fancy cakes

Of course, she'd known all along that accepting her station wasn't going to be all peaches and cream.

But she hadn't expected Iloam to avoid her like...a pile of kodo dung.

The soft grass tickles my ears as I stretch comfortably in the grass, post Fancy Cakes.

I wanted to simply revel in the silence, and think on the night's news...but it wasn't silence I got. There was a small frog nearby - an orange and blue fellow - croaking at the water's edge. And I keep hearing the odd splash - and then another...turns out there's a small school of fish leaping to catch their evening dinner. It was nice, actually...the forest's symphony always was better than silence. Another splash now, as the frog takes to the water, skimming across the top - towards the swarm of gnats the fish are after.

Well that wasn't my original intention.

And it SURELY wasn't Ael's intention when she suggested I go socialize.

Not like you're complaining...

Light! That's...her talking. Not me. The lioness is blunt. She's that damnable voice in the back of my head that's unafraid to be brutal, and straight forward.

She gets things done.

((This is set on 10-23! I'm slow, is all. ))

I hadn't taken an invitation to a ball of any sorts in ages.

Why was I bothering with this Masque, then, in the Bazaar?

To try to step back into a past life?

No...in truth, it was a good gig so far.

Being a noble, again, that is.

((Image and haiku are below the break, enjoy!))

It's been a while, dearest friends, since last she's been about.

Such monotony, you've missed her deeply, can't allow that to play-out.

The Queen's Keeper does yet wander, appearing within the crowd.

Eyes flicker, always watching, the flashy and the loud.

A slow smile, a demure glance, she'll inquire casually.

Talent is never easy to come by.

As I walk beneath gilded archways of crimson and gold, I am left to wonder if this city was left the better or the worse for being spared complete destruction. For all their vanity, there is little of merit to be found. Even those bards who draw crowds by the thousands resort to only glimpsing Silvermoon from a higher perch on a secure balcony. Unfortunately, rats do not have wings, and so I lingered among the common folk.

Common. This word suits the situation well. I scan the crowd and see nothing I have not seen before. The roll of my dice, as idle as I am, attracted no attention other than my own. All the better. The tea was never quite to my tastes anyway.

     Daraman looked around him in awe of what he was witnessing.  He had heard stories from some of the tauren in Camp Mojache, but they had never said it was anything like this.  Even some of his friends in the Circle hadn't mentioned how awe-inspiringly beautiful this land had become.  Surrounded by the grey wastes of Desolace was a field of verdant green, dotted all along the outskirts by small saplings, either alone or together in groups.  Wisps circled some, lending their energies to encourage this new growth while kodo roamed across this new life, watched over by Cenarion Ancients.  And at the center of this sea of new life, great trees with leaves of violet and jade towered over the surrounding landscape, forming a protective circle around what lay inside.  Inside, members of the Cenarion Circle, tauren and kal'dorei alike, worked to continue to foster the growth as well as to help sustain what they had already create

Se'ala stared at the comb on the table. Just a few feet away, almost close enough to reach out and take. She curled her fingers inward, closing her hands into fists, and tucked them behind her back.

How dare he?

The troll sat in the Cleft of Shadows, disturbed only slightly by the faint whispered echoes of those with business down there.  He grumbled as he sat alone, arms folded.   Part of him felt sorry for the woman, seeing her wariness.  She must have been wounded severely by someone, or many someones.  Part of him felt anger, that she’d rejected his gift, refusing to take the fine comb he’d purchased with hard-won money, the spider’s shape carved from ivory and set with small, bright green gems for the eyes.

He could hear the warning voice within, one of his guardians warning him of danger.  She knows what you did for Zalazane, the scars left behind are plain to see, just avoid her! The softest of the three spoke with unusual vehemence.  A sudden fatigue swept over him, urging him to just rest, to let the soft darkness of sleep wash away his cares.

((OOC note: Some of the conversations have been paraphrased or pieced together as I best remember them, sorry.  Rated explicit because Dar drops the F-bomb, twice!))

Tinksa kicks open the garage door with her plate boots. She sent Boom out ahead of her, letting him get a close look at the area. Boomstick chirped and she cocks an oversized ear at him.

“Well? It's empty, whadda ya expect? Let's get to work” She cocks her small hand cannon, loading a few explosive clips. The gun was as big as her, but she held it with complete ease. She rubs the tip of her pierced nose with a wide grin for Boomstick.

((Xiuh and I discussed things, this week, and for the forseable future, Fancy Cakes will remain where it has been for the past year and a half. We may decide to move it in the future, but for now, they're subleasing once a week from the archeologists! Hope to see you there!))

‘Finally!  Baker Braedyn has been found.’  Ari’ella had heard rumor of the baker’s homecoming.

From a distance, it took Ari a moment before she spotted the blonde woman on the shop‘s front stoop since her hair had been dramatically shortened.  It seemed there was a moment of dispersion among the patrons that usually crowded the shop so she fished out the sealed scroll she had been waiting weeks to deliver and strolled across the Royal Exchange.  She climbed to the top of the steps, careful not to trip over the long skirts of her herbalist’s robe and leaned against the wall several paces away from the shop’s door. 

((Fancy Cakes IS back to normal this coming Sunday, August 29th! See you there hopefully!

This is late! But that's nothing unusual for me. The events here are just before: http://www.rp-haven.com/blog/boss/back))

For her, the most disconcerting thing was that she could never be sure she was alone when she woke. Night or day, it could be quiet for long stretches, as it often was, and then, seemingly at random, He might start asking her questions without any preamble. Sometimes it was well over an hour, sometimes just a moment.

“What do you know about the Velstand informants? Can you name them?”

((Late update compared to entries by others!

Braedyn's predicament isn't exactly public, though her disappearance is mysterious and unprecedented, but cause for concern (and gossip!) is likely if you attended Cakes last week. And her last name, as mentioned in this blog, is NOT general public knowledge, I appreciate your discretion between OoC knowledge and IC knowledge. ))

Very early on Saturday morning...

What had started as uneven shuffling metamorphosed into a brisk stroll in the cool morning air. Subconsciously, he tucked in bits of shirt wrangled loose in the night before and brushed off his sleeves to remove the wrinkles in vain. It wasn't a long walk to Fancy Cakes but this morning, with so few people about and the city so still for a change, it felt otherwise. Corridors seemed to stretch out like imagery from a nightmare, the light at their ends unreachable. He slowed to a stop, leaning himself against the wall. He hadn't meditated yesterday or the day before, the magic saturating the air playing tricks on his mind. He had been far too busy with Braedyn's cake, far too busy with waiting. His eyes scanned the archway hanging over him like a pendulum, the city itself acting as his enemy. Closing his eyes, he breathed.

A breath to clear his head.

A breath to settle his nerves.

A breath to calm is mind.

“Living in cities is an art, and we need the vocabulary of art, of style, to describe the peculiar relationship between man and material that exists in the continual creative play of urban living. The city as we imagine it, then, soft city of illusion, myth, aspiration, and nightmare, is as real, maybe more real, than the hard city one can locate on maps in statistics, in monographs on urban sociology and demography and architecture.” -Jonathan Raban

"If I said your assumption was true, would you ignore me for the rest of your life?" Delamontre's voice was deep and low, almost a whisper. His bright blue eyes, those eyes that all death knights shared, looked at Moriurya with concern and ... love?

She waited that morning, because this was one thing that she was good at, if more by default than anything else. She had grown up waiting, because she had always been impatient, and because she'd been born into the middle of a war. And she thought, each war has lost me something, and she thought, in this one I have lost twice. She thought of Fortune, Malkin, Ahmandil and the others, all of them laughing at her back for her own miserable attempt at what they had all fought and bled for.

Fucking fools, all of us.

For as much as you desire a simple life, you certainly have a knack for creating complications, my friend.

She had been pouring herself into any work she could—Cafe work, Earthen Ring work, Healing work—so that she wouldn't have to think. “Don't think about it,” having become a mantra in the back of her mind.

Boss,

Israfaen awoke to the sound of laughter somewhere outside.  She sighed audibly - did the party EVER end here?

No, no it didn't, not while Lord Saltheril fought the racial despair of the Sin'dorei people with fireworks, suntouched reserve and bloodthistle instead of sword or shield.  It wasn't Fae's personal preference, but who was she to judge its efficacy?  Everyone else seemed to be having a good time.

She stretched and enaged in her morning abolutions, including a luxurious bath.  As she did so, the events of the previous evening floated back to her consciousness...

[[Big image behind the break.  Please pretend Polaroids exist on Azeroth!]]