Tamlin

Tyne mused in the evening's waning light; a giant black-and-white striped cat sprawled across the den floor in front of the fireplace at his adopted daughter's apartments in Dalaran. Mairead Ametia had left some hours ago with her heart full of bloodlust; leaving her babe, a male called Urien, in his care. For now, his grandson slept, and Tyne listened to the babe's whisper-soft breathing, idly comparing the sound to that of a purring kitten. The soft double drum-beat of the infant's heart and a subtle whoosh of blood accompanied the child's slow, peaceful breathing, while the crackling fire nearby roared by comparison. Louder still, the Song swept past Tyne's ears, a majestic torrent of music both awesome and terrible. He himself was one of the innumerable melodies that comprised the Song; his sleeping grandson was another.

"I said I can't spare Brightsteel, Major.  We have reports of a massive Horde invasion that same night."  Sterling said he waved said reports in the air, " I need him incase we have to move the Royal family to the safe house"

"I'm not requesting that he follows my people to Uldum, Sterling."  Larosa held up her copy of the same report," I just need him to meet my people in the Garden and to stay alert incase my people need to be pulled out."

The paladin snorted and crossed his arms. Larosa sighed and dropped the papers to rub her temples.

"You're... very good at this." She was all leg, awkward, torn between indecision and fear, desire and trepidation. A challenge in her eyes, but with that challenge came tension.

"You are a mongrel dog among wolves!" Scarred snarling face glaring at me with hatred like venom dripping from his tongue, threatening, trying to bully.

"No other man makes me feel like yeh do.. like yeh're all I want." He stood in front of me, hands on either side of where I leaned back against a table, sipping mulled wine.

"He rescued the orphans from.... horrible situations. He actually didn't do anything with the cookies." I remember first seeing her, luminous eyes lowered, twisting the hem of a robe in her hands. So childlike.

"Your daughter was very lucky." Her voice a husky contralto, green eyes knowing, flush touching her cheeks, tucking that stray curl back.

Je suis un homme de Cro-Magnon                                    I am a caveman
Je suis un singe ou un poisson                                        I am an ape, or a fish    
Sur la Terre en toute saison                                            On the earth, in all seasons 

I could hear the full throated roars above me. The fortress barracks echoed with their voices, answering our leader's demand to war. Her challenge. I could see her in my mind's eye, boiling with shadows, infused with the protective rage of the Night Warrior Herself; the dark face of Elune. I could hear the dwarf's voice - Oathfinder swearing the Runelord Clan to fight with us.

I led them as my Commander requested, with sentinel captain Leshana beside me. Two Sentinels with shields at ready, guiding our band. We walked and rode from Astranaar, still smouldering from the Horde bombers. The flames were gone and the warriders slaughtered, but the air stank of ash and soot and as we left, a woman was crying somewhere.

We walked south through our home, the acrid smell of the volcanic eruption tainting the sweet air. Ears flicking as we heard the hideous sounds made by the orcs who'd taken Silverwind.

1. Air - Ashenvale courses under me. Bobbing branches and streaks of green and gold blur as the wind whips my eyes into tears. It's so beautiful. The hippogryph beneath me screams like a hawk's predatory cry, and my soul exults to see my home unveiled this way, and celebrated. Something inside feels healed for a short time. That was four thousand years ago now.

2. Apples - A gleaming soft lit round shape on the countertop. So serene. My knife flashes, catching the moonlight in a silvery gleaming light. A voice inside me whimpers, but I turn the blade and begin to plunge it toward the blithely ignorant fruit. Pause, the tip quivering just above the skin. Flick it, and deftly skin the apple in a few short strokes, ignoring that child's voice inside with habit borne of millenia. Three years ago.

Blood splatters on Tamlin as he skins the prize laying in the grass.

A few months ago he would have killed me on sight and maybe done the same to me.

The light faded from my life as it faded from the Scarlet Crusade with the death of our beloved General.  We became the hunted and to survive,  I walked away from New Hearthglen into the arms of the alliance.

Unsure if they would spare me but they did.

Let an unseen eye travel over the seated man in the study. Long neatly tied gray hair which holds just barely to a red-gold past. An acquiline nose, patrician and long, set between two eyes which burn with a pale blue unholy light. Finely arching gray brows above the eyes, lines traced between and around. Neither an old man nor a young, but a man firmly esconced in the later side of maturity. No coltish aggression here, but solid confidence. The invisible gaze might linger here and there, then note the figure's occupation. He sits at a polished dark wooden desk, one sword calloused hand stained with ink as he holds a quill with long ease, its tip scratching along a page of a leatherbound book. One candle flickers, guttering to illuminate his work and his face, painting him in relief and deep shadow. It is past the bells of midnight, but as seems his habit, he remains writing, having left a bed rumpled and occupied earlier, setting down thoughts as he has since a boy.

Nightsabre Commander Soto regarded her empty cup and I my own, feeling a wry smile quirk my face. It held no humour. With the horrors our race had endured during the Sundering, what trauma had warped Aktarin... we could each guess, though neither truly knew. Even so, I could not fill in that aching gap between the moment my own consciousness faded to a greenskin's axe blow in a forest glade.. and the hard faced pale woman who now wore the title 'Warden'.

On Sundays the bulls get so bored
When they are asked to show off for us
There is the sun, the sand, and the arena
There are the bulls ready to bleed for us

I stand stern and tall. Proud among the living, alone amongst the dead. Dwarfed by the blue aliens and towering over that pious paladin Mallard who stands with eyes lightly closed, his curling beard rimed with frost, gauntleted hand resting on his weapon. Tamlin is staring sidelong at me, his lip curled back like an animal, a gleaming long canine visible.

It's the time when grocery clerks become Lothar
It's the time when all ugly girls
Turn into swans, aaahh.

((I was listening to Altus Silva repeatedly when the idea for this post came to mind, the events of the post happened close to two weeks ago, it's just taken me a while to hammer out the post around the song.  Listen along http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHxCmwa-lQM ))

I suppose I never expected her to return.

It's a chapter of my life that I thought was closed, locked with tears and grief and hatred so deep that it burns in my marrow.

Should I cast my mind back into those jagged memories? She cannot help that I do so. I have no solace now to ease them or distract me from contemplating that greatest failure. I have failed often in my life.. in my choices since then.

But it was the greatest and most painful.

I lost them all.

I had thought I'd lost her.

We went singing into battle. But the green-skins had become flushed and red, and with their axes they hewed the Forest Lord himself as if great Cenarius were a log they were tearing at. My sisters died screaming before the demonic energy of them. My sisters.

There are those who would say I am playing with fire.

Why shouldn't I?

I cannot have the one I love, why shouldn't I have some fun?

So, one is an elf and the other is one who served grandfather.

Let me be burned.

I have little else to live for.

Let the games begin.

Why did he have to yell? To block my path to my friend Eranna who has returned and try to force his presence upon me, hands like bars on either side of me, reeking of lust and anger and desire, like some overheated lion in a rut intent on forcing me to the floor so he could reclaim me with his body? I was so very wrong to have let him in.. he is too young. Too young by far, with a boy's impetuous demand that he get all he wishes now and no care for what cost may be had for others.

Aktarin Shadowsong eyed the closed door. The Sin'dorei had left to struggle through the snow likely to Everlook. One long white finger toyed with her earthenware mug as she stared at the inoffensive wood. Her thoughts raged behind her eyes like maddened birds, and with the reflexive discipline of ten thousand years, the warden coldly lined them into order and examined each.

The Sin'dorei Iloam Blacksong had acquired a saber and Kal'dorei gear enough to fool her into not killing him. Wise on his part, deeply unwise on the part of whomever gave him those things. The cat's harness where it lay dead in the snow would reveal the seller, and if not, its tattoo would reveal the breeder. She made a mental note to ensure the strictest punishment. She'd been lax, anu'dura, but someone had been a traitor. With a purely mental flag on that thought to attend to it, she turned to the next.

This life of mine is not what I had bargained for.

Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand

Everyday, someone new is threatening my life. Throwing me about like I’m nothing.

Trying to kill me, hurt me, break what little pride I have. Despite the fact that I’m trying to help them, they all feel the need to make sure

I don't care, I'm still free
You can't take the sky from me

The club works well, but it is not mine, no matter what the title says. I can feel him around. The club, my oasis, is drowned in Ythgar.

I can’t attune myself to this place like I had planned, either it’s because I don’t have enough juice, or he has too much of it.

Take me out to the black
Tell them I ain't comin' back

[[Explicit for semi-torture vivsection (live disection)]]

Pink flesh, red blood, tubing into his arm, replacing the blood he lost, one in his throat, providing pure oxygen. They kept Tamlin alive as Xannivard hands delved, poked, and explored within the elf’s chest. Heart, lungs and other organs, were all in their proper place and of average size and composition within the hunter’s body. It was quite irritating how mundane his body was, he had expected something far more unique.

Xann sighed softly, caressing Tamlin’s heart with a scaled hand, feeling it beat under his fingertips. It was a strong heart beat, healthy. He admired the body for a moment, and smiled. Yes, Tamlin was a strong hearted, forever to resist him until he died. Just as he had during the short time within Pox, he’d get nothing from him now. It was nearly impossible when he considered the circumstances.