Worse than Defeat

[Qabian]

((Wish I could change the title of the whole thread. In any case, Q's not stupid enough to keep an actual book journal. This is just interior monologue for my own entertainment. Short of mind reading, none of what he says here could ever be recorded.))

I took the usual shortcut across the foothills of Alterac on my way to the Azurelode to collect some human heads for the High Executor. Working for the Forsaken almost always leads me to a task that's accompanied by an incredible feeling of elation. It's really a pity they're hideous.

As I jogged, a mounted human knight came crashing across the hills behind me on his way from Southshore to the sun knows where. I could tell from his equipment that if he chose to attack me, it would inevitably end in my defeat. Still, I don't run unless I've got an appointment to keep, but today was just for killing. I don't run. Certainly not on first contact.

I stopped, turned, and watched him pass. He slowed his mount and walked it up to me. I watched him, still unsure if I was even capable of harming him at my current level of power. Only one way to find out. I snapped my fingers and engulfed him in a burst of flames. He didn't even cough. The fire dispersed and he remained completely untouched. I hadn't been wrong. Whatever he was wearing, it had enough magic in it to turn away my simple fire. He dismounted and approached slowly.

Why wouldn't he just attack? Defeat is so much more satisfying than impotence! I frowned. He smiled. I couldn't take it. I tried the standard sheep transmutation spell. If I couldn't burn him, perhaps I could at least humiliate him before I continued on my way. Once, twice, three times, no result.

He laughed at me. Augh! Imagine my rage! Just lift your sword, you cursed whelp! Fight me! Let me lose this with dignity! He paused, took a step back, then fired off an arrow that embedded itself in my shoulder. I smirked. That was more like it. I put up a mana shield and prepared to show him that I was unafraid.

But then he refused to finish what he'd started. I tried more fire, some ice, a little arcana. Nothing, nothing, NOTHING! And all he did was stand there grinning like an ape as all my spells fizzled leaving him completely untouched. A dwarf mounted on a ram passed behind him heading in the same direction and didn't even stop to look at me. What was wrong with the Alliance today? Not even so much as a glare for a Blood Elf on the edge of their village in these hotly contested grounds?

It was completely infuriating and absolutely humiliating. I couldn't touch him and he refused to give me the dignity of losing when outmatched. I was frustrated almost to tears. It was so unusual and so disheartening to have this disgusting, indignant, stupid coward in front of me, smiling and laughing and absolutely refusing to even be annoyed, and be completely powerless.

He actually had the gall to touch me, to pat me on the head like a simpleton! And there was nothing I could do! I couldn't reach for his throat and crush it with my bare hands as it was well guarded with metal. I couldn't get behind him and try and crack my staff across a weaker joint of his armor because every time I moved he continued to face me.

Finally, shaking with anger, I collected myself. I shrugged at him and his pointless charade and continued on my way to the mine. He didn't follow, the coward. Didn't even shoot me in the back. I never saw him again. In retrospect, I should have spit on him before I left. That might have at least provoked him to raise his blade to me.

Thank the sun most Alliance are far more combative. I don't think I could take much more of that uselessness. I must continue my training. Eventually there will be no one who can just stand and laugh me down. When that day comes, if I ever see that knight again, he will know the results of humiliating me. But I won't kill him. No. I'll scar him and wither him so that he feels it for the rest of his short, miserable life.

[Vilmah]

((Somebody has a complex! 0.o Good read!))

[Qabian]

((Somebody has a complex! 0.o Good read!))

((Damn right! :D Makes life more interesting to be totally messed in the head. Thanks! *grin*))

[Qabian]

There was talk of children amongst the Grim earlier. An odd topic, I thought. Of course, it started with a comment regarding a certain Dread Mage's... lack, which he insisted is false. I suppose the comment was evidence of comraderie. At least, I dismissed it as such.

Could Forsaken bear children? Theoretically, there are many ways in which the disease revives certain parts of the body, and not all the victims were dead so long as to lose vital components. Beyond my own horrified imagination of the... process, in theory it could be possible, I suppose.

But I imagine, even if a Forsaken woman managed to have enough oxygen circulating to feed the growth of an infant, the disease would likely pass to the child. And then what? The birth of a stunted living fetal corpse, incapable of either continuing to grow or ending its own existence? Further contemplation is certainly enough to make me ill.

I suppose the possibility exists that the disease could be contained in the mother and not passed to the child, although it seems exceedingly unlikely, given that a child conceived within would partake of so much of its mother. And then what? A frail, useless human child born to a strong Forsaken woman. I'd be just as interested to see that infant put to the flame as any diseased abomination.

I am simply musing. I am certainly not about to approach any Forsaken women to make the experiment. That seems like a task for the less savory apothecaries. I am not really a practical scientist, though I may have the curiosity for it. My research, outside the limits of the arcane, is almost entirely theoretical. Perhaps I'll come across a dissertation on the subject and appease my sense of wonder without needing to subject myself to any nauseating visuals.

For that matter, I am not about to approach any women. Only the Sin'dorei have any appeal, and apparently they are all too deceptive to consider communicating with on any sort of long term basis.

I suppose I could force a child on an enemy, if I decided I wanted one. I've heard of it being done, although it would be extremely awkward to carry out for what reward? Bringing new life, impure flawed life at that, into a world that's only going to destroy it. Pointless.

Besides, no human woman is getting anywhere near me without one of us succeeding in killing the other first, and the Kal'dorei aren't even worth the effort with their completely nonsensical approach to intellectual study. I couldn't stand to be in the presence of one long enough without attempting to convince them the error of their ways, and everyone knows how successful that can be. She'd be a pile of ash within minutes. Let them rot in the moldering earth they love so much. And the new alien cohorts? Their height and ethereal aspects are highly disturbing, not to mention the animalistic and demonic qualities. The only thing I'm going to be forcing on a demon is the removal of its power, hopefully for my own use. Demonic children? Hardly desirable in any way. And many of them seem to have a queer obsession with "the Light" which is almost entirely pointless. I don't feel like arguing with obstinate aliens any more than ancient elves. As far as the other people of the Alliance, I'm not entirely sure they even have females, ha!

Supposing I tried to find a less deceptive, more direct woman within the Horde, the Forsaken, for all my respect for their inner strengths, are simply physically repulsive. The Trolls are terrifying in far too many ways, totally violent, combative, and extremely crude, and alien in a seriously unattractive manner. The Tauren -- just no. Not if they were the only women left alive. If it weren't for the shared shamanism with the Orcs, I doubt they would even be members of the Horde. They have too many Kal'dorei qualities in addition to being completely bestial.

Orcs are... something else entirely. They know fel touch and their people may remember what it's like to have it taken away. Their women manage to combine strength and femininity in a way Sin'dorei never could. If only they weren't so... simple and short-lived. An Orcish woman who could be taught true unfettered use of the arcane would certainly be a force to be reckoned with. I suppose demonic control has a certain intellectual element, but I can't say I am particularly impressed by forcing others to do one's bidding rather than cultivating the power to do it oneself. It's really a pity they have a tendency towards foolish spiritualism, barbaric brutality, and mistaken ideals of honor. A truly civilized, intellectual Orcish woman would be... an intense experience.

Again, simply musing on a strange train of thought in these quiet hours. The idea of creating a child is ludicrous at best, generally a complete waste of time. Leave the courtesans to their work. Let the government raise the resulting progeny. Fill your armies with people educated for the purpose. Parents are irrelevant. I certainly have no desire to become one. Why would I bother when there are still so many Alliance idiots out there begging for death?

[Vilmah]

((Yes, that's right. He recognizes the hotness of the orcish woman. This is why I love Qabian.))

[Qabian]

((Unf!))

[Qabian]

The talk against Kael'thas went beyond whispers today. What the hell is Silvermoon hiding from us? I heard more than one Blood Elf shout for severe punishment for his treachery. And I still have no idea what they're talking about.

I also refuse to hear it second-hand. If they told me their laughable little tales, I simply would not believe them. I would nod and pretend acceptance, but I need to see it with my own eyes.

The Prince's allegiance with Vashj saved those of us in Dalaran from Garithos' underhanded machinations. That is a plain and simple fact. I was there and witnessed it. Until I am there and witness to his current deceit, I cannot ignore that he knew how to deal with the humans before the rest of us did.

He should not have gone through the portal.

They said he calls himself king now. King of what? If it is true he claims such a title, he certainly has abandoned us because he has taken no crown from the Sin'dorei. Lor'themar still patiently waits for him, and Rommath's talk of Illidan begins to make him look like an uninformed puppet.

But the Grim Mistress was right when I signed on with them. I am not to be trusted. These words against the Prince from my own compatriots had me seething with silent rage. Is the past utterly meaningless to them? If I had been near enough to strike those who spoke, I probably would have.

Though the more I hear, the more I think it is likely some treachery of the Legion or that Kaldorei demon thing has befallen the Prince and made him betray himself and those who would support him. And yet, there are days when I think as long as he continues to stand against the Alliance, I would also turn against the Horde to stand with him.

I must see it for myself. I must see what he has done and make my judgment. Not long now, and I will be able to cross the portal freely without aid. Then perhaps, this will come together, and I will either no longer feel the need to strike fellow Grim, or I will turn against them from within to stand with the last of the Sunstriders. Time will tell how this turns out.

[Qabian]

There was talk of Northrend amongst the Grim. There are rumors. I felt the need to indicate that the only reason I could think of to go to Northrend would be to give Arthas exactly what he deserved after so many long years. I did not use those exact words, but that was the basic sentiment.

The Mistress corrected me, insisting that we need to focus on the challenges of the present, rather than lofty dreams for the future. Again, not her words, but the sentiment I received. Of course I agreed. It was an eminently practical statement.

But my subsequent musings led me to think perhaps the comment that Arthas was not the target of the Grim actually derived from certain remnant sensations from her past. Perhaps she has not lost all hope in a being who was once her former leader, as I have not lost all hope in the important people of my past. Wouldn't that be interesting? Surely not all soldiers of the Horde place the well-being of the Horde above all else.

As much as I continue to feel the need to respect the Prince's deeds for my people, perhaps the command of the Lich King also stays with her. As much as she feels the need to destroy my once leader, perhaps I similarly feel the need to reach into the past and snuff out the grand instigators of her former life.

Whatever Kael'thas is doing, I sincerely doubt it has anything to do with the Lich King. However, having certain Grim members split between enemy forces of the Horde is ever so intriguing. Watching the guild fracture from within as other sides to the greater conflict continue growing in power, each demanding allegiances from the various peoples of Azeroth, could prove to be delightfully amusing.

No matter. My allegiance to the Grim is still currently superior to any other. I merely cannot help but contemplate the idea that the future holds much possibility for drastic change.

[Qabian]

This past week has been full.

I finally have my tabard. No longer will I be forced to consort with weaklings and cowards without colors of my own to show. I intend this to be the first step of many with the Grim, provided the future's current course holds more steady than I have envisioned.

That strange warlock girl who insists on love is tormenting me. I am uncertain how to block her from my mind more effectively. What was happy and ambitious from my past is gone. Jastra brought it to a rather effective halt. I do not need it nor do I want it any longer.

I witnessed a rather amusing event in Orgrimmar. It was even more amusing because the victim was a complete and utter coward. Apparently simply having been witness has made him rather desperate for my silence. At first I thought I would merely find continued amusement by leaking my information about the scene. I no longer approve of connections to others where they can be avoided, especially the blatantly weak and generally useless, but perhaps, in the end, I may have some use for him if he makes me another offer before I break my silence.

[Qabian]

Abric's lessons were good ones. He understands a great deal, and his efforts make me proud to be Grim.

The dwarves have never meant much to me. Past Quel'thalas ties with the Wildhammer always seemed something for the Farstriders. Peoples shunning magic have never been something I've been particularly impressed by. The Bronzebeards in particular have meant little to my past. But Abric is right, they are not the humans, and have their own strength, and are probably a far greater obstacle to both the Horde and the Grim as an entity separate from the Alliance.

It was my first foray to those cold lands. I was surprised to see a meager Argent Dawn presence there, but despite Abric's words, I still have exactly no respect for the people he came from. Yes, I understand some humans can be worked with in order to achieve other goals. Dalaran was more than enough evidence of that for me. However, for all the time I spent in the Kingdom of Magic during my own learning, I never met a human worth maintaining an extended relationship with. Between the actions of Kel'thuzad, Garithos, the Proudmoores, the Menethils and their incompetent paladins, I believe the human condition has been proven, and Azeroth would be much better off if their people were simply and finally wiped out, or at least had their lives exchanged for the courage and curse of the Forsaken.

I wondered why several non-Grim chose to be present, as our exercise was obviously one in learning, not in combat.

Apparently, following explicit instructions is quite difficult for some. In attempting to follow Abric's directions and take targets from my immediate teammates, I found all of them had different targets, and all their targets were out of my range or not in sight. At first, I was confused by this, but then I realized the five of us had become quite separated within the short space of Ironforge's entrance hall. By the time I found at least one of my team in the chaos, hell had already broken loose. Everything Abric had said about needing to learn to function as a cohesive unit was proven true. Perhaps more practice and more lessons are in order.

Still, it was an awesome sight, to see us standing there, holding back, waiting for them to come to us, their weak and untrained scattering before us like chaff on the wind. And when they finally provoked the violence, the sound of enemy bodies slumping to the ground was beautiful. Until the chaos took over, we separated, and the inevitable defeat came with the loss of unity.

But it was an excellent lesson for those with the mental aptitude to understand it, and with enough of these lessons, we will become unstoppable.

[Qabian]

That fool Khadgar finally deigned to give me an explanation of the Outland city today. I'm rather convinced Voren'thal is a complete lunatic, but I suppose I must keep my opinions on this to myself for the sake of the Grim and other minor reasons.

I never trusted the Light. I doubt I ever will. Proximity to so many Naaru gives me headaches.

[Qabian]

I ran with the Ghants tonight. It was a thing of sheer beauty. They are a little... rabid for my tastes, I think, but by the sun, they can put plans into action and I admire them. If they could pull massive numbers, they could be gods among the Horde.

I was a little surprised at how much I could do, despite comparatively lacking in skills. My spells almost all landed. Counterspells, when not interrupted by a shield, were still highly effective. Watching the effects of Dragon's Breath on Alliance crowds outside the usual battlegrounds was exceedingly amusing. I achieved a few notable kills. I was easily downed if any enemy fire came to focus on me, but distractions were many and efficient. And I can only improve from here.

When my schedule allows, I will certainly look into their campaigns again.

That Baron Ran'deau was there. Someone mentioned his name or I certainly would not have recognized him. I hardly keep up with such things. Not as dead as the papers said, apparently.

I expect to see the results of Redcap's work tomorrow.

[Qabian]

She reminds me of my sister, or at least the sister my parents used to speak so highly of. My sister never much cared for social events, or I might have known her better to make a better comparison. Nevertheless, I believe they would have had much in common.

She's half my age, and yet seems so much more worldly than myself. I've had to accept the wisdom of the young in many of Azeroth's youth since joining the Horde, but with her even more so. All my goals and pursuits seem awkward and unwieldy in her company.

Born to a different mother in a different time, she could have been a Ranger of the same exquisite quality as the Windrunners. I have no doubt.

The glow of firelight on her skin is the most seductive thing in this world.

There are so few I can trust, but I know her discretion will be as highly guarded as my own. Neither of us want this secret shared.

[Ninorra]

((Oooooo someone likes someone!!))

[Qabian]

Everything is moving forward nicely. Should not be too long now. At least mother will get what she wants.

People whisper loudly, but what do I care what they say? What matters is what happens.

Moving into the mansion has made my nights somewhat awkward. On the one hand, it is far enough removed from the city to reduce the chances of accidental discovery. On the other, it is becoming somewhat difficult to maneuver Alosian's staff appropriately. Thankfully, she has many skills.

This is not love, unless love is merely lust with a touch of respect. Perhaps it is, but if either of us were to die tomorrow, the other would regret the loss as of an objet d'art, but not mourn, or cry out, or desire any more vengeance than already spurs us forward. Beauty seems so much more substantial without the burden of love.

I have been spending much of my daylight hours alone again. The meaningless conversational company of others seems a waste and I have lost my penchant for direct competition. I would rather extricate myself and progress on my own. I doubt that makes a good impression on many, but I believe such are not those I wish to impress in any case. Perhaps it is an effect of the Outlands, hearing the whispers of treachery and seeing the endless stream of pilgrims suddenly desperate to impress the alien Light rather than their own.

[Qabian]

Both Tyrande and Staghelm suffered greatly at the hands of the Grim with no show of defense from the Kaldorei's supposed allies. This should bring me intense joy.

Unfortunately, it comes on the heels of learning things I never wished to know. Where ignorance is bliss, discovery becomes tragedy. I do not believe I will ever understand the hold demons manage over so many. Is their power so great that it is worth every sacrifice of all good things? History would seem to suggest many fall to that ideal. And if the demons are the true enemy, holding our own Prince in their venomous clutches, converting him to their twisted ideals, why do we let them walk among us? It is somehow acceptable because they are chained to their summoners?

First the Light, then the Demons. I do not care for these Outlands. They consistently change our world too far to great extremes in both directions for the worse.

And now, a part of my own is in the hands of one such witch. It must be retrieved or destroyed at any cost. Only I hardly know where to begin. She did say she was a Barov...

Sleep does not come easily anymore. Thankfully, when the day of killing wanes, the night holds other distractions.

[Ninorra]

((*cough...*))

[Qabian]

This scar is not healing by ordinary means. I have no idea what poison she used. Perhaps she managed to get some of that brutal toxin from the Broken in Coilfang. But I'm rather enjoying wearing it. It means there is one out there whose cruelty matches my own. She was likely only waiting for a moment when she might have to use it. Its effects must be much worse in a deeper wound. My face is marred, but it was marred by something beautiful, and I carry a reminder that she would not bend to me until I broke her. I think if she were physically capable, she would have stayed silent until her heart itself caught fire in my hand. Besides, there are those impressed by battle wounds, even when they do not know the circumstances were far more intimate than they might imagine.

I think the mutual scarring only reinforced how much we share. Given time to realize this, I'm sure she will be back for more.

Unfortunately, the staff I have inherited lack the sense to keep their mouths shut, meaning she was right to guard her voice close, but perhaps she did not understand the punishment they would suffer for their indiscretion. I have made an example of several of them, selected at random, before the others. Any more ears at my door will be removed from their heads.

That Bloodstone girl learned far more than she ever should have. She confused my request for voice with a desire for music. Hardly. I got exactly what I wanted. We spent the evening in the Monastery, setting idiot humans on fire. She seems to be seeking out company, I suppose in the absence of her husband, although I hardly know what she expected, a demon consort marrying a light thief. Of course their work would not bring them together. She may yet grow out of her silly infatuation with love, but she will need someone other than me to ultimately convince her. At least she has a purpose now beyond clinging to his ankles.

Even if she were to suddenly grow up and realize her inherent value exclusive of men, she is still a demon consort, and that will always be difficult for me to appreciate. I suppose I should allow that she was born into it. I was born into magic. My parents' useless plans would have had me a priest, but my people can always recognize a child's aptitude for magic and would never have left me to wither and die in the Light.

Also spent some time ending the lives in the Bastion. Thankfully the Warboss is easy to manipulate, as she makes such ventures considerably simpler. Mahakali seems to be confusing my penchant for overkill with a reliance on her services. Women are so easily confused. Express gratitude once and they think you're in debt to them. When what you appreciate in others is self-respect and self-reliance, it's somewhat difficult to be constantly hounded by one who demonstrates neither. Ah well, she can foster her girlish infatuation all she likes, but I'll take no part in indulging it. Hopefully her brother can keep her sensible, or perhaps she'll grow bored and take to that other paladin she follows around instead.

[Qabian]

She came back, as I knew she would.

She told me the one from whom she kept the secret will never learn it now.

By the sun, she's beautiful.

Isn't it odd when hurting someone makes them trust you more?

All is as it was, if not better. She chose not to heal.

There seems to be a lingering symbolism of ownership, but how can warring factions ever own each other, no matter how much they enjoy the battles?

After that extent of a victory for me, I expect her to be planning something at least as drastic in return. I will be very interested to see exactly what.

--

The Alliance showed the power of numbers yesterday. We were penned in with nowhere to turn, somewhat foolhardy, but the violence that ensued was exquisite.

--

Mother is content. I have signed the estate over to her. She has what she has wanted her entire life, what she thought I could get for her through the Light. She is a Duchess now, a new money Duchess, so I fear she does not realize that she will never break into the circles she has always dreamed of insinuating, but she walks these halls in a sort of vapid ecstasy.

I hardly did it for her. And she is merely a puppet for me. It is all the gratitude she will ever know from me, although I suppose all she has ever asked. I suspect with her as head of the household, she will only garner more enemies than friends in Silvermoon and get herself killed. How amusing.

[Ninorra]

There seems to be a lingering symbolism of ownership, but how can warring factions ever own each other, no matter how much they enjoy the battles?

((Bwahahaha!! Qabian is LEARNING!))

[Qabian]

((Bah, Q just likes fighting more than winning, but if he told some people that, he might get in trouble, heh.))

[Ninorra]

((Heeeeee! And now he might understand Nin's POV a little more. Crazy man.))

[Qabian]

Too much has happened in only a few days.

I have been distracted. It has affected my work. I have suffered defeats that should not have happened. I must regain my focus.

I know now for certain that Kael'thas works against the Horde. I have seen it with my own eyes, what I have refused to believe until now. Although still only through mediators, there was no reason for them to lie. They never acknowledged my presence.

He must know that this puts him up against his own people, that he is dividing us and causing us to fight ourselves. Voren'thal's people had me coming into conflict with the Prince's followers directly. This is... awkward. While I certainly can't stand aside and let them destroy the Horde's foothold in Terokkar, I could very easily have been involved in helping their cause instead of fighting it. But for my attachment to one who ultimately died at my own hands, I would have followed the Prince to any ends, and I could have been the one dying to the Horde's interference with Kael'thas' plans.

And Vashj, to whom I and many others owe our freedom... Voren'thal and those Cenarion fools say I must destroy her people now, too. Yes, the naga are vile mutations, but children of Azshara, the Highborne, touched by the arcane to their very core, we are not so different. They can be extremely useful at times, even if they do kowtow to the Betrayer. I intend to use them, even if I must fight them as I do.

My allegiances are torn. If it were not for the Grim, I would not hesitate so. The Scryers are misguided fools with no sense of the real way of things. Desperate to impress the Light, they forget who they are, where they came from. But they also have considerable resources, resources which I would prefer to continue to access. And given the choice between the treachery of the Sin'dorei and the laughable pretentiousness of the Draenei, I would much rather risk the assassin in the night.

But the Grim are crystallized. They do not fight for the attention of the Light as the Scryers. They do not fight for the attention of Illidan or the Legion. They fight for themselves. Perhaps they fight for the Horde, but the Horde mean little to me with their cowardly treaty and fragile cohesion. The Grim mean more to me than the Horde. But do my own people mean more to me than the Grim? Perhaps not. My own people have failed me more than once. Kael'thas always had his weaknesses, for humans, the rumors about that Proudmoore girl... and for power, or he would not have crossed the portal in the first place. He would have allowed others to search for the remedy for our condition while he took his rightful place defending Silvermoon. Perhaps he has simply thoroughly succumbed to his weaknesses after all.

But for all his own treachery, Kael'thas was my leader once. Perhaps I can play both sides of this game to my own ends. That would suit me best, I believe. A letter to Pathaleon may be in order.

My research regarding Coilfang has come in useful. It is almost a pity Alosian had to die for it. Some days I could use a hand with these projects.

Watching Liadrin fall to the Alliance was... a moment of interest. Of course, I was disappointed, but really, perhaps the Blood Knights need to rethink their strategies. Perhaps theft of the Light is not the most appropriate way to grow in power after all. Perhaps they will learn a lesson from her being bested so easily. I called too much attention to myself in that fight. My distractions do not let me think clearly. At least we were able to push them back before they could reach Lor'themar and Rommath. To witness the defeat of all of them would not have helped my focus.

Asking Kovan's boy-idiot to make himself useful did not help my current state of distraction, either. I tried to direct him, as I direct Ninorra, but I doubt he takes direction well. He is completely without sense, and seems to enjoy talking in circles and acting afraid of his own shadow.

Vicailde and I found a reason to work together for a short time. He does not belong with Sanctuary. I believe he is probably more intelligent than his wife. Perhaps that is simply the wisdom of experience, but his allegiance with the treaty defenders does not suit him.

It almost seems pathetic that the highlight of recent days was a conversation with a girl widely acknowledged to be utterly psychotic. It has been a very long time since I have heard anyone outside the Grim or the Ghants speak so intelligently. Of course, Silvermoon will brand and label anyone at a whim. I am a murderer and a traitor, and as Bir put it, "a jerk that no one likes", as if I care about "their" opinion, but I am apparently also either terrifying enough or insignificant enough that the mob never brings their torches and pitchforks to my door. The University has an excellent student in her, although from the way she spoke, perhaps they are not teaching her correctly. The ideas she expressed would be suitable for a Magistrix, but she seems to be leaning other ways from what I've heard. Pity.

As for her, she has noticed I have not been at my best. Her visits have been short, and I have asked little of her. I still cannot fathom how she understands me so well.

[Qabian]

That hellspawned Barov hag had the audacity to come up to me in the form of a Forsaken. She says she'll give back what she took in exchange for the death of Diomades.

I don't know what she has against the Tauren, if she has just decided she does not like Sanctuary or what. In any case, he refused to fight me, so I don't know what she expects me to do. The pacts in place rather effectively prevent me from burning him to the ground at a whim.

I approached Vilmah about it. Warned her that I might feel the need to attack her guild members. Lied about never having felt the need to do so before. Zethrin is still owed a death at my hands. Apparently, she's under the impression her livestock is immortal.

If he is, I don't know what the Barov expects me to do. I would have settled for a fight anyway, a fight and a loss if necessary, to show her the idiocy of her request, but everyone knows Sanctuary won't throw their hammers in the ring without some benefit to themselves, and what would he gain from fighting me?

Besides, when have I decided to bargain with demon whoring Alliance thieves, even if they are capable of tormenting me from a distance, adding only further to my current difficulties?

I don't need this. I really don't.

[Qabian]

It appears Lascivious trusts me considerably more than I had previously thought. Either that, or extenuating circumstances forced her hand. Possibly both.

I knew there were discussions, but I did not honestly expect this to be the result.

She may regret the decision in time, but I am certainly intrigued by what I may be capable of accomplishing with this new position. The mages of the Grim aren't exactly known for their... consistency. We shall see.

[Qabian]

I have perhaps made an error, although, as I noted to Bir, not one that I apologize for.

Pathaleon and I have had... words. He was not impressed with the destruction I helped bring on his stronghold. He obviously misunderstands the duties of a double-agent. But he can take it or leave it. He can use my words against me, and I will use his against him. I expect he will be considerably more restricted in what he shares now, but it is too late for the less impressive of his soldiers. I already know how they work and will not hesitate to make use of that knowledge in the future.

However, the combination of my admitting my lack of experience with the Keep, and yet having extensive knowledge of the inner workings of the Mechanar itself should have rung warning bells in any of my companions with a brain. Perhaps none of them had one. Wouldn't that be a shame, haha!

Research, I said. Yes, research. The research of participation. If they fall for that so easily... However, none mentioned anything about my similar understanding of the Steamvaults, either. Perhaps they are willing to forgive or ignore the incongruity of my knowledge and experience in exchange for the simplification of their task. That is, indeed, my goal. However, things could get interesting if anyone should confront me.

[Qabian]

One of my staff has taken up studies with Lady Liadrin. I am exceedingly unimpressed. I offered to sponsor his entry into any good mage academy, but no. For some reason, despite repeated evidence of the fickle Lady's miserable failures, he insists on studying with her.

A certain fool of a demon consort seems to think he can take Tempest Keep for his own. That's a laugh. Even if he managed to defeat Prince Kael, which I highly doubt, knowing what I know, what under the sun makes him think the Keep will then go to him, a child who had his own army and disbanded it for reasons no one understands? Ludicrous.

He even believes Rommath is still in direct communication with Kael'thas. I suppose it is possible. The Grand Magister's loyalty to the prince is certainly unquestioned, but Rommath has been distracted by the new order he runs from the day he used it to reconstruct Silvermoon. I sincerely doubt Rommath has much time to learn the inner workings of what Kael'thas does in Outland. Of course he hears what the pilgrims may say, and he may even send messages that way, but whatever Rommath knows, he shares only the very much expected with his Magisters, and what takes place in Outland is certainly not expected by those who have never left Silvermoon. I doubt a true exile understands much of what either Rommath or Kael'thas does.

The Scryers are still idiots. Naaru this, the Light that, blah blah blah. If our little demon consort didn't seem so enamored with them, I'd advocate his asinine plot to take the Keep if only to subsequently use it to show the Scryers exactly what they have forgotten about where they came from.

I have sent her away. Magic is my mistress again. I have pieces in play on too many boards. I do not have the time for her distractions, among others I continue to regret. She was disappointed, but considering the deception I expect from her at every turn, I needed to distance myself from her while I work, especially with regular trips into Medivh's tower. I simply cannot sacrifice any more hours. I need them all. Likely it is a temporary separation, but the ways of women are rarely clear and who knows what she may do once out from under my influence.

[Vilmah]

((All work and no play.. I'm waiting patiently for Qabian to snap.))

[Qabian]

((You have no idea.))

[Qabian]

We finally stepped into The Eye itself. Having been working with Pathaleon so long left me with a sense of awkwardness. The Grim are still a great distance from taking on the Prince himself, but... too close for comfort, perhaps? It will be much more difficult to play the double-standard once encountering him directly.

And that fool warlock still thinks he can take the Keep for himself. What's he going to do with it? Detach it from the island and ride it around the Nether like some sort of insane pirate? Idiot. If Kael'thas has it, it's because Kael'thas intends to keep it, no matter what onslaughts he suffers in the meantime.

Ninorra has degenerated utterly. I've never cared much for demons, but there are days... Between Kael'thas' own shifting allegiance and Ninorra's evidence of considerably increased sanity when under demonic control... There's more of value in demons than there is in the piercing light and the incessant drilling whine of the Naaru at any rate. However, I still advocate bleeding them dry and using them to your own advantage over keeping them chained to you and feeding them treats.

It appears Ninorra chose her husband over her sanity. I suppose that was inevitable. Anyone stupid enough to attempt to save a human child and then fight me for doing what was necessary has obviously lost their tenuous grip on reality. Still, she had always seemed so willing to listen, the pitiful ungrateful worm. I'm sure she'll find some reason to drown herself and her larva eventually. She's meaningless to me now.

Between her and the witch, I had to take up some research. Thankfully, it was extremely fruitful, and should have multiple future applications. And I still have many hunting the witch. She will burn, even if she must be killed several times.

A pair of goggles from the goblins is rumored to make considerable aesthetic improvements to the population at large. Unfortunately, I simply cannot bring myself to indulge in the idiocy many of the Grim fell prey to with the advent of that manufactured festival of hops, poor fools. And there's certainly no way I'll be caught riding one of those failed polymorph experiments the dwarves use for mounts. I suppose I'll simply have to make do, easing my eyes by the one who meets me in the shadows.

[Lovely]

((By the way! Yay for sneaking Hellista in there a few posts back! Great writing))

[Qabian]

Women. The cause of and solution to all of life's problems.

Shigana harasses me incessantly. Acherontia agrees to help return my soul. Once I rid myself of this toxin, I almost think Shigana will actually miss me. She seems to think we share something. We share nothing now. I have what is mine.

This Cessily decides to cause a ruckus with the other wardens. I attempted to advocate ignoring her. The only people responding to her taunts were either reactionary or stupid to begin with. Others are asking me why, as an officer, I am not punishing her. Why should I punish her for speaking the truth? Especially for doing so in such a way that is just going to fall back on her with a violence all of its own. I hardly felt the need to do anything. The solution? Between Zelaine and Syreena, they seem to have sorted the girl out for the present.

I did offer my advice to the girl, but while I believe she listened and respects my understanding of how we should go about incorporating our inherent superiority with the actions and organizations of lesser peoples, I don't think she places much value by my words. She will be better off if she can understand that there is more than one way to remain loyal to the Prince, but her loyalty will mean nothing if she does not understand how his allegiance has shifted from his own people. He has abandoned us. That is the truth. But he has done us much good in the past, and I intend to repay what he has given me. I intend to repay past support and the alleviation of our suffering, and I intend to repay his ultimate betrayal. I intend to make hell for those who betrayed him, the Scryers, and hell for him who betrayed those who remained loyal in turn. I can play many roles as needed.

And I wonder if Zelaine knows that she answers to me now. Our ideals should be similar, but if I find particular insubordination to myself directly especially with regards to the little thief, I may need to make trouble for her in the future.

There seem to be many female blood knights infiltrating the Grim these days. I suppose Liadrin is to blame for that. I find it extremely irksome that so many Sin'dorei are so ready to drastically forget the history of their people and take up blades with the theft of the light.

Lovely is an idiot. I never had reason to think much of her, seeing as she was wearing purple and gold when I joined the Grim. She attempts to express similar goals or aims or something... She attempts to say she thinks like Grim, and then goes on to insist I require "fun" and "happiness". I am not unhappy. I find it very curious that there are so many who seem to think so. I was... distracted, and harassed, and tormented for a while, but almost all of that has been solved adequately if not completely. I am perfectly content where I am now.

I simply don't have time for frivolity. There is much to do, much that drives me to wake each morning and rush out into the world with fire in my hands and death on my mind. I do not need to dance. There are enough steps involved in survival, in obtaining power, in cleansing the worlds of filth. There is no need to bother with music beyond the sounds of destruction itself.

And I make my own entertainment. It takes place on my terms. I feel no need to submit to others to find joy. I can pluck my joy from them.

That's right. I am happy.

[Qabian]

What under the sun would make someone seek me out for relationship advice?

Do I look like the epitome of understanding on such topics?

Perhaps if someone wants to know how to be content alone, I could understand. Perhaps if someone wants to know how to enjoy someone without ever needing to love them, I could understand.

But to seek me out because your heart is broken? I will tell you your heart is unbreakable. If you are hurting, it is only because you let yourself get hurt. Don't put yourself into such situations. Don't do things you need to apologize for. Don't leave yourself completely vulnerable to another's actions. Don't set yourself up. That's all you've done. You walked into a trap you created for yourself.

And what should you do if someone hurts you? Hurt them back. Cut them off. Make them pay, if not physically, then in other ways. Your mind is your own, not theirs. Use it.

Not willing to whore yourself out for power, hm? But you will whore yourself out for considerably less instead.

I tell you what I have done, what you must do if you want a standing such as mine that allows you to exist amongst those you hate, and this results in you coming to me in tears begging my advice.

If you don't want my advice, don't ask for it. I think I make it fairly obvious by my outward actions how it is that I operate. I can teach you how to operate in a similar manner. I cannot teach you how to win back a lover who obviously cares for someone else. If my lover cares for someone else, that is their prerogative. Just as it is my prerogative to care for them, or not to care. If their actions cause me to cease caring, so be it. I will then have that much more freedom to do what needs to be done, and will subsequently be wasting that much less time on frivolous matters.

I don't know what she said to you that convinced you you have a place here. Clearly you don't. Clearly we are far too much for your small, petty mind to grasp, your mind that does not seek power. What do you seek then? Anything? More lovers? More whores? You will not find many of those here. If you do not want advancement, what could you possibly want from us? There is nothing here for you. I never thought you would listen to one such as her. Things could get interesting from here on in.

Perhaps now you've learned what kind of advice I give. It is no different from the first advice I gave, recommending you keep your thoughts to yourself.

You control your destiny. No one else. If she is no longer what you want from her, push her aside, or destroy her. That is my advice. To expect anything else is evidence of diminished capacity for simple reasoning.

The stupid girl confuses me. She has gotten strange impressions of me from somewhere. I even attempted to be diplomatic, rather than to simply tell her she was being an idiot. I could have shouted at her to stop her infantile crying. I could have told her she was pathetic and utterly contemptible. Instead, I simply advised. My words could have been considerably more harsh, but I went out of my way to keep them as simple and unbiased as possible.

The result? Apparently, her flippant mind decides we are of no use. And not an hour later, a simple discussion changes that mind? She is nothing but volatility and emotions. Someone needs to control her or teach her to control herself, and if she is so deranged as to think I will tell her what she wants to hear simply to placate her hysteria, obviously I am not the one to teach her.

You asked. I answered. In the future, probably best to either acquire a mind of your own first, or just not to ask at all, hm?

Perhaps now she has learned better and will think twice before approaching me with such stupid matters in the future. There are far more important things to attend to.

[Qabian]

How things have changed.

And how today was an intense reminder of how things have changed.

There was a time when a gathering like that would have been the highlight of my year.

Now, well, I jumped at the chance to go anywhere else and do anything else, to slay eredar and speak with ghosts instead of engaging in idle chatter and hoping for mild entertainment.

I don't think any of the ways I've changed are for the worse. I am more focused now. I understand more. I know myself better. I am considerably more effective and efficient.

But by the sun, what a reminder of the life I have left behind.

"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

Whatever innocence I had has been well and truly crushed these past few years. I doubt I will ever enjoy such things again. Life is a series of betrayals. It is only a question of who is next.

I was pleasantly surprised by the attentiveness of my mages. I do not know how best to reward them.

[Zelaine Evershine]

I was pleasantly surprised by the attentiveness of my mages. I do not know how best to reward them.

(( I suggest cookies personally))

[Qabian]

Lascivious overstepped her bounds. If the results do not match the injury, there will be hell to pay.

[Drinn]

(Dun dun duuuunnnnn.)

[Qabian]

All has been settled sufficiently for now.

Sometimes it is easy to forget she is just a child. But despite all we spoke of, and my need to be... indirect, I believe our goals are similar enough to keep us on the same path at least a good while longer. Our goals are similar, but the things that cause us enough anxiety to lose rest are very different indeed.

The Nymare issue is a strange one. I doubt I was particularly convincing, considering my responses to all of her inquiries. And if she is as attached to Leoren as she seems, I am sure he will stand in the way of any results. Still, her actions speak loud, and in the field, she is one of few that I trust. She will ultimately have to come to her own decisions.

And Malorii... well, I have not laughed so much in a very long time.

[Lascivious]

(B- B- But what about us?)

[Qabian]

((You, lady, are a walking corpse. End of that story right there, haha. The second paragraph is for Lasc. Evidently you didn't weird him out enough.))

[Qabian]

Kael'thas made an appearance in Shattrath. I am still somewhat... torn on the subject of the Prince. Perhaps he is not insane? Perhaps he is correct? Perhaps the Legion would be best to return our people to their stature?

But no. That doesn't make any sense. Demons have never been anything but destructive. Silvermoon does not need more destruction, except that which it deals out, and the Legion would not make that differentiation.

The Prince has simply been swayed by the demons as so many others before him. It is a terrible thing to see him reduced so. He is being manipulated, but who is to say his intentions are still not for greatness? Who is to say his admirable qualities are completely gone, all replaced by puppet strings?

But the Scryers went about their own treachery in the wrong way. I wouldn't be surprised if that collective of brainless idiots caused the Prince to turn the way he did.

And how does one deal with it now? Work with the Scryers to teach Kael'thas a lesson? You think he cares to learn from the insects who betrayed him? The Prince is a lost cause, it's true, but he will find that, unlike the Scryers, I have not forgotten where I came from. I have not forgotten who he is.

Nymare and I had another long talk last night. She seems to have an inordinate interest in my words, but only my words. I spoke more freely to her than perhaps I should have. Sometimes it is good to have an audience with a vested interest in what you say.

But I'm afraid I'm a better filter for the Grim, better to turn the unworthy away, than a recruiter to entice those who may have interest. While I can make use of silence when I need to, my years of pretty words for pretty results are long over now. I end up speaking more of my thoughts and my ideals than the excellence of those I work with.

Make no mistake. I find them excellent. Most of them. Some of them. The ones that matter. I simply find I cannot dress them up as whatever might seem most appealing for the sake of increasing our power in numbers.

[Qabian]

What a strange girl.

Why is it that girls have been deciding I'm such a worthy patron of their conversation and misdeeds lately? All of the sudden. Is it the weather? Some phase of the moon? Perhaps its cyclic. Perhaps they'll all turn on me like Ninorra did, and it's only a matter of time.

At least this one had a reason. A real reason. A stupid reason, but a real one.

Although I do think knocking me out, tying me up, dragging me to some musty old room full of dead things, drugging me with the sun only knows what, and interrogating me on the whereabouts of her clothing was more than a little unnecessary. If she wanted an escort to Menethil, she could have just asked. I know her House. I wouldn't have denied a perfectly reasonable request.

Of course, I suppose I could have taken them, in some strange theoretical nonsense universe, and in the state she had me in, I wouldn't have been particularly clear on their location if I had, so it's fairly safe to assume it was all a game, and I just a convenient piece.

I should have been angry. I had every right to be angry. Why am I not angry? A side effect, perhaps? A side effect of her cronies not having been present at the interrogation. Little thief with her daggers and her halo thinks she can take me on, even if I am not exactly in control of all my faculties? How cute.

A side effect of having been released from captivity onto the docks of Menethil to wreak havoc as I saw fit. I suppose if one needs to kidnap me and subsequently hope I will work with them, pointing me in the direction of a few hapless, unsuspecting Alliance is a good way to make sure I don't turn around and blast my captor.

A side effect of rather endearingly having been labeled a deity, even if she doesn't remember it. One can always use more minions. If you want to start off on my good side, introducing me to passers-by as an object worthy of their worship is a fairly effective method. Killing people who've injured me is another good way, as Redcap can attest.

I think they're the only two who have ever started off so well with me, without having to go through the onerous process of impressing me over time. Perhaps it's a rogue quality. Perhaps I'm more vulnerable than I think, and I need to stay away from more than just the drinks they pass out.

She reminds me of Bir, in the sense that she's definitely not all there, but she completely lacks Bir's cowardice and self-deprecation, which makes her considerably more... endearing, less annoying.

And making a mad dash from the Cartel was also highly amusing. I wouldn't be surprised if being at the wrong place at the wrong time gets me implicated in her... enterprises somehow. And for some reason that doesn't bother me as it should. Hm...

Definitely a side effect.

[Qabian]

Took a little fishing trip. Fishing for squids as she put it.

"What's a Draenei?" she says. Now, I know she's been to Shattrath, so I had to assume the question was more philosophical than literal.

Those beasts they use for mounts certainly appear vicious and unsteady with malice in their beady eyes. They certainly don't have the docile demeanor of the cattle's kodo. We thought to perhaps run some experiments. Unfortunately, their handler obstinately refused to stay down despite repeated merciless beatings, and they seemed quite attached to him, so it was impossible to pull them away to find enough room for serious work.


There are sin'dorei on those islands. Aggressive to their brethren. With the banners of Silvermoon. Kael'thas' reach is long. Evidently he maintains an interest in the fallen pieces of his Keep. I am a Magister yet. I know whose peace I maintain on this side of the Portal. But that didn't stop me from doing a little investigation.

It was surprising to find the occasional demonkin fool there not making use of the pacts that keep them safe. It was even more surprising to find one who in her sweet, idiot innocence did not realize that mages have a specialized type of armor, rather painful to the touch. What beauty in watching her own pathetic toy of a weapon destroy her in a single strike without any effort on my part. So valiant. So stupid.


She seems obsessed with taste. Not discernment, but the actual physical sensation. Willing to test anything. Willing to drain anyone.

She looks at me with hungry eyes sometimes. I know what she wants. Perhaps it is a crime of my own narcissism to think she could never take all that I have, to cause me to look at her with pity when she tries, to think she would tumble violently over that brink she balances in the attempt. She seemed to threaten it once in asking how I would do without it. How I would do without it? There is no without it. I am it. It is me.

[Qabian]

For the love of the sun, what happened to my day?

From a simple fishing trip in a nigh unreachable troll village, to extended conversations on the nature of power and divinity, to gambling over a dragon -- good thing she knew she would win, since she had nothing to give me if she lost -- and finally degeneration into absolute chaos.

Mm, but we asked for it, and it has been a long time since I've spent that many hours doing nothing but wreaking utter havoc. So much blood on my hands, and so much of my blood on the hands of so many. It was rejuvenating. Strange when the chase gives life value.

See? If I had infinite power, there would be no more new crimes to avenge, no more new hatred, only stillness. I don't think I can be still again. We were still when we were quel'dorei. We were controlled then. Now we are chaos.

And in the end, she is a slave to what she is. Pity that. I wonder if I could cause rifts there, too. Rifts for all the servants to the Heirs, hm?

Too much work, perhaps. The Grim still calls.

[Qabian]

The poor boy. I think I confused him by humoring him and acknowledging his existence. Did he really expect I'd had a change of heart? I don't think we've ever had a conversation that hasn't ended with him angry and me amused. He tries so hard, poor pitiable thing. Too much effort, not enough reason. Only to leave him scowling at me the rest of the day.

And the Huntress accuses me of insulting her, which I freely admit apparently to her satisfaction? Strange woman. Are you angry with me or not? You just enjoy the sound of my voice, I think.

But my words are going to get me in so much trouble. What I've let slip today goes far beyond an incensed Mistress or a disgruntled Huntress. Those nightmares Ninorra and Shigana tried so hard to push on me but could not find because I held them close? I let them go today. They're out there now. Free for the haunting.

And it's not because I trust her. I don't trust her any more than she trusts me. She is chaos, and given the means and the opportunity, she would give my nightmares back to me, just to see the effects.

Why do I respect that? And why does confession of vulnerability come with a sensation of freedom?

But if I can find for her what she is seeking, her vulnerability will be mine in return. A few days' time...

She speaks so strangely of herself as a construct manufactured by another, and yet so obviously is capable of thinking for herself. She wants to wake, but at the same time is resigned to eternal sleep. In comparison, my situation is so much easier, being manufactured only by myself under the influence of my environment. If I cannot breathe, I have only myself to blame.

Some of the Grim begin to notice my absence, I think. But my hours aren't all spent on treason and philosophy. Many hours of my absence are spent spilling blood. For the Grim, I would say in the name of peace. For myself, I would say in the name of chaos.

[Malorii]

(( don't forget chaseing down tomes of piggies :D ))

[Qabian]

((So many sheep corpses!

And pouring coffee in the moonwater. We had a busy day!))

[Malorii]

(( we did ":D pokeing dragons again. running into the cartel.. that one gnome and the damn.. fuck we should do a world tour now that i think about it... mmm that gives me more ideas.. Oooo how i got ideas you going to be in game today muhahah XD ))

[Qabian]

((They're stealing my computer after I finish my work today. :( I don't know when I'll get it back. How will TN ever manage without me?))

[Malorii]

(( say it ain't so!! D: i ish gonna be so bored without my mage buddy. I'll have to kidnap brox and we'll like scout out a few places n such :D

[Broxigan]

(( I am so yesterdays news. D:


XD ))

[Malorii]

(( oh you are not brox >.<

[Nymare]

And the Huntress accuses me of insulting her, which I freely admit apparently to her satisfaction? Strange woman. Are you angry with me or not? You just enjoy the sound of my voice, I think.

((Qabian's just too full of himself to figure some things out /patpat))

[Qabian]

((I want to, but I really can't argue with that.))

[Beutha]

((I actually found him charming, considering the circumstances under which we met.))

[Qabian]

((What can I say? I appreciate a little malice in my day.))

[Qabian]

It is good to be back. There will be just as much suffering at my hands now, if not more.

It was strange to express regret, even to her. She sees many of my expressions that no others ever see. It wasn't even a regret for what was lost. We lost it because we failed. It was regret for the inability to prevent that failure, inability to gather the necessary resources and do what needed to be done to change the past. There is a lack of justice in knowing what is to come. I hope never to learn true foreknowledge.

I don't know if she learned what she wanted to know, if she will continue searching. There is a point at which even the knowing is futility, never mind the search. She expressed gratitude with some frequency yesterday. I am yet uncomfortable with the gratitude of others. I have not yet devised an appropriate response for it.

There are two sides to Stormwind. Strange to die on their doorstep and then be toyed with free of any threats in a hidden corner.

"Is he safe?"

Hahahaha! No. The answer is no. No matter what the intent of the question, the answer is no. If I can use the information to my advantage, and it should happen to hinder you, I will do it. Unfortunately for me, the information doesn't seem particularly useful, unless I decide I want to pick a fight with the Huntress, which despite the little bird's apparent wrath, is not a priority for me.

Silvermoon attracts strange crowds at certain times of the night.

[Qabian]

The Grim seems to be harboring a rather large number of lunatics lately.

Cessily asked me for help again. I thought she had learned the first time. I guess too much has passed between that instance and this. I will gladly stop what I am doing to come to the aid of Grim. Abric can convince me simply by saying my name aloud, but I know Abric does not call for no reason. Cessily on the other hand... If you need my help, it damn well better be for something more important than "This orc won't leave me alone. He's being mean and threatening me." She's a bloody rogue! Unlike the rest of us who don't have half the skill with shadows, even the most untrained of rogues is capable of picking their own fights, especially at the center of a Horde city. Evidently, she picks her fights with more than just her words, and she has no ability to discern which fights are worth taking on.

I have no respect for a complete lack of self-sufficiency, especially in one with the skills and abilities to put a stop to her own petty in-fighting. Hold your tongue and slip into the shadows. Miraculously, your fights will have ended, and you will only increase your opportunities to learn about those you have chosen to ally yourself with. Not that any of us understand why you've done so.

Did I ever, ever once cry to the Grim when I was still lacking skills and being harassed at every turn by Alliance or otherwise? No. If I ever cried to the Grim, it was because there was a force worthy of a display of might coming down against something the Horde hold dear. And the Grim have learned that I do not cry wolf. Did fellow Grim ever stalk me and try to kill me while I was training? Not to my knowledge, and if they did, they failed miserably. Choose your fights, stupid girl. Some are more important than others.

This girl, every cry she makes has me less likely to come to her aid. Cry that a dwarf won't leave you alone. Cry that the Alliance are constantly at your heels. It's far more likely you'll find me attempting to extricate myself from my own business to help with yours then. Don't just cry. "Oh, oh, help me!" How womanish. Being a woman is not in and of itself a reason for me to help you. You'll have to do better than that.

But "Qabian! Are you just going to stand for this?" Apparently I am. I will lodge my complaints about Grim fighting Grim, but the day she learns to choose her fights more carefully, then she will find me far more likely to rush to her aid, and she will more than likely find me there without ever having needed to cry like an infant. Public tears will never sway my actions. I am without pity for those who are utterly incapable of helping themselves.

Those who rely on the Grim as a constant crutch simply to exist are weakening our strength. I have been willing to put up with the girl provided she could learn, but it seems she learns excruciatingly slowly. She is no longer my business. If she has a brain in her head, she will never contact me again.

It's disappointing because she does have some correct ideas. It seems her mind is simply incapable of putting them to sensible use, not unlike Ninorra. For instance, she fights with that blood knight frequently, and he deserves the fight she brings to him, but it's not one she can win alone.

"Been doing this for thousands of years," he says. I'm sure Dalaran and our allies thought so very well of your family all that time. Bastard. I keep a staff to take care of the estate. I don't need to torture them or have them mind controlled at all times. They are mostly servile sin'dorei without rank, or status, or money. It is how they have chosen to keep themselves fed and comfortable. They do my work because they wish to do so. And most importantly, they are not human.

I have one once-human, but she does not remember her past, so all she has is me. I have controlled her mind in a much more subtle fashion, I suppose, but she walks with the Dark Lady. She is not Alliance.

I have no patience for those who think the Mandate is Peace through Manipulation. That may be my own Mandate, but it has no place publicly within the Grim. If you want Alliance secrets, you teach a rogue Common and send them into Stormwind to listen from the shadows. It's not a difficult task and probably considerably more efficient. If you want to bleed secrets from the Alliance, you torture them with poisons and implements, or you mind control them to tell you everything you want to know, and then you kill them. You do not threaten the Grim, any of the Grim, with your mind controlled chattel.

The Mistress allows their existence as long as they do not harm the Grim. As much as I find her stance rather counter to the Mandate, the fact is they have been used to threaten the Grim and will continue to be used so as long as the blood knight sees fit, whenever he decides his fellows and current allies do not meet his own standards, until his puppets are put out of this life and into the next. He admits to using his own allies as slaves in the past. He shows no remorse. I don't doubt he would make the attempt again. If anything, he is far more volatile than Cessily.

I cannot shut down his millennia-old operation. Nor do I have any intention of making the attempt. I tolerate it only in the sense that I hate it but cannot change it. Yet. The opportunity may arise, and I certainly would not hesitate to take it, but for now, there are other far greater problems to deal with.

Yes, there are humans I do not kill. That does not mean I do not wish them dead. Quite the contrary, and willingly avoiding killing them is equally as frustrating as knowing the way that "paladin" uses them.

But I attempt to keep my silence when they scream and gabble across the hearthstone, and it is an exercise in control neither of those two seem to have.

The little bird continues to be strange. Generally, she is the height of naivet&#233; and innocence, but then she will go and offer to kill me with a kiss. And with the choice between dying happy and mindless or being bled like an animal, I choose the latter, hm? I wonder if fel tinged sin'dorei blood actually strengthens that abomination they call Teldrassil. I'm sure my blood is toxic to many things. There's more than one poison running within it.

But she knows where I stand. I love no one but myself. I serve no one but myself. If I choose to serve another, it is only for my own benefit. The things I do, I do for me. Did I search because she asked me to? Or did I search because I hoped to find something useful to myself, something I found and am using right now? Do I fight along with her because she asks for my help, or because I am fighting for my own causes? Do I give her access to my mana because she has managed to befriend me where no one else has succeeded, or because it keeps us linked in a way she doesn't seem to acknowledge? Weapons can be exceedingly useful.

If she deludes herself that I care, that's unfortunate for her. But I think she understands, and without the Heirs to direct her every move, she seems willing to follow mine, and to say things to me she should keep to herself. But then, she gets my words in exchange, I suppose.

However, she is becoming a distraction. She always asks if I enjoyed the fight. Enjoy? I revel in it, so I suppose the answer is yes. Flesh seared and ashes on the wind are aesthetically pleasant. But I do not fight to entertain myself. I do it because it is what I am meant to do, what I have been programmed to do as much as she has been, only I have designed the program myself. I am losing sight of some things and gaining others in this distraction. Perhaps I need... more time. Always more time.

[Lovely]

((Qabian, you rock!))

[Malorii]

(( Qau always rocks xD ))

[Qabian]

((I do? I mean, of course I do! /flex But Brox is better because he pays goblins. :D))

[Malorii]

(( broxigan cracks me up )

[Broxigan]

(( Brox would be having Goblin a la créme if he actually knew what the goblins were doing while 'on the job.'))

[Qabian]

I saw her pass through the Scryer bank. I was not hallucinating. Acherontia saw her, too.

My...

That's...

It can't...

Hm.

[Qabian]

My mother taught me only one thing. Tailoring, clothwork, and stitchery are for poor women and orphan girls. I'm sure there's a reason the male variant of seamstress is never used. If refusing to take up the work of women makes me less of a mage, so be it, in the interests of being more of a man.

I find it exceedingly amusing that everyone makes such desperate assumptions without bothering to learn any details whatsoever. I hate you because of where I was born, because of things I have said to others, because of the paths I choose, do I? If I hate you, please, let me tell you so myself. I insist. I will enjoy the indulgence even more if it is the truth.

I may be smug in my own superiority, it's true, but the journey to that goal is not complete. My pretentiousness comes from my goals, not my current state.

Contrary to popular belief, I don't hate any of the Horde because of their race. True, I have every reason to make broad generalizations about Trolls, but even a select few of their race have earned my good graces. If I have some other reason to insult you, I will indeed make racially based comments. Generalizations tend to be extremely effective insults, especially against those who are so insecure in themselves as to believe my venom applied to their race, in consequence, truly does apply to them as well.

The Forsaken, the once-humans, work under Lady Windrunner. She was never human. Walking corpses may be aesthetically vile in every superficial way, but they are the fiercest allies the Sin'dorei have, and the most likely to realize which enemies we truly have in common. Beware the living?

The Orcs have also had to rebuild their people. Thrall has done so with more diplomacy than any could have imagined. Shocking in a race famed for their brutality in the old wars? And it often seems to be Orcs who have the most difficult time realizing what we have in common. The sensation of fel power? The subsequent loss of what once gave them reason to fight, to live? Perhaps it is the skin tone. In their blindness, they cannot see past what we share with their enemies from time gone by, hm? Perhaps they cannot cope with the idea that every one of my people daily uses the fel power that most of them have had to learn to live without. Legitimate, I suppose.

Believe it or not, I have a considerable amount of respect for both peoples as peoples. If I didn't, I would not still be with the Grim. It's a pity the majority of them cannot fathom that in any of mine.

Individuals are another matter entirely, and I will turn on individuals who disappoint me in any way, no matter who they are or where they were born.

About the Tauren, I have nothing to say. They follow Kaldorei ways too often.

But where I choose to apply the broadest of generalizations, that of pure unadulterated hatred, is against the Alliance traitors who left us for dead or tried to kill us, despite everything we taught them and offered them, turned our decency towards them against us, the ones who convinced one of our own to betray us to the last, so allow me, if you will, to proclaim myself a racist bastard in that respect.

The Grim has been dealing with too much lately. Malorii has been my escape from that for the most part. But in light of Lascivious' most recent drastic actions, and her statement that further incidents may come back to reflect on us as Dreadweavers, I may have to have some more serious conversations. Thankfully, the Mages have not been overly involved, although I can think of one or two who may need choice words. Unfortunately, I may have to look into the actions of the Blood Knights as well, and some of them seem to have a considerably weaker grip on their self-control.

She has lost faith, has she? How amusing. There are so many ways to earn trust, especially from people who by all rights should never give it to you. It should not be so difficult for so many to keep it. They are right to pay the price.

[Malorii]

((qabian needs more malo play tim fun imo *nodnod* ))

[Sabachthan]

(( Ahh, it feels so good for someone to just come out and say it. I enjoyed this post. ))

[Qabian]

She got me involved.

I was perfectly happy to advise her to subtly destroy everyone she disliked.

But then she got me involved.

"I want you, your mana, what makes you what you are."

"I'm going to live with you. Move into your house."

"I need help. Come help me."

And now she's gone. I opened the gate for them. Wherever he went, she's gone with him.

It should be easier to focus now, if she stays where she's gone. That's right. Take my words, everything I said that I never should have, and stay where you are. I'll lock my secrets back where they belong.

[Qabian]

Apparently Malorii has managed to infiltrate my dreams. She's not particularly creative with them as of yet. She seemed to use it as a means to continue our usual practice of slaughtering vermin and discussions over fishing. However, she can see memories of mine that I have long since forgotten, which is somewhat disturbing. It likely has something to do with the part I played in her... relocation. I'm not overly concerned.

Alphaeus speaks like a child, a much more calm and reasonable child than some, but naive and withdrawn nonetheless. He seems to be hiding from something. But he is... sufficient, I believe, if learning more on my opinions has not convinced him to do other than he said he would.

Occasionally, Nymare has absolutely terrible taste. It's a good thing she's handy with a crossbow. If sin'dorei out there are stupid enough to think of themselves as Paladins, that's their problem, not mine, and they really do need to go spend some time in their Cathedral. I'm sure the humans will welcome traitors by giving them everything they need. I certainly do not fear pseudo-Paladins, and if my words cause them to threaten violence despite their feeble vows or weep bitter tears into the sunset, then I have already proven myself superior.

And the orc has joined the Grim as Lascivious alluded. I honestly did not think it would happen. The orc's taste in companions seemed exclusionary, but apparently not. If anything, my public silence and analytical observations will only deepen from here on in. That certainly won't stop me from waxing eloquent to anyone bold enough to ask my opinions, but I will not cause outward strife for the Grim. There has been enough. It ends now.

[Qabian]

Acherontia has done me a great service. However, judging by her reactions after the event, she has no idea what happened while I was... gone. It could not have been long. They were still standing there as if all had happened according to plan. And yet...

I suppose I owe Alphaeus as well, although he seemed a pawn in Acherontia's game. A pawn necessary to win, yes, but a simple pawn no less. Still, he is learning, if slowly. The Grim could do with some who are capable of learning more quickly. Or perhaps his lessons need to be more... harsh.

I brought a new Blood Knight into the fold. She is somewhat naive, and I have had to... change her mind on some things, but she is the first thus far to actually have impressed me. Her drive for vengeance is partly fueled by her own stupid decisions in the past, but if she can maintain it, she will do well among the Grim. Only time will tell if I was deceived.

[Qabian]

The orc responded well. Considering I did not expect her to respond at all, perhaps I have not entirely lost my hold on that situation.

Nymare asked about the dreams. She shouldn't have known about them in the first place. I can only assume that wherever Malorii has gone, she is able to use dreams from there to reach those here. Again, disturbing. I thought it was only because--

I would much prefer it if she had simply vanished into the nether after her precious Heir and left me to myself. Several things have gone awry because of that girl, things I can pretend are all well and good to hide them from the knowledge of others, but in exchange I will have to cope with them alone.

Stay where you are, Malorii. Don't come back. There is nothing for you here. I have nothing. I am nothing.

[Qabian]

In working for oneself, one must always maintain those barriers, even if it means turning what seems akin to friendship to ashes. Relationships are only of value in so far as they advance your self.

As for children, if I am clearing out an infestation, I am not going to pause and allow the eggs to hatch simply because they haven't yet developed into fully grown roaches. That's just asking for the cycle to begin again. If you want to end something, you end it completely. Hesitation is not an option. Everyone is guilty of the crimes of their people, the crimes of the past and the crimes of the future. None are innocent. To pretend they are is ridiculous.

That's why there will always be others to fight, and others will always fight us. It's not that we are correct and they are incorrect. It's that we know what we want, and we are going to stop at nothing to take it.

[Qabian]

Having spoken with Evanthe, I'm surprised she's at all interested in this little rescue operation of Malorii's in the first place. And she and Nymare both seemed rather insistent on knowing what motivates me to participate. I'd rather keep that knowledge to myself. It's almost an embarrassment knowing how much I've let slip already. But I doubt I could stop Malorii herself from expounding on the virtues of the deal we've made, should it come into her twisted little mind to be talkative on the subject.

At least Nymare was honest enough to admit she would like to know why I'm involving myself in order to be capable of procuring my services in the future. I believe those were even close to her exact words. Fortunately, what Malorii has is not Nymare's to give. If the huntress wants to bargain with me, she'll need to discover what motivates me on her own.

I am still not particularly enamored with the idea of manipulating portals to reach Malorii. Transportation magic is not that simple. It requires study of the location where the door opens, and a trainer with considerable depth of understanding of basic magic, the magical properties of geographical ideals, and the intricacies of teleportation itself. Somehow I doubt Malorii herself is an adequate trainer in the construction of portals that would open on her location, and if she has encountered anyone else in her little self-contained dimension who would be capable of sharing the path to open a door, she hasn't mentioned them when we've had the opportunity to talk. To make the attempt would likely end in miserably pathetic failure, or some sort of massively destructive event. I'm not so interested in this deal that I would be willing to risk my very existence.

Excluding magical means leaves the methods by which Evanthe and I have been able to reach Malorii thus far: dreams and, for myself, death. While there may be some virtue to inquiring about the Emerald Dream itself, I do not know of any druids I would particularly trust with this situation. That and it's fairly likely that due to the intrinsically kaldorei nature of the whole business, the children of the Highborne are simply denied any access whatsoever. There's always the green dragonflight, but somehow I also doubt they would willingly teach us the paths to rescue someone neither of us particularly care to rescue. Malorii herself has entered our dreams. Perhaps she can enter the dreams of someone who can enlighten her on how she does this, and how we would best be able to meet her together.

Or we could die. And the one we are attempting to reach is theoretically capable of resurrection. Whether or not that's entirely viable, I doubt Evanthe could be convinced, and having placed my life in the hands of one priest already recently, despite the success, I am not particularly keen on doing so again, especially where the one involved is known to have a loose grip on his mind. I'd rather keep my life in my own hands if at all possible.

And so I'm back where I started. Portals. Perhaps there is some way to link portals and dreams that I have not yet devised. If there was, I doubt the green dragonflight would be particularly happy with my meddling. Not knowing exactly what type of space in between reality and Sabachthan the rogue has wedged herself into is exceedingly awkward. I need more information.

Nymare also inquired on the nature of portals versus summoning. She did not seem to understand my insistence that they are extremely different methods of transportation. Just because the effect may be similar does not mean that the methods themselves have any connection whatsoever. To put it simply, I do not need a soul to create a portal. I do not bring anyone to me. I can send people to the geographical locations I have been capable of studying, and they travel by magic. I can open the door along the paths of the arcane, having studied those paths myself, or I can walk through the gate alone, allowing none to follow. But I cannot draw anyone to me. I cannot reach into the nether and locate their soul. I cannot open a gateway in my own direction any more than I can enslave a demon from the deepest pits of hell. Drawing others to oneself using magic is work of the Legion. I will have nothing to do with it.

I believe now the ball is in Malorii's court. She finds me the path to her, Evanthe finds the soul of the one she seeks, I hold open the exit. If you want it so badly, make it happen.

[Nymare]

But I cannot draw anyone to me.

((Aside from the obvious comments that can be made here, I would like to point out that he can draw biscuits to himself. I think he wins.))

[Qabian]

((Obvious comments for the duh. Biscuits require POWAR. And have no souls. That is all.))

[Qabian]

Another busy week, yet it seems so little has been accomplished. Nymare convinced me back into the battlegrounds. It had been weeks, perhaps months even, since I loaned my magic to the Frostwolf and the Defilers. It has taken a while to learn those skills again, but I don't think I have lost them entirely. I'm simply not as sharp as I once was. Having specialized for a different focus certainly doesn't help matters, but entering the fray once more only proves that it is not what you can do alone that changes the tide of battle, but how well you can rely on those whom you fight alongside. Unfortunately.

There has been no further word from Malorii, Evanthe, or any other theoretically involved in the business with the missing Ghant. My own research reached an impasse, and I simply have no interest in furthering the venture at this point, provided Malorii continues to keep her silence.

The boy who had the audacity to study with Liadrin rather than take up studies with myself, Erona, Antheol, or Lady Dawnspire finally joined the Grim. I could have even brought him to Rommath or Bloodsworn if it would have convinced him, but no, he takes the bottled powers of that sunforsaken creature like most of those striking out on their own seem to do these days. Fools. But if he's going to be a fool, he can at least put himself to more use than simply failing to guard my front door and keep the table set properly.

There is so much fresh blood in the Grim coming through my hands recently. So much potential for miserable failure. But I hardly seem to have the energy to monitor them as closely as I should. There are so many...

That new society had their meeting today. In my usual stance as an observer and recorder of such things, I listened on occasion from the shadows on the short breaks between battles in the Valley. That rogue I met once, tried to take my coin, walks with the Grim now, she seemed very involved, which was odd. The entire thing was ludicrously inane. If I had honestly had nothing better to do, they would have bored me to tears and I'm sure my snoring would have given away my presence. As it was, if they noticed me, none made any mention while I was there. I would have been more impressed if they'd revealed anything worth relaying, but no, utter nonsense, fools' games. At least they'll enjoy themselves while the rest of us are putting our lives on the line combating those who would put an end to their amusements.

[Qabian]

Underestimate her? On the contrary, dear Baron. I know exactly what she is capable of, thus I am extricating myself from the situation.

And her capabilities are meaningless when juxtaposed with the simple fact that she was such an idiot as to apply magic where magic should never have been applied in her attempts to follow one of her masters into the unknown without even remotely understanding the consequences. I simply refuse to follow in the footsteps of idiots. I have made my attempts to understand the consequences. She herself exists as an example of those consequences. I have no desire whatsoever to end up like her. I have too many things to do on this side of the mirror. She has a mind of her own, yes, but it is combined with the mind of a weapon, and she often acts without logic. I do not underestimate her, but I am not going to play her fool. Not this time.

Women. So insistent on questioning, or mockery, or blatant attempts at garnering favor, or all at once. They need to learn to use their words less and their actions more. Nymare can do that when she wishes. Malorii was capable of it, as she was capable of many things. The others, I'm not so certain. Their arsenal may be only words. They'll find words useless against the Alliance, the Legion, the Scourge, the Dragonflights. Find yourselves other weapons, girls, or you are going to find yourselves reduced to haunting for your gossip.

[Ashagga]

((Qabian, every time I read anything you write, I find myself completely disappointed that I seem to have missed every opportunity to RP with you...))

[Qabian]

Nymare...

She is going the way of Malorii. Too many more nights of fire in Stormwind and trails of corpses at the Faire and...

But she is different. While Malorii could sit in that empty tavern and scheme and plot and laugh and question and muse on the nature of her world, Nymare does not have that patience. When the huntress is not hunting, she is awkward and discontent. So we razed our path, leaving death in our wake, wondering if Stormwind was actually empty of guardians, until finally meeting slaughter at the Slaughtered Lamb.

Women seem to make excellent decoys. Apparently, no one pays attention to a passing mage when there's a woman to be cut down. And I certainly have no hesitations about using this to my advantage.

She would not take the fortune teller's advice. Almost a shame. I would have found that vastly entertaining. But perhaps in the process she learned something of what amuses me.

Our relationship is far stranger than I had thought. No consideration, but... enjoyment? What? She seems to distance herself from the quality of ownership that I have always seen accompanying love. If there is no ownership, does it even have any meaning? If there is no ownership, am I really any different to her than he is? Given time, considering the Grim, and the nature of his work, I would not be surprised to find I have more access to her, more time to manipulate, more opportunities to turn her hand in the directions I prefer. And when we have our philosophical discussions, they are not at the calm waters of a dock surrounded by flashing schools of snapper, but amidst the fire of burning Alliance hovels in the valley.

Still, if she goes the way of Malorii, I will need to take those steps again. She has not yet. She does not hold the secrets that will end me. She has not pushed those matters that will break me. And in the parts of her life that she keeps her own, perhaps she will not want to, and I will not need to take those steps. Perhaps. But the steps are waiting to be taken. I can see them, each new idea leading to further possibilities of the destruction that is my enjoyment, and all I need is the willingness to light the torch. Not yet, but perhaps...

And the ghost has returned, she says. I am still somewhat suspicious, especially if her implications of games with the dragonflight are true. And she wants her favor returned. I cannot deny her. I can, but I have no wish to, and yet it seems another case where I play the detective in search of a name.

I wonder if she even realizes that six years ago nearly all the heirs were lost. You want me to find a missing heir? It's possible the missing heir does not even have a family to miss her. And without even a name to... Silvermoon will be no help without a name. Too many curiously similar things happen in that city every day. I can ask the questions, but Silvermoon will not hold the answers. Perhaps others will.

Of course, my question is why does the missing heir even matter to her?

I have had to punish the girl. She spoke very much out of turn. That is a... curiosity.

[Qabian]

I do not appreciate my own vulnerabilities. I am rash. In attempting to reverse everything that was wrong with us, I have a tendency to lose control

I really need to stop letting myself get in those situations in the first place. The walls are not strong enough to compensate for minor mental exhaustion. They will need reinforcements.

No more.

[Qabian]

He's an idiot. He's an idiot. He's an idiot.

I'm an idiot.

*sigh*

You're right, Nymare. All men are idiots. All women are liars.

Yes, I am paranoid. I do not like being made aware of the chinks in my armor. Whether or not it was my fault she pressed in that direction, ultimately the transgression is hers, and it will not go unpunished.

But she is a valuable ally, and she is Grim. I do not want to destroy her utterly. Perhaps she is also right that I am afraid that she cares. If I get the sense that someone cares, I push away, using violence or empty threats. And I must keep talking because the continual threatening is reassuring, maintains my sanity. Because I don't rely on others for my crutch, I have instead the comfort of my own voice. For now, empty threats, but not threats that I will harm her. No, not so direct. Threats that I will drive her to want me dead and all will be well in my world again. I prefer to collect enemies. Enemies keep me strong. Friends are chains to this flawed world of chaos.

I did not always have this armor. Before Garithos and Vashj, I didn't need it. That is the problem. Its strength has not been tested. Malorii tested it, but I didn't realize until too late how far her daggers had reached. Nymare has tested it, and I realized before I lost too much, but the arrow that found the edge because I did not see its approach still stings, and I will lash out. Her promises of intent to leave the lines uncrossed mean nothing in light of her knowing where the lines exist. Simply knowing the location of the lines requires her hurt.

Still, she doesn't need to be permanently silenced yet, as Malorii needs to be. And I do not want to break her allegiance with the Grim. I have cards in my hand. I will play them, and once they are on the table, this round ends. If her reaching too close to me ends with her burnt, I will be satisfied. If I fail, she will have proved the worthy opponent I expect she truly is, and perhaps she will at least be forced to acknowledge exactly how serious I am, if not competent enough to follow through on my threats. A game, yes, but the stakes of this game are my armor, and if reaffirming its strength means I push her over the edge, so be it.

And for all that paranoia, I do not fear the knife in my back at the auction house, ha! The Tauren may have saved my life. I will not guarantee it, as the action cannot be replayed, and the kaldorei took to her cowardice quite quickly once she realized her failure. But at least he no longer wears his colors. I would not want a debt to those who have wronged me so directly so often. I would rather have played the corpse than even so much as acknowledge the violet and gold. He will not find my thanks or appreciation, although he did find my acknowledgment of his usefulness, and he may find I consider him more carefully. I certainly did not ask his aid, but he offered it anyway. Perhaps next time I know there are knives waiting in the shadows, I'll find myself choosing the bank window nearest the shaman, hm?

Everyone was so concerned about me. How sweet! "Are you all right, mage?" "Are you hurt?" Hahaha! I almost wish the daggers had succeeded. They could ask those questions while I bled on the ground. "Are you all right, sir?" Yes, I'm perfectly fine. I had no previous use for my kidneys. I'm sure she'll find a better place for them. Morons.

And the Tauren prompts the revelation that Nymare has plans of her own? I must admit interest. It is tempting to accost Leoren, to learn what he thinks she may be plotting, to learn what he thinks of her weaknesses, but I doubt he would be anything but the stoic, patronizing hero I find so irritating. I doubt we would even be capable of carrying on a civil conversation without it degenerating into angry grunts. All men are idiots, yes?

I am not the only one who talks too much in our little conversations. Every time she frowns, she shows a little more of where her own concerns lie. Every time she deftly evades or blatantly ignores a question, I note it. When I express that it is difficult to break a link one cannot see, there is suddenly silence. I think she fears it will break, and not because of my games, but for some other reason. Perhaps I simply need to find the already tilting balance and give it a gentle nudge to topple it entirely. Or perhaps I can simply stand and watch, and find myself entertained, because these are the games I prefer play.

And I do enjoy my games on my terms. I have no respect for love. To watch it destroy itself will give me the genuine smile so many seem to think I lack entirely. In Lascivious' rumored affairs, for example, I find no need to break those links because she breaks them and reforges new ones herself without any prompting. When I played in that arena, that was how I played. There is a certain respect there. Although, there is always her brother, I suppose, but it seems that link has more strength to it than any of those I have attempted thus far. There will be many other attempts and failures before I think to look in that direction. And I think that may be one of those few instances where the link is actually a source of strength, where they feed off each other rather than relying on each other.

Malorii's change of tactics is concerning. She tells me to stop my attempts, the attempts that I have already stopped. She says she will take many forms, but she also says she will follow through on her silence? Hm. And to switch from willing self-sacrifice to save her precious Sabachthan to suddenly willing to sell his soul to have Nymare and Leoren suffer seems... suspicious. Perhaps something happened in that world of shadows to make her change her mind. Malorii did express desire to see Nymare broken before the rogue leapt into the abyss, but this news of the link to the Qiraji makes me... suspicious.

Whoever the figure actually is, perhaps she is playing me, and I have no desire to be the tool of insects. I already need to work under the Mandate and... others to advance myself. I do not want more masters. I may or may not make use of her bottled nightmares, especially since as she noted they may turn out to be my own. I may or may not deliver her message. I have used it with some subtlety so far, but whether I extend the full clarity of the lunatic to those involved, I have not yet decided.

For all the insanity of recent days, and dancing with the Pit Lord, I have had much to think about and my attention turns to the pieces I have in play yet again. The games provide an excellent distraction from the Prince, despite Cessily's inability to keep her silence on that subject.

[Qabian]

Everyone wanted my attention yesterday. I am starting to become rather sick of company.

Ninorra has a brother, a failure of a brother, little maggot with no eyes, no words, no brain. She didn't make any sense. If he's her brother, he's as much Legion as she is, which is too much. Sanctuary harbors enemies of the Horde, even if they change their colors for the duration of a conversation simply to provoke me.

And Bir needs to be put down with some permanence. I shouldn't humor him. I would prefer him corrected, but his complete inability to acknowledge reality is infuriating. Next time, I'll just leave. Perhaps he has a trick for evading death, but I have a trick for never having to stand around and listen to his lunatic rantings. Cessily has very astutely called me cold. All my warmth is sarcasm and fury. Otherwise, I prefer the ice.

Ashagga, I don't understand. It was good of her to offer an excuse, but I doubt introspection is going to get her what she wants. What does she want? I don't have answers to her questions. Although, I think I may have questions of my own for her. I have been avoiding them until after I have the opportunity to learn more on my own, but those opportunities have been exceedingly few. Of course, that could be because of the distractions.

Nymare offers to teach me how to win. She does not understand. I do not fight to win. I fight to fight. If in order to win, I have to pause and think, rather than rushing headlong at the thing that opposes me, it's just not likely to happen. I have been chastised before for pausing, for hesitation, for stepping back to observe in the heat of battle, so I removed those strategies. When I do pause, I have other things to think about than kaldorei and their cats.

Leoren thinks he can protect me, too? Aaahahahaha! Idiot. Not everyone needs protecting. Not everyone wants protecting. Just because you rescue a girl in a dress, doesn't mean she's yours to crush the life out of her with your desperate need to keep her from all harm. If you love something, let it go, hm? There's more truth to that statement than anyone seems to recognize. Anyone. Break the chains. Destroy the crutch. They're all idiots.

Lascivious talks nonsense on the hearthstone. Burn the blood elves. Talk to kaldorei. I think whatever she's been doing is causing whatever's left of her rotten brain to melt from her head. But if she wants to send her rogues after the Evershines, I don't care. She relies enough on me that any conflict between us would not be so subtle. I don't like her daggers roaming my city, looking for backs to stab, but I can't disagree that there are many backs there that require stabbing.

Infection. Sanctuary. Priests. What? I don't care. Why is she asking me to care? Stop asking me to care. I don't. Leave me alone.

Malorii's pet warlock dead in the street. Malethia gone quite obviously completely psychotic. The first is the type of chaos that keeps my heart beating and my blood flowing. The second is simple lunacy, annoying at best, mostly an incredibly stupid public display of just how degenerate she is. She seemed concerned that I would reveal her blatant indiscretion, but if I'm going to reveal that to anyone, it'll be the asylum keepers. I'm not beyond blackmail, even without intent to share. Just ask that troll with the arm injury, so desperate to pay me off when I had no intent whatsoever to go to anyone with his pathetic crisis. But I'm not sure that's a threat of any value here. I'm already suspicious of Malethia. She rather openly threatened me. And with Lascivious' slim hold on her sanity, I'm curious to whom I am supposed to bring up my concerns. The Inquisitor, perhaps? The lady warlock with a troubled expression of her own. Perhaps I'll just keep my aggravated silence.

Too many knights, and not a single one of them with a clue where their powers come from, and so many of them seeking to rip it from us. Remove the link between their order and mine, and they become Alliance traitors. They should know that. If I have to fight with any of them any more, I may just strip them all of their tabards and send them walking. Perhaps Lascivious is right. If the concept weren't so physically vile, there are days I would ask Sylvanas for her curse, just to distance myself from the overpopulation of mentally deficient light thieves.

And that group of girls, the hens squabbling over their seeds, Malethia, Cessily, Kiaransalius... Malethia, in addition to her psychosis, is insubordinate, likely as a symptom of the position she once held, and perhaps does not remember that she disgraced it by abandoning it. Cessily's true crime is being overly passionate about everything. I could almost stand her if she had any sense of how to work on her own without clutching desperately at whoever stands nearest. Kiaransalius I know nothing of, other than that she goads the others, I'm rather certain of it. And at the edges of the coop, Tsa, Zelaine, Nymare, Lascivious, clucking away. Someone simply needs to set up a room for all of them in Nazjatar, at the bottom of the maelstrom, so the rest of us can save our ears some pain and get back to the annihilation that is our business.

The Grim becomes irksome. I have no desires to manage these fools who take up paths other than that of magic, and when I'm tasked with herding them about, it becomes my actual task to find someone else to herd them.

I... My mind is... I need... clarity, and I'm not sure where to find it.

[Qabian]

By the sun, what is going on? Finding moments to myself to try and make money for expenses above and beyond running the estate has been next to impossible these past few days.

Nymare and her dance around the Terrace of Light. The crowds chased me back to the Seer's Library. I just... congregating is not something... no. Being with me is like being alone? What the hell does that even mean? It certainly doesn't refer to silence. Not anymore. She said I was right, although she refused to say about what.

That Magistrix hopeful from the inn contacted me again. An invitation for drinks? No. I don't... congregate.

The tower venture itself was the blazing success for the night, despite my... loss of control. Dependence on others is so... inefficient, despite its necessity.

Cessily wanted to talk to me? What was it she said I was? Reasonable? Perhaps I am, at times, although I'm not sure when she decided that label applied to me. And then she opens with asking directly if I'm trustworthy. Of course I'm not trustworthy. A truly deceptive person would have conceded to everything to learn her information, I suppose, but honesty holds its own brutality, and we want the girl to learn, yes? If she were not Grim, and had asked such a question, the answer might have been different, but I have reasons for insisting. I am not going to promise to withhold information when sharing it should benefit me. Oddly enough, most of those who have been desperate for my silence thus far have always had it from me without even knowing. Honesty may be a virtue, but what is it if you are honest about your dishonesty, hm?

But those who spend too much time around me understand better. I say much, but I never trust.

And in the end, she takes me at my word and tells me nothing. Ha! I will not pretend to have honor. I would not have shared what she said just to prove she should never have trusted me, but I will not pretend I am something other than I am. Perhaps I would have found my own reasons for secrecy; perhaps I wouldn't. And when you confess treason, do any of your words have value? They should judge me by my actions instead.

Was I trying to save them the pain of my betrayal? No. I was trying to teach them, and I was rather expertly avoiding sinking myself into yet another pit of insanity. Sabachthan's is quite difficult enough to avoid slipping into. Whatever's going on with Lascivious, I prefer to keep my distance.

The Grim is a tool, yes. A tool of great importance, but a tool nonetheless. Should I pretend it is something else? A family? Ha! If you've never had a family worth mentioning, you're not about to label something you actually find to be important as a family. I don't believe there's anything in the Mandate to say that I cannot use the Grim as a tool to further its own cause, especially as for the moment, its cause and mine are one and the same.

Kiaransalius is... close to this trouble with Lascivious, but she answered my questions with far more ease than any of those I have interrogated so far, and she proved to be less connected to Malethia's insubordinate ideals than I had assumed. If she was answering truthfully, anyway, hm.

Feleena Ran'deau. Feleena... Savior of the Sin'dorei? What the hell was that? Skafloc has a daughter? She does not seem so young, and her words play with "possible futures". I don't think the Bronze would be glad to know one such as she walks about our Silvermoon freely, if she speaks the truth, although perhaps she is one of their toys. I confess I know little of her supposed father, but everything I have heard so far points to him being at least as demented as Leoren.

And if I am ever a hero in the terms she laid out, that future is quite obviously not ours. I have no intention of heroics, and I will go out of my way to prove that. I do what I do for myself. Should my people benefit, that is inconsequential. My motives will never be those of a hero.

And Lascivious falls from above screaming, "Leave her alone!" What? Me? Leave who alone? Leave Kiaransalius alone? Leave Feleena alone? Considering the Mistress' state of disarray, perhaps she was in a world of her own, screaming to no one about nothing. I have to admit that is... concerning, but I also admit I want no part in repairing it, not until it is made my business.

Setrema actually deserves my time, being a mage, one of the Grim, and requiring teaching, but it seems I give it to everyone except her. There is only so much I can do to remedy that in these strange days, and more importantly, I need the time for myself.

Time and clarity. Who holds these things, and how do I go about making them my own?

[Feleena]

((Poor Feleena. In her world, Qabian is a hero. Or at least thats what I decided when I saw you last night. Now she's all let down! :P. Ok, no derailing, back to your journal!))

[Lascivious]

(when you asked me who he was and if you could have his autograph i thought it was because you saw him up with the chieften band and thought he was a member.)

[Feleena]

(when you asked me who he was and if you could have his autograph i thought it was because you saw him up with the chieften band and thought he was a member.)

((Nah, the world Feleena comes from is totally backwards from our reality. As soon as I saw Qabian, I knew he had to be a hero in Feleena's future. haha))

[Qabian]

I knew it. I knew there was something odd. I didn't know it was this. I thought it was simple desire to be recognized as important the way she used to be.

Lunacy! Everywhere I turn, lunatics and maniacs around every corner.

Even if she were speaking the truth, it's not possible. Quel'dorei have never been such. Sin'dorei do not receive these gifts. We take them. What did she expect me to say? This is far beyond insubordination. Her words are treason at its essence, worse than anything I have ever done. In simply speaking them she betrays Silvermoon, she betrays the sin'dorei, she betrays the Magisters, she betrays the Horde, she betrays the Grim, and she betrays me. Perhaps she decided to let out this "secret" simply to spite me. She does not want me where I am? She knows there's no one else to take this. She knows I do not want it.

If she is what she says she is, she's not Grim. If she's not what she says she is, she needs to feel the repercussions for treachery, or a cure, or I don't know what. Pain.

And this. Was not. The time.

Something is going on with Lascivious. I don't know what it is, but what the Grim does not need now is added chaos.

And the shaman insinuating I'm her puppet is laughable. I took the reins I was given and did what I wanted. That lesson will never be forgotten. Ever. But the student, I fear...

I must speak with her, assess the damage.

[Qabian]

Nymare was right. The men are all hiding or complaining. The women are all crying. She got more words from me, broken ones, losing their meaning. Perhaps I am overly vulnerable to those who would listen to me. Many offer, but few ask the questions. I am not sure when if ever my chance to play my cards will come. And I don't know Malorii's nightmares. I doubt the felhounds would bother Nymare much.

I think I will take the hiding option. I was too... There was too much... Ideas can hatch while hiding, and I am at a loss for them just now. Let Malethia's insanity increase. The others will see it and see she needs... removal or correction. Kiaransalius, for all I... did not see, does not seem one to stand for it. Nor the others with the quieter voices.

I had planned to use my lesson as a warning to others, but at the rate things have... Perhaps I will wait until it needs to be taught again.

Avoidance for now, until the ideas hatch, or the maelstrom comes crashing down on me. I suspect the latter may come first.

[Qabian]

That was not what I was expecting. This could get interesting.

[Qabian]

It's curious now, after the fact, wondering why I expected backlash and was instead given increased freedom. Although there is the point where apparently I had the freedom all along and hadn't recognized it to know to use it. I immediately made a point of using the new freedom. Time will tell if it pays off as I hope. I would be very much entertained to finally be given an opportunity to make good on my threats. All those who came through me knew I would not accept failure, but it was those who came before I was not certain about. Now I know they are mine to manipulate as I see fit, there will be no more unpunished failures while I am capable of keeping watch.

It's the strangeness surrounding Lascivious. She has become unpredictable. Previously, I would have known that meeting her expectations would be acceptable, but these days, I thought taking the situation into my own hands might cause her to turn on me. It did not. Yet. I am still... wary.

Nymare grew surprisingly upset over my distaste for holiday cheer, so much so that she had her fictional sister berate me in her stead? I don't know what that was about, but it was exceedingly amusing. Perhaps it was the alcohol. She very much lost her calm, which I have not seen her do outside of the presence of Leoren lately.

I believe she was around to know how much I thought of the last few holidays. This one is no different. My distaste is with how stupidly frivolous the entire business is. The fact that the frivolity accompanies standing around Shattrath nearly nude is simply part of the stupidity of the entire concept. I don't need to celebrate winter. It's a normal physical facet of the planet's turning. I don't need worthless gifts, and no one needs to hear from me just how much I care about them, especially since I don't.

Although, if she takes what I gave her, and actually ruins whatever pathetic reputation for sanity she might have, I'll take that as another win for me.

Thankfully, not every woman is a festive clown whore. There are those out there who actually consider their lives and actions seriously and quietly.

Though Nymare is unique just now. There are no others drawing words from me at such length. Unfortunately, what I respect in her, and I may even have told her so, is how much respect she has for herself. Even in the face of the great debilitating disease that is love, she is capable of telling it to leave her the hell alone. Not every woman can do that. Some would rather swoon and tumble into its arms, using it as a shield against everything, rather than tossing the shield aside and standing on their own. So when she strips down to nothing and gurgles like an infant, there is suddenly no respect on my part. Is that really such a shock?

Of course, my threats are empty, and only signals of how much I care for the flippant juvenile foolishness in the air at this time of year, but in her desire to behave like a child, she takes my insults so seriously all of the sudden? Strange. Must be the drink rotting her mind already, and so early. I fear there's little hope for her recovery before the thaw.

[Nymare]

So when she strips down to nothing and gurgles like an infant

((fiiiiiiiiine, she'll leave out the gurgling next time.))

[Qabian]

((Not if she keeps taking poisoned cider, ha!))

[Qabian]

Perhaps I do need to invest in a woman's dress. It seemed to work better for Nymare than my strategy of standing next to a stand of plucked plainstriders. Although, at least I didn't have to talk with any seriousness about kaldorei the whole night. Ha! I hope he gets flayed alive. He'd be far more entertaining without any flesh. Perhaps the cider wouldn't have worked, but there was enough strong alcohol around that she could have found something, I'm sure.

Animal magnetism. Something magnetism. It can't be the shoulders. And Yichimet just stood in front of me making faces. I thought he had a brain. I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that was in error. Tauren need to invest in chairs.

And Lascivious is threatening us again. Today, I can blame it on the alcohol. What could I blame it on last week? Perhaps if she can manage to hold onto her sanity a few more months, I can craft Khadmus for my replacement, since I'm sure she won't stand for any other race, and he seems an excellent little Forsaken so far.

Malethia managed to get away without seeing me tonight. I wonder how long she can avoid this. I said I didn't want to ruin her evening, but in truth I didn't want to ruin mine, especially after beginning it so well with the High Tinker's scorched, mangled corpse. I didn't want the inevitable resulting chaos for myself while attempting to observe. And in the end, I found chaos anyway, and too much of the festive Bir variety at that. Bah.

[Qabian]

I would prefer it would stop coming down to these things. I would prefer that they would just listen and act with logic.

Malethia pushed me once too often. I could not stand idly by any longer. There needed to be repercussions, real visible repercussions. No more empty threats, but action. Simply letting her disease fester weakened both me and the Grim. Two days. She didn't last two days after my ultimatum without giving more reasons to doubt. If she had at least lasted the week, I may have given more consideration, but two days... My mind was made up before we spoke. And Anaie's words in advance only reinforced my intent.

Despite my extremely strong opinions on Malethia's betrayal of myself and the magisters, it was not that, but her deliberate countering of the Grim itself that brought this on her. I was willing and still am willing to let her plead her case for breaking with the ways of our people, but I am not willing to hear that she disparages the Grim where her words can be heard.

She is right, though, about Lascivious. And if she can continue her mission from the outside, I will not stop her. If she cannot, she will have to work that much harder to appease me.

But I will not split the Grim on this. I will not be the weak point that causes the cracking, splintering, shattering of this thing I use, this thing I need. If Lascivious is that weakness, she must be purged by the Grim at large. I will not be the sin'dorei she says I am. I will not be the one who brought down this great thing. The Grim are stronger than Lascivious alone. We must prove that together, not as fragments impossibly loyal to outside causes. We must all be servants to the Mandate as she once was. Breaking her and breaking ourselves in the process will accomplish nothing.

Aest has not broken his ultimatum as Malethia did, but he is pushing me as well. Perhaps he needs a distraction, a new field in which to battle. Children need tasks to keep them occupied. When did I agree to become a parent? And a parent to blood knights at that.

Zelaine's recent change in attitude towards me makes me somewhat suspicious, but at least she hasn't yet given me reason to want to send her to her room to think about what she's done.

[Qabian]

What kind of a goal is silence? I know where to find silence. At the bottom of the Elrendar. Take a few large stones with you and you'll find it.

So it seems she wants the moments of Peace and I want the acts of Annihilation. The difference is she is willing to use the Annihilation to get her Peace, even for whatever brief instants it exists like epiphany, while I have no use for the Peace whatsoever. For me, Peace is a front, a facade, a feeble pretense when my purpose is to raise hell, then suffer defeat only to raise more hell. She of anyone should realize that I do not fight to win.

I would not be surprised to learn Sylvanas and Nymare have similar goals.

But this inherent difference between us is somehow comforting; to know that we are not as similar as we occasionally seem to be, trading insults, chasing down kaldorei; to know that she fills a body with arrows to know the calm after it hits the ground, while I set the same on fire for the energy of that very act that gives me reason to exist. She is probably better for the Grim than I am, and that is why I do most of what I do relative to her.

Except the threats. Those are my own.

I am always answering the questions. Perhaps I should take to asking them more often. I am usually content to listen, to her voice and my own, rather than bothering to draw out the thoughts of others. An effect of my narcissism on my observations, I suppose.

There were flashes of memory last night. Malorii and I sat on those same rocks in what seems like another lifetime now, waiting for her mythical beast that would attack Theramore. When I was there with her, it never came. But with Nymare, the beast not only arrived, but destroyed all the remaining cannoneers and so we took it down ourselves. There were fireworks in the moments before the mighty cavalry of one arrived and made us suffer for our good deed and the empty inn.

It was not the Theramore we remembered under the brothers.

I have known peace. As an apprentice, I was not trained for war. Even on the front lines in Dalaran with the Prince, I was not a soldier. I was an extra pair of hands, an extra mind to be used where needed, a resource, not a weapon. It was with the betrayal there that I abandoned calm and control, when we were saved by those who should have been our enemies. When your enemies are your friends and your friends are your enemies, I am the result. I am with the Grim because they give me what I want. Chaos. Not peace. And if they should meet their goal...

They will never meet their goal, and as long as they and I exist together, they will be my force for chaos unleashed against those who have given me reason to hate.

Hate is powerful. Hate can be eternal. Hate can be manipulated.

And hate can be created.

Malethia went so far as to mention the Lich King. She is right that his influence is not something that can simply be unquestioningly accepted, but the chaos he can bring, the sheer violence of it... We can wait for the right moment to strike our vengeance for the Sunwell, and in the meantime bathe in the beauty of the flames, indulge in our newly constructed vampiric nature, and slaughter all those who stand in our way.

If what the delusional whore says is true, Sylvanas is not likely to be happy to learn of Lascivious' current leanings. Perhaps therein lies the cure for her condition, hm?

They are all traitors. Garithos and Dar'khan. Kael'thas and Kil'jaeden. Kel'thuzad and Arthas. Lascivious and Malethia. Why should I be any different?

[Qabian]

I do not understand.

I do not understand appreciation.

I expect to be reviled. I take measures to ensure I stay that way. I advise the new ones to take the insults in stride.

I prefer my relationship with Malethia and Lascivious, heavy with suspicion and grudgingly miserable acknowledgment.

Malorii, for all the long hours and endless words, at least trusted me as much as I trusted her, which is to say not at all, unless she lied.

I would prefer if they were rotten.

I would prefer if the other one falls for the blood knight and hates me. That is the way things are expected to be. That is the way things should be.

The trade, the exchange -- I was not content with her knowing more than I did, but my knowing more solves nothing, at least if the trades remain evenly balanced, nothing of value for nothing of value.

Yes, there are things beyond destruction that I enjoy, but enjoyment is not my goal. I take them as I find them, but I rarely seek them. The path is towards the goal, not contentment. Do you find moments of silence while dancing around drunk in your undergarments?

For the Grim. I do these things for the Grim. And as such, I do them for myself. The Grim are my armor. The Grim. Not...

I do not appreciate being appreciated. Restrain yourself from thanking me. If I benefit you, take the benefit and return to your business without meaningless, irritating words. I do nothing for your sake. Everything I do is for one person. Me.

[Nymare]

((buahahaha))

[Qabian]

I hate this holiday. I hate it. It makes people do idiotic nonsensical things. Including myself.

I have been keeping myself busy with historical research, the history of the Horde as it formed on Draenor, the history of what we know of the Well of Eternity, anything to keep me from the present.

That priest asked me with which I would stand, the Mandate or the Mistress. I said neither. He assumed I meant both. Fool.

Kiaransalius is rather overtly trying to gain my favor. I suppose that means she learned her lesson well, perhaps too well. But I'm certainly not above using her, especially while my research keeps me out of hearing.

I broached the subject of Ceryna with Abric as Ashagga asked. I did so in a letter. Rather than respond in kind, he told me to find him. I have... little desire to have that conversation. Perhaps after this insanity they call the Veil has thoroughly passed.

Setrema... I'm not sure all the girls are as correct about her as they assume. I know what she is. I instructed her to hide it. She has reason to want to stay in my good graces, seeing where I stand with her, but she does not understand me.

I have told her why I fight and how perfection is a goal, but not one that can be achieved, or life itself ceases to be on that pedestal where perfection is reached. I have not told her why I make the lives of others around me hellish, even those who presume to be my allies. Perhaps we need to have a discussion on that subject before she thinks I might appreciate her appreciation.

She is a good student. Perhaps one of the best. She says all the right things, and concedes quickly when informed that she is wrong, unlike some. I can appreciate those who focus on their studies. However, her world is a social one. Mine is not. It is that society that sends me to my research.

And mother is dead. All the more reason to stay out of the light of the Grim's war machine while I have the opportunity.

No, I never cared for her. I never even knew who she was under that shell of using me to get what she wanted in life but never had the power to acquire for herself. I'm sure she did what she believed was best for herself, and therefore for me. My narcissism was a gift from them, my parents. But as a result, I never knew them, and never cared to. Any tears shed for my separation from them as a child dried so many decades ago they've long since fallen from my memory.

However, she was a link to the past, the past before all hell broke loose on my world, where I knew something akin to true contentment, where research was all that was asked of me. I was a student, and the simple act of studying was all I wanted. There were no discussions with blood knights. There were no humans throwing the Prince in prison for acting as a savior. There were no Forsaken and Sylvanas was Ranger-General.

With mother gone, I am truly alone. This never bothered me before, and it isn't like I considered us a family, but there were times I acted with her welfare in mind, contrary to what I've said aloud. The saga ends here, then. We reconstructed our place in the hierarchy just as Silvermoon was reconstructed, but that place will only last as long as I live.

There is no household to bear the name my parents so wished to return to its glory days. Now there is only me. Fair enough. I intend to live forever, to fight forever, to burn forever, to kill forever. Mages have long had access to means of extending their years.

And their goal was never mine. And now that both of them are dead, there is no one left to care should we fade into obscurity as seemed to be our destiny. Perhaps it is time I acquired a hidden tower and fully sundered my connection to anything resembling family. Somewhere mysterious and foreboding, perhaps a dark valley in Winterspring, if there are any free of the blue, where I can continue my... research.

[Qabian]

I hadn't planned to spend the night in romantic Redridge.

Haha! So full of murlocs, orcs, and gnomes with hammers, it's a surprise there's any place there with a measure of quiet, but there is. Of course, last time I was there, I left corpses on that cliff.

However, I was not suffering from the mental exhaustion I have at other times when Nymare decided to ask her questions. I taunted her, gave her enough hints to bring thoughts to her mind, to bring questions to the fore, and then turned them back on her the way I should have done the days she pushed me.

She said she hasn't figured that out about me yet. Oh, but she has. I've told her directly. She just doesn't draw lines well. Perhaps she'll make the connections in time, but that might require long hours of thinking on me. Hahaha!

It's odd to think that there are those who consider me too much. Setrema definitely at this point. I would only need to offer, and she would fall. Kiaransalius perhaps, but she is one of those with an overabundance of feeling, so it would only be a turn to me in conjunction with turns to others. Bir, if I suddenly took to treating him well, I could turn, but not permanently. He seems to have an insect's mind, always seeking the next moment without dwelling on the last. The Mistress, I'm not so certain, but if the right situation were concocted, she might use unconventional methods that would appear to be turning to me. Ninorra even, despite what I've done, if I suddenly showed her I'd had some sort of change of heart, if I gave the situation some effort, I wouldn't be surprised if I could drastically change her thoughts. She's shown me enough of her weaknesses. Nymare I could turn to me, I'm sure. It would not be easy. It would take a combination of revealing just enough vulnerability and probably some false morality so as not to interfere with violence. She already tells me when she feels the need for destruction. Ashagga...

I could make those connections if I wanted to, every one of them a shackle to a world by which I refused to be trapped.

The night made me miss Malorii. I know I could never have turned her. She did not have that weakness. She already thought of me just enough. I also know she is the only one thus far who truly allowed me to be myself. Her existence as a weapon was sheer strength, but she turned out to be just another slave to others in a different way. If she could ever have freed herself, she could have been a goddess. She also led. I am not a leader. It is difficult to observe and lead at the same time. Perhaps that is why there is this frustration where I am now. And I do not enjoy regret, so nostalgia is not useful. The similarities, the wanton abandonment of dignity, were awkward to say the least.

So to avoid crowds at parties, Setrema says I should apply more warmth? She was not able to elaborate on what she meant by that. And Nymare says I should be less interesting. To be cruel and insulting only results in making thoughts of others turn to me. Hmm. Actually, the best way to do it would be a better place to hide, I think, to see and not be seen. You cannot draw a crowd if no one knows you're there. I am no rogue, but I know there must be ways I haven't thought of yet. Perhaps I will have another opportunity to make the test.

Back to my research. I'm not yet ready for a new dawn.

[Kiaransalius]

((Bwahahaha In Q's dreams))

[Lascivious]

(Q doesn't understand basic prinicples of women being attracted to the jerky mean guy so they can change him)

[Nymare]

Perhaps she'll make the connections in time, but that might require long hours of thinking on me. Hahaha!

((/doom! And what does "turn to" even mean? And there were corpses... just no one followed us to the cliff. /MOAR DOOM!))

[Qabian]

((I freely admit that Q is a pretentious dumbass in almost every possible way. Subsequent explanations aren't really necessary. :D))

In retrospect, what the hell was that?

I had thought there would be some chase, but when there wasn't...

Just because Nymare's not worldly enough to understand the workings of a Hydrocane, she comes to the conclusion that she can't use drowning to kill me? A child's logic or an attempt to gather more information? I chose to continue that train of thought myself, but the reason I failed to drown the first time was because I couldn't stand the sound of self-inflicted pain. Biologically, I had to live, and the call of mana was stronger than the call of silencing myself for the mistake of an overabundance of heart. Did I tell her that? No. Trapped without the external means, I drown as easily as anything else that breathes.

Perspective changes in the depths. With the Hydrocane, I can see from beneath the surface without having to hear the screams. She was playing. I was thinking. But is the sky over Redridge the same as that over Quel'thalas?

I can't stand silence. I fill it with voice or with thoughts, fury or scheming. From the depths where voices can't be heard, it is thinking, and the sounds of sensory deprivation, the noise of the self.

What is her obsession with me? From the first time we spoke at length, she admitted interest in my words, my thoughts, my ideas, but when I wanted to know how she really perceived me, what role I played for her, she said she didn't think of me. That's a lie. Perhaps she doesn't know how to describe it any more than I do, but I am something to her. Therein lies the problem.

Malorii never denied what we were. We used each other honestly for entertainment and dealing death, each moment bringing the world to ashes. But ultimately, she failed me.

I am disappointed in myself, that my threats are consistently coming to nothing. There is too much waiting. And in that waiting, she still seeks me out to alleviate her boredom. Threats are meaningless without action. And in a lack of action, she keeps asking her questions.

And I keep answering them.

I may appreciate the value of the self, but that doesn't mean I consider myself perfect. I have never thought such. There is too much that still needs to be done. There will always be more that needs doing. Until the world is complete and I am finished, there is no perfection.

I have failed. I fail daily. I fail regularly. I take my failures and build them into new successes. Or that is the idea, the attempt being made. Sometimes I just keep failing.

The mage girl has logical reasons to be inquiring about me, asking questions about my likes and dislikes. If she is to truly advance, she should decipher me and dismantle me, take what I have been given and failed to use properly, and use it herself to step into greatness.

Nymare does not have these reasons. So why does she keep asking questions? Natural curiosity unhindered by fear? Does she care when she says she doesn't? Or is she just trying to read me because I am there to be read?

She says she has no regrets? She is stronger than I am then. I regret one thing and one thing only, but that regret is my chains, just as the care that went before it used to be.

So then what do I do? Stop answering questions? Stop talking about what matters most to me? Stop offering suggestions for alleviating boredom? Stop everything? But I hate silence.

I suppose we'll just continue with the lies then, at least until I find those opportunities to make good on my threats. And now I'm thinking about these things because my own distractions are failing. I'm surrounded by failure.

[Malethia]

What is her obsession with me? From the first time we spoke at length, she admitted interest in my words, my thoughts, my ideas, but when I wanted to know how she really perceived me, what role I played for her, she said she didn't think of me. That's a lie. Perhaps she doesn't know how to describe it any more than I do, but I am something to her. Therein lies the problem.

((And Malethia is proven, yet again, correct. I wasn't teasing, Nym!))

[Nymare]

Perspective changes in the depths. With the Hydrocane, I can see from beneath the surface (up her tabard) without having to hear the screams (of "PERVERT!"). She was playing (The Little Mermaid). I was thinking ("wish I could be/part of your world"). But is the sky over Redridge the same as that over Quel'thalas?

((Fixed!))

[Qabian]

((You wish, dearie.))

[Qabian]

The next time a woman asks for permission to be bluntly honest, the answer is "No. Please lie to me."

I have a headache.

[Qabian]

This is why I've been busy. This is why I've been avoiding the world. I don't... need this...

I offer what I can for the fight. Ashtyn is around. I see to her. To be honest, I'm not confident she has what it takes to be Grim, but I'd rather she be somewhere I can monitor her. The timing of her coming to my attention is suspicious enough. She wants something. If what she wants is just the Grim, fine. That will become evident with time. If it's something else, I have more power over her here.

But while I'm talking to her, Setrema is talking to me. I should have told her to wait. I should have done things differently. She asks me if I'm attracted to women. It's just another question, one that makes me laugh. Why does it matter? I answer it. I always do. Time to teach the girl something. I tell her my personal preferences in terms of my private actions turn in that direction, but that ultimately my work is far more important. I tell her that love is a weakness. She tells me she's attracted to me.

...

What the hell? Was she not listening to a word I said? I knew that. I could tell that from her lines of questioning. I didn't need the direct statement. It's not logical. I ask her what she expects from me then. Apparently nothing. Nothing? Then why say it? By the sun, she's utterly insane.

She's a good student. She is. She learns quickly. She's fearless. She has potential. She hasn't failed me yet, or hadn't before now, unlike so many others. I thought she was calculating enough to avoid such things. She avoided Cessily. So few seem capable of that. She was somewhat overly concerned with social matters, but that followed with the focus she selected with the Grim. I didn't think it would come back to me like this. More than somewhat overly concerned, it seems.

She's not aesthetically unpleasant, it's true, and she has plenty of admirable qualities, but I know what she believes to be the truth of her family. If she doesn't think that counts against her, she's wrong. She was more attractive when she was subtle. If she truly wanted something from me, she should have continued to play the fawning teacher's pet until she managed to maneuver me to her whims. Simply outright telling me what she feels lacks class. Even if I were starved for such attentions, which I'm not, as I still have my nights, more carefully managed now, the Grim are not those I would ever seek for such things. It leads to fracture. The others will see that soon enough.

I was attempting to encourage her, just enough to keep her controlled, but not so much as to have her throw herself at me. Count that another failure for me. The admission itself isn't so much the problem. It's the admission combined with a complete lack of subsequently stated expectations. "This is what I am. This is what I want you to be." No? Then why? I'll just continue what I've been doing, and in addition, I'll wonder why you bothered to break perfectly excellent tension without any purpose whatsoever.

If what she's said previously is true, that what's so attractive is the unattainability, then she can keep that. There's nothing here to attain. There is no heart to be won. There is a mage, a teacher, a soldier, a narcissist so concerned with himself that he has nothing left to share with others. If she wants nothing from me, she'll get nothing. The day she asks for something is the day I will have to consider whether her value for the Grim surpasses the counter value of the request.

From the line of questioning, it seems she was asking for hope. I may have given her that, but if she's as intelligent as past statements have made her, she'll turn elsewhere for the fulfillment of that hope. There is no reward at the end of an attraction through unattainability. If she succeeds, she loses what she wanted. There's nothing to win here. Women are psychotic.

And Nymare, my sounding board, all is well with us again, I think, now that I've had my counter threats, even if they were somewhat in jest. If I ever get my opportunities to hurt her, she will not be surprised, and it certainly wouldn't be the first time I've prompted a woman to strike at me.

I didn't start it. She did. Asking me if I'm the last of my house. What kind of a question is that? Unless you hope to change the answer, haha! Of course, I'm paranoid. What does she expect, starting that line of questions? They weren't too close to me. They were too close to her, and extremely unsettling.

But in the end, I think I terrify her as much as she terrifies me. I'm not sure how we reached the ultimate conclusion that we still hate each other, but that we did is enough. It's for the best. Our mutual masochism will allow her to act as my confessional and I to act as her distant protagonist in a story she unravels for no other reason than that she can, but there's no sweet softness to find in that connection. When a more serious demon than a lecherous troll threatens her, she won't expect my heroism.

Why do I humor her? She's valuable. Not just for the Grim, but in general. She has true strength. One of the first things she said in my presence was that she was her own woman. Those who make that statement are few. Those who mean it are fewer. Despite the fact that she makes stupid attachments to others, I honestly think she believes in the core of that statement.

And I lied about her not needing instruction. She does. She still clings to that man. But she will learn. She is already learning, I think, but slowly. But the true confessions of a frustrated mage are hardly going to convince her of the errors of her ways. Or maybe they will.

I did think she would be good for Setrema. Yes, all the conclusions Nymare draws about me seem to be essentially wrong. She attributes more mystery to me than there is. But she has also heard more of my words than anyone else, anyone still available for discussion at least. Yes, I want her to tell the girl that I'm impossible. I want her to tell the girl that what she enjoys about me is not what she appreciates. Ha! Reinstruct her. Create another confessional for me. Someone with questions to answer who will allow me to talk about myself at great length with no fear of any connection through the heart. I enjoy heartless conversation.

But no, she's right. Women make no sense. That would be a mistake. They're not capable of following logic. I have too much faith in their intellect. Which of course implicates herself in the failures of women. She enjoys me. She does. She admits it to me. I do not admit the same for her, whether I do or not. I do not use the words. It is always me I enjoy, my words, my answers, my voice, my thoughts, my ideas. I am not so complicated. I enjoy that she enjoys me. Is that so difficult a concept?

But there is nothing close to caring. We would not rush to the other's side if we found them bleeding in the middle of a rainy street. If they happened to scream "Fucking kal'dorei rogues!" as they fell, we would probably rush away from the other, into the shadows in search of blood, ha!

She has a man, and she sees the troubles such connections bring. She has confessed them to me. She hasn't severed them yet, but she should, she might, she will, in time, or someone else will do it for her, and she'll find herself free of her shackles and realize her potential. If she does that, she'll surpass me in every way. Perhaps that's why I've silenced the game. Jealousy of what she's truly capable of being if I should win. But I don't want her and she doesn't want me, except to use each other's words, a relationship of convenience, nothing more.

In the end, I am who I am.

[Qabian]

Everything neatly sorted and fixed. The girl has been instructed. She will change her mind. She obviously doesn't realize yet that whatever she thinks she wants from me is not the same as what she would get if she got her wish. Still, to settle for less than what she wants distinctly does not impress me.

Malethia's game was vaguely amusing, if only reinforcing her psychosis. She's in desperate need of a straitjacket, a damp room, and bread and water through a slot in a metal door twice a day. Yes, those who have succeeded in appealing to me have appealed to my ego first, but every one of them also displayed an overwhelming amount of self-respect. The paladin has none. So her game just makes her look like the whore she is. She'll spread her legs for anyone if it suits her degenerate brain this week.

Of course, it's a game. If she really wanted what she says she wants, she could get it far more easily from anyone but me. Unlike most, I have standards. I still don't know what she wanted exactly. To drag me down to her level? To embarrass me in the street? To suddenly rescind her offer and wound me to the very core of my all-important self when I, so desperate for physical attention and a dire need to continue my family line, immediately accepted? Maybe I'll bother to ask someday. It hardly matters. Whatever it is, she won't get it. Besides, I have no reason to want her line continued, and mine I can see to without any help from her, ha!

The leap from narcissism to an appreciation of self-respect seems infinitesimal to me, and yet a daunting crevasse for everyone else. Every concession I have made to Malethia, I have made when she showed an ounce of self-confidence. Am I wrong in thinking I am far more simple in my motives than everyone seems to suspect?

Deathshadow is a problem. He has been the most volatile part of the Grim since I've been with them. Malebrignon's response was less than heartening. Still, the Shadow side is at least easily distracted by questions. He thought I wanted something. I wanted nothing more than to keep him away from the others for as long as I could manage. He could have said anything, and I still won that round. But if he should decide to take down Malethia next, I can't say I'd stop him then, haha!

[Qabian]

Fearless to the point of recklessness? Yes.

Emotions under control and channeled into advancement? Not yet.

Moral and aesthetic distaste for the Alliance? Yes.

Able to recognize the importance of the self above everything else? Not yet.

I think I may be creating a monster. If she listens to all of my instructions, she's going the way of Jastra. Of course, Jastra and I had... an understanding, but her history didn't exactly end successfully for her, and everything she had wanted is now mine. Hm, perhaps that's not such a terrible legacy. The day the girl wears the dress for petty, selfish reasons rather than hoarding it because of some misplaced sentimental value in clothing, I'll know the transformation is complete.

And I think maybe she forgets who she is. I don't think she liked being told she's a student, not a friend.

If she succeeds, the way I'm seen is going to change. But I have my reasons. I always do.

Nymare's a demon slut. I'm not overly surprised. It explains some of that recent odd behavior around Sabachthan. I was going to make a comment about letting others do your work, but then, what's that cat of hers but just another demon? Nothing's so different. But if that doesn't cause a rift between her and Leoren, he's not who he pretends to be. Working with the Grim isn't quite the same as putting the Legion to personal use. She's winning my game for me without my help. I do so enjoy being proven right, especially without needing to put in the effort.

[Lovely]

((Qabian, you are the best.))

[Qabian]

((You say that at the weirdest times, hehe.))

[Qabian]

Hahaha!

Aahahahaha!

I win! Oh how I win, even if she won't let me take the credit. Who shall I hit next, hm?

Of course, she thinks I have some magic secret for surviving such things. What? I was never in love. I never will be. I was just stupid enough to care when I was young. Break all the connections and you never have to care again. And it never hurts again. It's so simple, easy, do it, break it, kill it, bury it, come back stronger than you've ever been.

I win.

[Qabian]

I hate silence. Too much time for thinking. The past, buried history, regret.

I'm going to hurt her.

It wasn't so long ago, but I recreated myself that day, the day I confessed a lie just to get out of the light. I'm not going back.

She shouldn't have asked. She knew I would keep talking.

It wouldn't destroy me. I'm stronger than I was. I was stronger the moment I needed to breathe again. It couldn't kill me then. It can't kill me now. But that doesn't stop it from hurting. I thought I could just answer her stupid questions, cryptic honesty, enough to shut her up, but she had to dredge the cemetery. Damn it, I'm going to hurt her back.

My situation wasn't even remotely similar. Why would she think it was? I needed vengeance for the hell they put us through, Arthas, Dar'khan, all of them who wanted us put down, more than just Garithos.

Who's she going to hunt down for revenge? Herself for making stupid decisions while playing the damsel in distress? Idiot girl. No wonder he never trusted her to keep herself safe.

I froze afterwards, took the hurt, channeled it into my cause, and let the rest cool. I had to in order to continue, to do what the Grim asked of me, the Grim that I had made my project, my path. But she just had to chip away the ice, didn't she?

Yes, I won. She came around to my way of thinking. But I paid a price. And I'm losing sleep. For her mistakes.

To hell with that.

No more questions. No more answers. None.

[Qabian]

She wasn't there. Maybe she did kill herself after all. The Nymare I know would never have missed a night like that, a massive wake of death from the mushroom fortress right across Honor Hold, even the struggle of the late night strike at Ironforge's gryphons. She should have been there. That's fine with me. If she's dead, I can bury everything she dug up back where it belongs. For the rest of us, life goes on.

Malethia's still playing games even though she called me to say she was ending them. Right. I think she'll find I don't move my pieces where she wants them. If I die, I die. Alone or in company is a meaningless qualification. I live how I live while I live. Nothing else matters.

[Qabian]

I have a weakness for conversation. I have to admit that at least to myself. I say too much. I talk too much. There are those who think I am utterly silent. It should stay that way. Otherwise, they'll realize they can ask questions and I will have to answer them.

And I had to know! She should have just told me he was dead. Let me believe it until I saw otherwise. Dead to her at least. But no, he still lives.

If Larinth was still alive... But that wasn't love. It was friendship. He never held me back. He would have pushed me forward. He would have been Grim himself. He would have been my standard to measure myself against. Now who's my standard? I'm forging ahead, making my mistakes and living with them without anyone to emulate but myself.

But if he were still around to ask me for mercy again, I would have to give it to him, and then whose murder would I confess to in order to maintain the will to live? So it's not going to happen again. Ever. Hers still lives, and will ask her for mercy, and she'll break. They always do. It's why I can't.

What is hate anyway? Loathing? Fear? Disgust? Yes, yes, and yes.

An insistent desire to see them dead, dying, bleeding, hurting, crying, ended along with everyone who ever meant anything to them? Yes, that too, then.

A complete inability to function, communicate, or work together with them? Well, no. Khadgar, the Violet Eye, the Cenarions, the Argent Dawn, even Malethia all manage grudging cooperation, so I suppose she can have it as well.

Why couldn't she just have been dead? Why did she have to be there to answer my questions? Not that she could answer them in any way that made sense. But she did tell me what she didn't want to tell me. She never said where and who, but neither did I. But she did try and explain. Not that she could succeed. Not that I am capable of understanding, despite my insistence on an explanation.

Don't you dare agree with me. Don't you dare. You have no idea. None. Yes, the statements were phrased as if I was looking for some sort of consolation, but no. They were explanations. Nothing more. You know nothing. All that knowledge is worthless without the experience.

I didn't survive? Perhaps. She'll never know because she never knew who I used to be. I always believed in the power of the self. I had to. That part of me never died. I never had support from those who should have given it to me. I built support from those I found around me instead, and had that support torn out from under me, so I built a new support on the only person who can never abandon me, be taken from me, or ask for my mercy.

She'll never know. Never know what that's like. She still has them all. All of them? How? I suppose because I relied on those who were competent, they had to be there to fight and die, to survive and succumb. If you rely on cowards, idiots, and children, they never have to face real risk.

I suppose the fact that I still live is as good a reason to hate the Prince as any.

More empty threats. Yes, I would take the opportunity if it arose. Will there ever be an opportunity? Hell if I know. If she finds what she wants, there never will be. And she can call me safe, and holy, and tell me she doesn't hate me in return, and watch me seething with rage, completely incapable of harming her because she's finally realized the true power of narcissism.

[Qabian]

Yes, it's a game.

No, I can't be who I was.

Do I tell her I share that with another? Would she care? Would she hate me if I did? Would she hate me more later? I'll wait then.

Too many women. Not enough of them on fire.

Hm.

[Drinn]

((<gives Q a gas can> Pimping ain't easy.))

[Qabian]

What... happened?

Was that all an elaborate ruse then? Say something controversial in public, forcing me to take her to one side and talk to her alone to try and repair the damage? All the tears and emotions nothing more than intricate movements in manipulating me? If I could believe that for a minute, I would be very... impressed. That would be exactly what I was telling her to be and to do, to play these games, using deception and honesty wherever necessary for the end result to be what you want.

And she warns me of the treachery of women. How... direct. Perhaps insinuating that she has more tools at her disposal than I had assumed. Perhaps what I thought was weakness was truly selfish manipulation at work? Perhaps these doubts are exactly what she wants me to have? It would be such an odd and backwards way of acquiring my admiration, playing my own thoughts and feelings back and forth like a well-tuned instrument.

However, I find it very difficult to believe that her thoughts are actually so complex and driven. She did show weakness and has threatened to break on multiple occasions. If such threats were just more machinations... well, she's good. Very good. They had the definite illusion of reality.

But she is right to question. Both of them are. Why did I not simply take back her tabard as I did with Malethia? Why am I insisting on testing her, teaching her, convincing her of her errors and correcting them? Setrema's treason was not nearly so drastic as Malethia's. However, when she told me she was confused as to why I had not punished her with anything more than severe words and instructions for silence, I was confused in turn.

Am I failing myself?

No. The difference is greater than that. She is a mage. That is the reason I'm trying to repair the damage, strengthen the link in the chain, rather than breaking it and tossing it away. There are not enough of us working with true power that has not been borrowed or begged from other sources. And it is true when she came to us that she showed herself to be stronger and has only been weakening since, so I know the strength she is capable of having and that she should have again.

Malethia is still with us for the same reason. She was once a beacon of strength in the Grim who allowed herself to weaken and degenerate. There is still hope, however slim it seems, that her heart of Light will break and she will take up her old ways.

But while I have no pity for the Light thieves and will let them wallow in their idiocy, I am refusing to admit defeat with a mage. She will not fail me. She will not. I will do what it takes to freeze her heart again. If she does it only because she thinks she can win me as a result, I will work with that.

And if she does win, what then?

I did not think so far. I was sure she would decide that I was not as valuable as she had first assumed. The fact that this is apparently not the case is... confusing. She knows she will never be a friend. She knows I have no heart with which to care for her. But that does not mean I am free of appreciation, admiration, or pedestals. All it means is that when you ask me for pity, to submit my will to yours, to chain myself to you, I will refuse.

But if her goals are superficial, heartless in their own way, and her skills in manipulation far greater than I gave her credit for, perhaps I have opened doors that I should have left closed. Again.

I am... concerned.

But if she believes she truly cares for me, that is yet another weakness that I can and will exploit to my own ends.

[Qabian]

Setrema, Nymare, Cessily. Interesting how when they aren't around I have so little conflict in my thoughts. Fighting itself is a calming thing. Even taking down Vashj's people, the ones who saved my life, soothes where words incite frustration. See? We are all betrayers. She offered her hand to help. I was there. And in turn we strike at her and her own. No one is innocent. No one.

Cessily is turning out to be quite the little philosopher. She has appointed herself judge, jury, and executioner of those who she deems unworthy to share in her fictional world of peace and happiness that will never exist under any circumstances. The dreams of children are so pathetic. She forgets the Mandate has more than three words. She forgets it has more than one! And she insists instead on her Mistress' dream for peace. The Mistress forgot her own Mandate. That's why she's no longer its caretaker. But Cessily's reason for not realizing where her loyalties are supposed to lie? Either Syreena's fault or the girl's own childish ignorance.

And Cessily still follows Kael'thas simply through blind arrogance, an inability to see with her own eyes what he is doing, let alone recognize his motives. I firmly believe that the Prince's motives are not so different from my own. He simply has more power than I do. For now. He has far more people working on an endless variety of sources to increase that power. That's what all of that is. Can she not see that? I give him the benefit of the doubt. He also saved our lives. That doesn't stop me from fighting Vashj. Despite our longer history, it won't stop me from fighting the Prince, either. Neither will it stop me from appealing to him the day his interests suit me more than the Grim's.

Yes, Kael'thas is obviously being manipulated by others, but he is not so weak as to walk into such things as blindly as Cessily does. The Eredar have a history of selecting those most likely to follow them for their own reasons, rather than needing to use coercion of any sort. The Grim are my Eredar, ha! I follow them on their mission of destruction for reasons entirely my own. Unlike others, I am not afraid to make such comparisons. I choose my path as the Prince has chosen his. Yes, we are like the old Horde, just another force bent on annihilation. The Grim is slightly more discriminating than the Legion, but as Cessily has noted, not by that much. The Legion's end goal has never been peace, either. Of course, neither is mine.

I don't care for the Horde any more than she does, but there are plenty of Grim who fight for their people, and not for the Grim itself. Ultimately, that is the Mandate. It's written down. We agree to it before the Grim even look at us as possible minions. If Cessily can't accept pride as a reason to fight, she can't accept anything. She's going to have to cope with it or simply fail.

Nymare has a way of bringing my vulnerabilities to light and taking advantage of them. It's the strongest reason I have to hate her and want her dead, or at least broken. We have chipped away each other's defenses with words, and we have hurt each other, although both of us would deny it to any who asked. I said I would not dance. I lied. Not for the first time. Of course, Nymare deciding that the costume Setrema designed made me the Korialstrasz to her Alexstrasza was awkward enough in itself. I only wore it because my interest in the success of the event remained, whether or not Setrema seemed to want my role reduced.

But where Setrema tried to command me to humiliate myself, demand it in front of the others, to the point where I had to refuse or look like a pawn rather than simple encouragement, Nymare instead convinced me. She gave me three reasons I could take and use for my own. Setrema gave me none. Nymare is conniving where Setrema is merely confused. Yes, I told the girl to decide what she wanted and stop at nothing to get it. Acting the bully is effectively stopping at nothing. She should have learned that by now from the boy who follows her around.

Of course, I still don't entirely understand why Nymare files all her complaints with me. Surely there must be someone else worth harassing on occasion.

Setrema constantly accuses me of making her doubt herself. If she relies on my opinion of her to give her value, of course she doubts herself. I doubt her. She makes me doubt her at every turn. I tell her to have a mind of her own, to act in her own interests only, but she instead comes back to me always, wanting me to act for her. If she wants me to act for her, she will have to convince me that it is in my best interests. She won't convince me of anything when she doubts herself simply because she disappoints me. She will have to recognize she is stronger than that. I am never going to see strength where she can't see it herself. She should spend less effort on me, and more on realizing who she is. Once she is comfortable in the latter, then if she still wants the former, those efforts will suddenly be more productive.

But she does have potential. Unfortunately, it's volatile. She can be a shining example of malice one minute and then crying on Nymare's shoulder the next. And both Setrema and her priest dog have an incredibly annoying habit of saying what I want to hear. Neither Cessily nor Nymare ever say what I want to hear, unless they mean it. They both get a certain degree of respect from me as a result. Pandering to me is not impressive. If it was, Malethia would not have so brutally lost the game she played that day. Yes, I am egotistical, but what impresses me is those who have egos of their own, not those who subjugate themselves to mine in desperate attempts at my favor.

If Setrema can truly break her dog as she implies she attempted, then I will be impressed, especially when he comes whining to me in the background, asking for my advice. I give him only the same advice I give to everyone. If he listens to me, that would make him a formidable stumbling block for Setrema. She will either break him despite me, or he will win, and she will crack instead. All I need to do is sit and watch. Although, I think I may even have seen her wear that dress, though not for long. Perhaps she was conflicted about it. If she can rid herself of conflict, then she can learn more truth, honestly discover all that knowledge both she and Nymare will sell their souls for. Perhaps Setrema can freeze her dog's heart when she freezes her own. Both will be better for it.

I left early. I never stay to see these things through. I never have. Although in decades past, I would leave early for very different reasons. I do wish I'd stayed long enough to observe the scheduled rematch between my mage and the pickpocket, though, ha! Perhaps there will be another opportunity.

[Lovely]

((Love your journals. OOC, Qabian is one of my favorite characters on the server. He needs to be a James Bond villain.))

[Malethia]

((Qabian doesn't talk about me enough. I demand more face time!))

[Qabian]

Hatred is a powerful tool, but it can overwhelm and smother. I spend more time standing staring at nothing recently, my thoughts off on their own tangents entirely without focus.

And when my hate turns to those who at least claim to be Grim, as it does now almost daily, I must find a way to stem the tide. The knights fail me at every turn. All of them. Every single one. I am done with them. I find it extremely irksome that if I want to truly divest myself of their ludicrous nonsense, it will take a large amount of effort on my part. It is no one's fault but my own, of course, but I am shackled by order itself to not be able to cope with it as I would. I would follow Lascivious and remove them all. All of them.

And then I would be removed. Unacceptable.

The Draenei are not nearly as incorruptible as they would pretend, it seems. I watched her. She used the power of magic to seek out a magewraith.

I remember who my allies are. I remember.

[Qabian]

People assume I am incapable of relaxation simply because I am guarded or perhaps because I express open hostility. At least once a week, someone will tell me to relax.

I have moments of chaos where all I want is clarity, but no one ever seems to notice and demand relaxation of me at those times.

They only notice when I hold something back that they ask for, or when I refuse to say what they want to hear.

For the moment, I am perfectly calm. If I seem defensive, it is simply because I'm not responding the way you might hope. I am not suddenly going to become an open book to anyone. I am not "wound up". I'm simply not what you want.

Yes, I have my concerns. For the moment, I'm ignoring them. You know what they say about ignorance.

[Qabian]

There is much to think about, but in the end, what needs to be done is obvious.

I don't even remember why I said what I did. Yes, they need to die. No young blood elf deserves to grow up with that for a parent, whether they know it or not. His blood running in their veins? More than enough reason to end them before they start. No, having other parents would not improve them. It couldn't. I have no pity. It's only common sense. Their blood is diseased. Could it be redeemed? I don't care. Not going to bother to answer the question. Whatever they could grow into with the current state of things could not be of benefit to anyone, more importantly to myself. End them now.

And I would send Thrysta after them simply for the amusement of it. I won't, but I would.

The others? Propagate our race through procreation? Not my concern. What he's doing is hardly propagation. It's degeneration. Cure the disease. Cauterize it before it spreads and infects our people.

If they're born to whores, rather than idiots, they can be raised by the city. Send them to the academy as soon as they can walk, earlier even. Hell, give them to the Farstriders for all I care. Parenting is a useless middle step that only serves to breed psychotics and weaklings.

If they're born to others -- they must be born to whores. Only whores would concern themselves with bringing children into this world the way it is. No one with a mind capable of thinking beyond the physical act of breeding would subject true innocence to Azeroth.

If I had a child, I would kill it.

We are heading for Vashj. Her people fall before us.

She saved my life.

Her reward? We seek to bring her down.

It will be the same with us.

It will be the same with our children.

Is this a sign of heart? Perhaps. A heart that was lost. For all that I am who I am, and that I would encourage others to be themselves as they are, after everything, and the Grim, I would not start again and I hate those who would create another hourglass for this world to shatter.

I am content. I am happy. I am happy to hate.

There is a reason I envy the Forsaken. I would not become them, but I would rather leave the world to the cursed than "save" my people, than propagate. We died with the Sunwell. We are all of us the phoenix, but I would not bring new life into a world of ashes. That would be true injustice.

And there may be a time when we learn the secrets the Guardians held from us. Perhaps the Legion can be defeated utterly. The day all enemies are defeated, all secrets are revealed, when the ley walkers have their maps completed on this world and every other, my purpose then will end, I suppose. Then you can have your children, and I will return to the fire that created me.

((Fixed, thanks!))

[Qabian]

Maryellen has informed me of some rather tasteless goings on in my own home tonight.

Seems I need to find a new butler.

But I won't. No, I'm firing them all. Except the girl. I've killed her myself, twice. I can do it again if necessary. This is the last straw. I will not have filthy treacherous whore dogs waltzing in the front door to spread their feculent muck on my property because of lax employees who don't understand that their very lives depend on having some minor degree of competence.

But I won't kill him, no. It'll be much worse for him to be without a station, to be a blood knight and nothing more, to lose his decades of servitude and be just another wandering adventurer with no master, no house, no pride, no more reason to exist, no reason to work. Perhaps he'll learn he was responsible for the deaths of a few of the others he worked with. Perhaps he'll realize himself into something more truly Grim. Perhaps I'll have another see to it that he does.

I'll protect the estate with magic now, magic in combination with more tangible, less elegant methods. There will be no entry by anyone other than myself and the girl, and even she will be informed of the dangers without being told how to maneuver around them. I'll be giving up a few comforts, but I had few comforts when I was a student. It will be good for me to return to a more ascetic lifestyle. This luxury was my mother's wish, not mine. With her gone and this final betrayal, there's no more reason to keep up the charade.

No one can be trusted, especially knights.

[l3rokken4ngel]

((but Rosa still <3 and respects you Q! T_T))

[Qabian]

Nostalgia is a curious thing.

Do I miss her? No. I'm quite glad she's gone. But when I go out in the world, she follows me about like a ghost. Perhaps that's why I spend so much time in Outland. She isn't there, except on that one floating rock in Terokkar.

But when I'm asked for a tour, it's not Setrema that I see next to me on the boat.

When a passing sin'dorei knight arrives out of nowhere in the heart of Alliance territory, blesses, and continues on their way, it's not Nymare I see taking a second surprised glance.

And when that engineer with his failed mind control cap desperately wants to kill me, it's not Nymare that I see murdering him.

I think she took what I said far too literally. Why would I remember him from prison? No, literally's not the correct word. Too... seriously. It was an offhand comment, sarcasm, as close as I get to humor. The girl's heart was broken long before I took her there. It was there that I told her that as cold as I might seem, I am not above using others to my own ends, and I think at that point she realized the pedestal she had me on was entirely a fiction of her own creation, so the comment seemed appropriate.

Theramore simply holds much... nostalgia. And Fiora... That I can't really explain.

There was a strange sense of refreshment to it, watching them dance and fail, losing all patience, forgetting that there are many ways to wreak havoc with minds and property, as we -- as I have not done for months.

The mage is lost. I am unimpressed. On the one hand, I'm not willing to let her simply fade away. On the other, her focus is entirely skewed. She needs to find value in the deaths of our enemies. That is what we are. It is what we do. It is why I agreed to test her at all. Yes, she can aid that cause with parties and social events if she must, but the focus, the Mandate, is still there at its essence. If it's not, then she is not with us, and perhaps she needs to set sail. I will be exceedingly disappointed if I lose her power to something as simple as a lack of focus.

[Qabian]

Time to exercise my sarcasm, I suppose.

Died because I was not following the Artificer? No. Died because no one else was, because those like her were off making fools of themselves instead of watching our backs while I was trying to provide the appropriate method of transportation. Died attempting to do good for the Grim rather than keeping my concern for myself above that for others. I could have entered my portal immediately, but I waited. If anything, it was another required lesson in the idiocy of altruism.

Can't take a single hunter? No, I can't. Certainly not while I'm both wounded and busy trying to cast spells for the benefit of those incapable of following orders. Although Nymare did offer to teach me. Perhaps someday when I really have nothing better to do than sling fireballs at other Horde, I will bother to practice dueling.

But am I going to explain all this to you? No. I'll just grin and nod and provoke you into continuing to talk with your ass, you deluded fool.

She taunts me with words. She'll only get words in return. She thinks I'm an idiot. I know where my skills lie, and one on one combat is not the place. I stand at a distance or provide distractions for others, or I fight, knowing I will lose, simply to show that I care to fight. I don't care to fight her. She's a worthless piece of gutter trash, good for ruining perfectly capable servants and causing them to blatantly ignore direct orders, nothing more.

Bravery is not something of which I have ever been accused. Recklessness, perhaps. I caused more Alliance pain with fire today than she could ever cause in a day with knives. I will always take advantage of a situation. I will wait until the enemy are wounded or under attack from others. Or I will wait until I have the advantage of numbers on my side. Or I will follow those with knowledge of tactics and maneuverability that I myself have never bothered to study. Or barring all that, I will expect to fall defeated, and fight anyway. When I care to do so.

I do not fight to prove myself, as she does. I have no need to prove myself. I do not question myself. I know where my power is. Perhaps one day I will be able to kill her with a glare when I deign to give her such, but for now, if she wants to fight me, like the witch, she will learn I do not knowingly walk alone into fights I intend to win.

She will never enter my home again. If she makes the attempt, she'll lose her life in the process.

And if she strikes at me from the shadows, she will learn that there are those who trust me, despite everything I have done, and she will face their wrath rather than my own. She is not worth my wrath, only my words, tossed back at her as petty and meaningless as her own.

Besides there are more deliciously excruciating ways to hurt others with words rather than blades.

Malebrignon took the Knights from me. I have a certain gratitude, although it seemed somewhat unceremonious. I would have asked for more ceremony, yes. I imagine I may have to answer questions now. Or perhaps not. In either case, I feel a certain freedom as a result, freedom to attend where I wish, rather than feeling continually distracted by that cluster of mentally deficient oafs.

The Alliance don't seem to care much for Kalimdor. I suppose that is what makes it an excellent place for Thrall's stronghold. The Kingdoms, however, they cling to ridiculously. Strange, considering our grip on the North.

Jaina is... It is obvious why the rumors of... Setrema is right.

I hope that girl has returned to her senses. She seems to have done so, but I never thought she would lose them so terribly in the first place.

[Qabian]

Now she only asks questions to which she already knows the answers.

"Do you feel like destroying something?"

Or she asks for stories I have no intention of telling. Otherwise she shows nothing, says nothing, just kills. We might as well be doing the same separately and alone for all I'm learning.

I don't know why I showed her how to -- I should have just let her drown in Ratchet attempting to appease her overwhelming curiosity. One less method available now. But the curiosity is still there, and it seems abusing it would still be my best chance of acquiring her permanent silence indirectly. Or it would be if I could stop revealing secrets. Damn...

I still haven't deciphered why there were so many cats in Darkshire.

Muatah's situation is worrying. Perhaps things will be smoother now, but the Tauren... hm.

Acherontia... I don't want that ruffian anywhere near me. As much as I'd enjoy seeing her suffer and "overcome," or rather seeing her utterly fail to do so as I suspect will happen, she disgusts me. I'd rather wear a human skull cap still filled with bloody gray matter on my head than spend any more time than absolutely necessary with that delinquent.

Still, still, still.... I have been spending too much time at Bloodcurse. It's odd to have the sensation of being left behind in time, as though you were born ten thousand years too late to make things right.

[Qabian]

Accused again of humility.

Perhaps it's because I'm excruciatingly disappointed in my people. Sylvanas is stronger for what she is. Better. No, I wouldn't want to be in her place, but what she has become is proof of her power and the true force of her will. Krinathalasa is an idiot. If she didn't pull so much weight with Malebrignon, she would be long gone.

I am not humble. But I am presented with evidence of idiocy all around me. I'm supposed to ignore it?

I don't think the General has any idea of the hell I've placed on his shoulders. He thinks that other than the one, they responded well. It's a good thing his back is covered in plate.

Bir thinks he has a will from Malorii. Hilarious. Why would she tell him she left things for him with me? Why would she even write a will in the first place? She was expecting to die? As far as I know, she was planning to bring the other back. I'm sure he scribbled it himself with his own piece of charcoal just for another reason to play his psychotic mindgames with me. Even if I still had what she left with me, he'll never see it.

I found a place on Azeroth where her ghost doesn't exist. There aren't many of them, but I found one.

I find it easier to work with the corpses than my own. That is how the Grim have changed me. Acherontia, Nymare, both of the butlers -- which of them impress? That is how the Lich changed me. That is how the Sunwell changed me. The next time Silvermoon burns, they can rebuild it without my help.

Nazjatar...

[Qabian]

What the hell? Damn it!

...

DAMN!

This overflow of pink, candies, flowers, fragrances, fireworks, it's worse than that gods be damned Winter's Veil. It's addling everyone. I'm staying the hell away from all of it and it's still driving me to distraction. Just burn the world and everything in it. It all needs to die. All of it.

I had it. It was right in front of me, ready to be finished and complete, so simply, so easily. I could have ended the whole thing. And I let it slip through my grasp.

Now I have to go back to waiting.

I can wait. As long as it takes. Delicate balance in place. Missed my chance to turn it in my favor. Hesitation is criminal. And they wonder why I rush headlong into things I shouldn't.

Something's wrong. I have to fix it. Or this is just going to keep happening.

But I don't know where I went wrong. All the pieces laid out so perfectly and I just knocked over the board. What -- I don't -- This isn't --

Damn.

As for that circus, I don't even care. It was a slap in the face to witness, but I know who needs to die for it. That at least I know.

[Qabian]

Sin'dorei in the Grim are such a curious operetta, too laughably ridiculous to be anything more serious, and yet continuous and cyclical.

I hope I can blame the season for me noticing it just now. I dislike being caught up in these little stories. I am never at the center, but somehow I seem to touch all of them. No matter how often I try to wash my hands of them, they keep affecting me. His, hers, theirs, yours. I should have said no to Grainger. Hiding in the shadows would be easier then, but the mages... she fails me.

There are far more important things that need to be done. I have hope, but it is dim in the midst of the pink glare coming off of everyone these days.

And if Acherontia comes at me with a box and some ribbon, someone is going to regret ever having asked me questions sooner rather than later. That's one question I wish she'd answered truthfully because all of her actions since have been inconclusive. She said she knows, but I think she lied.

I don't like waiting. I can do it. I will do it. When I need to. But I don't enjoy it.

[Qabian]

Why. can't. I. SHUT. UP?!

I am losing my mind. Or it's already lost. I lost it a long time ago. Maybe the weapon took it. She talked circles, but I never told her what you know. I wanted her silenced and I got her silenced, but you know more and you keep just getting more words.

She'll know what to do. If I could get to her, she could tell me. She could tell me how to kill you, and her, and him, and them, so I wouldn't need to kill myself. I wonder if she would, though. She is not a goddess, but she might think she is one now. She might ask in return. I do not want to return. I just want power. The power to shut up. But how will I know if I can't find her? Maybe when I die, she'll be there. Maybe she's already dead.

This isn't how it's supposed to be. None of this is meant to be. We are, but not like this. We should be pure and intense. Instead all of us are cursed. And I must beat secrets from her sister because of demons. Purity and intensity called them to us, but why were they out there to be called? It's wrong. This is our world, not theirs. We should never have had to share. They could have been nothing more than pawns then, pawns instead of enemies, pawns to kill each other with. Now they live alone until we kill them.

Why was he even there? To rescue the Draenei? He's a hero now? Heroes don't use poisons. Or curses. They were on the way. I didn't care about them. They stood in my way. I slaughtered them. The ancient toppled and I watched him unbalance and fall, the sound of cracking wood bringing echoes of the dragons' failure to my mind. It was my doing. My fire. Mine. I wanted death at my hands. I didn't think about them. I don't care about them. I don't care about anyone. Can you hear me? Of course not. No one can hear me. Too many echoes. I DON'T CARE!

I am not a warlock. Why was he there? Was it the Draenei? I didn't know they mattered so much to anyone. I burned so many. Then I found clarity. Then I burned more. No one came for them. Only she and I, trying to right the wrongness. No, only those ones, to trap us on the bridge. I was not hunting. The hunt was over. I was fishing and then I wanted to be close, so I went. He stopped us in the road for all the bodies I left in my wake, that I left, me. He bled me like an animal, and then I turned to the shadows and ran. I had to run. I needed to be as close as I could get. I don't need her. She's not mine. She is her own. She does what she does, not what you want, not what I want. She wants -- she doesn't know what she wants.

He's just another demon chained to a warlock, like he always has been, like he always will be. That's right, I know. You think you hunt them, but you're just their toy, like everyone else who plays the Legion's games. Enjoy your slavery. When she comes back, you'll drown with the rest.

It's not my fault she followed, but it's her fault you hurt her. She didn't do it. I did it. She took credit for my work, for my fire. It was mine. Can you hear me? IT WAS MINE. Too many echoes.

Can I break her? Should I break her? I don't care. She's a slut with a knight like every other slut with a knight now. She's failing me and failing the Grim, but I've stopped caring. Break her for me then. I won't care about that either.

I need to find her. But it's not real. No, this isn't real. This isn't what was supposed to happen. She knows what is real. She knows why I fail. She knows why I can't do what's necessary. She must. No one else could understand how things are supposed to be. She still lives. She needs to live. I need to find her. I doubt she'll care I have the blood of her children on my hands. Her children will always squabble amongst themselves. What is important is only that she tells me what went wrong and how I can be fixed. It can be fixed. They can be fixed.

It's not perspective. It's not so simple as perspective. Perspective is a pathetic term. You think Kael'thas betrays us because of his perspective? No. It's his eyes. It's my eyes. It's how the world fits in them. It's how things don't fit in them. It's more than perspective. It's the way things should be. It's the way things need to be. I need to shut up, but I can't. There are words with lives of their own. They don't obey my eyes. She'll fix that for me. She'll know how to force my words to obey my eyes.

"Take me with you sometimes." What? I take nothing but myself. Are you myself? That would explain -- NO ONE is me! "I won't go where I'm not wanted." That's you failing. You go where you want. Go where you want. I don't want you. I don't want your presence or your absence. You are meant to be here, so be here. They are not, so kill them. Fix what they broke. Make the world as it should be. All these things you say, you're the reason for it. YOU. Why won't you just die? Why can't I kill you?

I want nothing anymore. I want only what she knows and how to stop from being wrong. Mistakes must be corrected. We should learn from our flaws and fix them. But I keep making the same ones, so I haven't found the flaw yet. And who can tell me where I'm flawed? No one knows me. No one's like me. But she would. She was strong when everyone else fell. She would use them rather than be used by them. She would command whole nations of destruction and never be content as just another rank and file.

I don't want command. I just want to know why I am broken and how to kill you.

Burn it. Burn it all down. When the fires rage their hottest and the whole world burns, the oceans will rise and I will find her. But first, we burn it all, this world and theirs.

[Jeedup]

((rut roah, Qabians angry.))

[Nymare]

((I feel so sorry for everyone who has no idea who all the different "she"s are, "we", "the weapon", "he", and "you". I had to read it twice to figure out who's who. Think I got most of it.

But you'd think, with all his issues with women, of all the places he'd be looking for what he needs to fix himself, it would NOT be held by yet another woman-thing.))

[Qabian]

((I'd be surprised if even you managed to sort out all those pronouns Nym, and you're probably the only one who can, heh. The worse it gets, the less sense it's gonna make.

And he's not really any angrier than usual. Just a little more... messed up.))

[Setrema]

((he calls set a slut with a knight?))

[Qabian]

((I didn't say Set! It could be Cessily. Or Lascivious. Or... anybody? But Nym told on you, hehehe.))

[Kiaransalius]

((hehe set has bad taste in men :P I need to get more tied up in this, its fun.))

[Qabian]

Do I want her dead?

If she lives and hates me, she is not silenced.

Do I care?

No. Not anymore. Who would believe her? Who would care about what she knows? Why would it matter if she did? It's the same story we all have. It's her story. It's my story. It's not different. My weakness is the same as yours. And the fact that I'm out here is the worst part, and anyone who wants to know the lines of fracture only needs to open their eyes. She doesn't need to speak.

She should live and hate me, and suffer for knowing what she knows, live with knowing I'm real, and live with knowing she wants me dead, but not being able to kill me. Know what it's like.

If she lives and hates me, she will kill me. If she dies, she finds silence, hers and mine.

But she doesn't do either of those. She lives and she doesn't hate me, so I'm looking to the ocean for answers. Why? Because I believe they're there.

She thinks that's insane.

It is.

But I'm still here.

[Aest]

((hehe set has bad taste in men :P I need to get more tied up in this, its fun.))

((Hah.. Aest is a bad man?

Three months ago, sure. But I think you're forgetting how much he's progressed. Women for some reason bring out a better side in Aest.))

[Qabian]

((Aaagh, not in my journal! I can't even start on how wrong this is, hahaha, even if it did make me laugh water out my nose! Go toss tomatoes at Kia in game or something. Mostly 'cause Set's previous interests included Q, which I fully admit is a huge warning bell regarding bad taste, hehehe.))

[Qabian]

Why do they insist on continuing to play games?

I do have to admit it's been a while since I've done anything I could consider "fun," but I doubt even I could rationalize any further purpose to most of last night. There was the idea of running a distraction at first, but when no one makes use of it? It becomes havoc for the sake of havoc. Beauty in chaos. Nothing more than just another game, some death involved, but not enough out there. Too many walls to hide behind.

I am not a hunter. I think I prefer to be hunted. I always have. It's why I need to be hated, or why I needed to be. Because if you don't hate me, I have no reason to run. Reasons are important.

Very important.

I lose my reasons and I lose my mind. Threads of hate, yes. Weaving hate into something I can wear, something I can be. I need it. So when I don't need it anymore? Where have I gone? Who am I? It's not like I want something else instead of hate. But when I no longer want what I obviously should, when the threads mean nothing, when you can't even read the insults anymore, something is lost.

Yes, I think she knows where to find it. And what it is. She must. She changed. What is she now? I don't even know, but if she's still there -- she needs to be -- she must have a self that she can keep.

I have no problems with connections. Mine are all still built on hate. But hers are not. I doubt her. There will be others. There always are.

Unless you want only hate.

That's why I'm worried. If you want nothing instead of hate, that's a weakness. But I can still go about weaving more hate even if I don't want it. Maybe I should abandon the search. Maybe I don't need my answers that badly. If I just concentrate on creating hate, even when I don't feel the want for it...

I can't do it where I need to. Why?

But she will show me how to focus. I doubt she will use hate as a base, but focus nonetheless. Power. Magic. Reality. And that will be enough, I think. Show me how not to need what I want. Show me how to want what I don't need.

It's not respect. I don't need hate from fear. I think I would be more imposing if I did. I will take hate from anything. I will take hate from dislike, distaste, annoyance, boredom, confusion, assumptions, insults, silence, anything. To be enjoyed is worse than --

No. To be ignored? Maybe. And that seems to be what I want now. At times. Silence. We shared too much? We did. Watching from the shadows, watching them hate each other, and if I'm lucky, me. Or running from one camp to another, destroying for the sake of destruction.

The lies, though, cause concern, I think. I don't like that game. I prefer mine.

I am jealous, but not of what they think. I think I've stolen it, though. A moment's contentment. Yes, those who need to be hated can find contentment.

But it was far from the ocean, locked in by mountains, and I did not want to touch that lake, knowing what I've done to it.

There are some things I can't forgive. Some things...

I'm lost.

[Qabian]

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

It's our word. Ours. If you just give it to them, that's like handing them the keys. They lost it. We took it. It's ours now. Don't let them have it so easily. Fight for it. Keep it. Make it real.

I don't judge? I don't. But I do. Don't I? If I don't, that explains... That might... Maybe that's why...

Hm.

But I do. Most would say I do. I'm quite sure I do. She's just different. That's at the root of this problem.

They can use magic. Why? How? By killing us? Odd. Such a false prophet to say what he says and cut us down. Yes, we deserve it, but who doesn't? Let he who is without sin...

I tested. Blue on blue. Only reason to go to Moonglade. But nothing. I had hope in that. Too much hope, I think. I need to find more books. There may be clues.

Refused to share that. I need some things for me. Too much is shared. Maybe it's time to start telling lies.

[Qabian]

No proof? NO PROOF?! What the hell?!

Whatever it is that she thinks is proof, she'll never see it from me. Never. That is enough for me. I know what she thinks now. I don't need to change it.

I thought I could learn -- I did, though. I did. I got through. I got my answers. She thinks she avoided them. She thinks avoiding answering questions leaves me in the dark. But she also thought she knew what I was asking. Naiveté is the easiest thing to abuse.

She doesn't lie to me? Oh how sweet. I'm so valuable. Must preserve that integrity before me. If I believe you're a liar, I might -- what? I might take the time to consider your words? Decipher them? Examine them? I hate those who cannot lie. Who think I cannot tell the difference. Perhaps I should make an example -- mm, but no one knows he refused to lie. I could still arrange an... accident. You should have lied. You should have lied.

If she has always intended to tell me the truth...

That's not...

She says too many things in jest. I can't believe any ever present honesty. I won't. Maybe she's right. I can believe whatever I want. Maybe she's right.

Except for the lies.

Honesty has its place. It's most effective when purposely sowing seeds of doubt. Honesty rarely equates to certainty. Honesty is the very act of questioning what is real. Perhaps that's all she has done to him, to me, to her heroes, all of it a fiction to get what she wants.

There's something good in that. Getting what you want.

Would be better if she had the slightest idea.

I have always lied. Lying keeps me sane. Honesty makes me crazy. The question always comes back to getting what I want.

I'm not sorry I lied. This way is far more interesting.

What do I want? I want to know. I want to see. I don't need to stand here for that. There are other things I can do. I will do them, too. I will do everything. I will lie and I won't. And when there is nothing to do, I will keep looking.

[Qabian]

I can wait. I can.

There must be some sort of balance between patience and action. It is... difficult. I have never been patient, but with enough distractions, I can wait when necessary. It is necessary now. I still don't know what is preventing action, and I still must find out, but in the meantime, I think I can make the pretense that things go well enough.

There is research to be done that may be more insightful than the sea itself.

I'm sure she questions my motives with the dragons, but they are my own. There is a connection between this and there and those and her. I am just not sure what it is yet. Haleh is not particularly forthcoming with information, but the blues are still guardians of... something, of whatever they have, of things that I could use. I'm certain of that much. And what the blues work with is much more familiar than what the bronze abuse. I will speak with her much more before this is over.

Humans are idiots. I don't believe children have any place in this world, and even I know that's more than stupidity. That's malice against the self. Perhaps they'll die out on their own. Not that that makes it any less entertaining to burn them all. I wonder if Garithos had family. I'm sure if he did, they've long since been hunted down.

Vashj will... give me what I need.

That was a strange place for angry spirits, most of them Light workers. That could not have been the plague. It must have been something else. Curious, though likely irrelevant.

She follows me around like a lost pet. I do not keep pets. I have nothing left to attribute that to but simple curiosity. Silence? No. Knowledge? Hardly. My observations? She knows what I'm observing now, and there's nothing left to see. She must just wonder what I do, and there is still the Grim to think about. I don't believe I am that intriguing. I am simple enough. There is only so much to me.

At least there is only one of her. All the others who have made attempts at such ridiculous nonsense gave up much more quickly. She is strange. Simple curiosity on that meaningless level must be a much more difficult thing to satisfy or discourage, I think. There always seems to be something more.

I could tell her to leave me alone, but... I'm not sure she would listen, and I'm not sure... that whatever game we have is over. Best to pretend it is, I suppose. She believes I'm safe. That makes me... just leave it. Fix it if you need to. Leave it be if you don't. Other things to see to. Other things to concentrate on. Other deaths to seek. Other hates to build. She is... unique.

She's a child. She didn't need to confess it to me. I knew from the arrangements and the hands. That's not the talk of Farstriders. That's the talk of those who titter behind fans at cotillions.

I lied. And I will do it again.

Abric gave Cessily his voice. Odd. I sincerely doubt Abric would seduce one of my household staff into blatantly tossing aside his life's work for a night of psychosis in the servants' quarters. If he had, the results would be the same, but the idea is still disturbing. I doubt Abric would imply I cannot take care of myself based on little to no knowledge of how I live simply in the hopes of provoking me into doing something decidedly stupid. He would get about as much respect as Cessily does if he did. But if he believes she can be leashed in such a manner, he's certainly welcome to the attempt. I suppose time will tell this and everything else.

[Qabian]

She's not me.

Most days.

Is that why...

The dragons just...

I could ask them. Would it be that simple? No, if the dragons could find her, so could we. Couldn't we? They are just like us. It doesn't exist for us, so it doesn't exist for them either. If it did, they would have answered my questions, especially the red. The blue know the value of secrets, but why would the red hold life so low? Maybe they knew I wouldn't kill it?

Just more garbage. It makes her strangely happy. I suppose what makes me happy is garbage to someone.

I'm not used to masks. They are difficult to maintain at such length.

No, that's not true. I've always worn them.

But never in the mirror.

There is only one explanation.

That is most days.

I think I can live with that.

She never thanks me. I think she's the only one. Does that mean she understands?

I don't know. That's the problem. I don't know. But I do know who does.

They all fail me, but how can I accuse them when I fail myself?

I need a stronger mask for the mirror. Or her.

[Qabian]

Apparently I haven't lost my touch, as much as Nymare might insist. She is an exception. Everyone else is the rule and everyone else reacts as they should.

Lies, lies, all lies. I don't follow her around. Occasionally it seems like she's in my shadow, but I can lose her when I need to, so whatever she is, she is on her own.

I can always hope for something. No matter what it is, I'll find a way to use it.

I told her too much again, but now I want to leave it at that. Now that those things exist as someone else's knowledge, that my dead parents didn't take everything to their graves, I want to send all those who insist I am without logic to talk to her. She would tell them nothing of course. Or she would lie to play games. Or she would tell the truth to play games and make them guess what was real and what was not.

But either way, she knows what no one should. I would keep what little is left of my own words and let them question her instead.

I will still find my answers. Here. In these things, these pages, this magic. Mages can be anywhere they want to be after all, right? These things will take me where I want to go. Given enough time...

Self-doubt is the worst disease.

And she accused me of not taking another chance. What chance? A chance for what? That game is over. I lost. Or I gave up. Disappointed in my own failures, I took my things and went home mid-fight. Familiar? Ha! I'm not playing anymore. He doesn't want to protect her. What he wants to protect does not exist. Can I destroy what he imagines? Quite possibly. And doing so threatens nothing but his own sanity which is already questionable.

She is an exception. She can know what she knows. She can use it to win. I don't even know what she would think that is. Winning? For her? They say so much and know so little. She is what she is. I know enough, but I will never understand. I suppose abandoning her to her own existence may be enough to get me what I used to want. But I'll let time play that game without me.

I don't learn? You have nothing to teach that I don't already know. If I am impossible to teach, then I can do whatever I like, can't I?

I am being asked for my expectations. I have tried to construct them, but as I do, I realize there are others who need them, too many, and the specifics are difficult. I need more time.

There are days I want to turn the world on its head to go back to the fray I was competent enough within during the time after I earned my titles. Or to leave the fray behind entirely and walk the paths I did in school. Too late now, I suppose. If nothing else, I have my focus.

There is a connection with the blue. I'm sure of it. Why else would they walk those naga infested shores? But the spirits of dragons tell me nothing, no matter how many of their children I slaughter. These stories may yet hold the key, but I wonder if I am only reading them because it will seem less like wasted time to her than reading the horizon.

[Qabian]

At least she's as confused as I am.

Why would she tell me all of that?

Why would I say all I said?

But no, I wanted to know. If I had such things, I would want to test them. I would need to know if they still held. I would use the safest, quickest, easiest way. That's what I suggested doing. Was it unreasonable? No, she was searching for hidden intentions. I hid nothing. I wanted to know if they still held. Would I use that to my advantage? I would. But she doesn't understand what my advantage is anymore.

She didn't understand.

She never has. It's not understanding she has. It's something else. Something I'll find... from somewhere else.

I don't know everything. The more I'm looking for answers, the more questions come to light.

Why did she ask me to go there? Because she gets lost? I don't know that place well. I have stolen things from there on occasion, but...

Why did I agree to go? I have even less reason. I got what I could from them, but I never would have thought to go on my own.

She doesn't understand.

I hate that place. It's kaldorei. What she sent me? It's all kaldorei. Pretense at otherwise is lies. The wrong side of the sea. The relics are more important than the ghosts. I don't want the dead. I want those that still live, twisted as they are, as we are. The ghosts, those on the wrong side decided power had no more value. They gave it all up to become weak infants buried in dirt, hiding from the sun while we rebuilt once-greatness. And every time we lose it, we rebuild it again. Maybe that's our fate.

That cycle means nothing to me. I don't want to keep the cycle going. Does that make me its enemy? I want off the wheel. I'm going my own way. I'll burn out the way I want to do. I'll do everything I want. I'll map the magic on other worlds, and then I'll go. Who would stop me?

As for the idiot pair, why would their involvement of themselves be in any way important? It's not. They're just testing her, provoking her. It's working.

Lying is easy. It should be especially easy to do to those whose minds retain no information whatsoever. But those ulterior motives don't exist. She wants them to? I don't know. I don't understand.

I don't know enough warlocks then. I would test them on Acherontia. Or perhaps dead blood no longer functions? Use the mental invalid, then. Convenient, simple, consequence free. Why not? His own opinion is irrelevant. His only value lies in giving the results of the test. Yes or no. Do they still work? That's what I want to know. That's what I want.

But she doesn't understand. She expects something else. She wants my ulterior motives that I just don't have.

She sees all the facets already. Just another facet seemed harmless, or at least only as harmful as the rest. I wanted to know what -- but her words changed again. She lied again. She hides all her lies behind a veil of time. "It wasn't a lie. Things changed." No. It was still a lie. I remember what she said before. I notice when the story changes. Makes no sense. I don't understand.

She might not hate me, but at least she doesn't trust me.

Or does she?

She tells me too much. She answers my questions and hides the truth only by degree as I do hers. But why? Why do either of us answer those questions? Why do either of us let the other ask?

When did I ever want her silence? I only ever told her she would want mine. She will, I think. I'll just put no more effort in it.

She wants me to keep playing. I suppose for the same reason she hates it when I read the horizon.

If he still hunts, I have another experiment to make, but not the time yet to make it. There will be time enough, even if I need to find another hunter.

I don't want him to enjoy it. I want him to die. I think I want her silence -- destruction for the sake of destroying -- and she wants something else. Agony? Humiliation? She is a warlock after all. If I followed through on my threats, in the end I would hope to leave him a mindless husk, not simply a tormented soul.

[Qabian]

That... was the strangest thing I have done in a long time, and I don't know why I did it.

Maybe just for Fynne.

[greebo]

(( Whatever it was you did, Greebo would say that that is a shame. *nothing* should be done just for Fynne ))

[Qabian]

((Even if it goes to driving him insane? Naw, I agree with you. /shame))

[greebo]

((Even if it goes to driving him insane? Naw, I agree with you. /shame))
(( See? Driving him insane is for you for the lulz ;) ))

[Qabian]

What the hell? I gave her copies because I thought it would bait her, make her angry. I thought she would care enough to lash out over it, to demand whatever else I had made. Instead she said she had expected me to do exactly that, and then proceeded to look at me like I'm crazy. Not that I haven't given her enough reason to think -- but she was so intent on getting it back. Why? Because she didn't have the good sense to make copies of her own? Yes, I made variations. I was testing them to see if I could get a reaction with magic, different inks, different lines, to see if there was something more to them than what she had told me.

I copied it for the knowledge, to test it. That's what I do. Is there an aesthetic to it? Yes. Aesthetic can be converted into knowledge. Aesthetic affects the viewer. How? Is there some arcane quality inherent in aesthetic appreciation, so that the common appreciate the common and the elite appreciate the elite? All of it, aesthetic, arcane, fel, it's study, just learning, information to be tested and stored. She thinks I've lost my mind, but an exercise like that seems to me like finding it. Testing, learning, attempting, deciphering, unlocking the code within. It was hardly pointless. I was just searching for the point.

Of course I would like to see the other sheets. I would also like to see what's at the bottom of the ocean. I don't need it now, though. I can derive it other ways. There are always more calculations to be deciphered from what exists. If someone cracks the code for me, then I move to the next step, but I can crack it on my own, given enough time. Why give her the satisfaction of demanding immediate answers? If she tests whether she can survive the jump and fails? Then maybe I'll try and find them.

Of course I showed it to the dragon. Of course I asked her what she thought. I tell the truth, and she forces me to lie. Then I lie to see the reaction. Apparently lies and truth combined make you an idiot child. Who knew? The beast didn't tell me anything I could use. She didn't seem to think there was any value in the design itself. In fact, I suspect that is also a lie. I suspect she knows exactly how much value there is in the design. Nothing or something, I don't know, but she knows how to keep secrets and I don't know how to extract them from those with a real desire to protect them backed by an efficient intellect.

She accused me of enough indirectly. I accused her of the same but with more force. That at least is me, according to what I told the other mage in any case. She accused me of an attitude. I accused her of an existence.

But she didn't understand. I'm just throwing her words back at her.

And how can she -- she says I'm not -- but when I tell her she isn't she -- what the hell? I don't need proof. I would never give any. Ever. Why would she even --

Curiosity is valid, for her and for me, but that doesn't mean I have to do every single thing she asks. I shouldn't always give in. I should still have things that are mine. She's seen --

Interesting? No, they're not. They just are. My fingers are the correct length for forming necessary gestures for spells, inherent aptitude in a physical quality. They're not hard farmer's hands, but they're apprentice's hands. Chores, excavation, libraries, daily existence when magic is more effort than picking up a broom -- just because I dislike filth doesn't mean I avoid work. I paid people for a few months, but before that and after that, I am perfectly capable of maintaining myself and what is mine. School did teach me a few things. I was never from one of those families. I earned my keep.

Her own blood ran across my fingers for far too long that night, but that isn't evidence enough for her. I can even hold a sword. It won't strike for much, but I learned to dance with one.

They could have been scarred, from the glass with the girl, but they're not. Residual effect or evidence of the lack thereof, I don't know. The only scar I have is the one I keep -- They have information for me, I suppose, but I know the story already. They should tell her nothing. She knows nothing.

She knows too much.

We had that conversation already, what hands are needed for. There's a lot you can do without hands and hands can do a lot on their own. I don't know what she thought she would learn, other than how far she can push. I was tired. And now I'm just annoyed. At her. At myself.

She didn't even look at my work, the work I left with her. That's terrifying. It suggests I've earned a certain level of trust that I should not have. Frustration. Regret. Confusion.

Next time she asks for something, I'll just say no.

Because that always works, doesn't it?

Damn it.

I need more time at Bloodcurse.

She suspects she has no heart. Did she bury it then? She had one. She still does. She still cares about something. Doesn't she? I had one, I think, but it was always different. It grew in a different place. It was never touched by love. I will never know it, and I will never value it. And I did bury it. I know because she dug it up and stabbed it herself when she was hurting. It wasn't love, but it was all the things that used to be important to me that aren't anymore. I joined the Grim and I killed the rest, as per the Mandate. Whatever might hold me back, I killed it.

Will she hold me back? She seems to push me forward. Like he did. And her family, as stupid as she's implied they were... Mother would be so proud, ha!

If she has no heart, there is no game to play. I prefer to think of her that way. She is much less confusing when she's heartless. Everything falls into place. It explains the exception, perhaps even the interest. We are so far beyond observations now. But then on nights when I have an attitude and she has an existence, she's a threat to something else, to me, to my divine right to what is mine. I choose. Me. No one else. My choice. She shouldn't even...

My queen? MY queen? Ahahaha! That is a claim I never made. Sylvanas, dead as she is, is the closest I have to a queen. The other is only clarity.

The girl is not a puppet. She's a shell, and a convenient one, and one I made. She has her own will, but I formed it, so it is built by me. I don't pull her strings, but I tied them to her. I think I'll notice if she starts to remember. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, hm?

Why did we even go out there? It was my suggestion because we were not going to the manor and that place had been secluded once, but we know he hunts. And she knows as well as I do that we would not have made it that far without killing something. Goldshire and Cessily were incidental. She was surprised I hadn't headed for Darkshire after all. Something about danger being interesting?

The mountain was an improvement, once you get past the dwarves and the heroes. When all that exists is pure molten fire, fire that will strike you for your trespasses, it almost feels like home, at least in terms of acceptance. Ha! Why ask for acceptance from me, when you can find it in something far more tangible?

The city is my home. She doesn't think it can be, but it is. The manor with its traps and intricate arcane forces woven into doors and walls, and its halls being stalked by ghosts that I created both living and dead -- it's a location of convenience, a storage facility, but it is not a home. Nothing matters there. I don't even care for the people within the city most days, but at least I can know that it will always be. Destroy that house, I'll find a new one. Destroy the city, and I'll rebuild it because I am sin'dorei and I remember.

[Qabian]

I just... All of that? A night of desperation.

Why did I agree to a masquerade? I was late anyway, making the whole exercise even more pointless. I don't make entrances, let alone when masked. And I left Nymare's idea behind until she had finished winning the hearts of the crowd and they dispersed enough to no longer be a problem. Still, there were too many there. Her logic was flawed in ways I didn't realize until I was already there. From the moment I realized what I'd done in agreeing to go, I desperately needed to be away, anywhere else. Those crowds were ghosts of the dead, especially without the Horde. It was Dalaran all over again. More rot, but the faces at essence the same. I did not want those ghosts.

But it had enough Grim in one place for us to roll across Azeroth and meet a wall of Light in Theramore.

It was an opportunity. I think I wasn't ready yet, but I have let too many slip away. I wanted to take it while it was there. They chased, so I ran. Nymare always in my shadow, but I lost her to the force that met us in Azure Watch.

I wanted to die with her, near her. My blood on her. Diseased as it is, no different from the moonwells? No, it was different. She is just as striking from the other side. Yes, I had hoped for something more. A door, a crack, a slip in reality, to learn that the likeness is in our world, but links to somewhere else, but no. A likeness is a likeness, nothing more. Clarity.

And they helped, gave me what I needed. Hammers and fire of the moon do little to spill blood, but claws did the work. Desperate to make my own sacrifice. When she comes back, she will know me. She will know my blood. She will clean it or she will drain it. Either way, I will see what she can do. I will learn what she knows. I might not get my answers, but I will see. Eyes open. Clarity at last.

And then the rogue pulled me away. The world is still here, behind the ghosts and the answers. I had an idea what she wanted from the moment she mentioned what she had to offer, but only because my mind has been turned that way enough recently without any means of working with results. No time. No money. No -- I shouldn't have -- hm.

But I still don't understand. The last time we spoke, we seemed different. She had... morals, ha! But much has happened since then. I don't think I have changed as much. She died, but... so did I. She must have seen something different there. Asking her for clarity was pointless. I wanted it, yes, but she wanted one thing only. She wanted something I needed. I wanted to ask my questions, but the desperation behind her eyes and mine was not for answers.

When a woman knows what she wants, is determined to get it, and you have no reason to want to stop her, and enough reasons to give it? The fight changes.

That was not... how it goes for me, though. I was lost at first. Can't say no. Can't say yes. Not without the answers. But need the conclusions, and need them now. I should have fought for more shadows, for what was mine, but it seemed a waste of valuable time. The night was enough? Anyone could have -- yes, I was concerned who might have seen what. That just isn't something I... share. I don't think my back is supposed to -- and hers -- fire and ice, ice and fire. And blood I... she might regret that, ha! Although, her people have seen far worse. Perhaps it's nothing more than spice. She tastes...

I can be a hedonist. Practicality is not always intellectual. She never asked for my heart. All she wanted was a fight. When I want one, too, it can only end when the pain is enough to sate what started it in the first place.

That was not the time for Nymare's voice to be telling me she wanted it to end.

It was just getting started.

Brill and Silvermoon, Silvermoon and Brill. Who do I hate? Everyone and no one. I am all there is.

A rest and a nurse, reparations, and she calls me with the sun threatening to rise after a night of intensity. He violated her. Solitude? Seclusion? Swimming? Why does water mean so much to her? It's an element like every other. I didn't understand until afterwards why it mattered even though it shouldn't have. But why did she call me? Why am I the hero? Because what she wanted, I wanted, too. Desperately. Can't refuse mutual desire. Death and fire, ruin and hatred. And yet not, because she wanted an end, and I just wanted ashes.

I almost blundered everything because patience is a virtue I do not have, but she did prove me right. She is stronger than he is. I needed to know that, to see it. I don't want to hear those sobs ever again. Ever. That is not Nymare. She destroys. We destroy. She feels rage, not despair. If that is... It isn't. Every time I start to doubt, she does what she needs to do. In the end, she always burns.

But she didn't put on her mask as she did the last time we were there. Nothing to hide from anymore? I found what I needed.

The questions don't ever stop. I gave answers. Questions and answers are all we are. There is nothing more. Is there? She asks, I ask. Words weave strange patterns, logical, nonsense, abstract, aesthetic, disturbing.

It's not that I can't give her what she asks for now, but this I do not want. When I give her what she asks for, it's because I want it, too. Isn't it? This I do not want. Yes, it hurts. Damn the sun, it hurts. Of course it hurts. These are ghosts that earned their rests. Let them die. Let them stay dead. Desperation.

I should never have brought it up, the uses of hands. What hands used to do in the days before phoenix. It was a secret for us. She is not one of us. She is not one of them. I do not want to open that door for her. Maybe? Maybe not. They are gone, but I am still us. I am still them. She just isn't. Empty echoes don't need secrets. But why do I still need to hide things from empty echoes?

I do not want friends. Friends are a life gone past, a history that cannot be retrieved. There are already too many who count me one because I have a vested interest in their success, but I don't care. When someone threatens to burn them, I call no one.

But Silvermoon, I would...

Why can't ghosts stay dead? I do not weep. She will never hear those sounds from me.

Does she care? She never told me if I was right. I need to be right. I need it. Desperately.

[Qabian]

I think I might just stop going to sleep. I wonder if Sylvanas avoids that. I suppose waking is a living nightmare for her, so probably not the best comparison.

If she didn't care, she would go away.

That's not...

The question sequence was flawed. The answer it gave was unacceptable.

At least I've never pretended honesty in the midst of all my lies.

Take comfort in the fact that she doesn't understand this any more than I do?

I hate that. What kind of a word is enjoy? Sensate garbage. Just another ocean to swim in? To -- not even going to think it. Used it before, but when she used it before it made me want to break her. Now it's just annoying.

It's a reason, but not one that makes sense. Why? I'm not an entertainer. It is entertainment for her after all. Enjoy? When did I ever say I -- amusement doesn't require mirth. The most terrible things can be amusing. Maybe she meant perplexing? No, I think I am that, despite my failed attempts at simplicity. Maybe she meant facetious? But when I asked, she said I could be that as well. So... what? Why? Damn it!

What the hell am I doing?

I don't even know anymore. I think that's why I'm still doing it.

No, I do know. It's because I am a student, and I want questions to answer, even if I answer them wrong. Even when I lie. Even when my own search for answers to questions she asked and doesn't even realize she asked makes her in turn question my sanity. As though my sanity makes a difference to anyone but myself. And the exception.

The game I play with everyone else needs to make an exception, now that I know she's a source that I can use. I hate that she might -- but she doesn't know either. Or if she did, she has forgotten her own reasons. That should be all I need.

But I'm still not going back to sleep. Not without --

Will Malorii be angry? I never killed her. I never broke her. I have hurt her, I think, just by existing when she would have been better off without me, by answering her questions and throwing them back at her when she should have buried her own ghosts, but it was Fynne who brought her to tears, not me. But what I needed from Malorii, I doubt I need anymore. She used to be my questions. I found her replacement in the one she wanted broken. Perhaps enough changed for her that she doesn't want what I promised, either. Maybe she won't even remember. The way Maryellen said --

Timing is everything. If nothing had changed, none of this would matter.

[Qabian]

She... didn't want to talk.

I didn't expect her to remember a face from the crowd, and our ways have gone so separately since, but...

She will still show me what I need to know. She'll just need... convincing.

((Special OOC present for paying attention. :D

http://img511.imageshack.us/img511/204/qvashjsadas6.jpg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ehqac_6moyA)))

[Malethia]

((To be honest, it's the little broken heart that really sells the desperate cry for help in the screenie.))

[Qabian]

Malorii is back.

I didn't even realize how much I'd missed her company until we were standing ankle deep in Alliance corpses again.

She's taken to calling me old. I'm not. In fact, I doubt I should be where I am, have the power I have, at my age, but... it seems many of those I meet walking this world today seem to be younger. The humans, trolls, orcs with so little between them and death. The Forsaken only recently pulled from human graves. Malorii, Ninorra, Nymare, Leoren, myself... all the sin'dorei who didn't succumb to the Scourge seem to be the children of those who were actual soldiers. I was a child... So few of the truly experienced are left alive. Then there are the kaldorei standing against us again with their gift from the dragons, and their ageless eredar traveling companions.

I have... not even begun. Even if Malorii punching me in the stomach mid-sentence meant I couldn't hold my silence.

I've avoided mentioning Nymare, despite her comment about whorelocks. What is it with demonic scent? Fynne seemed to have some sort of affinity for that as well, but I wouldn't think Malorii and Fynne share anything at all. We're sin'dorei. We're all surrounded by the fel thanks to our absent prince's projects, although I suppose the controllers themselves walk with more of whatever it is they can smell that I can't.

I don't trust her doctor. I don't know what "reports" he has received from Malorii or others, the Ghants perhaps?

So why did she leave Bir's information with me then? Playing a game? Pitting me against Bir? Stupid. At least it's over now.

The mages... I wonder if I could convince them into Warsong, or even the other battles, as Syreena did her rogues. They don't have the durability or stealth, but we do have our own tricks. I would prefer Halaa, but that's just not something that can be planned. Hm.

[Qabian]

Things have been quiet lately.

No. Quiet's not the word. Hellfire, Shadowmoon... Calm? No. The Bone Wastes, Halaa...

Things have been... expected. I've felt no need to watch the horizon.

I set fires as I need to set them. I kill and suffer where I need to kill and suffer. Easy enough to blame Nymare's absence. Apparently she's been off attempting yet another slow suicide for no conceivable reason. If you're going to scar yourself, you can at least do it for a reason, hm? She didn't even know who it was. Pointless. Or she's simply lying again, which is the far more entertaining possibility.

But Malorii's return? Each of us failing our end of our arrangement, so now what? A truce? I doubt it. She did know too much. She knows less than Nymare, but she knows something more important. Or she does if... if any of that was real.

The Prince's rather unceremonious return is not unexpected, although his theft of what he gave us as a gift was something of a surprise. We could have protected it against most, but against the one who knows Silvermoon best? What could we have done?

It doesn't matter. The thing is gone now. It's better that way, although Liadrin has turned to the Scryer morons and insists on filling Shattrath with her incessant chatter. The woman is a dunce. What better insult, Nymare? We'll just take to calling each other paladins instead of clown whore and lunatic.

Quel'danas is a strange place to be these days. It is good to regularly take the ley readings, even if it is for the Shattered Sun. And ley readings beneath her image? How appropriate. She is there. We have yet to beat through Vashj's defenses. I will know more then. There is simply something comfortable about the action of attuning the crystals, charging wards... again. It feels like... home.

But then there are the Wretched, taking what isn't theirs, living when they need to die, reminding me of...

Everything I need to forget but never will. Drowning is not peaceful.

Abric said what he needed to say. The consequences were odd, but I hope he didn't expect there to be none. I still need to speak with...

But the island is an easier place to be. Two in as many days. Neither of them mages. Easier to hate. Easy to be distracted. Easy to leave them alone. Leave them all alone. I can be Grim, but I am my own.

[Qabian]

That is not what I wanted to read today. It can't be that simple. Can it?

She didn't answer the question I was most interested in. Perhaps she didn't hear it. The other questions drowned it out. She wouldn't have the answer, but there is value in opinions. Is there? There must be for her, or she wouldn't come when I call. Ha!

I have changed in recent days. Is it the return to the old school changing how I see? Or is it because I changed that I dusted off the lessons of the past?

And what would instigate that kind of change?

Odd places for dragon skulls.

Or maybe not so odd considering the Dreamers.

Why does she think I should hate the Grim? They are my tool. I can no more hate them than I can hate the blade I wield. It is an object, not an organism.

I have hate. It just burns cold for now, cold and directed. The rampant, expansive hate of fire is a waste of focused effort. Perhaps the responsibilities I shouldered crushed the fire. It's not so improbable. And I directed the hate at one I thought deserved it. Mm, I'm sure she did deserve it, but she wasn't worth the trouble.

I have never hated the ones she hates among us. Too young and stupid to be worth hating, slow learner, but just another weapon, a weapon of the Enforcer. Let her play her word games when she is bored. Words are easy to toss about. At least now she is attempting to express a sort of twisted loyalty instead of continuously insisting that she does not belong with us and yet refusing to disappear.

If I have hated any Grim, she herself is the one who has had most of it, yes. But I don't need to kill her. Why would I need to kill any of the others? There are plenty of kaldorei needing to die.

Thoughts of an officer. Focus on the enemy at hand. Not my thoughts. Or not my thoughts of a month ago. I am still looking out to sea, but I found something there and I can walk away from it without losing the horizon.

I have changed. Less furious. Less impetuous. Now sardonic. Contemptuous. But I was always all of those things. Wasn't I? The touch of ice just brings different aspects into the foreground. Less confusion. Less torment. More... thought. But I always thought, too much perhaps.

Aspects...

Everyone else has not. They will still hate me as they have always done. Except her. As she has never done. ...she says. Always the exception. Perhaps I am no longer one? I am as cold as... who?

Next time, I will go back alone. There was no need for more force than I can bring. There were no defenders in that island playpen. No one cares for them there. Exile?

She hates Desolace? It has a stark beauty in its gray gloom. It is the world of ashes, but there is still life there. Shouldn't that life only have more value for its setting? Or scavengers are not worthy in the eyes of Alexstrasza? Ha! Demons are not. Perhaps vultures aren't either. Not a distinction worth making. Demons are the enemy. Vultures are the environment.

What about the centaur?

And the ocean is never far, where she stands facing the setting moon. I do not know...

The time she spent trying to kill herself? Malorii's return? Al'ar? Convenience? What I found on the horizon?

I have always said since I finished my training and decided to forsake the old lessons that I would return to them in time, and that I would test them all more thoroughly. The arcane... The troll works with it. Perhaps in time. A few more pieces, and I will make that attempt as well.

Would those spells change me? There isn't so much control as ice, nor the rage of fire. There is something powerful, though. Mercurial, almost? And ancient as the Well itself.

I have lost some things. Have I gained others? I have lost fear. No... it is still there, but it is somewhat more focused and intentional now. Fear with a purpose. I have lost... intensity? No. I have exchanged the explosion for compression. It is no less dangerous. Is it? I have gained... confidence? Perhaps. I gained... sense, at least to some degree. I am out of practice. I was fire first, and that will be what ends me, but there is more to magic, and I cannot ignore any of it for too long.

I am a mage.

And I will never be a paladin. This much is true. Is that actually valuable?

[Qabian]

Success?

There are days I earn pretentious self-satisfaction.

Is victory diminished because it is shared? Or enhanced because more than one game is won?

Both.

Success has never tasted quite so much like...

[Qabian]

Abric was right. Complacency or... overconfidence, perhaps? That all would follow no matter what we did. Things have changed. Our face is not our face.

There was a time when I stood up to those I had no hope of winning against. Even N -- even she saw that, out in the world, "defending".

Things have changed.

I and others have become... wary. I would ignore them now, allow them to pass. I would judge, weigh, decide, motionless unless I come into a sense of victory. That does not... That is not how things should be.

It is easy enough to blame those soldiers who would force us to work with our enemies against the Legion's schemes, the Argent Dawn, the Shattered Sun, the Skyguard, those backstabbing Scryers...

It is easy enough to blame the rogue. Taunting him and his hangers-on alone taught me how to run.

Can things go back to the way they were? Without fire... I'm still testing other things. I should head back to the Valley, the Basin, the Gulch. But this purity doesn't suit such fights. The ice alone did, but what I sacrificed for power in one facet, for confidence in another... I lose too much elsewhere. It's not that I don't fight them. It's that I bide my time. Perhaps it's time to stop biding, think less, act more.

I would still ignore them, I think, to collect my dues, even from the Shattered Sun. But before I move on, before I take flight to the next task, I should start the hunt again. Let loose the dogs of war. How can I practice what I learned from the rogue if they are never taunted into chase?

Things should change.

[Qabian]

Damn!

Damn! Damn! Damn!

Just another slave? No! That was supposed to be my answers. She was supposed to be my answers!

Does power only really exist when it's stolen from others? Can it really only be exchanged? Is it always a set of shackles? Must one always pay for it with freedom?

No.

Maybe.

I've already decided who to sell my freedom to. They can keep it until I no longer need them, I suppose.

But damn. I was so certain...

At least it's not the Legion. Maybe I can find something else there... Maybe the Qiraji...

Damn.

I've tasted what she had, what brought them here. I understand it.

But I intend to choose my shackles far more carefully than she did. Perhaps she had no choice. I don't doubt I would have done the same in her place.

But I am not in her place.

And Vashj has nothing for me now. She returned me my life once. I return her her answers. We owe each other nothing.

Playing with Kael's pets to appease the Broken, to taunt the demon hunter -- it seems so pointless to attempt to kill a phoenix, hm? And yet...

There's still much more to learn.

What good is it knowing where I sleep if you want to ruin your dress? If that's really what you wanted, I wouldn't be asleep.

[Qabian]

What in the gods be damned dementia ridden, lunacy inspired --

Fuck.

I should have seen it earlier. Why didn't I see it? Blinded by history, my history, couldn't see real history. I thought too much of them. They were too much like us, wronged by those who would abandon reality for dreams, birthed by the very source of our own power. But no, we don't have leashes, except to ourselves. Our own blood was spilled. It was our corpses we climbed over to get home. It was our creations we rebuilt from the ashes. Ours. Not those of some half-ruined deity from the Nether or elsewhere. Ours.

There was still hope. Damn hope. Security blanket for children. I blame her, their cooperation to get beyond an impossible situation, to make things right and abandon those who abandoned us, but she should not have left hope behind. I'll kill her for it. I'm sure she still has hope of her own or she wouldn't be where she is. We'll break her. Given time. I'll see in her eyes the huntress' prey.

But to see it there so clearly. The link was no longer just a thing of musing, of possibilities, but of reality, at least on the part of the deluded. They would bring it all together. They would crush it all into one story, they and their precious beast servant. They would bring her down to --

No, that was hope, power for fools.

All that time wasted? No, not wasted. It led to this. It led to the clarity. Necessary steps. I found answers. I just didn't find what I sought, the answers I hoped for. Hope... I know enough now to change the questions. Not wasted.

But now the questions are a matter of evasion, how to avoid that trap that catches all of them. Yes, there's learning there I need. I am not going to be just another puppet, no matter what powers come along with the shackles.

If she had a choice, she would have agreed with me. I know this. Otherwise, we would not still speak her name. I wonder if she could be freed, what she would do then...

Perhaps the horizon still holds interest if not answers...

Doubtful. The Prince makes a good example of what happens when one submits in order to dominate. She can't be freed. She's had her taste of what they can give her. She has forsaken her birthright by force or by choice, but either way, it's hers no longer.

At least the Shadow Council seems meaningless in this. Though they might have been connected once, I doubt that as well. There's another war taking place here. The only relevant question is do we come out the victors?

Greater concerns now. There's a witch that needs to die.

[Qabian]

What is the meaning of life? Oh yes, do share that with me. I am certain you are privy to all such secrets, little weapon.

I don't want to know the meaning of life. I don't want to know your meaning. I don't need it.

Life in itself has no inherent meaning. Life is given meaning by the self that inhabits it.

If I insist life has no meaning, then it has none. If I insist it is not worth living, then I will not live it. It is very simple.

If I say that the meaning of life is an endless quest for self-improvement, then that is the meaning of life.

If I say that the meaning of life is nothing but a continuous collection of questions and their answers, then that is the meaning of life.

If I say that the meaning of life is dictated to me by some external source, a deity, a demon, a collection of tentacles beneath the sea, then that is the meaning of life.

If I say that the meaning of life is to effectively serve the good doctor with all of my abilities to the end of my days, then that is the meaning of life.

Of course you can not tell me the meaning of life if I do not want to hear it. My life has only my meaning.

[Qabian]

I don't know why... that went the way it did. I just wanted information. She suggested going to get it herself, but I didn't think she would actually...

Whatever. I shouldn't have even brought her into this, but she seems to be in everything these days. And I have nothing she wants. As it should be. So arguing about it was stupid.

The search would be more effective with two seekers, though.

And despite glaring at each other like stubborn children over a toy we would not share and thus rendered useless, we remembered what mattered. I heard her laugh more than once. Breaking them, cursing them, ruining them -- despair. And I learned -- remembered? -- that you don't always need to win to steal hope. Sometimes you just need to remind them you exist and that they hate you for it.

The book said there were four. Four? Silithus, Darkshore, that's two... Desolace, but those were... something else entirely, I think. Maybe connected, but not the same.

I've copied its pages for myself. She took theirs. Wasn't expecting to find such a thing there. All I wanted was death and destruction. That was... good.

[Qabian]

As much as I would very willingly have shown her exactly what lies inside an iron maiden if the ones in Stormwind hadn't been too rusted to operate properly, I must acknowledge that after all this time she can definitely be... entertaining company.

Made some use of the new portal, since Barlo would have us hunt in city waters, and why disturb Orgrimmar's ponds when we could sift through the detritus in Stormwind? Ugh. Still, there was considerably more killing to be had along the way. Might want to reconsider dueling outside the city gates? Ha! There were ultimately too many of them, but it was nothing if not amusing.

I have no idea what Zelaine was doing there. I didn't ask. Neither did she, or so she said, and she has no reason to lie. Hm. No explanations were offered at any rate. Finding the sister splayed out in the middle of the road to Darkshire on our way to retrieve city sewer scum was odd, unless she'd been taking a very circuitous route back from the tower? We wrought our little chaos on the town and then apparently I made the impression I usually do on the Evershines and caused her to leave unhappy? HA! I don't know exactly what that was supposed to mean, but I'm sure it was accurate enough.

Spent some time in the church. Had Benedictus shout at me for the sacrilege of bleeding all over their altar. I suppose fel blood isn't really something you want to spend time washing off the floor of a Cathedral of Light. The steps... Of course, the crypts are full of opened caskets and remains that are clearly not human. There's a story there. Perhaps told in one of the tomes on those bookshelves that would have been... more convenient, mmhmhm. Bulky, though. Aesthetically less than pleasant to look at, but sometimes practicality for uses I doubt the builders intended is irresistibly excellent fodder for pointed commentary.

The mages were hilarious. Watching that quel'dorei slut ripped apart by a single blast of ice made the entire venture worthwhile. And the guards couldn't slip through their portals, although we could? Ah, Stormwind, the city where they forget to teach their guards basic principles of magic.

The human city appears no less decadent than our own as well. It didn't seem like the kaldorei had been stripped of her garments by force. Ugh. I know they lost their minds to cowardice when they exiled Dath'remar, but humans? Really? That's so... depraved. She might as well have been dancing for the pond scum.

They did finally call in some talent to have us forcibly removed from the tavern, though. Unfortunately for them, not before we added a little malice to the drink supply in the basement. Not like Malorii. Didn't bring her own. Had to ask me... She didn't know about my blood? I suppose it's not something I talk about, but there are enough other Grim who know at least part of that story. I wonder if she actually put the crocolisk in there. That would be... well, if it wasn't found before it died, I'm sure it would be effective.

And all this after having redirected Illidan's attention to Kael'thas after playing games with his pet? And after the incident with the Netherwing yesterday... I'm sure a little redirection will be useful. I will sleep better tonight -- today than I have in a while, I think. Chaos...

And then despite handing over what Barlo wanted to him directly, either that or another one from the canals has decided to follow me around. Me. Why? Why not her? She's the one with the affinity for reptiles. Ha! Of all the beasts that could decide to trail me, it couldn't be a blue. It has to be pond scum. I kicked it over the ledge by the bank down into the Lower City, but it found me again later at the library.


http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/6900/snarlypr1.jpg

I should just kill it, maybe have Muatah fashion a cover for the handle of my blade, but now I'm curious just how far I can throw it and have it live. I launched it with a little arcane blast off the library balcony and over the Terrace. We'll see if it finds me again after that. Although it went too far for me to see if it landed in the lap of any unsuspecting Stormwind tavern-goers or duelists.

I do want to talk to the rogue, but I'm uncertain these days if she even has words to use anymore. Words enough to cause Nymare to make snippy comments about women, ha! But words enough to answer all the questions I have just now? I don't know...

[Bir]

(( XD That is so much win. ))

[Qabian]

And what of those who choose neither valor nor wisdom?

I don't trust that place. Something happened there. I don't know what, but it's too close to the Qiraji. I wouldn't be surprised if all of those things are linked.

Let her suffer for me.

I half expected her to give me away, but I suppose she wanted me for something else. Nothing worth the trade? Perhaps the inquirer simply didn't understand what means would have worked. My value is not that high, not for others, never for others.

That was another strange coincidence. I lied again. I'd come across her earlier. After forsaking her for so many months with the conclusion of my soul and no desire to live forever... There's something to that. But that particular book? Just lying on the floor?

It was a natural comparison to draw to see what she would say. Nothing to prove? Even to oneself? She's a terrible liar. She follows us, follows me, because she has something to say, something to do, something to find, something to show, something to see. She does things just to... know. I do things to hear what words might result. Any? None?

She acts like a child. So do I. I didn't get a chance to say...

She had a heart once. Now she has to prove to herself that she doesn't. I suppose I had to do the same, but mine was guarded and walled before I knew it existed. She gave hers away and wants to be reassured the gift was worthless. If you don't have something, no one can take it from you.

And here at the horizon where I tried to find the truth...

We are who we are, and yet everyone forgets.

Reading over her shoulder, knowing the lessons she would teach that should have essentially no value -- how did I end up here? No, I know how I ended up here. How did I end up here with her? And why do I --

Our greatest mistake was sharing what we knew, what they denied, what we needed. Secrets are the most valuable commodity, but to invest them is to lose them completely.

Before the blood, we had magic. Now we have both. Now they are one and the same. We aren't what we were, but we can't forget what tragedy should have seared onto all of us.

She doesn't know what I carry with me. There will always be more secrets.

No plaques for Khadgar and Alleria. Perhaps because their deaths are unconfirmed. We should look to changing that.

The daughter lives. The father betrayed gets a monument.

The mother of their future? What? That gullible fool at the end of the hall?

Wouldn't it be brilliant to deface and disfigure everything family means right there? Obliterate the pointless garbage that is caring for the useless. This is the mother of your future. This is the father of treason. Destruction for old librarians, a room full of books and bodies, dead, alive, silent or studying...

They'll destroy themselves in time, if not on the blades of half an orc then on their own. We'll just have to... tip the scales. Add a little speed to the wreckage.

No regrets. Never regret.

No matter how much you think you want it.

[Qabian]

It would be easier if they continually attacked with the rage of monsters instead of acting as constant reminders of miserable failure. Do they find their answers on the horizon? Is she coming for them, too?


http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/3825/qsadlongiy4.jpg

[Qabian]

That was unexpected in that nothing changed. Nothing drastic at least. I should have acted on the impulse much sooner. Not fighting to win, just to fight. But I didn't. I wanted to have the time to say everything that needed to be said, but then standing there, it just didn't seem worth saying anymore. I tried to talk, but the coherence, the insistence, it was all gone. Too much time passed since I took the notion to mind, I suppose.

She taught me what I already knew, pointed to my mistakes, useful information but information I'm not likely to use. I got what I wanted to some degree. I'm sure I corrected some things, but I left so much unsaid. Once there, it just didn't seem to matter. None of it mattered. Questions and answers, but I already know what she thinks and how she thinks it. I already know how a series of coincidences and first impressions can give the two of us vastly different or extremely similar opinions of any given set of characters.

It's not that she can't understand. I'm sure she can. Unlike some, she has a mind of her own, a mind that has been beaten into submission by others, a mind that I would rather have set free to do what it could without inhibitions, but a mind nonetheless. It's simply that she'll never understand what I do the way I do, and thus my explanations seemed like too many words.

She'll never understand how someone can listen to my words and take them to heart, crafting themselves within a mold I created, without ever acknowledging my influence. She'll never understand that the words themselves are meaningless, that meaning is only given by the receiver. "Blood" and "elf" together in any language have the meaning I need them to have. The trail of magic that led away from the stars, that lost what we could have had beneath the seas, the trail of the dead that led away from old alliances, they lead to blood and elf together, not one or the other. Child and elf are the same word in any language, in all of them. I hear them with my intentions, not those of the speaker.

Which makes the tears of the heroine that much more ludicrous and explains why I can see justice only in the shadows of what went wrong.

But standing there, it meant nothing. She wanted to know what I meant, but I had so little left to say for all the words that were indulged.

And I know I am not trusted. I do not cultivate trust. If anything, I cultivate the opposite. It keeps them careful, and it keeps them quiet, at least around me. I am glad to know care is being taken, observation. I would hope that if they find what they are looking for, they do not hesitate for my sake. She says she doesn't hate me anymore, but even those who say that have at some point, denial or otherwise, and they will again in time.

She talks too much, but not to me. She tried to talk to me once. I doubt she ever will again. And yet I still get her words? I doubt for long.

Do not tempt you? I cannot tempt you to do what you do not already want. And if you do not want it, then resistance will be easy. If you want it, you should see it through because you are Grim, and you know that what you want is within the Mandate or you would not be Grim. It simply requires every necessary precaution, an exercise of subtlety, and an ability to bide one's time. Perhaps she needs to practice those as I need to practice another range of spells in order to make use of her advice.

I want to talk with them alone again, but who is there to talk to? What is there to say? The butler does what he does. The troll does what he does. The women are as lacking in sanity as ever. The sister I assume is still with her brother, no matter what pretences she makes otherwise. The dead ones who were interesting enough have other projects out of my realm of monitoring. I'm left on the sidelines where I started, watching them, observing as they do what they do. Perhaps the island, as a simple exercise, but the futility of it makes consideration awkward.

I should have known she might be there, but she was there for the books, and I was there for the screams and the blood. Not that I got what I wanted. I'll go back later. All things in time.

I prefer to be where I am to reduce the need to bend. She said it had nothing to do with the girl, but I had already made the connections and she hadn't denied them.

I don't want to hold their leashes, but I would rather hold my own, and this seems the best course of action for the moment. Would not follow my orders? What orders? My orders are that you must learn what you want and set about taking it. And if what you want is wrong, then we weed you out, or you drown yourself taking something that isn't there. Or if it seems just out of reach, you improve yourself until you can extend your grasp. It's very simple and effective if they listen. Few of them do.

I am... still learning what I want. Answers? Or annihilation. I was avoiding listening to their theories, but there will always be other worlds. If ours is not the target, do you think there will be peace?

Family?

No?

Why the interrogatory inflection in that response?

No. Simple no. No question. Just no. No, no, and no. Family is an institution without value or use. Aegwynn is such excellent proof of that. Not willing to find a successor in a student, she created one with Sargeras' gift instead. I will not treat any of them as such. They are fellow students in the ways of war, some with something to teach or to share, some without, only learning from the others or failing. My method is superior.

She talked me in circles again. I've seen her do that and only make herself angry, angry with me for talking in circles, when she's every bit as guilty of continuing such mockery of debate as I am. This time she just gave me vertigo. I throw her own stupid words back at her, neither of us making use of anything resembling clarity, and she accuses me of idiocy? I assume that's why we get along as well as we do, but...

Whatever we are is hidden in that abuse. To pretend otherwise is to lose it. Give that fire too much space, it burns itself out. Keep the fuel low to prevent losing everything to the flash over. But does the light it gives have any value when it burns cold? When it takes on heat, it's...

I would like to go to see the audience, to see if there's anyone worth observing, as there have been on past occasions, as there weren't at the last. Or just to see if I could find connections there with Silithus. The boats... Or I could stay away to deny her that glee at my discomfort. This time, I won't make the decision in advance, and I won't be able to... disappoint.

[Qabian]

No, I don't regret going, and not just because of my obstinate refusal to pander to that word except under far more extreme duress. I could not learn what I did without having been there, about them killing each other. I'd play them against each other, but not while he serves with us.

It was relatively efficient in proving why I go to those things at all, once others stopped noticing I was there and I could really listen. I am disappointed that I didn't get to witness what Malorii could have added to that clown show, but not so much that I regret not having gone back, either.

I'll have to talk to the mage again later. I -- we -- that was more awkward than anything else, even than what finally chased me to Feathermoon. I should have said more.

I went to see that monument of Yichimet's as a distraction, to remind myself that I am not a puppet. I wasn't then, and I'm not now. I only asked Nymare because I thought she would give a different answer that would lead to more things she'd hate me for knowing. But every word she said was destroyed by the context of where she was while I stood in silence among corpses.

I'm not entirely sure Nymare didn't tell the dead girl what she meant, giggling like toddlers with their games. I passed them to the closest one and -- invented a story. If he thinks it was something other than divesting myself of Nymare's oh so hilarious symbols into the nearest convenient pair of hands, or if Nymare really did "correct" him as she said he did, he'll be the one who pays for his mistakes and her deception.

But he burnt them when I told him to. He can't be that stupid. Unless he thinks I asked him to do that for some other reason than they were hers to begin with, or given to her by someone else, who knows. It was appropriate.

Kovan's -- I assume alcohol inspired -- lunacy was just the turn of attention I didn't want from those, a reminder that I could have been spending time doing more important things, if perhaps things that will not pay off as much in the long run. If he won money from my reaction, it's because he knows me well enough to have made that test before. I don't care what they think or what she answered, although if her response was what she said, that was the best one to give.

Cowardice? Perhaps in their minds, but no. Disgust. Irritation. Annoyance. They made it too difficult to observe in silence. The kaldorei who had appeared earlier was enough inspiration to break Shandris again instead of staying in Mulgore, to punish her again for what history says she did. The kaldorei were our enemies long before the humans threw our gifts back at us. Thalanaar was closer, but it didn't withstand my passing through very long. At least Shandris' guards can put up a fight. Soaking the ground in Alliance blood is more than calming after that insanity.

Had it been warm? I hadn't noticed. Rain is rain. It just is. I just am. Ashes just are.

Why was he even there? The same reason I was, I assume, to kill them all. But I don't know what caused him to run. My leaving? Because of my gift? Ha! He wears the hero's colors. There's something wonderful in seeing that behind the mindless slaughter of those who cannot defend themselves.

At least as confusing as Zelaine in Darkshire.

But Nymare thinks he has what no one should. If I get the chance to break it, who gets the credit? Shy, she said. I think perhaps he has enough intelligence to keep it to himself, or at the very least, away from me. She knows why I don't have friends, even among those who murder with me.

[Qabian]

Desolace is an odd place to want to go. Ever. Even for fishing.

She doesn't know any more than I do. Sometimes less. But I had assumed the link with the naga a given, while she noticed the lack of teeth. Curious. That doesn't mean the link isn't there, but perhaps it's farther back in time than even I had thought.

Of course they're connected. All of it is. The satyr, that fool of a Keeper, the Light of Lights, the Master's Glaive, the Shen'dralar, Medivh and his mother, Norgannon's discs, Draenor and its broken children, the Twilight's Hammer, the Barovs' school, they all weave the same tapestry. If something seems out of place, it's only because our own threads obscure the pattern. The answers are there if you can discover the right place to look.

I must remember to go back to Felwood and see if the symbol is there as well or if it's unique.

How long have those colors flown there? Is it supposed to be Sargeras by the name given the place or something else? Did I miss it when I should have seen it before? It's very curious, considering its resemblance to Eredar and the appearance of the Draenei.

Moonwells can take a lot of punishment. Ha!

But standing behind her there, dead kaldorei behind us, and the setting moon filling the sky...

I had to swim to stop thinking. I shouldn't have to stop. That's what all that searching was for, but I needed to. To swim just to swim. She had a reason and I had none, the wrecks along the ocean floor, the traps...

And then the sun was gone, completely. I was waiting for it as a signal to move on and it never came, swallowed by green-grey rain, darker than any dawn has any right to be. Outside Tirisfal and the Ghostlands.

No one goes there, but they did, they have, they will. Blood on my hands I didn't bother to share. Why? So I could swim without questions? So she wouldn't draw me back with insistence I prove her a liar? When she lies, I...

I like you this way.

Why?

Because I learned something?

There's always more to learn.

You are at least consistent.

No. I'm not. Not at all. I can wear the masks I need to, but do you know me? Do you know who I used to be? Do you know why I'm here with you now? Do you know where I came from? Of course you don't. Everyone who does is dead. Everyone. I am here and I am who I am. Consistent, though? Safe maybe?

Show me proof. All the evidence I've seen is the opposite to what you see. Perhaps it's time to take the colored lenses out of your eyes. Nothing is what you think it is. For all that you have changed, have you really learned anything?

Honor is a farce. Always. Always. Honesty is always pretense. Leave it.

Look at the students.

Yes, look at them. None of them have our eyes. Each one a necromancer's prot&#233;g&#233;. How many who clambered over the corpses of their families to find they were still alive but with only ashes left behind them will take up these teachings?

How many will do the only thing they imagined impossible because they cared too much?

Something sleeps beneath Tirisfal. Who succumbed to that madness? How? What were the signs? The Forsaken sleep there now, if you can call that sleep. So does she.

The Amani are finally reduced to fodder for explorers, but the runestones failed us when we needed them most.

I don't want to live forever. I don't want godhood. I want only what I earn, what I do. I want only what I'm owed. I want only what is mine.

I hate the bronze.

Can we please get back to killing the witch? At least she's living now, and for all that I can't remember what I want from one day to the next, I will pay her back for saving my life and his.

[Qabian]

There was nothing in Felwood. At all. Not even a similar set up. But I swear I've seen it before somewhere else. Silithus, maybe? The Burning Blade... maybe Durotar? So close to "home"? Ha!

The troll is certain it has value, so much so that he would see it... undone. Curious.

The walls are gone, but we still walk behind shields. Curious.

[Qabian]

That -- I -- what the hell?! You're goddamn crazy! A distraction. All of it? A distraction?! WHAT?!

You should have told that knight what you told me. It would have given the entire assembly a laugh. Both knights even. A distraction. Distraction, my -- hm.

I wasn't there for support. I wasn't there because I love you. I was there to make certain it didn't happen. Cessily was right about looking like a thug. Hiding my eyes. It's why I was there, as a thug. Hilariously, there were far more forces against the union than even I had realized. Didn't think the rogue was man enough to stand up to his mother. Didn't think that Kovan would put on a clown show. Didn't think Lord Ressan would look to the sky and babble like the lunatic he is.

Breaking hearts? Yes, that would have made sense, possibly even impressed me, if it would have worked without your own self-sacrifice. Has that ever been what I wanted from you? If you break your own heart, where does that leave Jaina? You don't break it. You bury it. You stop wanting what isn't there, what isn't worth the effort. If you still have one, then someone else will have to break it for you. I've tried. I don't understand why it hasn't worked.

And why does it always come back to me? Even if you love as you say, changing for you would be the last thing you'd want. Ever.

But then you're insane.

Of course, all true genius is. Not that I'd ever accuse her of genius, but if she was capable of keeping her real goals in mind, rather than this ludicrous focus on things that simply do not exist, she could do great things. I have little doubt of that.

It's not weakness. Agreeing to get married because it's a convenient distraction that also breaks hearts is weakness. Shackling yourself to a family that will keep you from your dreams in the hopes of what? That's weakness. More than weakness. Madness. Because you didn't think that they would try to keep you from the power you are seeking. Of course they would. It's a family's job to hold you back. Ask Nymare. You are still seeking power?

Or just me?

I was weak. That's why I changed. That's why I am who I am now. You think I lack the courage to at least make the attempts? Attempts at what? There's no need to attempt things that I no longer want. That's what makes me stronger. It is strength, the strength to focus on necessity rather than the frivolous antics of those who forget we are at war. You're just too blinded by your own insanity to see it.

I do want... some things for you. Not happiness. Not contentment. Not love. Freedom. Strength. Ferocity. But I will not sacrifice myself, and I will never ask the same of you. If what you want is not what we do, I will set you free. If you want to be an idiot and love something that isn't capable of returning the favor, I'm not going to stop you. Do what you want. But don't ever ask me to change. Ever. If I'm going to change, it will be on my terms, not yours.

Or at least on the terms of something far more powerful.

Ugh. So much worse than Nymare. Nymare's seeds of doubt are sinuous, devious, insidious. I don't even notice them until they've wormed their way to the very core of things and leave me staring at the horizon. Setrema's are like a slap to the face. Hell, they are a slap to the face, as I'm sure Keelen's minions were entertained to witness. Just leave me reeling, stunned, playing her little games again, wearing the costumes she asks.

Both of them are more often than not completely confusing. Just being in their presence is like walking into a whirlwind, but am I supposed to deny the value they've both shown for... the Grim?

So many other things have happened, overshadowed by the little show that Irithel managed. I thought she might have done more, said more, but I'm definitely glad that she didn't. And yes, she should fail to get married every day. I might start to care. Ha! Next time, she should successfully break some hearts while she's at it.

She's taken to calling everyone by titles. How endearing. There was a time that mattered to me. And for some, like herself, I prefer it, but then I'd also prefer people avoid referring to me at all. Nymare succeeds in that most of the time. I suppose she got sick of people calling her Cessy-girl. I would, too. I tolerate a few with their insistence on using epithets, but generally they've earned it. Still, it amuses me how the new minions play to her puppet strings. Cessily's having a good dance, testing out what she can get away with yet again, a little more subtle, but not so much that you'd forget who's playing the game. See where it takes her, hm?

Maybe Cessily does have some sort of power over me. The power to make me stop giving a damn. I'm definitely terrified, considering what I bother to care about on a regular basis. Ha! I think Nymare just doesn't like seeing me submit. To anyone. Willingly at least. It's hardly submission if it was my idea in the first place, but I suppose you can't see that if you're not reading my mind. And if it's not ultimately self-directed, I'll at least have a good reason, but I don't think she likes my reasons either.

Of course, if you can't read my mind, you can't see all the things I would do to you if it weren't for the fact that even after everything, all the learning, all the noticeable shifts, there are some things I have always had that I refuse to change, just enough to leave us ignoring each other in favor of yet more books on necromancy and Scarlet sermons on the Scourge.

If you can imagine me, then I can imagine you. But if that philosophy were remotely realistic, you'd all be dead. Every last one of you. Perhaps that's why I do not want to be a god.

Zelaine is... yet another liar, but an honest one this time. Ha! None of this "I don't need to lie" garbage. No hiding behind pretense. Don't tell me one thing, expect me to believe it, then do just the opposite and cower behind denial when I point out the juxtaposition of action and words. Just lie blatantly to my face and laugh when I send the truth back. It's fearless and wonderful. Nymare's learning it, but slowly.

Zelaine always knew how to do that, I think. There's just something incredibly refreshing about someone who doesn't care one iota about honesty or trust or my opinion of them. She'll get what she wants when she wants it. Maybe. If I could believe what she said about her family... And that we have something in common in not wanting to follow those whose competence has been demonstrated to be considerably lacking... I'll choose to believe those things for now. But I'm sure tomorrow she'll have someone else wrapped around her little finger to abuse as she sees fit, and who knows? She may find herself with a family again. Until then, I wait to see the proof of her intentions, because her words are meaningless and that's a comfort.

The brothers are back. That night was... well, it would have been better for me if they had never left, I think. It was difficult not to pity Cristok's suffering as a result, but laughing was easier in the end.

[Qabian]

Distracted.

Mmhm.

Pity the puppetmaster has so much on his mind. Ha!

I lost the threads. They're all tangled. I could almost see the design. Maybe one of them snapped. I can't even tell if it's worth repairing. Those barrows are empty of anything useful beyond similarities, borrowed by invaders I assume.

I blame the wedding. It ruined the map of neat lines in my mind. I can't remember what I was drawing.

She said the symbols were there. I never saw them. I'll have to go back.

Is it always about the patterns? Runes and circles, candles and inks?

What would I do if I could control anyone's mind? Well, apparently I can. It must be true. Twice today it was insinuated that I am some sort of grand mastermind, pulling strings and watching them dance. Ha! I don't think I'd be where I am at all if I could wield that kind of power. Most of them would be dead.

Whatever she does, she does because she wants to. Hell, I can't even get her to listen to me. I don't care what you want. This is what I want. Who's controlling who? Leading me on and then stunning everything to a halt with a single confusing sequence of words.

Make the fel stop? What?

All I ever do is try to give them minds of their own. If that means cutting them loose because the minds that they have are not Grim, so be it, but I don't want your mind. Mine is difficult enough to keep a hold on when it wanders. Even the very distractions one would think the most intense can't reach through my musings. Curse of the student mage, I suppose.

Perhaps the thing at home is close to a puppet, but she does what she does because she doesn't know any better. I suppose I control her in that I don't encourage her to go discover her own desires. She's not Grim. And she doesn't want ashes. If she still is who she was, I know what she wants, and it's stupid enough that I'm not going to encourage it, but I hardly dictate her every movement. In fact, there are days when I suspect she's doing what she is for reasons she will never share, and I don't want to know them.

Talking to Zelaine was like talking to a child in the middle of a screaming fit. She was utterly blind to reason. Ranting about how it was her decision to put herself, the baby Baron, and everyone around her in danger. What? No. It's not your decision to bring the rest of us down with you. If you want to commit suicide and murder whatever monstrosity you're cooking up because your body chemistry has quite obviously gone completely unbalanced, you can do it away from the people who matter, the people who are busy trying to get something done, the people who are working on their goals, rather than concocting new insanities via the actions of the clearly mentally deficient.

Nymare accused me of having lost my mind for expecting anything resembling rationality from her once-sister. For the love of the sun, she's a mage. She should know better. What the hell kind of psychosis has to take hold to make you think it's reasonable to walk under a banner of Annihilation while carrying a child? Even just being a mage and having a family seems utterly counterintuitive. Aegwynn has left such a wonderful legacy in that regard.

I didn't even begin to philosophize with her. I was only speaking the most calm, logical, nigh altruistic words I could devise, and I thought she was going to push me off the spire for expressing concern. Irony? Not really, though amusing perhaps.

I'll be interested to see if she gives me words, real words beyond juvenile tantrums, when she doesn't have better things to do or whatever that was. I have a feeling she'll say she doesn't want to talk, and glare at me until I leave. Or she won't show up at all. I am such pleasant company after all. Always a line of friends waiting to share my impeccable taste in everything.

Or just a panther in the courtyard waiting to toy with its prey. That's all they do when they seek me out, but it's such a drastic improvement over friendship.

And after all that, falling more than once to shadows in Silvermoon, she wanted fire. Because I would never ask for love? Expect love? Give love? Because she sees the fiction? Because she hates it? Because she knows it? I never have and I never will. To make the fel stop. And she didn't care what I wanted. And I think... that was what I wanted.

That was one hell of a distraction.

[Qabian]

Talked to my mother lately? What the hell? What does he know about it? If he was involved... that's priceless! By the sun, I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard, especially considering the syntax I used as an explanation for those who asked why I did it. "I have no use for mothers." Ahahaha!

Why her? Of all people. She was so... useless.

Well then, Baron. It's a pity I didn't succeed. Then we'd both owe each other thanks, thanks for removing unnecessary distractions from our paths, thanks for teaching each other that we are nowhere near careful enough. Perhaps we could even be friends! Ha! Ahaha!

Hypocrisy of the Grim? I did what I did for them, but my hand was hardly guided by anyone but myself. If what I did was wrong, it was my wrong to make, and it's my wrong to pay for and I will, but if you say it was wrong, then I did wrong with the right of the Grim, my Grim, my tools, my people in mind. The advantage of being a narcissist is there is rarely reason to blame others.

Still uncertain whether or not to actually approach Thrysta. She certainly seemed to have the desired effect on that would-be paladin. I'll have to wait and see what unfolds first.

I did do it for her own good. I didn't want to harm the Grim. It wasn't an act of vengeance or rage. It was an act of goodwill, to help her, to improve her. She should know that by all the words that led up to it. By my insistence that she convince me. But she couldn't. She didn't really try. She wanted to be two things, and I only wanted one from her. For those who will believe it? Ha! It doesn't matter. I did what I meant. I'm angry that it failed. I'll take whatever comes as a result and deal with all of it then.

I left the blade there. I know she has heroes. She was birthed from the same womb as one if what they all say is truth. There wasn't much blood, although enough to make the stop at Stillwhisper. I don't know why Nymare asked about it. Probably the feral --

If I'd wanted to hurt the mother, to kill her, I would have wrenched it, twisted it, shredded her insides slowly. I would have removed it and buried it again and again. I would have let her bleed until the floor of the place was soaked vermillion.

But no. One strike. To the hilt. With whatever Malorii gave me to course through her veins. Left in place. I wasn't angry. It was business, treatment.

She called for help. I'm sure she got it. I know Nymare tried to find her.

Nymare... Everyone who trusts her makes me laugh. She will toy with you, snap your neck, throw your secrets in your face for no other reason than to see the expression in your eyes. That's part of what makes her great when she takes the Mandate to the world. Yes, trust her. All of you. The more you do, the more you'll hurt. That's what makes her... makes me...

The priest called for advice on how to remove Malethia from her home. Poor girl. Although the irony of her asking me for help of all people was not lost, considering my actions were the ones that led to Malethia's ill-mannered childish behavior in the first place.

I didn't think Malorii would follow in the shadows, but of all the people who were hurt by this whole circus, it seems she has been affected the worst of anyone. How curious.

Coward, am I? I have never pretended bravery. Recklessness, yes. Bravery? Honor? No. Call me all the names you like. More. More. I want to hear your thoughts, collect them, grind them to a powder and toss them to the wind.

The Baron has runes? And Zelaine? What? I could have... bah, opportunity lost. But no, I don't want puppets. Still, I could have looked for some more use for -- no. And there is already something so wrong in leaving behind what I put there for Fynne to see. They have no power. What they were meant to have -- they have outlived their use. They are nothing more than aesthetic now. Scars. Like my own. A reminder of something? Of what? That the ambiance in Blackrock is not so different from the coast of Eversong?

I should look into acquiring one of those cloaks she has.

Cristok's champion... If he manages not to disappoint, and follow through on all he has said and all that he has already done, I may have found something incredibly valuable, something lacking since the days before the Scourge. Time will tell, and when all of this insanity is behind us, that is what I'm far more interested in.

[Qabian]

She is... I am... chaos.

Exquisite.

Think the rogue will care? Oh, he'll laugh when we rip the Alliance soldiers to shreds alongside him, but will he know why we're laughing?

I... the Artificer... words are beautiful used correctly. They can change a man. Or a woman.

Exquisite.

I went back to her with more questions. Malorii may know the answers. I don't think I have the courage to ask. She didn't play the fiddle quite the way I'd hoped. I had hoped for less... subtlety. She hesitated.

I once believed there was nothing new under the sun. I still believe it. But for each perceiver there are new perceptions. For each innocent, new experiences. Someone, somewhere, some world, but not me, not here, not mine.

The fight rages on behind a different kind of silence that we destroy together. The tower... bookshelves... She is...

[Qabian]

Maybe it lived, but it was hardly a failure. Not after what the Artificer said. Besides, it was a chance taken, that her heroes would be able to save one and not the other. I needed her to live. I can hardly be blamed that she managed to find enough help to save both. But she knows now what we think of it, and that we're serious. If she keeps making choices against us? She'll dig her own grave.

As for what Bir says? I don't think I've ever heard him say anything remotely approaching coherence. Nymare said... but the only person... I suppose if Bir is playing as one of Malorii's little toys, then that would make sense, considering what she thinks of the Evershines. But for me she is... convenient and... an exception. I'll accept that logic.

But why tell me secrets? Only if you want them passed around. Why would she -- is she listening to me? The puppet broke its strings? Not all of them, I think, not yet. And Silithus of all places. What does she know? Books? Books I won't share with Nymare, ha! Possibly useless books, but -- Illidan can have Outland? I can still blame him for... much. Tyrande lives. He should have been so much more. He could have been Dath'remar.

What does he do now in that temple? Other than gather armies and fight other armies. It seems almost arbitrary. Who is he killing? Everyone, I suspect. I wonder if he knows... he must. Why would he think -- perhaps he's running from something else. He may... Damn Shattrath.

I can blame her as well. Sitting there with fire and death. Who set her on fire? The naga don't use fire. Coincidence? Desecration? The gnome? There are sin'dorei and furbolg not far. She was buried but... with objects that should have been there longer than she was. How much longer?

And that kaldorei with Illidan's sight... That was the last place I wanted to come across a pack of those... things. I went back to... look for connections but didn't have the time. They may be hunters, but they don't see the way we do because of what they gave to those they hunt. Idiots.

Memorials? With Darnassian flags? I should go back there and see... and ruin... They remember? They remember...

And they forsake it all despite memory. Bastards. Should burn everything they leave behind. They have no right to remember. They gave it up willingly.

Acherontia's stories... that we didn't want to remember but can never forget. She wanted us to listen to the voices of the dead. The dead and the... lost.

There are always connections.

I wasn't there. When I met that army, the betrayal was already done. I met them in the ruins of Dalaran, when the humans finally decided to work against us and Vashj --

Cessily thinks she doesn't know enough. I suppose that's true. Who does? But given women with magic and the Grim... Mn, the necromancer's lady, but she's Forsaken. The ones I have some faith in -- I have no faith in Cessily, but at least she has a mind. There are days she seems to forget how to use it, and days she lets others use it for her, but she has one, despite everything, and I can count far too many who have none at all, but we still aim them at our enemies in the hopes they'll turn out to be useful.

[Qabian]

Something's wrong with Nymare. I would be... concerned, but her concern hardly stopped my mind when it went someplace else. If she's not strong enough to see it through then the effort isn't worth the inquiry. Still, it's disturbing to think what could cause her to turn so like... the others, to ruin everything that makes her an exception. Ah well. The world is simpler when there are no exceptions. I'm certain I can adapt. Perhaps I'll even forget my lessons. Vengeance. Ha!

The strategy in the Basin is simple. Acting on it is apparently difficult. I wish I could take the credit when it goes well, but it should always go well, commands or no commands, attention or ignorance. There is no reason to be overwhelmed there. At least, when the soldiers have minds of their own and a basic understanding of how to come away with victory there is no reason to be overwhelmed.

But attempting to value basic understanding of combat tactics over sheer bloodlust is apparently nigh impossible for most soldiers. Fine. I can indulge in bloodlust with the rest. Who needs to win?

Most soldiers are why I prefer not to lead. Direct, perhaps, but lead? No. Look at what I have to work with? The ones I value most are the ones who do not ask for nor need my help. The ones who need to be molded are... distractions.

The boy is gone. I guess he failed in the proof he promised. There was too much proof in the daggers in our backs.

[Qabian]

Finally, something worth celebrating.

Last year, I was... Larinth... mother... hm.

[Lascivious]

Something's wrong with Nymare. .

((dont we say that every day? <.<))

[Qabian]

Wow, that...

I just...

I should thank him for hurting just enough to make her... do... that...

Mmhmhm.

He made her angry, though. More than once. Amusing.

The sun itself knows I enjoy this holiday. Summer? Who cares, pointlessly numbered days. But it's the season of the sun, the sun that rises where it shouldn't, the sun, the torch we took up when they abandoned us the first time, that burns hot enough to turn away night itself... for a time.

With the Grim in... stasis, and too much time in the valleys, an ice lord and a rogue bringing back the fire... Fires everywhere. Lighting them, ruining them, burning, scorching, desecrating.

Amusement, delight, entertainment, satisfaction, pleasure.

It's temporary, but it's... amazing. It doesn't have the power of one or the strength of the other, but it's all worth it. Just to know they feel it and they can't help but feel it before it's over.

Things are changing. Again. They always do.

She may be hopeless, it's true. And losing hope may be what made us what we are. But some of us never hoped for those things. Some of us hoped for something else entirely, and still do, and always will. I have hope. I have hope to see more than just bonfires burning. A world of ashes, maybe. I could live with that, or die with it, or dance with it.

Will he change? No. He might cry himself to sleep, but he'll be back. That's the way of lunatics. Unless you can right his mind somehow. Perhaps with enough electricity...

Yes, fire's easier to put out than ice is to melt, but it's just the way I was meant to be.

But they'll come back. And I'll put the fire away. And the holiday will end. The desecration will be back to moonwells or other things more permanent and less valuable.

Until the next change that brings back the fire.

For now, let it burn.

[Qabian]

If I ever have to see that again, unprepared, outside the realm of nightmare, I will concede I have lived too long and end myself right there. I saw it at the end of the cave before it came at me, but I still didn't expect it to charge when I set yet another cultist on fire. If I didn't know any better, I'd suspect Malorii of having tampered with the table.

It's one thing to destroy it from behind while it's distracted by another, and quite something else to have it bearing down on you when you know its entire purpose in existing is to drown you alive. At least, that's the purpose of those it took its image from.

I suppose the ogre summoner's pets are larger, but they are controlled, expected, away from me. I expect those things in the hands of warlocks. That doesn't mean I hate them any less. I do not expect them in caves full of otherwise demonless cultists where what I'm actually expecting is to find the sad ghost of some lost Horde who left their flags behind with those who would betray them. I still don't understand. Why trap him in one of those... things?

And yet it was just an image. It was nightmare. Nothing more.

Wasn't it?

And then that bastard impostor kaldorei who seems to farm them or keep them as pets or whatever the hell he's doing on that sun forsaken rock wants me to play games with them myself to find him some sort of crystals? I'm not a fucking warlock. Fuck off. It was bad enough in Hellfire. I'm not blind. I'll find the damn crystals myself if I want to learn more about that... place. And there's another in the Steppes? I've never spent much time there outside Blackrock...

At least before that, the evening had held some amusement. I hadn't realized the Maul had the ability to lift the bans on striking each other. And I hadn't realized exactly what my current arrangement of spells can do with inferior mana elementals until I felt the effects. If they hadn't been striking my armor at the same time that could have -- And we put the demon hunter to use. Hunger?

I admit curiosity about what exactly put those marks on his wrist, although certainly not out of any concern for his welfare. I'll have to watch what happens from here on in. If it makes him stronger... I'm not afraid of the fel. I'm just afraid of losing what the hounds would take. I'm not afraid of going down Larinth's path. Not anymore. I will never ask for death, not that death, my soul already loose as it is -- I wonder if she noticed when she touched it while the bloodsucker had us on the run. That still gives me discomfort. It's rare enough that I'm the one who takes that touch.

I have no one I would trust to give me that death, to exchange life for peace. He at least had me for that. If it comes down to it, I will take the pain of too much and I will feed off it, as I suspect the nameless will as well. Pity the light wielders seem to be incapable of understanding, despite everything they've taken part in to get what they use.

Although if he got those marks practicing true altruism in an effort to save another, I'll never find an opportunity to make that experiment in any case, ha!

And the giant with the audacity to call himself 'the one' and to acknowledge a worthless hydra's rulership over the oceans? Maybe it's another pet. Maybe the horizon holds only pets. Why does no one act on their own? She did. She should have. She would have. She would have brought Sargeras himself to his knees if she'd had the chance. She would have done it without birthing a monster as a result. She would have done everything she promised. I know it. But now she plays at something else's whim? Or maybe the force of the oceans that couldn't kill her made her even stronger and she's bent them, too. Someday...

Either that, or every movement made by every living thing is only the twitching of puppet strings? I refuse.

So why does my mind keep going back to the shadows in Arathi? I shouldn't have seen her there. Those she went with still seem to hate our colors. Enmity can be productive, but for all she was stupid enough to insist on the importance of family, I can't seem to forget what she was when she took narcissism for herself.

[Qabian]

The assumptions are closing in. Maybe I need... distance. Too much time spent getting closer.

That was not the right horizon, but the sun was... That was our sun, Quel'thalas' sun, the colors, the light. Can they even see it up there with the dead bears?

That... was painful, but no regrets. Did it know something? Could it sense what was loose, unattached, so it struck me down on its way in from wherever it was?

But I didn't ask her there for her benefit. I wasn't there in the first place for her benefit. I was there alone to answer my own questions. I asked her there to answer my questions. What was it? What was the old fool doing there? There are enough cultists in the area. Yes, they're working with demons and not along the lines where my interests truly lie, but best to make certain, yes? Reassurance? The connections with Desolace are confusing, but...

And in the valleys of Winterspring where the snow cannot fall, they built a door? Who built a door? The demons? Why? The dragons? Snakes would suggest trolls, but those snakes did not seem Gurubashi. She mentioned the caverns. Did the Druids of the Fang have some connection with Hyjal? I suppose the possibility is there, though I don't believe I ever saw snakes like those in the Barrens. How would I even go about answering that question? And would the answer have any relevance?

I hate it up there, the way it is before the demons got there. They had immortality, but we had something more pure, better in every conceivable way.

I don't know if I will actually bother to dig up those memorials. Desecration is usually enough to appease the indignation. But she made me doubt, and I needed reassurance. Hm, seems to be a pattern. I don't want them to be there. They caused it in the first place. They failed to protect her. They don't deserve a place on that beach. Leave it to the naga. Let it stay in ruins. I don't care if you remember who you lost. You lost them. You don't get to pretend they remember you. Stay on your cursed tree and leave the oceans and the sunlight to those you abandoned. When the Lich King raises their millennia dry bones, then maybe you'll have a reason to be there.

But why did I ask her to paint? Because everyone else was otherwise occupied? It wasn't like she kept me company, asking me questions to keep my own voice perpetually in my ears. Ah, but that had nothing to do with me. And it was always me who hunted her down before I ran off again. I don't... know why I do that. To reassure myself that she's still there, I suppose, that she isn't some toxic side effect or symptom from the soulthief or the weapon. That the dragons didn't just arbitrarily decide she was never there and all these months I've been talking to myself. Doubt and reassurance. She answered the questions like she always does, but she was... off. On her own. Better that way in some senses, but... confusing.

And in the end she always gets what she wants.

Does she?

I doubt she even knew she wanted to jump, but she did get that.

I didn't know those things. She answered questions I didn't even know I had. My decisions were correct, for all that I had contemplated what I was missing. There were only two, and they both came to me. Interesting, yet strange. I would have fought with them at every opportunity had they not vanished. Too recalcitrant to serve, but angry enough to want exactly what they wanted, and to do what it took to make sure they got it.

She knows better than to insinuate what she does. She knows better.

I go home alone because I want to. And when I don't? Mmhm.

I told her to run because... she can't. How many times have I told her it was because she was Grim? At some point, maybe it was. And I do what I can to hold them together. But to take it back now? It was because they are Alliance, they need to be stopped, and that was the weak link. Nothing more than a distraction, but I'd rather distract and die than be forced into submission. I assume the same for her. Why? I know too much.

That book in the city mentions them all directly, pits the Legion against the Scourge, separates the creation from the creator. Maiev and -- All this time and Tyrande's a coward with her heart sleeping in the Emerald Dream? Ha! He's abandoned you, he's not coming back, and it entertains me.

I don't think the traitor is capable of doing what is necessary. I don't think he ever has been. He has far too much heart. He has so much heart it chokes him, so he goes through life breathless and deranged. He is lost and has no way of finding himself. I'd pity him if it weren't a waste of effort. But I gave him the same words I give all of them. Everything around me changes and there are times I get swept up in the eddies, but in the end, I am always the same. I am who I am.

It's why I can't shut up.

But why did he mention the troll? I never did ask. Perhaps I should.

[Qabian]

She is... confusing. But then, so am I. To each other, at least. I don't believe I am that complex. What I want, what I advise, it's all quite simple. But then every simple clockwork relies on the nature of something more, the push and pull of what guides motion at the center of all things, and magic is interwoven in my every step.

I don't believe my clockwork can be wound. I never feel the need to unwind. There are times I need clarity. For that I have horizons, apparently even in places where the ground gives way and the line itself does not exist.

I have been accused of being tense, but some people mistake apathy and distaste for tension. I have been concerned, but when I have concerns, what I seek is not relaxation. When I repaint Darnassus in red and tire at the lack of response, I find more entertainment elsewhere, but the entertainment is to occupy my mind and further my goals, not to... relax. Why would I need to relax? Even if I were tense, tension is a force to be used, not diluted.

There is rest, but that is recuperation, restoration, not a need to reduce tension.

The traitor stopped talking with me after I shared Nymare's second recommendation for relaxation. I wonder if that reminded him that she is not his friend and neither am I. Nothing told to me will be held in confidence if I think it would be entertaining to share it. The warlock's accusation of Zelaine is included of course, although as I told her, I've yet to have a reason to share it. Perhaps the next time Nymare provokes her once-sister to tears I might.

Given my reaction to the troll? I know what he wants and even if it weren't absolutely disgusting, I don't do things like that for relaxation, to ease shattered nerves, to soothe my mind. If anything, they only add to a certain degree of undesirable complexity. Where there are things I can do without hesitation, advice I can give without needing to dwell on the repercussions, when it comes to me and... those things, I falter. Always. But to deny them when the want and opportunity exist in combination would certainly be... stupid.

No, there is no reason for him to keep it secret, especially from those who will need to know, but I'm amused at the Grim coming to me as if I have some insight for them. If you want it, no matter who you are, if you have any strength within you, you will work at it until you get it. It's when you don't know what you want that it's much worse for you. Or when it turns out you were mistaken about what you wanted in the first place.

He hasn't changed and he won't, but he has blades and so many Alliance need to bleed. He's been more vicious since the incident, it's true, but it could all be for show. For all I know, he was on their tree doing the same thing he always does. Perhaps the insult he refused to share was that she missed a meeting, aha! I would never tell them to trust him again. Ever. But if he wants what he wants, he may find a way to earn it. Who knows?

We wouldn't share? I don't think it would bother me if she did. That's the difference between a fiancé and whatever the hell I am. There are no promises to break, no pathetic damsels to protect, no sacrifice to make. I suppose there is loss to risk, but all things end in time, especially if they happen to be good.

The new knight at least talked back, despite admitting that thinking interferes with what he does. I'm sure he doesn't have the slightest idea what he's getting into. I didn't. But she gives me what I want, always has in one way or another, since the days with the dead brothers. Not free of trouble of course, but it might be disappointing if she were. I don't tend to chase the easy, even when I prefer to be efficient.

It's curious to know if it would bother her if I did share. There is no one to share with. Now. Yet. Malorii has vanished, I suspect beneath the sands in Silithus, and I'm sure she would find little value in it beyond the fact that it sheds a little light on dwarves and old men who manage to destroy seclusion without prompting or logic. The orcs... learned not to waste time on pointless thinking. Perhaps if Setrema manages to find and kill her brother I can test it some time. Or there are always enough in Silvermoon who will do anything for money or thistle and would be glad to be asked for nothing more than sitting on a distant hilltop in Outland.

The Grim have returned and the fire ends, like all good things. I will remember it well, but I have no regrets.

[Qabian]

My head...

The last thing I remember... Abric was throwing fireworks. There was fire. A lot of torches. Fire is so... I remember... I haven't... Not since... And that troll... oh gods.

What the hell am I doing here? At least it's Nymare. She wouldn't have let me... ugh. Yes, she would. At least I doubt she can do anything worse than she's already done.

Gods, my head...

I need to get home.

[Izlude Fellblade]

[I knew that it was only going to end in curtains for you! Large sheer ones I might add...]

[Qabian]

((Heh, you didn't spy long enough. There were no curtains. Only a ragged, dirty, and obnoxiously low canopy. Forsaken aren't so good with decor.))

[Qabian]

Nymare is telling me strange things about the last night of the festival. Of course I'd like to believe her, but she is a consummate liar after all. Aha! Add to that the giddy giggling and her own headaches. Mmhm. Next thing, she'll be telling me she was seeing pink elekks and then I'll just have to accept it all. Right.

I remember... overindulging on the Bluff. I suppose that's not particularly in my character in the first place, but there was fire and it was good. It seems far more likely that I would have found somewhere to wait or sleep it out rather than go on an epic, dangerous, incredibly stupid journey just to watch fireworks in Alliance cities. And Booty Bay? When was the last time I was in Booty Bay? That doesn't sound right at all. Why would I care about fireworks? Even drunk, I'm quite certain glitter is not going to be a priority.

And I don't know that dead woman. Maybe she was in Tirisfal and recognized me from there. Falconwing seems like a somewhat more appropriate place to be unconscious, but I don't know why I would have been there at all, either. Connecting Thunder Bluff and Tirisfal in itself is still... lacking. I assume Nymare had a hand in that for whatever reasons, considering she was the only one on the other side.

Cristok got his pieces. The absence of the Archmage forced me to employ a little creativity, certainly not for the first time in this mess, but in the end, the troll had as much opportunity as I did to hand over what she had when the final contestant of the night, a shockingly accomplished druid in her own right, was crowned, as per the instructions given. Or the troll would have had as much opportunity if she hadn't been so busy attempting to buy me out of the contest. If the Archmage really wanted my share, he should have taken it from me himself. I'm curious to see what if anything he will do now.

Maybe the troll employed more creativity than I gave her credit for and had him taken out for her own safety? Wouldn't that be amusing. I wonder what the Grim would do then. I suppose Abric would need to issue some decrees of some sort. Aha! But one would think Keeju would have known and perhaps mentioned something, given her relationship with the mage? Ahaha!

I'm still not concerned about what Cristok will do if he manages to build his little toy. I get the distinct impression he'll only get himself killed whether or not it works the way he hopes.

I gave Nymare what she earned. It seemed the best method to acknowledge the part she played without anything so simperingly pathetic as gratitude. Gold for services rendered? I'm sure she recognized the implication, but if she cared, it didn't seem to bother her. After all, she wasn't the one on her knees when all was said and done.

I saw the other last -- this morning. I have not seen her often lately, only in passing, simple nods of acknowledgment, the occasional brush in darkened alleys, Silvermoon, Lordaeron, Orgrimmar. We had drinks in Fairbreeze in the early hours. Coffee. I don't think I'll be touching anything fermented again for a long time. I may not believe Nymare, but that doesn't mean I appreciate losing hours in conjunction with being served inventive stories about said hours.

We... talked. That's not like her. I've never used her to encourage listening to my own voice, but after too many sunrises recently, I didn't particularly feel like sharing one with her. And I let her talk, rather than echoing as I usually do. She went on and on about the kaldorei in the Gulch and how she was thinking of dedicating herself to the work of the Outriders there. I'm not sure why she thinks I would care, but as far as subjects I could stand to listen to for an hour or so, she could do worse. She could talk about her family.

And she was dressed in Silvermoon style leathers, like a ranger rather than a hunter. That struck me as odd. Of course, almost everything about her strikes me in some way, and we did first meet in Silvermoon, and I've always said if she'd been born to us she would have been a Farstrider, but she never seemed like the type to representationally take up our torch so blatantly. And Silvermoon is very far from Warsong. Perhaps it was coincidental. I didn't ask.

She has knights. I have snipers. We both have rogues. Could be worse. Could be warlocks. Mhm.

[Qabian]

By the sun...

You try to prove a point, or someone else tries to prove one to you, and all hell breaks loose.

I've hired a druid. Simple vendors aren't going to be enough. I won't grow it on my property, but the cattle know their herbs and I've told her where to find it, the spire, the sancta, what's left of the runestones. The quality is always better when it comes from the ley itself rather than being forced from soil it doesn't want.

Odd that Bir mocked me for not using it. Something about fun? Maybe in Dalaran. Laughing at the humans who would never understand. Since then, it's only been a reminder of loss, of where we've been, of where we need to go. This isn't fun. But I have things to do. Have to keep going. Got a job to finish before I let everyone else out there ruin everything. Whatever it takes.

Whatever it takes.

I don't think I'll be sharing any more sunrise. At least we found out where it is first.

I need... Silence.

[Qabian]

Mhmhmhm.

Ahahaha!

...

I will meet her. Only a matter of time now.

There are others left who spent time with her. Not the Prince. He's made his own hell. But the brother who would have been one of her own, he is something else. Another step on the path.

And then I will learn whether she chose her shackles, as I chose mine, and whether she is just as capable of freeing herself as well, or if she is as trapped as the brother and the Prince.

I have a new book with old names. Ner'zhul. Gul'dan. Gorefiend. Their people were and continue to be underestimated.

I don't know why I answer her questions in bits and pieces. I shouldn't answer them at all. I never should have. But I have benefited and turned things my way. Of course, I've also turned things against myself without realizing.

I don't want your respect. I only want your story, and how it reflects and and teaches me my own. Lessons only have value if they are learned. I don't...

I need to write down the lines before I lose them again. My mind is not as inviolate as I would hope. Pain can be more of a distraction than the greatest idiot among us. What can healers hope to do when what they need to heal no longer exists or no longer belongs? How much of me is not myself now? And yet it is still what matters most.

Desolace
Jaedenar
Nagrand - and Guardians? odd position - old portal
Shadowmoon - x2
Blasted Lands - Storms
Burning Steppes - Storms

Wintespring? - snakes
The Barrens? - Dreadmist? Wailing Caverns?

And the rebuilt portal itself...

Forgetting too much. More reading to do.

What lies beneath...

[Qabian]

Maiden's Circle? What the hell? I think the crests are more useful. She should have given them back instead.

Tanaris, Un'goro, Silithus off the list. A few hidden stalkers are not much of a presence. Nor is a questionable design on the ground and a messy table. If there was any reason to be careful about it, it would have happened.

I answered her questions, just incredibly indirectly and without any detail, but she knew what I meant. She just wouldn't admit it.

But she didn't remember me, so either he told the truth or something much more questionable happened. Remaining hidden as... everything... happened. What happened?

What's different about now? I am. Unfortunately.

Aggonar has one. It's oddly clean.

[Qabian]

The warlock...

She just doesn't get it. I thought she was done. Something woke her up again. I don't know what or who or if I even had anything to do it, but why else Nymare? Something about Sabachthan? Something about runes? Something about blood? Who knows?

Why? Why? Why?

It might not be me.

Who cares?

She was right. I was right. But no. I had to -- if I hadn't -- only so much at the horizons. Can thank the songstress for her gift, I suppose. Hm.

I didn't do it for her. I did it for me. I'm done. I've had enough. I'm not going to let her pull those strings. Never again.

I didn't catch her. She fell on me.

Demons to kill. History to set right. Or to use. Convenient if disgusting.

I did it for me. For my peace, hard enough to find. For my chaos, where I need it.

And now I can hear her, even though I don't want to.

She... trusts? I...

Necessity.

Coping, though. Hunger is meaningless when what you need is everywhere. Pain... requires strategy. And quiet murmuring voices that you're desperately trying to ignore? Even more strategy. Ha! I think I'm going to need... more. Thank the sun for druids who know the difference between what's real and what isn't, and haven't yet learned how many reasons they might have to do you wrong.

She's wrong. It's not saving her from enacting violence on others. It's not saving her from killing them. It's saving her from getting herself killed. That kind of drive does not make you stronger. It blinds you. All your target has to do is step aside, and you've drowned in the river behind them. Even if they do die at your hands, you're already gone. You didn't notice the poison, the blade, the crack in the street that trips you and shatters your skull on the cobblestones.

Chains. ...where did...

I suppose there's pity enough. Felhounds...

Why are all his statues women?

Made the mistake...

I helped myself. Me. So why am I -- damn it.

I still have that scroll. Maybe that will shut her up for a while. Maybe she just needs fruitless quiet.

[Qabian]

So... what was that?

Cruelty? It would be pleasant to think that, but somehow I have my doubts. A being that professes to be some distilled essence of the Light itself seems unlikely to be overly concerned with any particularly vulgar goings on, no matter what the true intent of those participating.

It could have ended badly. If we'd been caught by something other than a stationary embodiment of all good things.

She's right. The later inquiries do imply that those making claims regarding windchimes are completely and utterly out of touch with reality. Not that that's surprising, but the reinforcement of the lunacy was highly amusing.

So why then?

Because we could. To ruin things that need to be ruined. There's no awe left to that hall now. None whatsoever. The Light is nothing more than a backdrop to base want.

[Pearlle]

So why then?

Because we could. To ruin things that need to be ruined. There's no awe left to that hall now. None whatsoever. The Light is nothing more than a backdrop to base want.

((wonderfully put!))

[Qabian]

I am not her keeper.

She hurt me again. Ahaha! Not intentionally, unfortunately. That would at least be worth discussing. Enough to send me elsewhere. Not relaxation, but... recovery.

But if she wants to starve herself, at what point does that become my responsibility? I never told her she ate too little. I never told her her measures were wrong when the lunatics insisted they were.

Others offered her help. She can take it from them. She never asked for mine. Although she did accuse me of not giving her any. The sun forbid I should avoid seeming useful to someone who has managed to access almost every secret I thought I held for myself.

I wouldn't let her abandon herself because of my actions, but if she wants to abandon herself because of her own? She's welcome to prove she's an idiot once and for all. I'm not going to stop her.

Besides, I'm sure she'll trip across a knight or four on her way down.

In acting in self-interest, I did enough for her, blocking that voice, taking that mess into my own, risking everything.

I don't understand the need for... purity. I doubt I ever will. Such events are formative. They build and mold. How one reacts in those times decides how one will react in the future. Reminders, scars are logical. Why avoid them? I understand what she has is a tool to manipulate, but those who are manipulated so easily are ultimately not going to be useful in any situations of real importance. Perhaps for overcoming obstacles here and there, but...

I suppose I'm not capable of understanding, not being a woman.

She didn't need that to destroy my walls. She did it completely exclusive of -- not that I didn't -- but that's not --

She came to me. I didn't go to her.

Did I?

I don't have it. Why would it make a difference to me if she lost it? It wouldn't. But to someone out there...

Deception. Denies her own mastery of it. Perhaps she doesn't even realize what she can do. The day she does, she will have anything she wants, and I'll be only too glad to finally see them die with some permanence.

But then I never saw the need for reminders when I was a child either, and more than once went to the effort of hiding them then. Perhaps her insistence on matching tone was simply evidence of her lack of maturity? Or the doctor's?

And the priest also lied. Not that I should be surprised. He took something from all of us that day.

To hurt her? Maybe. To see what she would do? Far more likely.

[Qabian]

Misunderstandings all around. It was the reason I said anything, but do answers that create more questions count as answers? I suppose.

She didn't understand. I didn't try to clarify. Too many words already. Her reaction was amusing enough. Fynne proved my point already. It's not the blood that means anything. So much in our world lives without life. Why would the soul be any different. The soul can exist separate from the body. We see that in spirits and memories. The body can exist separate from the soul. We see that in -- we see that.

The heart is meaningless. Sylvanas proves this. All you need is magic.

All you need.

Yes, I have it. All that trouble to get it? Of course I have it. It is in my possession. But she knows there's something off.

They're not connected. There are no ties to follow should I kill my warlock sister. She could be a warlock for all I know...

I have it, but how can you puppet without strings? You ruin one side or the other, and the connections are already broken. I have one and I have none. I have enough for her to see, but while I have it, I can work around it. Not everyone is so blessed.

Blessed? Ha!

It is that much easier to lose, especially when the one who broke the strings knows where I am. Maybe I shouldn't keep it on my person... Become a true lich, ahaha!

She is a master of puppetry. Makes them all dance, knights and demons alike. She does more with chains than simply wear them. I... do not even have them to use.

Think of those I could have used if I wanted to.

That hopeful who wouldn't leave her name out of the conversation... Good little puppet. I suppose he didn't realize that counted against him.

If she honestly does not want them, she should have gotten rid of them a long time ago. Telling her that felt like an exercise in frustration, so I didn't. How many times do I have to repeat myself before my words have any meaning? I don't think they do to her, or at least they don't have the correct meaning.

Her "doctor" is just an idiot. What do I know of his competence other than he used to wear the purple and gold and thus assumptions can be made? But if the great Grim Magister should happen to imply idiocy, it should therefore be demonstrated directly? Ahaha! Fool.

Logic, boy. Logic. They teach you nothing when they teach you how to heal. That much is blatantly obvious. It's not the Well that caused her hunger, or at least not the Well that made her incapable of thinking clearly. Why would there be a Wretched connection? If that was her idea, don't you think it might have been questionable considering her situation? If it wasn't, she did explain what happened, didn't she?

Just plain stupid. I assume since he hasn't actually made himself scarce since his "resignation" that he's a liar through and through as well. Ah, the hypocrisy of the Light.

Who has bathing in the Light benefited anyway? I can think of more than a few who it has absolutely destroyed and no one who has turned out the better for it. Idiot.

I suppose if you're going to run experiments, you want subjects dumb enough not to question too much, but there are plenty of stupid warlocks out there who would provide more interesting results.

Interesting that my implication about the rogue should turn out to be useful. That's why fel is fel. I knew there would be something in common. Not too much, as yes, the source, the ones manipulating it, were different, and thus the results were different as well. But the source, the ultimate derivation, is the same, and thus the experiments have more value than infecting tin cans and the Well's waste.

Alyiane? Odd that someone who would inquire about that name wouldn't know a lie when they hear one. Or not so odd because they try not to think too hard when they do anything.

I don't need my blood. The dead walk without it. The dead are even capable of thought, rationalization, freedom, learning. The dead can walk the sands, summoning the elements and reading cult documents. Because of magic. That of demons, that of the elements, that of light and shadow, that of eternity. It all has more value than the mere person manipulating it.

And the horizon? History says it should have killed her. There is so much evidence to the contrary. It won't be an hour, but soon... Soon there will be answers. Soon I will know how it's done. How to die without death. How to have both everything and nothing. The Lady wasn't forthcoming, but she gave me something I lied about having.

Whatever you think is in blood, you're imagining. I've bled in more than enough moonwells to prove my point. It's as worthless as the dirt beneath your feet. Magic is everything.

Why bleed? It has no more magic in it than the water. Kill you, and you go on without it, with your soul that you don't want, because you made a stupid promise. Kill me, and I go on without it, and without the soul because the connections are already lost. Look at it. The loss of blood is no more symbolic than spitting on the ground, spitting on that broken hull, spitting on that fool who refuses to embrace the phoenix.

Gets similar reactions, too.

How much have you really learned from me? I can't even tell you to do what you want and have you listen, or you would have already lost your demons. I am not a good teacher. Look at those who have come to me to learn. How many of them went away better? I am a student. That doesn't mean students cannot learn from each other. I do have things to... share. I just don't have the technique to teach and impart, to give clarity where there was none. Dalaran died too early to mold me, the Prince ruined himself without our consent, and for all your insistence otherwise, I am still just a child, which makes you a babbling infant. Children should not teach infants.

At least not in magic. In blood, we are something else entirely. We can use it while we have it, but that doesn't mean it has value. I suppose that means you are not a good teacher, either. But aesthetic has the quality of not requiring understanding to be indulged. A waste of time, but when it tastes so good, who cares? That's what you learn in school.

Is that your point about blood?

[Qabian]

She doesn't miss... it. Or... that.

She has changed. She has changed me.

I needed her to ruin my things.

My things? Ha! They're only mine because I stole them.

Still, they matter less and that was important.

There are things I miss.

There are people who live who deserve death. And there are people who die who deserve life? Don't give one unless you can give the other? No. It's far simpler than that. Everyone who lives deserves death. It's merely a matter of who you can force it on first and who you need to use to make that happen, so that you can be the one who takes what no one deserves.

And what of when they ask for it? What about when you need them to live and they need you to end them? What then? Philosophers clearly don't spend enough time in the real world.

Being alone is... necessary. I always preferred it. Prefer. Preferred? There are more voices in my head than there were, despite everything I've done. No. I didn't always prefer it and I don't now. Usually. I need words. Words can kill. And sometimes I need more.

Going alone only to find someone else there, someone else who needs to die... I need to get away from these spells. I need fire. Damned festival. Going back to Hyjal while the bronze were sweet enough to simply let it burn should have made it obvious enough what I want. All this work free of elements, ice and -- the only time I use fire is when...

It was good to see Fynne well on his way to proving himself a petty thug, aiding and abetting petty thugs as he was. I shouldn't have survived as often as I did. Somehow I doubt that's a statement on my tenacity. It was even better to crush innocents in Darkshire, Redridge and Gadgetzan in a demonstration of how to be truly petty, a demonstration very few witnesses survived to learn from, but improved the mood nonetheless.

[Qabian]

I showed up late. As usual. There were no other Grim that I could see. Probably for the best. I did put my weapons aside, as per the request, but I hardly require weapons to do damage. I fed Nymare's paper folder a little fire and took the opportunity to abuse the mana from the druid, but there were others generally taking care of my work harassing the kaldorei in attendance, so I was hardly needed in that regard.

The orcs, though, were very strange indeed. Usually at such events I can find a quiet corner to simply listen, which seemed especially hopeful without certain particular distractions of mine about, but they approached me apparently because of my tabard and we were still speaking when the grand majority had dispersed.

What was it they said? All that talk of fates. They would think to show me mine?

Do not repress my ambition? What do they know of my ambition? Or my downfall for that matter? And talk of the purest breed, paths to walk, agents and handmaidens? They would put their might behind me?

I did manage to avoid mentioning Malebrignon, although the temptation was there, in case there was the possibility of extracting information from those who listen to rumors. But there is enough trouble surrounding that. The additional possibility of attracting even more did not seem worth the risk.

If nothing else, they gave me much to think about. Too much like the one from Silithus, though. I expect they were sent and were not what they said they were at all, but we did agree that everyone deceives. Sent by whom?

My ambition, curiously enough, has little to nothing to do with my "tribe" as they put it so endearingly. They are a step on my path, not the path itself. However, if anything they said is true, which is exceedingly doubtful, the talk of the downfall is what worries me.


I didn't expect the night to go so far beyond thinking of the gathering's results.

She said she needed to burn things. There was no need to question why. And considering what I'd done after the little encounter in the canals, I had even less care for her reasons. I could leave my thoughts at the bottom of the Umbrafen and set Azeroth alight.

It was incredible, every shining moment of it. Who needs the Light when there is fire itself? Yes, it will consume you while you revel in it, but when you have it, it is all there is. Walking amongst them while they fell away like so much ash was everything I have missed since --


I saw the elekks. They don't burn. Either they are protected, or considering the methods required to make them appear, figments only. The Alliance who came to see what we were doing thankfully prevented me from making worse mistakes. That's one way to get sober in a hurry. Broke my own promise to myself, but in the name of... proof. I wish they had burned.


To walk Hyjal without it, to feel the results without the capacity to cause them...

Each scorch, each blast, each immolation, each incineration, every ignite, every backlash led to where we found ourselves. Perhaps pity that the church was too busy because we'd called too much attention upon us. Fire has never been subtle. But I didn't need the desecration as much as she did. All I needed was to make sure the fire kept burning. The flash point was inevitable. What better place than where the ice would think to rule? Winter itself could never be enough.

[Qabian]

What the hell?

She plays me like a harp.

At least there's the consolation that she can't give that to anyone else.

It's not trust. It's predictability. I don't have any faith in you, but I know how you think, how you react, what sends you to the horizon. It's all so scientific. Experiments. Results.

I could ruin it. I could. Instead, I'm using it to ruin other things while I have it. When the whispers only tell you what's already in your head, is it really another voice?

But then there are the altars and the ends of the world. There was no change that I could see, and she didn't seem to notice one. Maybe later.

[Qabian]

Not the hell?

No, I suppose not.

I saw her with the slow one -- as though there's only one of them -- when I was stumbling around the city, forgetting the supplies for the new experiments and feeling less than competent, not that I'd have admitted that if anyone had asked. I assumed she would have other things to occupy her night -- her knight? Ahaha! For all I know, the fool actually managed to solve what the rogue only managed to abate, not that the rogue isn't infinitely preferable and more intelligent in every way.

She said once that she hadn't bothered to share the sunrise. I think we both tried to decipher whether that mattered. I'm content to assume she does whatever she likes whenever she likes. If that happens to work in my favor, so much the better. I haven't shared any sunrises, but with offers of handmaidens -- she comes back to me with enough frequency to keep me from being so easily distracted, especially by anyone who hasn't learned to play my vulnerabilities to their advantage, I think. But then again, I have certainly never been an advocate of chastity, at least no more than I have advocated public spectacle.

Once I gathered what I actually needed and the two of them had gone elsewhere, I was perfectly content to continue my work with the baby blue and disturb the other patrons for a few hours. The book from Scholomance wasn't quite as helpful as I'd hoped, considering the subject was not yet dead and I had no intention of killing it yet. I may in time. Necromancy isn't so effective with the living that you want to live as long as possible. Perhaps there will be something more in the tower. Or maybe I should ask her where warlocks keep their books. I could go back to the Slaughtered Lamb. They were ever so welcoming last time. Vishas and the Scarlets might have something as well. I need more than simple techniques for pain, but they may have methods for extending survival beyond the reasonable.

But then it wasn't even an hour after I saw them together that she had me alone out there, with her hands... and her mouth -- gods, that mouth... and the guards screaming for help while we ignored them. "After all, it's not home." Ahahaha!

That might have been a problem if we'd been found by anyone who mattered, or if any other Grim had come to do their jobs and noticed our absence, but there were more than enough to defend the city. The usual channels were full of enough noise to keep us updated on the situation. It was only a matter of pushing them back, I suppose. Guardian angels waiting in the woods for the tide to turn for the worse and give them an excuse to make themselves seen? Ahaha!

Simply bad timing. If they'd been a touch earlier, we would have been raining fire with the rest and could have had our little celebration more traditionally in the wake of battle. As it was, we were caught already in the moment and made the decision to stay there as long as we could -- as long as I could, aha!

I still don't understand what prompted the "birthday" idea in the first place. If she'd wanted a reason to party, Saltheril's wasn't far. I wonder if that's where she learned to make that ice. It was simply ingenious. And she didn't bring anything more intoxicating than her self, if still exotic and luxurious. Indulgent. Decadent. Intelligent. It's so much better to remember every last taste and touch with crystal clarity, hm? The taste of magic in all of it. That dress... was ridiculous, but it accomplished her aim, making her look... something she'd only do for me.

But two is hardly a party, no matter how entertained you might be while you're together. No poisons, at least that I felt. She didn't want me dead, or ill, or suffering, at least not physically... overtly. She could have used something illicit to get control, but if nothing else, the fact that she didn't leads me to believe the whole scenario was brought about to prove yet again she doesn't need anything more than her self to maneuver me where she wants me.

Perhaps it was actually gratitude, for not destroying her soul, despite having been given more than enough opportunity. I could have done it. If she'd given me that same opportunity a matter of months ago, I would have taken it without hesitation. I would have ruined her where she stood, let her live half-broken, let her live scarred and marred where no one could see it but she would still know. This time it was just another test, just another birthday gift, to see what I would do. Mm, I didn't hurt her, but I found other things to hurt as a consequence, and I would be exceedingly amused to find out what I did ended up hurting her in the future -- the cave where Malorii and I hid from the troll, the Altar of Storms, the Ward of the Defiler, Cuergo's Gold.

But manipulation without force goes two ways, and when the one being manipulated is quite clearly willing to play the game, to disappoint and be disappointed, knocking all the pieces off the board mid-play is simply bad form. If she thinks all the expressions of surprise and confusion mean I am not using her for the benefits of all the games she wants to play in turn... I'm sure she's more astute than that, although how much of my own thoughts she can see -- that's not --

Maybe I am safe, but so is she. She still doesn't like to let me win, at least not without any direct benefit to herself, so I can know that she won't push any edge that threatens finality, just all the shades of screaming between ecstasy and nightmare.

If she wants to give gifts, I'll take them without thanks. Of course, what need is there to thank someone who will take all the benefits of gratitude from you all on their own.

And in the end, who gives a damn what prompted it?

Or that in the end I left her there alone because it was only hours after all was said and done that I remembered I hadn't actually fed that dumb creature that suffered for her soul. I suppose if I kill it accidentally I can always make use of that book.

[Pearlle]

((i loved this post. what an adventure between the lines!))

[Qabian]

Introspection doesn't suit me. I suppose it's a good indicator something's wrong when I'm not even in the present enough to focus fire.

It's tempting to blame the blue.

I... probably did mention soul, but my insistence that was not my intent was real. Any interest I might have in the soul lies in the curiosity about the nature of dragons themselves. I suppose I could ask her. Her fascination with the Wyrmscar...

But I don't want to rip it out, use it as a link, power fel magics, whatever the hell it is warlocks do with pieces of souls. If anything, I'd be inclined to believe dumb animals don't have souls.

But there is an intriguing possibility. The Aspects are... protectors? If they have been about since the dawn of the world, isn't it possible they are at essence the world itself? So when you rip apart whatever is where their souls might be, you don't find what you find in us, but something else entirely? In the red, you find life? The green, dreams? The bronze, time? The black...

And the blue...

Magic.

More than enough reason for me to have an interest in looking into the souls of dragons, or whatever it is they carry within.

But no, that's not what I'm looking for. Even the effects of what I did with it and her soul are something for which I await Acherontia's expertise to provide the results.

I'm certainly not looking for demons.

She thinks she knows what I'm looking for? She's obviously thinking too hard. Again. Aha!

And I am not going to a priest. Any priest. The only priest I know of that I'd have any faith that they might understand what I'm doing is the last person anywhere I want to spend any time nearby.

No, I want to do this myself. At least at first. No fun, I know.

What I want to know about is pain. Warlocks do seem to know a few things about it. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if even those warlocks who claim to be artists despite their cheap methods know a thing or two about pain.

Of course, she's probably correct that they wouldn't keep such things written, or if they did, wouldn't leave them out in the open. I know they share their own tomes, but I suppose they must keep them closely guarded.

Hence the Scarlets. I'd need only the newer books of theirs, really, but considering their penchant for interrogation that developed alongside their paranoia, I'm sure I'll find something useful in what I've managed to take from their shelves. Who better to go to than those who dare to rip secrets from Forsaken flesh already dead?

I want pain because this thing follows me despite everything I do to it. I want pain, new sources, new techniques, new ideas to measure its boundaries. Does it enjoy it? Does it fear me? Is it testing me? Learning from me as I am from it? Is it dependent on me? Does it think it has no choice but to rely on me for its continued existence? That would be a disappointment, although I suppose it's a good possibility. I don't like puppets, but I might consider stringing this one, just to see what happens.

I didn't bother with the last one I found because she was there and giving it to her... got a reaction. I hoped for more, but... you don't always get what you want, ha! With this one, I'm going to peel it apart scale by scale, and see what makes the blue blue. More than the ghosts of those who no longer walk the shores of the world, I think the innocent who quickly lose their innocence are much more revealing of... information.

And this one was... just a costume.

The more I do, the closer it gets. I may not want to use its soul to power magic, but if my theories are correct, and it has no soul, but only the essence of magic within, that I would use without hesitation.

But the kaldorei have nothing for me, except their story of the Betrayer, and I had the minion send me that. So why was I there?

Trying to escape my own mind. And all she did was bring my mind out into the world so that there was nowhere to escape. Not that she intended to do that -- I think -- but she did it nonetheless.

She is not the only one I have sat at the horizon with to muse on the nature of everything meaningless, but when I did there were no lectures and there was no... touch. She should have had someone like that. A sister. A friend.

Someone to die. Someone to kill.

It always comes back to that. And who to blame? Kael'thas? Illidan? Garithos...

The world before the phoenix was a different world entirely. I hate it now. I hate it. And the time that passes since is new. All that went before is lost, sundered with the Well. Again.

Unless your entire family survived.

But maybe I'm the only one who kills the things that matter, so the mere fact that I have a pulse to be found is an irritant.

It has been a long time. No, not so long. She has told me to die. She didn't act on it, perhaps only an expression of frustration, but evidence that she is not always an exception. She is not the beatific essence of mystery and manipulation or whatever it is she pretends to be. She is just a woman.

How long is an exception excepted before it becomes the only thing that's real?

Of course, they lose all their entertainment value when they don't fight back or when their only reaction is to hide. Sometimes simply starting the discussion is all I need to find a reason to keep asking questions.

She wanted Astranaar. I wanted Stormwind.

I could have gone alone. I offered. He could have told me to go on alone. I might even have obliged him if he'd been remotely man enough to tell me what he actually thought of me, but no. He just left, tail tucked between his legs like a beaten dog.

He didn't care that she would not love him? He didn't care? Ahahahahaha! Something in common, boy! Something in common!

Never care. Oh, but he cared about something. Something made him... angry, as she put it. Jealousy is hilarious. Or maybe she lied to him, standing so close together? Even better! It's not so difficult to get me to smile.

Idealists are such easy prey. I lied. There are two women in Silvermoon who sell what I was looking for. Still, all the practical reason in the world to be there.

And the lies, oh the lies. Such sad, decrepit, pathetic little lies. If you're going to lie, make it big, or at least make it interesting. Provoke chaos where there is order. Make the ones you lie to stand up and take notice. Make them hate you...

Make them touch you.

So much concern about being direct. Fuck direct. She knew what he wanted, whether or not he actually used words to ask her for anything other than lodging. Lodging?! Ahaha! HA! If he had a pair, he would have insisted that he shouldn't need to ask for what she already knew, hm?

I asked for nothing. I ask for nothing. No. Thing.

I have what he wants? What's that? This tabard? A stolen home? Maybe offers of handmaidens? Real magic that doesn't hide in the shade? I do not collect women. I do not collect hearts. I have nothing he wants, although I may have what he needs: a mind of my own and a lack of fear to speak it.

I heard no heartbeats. She said something... That wasn't why she took me down there? She... took me... only where I was already going. Mmhmhmhm. But to try and keep the silence or risk the sound of chains? Quite the game, in light of Benedictus' holy tears. I'm sure whoever's heartbeat used to be in that box was at the very least entertained by one night's company. Maybe that's why she heard a heartbeat? The invisible dead get excitable when bishops smite girls' clothes off or mages work with them on? Ahaha!

If he wants desecration, maybe he should just take it. Now that would be chaos.

[Qabian]

A second blue, hm? With a "good" soul? The soul part is nearly irrelevant, entertainment only, but intriguing nonetheless.

I do still think self-mutilation for the sake of aesthetic is a complete waste of time and a sign of utter lack of forethought, but she should know that if she gives me a good reason to test it, I can be convinced. At least there's a reason beyond the complete failure to evoke sentiment.

Evanthe did something to hurt Skafloc's heart? How curious. Some of what I hear about her makes her sound worth knowing. But her desperate attachment to that... thing makes more than enough argument for the opposite case. Of course, given who she was talking to, I wouldn't be surprised if she's just gone and made yet another desperate attachment. Pity. I've seen what a warlock with a true grasp on hatred is capable of.


I still don't understand what that was about, despite trying to extract it from her, but I suspect it has something to do with being a woman. If I was looking for a fight? Of course, I was looking for a fight, but I didn't set out for Southshore alone -- wait. Yes, I did. Mmhmhm. It was so sweet of them to send a few "bricks" as she puts it. If only they'd sent more.

In any case, reducing our chances of success just as they were bringing in reinforcements? Without explanation? Petty. Moody. Of course, those aren't the accusations I made.

At least the knight seemed... enlightened. And it was good to see the paper folder suffering in exchange for once.

I'd... heard of that island, what was kept there, who walked it, but... never seen it myself. And I never did see the ship, only the burning wreckage, which given the proximity of Dustwallow, could have been anything.

If I ever see that Arakkoa again, it will be too soon. Damn druids.

[Qabian]

Maithanet?! Ahahaha! If there weren't such an abundance of hilarity following me lately, I might be ever so tempted to thank them both. Giving me something to laugh about and proving me right time and again. Mm, it's good to be right.

Poor pitiful Evanthe. All those rumors of her cruelty were clearly blatantly false. At first, I assumed it was just Skafloc, that he had done something to her to keep her infamous darkness at bay. But no. Given who she decided to "hit" him with, she's clearly enamored with "good" things. Szordrin's too loud accusations, Nymare's complaints about crowds, between the two of them I could start such rumors. Of course, rumors aren't near as entertaining when they're true.

Maybe she enjoys lunatics? I never really thought Skafloc was insane. A bit slow in the head, perhaps, some motives that made little sense in this world, but crazy? Maybe I just didn't see it. He did on occasion fight where it made sense, but so did those whose minds are more obviously completely detached from reality.

But the quel'dorei, now. That one's psychotic beyond a shadow of a doubt, in a league all of Malethia's own. Maybe I should send them some sort of congratulatory note from O'ros. Aaahahaha! So the naaru are into cuckolding married men, hm? That doesn't say much for their purity, really. Sure, he can hold a shield as well as the rest of the idiots, but just don't suffer him to open his mouth while he's at it. The insanity he spews forth is utterly blinding.

If I laugh much harder, I'm going to start to feel dizzy.

Still haven't deciphered her definition, though. It's not the same as everyone else's, despite her continuously having the same reactions to it that everyone else does. I'm not sure I can twist hers as easily. And yes, she clings to it. Look at the evidence. Watch everyone around you, all so certain they have it. There's nothing to have! They're parading around with great banners of nothing!

She did it herself, once. She's just as much proof of the fiction as the rest of them.

Everyone follows the basest of appetites, especially the "naaru". They should really just stay in windchime form. I'm sure they're far more difficult to tempt that way.

Everyone betrays everyone else. Those who claim to be the greatest of heroes, the greatest of champions of pure love, have the most pieces on the side. Ahahaha! No such thing! No such thing!

Of course hate exists. It's simply that circumstance has destroyed the world's capacity for its opposite. Where there is no innocence, there is no purity. But I can still watch fire burn.

Forget love. Follow your eyes. They know what you want. Follow your mind. It knows your tastes -- blood, pain, magic. You don't need love to find any of it. I'd say follow something else, but I know for a fact that gets you into trouble. Still a better option than the heart. If nothing else, keeps you honest, aha! Honesty is so important to me after all. Aaahahahaha!

But is there really any point in lying to yourself? Everyone else certainly seems to think so.

[Qabian]

All things come to an end. The important thing is not to regret.

When you spend most of your time amongst those who have lived for centuries, you acquire a certain disdain for those whose lives are measured in decades. How can they ever really learn anything?

To them, I am old. To her, I am old.

To those I sought to learn from, I am still a child, only these past years coming into my own identity, centuries left to learn before I come to an end, unless I act like an idiot. Or a hero. One and the same.

Am I Grim? I am with the Grim. I am amongst the Grim. I do not consider myself to be the Grim, or perhaps those whispers I hear about me would be appealing rather than disturbing.

More Grim than most? How? Bloodlust? Hardly. Some of those who would walk with us are simply too soft, but even the troll with his boy harem can run headlong into Alliance knives when he takes an interest.

I have learned from the Grim. Have I learned all I can? If Abric's words were true, then no. There is still more to learn.

But you have regrets.

No.

Yes?

No.

There's no point in regretting the necessary. It was perhaps disappointing to learn that justice is as much a fiction as love, but such is the way of the world.

For those who think too much of the heart, it seems like regret.

But I know I am better off without it. I can't regret it if it made me stronger. I can hate that it was necessary, but I don't regret. And I would do it again.

Would I?

Yes. I would even have the same hesitations. And I would still hate it. Avoidance then.

But what it took from me is better off dead.

As much as she knows it is real, I know it isn't. If it was real in the days before the phoenix, I didn't know it then, either, and the way of things kills it and makes sure it stays dead.

And when all of this is said and done, because it will be in time, I regret nothing. Every touch teaches. Every wave that reaches the shore takes something back to the sea. So now I'm taking as much as I can get before it ends? Maybe. At the end of a night full of death, a swath of corpses wrapped around the world itself, is there really anything else to ask for?

But friends... Where is that line? There was a time I thought I knew. And I still refuse to have them. Chains. Not as heavy as those made of lies, but if light yet with strength, they can still choke you.

Considering how often we play at semantics, I think she was asking me to define the wrong words.

And yes, she could do this better than most. Either that, or she would learn it is more difficult than it seems. I'd prefer the former. I know from experience that it is... worth watching.

Does she really need a soul? Does she really even need freedom from past mistakes? Let her live with the consequences of her own decisions. If they change her in death, so be it. Those mistakes drive the work of the future.

I would live without a soul, I think, but not one fragmented. All or nothing.

All or nothing. Work for it. I may have no heart, but what I do have...

The project with the whelps is on hold. It would be nice to crack a priest or three, see what I could find, see what I could do, but just now... Preparations must be made. Never enough time.

The girl with the moth came back, and she didn't kill her brother. Why did she leave then? Trying to change my mind? I can't be changed. Not like that. But maybe she can change. She will never be what she wants, what she says she wanted, but she can still be better than she is.

I can't be changed, but I can be abused. And all kinds of things can burn.

[Qabian]

No more pretense.

The last image of old loyalties has finally shattered. As for new loyalties? Those who have managed to convince me to speak frankly know where they lie. Those... are few and far between.

I'm sure he got a certain pleasure breaking us at his dais time and again. Maybe he even believed I was doing exactly as I had told Pathaleon I would.

But it only lasts for so long.

Ever so amusing that a certain loud and prideful sin'dorei was conspicuously absent.

And I do not want his secrets.

I saw enough of them from the Plateau. I do not... want to go back there. Ever. I don't think it will be so difficult to avoid. There's little reason to see the place again.

I hope.

Damn hope. I would make a better villain if I could kill it, I suppose, but what I have of it I have for my own sake. Is narcissistic hope still a virtue? I hope that they will prove to be everything I need to find the place that to this day I am certain does not exist.

Luxury is a curious thing. Cliff faces are not... conducive. It wasn't even a matter of pain. It was a matter of... frustration. Pain can be managed, directed, entertained. Luxury can be... all of the same.

But she wanted me to teach her? Pretense. Again. She has never been particularly open about where she came from, but I hardly think to accuse her of poverty. The truly poor don't contemplate sending their children directly to the college. They do it indirectly through the church, hm?

Not so unlike my own? In a sense. Actually, in several senses. Both are stolen, aha! I do not bother with a dais of my own, though. That would be too much like... all of those destined to fall from them.

If anyone ever actually thought rolling around in a pile of gold is luxurious, they obviously never tried it.

What the hell was I thinking?

Oh, I know what I was thinking. There was definitely something to it, but I would hardly call it luxury. Pique, perhaps? Seduction without decadence? There are ways around intellect.

She wants a... prop? Did she know how that sounded to my mind? Excuses. Lies. And yet if she wants to play that game yet again with another, she is right about one thing. It can be entertaining.

[Qabian]

Keeping to myself since Kael's little... incident. There has been some talk against me that I had hoped to avoid, but no action, and the times we have returned in the interim seem to have provided enough reassurance for the moment.

However, a certain someone mentioned something I hadn't considered previously for the simple reason that not everyone is Kel'thuzad. The fact that not everyone knows his methods -- hm, I should ask the old man... if I can find him -- doesn't mean that not everyone can use them. It would simply take time, research, experimentation. Combine those recent suggestions with Abric and Cristok's absence with murmurs about Dalaran and --

I had to look more closely. I've been back to the dome several times, but there seemed to be nothing new, and everyone I managed to speak with from the Violet Eye was reticent. No matter how much you do for people, the intelligent ones know better than to trust others, especially outsiders, with true power unless absolutely necessary. Not all mages have intellect, but enough of them do to make it more difficult to draw information with subtlety, and I don't have the resources to use force, at least not there, not yet.

And there's the considerable amount of research I'm doing here. If there's some reality to this power, I could use it. There are enough floating rocks in Outland, but to manufacture something airborne, or better yet, lift property already in existence? That has considerably more interest. Take what I've stolen and remove it from general access? Move it anywhere I like? Hmm, I haven't decided where I would go, but it makes more sense to test with the ocean. I wonder if I could go as far as -- getting ahead of myself. Nothing has worked yet. I think the tiny blue may have the key, but I may have damaged it too much. Perhaps I need another one. Mmhmhm.

One of the books I managed to dig up on the subject mentioned Aviana as some sort of reason to avoid overreaching. How quaint. I'll be sure not to anger Elune's messenger. Hahaha! Maybe if I succeed, I'll pave the walks with feathers. It worked for the orcs in Hellfire, ha!

She stops by on occasion. I shifted the spells to let her through. She was followed once, but when I went out afterwards to see what was left, there was no evidence. That was... disturbing.

But I am distracted as it is. There is too much potential for superiority in this project. There's more to this than fire. My goal isn't tears. I don't need screams. I don't delight in pain. My delight is more... final. So with something this massive at my fingertips, the fire smolders, smothered under the weight of possibilities. Soon, at some point, something needs to give. Either I'll succeed, or I'll encounter failure so drastic that my priorities will return to destruction rather than removal. There's more to this than fire because this provides so much possibility for more fire, ahaha! Removal has so much capacity for destruction, for ashes...

She mentioned the silence once, but I thought -- no, I didn't think. I didn't consider her. This is magic. This is everything. This is life. This is essence. Essential.

She is... more valuable than most and in most ways -- exceptional? ha! -- but she isn't magic. Usually.

She can be.

But she mentioned replacement and --

That shouldn't have --

What was I doing? Teasing her, yes. Taunting her. Testing her. There's certainly more than enough room in the Grim for the truly cold. That would be good to see. I suppose it wouldn't occur to her that she's far more attractive with a true aura of frost.

But she keeps turning to the one she would befriend. That's disappointing. Maybe she will never learn.

I tried to give words of reassurance. I didn't even need to lie. Subversion seems to be more often about selection than deception. I suppose if she suddenly regained that facade of glittering ice I first met when she met my every insult with assurances that she could do anything, met my every instruction with an acknowledgment of necessity, before dissolving into that pathetic bundle of emotions that would attempt to pluck at heartstrings that don't exist with songs of jealousy that no one could hear --

Ah, but she doesn't need me now. And that's what makes her better. If it lasts... then I was right all along, only I couldn't be the one to break her. She said she was broken, but she lied like everyone else. She simply sought repair in someone else instead of freezing as she promised. She had to be broken by a friend, and I was never a friend. The question is will she rebuild into something just as weak yet again, or will she remember who she was, the part she played before she asked for what I do not have to give?

And why would my motives matter to her?

For the same reason I --

Research. The deconstruction of curses? Maybe I could use...

[Qabian]

How long is a long time exactly?

Everything is relative, but decades the world seemed in a certain degree of stasis, shielded by the runestones, society and the social, relief in the studies, the learning, made amusing by the stupid playing in Dalaran, the council there. And talking about those days for something to talk about, as though it were yesterday, as though an eternity hadn't passed since then. "Since then." Considering everything only as it has happened "since then", yes, it has been a long time. Too long? I... maybe.

He is gone. Talking about him now, my words sound like those of an idiot child. Perhaps I was one. But innocence, even decades held, is such that it cannot be detected by the holder while it exists, and can only be regarded with distaste once it is gone. He was what he was and he is no more. I shouldn't hold on to those things. Generally, I don't. But occasionally there is a recollection of -- not the way things were, but things as they should have been but that, truth be told, never could have come to pass.

The new mage caught me entirely off guard. "Don't feel vulnerable, sir." Ha! I must admit she has considerable skill with either perception or words, possibly both. To have one's opinions reflected back at oneself with such clarity, and yet just enough uniqueness to dispel suspicion? Ah, not quite enough uniqueness. I have heard a few say the words I want to hear, but it has been a long time -- yes, a long time -- since I have been so utterly disarmed by the sheer accuracy of their presentation.

She doesn't even believe in souls. Just another form of magic about which warlocks lie to themselves regarding the true means of its action, function, source? Endearing, but utterly wrong. I don't traffic in the things, and I won't, but I've made my experiments. I know they exist, much to my dismay.

And she would have mindslaves, broken bodies to puppet in her own way, a Lich Queen in denial simply because she wishes to test a different set of methods. The result is the same, and for me at least, it does not count as annihilation if they continue to walk, even if it's just their shells, hm?

And then she asked questions I thought I had answered, and attempted to redefine words I already had defined. It was confusing to say the least.

Love? Love is not a partnership, although the stupidly romantic might claim it to be. Love is not to use those around you to better yourself. That is logic. I do not love the Grim. I am of the Grim, but I am not the Grim. Love is idiocy, psychosis. Love is what makes you push someone away in order to protect them. Love is what makes you sacrifice yourself in failed attempts to save those who ultimately do not matter, who all die anyway. Love is what makes you cripple yourself so that another can fly from you in the night and forget anything you ever did for them. Love is what makes you kill someone who desperately needs to live simply so that they no longer need to suffer. Love is hearts that have learned to hold, control, ruin each other, as with priests and minds, as with warlocks and souls.

But she would say love is something else. She would say all that I think is love is actually lust? Hardly. Lust does not require sacrifice, vulnerability perhaps, but no need to change, to support, to deny. Lust is control and loss of control, willing and unwilling both. Lust I know. Lust is the act. Love I have never felt. Love is the jealousy.

But she would redefine the word. By her definition, I love the Grim, ahahaha! I use them. To some degree, I depend on them. Logically, there is a partnership of sorts, a mutual addition of strengths and support of weaknesses. A partnership without trust? Without faith? Without hope? Without loyalty? Without anything considered a virtue? Built on nothing but jest and hypocrisy? The Mandate is everything, hm? Enough trust to see to the end of the task, but not enough for secrets. There should never be enough trust for secrets, no matter how many warlocks leave things with you that you never wanted.

I can't even remember everything she said, only that based on past behaviors, reactions, everything she said should have sent me back to Azshara, to have the sea answer questions I hate asking.

Hate is so much easier.

But I'm not as predictable as I would hope.

She should be good for the Grim, especially if she ever gets hold of a Naaru, if she is actually more than a mirror reflecting anything she sees or a well-aimed deception, if anything she said had even the smallest grain of truth. Pity her narcissism is so flawed that she would still search for love.

But if anything she said had truth, if her definition is the correct one, then I'm in trouble. I will have to take back a lot of words, words that I actually meant, from the very depths of that heart I profess not to have. That makes ever having said them meaningless in the first place, I suppose. Certainly wouldn't be the first time I lied, but lying to yourself is so rarely productive.

And then what? Where would I be left? At the bottom of the Elrendar I suspect. The only question remaining would be who ties the ropes.

And two in one night who would presume to take my place. I doubt they know what that entails, but if they want it, they can earn it. She would follow me? Poor fool. Don't appeal to my narcissism by praising me. If that worked, Malethia would have succeeded in whatever the hell it was she was trying to do so long ago. The mage understood. Appeal to my narcissism by expressing your own. Why else would I spend so many nights with a huntress whose admitted goal is the silence that follows screams, the ruin left behind the words that can crumble walls? Because she knows what she wants, and if I ever tried to stand in her way, she'd kill me.

Maybe that's what I meant and still mean. I could still convince her, but what would be the point of ever standing in her way? One day there may be a choice between staying who I am and keeping what I need? There's more than one way to die, more than one way to kill a man, more than one way to live through it.

The new ones will learn or they will die.

I almost felt bad for Setrema. Almost. After all that garbage about the defense of friendship, was that really the action of a friend? But it was too hilarious not to laugh. By the sun...

Absence makes the heart what? Ahahaha!

[Qabian]

What exactly can you build on a foundation of selfishness and complete unwillingness to give up, even if you know in the end it ultimately destroys you or at least changes the you you thought you were into something else entirely?

I suppose I'll find out.

Nothing lasts forever.

Especially not innocence.

But I didn't expect to dig it up. Nothing left in the Elrendar but memories?

[Qabian]

What the hell am I doing?

What am I thinking?

Where?

What?

...why?

Hm.

She was protecting him. She would hardly have cared if I suggested Thrysta rip open anyone else, the little orc for example? But little orcs don't dance on bloody floors.

Unless I ask them to.

Tear her apart, too.

And in the end none of it matters. He's in the right hands.

And why can't I ever just say what happened? I suppose that wouldn't be very me, would it? If I did, comparisons would be made, the degree of wrong. Have to talk myself in circles until I lose the point I was making and feel like an idiot. Then I might have to apologize? Ahahaha! Irony without apologies. And I assumed she already knew. Instead I tell her I'm the whore she knows damn well I'm not. Does it matter what she thinks?

It shouldn't. Especially when she knows better.

Her assumptions are usually more entertaining and less disturbing.

Was there a time when our face was different? I don't believe it, not as people would like to think, those who are stuck wallowing in the past instead of molding it into what they need it to be. Retrospect is always a skewed perspective. Who cares? We need to be who we are now. The present is what matters. The future will be what we make it.

I still need it. I need the retrospect. I need to know it, to change it, to reconstruct it, to fix it to suit the present. But no, it was not better then. It is better now.

She doesn't need to be here. And that, I think, is why she should be. If it keeps her close, so much the better. This place is big enough to house separate existences, a room for books, a room for bodies, a room for demons, a room for cats, rooms I haven't seen since I closed them down, rooms I don't care to know what's in them, rooms that keep what I've stolen stolen instead of owned. I keep nothing that I would regret accidentally dropping into the ocean. And if she steals some log of her own, so be it.

And despite all that we still laugh at Yichimet's glances in the General's direction. I don't... understand.

Everything changes, and nothing ever does.

Something's coming.

[Qabian]

I honestly don't know what to do with this. When you own something, something valuable, something desirable, something that isn't all pervasive, something that you can't copy into your own memory to reproduce at will, you need to protect it. Like the house. Property is property, but it is desirable, and people were ruining without even that as their intention. Needed to keep it from being ruined.

But it's not in my nature to protect. To instigate, to encourage even, but to protect? The self comes first. The house was attached to the self.

So is this, but I can't own it. I do not want to own it. It should be self-sufficient. I can only need it.

But if they think they can threaten it, test it, break it without my reaction...

I suppose that's part of the problem. I will react. I just don't know... how... yet. I don't like not knowing. How could I know? This isn't --

Will I just jump over the nearest railing? Or will I set everything in reach on fire? Or is there some middle ground? Watching and learning, observing, seeing what happens next without forcing my hand.

The world I had thought was simple became considerably more complicated. And yet, nothing changed? No, I did. I still want what I want for my sake and no one else's, but what I want...

That little party -- I suppose I was playing puppets and didn't even notice. Should have stayed in the corner. Walking about was a bad idea. Made it difficult to observe and easy to be distracted from the whole point of being there in the first place. I suppose the lack of interest may have stemmed from the lack of heroes to annoy beyond the wench herself. And it had started with such promise. Suppose, suppose, suppose...

I was amused by the ice witch's attempts, despite the air of desperation. Turned out the barmaid was made of something tougher than I thought, but maybe she'd simply already spent all the tears and there was nothing left but to serve drinks to those who wouldn't drink them, or maybe she just saves her tears for pillows and other men. And I wonder how much of Nymare's reaction was my fault, but that's not an issue I'm going to press.

Belonging and waiting? I have never belonged. How do you tell someone who never had a family what it is to belong? There was school. There were even friends. But that was not belonging. That was... mutual use in the interests of the self. At least until -- no, that I needed to do as well. I don't need to belong. I only need to be until I need to be somewhere else.

And waiting, I rely on distractions. When I lack them, yes, there's waiting, but I like to think I'm quite good at finding distractions to keep impatience at bay. She had to go and prove otherwise.

With all this Scourge business, everyone forgets the black. I wonder how long before they stick their claws back into the world.

And blood? What?

[Qabian]

One of these days my words are going to get me killed.

When am I going to learn to shut up and keep my thoughts to myself?

That doesn't change the fact that there's something wrong about calling something I don't hate "home". "Home" is something for someone else, for those who were born to it, for families. She thinks they can be separated. I... don't. "Home" is the city that rises from the ashes but that is never true to any of those who inhabit it, built on deception and death, full of desperate need for chains to the world that keeps trying to destroy it.

I don't need truth. I don't give a damn. But I do not want home. At least not... that home.

I didn't actually mean make new ones, although I can do that as well. I meant change the old ones. Perception is everything. The horizon is no different, but it has changed. She's still out there, but my desperation is... gone. She still has answers that I haven't found, how to survive, how to command, how to... just be, but I can find them after we've cracked the ice. She's been there millennia. She will be there tomorrow. And when she's not? Well, then I'll have a problem.

But how many decades do you watch them go home and hate them for it? How many decades do you go home only because you have nowhere else to go and abhor every moment spent there? How many decades do you avoid going home, find anything else to do, distractions, waiting, until you can go back to work? I hate holidays. I do not need to relax.

And now ever since she died, I go home just for... somewhere to be. I don't need to be there, but it's convenient. The butler needs to be there, and he isn't and I'll keep it that way. Irony? The word itself is so nonchalant. "But you've always called it that." No. Not always. And when I have, I've always hesitated, every single sun forsaken time. I just...

Too much. Thinking, talking... This waiting, this distraction, the Temple... Be careful what you wish for.

She's there even when I'm awake? That's -- I think she just wanted to see my reaction, but -- maybe it's not home then. There was never anything like her at home when I was running from it, when others found something there that would never exist for me. She redefines the word into something else? An exception to a lifetime of irritation? If she does change it, does she take it from me? Would it matter? The possibility I might destroy it, purposeful or accidental, still exists. She wouldn't invest in it, but she might... play.

I haven't been careful. It's the fire. It's... good.

The whelp is... in trouble. Mmhmhmhm. Why are they in Azshara? What have they found? What are they looking for? Ask the dead as if it won't try and kill me for asking? There is no ice.

Yet.

[Qabian]

No.

This is all... a touch overwhelming. Of course, that seems to be the way of things. The destruction of the Sunwell, the rebuilding of Silvermoon, the opening of the Dark Portal. This world, and the ones attached to it, are anything but quiet unless it's simply the eye of the storm.

I never had much interest in Northrend. My interests lie elsewhere even less accessible.

Dalaran, though. It's not quite what I remember, but they did good work piling the rubble back up into buildings that I have no doubt will appeal to the greater populace's lowest common denominator. And the sewers lack a certain something that Vashj showed me once. I don't remember there being... ah well, back then I never would have gone down there if not forced to at any rate.

It's not my city. Silvermoon is still my city, by birth and by crafting, closer to some ephemeral definition of home that will never truly fit in my mind. But while it is not mine, and was never home, Dalaran was always... something to me. It is The City. If you could get around the annoyance that is co-operation, you could learn considerable things there, not so much more than in Silvermoon, but different applications that Silvermoon itself would not bother to attempt. I have already learned new things there again. It's not surprising humans tend to the rotund with what they teach you to conjure.

For all of what it was and will never be again, and the ghosts in the sewers, I was glad to see Dalaran succeeded in not merely leaving a crater full of magic residue, but actually relocating. It's only a matter of time before I can do what I want. Of course, with the blue doing what they are, I want that whelp back. It's the perfect focus. It was behind glass for a while, but its vision stopped two days ago. I'm concerned I've lost it for good. I suppose I could find a new one, but that one had already been subjected to things that could have had interesting effects. I'm also concerned that I don't have enough ability alone. Dalaran had many minds to do what I want to do. I have mine, and one other... maybe I could trick a few more into giving me their power, but how much would be enough? People here I once knew? No, I was social enough, but my circle was small. The ones I could use who would willingly be used are dead. If I could just catch a blue and break it, prove to them they're doing the right thing, attempting to crush us because we will use and abuse them and their realm without question or consideration, maybe I wouldn't need other minds. A whelp may not be enough. How much power do I have? As ancient as they are, how easily can they see deception?

The black now... they seem to have something in common with us out there. Unfortunately, they're still so protective of their own, once in the short moments when they're capable of deciding what their own might be.

Nymare was -- I follow my distractions. It's easy to be led from one thing to the next, intently focused with a mind taught to draw the lines, connect the threads from one thing to another, to walk the web even as its being reconstructed, forgetting the world beyond the self. If she hadn't been there to force my mind to see other things, I might very well have... regret. That's... disappointing yet reassuring at the same time? No trust, no, but something in the lines that cross my palm, hate, want. What do I want? I know what I want. I'll do what it takes to get it. I don't like the idea of keeping things, things that I can't enclose within my own mind, things that aren't as difficult to lose as life. But there are some things I will not willingly lose when I'm capable of doing otherwise. So I will rein myself in, avoid chasing every thread that comes within my reach, because when we see worgen in the North, she will know more than I do, and because to lose her at this point is to fall off the web entirely, and be forced to watch Silvermoon come to Dalaran without any way to remedy the situation and take Dalaran home. Everything ends in time, but not yet, not now. Not with this still before us, so much to learn, to use, to burn and ruin, again and again.

This "acceptance" of the Death Knights is a problem. I'm not sure what Setrema's done, only that she apparently thinks she's no longer my concern. She stopped being my concern when she first left to find her brother, I think. When she came back and seemed to be doing well, I was willing to test her again, prod her, move her in certain directions, but no. In theory, if the Forsaken can break their chains, these Knights can do the same, but the Knights became what they are willingly? Magic is what it is. She's losing her hold on magic to play with shadows and blades. If it lets her continue to follow the Grim without wallowing in self pity, so be it. Perhaps she really is no longer my concern. I think her attachment Nymare might just give her trouble, especially with what she's done now. A Knight is a Knight, all of them twisting Light in some way from inside their metal casings... They'll never learn.

[Qabian]

Northrend is doing something strange. It's not just Northrend. It's timing and...

Too many of their words echo my own. The folly of all races...

...

What benefits do emotion and honor really hold? They serve to validate the living, to make them feel 'good.' Now, what flaws do they hold? Emotion is directly correlated to the ignorance of logic and reason. Honor is, at most times, the sole perpetrator of able resources fighting a losing battle.

...

Moral ambiguity cannot be 'cleansed.' Antipathy cannot be 'healed' or 'assuaged.' Greed cannot be 'dispelled' and wrath cannot be 'cured.'

...

All manner of bravery, martyrdom, or compatriotism for anyone... is imprudent and severely punishable.

...

How many times have I preached like he does? How many times have I said all these things?

An opponent who no longer knows pain... remorse... or humanity. An opponent who will do anything to get what he wants.

All this I know. I know what he wants. I know that I am only steps through the shadow away from what he is. I know he understands me because he turned against his heroism, corrupted his own sense of mercy, hid away what threatened to tie him to the world...

But I will. not. be. him.

He knew humanity. He knew heroism. I never had these things, and I never will. I can be manipulated, but I do not submit unless by choice, and I will never choose his road. Ever.

All my life, I have known hate. I will know hate all my life. I may have sought to be heartless, to remove myself from pain and remorse, to cut all ties to anything resembling honor, but I will never exist without my emotions. I will choose which emotions to use, I will combine them with logic and reason where I can, but if I need to go beyond logic and reason, I have and I will, and I will use what I have to its full capacity.

And Malorii, whatever he did to her, gave her weakness that she never had before.

He and I did have the same reason. The villain always does these things for the same reason.

Fear.

It's not that I would not have done the same -- no, it is. I would not have done the same. I would not have created the armies. Just destroyed them. The destruction was exhilarating. The creation was disgusting. I've even done it before, for a taste of something like twisted justice, but it wasn't what I thought, and I would certainly not make it a habit.

And I am different. I took it back. Before I even heard the words of that spirit, before I was ever offered an opportunity not only to see but to act through him, I dug it up and I took it back. It's mine, damn it. Mine.

...no.

It's not mine...

I would never have done it if it weren't for...


All my life, I have known hate, but I have known happiness and contentment as well, at least in a way that these things make sense to me, even if the external world will never understand how I understand them, completely and utterly exclusive of family or love. I have known what is good. And I have had goodness torn from me by his people and by him directly. I have had goodness torn from me by those who preach the same words I do.

I have learned far more from loss than I could ever learn from death. The Alliance did not teach me to hate. That I already knew. I even hated his people before he succumbed to his own lack of sense. But his people did give to me a focused fury that my youth never knew.

It's not vengeance. It's focus. And it's aesthetic. To kill is to live. It's not bravery. It's not martyrdom. It just is. Fire is so clean...


I don't even know how much of what she says is right, and how much I'm lying in confused attempts not to lose everything. Deception is natural... with everyone else, but... Talking until my mind loses focus has always been my weakness with her, since the first bricks she worked loose from the mortar. I have told her more in recent days than I have ever told anyone in my entire life, and not just to hear myself talk, but to hear how she responds, what questions she asks next, what questions she hesitates to ask but insinuates she might at some point, to know she's considering whether or not her own thoughts matter.

Of course they matter. If they didn't, I wouldn't...


The blue dragonflight is right. What they do is eminently correct, and I appreciate them for it. He may have lost his mind when he lost his children, as parents have an unfortunate tendency to do, but that doesn't make him wrong. My people have seen what it is to let go of what we should protect, and the consequences thereof. I don't know that the blue ever chose to share, or if the growing nations of history simply learned to interact with what existed in their environment all on their own, but the failure to guard what should have been guarded remains. I can absolutely understand it.

And what he does to the red? Mn, he's definitely lost his mind, but he's still right.

That doesn't mean I won't fight back. He lost it, failed his kind and his charge, and I'll fight to keep it, just as those we gave it to continue to use it to fight those who gave it to them.

War.

And that the black make a semblance of upholding Wyrmrest is one of the most hilarious things I have encountered in years. After all Deathwing has done? After the part he had to play in Malygos' state of mind? The level of hypocrisy is absolutely incredible.

But the red wouldn't deny them, would they? They're still dragons after all, and in these dire times they need to "work together". Ahahaha!


I am different. Sentiment is... not the same as emotion. Sentiment is flowers and candies and giggling. Sentiment is nonsense, falsity, fancy. Emotion has a source and a reason. Emotions are power. The necromancer was wrong. It's not about "feeling good". It's about owning the self, the self that destroys what he and his King seek to create, and about using resources. Emotion can be just as practical as any parasitic slavery, especially when divested of honor and morality.

If she has something to teach me, it is not sentiment. I think she may be immune to sentiment herself, as we can and do ridicule it between us, and whatever she is struggling with is something far beyond sentiment, maybe something beyond her own understanding, something maybe I could see if I looked...

But the girl who has never been happy has lessons for a man who makes his own happiness? I can see the ridiculousness of it. That doesn't mean I believe it needs to be a lie.

When she is troubled, and it looks like her troubles with a world that will never be as it should are going to become new chains, yes, I want to give her contentment, to let her see the world as it is through my eyes. I know the world is not right, but knowing that I do what I can to direct it the way I want it to be keeps me content. It's not complacency. I know there is work to be done, and that there will always be work to be done, and that it is not likely any of it will be easy, but it doesn't trouble my mind.

She would never ask for that? And that's why I would give it to her? Yes, because it's not something she could ever know she needs, that she could ever see to be useful.

And then when her troubles drive her forward, give her reason to do what she does as well as she does it, I just want to stand to one side and observe how she can use as a tool what I can only imagine if I had it would stand in my way. Because it's not something I could ever know I need, that I could ever see to be useful.

What troubles my mind is when the rules are broken, but I have accepted -- it was not easy -- that there is one rulebreaker. Most of the world, even though it is not the way it should be, operates in an extremely predictable manner. She does not, and I do not want her to, and when she tells me that's all she needs to know... That can't be right. It's never all she wants to know.

I don't care how things should be because I don't trust those who dictate necessity. They tend to do it all under some banner of vengeance, moral outrage, dogma, zealotry, empathy...

But I can trust her, and not because she is safe, but because she is herself, and she has her reasons. I would still trust her if she hurt me, when she hurts me. But if she goes against her reasons, if she takes my reasons when I know she does not want them...

If she sees things should be some way, I know she has a reason for it, and I want to know what she sees and the reasons for it. I don't have to agree, but I still want to know.

She told me there was a time she never wanted to become me. She still shouldn't, and I don't want that either. She may see lines. She may notice at times that she seems to be just steps through the shadow away, but she is different. She will always be different. She doesn't need hate. She has a sense of something more. She has want, desire, and silence. She has purpose, reason, and vision.

And she is what keeps me different, the steps moving into the shadow away from what I hate. I need...

But where is the breaking point between learning from and submission to? I don't think either of us know, and maybe I am wrong, and it really is all she needs to know.


It's not finished yet, but from here it seems that what I want is to get the entirety of the Horde off of this sunforsaken continent, to direct Bolvar's replacement and all the Alliance's armies into Icecrown to play in the "King's" own sandbox, and to let whatever apothecaries survived Wrynn finish what Putress started, but this time with some distinction. No more rising to walk as the dead, no more servitude to one who fears his own heart, and no more heroism. End it all.

The Sky-Reaver talks like a man enlightened.

Take Dalaran with them. Too many wishes unfulfilled, a shining beacon of hope. I'll replace it.

Then after we've razed Stormwind, collapsed Ironforge, uprooted Darnassus, vaporized the Exodar, and hung Jaina's charred remains from the walls of Lordaeron, we can go back to fighting the trolls, the way it used to be, millennia before I was born.

None of it ends. There might not always be someone around to break all the rules, but there is always someone out there to hate.

[Qabian]

She wants me to... write? There's a certain logic to it, a way to avoid talking oneself in circles of confusion, with the ability to edit and correct thoughts. Too much editing, perhaps.

I write, but I write... letters, reports, notes. Practical.

For her? To her? Fiction?

Or not enough editing. Too much... truth? I can... write. Lack of imagination?

Parchments are dangerous after all. Ahahaha! No, my mother never warned me against the dangers of books. I don't think my mother would have known the importance of books even if someone had beat her to death with a library instead of candy.

The strange man with the loud niece who likes to play with paper folders remembers me from that... gathering? The most I recall from that particular event was the strange pair of prophetic orcs. House dej whatever... I'm not giving my house a name, certainly not my family's name. It had a name before I took it. It doesn't need one anymore.

Recalls what a certain... naaru offered me once, ahahaha!

Home is... a difficult enough name when the ghosts are walking with the intensity she inevitably has at this time of year. This holiday...

Thankfully, home is full of... excellent distractions.

What do I want? I want exactly what she wants. Nothing I don't already have. My suggestion was in jest, with the idea that he'd never part with it while living, and knowing he was permanently six feet under would make me... mm, not happy maybe, but at least bring a smile of sorts, laughter. And the corpse as a trophy holder, ahahaha! Just seems so... festive, hm? Mmhmhmhm.

This time of year is still ridiculous. Maybe I should save the cider for the summer. At least losing a day or two at that time made sense. Now would be... I'm not sure I want to dine with Scarlets, ahaha!

But if I only drink it at home... mmhmhm, that's not at all what I trust about her.

So I'll somehow need to find time to... write. Once the giants are placated, perhaps.

And find that whelp. Or a new one. Malygos...

And demons...

Magic has always come with risk for the weak, but she's not weak. If the needle were going to destroy her mind, she would have become Wretched the first... several times she was in danger of such a thing. Still, who is there really who knows what can be done? No one who can be trusted, but anyone who can be manipulated? She mentioned its... what? Drawbacks? But I don't -- I didn't even... hm.

[Qabian]

Celebration is a strange thing. Fire is difficult to resist, but ice is so much more mundane. It's so common, so pervasive.

But the way she puts it, to move through the world laying waste to everything is just... The idea that it needs to be done so that all things can be born anew remains at its heart, but the celebration is in the slaying, the power of a Titan to do what is necessary, to murder its own children... There is nothing maternal in this season. Save that for the spring.

But the Dark Iron and their fire...

It's a strange thing perhaps, but I am not a stranger to it. So many parties like Saltheril's. So many attempts and successes in mischief at student gatherings, making them more entertaining, reminding the humans that they are there because we allowed them to be, because we had more grace than sense.

But celebrations alone are rarely so extravagant. No music, no dance, only enough drink to bring out the warmth of the fire. One person is not a party. Two?

The past summer, Abric and his fireworks on the Bluff...

This winter, a different reason to appreciate the snow...

But not alone.

I lost too many hours in the summer, completely obliterated by whatever I did. In the winter, I at least have vague recollections, or did once I convinced my head to stop attempting to split in half. The drink was considerably stronger, but there was much less of it. I gave her the box. I think I -- yes, I did. I can't remember what I said about it. Couldn't blame that entirely on the drink, though. The wrapping held the evidence of premeditation while the alcohol removed the rationalization.

The Tauren were disappointing. The enemy was unclear. The death was pervasive rather than triumphant. It was just death, not killing. There was no killer, no enemy, only submission and weakness.

Together? Something to celebrate together. To stand against the storm and know you are not alone. That has value. I sought out the Grim for what we could do together... But the value of solitude? Diminished when it's no longer a priority? Being alone is not the same as it was. It's not that I feel loneliness. I'm still immune to such things. It's that my thoughts occasionally run to others rather than perpetually surrounding and enclosing myself. But my thoughts only reach beyond me, have only ever reached beyond me, because of things I have done for my own benefit, and I have no regrets.

This is becoming... much more than I thought it would.

[Qabian]

Too much. Too much.

There's still so much I don't know. About this.

And she's right. We've never talked about it. All the things we've talked about, all the times I've asked her what she wants, and she's never really answered me? Silence. Yes, but what is it? It's a step beyond annihilation. The ending in itself might be enough, the way it is for me, but that's not everything for her. And by the time the words found it last night, another exercise in frustration, in me being so focused on myself that I don't even hear my own words.

For all that she has said about emotion, everything she's looking for doesn't seem to follow...

I should learn to speak like I write. If only it could work that way, every question answered in advance, every thought laid out as intended. I said so much. Too much? She knows too much. I know too much. What we know keeps us here.

And the answers for them? Tell them what they want to hear. They could never understand even what I do in their desperation to be everything they've always been, everything that she is not. If it makes their heads explode, so much the better.

You can blame me for being me. It may be the only thing you can blame me for with any reality. The question is whether I should change. But I don't think it's change I need. Just comprehension. I didn't know. I didn't understand. I didn't think.

But she keeps thinking maybe she's made a mistake? We can learn from mistakes, but... this is not a mistake. Mistakes are made from a lack of forethought, not too much. Thinking too much is not going to make it a mistake, but it is going to make it confusing.

She refuses to admit defeat. She'll accept consequences, but to actually give up the fight, the game? Never. Or she would have insisted on what she wanted, made her reasons clearer, instead of getting angry.

She's making me wait to see what she wants me to have. I suppose I did the same to her, but how much... Patience is... still not my forté.

I think some of them are afraid of me. More than a few. That's hilarious, all things considered, how little I actually do to cause fear these days.

We should instruct that priest.

Complication is not always a bad thing. Not always.

Are the masks enough? We are a long way from Kael'thas now, and yet everything he did still affects us. Time will tell. He may find himself left with something he does not expect in the end.

[Qabian]

Uther, Saidan, Gavinrad, Turalyon... Tirion... Did all of them destroy hearts? Or steal them? Certainly ruined Alleria. It's a curious thing to come across in these studies, the Second War. Human frailty again at its finest. We should never have had a debt to repay in the first place.

I wonder if Orgrim had done what Nymare plans to do, how things might have turned out differently. Mmhmhmhm.


Giving someone the power to hurt you terribly... And hoping they don't?

I hoped she would for so long.

Never trust anyone as easily as the first time? Easy?! There was nothing even remotely easy... No heroic rescues, failed or otherwise. No convenient timing to intercept disaster. Only time, words, curiosity, interest, argument, and something else, something more... There was so much I didn't know, so much I tried so hard not to see, but it was always there. Inevitable?

Too much is not reaching the end, not for me. There is never the end. It doesn't even exist. There is only the next step, the next book. Too much is vulnerability, but vulnerability can be indulged?

Have I changed? I don't think I have changed. I have only learned. And I keep learning.

Hope...

It's not necessary. It blinks out so easily, fragile, with the capacity to shatter. But does a lack of necessity indicate a lack of value?

There was a time -- there are still times when my hope consists of nothing more than pure magic, distilled, essential, but to see that outside the self, to see hope in something beyond me, to ignite hope in something beyond me, is something I have never experienced before and I expect never to experience again.

Plans require hope. Did I ever have plans? I can scheme and deceive, but in the end, I'm not so different from the orc who fights simply to fight and for no other reason. I can march behind a banner of logic and cause, but when it comes down to it, all I want, all I have ever wanted, is the fire.

Challenge, though. There's something to challenge. The forge for even greater fire?

Never make it easy.

I should write?

[Qabian]

Things are... moving, improving. The path seems to be set right once again. I do not want to indulge in too much optimism. Can it continue? We will likely need to work to ensure that it does.

She was concerned about having only one question left to ask, but with all the words we've shared between us even since then... There are always more questions. Sometimes they are difficult to see. Sometimes they are obliterated by the matters at hand. Sometimes they're lost in the whirlwinds of existence. But there are always more questions.

And sometimes, all you need to do is be what you are, confused or certain, without questions, moments in quiet, not silence but quiet. For a while. They always come back with their reasons for moving forward. There was a time moving forward was more important than anything else. It still is to some degree, but... I'm not alone, and that is so very different than it was.

Taking advantage of the fact that no one cares...

There is one problem, but... it will get resolved one way or another and soon. I would take it into my own hands and resolve it myself, yes, but I continue to play to a certain demonstration of respect.

And these pages, so many pages. So much time. And I keep reading them, over and over. Did I want all this from the start? I know I wanted the game I played. It's not winning or losing, but how you play? The play was incredible, and it led to a conclusion I never could have expected. Ever. Did I lose? I know she didn't, or I would be dead. But I don't feel like I've lost. Affected when we should not have been, never would have been before. Opportunities not used when they could have been, sensations caused without intent. Physical distance maintained while the psychological was eroding. Indulgences in unwanted pain.

Official? Ha! Office is absolutely unnecessary for clarity. Whose office?

Blood is meaningless? Blood spilled takes on meaning, doesn't it? Even when that meaning is an attempt to force the meaningless onto it, nature changed by observation. It had no meaning until I spilled it. Then it seemed strange and disturbing. It's almost as though it has no meaning while it flows within its little system. It's nothing but necessity, without interest, without volatility. But when it stops... When it stops, we take the word and worship it in our own way.

She dances to her own music when she finds the moonlight.

What letter? Bookshelves, coffins, gardens... fire... fire... fire changes everything.

They just wouldn't open the door to the lighthouse. No matter what we did. Mmhmhmhmhmhm.

Intrigue unused. Information hoarded.

And tomorrows.

I think I will write something. But not on candy. There's a question there, though. "What?" Start at the beginning? Azshara, I think. Nazja poetry. Questions for the Second Sundering.

[Qabian]

I never wanted to hear her say that.

Ever.

She should not have needed to say that.

This is... wrong.

This is not right.

She hated seeing me like that, writhing in indecision, spun with webs of words? I hate hearing that from her, that she doesn't believe she was right. She was right. Every single thing she said was right. Except that she should be the one to break the word. Everything else was right.

And what the hell am I supposed to do? Am I willing to sacrifice them to see the final mistake? Yes. Let someone break to keep the rest strong. Let the wheel spin. Let the bones land where they will. Let the demon take someone down with her. I don't care who. Except her. It can't be her because I will not let it be her. If it comes to her, I will stand in its path. Let me do it first.

I never needed this. I never needed this. Never. If it had been taken away from me, stripped from me, torn from me, I doubt I would ever have fought for it. Not too hard, at least. It was never a matter of necessity. So little truly is.

It was a matter of desire. I wanted it. I still want it. I'm not ready to break my toys yet, to ruin this thing of mine. If I did what I have already decided a hundred times to do, if I acted on what I have been instructed not to act on, I would break it. I would. It would fracture and splinter in my hands. And so I hesitate. And so I leave them to be sacrificed on the altar of her destructiveness.

Let them watch their mothers burn. Let them listen to their fathers scream. Let them hear their children crying, lost in terror, in darkness that will never lift. I do not care. As long as my toy can still be used.

But I should not be forced to choose. She knows who she is and she knows what she does. No, she doesn't need fabric or titles to be what she is, but she also should not be forced to give up those things because of someone else's poison.

She needs to take it up with him. I don't care if her voice is one among many, a quiet voice, perhaps a voice unwanted. Her voice is skilled beyond most, possibly beyond any, or this... I... Her threats are too sensible to remain quiet until the very moment of action. She should make him understand. She can make him understand.

Can I make him understand?

She's so difficult to argue with because she's almost always right. If she were blatantly and obviously wrong like everyone else... Arguing with others is so easy.

She should never make it easy.

But she cannot do this because of her. Because of him... maybe.

She. Will. Not. Change.

She spits in the face of those she claims to work with. She ruins every clean slate, not with blades, not with blood, but with poison. She does not understand. She will never understand. She will turn them against each other. She will turn them against her. She will turn them against me.

And what can I do? There is only one thing I should need to do. It should be the simplest thing in the world. But instead I am listening. But instead I start a new sheet of paper.

By all the blood that has spilled in Quel'thalas, why does he let this happen? Why? The solution is clear as the sun itself.

Listening should not be my failure. Wanting the thing to chip itself into nothingness rather than crush it in my own hands, rather than shatter it myself should not be my failure. She needs to -- why does she --

If she follows through...

She can't. She can't follow through.

Should I ask her if she can keep these things for me? Do I even want that? Wear these for me. Say these words for me. Be this for me. Let the rest of my toy poison itself, break itself, wear itself down to nothing. What you thought it was, what you wanted so badly, what you would have fought for, none of that never existed. Only I exist. Only I have ever existed. I am these things, I am what you should fight for, and the poison cannot touch me. It can ruin many things, and I am not afraid to let it run its course and ruin good things, but it cannot ruin me. Just be with me. Let me play my games and stay with me.

I should not need to do that. She always makes her own decisions.

But if she makes that decision...

She is well within her rights, within the bounds of logic to make that decision. But she should tell him her decision before she takes the action. Let him dig his own grave. Let him ruin it himself. Let him give up the task he cannot complete. She should not do it in the heat of response to all the wrong things that refuse to die.

Let him destroy it, and I will follow her. He will lose so much. He will hear his children cry.

I know something now that I should never have learned. Knowledge is dangerous. It is toxic. It is also ecstasy.

Heartbreak loses its entertainment when there is no heart invested in it.

I know things now...

My actions mean too much. When I control them, this is incredible. When I lose control, I die.

I hate this. And I can't ask for that from anyone.

I asked for one thing. One small thing. One simple, easy thing. And she failed to do it. She spit in MY face. And I. Fucking. Listen.

This. Needs. To end.

[Qabian]

This is... not encouraging. I suppose of all the possible results, this is one of the more favorable. And if she comes through it with relative speed, it will be a good sign and we can attempt to continue the process. No, she can't just forget it.

But what I wanted -- I didn't want her misery.

The San'layn... What the hell was he thinking? Why not just send her to Arthas?

There is a certain hope -- yes, hope, behind the danger of it. Nothing in this has killed me yet. What doesn't kill you...? And she is strong. It shouldn't kill her, either. And there's magic in it. A lifetime of elemental and arcane manipulation in this. Does it make a difference? To me, I don't think so. I am who I am and would be no matter what. To her? Maybe. I want to think there is enough of it in this that it will do exactly what is needed, be more than powerful enough to solve the problem, and that on the other side of everything, she will be stronger for it.

Do I give her too much? I don't think so. Provided losing it doesn't kill me, I don't need this. There are others who would volunteer. There are others who would be willing for all the wrong reasons. Are my reasons the right reasons? But I can just imagine all the things that could go wrong, all the things so much worse than curses, plagues, and poisons. In her situation, I think I would just kill for it. I don't... actually have that attachment to our people, to the Horde. Some, yes, but not enough to override self-preservation.

And if it -- if she --

Risk management. She wouldn't lose... Freedom from the need to... I don't even know...

This will not kill either of us. It will not. Something will kill both of us, eventually, but not this.

The priestess is confusing. I muse out loud on the nature of her inconvenient problem and she screams and self-mutilates. Pity I can't have that effect on everyone. That would be a useful skill. She seems to have about as much patience for my... what? Pretentiousness? Distaste? Annoyance? For me, as I have for her disturbing cheerfulness. Is she willing to do what's necessary? It seems that way. Is she capable? That I still very much doubt.

[Qabian]

There's...

Something about tension and relaxation.

I am not tense. I am not tense. I am not tense.

Right. Ha!

Mmm, not right now, I'm not.

The knight is just a delusional moron, which hasn't changed. Ever. He seems to like making me angry? Am I angry? No, not really. Does he want something I have? Yes, he does. Does that bother me? Not at all. Do I want him to piss off and die anyway, preferably painfully? Yes. Yes, I do.

The rogue should be back in his place now. Idiot. Well, not quite. He should be dead, but I don't need to do that. He'll get himself killed. He proved me wrong in the most extravagant ways possible. Mm, proved me right, but proved the words I said out loud to be wrong.

The others are... just... what they have always been, but making me more tired than usual. I suppose one can only remain at that level of intense positivity for so long. Then it turns to white anger, threatens to blind everything, erase the world. Then it fades and dulls the mind. I'm ready to rest in ashes for a while. The spark will find me when I need it.

There are things I love. I love hitting them when they think they're safe. I love starting wars. I love reminding them where they are and who they are. I love pissing them off so badly they call in the cavalry. I love knocking them off of somewhere so high I can't see them when they land, only hear them, especially when they clearly don't expect it. I love when she shoots them right out of the air. And then when she does it again. I love it when they hurt themselves trying to get at me. I love losing myself in it. Finding myself again afterwards, not so much, but to truly lose control one must...

There are other things I love.

And when the world spins and I can't see anything beyond the rage, there is one thing that slows it down, that makes it stop entirely, that reminds me that in a world where you cannot own anything, some things are worth keeping.

Would I die for it? By choice? No. There's always a catch. It cannot kill me. Would I regret that? Yes. Would I kill for it? Anything. Might I die unintentionally in attempting to kill for it? That possibility certainly exists.

I almost hope she kills the girl. It would be interesting, incidental, and somehow exceedingly appropriate.

[Qabian]

I notice.

The Nightmare is just... It's nothing more than possibilities for now. And it was about the priest at its base, but she knows me better than that. When have I ever done anything for anyone else's benefit? When have I ever taken an interest in something for someone's sake other than my own? When have I ever feared for anyone other than myself?

The exception being understood.

Those arguments, as difficult as they are going through them, the times when I recognize and admit I'm being a total moron, intended or otherwise, when I learn something about what provokes her, are perhaps necessary. And when they're over, when the dust settles, there's something stronger left behind.

Whatever doesn't kill you?

Distant? I didn't think I was distant. I was pushing at her. All those things I was thinking. I needed her to see all of them. All at once. Too fast. I pushed them at her. She tried to use her own voice, but more important than her own voice right then was for her to see what I was thinking. I needed her to hear my voice over her own. She needed to see all the possibilities. She needed to see the web spanning the world, originating from my mind as it did right then. I needed her to see that my dreams had pushed everything together, that life and fire, nature and poison, magic and ice, time, electricity... the earth... whatever they were guarding... It was all the same. All of it was the same. They were all interlinked. They all affected and influenced each other. If one could exert control in one, he could make changes in another. Magic has always been life after all... That's why it keeps me afraid. Strike me down and I will take the next step, whatever comes next, whether it's looking down from the eye of eternity or sundering this world and the next, but take my magic from me...

I wanted her to see that. I just wanted her to see. My own mind had a fanatic hold on me that I needed to push at her and make her see, force her to see.

But it needed to be her. No one else needs to see that. I need her to see my mind.

It could have been anyone standing there? I could have been reflecting my voice off of anyone? All I needed was the sounding board? No. There is no one else in this world who sparks that in me. No one else. There never has been. There never will be again. I may have had the thoughts alone, may have written them into something more coherent, something that didn't push away the things that mattered. But I never would have pushed so many words, so many thoughts, so much of what was ripping through my mind at anyone else. Never. It needed to be her.

She thought I avoided mentioning what was bothering me? I thought she knew that. I thought she knew. I thought I'd mentioned it before, what I dream, how I dream it. At the very least, I was sure she knew what I feared. The instigation for further examination in the area of sleep and the Green was the priestess, yes. The idea of actually acting on any of the information gained was based around removing the priestess from her predicament that she might act more clearly in line with our own motives, rather than insanity derived from haunted sleep. I never intended to hide anything. I followed the train of thought from the priestess' influence to wondering if what was in Feralas was the same as what was in the Hinterlands, to asking her about her own mind, whether she thought it was affected by the threads that I was seeing. I hid nothing. I just thought and spoke, spoke and thought.

And pushed her away?

And the silence that followed when the flood of thoughts finally drained away was toxic. I hated that. I hated it. How can she think I didn't notice? Maybe in the spinning of a mind so wrapped up in itself I did lose her voice, but all of it depended on her being there. None of the words would have even existed without her. Maybe I lost her, but did she lose me? No. My existence in that moment, the rush of words that pushed her own back in her face, all of it was entirely dependent on her, needed her. If she had turned and left, I would have panicked earlier, but she just stood there against the barrage of thoughts, retreating into herself because I was drowning her in words that were incapable of listening.

And in the noxious silence that followed, I knew I'd made a mistake. Possibly several.

I still... can't apologize. I need to own these things. I need to own them to fix them. I did not intend... My intention isn't worth anything, only what I have done, and what I will do to make sure it doesn't happen again.

And because I had made a mistake, I became careful.

The touch like that is grounding. It is. There is something in it I have never known before. It's almost like what I imagine "home" should be to someone who had grown up with one, safety and comfort. But how do you react to something like that? Other than to indulge in the calm that goes with it, and to speak more softly and more slowly, to think only about the touch and say whatever you think needs to be said to keep it where it is. I don't know. Maybe my failure to reassure is an effect of not knowing, of not having grown up with things like this. And then the last thing I wanted to do was lose it, after the mistakes I had already made, so I was careful, too careful, and she saw a distance that wasn't there again.

I notice. I do. Every word that I speak over. Every question that I answer with as few words as possible so that I can push forward the other thoughts fighting to get out behind it. Every touch. I notice all of it.

Caring comes with concern. Concern is difficult and causes people to make mistakes and to misunderstand. It's why I avoid it. When it comes to magic, I care. When it comes to her, I care. When it comes to both, I make mistakes and I hate making them. I want perfection, but to find perfection I first have to learn what is imperfect. I have to make the mistakes I hate first, as much as I hate making them.

And the mage knew something after all. She has been distant and I begin to doubt will ever truly be capable of consistency, but she doesn't matter. The priestess doesn't matter. The troll doesn't matter. The warlock doesn't matter. The shamblers don't matter.

But she knew something that I didn't know. That the two things that I believed were separate can be combined. The two things, one of which I believed did not even exist, and I still believe does not truly exist for most if not all the rest of the world, can be linked together to become something stronger than both. I have indulged in sensation before, but to have the second half of a whole when you thought the first was all there was is...

The world has shifted under my feet. Everything I thought was real is questionable in relation to that single glaring exception that changes all things. And by the sun, it's... beyond words.

Madness, yes, Angaroth. Madness. Madness you can never know.

Whatever is in it, whatever is important that I had missed in my disappointment in the one who left us, she can have it. She can take it from me, and she can feel better, and I will give her what she needs to be stronger.

And at the end of it all, there's something to distance. There's something absolutely incredible in watching her lose me in herself, when everything around her fades for however short a moment, including me, when she uses me, abuses me, and makes whatever it is I give her into something of pure selfishness. Whatever she needs from me means nothing to her then. Nothing beyond herself means anything to her in that instant that comes before her silence. And that means everything to me. Everything.

We can defile anything. Holy or corrupt, safe or dangerous, dream or nightmare, we can ruin all of it.

I notice.

[Qabian]

There was a time when I was proud to be one of our people. I still am to some degree. I find very little fault with Kael's intentions or even his methods, although a great deal of fault with his sacrifices and their outcomes. But one wonders, how much of what we are is elven glamor? How much is decorated well? Is it all a seedy underbelly? There was a time I believed in the gold edges, statues at play, the Huntress of the Sun, the city I helped to reconstruct after its decimation. But now? Is it all betrayal and deceit, filth and stupidity, under a pretty, sugared, gilded blanket? The only things of value are those we choose, not those the City would give us.

I am nothing pure. I would shun the use of secondary minions when unnecessary, but I use them whenever I feel like it. I would refuse to acknowledge the usefulness of the Light, and yet indulge in the fel and thistle whenever I want. I would insist one thing does not exist in this world, and then I would find that thing and wrap myself in it, and do whatever it takes to keep it for myself.

Whatever I am, I am what I have made myself. We should all be that way. The environment affects the choices we make, shifts the necessity, but we are ultimately the ones who make the decisions. We are only victims if we allow ourselves to suffer. If we go home and die when we meet up against failure, then we don't deserve success.

I make concessions and berate them all, and then they go on a rampage. I was... slightly surprised, though not entirely. It is the sort of surprise I have come to expect from them. Just when I have almost decided they've completely lost their usefulness, they remind me why I approached them in the first place.

She has not... ruined my narcissism. It's still there. Perhaps that is why I cannot consider her a friend. It is like being friends with oneself. Of course, you're not friends with yourself. You just are. You mean everything to yourself because you are the only thing you can rely on. She just is. She is... everything and nothing, all at once.

Nothing is permanent, but to lose this is not an option. It may, someday, be necessity, but it will never be a choice. Never. I will lose her when I lose myself, not before. And whatever happens, as long as I exist, I have something of hers. It is mine. She is mine.

Never... thought I would think that. Never thought I would have reason to. But oh, the reasons I have. A lot of things have happened that I never expected. Even a dozen times just today. Never expected.

I am... happy. I have never been emotionless. Anyone who has seen me work would know this. I take joy in a great deal of things, things... most would consider horrible, but ecstatic rapturous joy nonetheless. And I am not most. Neither is she.

And unlike the truly good and perfect, I have tears. I have kept them to myself all my life, but... I have them.

I wanted to tell her what I dream.

But when every story has the same ending...

[Qabian]

Shadows and... I never considered it like that before... Reality.

But every word is true. All the others are shadows.

Most are obviously so.

But even Larinth was a shadow. He was the shadow I wanted to be when I was a shadow, too. I wanted to emulate the shade he projected, but it still wasn't real.

I became real before he died, recognized myself for who I was and the city for what it had never been, and I lost my need to chase shadows, but his shadow still meant something, still hurt to lose. It was... familiarity, perhaps. The world without that shadow, even as damaged as it had become, to lose it entirely was... not something I wanted. Maybe that was what I considered home. Just knowing the shadows that were supposed to be there still went about their business, however deranged.

Malorii was a shadow. Perhaps the ultimate shadow. No part of her was herself. Every thing she did was directed by someone else. There were glimpses of reality to her. Maybe she was real once. But I doubt it. More likely what had any shine of reality to it was the shadow sharpened to an edge of palpable darkness. A shadow built to kill yes, but comparing her to myself, she didn't even register. She didn't even have reasons, or at least no reasons of her own. Shaded questions without any essence whatsoever.

But...

She is not a shadow. Comparing her to myself, she burns through all of me, and some part of her has from the start. She is undeniable. She is pure essence.

She has never been a shadow.

That is what is so curious.

And another night soaked in blood, not so unlike the first, and the second, and many, many since, confirms it again. The heroism was meaningless. The ruin was everything. She. Is. Real.

But the recognition of reality was...

Of course, I wanted something from the first moment. Would I have taken it if she had offered it at the time? I might have, because she has skill unmatched with words and more than words. But I doubt we would still be here if she had, if she had known what I did not, if she had the certainty then that she has now.

There is something to that, to understanding what someone else wants, to know that subtlety is needed to get them to come around to your way of thinking, to concede to your desires, to hold back, to draw close, slowly, over time. A game of checks and balances?

If I had told her what I wanted, I would not have been who I am. If she had given me what I wanted, she would not have been who she is.

But that's not quite what I was doing. I wasn't playing that game. What I wanted was exactly what I said.

And yes, what she wanted -- what I wanted -- terrified me. And yes, I have never been anyone but who I am, even when I am a liar.

If, to stay real, she would have kept her chains, or used me for nothing more than words, I think... that is still what I would have wanted. Because I could see that she was the only other person doing what I did, having my reasons.

She was -- she is the only other person in the world.

But to be real, she... had to give me everything I wanted and more than I ever knew I did? She had to show me what I wanted.

Because I had something of hers all that time?

Maybe I did. I think I did.



If you want to wear a mask, you can at least have a good reason. Liars and lunatics, that's all that's left of the city.



Mm. Tell them we accept. We accept nothing less than total annihilation.


http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/6271/aldordead2.jpg

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/7263/aldordead1.jpg

Shattrath is not what it was. Try something else.

And yes, A'dal has favored children. And they are not Draenei. Takes a traitor to know traitors? Whatever of the light is not elemental and unchanging is the very essence of hypocrisy.



I expect this game to end badly, but I will play it anyway. As part of keeping my toys from breaking.

[Qabian]

They earned it. No, they did.

We are learning much, much that we have gotten complacent about.

It is absolutely disappointing, especially for those who assumed they knew what they were doing, and those who were expected to be there and were not, and who let others flounder in their place, again, but... on the other hand, it's a very needed lesson. We had good numbers, but there was considerable underestimation. Again. Despite my reservations and everything I had said. I don't even know how many people she trusted.

Trust no one.

You are always alone.

Always.

Again.

I'll have to see to further instruction on my own terms, I think.

I... am not a damned shepherd.

And there were some things, some burning corpses slamming into the ground, some failed attempts to interrupt my motions, that were worth every miserable moment. And the fact that with a little patience and a little subtlety, and I got everything I needed out of it anyway, and took it back when they got tired. And another talbuk can replace the bears I keep setting loose.

But they did it, showed us that they aren't dead yet, and there's no point in denying what happened.

We'll just have to... do something. Something less overt. Something less dramatic. Something without so many opportunities to go horribly wrong. Something that can't be abandoned by those others put faith in. Something they'll regret. Something...

There are ideas...

Or I'll just dig up the cellar. Maybe they'll think I'm collecting corpses.

Or a constructing a vat. Ha!

And yes, she makes things better. I don't know how I might have acted differently, but as infuriating as it was, I would not have wanted it any other way. Without her, it would have been so much less than alone. And given what she's said she wants, it may act as an extremely useful sort of incentive, and she will use it to make many things better. She does.

No regrets.

[Qabian]

Lascivious is sticking her nose where it doesn't belong. I wonder if I'll get to cut it off.

Not a crime to have an opinion, no. Not yet at least.

I wonder if she ever wonders why she is where she is. I don't think she quite realizes what the consequences of her theoretical threats of change would be. I don't give a rat's ass what she sacrificed. She may have given me an opportunity she never should have, but I have earned a great deal while she was opening her legs for Arthas. I have given far too much credit to what she once was, what she was when I first met the Grim, when she could not be questioned, when the words she said actually meant something, when she wasn't completely deluded about her own responsibilities.

She has more than earned the loss of what she once had. I should stop giving her so much credit for a past she ruined of her own volition.

And I have earned what I have now, whether or not I actually wanted it.



As for... expectations. I didn't realize --

No, of course. I wouldn't, would I?

I do want them to know, and for all the reasons I said. Not that it's any of their business. It's not. But to skip the step of asking, of prying, of inviting mistakes.

People will try to ruin things they want to ruin, whether such things exist or not. Of anybody, I should know that. Thus let them know. It will change very little.

The step between not knowing and knowing, though, is...

I don't know how to break that? This is nothing I have ever done, and like she said, we are never going to play by their rules.

But there is no need for secrets here. It's not a secret I am trying to keep. It's just...

It's beyond me. For now.

I don't know what to do, how far to go, what to change, what to keep, what to leave, what to guard, when to ignore, when to rage --

I don't know.

I'll... find out. In time.

But no need for secrets, no.



It's almost strange to have such a good day. And it was a good day.



Mordria is going to get herself killed.

Esmi is turning her back on the symbolism she earned. We may have to inquire further.

And the drunk one -- if Rethsil and Calixo fuck it up, at least as a result we'll likely have the evidence we need to...

Fix things.

That's what priests do, hm?

[Qabian]

Did he ever consider for a moment that maybe we are what we are because we are Grim? Did he consider that the reason we do what we do is because we are Peace through Annihilation? Did he consider that her personal motivations and the Grim's benefit are one and the same? They always have been. Every instance, even the ones others insulted her for, she has always, always been acting in the Grim's interest. More so than I ever have, I think.

She does nothing without a reason, including feeling. Her feelings always derive from logic. Or if not logic, definitely common sense. Always. Or we would not be where we are. That's what sparks my concern when she is concerned, because I know she has a reason for it. Always. I have never met anyone else, even myself, who follows through on that. Although she doesn't always share those reasons with everyone, which is also for a reason. Still, this is something I know, and there is very little I know with the certainty that I know this. It is, perhaps, faith.

It's when she acts as she does, with good reason, with the tool's interest in mind, and it goes unnoticed, misunderstood, even berated, that she questions whether the Grim can be held together, whether the faith she has in them is unwarranted, unearned, misplaced.

I'm not certain how things should be. Obviously. There's a path I'm walking here that I never intended to, and wherever it is leading is shadowed to me. But no, I don't have faith. Not in them. And I don't need it in them.

We do what we do either way. No one forces us. No one forced him, either, except perhaps his own illusions.

"Your kind." Ha! We have had those of "our kind" with us who would see the precarious situation ahead and twist the blade. She and I have never done any such thing. We don't need to. Things have a curious way of falling into place around us without any planning needed.

Or I could take credit for this. As I have taken credit for other things I "managed" without any need for overt action.

But it is ever so entertaining to muse on what he thinks we are plotting. Oh, we scheme, yes. But maybe he will be surprised to learn our schemes are for his benefit, not his detriment.

Without her, I knew only Annihilation, even with the Grim. Now, I not only know that better, but I have been shown something closer to Peace than I have ever encountered in my life to date. Ever. As much as I would rather burn it to the ground and sink its ashes into the sea than let it rot as it did before...

I have learned things now that I never knew before. It's almost strange to consider violence a state of innocence.

Not that I will stop. She is not Peace. She is Annihilation. But her style of Silence and the way she sees things, including me, are something new. Nothing about this was easy. Nothing. That's what makes it what it is, wanted, needed, different, exceptional. I still don't know where I'm going.

But there are some things I know. Absolutes in a world of inconsistencies.

[Qabian]

I've always known she was younger. Well, that's not entirely true. But all the things she's told me about her family since, of the expectations they had of her, of what she might have done but did not, led to the conclusion that she hadn't had the time to finish what I had. Even I had only... barely done the basics, and I'd been working at them since I was old enough to walk. Maybe I was overly poetic in my explanation.

But she could be twice my age, and kept like a doll as she was, we would have had a similar space over which to lose understanding.

And what she's been through, she was forced to grow up in a way that I was not. The only fingers I can point are towards the Well, the Scourge, Garithos, Dalaran... I had my innocence. I had the safe world of the school. I had the safe world of my friends, guarding me from consequences, letting me do whatever I wanted, harm whoever I wanted. Usually. I could have my fun and earn my prizes, manufacture respect in the authorities and whispered venom and fear in those around me, all despite the occasional setbacks. And for all the ghosts I may have that I have forgotten, hers may be fewer in number or more closely guarded, but I know she has them, too.

We are not so different, whatever the math may say.

The Well changed everything for all of us. Being born again from the ashes resets the clock, and everyone capable of conscious thought loses their childhood. Yes, I know things she never had the chance to know, because of her family, and maybe because of her years, but she is right. Everything is before us. Don't look back.

And who knows how much what we've been through might change things. Fel and addiction...

I have never been one to shy from my addictions. And she --

Her reaction...

For a moment, I almost wished I had kept quiet, left it a mystery between us, between myself and almost everyone still living. Until I realized she was concerned what I would think of her, not that it changed what she thought of me. Although, I suppose knowing things like that can change --

No. It's revealing of a mindset, perhaps. The consideration of what is youth. Less than a quarter of the average lifespan, the math there. No, I'm not a child. Even before the Well, I was not a child. My time as a student perpetually extended, giving me a hold on youth that went longer than some, perhaps, but I was not a child. But I can hardly be considered on my way to the grave just yet, at least no grave crafted by years alone. I am not a child, but I am still just getting started.

And she is old enough to know herself, which makes her more valuable than anyone else with more or less time behind them.

I do not need to know the details. I only ever asked in reaction, in reticence to share information without getting any in return, but we have shared so much, the need to demand it in both directions is no longer logical... I do not need to know. If she can take the knowledge and whatever that might mean to her, and still push me into the water like that, even after a dark corner in the swamp, I think... it's not going to show itself detrimental. And I shared because...

Because she asked.

She knows far worse things about me.

I won't ask her. If I need to know, she will tell me.

It should change nothing. She may still have to labor under the social construct that is youth in a way that I do not, but only for those who know, and that leaves her family and the dead? And if she did choose to tell me, it would not change who she is. It might add or shift a color, lighten or darken the understanding already there, a detail to the story, a thread that was always in the tapestry suddenly become visible, only adding to the picture, the shape of her... But who we are and what we do has taken that into account already, without the detail itself needing to be shared.

And what are social constructs to the two of us? There are those far older than I am who consider me their equal. There are those far younger than I am who think I am a reckless child. Their thoughts and impressions hardly matter in a world where only two people are real.

The children... running around...

Family is so...

Bah.

This time of year...

My parents were utter failures, and I turned out fine. Send the orphans to school, and skip the "parenting" garbage.

In a world without war...

Such a thing does not exist. When I knew peace, I started wars.

Everything is before us. Don't look back.

[Qabian]

I...

By the sun, my timing is horrendous. I didn't.. It wasn't just to make her feel... It was natural progression of the conversation...

I don't know who I am, why I do things that make no sense. I don't know where to find herself, how to stop hating. I do know that we need to keep moving.

And I meant every last word.

Now to... try it again with some planning.

[Qabian]

I have one piece. But so much other chaos prevents one moment of order. I am... not patient, but I am waiting still.



What was within it? What was within it?! Really? Do you have any idea how fucking blind that question makes you sound?

Oh, there are a thousand answers for it. Questions. Answers. Discovery. War. Death. The Horde. The Grim.

But to ask that question suggests someone who has been asleep for so long they no longer understand the world around them.

Or suggests a lack of faith.

Ha!

And what were my answers instead? Opportunity for the revelation of blindness, the long sleep that builds the tension. You are watching, are you? From where? Are the feathers from your pillows getting caught in your eyes?

The tension is going to fracture this thing we have if it cannot be eased. Something will crack and nothing good will come of it for the fragments left behind.

The Mandate was within it. Peace and annihilation together. The silence that comes after pain.

And who actually practices it? Who practices all their preaching? The number is far fewer than we might... hope.

Tell the guards at the Livery about my direct line to Stormwind while I was making sure the sweet Grim had everything they needed in the aftermath of other battles.

Yes, I was within it. I and all these other things together. They follow me wherever I go because I am all these things. We... are all these things.

And what are you?

[Qabian]

I left it too long. The whelp. I had other distractions, and the priority on the escape was lost. We had things to build. I should have thought that it might not have ended up with the others. Well, I'm sure on some level I did. I accepted the very likely possibility that it would not go well. I assumed it would be discovered and dismantled on one of the tables in the rooms with the orcs. I did not realize until confronted with the idea that it might follow its own path.

And what I did find? It's going to take more than myself to repair it, supposing it is what I think it is and not just some other piece of melted slag, and how much it was able to learn if anything at all is questionable in any case. Still, if I can repair it, I wonder... with the influence of the soul that was in it for a time... what exactly could be retrieved. An illusion to go along with the data? There are possibilities...


Are we unnatural? As much as the sun is unnatural, yes. Distant from nature, yes. But elemental in its existence, intrinsic, necessary. Without us, without what we use and how we use it, without the sun, without the stars, the world would shatter and there would be no nature, and thus it is all inextricably connected. And yet, with us, with what we use... The sun and the stars have the ability to shatter the world in their presence as well as their absence. Cursed?

We made our choice, and we chose to walk away from Ysera's unshaped world, from Nordrassil that they claimed was natural, but we are of this world nonetheless. And there are parts of us that continue to exist from that source that is nature, our very mortality and need to nurture and protect our own.

Nurture and -- ha!

But if the Well was intended as a part of the world from its inception, doesn't it follow that --

I... can't even remember how...

The nature of evil... according to its nature...

What is hatred? Does it even mean anything? Or is it just a fire that burns? Fire is not evil, but it is destructive and has no thoughts for the well-being others.

It's quite clear that only those holding up their illusory banners of good can see the illusion of evil. Neither are truly real. Morality is a sham.

Survivalist... but survival for whom? The young? The bloodline? The nation? The family? The self?

The self...

I was so certain that was all there was in the world, just me and nothing else, and magic because I am magic, all my fears flowing from that point. It was easy to maintain that certainty because everyone around me provided me with the evidence. None of them even seemed to see themselves. Even those with a sense of narcissism also always seemed to be a part of the world around them, seemed to be just part of the shadows.

But she... has a self that she will not subjugate to anyone or anything. She showed me. She shows me. And that's...

Real.

Unexpected and real.

And new. Every day.

And amazing.


The Well... no matter what they -- we have done to it, it is not what it was. It was not reignited or relit. The Wretched can tell you that. Kil'jaeden may have been crammed back wherever he came from, and Velen may have shot Light all over the place and declared himself the grand future seeing prophet of things that have already happened, and Liadrin may have fallen to her knees and wept for her stupidity in not seeing that clearly the past was foretold by someone who never bothered to do anything about it, and the Shattered Sun, and the dragons, and the illusions they manufactured...

But nothing has changed. We are what we are. The ashes fell about us already. We moved on to a place where its loss was not the end of our story, and is still not the end of our story. Nor is it the beginning. Nor is it even a required plot point.

But it was once. And so we... indulge in history. Magic and blood... Power... That was... mmm...


It should have had the power to end worlds, but I suppose even what Silvermoon had was only a vial, only a fraction, of what caused the Sundering. A vial enough to keep the city shielded through wars until it was broken from within, but still not what it was. If the world will Sunder again, it will take more than a vial's worth.

And a vial of a vial of a vial? History to indulge in whenever we want? Mmhmhmhm.

We will see what it can do. It reignited the Lich and was snuffed out in doing so, but we are not yet dead. Maybe whatever is left of it can, if nothing else, sate the darkness... Maybe. If nothing else, it can light the eyes. We will... design it.


The Well is not what it was, but she is right. There is something in what we have. The shards in Netherstorm were real, and they were not green. I do need it. At the Anchorage, I was... frustrated, I think. It seems so long ago. Relatively, of course, it's not, but the number of things that change between then and now, a year or two in an age of war and change holds the stories of decades at peace. All the things that didn't go according to plan, all the things that should never have happened...

And I didn't know. How could I know the way she knows without... sharing? And at the time it would not have been a possibility to share.

I wanted to know what I gave her. I wanted to know. And she gave me knowledge. Something in her... There is her, there is me, there is... a lifetime of touch and circumstance...

I wasn't sure what would happen, but I had the memories of the days in Shattrath and Serpentshrine with the thistle, screams in Eversong... But I think what we did, what we have been doing, if I was going to feel the touch of that wasting darkness, it seems to have been... at least pushed back by fire and magic.

It is not her. I will taste it and I will know. She will be rid of what she wants gone, even if it means she has to drown in me.


History repeats itself, but with different players, different actions, different colors, different stories, and different endings. We are not them.


Am I distracted? No. We are doing what we need to do. And something more.

But I am sick of waiting.

[Qabian]

She thinks she's more important than the Mandate? Of course, she'd stab her in the back for the Mandate. Any of us would. That's the whole point. What -- why -- how did she --

I suppose she's evidence of the system functioning as intended, but she'd have to be completely vapid to really believe the things she said. I couldn't care less whose name she carries. The reason I don't stand next to her is because she isn't me. Very few are. I don't dislike her any more than I dislike the rest of them. Do I dislike the rest of them? Yes, but that doesn't stop me from doing what I need to do. Ever.

No, we didn't trust her. She gave us too many reasons not to. But was she actually incapable of realizing all our efforts to rebuild that trust in her despite everything that went wrong were indicators of value, indicators of a desire for her to understand, indicators that we believed in her capacity to learn and grow with us? All the times we could have said, "No. Enough. Go home to your family," but we didn't, and instead we devised new tactics --

No, of course not. Because she matters more than any of us, even more than the ideal. And any insult, no matter how very much earned, is too criminal an obstacle to surmount.

Just as the last one who was so certain she mattered more than the Mandate, they will likely meet the same end, maybe even together. And I doubt it will be pleasant for either of them.

Fine. On to the next.

Much to do. Much to plan. Someday, in another world, a world that burns endlessly, where all the souls are ours, there will be no work that we do not want to do. There will be no crowds. We will have removed them all. There will be fire. And laughter.

And maybe music.

[Qabian]

This engineering business... it's so... appropriate. It's almost like we -- she should have taken it up sooner. A new way to ask questions and experiment. She'll need a laboratory. We'll have a laboratory. Perhaps we'll share it. Magic on one side, mechanics on the other. And we can mix the two in the center. It's not so unlike magic, really. The application of intellect to the materials available. Combine her intellect, and her years -- however many they may be, more than enough -- of practiced accuracy as a Farstrider, and her skill in design proven in her gem cutting and... my very flesh, this is... an excellent idea.

The device, properly attuned, we will still be able to see each other. I wonder how far we could get with it. Its duration needs work, but we may be able to do something with the time it allows. Hmm...

Experimentation has its risks, though. The size result was... amusing but generally inconsequential, unfortunate, but nothing degenerative. The "light" result was... very difficult for me to understand. Was it actually her? Would she remember when the effect finally wore off? What did she need from me? It was still her. She does remember. Hugging a spore, ahahaha! That great expansive fungus... And I did apologize. She will remember that as well. But that confusion of what was real and what was the side effect, I did not know how to react or interact, and my attempts to test her reactions were... ineffective and insufficient. It was still her. I can accept her as such, especially without permanence, but warmth... We do have that. And it is something "good". I was confused, concerned, reacting badly, but she was still her.

And the pattern matrix -- that was... extremely unsettling momentarily. It reminded me too much of another time and another place, but again, she was still her, through it all. And if anything else, seeing her like that reminded me of how much more she is than anything I had then. She could take any shape, and she would still be who she is. No, that certainly isn't my preferred aesthetic. Her true aesthetic is exactly as it should be, true to herself and who she wants to portray, but if she were forced into another, I would still be there, watching from a safe distance in case anything should explode.

I have broken many promises to myself in order to learn, in order to chase my goal of self-improvement. I have made new ones since, but for very different reasons, and without a foundation of lies. I am still not sure the best way to make them clear, but we should... talk about them more seriously, perhaps. Not that it was ever frivolous.

The troll seemed almost... afraid, reticent at the very least. I wonder what she has heard, what impressions she has gotten, what she may remember from the past that I do not. But no, she should not have much trouble. She already knows who we are. We'll just make certain she has not forgotten.

I wonder if Syreena... So much has changed...

And the snake in the Mire... What the hell is that? At least as confusing as the goblin statue. Perhaps someone was transporting a variety Azerothian artifacts of some sort for some reason, and they got lost in whatever water had been there before the naga set up their pumps? But why? And the snake is massive -- mmhmhm.

Azshara is dead. Whether or not she lives in some form or other, the entity she is that I was so certain held my answers is dead. She invited Sargeras with the intention not of working with him, but taking from him -- perhaps controlling them, but more important, to increase her own massive powers exponentially. But she did concede to whatever it is lies at the bottom of the Maelstrom. She died when she made that deal, whether or not her form still lives. The thing I wanted to know, the being that would sacrifice her people for her own individual power, the being that would do whatever it took to become stronger... gave her strength to something else. She is dead. The statue is some reflection of something, most likely an ideal, but the ideal died with the recognition of the involvement of the cultists objects. The symbol, yes, is likely inaccurate. Even Vashj is more than those statues, and what is Vashj next to Azshara's mutation? Although, I don't doubt Vashj still hurts.

I will do what it takes to become stronger. I have found something that makes me stronger in ways I could never have expected even this time last year.

I think the celebration she gave me means more than the factual day of my birth. I think I'll keep it instead.

And this year, we can have more than one type of fireworks made by her own hands. There are so many things we can do with this. So many things we can learn...

[Qabian]

I love this time of year. I just...

I love it.

[Qabian]

*written on loose parchment tucked between pages of a nondescript book of scholarly arcane theory, occasionally left open on a table in the library when not hidden discreetly on the shelves*

We are what we have always been.

And so are they.

The only difference now is we have put a stop to the pretense.

The answer is freedom.

They will not change. They may forget why we rose to the responsibilities we had. I wouldn't be surprised if they have forgotten that already. Perhaps they never really knew why we were there, how we came to be there, what we were attempting to accomplish, why too many have said what they have about us before and since. But they will not change in our absence, so the charade has ended. They will succeed where they have succeeded, and they will fail where they have failed, and they will be as happy as those following an ideal can ever be.

But we were never theirs. When it became clear that we were being submerged into the thing we were using, that we were drowning in our own devices, it was time to stop the use. No more use by us, no more use by them, separate ways.

It would have been more interesting if the pacts were not in place, this is true, if we could have left with blood, or if the threats made in the past could ever really have come to anything.

We will do the things we mean to do.

But really... peace?

Who of this world has ever known peace? The tauren? In their endless battles with centaur, quillboar, probably even kaldorei despite Rhonin's fancy tales? The orcs on "Draenor"? Hardly. One doesn't create a warrior culture simply on the nature of the hunt itself, and one does not take up a curse such as bloodlust without reason. They must have fought each other constantly, at least as much as the trolls now, or the humans, dwarven barbarism. I don't believe gnomes can even fathom the notion of peace. They are too busy trying to divest themselves of existence, either by destroying themselves or becoming mechanical once again. The kaldorei then? Why do you think the druids have been asleep for so long? I know it isn't because they found anything resembling peace in their dreams. Perhaps the draenei on their homeworld? Was it peace that created Archimonde and Kil'jaeden? Was it peace that left only a fraction of their populace on the Exodar? They never knew peace.

There is no peace.

Of all the peoples walking this world now, only we have ever truly known peace. For millennia. And we took it by force. Our decadence, the glory of our civilization is founded on complete confidence in ourselves based on self-evident truths of indestructibility. We forced out those who were there already, and we built walls that none could break. None but our own, betrayal from within.

There is no peace.

And we have embraced this.

The lion will not lay with the lamb. Ever. That world the rotting ones dream of will never come to pass. There will be no eternal springtime, fields of flowers to roll about in, beautiful coffins to close themselves off in forever when the enemies have finally been overcome.

There is no peace.

There is only ruin.

There is only annihilation.

There is only the end of things.

And silence, the sound just before the last breath, the quiet of sleep observed before waking and murder begin again, the battlefield when the war has ended before the scavengers scent blood on the wind, the sound of a world thinking nothing can stop its motions in the moments before it shatters.

Was everything I told them deception? No, not all, although perhaps a great deal. I can use pretty words as much now as I could when I was a child.

And since divesting ourselves of useless idealism? We have come across so many opportunities that were denied to us. There is no regret, none whatsoever.

We have found new things to learn, and old things once forgotten, joys, limitations, struggles, victories, things written by her pen with my ink on the Iron Forge itself, things written with my pen and her ink in Abbendis' chapel.

I have always been horrible, but who has known me? Will we ever truly comprehend each other? She already knows me far better than any other, even those who knew me from birth, but even when we see the Eye of Eternity through the eyes of destroyers beyond mortality, we will still have facets to play off each other and reflect fire and shadow in ways we have not yet understood. There is so much yet to learn. There always will be.

Will we change? Have we changed thus far? I don't think we have changed. We have learned. Beliefs I once held were proved false, and things I denied were proved to exist, but have I changed? The things I value, the mind that creates my thoughts, it is still my mind, even if another knows both the lines that break it and how to mend them.

Why do I know fairy tales? Which ones do I remember? And the songs that stay with me, that stay in a mind that denied the validity of any aesthetic when the known world was ripped away, a mind that finds itself again slowly in sound, both ordered and chaotic, so loud it erases all other things, and so quiet it draws in on itself...

There is something new on the mantelpiece now, something that strikes us with pride, something... real.

[Qabian]

Where is that boy now? That boy who dreamed of dragons? He's here. He hasn't gone anywhere, but he has learned. He has learned that dragons are eminently fallible and far less powerful than they were in his dreams, before he stopped dreaming, before he remembered magic, before he realized that learning was more important than remembering, before his world shattered, before his dreams became nightmares.

But he stopped dreaming of dragons before he learned what they really were. He stopped trying to remember before he realized he hadn't forgotten. Was I ever innocent? As soon as I knew my words, I was dreaming of breathing fire.

I am fortunate never to have been one of the Fortunate. Expectations were replaced by hopes, worthless hopes, but their worthlessness meant they could never stand in the way, never do damage. For all the things my mother wanted from me, three rooms and a soldier's salary meant that the most she could do to see them happen was open any doors she could find and get the hell out of my way.

She should never have gotten back in my way. She might still be alive. Her loss.

If we had money and status, mother would doubtless have played the games, moved me as a pawn for as long as she could, danced me as a puppet before audiences she could expect to appreciate what she had created. I probably would have killed her myself when I remembered how to breathe fire. She may in fact have lived a longer life for being poor. That's not usually the way it goes, especially with a child as treacherous as hers.

We weren't match-children. We had good clothes, if patched and repaired rather than replaced. We never went hungry, although almost every occasion spent at home was graced with the same tasteless excuses for food, nothing like what Larinth and the others families' served. We had a name that had once been valuable and still was in other families with other individuals, too far from ours to care, or perhaps turned away by whatever it was that happened that lost us the money in the first place, a story I never learned, a story that was likely intentionally kept from me, a story that I never cared to decipher.

But we had no art, no confections, no sweetness, no indulgence beyond the assurances of poor words saying we meant the world to people who meant nothing to us. And they sent us away before they could mean anything. There was a roof over the three rooms, but it wasn't ours to share.

Treachery and intellect have gotten me the things they never had, the things they hoped for, the things they wanted for me. And I did it on my own. That only makes me think less of them, convincing me the poor are poor because they deserve it. Lazy or stupid. Or weighed down by morals, which I suppose equates to the latter. I wasn't practical because it was expected. I was practical because I wanted it. I wanted tangibility. I wanted to move beyond the pity. I wanted to move beyond the worthless hopes of the poor. Dreams outside the realm of pure ambition were one of the first things to go in the drive to find a real place for the only real person to come from.

And my sister... Just a thing that was there. She could have been anything. I had pity, but did she have worse? Did she live the life of a Woman Unfortunate and I never knew? Was that why she was silent and cold? Not that I was ever warm, not at home. At home, I didn't even have the fire. I just quietly closed the doors behind me after my parents opened them for me. I was glad enough for her to be silent and sullen, not unlike myself. I think maybe I even respected that in her, but I never knew if that was really her, or just the face she wore at home. And I never knew the reasons behind it. And I never knew the world she walked outside the place we came from. I never knew if she acted like I did for the reasons I did.

I moved through a world that pitied me, most likely detested me behind my back, occasionally took me for an oddity, a curiosity to be humored in its intentions, but I learned what I wanted to know, and I used who was there to be used. Did she learn what she wanted to know? Was she ever able to use others? Or was she used by them? I never cared to learn. It's only now that I wonder...

Would she have wanted a sister?

I never cared what others dreamed before. But I want to know all of hers, even the chocolate dreams, and the worlds she has known that I can only know as she tells them.

Maybe we all think we're alone until we meet someone else walking in our world. No... I don't think most people consider themselves alone. Most people who think they are alone only think that because they feel lonesome. They consider themselves alone because they lack company. They don't actually consider themselves an individual, whole and complete, but solo. They only consider themselves a piece lacking other pieces from without, not even realizing the only pieces that matter are the ones within. I have never been lonely, but I have always been alone. Until I realized there was an exception, that there were things about me that should and could be shared with one other and only one other, that there was someone else holding pieces of me, and that I had pieces of her, without ever even knowing. There is something rich and intricate and valuable -- and whole -- in this together.

I never saw the water. I only saw the sky. Until history and my world's foundations shifting took me to the horizon where I could see the water, where I could see someone swimming in it, where I could realize that the water was not just a thing that was there, not just an element to be manipulated and controlled as all good mages learn, but to see it as a world in itself, as unknown as the heavens with an aesthetic and an existence of its own.

And I've never told anyone else the things that I thought before the world tried to push me in its own way and I pushed back.

[Qabian]

*several sheets folded together, stuck in a new place in the same dreary book, the outermost sheet showing several circular designs that appear to be dragons, or phoenixes, or snakes, or flames, some of which are scratched out*

I may or may not be... going insane. I wonder if I'll be able to sleep at all tonight. My mind just... won't... stop...

It's not second thoughts, no. I am ready for this. More than ready for this. As far as I'm concerned, the core of it, the meaning of it, all of that is already in place. Nothing will change after this.

But we will have a day that is ours.

And I want everything to go right. And I haven't --

I don't know anything about these things.

Everything will be good. We are sparing no expense.

But that doesn't quiet my thoughts.

It's the anxiety of... doing something new.

--

I... forgot my own birthday, ha! I forgot that I'd told her when it is. I don't remember the last time anyone remembered. It's one thing to know the date. It's another thing entirely to acknowledge its passing.

She surprised me by giving me my own last year. At the time, I think, she knew that I would not have told her if she had asked. But we have been through much since, and have broken down more walls together, some that I did not even realize I had built. This year, I had told her the correct anniversary. Is it more than just a numerical convenience, a date of birth? Before her, it was nothing. Before her, it was a day like any other.

My mother would remark the date occasionally, but I believe she had some reasoning she tried to explain to me when I was a child about why she did not send gifts or arrange even the smallest of celebrations for my sister or I as some other students received on their birthdays, something about not distracting me from studies, something about not thinking too much of myself. Ha! Yes, thank you, mother, for giving me the gift of utmost humility.

I've taken it back, though. No. I've been given it back. Now it is something for me, my own day, given to me by the one who holds more of me than anyone else ever has. I was given a day of my own last year, but this year, it's as real as such things can be, a day of my own with acknowledgment, recognition.

I am. There was a time when I was not, but on a day much like this day many years ago, I became.

And we will do it again.

--

My everything...

My everything...

Belore...

Felo--

--

It's so strange to be apart from her by choice.

No, not choice.

Yes, choice.

In the past, when we've been apart, there has always been some overlying reason, perhaps chosen, but a distraction of immense proportions, never enough to forget her, but enough to force us apart temporarily, something else for the mind to think on, some obstacle that needs to be overcome so that we can be together once again.

This time it is just...

Tradition?

No. We are not doing this for the sake of tradition. We are not doing this because it is what is done.

We are doing this for us. We are doing this to create something new that will be ours and ours alone, something for memory and dream, a present that becomes a past on which to build a future. And we are bringing others into this because we want them to know, because we want everyone to know what we already know.

I think I know what she wants in the separation. After the evening's schemes, I was more than ready for fire and silk and obliteration of thought, but she stayed in the city, and I... didn't fight her. Any other night, I would have fought, but this... I could have. I could find her now, I think, without too much trouble, ask the right people the right questions, but she didn't separate us for no reason. I might wander the streets aimlessly, half-lit windows making me think about where she is and what she is thinking now, but I know why she suggested it, and I'm going to draw it out to the sweetest possible conclusion.

This is for the want itself, a part of what we are creating. There is no distraction now. I have a collection of quiet moments in which to dwell alone for just one night. Would I rather have quiet moments to dwell with her? Yes. Will this enhance the night that follows? I have no doubt. I certainly do not feel any distance. If anything, each moment brings me closer to the next, closer, closer. And with all the planning of past days, there is only one thing to dwell on. When I do see her again, I will not be able to see anything else.

I wonder if I'll be able to keep my hands off her long enough to see the plans through to their conclusion. Consummation on the floor of the Cathedral would be... messy with an invited audience.

--

Of all the things I have done in my life, all I have rebuilt and destroyed, this is the one of which I am the most confident in its sheer value. She is who she is and she is utterly unique, intense, and intriguing. All the things we do, all the things we say, all the things we ruin, and she is always herself and so... real, tangible, narcissistic in her own incredible way. And mine.

The quel'dorei are curious. "Hatred can be used to bend people to your will." Oh, it can, can it? The hatred must already be in place, aligned correctly, and be strong enough to overcome distrust. And the quel'dorei may have been many things, may even have been hateful, but few would admit it, and most were trained to control it and move beyond it, at least until they were betrayed and took a new name that embraced the hate. Perhaps we should take a trip to the tower.

Hearts are strange things. For the living dead, they should be antithetical, but between Sylvanas' reaction to her sister's necklace and Arthas' little charade with Tirion, I wonder if there's a connection there between the dead and the undead -- memory and such. The corpses that shamble simply because of puppet strings are something different than the death knight who fights out of loyalty.

To keep it and to know it is the right of the living. To fail to let it go is the curse of the Forsaken.

And then there is the "Lich King".

And it is not the only curse. Arugal played Kel'thuzad's game but with the otherworldly living rather than the worldly dead? Kalimdor still holds so many questions. The kaldorei have lived too long.

And Azshara is ours.

[Tylorvias]

I've taken it back, though. No. I've been given it back. Now it is something for me, my own day, given to me by the one who holds more of me than my mother ever held.

((INCEST FTW!))

[Qabian]

((/headdesk and ninjedited, pleasant little images of mothers holding infant sons completely destroyed by my inability to see my own innuendo, but hey, thanks for reading, ha!))

[Tylorvias]

((It all started when I read it with a slow stuffy British voice in my head for kicks. Thanks for the lol's, however unintentional ^_^))

[Qabian]

*unwritten mental meanderings again*

Who to play against each other to shape the world as we want it? The Legion cannot win. In the end, no one can win. All the pieces shuffled into the game thus far must lose. The Titans must be locked out. The Old Gods must hold the world together but lose their stage, although their version of the world is the preferred. Still, they cannot be allowed to own it again as they once did.

It does seem more and more likely that the reason the Titans imprisoned rather than destroying the Old Gods was to protect their creations rather than the world itself. When you've gone to a great deal of effort to construct something, I suppose it can seem like "the world", even if it's only the set on the stage and not the stage itself. We don't need the set. We can make our own set. We only need the stage and the knowledge that dominion is ours.

The Legion with a good deal more subtlety and a goal with more logic...

Elune, ha!

What do the trolls know? Hakkar and...

There is something beneath the sea. Definitely. Following the Twilight to Aku'mai and Azshara is proof enough. But what did she take with her to the Maelstrom? The Well at least. Legion? Are there satyric naga? I am still convinced she wanted to command Sargeras, not serve him, so I doubt she would have kept his trappings. But Aku'mai and the Twilight do suggest she found something else to serve.

All those who attempt to master end up mastered. Even those who seem to throw off their shackles -- Arthas has his Frostmourne. Illidan has his Skull and his insanity. Kael'thas... I suppose he suffered too much from the loss of his father at the hands of a human corpselord. He lost himself completely. Although, I do wonder if all those who followed him were equally as lost, if they are still viable pieces. Perhaps they are pieces of the Legion. But what to set them against? The Argent needs to get off their ponies and break down that door so we can finally learn if those voices are restricted to Uldaman. I suspect they may be in the end.

The Demon Soul and... Alexstrasza's orcish panderers... and Zendarin Windrunner...

The Broken Isles? Illidan... and Vashj... I wonder... The Legion, Vashj and Azshara... Aegwynn... Gul'dan...

What does lie at the bottom of the ocean? So many hours spent at the horizon...



Trust. Oh, yes. Trust. It's a strange thing for me to hold, but it's been earned, and comes with its own rewards I never would have imagined. Mmhmhmhm...

[Qabian]

We have rarely talked of the details, spending so much time in searching. But the reason we spend so much time is because we cannot make the mistakes the others have made before us. We must be concise and thorough, and there must be a method which allows this, or enough possibilities in the planning to account for any missteps. The thing we must avoid most is Kael's mistake, the puppetry. The method must be ours, stolen perhaps, but not a matter of controlling something else, only of channeling our own powers.

She is not me. We have had too different lives for her to be me. Perhaps she sees herself becoming me, but I don't believe we would have met, have come together as often as we had if we were not already so alike in many ways. Perhaps the common threads we have come to the surface of the pattern and blaze so brightly in each other's presence that the differences in the tapestry are lost behind its similarities, but they remain in its construction nevertheless. Perhaps we do mirror each other in too many ways, but is she afraid of losing what is uniquely hers?

Maybe she wants to lose it.

Even now, despite my -- our machinations keeping her close to me and out of the city's light, she holds social graces that I do not, that I cannot, that I have never been taught. I have imitated, occasionally so well as to deceive even the best, but I have never gone through the drills of politeness that must be forced upon a doll. How can she think that she is me when she is capable of communicating with and manipulating others where I disdain before I even see the opportunities? I can, on rare occasions, hold up the mask of civility, but it is even heavier and more difficult not to let the cracks show now that I make such infrequent pretense at the game of cooperation.

Would I want her if she were not me? She is not me, and I have never wanted anything so much, except perhaps magic itself. Even the memories she holds close are different. I have almost no recollection of that day at the Crossroads. Why? The timing of it suggests I was so buried in my internal war with my refusal to accept the possibility that I am not alone that all I can remember is the horizon that came after. If she were me, I never would have gone to the horizon.

Yes, the world of self love is an indulgence I have never forsworn, but she is, always has been, and continues to be unique. Is she unique in the way she mirrors me? Yes, but the reflection is not mimicry. It is truth.

All those times before, with those who told her lies -- and I always claimed I was the liar -- she was like me then in many ways. I did not give her those things. She was not reflecting me. It is only that she is what I was so certain could not exist -- worthy.

She still has the woods in her heart, even if she never knew them well. I never did. I may be disappointed in what Lor'themar has deemed acceptable to leave untended, but the Farstriders' work was not my own.

If she changed her mind, would I as well? The answer is not as clear cut as I made it sound. She does not do things without reasons, and she could perhaps convince me of her reasons. Or I would convince her that mine continued to be correct, and her doubts would be erased. It is never so simple as a change of mind.

Whatever we do must be capable of destroying the already dead, no easy feat, but it must be possible. It must.

I find it difficult to believe she would change her mind. While I have long been on a quest for self-improvement, my goal has always been just that, selfish. I have accepted so much that is wrong with this world, even though it angers me. The anger itself fuel that I accepted. The idea that all who offend -- mm, what we seek together is a gift from her. She gave me the horizon. She gave me the incentive to use anger as more than mere fuel, to walk along disappointment on a path to the future we deserve.

[Qabian]

What have we done?

If those I knew growing up could see me now, they would not recognize me. And yet, I haven't changed. The things I want are all the same, but unexpected developments have shifted the roads I take towards those things in directions I once believed impossible.

I have been such a liar. Never, never, never, I've said. Sometimes my words are so meaningless. I wonder if that can be taught, the ability to lie, even to oneself, and yet still come to recognize truth through logic and sense.

And yet, amidst the initial sensations of utter panic and helplessness, I find a definite core of pride. Curious.

Ultimately, it is up to her. I am a bystander, a responsible bystander, but I can take only the actions a bystander would. I can advise or decree, but my part in this phase has been played unless she deems otherwise. She holds the keys, and I can't take them from her. I could exact violent retribution, I suppose, if I wanted it ended and erased, but I do not. And I trust her, so the need to force my position simply doesn't exist. If I were opposed, she would listen. Should I be opposed? Perhaps. There is logic in opposition, as we have spoken of before, but there remains no sense in wasting the opportunities we have also discussed.

I cannot know how it feels for her. I cannot know if something feels wrong. I cannot know if all is well. I can only trust that she will tell me. If she wants to be protected, I will do that, although that has never been her way. If it needs protection, it is too weak. It will not be too weak, because it is ours. If she wants cleansing fire, I will do that, although I believe I might actually be disappointed. How strange...

It almost seems like the recent talk was not coincidental, but we have spoken of this in the past. And I can hardly fault her or myself for losing track of time. We do keep each other busy.

And what of our new directions and ambitions? Will they be altered? They shouldn't. Traditional wisdom would say drastic change will be inevitable, but we are certainly not traditional. We take traditions and twist them, and we will do the same with this. I don't think either of us know exactly what will be necessary on our part, but we will see this through. Perhaps there will need to be delays, but I feel strangely confident.

I wonder what I can impart. I wonder how I will judge success. I wonder if it is possible to want things I have not wanted.

I am still confused, yes, but there are possibilities here I cannot deny, only because we are who we are, and I have found this curious calm in the wake of shock, in realizing that this was no mere attempt at getting a reaction. The only reason, I think, that I am so accepting of these possibilities is because she is mine and I am hers. This is no back alley tryst. This is no farce of mind control and puppetry for the sake of feeling comfort in cold loneliness. This is no mere acceptance of the shadows around us, no pretense that we had no part in this and only fate made it so. These are our choices we have made, real choices with real thoughts, expressed in myriad ways over many seasons. This is real, maybe the only thing that is real in a stilted, vacuous world, a world that we will shake to its very foundations through this and other means. We are the first vision that set fire to the stars.

That, and there is an incredibly indulgent selfishness in this that I never saw before that I find oddly yet intensely appealing.