the lie to come

temporarily pacified

2009-10-23T02:35:05Z

Maybe I should be embarassed that the reason I have been sneaking back into the Undercity is because I am hungry.

It is easy to think that there is something else. From months of anger and restlessness I rise feeling wiser, my head finally clear. There has always been something in the past: some memory, some hope, some desire to validate a point to my continued presence.

I am hungry, and we have finally run out of food. Rather, I have - Harvy hasn't taken a bite of anything I've cooked. He has kept busy and if he does feel the hunger at all (I've known plenty who do not) he does not show. "You've grown thin, sister," he says, as if I have ever been anything but. To think what I would do to have some curves again! Obesity might not be so bad, after being a dainty little skeleton.

I could just as easily hunt, but the thought alone makes me tired. And I could just as easily purchase more than plenty in Brill, but... I suppose there will always be something about the Undercity.

My perch is still here, and seems to have been unclaimed by anyone else. It saddens me somewhat that I've not found any rogues haunting it but I suppose it is for the best. I don't think I'd have the energy to chase off ghosts, much less kill them. Tiresome, all of it.

Hungry and tired. Maybe I'll rent a proper bed for a while.

~ D.

the universe contracts to sigh

2009-09-20T17:17:45Z

Well, now, what to say?

Might be that one ought to reminisce about what all has happened. Virtue in rememberance, but to be honest, what has happened? A girl left home behind and jumped straight into this awful mess. Now there might be some who'd say there's a work of legend or prophecy in that: those who have thought to call me a hero, who might even actually believe it. I'm sure as hell not one to turn down compliments and it's really up to them what they think.

A girl left home and learned that the world is bigger than horseshoes and Stormwind. That would be the gist of it. I should probably blame Gorthrak but I'm sure one day or another I would have left on my own.

There's been no word about him from anyone, much less from that fancy lad they put in charge of the search, much less from that stupid rune stone thing he gave me. If there's anything I've learned in my times out here, it's that the dead don't die. He'll be alright. And he'll get a righteous stabbing soon as he comes back out of hiding. Probably not. He'd kill me first. It would be fun to try, though, just to see.

"Silly mortal, you've learned much... but still you forget the power of the Blessing of Undeath!" With that creepy grin of his.

I've been roaming around the Grizzly Hills for a few days now but word is that a Brewfest has come around the cities. Probably one of the worst ideas I've had in a while, but maybe I'll catch up with some friends there.

Fanfiction 081: Comfort

2009-08-30T01:35:00Z

A trail of carcasses behind them, hardly apt to be called as such; a stench that reached beyond the rot and filth that polluted what remained of Lordaeron's lands stung his senses. The flames were not kind to the creatures that prowled around them.

It was rage that drove her, he saw now. Beneath her manufactured civility and empty grin boiled an anger he could not imagine to exist in such a shell as she. They howled and keened and charged; at times he could not tell if it was her own shrieking that overpowered them more than the fel-tainted magicks that seethed about her hands.

He let her be, thinking better than to interrupt. A woman has her moods, and a woman has her ways.

They circled the grounds once, twice, bringing flame to anything that dared twitch in her way. There was always something.

Every pass she would pause before a certain house, spitting curses and shouting dares.

They came to it again. Delial was panting.

"This... is what you meant?" he ventured finally. He did not look at her; privately he knew these Scourge were worthless and trivial, barely functioning beyond the basic need to consume, and wondered if she knew the same.

Just the same, she did not look at him. "If it were as simple as this, love, I would've done it years ago. Come to think of it I probably have." She frowned at this and flexed her hands, dripping with licks of ghostly flame.

"Then why return?" The Death Knight (oh, it pained her still to think of it) possessed a confounding wealth of patience, it seemed to her, but she could hear the testiness in his voice. Trust a man to have no time for things he cannot understand, she thought grimly.

For the first time in hours, her magicks were released. The rigidity that had taken over her body collapsed in an instant, shrinking the raging warlock into just an undead woman.

"You don't remember," she said. At some point she had shed her face bands and her eye (a gift, she once said regretfully) regarded him, out of place and melancholy. "You used to, but..."

She swallowed and sighed, suddenly looking somewhat bashful and awkward. "You don't have to be here, Harvy. You do know that, right?"

The blue lights of his eyes dimmed slowly and brightened back up even more so. Then he pointed towards the ruined home with a heavy gauntleted hand. "Rest, sister. We will build a fire and rest." As he spoke, he reached over his shoulder and unslung his monstrous axe, and noting the puzzled look on Delial's face, he continued. "Wood, tinder. Unless you... wish to burn the house...?"

He waited long enough to watch her shake her head frantically. "The fireplace," he said over his shoulder with a smile in his voice. "It will need some cleaning out, don't you think?" And then he was gone, shambling down the ichor-stained road.

Delial squinted after him. Did her baby brother, so bumbling and simple (and perhaps even more wizened than she could ever think to be these days), just presume to give her an order...?

The stone hearth, half tumbled-down and choked with soot, gaped at her expectantly.

Beneath her breath she swore, if only half-heartedly. It occurred to her then just how terribly her body ached, and that a fierce chill had settled into her bones in absence of rage and flame. Delial readjusted her gloves and set to work, cautiously scooping handfuls of ash from one place to another. She paused only once to smirk when the echoes of what must have been an axe chopping lumber rang from elsewhere in the haze.

The Unlikely: An Introduction

2009-08-25T09:54:20Z

The pile had grown quite considerably in the past few weeks, she noticed one day. Of course one would best notice the mess when one was forced to confront it (she knew she'd put that damnable letter somewhere, it had to be somewhere) and though she had reminded herself occasionally that it was something that needed tending to, she always found a reason to put it off another day.

Miss Crowseye was not much of a reader, admittedly, nor was she much of a writer at that. It had been pure whimsy that dragged her to any and all libraries she could find but that had only lasted a handful of days.

Meanwhile, the pile grew, a new member introduced once or twice a day.

Most of them were blank. Their covers were aged and battered to varying degrees; several looked as though they had been gnawed at for quite some time, another had its pages stained with splatters of all shades of color. One held no words - only scattered sketches of all manner of things, from machines to creatures to people in perfect grey detail. Yet another was stuffed with bits of dried plants, feathers, even the occasional dried and flattened creature.

Miss Crowseye was not much of a thinker, either. She brushed her fingers over the face of one book ("Song and Women: The Life and Times of a Damn Fine Chauvinist," full of lewd drawings and incomprehensible scratch) and wondered if she might ever recall who it was she pilfered from. At the time she thought little of it: every picked pocket, regardless of the face attached to it, was another day without hunger. But now that her coffers were finally far from empty...

From the pile she drew a slim volume, one that didn't look especially beaten about.

"Ma? We got a quill anywhere?"

spinning on these ages

2009-07-07T14:00:34Z

Four years ago today, another corpse wandered out of Deathknell.

Four years from today, where will I be? Three years? Two?

I am not afraid, no. Few terrors haunt my mind and even those have the sense to remain in the outskirts.

I am not apathetic. I wake every day knowing how close I am to an end, me it my own or of my promise.

Maybe I will get myself a present. A little something in Booty Bay. Several little somethings. Maybe some big somethings, too. Why not?

dabble

2009-06-27T23:00:59Z

You,

I actually had a pleasant conversation with Shukir. Gods save me, his stupid hat might have given me an idea. A little bit of skin, maybe rig up a low-burn light of some sort... an alias.

How hard could it be?

~ D.

you think they'll notice?

2009-06-26T16:55:26Z

You,

Bleary days. I met an elf that I did not neccessarily want to strangle. It seems she was adopted by a tauren? and most of her blood siblings and relatives have gone missing.

Sounds familliar. Peace be to Lunari's spirit, wherever he may roam now. Gods know he was practically a father to me, and I miss him nearly as much as I do my own.

Midsummer's come. I've never participated much before, but I've spent much of the past few days riding about the world in search of flames. I'll admit I don't really understand what it is that's being celebrated - the hottest days of the year? Sod that.

Maybe I'll sneak off to Winterspring for a while. There's still plenty to be done in Icecrown but I've fallen back into a slump. Chasing bonfires and sneaking into the cities isn't exactly productive, either, and it's been cutting into my drinking time.

~ D.

maybe in some kind of dream, something that never comes

2009-06-14T20:17:24Z

You,

My ghost. Even after all these years, ~~the very thought of him~~

Infuriating.

Somehow I ended up in Silvermoon, and there I happened upon and had a long chat with the lady Labrae. Men and their short-comings, the dissapointments and aggrivations that come with them. Shukir seems to be spending his days at her heels. While we spoke I caught myself thinking I might've done the very same, if I weren't where I am now. The naive ones are easier to hold on to, after all, and she is possibly the most naive thing I've ever seen.

It really is strange, though, how similar our tastes are. With the last few men I've involved myself with, she's never been too far behind...

And it seems my ghost has seen fit to seek her out. I'm not sure what to do, or if I should do anything at all. If it had come from anyone else, I probably would've thought to murder them on the spot.

He's just a ghost, after all. Just a ghost.

~ D.

when the roads take you nowhere important

2009-06-10T09:31:20Z

You,

I'm sure you remember the Scar. I'm sure you rememeber what I aspired to be. What I was, even, for a time. I have been thinking on that these past few nights. Sun-less sands and sulfur tastes.Pools of smoke and blood. From these, fevered visions and back-alley prophecy.

Laughable. Honestly, my dear Delial, if it weren't for the virtue of what little cleverness you possessed, we'd be in far worse a place.

Perhaps that is the lesson I've wanted to learn all these years. Ambition is a fine trait to have, but once it's mislead...

But was that ambition? Servitude? The very notions Soulreaper warned me against. Of course.

Still, I wonder. What boons does the Shadow offer the Decrepit? A lifetime of silence and contemplation and a throne of skulls. All the threads I have missed must end at him.

I wonder, but I am no longer envious.

Stranglethorn has done little to lighten my mood. Every morning, there is a dead? goblin at the counter and none are eager to assist him. Now I know I could, probably, but that's not my job. I'll have none of that when I am doing all I can to avoid working.

There is a strange taste in my old room. Elves to be sure. Maybe even dwarf. There's probably been sex all over the damned place. Good for them, I suppose. Of that I might be a little envious.

Love,
~ D.

i open your eyes to my world

2009-06-08T01:37:02Z

You,

We spoke, he and I. It was brief but we spoke for the first time in too long. We spoke of vanishing and contemplation, of future dreams and the rising sense of hopelessness we see in them. Yet despite sober words, I felt quite pleased to see and feel him again. I knew he had not completely dissapeared, of course, but his presence is still a comfort. More a comfort than distance and seclusion.

I told him of rebuilding. When this nonsense is done, my lovely little diary, we'll see ourselves home. We'll have our old home rebuilt as beautiful as it ever was, and we'll retire for good. I told him he was more than welcome to move in with me. The silly boy blushed.

Another year is soon to pass me by. I don't know what meaning birthdays ought to have anymore. It's probably not even my proper birthday but it's the only one I remember.

I wonder if he'll get me anything.

Stupid girl fancy.

In all that time, it occured to me how empty my old haunts have become. The Undercity is almost completely silent, and Brill was empty. Have the Deathguards finally run low on corpses? I'm tired of being surrounded by elves and trolls and orcs. It's been so long since I met a nice, sensible Forsaken. Maybe they don't exist anymore.

I suppose it shouldn't surprise me. It certainly doesn't surprise you, does it?

Love,
~ D.

you'll change your mind. you always do.

2009-05-31T19:56:15Z

You,

I hardly ever look at you anymore. Neglect? Forgetfullness? Something like that, maybe. I can't make myself care that much these days.

I feel... stuck. I can see the world around me clear as summer sky but I cannot move. The north has become a hive of evil, through and through. Every inch of the land is touched somehow and its heart has grown sick. Another Old God reaches out beneath the Lich King's grasp, and both refuse to die.

Disheartening. Can this world truly be saved? The greatest threats we face will always be shadowed by something more sinister, more vile.

... In the end, I suppose it does not matter for me. The moment Arthas is slain, I can stop. I can go home. Gods give me the strength to hold on for that at least. It may very well be the last promise I have left to protect.

I've come to think of this tournament as folly. Is it meant to be a message? What good will a message do when the Scourge are at our throats? It aggrivates me to even take part of it anymore. Never mind all the gold I lose for these ridiculous things. Delial, my love, do you really need another horse? Another raptor? The stable-man will throw a fit.

Foul, foul days. Should just hide away in Stranglethorn for a while. I need a change.

Love,
~ D.

not just for fancylads anymore

2009-05-08T09:50:36Z

My ears still ring from that last run in the arena. I've been battered and beaten up pretty thoroughly before by larger and more malicious things than men, gnomes, elves, or draenei, but I suppose pain is still pain.

All things considered, we didn't do too badly. The time I've spent in Wintersgrasp and other war zones has been well rewarded. I'm learning new things and being constantly reminded that I'm not at all fond of being smashed by over-sized maces and swords, which seems to happen far too often.

That silly little troll I've got minding my dwindling fortunes got it in his head to set off with that warlock friend of his, and some little elf tart. I've seen those signs before.

Haven't got much at all to say this time, have we?

since when do rabbits lay eggs?

2009-04-28T09:54:18Z

Eggs, rabbits, fishing, and violence. An interesting blend to occupy my time. There's something else I would love to add to the list but I suppose I've gotten too frugal ?? Monogamy is such a chore.

Naxxramas... doesn't seem quite as frightening anymore. No, when it haunted the skies over Stratholme, it was terrifing. Now? It does not seem so out of its element. It doesn't seem quite as invulnerable as it was when the Argent Dawn was still struggling for aid.

No, I do not think I am much afraid of it anymore. Fear is the last thing I need.

a touch of explosives makes anything better

2009-04-19T04:43:33Z

Jousting. Jousting!

I don't know what I think about jousting. It's not the most lady-like thing of all, but it may prove interesting in the end.

Then again, jumping around in a mine field for an hour and some is probably very, very low on the list of lady-like things one can do. I'm still not sure what posessed me to do that, but at least Isal was around to keep me from permanent harm.

Still, it was good fun. Sasori would be very, very upset with me if he knew about that, I'm sure.

a different kind of cold

2009-04-10T09:39:30Z

Icecrown.

Immensely uncomfortable. Immensely. Even among the Argent ~~Dawn~~ Crusade, I feel vulnerable. Who isn't? This is his kingdom, after all. His Citadel is only a short flight away, right over the mountain ridge.

I've been left mostly to my own devices. There is always Leeshmawl. Simply thinking its name puts a bad taste in my mouth. I could do just as well without but...

The more and more I've come to think I was wrong, the more and more it worries me. If I have made it this far from following a delusion, then what will I do when destiny reveals its true face?

Stop being so morbid.

a slip of the finger

2009-04-01T09:35:53Z

Finally, a schematic that has eluded me for so long has fallen into my hands: the life-like mechanical toad. It may help if I remembered to renew my membership card now and then. It's my understanding the goblins occasionally reward gold with the plans for other small, useless doodads.

Quiet days have come again. A while ago, I found Zanik on the rooftops of Booty Bay. We sat, and drank, and talked: the tides of the world pulling us to worse and worse things, from one new evil to another. Old Gods and Lich Kings and all the nonsense they bring about. I didn't realize he and the priestess were no longer together. At least he still has his (??) child, I suppose.

Sasori told me once of a priest that was helping to keep an eye on Harvy and I believe I saw him today, minus the brother. I should know by now that he is beyond needing me to fuss and worry over every little thing but it's still difficult not to.

Blackrock isn't quite as horrible when its minions have learned not to charge you on sight. Still, it helps to buy plenty of stock so we don't have to bother for a while.

always, always

2009-03-25T09:53:28Z

A week of making sure this little egg stayed nice and warm gives into another. My first prize from those awful little Oracle creatures is a cobra, and not one of those proto-drakes. Ah, well; another week.

There is something about stumbling into the realms of the Aspects themselves that makes me queasy, almost. The Dragonblight itself, from what I am told, is essentially a giant burial ground (minus the burial). But we have intruded upon several more of their sacred places, for worthy cause or otherwise. In the past I thought little of dragonslaying beyond the novelty of the act itself, but in the past it was never more than Deathwing's progeny and their ambitions.

Oh, I wish I had children to tell these stories to. I suppose you shall do well enough. Other worlds, coming face to face with the greatest threats of our time, walking amongst the greatest heroes ever lived, and surviving (mostly) to talk about it.

How strange it seems to be a part of the world. If it is not madness that drew me here, it is surely madness that keeps me.

I've recently gotten back in touch with Zanik. Don't recall if it is I that owes him the drink, or he that owes me. Either way, I'll have to be sure to get it.

Note: errands in Blackrock. Get to them.

Fanfiction 080: Dirty

2009-03-19T09:53:39Z

The word "druid" had never meant too much to her before. In her youth, there were certainly tales of those who slept beneath the earth for centuries with dreaming the dreams of beasts, but she had thought little of them. Such creatures were beyond the borders of her world.

An unpleasant crackle-pop sounded somewhere behind her. Delial thought that after weeks of this nonsense, she wouldn't get so skittish at something she heard every few minutes or so.

Then again, Delial had begun to think that the druids were sensible, kind people.

"Um, can you...? For a minute more?"

She smiled sweet with a slice of apology and raised her hand a little higher. It had occured to her not long after their first trek into the hives that the ceilings and possibly most of the wall's surface area had a terrible dripping habit. Not the pleasant sort, mind you, that comes with hard work and sunshine; a sticky, gross plop... plop... plop. What ended up on the floor somehow seemed to crawl back upwards only to fall again.

Delial took great care not to let anything moist fall onto her person, much less her hands. A smoldering ball of flame writhed and wavered from her palm to give light to her partner in crime that day.

"Sorry, love. Guess I was, ah... Just thinkin' a bit. Don't mind me."

Sasori raised a shoulder and tilted his head, his half-shrugged equivalent of a confused look. His face was banded as hers was, though his heavier leathers did far better to obscure any movement beneath them. Most of his armor was shiny with silithid secretions of all sorts but he did not seem to care. "About what?" he asked.

The walls went "plop" in the brief pause that followed. It was a sound Delial was beginning to liken to the dripping of druid blood as they slept on beneath the earth, impaled with the nastier parts of the silithids they had charged her to kill in their stead. And then there was the dragon.

"Oh, nothing," she said. "Nothing important."

who dares? oh, little demon, you have no idea

2009-03-17T09:52:43Z

At my side there stands a felguard. The summoning was... pitifully simple. There were no rituals, no rites. Simply a handful of words handed to me by a very befuddled Soulreaper.

What is the meaning of this?, he asked. What is it you are planning? As if those who lay claim to such creatures would be "planning" anything beyond the obvious.

This might be interesting. It seems we've... refined ourselves considerably since I last spoke to anyone of the finer points of demonology. We'll see.

dynasties and legacies

2009-03-16T01:34:10Z

I've been... strangely productive. A flying carpet, a new pair of goggles (binocular functions need tweaking, don't forget that), accolades and honors among the seal-men and the Wyrmrest Accord. I have seen more in the last week or so than I have in the month prior. It's thrilling.

Inaction leads to discontent. And while I have not been entirely inactive (hiding away in the beaches no one visits, two souls, ha!) it's a different turn all the same. Icecrown is still... waiting. We'll get there. Maybe I can drag Yale along.

The women here are far too large. There are camps full of them - giant vrykul women all eager to slit one another's throats. The air tastes of wet fur and blood. I imagine the ladies don't smell all that pleasant at all.

Fanfiction 079: Sweat

2009-03-14T01:45:11Z

The boy sat, bouncing the back of his head off the post, thoroughly bored and uncomfortable. At least it kept him thinking: he spent several long minutes attempting to decide what might make a comprable sound without involving his head.

He decided that a pumpkin being thumped with the heel of his palm might do the trick.

He sighed.

"Say, Dee--"

"Hush, boy," chided the other. "You'll scare them off."

Young Harvard bonked his head particularly hard to voice his annoyance. Someone was enjoying herself though he didn't completely understand how. Summer had yet to officially come over Andorhal but the weather was certainly attempting to trick itself into believing so. His only respite (aside the thudding in his skull) was the occasional less-than-warm breeze rushing through the plots and through the fence he was propped up against.

He gave his sister a look.

It may as well have still been the height of spring. A cantaloupe green sundress dotted here and there with a shower of embroidered white daisies waifed about her most daintily, seeming to flutter independently of the air. Neither it nor the young-but-blooming girl who wore it paid any mind to the boy's misery. She held a fan pilfered from their mother's wardrobe and fanned herself just enough to stir curls of her dark hair around her cheeks and her ears.

He had known for some time that boys and girls differ on several points. Delial, however, seemed to enjoy many of the same things he did. She wore no shoes at present, preferring the feel of earth between her petite toes. She enjoyed eating sweets, skipping rocks across water, and skipping lessons at the school house. She adored tricks and jokes and laughter.

He detached the back of his head from the fencepost and peeked between the boards.

A handful of older boys, local farmer's sons and nephews and whatnot, worked the field. They were mostly tall and mostly darker skinned from the sun. Occasionally one pause to would brush the sweat from his brow though it did nothing but stir up the rest of the sweat all over their shoulders. Then he would look at the young girl perched with her elbows atop the fence, and he would wave.

His sister sighed as one did so; swipe, smile, and wave.

Harvard tended to feel a little odd watching lines of sweat run down perfectly pert pectorals. He rolled his eyes and felt the back of his head collide with wood once more.

"Hush," whispered his sister, allowing herself just enough exertion to wave back and nothing more. "You'll scare them off."

Fanfiction 078: Butterflies

2009-03-14T01:42:47Z

"That's what I like about us," he had said, and then he took her hand.

Randolph Montague, grey as ever, raised his brows in a silent query of concern. There was very little that surprised him these days. He could have blamed the job he had, or the bone-crowned box that he and his siblings occupied for hours and hours on end. He could have blamed the Undercity itself, as bleak and grim as it was. When one spends every moment of their unlife there, one learns to nod and smile at the bizzare. Ask how it's day was, what it plans to do this evening.

He leaned against his little window and stared through coils and tendrils of ivory. The warlock was mumbling annoyed apologies to herself whilst hunching over to snatch up the few items that had somehow slipped from her arms. He had known her long enough to recognize the act and knew that it would likely be best for him to pretend he hadn't.

"Little much to drink," she said and it was true that there was a flush about her cheeks. The bank clerk politely nodded and smiled, as was wise to do despite knowing that no, she hadn't had much to drink at all this time. He couldn't ignore the queer sliver of a grin on her face, however; a grin that she seemed to be working hard to mask rather than simply letting it mask something else.

sea salt reveries

2009-03-02T20:06:13Z

Déjà vu, plus something new.

don't need to lose to know that you have it good

2009-02-22T10:21:32Z

the wardens wouldn't allow him to follow me into stratholme. we went to hillsbrad instead. he looks a lot like zanik did. my thighs are still far too fat.

clarity through alcohol. tonight his courage comes in a bottle. (several really) I don't mind. I'm a sucker for sincerity. especially when I already know what he's got to say.

things worse than that

2009-02-19T10:37:52Z

Looking back, it is difficult not to regret. It's difficult not to miss them, or how things were. I still have my promise and I will deliver upon it. Maybe I see it more clearly now than before. Or maybe I'm still just as naive. I've been told that many times. What fun would there be in listening to that?

On one hand, I want to jump him like a fiend. On the other... take it slow, he says. Up until recently, I didn't know what slow meant. My sex life has been slow as a snail, for one, since Loche disappeared.

Gods help me, I'm getting picky. I'm growing old and sensible. I suppose in the end that's a step further away from becoming my mother so it can't be that bad. It doesn't help, though, when there's a fairly vulnerable, youngish, lean, handsome rogue laying beside me who has the added perk of actually fancying me. Fate is a twisted little bitch, indeed.