#joskinar

Took longer than I intended to get this done, but it’s been awhile since I’ve done a dude and I figured I should practice some shading while I was at it.

Giveaway prize for CelestialPetal of their Void Elf, Joskinar. Hope you like it!

Jos woke with a start, gasping for breath, ears twitching with each toll of the bell as it slowly dissipated, his glowing gaze flitting this way and that, each shadow of the room stared into as he felt eyes on him. Panic crawled up his throat, suffocating him a moment. One hand moved shakily towards the lamp on the bedside table, fumbling to grab the string and pull, bringing warm light to the gloom.

Nothing.

Still the hair on the back of his neck stood on end, his heart pounding and breath escaping him in soft pants. Long fingers brushed over his face, rubbing at his eyes, chilled as if they too remembered the cold. Sitting up he began to rub his hands together to warm them, a soft curse fell past his lips at having stayed in an inn in Stormwind for the night rather than returning to Easterly and to Aurelia and Riizen.

There was something about the cold that triggered a deep loneliness in his soul that only abated the slightest as he felt a querying caress along his thoughts by the entity he housed. He didn’t want to talk now though, he wanted something physical to shake off the nightmare. Dressing he left a few silver on the nightstand before making his way out of the inn and towards the flight master. Hopefully there would be one available this late at night to head back to Easterly.

Joskinar would receive a package in the mail, no return address written other than the sender being ‘Clarissa’

Inside he would find two wooden cigarette boxes, each full with a note card to label what was in each as well as a simple note 'Joskinar, Consider this an apology for our spar as I was..unnecessarily rough. I saw these and thought you might enjoy them…they also shouldn’t rot your lungs as fast. ~Clarissa Camden’

There was a hesitation in Jos’s movements as he eyed the package, he was a man that had made many enemies through the years, not intentionally of course, but there was a particular woman that came to mind when he noted the box, even with the name scrawled the way it was. Several attempts were made to say the name out loud before he gave up, frustrated at his illiteracy and Umbral being of no assistance in this moment.

Moving a good distance away so that he was beside his bed he used a broom he nabbed from the inn’s cleaning closet and jabbed at the package before ducking quickly behind the bed.

The good news was that if it was a badly made bomb it would have gone off... probably. He wasn’t a bomb expert, but it still put his mind at ease regardless. And if for some reason it was something living it would probably be scrabbling by now, so two possibilities were shot down... maybe.

Finally he sat down in front of the box, pulling his shirt up over his nose and mouth and carefully peeling the packaging open as he held his breath. Could certainly have a chemical contagion in there, right? A woman scorned and all that, Jos wasn’t willing to take the chance.

When he finally peeled back the paper he just appeared genuinely confused before noticing the note beside the smaller boxes inside. Picking it out he read it with an arched brow, not the particular woman he had expected to send something possibly dangerous.

Feeling more relaxed he opened one of the boxes, his eyes widening in surprise before he grinned.

“Well, this is certainly a nice surprise,” he murmurs softly to himself.

“Looks like being a father might not be so terrible, hm?” Umbral murmured inside his head, instantly souring Jos’s mood.

“Nobody asked you. Besides, she’s only being nice because I pulled my punches,” came his own grumbled response, “Nothing familial about it.”

Life for Jos had been good as of late, if sometimes confusing or in flux. He had back what he had always wanted, his family of people he loved, and he was determined not to lose it again. While the thoughts of his past and the guilt related to that was always at the back of his mind, an annoying buzzing that made itself louder in moments of solitude, it wasn’t as crushing as it once was.

Tonight was a reminder, the pain of his loss and the fear of being the cause of losing more would never go away.

Decades of time spent with his band, the group breakfasts, staying up late into the night making bad decisions, afternoons collaborating new songs, all the venues, the fans, the attention good and bad...

Their deaths.

Even now he could smell the smoke, the decay, the ash that threatened to choke you with each gasping breath. The proud city of Silvermoon cut in half. His chest constricted and new faces came to haunt him. Aurelia, Riizen, Clarissa, Nalmie, his unborn baby...

He sat up, breaking whatever spell grief had over him, letting out a shaking breath and feeling the tears that escaped his lashes, rubbing them away a moment later. Soon his glowing gaze shifted to the form beside him, Aurelia sleeping, alive and well. Carefully curling closer he wrapped his arms gently around her, spooning her from behind as he nestled his face into her shoulder.

He was determined not to lose what he had gained again.