Bring your own salt.

The waters lapped at Hectar’s bare feet. He sat on the edge of the bustling pier, legs dangling into the River Yp, the setting sunbeams finding the creases in his furrowed brow. About him scurried rough, rural folk; villagers who straddled the divide between the Fahmal’s western edge and Yptah’s eastern border. He paid them no heed. His eyes were closed. Ageless waters, you who have washed away secrets, so many… He felt the dirt on his feet, the crusted lattice set along his sandals’ ridges, felt it soften to mud, drift free. First River, you would wash away the stains of my long travels. For this I am grateful. Do you perchance have the power to free me of the time before that, from which I still fly; to wash the stains from man’s memory? Surely, surely, given time enough… All our endless choices, running together, the flow of who we are now, of who we become. Now…now is determined by choices past. Now, here I stand at journey’s end. Truly, there is but one Eterna...

A tall man, clothed all in white, a golden mask covering his face, sat across from the blue-robed Keeper. "I do not think I can carry out the will of the Guardians,” said the Keeper. "The gravity of this task – I am barred from sleep, mostly, and my dreams – fevered, sick with anxiety..." "You doubt the clarity of our vision?" asked the golden mask. "No, it is not that. Rather, its...utility. I am wracked with uncertainty. The future you predict, that you have seen unfolding as fact – I cannot swallow it. I see so many avenues for error; human error. There are too many ways to derail such a glorious dream, it is – it is too easily maligned, too easily bent to run counter to its intended path." "You think we plan harm?" "No! Again – it is not your intentions I question. Your intentions are...beautiful. But intentions are only words! Their manifestation, through action – this is an entirely different beast." "Kee...

The farmer tills and tends the earth, her harvest feeds our bellies The writer, well, he feeds our souls and that matters deeply too With fickle seed he sows a yield we’ll never touch or see, yet careful please don't blunder here thinking his crop will never be. Farmers mend fences They set traps to keep the wolves at bay Negotiate with neighbours' need And keep the house in order, as they say, in one piece. Writers, though, they take this peace and wander the collective Conscience This is where they reap and sow, producing stuff of ineffable nature: still food for mind, sustaining thought, which must be chewed with eyes, and gulped by ears, and viewed with open, open open Heart. The farmer needs her man, the writer, as he needs her nurturing embrace They share in laughter, under blankets, there they've made balance so few mammals ever do thei...

The assassin shifted his grip on the hilt, ready to strike, stepped towards the Master. The cowled neck was within reach. His breathing slowed, his mind raced. The crimson figure did not flinch or retreat. It did not move at all. Moment of hesitation: is this creature untouchable? Is it paralyzed with fear? Why does it not react? The Master leered down at the assassin, thrusting that long neck forward. “Decide,” the voice intoned. Before even his eyes could betray him, the assassin whirled his blade in a hissing arc. Its edge devoured the space between, hit something hard, and slid through flesh. But it wasn’t the Master’s neck. Faster than the Chimera himself a crimson arm had shot up in a bar against the Master’s head. The blade jarred against a hidden metal guard, slid along the smooth surface till it slipped past, biting into the soft tissues of a mortal forearm. Immediately there was the twang of wires. Something slammed into the Chimera’s spine, and through hi...

Near the center of the festivities the Tent of Tales was hung glowing against the night, lit from within by lamplight flickering. In it sat a wizened old woman weaving strange stories to a circle of wide-eyed children. Her tales were a curious mix of fact and fiction, slipping between the incredible realm of the Imagineers (as she named it) and that of the Mundang (which paralleled the serious, real world of the Adults). The storyteller would often adapt her characters to take on an uncomfortable likeness to one of the parents hanging about the outside of the story-circle. This delighted her audience to no end, for her descriptions of the denizens of Mundang were seldom pleasant (although always, it was privately admitted, uncannily true). It was one of these unfortunate victims who had first assigned her the name of ‘Wordbag’. She went by many names, behind her back; such as Crone, and Old Spite, but Wordbag seemed to stick, and she appropriated it for herself. This name seem...