|
Post by Val on Oct 24, 2008 6:35:53 GMT -5
(( I second that! ))
|
|
|
Post by Emizael on Oct 25, 2008 8:44:27 GMT -5
(( Thirded! MOAR PITUREZ!))
|
|
|
Post by Nedward on Oct 25, 2008 12:25:38 GMT -5
"FOR THE LAST TIME," *thump* "...STOP THAT" *thump* "...HORDE-BLASTED SCREECHING" *thump* *thump* "...THAT YOU PRETEND TO CALL MUSIC!"
Ned pounded furiously against the wall of his room, dislodging several paintings of fish and causing the unused water in the washbasin on his dresser to slop violently out of the bowl. A penniless elven mistral has installed himself next door to the old gnome and insisted upon practicing his so-called craft at all hours. It wasn’t only that his voice had the whining sickly-syrupy tone of a spoiled child, but every song seemed to be some incomprehensible babble about love’s embrace or a heart’s distant passion. It was enough to make a gnome’s head explode! Worse, the waif paid no attention whatsoever to Nedward. When he had stormed over to shut him up for good, the elf had remained blissfully unaffected throughout Ned’s tirade. Ned had found himself spluttering, “are you hearing what I am saying to you?! I hate your infernal screeching!” But the elf had just smiled -- SMILED at him – and responded, “Thank you. Oh yes, thank you. I work on the music. Beautiful. More beautiful with time and work. Ishnu-alah.” Ned had tried speaking more slowly and more loudly, but it hadn’t helped. The idiot didn’t appear to speak Common!
Ned continued bashing away, but the music only modified to match the thumping of his cane. With a strangled cry of frustration, he threw his hands into the air and returned to his book. It was no good. Ned had retired to pursue a quiet life reading and maybe writing his memoirs, but after several months he had merely managed to grow a full beard, neglect him personal hygiene, and create a cluttered pile of crumpled false starts. And then the elf had arrived. Ned brought out another sheaf of Stormwind parchment, spread it careful over the writing table, and then dipped his feather quill into the inkwell. He adjusted his spectacles and leaned close to the paper’s surface, beginning to inscribe the ornate “T” that would begin his epic.
|
|
|
Post by Polrena on Dec 30, 2008 0:09:51 GMT -5
I swing.
“Dark days,” whimpers the militiaman cowering behind me. I tune him out, try to ignore his cowardice and focus on the more pressing matter before me. Hack, flip, slash, flip, hack. A tree, I tell myself. Just pretend you’re felling a tree.
A short, mushy-skinned tree with green bark that oozes green sap with every swing. I ignore the tree’s pained howls, the goblin-like screams that slice through the air every bit as sharply as my axe, and keep hacking. Finally, the armor-clad form falls to my feet, well and truly felled.
Timber.
“Oh, shut up,” I tell the voice that’s been friend, foe, counselor and confessor for as long as I can remember. I no longer question its presence, nor wonder from whence it came. Angel or demon or encroaching madness, it doesn’t matter. I’m the one who takes the actions, makes the choices.
“Oh thank you, thank you, Lady…?” The fool behind me stands up quickly, brushing himself off, as if he can banish the memory of his trembling in fear at what I faced and killed.
Slowly, I shake my head. No, not ‘Lady.’ Not anymore. “You can call me Pol, if you need a name.” “Thank you …err, Pol. If there’s anything I can do for you? Do you, maybe, need an escort into town?” The hope in his face puzzles me. Does he truly think he can repay me by acting the masculine hero now, after I just finished saving his pathetic life? Or, more likely, does he still need my protection but can’t even find the courage to admit it?
Men.
“I’m not going to town.”
He pauses, perhaps dumbstruck that I should refuse his gracious offer. “I’ll be making my way back to my regiment then, and report the conditions in the area. You sure you don’t need shelter for the night?” I am wiping the ooze from my axe onto a clean patch of grass. I do not look up. “Well, ah, if you ever need anything, anything, you ask for Fierce Frank.” Another pause. “That’s me.”
Right. “I will.” I pick up my haversack. With the axe still in my hand, prepared for use, I am ready to leave. I know this is where I’m supposed to say something to him, perhaps offer comfort or kindness or encouragement. “Blessings of the Light upon you, Frank.”
“Uh… Sigmar’s blessings, Lady.”
At the astonishment on his face, I remember. It’s Sigmar here, not the Light. Although maybe Sigmar is just their name for the Light. No, Sigmar was a god, or an ancestor, or some such. His cult is everywhere in Empire lands, and even the pious undertake all manner of foul deeds in his name, warping what I can only hope was originally a message of love.
No matter. Every race twists their gods to their own purpose. It’s nothing to me what they believe. “Sigmar’s blessings.” I start walking.
You could have been a little nicer.
“You again?”
It wouldn’t have killed you to walk him back to his troops.
“And then what? Pretend to his men that he saved me, and not the other way around, just so he can save face? Feigned terror of the dark, lonely night and then have to fight off hordes of dark, lonely men? I don’t think so.”
You used to be so trusting.
“The word is ‘naïve.’ Ignorant, even, maybe. I didn’t see anything that went on around me because I refused to. Well, I’ve seen it now.” I find a road, but pass it. You only find people on roads, and I’m not looking for people. I climb a hill and walk through the trees, parallel with the road but well below the ridgeline.
You had more friends when you were trusting.
Sometimes I wish the voice had a body, so I could whirl around to look at it and stare it down in a dramatic fashion. “Don’t you dare mention my friends to me.”
Sore subject? Because you don’t have any anymore?
I loved my friends. Still love them. The voice knows it. Knows why I left them. I play along anyway. It’s a good two days’ walk to the keep that’s under Chaos siege. “The Defenders will always be my friends.” They sheltered me, protected me, loved me. As I loved and protected them. As best I could.
And when I had them no longer, when I left them to pursue a useless cause, there was no one to watch my back. I had to learn to fight, if I was going to stay alive.
I thought I'd died fighting a demon in the wastes. When I woke up on another world, far from Azeroth with no knowledge of how I got there, I was afraid. Then I became angry. Very angry. Angry at Doc, for leaving the Defenders- and me- without a word. For not caring enough about me to come back. At myself for caring about damned Doc Caspin so much that I left my friends. I think they understood. I know they wanted to help, but they also knew I could only work it out on my own. So I left, trying to find answers. To everything.
I found out my anger turned my healing Light into destructive magic. I could kill with words that only resembled my healing chants. I used my fury to destroy my enemies. I undertook quests and missions and lost myself in the new world’s mysteries, carefully blocking out all memories of why I was there.
I followed the path of one of the puzzles until it led me to a portal stone. A portal, it was said, from which the gods of that place came. Dark armies were to come from it, the rumors said. Armies so vast they would blacken the hillsides for miles and miles with their vast, unfathomable numbers.
It looked like a picnic basket. I went through.
Several portals and many years later, I am in a new place, and have not found another portal to try. I am far, far from Azeroth, in time and distance. Yet I keep my friends in my heart, always.
Even Doc?
The worst thing about having a voice in your head is, you never get any privacy. “Don’t you start. If Doc is dead, there is nothing to search for. If he’s alive, he carrying on, making his way however he likes. It was a child’s dream, my wishing he cared for me. I wanted something, didn’t get it, so I wanted it more. That’s all. I lost everything for the want of one thing I coud not have.”
So bitter.
“I’m not bitter, not about that. I’m over it. There’s a larger picture, here.”
Oh yes. The fight against evil.
“There you go thinking I’m still naïve, again. There is no fighting evil. Evil will always exist. What I CAN fight are monsters. The big ugly green ones that are destroying this land with plagues and pestilence.”
And war?
“Are you trying to trick me into saying war is evil? It’s not. The alternative is to allow anyone to take everything from you. Land, food, cattle, family. Rulers and kings decide when to wage war, and when not to. I can’t dissuade a king, even if I wanted to. I wouldn’t want a king who would listen to me, anyway, not when he’s got advisors and spies and diplomats and knows far more about what’s really going on than I. No, evil isn’t some giant shimmering black demon that can be eliminated once and for all. It’s in too many men’s hearts for that.”
And so, instead of searching for love, you search for a good fight?
“A ‘good’ fight? Are you trying to be funny?”
I’m just asking.
“I’m trying to do good, yes. Where I can. I’ve forsaken the destruction of magic and have called again upon the Light to help me heal those in need. That power has diminished, perhaps through distance from Azeroth, or perhaps from my diminished piety,” I grin, remembering how very young I was. “But I have new skills to augment that. Without the Defenders at my side, I picked up this axe. Between the meager heals and the axe, I do all right. As for love…” I trail off. What else could I say? That I don’t need it? That my axe is the closest thing I have to a trusted companion? There is The Fight, and that is all. It is enough. Any hope for more is useless.
Seeing a stream in front of me, I approach and decide it’s a good time for a break. I set my axe and sack down, and kneel at the water’s edge. Scooping the clean, chilly water into my hands, I splash my face and neck. It feels wonderful. I promise myself a bath further upstream, where I’ll be in no danger from travelers, if not from the more dangerous denizens of the woods. Water drips from my face into the stream, and I watch the ripples until they fade completely. I look at my reflection. My hair is white, an unfortunate side affect from all the portal jumping, but still pulled back into a pony’s tail. The large scar where my face was raked by a chosen of Tzeentch mars my once pale and smooth skin. Years of open-road living, far from the Defender’s guild castle, have tanned and leathered my hide.
Thoughts of the Hall stir longings I have tried to banish. In my lonliness, I wrote letters, addressed to "Johnson," and sent them by post, knowing full well they'd never find their way across the worlds and dimensions. Just writing them made me feel better, sometimes. Sometimes it made everything worse.
Today the images of my friends, alive and happy and together, make the day brighter. I can almost smell the eggs and hear their voices. I smile and close my eyes, lifting my head towards the open sky to live the memories.
Look again.
Frowning at the voice’s interruption, I look back down at the water. A great dark shadow rises behind my reflection. Black orc! My hand flings out at the grass and scoops up the handle of my axe, and I turn as I rise from the bank.
I swing.
|
|