G.R. Nanda

2200 Blues Chapter 47: Part Two

Note to readers: “2200 Blues” is a novel in progress, and each chapter is an early draft in its unfolding journey. Your thoughts and reactions are invaluable, guiding its evolution and refinement. 2200 Blues © 2024 by G.R. Nanda. All rights reserved.

The robed figures broke their vertical procession, moving past one another to stand in front of the rising canyon, standing next to one another. Nickel and Farrul stopped walking, standing behind by a few feet.

The robed men removed their hoods, shuffling their feet before the rock, a few taking meager steps over its inclining surface looking into the rising darkness.

Nickel walked a few steps closer to them, going unnoticed as they shuffled inside of their robes, removing objects from under, clinking against one another, handing them to each other.

Nickel turned around, looking for Farrul’s reaction. He still stood farther away, eyes glazed, mouth firmed in an impassive expression. His scraggly hair blew over his eyes in the soft wind, obscuring them. When they whipped aside, flattening against the side of his head, his cold eyes met Nickel’s, unmoving, like he was watching him.

“You good?” Nickel asked him.

Farrul didn’t respond, just continuing to watch him and passively.

Nickel turned around, feeling disconcerted. He could always rely on Farrul to be sordid and lacking in cooperation. The thought flared the pang of loneliness once again.

The Ether didn’t guarantee familiarity. Nickel was discovering that through Farrul, the only other young person he’d met in person who was from the Ether.

The robed men stood at a wayside, some squatting next to the rock. One of them rummaged at his hip, pulling out a bulky object that clanged against the metal of his belt.

Two other men standing next to him rushed to his side to support the object that he carried. First holding it in place, the robed figures extended large cords from the insides of their robes. Another man to their left walked around all of them, squatting above them on the rock, holding out a large piece of stone flint.

The four men stood close together and the three remaining men stepped up onto the rock, kneeling and standing right at the edges of the four Thraíha men working with their tools.

The three men moved from side to side, the two on the opposite ends pulling back and forth in their directions as the man in the middle, moved with their force, rocking back and forth. His hair fell over his neck, cascaded over his dropped hood. It was dark and tousled. The man standing above him stayed close to them, but his contributions were largely hidden. The remaining Thraíha men stood at their sides, holding them in place with their hands.

Nickel frowned. What the four men huddled together were doing with their tools was hidden to him.

The men grunted and heaved, their swaying robes ruffling the earth and clattering against its sediments of rock and dirt.

Wisps of fog thickened around their bodies as wind picked up, a short howl bringing an obscuring tan haze that made them look like a giant bear huddled on the ground eating at an animal’s carcass.

A spark of light billowed in the middle of the four huddled men, bringing a glow that emanated between their bodies, highlighting the contours of their individual selves once again.

Orange flared around them, illuminating the fine textures of the grainy rock ledge.

“Follow,” said a robed man in a hollow voice, turning to face Nickel and Farrul from the left of a man dismantling the cord. As the cord holding man turned around, the cord revealed itself; a long twiny rope, corded in consecutive knots, fraying, burnt at the end.

“What are our names to you?” asked Farul in a low voice. Nickel whirled around to stare at him. Those were the first words Farrul had spoken since the end of their initiation rite. His body appeared dwarfed by the fur robe he adorned, highlighting his frailty. His sunken chest seemed to sink below the sides of the robe that covered him. His eyes were sullen, peering at the robed men. His mouth was stretched in an unwelcoming line.

The other three turned to look at Farrul from their tools. Swinging aside the glowing object, the Thraíha holding it frowned at Farrul. His eyes were darkened shadows, hanging over his firm cheekbones and the searching glow of the flaming lantern he held at his stomach.

The three to the right of him tore off the cord tethering it, allowing the man holding the lantern to pull it closer against his chest.

All the ceremonial three men turned to look at Farrul, their faces revealed by their fallen hoods. All of them had dark bands wrapped over their foreheads, shadows dancing across their faces as the lantern bobbed in the air, falling against its carrier’s stomach as he adjusted it. The Thraíha stilled, staring at Farrul as they adjusted to turn to him.

“You are nameless to us,” said the lantern holding man. Fires danced inside of the glass case, melting a wicker material at the bottom of the black case. The man’s voice was cool.

“What are your names,” said another man, pivoting on his feet as he turned to look at Farrul from the side of the three already facing him, “what are your names to us?” His voice was higher pitched and smoother, speaking of youth. “Your names are—

“You were following us to be given names,” interrupted the lantern holding man. The shadows deepened across his eyes, sinking over his cheeks. “By the light of the Huntsman where all names come from.”

“Stars?” breathed Farrul. His expression loosened, betraying a hint of surprise and of being overwhelmed. His gaze widened; eyes stretched in an overwhelmed gaze. “Is that where we’re going?”

“Normally, you’d find out when we finally brought you up there,” said the younger Thraíha, his hood still shadowing his face.

Ferrule’s mouth widened in a small o.

“I’ve never seen stars before,” he whispered. Catching Nickels eye, he glanced at his feet, almost seeming abashed.

“Not just any stars,” the young man said continuing to look at Farrul as the rest of the robed men turned, the ones at the foot of the rock, taking steps to meet with the three who’d climbed further up. “The stars that the Huntsman wants to show us on the morning you were born Thraíha.”

“Hurry up!” grunted a throaty man already started up the rock on the left. “Enough explaining. We have blessings to see!”

The lantern holding man turned and waved at Nickel and Farrul, motioning for them to follow. Turning, he climbed up the rock, moving up one step at a time, briskly following the rest of the Thraíha.

“Quick,” muttered the gravelly voiced man, charging up the rock, leading at the front as he grabbed at the rock with his hands, bending his knees towards his chest. “The sun will break soon.”

The Thraíha moved at a brisk pace, climbing up the inclining surface of gravel in wide strokes, stepping across with a practiced balance, shifting their weight according to the oncoming rises, fallings, and protrusions in the rock. They climbed with ease, indicating an accustomed ease to the path.

Nickel and Farrul followed them, scrambling over the sharply changing elevations in the canyon, occasionally slipping over its changing surfaces.

The ground gave way to gaps, the path turning into mounds of boulders, and large rocks with uneven surfaces for them to grab onto and step over.

The growing a lightness of the morning air dimmed as they made their way deeper into the canyons, climbing further to its heart.

Stars.

Nickel couldn’t help but feel a strange anxiety about what they were to see. He couldn’t remember the last time in recent memory that he’d really been able to pay attention to a field of stars in the night sky. He’d remembered faint memories of looking up from orchards before his parents had bought the industrial hub. He’d seen stars then, but he’d been so young. There had been occasional stars in the flights he’d been on, across the U.R. with his parents on a commercial air terminal, and now and then, sparsely populating the dark haze of air pollution that he’d flown through on his hovercraft.

Did the Thraíha see the stars often? They hunted often, so they must have seen the stars. How else would they have been able to find their way back from the far distances they traveled across the Atlantic from their encampment to hunt for hawks and other food?

The procession of leading Thraíha paused. Nickel frowned, pausing at the stilled back of a robed Thraíha. Farrul stopped short behind him, standing aside on a rock outlet.

A hushing murmur spread through the Thraíha in front. They rustled against one another, then the men at the front of the line crunched over gravel, disappearing into the darkness of a gaping opening in the inlet they stood in. They disappeared in between the narrowing walls.

Solid footsteps occurred on an unseen surface. They clanked, producing a dull padding sound, as though on metal.

Nickel couldn’t see much through the darkened opening and the bodies of the Thraíha in front of him obstructed the way. They stopped rustling against one another, standing in a half hazard arrangement, huddled against each other diagonally, across the entrance of the cove.

Nickel shivered, feeling a chill sweep through him. Without the insulated dankness of the egg’s interior, his bare chest raised gooseflesh. Even with the robe, he felt shaking tremors of coldness.

“What happens if I don’t go in?” said Farrul. The Thraíha still standing outside of the entrance turned around to face him, frowning in consternation.

“Then you make do in the canyons,” husked the Thraíha man with the hollow voice. “Without us…….without any of the Thraíha…………or the grace of the Huntsman.”

Farrul’s mouth was firm, a grim line. His eyes betrayed fear. The boy who had once held a retort or grumbling for nearly everything, now had nothing to say.

Watching for his usual retorts, and hearing none, the Thraíha turned around, waiting for the men inside the cove.

Their clanking footsteps were no longer audible. Farrul’s question dawned on Nickel. Could Nickel make do in the canyons? Or was he always to live by the map of the Huntsman? Did the map of the Huntsman go far beyond the Thraíha hunting and water grounds?

The clanking sounds resumed, faint at first. Creaking emanated from the points of impact, like jagged cracks splintering at the bottom of the darkness.

The clanking sounds grew louder and one man returned from the cove.

There was a loud high-pitched creaking that echoed from the darkness. A shaft of light broke through, falling from the inner ceiling, illuminating the two Thraíha men emerging from the darkness.

The light grew wider, and the creaking grew louder, expanding the high pitch of its timber.

The Thraíha men came out, ushering the rest of the Thraíha inside, waving with their hands.

They followed, bustling together once more and resuming their shuffling movement of robes brushing against one another and the ground as their bodies swayed with their huddling movements.

To keep warm, thought Nickel. He frowned as he followed them from behind, once more feeling like the out of sync straggler that he was, his movements clumsier and less assured compared to them. As he gained footing on the even surface, he regained a better sense of balance.

Farrul bounded lightly over to the remaining boulders behind him, his feet tapping against the stone and jumping to Nickel’s side.

Farrul may not be Thraíha, but he’d spent more time in the Atlantic Canyons, if only the rock plain of the deserted flagpole that he’d squatted on.

Nickel had never truly found out what that flagpole had once belonged to. He hadn’t seen any hovercraft wreckage around the site. Presumably that was how Farrul and Steve had ended up in these canyons as Nickel had.

Farrul slipped in front of Nickel, tagging behind the last three men who entered the cove. Startled, Nickel came to a halt. He looked around, noticing the greater shadows that wrapped around the site than from the incline where they first started trekking. The rock walls had enveloped them at this point, reaching far behind Nickel, like the jagged walls of a staircase reaching far down below, snaking over innumerable boulders and rock formations. The walls had first beckoned him, standing in front of him along the top of the canyon. Now they surrounded him sending cascading shadows that Nickel nearly forgot it was morning.

Nickel stood still, looking out below. The windstorm had thickened, and the obscuring haze had risen once more, tanned by the canyon shadows. The incline they had started from and the rock plain behind it was now invisible, a distance beyond the immediate fog and the steep drop of crushing rock that appeared like a frozen avalanche.

This world was getting to Nickel. Without the distractions of his hovercraft, it’s ever-present screens, flickering to life at his presence. This was a world of haze and shadows. This is what we’ve done to the world, Nickel thought. The screens of the Ether Realms were a window away from the earth. While the Ether Realms kept running and men built more places inside of it, the real world became a hollow mirage.

Yet there was a beauty to the loneliness and the emptiness of the canyons. It had been so long since Nickel had been in the Ether. A month at least. He noticed how strangely clear his mind felt. Even with the clear pangs of desperation at being at the whims of the strict and foreign Thraíha. And the fear of losing out on his parent’s dreams. His mind was a vista as large as the canyons, uncluttered by the Ether.

A loud scraping echoed from within the cove and the shouts of grunting Thraíha ensued.

Nickel flinched and turned around, jolted by the immediacy of the noises. He ran into the cove. Slowing down inside of the darkness, he realized he was the last one in it.

Farrul had rushed in before him so that he wouldn’t be afraid of being left behind.

2200 Blues Chapter 47: Part One

“And thus the creation of the universe came to a standstill,” the old man croaked. The windstorm came to a still, quieting just in time for him to bring the Thraíha creation story to a close.

Nickel had nearly forgotten his positioning in the egg and his initial feelings of claustrophobia, numbed by his stillness and the ever-present darkness he inhabited inside of the egg.

“Father Hawk rescued the Flower of Life, vanquishing the coyote as he fell forth from his own cliff, his tumbling crash to be heard across the Huntsman’s Soul, shaking his very being.”

“Running through the canyons and into the jungle, Father Hawk was beckoned by the Eagles and the monkeys. His victory ushered a new age where he reigned as God once again, becoming the God king he was destined to be.”

“Rushing to Mother Hawk, her wounds were dressed by the petals of the flower. She was never to be in her original physical form.”

There was an orchestrated gasp from the choir, sounding like a mass of onrushing eels.

“The seeds of the Flower of Life pollinated the newly broiling Life.”

“The roiling embers of this child became the planet Earth and where the pollen salvaged life, it became the creatures and plants made in the face of the Great Huntsman and his Soul.”

“The Huntsman drew forth across the constellations, drawing a map of the stars and planets from which to hold life and its home planet Earth. He brought the first point of the constellation to the center of this, marking the sun by which life shows its face and the Thraíha hunt.”

“The Huntsman swung his lasso through the cosmos, bringing a star towards Life, becoming its sun, the light by which we Thraíha hunt.”

“Life was made in the image of the Coyotes, the Lizards, the Eagles, and all the animals and plants of the huntsman soul. Finally, the Monkeys were recreated, remade by the powers of the flower they extracted by aiding Father Hawk in his quest.”

“This time, they gave way to a new creature called Humans.”

A steady drum beat ensued from the encircling vantage points of the Thraíha compound, echoing from the far-off openings in the surrounding walls and spires.

“Like the Monkeys who built the logs and timber surrounding the canyons, Humans were destined to build new worlds from the roiling embers of Earth, giving to Life, sometimes taking away.”

“Of all the creatures made from life, they were the most similar to the Huntsman, searching and hunting for food, mastering their souls, satiating themselves until they could build new worlds.”

“When that happened, they took from the roiling embers of Earth, giving to Life. The embers came from the yoke of an egg that hatched prematurely, before the hawk child of Mother and Father Hawk could be born.”

“Sometimes, they took too much from the roiling embers, causing for destruction of Life, taking away from it.”

“When that happened, the Huntsman summoned a hunt of the Hawk once again. That took the form of the Thraíha, the hunters and travelers of the Atlantic Canyons, a land rife with the embers of earth.”

“Once again, the embers of earth threatened to engulf our planet and our life once again, humans having sinned as Father Hawk once did, unleashing destruction and waste.”

“We answer the call of the Huntsman, searching for the Hawk, ending the never ending flight from eternity, knowing that Father Hawk will answer with his salvation as he did in the lands of the Huntsman’s Soul.”

“Father Hawk is the answerer, king of the universe. Mother Hawk is the blesser, knowing that her child is premature, and having lost her corporeal form, she must flee from the scene of Life and its Providence.”

“The child must learn on its own, and Mother Hawk will give the nurturing blessings, flying over and rippling through the fields we make our pasture, the water we drink from and use to grow our crops, and the nests we form with our brothers, sisters, and children.”

“Father Hawk is the answerer king of the universe. Mother Hawk is the blesser, guarding the nests for the future and the Huntsman is the atcher, pointing the way to our salvation from amongst the stars.”

“Thraíha chung jurra!” chanted the choir of women encircling the old storyteller, Nickel and Farrul.

“The elements of Earth have brought two souls from the Past World, ripped from the yoke of life and its raging fires,” shouted the old man.

“Thraíha chung jurra! Muhagh yeeooh houvrah!”

“The stars of the Huntsman have shown these two souls to us and us to them!”

“Yeeoh houvra!”

“Cast aside from the shadows of the Past World, born under the light of the Huntsman’s cosmic grace, I give you two new members of Thraíha!

“Rise hatchlings!”

After a few nearing steps crunching the gravel of the earth, and a pit-pat on the cement of the pavilion platform, a loud screeching occurred above Nickel as the lid of his egg scraped off of the top, pushed by arms darkened by the sleeves of heavy robes.

The dimness of the murky tan fog was a blinding flash of light intruding upon the darkened space of the egg. Nickel grimaced, eyelids flickering over the new light.

The cool stillness of the egg was broken by the slithering currents of air blowing above the egg. Its chill wafted through the opening, causing Nickel to shiver.

“Thraíha chung jurra!”

“Muhagh yeeooh houvrah!”

Nickel slid his back along the softly curving interior of the egg, pushing up with his arms.

“Thraíha chung jurra!”

“Muhagh yeeooh houvrah!”

“Enter the world of light!” crooked the old narrator, “Awaken to the stars, embrace their arms.”

The screeching of the lid intensified as it slipped off completely, letting the chilliness of the night sink over Nickel. Nickel extended his knees allowing himself to stand. When he arose from the darkened state of the chamber, he emerged to see, not the lights of the hovercraft screens blinking to life, but the eager expressions of his fellow Thraíha men and women, standing around him, separated by gender, all standing erect, noble and proud.

Their eyes glinted in the dull tan of the fog, an orange dimmed to the browns of a twilight still waiting on the morning sunrise. Their feathers adorning their tunics, wrapped around their collars and waists fluttered in the gentle thrumming of the never ending winds. Robed ceremonial figures had left Nickel’s egg, now clustered around Farrul’s egg. They were stooped over, pushing the lid off. The echoey warble of Farrul’s grunting escaped the opening of the egg. One of the ceremonial figures reached his arm inside, ushering Farrul to silence by slapping the inside of the egg and whispering, “quiet!” Pushing off the lid the robed figures turned aside to carry the heavy lid, scraping it along the rock hewn floor of the platform.

“Thraíha chung jurra!”

“Muhagh yeeooh houvrah!”

Finally visible, the storyteller was an aged mosaic of wide reaching skin and wrinkles stretching over his face. His eyes were a dull white, glazed with no pupils or irises, just a ball of murky pale grey.

“With dawn nearly upon us, Father Hawk has nearly left his nest,” the old man spoke, his voice crisper in all of its croaking outside of the egg. His voice lay over the air like sandpaper on wood or steel. “Follow the ceremonial leaders to the last path the Huntsman left tonight.” The fog flickered, betraying a warming complexion. The bear skin of the moccasin clothes adorned by the Thraíha grew brighter, its brown fur growing in contrast to the red and gray feathers wrapped around their chests and waists. The sun was slowly rising. Under the growing light, the features of the old storyteller became more alight. It revealed faint grey irises and pupils within the pale eyes, streaked with the same grey, as light and near imperceptible as the wisps of hair laying over his scalp in loosely hanging strands.

“Where are we going?” Nickel asked, breaking the ordered procession of language since the initiation rite began. He looked at the old man for an answer, just barely noticing Farrul arising from his egg to the side.

The old storyteller opened his mouth in a slight smile, withholding from spoken words. The mass of Thraíha were a dusty folk. The scene before him was like many an AI-induced learning module, only the people were dustier, of courser skin, their clothes of jagged make and the air of greater velocity and spontaneousness.

This moment was what the Thraíha had promised him. Was it back to the hovercraft after this? Soaring like Father Hawk? Or would the Thraíha even let him?

“You go,” croaked the old man, a shard of sunlight glinting white across his empty looking eyes, “where every Thraíha has gone. Up the steppe of the Past World and into the light of the Huntsman.”

Nickel’s mind coiled around itself for a response, finding none he could decide on. The mass of the Thraíha standing before him suddenly appeared like a pack of animals in their bearskin, like Nickel was caught in their den, and their words were part of a language he couldn’t quite be a part of completely.

Quivering chills laced Nickel’s chest, raising goose flesh, raising nearly every corner of his skin above his waist. Feeling more conscious of his bareness in that moment, it seemed to him that he was bereft of his former life at the hands of the Thraíha. Would they let him return to his hovercraft in an expedition or quest to Hedonim?

The robed figures turned, their robes furrier than that of the rest of the Thraíha, their thicker moccasin fur brushing against each other, a rattling percussion of thick moccasin fur.

After the feeling of awe Nickel had felt listening about Father Hawk, a heavy uncertainty rose through his chest. Was he to live within the confines of the Thraíha customs and abide by their values and myths for the rest of his life?

Farrul bucked his head as the robed figures reentered the platform, stepping onto its surface, he averted their gazes as they came over to him with a long robe made of moccasin fur.

Would Nickel ever see civilization again?

The men around Farrul draped a robe over his shoulders, beckoning for him to put his arms through. He did while barely looking into their eyes. Three of them standing in front of Farrul walked over to Nickel, holding a clumped bundle that was his robe.

They helped put it over his shoulders, two of them standing behind Nickel to do so. The fur was prickly against his bare skin, scuffing his back before the material sunk over his flesh, blanketing him with a warmth that melted over the airy chill on his skin.

A clearing was formed in between the groups of men and women behind the storyteller. They walked in between and around one another, breaking their parallel symmetry so that the ceremonial leaders could escort Nickel and Farrul out of the pavilion space.

One of the robed figures waved a hand at nickel, motioning for him to follow. Nickel followed him, hearing Farrul join behind him.

They passed through the opening in between the men and the women. To the left were the men, several of them holding candles casting warm orange halos amongst them.

Father Akela stood aside, separated with the rest of the of men, his ceremonial role having ended. He watched Nickel with eyes that glinted in the nearby candlelight of a man standing next to him.

To the right, amassed in front of the nursery were the women of Thraíha present for the ceremony. Several women held candles as well, illuminating solemn expressions within the halos of light. They appeared to be more somber than those of the men looking at Nickel.

Passing through the opening Nickel spotted the Thraíha girl who had inducted him in the ceremonial rituals painting over his chest. He caught a glimpse of her frowning face. She looked distressed. When Nickel’s eyes met hers, she averted her gaze, withdrawing within the gathered women.

Nickel craned his neck to see where she went, but robed figures behind him and Farrul nudged him to keep moving. Nickel turned around, confused at the expression he saw on the girl. There was more to the Thraíha folk than their customs. That both elucidated him, filling him with both curiosity and hope to sway any of the Thraíha to see his perspective, but a dreadful anxiety. How could he hope to find the meaning in his interactions with the Thraíha through the confines of their customs and the complexity of their individual lives, made generation by generation in these radiation infested canyons?

They’d never seen the U.R. like Nickel had, never lived amongst its citizens or within the Ether Realms. How could he explain to any of the Thraíha how he could find a way back into the Ether to a people who had completely forgotten about it many generations ago?

These questions swarmed his mind as he was led out of the clearing, past the huddled masses of men and women. The pocketed glow of the candles dimmed as they gained distance, led past the winding curvature of the low roofed nursery, until its curvaceous rock walls joined the earth. While twinklings of morning light slithered through the fog, the world became dim and a jagged step of dirt and stone rose before them, forming a horizontal protrusion in the earth.

2200 Blues Chapter 46: A Hootful Harvest

Introduction: Dawn’s light peeks through the jungle, awakening a chorus of hoots to signal the start of a harvest. In this latest installment, we join Father Hawk as he emerges from slumber into a jungle buzzing with activity and ancient tradition.

After reading, please share your thoughts and feedback. Your comments and insights are eagerly awaited, as they help sculpt the final form of this tale. Engage with the narrative and leave your mark on the 2200 Blues saga.

The distant hooting was like an overhanging apple, suspended from a branch weighing down towards father hawk, but always out of reach in his dream. Slowly, the hooting turned crisper and its bouncing branch stiller. Dreamed images turned half-forgotten as father hawk blinked awake.

A veneer of opalescent light spread over the rocky roof, brightening his father hawk’s eyes followed its path to the lips of the cavern.

The dark green of the forest trees faded to a hazy lighter color as there tips bordered the blue dawn of the morning sky. The sensations of prickling sand under his butt emerged in his morning consciousness. He stood up to shake it off and found that his legs were stiff. Looking down, he saw green wrappings of grass and leaves, twisted, interwoven around areas that ahad once been brittle, injured from his flight from the Shadowlands. His wings had been wrapped as well.

Father hawk turned to look into the darkness of the cavern’s deep interior far behind. Unlike the rest of the cavern ahead of him, the deep interior corridors were just as dark as they’d been last night—— or at least the last night he could remember.

Morning illumination just barely lit the interior corridors of jagged rock, slithering from the cave entrance until it was swallowed by the darkness of the catacombs behind. A narrow shadow of Father Hawk emerged at his feet, rising behind on the earthen floor, but cutting off abruptly.

He’d seen that shadow splayed across the sediments of dirt and pebbles encrusting this dark stone floor. At different lengths and places in the cave.

How long had he been here? No Eagles had wrested him from the cave as they would have from the nests of their homestead amongst their canopy of the Shadowlands to train.

There was another hooting from outside. It was a mellow sound, punctuating the gentle rustlings of the jungle.

Place to place, he traveled. Moving closer to Coyote Rock.

The green leaves outside of the cave glowed as a growing sunrise dappled the thickness of the jungle air. Shafts of sunlight grew warmer as they searched into the cave. The rock lips were illuminated, revealing a pale grey granite. Father Hawk stepped across The Cave floor, stopping at the lip, feeling the warmth of sunlight caress his feathers.

Did he want to reach Coyote Rock? Or was he meant to be somewhere else? Father Hawk sighed, the noise drowned by a sudden swelling of winds. Once it died down, a cacophony of hooting monkeys replaced the din. Frowning, Father Hawk stepped over the lip of the cave, feeling dried grass for the first time since being rescued by the Eagles. The wet, grassy, soil encrusted feel of the earth came into contact with his claws for the first time since being rescued.

The abrasive feel of dirt scraped his claws while the grass caressed his feet with a damp texture. The din of hoots grew louder as the winds died down. Red and orange fruits shot up into the air, followed by yellow bananas. monkeys erupted from the thick jungle canopy. Rust colored creatures, jumping off of thick leaves and branches, hollering at the fruits shooting and cascading over the jungle canopy.

They grabbed at the fruits tossed up into the air, knawing them with their mouths and hands. A monkey hooted in close proximity to Father Hawk, jumping down from a large branch in thickets of trees to the night of the cave. The monkey landed on his long dangling furry arms, his narrower stubby legs hovering above the earth, held out extended across the jungle floor. The monkey immediately tucked his legs in and flipped his body backwards, using his bristling arms to somersault towards Father Hawk.

Flipping his body in the air, he landed on his feet, stamping on the ground next to father hawk and The Cave. Startled father Hock flinched, scooting to the left. Bits of dust and dirt popped from the earth in the wake of the monkeys landing.

“Hoi, hawk!” spoke the monkey in a shrill hoot. Father hawk said nothing, frozen by surprise.“Have you grabbed a fruit?” asked the monkey.

“Grabbed a fruit?” said Father Hawk, looking up at the sky of raining apples, oranges and bananas falling over the jungle trees.

“Surely, you aren’t missing the harvest?” said the monkey. “You’ve been asleep long enough now. You can’t miss the day of the harvest!”

“How long have I been asleep?” asked Father Hawk. “How long have I been in the cave?”

“The monkeys let you rest until the day of the harvest!” shouted the monkey. “The time for feasting has arrived!”

“How long was I resting in The Cave?” repeated Father Hawk, speaking in a more irritated tone.

“You were in The Cave for as long as we were building the great Harvest Log,” the monkey said. He bounced on his toes, padding at the ground with his hands. He was distracted, his interest taken by rustlings coming from the jungle at the border of the grass clearing before father hawk. His head swiveled around as oranges and bananas came whizzing out of the bordering plants from the left and right.

“Wait!” shouted father hawk, holding out a stiff, bandaged wing. The monkey ignored him, stooping over to sniff at the parts of the earth and circling the falling fruit.

“Where have I been for the Huntsman knows how long? Father Hawk complained. as the sun grew brighter, his pensiveness and uncertainty about his whereabouts grew stronger. The memory of the ghastly lake of Shadowspawn and Mother Hawk’s turmoiled predicament still held forth in his mind. It was a fainter, yet still painful memory that contrasted the bright rays of the sun and the cascading colors of fruits.

The monkey turned to look at Father Hawk as he crouched on all fours over a clump of bananas and fruits fall into the left of the clearing.

“You’ve been here since we started building the harvest log and you’re here today once we’ve finished it,” the monkey said. Father Hawk felt his spirits crushed if he had been resting in the cave for as long as the monkeys had been preparing for a harvest, then he would have been away from his quest for the Flower of Life for a long time.

The monkey’s eyes widened as an even larger clump of bananas crashed into the front of the clearing from the tall jungle stalks.

“How long have you been bur—,” started Father Hawk.

He was interrupted by the monkey breaking out into a series of indecipherable hollering hoots:

“OOOOH-AAAAAAAH—”

The monkey’s eyes bulged out and he stood up on his legs. His chest of gray-brown fur splotching his red hide rippled as he jumped up and down in excitement.

“OOOOH-AAAAAAH-EEEEEEEH-OOUII-”

As more fruits rained down from the trees higher in the jungle canopy from all sides, other monkeys dived out of the large leaves overhead, chasing after the fruit, rippling several large pal leaves apart as they crashed into the clearing.

one monkey was tall and gray, landing to the right of the rust colored one, while the other was short and brown, landing to the left of the red monkey.

Stopping short of grabbing the fruits before them, the three monkeys slowly extended their torsos, craning their necks to peer at each other with eyes that stretched with suspicion.

Father Hawk’s heart thudded and he slowly inched backwards on his claws towards the entrance of the cave, anticipating a brawl between the monkeys he didn’t care to find himself caught in. the last one between himself and the shadow spawn snakes had left him asleep in a cave for what seemed like the better part of a whole season. The monkeys slowly shifted their bodies to each side, leaning further on one side, moving in a sluggish circle to the left.

They slowly extended their palms and fingers, elongating their arms and grazing the grass, sifting through its needles so as to gauge and mark their territory.

Father Hawk said nothing, standing still and silent fearing A brawl over the clumps of fruit littered over the ground. He feared for any movement or word of his to trigger the first action of a fight.

He need not worry for the monkeys began in what seemed a ceremonial ritual of hollering like high pitched banshees and jumping up and down.

With each jump, the monkeys opposite them flinched and jerked backwards. Finally, the jumping became so frenetic and frequent that the monkeys stopped responding by shifting their weight or placement of their feet. They stopped reacting to each other’s testings for territory by testing engaging in response. The red monkey grabbed at the apples before him, stuffing them into his mouth letting a few apples in his hand roll off, he grabbed a clump of bananas next to him, lugging them under one arm as the sides of historically furred mouth swelled with the number of apples wedged inside.

The grey colored monkey lunged at the even larger clump of bananas at the front of the clearing. He jumped at them, pulling them back with a hand. The brown and red monkeys raised after the grey monkey and his bananas, the red monkey reaching them first period he tucked the bananas he already held underneath his armpit and running into the gray monkey. Kicked him squarely in the chest, with all the force of motion he could muster

He grabbed the clump of bananas fallen from the gray monkey’s grasp. Jostling the bananas so as not to let their weight tip themselves over, he scrunched them with his fingers, holding them tight under his armpit, before waddling forth, stumbling and letting the bananas dangle by his left hand.

All the while, the brown monkey hollered after the red monkey, chasing him as he bounced across his two feet, running into the forest. Pressing past some small bushes whose thin branches snapped under his weight, he turned to look around as it drooped and sagged over his lower lip.

The grey monkey rolled over on his furry legs, following the brown monkey as they both lunged after the monkey carrying their stolen goods. The red monkey’s eyes bulged, and he blew out his cheeks, sucking the drooping apple further back into his mouth. Turning back around, he waddled further through the forest undergrowth as his monkey pursuers crossed through the bushes, he squatted and jumped in a swift motion, landing on his hind legs, grasping tightly with his fingers as he wobbled. The branch twanged with the vibration of his pressure.

Without turning around, he bent his knees at a slight angle and jumped high into the air, disappearing into the forest. The brown monkey raced after him. He jumped into the air, grabbing a hold of the first branch the red monkey had jumped on. Swinging across the branch, the brown monkey flew into the air after the red monkey.

The grey monkey clambered of trees, using the smaller branches as rungs. There was the sound of a loud thud further in the forest presumably of the red monkey landing on another branch. It was followed by a clamor of rolling fruits smacking against one another.

The red monkey fell onto the forest floor. His crash, the thudding fruits and his flailing scream were heard, but he himself was disappeared within the thickness of the forest. Father hawk winced at the sharp cluster of sounds, imagining how painful the impact must be. He held his breath, waiting to see if he would hear any more of the red monkey. The brown monkey grabbed a hold of the second branch that the brown monkey had landed on. Swinging from it he released himself, shrieking as he plummeted towards the site of the red monkey’s crash. Space before Father Hawk could scrunch his eyes in dreaded anticipation, the shriek of the red monkey emanated from the forest floor, joining the descending shriek of the brown monkey. The grey monkey dropped to the floor as well, joining the fray of shrill shrieking as he did.

Thrashing limbs against leaves and fruits, stamping against the forest dirt.

“OOOOH-AAAH-AAHHH-OOOH-AAH-AH-AHHHH!”

The hollering rose above each other, becoming more and more frantic. The monkeys scuttled away in a chase, the sounds of the earth and foliage rupturing at their feet and their screaming fading into the forest as they did. Father hawk stood dumbfounded, pondering what had just happened. The monkeys, however impulsive and frenetic they were, we’re clearly all heading in the direction of the Harvest.

A newfound stillness seemed to permeate over the forest scene, save for a gentle swing of large green leaves around the trees. Then, more fruits flew out of the canopy, punctuating the slowly swaying cluster of leaves as they dropped at the clearing, rolling to Father Hawk’s feet as he flinched back.

More monkeys tore through the forest canopy, chasing after shooting fruits. They caught them in the air with their mouths and hands diving into the canopy or bounding from tree top to tree top. They all moved to the left, turned towards a distant horizon diagonal to father hawk.

“The harvest begins!” Shouted a big baboon jumping into the air. “The Goings and Happenings from the Huntsman to the coyotes. Here, here! He called out to smaller monkeys popping behind him. “Come here. Food and affairs! Follow to the Harvest! The baboon dived into the canopy, rustling the tree top leaves, and leaving in his wake a series of shrieks and hoots splitting the sky. The furry creatures behind bounded over the treetops, creating a rippling froth of shaking, upturned leaves. They dived after the big-mouthed baboon, in the same direction as the three monkeys fighting over fruit.

The low register of a conch shell blew across the forest, its blare rising high in volume, turning to an echo through the trees.

Father Hawk’s heart thudded. He was closer to Coyote’s Rock, the closest he’d ever been. The animals of nature were coming together unlike they’d ever been before.

Nature could change forever, and the Harvest was the great meeting and feasting of the Animal Kingdom Father Hawk had heard of.

It was all coming together for him to restore the Flower of Life. Would the monkeys let him use it to save his wife? Father Hawk grabbed a clump of bananas with right hand and an apple with another.

Looking around for any hurtling monkeys to avoid, Father Hawk waddled around the clearing. Finding more in his vicinity, he raced into the forest, following clusters of littered fruit splotching the deep green in a brightly colored, half hazard trail.

All the while, hearing hoots and the spongy flattening of his claws on the earth, Father Hawk wondered if he would meet Sunjata and the other Eagles at the Harvest.

FANTASY NOVELLA EPISODE #3

Siona was flinging her arms around herself in a slowly controlled manner. Her fingers and hips grazed the air and the fellow dancers around her, in a titillating manner.

The changing lights above her were like the spasmodic and ever changing canvas of a sky and its weather sped up to an eternity whizzing past in a miniscule pocket of time.

Life and all of its storms and cloudy days— naught but mere flashes of bright and darkening colors— now exploding alongside her dance of eternity. No longer a prolonging of vibrant mood coloring a monotony of flustered existence. But now a phantasmagoria of feeling and passion— gyrating her body and sending the thrill of exhilaration and adrenaline coursing through her chest. Beads of sweat bloomed all over her body. The catharsis of drudgery and livelihood.

In her trance, free from the pressures and heartbreak of the day, she but barely noticed the string of red-clad faces that whizzed past the green-stained windows on the two walls on opposite sides from her.

The old man gently rocking in his wooden armchair was draped in faded green and red fabrics. He was to visit the site of the birthday party for the sake of his granddaughter and of family siesta tradition.

His long leathery, drooping brown face was so wrinkled and his eye-lids were so dazed and close to each other that he looked about to sink into a slumber within the forlorn edges of his armchair, closed off from the excitement around him.

His daughter, the middle aged mother of the teenage birthday girl, had just left his side to retrieve some dishes.

Alone, the old man looked about to sleep. Just when his heavy eye-lids suddenly paused in their slow descent, his murky brown eyes, warm with sleepiness, but now turning to the icy grimness of hardened earth. His eyes opened wider and his snowy eyebrows creased together.

He stared at one of the dully dark green windows adjacent to him.

He’d seen three moving blurs of red like rosy splotches of paint against a green tint, seeping outwards. They were only to be replaced by the dimness of night, returning to the dark green. The only things he could discern through the window were small green plants bordering the edge of the window below and the rolling darkness of the fields beyond.

The old man opened his mouth to make a noise, but was silenced by yet another sight of a red blur. It was a fast-moving entity, wrapped in an aura-like bundle of red cloth. Swinging limbs propelled the body, flapping cloth before disappearing again.

Another blur of a man ran past. This time, the old man saw a narrow band of dark skin and white eyes poking through a red headwrap, making an appearance before vanishing along the trailing red cloth into the confines and dark recesses of the night.

The old man wheezed, sounding like cracking ice. He choked around the words of warning he wanted to shout.

He shifted his shoulders ever so slowly to his right, looking for his daughter.

“V-vinika?” he muttered.

His voice was drowned out by the warble of the party.

“Vinika?” he repeated in a louder voice.

The lights of the room dimmed ever so faintly, before returning to their normal colorfulness and luminosity.

FANTASY NOVELLA EPISODE #2

“You’re saying they left for religious reasons?”

The question and his voice was drowned out by the cacophony of a siesta that had bled into night.

In the courtyard of the building perched atop the lone grassy hill, the stars expanded against the canvas of the open-air roof.

The sky flashed in color, turning from a pitch black to a bright green. The stars dilated, swarming like bubbles, expanding and frothing in explosions of hot white that spilled across the edges of the open-air roof.

The green of the sky melted back to a pitch black. The white auras of dilating stars became fading ghosts of flashing lights, dimming, but impressing their phantom flashes of color onto Karvhael’s eyesight as they died.

The two young women near Karvhael darkened against the swelling colors. Their thick locks of black hair swung to and fro. The one on the left had thickly curled hair, bouncing amidst her dance. The girl to her right had straight and luscious hair that sayed like a pendulum of fluid water.

A breeze grazed Karvhael, touching the right side of his face. The black masses of hair in front of him rustled. They were all surrounded by solid walls. The wind was coming from inside.

“I had to save up four months for this!” shouted the minstrel. He was a short stubby man standing over the cauldrons of foaming green liquid on a long black table standing at the right end of the room. He and his table were on a slightly raised platform of dark wood, looking over the crowd of entranced dancers. Bubbling green liquid oozed past the edges of the steaming black cauldrons, fizzing, popping and secreting a substance that dripped over the sides of the cauldrons. He hurriedly wiped off the spilling green. He muttered something unheard over the party’s noise and turned to a cabinet, opening it, fishing around empty cauldrons and packets of potion chemicals.

“Give us a bold one!” shouted Tivie, a large thick-armed young man standing to the corner of the room. “Give us Love Cauldron!”

“Uh, that one might be too strong for the kettle to handle,” the minstrel said. “And….we’ve heard that before……..too many times for me to hear.”

Karvhael could still make out these people through the lucid visionscape induced by the consumption potion he’d drank hours ago. The minstrel looked swarthy, his face’s rotund features and their sweat gleamed against the changing kaleidoscopic lights of the ballroom. Green— bright green upon yellowing hues turning to a bright orange and then bright pink, bleeding into a deep red.

Amidst the swaths of washing colors, young men stood with their eyes dancing over drinking cups they brought to their lips, coolly viewing the ballroom and its delights.

At the center of the room, vivacious young girls danced together in slim-fitting, loosely flowing robes. Their eyes were alight with mirth and ecstasy, illuminated by the glowing and changing colors of the room.

Long flowing hair and many limber limbs bounced, jiggled and danced in many other ways across the floor and around their own faces.

The limbs were of smooth youthful skin, flashing the bright reflecting colors. The girls’ curves were highlighted in the crevices and bumps of their narrow robes and dresses.

“What a pity,” thought Karvhael. “What a pity, here, tonight. What a pity that these lovely souls have to face slaughter.”

Karvhael’s conscious burned with the flaming sadness of his own inability to correct the course of events waiting outside in the darkness of night. The flames grew brighter and brighter, becoming pangs that pressed on his chest from within.

The world, however small, or however large had been teetering on the cataclysm of this very night.

The dancing was already underway. The Bloody Red Mystics were on their way.

Debauchery and warning. Pleasure or fear. Karvhael had found himself caught in the delights of the siesta. His focus teetered between the pleasure of his experience and the looming fear that he knew awaited them.

The room expanded so far that the sky began to enlarge. If Karvhael didn’t start moving his body faster, he would then feel like the ceiling was pressing in upon himself.

It was already happening.

Karvhael sputtered, feeling like too little and too much air was filling his lungs at once.

He heaved forward, feeling his panting press up from his chest to his face which felt like it was constricting.

Karvhael pushed himself back, lying against the wall. He leaned to the right, grabbing at darkly painted pots and pans with gold linings. His hand touched moist food and drink. Hot and cold. Yellow, steaming, brown. His face fell forward, enveloping in watery mush. Blackness seeped forth. He saw nothing and he blacked out.

FANTASY NOVELLA EPISODE #1

This story was originally written in 2022 and is now being serialized.

The stone steps were adorned with flaking paint, splotched in ornate patterns of flowers and curving shapes, all brightly colored with fading edges. From within the dark recesses of the cove, came the warbled, but melodic cacophony of music, sometimes shrill and sometimes softly lulling. Didn’t appear to be a place of skulking humans devoid of humanity.

The edges of the cave opening were cracked in some places, but jagged all over. The seeping purple of twilight covered the sky. The dark reddish glow of the setting sun bled behind the building and its bordering thickets of trees. Its bloody tint peeked from behind the stone roof, spilling its dying glow atop its craggly bumps like a grove of withering roses.

On the sides of the hill where the stone building perched, were rolling woods interspersed with cramped wooden huts. Their dark brown surfaces of faded wood blent into the barked fingers of the climbing forest.

Karvhael’s silver boots at the fringe of his pants’ golden-colored fruffles, brushed against the floor, jangling and creating a faint abrasive sound. This stone was unfamiliar to the pathways he’d walked within the confines of the Empire’s Commonwealth. Within those jurisdictions, he’d walked across much of tiled stone and pale rock surfaces. Here, the stone material of the stairs were gravelly and multi-colored, like clumps of the earth stitched together, stained by the varying brown and gray shades of sediment and earth. They fit in nicely into the mosaic of dirt and grass, receding into the rolling surfaces of green grass.

Far beyond the clustered mass of leaf curtained trees of the woods, where they turned into a faded green, cloaked by the translucent fog of distance, were the round roofs of stone buildings. Two columns of dull smoke crawled out of two chimneys far away.

To the left, a narrow chimney of pale smooth stone buried in a clump of trees, was shooting choked dark plumes that went hissing in the air.

The world went on while music and the aromas of a siesta’s hot food and slightly musky scent of dancing bodies in a dark room wafted from the cove, grazing Karvhael as he climbed the last set of steps and embarked upon the entrance.

The sharp crunching of gravel made Karvhael flinch. He turned to see a stout man of smooth chocolate colored skin appear from around the side of the building.

Like a willowy plant with a thick underbelly of stalk, the man sauntered forth, holding a shiny darkly-stained wine bottle. His dark arms were sinewy with bulging muscles that seemed to twitch with his sauntering, dance-like motions. He wore a sleeveless white tunic that clumped to his large chest. He wore a long brown robe at the waist, fashioned like a skirt.

His eyes squinted at Karvhael and he stopped walking. He looked Karvhael up and down. The man seemed formless to Karvhael when he considered his own ornate and formal imperial attire of silver satin and metal decked with red velvet.

A strong musky scent of alcohol wafted out of the bottle’s opening.

“You here for the party?” asked the man in a razor-edged voice, lilting with mirth. A soft smile touched his lips.

“Yeah,” Karvhael said slowly. He knew that to be a lie, but he needed a safe passageway. “I’m here to see about about a woman who used to live here.”

The mirth filled man suddenly frowned. His squint of puzzled amusement turned to one of skeptical fear.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“I’m the envoy.”

“The envoy?” asked the man as his frown deepened. “Who does the belong to?”

“I belong to the classified,” said Karvhael. “I’m of the Empire, the only entity to send out envoys.”

“Who are you?” the man repeated, pointing a finger at Karvhael in an aggressive manner that made his upper half stagger slightly.

“I’m here to see about a woman,” said Karvhael, continuing without answering, “who might be responsible for your demise.”

The man cocked his head up in confusion.

“She may have led the Red Dawn mystic cult to your village tonight.”

“Nobody has portals to speak of!” the man said, waving his arms.

“The Red Dawn find ways to infiltrate our world through people susceptible to their touch. Those who have touched any of the offchanted realms in any way are sought after as conduits into our world. The night-flyers come into our world when the portals from the offchanted realms are opened. They attack those susceptibles’ homes, the homes that failed them.”

The bearded man said nothing for an extended time. He glared with sullen brown eyes and what seemed like blindingly furious white irises into Karvhael’s. Despite their even gazes from across their similar heights, Karvhael felt imposed by the larger frame of this more muscular man.

With his leopard-like frame and his unmoving nonchalance, he was what stood in between, the young man Karvhael and the goal he was set out to accomplish. The silver-colored satin of his robe, his red armbands and the golden fruffles bordering the ends of his pants no longer felt as dignified and answerable to Karvhael as it had mere minutes ago, as he’d strolled grassy staircase to a hut that had once been hidden by the blue of sky and the mounted grass of the hill.

Karvhael was starting to feel like he was dressed in a frivolous costume in the land of open fields of grazing animals and farmers dressed in simple dully colored tunics.

“Listen, boy,” the bearded man grated, almost speaking the insecurities of Karvhael’s mind into existence. He motioned with the arm holding the wine bottle as he spoke. Dark liquid sloshed around inside the tinted glass. “We see the real flyers the Plagese left here. They’ve been here for ages and the Emperor— or…..” He swung his arm holding the bottle up, bringing it up to his mouth and taking a long swig and then wiping off the dark drops of liquid pouring down his beard.

“— your emperor and his governors have been living here far away from our lands. We make do with what we have. We hear the stories of conquest and rebellion from the Pilasee, but we know they tell them only because they can. They live comfortably. My people haven’t seen the nightflyers haunting our forests for ages. You don’t know our real problems. The Empire doesn’t know our real problems.”

“The Emperor and his governors have been living far away from our lands. We make do with what we have. We hear the stories of conquest and rebellion, but we know they tell them because they can. They live comfortably. Here, the night flyers border the woods. We have more important things to do than listen to the fairy tales of dangers by people who live with more than us.”

Fantasy world story segment #1

The rising sun cast a leprous yellow light atop the smoldering battlefield. The enemy, a dark and bloodied mass of bodies, was streaked in crimson stains that glistened through soaking gray robes. Faint waters lapped at the border of the plain from an ocean too distant to wash death away.

The Emorian victory had befallen the previous night, frozen under starlight, blown away by the chill of night.

Logan’s comrades doused themselves in liquor, thumping one another across their plated armor. Cheering raucously. Logan could only spend so much time within the jittery confines of their huddled bodies.

He slipped away, moving closer to the edge of the hilltop, overlooking last night’s battlefield.

He grunted, heaved off his plated chest armor, ripping the underlayer of corded leather that connected his large chest plates to the clinking scales that wrapped around his shoulders.

His eyes stung with the ache of sleeplessness. The roar of his fellow soldiers, the men he had fought with— killed beside, grew less imminent, but never dulling.

It was a frenzy of blood lusting. Logan and his fellow fighting men would be given epaulets for their labors next to the Beaches of Eden. Within their castle walls, it would be said that they’d fought valiantly at the site where mankind had once swum to Shores of Earth to become humankind. They’d murdered the foreign invaders. Created a new beginning for the Kingdom of Humans.

They would be heralded as the saviors of a new homeland. They’d paved the way. They’d be rewarded with gold, mansions by the Forlorn Coast, women and the coveted lands of a new world they’d purchased with the blood of fallen men whose corpses basked under the morning sun.

Logan felt his knees buckle, falling on them.

He’d achieved what he’d wanted. Attained the status he’d been told a glorious man of his nation should achieve. A lowly peasant boy like himself had done what he’d been told he couldn’t— wouldn’t.

He’d made it this far. And now, the moment he’d waited for tasted bitter, bile.

His eyes were glued to the scene below the hillside.

Charred earth, the trenches of ruptured soil where broken remains— shards of wood and cracked slabs of cement lay interspersed around the corpses, like the work of a blacksmith from the Underworld.

His work. The work of Logan and his fellow soldiers. They’d arrived at this plain, pillaging the foreign invaders.

Invaders.

Who were the real invaders? The fallen men in robes or him?

Rats caught in metal traps deep in the cellar of the Keep.

Some of those rats were the boys he’d grown alongside with in the Poverty Fields.

He’d seen them. Men, shadows of the boys he’d once befriended, turned to killers just like him.

“Logan!” voices had called to him. Pleading. Or were they decrying? Was it disgust? Fear? Logan couldn’t tell in the murderous frenzy. Nor could he now as he dwelled on his memory.

Old companions. Were they responsible for the massacre at Holy Mountain?

Or were they just poor men of the Southern Reaches placed in the wrong place at the wrong time? Was it their misfortune to be labelled under the same banner as the marauders of the Southern Reaches? To the Emorian dispatch, there was no difference.

A patch of clouds brushed past the bottom of the rising sun, creating an explosion of golden light, tinted by orange, spilling out of the sky. The gray peal of the morning heavens had turned to a seashell blue. The sun’s aura tinged the reflecting seawater, rippling like embers of a fireplace, the waves folding like crumbling wood.

Logan’s dismantled armor plates teetered at the slope of the hill, tumbling down, their thuds echoing across their welded metal surfaces.

The vertigo and weight of exhaustion made his body limp— shivering, nonetheless. As he fell forward, his torso tipping over, he could see gray wisps rising like steam from the damp corpses.

His head crashed on the sloped grass, sending him to an unconsciousness of dreams haunted by risen ghosts.

2200 Blues Interlude (Early Draft)

Concept sketch of *Eagle’s* “basement” by G.R. Nanda

Sand irritated his feathers, having burrowed under his layers of red plumage. He twitched, jerking his feathers back and forth. Sand drizzled out from in between his twisted feathers where there were caked banks of sand underneath. They fell like rain from dense unrelenting thunderclouds.

He blinked and shuffled his butt across the ground, raking more sand. The air was noticeably still. Of course anything would seem still after being dragged through the sky by Eagles soaring at dizzying speeds.

Looking behind at the depths of the hole he lay in, he could almost trink himself into thinking he was still asleep. The space of the dusty rock walls beyond were as dark as the insides of the eyelids.

The cavern was silent. The greenery of the creeping wilderness in front was tinged with the evening blue of a dying day. Like a blanket of snow, the blue radiance settled in, splotching the bushes and shady winding trees until the green of the leaves of the bark disappeared.

Leaving a deep blue that was quickly dimming to the pitch darkness of the cave.

The scuttling hoots of monkeys died. The night was replaced by the sharp and incessant chirpings of nighttime critters.

In the slithering pitchess and singularity of darkness, the memories of a frantic hunt and fall into a larke of horrors crashed into his consciousness, snapping back from the tension of dormant memory and ricocheting across his mind. Each ricochet— each thought of unbelieving anguish.

He’d failed the hunt. Failed his training after enduring and progressing for so long. Was it real? Mother Hawk in chains? Would he ever know?

What if he’d stayed? What if he could have fixed the situation? Seen if the sight of Mother Hawk was real and fixed it? What if he hadn’t plummeted to the lake? Would the land around it be burning?

The images of a smoldering forest rimming a lake erupting with forceful heat crashed over him. The helpless questions prodded at his mind like hot rods he couldn’t grasp.

He’d failed the Eagles. If only they’d let him stay and fight……………………

“Time to rest.”

The last words spoken to him.

Father Hawk’s heart hammered with the anticipation of action. Of remedy to his pain. But those last words gonged from his memory, ringing through his mind.

Hearing them. He sighed and slumped to the floor, closing his eyes to darkness within darkness. With that, he settled into an uneasy, but exhausted sleep.

2200 Blues Chapter 45 (Early Draft)

The Eagles flew over the lands, but slowly descended closer to the treetops. Once distant shrubs, they were now bustling, swaying bodies of leafed wooden limbs.

From below the leafed green masses were bodies of grey and red poking through the green and rustling the undergrowth, tumbling through it.

They scant seemed distant from the hills of red and brown rock that buttressed the trees on their sides and overlooked the woods in towers that loomed every which way, fading into the blur of the blue sky’s havens.

But the grey, red and brown objects moving at a fast pace on the forest surface were not rock crumbles or rubbles broken off the jagged cliffs. They moved at too fast a volition and speed to be mere rocks and stones where no wind blew. Branch by branch, they grabbed vantage. The stream flowed from the very bottom of the forest up into the tree branches.

Why! They were monkeys.

Hoots bombarded the air. They were shrill, but lilting with lightheartedness. Bubbling like laughter.

Monkeys scrambled at the forest floor and mounted the trees. They chased after the Eagle’s airborne path. Almost as if they were trying to grab ahold of Father Hawk’s legs.

Suddenly, upon the first dozen monkeys reaching the top of the trees, they split at the peak, diverging into two different paths that raced across the leafy roofs. Bounding over different trees, the two streams, slivered in their furry brown masses across different stretches of woods, separated by dozens of trees in between.

Amid a frenzy of frantically moving masses of monkeys vying for leverage, climbing over each other and grappling branches. They climbed above, around and to the sides of each other. They were a web of interlacing threads, constantly shifting and rolling.

However, amid the frenzy, the masses always separated into the distant lines, rivulets receding away at distantly separating paths.

Father Hawk watched in fascination below him. The cascade of hollering monkeys climbed up the trees, creating a squawking high pitched clamor. Yet, monkey by monkey, they dropped down, melting into highways, moving further and further apart the more the monkeys strolled.

The highways hastened underneath Father Hawk until they surpassed the Eagles’ flight. Their shouts faded to a shrieking din and their bodies settled back into the undergrowth. At the far reaches of the highways, their presence dwindled to mere splotches of grey and red, bubbling and popping in between the leaves and trees.

Father Hawk looked back up the woodlands, trying to see the monkeys’ onward path.

Rising in front of him were two rock monoliths, ascending from mounds of lower rock grazing the trees.

They rose like dry mountains, peaking at the blue haze of the higher heavens.

The monoliths were bridged by a craggly rock ridge of orange protruding from the poking trees.

As Father Hawk neared the ridge, he spotted a small monkey, frozen atop the ridge, watching intently with beady black eyes large enough to be seen from so high.

Once Father Hawk and the Eagles neared the ridge, the monkey flailed and screamed. He jumped on all fours as Father Hawk passed over, shouting into the trees below.

The Eagles suddenly swooped to the right, shifting their left wings upwards. They swivelled and glided below, moving fast and skimming the treetops where the clamor had left them behind, turning into an increasingly distant chatter.

Smaller birds fluttered here, flitting away from the oncoming bodies of Father Hawk and the Eagles.

The wilderness here seemed more active, teeming with buzzing, darting critters and scuttling bugs and mammals, scampering up tree bark and, the forest floor and slithering out of crevices in leafy foliage and clustered sticks.

The life and movement was spread out larger than in the Eagle’s haven. Larger than anywhere in the Shadowlands. Here, the life was so spread out that its din of chirping and buzzing created a general din emanating from all directions.

The Eagles broke formation allowing those on Father Hawk’s side to hover to the earth in between the trees.

Swooping to the treetops, they left the safe haven of the skies for the gently rumbling, teeming leaves topping the trees and blossoming in the buzzing undergrowth.

The Eagles separated, flying farther and farther away from each other, but staying in a constant line. Father Hawk’s chest pinched and a fuzzy faint semi-consciousness flooded him. It bled darkness, obscuring the forests and cloaking the Eagles’ destination.

2200 Blues Chapter 44 (Early Draft)

For the majority of the flight, Father Hawk was in a half-awake daze. A helpless stupor of immobility and half open eyes that always threatened to close. But as his eye-lids closed, he’d always be jolted awake by the strain and motion of dangling in flight.

The grey light with flickers of red fire shone through his eye-lids, but dimmed as the journey continued airborne. The insides of Father Hawk’s eyelids turned to a pitch black.

The cracklings of burning trees, roars of wolves and the smells of sulfur and charred trees disappeared.

The Eagles maintained a straight formation, soaring into skies above smoother, rolling landscapes. They rode high enough that the darkened trees of the Shadowlands were blotted out and made to a distant carpet for hills and cliffs perched higher. Above the Mark of Shadow. Touched by light.

Higher above, the air was less musty. It was clearer. Light green trees swayed gently below them, dancing amongst each other. Unlike the cramped barked bodies of the Shadowlands below. Cliffs were snaked by shrubbery, climbing grass and vines. They had a dark reddish-brown complexion of scraggly rock that glinted in the light.

It looked like the lands of the Eagles. Yet, in his stupor of half-open eyes, Father Hawk could still tell that he and the Eagles were not close to home.

The lively hoot of a monkey echoing from below the treetops echoed this thought as well.