Hraesvelg

In the darkest place imaginable
Darker than the caves that meet the water
An endless vast trackless blue insane
Surreal table of shifting broken glass
Prism of prisons kept behind the snow of terrible winter
Cold stillness of space where the stars glow
Fire of consciousness littering the highways of the mind
Impenetrable thought blocked by the memories of nothingness
Sparse retrograde fields of political denial and superstitious inactivity
Regal sounds of war that predicate the resentment of restructure
Diamonds shaken to the surface of the dying sands
Moments of hourglasses and broken watches
Filtering the sunlight to track time
Radiant blissfulness of incoherent obedience
Within the fortress of solitude
Resentment of youth in comely heathens
Games of pagans in shattering shadows
Salubrious malfunctions of tattered chivalry and dead poets
Sages and wages of free thought combined
With slumber of the nine worlds that fell
To the autumn of august aggression
Sounds of war drums in nursery songs heartfelt
To bring rapture to curiosity but settle the myths of misfortune
Accelerated hearts in winter and the tired predators
Little trolls in the shameful haste and the whispers on the wind.

Comeuppance tuppences in wherewithal
As the fires in the eyes of children
Elders of a sacred place to call become the order
Message of listless hope relays the inundated presupposition
Wires that hold the varying clouds are
The boundaries of particles themselves
Doors of perception open to closed riddles 
Places of labyrinth are sifted in a game
As a predator sleeps well before dying
With the best light the sight of refuge
Society of Midgard carves itself
To feed time and fighting in blasphemy condemns creation
Politicians seek protection in ways that make war
Warriors unanswered go unasked
The tired tempest of time takes bribes. 

All of this wrests where the battle holds the lines
Grouping holds evolution
Protectors forsake freedom for those who do not care to ask its purpose
Sun falls on a sunset and is rising across the same plane
Summers are in harvest and the winters are insane
Lies remain insane and destruction goes unpunished
Where the light of day is mercy and the light of folly fowl
Worthless are the mightier of magic
And the tiny days fall into forgotten time
Imagination reaches life and action takes direction
Fate and destiny are not the same
Intrigue is the howling of the truth. 

The harmony of duality seeks refuge in the presence of the weak
Conflict creates fighters and as much we all shall know
Petty flowers are liars pushing six feet deep
Terrible sounds of pleasure are the missions
Of the obedient and the faithless cannot understand themselve
Memory is the tragedy of the dead lashing at the poor
From their symbolic graves
Abandoned keep company with a familiar song
And the harlots forsake them with hope. 

Carried by the wind I wait passed the world tree
Lies of charlatans and their prepaid free
River of the war that flows over the world from a higher one
Crier of the river that weeps their woes alone
Bells of mountains and the fires of the land
Circus of lights that build the sacrament in which bathes the sun
Tired ancient creature from which we all were one
Cesspool where the ancients survived for eons
Below the noxious firmament of sulfur and lye
Holy ghost unknowing and the ones who too soon said farewell
Sporting elements of tortured hell desperate
To create friction and therefore heat
Predators of demons who mete their feast
Passed wavering grains of Folkvangr to Valhalla.

I for an I

“Whoever appeals to the law against people, is either a fool or a coward, whoever cannot take care of oneself without that law is both.”

Jurisdiction is an odd thing, would it not be for morality, it would not be a word. It is not written that morality gives ownership of one over another, except for the minds of autocrats. The insane would become fascists in the instances of domestic interaction, where the peaceful are corralled and culled at the instance of fear, brought about and created by the destructive. This must be digressively addressed, for to give adverbial descriptions where adjectival will suffice is merely a mark to generalize, would that it was, the logic is apparent but the archetype is not.

There is a God, and it is not you. Secularism teaches that autonomy is the essence of success, but leaves no compassion. Coping with nature involves three stages, the first of which puts atheism into modal irony, circumstance, the event has happened and the autocratic person will suppose circumstance to be coincidence, thus a pattern of nature they see and allow. Second, happenstance, to set irony on feudalists, as the first is seen as fate, a repeated event is now intentional, contradicting the supposed security of systematic hierarchy. At this point the secularists/feudalists take erratic posture in purging their irritation even if unnecessary, despite any prior tones of logic, and they become totalitarians. The calm individual will recognize the situation which proscribes conservatism, preferring individualism as oppose to objectifying nature, which leads to original sin. Third, enemy action, is the repetition of warned offenses, this puts irony on humanity itself.

It is not logical to let emotions rule thought, tho spirit may be the wind beneath our wings, it cannot place conscious judgment because it is an idea, and in abstract we are simply mortal and bound by science. To control emotion is to control the laws of God, simultaneously, it is to control all of human existence, and we are the product of countless generations and the face of time, the masters of fate and servants of temporality. The control of our quintessence is a priceless liberty that espoused hurts not others.

Memory is master. It can easily be presumed that God has a plan, a reason for the season, or if you’re an atheist, assumed that everything happens for a reason, the leaves fall by design, animals to instinct, a moon for the tide, and the ilk of sort. Where complacency takes hold choice precedes reason, this as a liberty is dangerous when survival will suffice, by any doctrine the lack of memory is the font of mistake. The criminal of desperation who takes from the affluent is less hated than the petty thief, but if not a crime of necessity a lie of sincerity does not become true, because predominance has a memory. Accidentally a person can forget opportunity as it can be taken, without exponential severity the multitude of transgression can increase and is the creation of law. A habitual villain will blame fate, minimize instinct, deny freedom exists, and will remember to do so every time.

The socialists go even further, familiar with intrinsic response they will denigrate actions because they wish to do them first, attacking conservators to be entitled, in haste will then make a problem to sell the solution. An air of genocidal tyranticism, of your essence your thoughts are yours, to be stolen a socialist insists that your mind be controlled by ambiguity, when your grey matter is chaotic they appeal to instincts, exploiting weakness until you become an automaton. Liberalism is the product of socialism’s moral cesspool, the secular ideology isolates its enemies while destroying the modes of survival developed over eons, all in order to appeal to a curiosity in its naïve state. Libertines will erase entire societies before their natives are awake. Where socialism is a cat, liberalism is a spider.

Perhaps the teacher is the student, each are neither exclusive nor implacable, the disorderly are oft to conflict, luminaries and ideologues still wander, individuation is the penultimate experience of adulthood. The tragedian title then belongs to the revolutionary who seeks power, where chaos seeks order and truth is no more than the effect of reactionism. Were the universe of intelligent design, God could not make man in his own image with the cold ashes of insanity. Feudalism lives here be it by caste or communist, despots rise with a priority to amass a realm in their likeness, and as such that volatility reflects on their creation, but the socialist secular militarism fascist autocracy is led by propaganda. Free will is valuable to those who create, pride in wit is expensive among the destroyers, they both take respite from task for stewardship, but it is the ego that is the most fragile by those who consume. The egoist will destroy but periodically take time to build a harmless contemplative reputation, but will devote themselves to creating violence and insurrection in the leaderless chaos. Students and private armies alike will become factions for a larger war, to confront economic, political and social issues, which were created by their own actions.

A bureaucrat will attempt to invent ending hunger, in a way that involves starving production, more pay for themselves, and the inability to shit. The imbecilic rage that comes with those who are only good enough for government work includes but is not limited to, abolishing familial rearing, desensitizing social norms, and denigrating leadership to the point of creating prejudice, fear, and retardation of youth. In these principalities militarism whimsically shifts from defense to offensive, the institution of family is a threat to new inceptions of monarchy, ignoring peaceful coexistence promiscuity and divorce becomes appealing to those without prospect.

Some are communists, the evil ones, both godless and secular while lying about the definitions of all things to suit their arising needs without contribution, professional thieves and deceivers, inbred automatons who induce callous display of hive mentality, without investigation the weak amongst them are ignored and victims are regularly disarmed. This post humanist faction is limited in emotions, leaving them unqualified to control their quintessence and leaving a volatile mind to exude fits of random emotion. It is also known as madness, oft it is prone to eugenics of a culture where the very perception of mental illness is seen as weakness instead of adolescence. The sensationalists use laws designed for them, for corruption, to control those who oppose them, soon the crazies are running the asylum.

Those who would politicize irrelevancies to distract from their incompetence are called democrats, many people are democratic, but democrats are not. In any situation they are quick to declare themselves monarch, to make choice the highest priority even when it is unnecessary. With their clumsiness institutions gradually become autocratic, until the system they design has no place for freedom, security issues quickly become the concern of bureaucracies, as civilization itself is diagnosed as a mental disorder, to be treated by only by royalists who claim they’re the only ones who can understand the winds of the cosmos.

The contrarians are redistributionists, the confusion is result of enmity to property, by causing confusion intellectual property is lost during common dialogue and private property is lost to confidence scams, you could try to capture them with logic but it wouldn’t do any good, they would merely deny being caught. Spawned from envy, their resentment of capital compels them to ineptly control it, where a confidant to society would climb the corporate ladder, the walking-contradiction uses piracy to assume roles of totalitarianism designed for a monarchy. This topic is quite conflictive; business is a microcosm of life and therein holds many vital and unneeded aspects as critical. The byproduct of business in the production aspect are private armies, the byproduct of business in the consumption aspect is a power vacuum. Labor-unions can struggle toward their own demise, their ranks are abused, infiltrated and exploited, their momentum can turn employers to fortune or failure, and they can even wear their welcome with a business and the public at the same time by protecting only themselves at the cost of all others.

Without getting too close to the power of democracy one can describe pacifism. It is not the same as abstentions, a civil war can be started or federal police dismantled and it could not remotely be called abstention. There is certain impatience to those drowning in fear, which causes them to dissolve heritage committees and subversive activities control boards, a random need of self-preservation in the name of compulsion is needed to fear the advice of society and prestige.

There is always time to remove the wrinkles from irony. The correct approach is truth and courage, something despots do not understand. When lying is their disease their solutions are typically disasters if not to service themselves. Despots can make pariahs of their children and the first martyr they find, the more megalomaniacs there are, the quicker they move to give themselves diplomatic immunity in the nation they reside for a political ideology that adamantly projects itself as a single state. You can’t be a diplomat to Freedonia. Only a retard would give every socialist movement control over successful capitalist and democratic civilization to corrupt the pillar institutions of the nation, yet addicts do it all the time.

Crash Course: Aside from faith in God, religion is created when freedom is illegal. When those freedoms are preposterous cults are created. Cults are a new kind of stupid in an old way, they’ll insult culture and discourage knowledge of history, and they might even condemn contemporary events that have no false idols, they can’t see the forest for the trees and praise only their allies when they can. Independence revolutions are insults to cultists, the egos of aristocracy pride themselves for the choice of abandoning society, despite common traits in commonality with outsiders, and they have no room for foreign camaraderie while projecting their myopathy onto the outside world. As cults spread they begin to discredit foundational law used to protect democracy and capitalism, describing them as antique, the very traditions that have kept society alive amongst the heathens to the point that it flourishes enrages cultists, because they believe liberty laws hinder globalism when in fact preventing corruption.

Pagans can be cultists, but usually aren’t, their theism presents a structural morality and their societal model is indicative of codependent enterprise. They can be a hindrance to relaxation but in formative cases where rituals interrupt the witness of hierarchy and the discernment of leadership, of the prior immersed in different idols of the latter immersed in games, cliques of tribal youth banded then locked in competitive stages. A sense of incompletion dins them causing the collection of games to beat a competitor, or a collection of competitors to beat a game, both not in realities. The audiophile bans unsanctioned sounds as their music becomes meditation, which as anything can be done too much. The progressives who seek to remove religious expression are violating the separation of church and state, centrists believe that line can be crossed twice.

The militant atheists invade churches then replace innocent until proven guilty with guilty until proven innocent. Their first order of business is to replace religion with social justice, a torrent of sensationalism by the malicious and idiotic, seeking independence from what they seek to create with cries for postmodernity. Pardon the pun they demonize religion, if it supports natural relationships and healthy normalcy. A naturalist experiences life as it was intended but chooses to avoid artificial preparations, as mentioned, we’re dealing with irony. Naturalism is sensationalism of the psyche, sadists and masochists inappropriately cope with confrontation by using what they think to be appropriate, naturalism is the archetype provided by nurture as one is both. If the boundaries of reality contain the breath of life, a naturalist must still contend and contest pornography, obscenity and degeneracy in the fourth estate.

The only thought crime is the belief in though crimes, otherwise they don’t exist unless you’re a corrupt career politician, when a democrat clings to power they abandon any filter for obscenity, followed by cries of abbreviation and a ticket to the pity party, distraction for failure repeatedly comes in the form of projection. Groveling communist acolytes will promote anything that desensitizes children into meaningless nihilism. The fanatics of dictators will demean exceptionalism and expression, if unchecked protest will be defined as free speech and classical art, in the statist goal for conformity of shapeless, awkward, meaningless, and ambiguous forms they create dystopia. Polytheism quickly turns to cultism without modern mass communication, but that doesn’t stop communists, who will lie after lie despite the advent of information technology. This is a manifesto of sorts, like a bureaucratic politician it has no proven facts, merely an imprimatur for logic.

There are also the servants of evil, unabashed children of blasphemy, ready to be soldiers of misfortune, since stupidity and hatred are not always different things. They are the ones who fill their pants, front or back depending on if they’re gay or racist, when their false prophet beckons them, often too stupid and buying what they’re told to propagandize between the moments of ignorant bliss and rampant idiocy. As the people work hard to pay for infotainment, the slackers are drawn to the positions of power, yet despite subsidy and federal standardization cannot beat their conservative counterparts with a stick. As the immoral struggle with moral leadership they create politburos, elitist coalitions for fascism, to utilize propaganda after they’ve been severed for poor form and ill quality, not pulling customers, by hiring new mouthpieces. The review process in the public’s eye feigns consensus, editorials shape the narrative and can shape national policy against attention to failed socialist economic policies.

Higher toward the top of babble we find czars and barons, petty but smiling, who will turn scholastic protest to civil unrest surrounding conservative issues, events, and institutions. The eyes of students are flooded with debtor’s prison and a shining ray of hope through the emotional mindfuck that is youth, by the control of their information channel. Schools are then appropriated just as feudalists would do to war colleges in newborn democracies, the socialism poisons through tuition subsidies the education system absorbs without offering increased immersion; the communism proliferates through propaganda in place through press, in force by ambivalence. The teachers of lies become the staff, students, and studies of progressive politics until the deceitful propaganda is in the textbooks.

We often learn history of only the foes we defeat, the victor’s country grows as hidden enemies only barter with republics when they need something, capitalism makes this simple by granting desire to those with ability, liberties to those whom are deserving, thus creating wealth by growth and common interest. Democrats will use technical rulings to define simple lies, this is better known as victimization, using civil-rights to oppress a differing view with the help of an automaton, or claiming equal outcome is more important than equal opportunity. The government of a republic is governed by a lower elected house, and an upper house chosen by the states to represent their interests, among the populace and in congress, when the upper house moves to an election process the two major political parties begin to carry this balance. The liberals from populous socialist cities putting steep pressure on the republicans from large agrarian regions, the democrats choose militarism thinking that it is industrialism and forget to choose conservatism completely, thus growing dependent on the working they consistently subject.

Charlatans like to say they are ending the subjugation of the working class, but choose to do so with burden and outright slavery, this regression into piracy instead of policy is hypocritical at best, they like capitalism so much that they cheat to have it first and besmirch it in reflection of their corruption. On their path to being a cult leader they will forbid oaths but demand utmost devotion and insist that disobedience is treason. These Benedict Arnolds are in constant inner struggle and spread their anguish to the innocent, actively resisting attempts to outlaw feudalism/communism by means that condemn it; they hide as scientologists and atheists who ban therapy in order to exalt their egoism. From this despotism they form the outlaw of aid from nonmembers and exact a tenet of martial law, adopting a code of silence and adapting cartels.

Corruption is a city behind the sun. For such globalists will deride republics to create a united cartel whose list of rights are muted by contradiction laws, the invalid treaty serves fascism more than freedom, for after communist laws are defined to protect liberty further laws are listed to protect crime, this dimwitted approach to the code of law is an attempt to preserve the rights of crime defeated by justice. Politburos are given private armies with immunity and inevitably autonomy, the unavoidable need for conservatism drives these armies to war amongst each other and the central command. While the high council demands its colonies be given their own place on the council, the satellite colonies become capitalist enterprises and among them divisions of the same, what doesn’t kill capitalism only makes it stronger. At the climax of communist imperialism the central dictators stall their enemies with diversionary tactics as subcommands attack the entity due to frustration brought by repeatedly failed economic policies. With this unsustainable cruelty expands from victim disarmament to vassal dismemberment, with destructive feudalism as their choice of creation, fear compels them to murder their successors. The centrist’s main goal is to establish a private military, with serfs beholden to the state, all conflicts are resolved with division, or the option of coexistence is contested and restructured to be inflicted by those with greater power. Often a division of contestants is created and despite weakness the more servile is granted rank among existing liberals as the individualists are again subjugated and disrespected.

First comes death, and then comes taxes. Socialists believe that aid should come to any criminal for two reasons, primarily because they can give and their conformist world view wishes money to grow on trees, secondly that they have seen money given and expect the call to arms to bring more than applause. After exploiting society, socialists will demand entitlement programs, commerce begets commerce, but they intend to extort payment for peace. In the breath of corruption enemies will ask to be duty free despite attacking the consumers and taxpayers, create front organizations in a lie of morality that disarms conservatives and individualism, demand sensationalism for capitulation in avoidance of morality, and claim that approval of fascism is the sole alternative to war.

“Manna has no expectations, it does not speak or make demands, and it does not blame or take sides.”

Merlin 2:33 “Fete of the Golden Dawn”

Merlin 2:33 “Fete of the Golden Dawn”
M.J. Banks

In the morning Ophiuchus and Lynn lay together nestled in a field, a blanket below, a blanket above, his arm around her, both asleep, in the buff. Morning arise, suited he rolls blankets as she finishes getting dressed, with her fingers on a dagger in her sleeve, with her back to him she speaks.

Lynn: “Will you speak of last night?”
Ophiuchus: (Mounting) “If you say this, love, is the last time.”
Lynn: “On your tongue there's honey, and on your heart there's ice.”

He rides to her and extends his arm then hoists her on the horse, a day without rain but germane to existence in the cool wind and isolation.

Toward the woods they travel to the tournament of salient fighters who’ve won respected challenge to brave a showmanship test of adventurers, an old town with visceral heritage lining the steeply pitched roofs and white plaster walls and paneled picture windows, many extending from walls to house herb gardens in the winters. Barbican arches hang wooden doors in some places of the small old town surrounded by traditional fairgrounds, a collection of tents comport hamlets of differential militias from the towns and some of cities, different but not separate, separate but not different.

Near these campfires and cooks and restless children playing is the sport field and the woods, among the small town profitable at most this time of year the bakers bake and the builders build, and the bankers bank stacks of pelts for pence and farthings for bundles and shillings for bales and florins for cart loads, as per the signage at the stores and outer street signs. Where the tournament will tomorrow abound rests nearby a tent to it, elongated it has a low stage along it to watch the competition, to its sides guards and servants at beck and call, whilst the forest limbs reach to the tent harboring a private entrance heavily guarded with soldiers in red, attentive to breaking sticks to sound alarm of false entry.

Halle rests within its confines with her feet on pillows as she stares at a map of the realm pondering the security of borders she has claimed to the point of frontier, the rational decisions made in silence and discrimination, her part for the rise of a new monarchy in the nascent predictions oblivious to the structure of its people. While the sun irradiates a clouded sky Etain sits in one of three thrones on the stage guarded and setting pomp at the refinement,

the flags being hung and insignia of registrants, each registrant kneeling then rising only to add a bow of traditional homage as she ignores them with rueful disgust.

In the tent Halle with her frigid touch taps her fingernails into her wine, one by one in handsel, each creating crystals of ice before bending the surface, which of each melt slowly next to candles. When Ophiuchus hears the congregation Lynn leaves the steed to walk all that remains, in town the shaded sky blinds patrons and hides her from immediate notice, thru the tents of the regiments she silently presses to her quarters, passing behind the backs of the unknowing and over the eyes of those whom glance at their boots, and if spotted her poignancy brings release of acrid hex to make the dankness in the stomachs of spying eyes to acridity. Afternoon, the clouds lull and linger, and in her hooded cape proffer solemnity in lurid gaze of insanity and silence. In her approach Etain notices and begins to set properly and prim, only to have Lynn raise her hand to reproach arousal, over the final paces she drifts without step fomenting as it were the speed of the clouds. Her flighty breadth leading to the curtaining door she tosses to stand and stare at Halle in real earnest.

Halle: “My estate is surrounded by that, simple heathen!”
Lynn: “You will have your satisfaction, time will point to our victory with hands you cannot push forward, but forthwith it is time to address the soldiery.”

Halle stands and adorns her white riding hood then extends her arms to view her jewelry, Lynn having turned toward the tents notices Ophiuchus walking compelling her to look back at Halle then leave the regal tent. Halle at exiting sees him at the edge of the field, with the stops in time that seem like gaps of memory she scurries through the grass from the stage corner, across the field skipping sight to near him but slightly aside enough to allow the sight of his face from the thrones, to immediately before him. They embrace as lovers and retrace each other’s face, a love it seems of drawn and bound resolve.

The witches’ guards begin to summon the participants, when the reluctant soldiers begin to muster Etain lights the torches surrounding them, from across the field Halle makes way to the stage side in three moves then walks the three steps and to her throne on the right as competitors begin to gather.

Ophiuchus: “Tomorrow the festival of Lughnasadh begins, our hostesses this year have offered me this chance to wish you victory in combat, and when the villagers and the folk from afar come to witness your battles of strength, and wit, and endurance, we ask you tonight to pledge fealty to your new monarchs.”

The soldiers of many assortments are well beside themselves with distrust and anger. Torrents of anger become popular resistance.

Adakan: “There is no way we kneel to a small man with a fork-tongue!”

As the crowd gives concurring sound, Ophiuchus looks to the witches confusedly. Lynn stands to deliver words of ultimatum.

Lynn: “Of course tomorrow you will be equal men, but you will be battling for placement in the ranks of my order… if the strongest among you do not submit, the easy wind will not be your haven.”
Hagar: “We will play tomorrow, and the contretemps of judges will be like lost souls, and at the tourney’s end we will depart, and not Red Guard or the wind will beguile us!”
Ophiuchus: “Alack.”
Etain: “Haste the day fore contretemps, if there were one to make you prostrate, would you then bow mighty sir?”
Hagar: “If else these lanky scorpions could put me on their knee, an affable laugh would have we all!”


The gathering bursts into laughter as Etain stands and looks heavenward, as her jaw lowers in taking breath for pyretic dirge, her arms raise and the torches around the realm alight, at such the clamor and sound of they all turns to the focus and fret of distress. Halle stands within volition and halting time to leap thru it appears at the stage’s edge, which to them seems quite warily taboo, whiles she drops her hooded shawl and with fingers of both hands meshed cracks her knuckles behind her waist, her head leans with aimless gaze in her first words.

Halle: “This is only going to hurt immensely.”

Here in the heath of disbelief time stops, the flames of the fires wave slowly in the air, tired of burning and fraying seems like seeds of grain in droughting fields, Halle’s knees bend as she hops-down with one hand on the wooden stage, the faces turning as some eyes about to cry try to watch her move faster than their cognition. She turns back to the others, inveterate temporal royalties born of perdition and yare to extirpate. She sees Etain’s skin is slightly blurred beneath a thin layer of heat vapors tho less so in the shadows of her face, Lynn’s magic is powerful beyond the control of her ice witchery, and immutable time witnesses her stream of consciousness in slow motion. A knife from within her clothes rises before Hagar’s eyes as she kicks his knee forward and pulls his hair back. The soldiery only saw a blur before his body sporadically twitches into throe, they despairingly gasp as the blade pierces his brow, but it does not draw blood nor break bone. It is a nightmare blade, which toils his brain as bright blue light attempts to flood from the surface of the metal thru his skin, he gasps at the thought of dying and the tearing of his thoughts flushes him fraught as he screams by terror and pain in real time. Time nigh halts as she moves the blade against Hagar’s neck, it seems to hop in standard action whereas she slits his throat to end the cry and drown him in blood deliverance.

Everyone attacks her together, a downward stab she punctures an arm, a swinging sword into the first as she steps aside, a mallet falling fast as she tears the blade along the swinger’s forearm from hand to shoulder causing him to lean and club a knee to smithereens, she watches an arrow pass as she stabs a heart with both hands, pulls it to turn and strike so into the throat of another and into the chest of a third, before a whip comes grasping for her throat she ducks as it wraps a compatriot, as the bearer pulls the leather cord she stabs sideways with the blade downward hammering metal into the heart of he as well, to not lose the blade she holds as the body begins to tumble, pulling it before she falls, she steps back from the fomenting warriors nearly falling over each other to kill her.

Halle: “Damnedest, help!”
Etain: “This fortune summarily has led me to more pain than pleasure.”

Etain walks down the side steps and to the center of confrontation, holding her arm forward she spreads a fire as if to paint with her mind using the magic in her hand, from one side to another bright upon fire infernal their faces glow as Halle collapses against the stairs, the fire billows outward and blasts with time’s release, making dry grass the ashes of the wake, Etain’s hand burns with flames dancing on fingertips, as Ophiuchus leaps forward, his hand passing on her body as he rounds her to barter their exemption.

Ophiuchus: “There will be no truce! Serve us as your masters and we will lead you into every battle, deny us and you will die before the morrow!”
Adakan: “You and what army?”

Lynn floats from the stage to the ground with supernatural providence, some of the soldiery begins to kneel, and she drifts toward the dying while placing herself on the ground. From the shadows of the sunset forest a regiment surrounds the stage, the field, and everything in it. Calm with hate they rise, against the trees with swords and on the ground hiding in the brush with crossbows, in the shadows of desire an army of the darkness. She bends and covers her hand with blood.

Lynn: “I cannot control you… see that our armor is painted red, pray to me and it will never be your blood again.”

As they begin kneeling not a word is spoken, Ophiuchus whispers to his guards to bring a horse-drawn carriage to haul the dead hence, this is not the first tournament a soul has perished and withal not the last. The sentries pass from tent to tent in the night explaining the rules of recruitment to them, that the winners would be given reward in gold coinage, and those who draw blood without killing their opponents would be promoted of twice, Adakan the first to have knelt is the first to hear this message and among the camp he is the first to sleep.

The lasting silence parenthetical becomes bleak morn, but the sounds of boisterous drinking resounds through the strings of minstrel triads, barkers give their words of wares while women sell flowers and children try to sell bottles of hooch as tonic to proffer claimed powers. As travelers smell the contents of these bottles to discover the partial truth they take in the air filled with breads and sweets, threads and treats of bakery ladled over with sauces best to sponsor fitting delectiasies such as salt-packed meat from distant pastures and rare eggs from foreign borders, the fresh air and Merlin pass into the city through the barbican gates.

The cornbread and berries are on display with whiskeys and wines, integral to the workers’ barter trades lest lieu to sell, becoming gratis at the center of town now emptying for the opening ceremony. 

The fete is marked in the first calends by a ritual ceremony, with the competitors set kneeling in the tournament field and the spectators surrounding at its edge on the half-logs and the children on the stairs made from hay bales. A ceremonial warrior covers his face with bilberries as war paint to hide in symbolic night, when he stands and turns he faces a large man whose arm rests a shield in the shape of a bison’s head, with points at the top and tapered at the bottom, on his head a helmet with severed horns attached. The shield approaches the young warrior and causal strikes are made against it, until the young knight runs passed the shield, the man with horns switches the shield to show the audience and follows. The knave warrior stumbles and falls toppling ornamental cornstalks severed and placed the night before representing a field crop, the man turns his shield and symbolically gores the hunter who kicks and lashes at the shield, until he finds an ear of corn and feigning desperation offers it to the bull who accepts. From the ground he puts his sword behind the shield to represent a stab as the man in the helmet fakes a yell, the swordsman passes to center stage as the shielded man moves to his knees and switches the shield once more, as the sword falsely juts beneath the shield the man pours a wooden cup of real blood over the face of the bull on the shield, with two fake stabs the sword batters the shield three times to conquest. The swordsman pretends to be blind in darkness, walking slowly with sword point far forward, to the base of an effigy made of cornhusks and twine, someone wearing a black hooded robe secretively sets it afire and in moments the player is bowing before the cheering crowd. This ceremony is traditionally repeated for two more days with different plays but ending with a burning straw man, tho today will tangent.

As the maidens watch the lithe combatants as dost the witches three, the matches power accompli, and every score a war breathes trial. The half-logs serve as benches for the sponsors and from thrones anon broods only Halle, rested and enjoying the brawl evermore that she can slow the moments of strikes and death to witness alacrity. 

The woods are lovely, dark and deep as Troy and his familiar Alerion land, the trees are lush in the opening they have found to rest and the leaves are nourishing as they are verdure and as he fills his pockets with blades and barter a child runs to him awestruck and trying to touch the phoenix.

Troy: “Make quick off and away.”
Whelp: “You are the bright one with the strong hand!”
Troy: “Certainly not.”
Whelp: “You are, I’ve found Lugh, come, come, the tournament in your honor has already begun.”

The young boy tugs at his palish hands with no luck until Alerion nudges him, with every few steps he and the boy take the phoenix takes larger crushing steps in the deciduous forest floor.

As he passes into the town the people become speechless, a minstrel strumming a lute begins to play skillfully to the silence as classically trained, until even he notices pale Troy and the radiant phoenix, the awestruck stand with anchored feet and the brave reach to touch him, but the mighty avian squawks defensively. Elsewhere to the tournament Nickolas has won three events, two wrestles and a cane duel, when he sees guards rush from the crowd. The distraction costs him a point and a strike to his face but he reacts harshly in which he wins his fourth match, of each event the victor gets a black strip cloth tied to his arm. Ana in a haberdashery alerts the shopkeeper to the phoenix passing by the window and in the distraction takes a dress and flees the scene.

In the street the boy is still slightly pulling Troy’s arm, the sound of commotion hangs behind echoes on storefronts, guards in reddened dull armor rush into the people and push them disrespectfully with shields to clear ground for cavalry to heavily tread before him.

Rider: “Avast you! Clear the way, errant knaves!”

To the tourney field they clear the path to surprise every staring eye, the regents and renowned stand to get a better look and behind them the commoners first kneel, in homage to humble attention. Nickolas approaches his trusted ally only to be subtly abdicated, hidden in the crowd Merlin discreetly shakes his hooded head and so Nickolas reluctantly chooses cautious subterfuge. From the center throne Lynn rises, from the left Halle, from the right Etain, and they together bow, less so much of Lynn.

Etain sees the phoenix as a prided ally and steps forward, but the phoenix barks a warning, she pauses and looks to her two sister-witches. Lynn wary of all things unforeseen turns to an icy Halle. The cold witch steps forward but the phoenix this time howls its threat with its neck stretched forward in a war cry, the crowd gasps as she steps quickly backing aversely.

Lynn warily moves forward and finds no protest from the phoenix, she puts her hand out toward Alerion as the bird very slowly moves toward her, in doing so Troy remembers her as the mysterious girl who had tried to do the same in the aviary of the Jotunn rune lord.

Alerion’s color becomes dull and darkened as she puts her hand on its brow. A largess chirp from its massive head startles her to withdraw her hand and it moves to the fire pit and nestles through the ashes with its beak, Etain calls to bring it food and the guards rush to haul to it bales of hay, Troy sits on the stage and offers his hand to her. She puts her red hand in his white fingers and effeminately sits on the stage edge with him, he holds their hands into the air, Etain engrossed with the phoenix, Halle moving from the stage and putting her arm around Ophiuchus to seem as a happy couple.

Halle: “The others have to be here somewhere.”
Ophiuchus: “Of course, and the fighter?”
Halle: “Ignore him.”
Ophiuchus: “He’s been doing so well because he’s undying.”

Halle freezes time, her hand still sliding from the small of Ophiuchus’s back when the phoenix turns to her, not frozen like the rest but still drastically slowed, she resumes real time before it notices her moving. The halt of existence also does not still Merlin, as it is only a moment he dismisses it as a waft of confusion and returns to watching Etain, only to leave under a cloud. As the crowd rejoices with the two hands held together in the air, a wounded competitor in the crowd speaks.

Saerda: “What have you come to do?”
Troy: “I’ve come to see a tournament …huzzah!”

The crowd goes wild and lets him know their joy. Etain calls her guards then points to Nickolas, who instantly thinks she remembers him from the wagon encounter. Her gesture merely serves to indicate him to be the first at combat in valor before an honored guest.

Adakan walks from the food court to the tournament carrying a wooden bowl of fresh horticulture. In a rather indignant gait his silence is fresh with motivation and happiness, the sky is sorrowing with shade and signs of rain as he makes his way through the piety of sophistry as well elite can grasp, to stand aside the forecourt in front of patrons facing the witches. His contempt in ethereal disdain he shouts over the scene.

Adakan: “Wherefore the guards …for years this place was full of priests and liars, today we see armored guards countless, and the latter cholera, what say you why?!”
Lynn: “Whether you make into brigands, ye shall go into brigs, whether either quell by sword, they should be fell with steel, afore the wit and faith of patriots.”

Nickolas who stands patiently waiting to contend his fight looks outwardly as some of the thralls begin to boo her statement, Adakan groans his furor and throws a tomato at her as some others do in turn, continued most by the children who obnoxiously seem to enjoy it without understanding. As the children deplete their food to throw Nick walks to him with his sword on the ground and his hands forward, to calm him with a hand on chest to prevent unrest, but the restive guards are quick to move and arrest him on the scene.

Halle: “There are two others, find them out, search the town.”
Ophiuchus: “Yes my sovereign.”

Nickolas warily and cautiously lifts his wooden sword from the loam and hay causing the crowd to cheer, Lynn offers her hand to Troy and he takes her fingers and walks into the royal tent, with a wave of her fingers the guards close the flaps and Merlin darts after Adakan being dragged on his heels. Ophiuchus searches throughout the live-long day but not having their faces etched on his memory he does not find Ana or Merlin who avoided authorities regardless of inquiry.

The soldiers take Adakan to a jailor, shackle him to a chair then begin slapping and hitting him. Merlin approaches the office with two guards posted and decides to act like a drunkard letch, a young person walks by him and he proceeds to tug at the clothing while murmuring about taxes causing the guards to approach him, hunched he bashes their two heads together and stands upright, followed by a punch of unconsciousness to one and then the other. He drags them to the street side with a cautious eye, puts an empty bottle with them, then enters the door.

Merlin: “Stay your blows and let off those cuffs!”
Loken: “Who art ye?”
Merlin: “I am the interrogator! Stand down or bear no witness!”

Merlin’s hand stretches from his sleeve and electricity begins to snap between his fingers as his eyes turn glowing white, he reaches into his vestment and pulls a small bottle then turns to offer it.

Merlin: “Here, make yourself useful and open this.”

He turns to Adakan and takes a step forward, the guards begin dropping as he puts a rag over his mouth, as Merlin looks for keys the large and formidable Adakan breaks the chain between the cuffs. Outside the door Adakan stumbles confused as Merlin takes his hat and fans his face, one of the outer guards begins to wake and Merlin points, his new friend kicks the soldier on the ground, once for measure, seconded for being the most violent in his arrest.

Merlin: “You are all clear, tell me of the polity.”
Adakan: “The politics of a man who just threw a tomato?”
Merlin: “Haste for to free.”
Adakan: “In bitter days it is dangerous to earn in a den of thieves. Tombs have heard whispers of a libertine army, they are they, and I am I.”

A bird-like whistle from Ana as Merlin and the man keep their heads down and eyes vigilant, she waits untrusting of the stranger with him until she is approached in their way, Adakan pretends to browse as they lean against the wall to look like strangers chatting.

Merlin: “Most are at the final matches, find a ranking officer and learn of your prey.”
Ana: “And how will I know which one outranks?”
Merlin: “The special hats, probably surrounded by men not looking at him, then find the restless one.”

Guards walk down the lane checking those wearing hoods, they part their ways, an else to the tide for God and country. She wastes no time finding tactical officials and after inhaling the smoke of a red rose in their commander’s move she confronts him, her eyes to briefly magically glow.

Ana: “Do I not warm your heart?”
Alarr: “I have broken the chains that kept me from you.”

He pulls her hand to her surprise and a sound of excitement out of sight and out of mind. Meanwhile, the sun rests thru the trees on the horizon in late day as the tournament draws to its close, Nickolas has taken third place behind a martial artist much faster than him and a massive Jotunn neither of them could get the better. After heraldry and laudation Troy interrupts and entices them to stand by him aside the phoenix, he reaches into his saddle bag and pulls three Phoenician feathers for the winner, two for the lesser, and one hesitantly for Nick with a surreptitious squinting of eyes. Taking their shoulders he turns them to the crowd then starts applause moving to the stage, a bowl is carried on a stump before the stage and the winners ushered behind it to face the crowd, the large winner puts his hand into red paint and raises it, then turns to the others who repeat the act, each causing cheer by all.

By shadows fall insurrection awakens and scours from the tents and campfires, the Red Guard rest and respite in both the inns and outlands indubitably hopeful and naïve, anon the champions are brought near the stables and bribed for venal loyalty, each wisely agree and return to rest. The thought of war crests on the sorrows of each good fighter, waking silence claims where whispers of death hide in shadows, hunters having come from every road and each nestled inlet to test their mettle against each other move twixt the sunset and attached moonrise as borne assassins through the tents toward their enemies, silent at dusk they sweep over enemies without the sound of footstep but in minutes the clamor of battle echoes replete, soon they learn of traitors among them of which to task is real danger.

Archers quietly shoot at the royal tent guards from the nearly empty barrack tents as some of the others move to flank attack, the witches are warned by the familiar sound of war and Troy offers to abscond with Lynn for her safety and advantaging trust, but she is gone through smoke and mirrors. Halle sighs with disgust and does not move as Etain walks from the tent, angrily tossing the flap into the darkening forest as he looks again Halle has vanished. The lanterns and fires are doused and in the deeply clouded moonlight anyone with a torch is quickly arrowshot, be there trees or breeze blood is spilled in the night.

Tho he needn’t safety and daren’t tell, the simpler thru both options bespeaks Nickolas as he averts deathblow by a weighted dagger thrown to the throat of a red-armored soldier from the fingers of the martial artist, which all the day he had thought to be a foe. In the stables are prisoners shackled and chained to colonnade beams for requiting dissidence, and the Jotunn who helps them kill a guard, only to begin killing them in treason. Seeing this as both unfit and unsporting Nickolas attacks with sword the giant he could not beat with stick, stable boys move through the rafters to help the surviving prisoners. One takes a whip and swings wrapping it around the behemoth’s arm, Nickolas looks and sees a young man at the handle and wields upwardly to cut the line, only to be punched with the heavy hand he helped to free. After trading blows Nickolas is reluctantly felled, the large being moves to take a horse as he cannot fight in the open against friend and foe for he is a large target, Nickolas rises motivated behind him and attacks with fury, the plangent taunts of the giant are met with quips breathless but in stamina and precision, spears and cheers from the rafters over the door are followed by the lummox stumbling to the ground, followed by a death strike that would make a taller man shorter lived.

Ana walks the evening street cautiously with a trick up her sleeve, the battle at pinnacle will soon begin to fade, but now the dedicated run the streets with their footsteps sounding like the mad dashes of lunatics in an asylum riot, when a hunter passes she stops as they pass, commonly warning her to hide or ushering her to safety she does not afford, when a guard comes she feigns terror and asks for help only to stab with an ember-glow blade and boil their brains or open throats that will naught speak. One of the traitorous hunters blindsides her and attempts to assert himself, having accidentally dropped her knife she puts her hands to his temples and scalds his face and memory, a deep and ungodly terror will haunt him until he fatally tears it from his skull, he will scream sonorous madness until he does.

Merlin fakes being wounded, leaning against crates or wagons, then drifts behind foes to stop anyone not fighting the soldiers until he meets Ana.

Merlin: “What do we know?”
Ana: “After this massacre they’re headed to Quinn’s.”
Merlin: “Guards, lament.”
Ana: “Help him! Traitors did this! Help me move him!”

Two guards come to her and tell her to abandon him, but their time ends ill-fatedly as Merlin stabs their fronts and she their backs, they begin walking an alley to be caught by a few mix of soldiers and convert traitors who get close to Merlin only to be blast by a blue magic.

Merlin: “What did Lazarus say?”
Ana: “He tells of the nothing, I did not find him brother.”
Merlin: “Fie, we divide to find him and meet on the north road.”

They split ways but she is followed by a traitor who saw the blast discretely from the street, passing over the soldiers he deems her an enemy and attacks, she doesn’t run and walks until tripping the stalker by pulling his arm over her foot. When he stands she stabs under his bicep and his ribs and sets fire to his arm that holds and drops his weapon, in his move to escape her he runs into the open where the archers watching from defilade and rooftops think it’s another torch holder to fill with arrows. In the streets Adakan fights his old ally now become betrayer, now become dying.

Vrangi: “Ought I was to seek a powerful new master, to become better, what have you become?”
Adakan: “The scars of your disease.”

Adakan holds his sword knightly and puts his weight on it and thrusts until he is kneeling by his groaning foe.

Merlin and Ana look out over the disheveled tents and the bodies in the field just as in the dirt alley behind them, Merlin sees the archers on the roof whom one of them shoots at him, Ana’s magic ignites the arrow and Merlin’s stops it with wind, when the roof begins to smolder and the wind begins to blow the archer raises his hands in surrender, Merlin takes a quiver of arrows from a dead man and tosses them up to the sniper. Ana paces as they wait for the fighting to minimalize fighters from the center of war, secretly the martial artist in black fabric watches hidden in the rooftops. Impatiently Ana paces distant from Merlin and a fog begins to gather, the shooters and the spy on the roof turn sick mostly tumbling from the rooftop, a wall of rain becomes reflective and soon a mirror from the alley depth complete with a reflection for Merlin leaning against its wall.

Lynn: “Give it up, human.”

Merlin turns at his waist but doesn’t realize he’s seeing a reflection, Lynn pulls a narrow black knife and quickly floats directly to Ana, she calls for Merlin to help through the reflection of darkness, pulls a tiny bottle of liquid fuel and throws it at Lynn’s face where it explodes, only slowing her down but not before Ana has quickly begun escape, Merlin turns to the explosion and sees his reflection, causing him to dart into the fading mirror. As Lynn drifts fast Ana notices barrels of booze on both sides of the alley, as she turns a corner she pulls over a barrel, Merlin is in truculent pursuit as well as he watches the barrel touch the ground it explodes, with the burst he stops and hovers then slowly drops to the ground.

Lynn is halted by the blast but not defeated, stepping back with haste and burning impedance she tears the burning whiskey from her like wet-fiery blankets and throws them to the ground, she hotly screams unscathed in anger then turns about the path to see Merlin. Her uses his wind magic to levitate and immediately drift backwards, temporarily saluting her with the sunrise behind him, before winding crates to block her into the alley as she follows, she screams in fury at defeat.











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