Thursday, June 7, 2012

Site Write Entry #28: Cryptic Messages

Prompt: June 3, 2012 - Scribbled across a random piece of parchment is the following: Each to his grief, each to his loneliness and fidgety revenge. What does this mean to your character?
This entry should rightly be shown with the two preceding entries written by Redamous and Eredis for this Site Write topic. As neither is archiving in a place I can link to (other than the forums I seek to avoid "creep loss" from) at the moment, both posts are included here for reference.

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Redamous
Entry 28: Meaning, and Meaningless

"Each to his grief, each to his loneliness and fidgety revenge? What the bloody Fel is that supposed to mean?" Red grumbled to himself. "Is there just some holiday that's been goin' on for awhile or somethin'? 'Give Red Weird Mail Week' or somethin'?"

He watched the geist who'd given it to him bound off, trying to bore holes into the back of his moronic head.

What was this supposed to mean? Grief? Anything he probably should feel grief over he'd made amends with himself long ago. In a way there were times he stood alone, walking the Hold or Stormwind, but he wasn't lonely.

Fidgety revenge. What was that supposed to mean though? How did that even come close to fit with loneliness and grief? Grief could be caused by the loss of loved ones that would lead to loneliness. He supposed that depending on how you came into your grief that one might want revenge. But he could never get revenge to what he had once grieved over.

How does one even get revenge on one's self, truly?
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Eredis
Entry #28:  Suck it, I've done 28 in a row

That Geist's screech was getting on his nerves, but at least Lackey had done what Eredis had asked.

The Knight sat at a small stone table in a windowless room somewhere in the bowels of Acherus.  He had scribed a note to go out to a few select people - a copy, rather, of a note that he had received.

"Each to his grief, each to his loneliness and fidgety revenge."

Eredis snorted.  Knights knew of each, though their revenge couldn't be termed 'fidgety' even on the best of days.  To grief and loneliness, however...

The creatures of the 1113th knew well of both.  Their operatives would sow grief and separation wherever they went, and their pasts were rife with it.  Each had come to terms with their own grief and loneliness years ago - accomplished via regicide.  Even so, the Knights set aside a day every year that was for them to remember what it was to be alive, and to refresh their vows to the living.

The Day of the Dead.

During last year's Day, Eredis had dressed as he did in life - a baker, and stood atop a statue in Raven Hill's cemetery to tell the people that they, the dead, wished nothing but the best of life for the living.  That they died for the living and would do so again.  That in doing so, the dead wished that the living would take each day and truly live it.

To grieve, perhaps, but to realize that no living being is truly alone.  Everyone came into this world with loved ones, and even if they did die, those loved ones still watched and waited.

The dead, after all, are patient.  They have nothing but time.

Perhaps, Eredis surmised as he withdrew a small deck of hand-painted cards, he would have the Captain and the Commander both speak on this year's Day of the Dead.  There was some time, of course, but to each their grief, loneliness, and fidgety revenge.

The thought of subjecting them to public relations made his foot tap once.  Fidgety, indeed.
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Valdiis

. . . . . Nearly two weeks had gone past since the Brigadiers had been returned to "normal" by the unit's restoration of their stolen essences of undeath. Yet still, they both held themselves mostly in seclusion, leaving Commander Nis'tara and Captains Redamous and Kueliig to handle the day-to-day operations of the unit.
. . . . . Valdiis stood before the railing of the balcony on the training tier of Acherus, her forearms resting on the supports which were chest-high for her but head-high for most others. Her plated vambraces gleamed with a fresh polish and buff. Since remembering she was undead, she'd been spending a great deal more time than usual immersed in her rituals - the routine reminders of step A to step B to step I'm-not-killing-anyone-today. The rote nature of it all was helping to ground her in reality once more, to forget that - for a brief time - she had believed herself perfectly who she was, but yet alive.
. . . . . Off to her left, there was a high-pitched clearing of throat accompanied by an excited shuffle. Valdiis only barely managed to restrain her groan of exasperation through the rigid emotional control imposed on her since shortly before her death. Barely. It was one of those damn fool geists which had attached itself to Eredis in the last few months. Laney? Lordy? Lackey. That was it. None of her thought process flickered on her face, except for the single arched eyebrow which had been a trademark of Orill's - and indeed, he still did it best - but something she absorbed by extended exposure to his acerbic expressions.
. . . . . Somewhat nonplussed by the familiar raised eyebrow echoed on quite the wrong face in his memory, Lackey was actually silent for a moment. That moment was all it took for Valdiis to lean over and snatch the folded note from his rotted hands and wave him away dismissively. She had about as much regard for the comings and goings and desires of a geist as she did for a starving goblin in Tanaris. Which is to say pretty much none at all.
. . . . . Each to his grief, each to his loneliness and fidgety revenge. For several moments, she stared at the cryptic note. The hand was quite familiar, of course. The words were perfectly clear; she was well-trained in reading and writing Common, and her speech only suffered insofar as she was physically damaged and unable to produce certain sounds. The meaning was what eluded her. What in the Twisting Nether was Eredis up t-... Aha. How like him to use cryptic notes and signals, even after their return to "normal," to pass along information. She rolled the note in her gloved hand and turned away from the balcony railing, heading towards the Frost Quarter.
. . . . . It was time they set down a plan for reminding the Knights just why no one in the unit advanced through attempted murder of their superiors anymore.

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