ABSOLUTE FANTASY.
BOOK 1: 'THE BRILLIANT AGE.'
CHAPTER 1: THE MOON DAWNED INN.
A Tavern lies silent on the ground, sleeping in the wake of Celestial Grandeur; Revolving Stars, hush blue, gentle and ethereal are canvased by Black Materia; black space, endless and omni engulfing. The beauty of Organized Logic made manifest. It's highlighted by Light Essence formed from collapsing Greater Souls, drifting fluidly in lunar majesty, grand and imposing. The Greater Souls are remnants of Greater Beings, fossilized and dynamic, reacting and collapsing after Grand Millennia. They are remnants of long dead ideas that were once believed in, now reduced to tales told by Tale Scholars and songs sung by Bard's tongues.
The grand scale of endless expression of Science and Magic, of Logic and Reason is laid bare. Put into raw vivid contrast with a humble lowly tavern. As humble and lowly as you can get. Yet, the design feels perfect; placing the apex of existence against its meekest bottom, as if the greatest beauty can really only be found where you choose to find it. At dizzying, greater and grander heights. Or the love, warmth and comfort of ground level. 'Choose'.
It's a lonely tavern; no life nor structure to be seen miles away. A tavern in the middle of nowhere. The middle of nowhere part, in particular, inspires a sense of freedom. Freedom. Not loneliness. Not anxiety. There's peace in the silence, ease in the desolate. It's calming to look at, simple and dependable. Welcoming with a genuine sense of security, of honest safety. Here you can be, here you can live, here you can do, here you can exist. Here you can find happiness and achieve dreams. You're you and there is nothing to change that. It's the rest of all souls, the ease of all hearts.
Still, it contrasts the inside. Hung and swaying paper lanterns shine an orange, transparent, gleaming aura of light. Natural, dreamlike and as gentle as a fireflies' dim. They're warm. They're reprieve put into form. They give hope just in their shine. The tavern is wooden built, stone anchored and iron reinforced. It has a simple design, but it has a massive scale regardless. For now, its presence in history is fixed onto, 'The Brilliant Age.' The current occupants match the age really well.
In this queer tavern lies a hustle of souls and a bustle of bodies. Walks of life, varied and diversified, intermingle in jubilee. Past strangers with no prior acquaintance cheer and jeer with long lived familiarity. Familiarity worth far more than their familiars. Worth far more than those they would not consider strangers.
None find the happenings bizarre.
There is a warmth in this mass of company, a safety few have known. Here solitude is faded, loneliness forgotten, pain diluted and suffering dissolved. Here there is no cruelty, no trauma, no loss, no abuse. It's an oasis of rest. A breather for the heart.
None find the oddities strange.
No one ever does.
Until, one does.
The Hunter…