It was a bridge. It was however not a bridge of stone and cunning of man’s creation. This bridge was formed of ideas. A bridge of thought between two dimensions. In one of these dimensions a story still survived about the tale of romance that created the bridge. Was the bridge truly a miracle brought about to unite two lovers separated by dimensions?

Perhaps. The other dimension had quite a different tale to tell.

If you can cross the bridge of the Gluttonous Guardians, you can escape from hardship and enter into a place where pain is not the bitter bread and water of existence. It was not a pleasant dimension that these words came from.

Now, gluttonous might be a slight injustice, but there were indeed two beings who dwelt on the bridge. The bridge was made of thoughts, so naturally they lived in a tower of thoughts in the middle of the bridge. They had over the uncounted years built the tower from scraps of thoughts that had come loose from the bridge.

They were not, creatures that were in harmony with the ideal of beauty. Each had a long hairy head. One had blue hair, the other had red. These heads were quite shaggy and had large floppy ears that were thick with curling furs. What really shunted the heads away from looking nice were some real crooked tusks and fangs, two pairs each. Beyond these inside the maws of these beings were crooked teeth well formed for tearing flesh. Each creature had three red eyes. Two were on either side of the head, and one was actually nestled in the back of the head!

Both had wide shoulders covered with hair, but the hair gave way to leathery brown skin. The arms of these creatures were too long, and their fingers bore hooked claws. Their torsos were twisted things almost like springs. Their legs were squat with wide flat feet.

The red haired one wore armour of many different bones. The blue haired one wore a sparkling turquoise dress that was far too fetching for so ghastly a creature. She did however wear a big necklace of skulls.

While both dimensions may have forgotten the names of this couple, they at least remembered what each other was called.

The red was Scourge-Free, known as Scurry to his companion.

The blue was Crushingly-Azure, known as Zura to her companion.

Apart from mucking around with thoughts, watching thoughts, they spent much of their time either bored or waiting around for one thing in particular.

“Ahhhh~ I wish something tasty would come onto the bridge again” Zura complained.

Scurry was idly rolling a thought into a yarn-like ball, he paused at the sound of his woman’s discontent.

“We probably shouldn’t have eaten everyone who came through. Probably scared them off” he grunted.

Zura stamped a foot in displeasure.

“It is their fault for being so weak and tasty. If only we weren’t cursed to stay here, you could go out and catch a few… hmmm rather than those people, you could catch boar again. Hey, hey do you remember boar, Scurry?”

“I remember”

He began to wind the thought again. He didn’t remember the taste of boar. He didn’t even remember that eating people once was not something he or Scurry would have considered. Curses can be horrific like that. In part it is because they always have a loophole to escape them.

He didn’t even remember the loophole.

Allow someone to pass the bridge without eating them. How wicked though, that the curse compelled one to eat.

“It’d be nice if the curse was broken”

“Yeah”

“I’d settle for something tasty though, I’m not fussy”

At that moment, both of them felt a distortion, and they turned their gaze to one end of the bridge. Someone had appeared. It was not from the unfortunate dimension, the one that had a tale of a distant paradise. This traveller had come from the other one.

“Don’t they usually come from the other side?” Zura asked.

“Yeah, don’t reckon I’ve ever seen ones come from that side”

As the figure grew closer, they could see that it was a man in a ragged dark green cloak. Even his boots were dark green. In one of his hands he held a branch as a staff. The branch had lively green leaves on it.

Upon seeing Zura and Scurry, he quickened his pace. That duo did their best to contain their salivating within their mouths. The man stopped before them.

“I say, is this the way to the Dimension of the Sorrow Sea Skies?” he asked.

Zura and Scurry were stunned by his fearlessness. The man however, just thought they did not reply because he had not properly introduced himself.

“Ah how rude of me…” he lowered his hood, revealing a bald head, but more importantly his flesh was rock, his eyes were gems, and his teeth were also jagged gems.

“I’m Restorer Wokk, what might be your names?”

“Scurry”

“Zura”

They replied, still being at a loss. The man’s eyes sparkled and he launched into some kind of long winded babbling, occasionally slipping out whatever magic tongue he used to speak clear words to the couple.

“Hey, I don’t think we can eat this one. I can’t eat rocks”

“I almost wish I could eat him”

“…So that is how I came here, so I am sorry for asking, but I must know, does this bridge lead to the Sorrow Sea Skies?”

They both dumbly nodded and with a bow, smile and apologies, the man rushed off once more.

It was not until some time later that Zura and Scurry realised their curse had been incidentally broken.