And by the way, everything

in life is writable about if

you have the outgoing guts
to do it, and the
imagination to improvise.
The worst enemy to
creativity is self-doubt.

-Sylvia Plath
Editors

Editor-in-Chief
The New World Oceania

Prose Editor
Aquitayne

Visual Arts Editor
Aelarus

Copyeditor
Elemental North
Finalists
Cover Art
Aelarus, Corvus Metallum

Fiction Finalist
The Autumn Feast Rhodevus

Poetry Finalist
Unconventional Page

Visual Arts Finalist
Bitter-Sweet Canador
The NationStates Improviser
Summer 2014
Table of Contents
Fiction

Aillt y Gawywffon Glasgia
6

Gone in the Morning Super-Llamaland
8

Poetry

Unconventional Page
11

On Second Thought, No Respubliko de Libereco
12

Visual Art

Swan Song Corvus Metallum
1

Bitter-Sweet Canador
5

Stanley and Paul Creative Vikings
10

Non Relevant Rumek
13

Acknowledgements

Editors & Finalists
3

Sponsors
15
Fiction
Bitter-Sweet
Canadora
Aillt y Gawywffon
Glasgia
Fiction Finalist

theling. It was an
insult really. A prince
in name, but by no
means in nature. I
squirmed
uncomfortably to let
the hunk of meat, so
keen to flaunt such
names, past. Even if it
rid me of these
monsters, I would not
wish to find myself at
the heart of such a
battle Not entrapped
the horror that those
front ranks would soon
became.

Past the shoulders of
those before me, my
eyes met with the
enemy beyond. They
were far greater in
number than the men
with whom I fought, yet
it probably mattered
not. They were raiders,
young men like him
who had, unlike I,
looked for adventure
on foreign coasts. Most
likely Ffriseg or Daneg,
the irony of which
stabbed at my heart.
The sea wolves
themselves being
hunted by fresh packs.
My muscles twitched
into a form of grimace,
too raw and battered to
force themselves to the
point of a smile.

The spear chafed at my
hands as it was shunted
again. Hadyn, ddihirod,
fastard, nihiryn. The
brutes that surrounded
me were just that and
no more. Brutes. They
fought and they drank
and they slept and little
else, so god forbid if
they tried to put their
brains to the same
rigorous use that their
bodies so easily
endured. None would
ever set aside their
ways to think of the
warriors who they had
slaughtered, whom
they had condemned
to purgatory, those
who had been left to rot
on a field with no
blessing or confessions
to save their souls.
These men did not
think of that. They did
not think. The drank
and when they did look
towards the afterlife, it
was only to think of how
they would drink their
halls of sin just as they
did so in their twisted
mortal lives.

I looked back, towards
the wagons behind.
Eithne stood there,
hidden from my view
yet clear in my mind.
She may have been a
Saxon in blood, but was
no such creature in
mind. I appreciated
that, my last glimmer of
appreciation that I
could salvage in this
heathen pit. It was with
her, she a mere slave in
my company, that I had
run from my father's
fate.
The eyes of wolves did
not rest and therefore
we did not either, a
vain attempt to escape
the ever encroaching
submission to foreign
foes. A smattering of
my father's men had
come too, their
chances for survival
few in harsh lands.
Even the peasants
detested us, their words
swayed by sermons
corrupted with the
power of money with
the power of a victory -
and with that power
history could be re-
written. They had
rejected us, left us to
starve rather than
accommodate men
they saw as demons,
and so my own guards
rejected me. They
preferred payment to
loyalty, and such a
choice was one that I
now accepted too.

Wyrstotsen! An
unfriendly cry forced
me onwards, though it
did not cut through my
thoughts. The enemy
were no more than a
hundred yards away
now and both sides
produced a few
ambitious throws, their
javelins and angons
falling well short of the
first ranks. Tywysog
Cadoc map Cyndyddan,
Cadoc de theling. My
kingdom for a spear,
though it had not been
my choice.
Gone in the Morning
Super-Llamaland
and awoke to a low
buzz. A cricket chirped
outside. He blinked,
looked at the clock
(2:08, it read) and
yawned dully. He tried
to sleep again, heard
again the buzz, now
accompanied by a dull
thudding, and got up
and stumbled in the
direction of the
bathroom.

A violent noise, best
described as thu-
pow! with notes of
kririsch and crash,
exploded from the
downstairs door and
knocked the boy over.
He blinked, ears
ringing, and stumbled
back up. He remarked
in sleep-induced
drowsiness that the
racket sounded a lot
like the door being
kicked over.

Todd froze in
realization, giving the
man behind him a
great opportunity to
slip a bag over his
head and rip the
drawstring shut. Todd
clumsily pitched over
in drowsy shock, and
another man quickly
trussed him up.

Survival kicked in,
adrenaline surged into
his mind, and Todd
bravely began to roll
away, to the amusement
of his abductors.
Powerfully flopping by
one man, grinning and
sweating, he surged
forwards and rolled
down the stairs.

"Ow!" he cried as he
bounced off the third
step from the top,
waves of pain surging
up his leg as he
somehow flipped
around and landed on
his head.

His arm cracked on
the seventh step,
sending him into a
reeling spin down the
long staircase. All the
way down he screamed,
spinning dizzily into the
arms of a third
kidnapper, who
knocked him
unconscious

Despite this, he left no
trace that he had left. It
was the perfect crime,
utterly unsolvable.
Thirty-two seconds
after the door
shattered, a solitary
white van drove off into
the sable night.

Todd awoke twice in
the next twenty-four
hours.

At the first, he blinked
awake. It was still pitch
black outside the van,
careening as it flung
itself off various cracks
and potholes in the
country road, kicking
up prodigious clouds of
dust as it did so.
Everywhere hurt.
Aches spread
themselves throughout
his body; infernos
pitched against his
mind. Even when he
yawned, a fiendish
agony unraveled
against his face. As his
head slowly cleared,
he overheard
something in the
midst of his muddled
mind.

"So, where are we
taking this kid?" the
first man, possibly the
driver, asked.

"Don't know what the
Institute thinks,"
replied a second.

Todd blinked and
continued to listen.

"Have no idea what
they do to these kids."

"Don't you feel bad? I
hear they get tortured."

"Eh, it pays well for
you," muttered a third,
"just get on with your
job."
"Shut up, Johnson, it's
not like you pay us."
said the second from
the seat in front of him.

"What?" Johnson asked
slowly, reaching for his
hip. The driver
coughed nervously

"I said, 'Shut-'"

With a deafening crack,
Johnson's pistol went
off, sending blood
spraying into the air.
Todd gagged as a
splatter hit him square
in the face, while the
man in the second row
slumped back into his
chair. Johnson casually
pocketed the gun and
opened a window.
Terrified and
desperate, Todd swore
that he would not allow
them to capture him,
whereupon he fell
asleep again.

But by the second time
he woke up, they
already had him.
Poetry
Stanley and Paul
Creative Vikings
Unconventional
Page
Poetry Finalist
To be unafraid
and my debts repaid,
where to go from here, the question.
I need a cipher
To decode life lessons.

Someone should make me mechanical hands,
I'd have a handle on the conventional.

But I'm in love and want no life of
settle down, take-or-leave it price of
complacency. That'll never work out for me.
I want to give more than I take,
I'll hope for good luck with glass to break
and to be remembered, whatever of my life I make.
Creatively unstable, beyond description in my way
What should I do with all these days?

To be high on life
what would that taste like?
I think those hits I take aren't so pure.

Someone should make me a bracelet of thorns.
I'd be the savior of the lost.
Each fresh cut would remind of the cost
as I write.

And I've known love, I've felt accomplished
but when I'm selfish and thoughtless
I always am consumed by my worst.
The most vibrant color, the great outline,
a work of art, but a tragic design.
Still, I don't mind.
On Second Thought, No
Respubliko de Libereco
Your writing's abysmally horrid;
it's purple, and too fucking florid.
If you call someone's eyes
"Orbs as blue as the skies"
then you rightfully should be deplord.

[Editors Note: This poem, originally written in the Writing Discussion
thread, was preceded by Respubliko de Liberecos comment, Perhaps
you can add a false layer of joviality to your criticism by presenting it as
a limerick.]

Non Relevant
Rumek
We thank you for reading this Summer 2014 edition of
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