FFXIAH Linkshell Ni

For once upon a time in a far off land... There was a ***.

Mother Earth abandoned him at birth and Father Time kicked him in the balls every chance he got...for no apparent reason. and eventually, he took it personally. When life became unbearable he took to reckless abandon, self pity, and self destruction...

Was what was left of this retched wreck even still a man? I doubt it.

I see him now.. sitting in a worn out filthy chair... bereft of hope, dying a most undignified death in the pits of poverty and despair. In a prison he had made for himself of such thoughts as yours, Magnus my son.

And our story almost ended there... In a hovel of an apartment in a decaying city, with burning rivers. A corrupt and diseased city that squats on the shore as if it is taking an enormous dump into a great lake of poison.... The *** sat there, wallowing in his misery impatiently waiting for death and trying to hurry it along as best he could... He was defeated. He breathed in the white smoke and his heart played the final drum solo... and then stopped.

There is a sound. I can not properly describe. It is almost like a ringing... but quiet and from within and it builds. It's the sound of your brain dying... I have heard it three times...

At the grim cusp of death this unworthy ***'s life was saved by a princess... Her kindness reached out across the darkness, across the poison lands, across time itself and touched him... but how!? You may ask... How could this be? Death had him! Right in the palm of his hand!

but the ***, with his last ounce of strength swung his own hand into his chest and restarted his heart...

He was brought back from the dead by an ancient magic we can not hope to understand. His life restored, he vowed, before the gods of old to forge a new and better man out of himself.
It took him several weeks in his "home" under the train bridge to wrestle his soul away and out from under the heel of his demons...

And then he set out on his quest.. to reclaim his humanity... to once again become a man. A man worthy of the hand of a princess. He went and got a job as a garbageman...

Death, cheated and deprived of his soul became his constant companion and Death's minions, wild dogs and mailboxes tried to pull the *** off his garbage truck and back into the darkness... he battled all with axe and hatchet and spear through blood and pain and death. For years he toiled..chiseling himself with hard labor as icy winds cut into his flesh... His strength grew and grew. What he could not rebuild he stole from the creature of the forest.. His hands are from the great bear his face was taken from a wolf and his heart is like the hydraulic machine that fueled his rusting iron steed....

and then the day came when, with a simple golden ring the *** swore an oath unto the heavens that he would fight forever for the hand of his princess at her side. Once the princess placed the ring on his finger it bonded with his soul. It can not be removed by man or beast... there is no magic that can remove it. Not even death.
For the *** has made his vow and it can never be broken in this world or the next....

There are some that say the *** sits in the chair still. Undiscovered, his body has decayed and rotted away. That only a skeleton remains and a ghost and a memory. That perhaps this is all his dying dream...

It doesn't matter.

Perhaps those that have read my stories may have often wondered... what parts are real? and what parts are his delusions? Is he still sane enough to consider the fact that he might be crazy? or does he really believe he wields a sword made of dreams? That he somehow straddles two worlds at once... one that only he can see.

Maybe his princess can not see her flowing gowns or her glowing crown nor the armor her warrior dons every day... his sword made of dreams and the sacred vow he carved in stone. The demons he battles, the wars he wages. It doesn't matter anymore what part is real and what is dream.

For it is a wonderful dream.

So many years have come and gone. Eventually the garbage man took a desk job and settled down. a little. But is his office a little windowless tomb? Or does it exist HERE in this glorious castle in the wondrous lands of NI!

I can see you just across the hall, I see a viking horned helm of golden steel sitting on your desk as I type. Put it on Magnus! Clasp arms with me! draw your weapon and leap out the window with me! Let's slay a beast of the forest for your coat! For winter's harshness is upon us. HAHA! Smell the mead and the smoke from the fireplace wafting in from the great hall! BROTHERS AND SISTERS! It is a time for great celebration and feasting! PARKER!!! bring more wood for the fire! HUZZZAHHHH!!!!