Sorry for not posting anything for a while. I am a magnet in a field of wheat.
For those of you who enjoy my writing, here is a large jumble of unrelated chaos:
One Day
This is the whole story of Stephan and Marc, by request of a friend. This was a character development exercise to help me make the characters and story progression in my music video project more impactful.
About 25 years ago around this time of year I transferred to Clearwater Middle School. I was a new kid, sure, but it was nothing new. Michigan, California, Oregon, Nebraska… wherever my father found work is where we scurried off to next. I became a ghost after awhile: fade in, fade out. I’d appear sometime in the middle of a semester, stand up and tell everyone my name, some hobbies, my favorite color, the names of my pets, and that sort of junk. Later on, once I hit middle school, all of that stopped. It would just walk in, take the only available seat, and get mentioned in passing as the new kid. There was a whole lot less ceremony and a whole lot more reality: I learned introduction or not nobody really cared about me. Why should they? I didn’t grow up with them like every other person around, and I don’t think I’m the least bit interesting. Not like any of that was a problem though. I maintained a believable front of contentment.
Anyways, to the point. I’m here at Clearwater Middle. I’ve come in on a Wednesday, smack dab in the middle of a week, a unit, and the year. Nobody knows me. I sit through the teacher blabbing on about this and that, things I’ve already learned from the last school I was at. After about a page and a half of filling in squares on graphing paper, the bell rings for the lunch period, and I watch students file on out of the classroom. I’m determined to finish filling in the squares on this second page, especially considering I have a sack lunch so there’s no need for me to leave anyways. Once I finish with that I reach in to my brown paper bag for my peanut butter and jelly, then stop. There’s another kid in the classroom still, and he’s just sitting at his desk playing with legos. Legos. In the seventh grade. I dunno what was so striking about that now that I look back on it, but I suppose anyone would be jarred if they turned toward a place they long figured to be empty, only to discover they hadn’t been alone the entire time. Even when the classroom was full I felt alone, blissfully unaware that there was another nobody that felt the same. So I walk over to this kid sandwich in hand, freshly slid out of the flimsy plastic bag. I sat down in the desk adjacent to him and took a bite, admiring his unfaltering focus.
“Whatcha making, there?”
“Nothin’.”
And that was that. We didn’t exchange names, hobbies, or favorite colors. I just sat there silently, eating my sandwich, and watched him build castles until the bell rang. When I returned to my seat and watched the first kids enter the room, I followed them with my gaze until I saw that kid in the corner again. He had already packed all his legos away and was staring out the window, as if he had something to hide.
It’s sometime late in March. I’ve got my arm around Stephan, and I’m walking him home. We’re taking it slow. I don’t really know what to say, so I don’t talk that much. He seems to be fine being quiet as well, but the silence hangs over the two of us like a cold damp cloth. I want the sun and the sky to be smothered in clouds. I want the road to be clear of cars. I want him to forgive me for not doing anything back there. I’m not even sure if he knows I was off in the sidelines, cowering in the shadows like some sort of frightened pup. If he doesn’t know then I don’t really have anything to worry about, but I still worry. I don’t think I’ll be able to forgive myself.
We continue along the road in staggered footsteps, and I do my best to support him if he accidentally puts too much weight on his bad leg. It’s step by dreaded step like this, and the sunshine and birds chirping and white picket fences make me sick. I continue to wonder if he saw me or not. Regardless, does this make up for it? I mean surely this counts for something, right?
“Hey, this is my house.”
Oh. I stop and direct us through a short white gate and up to a light green house with a clearly visible concrete foundation and cracked paint near the bottom. Clumsily juggling his impaired balance and the screen door, I pull us into the house and close the door behind me as carefully as possible. Stephan’s father is asleep in the living room, blanketed by the soft gray glow of the television. I drop Stephan’s backpack and my own, then turn to face him.
“Let’s get that blood off your face.”
He smirks weakly.
January. It’s— let’s see. It’s January 17th. My third day at school. Today I decide to talk to the lego kid again, mainly because I wandered outside for about a minute at lunch yesterday. Everyone else is sorely unapproachable. I learn that the kid’s name is Stephan, and I introduce myself as Marc. He doesn’t feel like doing anything besides legos I guess, because he doesn’t really look at me during our brief exchange of names. I even could have sworn I saw him tighten when I went to talk to him. Maybe he just doesn’t like people, but my curiosity was welling. The next day when everyone had cleared out I went over and sat next to him again, but this time he stopped building and abruptly repositioned himself to face me with his full body. Looking me dead in the eyes, he spoke like a dagger:
“What’s your problem?”
“Excuse me?”
“What do you want from me? Why do you keep on coming over here?”
“Well I umm— I’m new here, right?” I vomited a nervous, squeaky laugh. “Just trying to make a friend, I suppose.” He loosened at that.
“Oh. Right. Sorry.” He slunk right back into playing with legos, the air thick with embarrassment.
“Not a problem,” I mindlessly muttered, still reeling in shock. After a pause that took a life of its own, I recovered and livened the encounter. “So what do you like to do besides playing with bricks?”
“I— umm—”
The bell rang right then and there. Both our heads snapped to the door, and I sighed. I shuffled back to my desk and turned around to once again find him absently staring out the window.
The Wise Beast Pt. 5
ELSEWHERE
The Wise Beast - Part 5
I swallowed. What relief it was to swallow. To have moisture inside my body once again.
“I…” I began, my first instinct was to berate the man, my surroundngs and everything else. But I remembered I was not myself. I was powerless. I restarted, with a much more subdued tone. “I am well enough, kind Guard.”
I bowed my head. Bowing really does not suit me. I needed to introduce myself. It would be expected, the first thing a guard asks to a stranger at the gate. Name. And then reason for coming. But I couldn’t very well state I was of the House of Auric. In my weakness, it would be a death sentence, even out here, wherever here actually was. Our enemies stretch far and wide.
“I am called Darlington.” My mind worked furiously. I had taken a lantern before I came to this place, and was required to …find it’s story. That is what the Voice had said. But NOW I needed a Reason. An Excuse for my presence at the gate. And with the Hellscape at the front gate, only someone insane or possessed would… A spark of hope. An Idea. A Chance. Maybe, just maybe… “I followed a vision.” I lied. “A vision of a Lightless Lantern. Do you know of it?” My Art had left, but perhaps my wit and silver tongue had not.
“Darlington,” The guard echoed, temporarily lost in thought. “What an odd title. From where do you hail?”
While waiting for a reply, the guard shuffled about the room and organized some of the stray things that had been left about the room while the Noble was unconscious. He returned some bottles to their proper cupboards, and was considering returning the pitcher of water they had used to the kitchen when the nurse returned. He was carrying a tray with a plate of oddly colored bulbous flesh. It looked revolting, but the guard clearly thought otherwise. He swiped a finger across the surface of whatever that was and licked it, humming with delight.
“Oh Maker, Nurse Racken went and got you a plate of barg’s head, you lucky fiend! It’s my favorite, it is.”
Olivius Racken plopped the tray right down into the noble’s lap, gave the guard a playful punch for tasting the patient’s food, and left the room habitually. The guard, having lost his train of thought, looked down at the Noble.
“Well go on, eat! You must be starving!”
The pile of revolting organic mush quivered from the guard’s enthusiasm.
Previous episodes:
The Special Day
The Wise Beast
Source: jodediah
Unrefined Dream Juice I
The following text outlines the events of a dream I had this morning. I may or may not turn it into something later, but I thought I’d write it down anyways.
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It began with a banishment: bubbling with anger as they were set out to dry without a clothes line hanger. Dispelled from their house with a swift kick to the rear, they were forced upon this journey with the following gear:
- One knife, nicked in most places,
- Six eyes and the brains that rest’ed within their faces,
- A flashlight to brighten up darkened down spaces, and
- A sense of overwhelming danger
Danger!
…
After a perilous climb involving chainsaws and hang gliders they stepped down onto a beach where there were remnants of a fire. Sparse charcoal dust spells SOS in sand, and they look down to see another man.
“Beware of this beach of which I’m sure there’s no escape. There’s fruit upon the trees if you’re falling out of shape; fresh water in the roots if your throat begins to scrape. One thing is for certain: I’m afraid that as of late—
The man choked and then he passed away.
So here our heroes lay for many weeks and many days. Memories of civilization slowly ‘gin to fade away.
And here I’m going to step out of the whole rhyme and rhythm thing because haha wow that’s hard to maintain and completely unnecessary. So these people are trapped on this beach with no way of escaping for a long time. Then if I remember correctly (this post has been half finished all day, so the dream isn’t as fresh) there are monkeys that come and take most of their fruit, so they’re forced to find a way off the beach or die. They climb up the trees and kinda use the trees to slingshot themselves through the forest, because you know trees are all bendy, and they eventually end up back in their backyard. The rest of their family comes out and is all “omg you guys had us worried sick we meant to like give you a time out, not freaking banish you, you melodramatic nutcases. are you okay omg”
and it’s about then that I wake up
Do I have an addictive personality? Just how long does participating in the 48 hour global game jam permit me to sleep at odd hours of the night? I’ve been going to bed at 3, 4, sometimes even 5 o’clock in the morning for about two weeks now. I believe I’ve grown more or less accustomed to being sleep deprived, but my eyes are always red and I’m falling asleep in my classes. There are some benefits though. I feel like while I lack sleep I gain access to my unconscious. Some filter that’s normally there has faded away. I can do freestyle raps without even trying. Words fly out of my mouth like they want to, and they do all the work for me. Their little wordly wings write raps. They rhyme themselves. They organize into similes and metaphors and puns and wordplay and symbolism. My art has improved, too. I can draw off the top of my head, anything at all. I’ve lost the perfectionism that usually haunts me. I don’t care if what I make lives up to standards that I set for myself or that I’ve imagined others have set for me. I simply create.
I’ve been napping frequently, too. I wake up in a puddle of drool, parched and famished to the point where I don’t leave bed for several hours out of fear of the effort I perceive it would take for me to nourish myself. I’ve skipped a class. I’ve not turned in past due homework. Am I falling apart, or am I developing?
Yesterday, or at least I believe it was yesterday, I went out and purchased $60 worth of groceries. This took place, mind you, after I had to feed myself off of plain spaghetti, watery protein shakes, and multivitamins alone. I’m kind of worried that I won’t be able to eat all of it in time, that they’ll rot and mold and spoil like the potatoes that are still growing white tendrils on the bottom shelf of our community cabinet.
No, the groceries took place two days ago. I washed my sheets yesterday. I washed my sheets for the first time in a month or so and then I stressed about homework a bunch. To relieve my stress I played video games until five in the morning, and then I had to make my bed in the darkness. Metro 2033 is a pretty cool game. It definitely has flaws, but I so infrequently play games of the shooty violence variety that I have nothing acceptable to compare it to. My towels are due for a wash too, I guess, and my dirty laundry hamper is starting to fill up. I’ll get to that eventually.
I’ve decided that I’m going to stop playing video games entirely and do nothing but homework, cleaning and cooking, maybe go for runs, I dunno. I’m going to start getting some sleep.
In five hours from now, minus of course the time it takes me to fall asleep, I’m going to wake up to my 7:00 alarm. I’m going to roll out of bed and have breakfast, which is a grapefruit, a watery protein shake, and multivitamins because I forgot to buy cereal and oatmeal when I got groceries two days ago. I’m going to go straight to school without a shower or a tooth brushing because it’s too early for me to operate like that, and then I’m going to go to class.
Someday I’ll be able to break this routine.
Ties to the Past
Once there was a white house on top of a golden white hill that was always encapsulated by an off-white cloudy sky. In this house lived a woman who wore nothing but white and who prized a string of lovely white pearls around her meaty little white neck. She lived with another woman, her love, and together they spoke vivaciously of purity and the utmost beauty of the world in which they lived. This went on for many years, but for some reason they slowly grew apart.
One day Pearl was crying out of isolation. Lover never spoke to her any more, they rarely shared eye contact, and they hadn’t partaken in physical relations for several long months. On top of all of this Pearl had been missing her necklace for quite some time now and she blamed Lover for stealing it. Pearl had sunk so deep into depression that in a fit of rage she burned the house and ran away forever. Now all that remains is a charred hill and a gray smokey sky.
Anyways that’s the story of Pearl and Lover that my daddy used to tell me when I was really small. Now that I’m older I think it’s funny because Pearl lost her necklace and Lover was anything but. I guess the moral of the story is— if there is one— that your name, the cards you’re dealt, that kinda thing… that those don’t define you.
August 27th, 2013. Today I found and listened to an old cassette tape of me retelling the story of Pearl and Lover to the tape recorder dad bought me for my birthday. I felt I owed it to my past self, that long gone innocent child, to visit Black Hill and finally learn the truth. Many hours of hiking brought me to an untouched mountain of ash— a string of pearls rested neatly amid a heap of seared timber.
Dreamthoughts of a Passive Observer, vol. 1
I don’t know why, but every time I take the BART to San Francisco I get all philosophical.
Man in Brown
Occasionally I get in these weird moods where I detach myself from my surroundings and over intellectualize things and be all smart and stuff. Immediately after being in one of those moods I get another weird mood where I feel like anything I thought, did, or said during the previously mentioned mood is absurd, foolish, and childish, and I feel kind of embarrassed for having been in that mood in the first place.
This post exists because I feel like self censorship is absurd, foolish, and childish to a greater extent than anything else, and so I will share some of the product of my experience in the first mood, regardless of any embarrassment that may occur. I think I may be in the first mood again right now as I type this.
I’m confusing myself.
Without further delay, the text that I originally intended to appear below the above image:
Man in Brown
Perhaps this is true for those other than myself, but I have come to the conclusion that my mind remembers the essence of things more than specific details. It is this intrinsic vagueness that I present to you, a man in brown.
Thus impressionism.
I should probably get to sleep…
After some video games, of course.
Good evening, fellow observers—
P.S. I’m not going to go back and check, but I believe I wrote the word “embarrassment” twice in my above ramblings. The first time I wrote it I only included one ‘r’ and had to resort to spell check, but the second time I got it right.
Graduation Speech
Umm… hello! It is a pleasure to be up here giving a speech in front of you guys, my fellow Aulticians. We’ve spent a year together… a year of existentialism, vocab, and nonconsensual brain rape. We arrive here, in the final week of our high school journey, to share our experiences. Maybe it’s just me, but I think that’s pretty cool.
My first few years were heavily academic, and although they did get progressively better, they don’t measure up to my senior year. I think all of you can agree with me on the fact that this year was the best by far. It was enlightening, liberating, and overall more social than any other year. For me though, senior year was life changing. I came into the year feeling as if nothing had changed, but then a series of events happened and my reactions to them and the choices I made came to define me as a person.
Things were all set in motion by my conversations with an adult acquaintance of mine, Pat. I met Pat during my freshman year, and he was a really chill and awesome sort of teacher. He was one of the few teachers I’ve had that I added on facebook, and he was one of the even fewer that accepted my friend request. Now that may seem weird and unimportant, what I’m about to say may seem completely unrelated, and what I’m saying right now may be confusing you even more, but bear with me here. So a couple years later a buddy of mine from the internet talks me into buying a game called Starcraft II with him at the midnight release. At the time I had absolutely no idea what the game was about, whether or not I’d enjoy it, or why I was spending $60 on it, but I did. I get home and fire it up a few weeks later only to notice there was an add facebook friends feature. Guess who it picks up: my old teacher Pat from freshman year. I get really excited because this really cool teacher that I almost forgot about plays video games, specifically this one, and in all my excitement I ran off to facebook to see how he’s been all this time. Now here is when the story picks up: I get to this guy’s profile and see that his entire wall is links to gay rights news articles. This was shocking because at this point in my life I had known that I was gay for awhile, but I really hated myself for it and denied the fact to myself at every opportunity. Here was someone that I knew in real life and looked up to, someone who was not only gay, but also capable of speaking of it and accepting it and whatnot. It took me a few weeks of nervousness before I manned up and sent him a message. For the next few nights we talked, although it was mostly me monologue’ing about how bad I felt about myself and how ashamed I was. I couldn’t even call myself gay initially, as if those three letters were the hardest thing in the world to type. A listening ear can be the only thing you need sometimes, though. Once I got it all out there I felt better about myself. He gave me a lot of pushes in the right direction, too: away from self-hating mindsets and instead towards self-acceptance.
After a few weeks of talking Pat told me of National Coming Out day, the upcoming Tuesday, October 11. I got really panicky. It was too soon. I didn’t think I could do it. When it finally rolled around I was nervous as hell all day. I couldn’t think straight. After 5 periods of a back and forth “I think I can,” “No, I can’t” I talked to Cameron about it. He gave me some advice, namely that I should take baby steps and save telling the most important people for last because that’s the most difficult. It was good advice, but I didn’t follow it. That day after school I told my mom. She started crying and I guess it was contagious because I started crying too. We hugged for whatever length of time it took for me to stop crying and start wondering when the hug would end, because holy cow. It was at least five minutes.
In the weeks and months that followed I managed to tell a handful of friends. All of them were really cool about it, and I was honestly surprised that nothing changed at all. They were still my friends. I guess I had expected everyone to leave me and for me to get beat up and to spontaneously combust or something, but none of that happened. Nobody cared. It took a lot of courage, and I was really scared, but I told my dad eventually. He was silent for a long while, but then he made it clear that he still loved me and that he had absolutely no idea how being gay works (he thought he could “show me what I was missing” to change my mind).
Awhile later I changed the little “interested in” section of my profile on facebook to ‘Men’. I made a second facebook account so that I could play around with the settings to make absolutely sure that facebook wouldn’t make an announcement of it. I figured that the people who needed to know would see it, and the people who didn’t need to know wouldn’t be digging through my profile in the first place, but I was wrong. I think in the month or two I had that up, only 2 people actually saw it. In the meantime people were still making assumptions about me, because everyone is straight until otherwise stated for whatever awful reason. So I go and draw a picture. And then I went and posted this picture to facebook. In case you haven’t already seen it, here it is. 
It has 106 likes and 91 comments. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
Now you most likely aren’t gay, but I’m sure there’s an aspect about yourself that you hide. Maybe you’re ashamed of it. Or maybe you just tend to bottle up your feelings. If I’ve learned anything from my experiences in high school, I’ve learned that each and every person in this room, in this school, and on this planet is different. Difference, for whatever reason, is an intimidating thing. There is an overwhelming pressure to hide your difference, to feel that you belong. Lying to yourself and others in the interest of conformity is a very easy thing to do, and as scary as it is, it often happens unconsciously. I’d like to tell you all that there is absolutely no reason to pretend to be something you’re not so that you feel like you belong, because if there’s one thing that we all have in common, it’s our difference. As we graduate in the days to come, I hope you all leave with a little piece of this speech. If there’s anything that you take away from this, I hope it’s the knowledge that it’s okay to be yourself.
The Tale of Thadeus
Thadeus was really unhappy with his life.
He wanted to change things, he really did, but then he got hit by a car and died.
His final thoughts were something along the lines of… No. Not now. Not yet. I’m not ready to die.Thadeus awoke in a room of pure white. The details of the following moments are unclear, but he knows that the White Room is giving him an opportunity. He must write, paint, carve, draw, play, imagine, etc. (create) a world where he will have another life… he will live on the world he creates as an immortal until the world comes to a natural end. He comes to the realization that the world he came from, Earth, could have very well been authored by someone who came to this very same White Room that he finds himself in, and that one, many, perhaps all of the beings on the world he creates could find themselves in the very same place.
So his “world” that he creates is two objects. A book and a remote. The book is a constantly updating list of every available world, a brief description, and a code. When the code is entered into the remote, it will take him to the world, giving him immortality until the world comes to a natural end. But before that happens he leaves to a new world, and thus has voluntary immortality.
Robbed of the only mortality he will ever have, Thadeus’ lust for life fuels him through an unfathomably lengthy existence until he reaches enlightenment. He realizes that in all those years he was greedily chasing after life, experiencing everything there is to experience, he was never truly living. Life has no value without death.Thadeus sits atop a cliff and witnesses for the first time what can only be described as a nuclear sunset— the end of a world. It is the most beautiful thing he had ever laid eyes upon.
I made a lot of mistakes and it really isn’t edited at all, but here it is. Maybe I’ll end up re-recording this in 10 years. AND IT’S SO QUIET :(
Edit: Fixed the quietness issue. :D
Snow and sleet of the freezin’ season
Knees of the weak be beat in the street
Legs and feet in the trees of the creek
Be caught in the weeds for multiple reasons
Thorns! He’s cut up bleedin’
Sheet
Poison spreads from his head to his feet
He needs treatment or he’ll be dead in a week
But then he blacks out…
Falls asleep
sleep
sleep
sleep
sleep
A hospital seat is where he awoke
His head was cut up
And his arm was broken
Nobody knows him
He’s cold and alone
And his thoughts go back to a place called home
But it’s hopeless
His spirit is broken
And he chokes on words that remain unspoken
He’s hopin’
He hopes and he prays
That he won’t fade away by the end of the day
But he’s uncertain:
The hurt and the pain
Collaborative forces that work on his brain
To destroy him
Drive him into the dust
This taste on his lips is the taste of rust
He’s bleeding
Blood from his eyes
And his soul leaks out as he cries
as he cries
This hole in his chest leaves him breathless
The void of his death disrespected neglected
A reflection of truth
He was the best of the best in his youth
But on his deathbed he is useless and broken
The words in his mind go forever unspoken
He tries to speak, but only manages to croak as
He chokes on the blood in his teeth and his throat
He is weak and defeated
And the blood is seeping
With increasing speed
As his breathing is creeping
To a close
It would seem that
It would seem that
It would seem that all hope is depleted
Well when the nurse walked in as shy as a sheep
And spied the old man in his bed, asleep
She knew he was dead, but he looked like a dream
Except for the blood on his eyes and his teeth
He was a regular Gregor, a Winston, a Piggy
To feel for this man would be downright silly
So the nurse left the room in a jiffy
To fetch the mortician who’d have the place spotless and pretty
In an hour flat had the room lookin’ spiffy
Looked at the papers and the man’s name was Jimmy
Tricky
He’s poor and he’s homeless
No one to pay for the grave or a tombstone bonus
No family plot to bury his bones
So he’s off to a morgue for his whole postmortem
A few nights ago he died cold and alone
In a cold hard place where nobody knows ‘im
His fight unheard of
His life unknown
Beautiful bones on a bleached white throne
On that night he died cold and alone
But his hospital room became a place called home to him
—
A rap thingy by Jodediah
Made for the beat Why Like This? by Teebs
Expect a recording of this soon.
I yawned softly, slipping off my Longstride boots before approaching the tree. Didn’t want to take a step and end up a full league away, after all. I carefully set them atop a stump, then turned to consider these objects.
I scoffed. Broken. Or Useless. All of them.“What is the point of this, Magus?” I called, but received no answer.
I sighed, eying the sword first. It was Iron, and even with the rust I could tell it was of sub-par craftsmanship. This guard was much too short, and the decorative knob at the end of the hilt would have unbalanced it into almost uselessness. No wonder it was rusty.
The lantern was filled with water. Other than that, it might have been useful, once.
The dress. Something flashed through my mind as I gazed upon it, but it was fleeting. Elusive. The garment was torn, and silk, while expensive, is difficult to mend. It wasn’t a color I found attractive anyway.
The Goblet was tarnished and dented. I suppressed a chortle. While gold in color, a discerning eye could tell it was not the precious metal. And I have a discerning eye.
I passed up the quill as well. Fine as it looked to be, I am warrior, not a scribe. If my brother were here I am certain he’d have taken the quill.
But I am not my brother. I strode forward, shoulders held high. I reached out and grasped the handle of the lantern, lifting it off the bough.
The beast’s eyes widened as a particular marking on its wrist lit up with spectral flame. The Noble had chosen the lantern. In several rapid motions, the beast kindled the spark in such a way that it grew and changed colors.
By now the Noble would have observed, in shock, the lantern burst into an inferno of the same spectral flame. It would have spread up his arm and consumed him, but it would have been painless. This fire was not heat, it was consciousness. The beast’s consciousness, specifically. The Noble lost himself in the flame in the next few moments, finding himself in a land reconstructed from the beast’s memory.
This place was a panorama of desert. The Noble was beaten and worn just like the items from the tree, a genuine lowly traveler. He was without his longstriding boots and the lantern he grabbed and any other luxuries that may have been on his person. The beast’s voice came coarse and omnipresent: ”Welcome to the sand dunes of Aerhop. In the distance you’ll see the port city Aerhold, and that is where you must go. Learn the story of the lantern and then you may leave this place if you choose. Until then, however, this is your reality. You will not hear from me again, Noble.”
Source: jodediah
A Land Called Elsewhere
ELSEWHERE
The Wise Beast - Part 2
I nod to the beast, tossing a few coppers at its feet and waving dismissively. A Noble like myself would do nothing more. After reading the note I move in the direction of the lake. It must have been from my Magus. No one else would dare be so bold as to message me in public. I reached the pond in little time. Longstride boots will do that. And with great curiosity, I eyed the items hanging from the tree.
The beast clawed the coppers from the dirt, a jagged grin passing over its face as it picked up on the Noble’s thoughts. Bold, you think of me? No one else as bold as I? A twisted snicker escaped its jaw as it stepped into the shadows of a nearby building and emerged in the shadows of the blackwood tree by the crystal pond. We shall see how bold you are now, Noble, it thought as it began to hang items from the strongest branches of the tree. There was a rusty iron sword, a lantern filled with water, a torn silk robe, a tarnished golden goblet, and a fine quill made from the feather of a Groltyn.
It stepped back into the shadows of the blackwood tree and emerged in another shadow miles away. It kept a close eye on the markings on its wrists, waiting for the Noble to make a decision.
Previous episodes:
The Special Day
The Wise Beast
Postscript: chainerstorment started following you
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