[center][h1][color=000000][b]𝕵𝖆𝖈𝖐[/b][/color][/h1][/center]

	“She’s just a little kid….” 

Jack grumbled under his breath at Cheryl’s comment about his daughter. He was feeling a little deflated by Cheryl’s lack of enthusiasm. Maybe she was a heartless bitch, but judging by her present overall demeanour, she was tired, and she wasn’t up for small-talk. Who is when they are tired, right? In the end, she had agreed to help him, so that certainly was a step in the right direction. He would just have to wait and see how things turned out when she’d gotten herself some rest. Not to say that Jack wasn’t identifying with her own losses at present, he was, being another reason why he held back on getting snarky with her. 

There was no objection when Piper took to roosting on the shoulder of Cheryl. No comment was made. Yet in his departure, Jack felt a lingering sense of loss. He’d been enjoying the sensations that came with Piper perched on his own shoulder. It was nice, comforting somehow, reminded him of a rat he once had as a pet when he was just a kid. Unfortunately, Roger the Rat had been killed when Jack accidentally stepping on him one morning while clambering out of bed. His fault for not caging roger at night. Freedom had its fatal price. 

Jack simply followed on as Cheryl made her way to the stables. Though he had no clue the stables were actually their most immediate destination - only an assumptions at this point - he flipped through a few different thoughts on how to actually acquire a horse for transport. None of those possibilities seemed feasible at this time of night.  

“Jack….” 

He was following outside of arms reach of Cheryl as he answered her question. His flat pronunciation of his name, however, dropped off at the end as though he were distracted by a curious thought. But it wasn’t a thought that had distracted him. It was in that moment he felt that energy inside him again. That same, strange energizing sensation surging through his flesh as it had done back in the tavern earlier. It caused his steps to falter slightly, just for a second, like a man who had had a little too much to drink. He quickly regained his footing as a cold sensation rushed through his head and his eyes caught sight of two people walking into town over the bridge. Some bald, muscular giant of a man, hand in hand with a little girl dressed in a yellow, man-size shirt – 

[i]Hannah!![/i]

His daughters name screamed out in his brain, his mouth gaped open but his voice got lodged in his throat, and an eerie shiver caused him to shutter when he realised that Hannah and the man she was with were not as they had first appeared to be. They were both transparent. Ghostly. Moving in slow motion like a stalling replay of some old haunting film. 

The apparition lasted for less than a couple of seconds before fading into the night. They were gone. The sensation of powerful energy surging through Jack’s body quickly left him as though his flesh had sprung a large leak somewhere. He gasped a deep breath. Mouth slapped shut. Feet now shuffling in Cheryl’s footsteps like a dazed automaton following its master. 

[i]What the fuck just happened….[/i]

It wasn’t long before they arrived at the stables by the bridge. The stables themselves were much like any other stable one might expect, each open stall division of the stables housing a different animal. The horses – if that’s what you want to call them – were not exactly what a man from Earth might anticipate. They were like mutants; horses subjected to all sorts of radiation exposure alterations. Each one was slightly different. A few had managed to grow a set of bull-like horns. All of them though, despite their slight differences, looked as though they’d been injected with steroids form the time they were born.  

Jack drew to a stop, face still pale and mind still distraught from the vision he had seen, and therefore couldn’t have really cared less about the freak-like horses he was looking at. He just stood there for a moment, swaying like a man recently risen from his own grave. Eventually he found some words to speak in a low, mortified tone, but wasn’t even aware he was talking:

“I just saw my tootsie pants….”

Then, just as his somewhat peculiar choice of words dwindled out, he couldn’t help but hear a horrifying sound far off in the distance to the South, clearly loud enough for Cheryl to have heard as well. It pierced the night like that of grating metal, reminiscent of some enraged metallic beast rising from the depths of hell. 

The foreboding shriek sent yet another shiver through Jack, just like the one he had felt when viewing the apparition of his daughter moments beforehand. His morbid, pale expression only deepened with trepidation as he looked to Cheryl for answers. Any answer, any words, anything at all to explain just what the hell was going on around here. 

	
[hr]

[center][h3][b][color=708090]𝕺𝖓 𝕽𝖔𝖚𝖙 𝖙𝖔 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝕽𝖔𝖞𝖆𝖑 𝕮𝖎𝖙𝖞[/color][/b][/h3][/center]


	Bringing to a stop the thunder of hasty hooves, three horsemen were blocked by an old woman in a dark robe as she appeared on the road before them. 

The three men remained mounted on their muscular steeds, briefing each other with looks of caution before the foremost horseman spoke up. 

“Step aside, old hag!” He gloved the hilt of the sword at his belt. “We are royal couriers with message for the Queen. Interfering with our service is punishable by death! You know that.” 

“Don’t make me laugh….” The old woman smirked, brushing a fall of grey straggled hair from her face as she lifted her blue eyes to the man. “You have no power over me.” 

As she finished speaking, other faint words could be heard. The voices of many conspiring voices, like a cantor of whispered incantations filling the subtle breeze throughout the area.  

At that, the horsemen became agitated, uneasy. Even their horses became unsettled. The head horseman drew his sword, pointing it at the old woman with a look of intense fear stretching his face. He in that moment realised who she was.

‘Stand down, Woman of the Mark! We have no quarrel with you! Allow us to perform out business, please. This does not concern you!”  

Meanwhile, the other two horseman were growing with concern, one of them suggesting that they turn back in order to preserve their own lives.  

“That is where you are wrong.” The woman replied, lifting her arms in a cross-like fashion as if to embrace the world. “Today your business is mine. You have tread upon my ground. You will not interfere with my own. [i]Your[/i] Queen cannot not be aware of the messages you send. The fate of Cheryl Lusby is contained beneath my hand.” 

“Wait! Please, no!” The head horseman pleaded, but it was all too late for bargaining. His voice choked, words deadened as the three horses froze, transfixed in a moment of time. All three couriers were dumbstruck. Their faces paled with fear. Helplessness. The old woman stretched open her mouth, arms remaining outstretched as the sound like that of grating metal emanated from her mouth to pierce the solemn night. 

All stricken by her power, the ground began to convulse. The trees began to quiver.  The air itself became like an ocean of invisible shards of glass that caused the three men’s’ skin to bleed while their bodies inflated like balloons. Expanding, flesh stretching, eyeballs popping until in one final moment - as the grating voice of the woman reached its pivotal moment - all three men exploded, their existence reduced to a bloody mist, carried away in the gentle séance of the now fading whispers. 

The horses remained, them and a hard leather casing containing the parchment sent by Sancho to the Queen concerning the crimes of Cheryl Lusby. The casing hit the ground and rolled to a stop before the old woman approached. She stood before it, grimacing upon it, and with a blink of her eyes it burst into flames. 

“Ut nihil uri.” 


[hr]	
[center][h1][color=8882be][b]Boris[/b][/color][/h1][/center]

	Boris was happy the little miss’s family reunited but, just like normal, he was also very confused. Her parents had been dead, that was for sure and no doubt about that, but now they were alive again. That just didn’t seem right at all. And even more than that, Mr. Dog, little miss, and her now very alive parents seemed to think it was his fault they were alive. That, well, seemed even less right. 

Sure, Boris had done some things in his life that had surprised him [i]a lot[/i], like making himself appear in a comfortable bed when he was tired, or making a cookie to appear when he was really, [i]really[/i] hungry. Sometimes, and only sometimes, his wishes just came true like that. But gosh, wishing someone wasn’t dead anymore wasn’t like finding a comfortable bed or making cookies, was it? When people died, that is where they stayed… in [i]dead[/i] land. 

After the happy reunion, Boris and the family spent the night by the fire of the bandits’ camp. But Boris couldn’t sleep well at all, this whole not-dead-anymore thing kept his eyes wide open for hours, just staring up at the drifting three moons in the sky, thinking about the times he’d done amazing things, and wondering if it was even possible that another one of his wishes had made those people live again. 

[i]Gosh, that’s such a silly thought.[/i]

Eventually though, Boris did fall asleep without coming up with a really, really, really sure answer. 

In the morning, bright and early, Boris helped the family get their horse and carriage back on the road and the little miss’s daddy gave Boris three gold coins for his help. Boris didn’t ask for it, but he sure was grateful. After that they parted ways, the family went one way and Boris, for reasons he didn’t understand, departed in the opposite direction. 

He must have been walking an hour or two when a pretty stone bridge to a town came into view. Still a ways down the road from that bridge, he stopped to try and read the word chiselled out on a wooden sign at the side of the road. Probably the name of the town, but Boris couldn’t read it. That didn’t stop him trying though, he tried to read a lot of things and usually failed. This was not exception. Following several attempts he finally gave up, fetched his note book and pencil from his pack, and then concentrated really hard to copy every stroke of the words to his notebook as best he could. It was then, just as he finished drawing the word in his book that he heard the sound of whimpering coming from not too far away.  

Flipping his book closed and tucking it under his left arm, he turned towards the bushes where the whimpering seemed to be coming from. If Boris wasn’t mistaken, it sounded a lot like another little person was in trouble and feeling sad. But what he really hoped is that maybe it was another Mr. Dog. He liked Doggies very much.

As he drew closer, the whimpering grew quiet, but he continued nonetheless, stepping over shrubs until another little girl came into view. It wasn’t another Mr. Dog at all, but Boris felt no sense of disappointment for what he had actually discovered. 

The girl, no older than ten or twelve, was huddled in a ball, arms wrapped about her tucked legs. She was dressed in a very strange and skimpy green outfit. It was possibly underwear, and it fit rather tightly about her body with straps over the shoulders. It had no leggings. The girl had brown, shoulder-length hair and bulging blue eyes of terror, mouth agape when she laid eyes upon the massive man. 

Despite her obvious fear, Boris moved closer and squatted down in front of her, a broad smile expanding his infant-like demeanour in an attempt to comfort the child, yet it only served to make her more frightened. 

Her face went white with trepidation. 

“Boris won’t hurt you at all.” He told her, bringing his goofy smile right up close to her terror. “My name is Boris. B. O. R. I. S. That spells Boris!” His smile became broader as he looked over her person and shook his head in wonder. “Gosh, little miss, a little miss like you should have more clothing than what you are wearing, that’s [i]for sure[/i].”

He reached out slowly, and the girl was too scared to even flinch as he used his finger and thumb to pluck at the stretchy fabric of the strap on her shoulder. 

“I sure haven’t seen clothing like this before. But gosh, I sure do wish I had clothing like that. It sure is puuuuulley.” He chuckled in a silly manner. “Boris is a very big man. Clothing like yours would fit no matter what!” 

He released the strap, and it gently slapped against her skin, but still she didn’t move, just eyeballing Boris with petrified eyes. 

“Don’t you worry at all, little miss,” He assured her with a heavy nod. “Boris understands. I’m going away now. Boris is going to find you something more ladylike to wear. Just you stay right here! I’ll be back [i]very[/i] soon.”

Boris strode away with a bounce in his step and came to the road again, where it just so happened that a male traveller, much smaller than Boris and perhaps in his mid-twenties, was passing by on his way out of the town. The man had the usual apprehensive response people had to Boris when the giant man stood out in front him – 

“Excuse me, Mr. Man, but Boris wants your clothes.”

The man eyeballed Boris as if he were confronted by an escaped lunatic. “I- I I’m sorry, I need my clothes. They are my – “

Boris grabbed him by neck, face red with sudden rage as he lifted the man from the ground like a feather with his right hand. The man’s legs flailed and his fists beat at Boris’ massive arms in a futile attempt to escape. 

“Boris want’s your top garment, OR ELSE!” 

The man’s body became limp, dangling by the neck in Boris’ hand, his face turning a shade of blue from oxygen deprivation as he wheezed the words; 

“Take my clothes… Take whatever you want, just please… please… just don’t kill me.” 

“That sure is kind of you.” Boris smiled, and released the man who crumbled to the road and instantly started removing his shirt. He also offered Boris money, but Boris refused. “Nah-ah!” He gave the man a reassuring nod as he took his yellow shirt. “Boris only wants your shirt. You can keep your money, that’s for sure!”

In a state of dismay, the man didn’t dare test fate. He ran back to town, the direction from which he had come. 

Shortly after, Boris returned to the little miss still hiding in the brush and placed the yellow shirt on the ground in front of her. 

“You just put that on right now, little miss!” He insisted in his Boris-knows-best kind of tone. His mind slightly distracted, he then opened his notebook to the appropriate page and showed the girl the drawing he had made of the sign out on the road. “And if you don’t mind at all, little miss,” He added with a sanguine grin; “Could you please tell Boris what these letters say?” 

Though still in fear, the girl managed to reach out and snatch the shirt from the ground and quickly put it on. It was a large enough fit to serve as a dress that covered her figure to the knees. As she buttoned up, her still wide eyes turned to carefully analyse the image. As the last of the Buttons were fastened, she lifted her eyes to meet Boris’ hopeful stare and spoke in a barely audible tone;

“Welcome to Sonarlis.” 

Boris was chuffed, smiling from ear to ear like a child that just received his favourite treat as he returned the book to his backpack. “You sure are a smart little miss!” He told her. “And don’t you worry at all! Boris is going to help you find your parents!” He leaned in close again with a childish, [i]conspiring[/i] side-eyed look; “Boris will stay with you until you find your parents. No doubt about that [i]at all.[/i] Even if I have to bring them back from the [i]dead[/i].” 

It was then that the girl’s expression changed to that of a curious revelation. She had realised that Boris was of a simple mind. In that instant her posture slumped as if a weight had been lifted, and she regarded the giant man with childlike empathy. 

Boris felt good. His smile became slightly warped with that of estranged satisfaction. He then then turned away and headed back to the road expecting the little miss to follow. She did. 

On the road to the bridge, as they made their way towards town, the girl slipped her tiny hand into his giant grasp. Boris was thrilled, beaming down at the child with his simple request; 

“Boris sure would like to know your name, little miss.” 

Expressing her timid yet optimistic trust in this hulk of a man, she smiled up at him and replied with the sweetest name Boris had ever heard….

“Hannah.”