You can carry a knife and still trust everyone.
Carry it in your mouth.
Every time you open it,
We await the sharpening noise of worship.
Cry out into the darkness
The sermon that doesn’t cease:
You cannot be abandoned.
You can only be released.
— Church of the Broken Axe Handle, by Derrick Brown
"What I think about weddings."
Something stumbled through the scrub of the Shroud's forest. It was headed for a rock outcropping, some monolithic remnant of Dalmud's fall that had embedded itself in the forest's flesh and stayed as a splinter of rock in a world of wood and loam and ancient forest.
It didn't belong.
Neither did the giant that was climbing it's side.
"Oh come on now. You loved them. You just hate the idea someone else might make it out alive out of one."
"The fuck do yez know?"
There was a fire lit at the top of the minature mountain's plateu top. A campsite the Roe had been tending to for weeks now. Outside the constant buzz of the Company house. Solitude.
"Enough. Envy always was your worst drive."
"Worst an best. The fuck do they know."
A grunt got the giant over the ledge. Another grunt hauled up a pack with a bottle on it's side.
"Enough to pin stripes on you"
"Command. Fuckin nightmare."
A third grunt got the lumbering roe to his feet and towards the fire burning outside an empty tent. Smoke, sparks, and dull gold light dancing on the flat, smooth, dragon kissed stone.
"This kind of thinking for you in trouble a long while back."
"Alla them got the same damn surprised fuckin look on their face every time comes up. Gets old bein a fuckin monkey."
Hammer settled down next to the fire to pull various clay jars, glass vials, and alchohol bottles from the pack. One stayed rolling in the palm of his hand. One with a stinking, black liquid that looked more like syrup than it did something to be consumed. There was only a fourth of a draught left in the thing.
"Well you should stop looking like an old gorilla."
"Hard do that. Gotten good attit."
He started working at the cork.
"You get stared at because the rest of them don't have a problem with it. Like those two dear sweet boys on the alter. Or that other couple. You were soused at that wedding as well. Bet you can't even remember their faces."
"That wis the point."
The pop of the bottle opening echoed into the night as the giant settled in to stare east over the desert of green that was the top of the shroud's canopy.
"Both your fellow Ruperts have someone else to slide against in the quiet and whisper at. Green one has someone they trust to toss secret meanings with. The Dancer found a new partner to be shy with. That Lord you're signed on with is secure in knowing his place, just not with anyone taking it. Even that pink horned one has a better grip on how to drift in that bloody dance of trust. They've hit a few walls but at least they're honest about drinking to forget their fuckups. Even the Void Eater seems happy with the one they decided to trust. Or at least secure in knowing what's coming."
A toast of a black bottle to a black horizon.
"So where that leave me, other than pissed about weddings? Eh? Other than about t'fall asleep in front o'a fire inna dark?"
"...you wouldn't."
A laugh into the emptyness.
"Hah! Sure would. Least then I'd be talkin sommat I trust."
"It's thinking like that got you shot six times in the chest, you know. Thinking like that made you end up alone. No family, no nothing. Thinking like that let the Apprentice out the nest and the world empty, leaving you waiting to do quiet in a hut out in the middle of the gods forsaken ends of an island."
And a sigh to follow.
"Yeah that didn't go so grand didit?"
"I don't know. You got over it."
A hand tossing wood into a fire to drive the void away high in the Shroud's umbral silence.
"Moon droppi'll do that."
"And drove you looking for something a little more hmm?"
Feeding flames to highlight a wolfish smile floating in the shadows holding that ugly black bottle.
"Maybe. Maybe. Still allowed be pissed at weddings though eh?"
"Worse things to want to pass out after."
Another toast to a horizon starting to burn with it's own banishing brightness.
"Aye then. Here's to need. Here's t'ae tryin remember it. N'hatin every tick o'the clock doin it."
"You're going to die alone and sobbing, old man."
A giant drinking the syrupy, black bottle dry.
"Here's hoping."
"Here's hoping not."
A blood red tongue searching for the last drops in the glass walls.
"Here's hopin one way or no...ther."
A heavy body falling backwards onto the stone.
"Idiot."
And the sound of snoring rolling over the sunrise in the Shroud. Â
Another day breaking.
Carry it in your mouth.
Every time you open it,
We await the sharpening noise of worship.
Cry out into the darkness
The sermon that doesn’t cease:
You cannot be abandoned.
You can only be released.
— Church of the Broken Axe Handle, by Derrick Brown
"What I think about weddings."
Something stumbled through the scrub of the Shroud's forest. It was headed for a rock outcropping, some monolithic remnant of Dalmud's fall that had embedded itself in the forest's flesh and stayed as a splinter of rock in a world of wood and loam and ancient forest.
It didn't belong.
Neither did the giant that was climbing it's side.
"Oh come on now. You loved them. You just hate the idea someone else might make it out alive out of one."
"The fuck do yez know?"
There was a fire lit at the top of the minature mountain's plateu top. A campsite the Roe had been tending to for weeks now. Outside the constant buzz of the Company house. Solitude.
"Enough. Envy always was your worst drive."
"Worst an best. The fuck do they know."
A grunt got the giant over the ledge. Another grunt hauled up a pack with a bottle on it's side.
"Enough to pin stripes on you"
"Command. Fuckin nightmare."
A third grunt got the lumbering roe to his feet and towards the fire burning outside an empty tent. Smoke, sparks, and dull gold light dancing on the flat, smooth, dragon kissed stone.
"This kind of thinking for you in trouble a long while back."
"Alla them got the same damn surprised fuckin look on their face every time comes up. Gets old bein a fuckin monkey."
Hammer settled down next to the fire to pull various clay jars, glass vials, and alchohol bottles from the pack. One stayed rolling in the palm of his hand. One with a stinking, black liquid that looked more like syrup than it did something to be consumed. There was only a fourth of a draught left in the thing.
"Well you should stop looking like an old gorilla."
"Hard do that. Gotten good attit."
He started working at the cork.
"You get stared at because the rest of them don't have a problem with it. Like those two dear sweet boys on the alter. Or that other couple. You were soused at that wedding as well. Bet you can't even remember their faces."
"That wis the point."
The pop of the bottle opening echoed into the night as the giant settled in to stare east over the desert of green that was the top of the shroud's canopy.
"Both your fellow Ruperts have someone else to slide against in the quiet and whisper at. Green one has someone they trust to toss secret meanings with. The Dancer found a new partner to be shy with. That Lord you're signed on with is secure in knowing his place, just not with anyone taking it. Even that pink horned one has a better grip on how to drift in that bloody dance of trust. They've hit a few walls but at least they're honest about drinking to forget their fuckups. Even the Void Eater seems happy with the one they decided to trust. Or at least secure in knowing what's coming."
A toast of a black bottle to a black horizon.
"So where that leave me, other than pissed about weddings? Eh? Other than about t'fall asleep in front o'a fire inna dark?"
"...you wouldn't."
A laugh into the emptyness.
"Hah! Sure would. Least then I'd be talkin sommat I trust."
"It's thinking like that got you shot six times in the chest, you know. Thinking like that made you end up alone. No family, no nothing. Thinking like that let the Apprentice out the nest and the world empty, leaving you waiting to do quiet in a hut out in the middle of the gods forsaken ends of an island."
And a sigh to follow.
"Yeah that didn't go so grand didit?"
"I don't know. You got over it."
A hand tossing wood into a fire to drive the void away high in the Shroud's umbral silence.
"Moon droppi'll do that."
"And drove you looking for something a little more hmm?"
Feeding flames to highlight a wolfish smile floating in the shadows holding that ugly black bottle.
"Maybe. Maybe. Still allowed be pissed at weddings though eh?"
"Worse things to want to pass out after."
Another toast to a horizon starting to burn with it's own banishing brightness.
"Aye then. Here's to need. Here's t'ae tryin remember it. N'hatin every tick o'the clock doin it."
"You're going to die alone and sobbing, old man."
A giant drinking the syrupy, black bottle dry.
"Here's hoping."
"Here's hoping not."
A blood red tongue searching for the last drops in the glass walls.
"Here's hopin one way or no...ther."
A heavy body falling backwards onto the stone.
"Idiot."
And the sound of snoring rolling over the sunrise in the Shroud. Â
Another day breaking.
![[Image: tumblr_mjwxnlcz6Q1rl52wjo2_500.gif]](https://33.media.tumblr.com/224cfbd6e79103f0520a30eabfc5085d/tumblr_mjwxnlcz6Q1rl52wjo2_500.gif)
