Melersian

Mel rests against his shoulder, mouth ajar. Red strands of hair rest across his pink lips. When the human sleeps, he looks like a young boy and the innocence in his expression is something Xavior had never noticed until now. They lay together in Xavior’s house, cozied up beneath a wool blanket on Xavior’s bed. Xavior enjoys the tight proximity; it makes him feel like everything is normal. He nearly forgets the troubles that wait for them outside of the stone walls until his eyes fall upon the bruises that disrupt Mel’s creamy skin. The elf traces one of the dark marks, finger moving slowly around the irregular shape. He can imagine the size of the fist that created the bruise and it makes his teeth grind.

Stormwind City, Old Town, midnight.  A gnome clad in weather-beaten leather darts down a dimly lit alleyway.  She glances warily from side to side; her eyes narrow as she searches for movement in the darkness.  Assured of her solitude, she climbs into the packing crate serving as her temporary residence.

My study of relics brings me to that great old wall.

As I sift the dust and fragments, I find my own crest, fallen from armor I once wore.

I take a news clipping out of my pocket, staring at it, and the crest.

I came looking for history.

This place holds my history too.

"Then I guess you can't be helped," was the reply. The thing that she couldn't be help with wasn't so much the issue at hand but rather the way the words resounded within her mind. If you asked her to repeat the rest of the conversation, either before or after the statement, she would be hardpressed to answer.

Eyes the color of newly budding spring leaves, scanned over the water. The heavy feeling inside of her building once more and strengthening further upon realizing that she was alone yet again. Perhaps, just perhaps, it was not that she could not be helped but rather that she wasn't worth helping at all.

A mind easily distracted, the woman never noticed the figure approach from behind. He sat down beside her, wrapping an arm nonchalantly around her waist and drawing her near unto himself.

[About six or seven months in the future]

They weren’t in the mood to talk.

They didn’t feel like being buddies. They didn’t feel like holding a good, normal conversation. They didn’t feel like reminiscing, remembering how happy they were just a few short years ago. What they did feel like doing, however, was drinking. Raising bottles of Don Carlos’ sweet, sweet tequila, and tapping them together in silent cheers.

Trust is your weakness...

It's too damn cold up here.

((After a few months of missed or short raids due to real life events and after a welcome break for the Meet and Greet, the Ghost Scions finally got another full night of attempts on The Lich King...and guess what happened?  Big grats to the best little raid team out there.))

The cold pervades everything here: The air that snaps at our lips as we breathe, the bright clattering of weaponry and armor, the low rumble of crunching ice beneath our feet.  The spire is brittle and threatens us with its tenuous surface; if our boot-heels catch the edge, shards break away, whirling down into darkness.  It would have us fall, tumble away from the icy throne and the evil we seek to destroy.  But we cannot fall.  We will not fall.

He will not fall.  Melersian Corinth is one with the abyss, despite the voice of amusement often rising from behind his mask.  How much is he still human?  He will not fall.

She will not fall.  Beisel Goldthread sets a dwarven table, feeds us with laughter, then disperses in a puff of shadow.  How can a shadow be smashed or broken?  She will not fall.

I touch the little cut on my neck, the least wound I have received in months.  Half of an inch long, it appears as a mere translucent line across my skin, hardly opening any chasm to flesh beneath.  It does not require a bandage.  I smear a thin salve over the incision; it will probably close by nightfall.

The assassin's sharp knife had hardly nicked my skin, not nearly deep enough to grant his poison's passage into my bloodstream.  His attack had been awkward, thrusting between my neck and my heavy shoulder-armor, having to leap for my height, grabbing my hair with his unarmed hand in an attempt to pull me back and down while slicing deep and true.  He could have cut my throat; he could have left me bleeding out and poisoned on the lawn.  He could have killed me, no more than ten steps from the entrance to my home. 

I let bowstring loosen, abandoned weapons. The sporebat lingered in the fresh spring night.

I shed my armor upon entering, death and plague left behind.

I went upstairs, my hair at my shoulders, every step one step closer.

I took her in my arms and lifted her up.

One step closer.

The Professor had fallen.

Dearest Reandel,

I have spent this night and day thinking of what it means to remove you from my life. I have considered our past, our mutual interests, our mutual friends, and everything we once shared, and I have come to the conclusion that I do not want any of it. I will remain in Darnassus, you need not avoid any of your old haunts, not that I think you would or indeed need to. You may tell the others what you wish, if they wish to find me they will know where I am. The business is as I left it, immaculate and well documented, but you have been removed from any of the papers regarding my shop in Dalaran, as you never were an owner in any sense of the word. The ship is clean and stocked for tomorrow's voyage, I do hope you will at least finish what you have started in that regard. I have left notes for Sabariel and Melersian respectively, notifying them of our new positions and what this means for our usual jolly company.

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.” 

((Since there are spoilers about Yogg-Saron's dialogue, I've hidden this behind the cut.))

Target blank. Nothing past three years.

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.