Artisania's blog

Continued from "Pocket"

Artisania Stillwater-Ell’Karan wrote furiously.

She had taken a day to think it over.  In part, she had done so to allow the initial wave of intense curiosity to pass, so as not to be caught in any vague net of obsession cast forth by the thing.  But she had also let the time pass in order to structure her thoughts, her presentation, her angle of attack.  After all, it wasn’t every day one felt the need to convince another that what appeared to be a simple umbrella was actually a high-powered rifle, locked and loaded and ready to kill.  

Or, more accurately, that a book was a pocket.

Artisania Stillwater-Ell’Karan hurried across the bluffs, a piece of paper in her hand.
 
For some time, she had been getting her mail delivered to the University of Kalimdor library on Spirit Rise.  It just seemed, well, safer that way.  Bluffwatchers were always posted outside and if a bomb went off there it wouldn’t ruin her own rugs or expensive pottery collection, or her favorite throw-pillow.  Granted, it could ruin a great many priceless books, instead.  But most dangerous items were directly addressed to the University anyway, so those books probably knew their fate when they signed up.
 
It had seemed to be the way of the University all these years, after all. The letter in her hand only proved that further.

*faint static tunes in to a clear, calm voice*

Welcome to the University of Kalimdor’s AudioNether Repository.  All events were recorded on-site at the time of presentation and archived for posterity.

Please enjoy the following lecture, given by Professor Avner of Kezan, on the topic of relations between the Orcs and Kaldorei. The lecture was presented at the Mo’grosh Base Camp in the Northern Barrens seven weeks after the Cataclysm.  Dean Artisania Stillwater-Ell’Karan created the recording amid a group of eight attendees.

*voice fades to silence, replaced by gentle breezes, the chirping of insects, and distant cries of predatory birds.  The rustling of a group of people is heard in the background throughout*

Artisania Stillwater-Ell’Karan breathed a sigh of relief.

The breath, a sudden cold fog in the Winterspring air, dissipated quickly, revealing once again the comforting sight of the little cottage nestled by the hillside.  The goblins had said the place had escaped any cataclysmic harm, but Artisania had insisted on seeing for herself before putting down any gold on the annual holiday rental.  She smiled, visions of warm tea and snowy mornings floating through her mind.  At least some things hadn’t changed.

Part Six: Northrend - Epilogue

Let no one ever say, “We could have never imagined.” Let no one ever say, “We had no warning.”  Let no one ever say the worst catastrophe could not have been foreseen.

We have our testing ground, our hypotheses proven, in a crescent of land at the top of our world.  Northrend was once a pure land, a staging ground for the Titan’s creation of our world.  It remains a place where wilderness remains untouched, where tall peaks tower capped with snow; where the engines of the makers still grind slowly, echoing the distant past.  It is the aerie of the Aspects and the graveyard of our world, a promise of life and a promise of death.

And Northrend is broken, corrupted, and forever changed, much as our own lands could be.

Part Five: Eastern and Southern Kalimdor

To look at land as a playing board for a game of politics can prove interesting, to say the least.  Factions affect geography and vice-versa, mountains and rivers and deserts playing parts as vital as any king or general.  Every people needs a homeland, a place to build cities and homes, raise their progeny and nurture their culture for future generations.  In Kalimdor, we find the homelands - old and new - of the essence of The Horde.  If this were a political essay, much could be written of the provenance and history of the trolls, taurens and orcs, but it is not.  There is enough to say of the effects of these people on these lands, and why it is the Eastern and Southern regions of Kalimdor that draw a thin, wavering line between what is old and what is new, what is material and what is transient, what is absolute and what is arcane.

Artisania's entry for the "Time of Day" writing exercise, found here: http://www.rp-haven.com/forum/workshops/writing_workshop_0

The bookseller’s booth was like no other.  Where the scent of foodstuff lingered over some and fine crafting materials over others, the bookseller’s stall stood apart, a menagerie of paper and leather and old dust, musty parchment and tangy inks and clinging touches of perfumes and incense from around the world.  Everything else at the market was fresh and new; the bookseller thrived on bringing the old and well-traveled to light.

She always headed to the bookseller’s first.

Two years.

Two years of war, separation, fear, foreboding.

Two years of quiet simplicity amid whirling chaos.

These threads between us intertwine, and two years becomes forever,
or near enough, for mortals like us.

May your delicate hands never falter,
for they hold my heart, as they always have.

My anchor, my dearest, Teledriath Ell'Karan.

Artisania Stillwater-Ell'Karan had almost forgotten.

It was one of those movements like an anchor being tossed over the side of a ship.  She threw out her hand, clutched the edge of her desk just as she was moving around it, and was therefore drawn back into her chair, which rolled a little across the library floor as she descended into it once more.  Tywyll's note, Tywyll's note... she'd been so distracted (and amused and quite touched really) by the girl's shuffling of her manuscript that she had forgotten the note.  She found it once more amid the forest-floor of leaves of paper scattered across the desk, smoothed it out, read it again, then pulled forth a miraculous clean sheet on which to write.

Tywyll,

Credit where credit is due...

(fullview under the break)

Artisania Stillwater-Ell'Karan was getting tired of packing.

Not long ago she had been busy packing up their apartment in Dalaran, all of its comforts and fineries. It still stung a bit, the loss of that slice of normalcy in their lives, and she did indeed believe she could have lived that way for quite some time. The libraries in Dalaran were extensive after all, and there really was no better place in the world for a mage to study.

Study, perhaps, but not discover and learn.

Artisania Stillwater-Ell'Karan had amassed a quantity of collections.

She had a great love for Tauren baskets and pottery, from little stoneware containers perfect for holding bits of jewelry to the large woven-reed bowl that cupped the fruit on the dining table. There was not a village from which she hadn't bought at least one sample, and in the North she had begun to collect from the Taunka, as they had a way with blue and green dye that simply couldn't be matched by their southern cousins.

She wrapped the baskets and pottery quite carefully in linen and brown paper, sadly appreciating piece after piece before packing it away.

Artisania Stillwater-Ell'Karan noted that the fabric frayed from the center – not from the edges, as fabric is wont to do.

Of course, it wasn't her robe she was inspecting; that heavy garment of layered cloth hung neatly from the hilt of Dria's sword, over on the beach. The sword itself, piercing the sand, could have stood as quite an impressive monument if it hadn't been turned to the use of coat-rack; Artisania's gloves and leggings decorated it as well, boots lying misshapen at the bottom near the neat pile of platemail in the sand. Quality accouterments, they rarely required inspection; no, of none of their own possessions was the fabric she explored.

Artisania Stillwater-Ell'Karan had ordered a cake.

She picked it up from the little wagon in Dalaran at the appointed time, mid-morning, while the icing was still fresh and setting up in little swirls and tufts around the rim of the confection. Very tempting indeed, but she carried it carefully in its little paper box back to the apartment without even peeking once, though she did lick her fingers after setting it out on the table.

Amid cast off ribbons and paper, token gifts carefully set aside only to be jostled and jumbled, a few empty bottles, saucers covered with crumbs, empty tea cups, voluminous rumpled bedclothes and a plethora of pillows, two elves in rather disheveled matching silk pajamas lay in a restful embrace.

Artisania Stillwater-Ell'Karan had a feeling something was not quite right.

She looked to her palette, where the tip of her brush hovered between shiny lumps of pthalo green and pthalo blue. Her eyes moved to the little canvas on the little easel before her, narrowing a bit to blur the shapes into pure color, then looked beyond at the leafy foliage she was trying to capture. Blue, or green? Everything in the dragonshrine seemed inundated with green. Certainly green. She dipped her brush into the paint, dabbed a bit off the tip, then applied it to the canvas cautiously. She wrinkled her nose. Something was not quite right. Something was not quite right at all.

Artisania Stillwater-Ell'Karan had a lot on her mind.

First of all, Teng Darkheart needed to make better arrangements with lecturers, or communicate better with the publicity department.

If Teng Darkheart was still alive, of course.  That was always in question.

And speaking of being alive, was the lady Althea - who came to the lecture that ended up not happening anyway - alive? Was she alive or was she dead? So hard to tell these days.

Artisania Stillwater-Ell'Karan contemplated the tulips.

Tulips are not delicate flowers. Like goblin rockets they drive themselves up through the cold soils of spring, piercing rainsoaked earth reach skyward, trailing thick stems and heavy leaves. When at last waxy petals open, they do not reveal any delicate plumage within, but rather only the essentials: pollen-tipped stamen arching forward to spread life and beneath, beyond a ring of brightness like the treasured sun, a blackness so keen as to reflect the blue sky above.

Artisania Stillwater-Ell'Karan returned to bed.

She knew the path to the privy and back by heart and by feel, and really didn't need to open her eyes one way or the other, even in the middle of the night. For a few moments she breathed chill air, felt the grassy earth beneath her feet, heard the slow turning of the Bluff's windmills and the sigh of a passing guard, then it was back into the woodsy warmth of the longhouse, hearing the slow squeak as the loft door closing before returning to the warm embrace of her bed.

But this night, she paused.

Artisania Stillwater-Ell'Karan was glad to be home.

It wasn't just the familiar mug of tea in her hands, nor the lilting melody of Teledriath's singing wafting through the doorway from the loft. It wasn't just the view from the balcony of their Thunder Bluff home nor the certain scent of pines and plains in the air. Nor was it just the rested relaxation from a night spent in their most favored bed, though that had certainly helped.

Artisania Stillwater-Ell'Karan was in need of a hat.

Not simply because her ears were cold. She expected them to be cold, and took one in a hand whenever possible to warm it up. She doubted a hat would help anyway, what with the bite to the wind. Mostly, she wanted a hat because adventurers needed hats, and Light forbid her hair remain such a mess.

The new cut did help, she admitted that.

Artisania Stillwater-Ell'Karan fell into the kitchen chair. No tea was necessary.

Artisania Stillwater-Ell'karan knew there was more than one reason.

Not that she could put her finger on them, exactly. Everything seemed to wrap her up in a feeling of rightness and comfort, however: the cool breeze through the Eversong trees; the way the sunlight slanted across the tall grass; the perfect nuances of her tea across her tongue as she stood looking out the kitchen window, one hand upon the stone sill.

One hand upon the stone sill of Stillwater House, as tumbledown and abandoned as it was, as quiet, reclusive, and tucked away from everything else as she needed it to be.

There was certainly more than one reason to be here.

((Full portrait under the break))

The yellow circle of light moved across Teledriath's forehead, her head turning slowly, her smile wide and satiated.  For a moment, the circle seemed to rest just above her eyes, brighter than ever, streaming peaceful content.  Artisania stretched out beside her, blue-green wings spread across her back, as white petals surrounded them both in a peaceful cushion. 

Dria's eyes opened, narrowing in the sunbeam streaming through the window.  "It's really beautiful," she murmured, Artisania turning in her love's arms to look up as well.  Her smile broadened as she nodded, resting back on the carpet amid the patterns on the floor.

I have seen her in heavy armor, fashionable robes, beautiful dresses, and nothing at all.

Artisania Stillwater-Ell'Karan did her best to concentrate.

 After all, six or seven fel orcs bore down upon their sturdy warrior, and even his massive plated shoulders could only take so many blows.  Teledriath was a shimmering font of Light, drawing again and again on that power to keep their furious green-skinned shield standing.  A whirl of black-violet sped past her, lifting the edges of her robes with a scathing cold burn against her skin.  Artisania whirled to see the fel orc caster she had previously polymorphed now standing.  Her eyes blazed, and mouthing a quick spell she returned him to a more harmless ovine form.