithia glowed in the candlelamp light, her woollen cowl of pale apricot had fallen back exposing her dark shoulders, and her silken hair, as black as a raven’s coat, curtained her face, cascading down her slender back. All of this he saw amidst the chaos.

She was only half his size - he liked this also. The ale-soaked room fell away and his mind went to his purpose that had taken him on this journey inland … namely to find a wife.

I have found her! he said decidedly to himself. He then picked Jon up, and threw him over his shoulder, he then carried him outside to the adjacent stables into the bite of the cold night air.

Tindle persuaded Jon to let him stay at his cottage, and Jon readily agreed being so joyous that this could occur.

That night the two drank until they slept - having shared stories, past midnight. Ordinarily their paths were so oblique in common life, the one would have not have had anything to do with the other - there was so little shared experience to be had concerning the decade behind them.

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

Crystal Clear

The lanky tall Elf had taken his eyes off Tu for only a few minutes, to speak with a gardener who had approached him about beans. The gardener had looked quite frantic and was incredibly excited to see Goober back in the homeland. Meanwhile Tu had been helping himself to a cup of water at the well from a crystal Goblet. (The Goblet was of course an invention of the Goblins, who crafted these drinking vessels out from clear crystal Quartz.)

“Stop! how much have you drunk?” yelled Goober insistently, when he realised what was to come next.

This well appeared similar to many of the other wells in Faerie - except for the sign in Elvish script engraved in its stone saying:

“Beware all who drink here”.

Tu obviously had not read the sign.

Goober put his hand to his forehead and closed his eyes.

“Oh Gawd, what did you have to do that for?” Of course he knew it was he himself that was to blame.

Tu stepped back … already his eyes were beginning to haze over. He quickly sat on the ground, the world had gone dark … he could hear voices but he could no longer see anything.

There was a rush of hot air around him - hot moist air - and the sweet fragrances had been replaced with the stench of burning … or more accurately - flesh burning.

He could hear a clashing and a banging. The sound was familiar, but he couldn’t quite place what it was, and worse still, coming to him, closer and closer, were the sounds of men crying mournfully, with the occasional scream puncturing the dense air about him. It was too dark to make out where he was, and what was happening.

He closed and opened his eyes, yet it was still the same either way. Tu clenched his fists with tension and attempted to stand up with his back against the well wall; he leant shakily on the shelf there … the stones felt slimy, perhaps moss? But no. It was a much thicker, stickier texture. 

In a strange way all of this seemed very familiar. If his depression had been let out of a bag, this is what he might have heard or sensed following him for all of his days. But no. It is an impossible thought. His depression manifest?

The ethers were beginning to lighten, and he could make out shapes in the mist in the half dark now. Vaguely as though in a the most terrible dream, Goober’s voice could be heard in the distance. Perhaps he had been transported somewhere else, he did not know, but he seemed very far away from his friend, and was helpless with the hellish noises all about.

As though there was a theatre curtain revealing what lies behind, so too there came to the Master, a vision of a bloodied and dismembered mass now fully lit. Hundreds of bodies, a tangle of metal, ruptured by yet more metal; maidens laid bare, old women broken boned, contorted, cradling infants - and he knew what this scene was in front of him - it was the vision of his legacy.

“They are not real my boy” came Goobers voice - “they are just memories of what passed long ago. When you drank from the well it revealed to you your overshadowing burden.”

“This, this then is all mine?” asked Tu, still caught between the vision and Goober’s voice. But he knew inwardly the answer. He knew in this instantaneous recall that this was of a time where he had led the charge that caused this suffering and death.

All in the name of good. It was a revelation. So much had happened since, where he had been buffeted through lifetimes of disarray running from this ineffable truth. This was on him. this scene of dereliction was his.

“No wonder I’ve been depressed” he said.

And as soon as he had said this, he was returned ever so swiftly back into the sunlight of Faerie.

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