Merlin 3:37 Concilliabule
@mjbanks
Crimson and Malachi set, confined to a coach travelling the day environ, separated by fated perception of faded vision bright to faintest light with photosensitivity.
Crimson: I see the world thru bloody eyes the way it is painted, never dying in the night. Taking, we, from life, beyond death, more eyes that reflect the moon than will one live again, sworn to brave the brink of the great dividing mountain between day and darkness. A citadel of rapture bastion to the surrounding frailty, as each star is a fortress to the decay of the sky itself. A fortress a foundation for a throne covered in pestle of ageless gathered bones made of palm stones the likes of which mere men cannot push atop zenith, with the strength bereft twofold of slake and sate, fanged ones prevail. In darkness nearest Hellheim, dare not our patience be projection to Midgard, answer the silence save we end the humans for our desire while they sleep. Yet of this, the cambion and the hellion bring the cure by which humanity takes its name.
Malachi: They are too much Albion to separate, more so he than of she and least of they and we, but I do not reckon to say their namesake forsaking, my grace.
Crimson: I have confused you with life and death again, like a memory of a dream that kills the sleeper, knowing impermanence while being of its vehicle in this world of nine. I, seeking blood and honor, destroy the introspection of enlightened humans whom may answer the call to that charge of duty.
Malachi: Had I known I would have traded you my prison.
Crimson: Make keen notice of the mages and their actions, confide your findings of their convictions, ill fate comes to those caught by staring eyes.
Malachi: Deep pains, elicited are thee, shine to the heart of the mind enduring that I will as bade before all else. (He pauses, listening to his surroundings). Fall the very drop of rain and I will follow it with blood the very next.
Crimson: Premature, fear is our only resource actual. (The wagon rustles, they listen for commotion, occurring none). These like days of old, we rely on our couriers, coevals in errantry, and like then we must endure painful trust, for now. There is little likelihood that they need us to task some mercenarily errant deed. No, they need haven, in lesser for and by the mother, in greater by an elder horizon storm.
Malachi: We could have hearkened to abode by our land-spies or a cutpurse, perhaps even afoot. To what extent is our knowing with less proof to show and fewer parts for pardon?
Crimson: At his word my darkest fears unearthed themselves, a fear of not knowing, but as forgotten emotion churned thunderous like the heart of mountains beneath the boot-heels of the gods of gods, I will mark the ground around his empty vessel if need be. Like some dreaded truth within us ourselves, what he fights, I must fear. What he fears, I must dread. What he dreads, I must kill, and what he kills I must drink. The sorcerer is a weathervane, from which we must always drink.
Malachi: So shall it be.
The wagon wobbles and jostles the country road, the scene a dry lake shore as mountain streams run shallow or missing, to fill only creek as is norm of season, and distantly the great cold mountain called Vermillion, and the town halfway below it, and the berg between envoy and livery. Merlin and Ana ride on the bench of the horses, not on the wagon.
Merlin: What is the oldest language you speak well?
The passengers hurry to put their ears to the walls of the wagon, desperate to hear their drivers speak even a single clue of conceit or conception, in the darkness of their transport.
Ana: I speak a bit of Sand, perchance its tributary, nothing of dusty books from the type of bastards I've ever met.
Merlin: Put a scarf on your face, sit next to me, and only whisper.
Malachi: He’s smart. (Crimson punches Malachi)
Merlin: Dangerous wretched climate, I hope ends soon; they know we need to trust them, either in truce or mockery, troubled with the momentum of escape.
Ana: Reliant to suffer more without our wit.
Merlin: Indeed, bewildered we are safe endangered, and tried when levied against our freedom, without so much as gratefulness.
Ana: When it’s shone it shines.
Merlin: A poisoned blood will hide you, but it must be purged and runs a short wick ever shorter by your bearing.
Ana: Do they not drink the sick?
Merlin: Not commonly in their capital so, by the gods I pray it comes to that not.
Ana: What manner of beast belays them?
Merlin: My dear, given there can be not, beheld by ages they cannot, hardened by living and hollowed by ranks of all the worlds, they fear us the most.
Ana: By our advantage over Midgard?
Merlin: By our advantage despite it.
As Merlin lifts a finger it begins to burn, he blows sparse dust from the flame, a very dull pulverized dust smokes and smells of sweetness into the air. A town of carpenters and tree-farmers, their eyes burn to see it beneath the sunlight and the mountain where a shadowed now very dry and hot midday, dominates along the lengthy distance of tiny streams, there are trees crooked and dry waiting for a merging delta to return, the forest roots deepest as can be, and the adjacent sea, where mercenaries in a blank camp ready for the sunset moon.
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