Category: Fantasy & History

This category of writing contains works in the fantasy or science fiction genre, as well as works that may have been inspired by and/or take place in a world or fandom that already exists.

The Truth of the Matter (4/20/2024)

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From the outside looking in it’s all very romantic; the era, the aesthetic, the traditions and social cues and orderly courting etiquette. They always leave out the details, the raw bits that make it real, like you aren’t seeing through a glass darkly and only remembering the good parts.

Where is it written about the fickle light of a torch or an oil lamp? The weight of holding up layers of garments when running? The animals inside the keep for the winter getting into your food stores or eating the parchment you were working on? No one ever mentions that the red ink stains your fingers like blood every time you pen him a letter. Home alone is a battlefield all its own, much like the one he is away on.

I am becoming very much annoyed with the women in the papers writing about the “good old days” as though it were a fantastical holiday and not a struggle to maintain any sense of cleanliness or sanity or peace. Days and weeks and months spent waiting. Walking the halls and fields and grounds and woods searching for the site of him home at last. Even if only his ghost.

Steaming Kettle (07/27/2020)

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I gather pinches of various herbs and flowers from their various jars and packets.

My mood today is out-of-body; distant and detached.

I open the tap, filling the fat hollow of my kettle with the cool water of the well.

My days have been blending together in a slow rush of sunrises and sunsets.

I have cravings that can never be satisfied.

I smell my earthy fragrant mixture, stimulating something deep within me.

Lavender blossom, chamomile, raspberry leaf, rosehip.

Valerian root, orange peel, sage, mint.

Most from my own garden.

I need something: a physical touch. Intimacy.

Violent passion and passionate violence.

I watch the honey drip from my spoon and pool in the bottom of my mug,

Which reads “Pretend this cup is the skull of my enemy.”

Gods, what would it feel like to be a warrior again?

To know the feel of a man again.

To bathe in blood, instead of the crisp waters of a spring.

I use an old shortsword to stoke the embers inside the old wood burner,

As my kettle finally begins to whistle and scream.

The boiling water in my mug creates intense clouds of scented floral vapors,

The taste of which does something to clear the fog of my mind.

Moths & Catacombs [10-2-19]

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This catacomb has lain untouched for centuries, the stone covering its entrance not having been moved since the last body was entombed here. The air is stale, old, stagnant, and thick with dust and decay. The silence is heavy and overwhelming, save for the stones and bones rattling and crunching beneath my boots. The pressure of being so far underground weighs on my chest and the darkness is nearly impenetrable. I carry a torch; the fire casting shadows against the walls and tombs. Skeletons wrapped in disintegrating adornments, surrounded by sentimental treasures. Not even the rats seem to be here anymore; any remaining corpse long past the time when they ever had any flesh on their bones. Unexpectedly, the moths come to my light. Awakening from their centuries-old slumber, to flit and dance around the warm flame, bumping into my hand, their soft wings brushing me in ancient dust. Have they been sleeping here among the dead all this time? Had they ever even seen a light before? If they had-would they even remember it? These moths must be in awe of me as the light-bringer, much how I am in awe that they are alive here, in this forgotten place, where there has only been darkness and silence.

Witch’s Kit Bag (10-9-18)

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Her gnarled and wrinkled hands, long fingers like spider’s legs, nails like daggers, clutched the black leather bag and its two handles. It had served her well for centuries; larger on the inside than it appeared on the outside, and only ever weighing hardly anything. It sat aerodynamically upon the tail of her broom and always match her dress. She set the bag down and unclasped its buckle, rummaging through its contents for the supplies she needed for her spell work. It contained innumerable items, both ancient and modern, used for purposes both good and sinister. 


Reference books and spell books and her book of shadows. Crystals and metals and minerals and gems. A portable iron cauldron, a broom repair kit, and charged water from a Solstice. Various bundles and satchels and jars of both fresh and dried, medicinal and poisonous, herbs and plants. Salt and honey and the powdered wood of various trees. Holy symbols and statues and effigies of Gods and Goddesses. Candles of beeswax in every color conceivable. A corn dolly, a voodoo doll, and figures formed of clay. Bottles of ink, and feather quills, and parchment for notes. Ancient rune stones, tea leaves, tarot cards, and a crystal ball. A curved boline, an athame, an axe, and a wand. Burlap sacks, a wicker basket, pruning shears, a mortar and pestle, Alchemist’s refining tools, and grain alcohol. 


These items and so much more. Each one having numerous uses, each one gathered and well-used in her travels. Some fear her, some love her, but most know her work by name. So many years. So many people. So many spells and remedies and ceremonies. Her old hands find each item where it should be, and she lays them out, preparing her workspace, and centering her mind. A witch’s work is never done it seems.

Mummification [10-8-18]

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The sacred ceremony, meticulously documented for thousands of years. Texts of directions and procedures and specific step-by-step ceremonies of tending to the body of the Dead. The long process to prepare the dead, now done with this life, prepared for the journey to the next life. Soul and body would meet again. The Wedjat eye watching over all. The feather of Truth waiting patiently. The priest performing the opening of the mouth. Attending shabtis effigies packed along with worldly possessions. The tomb not a final resting place, only a crossing over, a trip on the journey to the next life.

Perfumes and oils. Resins and linen and medical surgical tools and Papyrus texts. Gold flake paint and incense burners and sacred God-headed canopic jars. Walls adorned with hieroglyphs and burning torches. Natron, layers of cartonnage. Evisceration and embalming, and the mask of a jackal. the heart and the kidneys remain inside. Liver, lungs, stomach, and intestines, and the four sons to hold them; Human, baboon, Jackal, and falcon. washed with wine, and water from the sacred Nile. Sutures and a beeswax ceiling incisions. Amulets carved and imbued with spells. Tens and tens of days of wrapping of the body with anatomical precision. Body cavities filled with aromatic plants and herbs. Eye sockets containing replacements of onions, stone, or glass. Elaborately decorated burial masks made in the likeness of the deceased. 

I feel like Jon Snow [12.3.15]

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I feel like Jon Snow.

To be more specific, when it is after the main wildling attack on the wall. The night’s watch has fought valiantly, and they fended off the initial attack of scouts. Jon snow has returned to the nights watch, run from the wildlings, escaped to warn his brothers of the impeding wilding invasion to Westeros.

He has always been a crow, even when he was with the wilding, even when he was with Yigrette, even though he loved her.

The men are patrolling the wall and castle black and the tunnels, surveying for their dead, and a damage report. John snow was in the battle as well, firing his bow into the wildlings scaling the wall and ramparts and towers.

Much like Yigrette fired arrows into him as he sped off on his horse, her screaming and tears and arrows following him off as far as they could reach.

Jon Snow walks among dead crows and wildlings alike, praying to the old gods for her to not be there. He walks and looks even though he’d rather not see. He walks and carries fear and regret and guilt with him in his heart.

And among the snow and black cloaks he sees a glimpse of red hair, and there she lay, kissed with fire and an arrow in her chest. Dead.

And so is he. Dead in the anguish of losing her. Weighed down and nearly killed with the guilt of not knowing is it was someone else’s arrow, or his own, which pierced her heart and lay her beautiful and lifeless upon the snow. 

Ancient Kingdom [5-15-18]

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She ruled her kingdom with grace and wisdom, fairness and mercy, but also with an equal iron grasp of vigilance, order, and power.  The people loved her as a Goddess. They were in love with her as a woman. They adored and feared her as a Queen. The enemy kingdoms and otherworldly daemons were no match for the ferocity and absolute loyalty of her armies, and the men within them. Each of them would die many times over to protect her, for without the Queen there can be no hive.

The days were sunny and cool, and the sweet mead quenched her in many ways, but not all. The neighboring King had kept a peaceful distance; never challenging her authority. He followed her wherever she went, appointing himself as her bodyguard of sorts. His eyes followed her more closely than his body, although he wished to lose himself in the ocean of her divine. She entertained the idea; He would head her armies and lead her heart along a path not oft walked by a God.

The wind blew her way, and on it was carried the smell of happiness.

I wrote this when I was on speed and watching Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas. [1-3-07]

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He sat alone in the room, his only company an off channel TV whose picture hissed and popped as he sat quietly, indifferent to the loud noise penetrating through the door from the other room.

The focus of his eyes was distant; glazed and wet from snorting the lined formations of cocaine from the table. The flashing of the TV screen reflected in his glassy eyes. His head was filled with white noise. His body tingled and rushed. Eventually, he sat up on the edge of the couch, and began sliding his credit card across the table; condensing the remaining dusting of powder into a pile. His empty pupils were locked on the roaring black and white screen as his tongue ran around the edges of the plastic card. Somewhere in his mind he thought about the subliminal messages in the static and picked up the last of the minuscule granules with the sweaty pads of his fingertips and rubbed them along the inside of his absorbent gland of a mouth.

With his gums tingling-eyes heavy with radiation-and his tongue grouping over his pearls for teeth; he stood. Swaying, he gave himself a moment to let the blood pump back into his head. He grouped for the doorknob and his clumsy fingers turned it with a loud creak.

The small apartment was swollen with people and the atmosphere seemed uncontrollable. Where had he been? How long had this been going on? He scanned the room and realized that nearly every drug known to man was present. Was that the root of this gathering of self-gratification?

Snaking through the mass of bodies, his mind recoiled in horror at what he was seeing; bottles of poisonous liquor and cackles of flirtatious laughter; the smell of cancer with every burnt clove cigarette. Men with lagoon eyes were surrounded in fog breathing smoke from shiny hookahs and exhaling like dragons. There were philosophers in the corners, passing a joint to the left while figuring out the meaning of life. Pro sports teams were in the kitchen, surrounding the cup-covered table and raging with testosterone. Scientists were mixing colorful and potent drinks from large labeled bottles on the counter, and passing them out to empty hands with fever. Mermaid women with bubbly laughter and sparkling champagne eyes indulged in each other’s half naked bodies, never once dropping their cups full of rainbow liquids.

Gliding through the crowd and casually glancing his way between bong hits and raunchy comments, she finally caught his eye.

Then suddenly, through the thick haze and movement of colors; he saw her. The clear bottle of rum in her hand; half full of the coconut delicacy, sparkled and splashed as her body swayed in an erotic sashaying of hips to the music. She, with a blonde mane of twine for hair and cat eyes, approached him. As she did, he shook his long shaggy hair, heavy and brown like leather, out of his eyes. Their deep color looked like a wet street at night; the red-greeen-white-yellow lights mirrored and stretched against the reflective blacktop.

When she smiled his mind became overwhelmed with instinct and drive; he felt his self control reduce to the sobriety level of a maniac. It was apparent that there was an on-setting lust from the drugs; the blind impulse to fuck. She was stoned and he was twisted. She was blazed and he was ripped. Had he no power to ignore these terrible drugs? These irresistible urges to taste her tingling flesh? The loud noise melted into a buzz and the mass movement around them slowed and stopped. Suddenly his hand was around the back of her neck and waist and her fingers were tangled in his hair and they were kissing. Their tongues were snaking around each other; their mouths were full of bitten lips and soft moans and the taste of pot and rum.

Then, suddenly, he was watching time fast forward and when it slowed he found that he was laying back on a bed, lacking a shirt and covered in scratch marks, and she was smiling as she locked the door to the dimly lit room. The air in the room was humid and heavy as he pulled back her head by her hair and tasted the THC on the hot skin of her neck. Their breathing was slow and deep as she bit his shoulder and her hips rocked against him to the beat of the loud music, which had slithered from beneath the door and filled the quiet of the room.

Laboratory [10-5-18]

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This is where I was born.
Cold stone and metal were my womb.
Electricity was my mother, and my Father isn’t one.
I travel this world tormented and alone;
searching for answers I’ll never get,
and companionship I’ll never have.
I yearn for understanding and peace,
but I’ve only ever known fear and pain.
Am I being punished for the sins
that belonged to the men that I used to be?
I long for the day when I can put an end to that monster of a man,
the one who bestowed my hideous being with life.
I feel as though I have existed for an eternity.
I fear I may never make sense of who or what I am.
I search in vain for my creator,
and for Death,
and I am terrified that I may never find either.

Elven War Haiku [1.12.18]

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5 The time came at last
7 To defend their ancient land
5 Men making arrows
9 The council making preparations

5 Their magic was strong
7 But their will was much stronger
5 They forged their weapons
9 Wove their Mithral armor with old spells

5 The animals knew
7 Smelling the fear in the wind
5 Fitted with barding
9 Ready to ride and die in battle

5 The Elders silent
7 They had seen wars here before
5 In ancient times past
9 The young do not remember that war
5 The old don’t want to

5 They stood solemnly
7 Stringing their bows and waiting
5 They could smell the fire
9 Enemies would soon be upon them