A Little Character Art

. . . . .I was complaining to a friend of mine that I was a sometimes little sad I played a dead character, because dead characters could not be sexy - ever. (And shouldn't be!) She decided to attempt to prove me wrong and drew a picture of Valdiis for me. I got bored and colored it recently, so I decided to share.

Drawn by Kyléa of Moon Guard. Colored by Valdiis of Moon Guard.

Fireflies in a Jar

Written while listening to Hello Again by Dave Matthews Band.


. . . . . Extinction. The word crashed against the inside of Diyos’s mind like a marshlight bleeder in a giant jar. He translated the word into his native tongue and back again, listened to his memory echo Azshariel’s voice to him until he felt like it was his own psyche beating on the glass for freedom.
. . . . . In the small workspace in Ironforge he rented for his tailoring commissions, he sat at his mana loom, weaving threads soaked in arcane dust with threads soaked in nether essence. Every clack of the shuttle seemed to repeat her premise: adapt or die. Under his hands, enough imbued netherweave to form a full bolt of cloth was forming.
. . . . . A craving for the bitter burn of alcohol settled in the back of his throat. Before joining the company, a few hours of watching his thoughts batter against his mind like trapped fireflies would have him well on his way to drinking himself into oblivion. But now he had a new start, people counting on him who were not obliged to toleration by filial bonds like his baby brother. He could forget the nightmares of millennia nipping at his hooves. He had a connection to this planet outside of his family’s bonds, and for all that he was not with them as often as their core members, he felt as if the company’s employees were what held him here – as well as his brother still on probation in Stormwind.
. . . . . Unlike Athos, if he screwed this up, they would kick him to the curb.

Making the Best of It

Written while listening to The Best of What's Around by Dave Matthews Band.
((I’m not totally pleased with this, but as it’s been several months since I last wrote something, I’ll take what I can get.))

. . . . . “She’s dead, Jim.”
. . . . . The draenei anchorite who’d just voiced this statement of fact for the fifty-third time thumped his head back against the thick hide of the elekk lying behind him on the deck of the Elune’s Blessing. For his part, the elekk – named Jim – curled his trunk around to his side and appeared to give his draenei owner a comforting pat on the hip…until it became clear that he was actually tugging on the small pouch of acorns tied to the anchorite’s belt.
. . . . . A platter-sized indigo hand swatted at the elekk’s gray trunk. The elekk snorted, blowing clear snot all over the right hip of the anchorite’s brown trousers.
. . . . . “Thanks, Jim. Good to know your opinion.” The anchorite’s voice was dry as he elbowed the elekk in the side to get him to settle down.
. . . . . A shout drifted down from the crow’s nest of the ship. The glittering crystal spires of the Exodar were just visible on the horizon. He was almost there.

. . . . . The new cook at the Valiance Keep inn gritted his teeth. That damned tapping sound was back. Taptaptap. Tap. Taptap. Tap. It was coming from the other side of the wall behind the fire pit, which was impossible since there was nothing back there.

Writer's Block

. . . . . I have not forgotten about my stories or stopped playing my characters. I've had some fairly major life upheavals in the last few months and have hit a bit of writer's block with my stories. That said, I do have a collaborative piece with Valdiis and Major Eredis Orill I'm writing with his player mostly finished and the vaguest of plots for a Diyos and Valdiis piece in the back of my head. Hadeon has an outline for another story. Xeremuriis may be a little while before she pops up again. So. Just a lull. ^.^ 

Recall

Written while listening to Beauty Never Fades by Junkie XL.


. . . . . . The small, sharp blade whistled through the air with the sweetest, softest ring, its movement so swift that its target only had enough time to perk a long ear at the warning before the dagger pinned its chest to the forest floor. The hare kicked twice and expired, its life blood pooling beneath it from the well-aimed thrown weapon.
. . . . . . Hooves no noisier than a doe’s carried the sturdy draenei female out of the bushes and to her quarry. She mumbled a perfunctory prayer to the Light for the animal’s soul, rote words with hardly more thought behind them than it took to form her mouth around the syllables. An ebon-gray hand, calloused with hard work and tipped with blunted, heavily-used claws, pulled the blade free of the corpse, and wiped it clean with a pale peach-tinted leaf plucked from the bushes. The dagger joined its twin on her leather belt, and she scooped up the hare’s corpse.
. . . . . . Whistling a tune to startle off any other predators drawn by the scent of blood, the draenei female headed back to the small lean-to in the woods she’d set up miles from the nearest settlement, and miles farther from the claustrophobic, Nether-blasted ship the draenei had landed here on. She settled her leather-covered rump on a fallen log and pulled a smaller blade from her belt, a flensing knife. With the deft movements of a practiced hand, the skin was separated from the corpse in one piece, the meat sliced free in perfectly-sized servings for two meals and set atop the bloodied skin. She got back up and laid out the sticks and larger pieces of wood for a campfire, then pulled a small pouch off her belt. Inside was a bundle of tinder and…
. . . . . . “Archimonde’s shriveled balls!” she cursed at the empty forest. “Where is my flint?” She searched beneath a rack of curing hides, inside her simple lean-to, all around the fallen log she used as seating, even took apart the campfire she’d just built. All to no avail. There was no flint to be found.
. . . . . . Continuing to curse, the draenei female known as Rosoe secured her campsite, bundled the meat up in the skin it had originally lived in, stuffed it in a pack slung over her shoulder, and started the long walk to the nearest settlement of Lailein on their latest chunk of rock in the Nether, a planet they called Spretomi.

Crucible

Written while listening to Marunae by E.S. Posthumus.
((I blame this one on Yulenia of Moon Guard. “Write a Val story,” he says; “write a war story,” he says… The discussion between Eredis and Valdiis comes from in-game RP; much thanks to Eredis and Bergmann for letting me run off with those characters a bit. The format – specifically, the timing of the three threads – of this particular story is somewhat bizarre. Hopefully, it is not too obscure to be understood.))


. . . . . . The acrid mixed scent of sulfur and flux, of melted iron and crushed rock, hung on the hot, dry air swirling lazily through the open balcony of the second floor of the building. As acclimated as any native of the city by now – or perhaps just too dead to smell it – a draenei female in light plate armor sat motionless at a desk piled high with papers. In her hands she held a report detailing the buildup of sin’dorei troops on the other side of the Dark Portal – a clear and immediate threat to Alliance trade interests that must be dealt with swiftly.
. . . . . . Plated boots clomped up the stairs and the draenei never moved, her glowing eyes fixed not on the report, but blankly at a spot on the wall opposite her chair. The clomping continued as a grizzled, older human male in heavy plate covered by a black tabard moved through the path of her blank stare and sat down across from her at the desk.
. . . . . . “Commander Valdiis. Just the person I wanted to see.”
. . . . . . The draenei Commander took several seconds to focus her attention on the man across the table from her, and several seconds more to form something between a sigh and an acknowledgment. “Hrhn. Major…”
. . . . . . The human Major raised his eyebrow inquisitively at this unusually slow response.
. . . . . . After another several seconds, she blinked and seemed to shake herself out of it. “Major Eredis, sir. Ehm. Alright, so I am just ze person you vanted to see?” The paper went down on the table and her hands – covered as always in articulated plates over leather gloves – folded atop the desk in what would have been a casual gesture if the creak of tightly-clutched leather didn’t give her away.
. . . . . . The Major nodded. “You’ve read the reports on Sunguard activity in Outland.” It wasn’t a question.
. . . . . . She glanced down at the paper under her hands and nodded mutely. One of the ebon-gray tendrils set behind her ear twitched.
. . . . . . “I need you to represent AEGIS at the Temple of Telhamat.” The Major scratched his bearded chin. “Bergmann will be your aide, as usual.”

Fake It ‘Til You Make It

Written while listening to Fake It by Seether.


. . . . . “I’d really rather you stay here.” The concerned words of his friend and fellow draenei in the Modan Company rang in his ears for a few hours after she had left. The Company doctor had reiterated it. Then the boss lady had come back and shared roasted rabbit and a bit of lovely conversation with him.
. . . . . But now he was alone in the Southgate Outpost. And supposed to stay here.
. . . . . “Booooring!” he wailed up at the stone ceiling.
. . . . . The anchorite was sitting on the edge of the cot kept in the upstairs of the Outpost for medical needs…and did the Company ever have medical needs. Lately, it seemed it had been mostly him. He looked at the empty bottle of Captain Rumsey clutched in one platter-sized indigo hand, and then at the four empty bottles set neatly next to the box he’d been pulling them from. For a moment, it all looked perfectly fine…and then his neurons went into another misfire tailspin.

Chased by Destiny

Written while listening to King of Pain by the Police.
((I tend to think of my stories as "fan service" most of the time, because they often aren't stand-alone tales that could make for universal stories. That's one of the reasons I don't go out of my way to point people to my blog. That said, this may be the most "fan service"-y story of all, because of the rapid-fire way guildmates are mentioned without introduction, and the way actual in-game events are inserted almost at random. So. Fair warning given.))


. . . . . The sickly green tendrils of fel energy dragged claws across his mind, their tainted fingers tugging and stroking and promising all manner of unimaginable power if he let them in. Just a taste. Just a touch. You’re already halfway there… What’s a little more?
. . . . . No.
. . . . . The anchorite strapped a little bit of mental steel to his backbone and concentrated on the task at hand: rifling through the thoughts of the bound sindorei prisoner in front of him. Despite being half-hidden by shadows and mist, he could see the two Hand of Argus vindicators guarding the prisoner eyeing him nervously. Wasn’t that always the price of it? Those few who knew what he did for the Hand…he always made them nervous. He shut out his own feelings, his own thoughts, and concentrated on the sindorei.
. . . . . Like a file clerk going through papers, he shuffled through a series of images, searching for anything that would reveal the source of the constant influx of fresh troops that were attacking the newly formed camp of Blood Watch. He shuffled past an image of a large portal and red crystals – the Vector Coil, stopped, went back. On the bound and unconscious prisoner’s temples, fingers of shadow and magic over indigo skin tightened slightly.
. . . . . The shadowy anchorite opened his mouth to tell the vindicators about the portal the sindorei attackers were using to get more troops. As his mouth opened, the sickly green tendrils of fel energy rising from the sindorei swarmed in and began squirming around in his brain, lashing his soul and tearing him away from the last of the Light.
. . . . . No!

. . . . . “No!” Diyos sat upright in the too-short bed in the too-small room he’d rented at the inn at Valiance Keep. He began to shiver almost immediately as the pile of woolen blankets fell down around his waist; the pre-dawn air of a winter in Borean Tundra, even inside an inn, was not a place for bare skin. A soft chiming sound and a faint purple glow came from the table next to the bed. The anchorite groaned quietly and reached over to drop a small bag of coins over top of the communication crystal and hide it from sight and sound. It was because he dearly loved his little brother that he couldn’t answer that summons. Not now. Not while the shadows still tugged at him.
. . . . . He clasped a hand around the gold and brass symbol around his neck, pulled the wool blankets back up over his head, and tried desperately to get back to sleep for a few more hours.

To Touch the Fire

Written while listening to: “Scattered Rain” by Tsuneo Imahori.


. . . . . I still remember the sense of awe and wonder I felt when I first saw Farseer Nobundo wield the elements as easily as our Vindicators wield the Light. Like most of my people, my head was still clouded by fear and prejudice; I believed the Broken were somehow tainted and unworthy. I was such a fool.

. . . . . My path had been a simple one until that day. Born to the life of an eternal refugee during the early centuries of our exodus, I trained as a scout and tracker, my reckless disregard for myself allowing an unusual amount of skill in finding which places on each new planet we landed on would be safe to inhabit and which places were potentially fatal to us. I spent the millennia learning to be self-sufficient, to rely only on myself – a very bizarre habit among the communal draenei. I think, then, my reasoning was that I spent so much time while we were off-ship alone, that when we were on-ship, it just continued to be my habit. Maybe I just never wanted to own up to the fact that I didn’t quite fit in. All in all, it was a simple path, and I did not entirely stay alone; I had friends and lovers among the other scouts. Never anyone too close, anyone I could not leave behind when the restlessness struck.
. . . . . When we landed for what we had hoped was the final time – didn’t we always hope it was the final time? – I went a-wander across the new planet. My hooves didn’t touch the same soil twice for many years. I saw the rolling hills of Nagrand, the graceful plains before the Temple of Karabor, the lush greenery of the Peninsula in the Devouring Sea. I found glory in discovering untouched lands, places even the orcs hadn’t seen yet. Perhaps the way of the eternal refugee lives under my skin and will forever more. I never have quite seemed to settle down.

. . . . . It was only luck and happenstance that I even learned about our exodus to Zangarmarsh. I had heard about the sacking of Farahlon, of course, and it was why I retreated to the high mountains of Nagrand alone. I found peace in solitude and even under threat of attack from the orcs, I felt safer alone in the mountains than in a city. But when one of my climbing spikes broke, I had to leave my hermitage behind and descend the mountains to Shattrath City to get a new one.
. . . . . There in the city I learned that our most sacred temples – Karabor and Auchindoun – had fallen already to the orcs, and they were headed toward our last bastion of safety. It took me less than a day to volunteer to join the scouting party to lead the city’s refugees to the small anchorite settlement of Telredor.
. . . . . Telredor was much too small for so many of us. Some went on to form Orebor Harborage, some settled at the Twin Spires, but we all stuck to the safety of the marshes. As scouts, we were often sent to gather food for the refugees. Even now, I hate mushrooms and will not eat them unless I have no other option. And I will consider eating my own hooves as an option before eating mushrooms again. We managed to eke out several years of relative safety, although the pass in from Terokkar and from the Peninsula had to be heavily guarded.
. . . . . The Prophet Velen? We did not know where he was. After Karabor fell, he had come to Shattrath to share his wisdom and point us towards the marshes. But somewhere along the way, he departed into the marshland and we knew not where he had gone or if he even still lived. The anchorites at Telredor told us to remain fast to the Light, that it would hold us safe. I admit that I no longer had such faith. How was a life of constant retreat, of death to a deathless race, of loss and sorrow and fear…how was this what the Light wanted for us? I attended prayer services and mouthed the words, but I held more faith in my ability to provide for myself than the Light’s providence.

. . . . . I returned from a food-gathering expedition, laden with two baskets of edible fungi, to find a crowd gathered in the central terrace at the top of Telredor. The Prophet had returned, and he was bringing with him someone who would help him guide our people to a new peace, a new communion with the world. Despite my lack of faith in the Light on the whole, I did still have faith in the Prophet’s wisdom, so I joined the milling throng with excitement in my heart.
. . . . . That excitement burned to ashes when I saw the stooped, warped, Broken man leaning on a walking stick at the Prophet’s side. The buzzing murmurs around me reflected my own disappointment. A Broken. A tainted one. What if his presence here began to mutate the rest of us? What if the fel energies clinging to him spread to us? There was a reason, after all, that they were not allowed among the unaffected! The crowd grew restless, stepped back almost as one. Someone shouted a question about the wisdom of this to the Prophet Velen. I was already searching a path out through the crowd with my baskets when the sky cracked open above our heads with a deafening sound.
. . . . . I froze in place as all the hairs on my body stood at attention and a blue glow infused the air for less than a second before lightning streaked down and whipped around the agitated crowd, just above our heads, just far enough away to keep us from true harm. I looked to the platform above us, awe suffusing my soul. The Prophet Velen had his hands folded in the sleeves of his robe and an inscrutable expression on his face. The Broken he introduced to us had his face turned up to the sky as the rain began to fall. “Everything that is, is alive,” he said, his voice quiet but audible to us even over the rain.

. . . . . This was self-sufficiency! This was power! This was providence at its most basic level! Like several in the crowd, I ended up approaching the Broken – Farseer Nobundo – to seek to join his growing number of students. I learned later that I was in the larger, second of the groups he mentored along this new path for the draenei, having followed behind a smaller group of students who had sought him out without the Prophet’s guidance.
. . . . . I was an arrogant and envious fool, then. I believed that I chose this path for myself, that I would master it, that I was somehow less desperate than the first group because they had all been Broken – or nearly so. I was impatient, impertinent, and entirely too stupid. It surprises me even still to think that it took so long for sense to be knocked into my empty head.

. . . . . Ten of us were gathered around Farseer Nobundo, sitting on the wet marshlands near a lake in Zangarmarsh. We were practicing listening to the spirits of Water, and – as was typical for me – I was struggling. I could not hear them, no matter how I raged and pleaded with my soul. I demanded, I begged, I railed and requested by turns. I had conquered the natural world through my own determination and skill, and now to find that all the mountains I climbed were living, the water I drank freely given to me, and that all I conquered was merely a gift, not a victory…
. . . . . I rose from the wet ground and stomped away from the lesson, my hooves guiding me out of earshot and to a clearing at the edge of the lake. I was so angry, so upset, that even the one spirit I could hear – the sibilant whisper of Air – did not seem to get through to me. I ignored it…to my own peril. Frustration guiding me, I turned my face to the sky and shouted my rage to the heavens. I did not see the group turn to look at me. I did not see Farseer Nobundo take a step towards me. All I saw was the fluorescent blue glow light the air a split second before the bolt of silver fire from the heavens answered my rage with its own.
. . . . . Though I know now from simply looking in a mirror that the strike was a small one and made contact with only a few inches of the left side of my face, it felt at the time as if my entire being was enveloped in agonizing flame. My last conscious memory is of every muscle and tendon locking into a rigid and violent contraction, and I do not have another memory from that until two months later when I awoke to being tended by one of the other students, a wonderfully kind woman named Beluuma, in a small room in Telredor.
. . . . . I am told that the lightning strike threw me from the lake back to the clearing and that my insensible form landed rigidly at Nobundo’s hooves. I am told that he had to pound on my chest hard enough to crack my sternum to restart my heart. I am told that I was carried – a twitching, spasmodic mess – back to Telredor by two of my peers. I am told that it was approximately two months before I regained my senses. I remember none of it.

. . . . . It is a wonder what such a universal clue-by-four to the face can do for one’s attitude. Although I remember being an arrogant and power-hungry woman, I no longer am able to find that part of my personality. It is as if the lightning burned it from my brain. Near death brings a certain humility to the soul, and it is only due to that humility that I managed to complete my training with Farseer Nobundo.
. . . . . Approach the elements with reverence and humility, with polite deference and gentle requests – lest they find their own ways of ensuring that you are humbled.

Northrend is Calling

Written while listening to: Leipzig is Calling (with short intro) by Thomas Dolby.


. . . . . If a person wanted to be digging up a magical artifact for research on this planet, then they ought to seek out a dwarf. Diyos had been here long enough to learn this. So it was that a week after his brother’s hearing and making that stupid, stupid promise, here Diyos was, making his way to the Dwarven District of Stormwind on a lovely, bright, late fall day. Scratch that. It was a lovely, bright, late fall day – except in the Dwarven District. Here, the thick layer of soot in the air didn’t so much obscure the sun as grab it by the throat and shake it until the lights went out.
. . . . . Diyos coughed and thumped his chest, cursed his sensitive nose, and lifted the directions he’d hastily scribbled from a city guard close enough to his eyes to read in the gloom. “Right past the Cathedral-side entrance, then left at the next block,” he mumbled aloud, stifling another cough with his hand. He tried to pull his hood around to the front to shield his face until he realized that his robes didn’t actually have a hood.
. . . . . A rhythmic clank of armor and hooves caused him to look behind just in time to jump out of the way of a skeletally-thin horse and dark-plated human rider. “Watch it!” Diyos yelled, accustomed to his bellow and wide shoulders giving him some measure of intimidation factor. The rider paused briefly and fixed cold, inhumanly glowing eyes on the anchorite – who quailed under the look and backed to the wall. So much for intimidation factor. To his relief, the rider turned away and went on, dismounting nearly half a block away. The dark-plated knight left his charger outside the building and clanked on up a set of stairs and inside.

Writer's Block Sucks

On 12/5/09, I will run out of scheduled story posts. At that point, this blog will cease to be updated every three days and will instead be updated only as often as I end up writing something. The concern I have with this is that I have not written anything worth posting since 11/10/09. Sure, that's only twenty days without writing, but I suppose I'm a little afraid that I've already lost my muse again.

I know I haven't - the holidays are upon me, finals for the semester, actual work at work, some hefty guild RP stuffs, and so forth. I've got another Hadeon story beginning to percolate in my brain, plans for another Diyos one as well... It'll come back. But in the meanwhile, posting around here will probably slow down considerably.

Much love to all four or five people who read the blog.

Good Deeds Never Go Unpunished

 Written while listening to Under the Bridge by Red Hot Chili Peppers.


. . . . . Diyos had been feeling the subtle prickling of the hairs on the back of his neck for a good three minutes now. The weight of the stare he was getting pushed his shoulders into a hunch and his hand tighter around his mug of ale. He finally could take no more. Shoulders straightening, he spun in his seat; his blue robes twisted around his hips. “Yes, it’s in a bun!” he yelled at the human girl at the table behind him. “My masculinity is not threatened by this!” His bellow did not cow the girl so much as the gleam of pointy white teeth in his indigo face. The girl turned bright pink and turned around in her chair to face her companion and pretend she had not been staring.
. . . . . “Bloody gawkers,” he grumbled with some of the slang he’d picked up and turned back to his mug at his own table. “If it’s not the beard it’s the hair.” He lifted a platter-sized hand and stroked his facial tentacles self-consciously, then took another swig from his mug. The prickly feeling was back already.
. . . . . With an impatient snort, the draenei shoved his chair back and stood up, slamming his empty mug down on the wooden table. He dropped a handful of coins next to it, tugged his robe straight, and stalked out of the tavern. Outside the Blue Recluse, dusk had fallen on the city. The guards were already patrolling in incompetent, inefficient squads. Three of them ran by towards the warlocks’ section, their plate armor jouncing and clinking comically. You know, the warlocks’ district wasn’t such a bad idea; they had a tavern too. A single mug of ale really just wasn’t enough for as big a fellow as Diyos. He set his hooves towards the Slaughtered Lamb to get another drink – or five.

If the Sky Can Crack

Written while listening to Electrical Storm (William Orbit mix) by U2.
((There is little precedent for draenei drinking alcohol, but there is some. I figure the tavern was built and staffed by another sentient race on the planet. My draenei are degenerates it seems.))


. . . . . A bright peal of laughter and the rapid clatter of hooves on the tile floors of the ship’s corridors were all the warning Shield Crusos got before the little girl came barreling around the curve in the corridor and straight into him. Luckily, that was enough warning for him to jump nimbly out of the way, despite the heavy plate armor he wore. “Sorry!” the girl shouted as she gained speed down the straight part of the corridor, waving a piece of paper over her head with one ebon-gray hand. Crusos shook his head and smiled, turning to go on his way and report for the day’s duty guarding the Prophet. A large boy on the far edge of adolescence rounded the corner at a full gallop and crashed into Shield Crusos, sending them both sprawling to the floor with a deafening clang of plate.

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.”