Merlin - 22 The Vampire Queen

Merlin - 22 The Vampire Queen

Simplicity has forgotten whims that exhaust patience as the same that lull the sleeping giant, the high court of the vampire queen and priestess filled with common themes and regal dreams, bustles with the attention of The Council of Solace.

Armored guard stand in dark corners, with a barricade of weaponry, each with a belt of knives in sheath and hidden knives in possible places. A quiet solitary confinement with windows to walls and walls to windows behind the thrones of the room, open to a world insanely macerate, bounds of hills and forest boundary with rocks and stone comprising the castle in which they occupy. From one of the small hallways, a young pale man comes running forward and whispers into the ear of the person standing just inside the doorway, terribly unmatched and underdressed compared to the many guard with cross-bolts, razors and knives.

Noticing but disregarding, the queen turns in her paces to take her first seat in nearly as many turns of the hourglass as paces already made during the day. From that very hallway entrance, the noble apprentice speaks with a large voice twice the size of his chest.

Squire: “Enters the second scout Hansel returning, your majesty.”
A moment after the herald announces him he enters, tired and short of breath, in dirtied white clothes.

Hansel: “I give dark salutations, my queen.”
Dressed for the heat of day, or night, in fallow garb vestments with yellow leather at each fold and holding belt, around his waist and the tops of his dark leather boots without added heel. He takes both knees in the random spot in the room, where she has drifted to him. His clothes soiled in the random places of incursion with exception taken for the knees and the few spots of clean cover remaining. His stature deficient in qualities or resources that indicate brutal efficacy, he seems a leaner and limber new fang fellow, a runner or dasher to slit in the night.

Vampire Queen: “What news doth bring thee of the front?”
Hansel: “The peoples of Atlantis and Caledonia are in quarrel over the new territory we have given them.”
Vampire Queen: “You may rise.”

He stands and she stares at him, a calming demeanor without harbinger smile, the appealing demure given from the lack of threatening demise of the blood prioress warrior. He humbly pauses and holds his hands around his hat adornment lest adorned, and walks to the table and pours a drink from a polished silver pitcher, into a short steel cup. He stands and drinks addressing the open window pushing his hair back with one hand free from tossing his cap to the table with silent delivery, with noticeable relief from his first swallow of the thick red wine. At the table watching, holding his own drink in his left hand a man who stares in wait of the queen’s word, without question of him, commoners of acquaintance with gallant personage.

The man sitting at the table wears armor like the queen, sturdy and fashionable, as it lays on him heavier than that worn of the emissary, but lightly and thin compared to the sentry, not of like the nobles or sentinels but a knight of some colloquial fashion. He is none other than the first lieutenant of the Obsidian clan, brought of inquisition and rank for battle, a most ruttish lecher of giving blood and keeping the faith in onset obsidian conspiracies, still in heart and hand, patience typical of the ancient sages in deep separation from his ages lost humanity.

Lieutenant: “Another message envoy, this troubled war, everyone is doing their best to destroy it!”
Vampire Queen: “O how often wrong, never unsure.”
The queen moves her first charismatic saunter, the soles of her feet on the ground not, without reflection an emerging tragic fashion trust intimidation, wrought with the eyes of consuming invite, a gliding statue with real isolation, intrinsic crippled anthems the daydream of the undying monarch. At every instance met, a plying servant kneels and raises a tray consisting of a red wine and a black phial. With every crystal goblet decanted, she adds drops of black poison dissolution that overwhelms the red.

Vampire Queen: “Tell them they can have as much gold befitted of any proffered chest, and that they will have no states if they do not have an order to their chaos.”

Hansel: “Thine will be done, your highness.”
Vampire Queen: “, And tell them to send not their kings, I will send for them when time behooves.”

The herald stands and parts in an early manner as she turns and glides to a window to view the fires in the raining fields of the lowly lands beneath her bastion of immortal vampires.
Vampire Queen: “Leave none alive.”
Lieutenant: “Let no one survive.”

The queen raises her drink in salutation and drinks along the lieutenant as she looks out anew and dreams of the eventual infest of her coven of slayers and their army of death dealing assassins.

§

In the princess' private chambers, sits the fair daughter of the queen, grooming her hair facing evident a mirror in which she has reflection none, accompanied only of by the paltry inflection of light abridged by the vampirical condition. Her mother and queen is in near opposite, a dull pale skin of shadows beneath a tightly thick woven black shining hair, of both worlds before her turning centuries prior, waiting in the shadows and dark depth of the hall’s way, watching her daughter with dote. The queen of their vampire coven holds at contempt a time bomb with a sophisticated countenance insipidly watching the princess’ golden hair, red nails and lips and complexion of a lifeless guest at awakening, not whitish like her mother but a radiant volcanic ash, a sign of more power and plague virility.

The queen sees the silence and closes her eyes to pray briefly before opening them again, then approaching the lovely daughter chanting humanity and calm with the solace embrace of cold emotion. Each moment of contemplation, cannot encompass the memory of that which it thrives, her longing thoughts the dreams of many mortals of time deciduous, finding darkness and awakening evil in a hazed dream state to befit vicarious escape from the mundane and lamentation with fond imagery.

Vampire Queen: “The body is a river of blood that comes from tributaries of vengeance and conflict.”
Princess: “But we will not have this here tonight?” turning away from her mirror, startled and still amid brushing her perfect hair.

Vampire Queen: “I’m sure many of you are restless and concerned about the recent change in borders of the kingdoms, but this is never your worry.”

The princess places her brush and stands, the queen does not move shortly after the princess turns and slides cote, a chess piece across the board to the closet, these actions seem to berate the queen’s better senses.

Vampire Queen: “Feast and before you suspect, your king will be back with a bounty of humans and we will discuss all matters regarding your claims and questions.”

She approaches, drifting and towing her dress behind her, to the queen in a solemn and silent clamor.
Princess: “Until then drink and relax.”

§

Later that day or how may seem the endless scavenge for a break in the hateful storm brewing about the skies, the darkest of clouds forthcoming, tumbling over themselves forceful expansive, prescient dwellers in the main chambers of the upper lair flout the oncoming eminent tempest.

The queen rests on an iron throne next to another different vacant perch, the princess at her table to the side of the room the same as the queen, with her adoring spouse next to her and some servants in tedious tending to necessity. At the opposite table, her brother the dark prince consanguineous, the heir to their empire and ruler of the lemniscates, with several women and some of his wanton military elites, as they every, enjoy the affections of paramours.

So potent the commanding presence, the queen stands free as she abdicates the divine wind, her dress flowing across the floor. Within the court, the princess refuses to surround herself with arrant knaves, her exception her lover and a few of the younger maidens most auspicious, whom command and control the attention of the squires of the granite hall, even some of those that sit across the room.

The stones and dust bite hostile in an antique castle such as this, ashes of empires and pillars of eternity, in arrangement to the empire of the Obsidian, misconstruction of abnegation to blindness as the prince and his entourage devours flesh and bone. The bridegroom at times, stares a weakest lost in hatred, with incontrovertible fearlessness unwise. Lest little markings clue the find, Lieutenant enters the room with high amnesty and obscurity, calmly stepping to her brother’s side of the court.

Lieutenant: “I am here you may sleep unarmed!”
Prince: “Alone I would have fallen into myself!”

From the others a laughter, and from the burgeoning bordello one of the prince’s subject kin, young and with a youthful affectionate companion of his own, worth bored of such trifling, raises his cup in heralding gesture, for they to drink together.
Young Vampire: “You can fall into madness my lord.”

Smiles abound they drink alongside one another, patience to oblivion as the red soaking blood pours from corners of mouths in haste. From the table of the princess chatting with her maidens speaks the bridegroom with incontrovertible fearlessness unwise. Tall unbroken with never torn clothes, he raises his cup, but with a fading image in his mind, stands to witness fulfill silent.

Bridegroom: “Does the military culture value the art of killing in a way others simply cannot understand?”
Young Vampire: “By way of ceremony, suffering.”
Lieutenant: “Slaves upon request or criminals may fight for money or freedom.”
Prince: “As it is with all education.”
Vampire King: “Weapons make for interesting fights but final judgment is of the decision of the king.”

Throwing a jacket with his arm from over his shoulder and handing a chain with human quarry to a servant in the room, he enters unlaundered whence with quick hardened pace unchanging, each step carrying him swiftly to the center of the lifeless room, unconcernedly without notice to which whom he spoke.

The king returns with a quarry of several humans bound by collar and chain, mostly children, handing the lead to a crimson vampire clean and maleficent with hair washed back over its head, knives on a belt, its cape spun round to the front and held with a strap around the neck. A makeshift cage, one that flesh cannot break, sits capitulating obscurity and purpose, an inviting holding cell for prey and victim, becomes such a hold for the tikes thrown carelessly one by one through the gates. At first sight, the king sweeps to the queen, takes her into his arms with cherishing embrace and reconnects as true betrothal.

Vampire Queen: “Consequence is upon my door, my king.”
Vampire King: “I am reborn, again and again.”

Driven to increase therein power by creation the purest choice, destined to rule and go the way of the flesh. Nature is their only master they will bow and lout to none, not without proper introduction at what would beseem thence. The air is dry like a rock, the captured children tamper with the lock without any hope remaining, with only one child careless, only sitting in the back of the cage with his knees pulled to his chest and his arms crossed over them. Sitting with a severely stern look draped across his young face the old hatred of young bones, discontent and vengefully stricken.

King: “It must be done, it is the way.”
Queen: “I shall do thy bidding.”

The king kisses her hand and marches proudly out of sight and scene. Jostling the chains of the children on their cage, gaining a laugh as he does before exiting, the queen the only one to curtsy and bow at close condition before the king’s departure.

The princess young and pure born with such great power, her eyes are nearly white but they would faintly glow the blue of her father's face when she speaks, sits with her betrothed, drinking and telling jokes in the delight of good graces and merriment to rest their woes. Her significant other is very pale and tinted blue by the veins that course under his skin, maintaining the cursed blue blood that keeps for only moments the life of the red blood consumed, even of the better diseased of bloods, a sunken stare that pierces solidarity. So turns the exulting vampire queen that the brawn of the light surrounds her, as she stands silent as if the moon were to hang and bleed above her head.

Vampire Queen: “I must discern the mettle of my forthcoming family.”

The queen drifts to the table of the son for soon the better, at swift pace swoon of the bridegroom staring and moving independent of another.

Vampire Queen: “How fares the campaign of the blood of your masters?”
Lieutenant: “Death has served to the best of our ability.”

The prince watches without wonder, knowing the battle below them, brought by his comrade and hidden under his armor.

Queen: “, And how is that?”
Lieutenant: “We fear not our mortality.”

She smiles and drifts to the cage, as they celebrate his response, staring and scaring the human brood. She drifts to a waiting platter and takes a glass goblet of blood wine, and moves closer to the table of the princess, leaving the cage of whelps with no fear for the setting sun, but for what remains thusly.

Vampire Queen: “, And you who have stolen my daughter's heart.”
Prince: “, And I’m sure everything else.”
Queen: “Do you serve me?”

The bridegroom is concerned more with the flights and fancies of the people at his table, more than the luring stare of the ominous queen.

Bridegroom: “We serve to the best of our ability.”
Vampire Queen: “Then sever your ties and exile your tender bones.” She speaks in an angered and curt fashion, slightly looking over her shoulder.
Bridegroom: “I will burn my eyes out, before I get out.”

He takes the hand of his endearing bride to be, and smiles, hand in hand they beam his agenda and the suffering children are bored of pain and now contemplate the coming rage.

Vampire Queen: “An excellent idea, lieutenant, you may complete our agreement.”

Dark and daftly the lieutenant looks and nods to his subordinates, each another dark warrior with carrion firestorm armor and rivets of angered steel and dragon scale with serpent's tooth to bridge the gaps within the silent armor that does not rattle or tatter in the wind or their movements.

Lieutenant: “We give our blood to our masters…”

However, the lieutenant’s men hold the bridegroom steady as they reply, “We vow to slay all enemies…” The groom leaps from her hands and his chair, rushing to an exit, they take the bridegroom, as the princess screams in horror.

Princess: “Who are you to wave your finger?”
Lieutenant: “Say goodbye.”
Princess: “Liar…Let go…Mother stop this…What’s the difference!”

Vampire Queen: “You are a gift to the lieutenant's overlord, The King of Obsidian.”
The queen begins drifting again the disconcertion of a future corrupt.

Princess: “Mother you promised you shan’t!”
She kicks and screams as they hold her back and make her watch the bridegroom hauled from his footing, composure and bloodline, a restless demon taunting sardonic and not going without refute.

Queen: “What she ever saw.”
The princess watches as they drive a sword into his stomach and daggers into his back, stabbing to purge dissimulation with horrid screams for each pain that echo the castle through, crying for each damning wound weak and powerless.

Bridegroom: “Save thy self!”

The princess decides to grab her life from the shackles of indemnity, to crave freedom in her own life with adoration for another not. With torture and despair in her betrayed sight, she bounds her languishing bond by bailiff and flees through a stained window of many colors, breaking through the section for her broken heart. Falling away from the window, the assault a reminder of her failing plundered heart and inept necessity to kill the queen for bartering her, the rustic soldiers of the fanged stronghold stare at her running from the castle like a white sparrow across the fields.

Vampire Queen: “For it is the dreams that we sew, she will rue the cursed day alone.”

The prince wine on his face, waves his cup as he speaks, shaking it and twisting it in the air, carelessly spilling the blood of wine, slamming the only half-empty cup onto the table, with an impatient stare.

Prince: “Soothsayer come hither; enlighten us with your talents, with more sooth than say!”

Merlin – 21 Pyromania

Merlin – 21 Pyromania

Be wary of the plants, for they grasp at flies, as do the other sprawls and crawls of the oceanic swamp this side of this mountain of sacrament, earth, ore, water, flora and fauna play in the river mist, the might of the Phoenix's large feathers heard scraping the stones if they brush, like hollow and dry twigs.

With the side of his foot, Nickolas slides brush together at a pile, lifting the first of found molted phoenix feathers. It handles like a butcher's knife, reckoning as such, as it begins to turn sour like the leaves of autumn, melting decay into the flyleaf. The storm stones spark when shaken and a clustered pit of kindling ignites with the aid of the tumbled flammable seeds of the red onyx flower, from Ana's pockets. The initial flame burns bright, pushing the heat to the stars, through the haze of aspect.

Their camps rests in a clearing of elastic yet ephemeral delectable vines, sour when raw, sweet when cooked, and when burned looks like stone bones and dark stones, and in the morning the remains of the fire would be a thin powder layer of storm crystal if used proper. Troy stares endlessly at the Phoenix's regal flight, far beyond the vision of control, wings spanned far above the land. A cold clear stream moves silently passed the brilliant fireweeds and the red and black paintbrush plants growing out of a rocky beach, low clouds climb the mountains from as close as the water on some of the distant shores. Without advance, the phoenix eventually tires and lands with stoic halt, faulting to the ground with a precise drop, it is nearly as tall as Troy and soon huddles in Sheldrake form.

Ago the sunny day, at dusk the sky brings hail and the storm that sways the trees for a quip duration, a moment no longer than the time it takes to notice. A sacrosanct serenity, the peaceful tide of quintessence as the day fades once more, consecrated by the familial bond in keep and mesmerizing willow. As the imagery pours into their consciousness the dream of any day, distracting them from aspect paradise, the embers shake slightly, a rolling coal, tumbled by imagination and acknowledged as such a spider of pure burning force begins a cautious crawl. The phoenix notices and gives a girded chirp. Troy rises to a sitting position and puts his hand on the bird's cerise crest as it looks to the fire, scowling for any further movement. Nickolas turns and rests once respite as the scarlet spider crawls again this time climbing across the confluent burning beams laid one on the other, this time dragging silver web. The phoenix squawks again, Troy already steadfast in reprieve turns again in frustration to notice it staring intently at the fire, vexed he shares confusion with the others and eventually rolls into slumber fold.

The phoenix lowers its head low to the flame, intrigued with its beak low in carnivore peregrine style, as the crimson ruby insect begins a move again. The large bird given to grudgingly moves low and slows, as the spider moves to the edge of the embers, crawling to the edge of the flame. Of many legs, the spider walks one foot at a time wary of the phoenix, but it stands tall to, spontaneously, bite one of the coals of old fiery roots. The arachnid wile grows to the size of a hand and makes a running for the brush. The phoenix jumps to the occasion and swiftly picks it up by beak; it attacks the phoenix's mouth and it releases. The bird picks it up again, only to reach tribulation again as it lets a smoke into the bird's mouth, and it falls and scurries. The phoenix locks a talon on its first strike over the firebug and inspects the tiny by comparison insect as the others view. In the moment of hesitation as if to think hard upon the little firebug, with a labored rising of its head and an arching, slightly fanning its elongated feathers of the back of its neck, it strikes hardly on the creature, rupturing it instantly, giving it a second peck for certainty. The warm waters of the burning stalks pours from it, steaming the ground as the phoenix devours.


Merlin: “Next time stop it from doing that.”
Troy: “Why is that?”
Ana: “It’s the book!”
Merlin: “Yes, the book…I could have closed it into my pages and used it for later. Let’s settle in, if we make haste, we can be there on the morrow.”

It is so then that they turn in and go to sleep, salvation's ecstasy bound to the moon. The fire begins to crawl to an escape, until it begins to shape as a human, and embers rise a soldier of eternal fire, the phoenix first to notice jumps to its feet in chaotic fluster its wings push a wind of bitter ash. The soldier coming to its feet in deathly pallor, its footsteps muted in soot ruins, is a florid fighter glowing crimson with darker armor, displaying brutal emotion and violent disposition.

With stone the shadow of light he glows divine, a rubric warrior of an earlier world, standing before them, sound awake. Nickolas throws the first dagger to scrape his fingertips, striking the side of its face piercing. After being hit with the knife lodged he turns his head with the momentum as the wound begins to bleed, reaching to his face to pull the blade, when he turns back to tirade the camp, the knife is in his hand, the blade melted, the scorn edge glowing. The darkest red is the entry of the wound, of fire and the void takes its first steps away from the flames as Merlin brings his sword down across the monster, which blocks by arm, and Ana launches a sphere of fire raised from the fire behind him, he stammers and smiles. The phoenix leaps and tries to clench the demon's heart by tearing with talon into its skin, but to it the fire tears into the cold and wounds, so it retreats taking Troy by his vest and towing him into the darkness.

Troy: “Wait!”

Nickolas is a man without fear, and in the same moment as Troy's escape, he brings an uprising dagger to its hilt into the low stomach of the demon of the flame's deluge. The hell spawn grabs him by the neck with both hands, searing with dense fire until he vanquishes into deathly regicide. Nickolas soon kicks and gasps, at the very sign of his veritable lively fulfillment, the volcanic warrior drags a flame sword from its sheath carriage at his back, and dropping to his knee drives the sword into Nickolas' chest, despite opposition. Merlin continues keen slash and gash strategy with little avail, as with each many strikes the old sharpened edge lashings begin to fade, but of Merlin's forte is the drift.

Swift and fast he glides in his own defense, straight away in reverse, always facing the creature fighting with a battle stance and moving a step against for every two steps retreat. The faster he moves, the demon matches pace, the swifter he blocks the recourse is new stringent attacks. Merlin begins to slip into the darkness with the demon giving swift chase. Ethereal fury from an arcane delusion, Merlin takes maim from the demon's fire sword but does not bleed from a seared raging burn. Sliding back from harm's arsonist reach he puts his hand to a tree, running he lifts his hand from the support to reveal absorption of the blinding of false light, aching with firmament the limb seeping fire to its core.

He circles the field, dragging behind him conflict and trails of fire with each step inflammatory footsteps in the pasture. Ana has her own heart full of suffering and fire, as she cannot wait and die, she summons another fiery cannonade, to launch with fury and anger. An entrancing lean to then fro with precision of decision she throws the burning fire at the enemy, an impact to its side damages it so not like of aging mountains but of melting ice, a scale of deflection and intrigue, battle and chaos, she lets the fire flow to melt the metal embers of vengeance.

Merlin drops his sword, and finally his footsteps rest to the ground, kicking a leg aback he draws in every poignant ash with a detrimental anger, letting the fire flow the recursive flame envelopes, gathers, and pours around the creature, as Merlin imbues damage with an endless stream of churning decedent ash. Ana from the opposite position lets loyal flame flourish, a stream of combustion and outstanding natural beauty with her wrists together, as the fiery assassin begins to forge into an adulterated forged defeat, dry arid foliage and everywhere a burnt or singed ring on the ground of the healthy cheat-grass and the remnant fallen leaves of the autumn past. To nearly it's waist it sways and cries, swaying like a blade of grass, severe contortions of the remaining strafed physique it finds itself fell, in intensity of agitation of pour and melt.

Merlin: “Where is your master?” impudent, indignant.

Sweating and exhausted, the creature speaks with the sound of a hundred dying voices. Troy alongside Phoenix, make venture from behind the trees, Nickolas already stands beside to stare at the demon with interest and confusion. The demon cries in orison, the language spoken is not theirs, not assertively, for they do not act as to understand, they just stand and listen as the demon weeps and mourns with vengeful wound spilling blood filled with ash.

Nickolas: “What is it?”
Merlin: “I don't know.”
Ana: “Some shadow of hell.”
Merlin: “We will leave it for its lord to recognize, Ana will reward it with the fire it was forged and I shall make it rain…”

Small fires adorn the ravaged camp, the trees high on fire and low charred or at the very least chastised. The creature lashes out to Merlin, but humorously Troy slaps a piece of timber across its face from blind facet.

Troy: “What, I wanted to have an opinion?”

Ana puts her hands together behind it and restores a glow within the demon that had long since faded with the intense conflict. A terse spell, quiet and of deafening silence, until the suit malevolently glows a uniform permeation, no longer the contrasts of light in the contours of its armor, stoking until it reaches the fires of crucial mass.

The skies with diamond eyes, blue beneath the black clouds that parse over the lands, over the dark and covertly ancient, Merlin spreads his arms and it begins to rain from the sky, washing over the forsaken devil the cold confluence strikes the wretched unholy embers of vengeance to vague pose, forever entombed, sentenced to implacable eternity.

Merlin - 20 The Art of Dying

Merlin - 20 The Art of Dying

An empire in ruin, a capital city lost to nature's wrath to the point of antiquity, vines to each pillar, open sewers now ducts for clean rivers, without the peaks of certain forgotten towers that now crumble and break. Reckless abandon and sleight of seeds, the stones at shoulders' length push apart by stretching grains in the streets filled with cats that chase away any flighty members of the nomadic fowl or varmint peasantry. Collapsed arch and buttress, unseemly doors that rot in the summer sun, and vines that hang where they can, supporting the occasional ancestor to swing and taunt the cats of no real danger. Countless homes stretching to the horizon resting jumbled and broken like toddler building blocks, savant creation now a slow mountain of mistakes confined to an endless quarter of creation.

The Phoenician, with rings of ink soaked into his arms, walks like a thief in the night, a hood over his bald scalp in the calm hanging sun, ever so cautious of what lurks with the larks. The exceedingly abandoned city holds far too much intrigue, the symbol of anarchy that his harvester malice could respect. A fascinating collection of settings, missing all of the kinetic stamina, silent to the touch every room vaunt, the populace that once rested within the walls. He follows the feathered and furred tails that skittish and scurry, into the recesses of the hiding shade. All of his fears contained he slips away gracefully, where the light slips through as his eyes turn red, into the catacombs of the aging city.

In the shaded streets the stalks of lilies beneath the canopy of vines, remnants of carts among the long walls, the edges lined with little rot, the insects gone to the feast of their predators, with the exception of the occasional spider to stanch what remains crawling in the cracks and crevasses with wispy spider web. As let the sun never to blind eyes, falling below the land and the snakes and other night urchins escape the foray for an easy feast in elemental darkness, the parliament heard from the forest deep hooting about their dreams of the day and the frayed ends of their sanity.

Reaching through the aged windows and examining the dusty disheveled artifacts, the bangle on his wrist gracefully catches the moon. Each trinket of mystery's past brings a whelp memory of childhood and apprentice times. Many of the stones laden of the warm wind street are broken runes or moonstones that lurk with canny rudiments of irradiant importance, glowing in the night ever dimly so, just as the skin of the Phoenician. The pointed spear shaped leaves collect the evening mist above a body of water, his hand seemingly turning to stone, blighting the leaf he takes from the vine.

There then stands a horse in the hallway to long and tall to escape. Its skin a body of water, smoke and light clear on the surface but at its core a swirling dark pool of smoke and ice, shedding lightning that graces the wall with brushstroke. A mare of the night, one of the steeds of the sun god, banished for treason accordant with the mortals. A natural instinct of fear washes its spirit with a forceful tide as it sheds lightning to the ground from its body. It slightly rears to intimidate him, but he approaches without regard, his shaking hand forward, the lightning crawling from time to time along his arms and hands as he waves through the aquatic lines of light. Some of the energy saps to the walls the way branches do while walking through the wood.

Greeting the nightmare, it abruptly runs into the open and bursts into water and fire, blatantly steaming him to much visible content. He gives chase like the wind and as fire through the air, gusts as a natural predator in the night leaping from a high wall in silence, landing himself a furious infernal creature of the utmost primordial darkness. He burns like electric water, forcing his radiant fingers into the back of the steed, the piercing wound melts and pours mountain water of the light as it begins to buck and falter the like, as he pulls a dark crystal that radiates a brilliant light, a sunstone the light of fierce coals the shape of a sphere. Controlling a fragile source of death, the slayer slowly rises to his leather heel, from one knee as the creature slowly melts into the ground, leaving only its blood, captured into death a rapture of a diamond storm in the audience of the quintessence evening wind.

The night closes and a day passes, with sun and wheat a minority resident of the endless sea of a city forever of stone. A black fire raven rests on ledge, waiting for excess carrion with a genuine sense of fascination that afternoon, as the setting sun deals bales of gold. While the light is low, the bird seems to burn red at its edges, giving a fine black settling ash. In shedding, that burns and falls to dust fine course black silt that forever fills occult sand clocks that are all that remain at the court of the vanished empire, the vacant remnants of life, and continual fires on ancient and venerable torches.

Dark rancid rainclouds come to play, as lightning dances from the corners and edges of tables and thrones, between the empty curtain rings and broken chalices, and across the surface of the mind, each line contrast to the dark oblivion and hollow sky. The dead weather giving way to the night and its powers of bright darkness, with each gust of summer wind the memories of forgotten times, and each decisive moment an archetype corrosion of fate's temptation. He holds the orb before him, walking as if by careful nature, and the power at his fingertips trembling, as a brewing storm venturing toward wrath and redemption. Emanating a diabolic presence, he raises the magic artifact and smashes before his feet, the torches flustering in the wind, the unfastened decor strewn, and a large flame from the shattering glowing ashes of fire and ice, jagged and apparent.

She lies in the shards and dusty ember where the flame resides, screaming still after the flames recede, his queen resurrected from the purgatory of deep hell, where he quickly kneels to scoop her from the atrocious burns if she lay in wait, to set her upon an alter in the temple. He quickly brings her water, she gasps and is tearing and lamenting, her arms are scarred as if giant birds with metal talons of fire had rested on hot coals then carried her anon, her clothes torn and ravaged, another dole of water repast she the parched. Her appearance singed and disheveled, his eyes slowly fill with silver from their bottom, and frost begins to gather on his eyes, than in other places, it begins to rain on the scattered fires, rainfall washes away the ice accumulated on him and she throws her arms around her savior.

Merlin - 19 Suffer the Sky

Merlin - 19 Suffer the Sky

“The slaver takes countless souls by the day, more and more each greedy instance.”

“We're in this together.”

“Merlin is a veteran, you needn't worry, and besides he will pride this venture.”

“Why?”

“He detests slavery; he was banned from an entire kingdom for frost burning an entire countryside, to dance on ice with a, slave girl one midsummer.”

“What reckons to enslave this enclave?”

“Nothing good, on that sign by the opening they've written door of the dead.”

§

Wisps of black disparate clouds drifting below the grey mass collected beneath the firmament of the heavens. A storm behind the clouds, almost it carries the first of the cold rains, a sacrament ever panged and tormented a war with the silence of these old hills. A dark opening that swallows the light as entered, a door to the dead perhaps, leading away from the thorp, a chasm deep to consume the thematic darkness. Slavery was not often of Merlin's favorite doctrines, and so he wrestles arduously with the notions of better sanctity found with liberation and freedom. Though better off dead, he was too late for many, the entrance sheds a small amount of light on collected piles of fully decayed bones, each gnarled and mangled, twisted tangled by wild wolves and darker hearts of the entombing darkness.

“Color my eyes...!”

A cemetery city soon discovered of countless final resting places carved into the walls in some places, and others lying to the edges of the hall floor. The villagers here imprisoned miners, with well-water buckets to carry their quarry, suffering without alms. Clawing by hand, they pull down the dirt, keeping the large mercurial stones, eating the dust, for the hill dwellers were the original excavators of these caves, but they are dry and hungry, covered in the grey powder they excavate, knelt in the dust and hoarding the rust, aching for all of time to labor of their own volition. Along the uneven walls wider to the walk and the crippled cave maze of torment, the trickling water is foul and tastes like sultry mud, without minerals of every sort. Cold air passing through their bones, makes them shiver taught physiques, the mere sight makes him cringe dutifully as the small light in his palm pours shimmering over the powder, rubble, boulder and clay of the darkness.

Merlin: “Hello children that they remember, sit down with me in the dark, leave your fears and grind your measures, this will soon end.”

Only for the weak, squint in near pain at the minute glimmer from the thread of light by a short candle in his hand, he continues through the misery index, looking for anything dominating their forced subjectivity. He approaches three guards in the depths, one beside the next and one to a wall, they wear a band over their forehead, their eyes missing gouged long ago, he and his approaching light causes them to pull the visors down from their brows, they do not move among the exhumed decay. The guard in the center position within the cave path begins to partake in the same actions as Merlin, mocking him side to side by taking his own foolish steps in place, causing the other two to laugh, but realizes Merlin shall not be retreating from avid mockery. The derision continues, when Merlin steps to one side, the guard steps along to remain in the path. Merlin takes the candle in his hand and turns it into a volatile firestone, then shoves it into one of the guard's chest, the fire consuming the deathly guard, and the essence of the bystander becomes molten and deciduous ash.

Merlin: “You will show me to your leader.”

The soldiers both lead him through the tunnel, down the path the tunnel leads, passed the occasional torch the walls reveal the ages of metallurgy from eras of the past, to tough for any scavenging miner to file with bare fingers without opening their mouths. The depth true of lore, the miners of the main hall have diamonds on the ground, made by the mountain, found by their efforts. The farther he travels, the dirtier the slaves are, sitting in present squalor in a ghostly hallway, tunnels and tears, sad miners on bleeding knees and more intimidating guards.

The slave owner is full of fire, veins that course stove coals and eyes that reflect the moonless night, a light in the shadow and relentless silence over the pools latent of rough diamonds.

Merlin: “Who are you?”
Valence: “I am Valence, this is my shadow.”

His neck is as only small as the smallest hungered slave's waist, his voice as low as a steel cable on a bridge, as he waves his massive arm into the darkness, smiling mendacious unchaste. Surrounded by broken raw crystal and diamond that lay as opulent sparkling powder slovenly dissolute, his skin is noticeably thin, and nears the lucent symptoms of transparency, so possibly to the bone. The longing slaves pray in the curt darkness, oblivious to such a statute evidently wit.

Merlin: “Is it your heaven to steal the stars?”
Valence: “Yes...,” a laughter that would stir smoke, “…my hell away from hell.”

Valence sits upon a throne carved of the wall, now the remnant pillar in a cave of explicable internment, much larger than Merlin but of a fitting size for the behemoth ghoul. He slides his fingers over the handle of a sledge with a handle as tall as the arm's rest of the chair. Taking grip he raises in radiance the weapon that glows in tandem with the night man, coursing with the same fire, transferred from hand to weapon length.

Valence: “There is not can stop us now, alas, watch this world become a blighted plague.”

Merlin flies to the demon, his hands flush of his own blood and flowing with wrath and fire, with vigorous strain throwing the dark spirit into the wall, its essence begins to climb the wall with an echoing flame and sprawling fire that soon sunders, as rubble and gravel make. Merlin's hands scalded, he takes the pain and vents it as a fire to dash the wick demon, but it only amuses as it takes a proper stance set upon the endless courage while raising weapon. Merlin envoys his plight abound, with startled notion he flees, up and away to gather his senses in a battle of day and night, the hammer strikes first the wall with callous asperity, and Valence’s taunting begins with darkness in his eyes and mouth.

Valence: “Reveal my scars...” an imprecating laughter of insanity, “...you can’t run forever…”
Merlin: “You are beginning to anger me.” The fire in Merlin’s voice echoes in the void absence.
Valence: “I live, again…show yourself coward, so I may share this joy.”

The large steps audible in the dark, Merlin careens from behind a sharp turn in the cave with a torch and the narrow sword with golden handle grip, slashing to the neck, but the skin of the earthen monster with fiery roots for veins, is too far tough. Only flakes of charred embers fall like chips from a burning log, the beast has ash in his blood and a burning sigil deep within the astonishing tunnel within the glimpse into its eyes, an entrancing glow deep within its stare.

Valence: “Run defenseless coward!”
Merlin: “I'll see you in hell!”

Merlin lights as a candle covered in blast powder, throwing the dirt from his skin and every loosened turned stone in the cavern, the fire consumes all that remains of the air, disturbing the rock monster's footing. Merlin flees with a renewed darkened soul and silence into the caverns again, this time searching for a weapon.

Valence: “At last, an opponent worthy, of my skills.”

Merlin leans, his sight beyond him a vision around the next curve his enemy, moving like the wind with all of his weight edging forward, a knee bent and both hands on the hilt of his narrow sword next to his side prepared to lunge. Faster than the surreptitious air, taking a breath of patience, he strikes to lance the beast, forcing the speed of his slight.

Valence: “You can't run forever!”

Merlin's swift and errant guided force lands the sword’s end into the lower back of the superlative beast, they collide a stunting instant halt for both unexpected combatants, he grunts as the monster cries in hundreds of low voices selfsame. His try to land a stern strike grasped by the demon and thrown over shoulder to the wall, a lumbering monolithic stomp of each pace, as the monster turns about, resounding through the tunnels the sound shakes.

Valence: “You are mine...”
Merlin: “Forsake thee.”

Merlin tosses a flaring powder from the caves into the monster's face; the burning sulfur only seems to feed the fire in its eyes. The emotions of both in the form of steel, Merlin again retreats into the arduous intricate tunnels of the mount, with the spurning shattered chips of the tunnel sliding beneath hardened step. Valence drags his lumbering paces through the broken powder kegs choking the handle of the sledgehammer.

Valence: “Do not take it past your boundaries little firefly.”

Merlin leads him to the flight of boundary, waft through the weft, followed by troublesome stomps at high pace, where the dark and evil passage leads to the open air, the rain, the clouds, and the heavens undecided on winter or autumn, lightning striking through the static clouds, the song of conquest at serendipity. The tables turn as Merlin freezes like to the point of ice, the wind chills and carves the slumbering fire, so cold the tunnels that escape vent the heat and steam of the heated fire dungeon prison and mines of evil ardor. Merlin turns to the tunnel in the face of the wintry mountainside, turning his back to reflect the storm.

In flames, the creature steps out to the narrow mountain ledge with horrendous and dreadful disorder, unwitting as each drop hardens the grit until every movement fractures the protective armor. The history and ownership of the mines forever change, as the apt provenance of the abhorrent creature begins to appear as no more than aberrant, lanky, in languished robe, and tired overshoes that are oversize. The oversight germane, the rain forthwith begins to show the appended effects, it extinguishes his flamed stamina, an incidental precedence attached to the rain and passing in possession with it providence from he to Merlin, the wizard with his back to the sky.

Merlin holds his ground facing the cave in mastery of the storm. The lightning travels over and through the surface of the clouds, riding the falling sky to egress in sporadic manner, and so bleeds the sky a pat cold rain, until the slaveholder is at his knees before the eyes of an irreverent stare unyielding. As each drop, the measure of decay to the brim plait veins of venom fire and the pale dark stone armor.

“Super scion!” begs the withered slave lord, shaking and searching covered in corrupt filth for more diamonds to meal, as the icy deluge begins to cull the flames. Once an eternal flame, he is now the shivering mortal flesh of warrior sin, uncovered and vulnerable. The man wields armor not, as Merlin in valor slowly lowers his often sword as a sign of respect or submission, as the man dashes to Merlin with all of his evil left to the eyes, grey eyes for grey skies, a poorly culminated final effort to dispatch Merlin.

Fear born anew, eager haste, a push impelled forward with speed, impetuosity and violence, a recanting performance in a short time at high velocity, toward and against in attack, with lavish attention to the mountain floor with a dead man's eyes.

Merlin walks out of the cave returning to Ana who dons a most wistful smile, watching Nickolas tell the tale of an exuberant adventure only for to fathom with his excited portrayal of imaginary tales, with imperceptible weapons and invisible opponents, as he surmounts the nonce story to the young kith.

Merlin: “Run to your loved ones, they are now free.”

The princess rushes Merlin, hugging him, but only for an instant before rushing to a fire with a torch from the first she passes, as the others make haste to do the same.

In Arabic

In the Qur'an, the word ʿarab does not appear, only the nisba adjective, ʿarabiyyun: The Qur'an is referring to itself as ʿarabiyyun "Arabic" and mubinun "clear". 

al-´a`rābu ´ašaddu kufran wa-nifāqan "the Bedouin are the worst in disbelief and hypocrisy".

Based on this, in early Islamic terminology, ʿarab referred to sedentary Arabs, living in cities such as Mecca and Medina, and ʾaʿrāb referred to the Arab Bedouins, carrying a negative connotation due to the Qur'anic verdict just cited. Following the Islamic conquest of the 8th century, however, the language of the nomadic Arabs came to be regarded as preserving the highest purity by the grammarians following Abi Ishaq, and the term kalam al-ʿArab "language of the Arabs" came to denote the uncontaminated language of the Bedouins.

Cf. the modern toponyms Algarve and Arava

 <sup>See Also: 

The History of Cordoba, Spain. 

The Similarities of Spanish and Arabic Languages.  

Ancient Arabic Texts at www.sacred-texts.com</sup>

The Etymology of Europe

The Etymology of Europe:

This entry on the name Europe is not exactly poetic.The prefix eu- often means "well" or "good".

I believe the word to originate from the following words to roughly translate Europe as: Triumphal intuitive ethical densely populated epicenter of wealth; not in any way to be confused with Arabia.

Main Entry: ¹eu·re·ka 

Pronunciation: \yu̇-ˈrē-kə\

Function: interjection

Etymology: Greek heurēka I have found, from heuriskein to find; from the exclamation attributed to Archimedes on discovering a method for determining the purity of gold — more at heuristic

Date: 1603

—used to express triumph on a discovery

-------------------------------------

Main Entry: ¹heu·ris·tic 

Pronunciation: \hyu̇-ˈris-tik\

Function: adjective

Etymology: German heuristisch, from New Latin heuristicus, from Greek heuriskein to discover; akin to Old Irish fo-fúair he found

Date: 1821

: involving or serving as an aid to learning, discovery, or problem-solving by experimental and especially trial-and-error methods ; also : of or relating to exploratory problem-solving techniques that utilize self-educating techniques (as the evaluation of feedback) to improve performance

— heu·ris·ti·cal·ly  \-ti-k(ə-)lē\ adverb

--------------------------------------------- 

Main Entry: opus 

Pronunciation: \ˈō-pəs\

Function: noun

Inflected Form(s): plural op·era   \ˈō-pə-rə, ˈä-\ also opus·es  \ˈō-pə-səz\

Etymology: Latin oper-, opus — more at operate

Date: 1809

: work; especially : a musical composition or set of compositions usually numbered in the order of its issue

----------------------------

Main Entry: pop·u·lous 

Pronunciation: \ˈpä-pyə-ləs\

Function: adjective

Etymology: Middle English, from Latin populosus, from populus people

Date: 15th century

1 a : densely populated b : having a large population
2 a : numerous b : filled to capacity

— pop·u·lous·ly adverb

— pop·u·lous·ness noun

Main Entry: op·u·lent

Pronunciation: \-lənt\

Function: adjective

Etymology: Latin opulentus, from ops power, help; akin to Latin opus work

Date: 1523

: exhibiting or characterized by opulence: as a : having a large estate or property : wealthy b : amply or plentifully provided or fashioned often to the point of ostentation

synonyms see rich

— op·u·lent·ly adverb

--------------------------

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(continent)#Etymology

2010

In ancient Greek mythology, Europa was a Phoenician princess whom Zeus abducted after assuming the form of a dazzling white bull. He took her to the island of Crete where she gave birth to Minos, Rhadamanthus and Sarpedon. For Homer, Europe (Greek: Εὐρώπη, Eurṓpē; see also List of traditional Greek place names) was a mythological queen of Crete, not a geographical designation. Later, Europa stood for central-north Greece, and by 500 BC its meaning had been extended to the lands to the north.

The name of Europa is of uncertain etymology.^[19] One theory suggests that it is derived from the Greek roots meaning broad (eur-) and eye (op-, opt-), hence Eurṓpē, "wide-gazing", "broad of aspect" (compare with glaukōpis (grey-eyed) Athena or boōpis (ox-eyed) Hera). Broad has been an epithet of Earth itself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion.^[20] Another theory suggests that it is actually based on a Semitic word such as the Akkadian erebu meaning "to go down, set" (cf. Occident),^[21] cognate to Phoenician 'ereb "evening; west" and Arabic Maghreb, Hebrew ma'ariv (see also Erebus, PIE *h₁regʷos, "darkness"). However, M. L. West states that "phonologically, the match between Europa's name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor".^[22]

Most major world languages use words derived from "Europa" to refer to the continent. Chinese, for example, uses the word Ōuzhōu (歐洲), which is an abbreviation of the translitreated name Ōuluóbā zhōu (歐羅巴洲); however, in some Turkic languages the name Frengistan (land of the Franks) is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa.^[23]

.

The Etymology of Utah

updated 15 Jan, 2012 -below

Where did Utah get it's name?

Some may say the name is derived from the name of a Tribe of Natives that occupied the area, the Utes meaning "people of the mountains".


I found that [ ūtan ] is an old English preposition meaning [ without, outside of ] and is related to [ modern German außen, außer and Swedish utan ]. If you're American, this might translate into 'out there'.

At the time of Utah's discovery by European settlers, mainly Caucasian, (e.g. German, Swedish), there may have been a more obvious loss in translation. They may have discovered the open and barren salt flats and the salt lake, and just stated that there were no one there worth mentioning, when they reached the mountains and rivers and began their colony. A land outside of the known world, without European/Norse settlers.


Utan discovered at : (Circa 2010 C.E.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English_prepositions


Utah State Government for many years has stated that the proper terminology of a citizen of Utah, is Utahn.

15 Jan, 2012

reading the oxford dictionary i found:
wild man of the woods, orang-utan, a Malay word.

if utan means woods it adds to Asiatic migratory theory that their language caried and applied to Utah tribal nomenclature, yet again meaning, out-there.

Night Terrors 3 - After Forever

Night Terrors 3 - After Forever

Black whole sun in a sound garden of fire as blood runs black and the carrion birds bleed the sky. The fires in the dark as the city ridges burn in the summer sun, in the distance on the mounds of chaos stands a magically evil man with arms as snakes and eyes like knives, in cloak of the depths he stands down the street.

“For the song of the demon, you will walk with the dead!”

Aghast anxiety as the natural light smokes with some tincture of the fires of hell, the earth begins to rumble as the warlock raises his arms. In the commotion, windows begin to break high above the city street as the demon turns to fire and burns to ash in a moment’s time. The street is full of glass, the sky dark with the exception of one or two faded thin light spots, where the gold rays of light of the sky would try, and fail, to shine to the earth, kilter smatters of shaded light in the clouded veil. From out of one of the buildings a person comes rushing to the ground, angry, swiftly and rightly so without an ability to fly, to smash upon the ground, within furious infraction to the conditions of the norm, or what could be without the fire and brimstone. The body twitches and just as soon as more windows begin to smash, shatter and break, more jumpers fall to a plighted death. They are the living dead, taking mortal injury from fatal wound and rising into a cursed dark march of the unholy oblivion, as he begins running from the storm or maven fear, running from the raining bodies.

Bodies that begin to push the pavement, rising to a collected contagion, a suffering rage with dead seeds of the mind and hearts full of fermenting death, apparently deceased they fall and drudgingly arise marching as wretched trollops with wanting limbs of early decay.

With dedication and a mastered mutation of innovation toward the burning horizon with compassion seeking refuge from the deluge of the damned, with dedication he makes domination of his plight. With tidal aggression leaving behind tragic sin and the all forever evil kindred reaching an opening to the gateway of hell, the warlock not incinerated but taken to inception, to the fires of hell’s dark ocean.

Red raging flames course the edges of the void as the vigilante of redemption dives into the fire. The red fire wizard walks down the steep undiscovered mountain of fiery ice, yet upon notice leaps from the cragged edge, donning wing and a carapace of braised and hardened tar, made proper in the gasping flames from the firestorm. The hunter falls to the beast, in collision with the demon deep within hell, the nightmares of burning winged Minotaurs ripping and tearing as the apparitions of the fiery wind and searing ashes of the wake. The man rises above the ashes upon faded wind in dark moments, idle power within destruction, with hands above his head like a white sailing bird of fortune stabs the mire lord in the collar and as fast the pierce, drags the blade across, tearing open the torrid waters of its heart.

With the dawn of life at the eve of death at the edge of eternal darkness, like magic the tomb of mortality crumbles and like the sun, arises anew. The trench coat in tattered singed ashes breaks from him and he spreads his wings of ascent, a white cove of cloud, the back a dull grey of the mind. He spans and throws the fire in fell gusts, pushing himself out of the inward recession of clouded hatred. The opening closes and grasps to itself, shutting like molten sand and river fire, the exit closes leaving the once exultant defilade now a floor, filled with black stone and hardened pools of obsidian in the pavement. His wings singed and fringed, ripped and in some cases stripped, he gives fleeting escape.

Merlin - 18 Children of the Harvest Moon

Merlin - 18 Children of the Harvest Moon

Reluctantly pacing into a hill near the meadows, they begin their journey north again to visit where emissaries arrive, entering a land filled with the sign of surrounding tears, a small village in the climbs of the cragged highlands, quiet even for desolation. They sit at a fire immediately upon entering the community, joining elderly and drunkards, taking solace in respite and slumber in rest. The local tenants care not of those whom visit and sleep outdoors. Comfortable the locals are in the night as if common day, but not many between them of a coming age between very young and as much the old. Some of them, the smallest and young, run with dragon wolves covered with bleak black and grey needle scales.

The others asleep, Troy withstands no more sorrow in the minutes to midnight than their obvious composure. As the sun also rises, the sere shaded hillside is more granite than hummock, and the terrain has a rather woven architecture of rope and hanging bridge fusible to caves strew throughout the granite and heather mountain gorge. He sees nearby that they have taken a large circular prodigious platform and suspended it from several large ropes over the mountain stream, below in a nest of cord a wooden floor on a rope bridge.

A massive wooden coin with three holes held together by several pieces of large banded twine, no marked organized fashion, and the platform does not waver as they leap to it, sliding down with large hooks of poles that band to their wrists like handles of sleeves. Soon more have come to join others, one after the next they adorn their wear and run the length of rope to the dissension declension strand, sliding down to the poised floor. Above the strings bound low tones from the movement, as the structure holds.

One falls, but hangs craftily and still dry from the point where knots intersect with one of the hooks, one of his friends on the platform wearing only one hook and holding it with his other hand joins hooks and pulls him. Using this one hook, they latch into the fomenting river, pull the fish and throw the full hook across to the edge of the water ravine.

The day dimming, the travelers walk across a bridge and several gravel path of faulted rock layer until they come to notice several bridges and a small community in the mountainside and canyon as far as visible, into tunnels in the walls.

From the nearest cave, a boy of respectable age runs out as quick as thunder, his steps in fury, hauling no more than time as shortly after a large man with dagger, dressed in drab leather covered in dusky iron at full speed. In a rather surreal disaster, Nickolas brushes the pursuant, which throws him into the rapid waters, sweeping him swiftly downstream.

Merlin and the others laugh, though the people of cliffs do not, and they run down stream, but cannot catch him, his floating pace swifter than theirs, without the hook tool to catch the reserve drift ropes he floats to the bottom by the undertow.

“Are you not going to aid your man, he's just been washed?” speaks one boy with a leather mask of his eyes, with only small slits cut to pass a minimal light from the midday.

“No. He'll be fine, he possibly needed it,” said Merlin.
“But he will not survive the rage of the river!” cried the boy.

Merlin and his remaining allies rest in a circle where they are sitting and deliberating upon the weather, and the journal entry that Troy shall enter of Nickolas’ precarious misfortune, and jaunt formalities, which embarrass Ana.

Merlin: “He will return, you wait and see.”

In half a day, Nickolas returns, soaked and sullen, wrought and distraught. The children take astonished notice and rush to ask questions as Merlin argues with a jolly girthed man of impugned height among others of the tribe, as he notices Nickolas also. These hill folk are the Nyssa, and with their scaled leather masks and agile nature comes a trilled letter R and a heavy letter G in their pronunciation, easily noticed. This is so learnt, as Merlin argues with the surly aged strong old climber with hands like callous paws about the proper pronunciation of his name, which he learns is accustoms the many words, even that of those the same in both languages.

“I did not believe you,” said a child.

Merlin holds out his hand clenched, and opens it to reveal blue berries. The child's eyes flare as then becoming timid and suspicious, apprehensively taking one and eats it, overwhelmed with fascination.

Child: “Sour on the tongue!”
Merlin: “I’m sorry.”
Child: “I say bitter.”
Merlin: “I understand, I’m sorry, they're never ripened when I rush them.”

The child looks to him, confused; the few other children gather as do a few of their mothers. Many more than expected wearing the masks across their eyes.

Nickolas: “I've lost my sandals and I can never keep the soles on my feet.”

Nickolas drops to his knees and then carefully abruptly to his chest, first putting his hands to ground.

Villager: “Sir, lay on this.”
Troy: “How was it?”
Nickolas: “That was interesting.”
Ana: “Why is that?”
Nick "Another river joins this one. I almost trusted the signs.”

The blighted children sit around a fire with a pot hanging over it, eating grey apples and throwing pieces of scraps into the pot, a trite reply by one after the actions of another, they murmur and nest. One approaches by surprise, waking Merlin, most likely a possible queen and daughter, for direct consult with the traveler.

Queen: “Pillar of snow, we are in dire turmoil.”
Merlin: “Speak freely for me.”
Queen: “The lunatic does make us suffer, our family is bound taught.”
Merlin: “This is at the start of revenge?”
Princess “We seek new beginnings, it is time for change, from languished bonds.”
Nickolas: “Don't wait for answers,” whispered.
Queen: “It is the slaver…the man with the darkness heart.”
Merlin: “What man?”
Queen: “He lives in the mountain, he takes us in the night, and you can help us.”
Troy: “Come now bad dreams come true…”
Merlin: “Soon this will end.”
Princess: “Curb your tongue sage, we must beware, the counterspies show the cast of the skies like an ocean grave.” She whispers to a sullen clamor, and looks over the camp.
Merlin: “Fall asleep under the sunset, I shall reprieve the veils covered in blood.”

The fancy woman put her hands on one of Merlin’s as he lay in rest, and smiles with a tear, walking away with her arm around her daughter. The day is short, the bright and full moon shines down with a day’s half light, as the group sits convened in the shade of gentry.

Around them and laying inside the stew pot are pieces of rosy flower fish, a scaly fillet that resembles the common flower with its horns and many fins on different sides about its face and the tail that glows in certain luminous species when severed and hung from a line looks like a budding rose. Next to their camp in the distance is a solemn slalom, undoubtedly to their community a chute for ore or enjoyment in the winter months. Grey eyes on grey lives, sit beneath a gathering thunder and a falling cold wind.

Night Terrors: 2 - Bolt Thrower

Night Terrors: 2 - Bolt Thrower

The loner, surrounded by the bustling city night, deranged armies of drones and black tie affairs, a new obsession of the old gaze, the streets filled with youth in common garb as the vents fume with heat from the bathhouses, walks to the march of the sounds that signs make. His bounty deserved would be in the bank, to be accounted transferred and appended to his holdings. Somewhere in the back of his mind an invisible presence, insidious voices taunting and teasing, he moves before they reach for him. Through the walk he paces, ripping apart their dark forms at a glance, they instantaneously look ragged, volatile and armored to the teeth. The concourse vigilante makes a belated entrance.

"Don't move!" shouts one of them.

"I just came in to see I can…,” he said, taking the nearest enemy's shoulder weapon and dispersing a round cephalic, the enemies open fire, giving spray and shell in a rain of victimization. Their leader, a demon dark around the edges, with an air pressured bolt thrower modified from yore and two bandoliers filled with pistols, three to a belt.

"You can what!" shouted their leader in full force.

"Kill," he said in a whisper as he takes two pistols and fires into the villains back, spraying poison shale of the earth the creature was spawned and bound, just as the shells are falling he takes another two guns and shoots anything still standing.