Breakup

Continued from...

At the rowdy Goldshire tavern, I had described her: a tall, pale, female kaldorei with a deep violet tattoo across her eyes and white hair.  No one had seen her in weeks.  In placid Lakeshire, the innkeeper had recognized the name Suldrae Redwing, mentioning a man from Redridge was also looking for her.  I had moved on to Duskwood, under the grim dark trees.  At the tumbledown hostel there, the master of the house nodded and tossed into my hands a bundle of mail.  She went into the woods to the North two days ago, well supplied, he said.  This mail came for her since; if you are going to find her, can you deliver it? 

As I turned to the dark forest, I read over the addresses before the weak lamplight dwindled behind me. Two packets bore the stamps of the Stormwind Auction House. One small envelope reeked of perfume, marked with a lady's fine calligraphy.  The last, sturdy, square and sealed with wax, displayed a bold familiar hand, Flamefist's mark, as well as his name, Amara Niall.  I stared curiously at the last, but tucked them all safely into my jerkin before heading off into the wood.

"She left," Arasminna said.  "There was a... disagreement."

She didn't look to me. I leaned in the doorway of the bedroom, my arms crossed, eyes taking in the pink walls, pink doorframe, pink wainscoting, little pink rosepetals curled and drying on creamy-pink floorboards.  My sister stood to the side, packing small items into a box, her hands moving so quickly I could not see what she took away from the top of the chest of drawers. I had stopped by the apartment in hopes of seeing the pink room she had described during our last meeting. I had found her alone, closed, quiet, relentlessly busy.  This was another person entirely than the one who had laughed and smiled just three nights before. This was the sister I had known for so many years.  Only in my youth had I seen her as happy as she had been, telling me of her new lover.

Now, the new lover was gone.

Redridge could’ve been a painting on a wall. The chilly sunlight filtered through the changing leaves in burnt umber and yellow and dappled across rolling hills. Passing clouds rolled by in large, cool blue shadows over whisperin’ pasture grasses. It was a sleepy sort of mid-day afternoon at the country estate. The leaves swirling in front of me on the packed dirt path were as mirthful as a pack of playful squibs. Their crisp laughter overlayed the quiet, interrupted only occasionally by the crack of a training whip or impatient whinny. Somewhere far off, me long ears could pick up the muffled baritones of men chattin’ and ‘aving a laugh over packed lunches and thermoses of coffee, but the grandness of the stable complexes made it difficult for even me to determine exactly where the sounds echoed from. Fer now, I was alone on me walk up towards the enormous stable house, and I much preferred it that way.

I hunched me shoulders, pushing me ears further against the protective collar of me navy peacoat, as a swish of chilly wind gusted through the complex. Me hands pushed further down into me pockets, finding the firm apple I’d knicked off a local orchard tree. I shouldn’t ‘ave been ‘ere. Not for a litany of reasons – which convenient to the guilt churning in me empty stomach – were at the forefront of me mind.

She had come in out of the sun. Blue shadows draped the entryway, mingling with her own. She shut the door behind her, the rectangle of light cast from outside slimming until it was no wider than a finger, and finally vanishing. She could not turn the lock on the first try.

Age brings wisdom.

The only thing wisdom brings is the knowledge when something, such as extreme, severe, white-hot bouts of jealousy are blatantly stupid. Beyond blatantly stupid; where younger races can get away with acting rashly, we of the well-marinated pickles are looked to as the epitome of proper behavior. Hah hah hah, like we're unfeeling machines or some such. Well, some of them might be...but I've known even the greatest and wisest to go into an insane rage at the oddest, silliest little things.

Booty Bay has been my solace for so long, it’s no wonder when times get tough, I find myself deep into my cups at the tip of the world. I’d come for my own reasons – running away, you might say, though I’d slit your throat for the insinuation. All the same, the empty drawer Kharris left at the Shattrath flat haunts me all the way out here, alone on a barstool at a shanty dive new to town.

I wasn’t here two days before Seahorn was talking me into taking a job. The little slip of paper is nestled between my jerkin and shirt, itching my breast. I’d been fed a line about the bartender splitting his wages with Bloodsail’s – but if you ask me, The Salty Sailor’s been a beacon in this town, and there ain’t no more reason for it than tradition. Either way, I can’t be bothered. I’ll earn my quid and be on my way.

After another round.

 ((Originally posted 2006/11/25))

I didn't sleep well last night. It was so hard to let myself drop off. The bed was empty... so empty. I didn't realize how used to having him there I'd become. My back was cold, no matter how I wrapped myself in the blankets.

It wasn't that he didn't love me. I'm almost positive...