Chapter IV
Dome-Wyrd.
Manis gasps as if he hasn’t been breathing, tumbling over in the sand inhaling and exhaling vigorously. Slamming his hands into the sand he props himself upward. Standing up he began to look around. The beach is just as it was, he can smell the salty air and hear the waves roll onto the damp shore. He cocked his head back and confirmed that he couldn’t see his village apart from the smoke. Which only meant he had been away for at least a day’s time.
Cocking his head back forward he saw the thick greenwood, and as the wind blew through the trees it began to creak. He scratched the back of his scraggly hair and started walking forward. He could not fathom why he knew he had to traverse beyond this eerie forest, he just knew. Something that lied dormant in the air, the feeling pulsed as it unknowingly guided him. Manis thought about his dream, he pondered until he perplexed his young mind. “It was just a dream from exhaustion wasn’t it?” “Although, it felt so real inexplicably real.” “If it was a dream, methinks it was a message of a dream.”
As Manis wandered into the forest strange sounds seemed to rustle behind him. He saw wondrous creatures that astonished him, although, they all scurried quickly from the loud crunch of branches and leaves beneath his boots.
Before they vanished into the trees that seemed to move on their own in reaction to the creature’s fearsome cries. They looked like rabbits with human skin, not only that but their skin was deflated and drooping. Their teeth did not look like teeth but teeth fashioned of sharp and narrow bone. Their legs were more that of a frogs, but three times the length, allowing them to jump unfathomably far.
In the distance he heard loud and deep groans. He only caught a glimpse of the creature. It reminded Manis of the monkeys that lied in the pages of the books he’s read. It’s mouth took up its entire body. It drooped and instead of two eyes, it had one big bulging one that rested upon its mouth, that was always bloodshot.
As it disappeared into a pair of nearby bushes, the ground-shook. Manis inhaled nervously and kept walking. “1” “2” “3” he counted, balling his fists, inhaling deeply. He increased his pace, walking faster, his boots were now crunching the branches quicker and heavier.
“You can do this Manis, Jaykob didn’t die for nothing’!” He mutters to himself. Suddenly he hears footsteps behind him, crunching the branches just as he was. He was paralyzed with fear and in an instant his face was drenched with sweat. He heard that laugh from his dream, then he heard it again as it winded and echoed. Passing from his right ear – directly to his left ear.
He pivoted his body ready to attack, his teeth grinding. Manis was now caught in the surprise of finding nothing behind him, but the darkness. Not even that comforting beach stood behind him anymore. There was only an army of trees that stretched as far as his tiny eyes could see. He was stricken with panic, as he spun every which way sweating and shaking, he then dropped to his knees.
“W-w-where in the seven hells am I?! AM I EVEN GOING TO SURVIVE?! God... JAYKOB!!!” He panics, grasping his chest and heaving. His hands planted into the grass. He closes his eyes shut muttering to himself again. “No, no, no! You can do this Manis!”
He begins to nervously laugh, escalating in pitch as tears moisten his sockets. Manis finally opened his eyes. Still cackling, very much so, hysterically even. As Manis opened his eyes his ears were possessed by the sound of flowing water. He hears it coming from behind him, his laughing now abruptly ceases as Manis manically rambles.
“OH! SEE! I just knew I could do it! It’s all just a matter of survival, it always is, and that’s why Jaykob couldn’t make it this far. It just wasn’t his fate, but mine! OH YES, I SWEAR ON MY BASTARD FATHER’S GRAVE. WHEREVER THAT FOUL PLACE IS! AND ON JAYKOBS TOO! THAT I- Manis Furin, WILL MAKE IT OUT OF THIS DREADFUL FOREST. SO HELP THE FIRST ONES IF I DON’T!”
“Vaea... she’s counting on me and I would be a fool to deny such a grandiose responsibility.” His voice shaking, his hands clasped and clammy, His teeth chattering and his eyes jolting. He dawns upon the place that his ears have lead him too. Seemingly in the middle of nowhere there now lied a waterfall, an enormous one. It towered over, above, on a range of mossy cliffs.
Below stood a spring, with such clear water you could see the bottom of the spring itself with merely a quick glance. Manis stood in awe, and for a brief moment he actually felt calm.
He knew in that moment no matter how many years he may live. That this will always be the first place, the first moment, that he felt sane and accepted. Then again, we always notice things just as it is much, much, too late. Manis stood there for a moment, and that moment became a minute, and that minute became an hour.
He was lost in thought, gazing into the waterfall and peering around into everything that was before him. The daunting trees that stood over the cliff and much higher than the army of trees that stood all around him. How when Manis looked up he could not see the sky, just the green trees before him.
The forest grew quiet in the hours he had gazed into the beauty of its existence. The spring stood almost in the shape of a skull, at the bottom the flowing water channeled into a river which Manis, was beyond curious as to where it led.
Although Manis knew time had taken its toll and before he set on another days-worth of walking, he needed not only to rest—but to eat as well. Now Manis set out to gather bundles of sticks, which there were more than enough of. He hadn’t needed to walk for long before he had enough, and just as Manis was picking up the decidedly last bundle of sticks he heard her laughter again.
It didn’t pass by his ears this time, he heard it in the distance, near where the spring was. His eyes widened, with the bundled sticks in-hand, he bolted. Sprinting through the trees and vaulting over logs, he was pouring sweat and focused. As he finally came to a halting stop, skidding in the grass, kicking up dirt, and crunching branches. He dropped every single one of them, they tumbled and rolled on the grass with a thump. He stood in awe and paralyzed by fear, the sweat was now flooding his face and dripping before him. He had no idea what beast stood before him, but it’s eight, hairy white legs spanned every which way. As far as the eyes could see.
Manis could only fear the worst, he could only consider this thing, whatever it was, a grotesque monstrosity of a spider. Its body shone in a pearl-white, the form of its body was that of an overgrown and rotting brain. Seeping and oozing puss as the revolting liquid dripped onto the grass. Its pincers were enormous and it’s ten ruby eyes stood erratic and on its skull near the top of its body stood an eleventh eye. Much larger than the rest, this eleventh eye gazed right at him. Its body alone was bigger than the trees that rested upon the cliff.
Manis gulped, and attempted to swallow his fear, but he only ended up in a complete paralysis. Like a devil gazing at him from a foul place far beyond reality, through the decaying gates of hell. Its pincers clacked and its large eleventh eye spun around. Gazing directly toward Manis, focusing on only him.
The beast slowly descended its body toward him, dripping slime and puss, inching closer until he was merely feet away from Manis, his pincers poking his chest. Then, suddenly, the behemoth of a spider spoke— “Well, well, if it isn’t the young Manis Furin!”
The spider spoke in an erratically feminine voice as it smacked its pincers together. “HOW DO YOU KNOW MY NAME DEMON!”
Manis puffed his chest out as he screamed.
“Oh. you’re talking about me I presume? Well, i’m no Demon Manis, oh no, I’m something much more terrible.” She cackles as she replies. “No, no, MY name my dear delusional Manis... is GRIMACE.“ “You! Have set foot into my domain, I watch over this thick and endless greenwood that stands before you Manis!” “This is my home!” “The one you have been freely squandering in! if anything my young Manis, I should be scared of you! A deceitful human trespassing in my humbly vast abode!”
She jokingly says, cackling as her body twitches and jiggles, the puss and slime flying in several different directions, splashing against the bark of the trees. Manis folds his arms over, grunting awkwardly. He repositions his posture, his arms behind his waist. Shining a confidence no nine-year-old should have.
“Grimace you said your name was? My dearest apologies, Oh, watcher in the greenwood. Oh, foulest of the foul!” “Forgive my ignorance oh great and awful one.” Manis folds his hands as he clasps them gently, smiling. “Oh, don’t be coy young Manis, I can smell your fear as it hinders your buckling knees! Oh you mortals, you never cease to humor me.” Grimace inches even closer, his eyes meeting her several ruby irises. “I’m not going to eat you!” She throws her head back, her pincers chattering as she cackles. Her tone is cut-short, quickly possessing a serious attitude.
“I only eat the foul, the wicked men who have wasted what Vaea has so graciously given the sodding imbeciles, in their desperate time of need. For without Vaea, their existence, it would have no purpose.” “Actually without her there would be no existence! There would be no you, no forest to set your little feet in. There would most definitely not be I, residing and crawling all about these beautiful trees Manis!”
Manis cocks his eyebrows responding in a questionable tone. “Vaea you say? One of the first ones?” “Oh, my! It seems our young mortal is indeed educated, even for a mere orphan…” “Color me impressed Manis!” As grimace chuckles her titanic body rocks back and forth. “Manis, my purpose is not to eat, but show children their path in this world, if they are so lucky as to be graced with crossing my path, which we have my dear Manis.” “Path? What is this destiny you speak of? Or is it merely a trick—a deception of a foul demon!” Grimace’s pincers pound against each other as its mouths fumes a black puss that seeps and evaporates the ground on contact with a cackling sizzle.
“WATCH YOUR TONE, AND MIND YOUR TONGUE, LEST IT FALLS FROM YOUR MOUTH, YOU INSOLENT MORTAL.” She shakes her body like a mangy cur bolting in from the rain. A shiver runs through Grimace, making her shudder. “Manis... your path, the road you must travel, even I cannot see that at this dull-point in time.“
“For I to decipher such knowledge, you my dear Manis. You must tell a tale, but not a folk-tale, not a dreadful mortals tale, no. you must tell me your own tale—your history, the portents of your life, the archives of your young and flourishing memories.”
“So please, I am eagerly waiting after all Manis. Tell me of the hope that slipped through your fingers at such young age. I may not be a soothsayer my young mortal, but I can see the pain in the windows of your poor, lost soul.”
One of Grimace’s many legs reaches behind its body, underneath the waterfall. Slowly reeling an enormous sack all bundled up and tied with a precise knot. She then sets it down before her, dropping it with a thud. Manis is perplexed, he scratches his chin.
Grimace began ripping apart the sack, not minding the knot that was so precisely tied. As the sack ripped open a decaying skull slumped out. Half of its face had deteriorated to the bone. While on the other half, remained rotted skin, riddled with maggots and flies.
His eyeballs were deep dark sockets, pointless voids that used to hold his sight. Manis being a child had never seen a corpse, well aside from the bandit leader whose corpse he had run from. He was frozen from fear. He squealed with his mouth and his face stretched.
“Can I not enjoy my lunch? Aren't you supposed to be telling me your life's story?" "I don't take kindly to insubordinate behavior young Manis." Manis shudders avoiding to look at her lunch, shuttering with wide, petrified eyes. "Your magnificence... If I may, I'll tell you my life's story, but not facing your horrid lunch. "
Manis turns around and clasps his hands in each other, the spider grunts with a shriek, all eight of its eyes blinking at once. "Fine, fine... If that's the only way to hear your tale mortal, so be it, but get on with it! Before I decide I'm hungry"
She uses her elongated hairy legs to push her lunch inside of her mouth, by its feet. Chomping, crunching, and swallowing bone. Besides the eerie wind, the sound of grimace feeding on its lunch was the only sound in the forest.
Each crunch seemed to get louder, Manis winced with each horrid audible. With a mouth full of dead rotting meat, grimace spoke "Well? "
Manis adjusts himself and shakes off the noises that he cannot help but zone in on. "Well... My magnificent grimace, from the moment I was born, my mother gave her life for me.” “Complications you see, the poor soul had the kind of body that wasn't able to have kids.” “Alas, she did anyways, the moment she passed my father befriended the demon drink. Which is a funny saying cause the man, was a demon himself.”
“Methinks it was roughly a few weeks after I was born, it was a dark and luminous night, the fog was especially thick. My father saddled up on his mare. With all the booze he could get his filthy hands on but not before he tip-toed his way into each and every home in the village on that awful night.”
“He tiptoed in and cut the jugulars of the mothers and the children. The entirety of the village woke in crying screams that night. A mob started to form, flooding out of their homes like rats wielding pitch forks.” “My father had just mounted his steed with its long black hair and brown skin, he kicked its sides and galloped through the waving fire that was now a town of angry and widowed fathers.”
“With me in one hand and booze in the other, he was already plastered with a lazy, sloping face and blood shot eyes. I'll never forget my father’s face because he was the first atrocious memory of my young life.” Grimace licks its legs of the droppings of meat, licking it absolutely clean like a bone of chicken. Holding its leg up like a finger, it inches in front of Manis
"My, my! What a sad, depressing story! Oh I do think it's right to ponder Manis, that I would've eaten your father with a grandiose splendor." "Let's hope you don't suffer the same fate" Although Manis was still turned around, he could feel grimace smirking at his tale. What could this fiendish demon be planning he wondered.
Before he thought too much and risked offending this monstrosity, Manis took a deep breath and continued.
"Many hours later in my father’s journey he found himself at the poor village I just ran away from. The Isle Of Vale” "Oh my so he abandoned you did he?" The spider commented as its eight eyes blinked following this, it presented a cackle that shook the trees and made Manis shudder. Recomposing himself he continued on
"To put it bluntly, yes, my magnificence. " "He blamed me for my mother’s death (like the fool that he was) and his disgusting problems" The spider cackles even louder “You have the makings of something Royal, something kingly. My dear delusional Manis.”
Manis fists ball up, and he raises his voice, eyebrows slanted and spit flying but still he refuses to turn around. "Delusional?! I am not!! Your magnificence, with the utmost respect. I am not delusional!” “And how dare you! I will not stand for this! After that wretched excuse for a father dumped me, he didn't show me anything he forsake my existence and dug my own grave.”
“I won't stand for this! I won't, I won’t, I won't!!" As his voice escalated to a shriek, he hears the trees shake and sees the spider’s legs expand over his shoulders and he starts shaking. "Be careful Manis, know your place in this world, you are merely a boy and as far as I am concerned I'm the closest thing you have to a family.”
“This will be your only warning, and how dare YOU, Interrupt this exuberantly intriguing story.” “Now Manis be a good boy and continue on, we have all the time in the world, here in Domewyrd." Manis doesn't know why but his lips started shaking and he exploded into a spell of crying. The kind of crying were bubbles foam at your mouth, unable to even form one intelligible sentence.
Grimace slowly moves behind his ears, only inches away and whispers "For all the things your father never taught you, know this young mortal.” “Those who keep their emotions in check succeed in this dreary world, those who do not will irrefutably find it will be the cause of their own futile demise."
Manis slowly stands with one knee in the dirt, he quickly wipes his moist face, rubbing his eyes and drying his face. He rises from his knee and pats off the dirt lining his dirty shirt and pants. Still refusing to turn around, adjusts himself and clears his throat.
His face is no emotionless and almost distant. As if he's here but also somewhere else on some other plane he's created in his psyche. "My magnificence, please forgive my young foolish self. I realize that I was not only out of line, but absolutely disrespecting you and your perplexing, enormous nature."
"If I may, perchance redeem myself, let me continue" Grimace chuckles as its pincers rattle, as do the daunting thick woods. "Yes, yes you may Manis, all this dreadful father talk has got me quite starving, but please continue my exquisite young mortal"
Grimace reaches behind the bush yet again unraveling another corpse. But this one, this one is familiar. Grimace is grinning as she quickly funnels this familiar corpse into her drooling mouth.
From the feet all the way to the head, bones crunching, blood spilling, and a body disappearing. Not just any body, the corpse of Manis’s dreadful father. Wincing from the bones crunching, trying to fight the imagery swarming in Manis’s young mind, he continues on.
"When my father got to the village, he dropped me on the steps of an orphanage. He knocked and the door and he ran, he kept running he didn't look back not once" Grimace shifts its weight confused as it chatters. "Ah, but young Manis how can you remember this, if you were but a few weeks old? "
"Don't worry my magnificence I will explain! Madam Moselle, the house mother of my orphanage, explained all this to me when I was just old enough to learn how to read and write." Grimace cackles perplexing Manis "Oh I see I see! Oh I'm quite excited to hear the rest of your tale.”
She says with a smirk that Manis couldn't be happier that he can't see. "After that night my new life started in this village by the swamp, I can't recollect why... But the name escapes me" She laughs hysterically "Well you see my young child, once you find yourself in Domewyrd.”
“Time quickly becomes irrelevant as does the past. You'll find the only thing that matters is your present. And Domewyrd" Manis slowly strokes his little chin. "I see, I see, what an odd place I've come to. Ah, but hell, better than that dreadful place." Grimace moves around sitting up in a higher spot in the trees. Its legs span out over Manis, and little Manis can now see its shadow above him. He shutters but ignores it and just before he can continue, Grimace interrupts him.
"Well I guess it's a good thing you're telling your life's tale Manis, lest you forget it!" Grimace cackles to such a degree a tree falls down in the distance. Manis jumps in a fright but continues on. "And so my poor life began, slowly but surely. I couldn't get along with any other of the kids, but one.”
“His Name was Jaykob. Every fist fight I found myself in, he stopped it and let the other kids know just how much they were antagonizing me. Bringing my fire swarming towards them.” "Jaykob was the only one!" his voice shrieking, whining. "The only one who even took the time to try and understand!" “And he’s gone… rotting in the soil.”
"My father never cared! and he blamed me for my mother's death... although I can't seem to blame him..." Manis's legs began shaking, trembling. Tears lined his face, streaks and rivers of water dripped down onto the dirt, soiling and altering its pigment.
"I’m nothing!" "plague on everything that is my existence!" Manis's snot begins bubbling as he can't even form a coherent sentence without stumbling on his words. Grimace's legs wrap around Manis, coddling him. her teeth begin to chatter. " Tears wasted my dear Manis! oh poor little tears wasted, don't you see Manis?”
“These humans, these mortals, they have given you nothing!” “Not a single ounce of kindness, except poor Jaykob. and what did that get him?" Manis mutters wiping his face with a ferocity. "Shut... up..."
"Oh poor little Manis is getting his feelings poked?"
twisting and turning its head while it's feelers begin to slowly rub Manis.
" WHAT DID IT GIVE YOU MANIS?! WHAT DID IT GIVE JAYKOB?!" Manis retaliates with spit flying from his mouth "ENOUGH. ENOUGH, ENOUGH!" "IT GAVE ME FURY... RAGE... PAIN..." "Is that what you want to hear?!” He bursts out. “Since the moment I was born...”
“I was forsaken by my own father. My birth was my first betrayal I gave to the world. Forever damned. Forever a mistake.” “The only soul I had come to trust... Jaykob was the only one to ever show me compassion." Grimace chatters and cackles "And what happened to poor Jaykob Manis?“
Manis Clenches his fist. "He was thrown off the stage like a pointless ragdoll, I can still see his neck snapping, the bones, crunching, and those bones that crunched peeking out of his neck.” “As he twitched he let go... only a year older than I..." Grimace moves one of its long legs and turns Manis around, whom is no longer afraid
"And you can't let go can you?" Manis's eyes widen. "What if I don't want to Grimace?" The wretched thing smiles at him, dripping bile. "Then I don't think you should Manis, you should search within your boiling soul for that rage. The fury, the oscillating pain."
Before grimace can continue on, Manis twitches and throws his head back. His long red hair shining and fumbling onto his shoulders. His shoulders go limp as he curves his back backwards. He moans and groans loudly. Grimace is confused, perplexed, reeling back into the shaking trees.
Manis’s mouth opens wide a voice much louder, and much more charismatic than before. "You mean... like igniting a fire that burns so bright all you can do is walk through its magnificence.” He smile becomes wryly. “Allowing your meager existence to be swarmed and swallowed by its bright blaze. Oh Poor little Jaykob.” “Heh.”
Throwing his body back upright Manis seems to stand two inches taller, and not the least bit sad. He smiles, strafing back and forth in front of Grimace. “Heh.” he repeats. His "hehs" quickly turned into laughter. Escalating, almost reverberating as he throws his arms back and spit dribbles down his chin.
The little veins in his small neck are bulging. His eyes were so wide you could swear they were about to burst, or explode. Spewing his eyes all over himself in some staining, unforgivable liquid, but they didn't. Manis just kept laughing, and laughing. Finally cutting himself off and switching to an immediate serious tone.
"WHERE WERE THEY GRIMACE?!” “My father, what a cruel joke! My Mother, some woman! she couldn't even handle giving birth!" shaking his fingers with his opposite hand on his hip "What GROTESQUE EXCUSES FOR PARENTS, my path seems so true it's only blinding Grimace!" Grimace stays silent it's eyes eager with curiosity and excitement. "The first thing I did on this earth was in fact kill my own mother! oh! the horror!" he says in a joking tone cutting to maniac laughter with a Cheshire grin "And when the tragedy of Jaykob happened... OH WHAT A POOR SOUL! “ “I killed that wretched bastard!” Spit flies from his mouth staining the soil like a rabid dog. He runs his fingers through his hair pulling it with all of his might beginning to laugh uncontrollably. Grimace points it's leg an inch away from Manis's face.
"You loved it didn't you Manis?” “The way you watched the life slip from his cold fingers, didn't you?" Manis continues chuckling harmoniously
"Oh Grimace, let's just say you're my new loving mother!” “You understand me, but I want to really learn... the right way.” “How to maim! I already know I can entertain, what do ye say?” Grimace questions Manis.
“Is this the beginning of a new partnership?" Grimace shakes the trees in excitement "Oh I knew there was just something oh so thrilling about you Manis.” “Let's just leave it at... a spider needs to eat.“
“I’ll be your guide, just give me what I need." Manis dawns a wryly grin "It rhymes so it must be true!" He stands with his hands on his hips, his chest puffed out. "Use me to do your bidding! Grimace!" “I BEG OF THEE IN ALL OF YOUR HORRIBLY GROTESQUE SPLENDOR!” “IN ALL OF YOUR FIENDLY EXISTENCE!” After a slight pause Grimace’s body shakes in excitement, vibrating the ground. “YES! YES! YES! My, dear, delusional Manis! Our adventure has only just begun…”
Grimace snickered as one of its hairy and immense legs grabbed Manis by the collar. Lifting him not only with ease but a certain swiftness. A swiftness that only a beast would be capable of. She placed him upon her oozing back, it’s center eye slowly opened, as crust and ooze seeps among its swirling pupils.
Pulses of energy resonate from Grimace’s center eye and lull Manis into a deep, deep sleep. As trees creak, topple over, and crash into the soil. Grimace scurried through the forest. Ooze sliming off and breaking the limbs of every tree they passed. Melting away soil and riddling the forest with poisonous craters.
Not now but with time—will cause this dreary greenwood to be known as the “The Greenwood Of Miasma.” Grimace crawled over the forest with a certain simplicity, and speed. Each creeping step of its hairy legs guided the next. A horror unlike Domewyrd had ever seen.
To anyone else but Manis, too see Grimace pummeling toward you. As a crawling mountain with its daunting ruby eyes, could only mean one inevitable thing, “Death.” Its leg span was so large that in fact, it could traverse miles in under a minutes time. A moving apocalypse. As evil always finds a foothold, evil is always sought to be controlled for personal gain.
“OI! Did you see that?!” a sweaty man shouted. “What in the devil… SHUT YOUR GOD DAMN GOB” A tired neighbor complained from his hovel. “Ain’t no one give a thousand moons what ye claim to see!” “A mountain! A MOVING MOUNTAIN, To the west by them greenwoods!” The sweaty man shrieked out of pure terror.
“and I don’t give five-thousand copper coins if ye don’t believe me. There’s something brewing, and I’ll be DAMNED if I’m to stand alone when the devil shows it’s face in our darkest hour! There’s been talk...” The tired man wipes his eyes, vaulting out of his window with cocked eyebrows and a confused look.
“A moving mountain? Talk? My fucking beard—if you’re weren’t my brother I’d give you a hammer to the nape, what in the sodding devil are you going on about?” “Animals are growing thin, the forest is quieter, the wind is heavier.” “as for the talk? Brother...” “People at the taverns converse for hours upon hours about how WAR, is coming.”
“Soldiers now roam these lands, people have stopped using the roads, and things aren’t as merry as they have been.” “In every settlement I’ve come to know as our neighbors, SUICIDES, in every one—sons, fathers, mothers—sod on my beard, everyone… they’re dropping like gnats.” “You may not believe me, nay but plague on the soil we stand on!”
“I will not let our home get swiped from under our nose like the ruffians’ swipe bread!” “Nay, ye don’t have to agree, or even believe,” The sweaty man shakes his fingers. “but I do know I need to find out what IS happening, and be there at troubles door-step. To defend not only my home, but you as well, brother.” “Stay here if you will, but I do believe I’m heading to the swamplands.”
“Stay here if you must—but I, will be back with word, and if what I feel, this rotting feeling decaying in the back of me shallow head, methinks we’re going to need all the help we can get.” The tired man, whom is more so wide-awake and shook with uncertainty.
He scratches his dirty beard. Pulling his tobacco pipe out of his linen pants, sparking it by snapping his old fingers and summoning a bright orange flame that shines with a burst. As it lights, he puffs his mahogany pipe, the summoned fire vanishes as he speaks.
“Well so be it, and now that ye mention it my paranoid brother—things have been so sodding boring around here so let’s take a walk. we can get there in a few hours’ time, and if what you say IS true. I’m going to need a tankard, plough the rest of my sleep! I’ve got to mend this boredom aye, and for talks-on-the-road, I had the strangest dream.”
The not-so-tired-man, puffs his pipe and strolls toward his brother as he steps on the western path. Just out of their small, but growing village. Dingy road signs guide their path. That thankfully, the brothers posted themselves. Boarded up shacks, disheveled fences, a vacant moonless sky. Passing the road signs with dried, but the paint had run slightly beneath each letter. The road sign was tilting, slanted from the forebodingly threating gales that blew the dirt road. Winding turbulent, violent, tornadoes of dust off into the distance.
As the two dim brothers strolled out of the village the other brother comments. “Aye? Do tell Brother! What plagues thee?” His sweaty brother’s brow furrowed in a concerning manner, his eyebrows furrowed, his forehead wrinkled. “Well, I remember a babe of a goddess, perfection if there ever was…” “I miss the dream terribly, I find myself sleeping the days away in hopes I can find the place, from whence I saw her euphoric glow. At the end of my dream, she told me, it was already far, far too late.”
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