Koani's blog

There's people fishing in the fountain. The waters are crystal and clear, but the lines come back with scraps of cloth or ancient wishes. Tokens are taken, sold or thrown away, and the lines go back in the water, dredging up the past from nothing.

~*~

She's standing in the middle of the Undercity and there are scourge everywhere. Rhan'jin is fighting with the other grunts and she keeps her focus on him, forcing the disobedient light to answer, to help him stay whole.

It's not the first time she's fought for the safety of this forsaken city, but before it was just something they did. Sitting around at Phials when the alarms were sounded, patrons and shopkeeps answering the call, and why not volunteer with them?

She looks out at the uniforms around her, whispers another prayer, and tries to figure out when it was she became a soldier.

Some time ago, before it opened again, the University of Kalimdor led a trip to the Dark Portal. My eye sight was poor, and when we stood on a hill, at a safe distance away, I could only barely make it out. I could see blue fog in a frame of grey stone, but that was all.

Then one of the orcs passed around some spyglasses, and we took turns getting a closer look. Inside the fog was dark space and stars. The stone, of course, was not a simple frame, but carved into dark-hooded figures holding resting swords. For one moment, everything was sharp and clear. When I passed the spyglass on, I could not longer see those features, but my view of the portal was still changed.

(( I think the closest thing to background I've posted for this is Fragments, 3. That... is unlikely to help much XD ))

The illusion fades as we scramble over the blockage in the road and enter the Hinterlands. There is so much empty space here, it’s hard to hide, and in the end we ride the raptors to the cliffs before jumping off to keep from being seen. It’s not quite bluff diving, but almost, close enough that I’m laughing by the time we levitate down to the surface of the water. I feel light enough to have floated there without the magic, and when he takes off his goggles I can see the same warm joy in his ice-tinged eyes.

I didn't lie, exactly. I dissembled. Abandoned one father's name and claimed the other's, put just enough lilt to the first that it almost wasn't my name at all.

Just enough for it to seem like a coincidence.

He never asked. After all, I was "the elf", so why would he? I never had to lie outright, and if I ever slipped up, he didn't seem to notice. I think perhaps he stopped listening when I introduced myself.

I don't know why I did it. Maybe because we are so different now, both our different shades of broken, that it just seemed easier. But nothing is what it seems. I should know better by now.

Do they not know where we were in the world in the times they send us to? Or are the threads of my lives so tangled even a bronze cannot trace them? Whatever the reason, the result is the same.

“We have tah leave. Now.” He’s out of his seat and on the stairs before the words are finished. As she comes out to clear the tables, he keeps his back to her, though there’s no chance of her recognizing him, wouldn’t be even without the illusion. We haven’t met yet.

I've been asked to do some fairly strange things, but this was one of the most bizarre. Go back in time? Even with a dragon saying it was so, I could not believe it.

But it was.

He sees himself in this forlorn place.

I could sense it, in his resistance when I asked him to leave. He is more, alert, in this place. As though he sleepwalks in all others.

He sees himself, as he is now, reflected back at him from scourge-tainted lands, constant fighting, and tenacious clinging to all that is left.

It frightens me, and I cannot say why.

When I was one, who was new to the Horde, I stood beside the glimmering dome, and wondered what wonders lay within the city it protected. I walked around and around, dodging those trapped on the outside, as I was.

Years before, when I was one, who was new to study, the stories I had heard made that city an aspiration, a goal I pursued, but never achieved. It was taken from me, along with so much else, and I was forced to think of it no more.

Now that I am one, who was both these two though no longer new, I have finally entered Dalarn. I have seen the city without its dome, and I have sought that long-held promise.

But it is just a city, no different from any other, except that it floats.

I want to go home.

One of these days, I'll learn to think things through before I do them. At least, I hope I will.

But it didn't seem like a big deal. To help the Sage, I had to go do a cleaning ritual. It's not like I haven't tried such things before. They gave my spirit needed peace, but nothing else changed.

I can remember, during my first Fire Festival with the horde, running around the Ribbon Pole with a human who had come to Thunder Bluff not to kill, but to touch the flame. We ran in different directions, passing again and again as we circled around, should be enemies tethered to each other by the ribbons.

I knew the Fire Festival was a celebration of life, but it never occurred to me that the Ribbon Pole was a mirror of it.

Well...

Last night I met a paladin who said he had once been considered a great hero, but was now forgotten by everyone. He helped to free a trapped spirit, and decided that he could become a hero once again. I think he’ll be able to do it, too. He seems to have the required motivation, and the inability to refuse to help, even when considering himself an ex-hero.

Personally, I find “hero” to be an odd concept. For example, I’m not one, but I have been called one by people I’ve helped. Maybe to them, I am. I wonder how many of my heroes would consider themselves one?

(( Because I am really enjoying the Choices story ^_~

Cut for picture ))

“I AM KOANI!”

Always explaining it.  Going there, worried about my friend, really confused, and still explaining.

He thought I was someone else.  He thought I was evil.  He thought I would do that…

I know he got it, right before he fell, but it’s exhausting.  Should I just stop trying?

I hope he’s okay.

(( Don't mind me.  I'm just a little bored. ))

I told Thrall’tukk once, that if I had my way, I would stay at home, be a tailor, and never fight again.  He didn’t believe me, and I’m starting to believe he was right.  I am certainly at home more now that I have been in recent days, but I find there are times when I just have to, move.

Pand is kind enough to check in on Leiral those short times I’m gone, and I’m terrified that she’ll wake up when I’m away.  I believe she’d forgive me, she understands the need to go, but I don’t think I’d ever forgive myself.

I just can’t seem to help it.

(( Hey all ^_^  Just wanted to post a little notice since I probably should've earlier.  My schedule last week got a little messed up, which cut down on my normal game time, and then my brother loaned me the first two seasons of Lost on DVD, which has consumed the rest of my free time lately :p

It’s surprising sometimes, where links made in friendship take you.  Shivae and Tundrarunner, a friend of theirs needed help.  Her spirit was shattered; how can I not sympathize with that?

Didn’t quite expect to be walking into a house of protective humans, stopped and questioned by a warlock with a bearing of power and authority.  He and many others greet me when Tundrarunner and Shivae do so, however, and I stand with them, appraising and appraised, as so many more show up.  Riding, or summoned, joining the group, standing and waiting, around the woman who lies on the ground.

I don’t think I’ve ever really camped before.  Maybe one night here or there while traveling somewhere new, but never staying in the open, without even a tent or a hut, deliberately for days in a row.  I suppose that would explain how I got sick from doing so.  Feralas is beautiful, but it’s humid, and I spent far too much time sitting near the waterfall.

Poor Leiral, we go on vacation, and this is the way I end it.  I’d feel a little better about having to drag us home if I hadn’t started feeling better yesterday, and then decided I was up to going to Un’Goro.  Not one of my smarter decisions.  And here Hakkajin thought it was Chibi who would get sick there.

She had hesitated, when Leiral had suggested carving her name and stick-form into the tree. She had tried to explain the reason, but had failed. The words were awkward and fleeting, the feelings confusing and consuming.

She settled on, well, being unsettled. Within herself, as herself, and Leiral has said she could understand it, which was reassuring, because she herself could not.

We broke.

I can understand her not believing me. I never allowed myself to be taken in by her mask of blameless innocence. I saw the thoughtless pain she caused, and I set myself in an antagonistic position against it. My dislike was not hidden, so I can understand that she would distrust my views.

Leiral knew, saw it coming.

I didn't know him well enough. I believed the lies he told himself, and us.

We're two and two and one again, and I've been the one and it's awful.

Every option I see before us causes pain to one of us.

Love is a curse we cast upon ourselves.

A mask is painted upon our skin, for the world to see
We weave sweet lies with veiled eyes,
And whisper to all, "This is me."

I was trying to make a joke.  Maybe I'm unpracticed at it.  But really, except for the rare Hallow's End treat, or the witch's illusion, it does seem to be makes things I get turned into.  I'm willing to be even the frog is, though I'm usually too busy hopping around to check.

Maybe Leiral missed the "turned into" part of that.  I'm a woman now, yes, but I always was.

(( Originally posted March 12, 2007 @ RealmPortal ))

I knew he loved me. I'm not quite oblivious enough to have missed that. I just thought that nothing could come of it, nothing more than we already shared, anyway. It was impossible before, I couldn't have--

Nothing's the same anymore.