What the future brings

“You were always prettier in pieces.”

Lovely when we started,

The illusion of control,

Sorned flesh sinks to bone,

Weaves nettled nets around

A readied frame.

((Continued from Never Lend a Book ))

The bag looked far larger than her frame could carry.  She limped with it against her shoulders, wobbly like an old pedlar woman or a snail wearing its home like a pack.  If it pained her, none on the streets would notice.  Her head bent with her back, and a threadbare hood sheltered any shadow of the effort in her expression.  The stones below her feet could see.  They stared up with flat faces, a thousand little mirrors of the still resolve in her burnished gaze. 

There were feathers on the floor. A hole in the down-stuffed blanket puffed them out in little breaths when the sleeper shifted.

She had heard the words before,

Or read them in neglected books

Lying dusty on earthquake-cracked shelves.

With them,

The fever wove a spell around her bones,

Let us build a new Light

Fire used to mean something.

Rethelia crushed the letter in her hand and felt its sharp, crumpled edges dig into her palm.

Of course Lady Howell would suggest their meeting take place in her home- the girl should have expected no different outcome. Now, there was nothing she could do. To insist anywhere else was to show too particular a preference and, more importantly, fear.

She felt that fear, that sticking, sickly danger, acutely, so she did the only sensible thing- she sent her assent immediately.

Of course. She would be there.

The girl walked awhile in the dark, silent night that Stormwind had become. She threw the invitation into the canal.

The book arrived late one morning, wrapped in gray paper, tried with brown string, when mist hung still low over Duskwood stands and hills.

She took it down the road a while, carried close to her breast, as if for warmth, until there came a place suitable to stop and take in what she could.

But the text was torn and splattered, ink vomited over whispered words.  It fell apart in her arms.

The final page remained whole.  Some shaky hand had written over its contents in a thick, black scrawl.  The language was demonic, but the meaning was common enough-

There once was a man called Tomorrow
Who gave all his gifts for free
There once was a man called Tomorrow
But he has no more gifts for me
 

I took five steps forward
And one fall back.
I took five steps...

When children dream of growing wings...

...this is never what they mean.

To: Artisania Stillwater-Ell'Karan, University of Kalimdor
From: Dispatcher Lueli, Peraline Proxy Services