I'm so hungry for something I haven't a recipe for
I want to believe in magic
I want to believe in dreams
I want gentle ghosts to haunt my graveyard
And my house and my carousel
Cie for Gem
Ondina for Serab
Pepper for Gerry
Prompt Used:
You can stop right there and just read the poem, or you can continue on and read the long and rambling notes.
Notes:
This story poem was created for Team Netherworld's longest-running WIP, Fetch, which is a Lovecraftian paranormal romance.
Fetch's protagonist is Gerry Clifford, a Scottish musician raised in London's seedy Crouch End borough from the time he was twelve years old. (As inspired by Stephen King's Lovecraftian short story, Crouch End, which can be found in the 1980 anthology, New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos.) As Gerry's cognitive and physical abilities deteriorate, he is placed in London's Candlelight Ridge Care Home. Gerry's spirit begins to go AWOL from a body which no longer works properly, and he discovers that the unfortunate residents at Candlelight Ridge are not simply succumbing to the ravages of age and infirmity, their souls are being harvested by Yadira Root, an ancient high priestess of the notorious Cthulhu Cult and the daughter of Nyarlathotep himself. Pursued by a hostile hive entity, Gerry turns to troubled American medium Pepper Baiij for help.
Many millennia previously in another star system and possibly another dimension, Gerry was a thief named Serab. Serab was a member of a race persecuted by West Zecor's tyrannical King Qweh, who captured the hapless thief one day and presented him to his sister Princess Ondina, an empath whose primary function was attempting to ameliorate the destruction and chaos caused by Qweh.
Qweh hoped for Ondina to be irritated when he gave her the tiny, elfin Serab as a replacement for her slain bodyguard, but Ondina did not react as Qweh hoped. She treated Serab respectfully. There was an immediate attraction between Ondina and Serab, although Ondina was statuesque, stately, and a member of the ruling class while Serab was small, rough, and a member of an oppressed race.
When Serab was brutally murdered by Qweh at the end of the doomed planet Zecor's existence, Ondina sent his soul to "the realm of the yellow sun" with the admonition that the pair must never meet again. Ondina hoped to protect her beloved from Qweh's threat that he would destroy Serab in any lifetime where he and Ondina reunited.
Serab eventually reincarnated as Gerry Clifford while Ondina reincarnated as Pepper Baiij. The star-crossed lovers were finally reunited when Gerry's spirit or Fetch began leaving his body in search of help.
It's doubtful that Fetch will ever be published in any kind of cohesive form. It remains Team Netherworld's favorite WIP.
Many millennia previously in another star system and possibly another dimension, Gerry was a thief named Serab. Serab was a member of a race persecuted by West Zecor's tyrannical King Qweh, who captured the hapless thief one day and presented him to his sister Princess Ondina, an empath whose primary function was attempting to ameliorate the destruction and chaos caused by Qweh.
Qweh hoped for Ondina to be irritated when he gave her the tiny, elfin Serab as a replacement for her slain bodyguard, but Ondina did not react as Qweh hoped. She treated Serab respectfully. There was an immediate attraction between Ondina and Serab, although Ondina was statuesque, stately, and a member of the ruling class while Serab was small, rough, and a member of an oppressed race.
When Serab was brutally murdered by Qweh at the end of the doomed planet Zecor's existence, Ondina sent his soul to "the realm of the yellow sun" with the admonition that the pair must never meet again. Ondina hoped to protect her beloved from Qweh's threat that he would destroy Serab in any lifetime where he and Ondina reunited.
Serab eventually reincarnated as Gerry Clifford while Ondina reincarnated as Pepper Baiij. The star-crossed lovers were finally reunited when Gerry's spirit or Fetch began leaving his body in search of help.
It's doubtful that Fetch will ever be published in any kind of cohesive form. It remains Team Netherworld's favorite WIP.
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