Merlin 3:25 “Exiguity”
~ @mjbanks In the earliest morning, Merlin not slept the night heretofore inculcates the day, the eponymous nature forthcoming, covered in stars and the cold breathing blur of the dawn, as dead weeds laying over themselves congest undergrowth and water in the winds of latter summer. Ana sleeps in dale and nurtures care of bearing child the grass nearby her without the dew that coats the plains and glitters in the dawn. Merlin takes his sprigs of mint and lays them at his knees in the matted meadow, with his eyes closed he focuses on fate, tasking to dreams of the highest mountain peak he parlays the oldest quotes of prose in sound of monotone less than the like of words and more like low rumbling quiet bellicose orison. The mint begins to frost despite the campfire and rays of morning. He cuts his hand and spills blood, the drops spreading make spear-shaped leafs petals of red. Tossing these sprigs into the fire they do not burn and only rise-up to float above the flames the height of a mortal man, the bourbon-colored spectacle glittering around it, the unheard sound gives Ana’s child she carries cause to wake and thereof she.
Sefa wakes from sleep to a sound of chimes, a melody unforgotten in the distance, much louder with Merlin and Ana, tho they both cannot hear it, induced by the sound of magic, loud and echoing-the-ether as if close. In the pasture, she rises above it all to see so distantly the glowing red with ribbons of light spiraling and waving toward the sky from the source, clearing the day to the sky of stars of night pushing thru the azure day. Down to the grass-tops and to the forest fast as she can fly soaring upside an oak to nearly the topmost, looking into the distance she still sees the red glowing light and the opening of night clear of day.
Toward she goes to that subtle song from light of rose and smell of mint and song of magic bloodshed. To Merlin and Ana it is simply red and spinning in an otherwise normal day. Where glittering light is the echo of transference and the sound of the wind is the reflection of lights, ever glimmering softly on the grasses is this vast external pasture made eternal time and faded signs of brightness, hidden by eldest magic fawning to tragic shadows of the soul and alluring unrequited.
Ana: “What pray tell us are you doing?”
Merlin: “I am trying to find someone who knows their way.”
Ana: “Aside from a hint of bewilderment, please tell you’re summoning food or that we’re going to a feast next, I could eat a whole duck with a trough of boiled egg-roots, please say you’re not beckoning something to attack us. It smells delicious. Damnedest, what is that are you doing?”
Merlin: “This is a mint from mountain tops, when gods do battle in the higher worlds above and encircling, they perchance spill godly blood and on that plant it coats, fairies love to eat such inhuman things, and in your maternal state I’m sure the abnormal scent appeals, also called ‘Menthe d’Fae,’ and it will help us find Nickolas.”
Ana: “Have you said fairies?”
Merlin: “Yes, for this is a certain thing.”
Ana: “Are coming here?”
Merlin: “Yes, it is a possible thing.”
Ana: “Friendly little norn-bugs, are flittering hither?”
Merlin: “A probably thing – if we are friendly in return, they might share where they secretly grow buttercups.”
Ana: “Dare you not lie about such things…reverse your stare behind you.”
Merlin: “There a glowing light approaches and comes one now.”
Ana stands slowly so to see alpenglow rolling down the far foothill, the balzarine dress in sway and raschel from the ground blanketing her shoulders, into the meadow it parses fast the grasses passing the ground beneath her wings soaring fearsome and swift over flora, concealed by fading light slowing of approaches.
Merlin: “Subdue that fire, dear.”
In such Ana doth and the orange rolling flickering crowns of fire tide on embers stay white with ash and quite renounced by spell so imbued. The half-forearm’s length branch of mint with leaves of blood-painted leaflettes becomes a modest red of roes and glitter of sand of stars, still floating and spinning zenith where the fire now sleeps. Merlin calmly steps between Sefa and the mint, her glowing aura soon present of effervescent skin now dims enough to show her true form. Flying to the mint, she collides with a hex of forbiddance and withdraws to Merlin’s line of sight.
Sefa: “Tricking fairies is quite a disgrace.”
Merlin: “Pleased to meet you, your grace, I am Merlin, and this is Ana.”
Sefa: “Stop shouting!”
Merlin: “…oh, sorry, we were wondering if we could ask you some questions, as you can see, we have remuneration.”
All the while, Sefa dares not be near his feet for fear of trouncing.
Sefa: “A sin confessed is half forgiven.”
Merlin: “Say again…”
Sefa: “I said I don’t see why not! Lie down!”
Merlin looks to Ana and back to Sefa, a fire in their eyes, radiance in the sunlight, and a positing import of mystery defined.
Merlin: “I’m sorry, I can’t hear you clearly; do you know amplification spells of sound?”
Sefa, longing for the mint, flies up-to his head.
Sefa: “Lie down!”
Quickly from his face after speaking to him, therewith Merlin lies on his stomach, elbows supporting shoulders, and hands over forearms, as Ana lies on her back.
Ana: “Ah, this is much better.”
Sefa: “Yes, it is indeed quite.”
Sefa looks at the mint and the aura protecting it.
Sefa: “What would you like to know?”
Merlin: “We’re looking for a child of immortality.”
Sefa: “What’s wrong with that one?”
Ana: “My child is deathless?”
Sefa: “Partially, maybe, almost, it has a strange glow, even for your flamecraft.”
Merlin: “No, the father of that child is an undying, he has been taken by vampires, those and he we are seeking.”
Sefa: “Ugh, terrible things, like chimeras of only predators, living in ugly stone fanes dispossessing rock dwarves, but not killing the stumpy greedy borrowers and lenders. The words in the cracks say that the emperor of fangs, some bloody eponymous lord, in the one yonder is awaiting an unending soul, so…”
Merlin: “How certain do you know this?”
Sefa: “When they say the walls have ears, they speak of fairies. How do you think we protect a newborn baby… by correspondence? The celebration of words you humans speak when you’re alone, even to your greatest of foes, is a tale of foolishness unto itself.”
Ana: “How far away is this mountain and how many towns will we pass?”
Sefa: “You needn’t worry on them at all, matron. Lest they find him first, there is a great deal about the rumors of a coming and goings drought, too faint for big eyes like yours both, that ever on an eight-day the less than storms overpassing are drawn from the air and sky – whereof clouds vanish faded abandon. All so, whiles not but six leagues… from here, as the crow flies.”
Ana: “How on Midgard does that import?”
Merlin: “When Nicky reincarnates he is fueled by the manna in the world itself nearest to him, if zealous they overdrink him, in knowing that he will have life anew by the spirit, life isn’t drawn from the dead inhuman, but from life itself, your fire fears not such droughting.”
Ana: “I see.”
Sefa: “Might could I…?”
Merlin: “Yes of course.”
Merlin breaks the spell just as she nears the mint twirling slowly, allowing it to fall to ground, her catching it before it does and flittering aside Ana and using a paring knife the size of a silver thorn to cut small pieces, of the bloody mint, in small bites minutiae and eat. Merlin rolls onto his side and elbow extended bends his hand to hold his head, the later of day before him.
Ana: “I am ever so twice allotriophagy.”
Merlin: “Then feed you I shall, at the nearest distance.”
Sefa stops, putting her knife to sheath she jumps and wings opening and closing on her back flies in position, from a miniscule deerskin pouch she reaches, grabbing pixie dust, and sprinkles it around her as she upright spins, turning once in a circle she grounds her feet. Growing begins, the slight yellow buttercup flowers of candied lore and aside those Sefa returns to her mint, but not before majestically landing and drinking some of the sweet natural scotch from them.
A reflection in heart a pleasure equal to hunger, a peace of honor and intrigue reserved only for new experiences and childhood, Ana plucks and eats one, enjoying the taste and comfort of food the first hap this chance and the endearment of feeding child. Merlin takes for himself one and switches side to look at the horizon behind him and away from the others.
Ana: “What is next?”
Merlin: “Knowing that (Nick/he) is there, is only the first part of our quest, for from here, we will ascend, or greatly fall.”
Sefa: “A terrible thing to be still, it temps ghouls to nim, I shall be leaving now, go with gods.”
Merlin: “Sefa… where is the drying city?”
Sefa: “It is on the horizon before you, drowning in that sunset.”
