Desolate Nostalgia on a Frozen Shoreline

The wind howled as Quaraun's cane sank deep into the snow. Frost bit at his pink silk-draped legs as he trudged barefoot across the icy dunes of Noodle Beach.

Quaraun winced as each laboured breath escaped between chattering teeth. He'd rather brave the arctic squall than return to his sodden hideaway prematurely warmed by an unexpected crackling fire. 

Quaraun looked back at his lighthouse. Black smoke smouldered out several of it's windows. 

"Fucking Humans," he muttered.

Still reeling from yesterday's harrowing encounter, he yearned for solitude.

As much as his frost-numbed digits protested, Quaraun forced his mittens higher up his numbened arm. He huddled closer beside the flickering flames casting anemic light across the barren expanse of Noodle Beach. The frozen landscape seemed equally desolate without the boisterous laughter and raucous caroling that once rang through these frigid nights.

"I hate Humans," The Pink Necromancer grumbled.

Quaraun cast a baleful glance over his shoulder toward the hulking silhouette of the lighthouse, the lack of its intermittent beacon casting an unwelcome darkness across the wintry expanse. He shuddered at the recollection of yesterday's near-catastrophe.

"So much work to rebuild."

BoomFuzzy, perched on a driftwood log, in front of his food truck, waved the Elf over for a steaming bowl of clam chowder.

BoomFuzzy's gravelly baritone broke through Quaraun's sombre thoughts. 

"Need more brandy, Love?" 

The grizzled Phookan weather mage ambled closer, a steaming mug suspended between mitt-clumped hands.

Quaraun gratefully accepted the offered warmth. 

"Thanks." His voice rasped like coarse driftwood worn smooth by ceaseless battering surf. "It will take weeks to rebuild."

"Aye. Be glad ya married a weather mage what could call up a typhoon to put out the fire. Damage could have been worse. And you and Ghouly weren't hurt. There's that. And we've got ya yurt to shelter us and me food truck to keep us fed."

"They set fire to my lighthouse."

"I know."

Quaraun collapsed beside his husband, exhausted. He tipped his head back until the amber liquid eased down his constricted throat. The burn eased some of the bone-deep chill seeping into his marrow.

"Chowder?"

"Be considerate about depleting your stores," Quaraun admonished dryly. The warm cream broth scalded his lips but melted the chill. He chewed on the moist lumps of boiled clam. "Winter's far from spent. And we've lost most of our harvest."

BoomFuzzy leaned closer, his dreadlocks brushing Quaraun's shoulder.

 "Cold out, Love." 

Quaraun nodded, his hair twitching to shield his face. 

"Too cold," Quaraun added. "Humans should stay out here. Freeze their fucking asses off. They deserve it." 

BoomFuzzy chuckled. 

"Aye. But ye'd miss me stew if they did."

"Would I?"

BoomFuzzy shrugged.

"Just trying to cheer ya up, Love."

Quaraun snorted humorlessly at the biting irony. If last night served as any gauge, this season promised to rival the most inhospitable in recorded history. And not because of the weather.

"Fucking Humans," he said again as he drank more of the chowder.

"What's Ghouly doing?"

"Counting sheep and chickens. Making sure none of them are gone. They are his pets. Humans looked at them and saw food."

"Not many Humans keep pets these days. Can't say as I've seen a Human with a pet in decades now."

"They ate them all."

"Its what Humans do.” 

“Kill, steal, and destroy everything they get near. No respect for plants or animals or even each other. Nature means nothing to them. How did they get past our barriers?"

BoomFuzzy settled beside Quaraun with an audible grunt, his own bulk thawing marginally beneath Quaraun's borrowed peltry. 

"Perhaps we're simply feeling our age more keenly now than in our wilder youth," he quipped wryly. 

Quaraun snorted derisively, then subsided into silence as the wind's keening wail drowned out all other sounds save the muffled crash of waves against jagged rocks.

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This story is published in:

• Three Wizards and a Lighthouse

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Includes the following stories: The Cursed Mirror A Quiet Morning with the Sound of Waves, Wind, and an Abundance of Fresh-Caught Fish Candied Nightmares Sapphire and Calm The Soul Eater The Drip The Cold Embrace  GhoulSpawn in the Walls A Dark and Stormy Night Braving the Icy Winds Herons in the Dunes Emerald Reflections Under The Lighthouse Light Whispering Shadows in the Fog Walking Through the Wreckage Bone Dice A Flapdoodle Wackadoodle Noodle Wizard’s Duel Chaos in The Lighthouse: Shattered Panes, Shattered Minds Yelling at the Snowstorm The Lighthouse Keeper Quarrelling Over the Last Slice of Pizza MoonSnail Cove, Maine Walking Along the Edge The Singing Crabgrass Crabs: A Green Fairy Wine Tale A Pocketful of Memories The Potter’s Hands Cold Beach, Warm Hearts Unease Dance in the Rain Every Lighthouse Keeper Dies A Cliff-side Overlook Breezy Afternoon Adoration - GhoulSpawn’s Perspective Adoration - BoomFuzzy’s Perspective Bitter Cold Winds Lover’s Triangle The Storm's Embrace Rosewater and Silk Weaving Memories by the Sea Necromancy: A Day in the Life of a Bumbling Necromancer Terror in the Silver Mist Gourmet Wonders A Threatening Letter Under the Light of a Dying Moon Unspoken Words Between Us as We Walk Through the Snow Together The Restful Sigh Psionic Warriors Channelling the Power of the Mind Springtime Drizzle Lens and Light Maintenance Tumultuous Tempest Silvered Lament Zoning Out, Watching the Snowflakes Fall Without Feeling Anything Realizing We Might Actually Be Safe The Scent of Ink and Roses A Shared Moment of Silence: Quaraun, BoomFuzzy, and GhoulSpawn Under the Moonlit Sky The Floating Paper Lanterns Beneath the Black Tower Shadows Stormbound Shadows Halloween Chaos with BoomFuzzy the Candy Corn Unicorn  Staring at the Stars Sitting on the Edge of a Cliff The Day the Lighthouse Glowed a Little Too Brightly Longing for the Warmth of the Sun, We Found Only More Darkness The Woes of Laundry: A Small Task in a Quiet Day The Shared Quiet Moments The Arrival The Scents of Simplicity: BoomFuzzy’s Kitchen and the Softness of Home In a land of ice and gloom, Where the blizzards often loom…(A blizzard hits a village...) Desolate Nostalgia on a Frozen Shoreline The Trade Caravan Bone Dice - Again Lightkeeper's Dilemma The Silent Knock The Old Haunted Quilt  Resting by the Fire The Struggle of Maintaining Their Lighthouse Home in a Harsh Winter Storm Golden Hands Sweeping the Lighthouse Sunrise Mocks the Aching Heart, a Poem by Quaraun the Last Moon Elf The Real Nightmares There’s Beauty in the Destruction The Lighthouse’s Glass-Eyed Horror What Unites Us? Velvety and Vile Mud, Bums, and the Epic Quest for Cleanliness BoomFuzzy’s Clam Chowder, His Love for Seafood, and The Joy of a Shared Meal The Cold Night's Warmth Haikus & Historians The Evening’s End: Quiet Conversations and Comfort in the Home They Built Together Peering Through the Mist and Finding Nothing But More Fog Wandering Paper Boats A Solitary Black Sock The Brownies & The Witch, or Why Faeries Don’t Wear Socks A Quiet, Relaxing Foot Rub Making the Bed The Black Sock, Again The Eaten Moon Sunset: A Bleeding Wound Upon The Sea, a Poem by Quaraun the Last Moon Elf Making Tea in the Middle of a Storm If Objects Had Desire Drying Herbs Lighthouse at the End of the World The Reflection in the Fog The Series Prologue aka Quaraun’s Backstory

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The Pink Necromancer, Moon Elf silk weaver & merchant: Quaraun on Noodle Beach. His master chef Phooka turned Lich husband: BoomFuzzy with his 1968 VW Bus Beach Noodle Food Truck. And their on again/off again mad scientist Sheep Demon lover: GhoulSpawn with his 1974 AMC Gremlin time machine. Time Travel setting swings back and forth between 40th century Maine after a comet hit the moon decimating the planet, and the 1970s, Maine. Quaraun in the main character, he and BoomFuzzy are a married gay couple. GhoulSpawn is their shared live-in lover. Art by Wendy Christine Allen.

BoomFuzzy King Gwallmaiic aka BoomFuzzy the Unicorn: Quaraun's husband, BoomFuzzy aka King Gwallmaiic, a Scottish Phooka, who is King of The UnSeelie Court. BoomFuzzy is a "classic fantasy type" Necromancer who uses sorcery to raise the dead. Being a Faerie he is also an illusionist and master of trickster magic. By profession, he is a Master Chef, owning the global monopoly on restaurants, taverns, pubs, and food trucks. Until his death, BoomFuzzy was regarded as the world's most powerful wizard. He is now a Lich. BoomFuzzy is also half-Human. His mother was a Mongolian/Chinese Human, which is why he wears distinctively Asian outfits, along with a great kilt worn as a cape. Known as BoomFuzzy the Unicorn, he often takes the form of a purple Unicorn. BoomFuzzy's exact age is unknown, though he was well over two thousand years old at the time of his death, and Quaraun resurrected him as a Lich around 500+ years ago, making him close to 3,000 years old. In his BlackBird form he is fifteen thousand years old. Art by Wendy Christine Allen

Quaraun Quaraun aka The Pink Necromancer: The F2M transgender Persian Moon Elf main character: The Pink Necromancer, Quaraun The Insane, with BoomFuzzy the Unicorn. F2M for those unaware = Quaraun was biologically born female, but transitioned to live as a male; this is why there are stories where Quaraun is sometimes pregnant, in spite of being male and using he/him male pronouns. Quaraun is a Necromancer by the actual dictionary definition of the word, meaning he is a psychic medium who sees and hears ghosts, and uses tarot, spirit boards, and seances to communicate with the dead. By profession he is a silk weaver/tailor/silk merchant. Quaraun is an Elder God JellyFish who takes the form of an Elf to blend in with society. His 12 foot long hair is made out of venomous, stinging jellyfish tentacles. Quaraun is BoomFuzzy's apprentice and regarded as the world's most powerful still living wizard. Quaraun's exact age is unknown, but he is somewhere around 750 years old. In his SunTa form he is twelve thousand years old. The Scared Pink JellyFish that lives in him, is stated to being over two million years old. Art by Wendy Christine Allen

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