Good news, guys!

Hey dear readers!

Remember a while back, where I said I was writing in another blog as a form of emotional venting? I think you'll see it some posts back. In any case, good news!

I won't be writing in it any more. Maybe someday when I need it again, I'll open it up and start writing in it again, but right now I think it's time to cut the chord. It's time to drop that emotional crutch. I don't think I need it anymore. Either my problems got lighter, or I got stronger, or something happened, but I just... Well I feel I shouldn't write in it or even read past posts in it anymore. The reasons are twofold, really.

The first is because although writing in it helped me to vent and get my emotions out there without bothering anyone or burdening others with it, reading it all again brings back memories. Some good, some bad, all kind of painful. I don't want to fall back into that state, I really don't. And I know, as much as I want to read those posts, I can't because if I do, I just might. I have enough to deal with right now, I don't think slipping into that state again will help one bit.

The second is because I want to concentrate my writing on this blog again. I spent a very long period neglecting this blog, which I've grown rather attached to not only as a tool to use as a writer, but as an extension of my creativity. It's time I came back to this blog, start writing again, start posting again, start giving my readers more frequency and quality. They deserve it, you deserve it. So for your benefit, for my own benefit as a writer and just as me, Siegius, The Fragmented Storyteller, as a person, I'm closing the chapter on my other blog. It's been a good emotional crutch, it got me through a particularly rough patch. Maybe someday, I'll make it public. When all of this is over, so my friends and loved ones, the people that have been helping me through this rough time, will know what I faced. But hopefully I won't be needing it for a while, I wanna be strong enough to move on, to move forward, without it. It served it's purpose, but looking back on it will only be counter productive.

So I bid my other blog, A Big Bin For My Thoughts, a fond and well-deserved farewell. And thank you.

So hopefully now you guys will see more writing and of better quality as well here!

Sorry for the absence

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the absence. It's been a rough ride for me lately, and I've been pretty busy as well. What with my personal problems making my life difficult and me trying to get my shit in order. It's been a while since I last posted something, so here's a little fragment of a story for anyone that still visits this graveyard of a site (yeah, I know it's been pretty freaking dead lately, I do actually notice shit like that.)

Twinblade

“A true Cabalyst is one with his beliefs. To imbue their beliefs in action, to show commitment in work of hand and truth of heart.”

I was once an Academy kid, born and raised as a Saber. My Master was a Magi, a funny combination what with me being a Saber, but not unheard of in the Academy. She was the Academy’s best healer, which was just as well because I often found myself in the infirmary. People watch me now and most would never believe I was the clumsiest Saber Apprentice in all of the Cabalysts. I was clumsy and uncoordinated; many wondered why the Masters bestowed upon me the role of a Saber. “Mastery is achieved only with hard work, passion and determination. The art of the blade will one day reward you, young Saber.” I suppose the Masters were right, now I’m one of the best Sabers around. And thanks to my Master, I can do things with the Cabal most Sabers can’t. Healing, fireballs, even mimicking a Saber Master and infusing the Cabal into my blades, imbuing fire, lightning and even pure Cabalic energy. Praetorites and Masters alike say I’m a prodigy; the truth was I had an interesting choice for a Master and a lot of hard work went into what I became. My master was like a big sister, a mother and my best friend. I loved her dearly and we were inseparable, she loved me just so and with a heavy heart but complete confidence, she spoke to the Masters and the Grand Master himself put his vote down to begin my Trials of the Praetorian. But mere days before my Trials, it happened. The Anchorites, old enemies of the Cabalysts, stormed the Academy. It was a massacre. I watched as a Greater Anchorite pushed his broadsword through my Master’s abdomen. I was blinded by rage. I drew on as much Cabalic energy as I could, the air around my pulsed with a maelstrom of forces within me. With every fibre of my body brimming with it, I channelled them through me, through my blades, through the very air around me. I cut him down in what was the greatest duel of my young life. I was so overcome with grief, at my friends and my Master dying, I could not hold it in. I unleashed it all. The maelstrom of forces turned into a firestorm, scorching the enemies around me and bringing the entire Academy’s hall down around me. The Academy was in ruins, the Cabalysts were destroyed. We were finished. I had nowhere to go; all I could do was run… Now the Anchorites are raising an army in our wake. With the Cabalysts out of the way, nothing is stopping them from devastating everything and everyone. They believe that the land is rightfully theirs, and so everyone else belongs as either a slave or in a grave. With nothing else standing their way, they could march on unhindered and begin their own apocalypse. All that was left in their way was a lone Saber that hadn’t even completed his Trials of the Praetorian. If there were any Cabalysts left in the world, they had either gone into hiding like I did or dropped their flags and forsaken the Cabalyst ways entirely. Those with any raw potential or had a naturally strong command of the Cabal were quickly persecuted. It seems as if it is up to me to rebuild my lost order. My name is Caleb Darkcross, and this is my story…

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“Caleb! What do you think you are doing still in bed?” Samara stood at his bedside, hands on her hips and, rather evidently, irate over the fact that it was coming close to noon and the young Saber was still in bed.

-> Skipped straight to the Siege

The Anchorites poured through the gates and from overhead. The Siege of the the Cabalytes had begun.

“Master! Lady Samara, where are you?” Caleb called through the ranks of the Cabalysts.
“Steel yourself, lad. Your Master won’t be able to hold your hand forever. Now is as good a time as any to let go.” Said Master Sabian, a Saber Master.
Anxiously, Caleb pulled his blades free of their sheathes. The battlecries from the fighting in the courtyard carried over to the forces gathering inside.
As the Anchorites broke the defensive line of the Cabalysts, Caleb and the other Apprentices charged forth. Caleb leapt into the air, spinning into a deadly whirlwind of blades. He twirled in circles, cutting down Anchorites faster and faster.

Caleb.

The Cabalysts fought valiantly, matching the Anchorites blade for blade. Fireballs and bolts of lightning flew through the corridor. Sabers became a blur of blades, Hawkeyes fired their arrows into the sky, only to have them return as a hail of arrows, multiplying tenfold as they fell. Guardians turned into walls of defense as they overlapped their shields in a phalanx formation and drove the invaders back. Anchorites, however, specialised in weakening a Cabalyst’s connection to the Cabal. Soon, the tide of the battle turned, the Anchorites getting the upper hand and slowly decimated the Cabalysts.

Caleb felt weaker around the Anchorites, like they stemmed the growing tide of Cabalic energy. But he drew upon it evermore, infusing his blades with lightning. Every strike was followed with a bright flash and a resounding clap of thunder that shook the Academy.

“Your Order will fall!” One Anchorite bellowed as he duelled the young Saber.

“So long as I stand, the Anchorites shall fail.” With a quick feint, he disarmed his opponent and executed him.

Caleb.

Master, where are you?

The Grand Hall. Make haste, my child.

Caleb sprinted for the doors, leaping and bounding off the walls as he dodged fight after fight.

As he neared the doors, he watched his Master duel an Anchorite in heavy red and black armour, wielding a double-sided sword, matching the movements of Lady Samara’s staff but with far more force and speed. She cast a bolt of lightning at him, but he simply slammed his blade end into the floor and grounded it.

Caleb dashed forward, ready to spear this heretic on his blades.

But for once, Caleb wasn’t fast enough.

The Anchorite smashed Lady Samara’s staff to splinters and impaled her on his blade.

Caleb watched in horror as he lost his master and best friend in the blink of an eye.

Blood seeped from the side of her mouth as her eyes became glassy and she clutched at the massive wound in her stomach.

“No! Master!” Caleb cried in anguish. He couldn’t wrap his mind around it. She was the one constant in his life, now she was gone.

“You’re next, child.” The Anchorite sneered.

“You. Are. Going. To. Be. Sorry.” Caleb was so grief-stricken, he called upon more Cabalic energy than ever before. He built it up within him, storing it, amplifying it, saturating his blades and then himself.

As the Anchorite charged, he released the energy forming within. The raw power he commanded sent the Anchorite flying. Caleb leapt forward, slashing and stabbing as if he wielded a hundred blades. He struck faster than lightning and harder than a sledgehammer. The Anchorite was overwhelmed in seconds. Each strike sent sparks flying and thunder roaring. Using raw Cabalic energy, he raised the Anchorite in the air.

“What, (cough) what are you?”

“Your worst nightmare. And you just pissed him off.”

He pictured a flame in his mind, like he did to create fire, just like Lady Samara taught him. The Anchorite cried out in anguish as he was burned from the inside out, turning to ash at Caleb’s feet.

Anchorites began to pour into the Great Hall and were about to overwhelm him.

“No! Leave this place!” he shouted, the flame he pictured in his head becoming a firestorm. He slashed downwards and the arcs created by the blades became a pair of soaring phoenixes. They circled the room, with him at the eye of the storm. The wind and flames whipped at his bloodied face, his armour singeing in some areas. He hung five feet in the air as the phoenixes circled around, trailing fire and creating a tornado of flames. Anchorites cried out as they were turned to charred bones and ash.

“Gaaaaaaaah!” Caleb clenched his fists as his power intensified rather than diminished. The phoenixes circled faster and faster, the sheer force of the firestorm began tearing at the walls and ceiling. Caleb hovered at the center of the pillar of fire that destroyed the ceiling and ripped the walls off their foundations. He dispersed the power with a massive explosion that sent levelled the nearby buildings. Anchorites still crawled through the ruins, intending of finishing the job and exterminating the entire Order. The battlefield was strewn with the bodies of his friends, Masters and Apprentices alike.

“You will all fall before you take the last of the Cabalysts!”

He summoned the power again, this time gathering as much raw energy as he could around him, creating a cocoon of pure Cabalic energy around him and Lady Samara’s body. He glowed a bright blue as he stared straight into an Anchorite General’s eyes and hissed,

“I, Caleb Darkcross, am now the Voice of the Cabal!” he released his powers in a massive wave. Anchorites were crushed by the pure force alone. Gathering the power one last time, he stabbed his blades into the ground and brought the already ruined Academy crumbling around him, burying the Anchorites in rubble and stone. Caleb finally released his hold on the Cabal, succumbing to the waiting darkness, having overexerted himself a thousandfold…

Night had fallen when he regained consciousness. He turned his head and saw his dear Master, Lady Samara, eyes wide open but glassy and lips parted as if she may take yet another gasp of air and rise as surely as the morning sun does. But alas, she was gone. Caleb shed new tears, tears of grief. He wasn’t angry like he was when fought the Anchorites. Now he simply grieved her passing. He missed her so dearly. She was like a mother to him in times of pain, she would pick him up, dust him off, kiss his wounds and whisper to him “It will all be better, sweetie.”, an often enough occurrence as a child. He knew she loved him like a son and he had more than enough reason to return the feeling.
At other times, she was his older sister. She taught him things no one else could, she got him through the awkward phase where a boy becomes a young man.  She was privy to all his private thoughts, feelings and he could go to her for anything. And at times, she was his best friend. They laughed, played, teased, joked and did everything under the sun together. She really was the one person in the world he couldn’t bear to lose. Memories of him as a youngster came flooding back, times where he disobeyed her and ended up hurt, she didn’t reprimand him. The times where he said hurtful things to her, brash and insensitive as he was in his youth. She was always still there later, ever ready to accept his apology and offer a hug.

As he gazed upon her lifeless form, his trickle of tears became a waterfall as the dam of emotions burst open and he sobbed incessantly. He pushed her chin up, closing her mouth and shut her eyelids. She looked like she was simply asleep now, so peacefully asleep. Almost as if she could wake up at any moment, hug him like she had so many times before and tell him it would all be alright…
Still holding her head in his hands, he cried long and hard. At some point, he fell into a fitful sleep.

He awoke to find himself in the Academy again. It still stood proud and tall as it always had.
“There you are, Caleb!” he pivoted on his heels to see the familiar pink and gold robes and maternally comforting visage of Lady Samara.
“I’ve been looking all over for you, you little scoundrel.” She scrunched up her nose playfully as she knelt down to ruffle his hair. He must have been no more than eight or nine, judging by how he was only waist height to her.
“We don’t have any training today, what’s say you and I go out to the forest? I’ll teach you how to sing to plants and make them grow.”
His face beamed at her as the memory of the Siege and her death faded to the back of his mind.
He had one more day to spend with her, he couldn’t think of a reason to not enjoy himself.
She raced him to the forest, her brown hair tied in a ponytail bouncing as he trailed her, gleefully laughing, having the rare opportunity to be a kid again.
She sat him on a tree stump in a clearing, placing a seed in his palm and taking one into her own.
She began to plant her seed, Caleb followed suit and stuck his little brown seed into the soil.
“Alright Caleb, now to sing to a plant and make it grow, you need to have a tune in mind. Everyone has a different tune, sometimes people’s tunes change depending on how they feel. Big events can change their tunes. The words do not really matter, tell the plant how you want it to grow as you sing and it will understand. Let me show you.”

Sweet flower of the forest floor,
The sun calls for your smile.

The birds are singing, the leaves are falling.
Please come out for a while.

My darling sweet boy, he yearns to learn,
to sing the songs of the forest.

Now, grow, grow, I wish and I pray
Show him the sound of your peaceful chorus.

Lady Samara had a beautiful voice, and as he watched in amazement, her seed grew into a beautiful pink rose. He stared in wonder as she plucked it from the soil and let him inhale the scent of the flower. It was the most beautiful aroma to over pass his nose.

Out of the blue, he hugged his Master’s leg. The gesture took her by surprise, but she welcomed it nevertheless. She never shied away from showing affection and encouraged Caleb to do the same.
“Please never leave me, Master. I feel so lost without you.” Tears began to well in Caleb’s eyes again as images of the Siege and of his beloved Master dead on the floor of the Great Hall flashed through his mind.

“Caleb, dear, I’m not leaving. I would never dream of leaving you. I’d miss you too much. Someday you will take your Test of the Praetorian and become a full-fledged Saber, but even then you will always be my Apprentice and you will never grow too old for me to ruffle your hair and give you a hug.” He clung to her even tighter as she said this, extricating his little body from her leg long enough to get on her knees and pull him into a fierce hug.

“I’ll always be here for you and I’m not going anywhere…” Tears welled in her own eyes as her voice began to grow distant and Caleb was ripped from that last perfect moment with his Master and thrust back into reality.