High Elf

It seemed an age since she had last set foot in her former home.

At that, it had been quite some time...

The last time she'd seen these glittering walls, she'd been suffering from the curse of mortality.

"The one thing I want to leave my children is an honorable name."     ~Theodore Roosevelt

The autumn sun was setting slowly over the lazily rippling sea as Thuaynel Dawnstrider’s personal yacht drifted up to the Sunsail Anchorage.  Warden stood beside him, fur bristled and beady eyes attentive to the surroundings.  He looked like Thuaynel felt but would not show; on edge and fearful.  But he must be strong, lest those who had been brave and loyal enough to accompany him to the docks in defiance of Viridel and their own patron's ex-wife.

"Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal"   ~A headstone in Ireland

Thuaynel leapt to his feet when he saw Sherinne stir, reaching out to take her hand in both of his.  She found it odd that the first thing she observed is that despite her delicate fingers, for a human, his own pale digits seemed so much more elegant.  It made her chuckle at the envy that bubbled up within her.

“You are in good spirits, then.  Good.”  He spoke lightly, almost cautiously, which made her abruptly nervous.

“I must look awful,” she mumbled in an attempt to belie her fears

She plops down on the soft familiar bed, searching the surroundings with her eyes for a few moments before leaning back onto and looking up into the iridescent fabrics hanging from the ceiling of her room in Dalaran.  She quietly closes her eyes taking a few minutes to calm herself after all the recent events.  When she finally does reopen them she takes in the surroundings and smells once more.. Pastries and fruit from the market and inns, even the scent of flowers from the various garden beds throughout the majestic floating city.  After taking a deep breath and looking around the room from her supine position she thought, 

"Truly.. its not that good to be home..." 

Xanadinda had thought to stay away from Silvermoon, but she had been wondering what had happened to Vaeron. Surely he would have come and spoke to her or at least sent a letter, but then again, he was terribly shy about women and especially her, so it would seem. He was also extremely loyal to the Blood Knights, of what he was a part of. She would have preferably stayed in Nagrand, where she was free from the staring guards and civilians, but something -a strange, lonely feeling with a mixture of something like... love?- was calling her to return to Silvermoon City to talk to Vaeron.

“A bad thing never dies”

                ~Spanish Proverb

     When love is fresh and new, those who share it inexorably exhibit a desired physical proximity that is quite noticeable to others, who are not swept up in the heat of the experience.  It was with that closeness that Sherinne  and Thuaynel now walked down the halls of the Dawnwalker Research Center, passing doorway after doorway of busily laboring magi.  Their budding love affair had been no secret, and in the light of the boss’ upcoming divorce, the only real scandal of impropriety was the notion of a human and high elf being together to begin with.  For all their grace and charm, Sherinne had come to find an ugly bigotry in Silvermoon, thinly disguised beneath a veneer of propriety.  It seemed she was thought of as Thuanyel’s ‘pet,’ as often as not, and she had spent the last few months fighting hard against the preconceptions of being a simpleton and savage.  It was infuriating, to say the least, but she refused to allow societal norms to cast a shadow over her research.  Nor her love.

"If you see a snake, just kill it - don't appoint a committee on snakes."
    ~Ross Perot

    “Imagine that,” the chubby high elf says around his clumsily chewed mouthful of food.  “Driana Dawnstrider sitting for a civil meal with her husband’s chief rival.”  Elves had a natural penchant for slenderness, making the rotund curve of Viridel Boughwalker’s features a particular oddity.  But he was well known for excess, in all areas of his life.  Perhaps it was that hunger that had hauled him up from his birth in lower society, to become one of the most prestigious mystical scholars in the city.  They wouldn’t have tables at Silvermoon’s finest eatery otherwise.  Of course, little of that was born of his own research.  Theft, politics and manipulation were his specialties, or so she’d heard.  She had use for that.

"Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world."

~Archimedes

None of Sherinne Redbrook’s reading had prepared her for the actual sight of Silvermoon City’s white stone walls.  In the light of the setting sun, they were painted a rosy pink, and the impossibly smooth surface stretched out as far as her eyes could follow in either direction.  Behind those seemingly impenetrable walls jutted spiraling towers that even her own Dalaran skyline couldn’t match in grandeur.  She’d thought herself worldly up to this point.  Nearly a decade apprenticed to a well-reputed group of Kirin Tor researchers was no small boast, but she could count on one hand the number of humans that had been allowed this close to the city, even among the most powerful wizards.

The high elf sputtered a bit of blood as he sat under the lights, the wounds from disabling him in the first place still aching.  Around him a circle of green eyes glowed, every face masked, every voice distorted by some spellcraft he hadn't identified. 

"Why are you doing all this!?" he raged impotently.  He'd managed to kill one of his captors before they shackled him kneeling, the body - another elf, by his reckoning - had already been dragged off.

"You will tell us of your associations." The voice was low enough to be a demon's. 

"Why should I tell you anything?" The mage spat a gobbet of blood onto the floor.  "Felsucking filth!"

 The girl’s head hits the stone floor with a crack.

((Character Guide))

The great city Stormwind was the last bastion of humanity, and it seemed to Kaireen that the entirety of humanity walked its streets today.  People bustled quickly across the cobblestones, moving from one place to another without a passing glance to those they nearly shoved off the walkway to get where they were going.  Often an armored or robed individual would race down the road on their steed.  Honestly, it wasn’t only humanity crowding the streets of Stormwind, but every race of the Alliance.  It was hard for a young acolyte to find a quiet corner to relax in, but if any such place were available in the city, it would be about the Cathedral of Light.  It was just as well – Kaireen had duties, and they couldn’t be neglected.

((Comments appreciated ;p ))

The cold of the Alterac Mountains did little to phase him.  Even if there was a way he could avoid this trip, the cold was something he had grown quite used to.  He had grown up on the borderlands of Quel'Thalas and Northeron, where the winds were even more biting than this.  The elven ranger-minstrel bit off a harsh laugh, his eyes blind to the crystalline mist which for a moment hung ghostly-white in the air.  His eyes were covered with a linen blindfold.  Nothing magical lay in the coarse fabric, in fact, it seemed dingy and tattered.  He had not cleaned it or his clothing in days and only his morning meditations in the near-frozen creeks had kept his skin clean.  He cared less about such things than others of his race; he didn't have bottles of scents to make him smell like lilacs or some such rubbish.

Journal Entry start here,

I have grown accustomed to composing my thoughts as if writing, although there is no paper in these sewers.  I am amazed at how time can slip into a blur, given nothing to do but stare (metaphorically of course) into the blackness that has been my only vision since I swore away magical sight aids.  But that is not what I wish to speak of.

(( Explicit might be a bit much, but there is a good bit of described gore and descriptive nudity, so I'm being safe.  Also, this is a rather long post.  I tried to pare it down or consider a good breaking point, but artistically I can think of no way to do so without diminishing the impact of the pieces as a whole.  Get some popcorn and enjoy. )) 

Diary Entry, Start Here:

It has become my habit to speak my collective thoughts and musings in my mind when I cannot commit them to paper.  It is my hope that I will be able to recollect some of the musings that I speak into my mind, although I know some will be lost.  It has been weeks since my last private thought session. 

Elbryon sat in the small inn room they had rented from the goblins in Area 52, sipping black coffee quietly as he stared at Ilvaern's sleeping form.

Let her rest, it would be cruel to wake her.

It has been one week, four hours, thirty-seven minutes and twenty-two seconds, according to this goblin-created pocket watch an admirer had gotten me, since Ilvaern Wintersong escaped the Blood Knight Compound and Silvermoon City.  It spoke the time when you pressed a button, a most clever device, although I am surprised the button has not also queued it for explosion.  My return inwards