Site Write Entry #27: The Beggar

Prompt: June 2, 2012 - While in Stormwind, your character is stalked by a homeless fellow. He doesn't say a word to you and won't let you outrun him. There is nothing pleasant about him, so much to your character's annoyance, you're forced to interact with him. What happens? Ultimately, the beggar just wants a slice of cheese you may or may not have.

. . . . . His was the dirt of a thousand nights spent in alleys, and the stench of those nights spent wallowing in the trash bins for scraps. He was ragged and torn, matted with gummy substances she had no desire to identify. What might well have been blood crusted on one ear and he limped in a manner which suggested the leg had been broken and healed back funny. But most annoyingly of all, he would not stop following her.
. . . . . She tried to lose him down a side street in the Trade District, but he caught up. She tried to escape with a quick detour over the canal on a path of frost, but he jumped into the foul black moat and swam to follow her. She even tried a chilly glare which - when coupled with her dead grey skin and the unholy blue glow of her eyes - could quell even some hardened military commanders, but he just tilted his head to the right and gave her a droll stare.
. . . . . Quite soon, she would be at the unit's branch office in the Dwarven District, and the last thing she needed was to have this filthy thing follow her all the way to the door. Valdiis needed to shake this beggar off before someone noticed and started asking questions. Hooves ringing on the cobblestone, she darted starboard into one of the tributaries of Cut-throat Alley. One hand on the hilt of her axe over her back, she turned to level a second cold glare at her follower. He sat down on the ground in front of her.
. . . . . "Oh, for Naaru's sake," she muttered. "Vhat is it you vant?"
. . . . . Slowly, his muddy blue gaze traveled from her face down to the fawn-colored pouch buckled to her hip.
. . . . . "Zis? Zis has been empty for two years now!" She pulled the pouch off and opened it, turning it inside out to show. Out fell a half-inch square of Emmentaler cheese. Quick as a cat, her follower was off his behind and snatched up the fallen morsel. Equally as quick, he was gone, his dun-colored tail swishing behind him as he sauntered off with his prize.
. . . . . "Huh," she muttered. "And here I imagined ze cats had ceased followink me."

Site Write Entry #26: Beauty in the Strangest Places

Prompt: June 1, 2012 - What's an unusual/weird item/person/place that your character finds beauty in?

. . . . . "It just falls so wonderfully off the tongue!"
. . . . . "It's too short."
. . . . . "But that's what makes it wonderful!"
. . . . . Athos crossed his arms and scowled across the little wooden table dinner had been set upon on the ship they were taking down the Kalimdor coast. "What's wrong with Djemiiliak?" Of course, that came out sounding - to a Draenei speaker - more like "What is wrong with Green-Beast-Lumbers-With-Grace?" 
. . . . . "It's unwieldy." Diyos picked up a long loaf of bread from the plate between them and waved one end of it at his brother. "It's unnecessarily long and lacks the elegant grace of a shorter name."
. . . . . "It's human," Athos protested, leaning back before he was beaned by a loaf.
. . . . . "I know! It's great! It's so succinct and solid and it's just got grace to it that our own language can't quite encapsulate. I'm going to rename him to Jim." To a Draenei speaker, that sounded a lot like "I am going to rename him to Jim."  
. . . . . Athos grimaced at the distastefully abrupt syllable. "Haven't you damaged that elekk enough?"
. . . . . "Hey!" The loaf was more aggressive now. "It's entirely not my fault he thinks he's a squirrel."
. . . . . "You encourage it!"
. . . . . "I do not!"
. . . . . Athos closed his eyes for a moment, and as his hand was coming up to pinch the bridge of his nose - as if to stave off a headache - BAM! right between the eyes with the crusty end of a loaf of bread. He batted it aside and shook a finger at his elder brother. "You should've given him back to the handlers so he could be retrained."
. . . . . "It's not a matter of retraining. He hit his head! The handlers would've put him down for such an injury."
. . . . . "Put him out of his misery, you mean."
. . . . . "Jim is not miserable! He's a very happy squirrelekk."

Site Write Entry #25: A Succulent

Prompt: May 31, 2012 - Succulent http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/succulent?s=t

. . . . . "Hoi, brother!" The shout traveled easily over the sun-baked sands. "Come take a look at this!"
. . . . . Diyos turned away from his forlorn search of the sandy horizon for a glimmer of water and headed for the source of the call, his twin, Athos. His younger brother (by a only a few minutes, he would not hesitate to remind!) was standing before quite the oddest looking tree Diyos had ever seen. His brother's braid fell off his left shoulder as he tilted his head that direction, clearly giving this strange thing his best curious regard.
. . . . . "Can I drink it?" Diyos whined as he approached.
. . . . . "Well, maybe. You see, it looks thick and juicy from here, but the spi- DIYOS!"
. . . . . It was too late. The parched priest had run headlong to the odd tree and grabbed a branch. There was just one problem; the branch - indeed, the whole "tree" - was covered in long, sharp spines. Diyos howled and pulled his hand back, two long spines embedded in his palm.
. . . . . "Honestly, I was trying to tell you to be careful," Athos chided as he called upon the Light to soothe his twin's wounds and cease the flow of blood from his palm.
. . . . . "I thought you were about to go into pedantic mode again. And I am thirsty!" Diyos scowled. "Let's head towards the coast for water."
. . . . . "We haven't even mapped as far as these fabled time caverns yet!"
. . . . . "We can come back! Besides, that goblin back in Gadgetzan said we'd find folks with water out that way. Perhaps someone will be feeling kindly enough to share."

Site Write Entry #24: The Future

Prompt: May 30, 2012 - Future http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/future?s=t

. . . . . Among those exiled from their home planet, only one holds the gift of true prophecy, an ineffable knowledge of the paths ahead and how to sort them. True prophets are a rare thing, for so much knowledge and so little ability to change it drives one mad. The Prophet Velen is the only one for whom the Sight is strong, definable, and frankly useful in any real way.
. . . . . The Seers and Farseers, so new to the voices of the ancestors and the wisdom of the elements do not so much see the future as a woven mesh of threads of fate as they occasionally get a second's glimpse of one inch of one thread of a hundred thousand pieces which make up fate's fabric as it whizzes by in the loom of time. Seeing is, quite understandably, a minor part of what a Farseer among the draenei does. However, when one spends so much time in the wilds with the quietude of the world as a companion and the noise of the threads of others muted by distance, the ancestors' words can be more easily heard.
. . . . . At least, that's what Rosoe told herself as she settled down before her campfire - this one somewhere on a hillside in Ashenvale - and interlaced her fingers, stretching them out before her with a satisfying crack from her knuckles. Her Farsight was called on more often than not for glimpses of the present or the recent past, and that was what it was best suited for. Just because she didn't have a need to call upon her Sight for predictions did not mean she should let the ability to glimpse one possibility among thousands go to seed. She was ever a practical sort and felt no training should go wasted or unpracticed - even the healing she was always so abysmal at.
. . . . . The sharp flensing knife she kept on her belt came free and was used to prick the tip of one finger, releasing a few drops of cobalt blue blood onto a handful of dried silvery-grey leaves. The handful of dried fadeleaf went into the fire, releasing a billow of white smoke. The white smoke entered her lungs on a deep inhale, releasing her spirit to take a half-step to the right and peer at the tapestry of possibility.  
. . . . . Often, the less she knew someone, the better the Seeing could be, for she didn't muddle up her own desires in the warp and weft of the threads she wanted to find. Almost never did she See for herself or someone close to her. Unless, that is, the vision forced itself upon her like a plucked thread breaking free to smack her in the face with a rebound of tension.

. . . . . The land will be unseen, unknown. It will roil with emotion and, yes, more war. The smoke will clear, the arms will drop, and there shall lie a field. This field will be unconscionably wet, like the fields used to grow water poppies in Zul'drak. But this field will not grow soporifics; it will grow food. A steadfast soul will walk among the food. None other will be allowed to harvest it. A bitter soul will arrive; in many ways, her soul is even stronger than his, her hold on her shell driven by Will alone while his is fueled by Spite. Will and Spite shall walk the wet land, visited at times by the soul of Protection. The food will rise from the puddles to be harvested by the dead to provide nourishment and, indeed, a quiet joy to the web spun by Spite.

. . . . . The world spun gently - probably from lack of ability to gain a full breath in all the smoke - as Rosoe's spirit slipped back into her body, the vision completed. As many of her visions, it made little sense and was never aught but one possibility among thousands, but she dutifully picked up the notebook she'd placed at her side and wrote the vision down. Once written, her eyes settled on the Draenei word for Spite. There was a flash of black-patterned-grey in her mind, and she suddenly knew the whole of the vision. Rosoe smiled at her campfire and hoped - though she was far too known for being grumpy and practical to admit to such fancies as hope - that such quiet would come, one day.

Site Write Entry #23: The Standoff

Prompt: May 29, 2012 - By chance, your character happens to stumble across an enemy. This enemy can be personal, from the other faction or an acquaintance. The two of you are caught on neutral ground, so no fighting is to happen there. So what happens, if anything at all?

. . . . . The battle had been horrendous - a gory, brutal affair in which innards spilled and blood spattered and limbs were torn free. It was - as so many of such things seemed - a near pointless capture of a forward point in Silverpine, long before the Wall came down. The Alliance wanted a place to set up a forward base in hopes of encroaching on Tirisfal, and so AEGIS went to set up a forward base. It was only natural that word got out - it always did; so few ops could stay entirely black - and the Horde got wind and the strike forces were sent.
. . . . . So here they were, the Alliance victorious while surrounded by corpses which, unlike their allies from Acherus, wouldn't be getting back up again. Triage was in full-swing, the heat of battle over as the rear guard moved in with supplies and began setting up tents to shelter the worst of the wounded. Valdiis rarely sought medical attention with her allies after battle, and saw to it that her liaison Bergmann healed her as little as possible. The little man caused such agony!
. . . . . Limping from a blow which had sliced a tendon or two and left control of her right leg wobbly, she left the captured point's safe zone and headed up the road. The Horde were sending what few brave scouts they could spare to retrieve injured from the field and by some odd, mutual nonaggression pact such actions were typically allowed. Probably just because both sides were busy tending the wounded and temporarily unconcerned with supremacy. Besides, heading to the battlefield to dispatch wounded Horde who could come back to fight her later would mean hobbling some quarter mile, alone, into a blood-soaked field. No, she'd just sit here on this fence by the side of the road and collect her thoughts, observe the Horde movements, see who they took the most care in retrieving (for assassinations later), and rest.
. . . . . It is amazing what the calm in the hour or so after retreats have been sounded will allow. One of the AEGIS commanders sat, unprotected and injured, on a fence out of shouting range of the Alliance triage, and no one bothered her. That is, no one bothered her until there was a faint rustle behind her and a quietly cheerful "Hee!"
. . . . . "Ah, zat damned dead elf. Are you offerink to let me pull your ozer arm off?" Valdiis didn't get up. She seemed quite confident of her ability to take down the undead elf who emerged from the grass and clambered up onto the fence beside her.
. . . . . "Of course not, miss Valdiis! Doctor Rasomil would be mad if I undid all his hard work! Hee!"
. . . . . Valdiis kept her hand near the hidden dagger on her belt, but nodded. "Good slice out zere at ze Sepulcher. I almost dropped ze grip on you."
. . . . . "Hee! Thanks!" The dead elf smiled even wider than before, her rotted face a grotesque example of glee in the extreme.
. . . . . Against all common sense, two soldiers who would kill each other without question or hesitation on the battlefield, the commanders of their respective military strike teams sat on the fence within arm's reach and spent a few minutes kvetching on the challenges of repairing an unliving body.

Site Write Entry #22: Addict

Prompt: May 29, 2012 - Junkie http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/junkie?s=t

. . . . . When one lived - by choice - very much alone for long stretches of time, necessity demanded that one acquire skill in feeding the body to keep it going. Skill, however, was not the same thing as art. Every cook of skill has some dish or another (or several) of which they can create art.
 . . . . . Rosoe touched a hand to one of the stone-formed totems on a leather cord around her neck, calling upon her connection to the spirits of water as she rubbed the small bit of resin packed into a recess on the totem. The warmth of her fingers warmed the resin enough to release some of its sweet, seaweed-like scent - an offering, however small, in return for the favor she asked. Water was not her best element, but in this task, the spirits were used to her call; a faint blue glow coated her hand, protecting her for several minutes from the various dangers and pains of the five elements.
. . . . . She reached a hand into the coals of her campfire and pulled out a flat metal container about the size of a scribe's pencil box. The metal's heat was temporarily shielded by the resistance gift from the water spirits, but she still worked fast to pop the container open and flip two moist, flaky, succulent mudfish onto a plate and set the container on a rock to cool.
. . . . . Her other hand adroitly opened one of the myriad pouches around her neck - this one textured like crocolisk skin - and removed a pinch of sharp, tangy herbs. Those were rubbed onto both fish before a splash of wine from a small jar was added to the plate, a second splash added to the coals in thanks, and a third splash tipped into her mouth to share the bounty she'd offered to the sudden blue flash of flames from the alcohol on the coals.
. . . . . A slender flensing knife slipped under the scales of the filets, peeling the skin free but leaving it in place to keep the flesh moist. Her work done, she leaned her back against a rock, dangled her hooves over the steam from the Winterspring hot spring, propped open a book (one of those racy cheap novels, not that anyone would know!), and waited for the huffing and clanking to announce the arrival of her ever-cheerful vindicator deliveryman.
. . . . . Ortuuze paused at the top of a rocky outcropping, some distance well behind the Farseer's campfire. He watched her, waiting for the last of the work to be finished and for a book to come out to signal that she had completed all her necessary duties. Over the months, as he'd gotten fitter and fitter, he no longer arrived out of breath. But she always smiled and gently joked with him when he did, so once he had given her at least ten pages of reading, he loosened the straps on his armor, jogged in place for a moment to raise his breathing, and trundled down to meet her for dinner - his absolute favorite: mudfish.

Site Write Entry #21: Cross-faction Hatred

Prompt: May 27, 2012 - Either by dream or thought, your character finds themselves thinking/dreaming about executing one person of other faction. This person could be known, nameless or one person of this server. However the catch is this, your character is thrown up in all the politics surrounding said death. It is going to be public and brutal by your hands. Do you go through with it? Whether you do or don't, who is it and why? What would you (or were going to) do to them?

. . . . . "At least my womb can still bear children, unlike your barren corpse!"
. . . . . White-hot rage exploded across Valdiis's mind, blinding her for a heartbeat - or what would have been one if hers still functioned. The searing rage shoved Colonel Valdiis aside and cleared the way for someone else to step into control, someone rarely seen except when the rigidly regimented and structured death knight lost her grip on the leash of the personality she referred to as the Midnight. That had been the hour the voice began arguing with her, at the beginning.
. . . . . The orc had uttered that statement while hauled up against Valdiis by thick chains covered in ice. She was still dangling from the death knight's grip, unable to stand on her badly mangled feet. Valdiis lifted her left hoof and slammed the titansteel shoe down on the orc's worst foot, the one the Songstress had removed bones from. The orc's scream of pain was a delightful balm to the rage fueling her, but then the foul creature had the gall to pass out. She dropped the heavily pregnant orc on the floor in a heap and stalked out of the underground cell.
. . . . . Already, she was planning how the orc would find her end once that whelp they were researching was delivered. There would be a silithid hive, four stakes and rope, a mallet to break every joint, and copious amounts of honey and bacon fat. It would be a gruesome, slow, painful death. The Midnight relished in the imagery, wallowing happily in the anticipated agony.
. . . . . "I want her woken and I want to be informed when she is able to answer questions again," she snapped at one of the cell's two door guards - Sergeant Kueliig. The lack of accent in her voice and the deeper octave as she no longer strained to push her voice past the damaged throat and palate clearly startled him. Almost no one had heard her speak with that voice.
. . . . . Celuur had. He followed her as she descended into the labyrinth of tunnels surrounding their underground operation. "What triggered it?"
. . . . . Valdiis stopped and turned. "I do not want to talk about it."
. . . . . "Consider it an order." Her General's tone was surprisingly reasonable.
. . . . . Phantom aches she should not have, old wounds which should not bother her flared, and two plate-gloved hands briefly came to rest over her abdomen. She told him, and the Midnight ebbed back into her dark recess.

-----

. . . . . In the ensuing weeks after the completion of the research, Valdiis discovered there were some traitors among the Alliance who cared for the foul greenskin. Although they had run an exceptionally clean black op, the word that it had been death knights who captured, interrogated, and experimented upon Horde captives had gotten out and the Knights were the most prominent group of death knights in the Alliance.
. . . . . Of course, she denied all knowledge of the rumored operation and always turned it to questioning the loyalty of those seeking vengeance for damage done to Horde scum. After all, the Knights had been able to provide their liaison among the Alliance with a cure for the Shadarim's successful plague strain after that operation. No one questioned the loyalty of the Knights of Menethil.

Site Write Entry #20: I Wish I'd Never Met You

Prompt: May 26, 2012 - Who does your character regret meeting and why?

. . . . . Re-acclimation to a world which no longer desired her presence was a long, hard process filled with sorrow and anger, insult and even some grievous physical injury at times. Valdiis stood on a balcony overlooking the Trader's Tier in the Exodar - a ship she'd never gotten particularly familiar with - and stared unseeingly at the strings of arcane lights dripping from the crystal ceiling. Far below, a small speck of a huntress - a brash female who'd crashed into Valdiis's life with flailing emotionality and exuberance, and forced some semblance of compassion from her cold heart - was stomping away, furious at the chilly reception her request had gained her.
. . . . . Once, Valdiis had considered the huntress an adopted sister.
. . . . . Now? She was just another breather who couldn't stand the fact that Valdiis would not lie down and die.
. . . . . Beside her, the Major was silent. He was starting to learn some of her mannerisms and moods, beginning to know when to prod and when to ignore. Right now, he was ignoring her. It was for the best. Her fury still lurked beneath the surface, a hulking, slimy black creature undulating beneath the surface of the frozen lagoon of her reactions.
. . . . . "I wanted to ask you for help with his funeral," the huntress had asked, tears in her eyes.
. . . . . "He lied to me. I have no time to spare for liars. Funerals are for ze livink."
. . . . . Kylea had stalked off, furious. She never would realize that Valdiis was not angry at her. No, it was her adopted father - the one male she'd let herself care about since the murder of her beloved brother - whom she blamed. Blamed for helping her to remember what compassion was, blamed for making her care at all, blamed for promising her his time and disappearing, blamed for dying without ever following through. As she folded her arms across her chest and blew out an entirely unnecessary breath as a sign of releasing frustration, she wished she'd never met Dagone.

Site Write Entry #19: Sleepless

Prompt: May 25, 2102 - Sleepless http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Sleepless?s=t

. . . . . So many hours had passed since night fell that the campfire was down to smoldering coals, a sullen glow which nevertheless the shaman poked at regularly in the hopes that the faint glow would be enough of a beacon. With the White Lady just beginning to wax in the sky and the Blue Child still hiding behind her because of the confluence, there was little spare light in the sky. She hoped her glowing coals were enough.
. . . . . Tonight's choice had been one of the easier ones - high bluffs overlooking the south of Feralas, the hot springs near the top of the mountain far less populous (indeed, abandoned by this hour) than the easy-to-reach ones below. Given the challenge of many of her choices of campsite, this one was comparatively easy. By this time of night, even the chubby - oh, alright, so he was significantly less chubby since he'd started this mad chase - vindicator should've been able to scale the bluffs and find her.
. . . . . He was late.
. . . . . The Farseer sighed and tugged on one of her dreadlocks restlessly. If her Sight worked on those closest to her, she would have long ago tried to See what kept him, but the spirits were fickle and rarely allowed such glimpses. The last time it had occurred, she ended up taking her old friend Celuur on a spirit journey that could have killed him if she hadn't held the soul link herself. The spirits only gave her Sight for those dear to her if there was true need, and they usually forced the visions; no vision had come, so whatever was keeping her erstwhile delivery of dinner, it wasn't something she was being counted on to do anything about.
. . . . . So she poked at the sullen coals and waited, not quite bringing herself to admit that she was sitting up, sleepless, waiting for a male she couldn't scry because he had become dear to her heart. Not that she'd let him know that.

Site Write Entry #18: Demiurge

Prompt: May 25, 2012 - Demiurge http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/demiurge

. . . . . It was four bells past midnight, not quite shy of morning - the sort of hour which peeks blearily out at you from under a wooden crate in the alley and shushes you for thinking too loudly. In short, it was a terrible hour to be out and up to mischief, which is precisely why Miss G. Ulricson, the blinded trader's wife, was doing no such thing. She was simply returning home in her terribly unfortunately slow fashion from a late night of negotiating silk deals with her factor down at the harbor and had miscounted her doors. Truly, she wasn't trying to break in to someone else's house. She even had the key! It was simply hard to put in properly when one wasn't able to see the slot.
. . . . . Magistrate Harvel Taybor had been hauled out of bed in his longjohns by the Stormwind City Guard for a little blind trader's wife who'd miscounted doors? He scowled at the guards behind her, and his scowl was made all the darker for the four a.m. shadow growing on his face. The runecloth bandages over her eyes were barely visible beneath her hood, but the way she kept reaching out to touch things around her - as if reassuring herself of the limitations of her space by feel alone - was clearly the behavior of a woman truly blinded. Besides, he knew Factor MacMillan as a right upstanding fellow who'd be quite put out if one of his deals went sour because Magistrate Taybor jailed his buyer...
. . . . . Twenty minutes and two gold coins later, Miss G. Ulricson was escorted back to her door by the guards - who carefully checked to make sure the number matched her key - and left to her evening. Knowing they were still watching, she fumbled the key into the lock, but managed it and then slipped inside.
. . . . . "Oy," came a soft hiss. "Wot kept ya?"
. . . . . "Guards almost nicked me f'r suspicious behavior tryin' t' get in me own damn door." Ilva pushed her hood back and began unwinding the bandages over her perfectly functional eyes. "Light bless tired public servants, though."

Site Write Entry #17: Here Comes the Sun

Prompt: May 23, 2012 - Describe your character's favorite weather.

. . . . . Today was perfect, absolutely perfect. The blue sky was cloudless and sparkling from a lemony-yellow sun, glistening on the cobblestones freshly washed by four days of downpour. There was a faint breeze which did not chill in the slightest because of the warm, early summer air, and everyone was in a fantastic mood to finally be out after the rough summer squall of the last several days.
. . . . . Naturally, Ilva didn't whistle as she went about her work, but the urge was certainly there. After all, it was the kind of day absolutely everyone - and the contents of their pockets - was out for a walk.

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.

Site Write Entry #15: Itchy

Prompt: May 21, 2012 - Itch, itch. Your character has an itch in the most impossible place to scratch. Where is it and how does your character dramatically solve the problem?

. . . . . Swathed in mottled, dark grey cloth from head to toe, Ilva crept along the roof line in the near total darkness of a new moon. Below her, pacing the cobblestone streets with a clank and clatter which announced his presence even before the light from his unshuttered lantern was visible was a Stormwind City guard. His plumed helmet bobbed comically as he walked from shop to shop down Forge Street in the Dwarven District. Ilva made not a sound and barely a visible motion as she flitted from chimney to chimney, minimizing the time she spent profiled against the night sky.
. . . . . The guard stopped in front of the darkened windows of a bakery and lifted a hand, pressing his helmet against the window as he peered in. Slowly, Ilva dropped down the tar paper roof until she was almost near enough to grab that ridiculous plume. Time stood still as she waited for the guard to set his lantern down on the bench next to the window. Without the lantern shining glare off the glass, he would be able to see better. Sure enough, he set the lantern down. Then he lifted a hand gloved in plate and blue leather, two fingers pointing left briefly.
. . . . . Ilva grabbed the lip of the roof - no gutter to speak of - and flipped herself over it, landing lightly on the padded balls of her leather slippers on the ground just behind the guard. He never heard her drop down.
. . . . . "Nooooorrrm," she whined. "Scratch my back. I ent able t' reach there."
. . . . . The guard turned, scowling through his helmet. "Oy. Get lost, Rabbit. This ain't a jobbie here."
. . . . . "I know we ent knockin' this place." She danced in place on the cobblestone, fidgety as she tried to get one arm behind her back, then switched, then back again. "Norm! Scratch my back!"
. . . . . The Stormwind City guard sighed heavily and pulled his right glove off, reaching out right between Ilva's shoulderblades to give a good skritch. Pity it stopped her sticking her chest out and dancing in place, though.

Site Write Entry #14: Once More With Feeling

Prompt: May 20, 2012 - Your character is given a chance to recall one person from the dead. Who do they summon and what happens? Knowing that time is short before they have to return to the world beyond, what is the last thing you want them to depart with/knowing?

. . . . . It had been weeks and weeks since she'd let him out. He was probably quite sick of flies. But it wasn't magnanimity which drove Rosoe to temporarily lift the enchantment on her erstwhile apprentice - it was practicality. After all, she had promised to provide him training and she could not provide all of it while he was a toad.
. . . . . "You sadistic, rampaging mons-"
. . . . . "Shhh. I will put it back without letting you stretch your legs," Rosoe warned as she sat back on her hooves, out of striking distance of the recently-released adolescent hoodlum she was responsible for. The transformation back to his gawky-limbed draenei shape always left him disoriented, but she wasn't giving the irritable apprentice any free shots.
. . . . . Athanoor glared at her while he tried to remember how his body worked. The evil monster who imprisoned him simply watched calmly, neither offering assistance nor appearing to judge him. It wasn't long, though, before the voices of the dead started pressing against his skull again. Never in a hundred million years would he admit it, but he was usually rather relieved to be hexed back into a toad, because then the dead ignored him. Now, they clamored for attention. But not as loudly as his mentor.
. . . . . "Tonight, you will call the ancestors." One calloused hand raised imperiously to forestall his cry of dismay. "Control it, or it will subsume you. Now, this will be a directed call made with a ritual focus." She tossed a small wooden box at him and Athanoor found himself still too uncoordinated to catch it. His tongue flickered out as if he'd catch it that way, and the box bounced off his chest. Finding his limbs and remembering the use of hands, he picked it up and opened it. The box held a velvet-covered form as if it'd once cradled something short and slender and rod-like, but it was otherwise empty. "The box is the focus," she explained before he even asked, "not its former contents." For quite a time, Athanoor struggled to focus as she droned on about the magic he was to master tonight.
. . . . . The theory behind the magic explained, Rosoe placed her hands on her knees and watched her apprentice begin the ritual call. She had no desire at all to call up this dead spirit, but it was the only ritual focus for this she had; she didn't even know why she'd kept the damn box all this time. Athanoor had to call up a dead spirit she knew for her to judge if he'd performed the ritual correctly.
. . . . . The campfire flared green as her apprentice tossed a handful of loose sorrowmoss into the flames, and heavy grey smoke billowed. Long years of practice allowed her to know the moment her apprentice slipped into trance and pulled down the spirits of the dead, his own body becoming the horse upon which the departed soul rode.
. . . . . "Where- when- who has called me?" Athanoor bellowed, eyes pried wide and unblinking, his voice no longer his own.
. . . . . "It is I, Leaus," Rosoe said quietly, her face carefully blank.
. . . . . "You spy! You wretched traitor! You listener at doors!" Leaus-in-Athanoor went on in this vein for some time, becoming more and more profane and accusatory.
. . . . . "Enough." The shaman's voice held enough command that the angry ghost stilled, shocked by her transformation from the anti-social scout he'd known to the regal magician she seemed to be now. "Tell me, when was your plot to kill the Prophet to commence?"
. . . . . The ritual she had given Athanoor bound the spirit he horsed in such a manner that it could not evade questions. "As early as sunrise, four days from that night," Leaus answered sulkily. "But you have already found that out innumerable seasons ago! You have run spying to your friends in the Light! You have had me killed!"
. . . . . The answer and the following accusations were enough to assure her that Athanoor had indeed called a true spirit from the dead. The plan had been all along to release the spirit at this point, but instead she found herself asking another question, "How did you die, Leaus?"
. . . . . The spirit riding her apprentice spit at her, but the apprentice's coordination was still limited and so he missed. "My own brother Shields carved out my heart because of your betrayal."
. . . . . "As well they should have." Rosoe flicked a hand at the fire, throwing a packet of deadnettle wrapped in Light-blessed parchment onto the coals. The flames sparkled golden as the acrid smoke rushed towards her apprentice, leaving him coughing - and alone.
. . . . . "Well," Athanoor attempted, "did I-" more coughing, "manage it?"
. . . . . "That you did, my little toad. That you did." She reached out to pat his hand and slip a teacup of green tea and honey into his grasp.
. . . . . "Does it always work that way? The truth-telling?"
. . . . . "Only with that ritual." Rosoe looked away from her apprentice, her gaze distant as her voice grew quiet. "And only with those souls not resting with the Light."

Site Write Entry #13: The Animal Companion

Prompt: May 19, 2012 - Your character's favorite animal companion at any point in their life.

. . . . . Soft purple glows gone red with warning. Klaxon sirens. A bone-deep shudder and worringly enduring rumble. Heat. Fire. Debris. Crash. 
. . . . . Diyos had been in the stables portion of the Menagerie where riding animals were kept, feeding his elekk a favored treat - a handful of glowcaps - when sabotage brought the Exodar down. A great deal of luck and a small amount of foresight had saved him severe injury by diving into a nearby empty stall which protected him from the worst as the vessel plowed into the deep earth of this strange silvery-blue island. Bruised and cut but lacking serious wounding, Diyos crawled out from under the partially collapsed stall and plucked a piece of Nagrand hay from his unleashed curls. When he looked up, the shock froze him in place, staring slack-jawed at the devastation.
. . . . . The damage was so great that the vessel had splintered. Not two stalls over from him, the vessel had been sheared clean off, leaving the rest of the Menagerie only O'ros knew where. But three stalls over had been... Diyos gasped, limping out of the wreckage and looking around wildly. "Djemiiliak!" he yelled, "Djemiiliak!" There had been no one else in the section of the stables he'd been idling in; he was looking for his beloved elekk. "Green-Beast-Lumbers-With-Grace!" he called again - roughly the translation of the lengthy Draenei name for the creature.
. . . . . Some several hundred yards from the twisted wreckage the anchorite had crawled out of, he found another section of the Menagerie. The grass around the debris was starting to look a strange shade of red, seeping slowly into the silvery-blue grass of the island. A long, limp greenish-grey appendage stuck out from under a collapsed piece of lithoforming. Frantic with concern, Diyos worked to haul the chunks of fallen stone and crystal off. What he uncovered drew a unrestrained cry of grief from his lips. His stalwart companion of the last ten years, an elekk he'd stabled and tended - with aid of a beastmaster, of course - from a calf, was lying motionless on a large slab of lithoformed wall. Blood - the odd reddish color common to Draenor's creatures - pooled around Djemiiliak's head where a metal bar had pierced into the skull. His elekk was dead.
. . . . . The elekk's ribs moved up and down. He was breathing! Diyos knew this was a vast misuse of his Light-given healing talent, small though his abilities were, and to waste his energy on a creature and not a fellow exile during this crisis was a horrendous sin... But this land was so large he knew only that there was visible shore to his right and land without measure to his left; he needed an elekk to begin the search for his twin brother, Athos, as well as his parents and his elder brother. Clearly, the Exodar was scattered all over if the pieces the Menagerie had become were any indication.
. . . . . At least, that was his official reasoning.
. . . . . Dredging up every speck of talent in repairing wounds he could muster, his prayers to the Light fervent and heartfelt, Diyos laid one hand on the elekk's pierced skull to steady it - and with the other, pulled the metal bar out. A rush of Light and talent left him through the gates of energy in his palms, voluntarily offered to accelerate the elekk's healing process vastly beyond nature's own time frame.
. . . . . Occupied as he was with the healing, Diyos did not notice the strange, brave creature creeping up on the wreckage. No larger than an exiled one's teacup with a tail like a bottle brush and reddish-brown fur, the creature sneaked curiously up on four almost hand-like paws. It sat back on its haunches after sniffing the long, greenish-brown, meaty thing on the ground - and, bravely, did not so much as flinch when the meaty thing sniffed back.
. . . . . The demands of healing so severe a wound so quickly caused Diyos to fall to his knees at Djemiiliak's head. He closed his eyes and rested, utterly exhausted. The furred creature squeaked. In a surprisingly good imitation, so did the elekk. Diyos opened his eyes to see his elekk patting some tiny furred thing with a long bushy tail with his trunk. The furred thing offered the elekk a tiny, rounded, hard brown object, which the elekk immediately picked up with the end of his trunk and put in his mouth. Crunch! The elekk squeaked in pleasure.  
 . . . . What in the Twisting Nether had just happened to his elekk?

-----

. . . . . It was late evening after his first meeting with his new employers, the Modan Company at South Gate Outpost. Diyos rolled his broad shoulders to work out stiffness in them and trudged across the snow, his hooves kicking up little flurries. Where had Jim gotten off t-... Oh. Again?
. . . . . "Dammit, Jim! Get out of that tree!"
. . . . . His greenish-grey elekk trumpeted something between an elekk's noise of dismay and a squirrel's angry chatter. With a forewarning avalanche of snow and several broken branches, thump! the elekk fell out of the tree it had climbed. Diyos allowed himself a much put-upon sigh and braced a shoulder against the beast's side, pushing until Jim managed to right himself in the snow. The elekk's trunk snaked around and patted his hip repeatedly. "Fine," Diyos grumbled, pulling out a handful of acorns from his pocket. "Just this treat, and then we go." Jim squeaked with pleasure and enjoyed his nuts.