Incomplete songs written today...
SOARING ON A GAMBLE
There's a dice
Rolling around in my head.
As the shadow's shields
Fail to stop my breath,
I'm taking a chance
with you.
I've never felt so alive
as I do
with you.
REGRET
There are things I should've said,
There are things I should've done.
There are thoughts I should've thought,
There are fights I should've fought.
This song's about regret,
Or eyes at the back of my head.
IN A BUBBLE HIGH
Living life on the edge
Living life on the edge
Living life on the edge
Living life on the edge
The edge of what
She never said.
I really like the last one for being the proof of my veritably vast vocabulary :P (gotta love slanted emoticons)
Friday, June 04, 2010
Thursday, June 03, 2010
Kraedon mythos: The Crimson King Part I
A thousand years ago the toil of those within who boiled the blood of the Chaos Dragons shaped what was now called the Grand Amphitheatrium. The ancient marble of which it was built stood defiant, unblemished by the patient eroding caresses of time. On that night, as on any other night, the marble exuded an eerie glow, calling to witness that which witnessed the rise and fall of an empire.
Inside the Amphitheatrium the light that was the culmination of an ancient forgotten ritual flowed like a river into an ocean, to its center, where stood a descendant of the men upon whose sweat the marble was laid, bound in chains and dressed in naught but a loincloth. He raised his head slowly, and his face emerged reluctantly from a shadow that came from within and without.
He was a young man who had seen perhaps sixteen years, sixteen years of hard living that left only hard muscle under his skin, and there remained none who knew him or of him that mistook his scrawny appearance for weakness. There was not a scar upon his body, no testaments of the battles he had fought. Upon his visage, however, there were scars that appeared to originate from fire. Curiously directional fires they must have been, for they followed straight lines from his eyes to his jaw.
The entire male population of the city state of Reverdes was upon its feet, and a chant rose like an avalanche. ‘Bezhgrund, Bezhgrund!’ they roared, and the earth trembled to the sound of his name. That was what he was called now, but he had another name before... Bezhgrund, Bezhgrund...Another name, a memory that was so close to being erased by what had become his existence. Bezhgrund, Bezhgrund! Yet tears ran down the burn scars upon his face, as he remembered. Judah…
‘Judah, Judah,’ his father said sighing to the bleeding boy standing before him, ‘have you been fighting again?’ His father had been putting the wood in the fireplace when he walked in. The melting snow that Judah hadn’t cared enough to shake off his clothes before entering the house formed a puddle at his feet.
A look of defiance greeted those words, and the father sighed again and bent down to put a hand on Judah’s shoulder, a hand riddled with relics of his days as a soldier. ‘Listen to me closely, son,’ he said, ‘what I will tell you I had to earn with the blood of my enemies and mine. Violence hurts those who inflict as much as those inflicted upon. It leaves wounds somewhere deep, where the eye cannot see. Only when a life is at stake must you draw that double edged sword.’
‘Jerruld threw the first punch,’ said the boy sullenly. ’Jerruld again? ’ asked his father, unsurprised. He bent down further, to look his son in the eye. ‘I know his kind, son. This could’ve been avoided, by word or deed. No, listen to me. I understand your anger, it simmers in me too. But you must let it flow through you, in and out, without letting it control you. I cannot in good conscience continue to train you until you've mastered this.’ The child tried to protest, but he could see in the way his father set his jaw that it would be no other way. His mother had emerged from the kitchen, her face filled with concern when she looked at Judah. ‘Come on love, let’s look at those wounds,’ she said, taking him somewhere he could wash the blood away...
As he surfaced from his memory he noticed the giant, wearing an ornate steel breastplate. Eyes that were more than seven feet above the ground filled with contempt and fear as they looked down upon him, and there was a rasp of steel almost lost in the voice of the populace as a broadsword was unsheathed. ‘You are not my enemy. Leave and you will live,’ said Bezhgrund in a resigned voice only tinged with regret. He knew that his opponent, like the many who breathed their last upon the soil of the Amphitheatrium, would not put his sword down. He would not leave, for that would mean the chambers of the Redeemers, endless moments with those who submerged themselves in the art of creating pain.
Of course, they could be holding the giant’s kin hostage. That could drive a man to do things that he never thought himself capable of. The loss of those one loves was another kind of pain Bezhgrund was intimately familiar with. A pain that was the most faithful companion Bezhgrund had, always returning in time to reveal the comfort of forgetfulness for the illusion that it was...
It was noon. The bells in the village far away from their isolated home reached Judah as faint chimes, and he walked back home from the forest he so loved. His body ached from the exercise he got sparring with his father the previous night, but he was content. His father was teaching him again. Lunch would be ready, and his memories gave him a wisp of the aroma that would greet him as he opened the door to his small, cozy home. As he found the found the road that lead to where he was headed and connected his home to the village, he saw a band of about ten soldiers marching to his home. Traveling with them was a carriage that barely managed to fit the village road.
Judah watched in fascination and followed them, still hidden by the forest. When the thought struck him that perhaps he should go warn his parents that they would have guests, he ran swiftly, for they fast approached his home. He would be ahead of the visitors by only a few minutes, but it would have to do.
‘Ma, Pa!’ he shouted as he banged his fist against the door. ‘Soldiers,’ he said to his father’s surprised face with breathless excitement, ‘they’re going to be here in a few moments!’ ‘Was it just soldiers, or was there someone else accompanying them?’ asked his father, lines of tension formed on his forehead as his eyebrows knotted. ‘There was a carriage…’ His father quickly went to the bedroom, and he could hear him open the chest he kept his sword in, below his bed.
His mother grabbed his hand and took him to the back door, which suddenly flew open. Upon the threshold stood a soldier, tall and grim, his green cloak billowing in the wind. When his eyes set upon Judah his face convulsed with revulsion. ‘By the order of the Overseer of the Third Watch, Ruler of Reverdes, you are to be executed for harboring… this... thing...’ he said, pointing a gauntleted hand at Judah, to the father who walked to stand before his son and wife. ‘‘You will not speak of my son in that manner,’ said the father in such a menacing voice it took Judah a few
seconds to understand who it came from.
‘Your son? Your SON?’ laughed the soldier, a sickened look upon his face. ‘Give him up, and I’ll let you go free. I know who you are. I served in the third regiment when you were one of the sergeants. You saved our lives at the Horrengart. Give him up, and I will let you live.’
‘Leave,’ replied his father. The soldier walked in with his companions at his back, crowding into the tiny living room. They drew their swords in unison, and suddenly there was a soldier on the ground, beheaded. There were shouts and one of the soldiers pushed his way out of the crowd, trying to put his entrails back into his body. Another slumped down the wall, the mangled helmet unable to stop his cracked skull from leaving a crimson stain on the wall.
‘Foolish, not to have expected this,’ said a precise, clear voice that penetrated through the pandemonium as another man fell to the floor. It came from a small man of Judah’s height, who was walking towards the father through the throng. He was middle aged who had a long nose and wore a rich blue cloak. He maneuvered his right hand out of the realm of cloth. He had a most curious ring on the thumb, with a needle that pointed inwards.
He whispered something as he pricked himself, throwing his hand so that the blood flew in the father’s direction. The roar of a wildcat emerged from the father’s throat and filled the cramped quarters, amplified threefold. His eyes turned golden. On his skin there was a ghostly pattern that hinted at black fur. After a few cycles they both faded away, and his body shook and his sword fell away. In that moment his chest was pierced, right where his heart was. Judah, who was shocked into silence until then screamed and ran to his father. He could distantly hear his mother’s cries. His vision began to fill with a deep red and he felt something in him fighting to come out, something fierce and ruthless and ancient. ‘Stop him,’ he heard the precise hissing voice call out,’ hit him on the head!’ Judah felt something jerk his head, and then the world turned black.
There was silence as the storyteller stared at his audience, and the audience stared back. ‘I’m thirsty,’ prompted the storyteller, shaking his mug to indicate it was empty. Silence followed the words, as the audience continued to stare blandly at the fellow.
‘All right,’ said the clean shaven one, ‘look here Scroll, that was three months of our wages that went down your throat, and you’re not half done. You haven’t even got to the part where we rescue Judah.' 'But that comes near the end! And I'm parched...' 'If you say you need to wet your throat again I’ll put your face where the ale comes out of the body,’ said the larger, hairy man who smelled like he hadn’t taken a bath in weeks, ‘get on with it.’
Scroll opened his mouth, waving his hands, clearly wanting to placate these men who outsized him many times. ‘Aye,’ continued the clean shaven, thinner man, ‘and imagine what anything coming out of Hygenia here would smell like. I mean, sure, it’s all fine and dandy when he only smells like he took a dip in the sewage trenches…’ A loud sound of something getting hit punctuated his unfinished sentence, Hygenia cracked his knuckles in satisfaction and the thin one rubbed his head.
‘Rustle, don’t call him that,’ said Scroll plaintively, even as the thin fellow named Rustle began to shout at the top of voice, ‘Hygenia, Hygenia, you’ve got a week’s worth dung on ya.’ ‘Use multiple languages to make it rhyme, why don’t you, you dumb loon,’ said Hygenia, ‘maybe if I hit your head again you’ll be able to think better.’
A mug being smashed into the table interrupted them both and they turned to see Scroll shaking and sweating. He looked nervously at the two of them. ‘By the Great Benevolent,’ he said, his voice cracking, making him sound like a little girl every other word, ‘no one else will survive a brawl between the two of you except the two of you. You’re not even drunk! How the command let’s you two hang around together all the time, I’ll never know’
‘The command can withstand the damage we make if I can withstand Hygenia’s wonderful perfume…’ muttered Rustle, and another loud sound of someone getting hit in the head followed. ‘Alright, alright,’ shouted Scroll, ‘I will resume my monologue!’ And so he did.
Inside the Amphitheatrium the light that was the culmination of an ancient forgotten ritual flowed like a river into an ocean, to its center, where stood a descendant of the men upon whose sweat the marble was laid, bound in chains and dressed in naught but a loincloth. He raised his head slowly, and his face emerged reluctantly from a shadow that came from within and without.
He was a young man who had seen perhaps sixteen years, sixteen years of hard living that left only hard muscle under his skin, and there remained none who knew him or of him that mistook his scrawny appearance for weakness. There was not a scar upon his body, no testaments of the battles he had fought. Upon his visage, however, there were scars that appeared to originate from fire. Curiously directional fires they must have been, for they followed straight lines from his eyes to his jaw.
The entire male population of the city state of Reverdes was upon its feet, and a chant rose like an avalanche. ‘Bezhgrund, Bezhgrund!’ they roared, and the earth trembled to the sound of his name. That was what he was called now, but he had another name before... Bezhgrund, Bezhgrund...Another name, a memory that was so close to being erased by what had become his existence. Bezhgrund, Bezhgrund! Yet tears ran down the burn scars upon his face, as he remembered. Judah…
‘Judah, Judah,’ his father said sighing to the bleeding boy standing before him, ‘have you been fighting again?’ His father had been putting the wood in the fireplace when he walked in. The melting snow that Judah hadn’t cared enough to shake off his clothes before entering the house formed a puddle at his feet.
A look of defiance greeted those words, and the father sighed again and bent down to put a hand on Judah’s shoulder, a hand riddled with relics of his days as a soldier. ‘Listen to me closely, son,’ he said, ‘what I will tell you I had to earn with the blood of my enemies and mine. Violence hurts those who inflict as much as those inflicted upon. It leaves wounds somewhere deep, where the eye cannot see. Only when a life is at stake must you draw that double edged sword.’
‘Jerruld threw the first punch,’ said the boy sullenly. ’Jerruld again? ’ asked his father, unsurprised. He bent down further, to look his son in the eye. ‘I know his kind, son. This could’ve been avoided, by word or deed. No, listen to me. I understand your anger, it simmers in me too. But you must let it flow through you, in and out, without letting it control you. I cannot in good conscience continue to train you until you've mastered this.’ The child tried to protest, but he could see in the way his father set his jaw that it would be no other way. His mother had emerged from the kitchen, her face filled with concern when she looked at Judah. ‘Come on love, let’s look at those wounds,’ she said, taking him somewhere he could wash the blood away...
As he surfaced from his memory he noticed the giant, wearing an ornate steel breastplate. Eyes that were more than seven feet above the ground filled with contempt and fear as they looked down upon him, and there was a rasp of steel almost lost in the voice of the populace as a broadsword was unsheathed. ‘You are not my enemy. Leave and you will live,’ said Bezhgrund in a resigned voice only tinged with regret. He knew that his opponent, like the many who breathed their last upon the soil of the Amphitheatrium, would not put his sword down. He would not leave, for that would mean the chambers of the Redeemers, endless moments with those who submerged themselves in the art of creating pain.
Of course, they could be holding the giant’s kin hostage. That could drive a man to do things that he never thought himself capable of. The loss of those one loves was another kind of pain Bezhgrund was intimately familiar with. A pain that was the most faithful companion Bezhgrund had, always returning in time to reveal the comfort of forgetfulness for the illusion that it was...
It was noon. The bells in the village far away from their isolated home reached Judah as faint chimes, and he walked back home from the forest he so loved. His body ached from the exercise he got sparring with his father the previous night, but he was content. His father was teaching him again. Lunch would be ready, and his memories gave him a wisp of the aroma that would greet him as he opened the door to his small, cozy home. As he found the found the road that lead to where he was headed and connected his home to the village, he saw a band of about ten soldiers marching to his home. Traveling with them was a carriage that barely managed to fit the village road.
Judah watched in fascination and followed them, still hidden by the forest. When the thought struck him that perhaps he should go warn his parents that they would have guests, he ran swiftly, for they fast approached his home. He would be ahead of the visitors by only a few minutes, but it would have to do.
‘Ma, Pa!’ he shouted as he banged his fist against the door. ‘Soldiers,’ he said to his father’s surprised face with breathless excitement, ‘they’re going to be here in a few moments!’ ‘Was it just soldiers, or was there someone else accompanying them?’ asked his father, lines of tension formed on his forehead as his eyebrows knotted. ‘There was a carriage…’ His father quickly went to the bedroom, and he could hear him open the chest he kept his sword in, below his bed.
His mother grabbed his hand and took him to the back door, which suddenly flew open. Upon the threshold stood a soldier, tall and grim, his green cloak billowing in the wind. When his eyes set upon Judah his face convulsed with revulsion. ‘By the order of the Overseer of the Third Watch, Ruler of Reverdes, you are to be executed for harboring… this... thing...’ he said, pointing a gauntleted hand at Judah, to the father who walked to stand before his son and wife. ‘‘You will not speak of my son in that manner,’ said the father in such a menacing voice it took Judah a few
seconds to understand who it came from.
‘Your son? Your SON?’ laughed the soldier, a sickened look upon his face. ‘Give him up, and I’ll let you go free. I know who you are. I served in the third regiment when you were one of the sergeants. You saved our lives at the Horrengart. Give him up, and I will let you live.’
‘Leave,’ replied his father. The soldier walked in with his companions at his back, crowding into the tiny living room. They drew their swords in unison, and suddenly there was a soldier on the ground, beheaded. There were shouts and one of the soldiers pushed his way out of the crowd, trying to put his entrails back into his body. Another slumped down the wall, the mangled helmet unable to stop his cracked skull from leaving a crimson stain on the wall.
‘Foolish, not to have expected this,’ said a precise, clear voice that penetrated through the pandemonium as another man fell to the floor. It came from a small man of Judah’s height, who was walking towards the father through the throng. He was middle aged who had a long nose and wore a rich blue cloak. He maneuvered his right hand out of the realm of cloth. He had a most curious ring on the thumb, with a needle that pointed inwards.
He whispered something as he pricked himself, throwing his hand so that the blood flew in the father’s direction. The roar of a wildcat emerged from the father’s throat and filled the cramped quarters, amplified threefold. His eyes turned golden. On his skin there was a ghostly pattern that hinted at black fur. After a few cycles they both faded away, and his body shook and his sword fell away. In that moment his chest was pierced, right where his heart was. Judah, who was shocked into silence until then screamed and ran to his father. He could distantly hear his mother’s cries. His vision began to fill with a deep red and he felt something in him fighting to come out, something fierce and ruthless and ancient. ‘Stop him,’ he heard the precise hissing voice call out,’ hit him on the head!’ Judah felt something jerk his head, and then the world turned black.
There was silence as the storyteller stared at his audience, and the audience stared back. ‘I’m thirsty,’ prompted the storyteller, shaking his mug to indicate it was empty. Silence followed the words, as the audience continued to stare blandly at the fellow.
‘All right,’ said the clean shaven one, ‘look here Scroll, that was three months of our wages that went down your throat, and you’re not half done. You haven’t even got to the part where we rescue Judah.' 'But that comes near the end! And I'm parched...' 'If you say you need to wet your throat again I’ll put your face where the ale comes out of the body,’ said the larger, hairy man who smelled like he hadn’t taken a bath in weeks, ‘get on with it.’
Scroll opened his mouth, waving his hands, clearly wanting to placate these men who outsized him many times. ‘Aye,’ continued the clean shaven, thinner man, ‘and imagine what anything coming out of Hygenia here would smell like. I mean, sure, it’s all fine and dandy when he only smells like he took a dip in the sewage trenches…’ A loud sound of something getting hit punctuated his unfinished sentence, Hygenia cracked his knuckles in satisfaction and the thin one rubbed his head.
‘Rustle, don’t call him that,’ said Scroll plaintively, even as the thin fellow named Rustle began to shout at the top of voice, ‘Hygenia, Hygenia, you’ve got a week’s worth dung on ya.’ ‘Use multiple languages to make it rhyme, why don’t you, you dumb loon,’ said Hygenia, ‘maybe if I hit your head again you’ll be able to think better.’
A mug being smashed into the table interrupted them both and they turned to see Scroll shaking and sweating. He looked nervously at the two of them. ‘By the Great Benevolent,’ he said, his voice cracking, making him sound like a little girl every other word, ‘no one else will survive a brawl between the two of you except the two of you. You’re not even drunk! How the command let’s you two hang around together all the time, I’ll never know’
‘The command can withstand the damage we make if I can withstand Hygenia’s wonderful perfume…’ muttered Rustle, and another loud sound of someone getting hit in the head followed. ‘Alright, alright,’ shouted Scroll, ‘I will resume my monologue!’ And so he did.
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