Site Write Entry #33: Impulse

Prompt: June 8, 2012 - Describe something your character does impulsively.

. . . . . 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 type 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.
. . . . . 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.
. . . . . 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.
. . . . . 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 his. 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.
. . . . . 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.
. . . . . "Hold out your left hand."
. . . . . "Why?" He managed to not snap the word, but only just.
. . . . . "Please? I promise nothing untoward."
. . . . . 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.
. . . . . "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...

Site Write Entry #16: Write Anything

Prompt: May 22, 2012 - Write about whatever comes to mind for your character of choice. Anything.

. . . . . Every time she swallowed, she could still taste the vile ichor sliding down her throat. It made eating extremely difficult, and there'd been times when the druid had been so afraid for her health that he forced her to eat. Oh, he'd figured out quickly enough that holding her down to force her to eat was an even worse trigger for the panic than swallowing, so he'd find something she found near impossible to resist and lace it with a potion he brewed that made her ravenously hungry. It was devious and evil.
. . . . . It also worked.
. . . . . Xeremuriis managed to choke down a beef broth as she sat with her back to their campfire on the sandy shore of Azuremyst Isle. The cupcake had been her downfall; she missed baked goods something fierce. Ekanos hadn't seen, but she stole away his pocket knife earlier in the day. The whispers in her head were back, and despite how the potion forced her to eat, she couldn't get the black taste of the saronite out of her mouth.  
. . . . . Careful to not let the fire leave him nightblind, Ekanos watched his charge from a few feet away. Once she'd finished the broth he'd made, she set the bowl down in the sand and dug her fingers in deep. She kept shaking her head from side to side; wet clicking noises and glimpses of her face told him she was sticking her tongue out over and over again, like a cat with some foul substance on its tongue. He bent his head for a moment to make a clinical note in the paper he was writing about saronite poisoning when a faint metallic click warned him.
. . . . . The draenei girl pulled her fingers out of the sand with his pocket knife clenched in her sky blue hand. The fingers of her other hand grasped her tongue, pulling it as far from her mouth as it would stretch. Viney roots torn from a hastily tossed and enhanced seed shot out of the sand and wrapped around the girl's knife hand. Ekanos stood up and crossed the several steps to where Xeremuriis shook and sputtered.
. . . . . "Get it out! Getitout getitout!" she whimpered, straining towards the knife in her hand even as Ekanos plucked it from her grasp.
. . . . . "Not like that, you aren't. Stealing is wrong. You remember this."
. . . . . "I...remember..." She sagged as the weapon was taken. "I hate forgetting me," she whispered.
. . . . . "Here." Ekanos unrolled a leather wrap full of small vials and tossed one into her lap. "Have a sniff. Feel better."
. . . . . Sighing as the roots released her, Xeremuriis scooped up the precious oil vial in her lap - Mana Thistle, this one - and uncorked it, using the scent of her aunt's long ago coming-of-age gift to keep her memory of self intact against the insidious whispers of the Old Gods in her head.

Little Cat's Sixth (and Final) Lesson

Written while listening to Lions! by Lights.
((If nothing else, listen to the song at least. It's totally sugar pop adorable and a very good fit for this character as a whole. Anyway, the title up there says "(and Final) Lesson" not because I am done with Xere, but because she is changing and so the titling, frequency, tone, et cetera of her stories will be changing with her. The first scene with the death knight is from in-game RP with Celuur of Moon Guard, and the scene with the Farseer is greatly abridged from in-game RP with Umbraan of Moon Guard, with a paragraph added at the end with creative license. (More than half the credit - I insist - goes to him instead of me.) I also wanted to include another bit where Xere meets Toxis and her death bear and apprentice shaman Daoloth, but I forgot to screencap those AND thought this was getting awfully long. This story finally brings Xeremuriis's timeline concurrent with Valdiis's. Where things go from here, we'll see.))


. . . . . As the Little Cat swept the air shrine’s terrace where Farseer Nobundo and Farseer Umbraan did their meditations, she practiced asking the dirt to kindly move itself along for her. Sometimes it worked. Today, though, the dirt was being stubborn. She was too busy fussing at the dirt on the rugs to notice the large armor-plated draenei man come up the ramp until she heard him mutter, “Damn you, Umbraan.”
. . . . . She turned quickly, her broom stilling at the unexpected voice. “Farseer Umbraan?” she asked the plated man.
. . . . . “Yes.”
. . . . . “He is away right now.”
. . . . . The plated man shifted his weight, but the Little Cat couldn’t even tell so much as the direction of his gaze. However, the dryness to his voice did not escape her. “Well evidently. You do not look like him.”
. . . . . She leaned the end of her broom on the floor. “I should hope not! He’s old.” She wrinkled her nose, and then smiled at her own joke. “I can take a message for him, though.”
. . . . . “I beg your pardon. He is old? I am the same age as Umbraan. Older, perhaps. Are you saying I look old?” The draenei’s voice echoed strangely inside his helmet.
. . . . . The Little Cat looked down at her hooves, her cheeks going purple with embarrassment. “Sorry! I didn’t mean… It’s just that… Well, he says so himself that he’s an old man!”
. . . . . “Hmph. If he wishes to feel like an old man, that is his business. Tell him that Celuur has arrived and is looking for him.”

Little Cat's Fifth Lesson

Written while listening to Siúil a Rún by Celtic Woman.
((98% of the text for this fifth installment comes from in-game RP with Umbraan of Moon Guard. In fact, all credit for the creation of Xeremuriis as a character goes to Umbraan's player, since I came up with the idea for her while RPing as Valdiis with Umbraan.))


. . . . . For six months, the Little Cat studied writing, reading, and speaking Common. From time to time, her friend Seung would stop by for several days and stay with her at her room in the Crystal Hall. Seung was intent on finding the strange man who had rescued her after the crash, so she roamed the islands for much of the time. The Little Cat was intent on learning as much as she could before she set out to find a ship. It was her plan to find Zunaadrin and his Argent Dawn.
. . . . . The earth elemental in the glade at the Vale stayed in her memory, along with the Farseer’s advice to find a mentor. Augmenting her study time with more meaningful work, the Little Cat picked up her broom again and resumed the duties of sweeping out the Crystal Hall. She tried to listen to Chakaa’s lessons again, but he shook his head at her and shooed her away with a stubby hand. She asked Seer Skaltesh if he had time for an apprentice and he rebuffed her gently. Sulaa, too, turned her away with a gentle smile.
. . . . . The Little Cat sat on her bed and considered her situation, her wooden hammer lying on the bed in front of her. “I can feel them,” she muttered grumpily. “I know that I can do this… Why won’t anyone give me a chance?” Sparks jumped between her fingers as she concentrated on practicing calling down the bolts of lightning from the sky. A spark now, maybe one day a full bolt… She watched the sparks moodily, thinking of who else to ask, what else to do about her desire to learn more about the shaman’s path.
. . . . . “Farseer Nobundo,” she said quietly. “I’ll ask him. Tomorrow.”

Little Cat's Fourth Lesson

Written while listening to Veni Redemptor Gentium by Paul Schwartz.
((The first scene comes from in-game RP with Seung of Moon Guard. All credit goes to Seung's player for being a good sport and letting me filch her character into the story.))


. . . . . The evening after Farseer Firmanvaar left, the Little Cat settled herself once more on a bench beneath the draenethyst crystal in the middle of Azure Watch. As the night’s business of cooking dinner, shutting down the settlement for the night, and the joyous social bonding the draenei were known for swirled around her, she set her mind to completing the map up to Azure Watch. Intent on her work, it was not until the brown furry head settled next to her on the bench with a soft whuff sound that the Little Cat noticed the bear.
. . . . . With a gasp of surprise, she scrambled backwards off the bench. A soft, melodic giggle rang out as a small draenei girl with her hair pulled into pigtails approached into the circle of draenethyst light. “It’s alright,” she said softly, “he’s harmless.”

Little Cat's Third Lesson

Written while listening to Welcome Home by Yusuf Islam (f.k.a. Cat Stevens).


. . . . . One of the seven survivors the Little Cat and Sennar had found would not wake up. His left horn was almost entirely broken off, and the skull behind where it would have been was dented. Yet, the draenei man clung stubbornly to life, so there was still a very good chance that – with enough healers – he could recover.
. . . . . The Vale didn’t have enough healers, however. Anchorite Zalduun had recovered and taken over the infirmary duties, so the de facto leaders of the Vale decided to send the Farseer with the badly injured survivor to the Exodar’s main crash site to seek out more healers. A stretcher was fashioned from a mage’s staff found in the wreckage, the Little Cat’s broom, and a cloak. Anchorite Zalduun put a levitation spell on the stretcher so that the injured survivor’s escort need only carefully guide it.
. . . . . Technician Zhanaa sent word ahead through the holo-emitter so that the next nearest post-crash settlement, Azure Watch, would expect them. The Little Cat, the Farseer, and four other draenei were to accompany the survivor to the healers, if there were any at the Exodar.
. . . . . The night before they were to set out, everyone who was able to do so gathered in the infirmary. Under the anchorite’s direction, nearly thirty draenei sought out the Light within, called upon the Naaru’s blessing, and lent their healing gifts to the injured survivor. The draenei fair glowed from the infusion of healing. As the pale blue marks of their gifts faded from the foreheads of those gathered, the Little Cat caught a glimpse of the Farseer through a break in the infirmary’s makeshift walls. His back was to them, and the set of his sloped shoulders as he looked up at the sky nearly broke the Little Cat’s heart.

Little Cat's Second Lesson

Written while listening to Hero of Love by Live.


. . . . . “Over here, Sennar,” the Little Cat called, her soft voice betraying several days’ worth of exhaustion. As her companion pushed through the underbrush, the Little Cat dropped to her knees beside the crumpled draenei woman on the ground. The woman’s arms were a raw, glistening dark purple; patches around the edges of the wounds were dry and blackened. Her clothes were ashes around her. Stuffing all the worry over the woman’s condition deep into the back of her mind, the Little Cat called forth a memory of O’ros and its gentle chiming to the forefront of her mind. She concentrated hard on hope and held her hands over the burned survivor, praying. The Naaru’s gift of healing Light channeled through the Little Cat’s hands.
. . . . . Sennar arrived at her side and watched for a moment. He was always a little awed by how brightly Xeremuriis sparkled when she called upon the Light. Surely, she would be a revered exarch like her grandmother in time. He knelt and lent his own gift to the survivor. Their combined efforts were enough.
. . . . . The injured draenei woman awoke with a sob of pain. The small gifts of the two young draenei could only stabilize her – true healing would take the Farseer’s help back at the Vale. One of the other rescue teams had found an anchorite, but he was still in recovery and unable to aid in the infirmary yet. The Little Cat gently touched the woman’s cheek to focus her. “Lady, you have survived. Thank the Naaru. We are deeply sorry, but we must move you to the infirmary. It will hurt.” The woman’s lips compressed into a thin line and she nodded once, very slowly.
. . . . . The Little Cat slid one hand behind the survivor’s back to steady her as Sennar tucked an arm beneath the woman’s legs. Sennar’s hand replaced hers on the woman’s back as he picked her up and held her as gently as he could. “Quick, Sennar. Get her back to the infirmary. I will keep looking.”

Little Cat's First Lesson

Written while listening to I Shall Be Free by Kid Beyond.
((I never did end up with a good title for this series...))


. . . . . Farahlon was burning. Blue and red splashed the ruined walls of the city. On the side of a building, a large blue handprint, and then a long smear, as if the hand’s owner had used the wall to prop himself up long enough to keep going. The stench of sizzling meat drifted through the air with the smoke clouds, passing by the noses of the few left whom it really could not bother as much.
. . . . . A small phalanx of draenei men and women – only four of each – stood tall at the edge of the ruins. The woman at the point of the formation, nearest the carnage and battle, watched the green-eyed demons advance through the wreckage towards her position. Tiny flames danced harmless across the tops of her horns; sweat dripped down her face from her temples. Her robes were beyond saving - torn, scorched, stained with the blue blood of her people and the red blood of the advancing demons. The women behind her all looked similarly battle worn.
. . . . . The rubble of the city of Farahlon was slowing the advance of the demons – “Sindorei!” they yelled at times, and so “sindorei” she thought to name them – and giving them a few precious minutes to gather strength. She looked to the men beside her. The one standing closest to her wavered on his hooves, his staff slack in his massive pale blue hands.
. . . . . “Just a little more, Geroom,” she said, her voice a soft, lyrical tone. “Just keep it together a little more.” She spared a glance behind them at the massive ship several hundred yards away. The stream of fleeing draenei was slowing to a trickle. “They’re almost there, Geroom. Keep it together. Your wife needs you.”
. . . . . The man – Geroom – nodded wearily and planted his staff on the ground, using it to prop himself up. “I don’t have much left, Habii. And the demons are nearly upon us…”