Faerie, this Kingdom

It is easier said than done to transport a mortal into the realm of Faerie and have them remain conscious … the reason for this being that their consciousness is usually rooted in the Mortal realm and always, most naturally, will return there. 

As well as that, the scenery can be so changeable in the land of Faeries … one moment something is maybe there and then it disappears or morphs into something else. It’s a tricky place to navigate. As endearing and charming as most of the inhabitants, the wildlife, and the landscapes are, they are forever changing, and it is difficult for a mortal to find their bearings amongst this plasticity, and keep hold of their sense of place.

However, those with some faerie blood are more adaptable and it was this that Goober was counting on.

The very moment that Tu set foot into Faerie land with Goober at his side his misery lifted, and he found exactly what he had been looking for for a very long time.

He felt instantly at home.

What a remarkable landscape it was. Not to mention, the very clouds in the sky, they took on shapes - it was as an artistry - sensational performing pictures unfurling right before his eyes. If you looked up you could see all manner of faces, of forms, of animals, dancing across the blue canopy, in white: gently shaded and contoured, regal then comical, mythical, and so very real he could see their faces staring down at him. Unfurling and changing into the most beautiful panorama of expression.

It was as though these forms were impressions of scenes and beings that were somewhere else … he made a mental note to study them at a later time. And then Goober drew his attention to the atrium to which they were walking. This also was like no other.

“I feel I should explain to you something of this realm”, said Goober, “to put it in perspective … Mortals have long thought of Faerie as a place of no real consequence, that it is not to be believed, and that it is only made of the substance of dreams and fantasy: that somehow it is less substantial than the world of their own.

“This could not be further from the truth. When the physical world was born, Faerie, this Kingdom, was and is, the original Garden from which all else came from. The Gods preserved it in the event that the Mortal world deteriorated into something less recognisable.

“This realm is the blueprint from which yours unfurls. This place is the original - it speaks to the truth of spirit and the creativity of the Cosmos, whilst your world is an arena that departs this, and the heavens.”

Tu looked down at his feet. He had the weirdest sensation that they weren’t quite touching the ground. As he moved along beside Goober it was as though thought propelled them, rather than the effort of the knee - it was a curious thing.

And the path itself was made up of tiles and the tiles had engravings in every sixth or seventh one, not hieroglyphs as such, or symbols, but curlicues and cottage art.

The air, he found, was sublime. Tu used to love the fragrance of the wood fire or the scent of a girl, or the smell of a fresh and ripened fruit, this air was something else, it was even more delicious, he breathed deeply and closed his eyes.

“Are you alright my boy?” Goober asked.

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

Tu Saves the Day

“I’ve grown rather partial to boiled eggs” said Goober starting in on his fifth one.

Tu looked across the table in disgust. The smell of sulphur, and the crack and crunch of the shell, was truly irritating.

“I need something more, the quiet here is getting on my nerves again.”

Goober took one of the eggs and spun it on the table it kept its momentum for a full minute before wobbling and toppling and sliding to the floor.

“Where would you like to go?” the aged Elvish gardener asked the young Sensei.

“Anywhere but here” he answered dolefully.

This repeating depression was becoming as predictable as the seasons, Goober thought.

“Very well” he said decidedly. His angular face softened and he whispered some words which were inaudible to Tu who now had his head in his hands.

“You’ve had a pretty rugged time Richard, if we go back into the present, you know …it's pretty fast, and, I am worried that with too much pressure again you’ll start drinking and Ill have to pick you up from the road - it's not a good look”, Goober added sincerely.“Richard? Why did you call me Richard just now?”

Goober paused and said casually, “Oh I just think of you more a Richard or a Ricky, than rather Brogan or Tu. Tu does not feel right as a name at all. Besides, what was your name again, before you came to the monastery?”

Tu fell silent. He could not relate to his life before the monastery, it was all a blur. It had felt, in one word, unsatisfactory. Nothing seemed to bring him joy except for the sun the wind and the trees. The city had little to offer - it was all too noisy, and he had not been able to find company that was relatable.

The thing was: Tu had faerie blood and it was this that made him restless. It's not something that you can find in the physical body, it is faerie blood that one carries from one life to the next, from origins and experiences - he just didn’t know it.

Goober would have liked to ask Puck his opinion on this, but Puck had taken himself off somewhere out of contact. And so Goober decided the time was right for a change -

“Hows about a trip to Faerie Land?” he said with all the cheer he could muster.

Tu was unresponsive - it was as though he had not heard him.

Ignoring this Goober continued: “I'm pretty sure you’ll like it there - it might be the getaway you’ve been needing.”

Tu knew that Goober was not one to be sarcastic or whimsical - he was a straight up type of guy - nevertheless he had thought this conversation was pretty empty and very possibly Goober was making fun of him.

“Sure” he replied, “why not? I’ve nothing else planned for tomorrow - let me get my diary out, and I’ll save the day.”

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

To Second Guess Yourself is to have a Conscience

J. S. Lowry

Jupiter was encouraged. In truth, he had only seen the mortal world as an inconsequential parlour of a fleeting and fanciful drama, with costumes and language and a lot of death - oh yes, there was a lot of death. The mortals came and went so very quickly from that plane of existence, and in the most spurious ways. One could not really think of it as meaning much … at least, not until now.

Perhaps he had only seen the Physical World through the eyes of the Bear and this was the problem - he had never really been a proper human being as they were, perhaps his casual nature with the lesser world was just that. Seen through the eyes of a convivial beast - yes that could be it, and this was now to be his truth going forward.

Eve said excitedly, “and so to second guess yourself is to have a conscience - to question yourself … of course! this makes perfect sense.”

“Yes one can never really do that enough, can they? Sometimes I am so bound up thinking I know what is right and wrong and what I am doing myself, but I really need to keep questioning don’t I? Complacency is dangerous in and of itself, I can see that now - I must broaden my area of knowledge, I must widen my heart to encompass so much more, and I must hope above hope, that I have the strength to defend the defenceless. Oh I do feel inspired in this place” she said half forgetting the Azlan had visited just moments before, for the vision of him was now leaving but that which he had imparted had remained.

“So what now Brother?” said Jupiter turning to Puck, adding: “I am surely not diving into that mess, that we may return …”

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

Azlan Brought a Radiance

“You have been playing a dangerous game my son.” came a voice from the vines beside. 

It was the Azlan. The Azlan brought a radiance also, far stronger than that of either Puck or Jupiter - his emanated a calm all about - and instantly the three felt settled by his presence.  

They waited a cosmic minute for his words to follow. 

“My Dears - 


“Light and Darkness are never balanced. Nor is Good and Evil. One cannot balance a something with a nothing. 

“The mystery behind the disruptive forces of chaos and evility is that these particulars cannot even commit to themselves - they are their own undoing - and the foulness that would corrupt, corrupts itself.  

“Those who align with evility invite their own destruction. Our crusade, as caretakers of the Spirit - the One Spirit - is to remain indifferent to the theatre of destruction, and be true to the permanency of all that is good.”  

It was here that Jupiter spoke up.  


“But if all there is is to do nothing, how can that help? Are we to watch yet other parts of our realm become dispossessed and corrupted likewise?” 


The great Lion stamped one paw, and then another, and the whole ground beneath them shook. He then spun around effortlessly and Eve momentarily was worried that he was about to disappear without giving them more of those incredibly insightful words. Words that spoke to her inner Eve. 

“When you hear a truth you never forget it. It is an immortal gift. When you hold a truth it changes you from the inside out. And when you think of that truth, you become a little bolder and brighter every time.” 

Eve had not been frightened of the great Lion. She wanted to hear more from him. He scuffed the ground and then looked up directly up into her eyes. 

He looked at her for a steady moment and then not, taking his attention back to Jupiter. 

“You are asking if you should fight Evil my Son, for what I have told you speaks to the peace of outcome and the self apparent truth that goodness will prevail, as has always done …

“But in the intermediate, where we are contested, and wish only to stop the harm, I tell thee thus:

“When a good soul turns a blind eye to Evil there is a little more corruption because of this. When nothing is done, that could be done, Evil is empowered all the more. It is a bewildering truth, that at times the gods themselves have felt safe enough within their own realm, and distant enough, from the perils of the lesser Worlds, that even they have not invested themselves in this fight.

“And by their own complacency they are remit. And by ignorance and aloofness and such high mindedness that turns away from the struggles and trials of the Mortals this epi-theatre grows. And this is a living proof of the reach of Evil’s contamination if so allowed.


“To second guess yourself is to have a conscience. To be able to ask: what do I want, what can be done, what should be done? What have I done?

“And the noble path asks, that be us Man or God, we be vigilant in righting wrongs within ourselves, and that of our outer self. 

"And we shall be defenders of the peace, of the one true Spirit, that sustains and upholds the freedoms of all.” 


Puck wanted to give an almighty cheer when he heard this, or a little whoop at least, for he was, as they say, dancing on the inside to hear the Azlan speak once more - however this occasion was too solemn to distract the other two with his feelings. He looked across at the dark waters and was just about to ask the Azlan what could be done to solve this problem of infiltration but the Azlan had gone.

“He never could stay in any one place for any length of time.” Puck said apologetically to Eve whose expression was now quite sad. 


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

East of the Nirvanic Regions

Spiky Lee

All three were standing at the water’s edge - where the Divine pool of the Lesser Heavens reflected inwardly, on a usual day - east of the Nirvanic regions, graced with a fifth season of perennial calm, shining gold and silver depending on the light - gateway to all Worlds beneath, a fluid embodiment of all times pooled together, and a mirror to the upper worlds, being the connecting link to the physical realm as well - yet today it was black - black and thick, as thick as mud.

Puck himself had the jitters seeing this dark disturbance. The waters had putrified, solidified, and its energy was all but a low Tibetan-like hum.

“I’ve done this.”

“No, they’ve done this …” he assured Jupiter, inwardly blaming him regardless.

Jupiter felt as though he had woken from a very long sleep. What had he been thinking? Was this worth it? He dipped a stick into the tar-like sludge and it stayed, standing upright.

“It looks and smells like excrement” said Eve casually, thinking that she had been taken to the edge of a sewer farm. She had somehow been transported with the two the moment Granoldi had strode back into the apartment just moments earlier. Eve had assumed that this whole scenario was nothing more than a silly dream. She found herself enjoying the atmosphere of the Lesser Heavens, regardless of the two looking so concerned. Overall she felt pretty good.

Eve looked over at Puck who was smearing some of the mud onto a wide leaf and wrapping it tightly with a vine - she noticed his hair looked lit by a light that came from nowhere and was trailing almost to his belt - he was wearing a fine cotton shirt that seemed to change colour every few minutes. The effect was very trippy.

Beside him was an exceedingly tall and muscular man who appeared angelic in countenance, in that he had a white kaftan so fine that the sun shone through with what seemed to be an aura that followed his every movement. He seemed familiar. No, she did not feel disturbed at all - even with the smell of turds now all around her.

However the Elvish gods were devastated by what was before them - their minds were not clouded by the upper atmosphere - for the Heavenly ethers brought them clarity, unlike the Mortals; it breathed a complex intelligence into the cosmic fields which magnetically restored their own health as well.

“I don’t like this at all” said Jupiter, now becoming nervous within his own soul. 

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

The Recklessness of Jupiter

Tijana Lukovic

Granoldi had been through all of this before, periodically throughout the centuries there would be those mortals who would hold him captive, torture him, for one reason or another it made them feel grand to do so; yet this day however was different for he had fallen in with the dark occult arts. 

His irritation and disgust motivated him very quickly into action. With one swift movement the three hundred kilogram bear pulled his arms out from the chains and the bleeding apparatus (that was still pumping), pushed on the cage door with the force of ten men, and magicked the padlocks into springing open.

They had certainly underestimated his strength and willpower when roused. He then, one by one, pushed Peter and Violet to the ground, followed by Letitia who was hurrying feebly away - followed by an almighty slap to Bryan across the face, engraving four distinct claw marks into his cheek.

There had been a wailing and a moaning, but it had not come from Granoldi. The four lay on the apartment floor shredded by the claws of the great White Bear.

* * *

Meanwhile back in Eve’s apartment, Puck had been trying to say, just who and what the Fairy Bear was. But he found it near impossible to frame the words to explain why a young god would want worldly experience as he had.

“It’s just like a human youth who takes a drug and become less than themselves, and their consciousness dissipates into a void of life … perhaps this is the recklessness of Jupiter when he gives over to a random happening here. I watch over him whenever I can. Be more worried for those that have taken him, for he truly can look after himself.”

Eve had felt something inside of her drawn to this bear, yet she still had not the vivid reckoning of any past life recall: she just knew in his essence there was, for her, a magnetic pull of wonderment and great attraction. She felt she needed to be close to this being, whoever or whatever he is. He was her sun to which she would orbit. All of this she kept quiet, but of course Puck could read these thoughts and in turn respected her desires. It was he, after all, that had brought Granoldi to her, knowing of their past together back in the early years of the Franciscan community. It was what it was.

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

Out of Place

Eve felt fragile with worry finding out that Granoldi had escaped to God knows where from the safety of her keep.

She was finding it hard to think straight - or even at all - this day had turned out to be so disturbing.

Needles sat (invisibly) on the other side of her on the couch tuned into her upset - he was unnerved terribly, as he was now so synchronised to her mind and mood he was feeling her feelings acutely.

“We have to find him” she said urgently all at once to Puck, who answered:

“Before we do I need to tell you a few things I think you need to know.”

Eve had heard a few stories from him in their narrow past but this did not seem an appropriate time …

He persisted - “this is important Eve”, he took her hand in his, getting her attention.

“There once was a young god - Jupiter - who for many reasons - too many to mention now - felt the urge to enter into the realm of Earth …”

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