Kalidormi

It is late. Ordinarily I make it a point to retreat to my quarters in the late evening, to maintain the impression of normality. It is not so much that I am under suspicion, but that I wish to avoid the unnecessary attention. It's not like anyone really sleeps in this city. Tonight, however, is different. I sit atop a floating ring, some 300 yards above Dalaran proper. The night is cloudless. I can see and smell a vast distance; the air is cold, dead, like the inside of a tomb. I wonder at my own unhappiness in this moment, and it becomes so inconsequential. There are far more pertinent doings afoot.

This page contains nothing but a crumpled, battered, bloodied note, clipped to its front in a haphazard fashion. It reads as follows:

My dearest Mother,

Forgive me for not informing you before I left Dalaran last night.
I have spent restless days in Dalaran waiting for word from you. Waiting for something, anything to happen to break up the monotony while you follow your path and simply observe the world as intended. I am trying to learn your ways and I think, yesterday, I was met with a margin of success while wandering around Dalaran.

Dalaran. The city of mages, champions, adventurers, dragons and mothers. The dawn rose and shone it's struggling rays upon the city as it did without fail. In the wake of the northern morn, a courier stood before Kalidormi, holding in his shaking hand a single peace of parchment folded in half. On the top half of the parchment in long, elegant writing the word 'Mother' was written, a fleck of red stain beside the black ink made a mockery of a period.

Inside the letter, the writing was of a different hand, more compact and simple.

My dearest Mother,

Living an entire lifetime by most races standards and not knowing your past can be a true burden. A burden that Amatius had been forced to suffer. A burden that caused his soul to seethe and rage against his adoptive mother.

In Ashenvale, when he had gone to confront that child-stealing witch a second time he had expected to see a crippled woman laying in bed. He had fully been prepared to murder anyone protecting her and rip the answers from her flesh if need be. He hadn't been prepared then to walk into the house and see his own mother, his real mother, waiting for him. He remember clearly her dissapointed gaze and the distinct absence of Amina.

"I have fallen again in her eyes," Amatius muttered holding the dusty tome detailing vaguely the events almost ten millenia ago. "I have lied to her, I'm sure she saw through my eyes clearly!"

A Hero's Welcome. The usual adventurers scurried in and out of the inn going about their tasks. Inside the inn there was always laughter, and jeers. Rooms given for a night, a week or more. All members of the Alliance would find a warm smile and good drinks all around.

One room stood open. Earlier it had been a flurry of activity as mages, healers both of the light and spirits rushed in and out. Broken armor fragments were taken out, stained with the blue blood of a Draenei. Inside the room, now the shaman Otsdarva stirred from his unconscious state. Over his bed a young mage stood with his arms crossed and smug grin as if he had personally been responsible for the recovery.

I began this diary in an attempt to pass the time in this godforsaken place… but I do not know how much longer it will be of any use to me. There is so much that should never reach the light as words, and yet it cannot remain in my mind… lest the madness grip me as well. I fear… I fear this may be my last entry, after so short a time.

I have felt a wrongness in the depths of my soul for many, many years now. Not unlike the feeling that something is about to happen that is just beyond the range of my perception, not unlike knowing the inevitable, I have felt a strange, growing anticipation. I did not know why. I did not question it; my mind was elsewhere. It is always elsewhere. Today... I am not even sure whether I can call it fortune or folly, but I have discovered something that should have been clear to me all along. I do not know why I did not see this coming. Why it was not clear until today.

I... have a son.

I have yet to shake the sensation that I am being watched. However I have much larger things on my mind these days. It is all so confused and muddled... even with a few days of thought, I cannot fathom how this might lead up to what I have Seen. I cannot pen my thoughts in any clearer a manner... it is too dangerous.

I have been under the impression my entire life that the future, while not set in stone, is full of certainties. While I may not be aware of them, there are periods in which my mind, through whatever magic runs through my veins, becomes open to this flow of Time and events... and I can See what is to be. At times, I sense that this future is not what will come to pass, but indeed might, as experience has shown... and other times it is a certainty that the vision will come to pass, for good or ill. The only issue I take with the nature of my abilities is I never know the difference.

Northrend truly was an amazing place.

In his wanderings throughout the hostile lands, Otsdarva had eventually come across the Wyrmrest Temple and had, much to his initial dismay had managed to somehow managed to get involved in the Nexus War. He had been confused more so than distraught; what could a war between mages and dragons have to do with a shaman? It had taken a mage, stern and annoyed, getting Otsdarva on the back of a red drake and showing the Draenei the effects of the surge needles on the earth for him to finally realize why the elements spoke so urgently about this.

Malygos was destroying the world itself.

The war had reached a high point; they had discovered the Nexus hidden in the Coldarra. They had fought to secure a minor heading there and now he had been sent, against his will, to Dalaran.

I can't decide how to begin...

I simply despise Dalaran.

-Both lines are neatly crossed out, discarded by the author. After the second line, there is a very nearly audible pause from the page, as farther down the script begins flowing in a neater, more gentle hand than the one used above.-

I have tried to be open to this experience. It is not in my nature to so wholly reject a place and a people, I am meant to observe and take note of my findings, to merely keep an eye out. Yet, all I see is needless passions and pointless bustle of an ambitious people with little defined direction. My toes have been tread on far too many times to count, despite my efforts to remain out of the way.

I've decided to keep a diary. Where once I scoffed at the pass time of documenting what I can remember with ease... I find I must do something to pass the time.

(( Sooo it's been a while since I've drawn anything... but seeing as Nightsonge and I, among others, have picked up a rather interesting storyline together, I figured I might as well get started with the visuals. This is a bust of Kali in her True form, so far not done inking... and coloring is probably going to make me cry... but hey, Gimp is awesome and I love whoever it was that introduced me to it years ago... and here I was losing hope for digital coloring. ANYWHO. It's a little... huge... so I put it in a link...

Finished work to come, along with a few other dagrons and some colored stuff... I know Songe saw that I have a tablet and went *O_O COLOR FOR ME!!!*

I r a little rusty... so... any comments on basic anatomy I'm failing at, fire away <3

Oh... and book camping sucks >:(

Uhm yeah. thassit. ))

It had taken much coaxing to convince her to leave Stormwind initially. Bitterly she resisted, emphatically claiming to the stubborn Paladin that her place, however neutral and inconsequential, was in the City. To leave without permission or notification would be something akin to desertion. Despite this desperate and slightly unspecific plea, he would not take no for an answer, and stood her on the dock and insisted she board the ship when it came. Then he insisted she ride the gryphon to the Floating Citadel. Then he insisted she hop aboard his mammoth and accompany him to a 'spot he'd found.' She discovered shortly after that ride that she did not, in fact, mind mammoths all that much.

It had been many years since she'd dared assume her natural form, long enough for her to find it a surprising change. Claws instead of fingers, wings where there had been none, a tongue that struggled to form mortal words, eyes that glowed a fierce amber and an intimidating size ot match; all hers. Yet, despite her misgivings and assumptions, each time she resumed this immortally grand change of face, she felt differently. This time, she was ashamed. She hoped with that desperate earnestness of one who has nothing left to lose that there never again be such an occasion to feel such a strange sensation, and yet she was aware that the worst was yet to come.

It was raining, the day they buried her lover.

She remembered the occassion with a distinct clarity, much in the way she remembered everything else, save for the fact that it had not been her intention to remember. Not this time. The gathering had been small, a handful of wellwishers and the occasional member of the Druidic community paying their final respects. So his solitary life became a solitary death. They did not stay for long. She was unsure on this point, but a few moments would never be enough to pay respect where respect was due.

It rained while they returned his lifeless corpse to the blessed soil.