Wheel of Love

The course of true love never did run smooth.
~William Shakespeare

Wheel of Love

Wheel of Summer

The orange glow softly empowered the grassy fields, the warm feeling of red light lingered here; an outer calm that were welcomed and gifted to anyone who would chose to take an evening’s stroll. These highlands where alive with love each summer, home to the Verdani Tribes, natives living of the land, taking, giving, and honouring the Source of all things. It was here that Malou had started her young life, daughter of Bindu & Ramil Stillwind. It was also here that she had first laid eyes on her radiant Gusta, first seen his almond eyes, his boyish smile, the wicked hint and glint that had chained her heart, fired her blood.

“How I long each year for these days,
The warm, warm summer days,
That light up love, love and all its ways,
So I might loose myself, in this blissful haze,
Ah yes, these summer days,”

Gusta let out a low chuckle, it was a simple song, but by the Source it mattered not! Singing and making up these easy hymns was a loved pleasure of his, and Malou did think of him as a sort of poet. Not the words, he thought, but the way you sing it, the way you loose yourself in it, that’s what matters. Yes, he did have it figured out, he did have a fine maiden to call his, and he did intend to marry her one day. And there it was, the small and very known rock, a tree brooding atop. Here they met when they could, licked, played, and groaning as lovers should.

“Malou my maiden fair,
Show me your radiance rare,
And let me fondle your buttocks bare!”

A silhouetted form scrambled up in contrast to the creamy sky. A breeze caught her hair, yet she stood firmly still, watching each step he took up the hill. He knew that she was barely containing her lust, to stay planted there, and wait for him to claim her just. She was a woman after all, had composure and self-control, though practicing -that- took its toll. But truly he enjoyed that too, the game they would play, before both on a blanket lay.

With each slowly step the distance was closed, and then finally, he stood before her. Noticing now the freckled band across her nose and cheeks, her fiery hair that tumbled wildly past her shoulders, her green and challenging eyes, it all served to make his feelings rise, “And there she is” he stated “Thank god we are not related”

And she did laugh and look upon her love, the tanned Gusta, brawny, stout and strong. “Oh dearest, how I have planned for this evenings fun” and then the string unstrung, baring her chest and exposing her breasts. “Take me now, for I crave you deeply, or are you here to mutter songs feebly?”

Wheel of Autumn

Gusta Stillwind, a man now in his middle age was as content as any man should be. His lovely wife Malou had been blessed with an ageless beauty, and was evermore beautiful, and evermore enchanting by each passing day. Together they had produced two wondrous sons: Damal and Hito. They where an honoured family in the tribal community, furthermore, Gusta was an excellent hunter and warrior, and he trained the younglings and the coming of age. Though for some reason he had grown bored with his perfect life, bored with the same everyday hum-drum, he longed for something more, longed for something. Yet what it was were unclear to him…

He stepped outside the buckskin shelter. It was chilly, and he found himself growing cold. Everywhere the ground was strewn with leaves, their faded colours slowly rotting into the earth. “Back to the source” he muttered. Each tree was now a skeletal form of its past beauty, standing eerily into the greying sky, their gnarled branches creaking and complaining.

“Father!” he turned and noticed his two sons, six seasons old now. “Look what we found!” his youngest, Hito, approached and raised a serrated dagger high. It was strangely ornamented, beautifully carved and fashioned, engraved with strange symbols and markings. It was not a Verdani blade.

“Where did you find this?” Gusta asked his youngest, hefting the dagger into his belt.

A finger was pointed towards the Milvard Forest “Me and Damal found it in there… Damal says he saw someone, but there was no one there!” But there was, and before anyone could prepare, the raiding party came storming, cold steel glinting savagely, eyes blazing with unconditional hate.

Above the cries and screams could always be heard his roar.
His blade felled many a foe, laying corpses for each step advanced.
Like the wind he danced and danced, with crimson fury and perfectly balanced.

A savage cut sent him ducking low, his sword slashing out, gutting his opponent in one fatal blow. Screams to his left, screams to his right, they where losing this fight. The fury chained he let loose, slaughtering each invader like a goose. A kick to the groin, an elbow to the face, how he hated this invader race! Cutting, cutting, cutting, adrenaline surging, into his brain, urging and urging, for him to make that killer blow, a bloody damn insanity show! But then it came, that loved feel, now here the same, fulfilled by this terrible shame! Why did he love this, what was the cause, when this was nothing else than lives to the loss!

And so, Gusta Stillwind left his family and went to war, he loved now only, its terrible roar.

Wheel of Winter

Huddled in the still of winter, an elderly man sits, using up the last of his tinder. Regret is marred on his troubled mind, what happens now, is this where it will end, entirely without any damn intend? A shambled form of his former self, cast aside, and here thus hide. He’d do it over if he had the chance, back with Malou and taking the stance, -just- to be grazed by her loving glance!
Alas that ship as sailed, and the only time left now, is to be wailed. Tears flow salty from his eyes, bending his head down low, messy, tangled hair clotted and rotted. Shakily his hands support the weight of his head, it feels as if bursting, bursting from an excess of dread. Gritted his teeth, nails biting into his brow, oh by the Source what a low!

Darkness in a world of white, is this to be his passage, his rite?

But sometimes when a soul is masked by strife, it breaks through, demanding you! The mindful chatter that suddenly shatter, in a million stars scatter! Brilliance so bright, that the person can only cry; “Delight! “ for roaring now this feeling right, the inner stream of infinity’s dream- flowing in an eternity of an inner grandest synergy.

And Gusta Stillwind did open his eyes anew. Though he was an elderly man he felt better than he could ever remember. He pushed himself upright, taking a deep breath, sucking in the cleanness of the air, it was cold but fresh, and gave him strength. Together he clasped his hands in the Verdani custom, raising them skywards in prayer, he was to put it mildly, thankful, joyful, loveful, lightful, delightful, full.

His laughter boomed out sincerely, and to anyone else, would have appeared quite insanely.

He traversed the shortest path home, back-tracking the foreign trails and braving the frozen lakes, crossing icy streams, staying clear of predators, scrunching a lean and trained living off the land. This was not done in bitterness; this was done in thankfulness, not because he thought he owed the Source to be thankful, but simply because he was. He considered each second a gift, a divine present, considered each encounter, though it be bad, though it be good, equally important. He perceived the world now by choice, not by experience. And his choice was to take it all in, to love every single bit that presented itself.

Fairly soon he started his simple rhyming, taking no heed to the danger of enemy scout parties, for he had come this far, and life would surely not punish creativity, regardless of past sins. No, life did not need a remorseful soul, a depressed I-have-sinned-and-thus-am-damned, no, life would have you move forward, life would have you forgive and forget your false qualities, welcome the rich and true. To spin the wheel and get over your egoistic self hate, which ultimately only solved to produce more bad energy, though you say you might keep your hate to yourself; you reek of this energy, it perforates your surroundings, withering, deforming.

“The source that made me see,
This new life in a thankful glee,
For every rock, for every tree,
Finally free, finally can I –just- be”

Wheel of Spring

“Do you remember that certain scent that you thought you had forgotten, but discovered only lay dormant in your mind: the scent of the first day of spring, the first day where you can truly smell spring? Or how the newly warmth of a beginning season seems to caress your bared skin, so loving is it that most drop their buckskins to appreciate, thus catching cold in the first shaky days of spring. How your mind has been tuned to the greyness, the bared branches, the cold earth, and now seems as if bursting with the green explosion of life. Do you feel the challenging wind when you walk through the forest, your muscles now warm with the season’s help, the daring to sprint along and see where it takes you? Do you sill appreciate new beginnings when they so openly present themselves?

For me it was hard, for I was loved wholly, and new beginnings a threat to what was a blessed everyday for me. But as sure as the wheel turned, my love was taken from me, gone beyond the mountains to fight and preserve our way of life. Every spring I told myself to forgive and forget him, to move on and pass my grief, yet I could not.

The years were hard on me, wasted away in every-day chores, wasted away in keeping busy. And slowly this fiery hair once red turned greying. My firmful breasts went hanging, and my back turned crooked, my hips arching. And with my beauty gone, all my hope left me; I would die an old hag with a stone in my heart. Or so I tormented myself to think.

I recall one night when I was marred and deadened by grief; I went to a hilltop very dear to me. A cherry tree was brooding there, its olden blossoms ready to fall. I went to sleep that night with a wish for death, and was sure that I would be granted this last desire…” she lowered her voice, and the youngsters went hushed, wide eyed and staring intently at the storyteller. “…but then I heard it”. It was a man who took up the last part of the story, raising his ancient voice to the air, letting it soar without a care:

“For I saw my woman where last we loved,
Where last we lived,

The cherry tree her head had crowned,
Her body gowned,

Naked if naught for natures dress,
Urging a warm caress,

Her radiance forever remaining rare,
As I went to fondle her buttocks bare,”

The end

Word count: 1918