It is the middle of the week.  It is time to prepare.

I caught Tavlo fidgeting with the hem of her thick sweater. Although she was the most bundled of us, she didn't look any warmer for it. My breath was a cloud of ice, but my skin tingled. I was becoming familiar with the Citadel-- more familiar than I would have liked in the past. The place was seeming more and more like a home in this strange land.

I entered through the back door.  The maid's face, when she saw me, fell open like a sheet to a gale-force wind.  I found my voice, caught in my throat as it was, and rasped out hoarse words.

“Tell the lady of the house I am home.  Tell her not to come down.  I will see her in the morning.”

The maid nodded, her eyes still wide and fixed upon me, her mouth a thin line.  She turned away swiftly.  If she spoke words from the place of her expression, Cassie would know not to come down. 

I did not prop my polearm against the wall, or set my bow where I usually did.  I did not touch anything.  Another maid and a houseboy came into the pantry, their faces as wan and eyes as wide as the maid before them. I stood without moving.

“I need three vats of hot water.  One with lye, one with vinegar, one with soaps.  I need a pitcher of warm oil and one of boiling water, crushed icecap in each.  A fire in my den.  Many hot stones.  Many towels.  Many -”  My rough voice broke, and I swallowed back the interruption.  “Chamber pots.  Many of them.” 

Perched above the Shadow Vault, I looked down from the saddle of the bronze drake. The skies were dark – darker than night – and the air thin and cold. Like a chill feather the stroke of a shiver swept up my spine and I couldn't help but hunker down, reins tight in my hands, eyes narrowed at the movements below us.

“Is this how it will be, Eleredormu? One day, will it be no more than the dead fighting the dead?” 

A pile of dead trees has accumulated on my desk. Somewhere between the forest and here, it all got mashed and mixed with water into pulp and woven into thin sheets and covered with the remains of some of it which burnt up before getting wet. Or, when I blink the words out of my eyes, the words on the pages come into focus again. The piles of paper still bespeak the death of at least one great old redwood's equivalent weight of dead tree. My contacts and acquaintances - I hesitate to call them "friends" while laboring under the weight of nigh-infinite documentation - provided me with enough information on various subjects to choke an army of clerks.

Of course, while I was insane, my seceretary quit.

Right Honourable, my Lady Mother, with my most humble and dutiful thanks for your Ladyship's bountiful goodness towards me all times, I make bold to acquaint your Honourable Ladyship with such tidings as may interest your Ladyship; and I pray most earnestly that the Most Holy Light keep your Honourable Ladyship in good health.

Theraesia sighed and paused to rub her temple, replying to her mother's letters was a task she avoided as much as possible.  "You're not even fifty, Mother."  She thought.  "Why do you insist on a style that was old fashioned when you where a girl?"

She could hear her mother's reply as clearly as if she were in the room.  "Standards, daughter.  We do not permit ourselves the laxity of current times."

Lord Kast commands us ever deeper into Ulduar. His eyes face forward only, as if in rebellion against the fear that awaits beneath; every guardian and watcher is only an obstacle in our way. One by one they fall.

Among the scrap heaps, where the giant mechanical screams and throws its tantrums, I spotted a shadow. It dashed for cover when we entered the chamber and disappeared when we engaged the mechagnomes and their equipment. While the others picked apart the remains, gleaning for gold or treasure, I sought the shadow among cast off metal plates, piles of robotic guts, wires and gears and cogs. A shadow amid the shadows, it huddled beneath a great beam and hissed, batting at my gauntlet as I reached for it. I could pick it up with one hand, wrapped about its ribs.

It had taken a long time and the elements had been patient. But everything had fallen into place with the efforts of Oshan, Nuadhu and the de Montvalle sisters who she had recently met. She was standing at the entrance to the lair of a creature of earth that was so powerful that she could feed off it's essence. The only issue was that it needed to be defeated since it was not going to give it up willingly.

It had even been a challenge to get to the mouth of this cavernous walkway. The Horde had not seemed interested in letting them pass into this place unharmed. It did not bring them joy, not all of them at least, to cause destruction and harm to the Horde. But the Horde had stood in their way and no Orcs or Trolls were going to stop them from fulfilling the dying wish they had determined to obey.

((There are naughty words in this blog!))

Don't think.

Don't worry.

Just be.

I breathe deep, the herbal smoke filling my lungs and causing me to close my eyes. Behind them, I listen for the spirits. I listen for the high pure call of the wind, the rumbling wash of the tides, the crackle of the fire, the deep quivering of the earth. I listen for them and feel them surround me like an embrace, like they had been waiting for me all along. I open my eyes and the world is so vibrant I can barely see.

I know it's ridiculous to buy her flowers. Flowers spring from the earth at Shar's footsteps; she grows them, finds them, collects them every day. I may as well bring water to a well. But I buy them anyway, a bunch of white roses from the woman in Dalaran. They're just blushing pink in the evening light, and the color makes me smile after the cold dark of Icecrown. I give the woman the coin and wrap my fingers around the long smooth stems. No no, take your glove off, Ineesa. There's Scourge bits on it. I pull it off under my elbow, exchange hands, taking care not to drop the bouquet... There.

"Hm, how could I help? Married to some creep, father dead... she needs lawyers."

I shuffle papers.

"Nobody good... wait, who's...?" Poorly handwritten poster, notes in other hands. "Good rep, but... Kowits? Troll won't do in Stormwind."

Master Niall, you are late.

"Damn. Alright Enlistrasza, take me there." I haul myself up. "Kast won't wait."

Death is not beautiful. At times, moments afterwards when we sense a spirit free from pain and at peace, it seems to be. But in the instant when the soul is torn from the flesh, there is uncertainty, there is fear, there is anger, there is sorrow. So often, there is pain. We witness this again and again and again.

Before: Ask the barkeep for Harrigan. His look says, "I told you last time, if a Niall never set foot in my bar again, it'd be too soon." There's only one old man here anyway, but I needed an excuse to tip.

After: Another question: when'd Elrin piss in Harrigan's beer?

Oh well. Duty done.

Kast,

Psychological warfare results inconclusive. Excellent response from humans; apparently ineffective on cats. I think it was the plums that didn't work.

I found the crossbow in Utegarde Keep, amongst the piles of weapons the Vrykul store in their halls. Small for them, it was most likely kept hooked to a drake-rider's belt to be pulled forth at need; in the hands of a draenei of my stature, it is the perfect size. I have taken it apart in order to clean it.

This is going to be harder than I thought.

About a month ago, I tagged along with another unit that staged an assault on this fortress. Sakaiyah had been working with them while the Scions got it back together, getting herself the lay of the land, so to speak. She tipped me off to the opportunity. They did their jobs, and let me stay behind to do what I wanted. I slipped on the amulet, and pretended to be a casualty, the amulet making me appear dead. When a cult of the damned necromancer came through on clean-up, the amulet absorbed his spell, making me look like a ghoul. I was able to spend a day scouting out the floating fortress Naxxramas, then slip out.

Dalaran is known for it's wine.

And at the Hero's Welcome, they don't seem to mind if you put your hooves on the table. 

Race

            “Hurry up, ya fat fuck! I got seven kills up on you!” Elrin shouted as he sliced his way through another zombie. “Wha’ are ya takin’ a nap, ol’ man?”

            Hron’s heart thudded in his chest. Thump thump thump. The joints in his arms and legs were on fire. They had been at it for almost six hours, just killing wandering undead. The pains were the worst, here in Icecrown. The ghouls didn’t help, either, of course.

It had been no easy task getting this far. The Countess Paxineau Cheraville's manor was nothing less than a fortress, filled to the brim with every sort of protection that gold can buy. If it had not been for Elrin's sudden appearance, there would be no way that I could have defeated Cheraville's personal mercenaries, the Seven Scourges of the West, on my own.

I've been marching for a long time now. I haven't stopped getting up and heading out every day, not since Durnholde, even when Kast re-formed the Scions. I started marching double-time when he showed up again. I have the feeling I'm still in retreat. The forces of the scourge seem a lesser obstacle than settling down and finding someplace to fit in again at times, but that's not really it. I could go back to Shattrath if I wanted to quit. The Scryers would laud me as a hero for the rest of my life, and even the aldor admit a grudging respect for my actions in the Shattered Sun campaign, even if I hung up my armor and lay in the World's End with six hired women until I died of booze. No, I'm not ready to quit and it's not because I don't fit anywhere.

A woman stepped onto the massive chain, carefully making her way lower to the molten metal and stone. Only when the temperature almost became unbearable did she stop and sit down.

She sat as sweat plastered strands of hair to her face.

She sat as twilight settled upon the world like a too-heavy cloak in summertime.

And finally... "'Ey." Well, the hard part was over with. Cerulean eyes turned from the sky above to the lava below. She sighed. "Should've visited you earlier, Auntie Elly," she continued in perfectly enunciated Common. "Sorry about that; you'll just have to kick my ass for it when I finally do cross over. ...If I do."

I don't need to open my eyes. As I awaken, I smell first the sharp crisp dampness of outside air, reminiscent of healthy green. A ways off, a little stream sends up watery sounds, and above, the leaves of overhanging branches rustle. I am chilled, though warm in places, warm everywhere my body touches hers, where her arms wrap around, where my cheek rests against her chest. Breathing in, my lungs fill with her scent, of herbs and leather and fatigue and sweetness, and I don't need to open my eyes.

I have been dreaming. A long night of dreaming.

Their tabard is of a tree with all its leaves shorn off, yet still it stands. I should have known those roots go deep.

The cloth hangs now between my fingers, and in the deep light of evening those bare branches are hardly seen on their inky ground. Now and again I feel a tear, a frayed edge of the garment, a hardened place where blood has dried. I have not washed and mended it yet, Lord Elrin Kast's tabard. But I will.

A big, heavy axe is useful for killing - but not always ideal. I came north with a replica of Grom Hellscream's legendary axe, copied through the strange time-warping magic of Karazhan. I replaced it with an enormous Vrykul double-bladed axe I found while attacking Utgarde Keep - even bigger and heavier. But when I made my own to improve again, I went the other way. A small, dense blade on one end with a counterweight on the other. I can keep this one spinning around me with almost no effort compared to the other two. Less edge to get dull too.

The "Prince" at my feet is appreciating the curve at the top of my axe, which is just enough to spare his neck from being cut - as long as he doesn't swallow. I'm standing on his wrists, so he seems unlikely to get up.

((Takes place earlier this past week.))

In the North, warmth is not taken for granted. Every moment of it is gathered close to the flesh, whether fire on the face or sweat under armor or living skin pressed against living skin. Never before have Shar and I curled up and cuddled so, wrapped around each other and held so close, piles of furs and skins weighing us down into an oblivion of relief from the cold. Once in that dark coccoon of comfort, our location doesn't matter; whether a room at an inn, a barrack's bed in a keep, a corner of a tent in the Tuskarr village, we revel in warmth again, until our tails stop tingling and our tendrils lie loose and languid once more, freed from the restrictive fingers of the cold.

I could smell it in the air. Not the acrid stench of the steamtank's smoke; no, it rested abandoned in the road. Not the sweat and steel and oil and leather, no matter how ravaged; no. I smelled blood in the air as we ran through the ruins of the Durnhold gatehouse. Blood and death rising from the cries below us.

Little loose, Lorith thought with a bit of a frown, sucking on her diamond tooth. Whatever healing she had received after the second run-in with the Syndicate – and their bloody steamtank – had soothed any pain away, but her arm remained a little stiff and this... well, she didn't like her diamond tooth being loose. It wasn't exactly something she wanted to leave in the Hillsbrad dirt, should it get knocked out.