Morsels

hey there, this page is for little things that ive managed to write. have fun reading :)

The Cleric

---They say the cleric did not pray.

He begged.

When her body fell, cold and wrong, the cleric refused to accept the silence that followed. He tore through every sacred word he had ever been taught, grinding blessings into curses by the sheer force of his grief. Healing magic—meant for bruises and fevers—was driven into a dead thing again and again, until the earth itself cried out beneath the weight of it.

The ground split its skin.

Roots burst upward like grasping fingers. Flowers bloomed black at the center and red at the edges, fed not by sunlight but by the violence of love that would not let go. Her body did not breathe. Her heart did not stir. Yet the land remembered the touch of divinity and refused to release what had been laid upon it.

The cleric died there, some say, whether by exhaustion, madness, or mercy is never agreed upon.

Years passed. Then decades.

Where rot should have claimed the flesh, none came. Her corpse remained as it was the night it died—eyes shut as if in sleep, lips faintly parted, skin neither warm nor cold. Around it rose a forest that rejected all trespass. Roses with thorns like needles of bone. Vines that tightened when cut. Petals that stained the ground the color of old blood.

No birds sing there. No insects dare linger. Fire dies quickly, and prayers spoken aloud feel wrong in the mouth.

The elders say the land is still healing, still trying to obey a command it was never meant to receive. Others believe the corpse listens, trapped between endings, held fast by a love so desperate it became a wound in the world.

And so it lies there still, untouched by decay, guarded by beauty and pain in equal measure, a monument to love powerful enough to scar the world—but not enough to undo death.

They warn travelers not to approach.

Because sometimes, deep in the thornwood, the flowers tremble as though something has remembered its name. And sometimes, on nights when the moon is thin and cruel, the body exhales.

===

Reinheart's Treasure

---The first dream was the most enchanting. I was walking barefoot in this very kafkaesque town, with people that were gloomier than the clouds above them. It soon started raining to no-one's surprise and for some reason rather than the raindrops feeling cool and refreshing, the drops had more of an affinity to obnoxious shrill noise that screeched into my skin and with the coming inflammation of acid rain I started to look for some semblance of a roof to shelter me from this onslaught of black rain. I did find a porch on a sad and poorly made house, almost as if made by a child facing the divorce of his two most loved people. The porch was as dilapidated as the house with a termite infested door but a roof was still a roof, i adjourned.

Just as i thought I could shake the pessimistic tone of this sad unknown town, the door, barely hanging onto it's hinges, creaked ajar and a voice that sounded like soup made out of TV static whispered to me, " i dont think you should be here. "

Hearing that voice shoo me away made my stomach collapse into itself for some reason. I did go away and looked back just once to see a hand still shooing me away, like I was some wild animal that didn't know reason.

And hence I was back on the sullen street again and I could feel my feet and toes trying to find a safe place between the stone bricky pavement. Uncomfortable by the muddy filth of the pavement wriggling between my toes, i jolt backwards hitting a lamp post, " wait, a lamp post? I haven't seen anything resembling the sun, ever since I was dropped into this wretched place it hasn't been anything but gloom. "

It was then that I had realized how dark the town was, with the buildings and shacks just fading into the smog, and now with fresh factory smoke between my air sacks I reach to hold onto the post, being the only sign of luminosity. It's light permeating my bones.

It's texture was quite unlike anything man made. Anything but man made. Had neither the lustre of steel nor the finish of newly painted iron. The post gave a more raw, unbothered but welcoming feeling as i spread my palm over it.

Suddenly a deep suave voice whispers above my head, " Quite unlike anything you've ever touched, right mate? "

I look above to realize that the thing i mistook as a lamp was actually as a matter of fact, a talking sunflower and this was no lamp post, it was the stalk of a sunflower plant. I was too dumbfounded to answer back. How could I possibly mislabel and misidentify a colossal plant?

The sunflower was in no hurry to get an answer either. He seemed to shine even brighter and I felt like he smiled, although he didn't have a face.

"Weird." I muttered.

"What, me talkin?"

"Why do you have an Australian accent?"

"It's fun to talk this way mate, you oughta try it too."

"Wait wait wait. Why and how are you, a sunflower, talking in the first place? Am I even sane right now to begin with?"

He didn't answer right away, as if he was searching for the right way to vibrate his sepals to be audible to the human ear. What a considerate guy he was! There was never any feeling of hurriedness, there was always this omnipresent feeling of eternal calmness.

By the time he replied again I was done counting how many leaves and budding flowers he had. Thirty three leaves and 2 other buds growing on him.

"Mate this photosynthesis stuff is so slow I tell ya."

" Wait you weren't tuning your sepals? "

" The phrase *tuning your sepals* is weird to hear even as a talking sunflower mate! I need summa that dung you been smokin' bruv. "

That's when it hit me. Where was I? I don't live anywhere near talking sunflower or with factory gasses that make my lungs feel two tonnes more heavier. Sunflowers can't even grow where I live!

"Shhh mate, calm down. Do ya wanna escape from 'ere?"

I nodded vehemently.

" Gotcha. " He said and I felt something like a cold rope tugging at my calves. But before I could bend down and inspect what was pulling away at my legs, the sunflower's roots pulled into the ground. I thought I would drown because the ground was as cold as a lake in fall. Before the ground swallowed me completely, I saw the sunflower smile and shine at me one last time.

"Enjoy mate, tell the Winds that Dinatriol sent you."

And then I was completely inside the ground. The fear of suffocating came as fast as it subsided because somehow I didn't need to breathe. Who would've thought that there was no concept of breathing underground? I started testing which of my five senses worked in this space, smell? Can't tell yet, sound nope, can't even hear a mouse squeak, taste? Why and how would i try to taste nothingness? Sight was complicated. Although my eyes were firmly shut and i couldn't open them, I caught glimpses of many beings, inhuman beings, beings that were never meant to be comprehended by a human mind. I was seeing without sight. I guess i was finally the first in something now, Pops would be proud. They didn't really pay me any mind, they seemed to be talking, maybe? Because i couldn't hear anything, I don't know how I managed to understand that even. While thinking of the grainy feeling that the underground space left on my skin, I caught a whiff of this dreamy lavender smell that made my neck jerk.

It was slowly getting warmer now, which made me realize how cold i was inside this groundspace. And suddenly without any warning I felt this magnanimous soft warm touch. A feminine and compassionate touch. How did I know it was touch and not a rock heated by the core of the Earth? Because the touch radiated love, then I thought of how concrete the proof of a sixth sense was. It was love, the ability to sense love from another living being. The touch was brief. I couldn't feel any fingers and the touch didn't feel solid for some reason. It started feeling warmer now and the smell of lavenders was fading albeit leaving a faint trace as if it was consciously calling me to follow it.

"Wait!" I thought. I didn't want to be alone again. I didn't know if I was moving or not, was i still then? I think not. I tried moving the tips of my fingers first, then my toes and finally when I felt like I could move enough, I reached out for that faint but still present smell of lavenders. i broke free of that dimension of nothingness and coldness. It felt like ripping apart a large piece of wet cardboard.

Where I emerged next was nothing short of phantasmal. Vast meadows of lavender that extended perhaps even beyond the horizon. There was no sun to be seen though, which was really strange taking into account how bright it was. I checked my watch, which was muddier than my boots in monsoon, one quick wipe revealed that it was 1 am.

"What a strange place man." i thought.

I looked behind to see if where I was a brief moment ago still had any cracks left to crawl back into incase any predators chase me. What I saw next felt nothing short of a silly prank from Dinatriol, as it turns out what I emerged out from was a pile of sunflower seeds. Then out of nowhere, came a voice as sweet as the sight of the infinite fields of lavender.

"How did you get here?" She said.

I turned towards the voice and what i saw made me reconsider if I really had schizophrenia, it's a bit late to think that now. It was a lady, I think? I don't know if she was there or not, her body was woven from lavender blooms and drifting winds, petals and perfume swirling in a soft human shape. From the meadow’s heart she had risen, a spirit sculpted of lavender and air, her silhouette dissolved into the air everytime a breeze rolled by.

" Are you the Winds? Dinatriol sent me here. " I say, barely managing to hide my amazement.

" I am one of the winds that reside here. The Wind of these vast meadows of what you humans call Lavender."

" It's a pleasure to meet you uhh, what's your name? "

" A name? " She chuckled. " What a human concept that is! I don't have a name, human male. The beings that reside here never need names. "

" But then how do you identify eachother? You said there were more Winds right? "

" I am a part of nature, I don't have an identity. " She beams a smile the same way Dinatriol did.

" Can I give you an identity then? " I asked.

It felt as if she was quite taken aback by this sudden proposition.

" I've never heard of the act of acquiring a name in {no name yet}. Go ahead human male, you shall be the first to name a being in {no name yet}"

" Another first, Pops."

" Pardon?"

" No no nothing. Hm well since you rise from this land abundant in the beautiful hues of purple, how about Lavideria?"

"Hahaha! Humans really do excel at labelling things. This identity brings me a strange sense of contentment. "

Her laughter sent shockwaves throughout the surroundings as if to let every tree, bush and blade of grass know of her name. I may be mistaken but it seemed like she was blooming more? I know she's made entirely of lavender flowers but it felt like she was blooming in full volume. What beautiful being she was. I guess she really liked her new name.

"And do tell me, my friend, what are you called? "

" Ah of course I'm....hm......wait.....huh? "

" You're called Huh? "

" Huh? No no, I can't seem to remember my name for some reason! "

It was beyond strange now that I think about it, finding myself in a town I didn't recognise, how i couldn't distinguish one house from another, how I simply just was there. With no meaning and no explanation.

" I think I might've lost my memory. I can't remember anything. Where I grew up, the faces of my parents, my own name? I don't know anything. "

" You keep getting stranger human, but this might be how we could get equal."

" Equal? What are you implying?"

" I'll give you a name the same way you've given me one. " she said beaming at me with her purple smile.

" It'd be my pleasure, Lavi. " I say beaming back.

" Reinheart. "

"I love it, but why that name specifically?"

" It reminds me of a man I read about once. He was much too similar to you. "

"Then I shall Reinheart as of this moment on! "

Having an identity to cling onto was really one hell of a pleasure. Blessed be the ones with a name.

" I have a question for you, Lavi. Why is there no sun here? Or more importantly, where in god's green earth am i? "

" Didn't you meet the sun when you were above? And we're inside one of his many roots right now. "

" Dinatriol is the sun? how does that make sense? but the fact that he's a talking sunflower doesn't make sense either. "

" Why is it necessary foor things to make sense, Reinheart?"

To be continued...

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