Young Vlad

When young Vlad knelt again and again, on calloused knees, he became a human compass aligned with the magnetism of those also in devotion; when the youth scored the holy script into his recall again and again, he would often, most often, fixate on a wall in the Mosque, where embossed into stone, was a circular dragon eating its tail.

When his body cried from the violations he had endured, and the shame that he inwardly hurt with, thoughts of revenge, and the ultimate might of the Holy one, soothed his upset and reinforced his rage's righteousness.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

This Elvish Man

“Take heart that your mother is around and knows exactly how you feel.”
“Do you think she is in the room with us now?” Charlotte asked dolefully.

“I can’t really say,” said Puck, who was genuinely aggrieved at his own shortcomings. Of all the things his vision could not penetrate, it turned out that he was not omnipresent after all.

Marley was in the room with them, as often was. And she was seriously rethinking her own absence. Loving this Elvish man was easy from afar, but in reality, how would they be together now? She never really understood the attraction in the first place. But one thing she did know, especially from what this ghostly oversight had revealed: although unconventional, and otherworldly as well, he truly was a good man - one who kept the best interests of this world and its humanity close to his heart.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

A Good Man

"She said you are a good man.”

Puck warmly smiled at this. Even with his telepathic skills he had had no idea what Marley had thought of him now. And, she had called him a man. He wore that word with pride and was clinging to this phrase rather awkwardly.

“Dad, I don’t want that encounter to be my one and only with Mum - I have had so much to say and ask, and I feel that I just wrecked it.”

“It wouldn’t have been you that made her go”, he said consolingly with a small kiss on the forehead.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

In the Ancient Mirror

Charley was left alone in the room once more. She had cried out the eyelash and felt crushed with herself. Of all the things she could have said, her accusative negativity had driven away the one who she had longed to see the most. Would she see her mother again? It had been a bitter sweet vision, but one she would cherish.

“Mum,”she said quietly to a seemingly empty room,

“I know you can hear me now, and I just wanted to say, that I am so glad you came by and that you are near me.”

She tried another peek tentatively into the ancient mirror once more but just caught her swollen eyes from crying staring back at her. She shuddered. “Pick yourself up girl”, she said to herself, putting it safely back into her red leather bag.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

The Spirit Retracted

“He’s a good man … your father” the woman said.

Looking more closely as she was, Charley could see a girl in her early thirties perhaps, with bleached blonde hair and shining skin, dressed in just a tshirt and jeans.

Charley knew all at once who she was. She wanted her to be sad - sad as she had been for all of her years mourning for her mum … but the spirit in the room was radiant and full of happiness.

“Why haven’t you come before?”

Charley broke down and started to cry. She was ashamed to be seen to be like this, but the mirror had invoked an honesty from within her. The child inside, that had always wanted her mother close by, was speaking now.

The spirit retracted and its presence dissolved.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Vision in the Mirror

Charley had a pesky lash irritating her eye. She reached into her handbag to find her mirror, and pulled out the magic one that had been gifted to her awhile ago, she had forgotten about until now.

As she held it up to find the light’s direction, she saw, looking in the corner over her shoulder, a figure watching her. It was a woman.

She was not startled, just curious.

My god, she thought to herself, this woman looks a lot like me.

She put the mirror down and turned around.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

A Tear Fell from her Aqua Eye

The Phoenix’s partner, the Almighty Dragon, had been subdued for far too long. Puck had sought to go to the source and take her head on. He then noticed that her golden feathers were turning brown at the edges.

Suddenly a tear fell from her aqua eye.

“I am old” she said, as if that somehow became an excuse for infecting the whole of Humanity with her malaise.

“I too wish for rebirth” she sighed.

He perceived a way out that would please them both.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances