The Ramblings of Faerthurin Lantis

I guess what I’m saying is, lights fill a space, no matter how dark or empty it might seem. We all spend our lives chasing one or another, drawn by the heat, the novelty, maybe just the color. Sometimes it’s a light we find- sometimes it’s one we’re trying to stoke within ourselves. But we’re always looking for one to ooh and aah over, right? Something to fill the space. 

Fires have always fascinated me. They’ve marked nearly every moment of my long life- from Darkmoon and battlefields, to each stray cigarette and clandestine craving. Even Quel’thalas, rest her flagging soul, was something fascinating to watch go up in flames. I wouldn’t say as much to any of my kin, not so soon, when our ears still ring with screams and the marching din of the undead. But still- the flames took our city and changed it, more than anything else could have. For all that’s remained the same in our corrupted culture, you can’t call us the same race we were before Arthas. Sin’dorei- forged in flame, bound by blood, birthed with the promise to spill the match of every drop spilled. 

I thought I could follow that flame all my life, but a decade hasn’t even thrice passed and I’m already burnt to cinders, striving to stay more than ash. Hopping from flame to flame, it fills you with feeling, makes you feel alive even when the whole world’s fighting not to die. One spark extinguished, another catches your eye, on and on ‘till exhaustion feels like calm. 

But that’s not true, is it? Or I wouldn’t be here. Writing thoughts just so I can look at something else in the night, keep from going blind staring into firelight. Navel-gazing, I suppose, but hey- what’s new?

Good question.

Nothing. Not that I know of, at least. I suppose I’m pulling a page off Freckles’ playbook- life’s cycles got too familiar, fighting just turned to more effort rewarded with more dead friends, world seemed like it was about to end. So I made for the woods, packed a blade and a few good books and followed the nearest babbling brook. Soon I was deep enough the city sounds couldn’t be found- then things went silent as I got through the Ghostlands, gods-damned ancestors seeming to screech at me through the chill in the air. Then the leaves changed, and the animals came back- eventually things got quiet rather than silent. Hadn’t seen a road since the last lunar cycle, so I settled down, sort of. Broke some branches, matted some moss over my head, found a boulder smooth enough to sit on. 

And that’s it. I wake up, sit, flick a flint for a fire. Strip to my smallclothes and sit in the stream, washing my scars and my one set of clothes, more tattered by the day. Push myself physically, some way or another- abandoning the daily training would be giving up too much of myself, I think, and if life’s taught me one thing it’s that this world will always force me to lift a blade again. Remembered what Father taught me about fishing. Liked that part- been a while since I could think of him and smile. 

The old ways, making me feel like an old man. No gray in me, mind- but. Well. For all my talk of flames, life’s journey is really just looking for something new in yourself. And I know myself. The ins, the outs, the ups and downs, spirals and diagonals. So, learning who I am? Done. Check. Learning who I want to be? Been there, done that. Tried, failed, tried again, triumphed, faded, failed. Seen the whole cycle, so, check. What’s left? Learning to live with myself? Crock of shit if I’ve ever heard one. Nobody lives with themselves, they just sign a renter’s lease and stick around ‘till the landlord’s had their fill. 

We live too long, elves. There’s only so much you can see before it all starts feeling like a dream. Face it- the lives we lead just aren’t natural. Gods, look at me- I’ve already died once, yet here I am, puttering around a forest like a Construct that’s lost its programming. We live lifespans meant for the divines, without the clarity of purpose, too stubborn and curious for an existence of service. 

I’m not suicidal or anything, don’t get me wrong. Whatever lies beyond, I’m in no hurry towards, not anymore. But this life? Day after day, dalliances and drudgery, death around us and some strange kind of chained delirium within? It’s a dance I no longer understand the steps to- and so, there’s nothing to do but step off the stage. 

I’m not mindless, not melancholy- no more than normal, at least. I just can’t keep trying to control a story that feels like it’s done being told. Magic feels muted- maybe my call no longer sings as sweet to the arcane deeps. It does come, flows freely- for all my woes, I’ve still got a fire to summon. Just feels like it’s pouring through a conduit I can’t quite close. 

I think about writing to friends, lovers, reaching back to the familiar. Something stops me. Maybe I don’t want to know which funerals I missed, or maybe I’m just trying not to make contact because it’ll feel like a promise of return, and we’d both know that to be a trick. It’s old hat- no performer’s interesting when you’ve got their routine down pat. 

I suppose I’m just waiting. Letting my soul settle some, where it can. There’s parts that’ll always kick and catch- guilts, if not regrets, smiles I’ll always miss, memories time only fills with more meaning. Pieces of a puzzle I can’t quite complete- but if that’s my life, I’ll live it in peace. 

Maybe that’ll be enough, if whatever war’s raging out beyond this wilderness doesn’t end the world first. Until then?

I’ll wait and see.