faith

Amamara gathered her courage and asked him, but in the end, he politely refused.

Lirriel looked around the staging area into Icecrown Citadel, wincing at the cold air striking the back of her neck. The goblins in Dalaran had done a decent job bobbing her hair, and the blue and silver gown she'd dug out of storage felt looser now. It was part of her gamble, praying he'd listen as she saw his familiar form standing near the forge. Lirriel walked over and cleared her throat. "Hello Drauglos."

Drauglos turned from the fire. He looked like he hadn't slept in days. “What are you doing here?”
 
“I came to see you.” Lirriel smiled at him, then examined the forge area. She saw Light's Vengeance, sealed vials containing something foul-looking, and stacked saronite so green it seemed to glow.

“If you came to try and... I've made up my mind,” he said, sounding less certain than he had the last time she'd seen him.

With the flick of a wrist, all but one of her old prayer beads had wound up in the rubbish bin, a few of the beads missing the rim and bouncing across the stone floor to roll away into some far corner. She'd snipped the line they were on so she could salvage the holy symbol of her order and melt it down into something useful, like a paperweight or a new clasp for her cloak. The last bead she held on to, rolling it between her fingers. It's finish had worn off long ago and was now just a dull, wooden bead that didn't even catch the lamplight. Nediva sighed and threw it across the room and into the low burning fireplace, it'd get more use in there. She'd gotten that loop when she was old enough to read the pages in her prayer book. A gift for her, so she could be more devoted to the Light, from Sister Raizel and Sister Pazia.

Abuse was never the right word for it, he thought. 'Conditioning' was a better term in his mind. How she had treated him a few nights ago. How she had toyed with him like he were a little kitten, then dunked him into a bucket of bathwater. Yet, he still wanted to be a housecat, and not regress into the stray he used to be.

Shryn's final actions confused him, but reassured his faith in her. He had already told Locavera that he still saw some good in the woman with the tainted heart.

Most high, all powerful, all good Light of life!
All praise is yours, all glory, all honor, and all blessing.

When faced with the cunning tongues of those who had been fellows when they strode among the faithful and sought to sway them from Velen's holy writ, thus spake the one annointed to be Vindicator by Divine Velen, defending himself and his people from evil:

I don't ask where you come from or where you are going. You've left us in no doubt as to your beliefs.
You call us Eredun. You call us... 'brothers'.
Yes. Most of us were Eredar. Our names are Eredun, our tongue is Eredun, our old hand-written texts are in Eredun script.

Be praised, Light, through all your creatures,
especially through my lord Brother Sun,
who brings the day; and you give light through him.
And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendor!
Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.

The days and months had passed in rising, and futile, fury. This was the aspirations of those who stood against his King? A run-down cellar, more catacomb than kingdom. The primitive hovels of those bred for slaves. To say nothing of the hulking beasts and grotesque savages whose growls and grunts were a parody of language and intelligence.

   Whitehart had been a bad idea, between the link Iloam and I shared, the information I had been given, talking with Blackmarrow, Xannivard showing up, Iloam’s pack of usual arrogant female groupies and Liore’s apparent distress…. It had been a very bad idea.  Things had turned nasty by the end of everything, so much that Iloam beat a hasty retreat and I had to leave shortly after, leaving my master and Xannivard to speak quietly together.  I found myself a quieter tavern, some place to be left alone and have a bottle of whiskey, but my privacy was to be interrupted shortly after by footsteps I could recall even in my sleep.

Artisania Marveloso threw out the soup.

 Cold, half-cooked, and smelling vile in the morning air, it sloshed about restlessly in the pot as she walked it out to one of the gutters of Thunder Bluff.  Her brow furrowed as she poured it out, watching the chunks of potato and onion slip over the lip of the pot.  She had tried.  And… Gazrael had meant well.  She thought so at least.  Sethlion had warned her though, after deciding their entire visit was suspicious; after all, it wasn't every evening Eberict and his girlfriend came for tea.

Is the enemy of my enemy my friend?

Can I trust her enough to throw my life away for the cause?

There is something about her. Something strong, something true.

Warrant be damned if she does the work of the light, the work of Good.

Evil will know fear from her, from others, from I.

Branded a traitor but soon they will see.

I did this not for me but for them.

This is the story of Luneaus Ravensong, and how she came to be who she is today.

I could hear her outside my door, but I ignored the pacing and the shadow that stretched beneath the wood. My hands lay on the side of the bed Iloam had been in, he had disappeared sometime while I was asleep, silly of me to think otherwise.

With the stink of raw rat on my breath and the slimy f’lassil salve glistening on my naked and bloody body, I began making my way toward Tranquillien in the hopes of finding a healer. 

I did not suspect that it would be difficult to find my sister this time. Mind you, neither did I expect it to be so easy.

((Written on very nice paper in Agoris’ usual blocky writing.))

To Whom It May Concern at the Cathedral of the Light:

Niviene walked down the sandy path of the Caverns of Time, her feet gliding across the surface leaving barely a mark with her passing. She didn’t even pause as she reached the swirling vortex of color and sound as she stepped through.

There in front of her stood the high elf male and the beautiful bronze dragon sailed on a pocket of air nearby; just as she remembered them from her visit to this place before. But there was another high elf, a woman, who stepped forward to greet the priestess, “You wish to see into a past that is not your own?” her voice had an odd tinkling quality, like wind chimes dancing on a warm summer breeze. “This is folly priestess. You may see things that you wished never to know.”

A token:

A reward

A promise

A duty

Giles atte Well was a sturdy man in early middle-age; stocky, taciturn, and weather-beaten, he reminded me of the men I'd grown up with. We got along quite well, it turned out – he had work that needing doing, I was willing to do it, and neither of us was one for talking much. It didn't hurt that his daughter took a shine to me right away.

(( Originally posted March 3, 2007 @ RealmPortal ))

Shadows may be the other side of the Light, but they are not the opposite of it. Darkness is the opposite of Light: it exists only in the absence of it. Shadows exist only in the presence of the Light. They are the children of the Light, birthed only when it strikes an object, or a being.

(( Originally posted February 28, 2007 @ RealmPortal ))

As compassion is one of the most difficult and dangerous virtues, so too is callousness. Where too much compassion can weaken or damage another's connection to the whole, an entirely callous nature can damage your own.