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heroofshield · 9 months

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Whumpcember Day 26- Collapse (Fable 3 Hero/Ben Finn)

@whumpcember

Carolina felt her feet start to slip, the sand underneath it giving way. She tried to keep her balance but couldn't, so she slid down the dune-rolling to a stop at the base. Closing her eyes against the sun, she lay there for who knows how long, ever since arriving in Aurora she's lost track of time.

"I have to get help. For Walter." she dimly thought, feeling a stab of guilt at having to leave him back at the ruins. Even if he had ordered her to...

Taking a breath, Carolina slowly pushed herself up-standing and mustered up the energy to start walking again. The sun beat down relentlessly and she wished for night so she could at least get a break from the heat. The sun had started to angle downwards when she heard a shout. Pausing, she raised her sun-burned arm to shade her eyes so she could see whoever it was better.

"Princess!"

Confused, she squinted at the waving figure-taking a few halting steps forwards.

"Carolina!"

The figure became clearer and Carolina wasn't sure what to think. Lowering her arm she watched Eliot walk towards her with his trademark smile. "Elliot?" she whispered when he was closer. "But...how? You're dead."

"You killed me. It's your fault." Eliot said, his voice distorting into the Crawler's as his body twisted and contorted into smoke, winding itself around Carolina. Turning into shadow demons, the Crawler grew until he blotted out the sun.

Carolina let out a frustrated howl, she'd thought that she'd gotten away from the cursed demon. Pulling out her sword, she swung it at the demons, jumping away as they tried to attack her. Tapping into her Will, she let loose a whirlwind and ice spell- to confuse and then freeze them in order to keep them from overwhelming her.

As she fought, the Crawler kept taunting her; how she'd left Walter to his death back at the ruins, how she'd sent Eliot and Swift to their own deaths by letting them believe that she could overthrow Logan.

Eventually she drove her sword through the last shadow demon and the Crawler disappeared, the sudden light of the setting sun making Carolina near blind after so long in the dark. Blinking rapidly, she kept her sword out- letting it drag in the sand as she started her trek again.

Ben Finn raised the spyglass to his eye, slowly sweeping it across the sand. "She has to be out here somewhere." he thought, trying not to let the knot of worry in his stomach get to him. "I know the Princess and she's a fighter."

"Ben." Kalin said while placing a hand on his arm, her voice neutral but sad at the same time. "We need to start heading back.

"Just a few more kilos. We'll still have time to get back before dark." Ben replied without tearing his gaze from the spyglass.

Kalin gave Ben a sympathetic look, she knew the hope that he still held all to well. But at the same time they needed to get back to the temple before dark. Before the Crawler came to the city. Letting a slight sigh escape, she turned to the small party that had accompanied them-giving a slight nod to signal that they'd continue.

Ben led the group, his white head covering helping to block the worst of the sun, but he could still feel the tan that he was getting. Climbing the top of the dune, he lift the spyglass to his eye again and started the search all over again.

Still not seeing anything, he was about to give up for the day when he spotted movement out of the corner of the glass. Pausing he turned towards the movement and felt his breath catch.

Carolina.

"There." Ben said, pointing before lowering the glass and handing it to Kalin so she could verify it herself. "I'd know that sword anywhere."

Kalin was silent for a few seconds before lowering the glass and collapsing it before handing it back to Ben. Turning towards the rest of the party, she spoke in her native tongue sharply. Everyone sprung into action, racing down the dune and in the direction she had pointed.

Ben skidded down the dune, the hope in his chest exploding as he shouted, "Princess!"

Carolina paused at the shout, knowing that the voice sounded familiar but didn't want to believe it. "It could be another trick." she told herself, trying to draw the strength to fight the mirage, but was struggling. Fighting the Crawler so much had drained her of her Will.

Then the mirage sharpened and Ben Finn, still in his Royal Army uniform, can running towards her. "Ben." she whispered, wavering as her legs felt weak.

"Aren't you a sight for sore eyes." Ben laughed, glad that he had finally found them. Then he realized that Carolina was alone and his joy turned to confusion. "Where's Wally?"

Carolina closed her eyes as a wave of dizziness washed over her and she pitched forwards.

Ben was close enough that he lept towards Carolina as she collapsed and gently lowered her to the ground, getting on his knees so she didn't have to lay in the sand. "It's okay, I've got you."

"Walter...ruins." Carolina whispered, eyes fluttering closed again.

"Ruins? What ruins? Where are they?" Ben asked while looking up at Kalin, who had quietly moved to the side.

"I know of what she speaks. Fortunately it's not far from here, we'll be coming close to it but we can make it there and get back just as darkness falls." Kalin said before turning towards half of the group and ordering them towards the ruins. "We need to get your friends inside the temple, our healers can tend to them there."

"I've got you love." Ben whispered, gently brushing some hair off of Carolina's face. "I've got you."

Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.

Carolina dimly heard Ben's voice and after a few seconds pause, gave his hand a light squeeze. There was muffled cursing that roused her enough to crack open an eye. Shutting it again, what felt like a few seconds more, she slowly opened both eyes.

Staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, she tried to sit up to see where she was but found that she couldn't.

"Easy there, Princess." Ben said, all but jumping off his chair to help Carolina sit up. Once she was comfortable, he sat back down. "Am I glad to see you awake. You have no idea the fright you gave me."

"Oh?" Carolina said, her voice harsh from unuse. Clearing it, she tried again. "I couldn't have been out for that long."

"Trust me you were." Ben moved the chair closer so he didn't have to lean forwards so much.

Carolina gave Ben a slight smile, "I guess I should thank you, for finding me."

"You remember that? I'm flattered." Ben tried to pass it off as a joke, but he was suddenly overwhelmed with the relief that he'd been keeping at bay while Carolina recovered. "I'm just glad that you're going to be okay."

Carolina took Ben's hand and gave it a squeeze, "With you having my back I know I will."

#whumpcember2023 #fable 3 #ben finn #hero of brightwall #fable!verse carolina

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mooneyedandglowing · 6 years

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The Comedian as the Letter C

BY WALLACE STEVENS i The World without Imagination Nota: man is the intelligence of his soil, The sovereign ghost. As such, the Socrates Of snails, musician of pears, principium And lex. Sed quaeritur: is this same wig Of things, this nincompated pedagogue, Preceptor to the sea? Crispin at sea Created, in his day, a touch of doubt. An eye most apt in gelatines and jupes, Berries of villages, a barber's eye, An eye of land, of simple salad-beds, Of honest quilts, the eye of Crispin, hung On porpoises, instead of apricots, And on silentious porpoises, whose snouts Dibbled in waves that were mustachios, Inscrutable hair in an inscrutable world. One eats one paté, even of salt, quotha. It was not so much the lost terrestrial, The snug hibernal from that sea and salt, That century of wind in a single puff. What counted was mythology of self, Blotched out beyond unblotching. Crispin, The lutanist of fleas, the knave, the thane, The ribboned stick, the bellowing breeches, cloak Of China, cap of Spain, imperative haw Of hum, inquisitorial botanist, And general lexicographer of mute And maidenly greenhorns, now beheld himself, A skinny sailor peering in the sea-glass. What word split up in clickering syllables And storming under multitudinous tones Was name for this short-shanks in all that brunt? Crispin was washed away by magnitude. The whole of life that still remained in him Dwindled to one sound strumming in his ear, Ubiquitous concussion, slap and sigh, Polyphony beyond his baton's thrust. Could Crispin stem verboseness in the sea, The old age of a watery realist, Triton, dissolved in shifting diaphanes Of blue and green? A wordy, watery age That whispered to the sun's compassion, made A convocation, nightly, of the sea-stars, And on the cropping foot-ways of the moon Lay grovelling. Triton incomplicate with that Which made him Triton, nothing left of him, Except in faint, memorial gesturings, That were like arms and shoulders in the waves, Here, something in the rise and fall of wind That seemed hallucinating horn, and here, A sunken voice, both of remembering And of forgetfulness, in alternate strain. Just so an ancient Crispin was dissolved. The valet in the tempest was annulled. Bordeaux to Yucatan, Havana next, And then to Carolina. Simple jaunt. Crispin, merest minuscule in the gates, Dejected his manner to the turbulence. The salt hung on his spirit like a frost, The dead brine melted in him like a dew Of winter, until nothing of himself Remained, except some starker, barer self In a starker, barer world, in which the sun Was not the sun because it never shone With bland complaisance on pale parasols, Beetled, in chapels, on the chaste bouquets. Against his pipping sounds a trumpet cried Celestial sneering boisterously. Crispin Became an introspective voyager. Here was the veritable ding an sich, at last, Crispin confronting it, a vocable thing, But with a speech belched out of hoary darks Noway resembling his, a visible thing, And excepting negligible Triton, free From the unavoidable shadow of himself That lay elsewhere around him. Severance Was clear. The last distortion of romance Forsook the insatiable egotist. The sea Severs not only lands but also selves. Here was no help before reality. Crispin beheld and Crispin was made new. The imagination, here, could not evade, In poems of plums, the strict austerity Of one vast, subjugating, final tone. The drenching of stale lives no more fell down. What was this gaudy, gusty panoply? Out of what swift destruction did it spring? It was caparison of mind and cloud And something given to make whole among The ruses that were shattered by the large. ii Concerning the Thunderstorms of Yucatan In Yucatan, the Maya sonneteers Of the Caribbean amphitheatre, In spite of hawk and falcon, green toucan And jay, still to the night-bird made their plea, As if raspberry tanagers in palms, High up in orange air, were barbarous. But Crispin was too destitute to find In any commonplace the sought-for aid. He was a man made vivid by the sea, A man come out of luminous traversing, Much trumpeted, made desperately clear, Fresh from discoveries of tidal skies, To whom oracular rockings gave no rest. Into a savage color he went on. How greatly had he grown in his demesne, This auditor of insects! He that saw The stride of vanishing autumn in a park By way of decorous melancholy; he That wrote his couplet yearly to the spring, As dissertation of profound delight, Stopping, on voyage, in a land of snakes, Found his vicissitudes had much enlarged His apprehension, made him intricate In moody rucks, and difficult and strange In all desires, his destitution's mark. He was in this as other freemen are, Sonorous nutshells rattling inwardly. His violence was for aggrandizement And not for stupor, such as music makes For sleepers halfway waking. He perceived That coolness for his heat came suddenly, And only, in the fables that he scrawled With his own quill, in its indigenous dew, Of an aesthetic tough, diverse, untamed, Incredible to prudes, the mint of dirt, Green barbarism turning paradigm. Crispin foresaw a curious promenade Or, nobler, sensed an elemental fate, And elemental potencies and pangs, And beautiful barenesses as yet unseen, Making the most of savagery of palms, Of moonlight on the thick, cadaverous bloom That yuccas breed, and of the panther's tread. The fabulous and its intrinsic verse Came like two spirits parlaying, adorned In radiance from the Atlantic coign, For Crispin and his quill to catechize. But they came parlaying of such an earth, So thick with sides and jagged lops of green, So intertwined with serpent-kin encoiled Among the purple tufts, the scarlet crowns, Scenting the jungle in their refuges, So streaked with yellow, blue and green and red In beak and bud and fruity gobbet-skins, That earth was like a jostling festival Of seeds grown fat, too juicily opulent, Expanding in the gold's maternal warmth. So much for that. The affectionate emigrant found A new reality in parrot-squawks. Yet let that trifle pass. Now, as this odd Discoverer walked through the harbor streets Inspecting the cabildo, the façade Of the cathedral, making notes, he heard A rumbling, west of Mexico, it seemed, Approaching like a gasconade of drums. The white cabildo darkened, the façade, As sullen as the sky, was swallowed up In swift, successive shadows, dolefully. The rumbling broadened as it fell. The wind, Tempestuous clarion, with heavy cry, Came bluntly thundering, more terrible Than the revenge of music on bassoons. Gesticulating lightning, mystical, Made pallid flitter. Crispin, here, took flight. An annotator has his scruples, too. He knelt in the cathedral with the rest, This connoisseur of elemental fate, Aware of exquisite thought. The storm was one Of many proclamations of the kind, Proclaiming something harsher than he learned From hearing signboards whimper in cold nights Or seeing the midsummer artifice Of heat upon his pane. This was the span Of force, the quintessential fact, the note Of Vulcan, that a valet seeks to own, The thing that makes him envious in phrase. And while the torrent on the roof still droned He felt the Andean breath. His mind was free And more than free, elate, intent, profound And studious of a self possessing him, That was not in him in the crusty town From which he sailed. Beyond him, westward, lay The mountainous ridges, purple balustrades, In which the thunder, lapsing in its clap, Let down gigantic quavers of its voice, For Crispin to vociferate again. iii Approaching Carolina The book of moonlight is not written yet Nor half begun, but, when it is, leave room For Crispin, fagot in the lunar fire, Who, in the hubbub of his pilgrimage Through sweating changes, never could forget That wakefulness or meditating sleep, In which the sulky strophes willingly Bore up, in time, the somnolent, deep songs. Leave room, therefore, in that unwritten book For the legendary moonlight that once burned In Crispin's mind above a continent. America was always north to him, A northern west or western north, but north, And thereby polar, polar-purple, chilled And lank, rising and slumping from a sea Of hardy foam, receding flatly, spread In endless ledges, glittering, submerged And cold in a boreal mistiness of the moon. The spring came there in clinking pannicles Of half-dissolving frost, the summer came, If ever, whisked and wet, not ripening, Before the winter's vacancy returned. The myrtle, if the myrtle ever bloomed, Was like a glacial pink upon the air. The green palmettoes in crepuscular ice Clipped frigidly blue-black meridians, Morose chiaroscuro, gauntly drawn. How many poems he denied himself In his observant progress, lesser things Than the relentless contact he desired; How many sea-masks he ignored; what sounds He shut out from his tempering ear; what thoughts, Like jades affecting the sequestered bride; And what descants, he sent to banishment! Perhaps the Arctic moonlight really gave The liaison, the blissful liaison, Between himself and his environment, Which was, and is, chief motive, first delight, For him, and not for him alone. It seemed Elusive, faint, more mist than moon, perverse, Wrong as a divagation to Peking, To him that postulated as his theme The vulgar, as his theme and hymn and flight, A passionately niggling nightingale. Moonlight was an evasion, or, if not, A minor meeting, facile, delicate. Thus he conceived his voyaging to be An up and down between two elements, A fluctuating between sun and moon, A sally into gold and crimson forms, As on this voyage, out of goblinry, And then retirement like a turning back And sinking down to the indulgences That in the moonlight have their habitude. But let these backward lapses, if they would, Grind their seductions on him, Crispin knew It was a flourishing tropic he required For his refreshment, an abundant zone, Prickly and obdurate, dense, harmonious Yet with a harmony not rarefied Nor fined for the inhibited instruments Of over-civil stops. And thus he tossed Between a Carolina of old time, A little juvenile, an ancient whim, And the visible, circumspect presentment drawn From what he saw across his vessel's prow. He came. The poetic hero without palms Or jugglery, without regalia. And as he came he saw that it was spring, A time abhorrent to the nihilist Or searcher for the fecund minimum. The moonlight fiction disappeared. The spring, Although contending featly in its veils, Irised in dew and early fragrancies, Was gemmy marionette to him that sought A sinewy nakedness. A river bore The vessel inward. Tilting up his nose, He inhaled the rancid rosin, burly smells Of dampened lumber, emanations blown From warehouse doors, the gustiness of ropes, Decays of sacks, and all the arrant stinks That helped him round his rude aesthetic out. He savored rankness like a sensualist. He marked the marshy ground around the dock, The crawling railroad spur, the rotten fence, Curriculum for the marvellous sophomore. It purified. It made him see how much Of what he saw he never saw at all. He gripped more closely the essential prose As being, in a world so falsified, The one integrity for him, the one Discovery still possible to make, To which all poems were incident, unless That prose should wear a poem's guise at last. iv The Idea of a Colony Nota: his soil is man's intelligence. That's better. That's worth crossing seas to find. Crispin in one laconic phrase laid bare His cloudy drift and planned a colony. Exit the mental moonlight, exit lex, Rex and principium, exit the whole Shebang. Exeunt omnes. Here was prose More exquisite than any tumbling verse: A still new continent in which to dwell. What was the purpose of his pilgrimage, Whatever shape it took in Crispin's mind, If not, when all is said, to drive away The shadow of his fellows from the skies, And, from their stale intelligence released, To make a new intelligence prevail? Hence the reverberations in the words Of his first central hymns, the celebrants Of rankest trivia, tests of the strength Of his aesthetic, his philosophy, The more invidious, the more desired. The florist asking aid from cabbages, The rich man going bare, the paladin Afraid, the blind man as astronomer, The appointed power unwielded from disdain. His western voyage ended and began. The torment of fastidious thought grew slack, Another, still more bellicose, came on. He, therefore, wrote his prolegomena, And, being full of the caprice, inscribed Commingled souvenirs and prophecies. He made a singular collation. Thus: The natives of the rain are rainy men. Although they paint effulgent, azure lakes, And April hillsides wooded white and pink, Their azure has a cloudy edge, their white And pink, the water bright that dogwood bears. And in their music showering sounds intone. On what strange froth does the gross Indian dote, What Eden sapling gum, what honeyed gore, What pulpy dram distilled of innocence, That streaking gold should speak in him Or bask within his images and words? If these rude instances impeach themselves By force of rudeness, let the principle Be plain. For application Crispin strove, Abhorring Turk as Esquimau, the lute As the marimba, the magnolia as rose. Upon these premises propounding, he Projected a colony that should extend To the dusk of a whistling south below the south. A comprehensive island hemisphere. The man in Georgia waking among pines Should be pine-spokesman. The responsive man, Planting his pristine cores in Florida, Should prick thereof, not on the psaltery, But on the banjo's categorical gut, Tuck tuck, while the flamingos flapped his bays. Sepulchral señors, bibbing pale mescal, Oblivious to the Aztec almanacs, Should make the intricate Sierra scan. And dark Brazilians in their cafés, Musing immaculate, pampean dits, Should scrawl a vigilant anthology, To be their latest, lucent paramour. These are the broadest instances. Crispin, Progenitor of such extensive scope, Was not indifferent to smart detail. The melon should have apposite ritual, Performed in verd apparel, and the peach, When its black branches came to bud, belle day, Should have an incantation. And again, When piled on salvers its aroma steeped The summer, it should have a sacrament And celebration. Shrewd novitiates Should be the clerks of our experience. These bland excursions into time to come, Related in romance to backward flights, However prodigal, however proud, Contained in their afflatus the reproach That first drove Crispin to his wandering. He could not be content with counterfeit, With masquerade of thought, with hapless words That must belie the racking masquerade, With fictive flourishes that preordained His passion's permit, hang of coat, degree Of buttons, measure of his salt. Such trash Might help the blind, not him, serenely sly. It irked beyond his patience. Hence it was, Preferring text to gloss, he humbly served Grotesque apprenticeship to chance event, A clown, perhaps, but an aspiring clown. There is a monotonous babbling in our dreams That makes them our dependent heirs, the heirs Of dreamers buried in our sleep, and not The oncoming fantasies of better birth. The apprentice knew these dreamers. If he dreamed Their dreams, he did it in a gingerly way. All dreams are vexing. Let them be expunged. But let the rabbit run, the cock declaim. Trinket pasticcio, flaunting skyey sheets, With Crispin as the tiptoe cozener? No, no: veracious page on page, exact. v A Nice Shady Home Crispin as hermit, pure and capable, Dwelt in the land. Perhaps if discontent Had kept him still the pricking realist, Choosing his element from droll confect Of was and is and shall or ought to be, Beyond Bordeaux, beyond Havana, far Beyond carked Yucatan, he might have come To colonize his polar planterdom And jig his chits upon a cloudy knee. But his emprize to that idea soon sped. Crispin dwelt in the land and dwelling there Slid from his continent by slow recess To things within his actual eye, alert To the difficulty of rebellious thought When the sky is blue. The blue infected will. It may be that the yarrow in his fields Sealed pensive purple under its concern. But day by day, now this thing and now that Confined him, while it cosseted, condoned, Little by little, as if the suzerain soil Abashed him by carouse to humble yet Attach. It seemed haphazard denouement. He first, as realist, admitted that Whoever hunts a matinal continent May, after all, stop short before a plum And be content and still be realist. The words of things entangle and confuse. The plum survives its poems. It may hang In the sunshine placidly, colored by ground Obliquities of those who pass beneath, Harlequined and mazily dewed and mauved In bloom. Yet it survives in its own form, Beyond these changes, good, fat, guzzly fruit. So Crispin hasped on the surviving form, For him, of shall or ought to be in is. Was he to bray this in profoundest brass Arointing his dreams with fugal requiems? Was he to company vastest things defunct With a blubber of tom-toms harrowing the sky? Scrawl a tragedian's testament? Prolong His active force in an inactive dirge, Which, let the tall musicians call and call, Should merely call him dead? Pronounce amen Through choirs infolded to the outmost clouds? Because he built a cabin who once planned Loquacious columns by the ructive sea? Because he turned to salad-beds again? Jovial Crispin, in calamitous crape? Should he lay by the personal and make Of his own fate an instance of all fate? What is one man among so many men? What are so many men in such a world? Can one man think one thing and think it long? Can one man be one thing and be it long? The very man despising honest quilts Lies quilted to his poll in his despite. For realists, what is is what should be. And so it came, his cabin shuffled up, His trees were planted, his duenna brought Her prismy blonde and clapped her in his hands, The curtains flittered and the door was closed. Crispin, magister of a single room, Latched up the night. So deep a sound fell down It was as if the solitude concealed And covered him and his congenial sleep. So deep a sound fell down it grew to be A long soothsaying silence down and down. The crickets beat their tambours in the wind, Marching a motionless march, custodians. In the presto of the morning, Crispin trod, Each day, still curious, but in a round Less prickly and much more condign than that He once thought necessary. Like Candide, Yeoman and grub, but with a fig in sight, And cream for the fig and silver for the cream, A blonde to tip the silver and to taste The rapey gouts. Good star, how that to be Annealed them in their cabin ribaldries! Yet the quotidian saps philosophers And men like Crispin like them in intent, If not in will, to track the knaves of thought. But the quotidian composed as his, Of breakfast ribands, fruits laid in their leaves, The tomtit and the cassia and the rose, Although the rose was not the noble thorn Of crinoline spread, but of a pining sweet, Composed of evenings like cracked shutters flung Upon the rumpling bottomness, and nights In which those frail custodians watched, Indifferent to the tepid summer cold, While he poured out upon the lips of her That lay beside him, the quotidian Like this, saps like the sun, true fortuner. For all it takes it gives a humped return Exchequering from piebald fiscs unkeyed. vi And Daughters with Curls Portentous enunciation, syllable To blessed syllable affined, and sound Bubbling felicity in cantilene, Prolific and tormenting tenderness Of music, as it comes to unison, Forgather and bell boldly Crispin's last Deduction. Thrum, with a proud douceur His grand pronunciamento and devise. The chits came for his jigging, bluet-eyed, Hands without touch yet touching poignantly, Leaving no room upon his cloudy knee, Prophetic joint, for its diviner young. The return to social nature, once begun, Anabasis or slump, ascent or chute, Involved him in midwifery so dense His cabin counted as phylactery, Then place of vexing palankeens, then haunt Of children nibbling at the sugared void, Infants yet eminently old, then dome And halidom for the unbraided femes, Green crammers of the green fruits of the world, Bidders and biders for its ecstasies, True daughters both of Crispin and his clay. All this with many mulctings of the man, Effective colonizer sharply stopped In the door-yard by his own capacious bloom. But that this bloom grown riper, showing nibs Of its eventual roundness, puerile tints Of spiced and weathery rouges, should complex The stopper to indulgent fatalist Was unforeseen. First Crispin smiled upon His goldenest demoiselle, inhabitant, She seemed, of a country of the capuchins, So delicately blushed, so humbly eyed, Attentive to a coronal of things Secret and singular. Second, upon A second similar counterpart, a maid Most sisterly to the first, not yet awake Excepting to the motherly footstep, but Marvelling sometimes at the shaken sleep. Then third, a thing still flaxen in the light, A creeper under jaunty leaves. And fourth, Mere blusteriness that gewgaws jollified, All din and gobble, blasphemously pink. A few years more and the vermeil capuchin Gave to the cabin, lordlier than it was, The dulcet omen fit for such a house. The second sister dallying was shy To fetch the one full-pinioned one himself Out of her botches, hot embosomer. The third one gaping at the orioles Lettered herself demurely as became A pearly poetess, peaked for rhapsody. The fourth, pent now, a digit curious. Four daughters in a world too intricate In the beginning, four blithe instruments Of differing struts, four voices several In couch, four more personæ, intimate As buffo, yet divers, four mirrors blue That should be silver, four accustomed seeds Hinting incredible hues, four self-same lights That spread chromatics in hilarious dark, Four questioners and four sure answerers. Crispin concocted doctrine from the rout. The world, a turnip once so readily plucked, Sacked up and carried overseas, daubed out Of its ancient purple, pruned to the fertile main, And sown again by the stiffest realist, Came reproduced in purple, family font, The same insoluble lump. The fatalist Stepped in and dropped the chuckling down his craw, Without grace or grumble. Score this anecdote Invented for its pith, not doctrinal In form though in design, as Crispin willed, Disguised pronunciamento, summary, Autumn's compendium, strident in itself But muted, mused, and perfectly revolved In those portentous accents, syllables, And sounds of music coming to accord Upon his law, like their inherent sphere, Seraphic proclamations of the pure Delivered with a deluging onwardness. Or if the music sticks, if the anecdote Is false, if Crispin is a profitless Philosopher, beginning with green brag, Concluding fadedly, if as a man Prone to distemper he abates in taste, Fickle and fumbling, variable, obscure, Glozing his life with after-shining flicks, Illuminating, from a fancy gorged By apparition, plain and common things, Sequestering the fluster from the year, Making gulped potions from obstreperous drops, And so distorting, proving what he proves Is nothing, what can all this matter since The relation comes, benignly, to its end? So may the relation of each man be clipped.

#wallace stevens #lit #literature #poetry #poem

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citylightsnc · 5 years

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Fred Chappell will visit City Lights Bookstore on Friday, August 2nd at 6:30 p.m. He will present his new poetry collection, As If It Were. Inspired by ancient, modern, and contemporary writings, Fred Chappell's sprightly new collection of verse, As If It Were, presents tales, anecdotes, pointed stories, and aphorisms to spark the conscience of readers young and old. Playful and even zany, the humor in these poems pulls readers into a world filled with noble lions, crafty foxes, predacious wolves, longsuffering asses, and fashionable peacocks. Chappell illustrates how the fable offers a timeless form of wisdom, surprising us with revelations that challenge what we think we already know, along with fresh observations of daily experiences. With its informal, even nonchalant tone of address and lush, polished language, As If It Were endows homespun materials with alchemical insights. Fred Chappell is the author of more than thirty volumes of poetry and prose. He has received the Bollingen Prize, the T. S. Eliot Award, and the Thomas Wolfe Prize. His fiction has been translated into more than a dozen languages and received the Best Foreign Book Award from the Académie Française. He was the poet laureate of North Carolina from 1997 to 2002. #citylightsnc #poetry #poet #liveliterature #poetryreading #sylva #downtownsylva #uncg #poetlaureate #newcollection #northcarolina #writingeststate (at City Lights Bookstore) https://www.instagram.com/p/B0lDYDpppfd/?igshid=z14kfwee5pmk

#citylightsnc #poetry #poet #liveliterature #poetryreading #sylva #downtownsylva #uncg #poetlaureate #newcollection #northcarolina #writingeststate

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heroofshield · 3 years

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Comfortober Day 2: Darkness

Fable 3, Ben Finn/Hero of Brightwall

Rating: G

No Warnings

Ben Finn was about to call it a night, but paused as he spotted Carolina in the study, still working. Since they’d sailed back from Aurora and taken the throne from Logan, she’s thrown herself into getting caught up and trying to untangle the mess her half-brother had gotten them into.

“Between this and training she’s running herself ragged.” he thought, noticing the shadows under her eyes as she stifled a yawn.

Not wanting to face his broom cupboard of a room, Ben walked up to the door and knocked while sticking his head in. “Need some coffee?”

“Hm?” Carolina glanced up from the document she was reading and set it down at seeing Ben. “No thanks, I already called for some.”

“You keep burning the midnight oil, love. Don’t pretend you haven’t.” Ben sat on the arm of a chair and looked at the Princess as she gave him a look. “I know you want to get caught up but-”

“It’s not that.” Carolina interrupted, inwardly wincing at the harsh tone. “I mean...I don’t like the darkness. Not since Aurora.”

Ben was silent, looking around the room and suddenly noticing the candelabras that covered almost every surface. He hated that he hadn’t noticed, especially since he needed a few candles to even think about sleeping. “Me either.”

Carolina let out a sigh and ran a hand through her hair, “We’re certainly a pair aren’t we?”

“Well one of us doesn’t actually glow, so I have a bit more of a problem than you. So how are we going to beat this?”

Carolina smiled at the statement and shook her head, watching as Ben stood and slowly made his way towards her. “Beat my fear of the dark?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Why not just go to sleep with candles every night until I’m old and grey?”

“Well, for one the obvious fire hazard with all those curtains and drapes in your room.” Ben smiled as he leaned against the desk. “And secondly, I don’t think that Jasper would like all that wax on the floor.”

“Hm...you do make a compelling case.” Carolina tapped a finger on her chin, thinking. “I know a solution.”

“Oh?” Ben asked as the Princess stood and took his hand, letting her drag him up the stairs and towards the residence wing of the castle. But as he dug his heels in as he realized where she was taking him. “Hold up a second...are you sure?”

Carolina paused and turned around, letting go of Ben’s hand, “Oh just wait here.”

Ben watched as Carolina marched past her bedroom doors and towards one of the many linen closets, opening the door and stepping in with authority. She reappeared after a few minutes, arms full of sheets and blankets. “What did you think was going to happen?”

“Well, you were taking me towards your room and...we’ve been dancing around that line for sometime now and…” Ben started to ramble and petered off as he saw the mischievous look on Carolina’s face. “You’re trouble, you know that.”

“So Walter keeps telling me.” Carolina smiled as she started towards the other end of the hallway and the stairs that led back to her office. She might not always be able to stand the darkness, but with Ben around she wouldn’t be afraid of it.

#comfortember #fable 3 #ben finn #hero of brightwall #fable!verse carolina #fanfic

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heroofshield · 3 years

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Hero, Doggo, Shadelight and Coronation!!

Hero - Do they have a preference in Heroic Disciplines? Do they mix and match their abilities across disciplines or do they prefer to specialise? What weapons do they prefer to use?

Carolina prefers a mix of Will and Strength, she’s always been a horrible shot so unless she’s backed into a corner with no movement she won’t use her pistol. At first she went with the sword, but soon found that the hammer could do more damage and cover more area. So she switched to that and has become a) really buff and b) lethal with it.

Combine that with Will and she’s pretty much unstoppable.

She prefers fire and since Will changes you as you use it, her hair goes from a brown to a faded yellow with streaks of red in it and she always looks like she has a faint tan.

Doggo! - tell us all about their best friend. What they named him, their bond, everything!

Scout is a black and white border collie and is spoiled rotten by everyone in the castle ^-^

Carolina got him as a going away present from Logan when he was going off to Aurora and she took him everywhere those first few weeks. Scout pretty much has run of the castle and isn’t allowed up on the furniture, but Carolina will him up onto her bed to sleep with her (especially during the winter when it’s cold).

When they first left the castle, Carolina was heartbroken that she had to leave Scout behind, but knew since they had to move quickly it had to be done. Then later on, when she was more confident in her Will usage, she snuck back into the castle and got him back.

When they’re back at the castle, Scout doesn’t leave her side, and when Carolina wants to take a break or just be alone for awhile she’ll take Scout out into the garden or massive lawn and let him run around.

Shadelight - how did the Hero cope with the Darkness in Shadelight? Were they able to keep up their composure? How did they handle the revelation that it was coming to Albion? And how did they feel about it being able to invade the Sanctuary?

Carolina can deal with the Darkness when it first shows up, but once Walter is taken she starts to lose it. Walter has been there through everything and she can’t even protect him when he needed it most. So when she “rescues” him and they’re struggling to travel through the desert she refuses to abandon him and as a result almost kills them because she’s so weak and he can’t see.

During the fight in the temple, she zips up to the Sanctuary for a quick potion resupply and panics a little when she sees the Darkness and can’t find Jasper. Because up until then, she’d been the only one who’d been able to access the area and realizes that if it can get into there then no place is safe.

Coronation - how did they actually feel about becoming the new Monarch? Did they want to be King/Queen, or was it a sense of duty that drove them? How do they deal with the pressure of ruling?

Growing up, Carolina always thought she’d be married off to some other country in the name of establishing/solidifying an alliance. She wasn’t happy about it, but figured it would at least allow her to travel and see more of the world.

Then Carolina found herself fighting to take him down. As they gathered more and more allies, it became clear to her that they still wanted a monarchy but with her ruling instead of Logan. So she had to reconcile that fact as they’re escaping Bowerstone and sailing for Aurora. She didn’t have many lessons on statecraft, Sparrow and Walter focused more on Logan, and she only attended court sessions when the whole family needed to show up.

So when she was finally crowned, she was suddenly doubting herself and feeling overwhelmed. To relax she’ll go to the Sanctuary for a few hours to just read and not think about everything she has to do, train with her hammer/Will for a few hours, or take Scout for a walk in the castle gardens.

#nightingaletrash #fable 3 #hero of brightwall #fable!verse carolina #carolina blackburn

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heroofshield · 3 years

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Scars, Sparrow, Mentor, Family, Silver

Scars - did they gain any scars when building up the Revolution against Logan? Maybe when preparing from the Crawler? How, and where?

Carolina didn’t get any scars while fighting in Albion, she got really good at learning how to evade during fights and it helped that her Will would heal most wounds almost right away. There were a few close calls while fighting Saker and his men, a number of scrapes and knife wounds plus an explosion that almost knocked her out, but she managed to avoid any serious injury.

But when in Shadelight, she ended up losing a fight to the Darkness and ended up with a scar that runs from the base of her jaw to her left ear. It’s somewhat noticeable and at first she’s a bit self-conscious about it but over time wears it with pride.

Sparrow - what was their relationship like with their parent? How old were they when Sparrow died? Do they remember much about them? What’s their opinion of them, and has that opinion changed since starting their journey? If they could talk to Sparrow one more time after being coronated, what would they say to or ask them?

Sparrow died when Carolina was 7 and Logan was 14. Since Sparrow was busy ruling and focused on Logan’s education as Crown Prince, she didn’t have a lot of time to spare for Carolina. But she made sure to block out enough time in the evenings for dinner and to tuck Carolina into bed. A big staple of bedtime were Sparrow’s Adventures (heavily edited for a little kid ofc) and that’s the think that Carolina remembers the most about her mother.

As she got older, she thought the tales of magic and her mother taking down the Tower single-handedly were made up stories or heavily embellished for the nighttime stories. So imagine her surprise when she realized that magic was real and so were the stories about her mother.

After everything, especially during the hard choices leading up to the Crawler attacking, she realized that her mother had so much responsibility placed on her shoulders and wondered more than once how she managed to do it almost all by herself. If she could talk to Sparrow one more time, she’d ask if her choices were worth it; would she still bring everyone back who worked on the Tower instead of Rose? would she still marry her first family, knowing that they’d still be killed?

Mentor - what’s their relationship with Walter like? Is he a friend, a father figure? Does he approve of the choices they make? Did they abandon him after Shadelight, or did they try to carry him with them? How did his death affect them?

Walter is Carolina’s bio-father, but he never confirmed it. She suspected because they have the same nose and eyes, and her adeptness while fighting reminded Walter of when he was younger. But she never asked him and he never told her. So to everyone (minus Jasper because that man knows everything) Walter is just a father figure to Carolina and Logan.

During Shadelight, Carolina will not abandon Walter no matter what. She was so afraid when the Darkness first captures him that she’s lost him for good that she lost a fight and was wounded. When they’re in the desert and he keeps insisting to leave him behind, she tells him an a no-nonsense manner that she’d rather die than abandon him again. And they almost do die because Carolina was immensely weakened during her fight with the Darkness and he couldn’t see. Plus they were in a desert with no supplies.

So his death after everything almost destroys her.

Family - did they marry anyone in their adventures? Did they have any children? Do they have any siblings beside Logan? Anyone else they consider to be family?

Carolina only had eyes for Eliot so it took awhile for her to move past him. But when she did, she found herself falling for a smart-ass Captain in the Royal Army. But her and Ben Finn were friends first and she didn’t want to ruin that, other than Page he was the only one who she considered a close friend (plus there’s the whole thing about Ben not being a member of the Nobility that stands in their way).

She knows that in order for her policies to continue, as well as the Hero line, she needs to have a family. So she looks for someone that she could maybe eventually love and it takes awhile, but she manages to find someone and they marry- eventually having three children.

Logan is her only other sibling, and even though she spared him because she needed his men, she doesn’t consider him family. That rift is just too big to ever heal.

Silver - did they help the civilians of Silverpines fight off the Balverines or did they help Connor get revenge for his exile?

Carolina helped the residents of Silverpines against the Balverines and almost single-handedly took them out. Ben was with her for the fight and that was the first time he got a glimpse of her wings. It stunned him and he nearly got side-tackled as a result, lol.

#Anonymous #fable 3 #carolina blackburn #fable!verse carolina

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