….Five Years Earlier. . .

 

As he often did, Quaraun found himself in a seedy tavern on a gritty, slummy, crime filled, gang infested side of town. His addiction to Faerie Wine and Poppy Tea kept him in such places, though he hated the public houses, he could not tear himself aware from the siren call of glistening Green Absinthe Fairy Wine, the Milky sweet opium tea, or the hashish hookahs, so readily available in these places. Of the three, it was the Fairy Wine that keep drawing him back.

Faerie Wine was illegal in every city, town, village, and country Quaraun had been in, and he'd been in a lot.

Poppy Tea wasn't illegal but it was looked down on by upper classes.

And Hashish, well, it marked him as from the Middle East. A Persian Elf addicted to Persian drugs.

"Hemp is for ropes, and cloth, and sails on ships!" Villagers chided him. "Not for smoking!"

A Persian Mage, with Persian addictions that came from being raised by Persian priests.

But Quaraun didn't care what people thought of him. And so he sat in a public house, drinking bottles of Fairy Wine, between cups of Poppy Tea, while smoking Hashish from his hookah, all while reading the latest round of wanted posters he'd found hanging around the town.

One would normally expect the world's most wanted criminal, to be taken down the wanted posters of his face, to not let people know he was wanted.

But, this was Quaraun, and Quaraun was not hiding who he was or what he did. He was however, upset that the wanted posted had called him: Quaraun The Insane and not Quaraun, Wizard of the Di'Jinn Order or Quaraun: The Pink Necromancer.

And so, Quaraun had gone around the town taking down all the wanted posters, and now sat in the bar, carefully crossing out the word "Insane" writing underneath it "I'm not insane, I am The Pink Necromancer, Wizard of the Di'Jinn Order" and in a few hours, he would be hanging the posters back where he had found them.

He did this in every town, as it deeply annoyed him when people called him: Quaraun the Insane.

"I'm not insane," Quaraun muttered as he crossed out the word "Insane" on yet another poster.

Quaraun used to be upper class.

Maybe.

Was he?

He couldn't remember any more. To many life times. Too many futures. Too many pasts. They all blurred together now. It was difficult to try to separate them one from the other any more.

A nobleman. Yes. That was it. Wasn't it?

Respectable.

Respected.

He used to be a lot of things.

An aristocrat.

Son of the king's brother.

And the world's most powerful wizard.

No, he was still that. But it was so long ago, that no one remembered. Now he was just a commoner. A common Elf.

He gave it all up for love.

And a wish.

A wish that had cost him everything.

A wish for love.

Love.

Eternal love.

Immortal love.

Love that would never die.

And now he was trapped in his own curse. Cursed to live forever. And relive life over and over and over again. Immortal. But immortality that never moved forward. Immortality that existed only to the end of the Earth and than slung him back to the beginning of this Elf's life.

He gave up everything for love. Everything. Even the ability to die and move o past this life.

Though bound to his lover, they were ever separated. Separated by hate. Bigotry. Eternal love, ripped apart by an angry mob. Their time together always so short. Doomed to watch his lover die, again and again, in and endless broken cycle of immortality. Cursed to walk to Earth alone for centuries after his lovers death, only to walk up one day, back at the beginning and start the cycle over again.

Their love was true, but so to, was the hate of the world. The world, refused to let the lovers remain. For he loved someone whom society deemed not worthy.

Another male.

BoomFuzzy.

But now BoomFuzzy was dead.

Quaraun was trapped in and endless cycle, of trying to stop BoomFuzzy's death, and then, unable to stop his death, Quaraun walked the rest of the cycle, killing all involved in his lover's death. Until the Earth imploded yet again, and Quaraun woke up, yet again, the young child, whom had yet to meet BoomFuzzy.

Quaraun had seen BoomFuzzy's death a thousands times. Ten thousand times. Every time, he tried to change it, stop it from happening, something else would come along to kill BoomFuzzy instead.

Quaraun had learned long ago, that he could change how things happened. Talking to someone different. Saying different words. He could change history. He could change the world. He had to power of a god. Able to stop wars or cause them. Completely rewrite the time line of the Human race.

But not everything could be changed. Some things were constant. Every life time they always happened. Event connected to his wish, events leading up to his wish, they were frozen in time. Events connected to the discovery of time travel, they too were frozen in time.

Every life time was different. Minor changes. A different drink. A different colour hat. Small details could be changed. Lives could be saved. But every life time was always the same. Quaraun and BoomFuzzy always meet. The Di'Jinn always died while trying to kill the Unicorn. The Hanging Tree always happened. Gibedon always tried to assassinate BoomFuzzy. Quaraun always killed Gibedon. BoomFuzzy always commit suicide. The details were always different. The dates, not always the same. But the events could never be stopped.

BoomFuzzy was dead.

Just as he always way.

Of all the things he could not change, why did it have to be that?

Unable to stop BoomFuzzy's death, Quaraun devoted his life, to trying to resurrect his lover instead. But necromancy was a difficult art. No one had ever achieved a fully successful resurrection. Mindless shambling dead. Corpses with no thought of their own. That's all necromancy could achieve. No necromancer had ever lived long enough to achieve the full true resurrection of a loved one.

But Quaraun had an advantage over necromancer's before him: he was immortal.

By some bizarre fate, his wish for eternal love, had granted him endless life times allowing him to relive life through unlimited rebirths. And because of this, he was certain, that he could bring BoomFuzzy back to life. If he had to relive life a million times to find the secret of true resurrection, so be it, that s what he would do.

Wither he lived to the end of the planet, or died before than, Quaraun always came back to start life again. He could not explain it. He did not know why it happened. But Quaraun always came back, to start life anew. And he remembered his past lives. He remembered what went wrong, what not to do again, and what went right, what to focus on instead.

BoomFuzzy was dead.

Just as he always way.

Everyone was dead.

Everyone who hated BoomFuzzy.

Everyone who drove BoomFuzzy to suicide.

Every last Moon Elf.

Quaraun had killed them all.

He wasn't really sure how, either.

Everywhere Quaraun went people died all around him.

He didn't understand it. He just knew he couldn't stay anywhere for long, because sooner or later he would get angry with someone and they would drop dead.

The world's most powerful wizard had become too powerful and it scared him. He didn't like hurting people. He didn't want to hurt people. Every time he got mad, everyone around him dropped dead. And he didn't know how or why.

"I'm not insane," Quaraun muttered yet again.

Quaraun looked down at the paper in his hand:

Read the heading.

Under that was his name.

Almost.

His name was Quaraun.

Quaraun Swanzen.

Quaraun Swanzen, Grand High Emperor of the Triple Planets, though he had no clue what the Triple Planets were.

Quaraun a Moon Elf.

Quaraun the Last Moon Elf.

Quaraun a wizard.

Quaraun a Wizard of the DiJinn Order.

Quaraun a necromancer.

Quaraun The Pink Necromancer.

Quaraun the merchant.

Quaraun the tailor.

Quaraun, weaver of pink Thullid silk.

Quaraun, merchant of magic-items.

Quaraun, travelling wizard for hire.

But that's not what the paper said.

Quaraun read the name printed on the wanted poster:

Insane.

He hated that term.

A label.

Quaraun hated labels.

Everyone have labels for him. Abrasive terms. Hateful slurs.

"I'm not insane," Quaraun continued to mutter between glasses of Faerie Wine.

He shivered. It was cold outside. Cold inside. Snow flurries lightly drifted the town. The tavern was packed and crowed and loud. Everyone who had no place else to go, had clamoured into the building to get out of the snow.

This place was one of the more substantial buildings in the town. It had a foundation of hewn granite and the walls were made of sawn timbers. Wood that had come from a lumber mill and had not been, simply logs hacked in half. In spite of it's more study construction, it was the scurviest place in the town.

Apparently it had been built as a bed and breakfast by some wealthy merchant whom had died decades ago, leaving the building to be taken over thugs and whores, who turned it's upstairs into a brothel and it's downstairs into a bar-room.

Though travellers were invited to spend the night in the rooms upstairs, Quaraun felt uneasy about places which had rows of bed lined up side by side in a single room. He'd examined the upper rooms and found each bedroom had no fewer then 4 beds, and most had ten or more beds, though the rooms were not nearly big enough for them.

Quaraun liked his privacy.

He had work to do. BoomFuzzy to resurrect. BoomFuzzy's killers to hunt down. Bodies to run tests on. Corpses to experiment on. Rooms with other tenants, left him with no way to do his work. Nosy people didn't like necromancers killing the locals, slapping their bodies up on a table, and cutting them up trying to figure out how to reanimate them. Quaraun needed privacy if he was to complete his life's work and find a way to resurrect BoomFuzzy.

From time to time Quaraun would share a room with one or two others, but it was rare. He would have to find some place else to sleep tonight.

Quaraun looked around at the throngs of Humans, huddled together, some sitting, others standing, all yakking and yapping. Quaraun deeply disliked Humans. He'd been hurt by too many Humans, too many times, to dare trust any of them. What started out as fear, has since grown to hate. His dislike for Humans was a loathing revulsion, which stemmed largely from how many Human men had tried to rape him over the years.

Quaraun didn't care enough about any race to be truly racist, but he often came off as unintentionally racist, when he talked. Humans were often offended by things Quaraun said, leaving the Elf baffled and confused as to what it was he had said to offend them.

Humans were an easily offended, overly sensitive lot. And while Humans translated Quaraun's actions to be hostile racism, it was in fact post trauma stress, caused by having been abused by so many Humans, so often, for so many decades, that Quaraun lived in mortal fear of any contact with Humans and often spoke more defensively than he needed to, simply out of caution.

"Focus on the behaviour, not the person," Quaraun often told himself, whenever Humans were around.

Quaraun was becoming irritable and angry. Irritability and anger were common behaviours for Quaraun when he was stressed. The Humans on the far side of the room were getting loud and rowdy. Rowdy and loud. It was stressing Quaraun out.

Quaraun nervously eyed the brawling Humans on the other side of the tavern. He was ready to stuff everything into his bag and run, should they come to this side of the building. But so long as they didn't disturb him, he was okay sitting in a dark corner of one of their buildings.

Quaraun clutched his pink Thullid silk scarf, holding it to his face, rubbing it on his skin, his eyes closed. The scarf as soft as a baby's skin. The feel of the soft silk on his skin comforted him and eased the tension being in this noisy tavern had caused. His long hair coiled tightly around his body, hugging him.

The veil, hid the living tentacles that were Quaraun's hair. From a distance, his hair, looked like real hair. But up close, it was too thick, to slimy, it glistened too much, and it moved like snakes with a life all it's own. Quaraun, was not an Elf. Quaraun was a Thullid. A parasitic JellyFish, living inside the skull of an undead Elf, and Quaraun's hair was the JellyFish's long tentacles. Covered in a pink silk scarf, Humans just assumed Quaraun to be a male Elf who liked dressing as a woman. And they were often too busy being prejudiced against what they assumed to be a transgender Elf, to notice, the slithering tentacles under the veil.

The building was dark.

Very dark.

Even with the light from the candles and fire pit.

Only a few candles lit the room.

One large pit fire sat in the centre of the tamped dirt floor.

Wooden planks were laid down here and there, for the serving girls to walk on and keep their feet from getting muddy as they served mugs of beer and tankards of ale to the ever increasingly more drunk Humans who frequented this place.

There was not enough light to see well at all, and definitely not enough light to read.

Quaraun had his own candles in his bag, and had set up several on the table and than placed several small mirrors around the table all facing inward, to cause the dim candle light to reflected back on itself, several times across the table, illuminating his table as though many dozens of candles were one it, not just a few.

The rich, flavourful warmth of the melted sugar cube flames, still lingered in the emerald green liquid, Quaraun was swirling around in the bottom of his fragile, shimmering, cut lead crystal glass.

Quaraun brought his own glasses with him. He always did. He never trusted a bar, pub, or tavern to keep their tankards clean.

Quaraun professed to hate the seedy public houses he often found himself in, but, Absinthe was illegal, and these underground nightclubs often sold it in their dark backrooms, to special clients wealthy enough to pay the steep price for a bottle of the refreshing, tantalizing, green liquid.

The aromatic smell of burnt sugar filled the air with it's sweet, pungent, syrupy sweetness, and mingled with the Green Fairy wine's hypnotic scent of anise and cloves. The heady aroma was as intoxicating as the drink was itself.

He reread the rest of the paper.

"BoomFuzzy," Quaraun whispered.

They had been soul bound.

Quaraun and BoomFuzzy.

Soul binding was an illegal ritual. Their souls cut in half. Traded. They each had half of the other's soul.

Soul binding was dangerous.

A person bound to another, felt everything the other felt. Even wounds, and injuries. And depression. And sadness.

BoomFuzzy had been depressed for many years. Long before he had met Quaraun. Quaraun's wish, the wish that caused his immortal curse, had been worded because BoomFuzzy had been so very depressed. Eternal love, for BoomFuzzy. To help him. Heal him. Fix his broken mind. But depression was not so easily fixed, and love was never enough to stop BoomFuzzy from ending his own life, after so many he knew and trusted, turned on him. It was Gibedon's betrayal, that always caused the problem. BoomFuzzy trusted Gibedon.

And while he loved Quaraun and was filled with great joy when they were together, BoomFuzzy harboured inside of him, dark, morbidly morose thoughts that he could not shake.

Could not escape.

Could not break free of.

Memories of abuse he'd lived through. Guilt over crimes he'd commit. It finally became more than he could bear, and even with the undying love he and Quaraun shared,

Love was simply not enough.

And so in every lifetime Quaraun relived, BoomFuzzy killed himself, not knowing the dire consequences it would have for Quaraun, who felt every agony of BoomFuzzy's dying breaths, as though he himself were dying.

BoomFuzzy had drunk a poison, that dissolved his organs. He drowned in his own blood, as the acid burned through him, melting away his insides. It took three days for him to die. And there was no cure. No way to stop the suffering once it had started.

And Quaraun had felt it all.

Quaraun learn the hard way, why soul binding was illegal.

Why laws forbid such a ritual.

"Oh, my poor BoomFuzzy. I had no idea how sad he was. I never should have bound my soul to his. I thought it would help him, if he could feel how much I loved him. I never thought of the reverse. That I would feel how heavy his depression was on his mind."

The sounds of cackling drunk Humans singing and shoving each other around, brought Quaraun back out of his morbid thought. He'd forgotten for a few moments that he was in a tavern.

A new crowd of Humans had come in from outside, leaving the door open. Frigid cold wind, swirled through the building, snuffing out several of the candles, and blowing at Quaraun's stack of papers.

One of the bar maids, sputtered and swore, yelling loudly at the rude men, as she made her way to the heavy hewn timber door and closed it again.

Large drifts of snow had blown in, and now lay scattered around the front tables. The building was so cold inside, that the snow did not melt and simply collected on the floor, with other snow that had been previously tracked in by other patrons.

Quaraun shivered. It was nearly as cold inside this building, as it was outside. But at least the walls kept most of the wind and snow outside. Quaraun reached into his little pink, silk bag of holding, and pulled out a large luxurious fur coat, made out of many skins of many animals, all patched together. Legs, paws, heads, and tails all still hung from the pelts. Everything from fox to rabbits to weasels to coyotes were patched together on the cloak.

The long hooded cape-like cloak had belonged to BoomFuzzy. Quaraun had kept it after BoomFuzzy's death.

Quaraun kept reading.

There were many more crimes listed.

None of them true.

They were nothing more than slanderous rumours made up by Finderu, the mage whom had enticed Gibedon to turn on BoomFuzzy. Finderu, was the root cause of everything. Finderu's actions were what started the chain of events leading to BoomFuzzy's death.

Finderu, who always lived. In every lifetime, Finderu always walked free, unpunished for his deeds. Lived, nearly immortal. Lived, a good long life. Even though he caused so much suffering to so many innocent people.

Finderu's lack of punishment and lack of death, frustrated Quaraun every lifetime. Quaraun always killed everyone involved in BoomFuzzy's death, except for two: Ghirardelli and Finderu. The two mages who always escaped punishment, every time. Every lifetime Quaraun hunted them and every lifetime they escaped. Every lifetime Quaraun actively made changes to events, hoping it would lead him to killing Ghirardelli and Finderu, but every lifetime, they never saw justice for their crimes.

"Sodomite. Murderer. Necromancer…." Quaraun whispered the words from the poster. The words written by Ghirardelli and Finderu.

These first three were the only ones, actually true.

"Sodomite. Love shouldn't be a crime."

"I've only killed murderers, thieves, bullies. Criminals who've evaded justice. That should not be a crime either."

"Necromancy is the only way to find the lost soul of the dead lover they murdered. For they did murder him. They drove him to suicide."

He skipped over the lines that were inaccurate, stopping to read out loud the paragraph that was accurate:

The bottom of the notice was signed: Finderu, Founder of The Guild of Magic and Ghirardelli Chief of the Justice Mages.

Like a Thullid.

That line stung.

Quaraun made doubly certain no one discovered his secret. No one must know he was a Thullid hiding inside the body of an Elf. No one. Ghirardelli and Finderu were casting suspension on him.

"I'm not a Thullid," Quaraun said to himself, forgetting he was in a public tavern where others could over hear him. "Oh dear. Like a Thullid. So much like a Thullid. Oooohh. So much like a Thullid. I'm turning into a Thullid, that's so depressing. I have such beautiful face."

Quaraun pulled a mirror out of his beaded heart shaped purse that was much bigger on the inside and stared sadly into it.

"I am the most beautiful creature on the planet. The last thing I want to look like is a Thullid. It is so depressing."

Quaraun slumped over the table and burst into tears.

"You alright?" A barmaid asked. She couldn't remember ever seeing an Elf cry before and thought she had heard somewhere that they didn't cry because they didn't have emotions.

"I don't want to sprout tentacles," the Elf wailed, not looking up at her.

"Tentacles?"

"I have a JellyFish living in my head."

"You what?"

"It's eating my brain and taking over my body. I'm losing control of who I am."

"Ah, yes. Of course." The girl shook her head and walked off, thinking the Elf was drunk.

Thullids were even rarer then Elves were these days. They were almost as rare as Unicorns and Unicorns were long believed to be extinct.

Quaraun had been attacked and implanted by a Thullid, nearly three hundred years ago. Humans barely lived forty years, so three hundred years was out of reach for their memories. Most had started to think of the squid headed aliens from Neptune's moon as a mythical race. And so no one believed Quaraun when he told them that he was turning into a Thullid.

Poor Quaraun.

Everyone simply believed the Elf to be crazy and so no one ever listened to him when he said squid headed aliens from Neptune's moon had implanted a tiny pink JellyFish in his brain.

Who in their right mind would believe such a story?

It was crazy.

He knew it was crazy.

If it wasn't happening to him, he'd not believe it were true either.

Unfortunately, it was true.

There really was a tiny pink JellyFish living in his skull, devouring his brain, sending it's tentacles twisting and winding throughout his body and taking control over him.

The problem for Quaraun was not the fact that a JellyFish was living in his brain.

The problem was that Quaraun the Elf had died three hundred years ago and he didn't know it.

He already was a Thullid.

Which was why Quaraun was such an emotional Elf prone to crying and laughing. Things Elves simply did not do.

The JellyFish had taken over the Elf's body centuries ago, but the JellyFish had been damaged during implantation and the JellyFish instead of taking over it's host had become it's host, with the JellyFish now believing itself to be the Elf, not realizing that it was actually the JellyFish and the Elf was dead.

Quaraun's fit of self pity was interrupted by a bar room brawl that had broken out between a few Humans. Quaraun scowled as he watched the Humans tumble around fighting. He hated Humans. Then he looked back down at the paper.

"The Guild is becoming a problem. This needs to be dwelt with."

At the bottom was a name:

"Finderu," Quaraun said to himself. "I must find, Finderu."

Quaraun pulled out his map. It had several towns and cities scrawled across it. He'd crossed off most of them. He'd found Finderu's men in each of them and gotten all the information he could out of each of them before relieving them of their heads.

At the centre of the map was a circled title:

The Godforsaken City.

"Of all the places. The Godforsaken City. Only Humans would think of such a name."

The drunk Humans continued to brawl, bringing Quaraun out of his thoughts again.

"And why a tavern run by Humans? Filthy creatures. I swear I…."

"Hey, cutie-pie," a slurred voice caught the attention of the pink robed albino Elf and broke him from his thoughts.

A woman's hand began caressing his shoulder.

Quaraun cringed at the thought of anyone touching him.

He hated being touched.

Someone was in his personal space.

He didn't like it.

It felt like an invasion.

An attack.

His first impulse was to swing around and punch the Human bitch in the face.

But he couldn't draw attention to himself.

The Guild was doing enough of that already.

He resisted the temptation to pummel the filthy Human whom had dared touch him.

The Elf turned and saw a drunk woman. She leaned against him and smiled.

"I'm looking for a good time, how about you?" She asked. Her breath reeked of alcohol.

"Go fuck yourself."

The Elf growled, baring his sharp fangs, and pushed her away violently.

He hated females.

Especially Human females.

Quaraun loathed women.

Drunk women were worst of all.

Drunk Human females were loatheful.

He despised them more than anything.

The female stumbled back a few feet, then fell hard on her bum.

The sight of this made The Pink Necromancer chuckle sadistically.

Though not an outright act of violence, shoving a woman, even a drunk one, was enough to give him disapproving glares from fellow tavern goers. Quaraun didn't care what they thought. They were, after all, only Humans and he was a pure blooded Elf.

Not a Common Elf, but a High Elf.

And not just any pure blooded High Elf.

But a pure blooded Moon Elf.

Purest of the purest, highest of the High Elves ever to exist. Higher than most with all the drugs he took, took.

He was also the last Moon Elf, and being the last Moon Elf, he'd long ago decided he was never going to procreate and simply die the last of his kind.

The thought of creating a half-breed child repulsed him to no end.

Quaraun even refused the company of other Elves.

Fathering a half Moon Elf half other type of Elf, repulsed him as much as half Elf and half not Elf.

Quaraun had devoted himself to being a eunuch. He wasn't going to fuck anyone or be fucked by anyone.

Except BoomFuzzy.

And BoomFuzzy was dead, so there was little chance of that happening.

Quaraun was not in the tavern looking for drinks or whores, and he was not happy to see either drunks or women sitting in the same room with him.

Quaraun was there for one reason and one reason only: His map was telling him that somewhere in this tavern, this filthy, disgusting Human infested tavern, was Finderu.

It pointed to the left, the Elf got up, taking his bottle of Green Faerie Wine with him and followed the direction of the map quickly, pushing back numerous drunks and druggies.

A band was playing off to the side while an off-key bard sang long half-ling poetry in drunken slurs.

The music boomed in his foot long pointed ears and would surely give him a headache later.

But Quaraun paid no attention to the packed tavern, and it's Human patrons. His mind was focused on other thoughts. Long ago thoughts. Centuries old thought that drove him ever on ward in his killing spree across the globe.

BoomFuzzy was dead.

Everyone involved in his death, must pay.

Must die.

Many were dead already.

But Finderu had eluded capture.

Always escaped.

Not this time.

He was close.

Finderu was here.

Here.

In this very tavern.

Somewhere in this tavern, was a Fairy.

Not a Human.

He should be easy to find.

But where was he?

Quaraun could see him no where.

Finderu must die.

Finding Finderu was Quaraun's only purpose for the moment.

It was the only thought on his mind.

Quaraun had never met Finderu, so he didn't know who he was looking for.

BoomFuzzy had known Finderu.

BoomFuzzy was just a nickname.

BoomFuzzy's real name was Gwallmaiic.

King Gwallmaiic.

King of the Realm of Fae.

King over all the Faeries.

Finderu was one of the people whom had wanted BoomFuzzy dead, though Finderu had never known him as BoomFuzzy.

Finderu had known the Evil Sorcerer King as Gwallmaiic, King of the Faeries.

Finderu had once worked for the King, as his advisor.

King Gwallmaiic had, had many advisors.

But Finderu was the one whom had turned on the King and tried to kill him.

Finderu had plotted with the Necromancer General Gibedon, to overthrow the throne.

Finderu had played a primary role in causing King Gwallmaiic's depression and eventual suicide.

After BoomFuzzy's death, the Faerie kingdom fell into disarray.

No longer one vast empire. The Realm of Fae was now many small factions.

Each faction led by ruthless cut-throat men. Finderu was one of those men.

One by one everyone who had had a hand in causing BoomFuzzy's suicide was fast becoming dead. Losing their heads to the vengeful Elf who was hell bent on wiping out every last person whom had ever even thought ill wishes towards the dead Faerie King.

Not just the Moon Elves.

BoomFuzzy had already been depressed and suicidal when he meet Quaraun.

Quaraun had not known this.

He had known BoomFuzzy was sad, but he had no known how sad.

That it was more than being sad.

That he had struggled with serious depression for years and had been teetering on suicide for many years.

BoomFuzzy had no support he could reach out to.

No one.

For centuries.

He'd been well over two thousand years old, when Quaraun had met him. BoomFuzzy, as King Gwallmaiic, had been the most hated person alive.

Unloved.

Unwanted.

Hunted.

He'd been abandoned by his parents as a small child. Left to fend for himself, he'd grown up bitter and lonely and mean.

No one had even loved him, not even his own mother. He never knew love. He didn't know how to love. And Quaraun's love, so late in his life, was too little, too late. Gwallmaiic's mind was so far broken by the time Quaraun had met him, that there was no repairing it.

No recovery from the depths of despair. No saving him from the seductive embrace of suicide that he was fast spiralling to.

He had needed love. Wanted love. But when love finally entered his life, he couldn't accept it. Did not fell he deserved it. He had needed help, but he was too proud to ask for it. To scared to let anyone know how weak he was. Too depressed to admit to anyone, how lost he felt.

How much despair he felt.

He could see, no light of hope.

BoomFuzzy had desperately needed to reach out to others for emotional support. But this is easier said than done. He was in a low point and he couldn't see a way back out. He told himself to try to remember the people in his life who cared for him.

Quaraun.

Gibedon.

But than Gibedon had plotted to murder King Gwallmaiic and take his throne, and Quaraun had murdered Gibedon to save BoomFuzzy.