Merlin and Ana drift down the narrow river, the slow streaming waters calm and passengers quiet to hear it, the hull cracks.
Merlin: It is time we make for land; our boat has a leak.
Ana: O no.
Merlin: The accidental direction and the dangerous time it was bound to happen.
Ana: If that’s a road alongside the shore, we wait and repair it, hitchhike a ride, and if not, ride the river at sunset.
Once shored the canoe he helps her out, she lays in the tall grass, he inspects the nearby trees.
Merlin: The accidental direction at the wrong time, his sure footing could find him directly.
Ana: What are you making?
Merlin: One of these has better sap, and I will mend the boat.
After some time, the tree chosen undergoes magical treatment, its interior warmed its center heats and wilts arboretum. Kindling gathered, he holds his fingertips at the fire and looks to Ana. She waves her hand and the fire begins of the air, her face cringes uneasy.
Ana: Oh he can kick.
Merlin: ‘He’?
Ana: Sons are greater danger, but less trouble.
Merlin: These experiences Troy forsakes, canopy to his starlight-skin.
Ana: Such are many sons. How have you heard your heir full?
Merlin: The bloodwork matches, by this time a hex-filled trap would lower on us.
Ana: Your worries are what?
Merlin: Yesternight a star broke; his departure is now condition. You have seen him, almost full white from the sunset magic.
Ana: We are rooted, he will autumn leaves.
Merlin: Magical abandon may cost him a daggering spell.
Ana: Thus enters, as thus exits. What condition?
Merlin: Weapons beyond that traders’ travels in proxy of wares.
Ana: Divided are the ways, the old and new, of have and hath are switched.
Merlin: One you have, to other I.
Ana: Visit this wend nary wilt entropy.
Merlin: I suppose it.
With time the sap has boiled to thicker glue, peeled bark is used to mend the boat beneath and within. The mountain looms, the sun in the morrow sinks behind the summit causing a lengthy half day of afternoon. A speared river fish – after some doing, he offers it to her.
Merlin: Have, hast have you and hath had and will had.
Ana: Graciousness, kin, I have a hunger.
She scrapes the fish from its skin, with fire-magic cooks the meat in her hand and pours it solely for appetite. He disparately watches the road.
Ana: To wind and wend as kin and ken, we are but wont to wilt from our foundations.
Merlin: Only fire burns from air, as summer and love.
Ana: They are not left, in rickety hovels, but I am sir, and long for a couch of cloud-like fashion. A fish, a reservoir, a people, with inns and comestibles.
Merlin: Agreed. The road doesn’t trace, each sake a doubt, roads redouble days to fares, we give way down stream. Conceivably he they will find us lingering between our grim hells. Let he help you up.
Ana: We are our straying, virtue of honor among thieves, speak of this hast thou forlorn token to keep thinking.
On the river a stream over flowing they look, with their dreams in reflections cannot see the brook tributary to a lake and village big enough to sell cattle in the dozens. To wit they drift where the trees begin standing at shore.
Merlin: Tell me about Nickolas.
Ana: Nicky? He is expressive, dramatic, selfish, and temperamental, he tries to be aware, sensitive, and reserved. He is, …emotionally honest, creative and personal, but can also be moody and ill at ease, withholding himself from others due to feeling vulnerable and defective, he can feel disdainful and exempt from ordinary ways of living, typically having problems with melancholy, hedonism, and misery. He makes me feel inspired and highly creative, able to renew myself and transform a dour experience.
The low moon three-quarter full.
Merlin: His honesty?
Ana: Intensity and depth of feelings.
Merlin: Introspective?
Ana: Rich inner life.
Merlin: Heartfelt empathy for others’ suffering.
Ana: A creative disposition I guess, an aesthetic flair and elegance.
Merlin: He is in a quest for authenticity, uniqueness and the extraordinary.
Ana: Romanticism and idealism, as much as any husband. I merely hope he hasn’t strayed.
Merlin: I’m sure he’s holding on-to something.