The Awakening

​Vallinor started off as a dream. Literally.

Its origins lie in the mind of a child growing up in a somewhat small industrial town with no children to play with. So he made them up. First with teddy bear's daddy brought home and little action figures of He-Man and Skeletor. Later GI Joe's and Batman. The world grew with every retelling. Histories, mythos and rules evolved. Till one day came the stories. A place where he could live out his fantasies without the restraints of reality. To explore what was never known and to see whatever could be dreamt.

A dream where the imagined creatures sang their stories. Where GI Joe's and Cobra's were amputated to make hybrids and He-Man's Battle Cat was painted to resemble Dinosaurs from his little encyclopedia. A little later a little brother came along and the world grew larger. He told his sibling the stories and conquests of his warriors and maidens but never revealed the world itself. That was his and he guarded it like only a selfish child can.

Time passed. The world changed. He moved to a bigger town. Spent lesser and lesser time imagining, being what someone else would later label Schizoid, a word which bewildered him back then. The boy grew up. His black and white real-world evolved while the dreamland of yester-years faded away, locked safely in the chest of forgotten dreams. Forgotten but never lost.

Till eventually life dealt the blows it so cherishes in educating the uninitiated souls. Love. Hope. Trysts with destiny. Ambition. Loneliness. And in his deepest darkest moments he remembered a past. A past where the pain was not unbearable but where it throbbed like a giant bleeding heart in front of his eyes. Where even in the shades of grey he could understand and see the shadows that painted the world. And Vallinor came rushing back to sweep him away with a frenzy maddening in its speed. It enveloped him till he could sit for hours day-dreaming entire lifetimes of events. In months he had lived decades in his head.

Eventually the lie started bleeding into reality. A gift for lying is a potentially dangerous attribute when coupled with an imagination as severe. He could live those lies. There is a thin line between imagination and lies, action and solitude. Oh what a liar he was.

And with time once again it evolved, till Vallinor became less of a place and more of an idea. Utopia. Not perfection but the pursuit of passion. Of emotion. Of whatever he wanted. And over the years he met others who shared these feelings. Shared those who liked to work and play with shadows. With masks, smokes and mirrors.

And so Vallinor was reborn. The Vallinorean came thereafter.

Regards

The Vallinorean