Gomrothian Chronicles

I sat down in one of those plush, velvet-seated chairs my brother was so very fond of. My eyes drank in the sights of regal hospitality as I relaxed and waited for my brother to arrive. Time seemed to crawl by at a snail’s pace, and so, I began to sing a song that had been stuck in my head for quite some time:

Like walking into a dream, so unlike what you've seen/

So unsure but it seems (cause we've been waiting for you!)

Fallen into this place, just giving you a small taste/

Of your afterlife here so stay, you'll be back here soon anyway…

I see a distant light, but girl this can't be right/

Such a surreal place to see so how did this come to be/

Arrived too early!

And when I think of all the places I just don't belong/

I've come to grips with life and realize this is going too far/

I don't belong here, we gotta move on dear escape from this afterlife/

Cause this time I'm right to move on and on, far away from here/

A place of hope and no pain, perfect skies with no rain/

Can leave this place but refrain (cause we've been waiting for you!)

Fallen into this place, just giving you a small taste/

Of your afterlife here so stay, you'll be back here soon anyway/

This peace on earth's not right (with my back against the wall)

No pain or sign of time (I'm much too young to fall)

So out of place don't wanna stay, I feel wrong and that's my sign/

I've made up my mind/

Gave me your hand but realize I just wanna say goodbye/

Please understand I have to leave and carry on my own life/

I don't belong here, I gotta move on dear escape from this afterlife/

Cause this time I'm right to move on and on, far away from here/

Got nothing against you and surely I'll miss you/

This place full of peace and light, and I'd hope you might/

take me back inside when the time is right/

Loved ones back home all crying cause they're already missing me/

I pray by the grace of God that there's somebody listening/

Give me a chance to be that person I wanna be/

(I am unbroken; I'm choking on this ecstasy)

Oh Lord I'll try so hard but you gotta let go of me/

(Unbreak me, unchain me, I need another chance to live)

I don't belong here, I gotta move on dear escape from this afterlife/

Cause this time I'm right to move on and on, far away from here/

Got nothing against you and surely I'll miss you/

This place full of peace and light, and I'd hope you might/

Take me back inside when the time is right!

I sighed after finishing the song, looking about and slowly getting bored. I had not yet been able to test out the extent of this body, having been trapped in a human body for far too long. I got up and cracked my knuckles, then my back then my shoulders, then neck and rolled my head around on my shoulders to loosen my body up.

"Cirdon takes too fuckin long," I concluded as I walked down the halls, taking a gander at foo-foo old paintings and richly woven tapestries.

I came to the end of the corridor where a staircase was. The staircase was a spiraling one, thick mahogany banister, onyx spokes and marble stairs. I quietly walked down them, feeling myself get a little dizzy as I descended. I finally made it to the bottom, looking around the Great Hall. Chandeliers twinkled above giving off elegant light on the red velvet carpet that led from the stairs to the very far away doors of the Palace.

"Unnecessarily long walks...just like ol' pointy ear to do something like that just because his lazy ass doesn't have to walk it..." I sighed and laughed at myself while making my way towards the door.

A soft voice rang in my ear as porcelain footsteps rang through the halls, so suddenly it was as if her voice drifted from the soft breeze, aloft,

"He's your brother you should know this by now," the voice said, and I could barely believe its source, "How have you been my dear Anubis, not whoring about too much around, I hope?" she asked quietly. She drew closer with noticeable apprehension though a sheepish smile played across her fuchsia-painted lips.

I stopped in mid-step. The voice, that wickedly beautiful voice; it was her. Just hearing the soft melodies her mouth uttered was rending to my heartstrings. I had spent countless nights listening to that voice chant my name in passionate fervor like some dark, erotic chant. That, of course, would happen no more.

"You must’ve grown some big ovaries to show up here. And when I say big, I mean FUCKIN' HUGE."

I turned in the direction of my ex-wife's voice, the only woman that could turn me into a bowl of mush. Gazing upon the golden haired woman, she dressed herself in a gauzy white cotton sundress that clung to her body like a second skin. At a point long ago, was my everything; the sun and my moon and the stars that went with it. But as fate would have it, it wasn’t meant to be from the start. A dispute, a few fights broke out, and a pain-staking decision later, and I was a free man once more, and she was never heard from again. But now here she was again, standing within the Palace of my middle brother, the Emperor of Gomroth.

"How did you find me? Nay, how did you know that I've returned?" I asked, narrowing my eyes suspiciously. I may be a big man, but I wear the shadows well when I wanted to.

Katherina smiled slightly as she walked up to me and reached for my pants’ leg.

"You never did pay attention to your poor clothes, dear." Kate said quietly as she pulled a small white spider from off my pants.

"I'm glad you have your old body back,is shrouds" she said quietly as she tilted her face up to me, her eyes covered by a spider silk wrapping who's white color had been tainted by crimson liquid. "It's fitting for the true Anbar to rise up. This world was rather droll with just that pale imitation, Fenrur, to whore about." She smiled seemingly happy that I had returned. I wished I could feel the same sentiment.

"The world needs you, Anbar, just the way you are, to start wars, and take the virginity of lovely young maidens. The world needs its Insanity." She said smiling slightly as she stepped back.

"Yeah, that poor mortal couldn't contain me, quite as much as I would've liked," I said yawning some as waiting for Cirdon had made me quite sleepy and prone to napping.

"These days it seems I need Gomroth more than it needs me. But, as always a darkness has shrouded the lands once more and like moth to the flame I am drawn to the prospect of my favorite aspect of living: fighting. War is on our doorstep and like some minister of death, my prayers have finally been answered." I laughed, a bit maniacally, like the old days when I had no worries, none of this complication or suffering.

Insanity had returned, and it had returned to stand beside his brethren.

Katherina still smiled happily as she faced my general direction,

"It's good to have you back, Insanity," she giggled lightly, thankful that the harm that she had caused when the two of them where together was not permanent. The man that she had loved once had returned leaving the man that she destroyed behind. She bowed slightly before insanity,

"Without insanity there can be no calm, without war there can be no peace and without sorrow there can be no joy." Kate said as she faced the floor still in the bow. "You are the essential part of the world Anbar..." She said quietly as she stood up, it was something she must’ve finally realized after I had left. She was not the calm to my storm, she was merely a cage for a beast that was much better off free.

"So have you been fueling yourself properly?” she asked quietly, no inkling as to what she meant. She spoke so casually, no emotions betrayed her but a false sense of joy she was throwing up to cover whatever underlying emotions she was burying.

"Fueling?" I asked munching on the end of the candy cig, staring off into space, thinking about what you meant. The thought hit me and I laughed despite the underlying feeling of stupidity wavering over me.

"Odd question, but that's to be expected coming outta you." I said taking the cig out of my mouth, so it wouldn't drop out when I spoke. But I continued,

"As a matter of fact, I have. But as to whom, THAT is a mystery only myself and the other knows only." I threw in that last little bit to be mysterious; I had the capacity to be so cruel and heartless to her, just as she was being apathetic and nonchalant to me.

"But enough about me, what the hell have you been up to since..." My free hand rubbed across my neck, where the rather large, rugged looking scar spanned from ear to ear, almost like my neck is smiling. "You know what I mean..."

The scar was abrasive even to my sword-calloused hands. It would remain with me for all my days, a reminder of my foolishness and the overwhelming power of blindly loving someone.

Katherina smiled that damned smile, skin as porcelain white as a finely made doll.

"I'm damaged goods you've known this since we met," she giggled lightly, "But it's good to hear you're getting what you need, you become such an ass when you don't get....... proper release." She waited for the last word, saying it as if I was a bomb ready to destroy the world.

But just as quick as her joyous facade was thrown up, it came down betraying a look of unadulterated pain; I could almost taste it on the tip of my tongue the emotion was suddenly so palpable

"The boys died," she said quietly as she looked up at me, "I just thought you should know," she said quietly as she ran over the bandage that covered her gouged out eyes.

"And I think I have finally found the proper punishment for picking up one of your less desirable habits," she said with a small smile, pointing to her cloaked eyes, "This way I could keep my promise to never see the world without you and I also gave myself a proper punishment.

My sons. Silently I mourned them. I bowed my head and clutched my gut. I felt like I was going be sick.

“How… how’d they die? Who’s responsible for this?” I choked out the questions barely able to think of a world without my sons.

Kieran…so gifted with a rifle, a lover of other men. And Azazel…my prodigy, my heir to the Dark Charmer title. He so looked like me, it was frightening. Like a fucking carbon copy, I thought, feeling bile rise in my throat. I seldom vomited, I never got squeamish, but right then I felt like I could lurch all over the beautiful monochrome marble flooring.

The Emperor had just rounded the corner, as always lost in his own thoughts. He was adorned in travel gear, two stuffed packs rolled up tightly bounced on his spine with every step. His white hair, tied up taut allowing room for his pointed ears to retrieve air. Floating beside him was a bag of weapons, hilts of swords poking from one end, clinking in another pack. Wind from the open windows billowed his travel cloak, black with the Royal Dragon insignia on its back. Psy, the madman marauder, was to meet him at the stables as they were to leave at once and with much haste, the covering of the night giving them a head start. He was about to decide which horse would best be able to keep up with Cloud Runner when familiar faces and the straying of voices from the mind came before him. Golden hair was the first thing that caught his eye and the monstrous figure of another overshadowed it. His mouth slightly agape in more disbelief than shock, Cirdon, my Middle Brother, spoke out, a smile curling the scarred side of his face,

"Well freeze my piss if ain't old Nuby!" he said laughing. His eyes returned to the gold haired woman and his smile did not falter, surprisingly. It was rather odd in this position for though his own grudge had long since died, her own feelings was unknown to him.

"And Lady Katherina, a pleasant surprise indeed. I was foretold of Anubis' coming through letters but you, this is surely unexpected, what brings you back to Gomroth?" he said, adjusting the two packs on his back.

I looked up to the travel-ready brother, a grim smile slid in place. I drew back my emotions, for to not do so would be endangering everyone around me. The last time I was this deeply saddened, the Insanity overtook me, and I ravaged the entirety of a town, killing EVERY living thing. I stood up, proudly straightening my back to my formidable foe, and my blood, Cirdon.

“Brother…my boys are dead,” I said hollowly, despite my attempt to draw my numbness back inside of me. I was losing control. It was all spilling out from me and felt a hot stream of wetness grace my cheek.

Cirdon stood stock-still, more rigid than his usual stiff-as-aboard self, which was nearly ruler straight at this point. He dropped the sacks onto his horse’s back and fluently slid off the horse in one easy motion. He was a tall S.O.B., his vision could nearly see over my head and I was a cool six foot-three. His legs were like long willowy roots of an Elven tree, befitting a regal Master of a Realm and an Emperor of a land and with those long legs he strode quickly and efficiently towards me. His hands surprisingly warm, landed on my shoulder as I slumped over, shivering from melancholy, sobs clawing their way from my throat.

Cirdon’s voice betrayed a note of sympathy from usual distant demeanor, and his stance softened as he threw an arm around my massive shoulders and crouched some so that our heights were level. He said,

“Then tonight… two stars have been snuffed out before they could be their brightest. I am sorry, my Brother.”

And for once, the detached bastard actually sounded as if he meant it…