Shar

Stormwind Harbor, usually placid, washed and heaved.

Echo looked out from the quarterdeck of the houseboat, narrowing her eyes as a hot wind seethed over her face.  Under the black night sky the horizon glowed strangely orange.

She had a feeling no elementals would invade tonight.

The bells at the wooden dock ring in the evening, sounding between tall pines.  A ship is arriving, sails dark against the evening sky.  Night is falling on Azuremyst.  I collect my things from where I stand on the shore.

This was the ship I arrived on, years ago now, when I left Darnassus a soft woman in a green robe who could no longer stand waiting for the world to change.  She came here to this place where helpful hands are eagerly guided, where calm direction will train the swing of a sword, where death and violence is such a way of life it is approached with meditative calm.  The draenei, scattered across these islands by the destruction of their ship, were broken, wounded, wrecked, but their divine spirits unchanged.  They put me to a purpose that I grasped tight with both hands.  But I was not like 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?” 

(Bigger 'uns under the break)

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

There is a certain smell that clings to the foundations of buildings, a musky scent where stone meets earth. In Shattrath, that particular tang is remembered from my youngest days, and accosts me with memory lifting from the walls of the Lower City. Children run past us and their laughter is my laughter; walking here, I know only sunlight and the vague lost faces of those long passed.

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.

I have heard tales of Argus, of what our homeworld was. I have heard of the shining streets of Mac'Aree and the shimmering waters which flowed through the mountains. Elders wove their memories into our imagination, until I believed that I might never see such wonder, such magnificence, with my own eyes. But I have.

**a slip of paper lying half under a bed in a corner of the Hero's Welcome dormitory, appearing as if it had been written in the middle of the night.  The pen has rolled out of sight; the occupants of the bed are soundly sleeping **

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 didn't go to Lorith Stonegarten's funeral. I spent the evening with Shar, going out to dinner in Dalaran and celebrating the ring she had me put on her finger, the promise of our future together and the life that lay before us. I didn't want to think back those many months ago to Arathi, to my own fumbling ineptitude with the weapon in my hands – compared to her. And none of us could save her, none of us could do anything but watch her die.

I wake up before she does. One of us almost always wakes before the other, as if gifted a little sliver of consciousness before togetherness, those quiet contemplative moments where we see the other so still and so silent and so vulnerable, and for that one moment say, “There lies my treasure, there lies my love.”

I smile as I rise from our bed. I don't know when she'll wake and I don't want to wake her. There's too much I want to do before she rises. The bedroom is small and I cross it silently, pulling a loose white shirt over my shoulders, stepping into a pair of worn woven leggings that let the breeze pass through.

I keep coming back here. Back to this curving ledge in the Crystal Hall, high above all the other shrines, where behind me the Glyph of the Wind hovers in stone. Although incense permeates the air, I've lit another one of Shar's sticks of rolled herbs. She doesn't seem to mind giving them to me and certainly can make plenty for her own uses. Sucking the woodsy tip, I feel the smoke tingle through my mouth and up the back of my nose, causing my eyes to squint. I don't cough anymore though, and exhale slowly, to taste and feel the motes of essence and spirit as long as I can.

Someone once asked me if I was a Shaper.

I am not.

The stars are bright over Dalaran. I always wonder at how they shine in the cold, unobscured by cloud or mist. I rarely saw such stars growing up in the marsh. They reflect off bits of my armor as I run a polishing cloth over the metal, shining up rings and scales. One bracer at at time, then onto gloves. I polish each and set each beside me on the balcony railing.

Eleredormu... perches on the eaves above, his long neck and keen head hanging over, watching me work. I can feel the gentle breeze of the bronze drake's breath as he takes in long inhalations of the cool night air, as if it is delicious to him. I smile, glancing sidelong to his bright golden eye. He seems to smile in return, a toothy grin.

To: Exarch Olenaar, Department of Draenei Relations, Exodar

Regarding: Noteworthy aspects of the Human city of Stormwind.

Exarch:

As the center of power for the Alliance, I thought it fitting to explore Stormwind first. Please advise if you have alternate locations in mind.

We ran in the green. Splashed through marshlands. Hunted together.

There need be nothing more.

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.

I was dismissed. For the morning, for the evening, I'm not sure which. I'm not sure what time of day it is, or how long I've been awake. I've been over the mountains to Onslaught Harbor, stealing documents and slaughtering the gryphons like Maybel, like those I often ride myself. I don't think about the humans I've slain. I don't think of the vrykul, either. Just more dead faces. In the Shadow Vault, even the floor is covered with dead faces.

I dreamed of Nagrand. I dreamed of the water resting and flowing through the Telaari basin, and the smell of her sun-warmed skin. We laid out on the bank sunbathing, the breeze bending the reeds carrying just enough coolness to keep us from becoming too warm. Draenei do not burn in the sun like the pink-skinned humans; we absorb sunlight, revel in it, glow. We were both glowing, in my dream, basking and glowing and there was nothing between us but light.

Oh Light, how it hurts.

I can hardly bend my arms to unlatch the clasps of my chestpiece, and when that leather and metal garment falls away I gasp immediately, hardly able to hold myself standing. I haven't felt like this in ages, the old aches and pains of my back and shoulders, of my weaker leg, throbbing with every movement. Running a hand over the back of my neck, I knead my fingertips into the knotted muscles there, so tense and hardened. They're pulling at me; all these muscles pulling at all these bones, holding me stiffened and straight despite all my desires to collapse.

I am beginning to believe Night Elves do not sweat. This one has come running up the long road from Darkshore through the tall pines to find our camp. And yet his hair lifts freely with the wind, and though short of breath, no perspiration dots his brow. Though it could be, perhaps, all because a mere moment ago he was a cat.

After handing me a folded letter he shifts again, back to the padded feet which carry him so swiftly through the woods. I barely have time to mutter my thanks for his delivery, so wave a hand of blessing to him before returning to our campfire.

When I did not find her home, I panicked.

When I found her hunting, I didn't know what to say.

She says she would run on my path, but I can't be the reason she gives up hers.

We've never been so torn.

But I've got her in my arms tonight. Tonight, I've got her.

((Recommended listening:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtBD750Fsz4&feature=related ))

I came upon the standing stone in Grizzly Hills, not far from the coast. Like shamans' stones, it rises tall from the grassy hillside, deep carvings upon its face. I do not know what they mean or who put this stone here. Maybe the furbolgs; maybe the dwarves. Maybe the titans themselves.

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.

I wanted her to do it.

Not because I don't trust the goblin barbers; for all their reputation, goblins are fairly good stylists and have studied (so as to make the greatest profit) the subtle variations of each race's hair. But this time I did not want their trimming and flipping and practiced waves. Nor did I want to do it myself, and perhaps take off too much or not enough in the wrong places and end up lopsided and silly. It was a task to have another do for me, and I wanted Shar to do it.

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.

There are places where the light only filters through, where it does not try to fill dim spaces. There are places where the soul slips and slides, where it's easy to forget troubles, where the heartbeat echoes loudest. There are caverns and temples and sanctuaries and havens and those widespread arms which welcome a traveler home.

There are haphazardly made beds with rumpled sheets covering bodies happily entwined.

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.