Malcolm Green Glimpses

[Malcolm Green]

This is a true story...

You remember Garribaldi's? Yeah, the one on the edge of town where the old Route swung by? It was a great bar, that one was in its day. Then old Garribaldi sold up and went to that Franco who was the most depressing guy, ever. I mean you gotta ask, what was an Evangelical like him doing running a drinking establishment - the man positively sucked all the life out of the place. Oh, the vibe changed all right. It became a place for deadbeats and other loosers - Jackie, Big Bill and Frankenhair the Eighties Reject, you know. The people who went to drink away their lives and their pains. Not the place for you and me, brother.

Anyway, this story is from the last days of Garribaldi's - you know when it really went to shit and back. Franco was dying himself by then (poor guy) and had taken to brow beating his regulars with fire-and-brimstone sermons. Even his own Churchie crowd thought he had lost the plot.

Anyway, Franco got himself a new customer, see. Big guy - and I mean freakin' big. The guy was a giant: shuggy dark hair, hard face, dark eyes. Didn't say much. He was a construction worker; yeah thats right, one of the construction guys who worked on the industrial estate. So this guy walks into the bar. Doesn't say much, just asks for a beer and wind sup with a jug. He sits in a corner and has about four more jugs over the course of the night. He is one of the last to go home. Heck, Franco has to, like, sweep the guy out.

"Everyone has a home, son" says Franco. "Can't stay here. This is hell."

"Yeah... " the big guy rumbles. Takes a while. This guy is big as they come and thicker than a pile of rocks. Slow too, so they say (and I have this on good authority from Maverick who was a supervisor at the work site. What do you mean, the guy can't have been that dumb because he fixed the lintel over the entrence - friend, that sandstone was good; anyone saying it was flawed doesn't know nuttin' about rocks. Seriously if was as bad as the papers said it would have fallen down, right?)

So. A couple of nights later. The big guy comes back. This time he stays at the bar. Didn't speak to no one. Drank four jugs of the pale ale. No one noticed he was there. Next night, back again - only this time he is the only fucker game enough to sit at the bar all night because Franco was in a real mood see, and was a rantin' and a ravin' about the wages of sin. Awww, even Big Bill who laps that crap up stayed away after one (one!) drink! Everyone, save that big guy, who took it all in, front row seat. And he said nuttin'....

Few days later, big guy is back again. This time old Jackie tries it on. The big guy isn't impressed (who is, Jackie is waaay too old to be playing a young womans game like she does). But he doesn't tell her to piss off either. Instead - get this!- he buys her a drink and they spend the night talking! Well - Jackie opens her bleeding friggin' heart and gives him her life story (failed actress, failed model, failed mother, waaaagh!) And the big guy sits there and takes it! I mean, the guy was thicker than two bricks!

On that Friday, big guy comes back. All the regulars are there - you could feel the desperation. Franco didn't need to give another sermon but he does anyway (guy was a glutton for punishment). Anyway, on that night, the big guy gets in with Frankenhair the Eighties Reject. Frankenhair is way to happy to offload how his latest scheme has fallen apart leaving him further in debt. The big guys listens all night - but they actually got talking, as in the big guy got involved in the conversation. Well, Frankenhair obviously enjoyed the company because they were chatting into the early hours.

Franco had to virtually manhandle the pair out of the bar in the end! It was tough, the big guy being a giant and all. They were talking about how Frankenhair got swindled in that fucked up poker tournament. Somehow, Franco managed to convince them to leave, you know how he could be... he followed 'em out to the parking lot because they had continued their conversation there.

Now you remember how Franco never had those lights fixed in the parking lot. They kept flicking on and off, like - sometimes you could pick up a rhythm in the way they did that. It was just... creepy. Well get this. Franco was about to chase them off when he saw the big guy standing under one of those lights when it flicked on.

And the big guy wasn't even a guy. He was carved from stone, like, with long stringy moss for his hair and his beard. Froze old Franco dead in his tracks. Frankenhair didn't see shit (and I asked him). But the big guy saw Franco, and knew - he just knew. Big guy stares back at Franco as if to say "you gotta say somethin', say it!"

Franco goes for it! You ask Frankenhair if you don't believe me, Franco went very calm and -get this- asks the demon to leave forthwith. Went all biblical on the big guy who just stood there, blinking. Finally, the big guy just shrugs and says, "Okay. I'm done here, anyway". Turns around and walks away, leaving Frankenhair all alone with a tripping out Franco.

Weird huh. They say he and Franco started getting on after that. When Franco passed on, he gave Frankhenhair his diaries, and you know what that started, don't you?

This is a true story. I heard it from Frankenhair, Big Bill and Jackie. Figured out the rest myself, I did.

They still say that no one has fixed those lights in the old parking lot...

[Malcolm Green]

Green dreamed of his Durance.

He remembered the pain of earth and rock crushing him; twisting him; bending him. He remembered his roar of sheer agony whose reverberation had broken the Can-Tu Plains. He remembered his seething anger and frustration that had warmed the shattered earth, forming the vents and geysers of the Valley of Steam and Sorrow. He had fought so long, and so hard, to arch his back in his struggle with Dweller-in-Stone: that was how the Great Northern Mountains had come to be.

It had been the hill-men of Mu who had awakened him. Their wives and their daughters had come to the spot where his face peaked out of the rock. Later, the hill-men built a temple there, and it was the sisterhood who carried on the tradition, wrapping it in layers of dogma and meaning he did not understand. Eventually, even that, too had faded. Sacked in war, the temple never recovered; it faded away to ruin as yet another world shrivelled and died, to be reborn.

In the birth of a new world, Green made his move. His mountains tumbled and broke and continents shifted. He was grappled by, and fought with, someone new. Someone else had been dragged into this silent, sleepy hell where a sleep lasted eons and the resisted, contested, battle to move a single limb could be encapsulated in a geological era.

The rock bearing his face fell from the heights, crashing down the savaged, crumbling mountains. With it rode his consciousness. As it fell, he fought with the stone, fashioning himself with each bounce and every shattered chip on his rambling descent. It took an age and he fashioned himself through wind, rain, and finally with a gargantuan leap into a new, nameless waterfall that spilled cold water from the north to the lowland plains below.

He remembered he had a name...

The worst part of these dreams was the waking. At these times, his recollection was so vivid that he could recall the entire journey back. Things he could not even recall when awake hovered there in his mind, as easy to grasp as heavy, juicy, fruit on the vine. He could remember of how he sang Joanne's name as he walked, of how he so longed to get back home, to take her in his arms and feel the swell of her stomach - his son!

Eagerness would grip him then and his eyes would snap open. He'd roll over to wrap his arms around his wife... and crashed heavily onto the floor, as his giant, oversized form overbalanced on his cheap, narrow, bed. He was not at home; he was in a tiny apartment with cheap furnishings that looked [i]cheap[i] and even smelled it, too. He was not of medium height and barrel chested either - he was a huge monstrosity of a man, with a bulbous nose, like a trolls, mangy beard and huge hands. He bought them to his face... and felt the hard lines of granite shape his cheek-bones.

He was alone, in his little apartment. There was no one to witness his horror, or his despair. No one to see the great mountain of a man, shrink, fold up on himself in a crude foetal shape, wracked by sobs that never came.

[Malcolm Green]

THE HEDGE was quiet. The air was still, but crisp, heralding the coming cold of Winter; the last of the Autumn finery hung from the trees, faded color on dark branches. The thick undergrowth was all drab browns and greens. Even the sky, peeking through the gaps in the trees, seemed drained of color - a pale blue that only served to accentuate the dim forest, foreboding in aspect as it was still keyed to the Season of Fear. In the silence, trees creaked and cracked.

The roaring giant shattered the silence and crashed through the stillness like a tsunami. Limbs flailing, he blundered through the trees, crashed through some and ploughed over fallen logs that exploded on impact. Clods of earth were flung into the still air as he tumbled forward, crawled, rolled, clambered into a stuttering run once more. His head shook, hands swatting at imaginary flies. His legs wobbled unsteadily. He turned to scream a challenge and articulate his terror, both - a great gout of blue fire issuing from his lips; smoke jetted from his ears.

The hideous horde closed in: an army who battalions were made up of miniature angry squirrels, angry baying for his blood,maniac butlers bearing contracts dripping in blood, fiery salamanders, Wallace and Grommit... and Ewoks (the last swooping in on hang-gliders, sharing their contraptions with chattering, chirrupy slicked hair lawyers). The horde closed him down, cutting of his escape with strangely recognisable siege towers hauled by barely known ogres and lithe steam-punk abominations. They were calling his names. Even the one's he had forgotten. At the heart of this terrible army came the wives and daughters of the hill-men, chanting, carrying banners and prayer wheels. At the rear, a great and terrible crystal lady prowled... with a pack of chained, hungry, Pac-Men.

Green blubbered and screamed...

...It had been a pleasant autumn day when Green had slipped into the Hedge. Winter had been heralded in the morning with the cold, crisp air; but as the morning progressed the day became temperate and wonderful to behold, a perfect balancing of hot and cold, light and dark. With the elements seemingly in balance, Green had felt moved to take his first steps in the Hedge since his return.

He journeyed in no particular direction, following the landscape as it sank into a sodden quagmire, replete with tussocky grass, mosses, and rubbery pitcher plants that sang to their prey like sirens even taller than he was. So unlike the high plains and snow fields he had known, he felt compelled to explore, wading up to his waist in slimy waters and copping cuts from razor grasses that tried to crowd him out with feral tenacity. At one point he startled a submerged dungeon, which raised itself on its rear legs. Green met the challenge beating his chest in imitation of King Kong, flexing Contract imbued muscles. Dominated, the dungeon defecated a band of surprised adventurers and an even more shocked Liche, before it turned ponderously away, deeper into the bog.

Leaving the undead villain to duke it out with the adventurers, Green continued to ply his course through the mire. And then he found it. A cairn burst through the muck and stagnant water. Roots and vines wrapped tightly about it, and at its peak burst an effusion of thick stemmed plants whose huge purple flowers hung tremulously like lanterns. Now Green was not versed in the learnings of Hedge trail craft, but he had picked up plenty of stories from Hobs on his journey home, so he was certain he knew what he was looking at.

Succulent Wobblewonger Flowers! Oh yeah! Oh man! They grow at the heart of the deep swamps, yeah! Friggin huge flowers. Waxy texture. Fruity flavour with highlights of sorrow and regret washed down by half remembered dreams. You hit paydirt, boy!

Green fought his way over, ripped through the vines and pulled off the flowers. He chuckled, fingers a-tremble when the flowers sloshed, heavy with nectar. The giant tore into the Goblin Fruit with gusto, ripping open the paper-thin flowers to drink the heady, wine dark nectar. The petals, membraneous sugary illusions trapped in a single moment. Terror thrilled down his spine, cooled in his gut... and fermented with his diet of new memories and potential friendships.

Eventually, Green paused, beard stained purple with Wobblewonger juice, and stared. Oh yeah the good stuff! Heh... why am I here on the edge of the swamp with the purple flowers and not over there by the glowing hummock with the towering trumpet flowers? Purple flowers... what? Oh... f-![/i] A chill was already taking hold in his stomach, spilling mean tendrils down into his guts. He looked at his hands, at the ruined flower - still large but small in his huge paws; ravaged and flattened, its wafer thin, delicate petals were torn and crushed. Not hardy and thick like a succulent.

Swearing, the giant burst into a run, but the sluggish waters churned only so fast - bubbling, befouled and brackish around him.

As he clambered out of the mire, he saw the serpentine shadow pass overhead. Looking up, he saw a very oriental Anya Wyrmblood [i]swim[i] by. Riding her was his wife, Joanne, draped in fur pelt, his baby strapped to her back; woad painted her, her club was thick and the haft was notched with a dozen kill marks.

Joanne looked at him. Her eyes blazed fury; her voice was an ululating warcry.

[Malcolm Green]

The church hall was filled with the needy, the sorrowful, the wretched and the hopeful. Around trestle tables they crowded, dressed in little party hats. A meal was prepared for them; jokes were made; christmas crackers popped; laughter. Amid the noise of plates, conversation and laughter, the mountain stalked with a ponderous tread. For the moment he hauled a big pot of soup from the kitchen to the waiting tables and hungry bowls. For once, there was no one to bother him with looks borne of fear and suspicion. For once he was one of them. The feeling moved him not.

To the charity, he was a god-send. He had appeared shortly before Christmas to volunteer his time. The big man spoke little and asked for less. He was simply there, carting heavy loads with an almost inhuman ease; for once the group was actually able to decorate the ceiling, thanks to his massive height. And on Christmas day, he was there from the start, preparing the venue, assisting with the cooking; he let the little ones clamber all over him with the stubborn patience of a rock - an amazement to all. Hoots of laughter rose to the roof like sweet incense. A careworn face saw this and smiled.

Only Ms. Tintagel kept her distance, the usual ditzy air-head subdued in his presence. That would elicit comment later from the church going regulars, but for now the slow moving giant was just too helpful. Ms. Tintagel was the most empathetic of the group. And she was the only one to see the hunger that lurked deep in the giant's sad eyes, under heavy brows. Those deep eyes were feasting...

For the Earthbones the church hall was a vast smorgasbord of emotion: love, hope, sadness, regret, happiness, it was all there. All on display like it was one of the Spring Queen's spreads. All for him... and he did eat. The sorrow, he found, was the best - a delicate and subtle variety compared with the constant frothy bubble of joy that fulminated in clouds under the christmassy arbours of tinsel: sorrow from the charity volunteers for the dispossessed who sat at the tables, given edge by sharper, deeper emotions not even they would care to admit. Then there those who sat at table: amid the joy, the happiness, lurked the regrets - pushed aside for the moment, they nevertheless pulsed like magma lakes, deep beneath the surface. He could feel their pains, their woes; they carried them engraved on their souls.

For Green, the tragedy was this: it was not that he could no longer grasp the meaning, the connection of this one crystalised moment of human need and unconditional, heartwarming, charity; it was that he could no longer connect his own feelings to those around him - his pain was his alone, and it warped him like a geological fault, a nameless consuming hunger that made of him a carrion creature, feasting on the misfortune of others, to sate himself.

Only ditzy Ms. Tintagel could see that, under his deep brows. And those eyes were feasting...

[Malcolm Green]

A group of working men gathered for their lunch break. Behind them the bare skeleton of a building rose beyond the screening canopy of scaffolding. Heavy equipment rang and hammered and growled into the wintry air. Somewhere amid the cacophony, a veritable giant in a hard hat hammered away with a sledge. The big hammer rose and fell with an organic precision. Some of the people could only stop and stare - it was not just his size and girth but his stance: he was a colossus, a throw back to the nordic trolls of old, a creature of the earth, powered by the earth. His legs seemed part of the ground (boots plastered in mud and dust) that channeled the raw power upward into his overhead swings like the sledge were an avalanche. Some of men taking their ease were watching him too.

"He is a freak, man. A real freak."

"Must be dumb too. He don't talk much."

"Good worker though. He's always here."

"But he don't mix, man. That is what I'm sayin'."

"Will you guys quit it! He saved Young Joe's life - I swear! I know what Josh put in the report. He weren't there and all he's doing is covering ass. I was there. I saw it. That pipe broke free of its mooring and it fell. It would have hit Young Joe if that big guy hand't caught it. Turned it aside. With one hand! He was growling like that green thing in that Hulk movie. But he turned that filing pipe aside with one fucking hand!"

A pause.

"And he's never asked for any thanks. Not from nobody. He comes here and does his job. Now you tell me he's a dumb freak."

[Malcolm Green]

The bar was small, dingy and ill lit. Even at the height of the day, the narrow space was thick with shadows and a curious miasma that seemed to soften the solidity of all within, teasing the viewer that the very furniture and the patrons themselves were little more than fevered, drunken imaginings born from the imbibing of too much liquor. It was either that, or perhaps the window hadn't been cleaned in that long that the accumulated dirt and grime changed the quality of the light.

The mountain didn't much care for appearances. Not in a place like this: a soul deadening sink hole of guttering, negative emotions, so thick and cloying the Elemental wondered if it was the smell of alcohol or the pungent aroma of despair that kept bringing him back.

Today there were three with him in the dive. Three choices; three flavours of sorrow. Which to choose...

Jesse the barman. Cold, lifeless... tasteless even. A rock hard ice cube of mixed despair and regret, tinged with longing. Now you gotta suck hard and long on that baby, like a glacier carving a valley, yeah? 'Cause its tough and thickly layered. You gotta ware down those layers -layers, which like good gum, will get your mouth watering- and draw off the dirty pops of the misdeeds that weigh on Jesse's mind... oh Jesse, the bad boy; the tough guy; the all round hard ass! Ha! He earned this bar. Built this bar. Made it his own retirement dream... and then he looses it in a high stake poker match. And they let him stay on. As manager. Does he have a choice? Nah! See he believes in hard work (idiot!) and he thinks if he works at it long enough, he can get it all back. Thats whats at the heart of the ice cube - a pulsing ZING of pure, rejuvenating, hope. You want to know what 'Five Gum' really tastes like - its that!

Now Colin is completely different. Colin is a raging, self absorbed vortex of seething rage violently interacting with regret in a delicate interplay; it creates a delicate bouquet of self hatred or impotent righteous fury at the world. By the taste of his regret I think he's lost another job so the self hate is more likely today - his anger is fading to a smokey aftertaste. Colin hasn't recovered since Lucy decamped to Seattle with their daughter. He says he just needed another chance, but his regret and self hatred indicate he knows he's lying to himself (it lends a kind of... flavoursome dignity to his soul-brew). He knows that Lucy is doing well up north; he knows he has been cast onto the scrap heap and part of him enjoys the liberating truth of it. It makes a heady brew that is truly heart warming when it isn't burning through your gut.

Or maybe I want to knock myself out. Day is boring, want to compress time to get it out of the way. Pick Mandy - she brews something that is that intoxicating you'll barely be aware of where you are, or how you got there. It is that good! Damn that woman works on her soul-brew like nothing else. Its a slick torrent of broken glass that scours your passages, cleansing you before the heady, mind-numbing fugue seeps in. Like damp. Fast acting, ice cold, damp. Chills up your spine and brain freeze if you snort too quick. Take her slow, real slow. Now interacting with Mandy is kinda hard as she barely recognises anything outside of her own head these days. Mandy is the burned out, soulless wreckage of the Hollywood dream. She was a cheerleader - out east. Wherever. Whenever. Don't matter. She ran all the way to Sunset Boulevard with the fantasy of becoming a star - 'Cause, like she had a nice smile and big rack. I guess she had some morals to, 'cause she never amounted to anything. The push-pull of Lost Angels savaged her fragile small town soul, I think. Now I think she's a bitter shrew, clinging onto her fading looks and fighting a loosing battle with gravity. Rather than think, she hides in her own mind, hence the fugue - trashy daytime TV is her imagination now because anything else hurts too much.

Ya see... when you draw on someon -syphon off some of their soul for your own drinking pleasure, you get a snap-shot, like, of their lives, and all their hopes and regrets. Its the ultimate high. And the best, most sharpest taste, is at the negative end. Its like good whisky. Happiness is about as heavy and as, um, subtle, as champagne...

[Malcolm Green]

Green had spied the hill rising above the thick foliage of the Hedge almost as soon as he began hiking down the trod. At the time, the mountain paid little thought to it; he had, after all, only slipped onto the trod for a little light exploration and the thought of fighting through the Thorns to reach it hadn't been a comfortable thought. Green had been planning a little jaunt into the Hedge for some time and the Easter holiday had fallen quite nicely for such an endeavour. Waring a new jacket and carrying a lightly packed backpack, he had set off.

The season had made the trod... pleasant: the air was still and cool; the foliage verdant and exploding with spring promise, thickly scented flowers, hopping things, eggs peeking out from boles in the roots of great trees. For a time, the Elemental had been able to enjoy the hike in peace. The hill was stubborn, however. It sat there in his view, behind the screen of thorns and trees and growing things. It never receded; rather the longer he walked, the more little details were revealed. The hill was a perfect, shallow cone, ringed with ditches and crowned by crumbling walls. Very few trees clung to the slopes which became a riotous colour of heathers and grasses. The damn thing was just so quaint, like something from an old landscape painting depicting a relic of bygone days.

The hill was simply there. Waiting to be climbed; to be discovered. Rock and stone called to rock and stone. The mountain found his eyes wandering to it more and more - a visual itch he could not help but scratch. In the end, he gave in.

The way through the Thorns was slow and bloody. The mountain was not used to battling the Thorns; not even on his long journey home had they resisted like this. His hands and face were torn and bloody by the time he made it through. The cheap jacket he had so recently purchased was lost too, snagged with something more like a root than a branch wrapped around his arm. Yet for some reason, Green could not find it within himself to be angry, nor did he question why the deep gashes in his arm left him feeling more pleasure than pain. Stone called to stone, and had he not reached the base of the hill. From his position, he could make out a circle of stones at the summit.

He began to climb. At first with speed he scrabbled forward but found his way blocked by thick rhododendrons and treacherous footing. The soil was shallow, apparently, and thick with large pebbles. He adjusted his style, returning to the foot of the hill and beginning again with a slow, measured, gait that spiralled around the hill, pushing ever upward.

At the summit he rested. The hill was indeed crowned with a hoary stone circle. The rock was old and not native to the region, Green could tell, more by feel than knowledge. The stones were thickly crusted with moss and lichen; rendered enigmatic and archaic by strange scripts whose language he did not know. They sat like venerable lords staring out over their realm. The Elemental, famished, could not help but join them. He sat, ate and drank from his rations. And wondered if the backpack would survive the journey back to the trod. Sitting there, the mountain found a sense of peace and wonder. The hill was not exactly high, yet it granted a studied panorama: of thick forest cut by the path of trods; of clearings glinting with forgotten pools are splashed with the vernal colour of spring flowers; he saw the strange sight of a bridge breaking through the trees, wreathed in the smoke of campfires; he could even make out something that reminded him of the Freehold's central trod but it was far off and he doubted he could carve a path through the Thorns to it. The air was rich and clear, and where the Hedge interacted with his weak, wintry mantle, he found patches of snow in the shadow of the great stones. It pleased him.

It was as he prepared to leave that he found the steps: they were crumbling and covered in weedy growth giving the impression of great age. Curious, he followed them as they tumbled down the slope opposite to the way he had come. He was surprised he had not noticed them on his spiralling ascent. The steps led to the base of the hill where they became obscured by the reaching vegetation. Green struggled to make out the path, caught between the swell of the hill and the Thorns. Greedy arboraceous fingers tore his backpack away but the determined Elemental pressed ahead.

And then he fell. It was a deep pit, given Green's height. On one side, the shattered steps tumbled to their end. On two more, roots and stones framed the pit. On the last: a deep opening, framed by stone as a doorway. Eldritch markings ran across the lintel - a language that teased the mountain's memory but one which he could not recall. The pulse of the Wyrd about him was unmistakable though: Hollow The mountain almost sobbed as the feeling strummed through his very core.

The temperate Elemental spent wonderful moments allowing that feeling to permeate deep into his being, to warm and to please him. While he did, he thought. He could have rushed off into an exploration of this place but such a move would be foolhardy and fraught with danger - he did not know what lay beyond the portal and any gear he had had been snatched away by the Thorns. No - for now Green was simply content with knowing. He would need to return with proper equipment and with more time to spare.

Sighing, Green hauled himself from the pit. He would be back. The call of the Wyrd was strong; the call of his court was stronger. Had not his Queen asked her Courtiers to seek out hidden places such as this?

[Malcolm Green]

Green had to admit, as he slunk into the Memorial Lawn in his thick great coat with a sad bundle of flowers grasped in one meaty hand, that he was scraping the bottom of the barrel. Bar hopping could only work so much before the same tired faces (and the same tired excuses for lives) could drive one to distraction. Green swore, if he had to listen to another man moaning in his cups about how he let the love of his life leave him, and that he would be a better man, now that he would end up feeling the desire for an instant smack down! So cue the cunning ploy to hog a graveyard for a juicy funeral.

The mountain shook his head. There had to be a better way than this. He felt disgusted at what he had to do, like he was a filthy junkie. Shame and hot revulsion boiled in his gut. He felt a fraud. He bought shame to the dead. He wandered, ponderously, across the Memorial Lawn; no one questioned him, or even paid him any mind, so he guessed he looked the part: just another jarred soul looking for comfort.

The first waves of bitter anger and seething regret came from up ahead. They crashed into him like a king tide. The closer he got, the stronger these waves came and the more nuanced the emotion: repressed anger, bitterness, shot through with love and regret made hard and sharp by the finality of loss. Oh, harsh words had been said here for sure; souls left raw and bleeding; bonds shattered (and the regret that now those bonds could no longer be reforged); the cold, cruel disinterest that came from the playing defunct parts in a passion play whose last vestiges of heat had faded long, long ago; relief.

Struggling against such a tide of raw, jangling emotion, the mountain stumbled. He held out an arm to steady himself, hand resting on the solid stone of a grave marker. In a moment of quick wit, he placed the flowers on the grave. He could look the part and he honestly felt he would get torn asunder if he closed any further on the source of glamour: that titanic, roiling storm up ahead.

With effort he turned his stinging face to look. Through the broiling cloud of emotion, drifting hot as steam, he saw an extended family lined up beside an open grave. Elemental curse nonewithstanding, the mountain could see the fractures in the gathered clan clearly: the way they clumped together in cliques; the stares; the distance in body language. The fractures were clear; the tectonic plates cleanly broken. Without a common bond to unite them, the disparate parts would soon go their own way.

For a strange moment the mountain felt pity run through his heart. This was no funeral. It was an emotionless pantomime, playing out the necessary parts to close the book on a failed, wretched, life. Whoever they were, they left a shattered ruin of a family in their wake.

And yet Green could not deny how good they felt.

[Malcolm Green]

Humous, dirt and debris followed Green as he slid ungraciously into the hollow, his backpack and gear clanging and banging as he did. The racket seemed loud and ominous in the strange, pregnant silence of the Hedge. Grunting in disgust, he tore off the clinging vines and growths that had fastened themselves to him during his passage. When he found his fingers torn and bleeding, he sucked, tasting his own frustration mixed in the tinny after taste of his own rich blood. At least this time he had forged a passage through the Hedge more quickly than before. Perhaps it was because he knew where he was going and what he would do when he got there.

A thin patina of ice was forming, killing off the verdant undergrowth and glistening on the strangely hewn opening before him. He wrested the lamp from his back, lit it, and ventured forth. There was a Hollow here, he knew. He had felt it the last time he was here. On this occasion, he had come prepared with his last wage packet spent on camping gear. The lamp cast a yellow light, illuminating the opening in a yolky wash. Green ducked under it, arm stretched out, and stumbled into the dark interior.

His exploration confirmed what he had first expected: the Hollow was a holdfast of some sort, a hall or place of refuge, long forgotten. The entrance was too regular and the markings were definitely in some long lost tongue (or the idea of a lost language - Green couldn't grasp the way the Hedge worked or how it spun its deceptions). There was a small vestibule, a long hall and a couple of small chambers. The hall was lined with strong, solid pillars that burst into light as he shuffled his way forward. Carvings in relief flickered in light, shadow and depth, with such simple purity that the mountain lost track of time as he admired them.

Attachment 3540

He was snapped from his reverie by the sound of stone scraping on stone. He followed the sound to the end of the hall. A stone chair -a throne?- was rising from the floor with a ponderous rumble. Squat and heavy it was, modelled of a pyramidal shape with a seat carved into it. Yet it looked like it was carved to fit Green's bulky build and impressive height. The mountain and the throne stood facing one another in silence, shadows dancing around them.

"Fine," Green grunted aloud. "I'll take the bait."

Gingerly he sat. Nothing happened. He waited. Still nothing. Tentatively, he relaxed. The chair did not fall away beneath him; the walls did not flow like butter and no horde of enraged hobs, summoned by the beat of war drums, swarmed from hidden nooks to challenge him.

"Well, then. I guess I call this place home, then. Right?"

If the hollow had any thoughts of its own, it either did not say or kept its own counsel.

[Malcolm Green]

Green grunted and shoved himself away from his desk. Wood creaked ominously. It wasn't that he was angry - in fact, the Earth Bones could not have been more content - it was because he wasn't taking too much care of his movements, and at times such as these, he forgot just how strong he really was. Outside it was the deep dark of the night; his only illumination was his computer's monitor and a small table lamp; it dawned on him just how much of the room was wreathed in shadow.

Time to call it a night.

He picked up his new tools almost reverently, an almost absent minded action on his part. Carving stone had been an outlet and a joy before his Durance; a pleasure had had forgone in his Fae-twisted form, too large and cumbersome to hold a chisel and mallet. His new tools were built with his size and bulk in mind. He itched to try them out.

Perry di Carto had offerred a commission: a long time ago, a few moments away. Time was like that, he knew with the dead certain clarity that only one of the Lost could know.

Giving his notes, gleaned from nights of google searches, the once over, he hauled himself in front of the computer screen for one last email.

  3 sux on research

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2013-05-03 02:59:12		Green to research crafting information rolls 6 to Intelligence 2 + Crafts 3 + 1 Speciality Stone Masonry (10 Again)		3, 4, 5, 4, 8, 10, 10, 4		3 successes

ST - I chose the attribute + skill pair to reflect the knowledge he would have, by virtue of his previous life as a stone mason. If there is any issues with this, please edit accordingly.