Foreign Fields

Tears

The sweetness dripped from her eyes like golden nectar, each drop reflecting her sorrow as it fell to the floor. A solitary tear, made golden in the late evening light by a dying sun, dropped from her cheek to land on her thigh, breaking into a hundred pieces matching the feelings in her heart. Teardrop rain mingled with blood stains on her thigh making them fluid once more, to run even further from her. 

Caerwen had just gone to her chamber that night when she felt the warm trickle. Without warning she was bathed in blood as her future flooded from her onto the floor. She knew it had been written in the books that she would never have issue but this had been dismissed as witchery, until tonight.

Sobbing she laid herself on the floor to gaze at what remained of her dream. Reality told her this was just blood and matter but she knew the truth, this was her future, her child that would never be. Sorrow turned to anger and rage, Caerwen rose from the floor and screamed "People will die for this deed of Megan's, her witchery will no longer see the sun again"

So war was waged, sword against sorcery, light versus dark to achieve nothing but sorrow and death. Princes died with paupers both now equal before their God as did Caerwen screaming just one word as she was slain "Gatto-nero !!"

The Crusted Plain

 

 

A vile wind drove its teeth into me like razors, a cold evil wind blowing from the east.. I wrapped my cloak tighter around myself and surveyed the plain. A plain stretched before me, crusted with blood and the dead and dying. 

Where was the sanity that could have stopped this ? 

Where was just an ounce of humanity that could have saved just one poor soul?  

Mist was gathering, as though wraiths were collecting souls to guide them to heaven or hell. We hope that our God brings our Death swiftly but the Devil takes his time and pleasure in our suffering. This was not a war of people but of creatures hungry for blood, they had bathed in Hell and taken its waters to do their vile deeds. The food was fear, their prize was blood and death with corpses gathered like badges to adorn their scrawny frames as they wrought destruction on an epic scale.

Madness had descended on earth this day, a war no one wanted or could win. The smell is what remains in mind of this awful day, blood , faeces, rotting flesh, a memory you will never erase. What were once people were now no more than proteins dissolving into the earth, nevermore to be or be loved or held but it is the ethereal love that keeps them in your heart, to be there forever as they were, not as they are. 

I walked the plain looking for a signs of hope but there were none. A sparkle caught my eye, it was the merest hint of light on this desolate place. My feet followed my eyes until my eyes were filled with tears. In all this horror, amongst all these people, Death could not be lax for once and miss just one, this special one. 

No, Death was perfection itself, it took all that was precious to those that remained. 

Grey mud covered her face mixed with blood but it was her, the charm she wore confirmed it. I knelt at her side and wished, nay urged, that Death should take me too and save me from what must be done. I called for help but there was none, so alone I gathered her to me and lifted her into my arms and walked from the plain. 

Day and night I walked not knowing any fear just hatred and loathing until her home was reached. 

Rites were said and she was laid to ground and I was left alone to grieve and to make my own pact with the warmongers and the Devil. I was not to know that it was I that would suffer not from them, but from memories, for that is how they work by mining into your sanity and destroying you from within. 

The mind is a craggy place full of awful places and dangerous crossings, but when you try to cross the abyss, you will fall for certainty into that deep, dark, bottomless pit from which there is no return. The ethers that inhabit there will not allow escape, save you take them with you. Be wary where you tread in that deep and dire place, many have gone there and never returned with their sanity intact…..I did not.

 

Cavaliere Gatto-Nero

 

Glade

The sun broke through the leafy canopy to warm the forest floor , bringing life and sound to the morning. A symphony of noise broke through the quiet calm of dawn, plants rustled and grew, leaves marched before the morning breeze in serried ranks as if they strode to war. Beneath the leaf mould creatures scurried around in search of food, insects, mammals and more......

In the mill house  Gatto-Nero stretched to relieve the mourning stiffness, then glanced across the bed to where Caewen used to lie. It had been many months since she had been taken from him but the tears flowed each day like the stream that ran from the mill pond, it was a certainty of life. Gatto inhaled the musty air as he rose from his bed and walked to the window, there was a new scent in the air, one he had not noticed before, feral, wild, ancient.

In the time since Caewen had died, Gatto had turned to alchemy and majicks to find a way to be with his one soulmate, either by her return from the Farside or for his journey to it. Every attempt had failed, whether it was his lack of knowledge or if it was not possible Gatto did not know but still he tried. Last evening as the sun dropped to sleep and the moon woke he had tried one potion that many had told him was the solution to his search, but it had smelled too vile to drink and had been left on the table at his bedside. Now it was empty

The glade in which the Mill stood was or appeared to be the same, it was just the smell that was different. A smell that told of foreboding, bad times and change.

Leaving the Mill, Gatto walked around the glade trying to pinpoint the new scent. There was no distinct area where it was strong just an overall odour that pervaded the whole glade, it was as though the glade was changing.

Sensing something Gatto turned around, expecting to confront either a person or animal, it felt to him as though he was being watched, but all he could see were his footprints, black footprints in the leaf mould. He crouched to look closer and saw that each footprint had been burnt into the leaf mould as though by a hot iron….they were also warm to the touch. Picking up the burnt and singed leaves a scent rose and it was THAT scent, holding the leaves closer Gatto found the scent was no stronger, it was just all around. Slowly Gatto realised that he was the source of the scent, he was not afraid but happy and he smiled.

The early morning light shimmered in the glade, it fell onto Gatto and he faded, losing structure until he was a memory leaving only the scent behind, the scent of the Farside.