Changes

Recent events make me wonder how I have changed. Who I have become. How this world has changed, and I with it.

Tonight I sat at my noisy club in the belly of Dalaran. I drained every stored iota to do what I did to that warlock. I hope she's unaware of that - it's a limit of mine, and I don't particularly like enemies to know my limits.

Is she an enemy? I suppose that remains to be seen.

Ten years ago, I could not have foreseen these things. Never have imagined them. I was a man growing old with that rarest of blessings - a wife who loved me. I was spending less time at court, more time at the manor and in the pursuit of my own comforts. Not to say I'd not always pursued them, but it felt as if life was somehow richer. I was frankly too powerful and wealthy to have any fears of rival nobles damaging my standing or status. I didn't need to make a name for myself - that part of my life was over. In time I'd die, hopefully with my grandchildren and great-grandchildren at my bedside, my lands and line secure for generations to come, secured by all I'd done.

My network of those to whom I was a patron was extensive, and from peasant to lower ranked noble, I was given the respect I was owed. Men and women both knelt, kissed my ring, and swore their vows of fealty.

For entertainment, I had consorts to sit and play the latest music, or some counter tenors to stand and sing for my pleasure. Magical displays by the Kirin Tor representatives at court, great feasts and hunts - oh, I went to all I wished to. Stood and let the movement, the music, the energy swirl like water around me. I could feel the eyes that rested on me, and I ensured that my attire always spoke of what I represented. Power. When I moved to dance, unless it was with my darling Elsbetta, my dancing too held power - whether it was with the delicate daughter of a nervous knight wavering over whether to tell me of a plot he'd overheard at table a week prior, meeting his eyes as I whirled past with his child in my arms, or whether it was with the sultry wives of other men who had fallen from my favour, in a first strike against all they possessed. Taking their wives from them as easily as I might reach to pluck an apple from a stem on a ride.

My servants and guards were half seen swarms ensuring my every want and need was met.

I was not a lazy man, yet never did I feel a need to stoop to altruism without some greater cause.

And who, what am I now?

I am wed to a necromancer who lost at the final game of wits by her condition. I have a woman the likes of which I'd never imagined. And in the last week, I've willingly intervened in the lives of three elves, two of them commoners I'd not have so much as glanced at a decade ago, one from her words a fallen noble. Another pariah I'd not have felt the least interest in exerting myself to aid.

And yet now, in this wretched world of new factions, new alliances, and jumped-up peasants without any modicum of courtly manners, I expended my own personal magical stores to essentially purify and cleanse this tumbled elf noble of her demons. I let myself be tempted by another one, and yet I've shown her kindness also - I, Ythgar Vinguld.

Astonishing. A decade ago if I'd seen Kharris nude, I'd have tumbled her after a pleasant chase, then while she lay panting, laughed in her face for the impotent unlanded wanderer she is, and told her precisely what she feared to hear - that I'd conquered her, used her, and had no more need for her. How far have I changed that I would be more concerned that this.. gypsy.. elf be happy with her rapscallion husband, or move past the loss of their child?

Mairead coming to me to assert herself as Ametia, to try some small hand of defiance when faced with cold truths.. perhaps it is my own words to her of duty and nobility which make me think these thoughts. Or it is my dear Rhonnwyn's inutterable faith in my presumed goodness and purity.

Standing in Maraudon's depths with my squire while with a shining light in her eyes she informed me that no man was beyond redemption.. I knew a fear I'd not felt in years. For all my lessons of Light and of balance, of the fine line to be walked between hedonism and altruism which made a paladin's life.. this far too lovely girl's very infatuation and love for me could well topple her from her own faith when she finally accepted the manner of man she served. I spoke then to her, urged her not to tar my lessons with the lips which utteerd them. When she protested, I called for the rotting corpse of some poor adventurer who'd lain in this cave complex for Light knows how long. The girl nearly vomited to see it. Horror in her eyes on me finally.

I pray I've convinced her not to assume that I am the Light incarnate.. my words are valuable to her - I was a scholar in my spare time once - and she must not dismiss them when she inevitably dismisses me from her too-high esteem.

As for the rest...

I have been behaving like some low-born would-be hero, trying to secure the petty affairs of those who once were beneath my contempt. I must continue my.. work.. at that club, ears ringing with music of an age I often suspect I do not belong to, calling forth every bit of lust the mayflies experience. Using my own long honed skills in domination, desire, and control to tease their emotion out and begin to again gather up those faint, yet potent subtle energies. Would that it did not require a personal level of commitment.

There is a ball coming up in Stormwind which I shall attend. Perhaps I'll feel more myself there in the trappings of my life, instead of frock coats and smoked glasses to draw the youth to my metaphorical talons and fangs.

If Kharris comes to me again, it will be by her will, not mine. I was foolish to try and give her a gift, and my subsequent errors compounded my own loss of discipline and control. I shan't make the same mistake with Ixinane. That is another tale to be told, and when next she comes to me, I will be more guarded than she understands. That Kharris's husband now comes for me in some wise is proof enough of my lack of discretion and loss of control. Not a thing I shall repeat.

As for Iloam, if that metal box is anything to go by, I ought to expect him in the near future. I doubt he'd dare to break into this house of my love's. But one never knows. I'll go and see if my darling Theryl was listening to the box.