Lexi O'Rourke

@evelonholmwood @magemakis

“Wha’ if….”

The softly spoken words fell from his lips once again as he stared downwards upon the single parchment of paper before him. The wooden desk within his captain’s quarters had been cleared off in a hurried, haphazard manner by an overly-eager, red-headed mechanic. Those shared moments of bliss, of union, felt so foreign and unfamiliar to him now as he continued to tap the edge of his quill against the lacquered surface of the desk. Another heavy, arduous sigh was elicited as he relented to his inner turmoil, relinquishing his grasp upon the writing utensil. The gunslinger settled himself backwards against the plush, overly stuffed cushions of his chair.

“The Void..? 

…Demonic possession?…

Stories about tha’ Loa o’ Death tha’ the Zandalari worship…”

Several thoughts and potential bargains ruminated within the man’s head to the point that each began to overlap another until it was a chaotic state of disarray in which he couldn’t decipher when one deal started and another proposition ended. His teeth gritted in frustration, jawline taut with tension that swelled to the brim within him. The composed demeanor that had been brandished in front of Eilithe had since crumbled away, pieces of that facade left upon the cobblestones of Stormwind as he had ventured his way back to his awaiting vessel.

“Someone, somewhere, ‘as to ‘ave a reason to keep me around for a little while longa’.” 

His voice cracked finally, the immense amount of pressure amassing within his being starting to strain against his futile attempts to keep such from accidentally overwhelming him.

“An’ I’ll find tha’ someone, somewhere. I’ll make whateva’ deal I ‘ave to make. I’m not done ‘ere yet. This story isn’t ova’.”

Long, long ago, there once was a family that lived in the skies.

Such was not unusual during these times as the skies were the only refuge from the ever-churning tempests that ravaged the never-ending expanses of sea below. These were tumultuous times of chaos and confusion as the world constantly shifted and changed, unable to settle or to still. Many families sought sanctuary and found such solace amongst the skies overhead.

One of these particular families were a pair of smiths and their son.

Shortly after their union and the ceremonies had concluded, the two beseeched from the Pale Queen a favor. Both women pleaded for her to grant them the blessing of a child born of their love and of her generosity. The two waited for many days and many nights before one awoke at dawn with the Queen’s gift bestowed within her. The two smiths were to become mothers. Elated and overjoyed, they pledged their hammers and crucibles in service of the Pale Queen. On the night their child was born, a full moon shone bright overhead and bathed their home in ivory brilliance.

That very same night, the mothers and their son were escorted into the skies.

For a time, their forges and kilns were left dormant and unattended. The smiths nurtured and cared for their newborn son. Until one particular evening, late in the hour with a moonless sky, the young child expressed with crying wails that echoed throughout their home a newfound fear that had taken root in his mind. A fear of the dark, of the night. No matter what the two attempted to console their son, nothing provided him with lasting comfort. 

Deprived of sleep, though determined to soothe the child’s fear, both of them devised a plan. For the first time in a long while, the kilns were reignited.

From dusk until dawn, both tirelessly stoked the flames with mighty bellows. Each burst of air breathed new life into the fires and sent smoldering embers cascading upwards. These glowing cinders spiraled higher and higher, dispersed in all directions as the winds carried them. Eventually, the once darkened skies were filled to the brim with countless twinkling specks of light.

The child slept soundly that night and for every night that followed beneath the veil of stars that kept the dark of the night at bay.

“Call it! I said, call it!”

The thunderous crack resonated once more throughout the brawlpub as another shot was fired and another bullet burrowed deep within the Draenei’s exposed abdomen. Rivulets of blood spilled forth, staining cloth and flesh, as the gunslinger stalked forward. 

“Get down there and get him out! Move, MOVE!”

As the cylinders shifted, the revolver’s chambers rotating in unified tandem as an unfired round was locked into place, the gun’s barrel was leveled against his opponent’s forehead. A gloved thumb guided the hammer backwards whilst his index finger squeezed steadily upon the trigger.

“Stop the fight!”

A moment of hesitation was all that he afforded the Draenei knelt before him, a singular lapse of judgement in his motives, his decision, before he steeled his conviction and fired. That brief period of time offered was enough for a pair of large, burly hands to grasp the gunslinger by his shoulders and toss him aside as if he were made of parchment and feathers. As he skid across the metallic plates that the brawlpub’s arena predominantly consisted of, he watched in aggravation as his opponent was hefted upwards and brought to stand upright. Though an arduous task to endeavor, the wobbling legs of the Draenei carried him from the pit. Only the splintered remains of a shattered horn remained upon the ground in his wake, fragments of varying sizes scattered about in the stagnant blood of sanguine ichor.

“Get him out of my sight. He’s killed three fighters in three nights. He’s gone mad, seen it happen to the best of them. Shame, too. I don’t want to see him back here again though.”

Enraptured within a surreal sense of serenity, he stood there upon the water’s edge as the tender, tepid waves washed ashore and gently bathed his bare feet with their salt and brine. His eyes were cast forwards, a fixated stare set upon the horizon as the first glints of the sunrise began to emerge. A warm breeze languidly drifted by and caressed every inch of his completely bare body as it swept across the shoreline. With arms placed behind his form, one wrist held loosely within the palm of the other hand, his chin tilted slightly upwards as he basked in the scintillating rays of the coming morn, the herald of dawn’s arrival. 

Finally, someone had been told. He had confided his concerns into her and professed how genuinely distraught he had become at the hands of the constant torment of the nightmares, of the voices haunting his thoughts. As he closed his eyes, the memories of the night prior steadily began to manifest within his mind. He remembered the warmth of the steamy depths against his flesh, he remembered the feel of the lacquered wood from the tub’s frame against his back, he remembered the touch of her hands as she gripped his face against her palms to try and seize his attention after he had confessed what was troubling him. Lips parted partially and a prolonged sigh escaped from the gunslinger’s maw.

“We’ll go an’ talk to Miss Li an’ Eilithe. See wha’ they ‘ave to say about it all. I doubt it is anythin’ serious. Why would omens o’ death choose me o’ all folks to follow ‘round?” The whispered, hushed words fell from his lips as he reiterated what he had agreed upon before retiring to bed for the evening last night.

“Well, time to find out wha’ makes me so special.”

- The relief on her face at the mention of piracy no longer being a method I seek to employ as a means of which to further my aspirations was... Good. It was good to see her happy. 

- It is difficult knowing that she wishes for more of me, but I can only manage to give her so much. I truly do not know if time is capable of mending -all- wounds. 

For each “⭐️” I get, I’ll write a headcanon about our muses.

- Neither trusts the other as far as she could throw her, but their mutual “acquaintance” is more or less the reason they play nice. Kat still struggles to find a competent engineer however, someone to help bring the things she puts on paper to life. She holds out hope that maybe, someday, she can show Lexi she’s not as terrible as the woman thinks and they can work together on a project or two.

It was one of the few evening were everything was nearly perfect. Evelon sat close to the fire. The hearth was her favorite of drinking spots and there she nestled for the majority of the evening. She watched the other patrons in silence and drifted through the intoxicating buzz she gradually acquired as the night waned. Her stomach was full, the fire was warm, and her buzz was strong. A cigarette, she decided as she licked the vacant canine which the vice typically sat upon, would be the only thing to make the night perfect. But just as she about to get up to retrieve the tobacco and paper from her pack a familiar figure separated from the lodge’s lingering patrons and took her seat beside the Huntress.

Eve flashed Lexi a signature smirks, raising her emptied stein in greeting.

Lexi offered a disquiet smile over the brim of her half-emptied glass before taking a swig. A breath of content followed before she returned her gaze to the Hound Master. “Hope you don’t mind the company,” she said, “You look a bit lonely over here.”

“Always alone,” she corrected as reached for her pack set beside her chair, “But never lonely.”

An uncomfortable silence unfolded between the two. In that quiet moment, Evelon procured a tin of tobacco and a slip of paper. She tapped out a pinch of herbs, tucked them in paper’s fold, and proceeded to carefully roll a fresh cigarette along the arm of the chair. As she licked the vice sealed, she stole a glance at the engineer.

Lexi stared back with set brows, clearly not amused. “You’re not alone,” she frankly stated.

The sentiment struck cold despite the warmth placed behind it. It stole the words from Evelon’s lips and left the her lingering on a confused precipice; she’d always been alone. An invisible wall laid between herself and everyone else- an impenetrable wall carved from so much hurt and suffering, sealed with a mortar crafted from the solitary truth that she was no longer human. She’d grown accustomed to the wall and watched loved ones from the other side, always hesitant to cross the border and therefore always alone. In so many ways alone was safer. Alone meant no more pain. Alone meant she’d never again have to feel lonely.

But how could she explain all that to Lexi, or to anyone for that matter? The answer was she couldn’t and so she didn’t.

Instead, Evelon shook off the melancholy and summoned a winning smile. "I know that,” she said, tucking the cigarette between her lips, “ S’ only bein’ witty.”

“Anyhow,” she added, rising to her feet, “M’ gonna have m'self a smoke.”