tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38768683648685663712024-03-05T05:53:00.340-06:00The Windbringer and the WinterbornMy muse was dead. It turns out she was rotting too. <br> - Stories from one woman's World of Warcraft charactersWinterbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07495858733611152675noreply@blogger.comBlogger87125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876868364868566371.post-11900553411401740822014-01-18T19:42:00.000-06:002014-01-18T19:42:52.093-06:00Dead Man Walking<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPqN0HG9I1fWDxFejQNhShSzmpTUtH5bqMjUgEbItScOVbBzhlYbSYZwSwJQxsyOwCMbSU_Nd5at9GJ1o0mRoH6ffFdmJzJ9QReGI0EM6RynwRgnDOfKNJXd0bBKcLeAZVhtY55jTMLH2U/s1600/If+Hadeon+were+human...+(Idris+Elba,+Pacific+Rim).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPqN0HG9I1fWDxFejQNhShSzmpTUtH5bqMjUgEbItScOVbBzhlYbSYZwSwJQxsyOwCMbSU_Nd5at9GJ1o0mRoH6ffFdmJzJ9QReGI0EM6RynwRgnDOfKNJXd0bBKcLeAZVhtY55jTMLH2U/s1600/If+Hadeon+were+human...+(Idris+Elba,+Pacific+Rim).jpg" height="180" width="200" /><span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span></a></div>
((This came about when, half-asleep, I started to wonder what sort of character Hadeon would be if he were not tied to the WoW universe. Then Captain Deon Smith walked up and slapped a mission report into my hands, metaphorically speaking. I've also echoed a friend's character as a main face here, with her permission. Yes, if Hadeon were human, he'd be played by Idris Elba, black armor from Pacific Rim and all.))<br />
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Written while listening to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knDNuIh3YL0">Dead Enough for Life</a> by Icon of Coil.<br />
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<span style="color: #7e77aa;"></span><i>Chicago, Downtown Elevated; UCAS –
November 14<sup>th</sup>, 2072</i></div>
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Bullets whizzed past and struck the wall three feet above and to the left of his head. Captain Deon “Hades” Smith squinted as the shower of sparks from said bullets striking the smooth metal of the wall momentarily overloaded the night vision on his goggles. What the hell were the bastards using - stick-n-shock rounds? Despite the black gloves on his hands, he had no trouble manipulating the tiny button controls on the side of the goggles and turning on the flare compensation; when the damn eff-comp decided to respond, however, was up to the finicky old piece of junk on his head.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Cap, we've been made!” came a voice in his headset.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“No shit,” Deon muttered as another set of sparks set his eyes watering under the goggles. He moved his hand to the sub-vocal mic on his throat and activated transmission. “Copy that. Keep your heads low and fall back to the north stairwell as planned. No heroics.” There would be more cursing, but with the mic hot, he'd keep that to himself. His soldiers had long since learned to stop giving their captain a ribbing about his aversion to public profanity.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Flare compensation finally kicked in on the ancient relic he was wearing and he carefully dropped to his belly behind the terminal stand he was using for cover. God bless paranoid corps that chained their worker drones to desks even though interface terminals could be wireless; they were even more of a relic than the decade-old goggles on his face. His team kept the chatter to a minimum while he peeked out at ground level towards the elevators which had seemingly brought half the twenty-two story building's security up at once. Deon hoped it was because they were busy concentrating on getting their asses out of the fire.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>When he pulled his head back, the man crouched behind the terminal parallel with him raised one shoulder in something between a shrug and a question. The Cajun had always had a way with body language. “Eleven at the elevators, including a troll with what looks like a shoulder-mounted RPG,” Deon reported over the line. “And they're using electrics, so don't go trusting too heavily on those ballistic vests, aye?”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Lieutenant Remy “Shark” LeChay chuckled, “Like we'd be testin' 'em 'gainst grenades otherwise?”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Another voice cut in, suddenly loud in his ear through the headset, “North wall breached! We've got-”<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>A low rumble followed by a deafening bang, then static made Deon's heart stutter in his chest. “Tina? Tee, report! Tee!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“They're swarming, Cap,” came an unusually quiet, sober response from PFC Renner. “We're humped.”<br />
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<a name='more'></a><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>St. Louis, Downtown; UCAS – November 2</i><i><sup>nd</sup></i>, 2072 </div>
<i></i><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“It's a cakewalk mission, sir.”
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Dammit, Shark, I thought I told you to watch your language!” Both men stared at one another over the vast expanse of Captain Smith's desk for a full three heartbeats before they burst into laughter. “Yes, it was,” he answered the unspoken question about his intentional word choice. Deon shook his head, his rueful, toothy smile a stark white against his dark skin. “I don't like it when you use that word, Shark. Every time that word comes up, the mission goes south. And you <i>know</i> how UCAS feels about the South.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Having grown up in the Confederation of American States down on the bayou and defected after a corporate scuffle LeChay had never seen fit to provide details on, the Cajun just laughed all the harder, slapping his knee in mirth. Deon snagged a pen off his desk and let his lieutenant laugh himself out; it wasn't like he'd get through to him until he was done anyway.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Captain Smith's office had a nice view of the wide sludge slick of the Mississippi and being in the border city of St. Louis meant almost half his team were ex-pats from the wrong side of the Mason-Dixon. Most commanders in the United Canadian and American States refused to work with ex-pats, which just meant Deon got first crack at the good ones. He had a mixed bag with his eight irregulars on Team Kappa, but they were all loyal to the gates of Hell and back, and more than simply adequate in a crunch.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Shark finally gasped for air like a beached water creature and Deon leaned back in his chair, ignoring the protesting creak from the twenty-year-old hand-me-down from some backwater records house. “You know as well as I do,” he followed, his gaze level with his second, “that nothing is ever so easy. It's too close to the CeeZee for comfort. I don't care if quarantine's been down fourteen years or not; there's bugs and ghouls and gangs.” Deon pointed the pen in his hand at Shark's thin-tipped left ear. “You might have the street cred to get by, but I can't get good fake ears in my color even with all the R&D of UCAS behind me.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Put on a wig an' you could front in the Austin neighborhood.”
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Deon threw the pen at Shark, who caught it in his teeth with a flourish.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Jackass,” Deon muttered, grinning. “Get out of my office and get Glitter and Hawk putting together an infiltration plan. Command may be acting like this is routine, but I can stall them for a few days until we've got a real plan. And keep the pen; it's got elf cooties now.”<br />
<br />
<i>Chicago, Downtown Elevated; UCAS – November </i><i><i>14<sup>th</sup></i>, 2072 </i><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Infiltration of the highrise office building in Chicago's Downtown Elevated had actually been a cakewalk, a nothing-doing ho-hum mission for a special operations team used to sneaking into high security corporate arcologies and rescuing various patriotic defectors who found their loyalty to country trumping their loyalty to the corporation which had been their life practically since birth. The highrise didn't even have back-ups for its internal electrical grid. The city might be a bug-spirit-ridden cesspool of crime, but two simsense companies still clung by ragged fingernails to a nearly sixty-year-old business niche they'd helped build.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Federal government had gotten involved, however, when word passed that a subsidiary of Aztechnology had bought up a simsense maker in Chicago and was producing illegal snuff sims. Normally, the occasional snuff sim investigation was given to the FBI, but with this information coming from an insider turn-coat with high level security codes, some clever boots in the UCAS military decided it was time to send Team Kappa in to extract the hapless corporate shill while shutting down the snuff sim operation.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Sergeant Anne “Glitter” Savoy and PFC Hawk Nasser dropped on the roof of the building to jack into its local grid and shut the power down. PFC Aaron Hamilton – who would tell anyone listening that his family descended from the famous Alexander Hamilton and his mother had a sick sense of humor in naming him after Aaron Burr – manned the unmarked helicopter, the only air vehicle Team Kappa had.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>With the building dark in the wee hours of the morning, the rest of the team cracked the front lobby. PFC Ryan McNamara stayed in the lobby with Team Kappa's medic, Hayaki Tsu, and kept a watch on the elevator bank while Shark, Tina, Renner, and the Captain climbed up a dark, dead elevator shaft to the twenty-first floor of the building.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The plan had been to nip in, extract the V.P of operations who'd decided to go turn-coat on his employers, and rappel down the shaft with most of the team walking straight out the lobby doors like it was no big thing. Simple, uncomplicated, and – as predicted – quick to go south.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>It started when McNamara radioed up that the lights on lift three came on.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“What?” Glitter barked over the commlink, “It's dark; that can't do that.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Well, it is.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Shi-oooooot,” Glitter changed her mind mid-word as she dove into the Matrix grid and tried to find and shut down the errant elevator.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Then there was the problem with the V.P. When Team Kappa reached him, he was no longer breathing. Deon bowed his head and made the sign of the cross on his chest before he started laying down orders. “Shake down this office. Behind the pictures, under the desk drawers, flip through the books – anything that looks like a chip, take it.” While Warrant Officer Tina Cole and Shark started through the office with brisk efficiency, Deon reached out his gloved hand and closed the poor corporate slave's wide eyes. From the vomit on the man's chest and the fallen bottle of Jameson near one chubby hand, the V.P. had been poisoned.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>At the door, PFC George Renner had taken up watch. Renner had a twitch which made him look like he would be unsteady behind the sights, but focusing his manic energy down a barrel turned him into a statue. The soldier shook his head in disbelief as the Captain started murmuring a litany of reverent-sounding Latin over the dead cargo. “We don't have time for that,” he muttered to himself.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Let it be, Renner,” Shark muttered as he passed by, upending a potted plant by the door to check inside the pot for hidden computer chips. “Cap was a chaplain; 'e does 'is thing, we do ours.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Tina recovered a cache of twelve tiny microchips concealed in a paperweight on the V.P.'s desk and the team took those as they left the office, heading back for the elevator banks right about the time McNamara reported the lights. Eighteen, the lights said. “Cover,” Captain Smith said, pointing Tina and Renner back down the corridor to the office, “now.” Nineteen, the lights said. “Move it!”
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The team split with half of them heading into the corridor to clear the way to the stairwell so they could meet up with McNamara and Tsu at the bottom, and the other half concealing themselves behind computer terminals in the open-floor office facing the elevator bank. Twenty, the lights said. Shark flashed a lazy thumbs-up as he readied his gun in the dark room, his elvish eyes unhampered by the low light. Twenty-one, the ding of the elevator doors said.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>That's when bullets started flying.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Whoever had just come up wasn't in the mood to ask questions, which put Deon in not much mood for restraint.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Cap, we've been made!” McNamara transmitted over the commlink, sounding like he was already in a flat run for cover.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The bang from down the hallway where Tina and Renner had gone had the Captain and his second-in-command looking worriedly at one another in the dark.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“What's swarming, Renner?” Deon asked, already gesturing to Shark that he would provide cover fire for the lieutenant to get to the others. There was silence in response. “Renner?” Deon growled frustration at the ceiling. Shark would haul them out, though. On a visual signal, the Cajun elf took off for the corridor as Deon stood up from behind the terminal and started firing both of his Ares Predator Vs towards the elevators. At six-foot-four and a very solid two-twenty, Deon was the only man on the team big enough to pull off such a trick without his arms getting ripped off by the recoil of one-handing the heavy pistols.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Pain exploded across his chest as his ballistic vest did exactly what it was designed for and kept a bullet out of him and spread the impact out. His goggles flickered and died as the electrical charge from the shock part of the stick-n-shock round danced over his body. Deon had been tased – twice – and electrocuted – once – so he knew what to expect from it. Knowing, however, and actually coping with his muscles locking up on him and his body going redwood tree were two different things. He managed to angle his fall so that he dropped behind the last interface terminal in the room, but he was going to be down seven or eight seconds until the shocks cleared.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Of course, that's when the little black metal lime clattered to the floor some ten feet away.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The whole team heard Captain Smith's deeply heartfelt “Fuck,” over the commlink.<br />
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<i>Miami, Johns Hopkins Institute of Health; Caribbean League – April 2</i><i><i>4<sup>th</sup></i>, 2073 </i><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“The hell is this, Kara?” Doctor James O'Leary, far too pale and Irish to be living in a sunlit land like Miami eyed the giant crate on the loading dock of his lab suspiciously. “I don't have morgue storage,” he groused at his research fellow.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Doctor Kara Ahken shrugged. She was sitting atop the wooden crate with lunch balanced on her knees. “Would you believe a story about a clandestine research project recovered from a destroyed Aztechnology lab in Austin, Texas and a contact of mine in CAS who knows I research eco-magical anomalies?”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>O'Leary snorted derisively and sat down on the crate next to her. “Tuna and rye?”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Mm, it's good too.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“No thanks. Still vegetarian.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Kara shook her head at the tragedy of it and continued to enjoy her sandwich.<br />
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<i>Miami, Johns Hopkins Institute of Health; Caribbean League – April </i><i><i>25<sup>th</sup></i>, 2073
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span></i><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Woah,” Kara muttered as she set the crate's top upright against the table and peered into the packing material. It was no wonder she'd had to have three interns carry it in and lift it onto the table. The corpse inside was huge, his dark brown skin gone ashy in death. Grievous wounds littered his body: old scars and new stitches that had to be from the undertaker's pass at him, and the left arm and leg had both been replaced with cyberlimbs. Clinically detached from years of studying the dead, she waved away the fog of cryogenic coolers in the packing kicking into overdrive in the hot Miami air and aimed a penlight at the left arm. “Reaaaaaally nice hardware,” she muttered, inspecting the gleaming metal that looked to be in far better condition than the man it had been attached to. Shiawase deltaware, probably, ridiculously expensive and high-end machinery.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Thanks,” groaned the corpse, “but I'll warn you I can't get it up anymore.”
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Before the shriek had fully left her mouth, Kara was across the room with her hand on the glass over the emergency fire axe. Corpses did <i>not</i> talk! The lights in the room flickered as the shadows started to converge at her feet. She was not without her own defenses when weird shit started happening, and as an Awakened researcher, she'd dealt with her fair share of extra-normal weird shit. This...this was new, however.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Oh, you meant the metal,” the dead man said almost conversationally, though his voice was hoarse. His metal left hand, a work of beauty in steel and cable, lifted a few inches out of the crate and waved in the general direction she had leapt away to. “Don't suppose you have a towel or dishrag or, God bless me, a pair of pants handy, do you? Size 38 waist?”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span><i>This is not happening,</i> Kara kept telling herself. Discussion of pant sizes was just way too prosaic for a risen corpse. The sad sigh that came from the wooden crate was so pathetic, though, that she found herself grabbing a blue surgical towel off the counter, balling it up, and tossing it into the crate from across the room.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Marvelous. Much obliged, ma'am.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The corpse's drawl was hard to place; some of his vowels were northern UCAS flat while some of his courtesies sounded southern CAS polite. <i>Why the flipping hell is there a talking corpse in my lab?</i>
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Where am I?” the dead man asked as he sat up, shedding flecks of packing foam as he pulled his upper body free of the containment that had been injected around him after he'd been laid in the crate. His hair had started forming a springy cushion atop his head and Kara was starting to rethink the idea that he'd died with it in such an archaic hundred-year-old style.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“JHH, Miami,” she answered, half her mind on directing the shadows at her feet to coalesce into a small, sleek panther. Keeping her hand parallel and flat to the floor, she held the shadow panther in a crouch so the dead guy couldn't see it. Did those eyes even work? The left one looked like it might have trouble focusing – the light brown iris almost swallowed by a blown-out pupil.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Why Miami? What's going on?” With his flesh hand holding the towel strategically in place, the corpse started to stand up on her lab table.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Sit down or I will shoot you!” Kara shouted, her voice loud but level. She had no gun in hand, but the warning was clearer than 'sit down or I'll let a shadow panther rip out your throat.'<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The big man sat back down in the crate, blinking at her in bewilderment. “Ma'am?”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“I don't know what you are, why you're up, and whether you're dangerous – so if you want to get out of that crate, you can wait until I know what the hell is going on here.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The corpse pursed his lips in disapproval for a moment, then stared at the wall some seven inches to the left of her ear. His voice was a monotone, like the words were drilled into him. “Captain Deon Matthew Smith, chaplain, United Canadian and American States Armed Forces. System Identification Number UCAS68372126 dash 35 slash 10H.” He jerked suddenly, his gaze going up to the ceiling like he was looking for something up there. After a moment, he shook his head and refocused his slightly off-kilter gaze on Kara's face. “Shall I wait here while you look that up?”
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Kara stared at him then sidled to the door with the shadowy panther at her feet. Never looking away from the dead man sitting up in a giant wooden crate on her laboratory table, she grabbed for the doorknob, opened it, and edged out of sight.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The lock clicked home, trapping him in the room.Winterbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07495858733611152675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876868364868566371.post-41635028459123817372013-09-23T16:21:00.000-05:002013-09-23T16:24:57.997-05:00Encouragement<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Written while listening to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNF08htoH00">The City Is At War</a> by Cobra Starship.<br />
<br />
((In an attempt to ensure I felt properly in-character for my upcoming
table-top session with this character, I decided to write a short
vignette from her perspective. This is Abigale Two Thunder - a.k.a.
"Zata" - from the Shadowrun universe.)) <br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Abigale's hands shook as she lit the cigarette clamped between her lips. As she stabbed the match out on the scarred synth-wood of her coffee table and drew a pull of smoke in, images from her medical training flashed in her mind – shriveled, blackened lungs, the A-Z how-to of performing a tracheotomy, yellowed teeth, metastasized lumps of uninhibited cell reproduction. She tried to decide what was worse: knowing what she was doing to herself or knowing why she'd started doing it in the first place. A groan cut through the silence of her tiny flat as she put the just-lit cancer-stick out in a stale cup of soykaf. She couldn't do it. She was still too clean, too responsible, too safe to kill herself – even slowly.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“I have <i>got</i> to find a different outlet,” she muttered, letting herself fall backwards onto the futon which served as both couch and bed. Six-thousand nuyen more in her bank account and she still couldn't shake the nauseating feeling that she was clawing her way out of a million nuyen hole. And that hole was on fire. It had been ten months since bailing on Denver and she still spent every waking moment looking for Red Hands over her shoulder, waiting for the corp to cotton on and send a retrieval team, breaking into cold sweats like she had the DTs every time she heard the metallic click-clicks of an engine turning over.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Taking a deep breath that still tasted faintly of nicotine, Abigale started running through her nightly litany. “This is Seattle. You are not <i>you</i> in Seattle. You are Zata in Seattle. You will survive in Seattle.” Her breath hitched in a snort but she pushed herself onwards. “You make your own fortune here. You have no one to pay for. You know what end of the gun to point. You know how the fire flares.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The ritual of reassurance was the only sound, if one didn't count the ordinary creak of pipes and thumps of heavy-footed occupants upstairs, in her flat. She didn't even rustle fabric as she pulled a sheet up over her still fully-armored body. In the last ten months, Abigale had gotten comfortable sleeping in her armored jumpsuit, comforted by the stiff prods and unyielding pseudo-ergonomic curves of the plating. A re-breather shared her pillow and a Colt L36 was her teddy bear.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“You know how to ghost,” she told the darkness as she turned off the light. “You know how to deal with Mr. Johnson. The shadows are feared. The shadows are respected.” As an image of the Awakened hobo huddling under the overpass and negotiating with another hobo for entry into the goddamn ACHE, a humorless laugh barked out of her, interrupting her catechisms of courage.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“I am in such deep drek.”Winterbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07495858733611152675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876868364868566371.post-35003339489386373362013-06-27T12:45:00.000-05:002013-06-27T14:05:06.768-05:00A Necessary Sacrifice, Part 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG8yYTteK41yJMxVtX3LGYJSMqTpmFWUEvDB12k1Ak5vYr5dJmT6tiwn5ez2zIu8ZNidXA_whpZbdzGAAQCgUNRbVgcrH91XpgUu_UivFOCWe4o33ZWgYhjHhrFe59N-1MB0eNrUlP6_0X/s1600/diyos-avvy2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG8yYTteK41yJMxVtX3LGYJSMqTpmFWUEvDB12k1Ak5vYr5dJmT6tiwn5ez2zIu8ZNidXA_whpZbdzGAAQCgUNRbVgcrH91XpgUu_UivFOCWe4o33ZWgYhjHhrFe59N-1MB0eNrUlP6_0X/s1600/diyos-avvy2.jpg" /></a></div>
((This is set some 20 years in the past in this universe.))<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
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<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>A crowd surrounded Master Vincenzo's residence well before I'd finished the mile-and-a-half sprint to reach it. Elua forbid that I should ever try such a stunt again. Bent over my own heaving bellows, I tried not to vomit my breakfast onto my shoes while I listened to the angry rabble around me. I recognized several students among them and was certain that many more I simply did not know were there as well.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“The Masters are exploiting us!” came one angry Caerdicci shout.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“It is the foreigners corrupting our virtuous women!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Oh, shut it, Andros, you're foreign!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Your <i>mother</i> is foreign!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>An elbow crunched down on my bowed spine and it was truly just instinctive reaction which led me to shove my shoulder sideways into my unwitting attacker's knees. With a yelp, he fell, flailing out to catch another man in the stomach with his fist. That man, enraged – once he stopped barking for lack of air – fell upon the first with fists. Cries of “Fight!” rang through the crowd and before anyone could quite put stop to it, the crowd gathered in front of the residence had devolved into fisticuffs.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>I gained a few bruises for my troubles, but I managed to dodge the worst of it as I battled free of the riot and found myself at a wooden door set into the stucco-brushed stone walls protecting the Master's loggia. The door itself was painted a rich green. While I was busy considering how to scale the wall and gain access to the balcony above the loggia's arches, the door creaked open. A furtive face peered out, marked by the broad nose and curly hair of a Hellene.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>He spied me and made to close the door, but I hissed “Wait!” as loudly as I dared. “Wait, please, I beg” I repeated in Hellenic.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>That earned me a skeptical look, but the man glanced towards the corner I'd rounded which separated us from the rioting crowd at the front and nodded once. I was attired – and dirtied – as a gardener, not a University student, and my Hellenic was of the common man instead of the orator.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“What has occurred here?”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>At the man's beckon, I pressed my back against the wall next to the door and listened to his quiet words. “Great tragedy has befallen my master's household,” he bemoaned. “Lady Basilia has been foully murdered for refusing the advances of one of my master's students. A sweet and innocent lady! I shall never see her warm smile and soft brown eyes again!” I heard the clack of <i>komboloi</i> as the servant fingered his worry beads. “Master Vincenzo has gone to the magistrate with the city guards to provide information so the student may be caught. He fled! Oh, the misfortune, he slipped right past me!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“I am sure all will be righted in time,” I murmured to the servant as the beads clacked somewhere behind the door. “Dike throttles Adikia.” An old Hellenic saying, I assured him that moral justice prevailed over injustice.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>An approving cluck of the tongue was the response, followed by, “You should leave before this gets worse, especially being Kriti.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Especially?”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“The student was Kriti. Actually, he looked a bit like you, with longer hair.” The servant peered out as if inspecting my shoulders for recently clipped strands.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“No, I've not had a haircut recently,” I demurred even as I strapped a bit of mental steel to my spine in preparation for another full-speed flight.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Even so,” the servant warned.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>I took him at his word and pushed off the wall, fleeing into the streets.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Several blocks before the house of the magistrate, I ceased running to allow myself time to catch my breath. I had no plan, no idea what I would do – I knew only that this entire thing must be a tremendous misunderstanding because I knew a glaringly obvious fact which Master Vincenzo's household did not: my dear little brother could not abide the touch of a woman.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Six armed and armored men loitered outside the magistrate's home. I swallowed hard; the points of their halberds looked very, very pointy indeed. But beyond them, in the courtyard, I could see a small gathering of liveried men and the black robe of the magistrate.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Excuse me,” I said in my best Caerdicci to the guard with the shiniest halberd and least-dented armor. My brain raced at the speed of thunder – or was that lightning? – as I threw together the flimsiest lie I'd ever told in my life, “I am here to clear pox from the magistrate's laurel bushes.” With a wave of my soil-darkened hand, I indicated my working man's attire. For a mercy, Elua and all the angels smiled upon me in that moment for I was let into the courtyard without further question. If only I had known then that even angels smile in malice.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Yes, I did invite him over to my home,” Master Vincenzo was explaining as I puttered around the well-trimmed bushes in the courtyard. The plants had a militant air, each in line and on a strict schedule, admitting no frivolity such as out-of-season blooms or shows of excess such as errantly-tall stalks. “He was one of my better students, in fact, but I never imagined he had such designs upon-” The Master's voice broke, “-upon my dear Basilia.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>It was a convincing auditory move, but something in the Master's shoulders called it a lie. I could not tell you if I tried how I could see it. He was not as enamored of his wife as he put out.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“You left the two of them alone?” the magistrate questioned.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“I did. Just for a few minutes. Our servants had the evening off after preparing dinner, so I left to fetch a new pitcher of <i>yansoon</i> for the three of us. When I returned... Oh, my heart!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The liveried men surrounding Master Vincenzo seemed more aggrieved at the murder of the lady than the Master did. I made my way to naught but a few strides from the gathering, gaining no attention at all as I pruned leaves from the bushes with my bare hands and rustled the foliage in a business-like manner.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The magistrate looked suitably pitying for a moment before nodding at Master Vincenzo. “You must continue, please.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“When I returned, I found her on the floor of our <i>triclinium</i>,” – the Caerdicci dining room – “and my student, Timotheos Iraphiotes, fled! My dearest, my heart, stabbed through the eye!” Master Vincenzo brandished a bloodied length of metal, some five inches long.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“My laurels!” I shouted, standing up from the bushes.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The entire assembly turned to look at me. I had a moment of absolute clarity. Master Vincenzo would describe my brother as he had just named him, the entire city of Tiberium would turn itself over for the search as Caerdicca Unitas had no love for the Kriti who never bowed to their fallen Empire, and my sweet, harmless baby brother would be caught and crucified.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“I killed the lady.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The assembled gasped. Yet, I noted a flash of calculation across the Master's face. He said nothing.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“That is mine in his hands. I know it by the laurels twining up the shaft. And I know it because I put it in Lady Basilia's brown eye.” Thank you, Hellenic servant. “She should know to never spurn a D'Angeline in love.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“D'Angeline? You are Kriti!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“But,” I said in my mother tongue, the language of my homeland which even now enfolded me in the rustling greenery of Anael's wings, “I was born in Terre D'Ange. We D'Angelines are mad in our passions, and I was mad for Lady Basilia. I could not abide being turned away by her. If I cannot have her, no one will!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Seize him!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>It is not my own fate I lamented as Master Vincenzo's liveried men swarmed over me and beat me into the ground with fists and metal-tipped boots. No, let 'Fool' be stamped on my forehead – I mourned the damage to the magistrate's damned laurel bushes.</div>
Winterbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07495858733611152675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876868364868566371.post-9181978803348554252013-05-10T23:15:00.000-05:002013-05-10T23:35:49.878-05:00A Necessary Sacrifice<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG8yYTteK41yJMxVtX3LGYJSMqTpmFWUEvDB12k1Ak5vYr5dJmT6tiwn5ez2zIu8ZNidXA_whpZbdzGAAQCgUNRbVgcrH91XpgUu_UivFOCWe4o33ZWgYhjHhrFe59N-1MB0eNrUlP6_0X/s1600/diyos-avvy2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG8yYTteK41yJMxVtX3LGYJSMqTpmFWUEvDB12k1Ak5vYr5dJmT6tiwn5ez2zIu8ZNidXA_whpZbdzGAAQCgUNRbVgcrH91XpgUu_UivFOCWe4o33ZWgYhjHhrFe59N-1MB0eNrUlP6_0X/s1600/diyos-avvy2.jpg" /></a></div>
Written while listening to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TKLTUP_tZ0">Prophecy</a> by Remy Zero.<br />
<br />
((An evolution, if you will, of something dated.))<br />
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<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Hoi, brother.” A lanky shadow fell across me, blocking the warm shaft of afternoon sun I'd been basking in. I cracked an eye open and focused on my twin. We were not identical, but quite similar, sharing the same warm brown eyes, thin and broad builds, large hands, and wooly hair. Theo let his curls grow long, tying them back in a puffy mass which resembled the belly of an ewe – while I kept my own too short to be springy. One of his curls dangled near his left ear, and I knew that was the one he tugged on when he was paying attention to something else.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>It was mid-afternoon. The grass beneath me was spry and the tree at my back sturdy and happy. I blinked a few times and looked to my right. While I'd been napping, the painter had packed up her easel and departed.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>For several hours here in the park, I'd watched her practice her art, sketches of passersby turning into quick, colorful paintings. The last had been an exotic, dusky couple stopping at at sweets vendor along the walk. The petite, dark-haired woman bought a rosewater confection and the towering man behind her took it from her upraised hand, removing two bites which he appeared to relish before sharing the morsel with his lady. The artist had been halfway through <a href="http://i258.photobucket.com/albums/hh270/seraphbriar/ZurineandZigorbyKimSwan_zpse5905fbe.jpg">something beautiful</a> in deep reds and warm golds when I'd fallen asleep here in the sunshine.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Now here was Theo interrupting my basking.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“What,” I groused flatly, closing my eyes again and trying to wave him out of the warmth.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The leather of those damnable too-tight pants he insisted on wearing creaked as he crouched by my side – blessedly out of my sun now. “Get up,” he hissed, “I need you to take my bag home for me.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“You take it home for you.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“I can't.” He drew out the last vowel into at least four extra syllables.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Why not?” I did the same.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>I felt my hair ruffle and smelled cheese – a blown-out breath of exasperation. “Because I don't want to haul it to Master Vincenzo's.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Wouldn't you want to take your work to your master?”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>His knuckles connected with my shoulder, jostling me from the tree. I felt momentarily bereft. “Because he invited me to dinner.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>That finally convinced me to stop lolling in the grass. “What.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Master Vincenzo,” my little brother said slowly as if speaking to a dim-witted child, “invited me to his home. For dinner.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Oh ho!” I cackled like a bold hen. Or was that old biddy? Eh, details. “Aren't you going to go home and change first?”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Cha-... OH!” Theo threw his hands up in the air and rose so fast my head spun with the motion. “I should change!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>I scooped the skin of water next to me off the grass and wobbled my way upright. “Take your bag back home with...” He was already fifty yards away. “You.” I sighed and picked up his satchel.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>For three years in Tiberium my <i>petit frère</i> and I had lived in what the richer students who attended the University called squalor. Accustomed as we were to our simple farm, it was only marginally lower class than we'd hoped to afford. Our mattresses were repacked with straw twice a month. Our second floor status kept us from being nose-level with the gutter offal. Our wobbly table was easily shimmed up with a chip of tree bark. Our landlady condescended to share two meals a day with us – a rough breakfast and an occasionally tasty dinner.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Only Theo attended the University. I had no interest in it myself, content to while away the days doing odd gardening jobs for the ladies of the city and earning the coin to keep us housed and fed. With my distinctly Kriti visage, it took hearing me sing to their gentian and primrose in flawless D'Angeline for them to realize I might be more interesting as more than a gardener. I may not bear the blood of angels, but I bear the mantle of Anael with pride and pleasure should blossom in all gardens.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>By the time I made it to our flat, Theo had torn a small whirlwind around our room, strewing clothes haphazardly in all directions. I plucked his shirt off the wall sconce which had thankfully not yet been lit in mid-afternoon and leaned against the wall.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Diyofh,” he cried, muffled by the shirt he was pulling over his head, “fair's er pronsh orrersh?”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>He was asking for my bronze laurels, of course. A gift from our mother Metrodora, the long, slender Kriti <a href="http://www.craftycelts.com/hair/images/heavypin1.jpg">bronze emblem</a> I wore around my neck was about five inches of laurel leaves twining around a slender pillar. It had been given to me in recognition of my vows made to Anael and for luck. I didn't always wear it, and in a pinch, Theo would borrow it for a hair-stick to hold his curls back in a twist-knot.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>I waited until he'd finished pulling his new shirt over his head before I threw the old one in such a fashion as to obscure him once more. “Give me a moment to find it.” Leaving him spluttering indignantly, I went to my trunk and fished around until my fingers hit the catch inside the bottom which would release the false side and reveal the small drawer hidden under the trunk where I stored our coins and valuables. The rest of my trunk appeared to be full of gardening rags and weighted with paving stones, so carting the whole item off would be a waste of time. My laurels and their long chain rested there. I pulled the jewelry out and the thin stick off the chain.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Resting the chain around my neck, I carried the rest of the bronze piece back to Theo. He was trying to lace his right cuff with his left hand and teeth.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Oh, for Elua's sake... Here. You're hopeless.” He sighed gratefully as I took the ties from him, pressed the bronze into his left hand, and laced his shirt cuff around his right wrist. “Where are your boots?”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Hands already tangled in his curls, he jerked his chin towards the front door.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Sit.” My brother found a seat while he tamed his hair and I helped him into his boots. Properly attired and coifed and cleaned, I clasped his forearm before he grabbed the door. “Be good at dinner, little brother.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>We may have been Kriti by parentage, but his grin was pure D'Angeline from birth. “I'm always good!”<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>When we look back on events in our lives, it's easy to convince ourselves that there were signs, that we should have known, that shadows of foreboding and shivers of warning touched us. In truth, though, none of us can know the future before it becomes the present.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>My present was a hangover, courtesy of a nice bottle of wine bought for me by a friend among the students that evening. I greeted the dawn with something a whole lot like “Blurgh!” and a yank of blankets over my head. It was so nice of my baby brother to be quiet this morning. Usually, he snored.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>I heard no snoring.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>I sat up in bed, eyes squinted close against the light as the blankets pooled around my bare waist. I listened hard. His satchel was on the table, so he wasn't at lecture. By mutual agreement, we'd situated our mattresses in a fashion as to allow semi-privacy in the single large room we shared, with table, chairs, and trunks set to provide barriers. Privacy be damned though, I clambered out of bed open to the breeze and padded barefoot over to his bed. No Theo in it.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Theo?” I called out quietly, as if he was waiting under a chair for me or something. “Timotheos?” It was strange for him to not come home by morning, dinner out or not. Ah, well, perhaps he was lucky and one of Master Vincenzo's wine-bearers was Hellenic instead of Caerdicci. The Hellenes were far less uptight about men like my brother than the Caerdicci were. With an unselfconscious scratch of my balls, I padded back over to my trunk and started fishing out clothes. Lady Ionna needed someone to tend to her...orchid...today.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“The students are just a pox!” To my disappointment, Ionna had a gaggle of guests over for tea, so I really was left tending to her azalea bushes. I was humming as I picked gall-infected leaves off a bush by hand in the courtyard while her friends tittered over cups of <i>yansoon</i> imported from Menekhet. Murmurs of agreement followed the stately older lady's pronouncement.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Violent wretches,” another lady interjected. “What happened to Basilia is absolutely horrible!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>I murmured gentle platitudes to a bright pink bud. The bush was just on the verge of bursting forth in paper-thin fuchsia blossoms. It just needed a little care and coaxing, really.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“However will Master Vincenzo get along without her?” gasped Ionna as she fanned herself.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>I froze, everything from lungs to limbs shutting down as if that could make sounds clearer.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“I heard it was one of his <i>own</i> students!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>A pile of poxed azalea leaves fluttered to the ground in my wake as I tore out of the courtyard as if the hounds of heaven were on my heels.<br />
<br />
<i> (To be continued when my brain cooperates on the scenes to follow.)
</i></div>
Winterbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07495858733611152675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876868364868566371.post-34637877691106797062013-04-02T22:27:00.000-05:002014-02-28T14:23:53.515-06:00Apropos of Absolutely Nothing<i>So my main role-playing hub these days decided to create an "anything goes" section for a few days, where we could post - according to the rules of the subforum - anything we damn well pleased. I pondered for a time what I wanted to write, when this scene leapt fully-formed from my brow and refused to get out of my way until it had been written. The setting belongs to my partner-in-crime, Eredis, and is roughly equivalent to modern day alternate history. Similarly, re-imaginings of characters once bound to a single setting reappear.</i><br />
<br />
<i>There is no point to this scene, no reason for its existence beyond the fact that it obstructed me until I let it free. I decided to share it because one line in it makes me giggle.</i><br />
<br />
-----<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Instead of looking out at the lonely expanse of polished wood that passed for a dance floor, Rosoe buried her face in her folded arms on the table next to a half-full glass of very expensive martini and groaned.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“<i>Sitka</i>! Hey, <i>sitka</i>! Look!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>She quite pointedly did not look until his yelling became insistent enough to be more annoying than the erratic thumping beat of the song. Out on the dance floor, entirely without benefit of a crowd to conceal him – at all – was the minor Nordic landmass known as Ôzurr Bergmann. Two long, blond braids of beard swayed across a chest only barely contained in the XXL t-shirt he wore as he flailed his arms in perfect disharmony with the music. Years of chasing her up mountains and across sand wastes and down barely navigable rivers had returned his fighting form, but he was still built like a moose's love-child with a bear. As the lead singer (if one could call the erratic spoken form 'rapping' such) passed once more through the chorus of being sexy and he knew it and was not afraid to show it, Oozy – what she affectionately called the northern lug – wiggled his hips suggestively towards her. The lyrics continued to instruct such and she put her head down again.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Behind the bar, a Moroccan barmaid polished a glass and giggled.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“You see, <i>sitka</i>, Zoë knows what she sees!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Rosoe counted to ten before she raised her head, the thick tumble of dreadlocks falling back as she squinted her black eyes at the giant wheeling and wiggling alone on the dance floor. Mindful of his fragile ego, she called out over the music, “A bleached bear trying to catch honey-bees with his <i>pinga</i>?”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Oozy didn't deflate in the slightest. “You think I am built strong like bear?” His voice held a note of preening.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>As the song blessedly transitioned to something just as thumpy but less embarrassing, Rosoe picked up her martini and stood up. Hips swaying, she walked over to the north-man and patted his chest soothingly. “Yes, <i>mwen renmen</i>,” she murmured, rising onto the tips of her toes to plant a kiss on his cheek. Oozy's pale cheeks turned beet red, and he didn't even flinch from the spark of static jumping from her lips. “You are strong like bear.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Leaving him to dance alone once more, she walked over to the bar and leaned forward over it, well-aware of the distraction her leather-clad derriere provided. “Zoë!” The barmaid – some little <i>chica </i>between fifteen and twenty-two, it was quite hard to tell – smiled her bright, sunny smile at Rosoe.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“What are you needing, boss?” Her English still needed work, but Rosoe wouldn't be the one teaching her; Rosoe already had a terrible patois of English, old French, Haitian, and gutter Spanish. Thanks to Ôzurr, she was adding inexplicable moments of Russian and Norwegian to it.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Nevertheless, she had to try. “It's just 'what do you need, boss.' And for you to remove that song from the playlist.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“But Mister Azure <i>loves </i>it!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Rosoe didn't bother correcting the nickname. “It is a terrible excuse for him to terrorize people. You want people coming in here for drinks, yes?”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Zoë looked closer to fifteen than anything as she looked down and mumbled something vaguely affirmative while she dried a glass with a bar-rag.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“No one will come in when word gets out that a white devil beats others with golden chains here.” So she was exaggerating. Morocco was not truly so insular; in fact, they were quite used to tourists and no one expected much from a run-down watering hole in a back alley. She just wanted an excuse to keep Ôzurr from humming that damned song in the middle of the night.Winterbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07495858733611152675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876868364868566371.post-73237327677565392492013-03-26T21:57:00.001-05:002013-03-26T21:57:37.302-05:00Objections<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG8yYTteK41yJMxVtX3LGYJSMqTpmFWUEvDB12k1Ak5vYr5dJmT6tiwn5ez2zIu8ZNidXA_whpZbdzGAAQCgUNRbVgcrH91XpgUu_UivFOCWe4o33ZWgYhjHhrFe59N-1MB0eNrUlP6_0X/s1600/diyos-avvy2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgG8yYTteK41yJMxVtX3LGYJSMqTpmFWUEvDB12k1Ak5vYr5dJmT6tiwn5ez2zIu8ZNidXA_whpZbdzGAAQCgUNRbVgcrH91XpgUu_UivFOCWe4o33ZWgYhjHhrFe59N-1MB0eNrUlP6_0X/s1600/diyos-avvy2.jpg" /></a></div>
((In which someone new based - again - on someone old shows up. The actor-image representing Dionysos Iraphiotes is a picture of Liam Neeson. He is and at once is not at all familiar in my head canon.))<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . .</span><i> Plip! I miss the sky...</i>
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span><i>Plip! You know, if I look at it just so, that rock looks a lot like Deora's tits.</i><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span><i>Plip! If I don't find the source of that drip in the next five minutes, I'm going to lose my mind.</i>
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Oh. Wait. That last one was me. Blinking my way out of sleep, I realized that I was lying face-down on the battered wood surface of a potting bench. The stool I was sitting on had managed to cut the blood flow to my legs off somewhere around mid-thigh, and the tingling pain was blood-starved toes and not frostbite setting in. The incessant drip was not rain-water on unyielding stone – which, truthfully, made more of a <i>Flop!</i> sound anyway – but condensation from the glass panes above me collecting and dripping into an empty metal tray on the top shelf of the bench.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>I had just begun to consider whether or not my legs would hold my weight steady if I slid off the stool when every piece of very expensive glass in the small greenhouse rattled in its frame. Steady thumps followed it and I was just bothering to lift my head off the bench when Zeno lumbered into view.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“You're worrying Mother,” he rumbled, crossing arms like twigs over a barrel chest – or is that arms like tree trunks over a keg chest? I never get metaphors right. At any rate, Zeno was big, the kind of big which came from being able to arm-wrestle bears and lift horse-drawn carts on his own. From the way he said it, you'd think worrying Mother was a crime on the same level as defaming the king.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>You'd probably be right.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>I reached over and swiped a wineskin off the potting bench and was just about to wet my mouth with its contents so I could respond when Zeno clamped a meaty hand on my wrist, took the wineskin from me, and tossed it casually into a tray of rye seedlings. As cheap fermented grape juice soaked into the loamy soil, I think I whimpered.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“And how can you stand to be around yourself? Have you taken a single bath in the last three months? Pshew!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“I had one on Friday.” Three Fridays ago, but who was counting? Me, I suppose. Perhaps Zeno too, since he caught my wrist again.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Bath. You stink.”
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>He turned and started to walk away, pulling me off the stool. As it turns out, my less than sanguine legs were, well, less than sanguine about the idea and my knees buckled. Zeno didn't notice until one of the tables covered in baby vines tied with twine to toothpicks rattled ominously because my right shoulder had just banged into it.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>I looked up at my older brother from my comfortable sprawl on the dirt floor, my left arm well above my head and caught in his hold. I tried a winning smile. I didn't win anything. Zeno dropped my hand unceremoniously, then took two steps until he was standing next to my waist. I will admit, I was jealous of the way his knees didn't even creak a little as he crouched down, shoved a forearm under my back, rolled me over and lifted me onto his shoulder in one smooth motion.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“I'd like to register my objection to your crotch, brother,” I mumbled, jouncing along with my head unpleasantly near his waist.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“And I object to your stench. And the way you've been treating Mother and Father. Theo is out telling bard's tales at the Split Peach. You're going to have a bath, drink several glasses of water, and go join him.”
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“No?”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Zeno grunted at me. It's strange how he could make a grunt sound suspiciously similar to 'Disobey me and I'll rip your arms from their sockets and beat you into bloody unconsciousness with the stumps.'<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Not yet entirely resigned to my ignominious fate, I tried wheedling, “Can I have a tankard of ale while I'm there?”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>This grunt was a span of degrees more violent.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Fine. As long as my objections have been noted.” Unable to do anything about it while endeavoring not to stare at my older brother's pants' placket, I was carted out of my greenhouse quite against my will for a bath.</div>
Winterbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07495858733611152675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876868364868566371.post-12929769006772262802013-01-03T20:40:00.000-06:002013-01-03T20:41:21.655-06:00The Challenge<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrNJRDtai39rhuHJ_IsElfjdELdgC-ICBFo38Ldmhk4jUG3QPLte2S48l9s88WDOqTIBmw6_QSTJupZQjm0OaHFvtt4mWnrkho22gygZwcdwD1Z2DAvWnjfDsKlSRIcTORWgSQL_LRx5Iz/s1600/Zurine-avvy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrNJRDtai39rhuHJ_IsElfjdELdgC-ICBFo38Ldmhk4jUG3QPLte2S48l9s88WDOqTIBmw6_QSTJupZQjm0OaHFvtt4mWnrkho22gygZwcdwD1Z2DAvWnjfDsKlSRIcTORWgSQL_LRx5Iz/s1600/Zurine-avvy.jpg" /></a></div>
((Zurine Haizea - my Guild Wars 2 character - has seen new life in a much more fitting setting in the new forum. She is represented by a somewhat altered image of the Egyptian actress Nelly Karim. Ironically, her original story has changed very little from its roots in GW2 and, indeed, the first draft of this piece was written in that world and needed only a perspective shift and a few name alterations to be reset.))<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The wattle and daub coating of the
wall behind me pulled a few sable strands of hair free from their
neat captivity every time I turned my head, but it was nothing that
could be helped. There was quite simply far too much worth watching
to stay still. A bracelet caught the afternoon sun with a gleam of
silver. A flounce of lily pink silk swirled across the cobblestone
street. A red ribbon, dark as freshly-spilled blood, fluttered from a
man's back as he strode among the market stalls.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span><i>That's the one</i><span style="font-style: normal;">,
I decided. Never mind that it was trailing from the hilt of a
broadsword strapped across his back; plucking that prize free would
be child's play. I </span><i>wanted </i><span style="font-style: normal;">that
ribbon.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Beneath my slight
weight, the daubber's scaffolding did not shake or tremble as I
crossed some ten feet above the street, flashing between drapes of
canvas that protected the market-goers from falling clay as it dried.
My belly rumbled a protest that my mark was no flatbread or juicy
pear, but I paid it no heed – the demands of the body were a
distant second to the rush of pursuit. The man was taller than many
in the market by a third again, his wide shoulders cutting a track
through the crowded streets as easily as a chef's knife through melon
flesh. There went my stomach again...</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>As the wooden
supports below me ended, I had to take my eyes from the taunting
ribbon long enough to pull myself to the roof and jump across to the
next building. It was no more than a matter of sixty seconds, but in
that time, the man vanished. A scowl twisted my lips as I scanned the
market, looking for the behemoth among midgets. It was like trying to
track a sand flea! But then a dark shape loomed some half a block
beyond where he ought to have been, and I raced across the rooftop to
catch up.</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>It took two jumps
and one precarious crossing involving a clothes-drying line, but I
caught up to him, and then surpassed him. Planning carefully, I
dropped down from the edge of the rooftop, heels catching on an
awning covering a doorway below. Despite broad daylight, all eyes
were occupied with market goods and I remained as invisible as if
cloaked in night. He would have to pass by here – I need only wait;
the linen merchant's stall across from the building I perched on
along the narrow street would force him close enough.</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Indeed,
circumstances were in my favor and a knot of women stopped to finger
bolts of fine lawn, cooing over misty blue fabric the likes of which
would never touch my own poor skin clad in rough-spun. The giant man
had to step close to the building to avoid them, and that's when I
leaned out as far as I dared, one hand bracing along the awning's
support as the other stretched forward. Warmth radiated from the sun
shining on his dark, clean-shaven head as he passed just under my
hand and my fingers caught up the red ribbon to unravel its simple
knot as he walked past.<br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>A
hand large enough to encompass most of my forearm clamped over my
wrist. He had stopped just beyond the edge of the awning I was braced
against. Before I quite had a thought to what was going on, the
ribbon was tied around my wrist and the titan of a man had lifted me
bodily down from my perch, pulling me along behind him by the other
end of </span><i>my prize</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
wrapped in his fist.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“No one ever
looks up,” the man quietly stated.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>My
first instinct was to raise a cry, but I quickly discounted that as
it would bring the attention of the city guard. As it stood, the
guard were jumpy from constant vigilance and I was on at least two
wanted dockets in the city. Perhaps just enough of a fuss to raise
odd looks and shame the behemoth into letting me go? </span><i>Yes,
that's it</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. Judging the timing
just right, I stopped at the edge of the next block where a group of
young men surrounded a bladesmith's stall. The ribbon jerked taut and
the giant man halted, turning to look at me. A plain shirt of fine,
sand-colored cambric tucked into heavy, dun-colored linen trousers –
completely at odds with the blackened leather sheath slung across his
chest and the well-wrought broadsword it held. It was only long
after, though, that I noted these things about his appearance, for at
the time all I could see were his eyes – paler than sky, colder
than marble, they fair gleamed from his swarthy face. And they were
narrowed at me.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The young men at
the merchant's stall noticed, though, and a hush fell upon them as
they stared and began to mutter amongst one another. “This isn't
right!” I called out, my voice pitched high as I tugged at the
ribbon around my wrist.</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The muttering grew
louder at my pronouncement, but the pale-eyed giant reached out and
captured my wrist in his grip again. He turned enough to give the
staring men a small shrug of his wide shoulders. “The little
princess believed she could slip out of the house with the doorman
unawares,” he explained.</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The men at the
stall all snickered and nodded knowingly, turning away from the scene
the pair of us presented. It was absolutely beyond fathoming, but
somehow his words carried more weight than my struggles, and I was
promptly ignored as the swarthy colossus led me to the end of the
block.</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>There, he crowded
his body against me and walked me between two of the stalls into an
alley that – for all my years on the streets in Alamut – I had
never noticed before. Murmurs and shouts and songs from the market
faded into the shadow created by two far-too-close buildings, sound
as hushed as light as I found myself quite alone with the man. My
nose was level with his solar plexus as he hauled the ribbon up in
one hand until I was on tiptoe before him should I want to keep my
hand attached to my arm.</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“You're used to
not being seen,” he spoke, the timbre of his voice low and quiet.
It was like being whispered to by stone itself. “You take risks
because no one is looking.”</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“And whose
business is that?” To my pride, there was no tremble in my voice as
I stared up at the man.</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“The guards', if
I take you to them.”</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Do you expect
that to make me beg and protest?”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“A
weak woman would.” In the grey half-light of the alleyway, I could
see one of his heavy eyebrows lift in amusement. “Do you know how
to behave when someone </span><i>is</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
looking?”</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>I did the only
thing I could, dangling by one hand from his grip. I spat at his
feet.</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“I will take
that as a 'no.'” Just that fast, the amusement was gone from his
face and his tone, as was the ribbon from my wrist.</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Dropping back flat
on my feet, I pressed my back against the wall as if two more inches
of space between us would matter. “I could steal a ruby from the
<i>amirzade</i>'s palace,” I boasted, pulling the shreds of my
dignity around me.</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Could you.”
The giant did not frame his words as a question as he tied the ribbon
back on the hilt of his broadsword. The ends of it floated over his
shoulder, stark against his pale shirt.
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Stung by the
insult implied, sputtering impotently, I was left standing alone in a
dark alley as the titan of a man vanished back into the market.</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The sun was
slouching towards another ignominious slide into a horizon made
opaque by the dusts of war when I remembered my belly again. All
afternoon had been spent traversing the market rooftops, idling
unseen in private household gardens, trying to evade the sensation of
a gaze fixed upon the back of my neck. My favorite place to acquire
food was the bakery in the second tier of the market; the shop stall
was sprawling and busy, the scent of bread baking always bringing
crowds clamoring on their stomachs. In such a press of people, it was
simple to palm a sweet roll or sweep a flatbread off a stack and into
a sleeve.</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Somewhere to my
left, a querulous old woman argued with one of the stall's keepers
over the price of two loaves of fine emmer bread, a luxury when most
could only afford stacks of unleavened millet. While eyes were
elsewhere, no one was watching my hands pass over the stacks of
flatbread as if checking their softness. One piece was half-rolled in
my hands and inside the clay-red sleeve of my rough linen shirt in a
trice, the bread wrapped around my forearm reminding me uncomfortably
of the giant's hand in the same place. Despite great hunger, it never
paid to be too greedy – that simply got one caught – so I turned
away toward the stall's exit.</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>There it was,
hanging over the edge of the awning – the curling red tip of a
ribbon.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>My
first impulse was to scream and snatch at it, anger rising swift and
sharp as I realized the source of the sensation of eyes on my back
all afternoon. However, all that would gain me was the attention of
the bakery staff and one less piece of flatbread – maybe one less
hand. Knowing the giant must be watching now, I ignored the taunting
ribbon, stopping instead to inspect a basket full of sweet rolls.
When a stall keeper came over to try to sell me one of the rolls, I
demurred politely and headed for the exit and its damnable red
challenge. As I passed under the awning, I reached up as if to smooth
my hair into the heavy sable bun on my crown, though truly I snatched
my fingers higher for the end of the ribbon.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>It fluttered
silkily over my fingers – a ghost of a caress – and was gone.</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>I did make a small
scene then, stamping my foot in frustration as I spun to look at the
awning. Several market-goers stopped to give me strange looks and I
pasted on a winsome smile. “Sand beetle,” I explained with a
little shrug. There was no giant leaning over the awning with his
ribbon; indeed, there was no one at all who could have placed it
there or removed it so quickly.</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Fury at being
bested spurred me out of the vicinity, walking as if the Drujani
themselves were on my heels.</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Watch it!”
cried one young man as I elbowed him aside and stalked past. I
ignored him. Four blocks later, I was at the edge of the market
district and my fury was spent, the street instincts which had kept
me alive a quarter of a century or so coming back to remind me that I
carried stolen goods in my sleeve and I ought dispose of them
quickly. Shadows fell long and low over the streets as I ambled
casually towards the temple district. Sitting at the base of a statue
commemorating some battle <i>amir</i> or another, I pulled the stolen
flatbread out of my sleeve and began to eat.</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>A horsefly buzzed
past and I swatted at it. It whirled away and returned, wings beating
against the left side of my neck as it settled. I clapped my hand
fast and hard to my neck to squash it, but my hand did not land on a
fly. The red ribbon was trapped between my fingers and the soft skin
below my ear. Scrabbling so quickly I drew blood at my own neck with
my nails, I grasped for the ribbon – only to yank free a lock of my
own hair.</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Howling in pain
and frustration, I sprang to my feet and whirled, glaring at the
statue as if it was the source of my ills. Perhaps it was... On that
thought, I ran to the right, circling the stone counter-clockwise as
if to reveal my tormentor. I found no one.</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Cramming the last
of the flatbread in my mouth hastily, I retreated. Every hair on the
back of my neck was at full attention, throbbing in time with the
small patch of pain on my scalp. Citrine gaze darting every which way
– even skyward – I searched to no avail as I backed out of the
temple district. Moments later, I turned and ran at full-speed,
juking down alleyways at random, turning right three times only to
catch the lip of a door awning and traverse the rooftops for a few
blocks, stopping within crowds of people to move slowly and attempt
to lose myself in their bustle. It took an hour – well into the
fall of full night – for me to finally lose the sensation that I
was being watched.</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Every
time a man's shadow fell over me, I sized it up, wary of any which
were larger than average. I took to wearing my hair up so tightly
none of it could escape to brush my neck. All four of my usual dosses
were abandoned and I began sleeping on rooftops despite the coming
winter chill. The bakery became a forbidden luxury, off-limits for as
long as I was being watched. And I </span><i>knew</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
I was being watched.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>A flutter of red
out of the corner of my eye taunted me. A first, I would spin to look
for it, but it would always vanish. If I held my knowledge close, not
moving my head or my eyes, the ribbon would remain. Once at the edge
of the linen seller's stall again, gone only when I gave in and
turned my head to look for it. Once like a pennant from a doorway
leading to a guardsman's house, which I entirely ignored and walked
past. Once lying peaceably over the lip of the roof I chose for the
night – a rooftop covering a travelers' hostel.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-style: normal;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>That
night, I noted it and let it be, going about setting up my bedroll.
He was watching; he </span><i>had</i><span style="font-style: normal;">
to be watching, and with that in mind, I did what I would not if I
were alone. I let my hair down from its confinement, combing my
fingers through it until the waves settled and shone in the gibbous
moonlight. Slowly, paying no heed to the ribbon draped over the
foot-high boundary wall around the top of the roof, I picked up the
small pack in which I kept my meager belongings. Making a show of it,
I searched for the small jar of dried mint leaves I liked to chew on
before sleep. “Oops,” I murmured as the jar slipped from my
fingers and rolled – so conveniently! – to within a few inches of
where the ribbon lay. Paying the crimson taunt no heed at all, I
walked unhurriedly to my dropped possession and bent down to scoop it
up. Straightening, I sighed aloud as I let out a jaw-cracking yawn.</span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>A whisper of
breath, a well-stifled yawn but not quite well enough, off to my left
and down four feet. Without looking, without thinking too hard on it,
I winged the jar in my hand at the source of the sound. A large hand
covered in swarthy, sun-dark skin appeared over the top of the roof,
neatly catching the jar of mint leaves and setting them down on the
ledge. Next to the red ribbon.</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>When I walked –
staid and steady – to pick up the jar, I dared a peek down. The
giant was gone. But the ribbon remained. I plucked it off the lip of
the roof with two fingers and used it to tie my hair up high, the
ends of the ribbon curling against my neck.</div>
Winterbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07495858733611152675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876868364868566371.post-31512645373614552472012-12-12T15:56:00.002-06:002012-12-12T15:56:47.225-06:00Nine-Letter Word for Shy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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((Image chosen to represent character is a Canadian singer, Natasha St-Pier. This <i>short</i> short is meant as an introduction.))<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>It was nearly six in the afternoon and, in the short days of deep winter, that meant it was quite dark outside. The broad windows which let in light for us to use during the day were merely glassy walls now, occasionally reflecting back to me the glimmer of candlelight. Only the archivists were trusted with flame among the royal collection - and even then only in carefully crafted, closed lanterns which extinguished themselves immediately upon leaving the vertical axis. It was some clever design from Siovale, certainly.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>I hardly cared that it was dark. Evenings were the only time I could really get much done, since no one cared to wander the Royal Archives in the pitch of night. I had claimed for myself a broad oaken table on the upper floor of the archives, my notes set neatly before me as I cross-referenced the sections of <u>Shepherd of Knowledge: Shemhazai's Founding</u> with the handwritten notes - some hundreds of years old - about the companions of Elua. Oh, alright, so <u>Shepherd of Knowledge: Shemhazai's Founding</u> was still a working title. I hadn't actually completed it yet. That's why I was here, alone, nose-deep in ancient dust.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>There was a thud behind me. I shrieked and rocked back in my chair, pushing away from the table as I tried to find the source of the sound. Of course, working in lantern light had left me night-blind and I could barely see the bookshelf behind me, much less anything else. "Hello?" I called out. "It is after hours..." Only silence in reply.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Then another sound, a scuff like a boot toe against the tile floor. I turned towards the noise, still blinking night-blind eyes as I tried to make it out. "Hello?"<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>A figure materialized out of the shadows, limned golden by my lantern's fire. He was fair, blond, and gawky of limb despite surely being near my own age. "Oh, thank goodness you have some light. I...uh..." The young man trailed off and smiled wryly at me. "I fell asleep in the stacks and I can't find my way out."<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span><i>Oh for Elua's sake,</i> I thought, twisting my hands at my waist as I tried to smile through the interruption to my work. "You're upstairs. Here, I can lead you out." I turned back to the table and picked up my archivists' lantern. It would take me fifteen minutes to lead him all the way to a portion of the royal grounds which was well-lit at night, but the last thing I wanted was further interruption. "Sh-shall we?" I grimaced at my stammer and tried to gesture for him to walk before me in the circle of light cast by my lantern.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>I still had time to work on my thesis. Morning wasn't for eleven more hours.Winterbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07495858733611152675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876868364868566371.post-48876326647264495712012-12-01T21:08:00.000-06:002012-12-01T21:08:03.252-06:00The Third Charm<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5Aqifl4hRHJfKcIQWWOD6tzc85ZcsSYN4CWy9NIvTzzU_8DkRi3Tjbt3duy90ZLve4J1XG4O0re3ttVelpU5Le4CLcxJUnpF4qafCn2eIXaHrnS4mJ6JqSYrPSsjqBzq5Awz82d-m-Gni/s1600/roma_girl-avatar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5Aqifl4hRHJfKcIQWWOD6tzc85ZcsSYN4CWy9NIvTzzU_8DkRi3Tjbt3duy90ZLve4J1XG4O0re3ttVelpU5Le4CLcxJUnpF4qafCn2eIXaHrnS4mJ6JqSYrPSsjqBzq5Awz82d-m-Gni/s200/roma_girl-avatar.jpg" width="148" /></a>
((The character of Zera-Marie - I <i>told </i>you there'd be similarities - is represented by a Roma child captured on film by "maksid" on Flickr, mildly altered in Photoshop by me.))<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span><i>At least,</i> I thought as I hiked my skirts up so I could fish beneath them and produce my right slipper, <i>I had the foresight to run off at a nice time of year.</i> Truth be told, I could not fault the warm spring nights or the sunny, flower-filled days. Terre D'Ange is a beautiful land to be lost in, even in its poor sections. Dusk painted the stones and daub and wood shop walls of the street in pomegranate and wine as I turned my little leather slipper over and shook a pebble out of it. The stone stoop upon which I sat was still sun-warm even through the three thin skirts layered atop each other I wore. <i>I'll just...enjoy this...a moment...</i> I thought drowsily, leaning my left shoulder against the door post.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"Oy!" came a gruff call followed rapidly by a bristly whack between my shoulder-blades. "Out of the doorway, Tsingani brat!" The mistress of the shop shook her broom threateningly at me as I tumbled forward with my slipper in hand.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"A thousand apologies, good woman. May Blessed Elua smile upon your kindness," I murmured in fluent D'Angeline, hopping on one foot until I had my slipper back on, then sketching a curtsey of, if not impeccable grace, at least genuine humor at the scowling woman. She muttered grumpily at me and took to her stoop with a vengeance, as if to remove some trace of my dark skin left on her lily-white D'Angeline masonry. I was confident she would not sweep away the small blue bead I'd dropped in the crack at the edge of the door where it met the street - a little charm to cause the gaze to slide off of one, useful for sneaks...devastating for businesses.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Missing the slow, seeping warmth of the stone stoop, I pulled my shawl tighter against my shoulders and continued up the paved street. It was my first night in the City proper and I'd been quite used to the warm breeze of spring across the meadows, which all these close little buildings blocked, their shadows too long in dusk and chilling the air before it was properly full dark. A delicious smell drew me ever uphill, a scent built of warm air, puffed flour, hot butter, and a hint of some herb I could not yet identify. While I puzzled through it and walked up the street, the steady warning ring of shod hooves on paving alerted me to listen harder. It was coming from behind and to the left. I was on the right side of the street, and therefore it would pass without concern. Indeed, in short order, a chestnut roan of middling quality and high pride - if the lift of her head was any indication - and a well-dressed lady sitting sidesaddle trotted up the street. I kept at least fifteen yards from the demon in horseflesh, pausing my walk to allow it full berth.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Pausing put me in the unfortunate way of several jostling, loud young men whose wine-and-strong-cheese scent momentarily overwhelmed the complex, yeasty scent I'd been following. One young man raked his dark eyes down my young body and broke from his group. Smiling unctuously, he sidled up and dropped an arm down atop my shoulders. "A little kiss, youngling? For a man off of to war on the morrow?"<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>I wanted to rush from under his arm and straight into a cold bath at his touch, but it would be deeply rude of me to wish him true ill if he was off to defend his fair city. I could not find it in me to begrudge him drunken revels, slimy or no, and so I smiled brightly, rose up on the tips of my toes, and kissed his cheek. "For luck, brave soldier," I said, ducking free of his arm with a deft turn. His companions laughed at how easily I'd eluded him and a shadow passed across his eyes.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"You call that a kiss? Come give me a proper send-off, Tsingani wench!"<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span><i>It's a shame I wished him genuine luck,</i> I thought as I caught my skirts up in my hands and took off running at a full sprint up the street. There were hoots and shouts behind me, as well as more laughter, but no sound of pursuit. Still, I did not slow until that delicious smell intensified so much that the mystery herb in it became apparent. <i>Tarragon, for courage...</i> I stopped in a darkened doorway to catch my breath, my right hand pressed against my charms to silence their rattle and heave.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"Well," came a deep, slightly scratchy voice behind me, "come in then, and have a roll."Winterbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07495858733611152675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876868364868566371.post-54984230373913889712012-11-30T15:09:00.000-06:002012-11-30T15:12:24.983-06:00Winter Eyes<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
((I've gotten involved in yet another role-play universe, but this is one is a first for me. Rather than being based in a freeform world or a game world, it's set in the world created by Jacqueline Carey in her Kushiel's Legacy series. I feel conflicted about writing so derivative a piece of <i>short</i> fan-fiction, but it was Carey herself who promoted the group on her Facebook page and led me to find them, so I can't imagine that others writing inside her world bothers her too much. Besides, it got me fairly inspired to consider the "other" characters to inhabit such a world, so I'm giving it a shot.<br />
Regular readers of my work will recognize similarities in the characters. Standard practice in this group is to use a picture of an actor or model to represent the character, so this one is represented by a picture of Tilda Swinton. I probably won't burden my story blog with much about this character as it's forum-based RP threads instead of the story format I use for WoW characters.))<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>If there has ever been a season for me to be most fond of, it is winter. Though the sun is high and small, it seems to lend such a crisp-edged sparkle to the land in winter.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Of course, when your livelihood is grapes, this is not an acceptable fondness. There was no one to scold me for it, however, as Rienn and I hurried down the colonnade just as the bright eye of the sun was making the dawn sky blush with its studied gaze. I had taken great care in choosing warm woolens and in tucking my scarf ends into my sweater so they could not tangle in aught.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"There he is!" Rienn cried in as hushed a voice as an excited five-year-old could manage. Our steps hastened until we stood at the edge of the courtyard, awed to silence as we watched Father's new Cassiline bodyguard perform the steps of an intricate yet - obvious to even our young minds - deadly dance. Brave in our sojourn from the beds we were meant to be in, my brother and I stepped out as a piece, our little chins lifted with confidence.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"We want to learn," I said, my voice breaking across the rime-touched stones of the courtyard.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"Teach us, please!" Rienn followed, more entreaty to sweeten my haughtiness.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The Cassiline did not even pause the flow of his steps, continuing on in what seemed to us to be interminable quietude until the form he had been in was completed. I could not even hear hastened breaths from him, though he had been in deadly earnest moments ago. While our presence seemed not to surprise him in the slightest, his brown eyes widened when they alighted upon me - and the way I had bound my shoulder-length hair up in a club in imitation of his own black locks. But he shook his head and fixed his attention upon Rienn, beckoning him over. "Only boys may, youngling. You should get back to bed before you are caught out."<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Rienn looked at me, his grey eyes imploring. What could I do but nod? When I did, he darted from my side to stare up at the Cassiline in awe. I turned away.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>And promptly ducked behind a column, down along the courtyard wall, over to a decorative shrub some ten feet from where we had entered, and crawled beneath it. From my boxwood shelter, I pressed my tiny hands between my thighs to warm them as the Cassiline began showing Rienn how to move his body. Quickly, my brother shed his coat and scarf, the activity warming him to a sweat - while I refused to give into the impulse to shiver for fear it would shake my hiding place and reveal me. Though more frozen than I imagined possible when I escaped my warm blankets that morning, I watched. The clear, sparkling air of winter was my magnifying glass and yet the window pane I pressed my face to. Separate I may have been, but I am nothing if not ever observant.Winterbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07495858733611152675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876868364868566371.post-59593378808488959152012-11-13T15:59:00.001-06:002012-11-13T15:59:08.994-06:00Kingsfall<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5395057259068006994" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimY_rmj9okvw4nZ1DJ64_-nT_PKLEcf3rad3tjfTBmDOjQN79ADuZj-RmgWhrMAh7jvIG9zQDo9poz2iH7w2rgUe4AmaxQ07WOHcgTB-DzM_mYUlbY6DsxZxn-qWUKFirA60_b36Mg-VFc/s320/valdiis.jpg" style="float: left; height: 100px; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; width: 100px;" /> <i>A collaboration with the player and writer of Eredis Orill.</i><br />
Written while listening to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GusLypfx7OQ">Pompeii</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCp0iVojnoc">Arise</a> by E.S. Posthumus.<br />
<br />
((I just realized that my magnum opus, the longest piece I've written in a decade or more, isn't on this blog. Since it was co-written with Eredis, it's <a href="http://canalstbakery.blogspot.com/2012/01/kingsfall.html">on his blog</a> but I think it belongs on mine too. So here's the big one, and ironically posted on the fourth anniversary of the founding of the Knights of Menethil. We wrote this piece collaboratively over two years, e-mailing it back and forth. Coincidentally, this work formed the beginning of our relationship in person. And seriously, pop those music links open in sequence in another window or something and give them a listen; they really frame the pacing of this piece.))<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Golden dawn light limned the sails and
almost lent beauty to the war-torn, ice-battered boat docked at the
harbor at Valiance Keep. The dawn light struggled in vain against the
puffs of sooty steam from the ship’s main power source, the coal
fires banked while the ship sat at anchor. On the wooden docks,
activity bustled as quickly as if it were well after noon. Pairs of
deckhands carried large wooden crates between them from the ship’s
hold to the land end of the docks while a leather-skinned man with a
flat nose which took up half his face and wearing a grimy quilted
coat, screamed threats in a voice more suited to the penguins on the
ice floes than the visage of a grizzled old bosun.<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>The bosun hadn’t been up more than
three hours and he was already in high dudgeon – stuck on the docks
like a common longshoreman instead of up in the rigging where he
belonged. “If’n ya go droppin’ those crates in ta th’ water,
ya best be ready ta jump in afta ‘em, ‘cause those black-‘earted
deaders are worse th’n th’ frigid sea!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>A low, raspy voice came from over his
left shoulder and about two feet up, “My heart is more of a navy
shade, vhat parts of it are not yet vorm-eaten.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Leathery brown skin visible between a
gray woolen cap and an equally bland scarf went slightly
green-tinted. “Naga’s tits, ‘ow’d ya sneak up on me wit’
those ‘ooves?”
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Practice,” the draenei female in
heavy plate armor behind him said with a strained chuckle. A brisk
wind off the seawater ruffled her short, tarnished white hair but did
nothing so kind as to bring extra color to her stiff, ashen ebon-gray
face. The glint of dawn off her bladed pauldrons showed the
inordinate care she took for her armor. Not even the sea mist or the
coal smoke marred the battle-pocked surface. Slung across her back
rested a most curious large axe – the blade’s runed edges and the
crossed nails hammered into the pommel seeming to hold a
fresh-from-the-forge glow despite the winter’s chill.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Vhen zis is done vith, I am goink
somevhere tropical and green,” she muttered to herself, just loud
enough for the bosun to overhear. “Perhaps I can convince zat
damned dead elf to lose herself in Stranglezorn.” Frowning
suddenly, she reached underneath her right pauldron, plated fingers
scraping noisily between her breastplate and the shoulder armor as
she pulled a small, stiff, blackish-navy worm from the gap allowed by
shoulder articulation. “My blood vorms are all frozen over!” she
grumbled. The small frozen worm was dropped into a black leather
pouch strapped to her belt.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>The bosun turned greener still,
harrumphed, and tried his level best to ignore the looming deader at
his back and her gruesome parasites. “Watch it, ya addle-pated,
bow-legged bilge rats! Tha’s expensive damn cargo!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Shaking her head, Commander Valdiis
left the bosun to scream imprecations at the crew and followed a pair
of deckhands up to the land-side of the dock where Major Eredis Orill
and the ship’s captain were deep in negotiations. Valdiis presumed
it was about payment for shipping and unloading all these supplies
for the unit, so she cocked a plate-covered hip against a tall crate
and waited. The dockside smelled of stale fish, frigid sea, and coal
steam – the mélange sharpened by the winter’s bite that almost
made the air itself sparkle with frost. Floating almost innocently in
the steely-gray waters were the tips of much larger floes of ice,
interspersed with the occasional fin of something predatory and
suited to frozen waters.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>It wasn’t until
one of the deckhands came over to Valdiis and sheepishly motioned for
her to abandon the crate that she was leaning on that she stopped
sniffing the air and daydreaming about warmer climates, and started
paying attention to what the Major and the ship’s captain were
saying to one another.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"></span><br />
<a name='more'></a><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Two men oversaw the
unloading of the ship whilst the Commander instilled a rightful fear
into the hearts of the longshoremen and crew. One was in a dirty
amalgamation of rags, cloth, and furs – save the captain’s hat
atop his brow – and the other seemed subdued in clothing choice,
but not in spirit. One could easily tell from the blackened saronite
plating and the runed hammer at his belt that this man was one of
Mograine’s Own – one of the better terms that death knights were
called. Less telling and more confusing was the weighted, spiked, and
runed <i>mug</i> hanging from a saronite chain at his other side. It
was clear he was fairly high up in his organization with the
Lordaeron Oak Leaf that was the sigil of a Major in military service
pinned to his unit’s tabard.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Spoilage is low
this time,” he said. His voice was warmer than the draenei
terrorizing the bosun, as if well-used even throughout his tenure as
something other than just sentient. “You must’ve made good time.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Had to, to get
you damned deaders your ‘special equipment.’” The ship’s
master looked cold and surly, one probably leading to the other. “Had
to bu—” Eredis cut the man off with a look. The captain
stammered, then fell silent as he realized his bid for more payment
disappeared in the dead stare of the Major.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“That’s nice,” he replied.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“So... If that’s all, then m’boys
will be on ou—” The captain of the ship stopped again at another
stare.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Do you know who I am?” he asked.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>The ship’s master
shook his head.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Eredis Orill,” said the death
knight. “Quartermaster. And I have a case of Alterac brandy that
needs factoring in Stormwind. Two bottles and twenty golds should
take care of the stacks you nearly melted getting up here with haste,
hmm?”
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>For a long moment, the only thing one
could hear was the chill wind blowing off the Frozen Straits, causing
warm-blooded longshoremen to wave at Valdiis leaning against a crate
to move so they could finish offloading it. Of course the ship’s
master had heard of him. There were few in the transport industry who
hadn’t.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>The moment passed, and the captain
cleared his throat.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Done. Who do I drop it off to?”
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>A parchment changed hands with a bag
of coins. “All the details are there.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>The two men parted company, Eredis
waving Valdiis over as the crates were stacked on the dock. He turned
thereafter and waved at another group of plate-clad Knights to come
over and start loading the crates onto the wagons, each pulled by
Deathcharger.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Commander, let the Captain handle
the loading. We’re getting coffee.”<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Coffee,” Eredis started, “is
one of the greatest developments to come from Dalaran since sharp
cheese.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>They sat within the dockside inn, the
roaring fire enough to warm even the chill wafting off the Major
although both he and Valdiis sat half a floor above it at a small
table on the landing. The inn personnel seemed more used to death
knights than the average Stormwind citizen, which was a delight in
itself – they didn’t have to worry about rotten fruit and
poorly-worded epithets. The bloodstains from the Major’s inaugural
visit had long since been cleaned up, and the cultist who was the
cook in back had since been replaced.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>And the coffee was wonderful.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Two such mugs rested on the table with
a tea service between them. One remained black, though there was
evidence of sugar around the mug. The other mug was full of a rich,
light brown liquid with swirls of white to which Valdiis added
another spoonful of sugar.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Zis tastes horrible, Major.”
Valdiis made a stiff but clearly displeased face. “Zis tastes like
roots. Dirtied roots, at zat.”
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Eredis laughed. “Just drink it,
Commander. It’ll warm your core while the Captain bungles the
loading operation. Then think of the taste and how it makes you feel
while you yell at them all for screwing up.”
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>She harrumphed, taking a second sip
and nodding approvingly, “Not so bitter now. Vhy are ve here
offloadink instead of fightink?”
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Eredis rolled his shoulders in a
shrug. His mug was already half empty, and he was assessing the
battered pot that contained the rest with a calculating eye. “Because
it’s our duty, Commander. The General wants the gear there so we
can break straight in this time, instead of cracking open holes for
everyone else to scurry into.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Hmph,” she replied. “Stupid to
vaste good fighters on supply runs.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“It’s sti–…”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Eredis’s response
was cut off by the shrill cry of a young lad out of breath, running
for the inn door. “Major! Maaaaaajor! It’s haaaaappening!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Coffee forgotten, the Major was on his
feet and to the door as the fur-clad stable boy burst in, cheeks pink
from exertion.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“What is it, Jimmy?” he asked,
stopping him with an ungloved hand on the boy’s shoulder.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“It’s like you said, sir!” the
stable boy replied, heaving for breath. “They changed the time! The
two Colonels – I just got word from the Temple caravan! They left
this morning with mounts and a full combat squad from Scourgeholme!
The assault is today!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Valdiis and Eredis shared a look. No
words were exchanged, but there was a conversation lasting several
moments contained therein.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span><i>We should be there.</i><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span><i>You’re right, we should.</i><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span><i>But we are supposed to be here.</i><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span><i>We can ask for permission to
engage. Once we get there.</i><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“CAPTAIN!” Eredis bellowed as they both raced outside, “You’re in charge!
Get those supplies moving double-time! Pack them on gryphons if you
have to! The Commander and I are going ahead!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Inside, Jimmy took what had been
Valdiis’s seat at the table and beamed at a huge frosted cupcake
before him.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Two shrill whistles echoed in the
morning air, answering shrieks coming from the tundra. Within
moments, a green netherdrake and a snowy hippogryph were on the
ground, waiting for their riders.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Let us move quickly!” Valdiis
shouted as she threw a hoof over the hippogryph’s saddled back.
“Zere vill not be anyzink left by ze time ve get zere!”
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“I don’t think that will be a
problem,” came the somber, but entertained reply.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>The trip went fast, both parties
silent as they urged their mounts as fast as they could go. They flew
into the glare of the sun, unable to see if there were errant Scourge
waiting. The tundra below flew by, Taunka pointing up and grunting an
alarm as they darted over the hunting camps that the tribes had
retreated to. Few other living creatures moved, the entirety of
Northrend waiting, breathless, for the events in Icecrown Citadel to
play out.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“1113<sup>th</sup>, this is Major
Orill,” he started on the unit-wide communicator. “Colonels
Frostsprocket and Celuur have initiated engagement at Icecrown
Citadel. Commander Valdiis and I are moving to reinforce – all
available assets are to move to the Citadel immediately. Arthas dies
today. That is all.”
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Eager to get a situation report,
Eredis set his communicator to ‘General Chatter,’ patching into
the open Allied line. The whistling of the air and the beating of
drake and hippogryph wings turned into the panicked noise of a
massive assault on the Citadel itself. Everyone, literally <i>everyone,</i>
was massing on the tower.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Netherdrake and hippogryph crested the
unusually silent cliffs of Wintergrasp, and the source of the radio
chatter became as clear as the chill sky that surrounded the Citadel
itself. Black specks cycled through the air in a hypnotic dance of
carnage, gnomish recon fighters and goblin heavy bombers firing at
anything that moved. Both Knights could see <i>Skybreaker</i> and
<i>Orgrim’s Hammer </i>on opposite ends of the engagement area, the
early afternoon sun’s rays shining against the glow of heavy rounds
burning through the air, of rockets finding gargoyles, and of val’kyr
and frostwyrms harrying interceptors and airships alike.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>The flagships were aflame in places,
damage sustained from fighting the Scourge and fighting each other.
The <i>Hammer</i> meant little, but the <i>Skybreaker</i> would be
too valuable to lose. Eredis shouted into the communicator,
“<i>Skybreaker</i>, this is Major Orill with the ‘Thirteenth. Get
fire control on deck! The Knights of Menethil will keep your skies
clear!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span><i>Skybreaker</i> wasn’t long in
responding. “Negative! Keep the val’kyr off the tower! We have an
assault team near the Lich King now! … But if you can slow down the
frostwyrms long enough for us to take a shot, we’ll take it!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Understood, <i>Skybreaker</i>!”
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Keeping an ear on the chatter for a
moment, Eredis yelled, “Commander! We’re on air interdiction!
Whoever kills the most val’kyr wins dinner!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Vhat about ze vyrms?”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“I’ll bake a cake for every one
that dies!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Galvanized by the battle before them,
both mounts spurred forward, talons ready. A cloud of spectral,
winged figures around the Citadel’s spire caught their attention,
and Eredis waved to Valdiis.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Pull off as many val’kyr as you
can! I’ve got a dragon to slay!”
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Yes, sir!” she cried in response,
her weapon already readied in one hand as her hippogryph took the
lead. Eredis tucked into her left flank as the distance closed,
goblin flak rockets exploding alarmingly close as they sped through
the center of the combat zone.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Abruptly, Valdiis was without support
as the Major braked, then gained altitude as the cry of a frostwyrm
rang out in the air, followed by the huffing of its breath as it
tried to freeze the marines aboard the <i>Skybreaker</i>. Her backup
now otherwise occupied, she chose a val’kyr getting perilously
close to the platform where she could see tiny figures fighting
another she <i>knew</i> to be the Traitor Prince, Arthas Menethil.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Leaning forward to create less
resistance, she yelled a battle cry as her hippogryph crossed right
in front of the val’kyr intent on mischief. It sounded more like a
harpy than a death-maiden of the Scourge as it shouted an alarm, and
not one but <i>four</i> val’kyr broke off from their attempts at
harrying the strike force to give chase. A feral grin upon her
features, Valdiis nudged her mount higher, bleeding off airspeed
before she banked and dropped, turning both draenei and mount into a
ballistic projectile.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>A scream muffled by the thin air of
high altitude mingled with the snicker-snack of an axe-blade biting
home into a form more spectral than corporeal. It was no less
susceptible than any other form to a blade imbued with death magic
aimed directly for the core. As the axe found its mark, so too did
the edge of a glaive against the hippogryph’s left side. The low
and armored saddle stopped what Valdiis’s armored leg did not.
Flexing her plate-covered knees – the first set of them – against
the sides of her specially-bred Argent war hippogryph and ignoring
the spurt of blood from beneath the crumpled titansteel greave,
Valdiis guided the white-feathered Kamilorah out of the way as the
val’kyr’s motionless form plummeted out of the sky.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>A bubbling glow of
decay faded from the edges of her axe, though the ever-burning metal
still glowed hot. Wielding the giant two-handed blade in one hand as
easily as if it were a small hatchet, Valdiis whistled a note to her
hippogryph and together draenei and mount dove for another of the
spectral val’kyr fighters which had broken off from harrying the
forces battling on the Throne’s platform to give chase.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Zat is one!”
she shouted to the Major over the roar of air past her ebon-gray
face, the stiffness of death subsumed beneath the exhilaration of
battle. Spiraling back upwards after catching a val’kyr’s ire
with a well-placed coil of blackish-green death magic, she came quite
close to clipping the netherdrake Verdein’s right wing and laughed
it off. As long as the spectral death-maiden was chasing her instead
of carrying off the strike team below, everything was according to
design – even the near misses and blood trails.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Aboard <i>Skybreaker</i>, a draenei
and a dwarf lounged near a quiescent cannon while marines hurried
about, putting out fires and fending off frostwyrms, gargoyles, and
val’kyr. Their attention was focused on the tiny figures darting in
and out of the defense zone, drawing off Scourge forces as best they
could. The cannon was silent, but prepared for anti-aircraft fire.
For the most part, they were left alone – their job had begun with
transporting the strike team to the upper floors of the Citadel
itself, and now it ended in spotting the frostwyrms so the cannoneers
could get a clear shot.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Rosoe,” the dwarf abruptly
drawled.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Bergmann,” the draenei responded.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“I bet ye...fi’ silvers tha’ th’
lass gets three afore she gets de...thingied.”
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“What? Archimonde’s shriveled
balls! That is preposterous!”
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Why d’ye think tha’? I figger
m’ spirits know more th’n yer spirits.”
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“It is not about the spirits! She is
a trained draenei fighter! She will take down at least seven, and
still stay aloft! And I thought you fought with her!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“...An’ I’m sayin’ three. Fi’
silvers on et.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“...Five silvers.”
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Aye.”
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Alright. I will take pleasure in
you losing money.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“I dinnae see tha’ happenin’.”<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Eredis could see
Valdiis antagonizing a whole host of val’kyr as the body of one
dropped on three more. A chorus of cries filtered down to the cloud
that was starting to disperse from the Citadel’s spire. The Major
smiled, nudging Verdein across a frostwyrm’s line of sight for a
third time, throwing the bone dragon’s aim off.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>After three such passes, it took the
bait. With a howl that could only be described as draconic rage, the
frostwyrm gave chase after the comparatively small enemy. Its jaws
started snapping after the netherdrake, and the Major risked a look
back to see how close it was.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>It was at this moment that Eredis
realized that a frostwyrm’s breath <i>stinks</i>.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Dive!” he cried as he flattened
himself against Verdein, the netherdrake abruptly dropping into a
controlled spin and narrowly missing doom at the jaws of the Scourged
wyrm.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>High above the frozen ground, the thin
air seemed to amplify the distant sounds and muffle the closer ones.
The gentle, feathered whuffs of Kamilorah’s wing beats were drowned
out entirely by the sounds of the battle on the Throne far below.
Fireballs exploded with arcane power and blades blessed by the
righteousness of those fighting for life clanged. She could have
sworn she even heard an Alliance battle cry somewhere amidst the
incoherent shouts.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>A battle-lust of
such fervor and certainty as she had not felt since years before her
death overtook Valdiis. These val’kyr were just vrykul spirits
without the strength given by the Light to regain their freedom like
she had or the ability to hold a solid body together like she could.
They were nothing more than fleeting obstacles between her and
vengeance for all the pain she and her brothers – in arms and in
blood – had suffered. They could not even hope to reach her skill
with a blade. They had no chance of landing a bl-…<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>As she wove among the three val’kyr
surrounding her, her axe-blade singing last rites as it moved, the
few seconds of icy battle clarity Valdiis had shattered. So did the
bones of her right hand. The val’kyr pressed its spectral form
against the draenei as it tried to use the mace that had just crushed
her hand to catch the downward curve of her axe to disarm her and its
body to unseat her. Kamilorah cawed nervously as his wing became
entangled with the val’kyr’s legs and the three of them began
spiraling sharply down and to the right.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Runes glowed like reddened coals
against the molten orange of the blade’s edge as Valdiis drew on
their power, coaxing the nascent magic of spilled blood to mingle
with blood runes inscribed on the titansteel vambraces strapped over
her forearms. The runes on her vambraces seemed to pulse with a slow
heartbeat while the val’kyr and draenei struggled against one
another. Her right hand useless for holding the axe anyway, Valdiis
released her grip on her axe with it and snapped her forearm up
beneath the val’kyr’s chin, releasing the magic of the runes in a
strike that ordinarily would have gone for the heart, but instead
left a gaping hole beneath the val’kyr’s chin.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Abruptly, Kamilorah’s rightward
spiraling stopped, although they were still losing airspeed at an
alarming rate. The val’kyr’s shriek was more of a gurgle as it
fell back, translucent wings beating heavily as it tried to recover
for another maneuver. It seemed proper somehow that the battle far
below at the Throne was louder to her than the crunching grate of
bone shards as she forced her right hand to obey her commands anyway,
unwinding a length of chain from her waist as her left hand held her
axe in a defensive stance across her torso.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>The hippogryph stabilized and began
climbing, dodging the three val’kyr while his rider recovered.
Dripping ichor from the wound it had been given, the val’kyr shot
upwards and then folded its wings to drop down on Valdiis. Another
grate of bones being forced to do what they were no longer truly able
to and the length of chain snapped out, wrapping around the val’kyr’s
ribs and wings. A chill beyond even the frigidity of Icecrown’s
peaks flared briefly and the chain links locked in ice around the
val’kyr. Flightless, it tumbled away with a gurgling cry.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Two,” Valdiis gasped out as her
not-deadened-enough nerves set up an extra strong hue and cry over
her hand. There were moments when the regenerative powers Lord
Thorval had taught her to bring her body’s systems back to a muted
sense of ‘life’ really…<i>really</i>…sucked.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>In
the skies above Icecrown, two dragons fought. One was entirely dead,
fleshless and imbued with unholy power. One was alive and well,
though carrying an entirely dead but ambulatory human on its back -
also imbued with unholy power.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>It
had all the sinuous movement of a pair of cats fighting. Verdein
darted in with talons and teeth, Eredis with mug and hammer, and they
would chip a bone or break a femur before moving off for another
pass. The frostwyrm spat blue flames at them or tried to buffet them
with its bone wings, focused more on the larger problem of the
<i>Skybreaker</i>.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>During one of
those moments of diverted attention, Eredis and Verdein directed a
precision strike. Coming in low as if a shark in the skies above the
battlefield, Verdein flipped in a fast roll to snatch a talon off the
frostwyrm with his own, righting himself just in time for Eredis to
smash a second with his three-spined hammer. As the fragments rained
down on the field below, the air split with a furious screech of a
disarmed construct.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>In a flurry of white feathers and
darkened plate armor, Valdiis and Kamilorah rolled in midair to the
frustrated shriek of the val’kyr on the hippogryph’s streaming
tail. The soft strands of bluish-white hair that made up the tail
were smeared with red and navy blood, but his wings still beat strong
and his beak was sharp. That sharp beak whipped to the side in tandem
with a distracting feint from Valdiis’s axe. The val’kyr –
intent on the death knight’s weapon – missed the fact that a
trained battle mount is just as much of a weapon in a death knight’s
hands as a blade.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>The spectral-but-solid val’kyr cried
out some sort of curse about her master having the final word as the
hippogryph’s beak ripped through her side, but it was lost amidst
the howling winds buffeting the spires high above the Throne. Valdiis
tapped a knee against her mount’s right side and he canted left to
allow the val’kyr’s corpse fall free.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Zat is three!”
she shouted to the winds, tilting her head back to look up away from
the Throne and try to spot Eredis and Verdein. She only searched for
a second or two though, knowing that a fourth val’kyr was still in
the air. Where was…? Aha. There. With a low whistle that was barely
audible in the winds, but clear enough for Kamilorah to hear, she
directed her mount into another upwards climb. The val’kyr in the
air several dozen feet above her didn’t seem to have realized that
its quarry was below it now.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Valdiis hefted her axe in her left
hand and drew upon one of the runes of death inscribed on the blade,
gathering a coil of blackish-green magic to smash into the val’kyr
as she approached. Before she had enough power gathered, the
val’kyr’s wings folded and it dropped rapidly, spinning as it did
so with a wickedly-curved spear pointed towards the draenei. Caught
off-guard – how <i>did</i> the val’kyr know she was approaching?
– Valdiis could only squeeze her legs tightly against her mount’s
sides as he banked left to dodge the spear.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Too late, too little, too slow. The
spear tore through the bird’s wing with a splash of red blood and a
flurry of white feathers. Despite the thin air, his shrill, pained
caw was loud as he jerked the wing to his side, the spear embedded in
the meaty flesh of the upper bend of the limb. The val’kyr holding
onto the haft of the spear was jerked in by the movement and used the
added momentum to barrel into the hippogryph’s rider. Battle cry
mixed with surprised yell mixed with pained shriek as the three of
them tumbled over and over in the air high above the glacier.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Valdiis released the coil of death
magic into to the val’kyr’s face as she caught a glimpse of
another wickedly-curved blade. The val’kyr’s dagger scraped
against her saronite breastplate with a horrendous screech, but she
was protected. With a howl of rage, the death-maiden scrabbled
against Valdiis’s breastplate with one hand, plunging the dagger
against her armored body over and over with the other.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Her left leg shook from the effort of
clinging doggedly to the saddle, the crushed plate on her calf
seeming to press her leg away from the saddle even as her knee
pressed inwards. Another tumbling roll. They were falling fast. She
had to do something about this val’kyr quickly.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>And then the val’kyr did something
about itself. It braced its spectral legs against Kamilorah’s side,
wrapped its arms around Valdiis’s waist, and kicked backwards,
yanking them both free from the injured hippogryph. A Draenei curse
ended on a swiftly indrawn breath as the val’kyr’s dagger burned
a white-hot line up Valdiis’s ribs – the damned spectre found the
gap where her breastplate closed.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Valdiis chanced a glance downwards,
watching Kamilorah’s blood-spattered form spiral away below her as
the val’kyr kept stabbing frantically at the gap in her armor. Each
stab was tainted with the very Scourge magic Valdiis twisted to her
own ends, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t damned uncomfortable.
The blade jammed between two of her ribs. Her battle training told
her where to strike to break the grip on her waist, to knock the
val’kyr unconscious or dead with a blow – but some entirely
uncharacteristic instinct kept her hanging on to the val’kyr
instead of delivering the killing blow. It tried to break the
draenei’s grip on its torso, bobbing and dipping in the air,
screeching in frustration. This turn of events had left the val’kyr
and the death knight in an odd - if temporary - stalemate.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>He’d lost precious seconds
antagonizing the frostwyrm when he saw Valdiis dismounted by an irate
val’kyr. Verdein evidently saw it as well – somehow he’d taken
a liking to the draenei, Eredis thought – and both of them moved as
one. The netherdrake dove, pulling up sharply as Eredis left the
hammer aside and took his tankard by the saronite chain, swinging it
as the dead-weight it was about to make the death-maiden.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>What began as a faraway speck quickly
formed into an amalgamated blob of draenei and spectre wrestling with
one another, the weight of the death knight’s armor causing an
instinctual reaction to hang on instead of simply let go. Verdein saw
it, and the drake turned so Eredis had a clear shot as they sped from
below to above in the fraction of a second.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>There was a massive jolt above her and
the spectral grip on her waist was gone. Top-heavy from her
pauldrons, Valdiis pitched forward in the air and began falling head
first. Far below her, she could see the flashes and fires of the
forces battling on the Throne itself. A slithering hiss, a clank and
a rattle – and the chain around her neck caught on the curve of her
horns, the small, pearly orb encased in delicate mithril filigree
swinging free to fall between her face and the battle hundreds of
feet below.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span><i>The Light. Faith. Righteousness,</i>
she thought as the wind shrieked past her ears, the orb a symbol to
her of all these. Dagone helping her forge the mithril. Kensaij
teaching her to do the intricate filigree. Eredis nonchalantly
passing her the box in which he’d packed the orb. <i>Friendship...
</i>Images and memories flashed through her mind in seconds. Celuur
helping her lay her eldest brother’s ghost to rest. Kylea giving
her an awkward hug at the fire shrine in the Exodar. Bergmann
praising her command at Pyrewood. Watching from the shadows of the
Stormwind streets as her brothers, Diyos and Athos, leave their
bookshop, alive and safe and well.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>The wind whistling past became a
deafening scream and the battle – still far below – became a
flash of blue-white light so brilliant that she was forced to close
her eyes against the glare. Her leg ached, her side ached, her hand
ached. She was so tired…<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span><i>At least I got my three kills.</i><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>An ear-splitting screech of talons on
metal accompanied a second, massive jolt and the pain in her side
increased exponentially as her downward plummet arrested. Her eyes
snapped open only to see the world spin madly around her as she was
caught in – she twisted her head to look – a netherdrake’s
talons. A familiar netherdrake’s talons… Major Eredis Orill’s
boot was just visible around the mount’s side.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Not done yet, Commander!” he
yelled as Verdein took a better hold despite the draenei’s pained
scream. “I still want my dragon!”
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Rosoe.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“...Bergmann.”
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Tha’s fi’
silver.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“...I hate you.”<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>They became less like a drake and
rider and more like a ballistic dart. Verdein’s wings folded back
along his spine leaving Eredis between them and Valdiis below. Before
the unlikely trio, the frostwyrm the Major had been hunting was
making a strike on the <i>Skybreaker’s</i> port engine, breaking
off as the flash of shadow against sunlight clued it in that hostile
intent was fast approaching.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>As quick as the gunners on the
<i>Skybreaker</i> could blink, a saronite-and-emerald blur had
flashed past both airship and frostwyrm, a blast of unholy energy
getting the construct’s attention. With a hiss, it forgot about the
battery-bristled airship and gave pursuit.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Eredis let the tankard fall to his
side and swing from the chain while he took his other mainstays - the
three-spined hammer anchored to his belt with another length of
saronite chain, and the rope-tethered throwing-spear he’d had on
Verdein’s back ever since he stole it from the Hyldsmeet - and
managed an ungainly stand on the drake.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Commander!” he shouted, readying
the spear. “Get back to the <i>Skybreaker</i> and remount when you
can! Verdein, get her there!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>He could see the frostwyrm diving from
a higher elevation, and he readied the spear. <i>Wait for it...</i><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>The moment came. Eredis threw the
spear, the rope around his wrist as he saw it fly true.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Verdein! Break!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>The netherdrake juked hard right then
rolled left, bucking Eredis off as the frostwyrm dove towards the
ground. It was only a moment before the Major was jerked after the
wyrm, the rope snapping taut then becoming slack again as inertia
closed the gap. He scrabbled for his hammer as the frostwyrm leveled
and prepared to turn to attack the retreating netherdrake, readying
for a potentially deadly collision.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Rosoe!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“BERGMANN, WH—”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“No’ now! Get
on th’ cannon!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“For what? We are
not going to hit a frostwyrm!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>The dwarf pointed
at a dark speck near such a frostwyrm that was leveling out. Draenei
and dwarf both watched the speck collide, and the wyrm’s screech
echoed throughout the valley as it bent under the impact in midair,
then started bucking wildly.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Bergmann, you
are crazy!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“No! Tha’ man’s
crazy! ‘E’s goin’ tae give us a shot!”
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Fine! FINE! We
have six rockets!”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Fuse ‘em fer
contact! We’ll get one wee sho’ at et!”<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>The wyrm’s shrill cry wasn’t the
only one. The human on its back was crying out with it – less a cry
of pain than of irate annoyance, the saronite plating on his legs
buckled and bone jutting from one leg. The three-spined hammer was
embedded in the frostwyrm’s ribcage now – but so was the Major’s
foot. He had certainly gotten the construct’s attention.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Hovering almost even with the front
gate of the Citadel, the bony frostwyrm began bucking in midair,
trying to throw the plate-wearing monstrosity off its back. Each
undulation brought additional elevation, but could not dislodge the
death knight who was quite attached to his new steed. It heaved with
great bone wings, hissed, roared, and spit blue flames at the
battlefield below – yet it could still feel the spines of a heavy
saronite hammer lodged near what once were vital areas.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>It was the rocket burst that finally
drew the wyrm’s attention away from the ineffectual Knight on its
back. A rickety bomber of goblin design had broken away from the
sortie higher above, where val’kyr, fighters of both Horde and
Alliance, and gargoyles all scrambled together in one giant ball of
blood and ichor. Figuring on an easy kill, the little green pilot had
fired a barrage from his wing-mounted pods, but only one had gotten
close enough to make the dragon feel the explosion.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>As the frostwyrm changed modes from
hover to evade, the pattering of heavy-caliber rounds walked down the
tail and up the spine, moving perilously close to Eredis. He
inscribed a fast frost rune so the rounds chipped away at a thick
sheen of ice which covered his armor and flesh – though the burst
sheared through the rope holding him to his spear and he lost the
weapon in the smoke and movement.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>The next moments were a blur to
everyone on the field as a fast-moving goblin interceptor chased a
faster frostwyrm through clouds of gargoyles and val’kyr, too fast
for anything to take aim at. Bullets ripped through the air where the
wyrm had been moments before, sending a gnomish bomber down in
flames. The flying drew close and closer to the <i>Orgrim’s Hammer</i>,
flak cannon on board still tracking even as the flight crew worked to
put out the fires and repair the damage incurred during the short
fight with the <i>Skybreaker</i> at the Citadel’s spire.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Through the smoke and frosty air,
Eredis could see the trailing tip of his Hyldsmeet spear and the
rope, just a few feet from where he was stuck. The weapon had gotten
tangled around the frostwyrm’s neck and it didn’t notice,
occupied as it was by the pursuit of the goblin and the large airship
about to fi-...
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Explosions ripped through the air once
more as the cannons fired and shells burst around them. The wyrm
banked sharp left, away from the airship and into the grand melee
around them – and then rolled hard right to head straight for the
<i>Hammer</i> itself with the goblin fighter in close pursuit.
Shouting erupted from the <i>Hammer</i> as the flight crew saw the
frostwyrm hissing steam, creating a cloud thick enough that Eredis
couldn’t see.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>And if the Knight couldn’t see, the
goblin in the plane behind him certainly couldn’t either. The wyrm
flashed past the dual airbags of the Horde airship, just skirting the
deck as the fighter impacted against the deck itself. Eredis could
feel the heat of the exploding plane as its payload ignited, sending
orcs, trolls, and every Horde in between for the evacuation gigs.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>The wyrm shook itself a few times and
seemed satisfied with the result. Lazily, as if it felt it had
achieved total victory, it drew its attention back to the other
airship in its skies. Eredis realized in but a moment what had
happened: the wyrm had <i>forgotten</i>.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>He
looked around, gaining his bearings, and saw a flash of green behind
him. Neither Commander nor netherdrake had listened to his order - he
did make the order, didn’t he? - and were gaining ground. The
chatter from his comm told him that the <i>Skybreaker</i>
had its hands full and could do little, if anything, about the
frostwyrm coming up on its aft.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span><i>Well
then</i>, he thought, <i>it
will just have to be up to us.</i><br />
<i> </i><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>He
leaned forward just far enough that he could grab the spear as the
shattered bone in his leg ground against the saronite boot he wore.
The anchor rope attached to it was still too far out of reach! The
Knight gritted his teeth and continued to strain and pull as the rope
grated across the wyrm’s neck - and at this, it took notice and
began to buck again as it got closer to the <i>Skybreaker</i>.
Eredis could tell it meant to hit it from below, nice and fast, to
try to detonate the large bomb in the bay.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span><i>Nothing
for it</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, he decided. <i>They
can put back together what’s left.</i>
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>With a battle cry,
he threw himself forward and felt the tendons and ligaments that kept
his knee attached to the rest of the leg separate. His hand extended
out as far as he could reach, his fingers could just touch the frayed
end of the rope where the goblin had shot through it.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>The
<i>Skybreaker</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> grew
closer. The wyrm flew faster. The Knight reached just a little
<i>farther</i>...
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>And
pulled back as hard as he could. As if by instinct, the frostwyrm
flung its wings out to catch a draft and flew <i>up</i>
instead of forward, right past the propellers that kept the
<i>Skybreaker</i> aloft.
Right past the cannons that had been pouring fire into Scourge air
units and ground units alike. All forward momentum had stopped as it
graced the top of the flight deck, illuminated in the afternoon sun.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“TITAN’S
TESTICLES! FIRE!” </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> <span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>The chill of the afternoon air gave
way to an incredible heat and pressure as his world detonated. The
force of the blast blew him off the frostwyrm as it exploded, the
rope and saronite chain attaching him to his anchors incinerated in
the blast. White-hot pain faded back to the dull, chill ache of dying
flesh and icy air. Surrounded by scraps of bone, many battering his
armor before he fell free, he was to herald the arrival of a white
rain of decay onto the ground of the glacier below. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>It took Eredis a moment to reorient
himself, as high up as he was. He could tell he was falling but not
<i>how</i>, until he shifted and could see a flash at the top of the
Throne tower as he sped by it. The jolt that accompanied it caused
his heart to beat once, and magnify all of his pains a hundredfold. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Arthas had fallen. The strike team had
succeeded.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>As quickly as it came, the feelings
faded. A satisfied smile on his face, Eredis twisted in the wind to
face the ground as it rushed towards him. His feet above him and
facing directly down, he closed his eyes.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span><i>Hell of a ride.</i>
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>The falling Knight heard a whistle and
a silvery flash of feathers flying straight up met a plate-clad stone
falling down. Eredis felt ribs separate as four cries split the air -
two animal, two other - and opened his eyes. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Kamilorah, Valdiis’s hippogryph, had
caught him. One wing looked to be in terrible shape and they were
merely gliding towards the <i>Skybreaker</i> flight deck with no
control of speed. The creature seemed dazed, feathers and fur matted
with blood. Above him, Eredis could see glistening bone in Verdein’s
right flank, shrapnel from an exploding frostwyrm changing the way
the netherdrake was flapping his wings.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>That is to say, flapping them not at
all.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Clear th’
deck! Two comin’ in hot!”
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>The shout startled
marines and support crew aboard the <i>Skybreaker</i> to scatter, two
wavering specks in the sky solidifying into a netherdrake carrying
one Knight in his talons, and a hippogryph with a second Knight
barely mounted. Neither looked like they were particularly rated for
flight at the moment, but the trajectory both had chosen was one that
didn’t exactly require a lot of skill. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>One of the specks
dipped erratically, gaining speed as the <i>Skybreaker’s</i> crew
cleared as much space as they could allow. It wasn’t enough for the
netherdrake to land, but he didn’t seem to mind it as he released
his undead cargo unceremoniously onto the deck and banked off in a
right-ward, one-winged glide for greener pastures – or snowier
glaciers. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>The hippogryph had
no such fortune. A vicious crosswind whipped up, shearing the bird
off his intended landing pattern and he skidded across the deck,
finally throwing his passenger off as his front talons scrabbled to
find purchase on the polished planks. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>The plate-clad
passenger clattered against the decks before finally coming to rest
contorted most painfully against a pile of crates that marines had
been more recently using for cover against both frostwyrm and val’kyr
during the assault on the Citadel proper. From the state of his
equipment, onlookers could easily see he knew all about both aerial
foes, and they had seen both him and the draenei the netherdrake
dropped off attempting to deny Arthas his sky-borne assets to deploy
against the strike team on the Citadel’s Throne. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>The ringing in his
ears subsided, and his vision swam until it focused on two plated
boots standing in front of him and – farther off – another pile
of saronite and titansteel armor that had to have been Valdiis. She
didn’t look much better than he did.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Is our air
secure?” Eredis asked. His voice sounded like he’d swallowed a
pound of gravel. Looking up, he saw the plated boots were indeed
attached to legs which were attached to a shining crimson beard. Of
course it would be the dwarf. The dwarf was everywhere. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Oh aye, Major,”
the dwarf replied. “Brilliant bit wi’ th’ frostwyrm. Rosoe go’
a nice piece of et.” </span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Eredis coughed,
trying to look around. It still sounded like his ears were ringing a
bit.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“I’ll have to
bake her a cake. What’s the status of the rest of the battle,
Sergeant Bergmann?” </span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> <span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>He could swear he
saw the dwarf smile somewhere in the recesses of that beard. “Kinnae
ye ‘ear, Major? Arthas ‘as fallen, an’ et was by th’ grace o’
th’ Light an' th' spirits the’selves tha’ they ‘eard me clear
th’ deck for ye.” </span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Amidst the cheers
of the crew he could now hear, there was another distinctly draenei
voice, “<i>Major Grumpypants said he would bake a cake? Ask him
</i>when<i>!”</i>
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>The dwarf said
something back which Eredis didn’t catch, then looked down at him
again. “Ye be in a bad way, Major. Ye kinnae keep doin’ this,
else ye’ll no’ live t’ see th’ sun rise!” </span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"> <span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>Despite the pain,
Eredis started laughing, a low roar that started to rise above the
cheers on the deck. “Hear that, Valdiis? We might not live to see
sunrise!” </span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>He heard an
answering hysterical cackle from the other pile of saronite on the
deck being tended to by corpsmen. Eredis closed his eyes, satisfied.
<span style="color: #7e77aa;"> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . . </span>“Tell your gunner
tomorrow, Sergeant. We’ll celebrate tomorrow.”
</span></span>Winterbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07495858733611152675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876868364868566371.post-7279864746234823662012-08-27T12:15:00.000-05:002012-08-28T16:32:21.031-05:00Safe Passage<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTL81EBDm9JnwZFhQk2NrphizX0kQiBTwk4Bu_cD7yrzgfJxQ9dLEqI-CP1IHwGLO1WofOZcfekTKWWCKTWGrXjv578BQjhVAJjHanHTzpKaaOGjXLnoeNTN0uHq0OyY9NDwZuCuOfTq-B/s1600/Avvy150sq.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTL81EBDm9JnwZFhQk2NrphizX0kQiBTwk4Bu_cD7yrzgfJxQ9dLEqI-CP1IHwGLO1WofOZcfekTKWWCKTWGrXjv578BQjhVAJjHanHTzpKaaOGjXLnoeNTN0uHq0OyY9NDwZuCuOfTq-B/s1600/Avvy150sq.jpg" /></a></div>
Written while listening to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1NBpVKWh_c">Female of the Species</a> by Space.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>It seemed like only seconds had gone
by before a loud banging on the door rousted Zurine Haizea from her
nap. Startled awake, she leapt out of the swaying hammock set up in
the corner of her temporary quarters, her lithe frame moving from
prone to upright in an instant. By dint of willpower alone, she did
not flail as she gained her balance on the gently rolling wooden
floor; it would not do to flail about, even when no one could see
her. A lady did not flail.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The banging on the heavy wooden door
separating her quarters from everything else began again. “One
moment, please,” she called out, taking care that her voice carried
the appropriate unhurried, low pitch of a woman unconcerned with
urgency. She raked her fingers through her hair, giving it an artful
tousle around her face before she strode across the room and lifted
the latch free. A short man in salt-stained linen stood before her,
his fist still upraised as if to further abuse the already-beaten
planking.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The expression on his face said it
all, really. He had not been among those to see her get on the ship.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Zurine's smile was dazzling, white
teeth framed by titian lips set into swarthy skin which was
never-the-less as smooth as whipped caramel for all its sun-darkened
color. Her sable hair formed gentle waves on either side of a face
too strongly-featured to be called aught but handsome. All together,
she knew what effect the features she had been graced with had on
many men, and she was quite satisfied to use this set of tools as she
would any other – ruthlessly. After a moment of the sailor's
dumbstruck silence, she let her pleasure at startling the man subsume
itself into a warm inner glow she kept to herself and a pleasantly
expectant expression, the strong brows set above her citrine eyes
coming together faintly. She almost regretted using the full measure
of her looks against a man who likely did not see enough of women as
it was. Almost. As the moment drew too long, impatience set in and
she let subdued, melodious tones convey her displeasure at being
woken from her nap: “What is it, mariner?”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>That seemed to finally bring the man
to some semblance of sense. His raised fist became a pitch-sticky
hand to run through his sun-bleached hair – which only served to
pull several strands of it out and spike the rest unattractively –
and cleared his throat. “Beggin' y'r pardon, m'lady. Th' cap'n sent
me...” He trailed off, his gaze dropping to her chest where a pale
gold cambric blouse demurely covered all but a hint of cleavage. Not
that his gaze had far to fall – he was nearly as short as she at
five-foot-two. She cleared her throat delicately and his murky blue
eyes snapped back up to her face. “Ah. That is... 'E wanted a word,
'e did. Sent me t' fetch y'r ladyship.”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“I will require a moment.” With
that, she firmly shut the door in the sailor's face and turned back
to her room. She needed something which carried just the right
balance of femininity and expense while not looking precisely
fragile... There. That was perfect. From the wooden armoire bolted to
the wall of her temporary quarters, she removed a long black jacket,
the dark gabardine wool embroidered with intricate gold thread at the
cuffs and down the lapels. Two gold hoops from the locked box on her
desk – similarly bolted to the wall – went into the tiny scarred
openings on her earlobes, placed by tradition on her seventy-seventh
day of life. A glimpse in the wavy silvered glass attached to the
front of the armoire door showed her the effect she'd made, and she
was satisfied.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The sailor had moved to the wall
across from her door, propping up the polished planking of the
hallway with his paltry shoulders. He had to be the lookout, to get
so much sun like that and yet remain so scrawny. As she closed the
door behind her gently, he snapped to attention and tugged on the
bottom of his linen shirt.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“My moment,” Zurine said quietly,
“is not quite up.” Aware of the curious eyes on her wool-covered
back as she moved, she rapped her knuckles lightly against the door
set some several feet down the hallway from her own. As if he'd been
waiting for her – and knowing his hearing, he probably had – her
companion opened his door before the echo of her last knock had even
faded. No words were exchanged as he simply ducked his head a bit to
clear the door lintel and stepped out of his temporary quarters,
closing his door behind him as gently as Zurine had. With a gracious
wave of her hand, Zurine indicated that the sailor should lead the
way as Zigor Itzal fell in behind her, his capacious shoulders nearly
brushing either side of the hallway and his dusky hairless head bowed
slightly to keep from doing the same to the ceiling of the hallway.
His presence was a familiar comfort, and the lightest of touches
between her shoulder-blades – just below the fall of her hair –
was all the communication necessary as they both followed the sailor
to answer the captain's summons.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“As I'm sure you can see from the
map, milady, our charted course has become more dangerous than
originally plotted when you boarded and paid for passage. With the
risks to my men, I'll be up front with you – I'm going to need more
coin for this voyage.” The captain of the <i>Lyssa's Tryst</i> braced his weather-beaten hands on either side of the navigation map
spread out on his desk and took a deep breath before trying to look
the lady in the eye again. There was something deeply unsettling
about her golden gaze, like she didn't blink quite often enough
perhaps; he couldn't quite explain why it was so hard to meet her
eyes. Years of similar post-boarding scams had taught him, though,
that to own this fight, you had to look your mark in the eye with
flinty resolve. The frozen citrine of her eyes knapped his flint,
shoving his gaze away as easily as if the giant behind her had
physically directed his ocular challenge elsewhere.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“It's the storms, milady. I'm sure you can understand...” Captain Garmon was proud of himself for keeping the tremor out of his voice even as his cheeks flushed in shame at being unable to hold her gaze.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>With her slight frame, the rough-hewn chair across his desk dwarfed her,
yet somehow seemed a primitive throne under the force of her
presence. “What I understand, Captain,” she remarked quietly, “is
that you are attempting to take advantage of me. Do you know why
Mister Itzal travels with me, Captain Garmon?” Lazily, she lifted
one hand and flicked her wrist so that two fingers caught his
attention and bounced it up to the mountain standing behind her
chair. Even though his neck was bent to avoid hitting his bald head
on the planked ceiling above him, the colossus did not need to be
able to stand tall to look intimidating; a narrowed look from eyes
too ice-pale to be real was enough. Captain Garmon gulped as the
petite woman settled her hand back on the chair's armrest and
continued, “A lady alone is all too easy to victimize, her virtue
and coin her only bargaining chips. With Mister Itzal at my side, I
have rather improved my negotiating position. Don't you think?” The
smile which graced her carmine lips held mirth, but there was nothing
warm about it.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“The
storms could drive us onto the ruins before we reach safe harbor,
milady,” the Captain tried again, not looking at either of his
passengers as he leaned over the map and pointed at the warning
sketch of crumbling pillars just outside the Sanctum Harbor. “My
men are taking a great risk to sail when such weather threatens.” A
whisper of breeze was all the alert he got before the realization
struck that he could not take his hand away from the map of Lion's
Arch now. Quivering in the wood of his desk and piercing the stiff
cuff of his broadcloth shirt was a finely-made dagger. From the way
the light of the lanterns in his quarters gleamed off the blade, it
was sharpened on each side and well-oiled.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Then
I would hope,” murmured the swarthy woman as she reclined in her
chair, “that your helmsman is highly-skilled, yes? Don't jerk your
hand about like that; you might accidentally get a bit of devourer
venom on your skin. Now, we will be getting to Lion's Arch precisely
in the condition – physically and monetarily – as agreed upon
when we boarded, won't we?”<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Captain
Garmon froze – and not voluntarily – as the devourer venom which
had brushed the inside of his wrist wormed its way into his
bloodstream and took over his nervous system. A series of loud cracks
had him looking up before his eyes froze too, gaze locked in terror
at the leather-wrapped hands of the giant as he placed an open hand
over a fist and cracked his knuckles, then switched hands and
repeated the gesture.Winterbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07495858733611152675noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876868364868566371.post-78442657528258957752012-07-19T13:11:00.000-05:002012-07-19T13:11:12.099-05:00BustedThis series of short stories has been written in response to in-game occurrences. A new mercenary company with hot-shot spies has cropped up to threaten Division Eighty-Four as the sole intelligence arm of the Knights of Menethil.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"Do you know how <i>loud</i> a heartbeat is in a place that never has one?"<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Grinning impudently, the petite woman in scuffed grey leathers dropped down off the stone ledge running about nine feet above the floor of the hallway in Acherus. Both her hands were clasped in front of her as she rocked back on her heels and bent at the waist like a schoolgirl with a secret. "Fiiiiine. I know I ent sneakin' up on you f'r nothin' anyway, boss." As inconspicuously as possible, she melted back into an alcove.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The death knight whose walk she interrupted paused to press a shoulder to the wall as he adjusted the fit of his pauldron. "There's a reason I have you use the crows."<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"Aye, aye. But I didn't wanna be tellin' Norm this 'un an' he'd have t' write it up an' everything."<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"Out with it."<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"One o' y'r wolves came sniffin' about me earlier today. Saw me send that crow-gram this afternoon."<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"Did he now?" A gauntleted hand came up as the death knight inspected his armor for - and brushed free - a bit of dark explosive powder.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"Knew my name, boss. My description. Now how'd a man o' th' grave be findin' that? You ent sellin' me out, are you, boss?" Instead of sounding threatening, she sounded scared. Small, fragile, and scared.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The gauntlet produced a cupcake through some mystical feat of prestidigitation, and just as miraculously, a small hand covered in a fingerless grey leather glove made the cupcake disappear once more. "I assure you, if you cross me to that point, you will be aware of it." The chill in the response brought an audible gulp from the shadows which had nothing to do with the consumption of baked goods. "Have you considered that you gave your name and a description was taken when you signed on at SI:7, and that SI:7 was raided some months back? By now, those files are on the open circuit." Another fearful gulp. Unfazed, the death knight checked the hang of the spines writhing on his belt. "As a strictly undercover operative, your cover is getting thin."<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"I c'n change th' look up!" came a swift protest.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"That is not the issue. I know you are more than capable of that." There was a pause as one of the hapless mooks stuck on foot patrol marched by, his expression speaking of tedium unshaken by the Brigadier standing in the hallway while he adjusted one of the straps on his chestplate. "Who was it that approached you?"<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Between bites of cupcake, she answered, "Looked li' -mmmf- you a bit, 'e did. Wot with th' -nomm- spines on 'is belt. Ebon -mmfle- tabard, hood up. Right 'bout six tall. -mmwah- Tips of 'is fingers were pale, an' he said 'is spines came from Northrend. Seemed t' imply he an' I shared a home, if you catch my meanin', but he ended up tellin' th' gal - roundaboutly, mind - that 'e was concerned with th' Knights 'Ebon or Menethil' which makes me think 'e's yours. A right wolf though - said it 'imself a few times. In th' business with a brother. I ent knowin' you had brother pairs."<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"What 'gal'?"<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>She took a breath of still, fetid, chilly air and continued, "He was approached by a gal with a hood, gave a name of 'Esleca Desarc' an' claimed 'Crusade' an' 'Verdict.' She wanted unfettered access to Acherus from him in turn f'r givin' up info on some 'fel friend.' Mentioned problems with someone wot you lot ran into in th' Enclave. Had a fancy paper she said was from th' Highlord wot she gave 'im." There was another breath in the shadows.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"Th' dead fella said he'd have an associate send a letter." Her tone was almost despondent, not a far cry from the earlier fear in her voice.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"Send up a crow when it arrives."<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>There was a sigh. "Can I 'ave another cuppy-cake?"<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>As if by magic, a second one appeared. "Consider this report paid for."<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"Of course, boss!"<br />
<br />
-----<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Twilight painted the newly-reinforced walls of Light's Hope in pomegranate and wine, the red haze from the plagued lands to the west deepening the strained sunlight as it slouched on the horizon. Bone-tired and rattled, Ilva finally crawled into the small traveling tent nestled at the base of the southern wall.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"Oy, budge over. I need room too, y'know," she groused at her companion, already in the tent. She crawled on hands and knees into the peak-roofed tent, her slim shoulders brushing one of the heavily slanted fabric sides as she tried to find space on the wool-packed sleeping mat she shared with Norm. For his part, he lay on his stomach, ignoring her in favor of some complex wiring diagram. She took care to put an elbow just above his kidneys as she flipped over onto her behind; he grunted and scooted over two inches.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"What'cha readin'?" Wiggling and twisting, she began unwinding the mottled gray cloth and leather she used for shadow-work.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"High-yield, shaped seaforium charge," Norm muttered absently.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"Ooo, talk dirty to me, Badge," she joked, flopping onto her back and lifting her hips so she could peel her tight leather pants off. Something in her left pocket made a crunchy sound. There shouldn't be anything to make a sound like that... She stilled, a frown pulling her brows together as she worked a hand into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled note. "Wot...?" Propping herself on one elbow, she stared blankly at the squiggly lines. There were less of them than in the report she'd sent up by crowgram earlier in the day, and she knew she'd sent that paper up. What, then, was this? She smoothed it out on her thigh, then thrust the paper under Norm's nose, between his eyes and the wiring diagram. "Nooorm! Wot's this say?"<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>With a gusty sigh which spoke tomes upon tomes about annoyance, Norm pulled the note out of her hand and held it farther from his eyes so he could read it. "'Don't take it personally, but I didn't have time to chat.' Chat? 'Meet me for a drink sometime, and I'll explain the particulars that my "knightly" brother hinted at.' A drink?! Signed, 'The Black Wolf.' Wot the-...?" A feral growl resonated from Norm's throat and Ilva stilled on instinct. "You been sniffin' around other men, Ginny?" Her back hit the wool sleeping pad as self-preservation took over and she exposed her belly and throat in submission. A heavy thigh slid over her legs, pinning her down, and a sword-calloused hand spanned her neck. Norm's breath was hot with rage as he bent his head and snarled in her ear, "You smell like cupcakes an' death, li'l Rabbit..."<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Swallowing hard pushed her throat against his hand, but she couldn't help gulping for air before trying to explain. "It weren't like that, Norm. Honest! There was this stiff - one o' bossman's men - asked a moment o' time. I just put my back to a tree an' heard 'im out." Twelve years of strict training over her body's responses was the only thing which kept her from stiffening in alarm as she realized that someone must have slipped that note into her pocket after she sent the crowgram. She'd not been bumped, felt a brush, or even a breeze. The tree didn't even rustle. <i>No one</i> was that light-fingered! "The stiff must've magicked it into my pocket, Norm. I swear I didn't do nuthin'. I ent into bangin' coffins. I swear it."<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The hand on her throat didn't move. "You been a doxie before."<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"I ent been one f'r years an' you <i>know</i> it, Norm." She whined pathetically as he set his teeth on her ear and tightened his hand just shy of enough to make her dizzy. "I wouldn't be givin' you lover's notes t' read me," she reasoned, "I ent <i>stupid</i>."<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>There was more of the wolf in Norm's voice than the man as he growled in her ear, "You gonna meet this man for a drink?"<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"Ent particularly keen on it, no."<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"You said this stiff's one o' th' Baker's?"<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>She tried to nod, but stopped when her chin bumped his hand.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"I got a plan..." Norm mused.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Ilva breathed a deep sigh of relief as the angry wolfish man released her and went back to his wiring diagram.Winterbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07495858733611152675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876868364868566371.post-13444848931709388532012-06-22T22:20:00.000-05:002012-06-22T22:20:00.541-05:00The Stables((Saving a piece from forum creep. The prompt was to write about our mounts.))<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>As the cursed thing he was, the mysterious adjunct weaponsmith for the Light's Blade remained so far removed from his own people that he did not even know they had stables - and even if he had known, he had long since sworn off most visits to the Aldor tier after High Priestess Ishanah had declared him unworthy of even a simple traveler's blessing. Hadeon did not want what stained his soul to touch those exiles who remained in the Light, so he kept to himself until the loneliness and solitude grew so overbearing that he terrified himself by seeking a few hours among the Light's Blade. Given the images which regularly assailed his mind whenever he was in the shining city, he tended to avoid Shattrath altogether most of the time. No, his mount - like his rider - lived alone and isolated.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Zangarmarsh lacked the memories and images many other places on Draenor held for Hadeon, and so it was a smallish cave in the southern mountains of Zangarmarsh where he and Thubaab kept some semblance of residence when he was not in Stormwind or Ironforge, picking the brains of the dwarves for alloy research. Hadeon was a latecomer to metalworking, but the lack of a need for sleep and the need to bide his time until he could fulfill what he remained in this tainted shell to do meant he had gotten quite good at it over a short span of years. What had been a hobby in life was an all-consuming mission now. Scattered around the cave were linen and wool sacks of different ores and powdered minerals. A stack of books - some bound up in leather, some in linen, and some truly more hastily-bound paper than anything else - sat next to an extinguished lantern on the cave's dirt floor. A broken shard of mirror rested as a paperweight atop an intricate chart of the material properties of the various phases of elementium and obsidium at temperatures above ambient.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>In the farthest corner of the cave, dried rushes from the marsh had been scattered to make a comfortable place for the immense greenish-brown elekk to rest. A stand wrought of artless scrap adamantite held a feed sack high enough for the elekk to eat comfortably. Several thick blankets (which smelled of an elekk) were neatly folded near a large shovel (which smelled like the other end of an elekk). Thubaab was clean, his food fresh, and he was free to wander out of the cave and into the marsh as much as he liked - which wasn't terribly often, since he never could get himself proper purchase on the swampy land which started about a quarter-mile from the cave.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>At this very moment, Hadeon has planted a backside covered in thick, protective metalworker's leathers on the cave floor next to his settled elekk. He leans back to rest against the beast's broad ribs. The adamantite fused to the back of his left shoulder is chilly - as always - but Thubaab has long since learned to tolerate it as the price to be paid for pats and hand-fed glowcaps. Thubaab is exceptionally fond of the glowcaps. "Looks like a lot more'n I thought made it," Hadeon muses aloud in the sort of Common one expects to hear from lowly soldiers. "I think the shock of it made 'em looney, though." Thubaab snorts a response which could mean anything from <i>'By Velen, you must be right, old chap'</i> to <i>'Shut up and give me another glowcap.'</i> It's probably the latter. Hadeon rolls his eyes skyward for a moment and mutters, "It's already been 'stablished that I'm crazy, so don't even start that conversation again." Thubaab gets another glowcap. It is late afternoon and, except for the dead man talking to himself in the cave and the occasional excited wuffle of the elekk seeking treats, quiet. Rather typical, really, for any given snapshot in the life of this exile among exiles.<br />
<br />
((In my forum RP post about our mounts, I wrote about some of the metallurgy journals Hadeon keeps. Inspired by Vitaska and powered by a whole lot of tracing, cool fonts, and awesome brushes from DeviantArt, I decided to try my hand at reproducing one page of his journal. Huge props to anyone who knows where I found that diagram from (hint: my materials science class inspired it), and even more bonus points if you know why the point Hadeon circled is important.))
<a href="http://i42.tinypic.com/ety2rd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="871" src="http://i42.tinypic.com/ety2rd.jpg" width="1200" /></a>Winterbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07495858733611152675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876868364868566371.post-15442636543612976542012-06-22T21:38:00.000-05:002012-06-22T21:38:00.631-05:00A Strange Voice in Shattrath((Archiving a written IC reaction to an in-game RP to save it from forum creep.))<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Driven to the extremity of loneliness, the decayed, angry adjunct smith for the Light's Blade left his elekk Thubaab with a bucket of glowcaps to keep him happy and braved a forty-minute walk to Shattrath City. He hated it there - all those memories and ghosts haunting the place - but he <i>needed</i> the company in ways he had not comprehended when he was living. Never again would he be the gregarious, social creature of his last twenty-seven thousand years... Yet he found his grip on himself faltered if he spent more than a few months in isolation.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>A rock jamming into the crevice of a permanently-cracked left hoof forced him to stop just shy of the northern bridge into the city. He cursed as he bent to dig it out, and that's when he heard the whisper: <i>"Death is so vivid in my mind now that I fear it has drowned out the memory of anything else. When will we be free? Is anyone coming?"</i><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Hadeon glanced skyward and - well out of earshot of the bridge guards - muttered a response in flawless Orcish which was both vocal and a mental sending, "Retz? Quit messing with me. I thought we agreed you would shut up." There was no reply.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The stone cleared from his hoof, he set out across the bridge, stopping halfway to peer down at the Lower City below. A ghost bloodied in vivid, glistening navy was milling in the throng of living traders and refugees, and made his stomach - or what was left of the icy, decayed mass where it would have been - roil. "Damned cesspool city," he muttered in Draenei, ducking away from the edge of the bridge before the ghost could look up and notice him. Once across the bridge, he headed around to the nearest entrance to the Terrace of Light. The walking dead man had stood before A'dal twice; it was agony, sheer skin-flaying agony. Standing in the entryway with part of the wall to shield him, he grit what remained of his rotting teeth together against a burn like lying face-down on the coals of a forge and tried to remember what it felt like to bask in the Light.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Then it came again, several voices whispering at once: <i>"To find the stalker, you must ask the earth she walks upon. Beg the wind she is carried by. Bargain with the water she bathes in. And beseech the fire of her heart. The answers shall come in the land of the ancestors..."</i><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Hadeon looked skyward again and backed away from the entry to the Terrace, his large, gnarled hands coming up to press the linen wrappings around his biceps into his cracked skin. <i>Wasn't me, goat.</i> Angrily, he hissed and backed away farther, heading towards the Scryers' Tier as he thought fiercely in Draenei towards the unknown source, <i>Nether-blasted ghosts! Get back to the Lower City cesspool where you belong!</i><br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>And then the tenuous mental connection he held to the Light's Blade erupted into activity, assailing him with more voices - all of which had heard the same speech about this stalker. It almost felt like the days of sharing cramped spaces on the vessel with his vindicator detail. Before he could stop it, a sob tore from his parched throat. The noise itself was enough for him to clamp down on his control, strap some mental steel to his backbone, reassert the chill of death on the soul trapped inside. Still, the terrible maw of solitude gaped behind him, ready to shred his control again. Tentatively from behind the thick mental wall he kept between himself and his comrades, he reached out for the first time in...ever: <i>"Would you like aid?" </i>Winterbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07495858733611152675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876868364868566371.post-84835341062457263952012-06-22T20:41:00.000-05:002012-06-22T20:41:00.179-05:00Speculation on Draenei FashionTo save a few bits of work from forum creep, here's some of my speculation on draenei fashion.<br />
<br />
Re: Attire<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>I've often envisioned the casual attire of the draenei to be a version of the salwar kameez ( <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salwar_kameez">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salwar_kameez</a> ) modified with pants that either wrap instead of pull on or which are loose enough overall to accommodate hooves. In general, I figure the ladies are often in dresses (many female NPCs are, but this could just as easily be a Western gender norm thing) and that most pants are either wrap pants or lace up the sides somehow.<br />
<br />
Re: Ornamentation<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Gypsies were often covered in gold and jewels because that was all they had. As nomads, they had to carry all their possessions, and so they carried their wealth on their wrists and ears. Argus may have been paved in precious stone, but everywhere else, it's relatively useful and portable currency.<br />
---<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Evidence for why I think Draenei society could reasonably be theorycrafted as highly ornamented and elaborate - drawn from archaeology.<br />
<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=64440">Anklet with Golden Bells</a> Purple metal (khorium?), yellow beads made of blown glass which is usually more ornamental than drop glass, and gold bells.<br />
<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=64442">Carved Harp of Exotic Wood</a> Exotic woods as opposed to common ones indicate a tendency towards ornamentation again, and now we know music included harps and bells.<br />
<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=64455">Dignified Portrait</a> Oil portraiture shows some skilled - if cheeky - painters.<br />
<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=64454">Fine Crystal Candelabra</a> Dripping with crystals, chains, and ornate scrollwork, this is clearly an item more decorative than functional even though it does have function.<br />
<a href="http://www.wowhead.com/item=64453">Baroque Sword Scabbard</a> "Almost distasteful in its ornamentation" the text says. Again, draenei like their flash. And they had weapons for magical or ceremonial use.<br />
---<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Even if it's "almost distasteful" from a draenei view, it's still heavily ornamented and draenei. Somebody, if just Aunt Nehaanu, liked it. So an argument for a trend in ornamented vs spare could be made. Maybe we've got minimalist modern draenei and fussy baroque draenei.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>(Hadeon had a friend who wore so much flash that when she told her friends over drinks one night that she wanted to be buried with her jewels, he joked she'd have to hire more coffin bearers.)<br />
<br />
Re: Cultural Appropriation in Fashion Choices<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>As a sociologist with some training in facets of cultural appropriation, I don't think what we're doing is so egregious, really. Admittedly, most of my training is in criminology, though. I don't think all parties in this discussion are necessarily from the same cultures themselves, so accusations of cultural appropriation come off as a little excessive.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Also, I have no problems with envisioning my characters in the same type of clothing I wear.<br />
<br />
Re: Fabrics<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>I would be more comfortable with the idea of cottons if there were any mention of them in game. Instead, it seems that linen, wool, and silk are the natural organics on Azeroth, and whatever passes for fibrous material on Draenor (those reeds in Nagrand?) has to be woven with nether magic of some kind.Winterbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07495858733611152675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876868364868566371.post-90495580537535186272012-06-21T21:55:00.000-05:002013-04-30T08:16:44.758-05:00Your Character's Loot Table((Still saving posts from forum creep.))<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>This is inspired by a Moon Guard forum post I saw a long time ago. I'd give credit, but really, it was so long I don't even know who posted it.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Whatever the cause may be, your character is slain in battle! Your killer rifles your corpse for loot; post here two/three items which are found on your body. (The stats don't have to make sense for your class, just your character if you design something with stats.) <br />
<br />
<br />
<u>Hadeon</u><br />
<b style="color: purple;">[Bag of Fire Pellets]</b> (epic)<br />
Trinket<br />
+84 Stamina<br />
+147 Agility<br />
<div style="color: #6aa84f;">
Equip:
Chance on taking melee damage to explode in a fiery inferno which does
6885-8490 fire damage to all enemies and allies in an 8 yard radius.</div>
<div style="color: #f1c232;">
"It's like carrying live explosives, but smaller!"</div>
<br />
<b style="color: lime;">[Holey Breastplate]</b> (uncommon)<br />
Chest<br />
+226 Stamina<br />
+390 Strength<br />
<div style="color: #6aa84f;">
Equip: Increases your expertise by 172.</div>
<div style="color: #6aa84f;">
Equip: Decreases your fire resistance by 20.</div>
<div style="color: #f1c232;">
"There's a hole in the back of this armor. </div>
<br />
<u>Valdiis</u><b><span style="color: lime;"> </span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: lime;">[Filigreed Orb]</span></b> (uncommon)<br />
Neck<br />
+ 93 Strength<br />
+ 140 Stamina<br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">Equip: Each melee hit which lands on you has a chance to grant +40 Strength for 35 seconds. This effect stacks up to 10 times.</span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;">"A righteous orb wrapped in mithril filigree, this necklace appears to be in pristine condition."</span><br />
(It would be found around Valdiis's neck, but tucked beneath her breastplate and gambeson to keep it from view.)<br />
<br />
<b style="color: blue;">[Black Leather Bag]</b> (rare)<br />
Trinket<br />
+ 143 Agility<br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">Equip: Increases your ability to creep others out by +87.</span><br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">Use: Play knucklebones! (Use will randomly /roll 2d6.)</span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;">"When given a light shake, this bag rattles like dry bones - many small, dry bones."</span><br />
(This would be found attached to Valdiis's belt by heavy leather loops.)<br />
<br />
<u>Rosoe</u><br />
<b><span style="color: white;">[Headdress of Pearls]</span></b> (common)<br />
Head<br />
24 Armor<br />
+ 16 Intellect<br />
+ 25 Spirit<br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">Equip: Increases your spell power by 21.</span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;">"Each pearl in this very long strand appears to be a different type."</span><br />
(This would be found wrapped around Rosoe's right horn and dangling down to her shoulder.)<br />
<br />
<b><span style="color: #999999;">[Pile of Trinkets]</span></b> (poor)<br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;">"This bundle of tangled cords, beads, strings, and wooden charms is useless to you."</span><br />
(These would be found en masse around Rosoe's neck.)<br />
<br />
<span style="color: white;">[Musty-smelling Bag]</span> (common)<br />
22 Slot Bag<br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;">"This bag is usable after you dump the pile of musty dead leaves out of it."</span><br />
Alternate flavor text for herbalists: <span style="color: #f1c232;">"This bag is usable after you remove the abundance of dried fadeleaf from it."</span> (Gain 18 Fadeleaf.)<br />
(This would be found tied firmly to Rosoe's belt.)<br />
<br />
<u>Diyos</u><br />
<span style="color: lime;">[Bronze Hairstick]</span> (uncommon)<br />
One-Hand Dagger<br />
51-87 Damage<br />
(69.7 damage per second)<br />
+ 38 Intellect<br />
+ 21 Spirit<br />
<span style="color: #6aa84f;">Equip: If your hair is long enough to wear this and you are male, you feel strangely un-self-conscious about it.</span><br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;">"A dual-duty item - this dagger can also be used to hold your hair out of your face!"</span><br />
(If not found holding back this priest's mass of curly hair, the item would be found pressed into the back of a golden holy symbol worn around his neck.)<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #999999;">[Scrap of Netherweave Cloth]</span> (poor)<br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;">"The owner may have been using this as a handkerchief. Ew..."</span><br />
(Likely, this was found in a chest pocket sewn into Diyos's robes.)<br />
<br />
<span style="color: white;">[Friendship Bracelet]</span> (common)<br />
Wrist<br />
<span style="color: #f1c232;">"This faintly-glowing strand of purple beads is well-worn."</span><br />
(This would have been found on Diyos's left wrist.)Winterbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07495858733611152675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876868364868566371.post-17752604149925634072012-06-21T16:31:00.000-05:002012-06-21T16:32:44.827-05:00Site Write Entry: Finale<blockquote>Prompt: If a picture is crooked, you might adjust it on the wall. If your clothes don't fit, you might adjust a button or a hem. But sometimes we have to make major adjustments in our lives. Have you ever faced a difficult situation that required making adjustments? What adjustments did you make and what was the outcome? Describe to us the good and the bad as needed from the(se) adjustment(s).</blockquote>
<i>Rectifiable Flaws and the Stubborn Dead</i><br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>A cold wind danced up the raw skin on her back. She would have rolled over to protect the wounds, but that would put her left shoulder – which of all the damage was in far worse shape – on the ground. She would have edged just under the shelter of the tent – or as far as her tether would allow – but the surly females inside would spit and kick until she left. Once, she had been the sort of hardy which could endure nights outside with no shelter, but she was withering now. With a soft hiss as she pulled the shreds of her wool tunic against her back by motion, she pillowed the fusing scaleplates of her forehead on her thickened forearms and tried to sleep.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>It was the kind of cold which, back in the swamps of Zangarmarsh, would have forewarned crunchy footing and a rime on the shorelines, but these fields and forests seemed too dry for such easy frosting. It would have to be colder for hoarfrost to settle here, somewhere south and west of a field full of stones planted in the ground. As Valdiis sought sleep, she idly wondered what the humans – for that was the word her captors used for the short pink two-legged creatures – were trying to grow there. Contemplating a life of growing and tending flat, round-topped stone crops was just boring enough to allow her to drift off.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Although it was dark, the black sky sullenly lit by a waning crescent of a moon, she could see a little when the thudding ground awoke her. It seems this place <i>was</i> damp enough for rime, because everything bore a fine coating of icy white, including her own body. Shivering, she pushed herself up, standing as far from the tent pole as her tether would give and trying to straighten her stooping spine as she cast about for the source of the repetitive thumps. It sounded like marching.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>A flash of icy blue erupted on the north-east edge of the camp. Warriors who ate, slept, and bathed (rarely) in their armor tumbled out of tents, already armed, charging towards the now very audible noise of marching feet. Her hands itched for a blade, a mace, even a sturdy stick, but they'd learned early on to keep her away from anything she could weaponize, and with her hands bound in front of her, the best she could manage was to make a club out of her fists. There were screams – some of pain, some of abject terror – and moans – of dying and of... She couldn't place the other tone. It was moaning, yes, but it held a different desperation than that of a dying warrior, a desperation like hunger pain. Weapons were definitely clanging, and the fighting was tearing through the camp.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>She turned and wrapped a leg around the tent pole. Her hooves were tied too close to allow kicks, but perhaps if she threw her full weight on the wood embedded in the ground... No luck – all she managed was to throw herself onto her knees, hard. “A fine way to die,” she muttered to herself, “tied to a Nether-blasted tent pole.” She hoped this battle was the humans come to kill the orcs for raiding their food shipments, but she couldn't quite fool herself that the humans wouldn't just kill her for being in the camp too.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>That hope didn't last any longer than it took for the invading force to reach the far side of the camp. The marching hardly seemed to lose a beat as it moved over the ground. For the first time, Valdiis found herself going blank in battle. Marching inexorably towards her was a fleshless pile of bones, more or less in the shape of a human, holding a sword menacingly in hands which should not function in such a fashion.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>If she was to die tonight, it <i>would not</i> be on her knees! Rage lit a fire in her head and she wobbled upright, facing the skeletal creation. Icy blue fire flashed along its joints and she reasoned that must be how it was held together. <i>In for a facet, might as well be in for the whole crystal,</i> she thought, roaring a battle cry as she lunged towards the creation as it lifted its blade. Some bone which would have equated to a forearm for her – and so was probably similar on this thing – met her teeth and she bit down as hard as she could. Bone splintered, shards jabbing upward into the roof of her mouth and nailing her tongue to her jaw. Valdiis's scream of agony was cut short as the blade slid across her throat.<br />
<br />
-----<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The Words themselves were foreign, but it was not the sound made by the Words which was necessary. It was the will dominating her soul which gave the directions. The Words were just meaningless nonsense added in. With such Words pressing down on her soul all the time and similar words spoken by those around her, it was not terribly long before she knew the languages spoken around her. Eventually, she knew the language of the Words which was spoken by the humans well enough to suit what she was used for.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>When it was required that she speak – which was not often – the voice she used was not produced by physical means of breath through lungs and throat, shaped by mouth and tongue. It was with a precise, flawless voice deeper than her own with a brooding echo; the voice was powered by necromancy, but born of rage.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>As the Words became fewer and fewer, farther away, she found that she desired to use her own voice. But it did not function. She had no voice at all.<br />
<br />
-----<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Ugh, must you persist with that <i>stupid</i> accent?” The sergeant rolled her eyes and stormed away, her tail hanging limply behind her. Valdiis took a small amount of satisfaction in knowing that the insipid little twit she had to salute probably lost her balance regularly.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Oh look, another slow learner,” drawled the arcanist in her brilliantly red robes as she leaned on the edge of a barstool and eyed Valdiis up and down. “We've only been here five years already, darling. Do pick up the pace.” She nudged her companion with an elbow and laughed.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>“Don't your people, er... Well, aren't you supposed to be ridiculously intelligent?” It was only a second before the private realized his gaffe and shrank back from the narrow-slitted glare Valdiis was giving him as she stalked forward and <i>loomed</i> over the short little human man.<br />
<br />
-----<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Commander Valdiis of the Knights of Menethil sat on the edge of a fence on the farthest corner of the tournament grounds, watching the jousting matches from afar as she let the roars of the crowd cover for her. “Zuh,” she breathed, growling when it came out wrong. “Tuh. Heh. ... Zeh. Dammit!” Every time she pushed the tip of her tongue against the back of her teeth to make the Common's “th” sound, her palate gave way and squished, giving the syllable a z-like buzz. Other syllables were equally difficult for her heavily-damaged mouth to form, regularly emerging as -ink where there should be -ing and so on. In Draenei, such syllables either did not exist – such as the w sound – or were so rare that she knew quite enough substitute words to avoid mangling her own language, but Common used these Nether-blasted sounds all the time. “Tee. Aitch. Sszuh.” Her fist slammed down on the fence railing. She tried again.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Of course, she could just rely on her necromancy, on the voice generated by the stores of power in her undead shell. Some perverse whimsy found that to be unacceptable. It was probably the same whimsy which had made her a terrible candidate for anything but the most physical of endeavors while living. To rely on magic to perform an action one was perfectly capable of performing with one's own self was cheating. No, she had a voice of her own – and a <i>will</i> of her own – and naaru be damned if she wasn't going to use it, flaws and all.Winterbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07495858733611152675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876868364868566371.post-8226164666333045322012-06-17T09:00:00.000-05:002012-06-17T09:00:02.802-05:00Site Write Entry #38: Recycling<blockquote>
Prompt: June 13, 2012 - In an odd conversation, you and a friend are discussing the real afterlife. Your friend is convinced you will die and reborn as something else. To indulge in their chatter, what do you tell them? What is your character reborn as?</blockquote>
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"Got any nines?"<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The delicate priestess sitting across from him stared intently at the fan of cards in her hands, making quite a show of studying each one until - with a sudden ray-of-light-cutting-through-the-clouds smile - she stuck her tongue out at him and pointed at the dwindling pile of cards between them.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Frowning, he picked up the top card, then crowed with glee as he laid down all four in his hand. "I win this round!"<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>With a feigned pout, the priestess neatened the fan in her hand back into a stack and placed it back on the discard pile, which the darkly tanned farmboy immediately scooped up with the draw pile and began shuffling. As he shuffled the cards, he glanced over at the graveyard visible on the other side of the lake from the bench they were sitting on. A few of his own were buried there. He looked at the priestess. "Are any of your folk there?" A tilt of his head towards the graveyard indicated his meaning.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The priestess shook her head and leaned down to sift her fingers through the soil for a moment.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"A bit more 'return to th' earth' type, aye?"<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>She nodded at him.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"Y'know, we Gilneans leave grave goods with our ancestors. Just to remind 'em who their family is an' such. So they protect us an' don't get angry." He kept shuffling the cards, but thoughts of how close he'd come to death himself when the land broke had him chattering. If he was talking, he wasn't in danger of dying. "Some folk think what trinkets they leave will be used by the ancestors in the afterlife. I figure different, though. Ain't one t' sit around an' twiddle my thumbs for eternity, even if it is in the Light. I figure there ain't enough souls t' go around all the time, so they keep comin' back to be reused. Makes more sense to me." The priestess shrugged at him, but she was leaning forward slightly, one of those beautiful long ears twitching. So he went on. "I come back? I figure I want to come back as a ten-thousand-year-old kaldorei druid. I'd love to have all that knowledge in my head! Be able to commune with beasts an' plants an' sleeping dragons..."<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>She let him natter on for a while, politely not rolling her eyes at the idea of coming back already old, then reached out and touched his hands mid-shuffle, reminding him that he was holding up the next round with all this talking. He turned a dark brick shade under his tan, blushing fiercely. And she just smiled.Winterbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07495858733611152675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876868364868566371.post-34134494060678886982012-06-16T09:00:00.000-05:002012-06-16T09:00:08.204-05:00Site Write Entry #37: Excuses<blockquote>Prompt: June 12, 2012 - The word excuses.</blockquote>
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>I didn't do this site write entry because warm nights and fast motorcycles distracted me.Winterbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07495858733611152675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876868364868566371.post-61095374211823656072012-06-15T09:00:00.000-05:002012-06-15T09:00:08.334-05:00Site Write Entry #36: The Big Time<blockquote>
Prompt: June 11, 2012 - Your character's greatest accomplishment thus far.</blockquote>
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Some might call the empty chapel with its smashed pews and old bloodstains creepy or frightening. Were she in her usual frame of mind, Ilva would probably agree with them. But at this moment, just for now, she was sitting in the <i>best place on Azeroth</i>.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Because she'd just pulled the con job of her life.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>It was everything she could do to restrain her giggles as she cradled the hefty sack of coin in her hands. It would not do to giggle and alert the Ebon Blade fellows still searching for her to where she'd skipped off to after speaking to their leader, a worgen she'd started thinking of - fondly! - as Fuzzy. Oh, things were clear now. Fuzzy wasn't the leader; he was under the baker man. The baker man paid her a small fortune for a rush delivery job into the dark recesses of Acherus. Then she'd turned that into double-hazard pay plus bonus with a few empty promises of aid to Fuzzy. So she'd had to sell out the boss...a little. He wouldn't get too upset with her when she told him she'd mentioned that he sent her to Fuzzy. After all, they worked together! When bossman was feeling alright.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The wide grin on her face slipped a little, a moment's worry for her now second favorite employer. Something was wrong with him, but it was very hard to worry when he gave her two thousand golds (a sum which took her six months to save up for the parts for that fancy air machine she'd made) to carry a box. She liked that kind of wrong, instead of being paid in cupcakes and sums in the forty to four hundred range.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>No! She would not allow worry to ruin this moment! Wedging herself further underneath the shattered remnants of the cleric's podium, Ilva dipped her fingers into the pouch - it was nearly as large as a grapefruit! - and petted the gleaming coins within. They clinked. Answering the clink, she heard a faint sigh as a Scarlet Crusader skull under the podium with her finally gave out from the vagaries of time and crumbled into dust.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Shrieking would be undignified and get her caught. It was no worse than having a spider crawl across one's nose while hiding in the shadows of a tavern's rafters. Nevertheless, she got as far as opening her mouth before muting the impulse to scream as she darted out of the decrepit old chapel and headed for the hills of Tyr's Hand, money pouch clutched tightly to her chest like an infant.Winterbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07495858733611152675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876868364868566371.post-71821389024667117322012-06-14T09:00:00.000-05:002012-06-14T09:00:14.365-05:00Site Write Entry #35: A Crying Shame<blockquote>
Prompt: June 10, 2012 - Your character finds someone a crying mess. They explained their life is miserable and they cannot stand the fact someone won't change despite countless encounters to try and help the troubled party. What does your character do?</blockquote>
A Crying Shame (or Dear God, This One Stumped Me)<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"Would you like a flower, miss? Free flower for a pretty la-..." The girl with a large basket of flowers on her arm trailed off as her intended vict-...er, giftee looked up from the bench. The 'miss' was actually a 'mister,' though his slight frame and luxurious golden locks were almost as easy to mistake as his lightish red dress-...er, robe.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>For her part, no one would mistake Ilva for the night elf she was dressed up to be, but that was part of the fun, really. She smeared violet pigment on all her exposed skin, wore what she best assumed those pretty elves would wear, tied long purple feathers on her ears, and skipped about as Thaylidel Florabottom, flower girl extraordinaire. Naturally, it made people smile, and her bright nature led them all to assume she was simple. Miss Florabottom picked up a <i>lot</i> of gossip around the Cathedral this way.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The effete fellow sitting on the bench near the fountain squinted at her through puffy eyes set above damp tear tracks on his rounded cheeks. He sniffled a bit and seemed confused by the flower held out to him.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"Free flower, sir, to cheer you up?" Thaylidel Florabottom's voice was gentle and her smile sunny.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"Er, no. I'm allergic." He bent his head to wipe his face on his sleeve.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Suddenly, that purple-smudged face was back in his vision. She'd dropped down into a crouch to look up at him. "Hey. Hey. What's wrong, mister?"<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>For several moments, he blinked dumbfoundedly at the oddity of it all. "No... No one bothers with that."<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"I do! Here, budge over." The purple girl crowded him until there was space on the bench for her to sit down. "It helps to talk when you're sad."<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The way she said it reminded him of an eight-year-old repeating adages from her parents in order to sound wise. It was rather hard to turn down. "There's this boy..."<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Ah, Cathedral District. Most stories started this way, really. Once the man in the lightish red dress had explained about his best friend and said friend's unceasing habit of betting on racing turtles, Ilva - or, rather, Thaylidel Florabottom - grabbed him by the hand and unceremoniously dragged him out to Canal Street for a cupcake and perhaps a contract to rig the turtle races.Winterbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07495858733611152675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876868364868566371.post-76170632879603933212012-06-13T09:00:00.000-05:002012-06-13T09:00:06.175-05:00Site Write Entry #34: Best Gift Ever<blockquote>
Prompt: June 9, 2012 - Describe the greatest gift given to your character.</blockquote>
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span><i>Click. Click. Click!</i> Three separate deadbolts engaged, shutting the room off from all but the most determined of invaders. Two chains - one high, one low - slid into catches across the jamb. <i>Thump!</i> A wooden bar as thick as a human male's arm fell into holders on either side of the heavy oak door. Physical securities in place, Valdiis allowed herself a moment to sag back against the door's support and pinch the bridge of her nose between two gloved fingers. Years of innate paranoia allowed her only a moment though, and she dropped her hand to turn and trace the intricate series of runes around the jamb, imbuing them with runic power to activate the series of anti-magic enforcements and life-triggered frost spells.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Besides herself, one single person in Azeroth knew of the existence of this place - and that was because he'd sold it to her. Given the enemies the command staff of the 1113th had made, she took great pains to keep it that way. Everyone needed a bolt hole.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>As safe as she ever would be, Valdiis turned and paced across the single room cabin hidden in the mountains of the Hinterlands. For a time, she'd rented rooms at inns, rested in garrison barracks, or set up in the unit's own offices - but she never felt secure enough to rest in those. Here, she held something of a sanctuary. The dead did not require sleep, but at times when the stores of necromantic energy had been deeply depleted, a brief respite where nothing more taxing than "holding soul to corpse" was required was of definite usefulness.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>She lifted her right arm and slackened the leather straps holding her heavy plate pauldron down, sliding the loosened piece free without fully releasing the straps. Without a squire, it helped to keep the armament half-fastened. The pauldron was set carefully on a padded wooden stand, followed by its mate. Plate metal curls of elementium-saronite alloy around her upper arms were next. Catches on the left side of her chestguard were released and the hinged carapace removed, revealing a thick, padded black gambeson underneath. The remainder of the plate armor joined the collection on the armor stand - minus the heavily-engraved vambraces on her thickened wrists. Even the gambeson was peeled off and tossed in a tub of wash.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Stripped down to a sleeveless linen shirt of some indeterminate pale grey shade and canvas trousers of a slightly darker hue - as well as the ever-present vambraces - Valdiis stretched her hands over her head in the solitary room. Her elbows cracked, the joints protesting the abuse of undeath and the weight of her malformed forearms. A blackened stain rested over her sternum, marring the linen shirt but providing a stark backdrop for the gleaming filigree cage resting on a length of mithril chain between her breasts. She rolled her shoulders with another series of cracks and protests from the shell forced to operate long past its normal ability to do so, and walked over to the cot resting in the corner of the tiny cabin.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Although it caused a faint sizzle against her flesh for her to do so, she wrapped the stubby, blunt-clawed fingers around the mithril filigree cage dangling from her neck for a moment, reassured by the sting of it. That reassurance was part of a ritual of reminders of who she was and why she operated so. The grape-sized pearly orb inside the intricate mithril filigree had long, long since lost all but a glimmer of the righteous Light it once radiated, but that was enough. She dropped the orb against the sooty background of her shirt and stretched out on the cot, grateful beyond the capabilities of measurement or even language itself for the trust which had been given with that single pearly orb.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Brothers of the blade were forged in war and as fickle as from whence the next thrill of battle would come. Brothers of the blood were a choice of loyalty forced by fate and only as reliable as their upbringing could hope to teach them. But brothers of the heart, ah, those were the ones you could hand your entire existence to and believe in their drive to shield and shelter you as fervently as you would do for them. And it began with a gift of trust.Winterbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07495858733611152675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876868364868566371.post-21225757316230946482012-06-12T09:00:00.000-05:002012-06-12T09:00:10.357-05:00Site Write Entry #33: Impulse<blockquote>
Prompt: June 8, 2012 - Describe something your character does impulsively.</blockquote>
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Five months had passed, and she was well aware that she'd been naught but trial and trouble for her doctor. The kaldorei druid was quite good at concealing the distaste in his gaze when he looked at her, but the Canal Street Baker himself had been teaching her to read faces for almost two years. Xeremuriis had never dared ask the source of it, but she sensed it wasn't personal - that is, that the druid's distaste was not for herself alone but something of her type. She had no real idea which <i>type</i> of hers was the problem - baker's girl, draenei, youth, shaman, patient, or crazy - but she knew it lurked behind the clinical detachment with which Doctor Laurenhall treated her. Oh, sure, he had a pleasant bedside manner; flashes of it sprang up from time to time when he forgot to look at her as a case study and remembered she was just a young draenei girl. But in the end, he didn't like her and didn't want to be around her any more than was necessary, though he probably believed he hid entirely from her.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>She felt stable once more. She felt like herself. There were no voices whispering in her head any longer, and the taste of saronite in her throat was a nightmare with no substance. The desire to do violence to herself or others had left her, allowing consideration for others and remembrance of her vow to love all as the Light itself should love to return to her mind.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>The salty, cleansed waters of the Veiled Sea washed against her hooves as she walked down the beach, bending from time to time or darting into a retreating wave to retrieve a prize from the sand. Ekanos Laurenhall perched on a dune overlooking the shoreline where he could keep his patient in sight and still work on his treatise on saronite poisoning. Xeremuriis ran her hands through the waters, the burbling of the elementals tumbling over each other in their eagerness to reach the sand drawing a smile from her. Standing again with another of the treasures she was collecting, she reached a hand up to her neck and undid one of the myriad leather thongs tied there. She used her body to shield her activity from the doctor, though he watched her far less closely now that she no longer attempted to injure herself. Still, she didn't want him to see what she did just yet. It was a surprise.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>A natural eye for measuring and estimating which had been honed by her apprenticeship with Mister E. told her where to tie the knots off so it would fit, and how much slack was needed to thread each glimmering shell onto the leather as she braided the thong. One for gratitude, one for love, one for safety, one for patience, one for knowledge, and one for healing - not her healing, but <i>his</i>. This last was an iridescent purple snail's shell, a tiny water elemental - hardly more than a droplet - had agreed to take up residence in it in exchange for her offering of honeyed bread. She coaxed it carefully, told it about the healing wave magic she knew from her training as a Seer, and whispered encouragement and gratitude when it agreed to help her.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Hooves in the sand are surprisingly quiet, so it was only her sun-lengthened shadow falling across his feet - bared and dug into the warm sand - which announced her presence. Ekanos paused his pen to look up at his patient as she beamed a bright, sunny smile and dropped to a crouch beside him.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"Hold out your left hand."<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"Why?" He managed to not snap the word, but only just.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"Please? I promise nothing untoward."<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>As she'd recovered, she'd become more whimsical and less impulsively dangerous, so he braved her request and held his left hand out towards her, palm up. Before he had a chance to protest it, she was tying a leather bracelet around his wrist. It was braided, the thong a warm brown, and six small shells of varying style adorned it. The bracelet was saved from looking like something a child might make only by the elegance and intricacy of the four-part braid. There was a small push of magic in it, but so tiny it would take a moment's study to puzzle free; it didn't seem dangerous or tainted, however. The druid blinked at the draenei girl a few times.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>"Thank you." In a flash, she bent down to kiss his wrist over the knot she'd tied in the bracelet, then hopped to her hooves and dashed back into the surf. What an odd, impulsive child...Winterbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07495858733611152675noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3876868364868566371.post-68104260903911092422012-06-11T09:00:00.000-05:002012-06-11T09:00:02.333-05:00Site Write Entry #32: The Message<blockquote>
Prompt: June 7, 2012 - Today's topic is open. Whatever you want to write about, go for it.</blockquote>
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Quite a large stack of paperwork had been awaiting her at the small desk she maintained in Acherus when she finally felt like herself enough to deal with some of the day-to-day background business of the 1113th. Ever since the tragic and unexpectedly sudden demise of their auditor, Commander Glou, the amount of paperwork in the unit had decreased dramatically, but there was still correspondence to go through and requisitions to handle.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Adroitly, she slid a hand under the stack and flipped it over, going through the papers from oldest to newest in her usual fashion. As she was entirely alone in her office, she didn't bother restraining her annoyed growl when she found the enlistment paperwork relating to a new recruit four papers below the potential recruit's request for interview and after she'd penned a response and couriered it off by ghoul. Captain Redamous was getting far too efficient and competent these days, and it was really a shame he no longer wanted to be a Captain in the unit; his thirty days' notice of resignation of his position was coming up soon. A dark smile settled on her lips as she contemplated just what sort of comeuppance the competent Captain who thought he could simply <i>resign</i> was going to be getting.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>She dealt with a handful of coordination overtures from other units within the Ebon Blade and diplomatic responses from the Argent Dawn. Her mouth twisted downward as she considered penning an apology to Captain Meysha of the Brotherhood, but she decided to handle that in person. One Knight out on training duty had brought back several large bolts of netherweave from Outland and dumped them in stores at their barracks; a ghoul was sent to carry those down to a living courier in Light's Hope with a note as to how she intended the cloth to be put to good use - and warnings to keep all mention of undeath out of the transaction.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Then there was something unusual in the stack: a missive penned in her native tongue. Typically, letters written in Draenei were delivered directly to her personal inbox as only three of her own people wrote to her and none dealt in unit business. She did not recognize this flowery hand with its request for meeting while referring to her and Orill by rank. Was this from the Elysium's leader? Was one of her elder brothers injured and unable to contact her? No, the letter would be more urgent, and their leader was named Khai'xur. Perhaps it was from the Sha'nash, then; among that group, her unit had no official contacts, but this didn't read like a diplomatic overture. This letter spoke of "a few updates" casually, as if she should know the writer. It set her teeth on edge.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Over the last few years, Orill had spent time enhancing her knowledge of all things mysterious in paper. She would never be up to his level in the artistic side of penmanship and forgery, but that was more from lack of aptitude than lack of study. But just because she could not apply the physical craft did not mean she couldn't apply the deductive reasoning which went along with it. Turning the parchment over in her hands, she tested the weight and thickness of it - low quality, inexpensive, courier-grade paper. The address was written in the same flowery Draenei which meant some ghoul would've had to take it to a translator to get it to her - probably one of the Ebon Blade guards on duty. It was near the top of her stack of paper, meaning delivery had been within the last two days. She turned it again and inspected the handwriting - a native writer and likely a female or effete male from the flourishes and excessive curlicues, not heavy-handed as the nib hadn't pressed enough to emboss the paper, and right-handed in a mild hurry if the faint smudge pattern of ink on the signature was being read properly. It was signed by a "Miliam" which was a suitable enough name for an exiled one, but not a name she recognized. It was also signed "Azeroth Messenger" which led her to believe the one writing it may not necessarily be the one requesting the meeting.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>Curious... And unsettling.<br />
<span style="color: #7e77aa;">. . . . . </span>She penned a short response requesting that further contact be made with specific availability for this mysterious meeting and had a ghoul take it down to Light's Hope; someone there would have seen this messenger, or perhaps said messenger was below awaiting response. A second note, hastier but no less precise and neat in its Common script, was carried off to the Frost Quarter with her observations for Orill. Funny how quickly she re-adapted to the work.Winterbornhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07495858733611152675noreply@blogger.com0