Alynore's blog

((A commission from the ever-talented Donut Mod! I couldn't resist. Thanks so much! <3 ))

Lower City’s honeycomb of crumbled tenements and tattered tent neighborhoods was entering into an entirely different city. Sha’tar and Shattered Sun patrols were thin below the Terrace. Brown Orcs sold goods to Draenei while Arakkoa conversed with Ethereals. Urchins in ragged clothes herded sheep and chickens across the cracked floor. Thin women and scarred men drifted through the market to the sounds of Ogre bellows and Netherdrake growls. At some point, everyone ended up at the World’s End Tavern, listening to loud music or bad stand-up comedy until their meager coins couldn’t buy the cheapest beer.

Alynore climbed the stairs that zigzagged up the inner wall. The higher your housing in Lower City, the better off you were, until you reached the Terrace or the outskirts. Kamron’s apartment was in the lower part of the middle tier. It was a climb not quite high enough for an elevator stop. Two youths gossiped on a landing and a baby cried through an open window; otherwise, the level was quiet.

I never really gave him much thought.

Why should I? It was Ma and me making our way through the broken world. We researched in Kirin’Var, did arcane work for the grunts in Honor Hold, and studied with the High Elves in Allerian. The two redheaded Forrester girls could do anything together and there just wasn’t room for anyone else, not for very long.

For the first time in my life, I find myself wondering.

The bonfire has guttered out and they are dismantling the stage. There are no more torches to throw.

“...You have a beard.”

Seriously? First thing I said, when instead of a wiry Worgen there was a wiry young man standing next to me in that displaced cellar?

Damn dragons.

Once a bastion of the Light, the demons came and darkness fell on Karabor
The Betrayer threw them down and earned his name
Hypocrisy on hallowed ground, monsters roaming nurseries, decadence in austere chambers
The lonely lord, the obsessed hunter, and the treacherous servant
Broken alliances, intricate plans, unlikely partners
Controlling a broken world’s fate

This place is congealed hate.
This is where the lines were crossed.
A festering volcano spits poison into the air while jade fire hisses across blackened fields.
Orphaned experiments of a maligned Flight struggle for freedom.
Two armies battle to hear the chimes of favor.
One stands alone, seeking victory in a gasp of defeat.

The verdant fields of Farahlon are gone.
The air smells burnt; hair stands, and ears fill with thunder.
Rocks crumble as the forges eat the land’s strength, ruled by the traitor’s stolen citadel.
Demons crawl over ashes while agonized elementals roil.
Ghosts haunt the ruins; held by the released energies, lost to their faded memories.

The mountains arch in impossible, claustrophobic spikes.
Their dusty roads are walked by ancient clans seeking a heavenly myth.
Their forests nestle in deep vales, protected by sheer walls.
Crystals gleam under the stars, their arcane energy wafting into the ether.
Alien dragons soar among them like dark clouds while craggy creatures stalk along ridges.

Ancient Nether ship, powered by the Light.
A tomb for the spark that once piloted its charges to safety.
A place of rest for the native souls, drawn by that sacrifice.
Arcane diagrams break the prairie grasses, cradling the diamond.
Perhaps they spell the names of the fallen; perhaps they ward the dead seeking peace.

The savannah rolls, broken but unbowed.
Creatures still roam as they always have, unconcerned.
The shadows of islands float through the beribboned air, rivers still flowing from their eternal springs.
The Elements are active here, present in every rock, every blade of grass.
The wind whistles. Earth rumbles. Fire sighs. Water laughs.
All are alive.

Where the dead were honored the land too has died.
There are predators who hunt the lost souls wandering the ashes.
Their tomb is defiled by madmen who want to finish breaking the world.
The songs of buzzards drown the enraged whisper ensnared beneath the gray plain.
Mercenaries pick through the bones and tremble unaware.

It’s a green that doesn’t burn.
Soft blue light is filtered through ancient trees.
Cold mountain lakes feed giggling rivers under the canopy.
Raptors swoop through the air, spying for their avian masters cackling in the Veils.
The City of Light still gleams, a golden jewel amid the leaves.
It rebuilds just as plants regrow.

Mist falls with spores from mushrooms taller than trees.
Plants glimmer with their own light, making up for the hidden sun.
Nestled among the fungi, many homes hide—a welcome refuge, or a deadly trap.
The warm water connects the forest lakes like veins.
This land breathes, quiet as a beating heart under the rain.

The Citadel rises, burning against an already burnt land.
The jail holds Pit Lords and lesser fiends.
It serves as capital for the “True Horde” of fel-quaffing monsters.
Outside, red dust swirls against a sky open to the wonders of the Nether.
Many try to survive the unrelenting heat while scavengers eye dead, cracked ground.

A shadow stretches across worlds.
A scorched pit is always guarded as arcane lightning breaks the sky.
A road of bones leads to the broad stairs that cling to the edge of forever.
The gateway looms over all. It connects, and it divides.
A stage for invasion.
This threshold begins--and ends--everything we know.

There is no stray breeze for feverish skin. No teasing hint of water for parched throats. Sweat simply evaporates, steaming before it swiftly dissipates.

I stare down at the basin of cold water I just poured. I take a breath and dunk my burning face into it.

"I'm just really awkward and confused and it's the first time I've really felt like this about anyone else."

Exactly my feelings. I have no idea what comes next.

He's a Worgen that can't shift. That's all right though. I like him. I, Alynore Forrester, like a boy. That sounds weird. It also feels good.

The really crazy part is that he likes me too.

Everyone else was right. Damn them.

...I wish my mother was here.

"I am rather sure that part of his problem with shifting is because he's worried that you will no longer enjoy his company anymore," October said.

That sounded ridiculous. "...Why would he think something like that? I told him he should try to get his shifting problem sorted."

"Because of how you treat all the other Human boys around here," she countered. I couldn't really argue that one.

((Following Flirting with Death))

Alynore returned to her quarters after a very long first day as a lieutenant. There was a lot of administrative work to do, making sure everything ran smoothly and everyone did their new job; too many promotions in a short a time could do that, but the Commander trusted they could do it together.

“Hope the others don't mind; I'm younger than many in the unit.”

She hadn't noticed the Judiciary walking in through the open door. In retrospect, she should have figured it out, since it was the Judiciary's office.

“So you like this one then? It's a little busy for my tastes, but I think the colors work well,” Lirriel said.

The sun is warm and welcoming, the occasional cloud shadow scuttling over the cobblestones. A light wind blows in from the forest, bringing with it the smell of fresh planted fields, blossoming flowers, and newly-mowed grass.

I stand at the threshold, watching shafts of sunlight play on the cobblestones.

My breath catches.

“...Can you hear me?” Pinapple’s voice, through the static that had constantly played on the guildstones for the week they had been trapped here.

She thought it was a week, anyway. Hard to tell anymore, after not being allowed to sleep, nor given food since…

When had she eaten last?

Tanaris
“I see Golems. Lots an' lots o’ Golems.”

Evadine voiced what the other Dragoons felt as they looked on the crumbled remnants of the Valley of the Watchers. Outside the tomb, sandstone golems moved in a regular marching pattern, heedless of the motley group that stood far enough away to keep them quietly on their endless patrol.

Stormwind
Various Dragoons prepared themselves in the Hall. Laelan coated her daggers with poison. Wesley checked the large gun Alynore had made for him as his raptor watched. Nelenna stroked Rex’s fur, keeping the worg calm. Reggie shifted on his feet, face set in a scowl as he toyed with a portal rune. Evadine checked her medical kit for the umpteenth time.

Pinapple straightened and saluted as Harrigan approached the squad. None of them had slept much in the last few days but the commander seemed particularly on edge, the angry bruise on his face echoing the barely controlled emotions of the man himself.

Alynore was cold and wet, and her head still pounded like she was in a Dwarven forge at noon.

She tried to sit up, realizing with barely controlled panic that she was in a cage and knee-deep in water. She couldn't stand up straight; the cage was only four feet tall. There was stone on three sides of her, a waterfall somewhere out of her vision drowning out surrounding noises. Some sort of forest stretched across the opposite bank of the river she was in.

“Sergeant Forrester? I'm lookin' fer a Sergeant Forrester...”

Alynore sighed and rubbed her eyes as she turned to see a young boy—not much older than the Prince, if she had to judge—being pointed her way by a far too amused guard. She adjusted her text books on her arm and tried to smooth that damnable skirt. “Yes, what is it?”

She so hated wearing this dress.

Alynore picked up the practice blade and made a few moves with it. She didn't normally bother with two-handers, but she needed the practice, and felt the need to just beat on something anyway. The practice dummy in the training yard would do.

“Who is he, anyway?”
“He who?”
“That guy you were flirting with last night that got me shoved into a wall for commenting on.”

Alynore sighed and ran a hand through her hair, fallen out of its customary ponytail by this hour. The papers spread out before her were filled with annotated schematics of her initial plans to fix the robot she'd found in the ruins of the Old Barracks—now Kaewynn. Long lines of code on yet more pages blurred and danced in her vision as she yawned and the bells of the Cathedral struck three times across the city.

She tossed the formal report on top of the rest, banding them together under a cover page. She'd get a couple hours sleep before dropping the notes and paperwork on the Commander's desk. He wouldn't understand a quarter of the two inch thick binder, but fel, he had a lieutenant that could now.

Skies filled with the colors of distant worlds and ribbons of stardust.
The tangy scent of arcane energy permeating ever-blowing grit.
The crack of lightning striking my ears, ground rumbling beneath my feet.
Giants made of crystal and stone lumber across tilted planes.