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It had all happened rather unintentionally. Ankalei might have preferred to claim otherwise, but the truth was that tactics and strategy were only well worn by her when it involved battle of some kind. In a squadron, in a unit, on the front lines, or anywhere else like it, Ankalei was a force to be reckoned with. But when it came to affairs outside of it, regardless of their nature, she was... rather the opposite.
And when she was put in front of her twin sister, it oft felt like all of her brilliant fragments of her mind went out some proverbial window.
In truth, she had only been moving north of the city into Quel'Danas. Things had largely settled, or so it seemed, but who knew how long that was going to last, and there were matters to consider. Once upon a time it had been somewhat customary for those of the Blood Knight Order to bathe themselves in holy light. Especially when proving one's loyalty to the cause. Although Ankalei had not been a member since her death, she had reunited with some who seemed to recollect her name, though perhaps not her service, and they had rather eagerly welcomed her back into the fold.
But that was by appearances only. She could never call herself of the order again unless she had proven herself worthy of the title. She had, more than once, toyed with the idea of embarking on that trip to the Sunwell, though she also knew that those like her ordinarily could not endure that. There had been a very real chance that she might have found herself on the receiving end of another death. One that she wouldn't wind up reanimated from.
Now with things as they were, there was no Sunwell. Not really. How did that change her plans? How did that change the traditions of the order? Would she actually be able to rejoin them? And again, if she didn't, or if she couldn't, what else was she going to do? What was there to do?
She supposed she could just continue her mercenary work. Offering a hand to the Succulent Tart when they needed it. Surely there was more to life (even her lack thereof) than standing at entry points, reminding people to mind their manners, checking weapons, and taking jobs from other people.
Ankalei had to admit that she might have preferred to continue down that train of thought than the present one that her crossing paths with her twin. A very, very alive twin. A twin who she struggled to sometimes not feel tied between a great deal of envy and a great deal of love and compassion for. If she had been a better person, perhaps she might have only embodied the latter.
It really had been a chance meeting. A literal bumping of shoulders. Ankalei decked in simple plate. Laeynna in something decidedly not plate. Each had turned and had surely meant to go on their way until recognition kicked in. Who knew how many moments had passed with the two of them eyeing one another.
Well. More like sizing one another up.
But Ankalei had always been the kinder of the two. The more sociable. The more open. The more vulnerable. She wasn't afraid to compromise, within reason, and she was considerably less stubborn than her immediate counterpart. "You're looking well." She took a moment to study her sister a little further, from head to toe. Pale hair was growing out. Much longer than it had been months before during the holiday season. Even her eyes looked a little different. There was, in fact, very much something about her that Ankalei couldn't quite put a finger on.
Then her gaze, blue as blue can be, fell onto her sister's hand and the rather impressive ring she wore there. "Very well, in fact."
And as if she had been nigh bitten by an asp, Laeynna's posture shifted. Almost painfully awkward and shy as she tried to modestly shield her hand from attention. Then she just as awkwardly nodded.
Ankalei sighed. It might have been easier if Andaeros was actually present. He seemed to know how to bring the two of them together. Ankalei tried and back when he'd been absent, she thought they were potentially getting somewhere. But somewhere along the lines, that all fell apart. Why? How? What caused it? She didn't know. Even trying to trace the points from one to the other, she couldn't figure it out.
"I don't think you have a reason to go hiding that," she began, lifting a hand and resting it to her hip. "If you're worried about not telling me before, don't be. I don't expect you to do that."
She didn't really have much in the way of expectations at all, except that her sister find some kind of happiness. If she could. If she'd let herself do that. Ankalei wasn't sure that she ever would, which... would have been a shame. Maybe that was hypocritical of her. Maybe they really weren't so different from one another. Laeynna punished herself for actions from her past and the way those actions and consequences shaped who she became. Ankalei punished herself for her own failings and thought that being reanimated meant just not living at all and that there was no point in living.
They weren't really so different, after all. She didn't know whether she should be relieved or disappointed in both of them. Maybe she could have been both.
"But, the not telling me thing does bring something to mind," Ankalei continued, her weight shifting a touch in the face of her sister's stalwart silence.
She didn't really know how to say it. Well, that wasn't true. She did. There was just no way to say it that wasn't... Well. It was going to sound mean, no matter how she said it. "Don't you think that maybe you've been..." Pausing, she lifted a hand and eventually gestured for Laeynna to follow her. "This really isn't the place for this kind of conversation."
"I do not really have time for this," Laeynna countered without skipping a beat.
"It won't take long."
She didn't know that for sure, but she only meant for it to be something for her sister to think about. Hopefully. She wasn't sure it would even land or register to her or that Laeynna would listen to her for more than a few moments. She certainly seemed like she would have preferred to be anywhere but in her twin's company. Maybe Laeynna couldn't be blamed for it.
That giant elekk in the room? It wasn't like they really ever talked about it. They glossed over it. Ankalei intentionally didn't bring it up. Laeynna was conflict-avoidant to the extreme. As she normally had been. And Ankalei worried she might be too fragile if she forced it.
With her sister begrudgingly following in tow, Ankalei led her off to the side, off of a crowded stone street and into an aisle that seemed relatively quiet. Once there, she thought she might have enough stalling time to figure out how to put her thoughts into words that might escape off her tongue. It was only when Laeynna cleared her throat to encourage her that she gestured somewhat absently.
It sure seemed easier to face the trial of the Sunwell, even in her state, than it was to face Laeynna. That was ironic.
"Are you going to say anything or are you just going to stare at me?" Laeynna finally asked, folding slender arms across her chest. "I feel like you are about to scold me for something. If you are, please just say it and get it out, so I can stop trying to anticipate what you are going to say and how I should respond to it."
For all Ankalei wanted to tell her that it was a little unfair for her to say as much, she refrained. Arguing with her would do nothing. It wouldn't make anything better. It wasn't going to help either of them. And in truth, Ankalei had no interest in fighting with her. None of this had anything to do with that. There was no malicious intent here. At least, none intentional.
"Well. I was just thinking," Ankalei finally began, thinking it was about as socially eloquent as she normally was. Which was to say not at all. "You've always been sort of... I know you keep things close to your chest. I don't think that's a bad thing. On the contrary, it's probably good, actually. But I do think maybe it's possible for you to do too much of that."
When Laeynna looked perplexed, Ankalei couldn't blame her for that either. On one hand she made it sound like a bad thing. On the other, she was in support of it. Of course it was going to sound like mixed messages.
Lifting both of her hands, just to pause any potential reply that might have come erupting out of her sister, Ankalei bought herself a few more beats in time. Just enough to maybe paint a more proper picture of what she was trying to say. "What I mean is that, while it's good for you to be protective of yourself, if you're too protective, that has the opposite effect. I don't think it would do you too much harm to be a little more open. About yourself. At least, try not to be too afraid to do that. You'd be surprised at what you'd be met with."
The change in expression of which Laeynna wore was somewhat seamless. A little confusion. A little annoyance. A little disbelief. But those were all guesses. In actuality, Ankalei couldn't read her sister the way she could when they were little girls. Back then, she was pretty confident she knew everything about her twin. Now she felt like she knew next to nothing and the only way for her to find out was to spy and eavesdrop. She didn't want to have to do those things. And she didn't want to try to force Laeynna to have a relationship with her either.
How much of her wanted to come to some kind of understanding for Laeynna's sake? Maybe it was more for herself. Maybe she recognised she didn't have much going for her and felt like she needed her sister. Ankalei could believe that. The less she had, the more she wanted to cling to what she did have. She had become so accustomed to having next to nothing, however, that just the idea of trying to soften the past had been enough to give her some kind of hope.
Now it felt like so much of that hope was for nothing. Almost.
"Should you not be taking some of your own advice?" Laeynna replied finally, as if she'd been thinking of how to respond.
Definitely felt like a good deal of that hope evaporated. Ankalei hadn't been interested in taking shots at her, but perhaps Laeynna wasn't of the same mind. Or maybe her sister had something else going on that she wasn't aware of. Even if she did, though—
"I appreciate the words of wisdom," her younger twin continued. "I do, but I think you have just as much to gain from taking it yourself. I also feel that until you take it yourself, you likely should not be putting unsolicited advice in front of me."
"It wasn't—" Ankalei shook her head, issuing an awkward, tinny laugh. "It wasn't advice. I'm expressing concern. As a sister ought to. I'm not saying you need to change your habits. I'm just saying... maybe bend a little. Not to everything. Not to everyone. I just don't want you..."
I don't want you to become like me.
That was a dreaded thought. Ankalei saw her own failings. She saw her own issues. She saw how she cut herself off from the world and had for years. And for a while, she thought Laeynna might not do the same thing. Except the more time passed, the more she saw Laeynna fall and fall and fall.
Ankalei steeled herself and she shook her head, "I want you to be able to live your life without feeling a sense of regret. I want you to actually be able to live. And I don't think you can do that, truly, until you open yourself up a bit. You work with plants, right? You learn the most about them when they're open. Maybe you're a flower, too."
Lifting a hand, she swept it from head-to-toe, "Don't deny the world your beauty or your ugliness. You'll find people who accept both and everything in between. Just... You know. Don't give up, Laeynna. Give people a chance."
Because that was really what it was all about. Not surrendering. Not buckling beneath the adversities she'd faced. In the words she gave to her sister, however, Ankalei found herself thinking on them. Maybe she needed to hear them, too. And maybe Laeynna had a point.
No. She almost, in fact, did. As she often did. Laeynna was far more intelligent and observant than she gave herself credit for.
Laeynna didn't have much else more to say. She didn't argue. Didn't really agree, but at least she wasn't gearing up for some other retaliatory comment. Instead, it felt like she evaded, which was almost like a point in Ankalei's direction. Because it meant her sister heard her. It meant that she had struck something there. Yet listening and hearing weren't the same thing.
In the end, when they parted, it was because Laeynna said she had somewhere else to be. It might have been true. It might have been false. Ankalei suspected it was a bit of both. Left on the streets in the grand city of red and gold, she was left with her words. With her own thoughts.
Surrender never had been an option, had it. Ankalei didn't know what more to fight for, though. She didn't know what she had. Where she thought she had a sister, she questioned that.
If she had been younger, more foolish, more naive, she might have preferred a distraction. She doubted that would work, though. Not on her. And she didn't want to go on some adventure with the Expedition. Not this time.
Maybe it was time for her to really eat those words, after all.
DWC - Spring 2026 - Day 1 - Allure/Gloom - Tinnaire
For Tinnaire, there was a deep allure in tenebrosity. The forest on a cloudy evening, just on the far side of dusk, with frog calls and fireflies all around her. That moment when she opened the door to her workshop, and the curtains were still closed so shadows tucked around all the bric-a-brac inside, rounding corners and implying shapes. An evening spent on her sofa drawing by candles that had burned low. A bubble bath in the dark. A bookstore just before close. A cemetery under cloudy, storm-swollen skies.
Gloom, some would say. Affecting, she would say. Grey and flat. No, that's not how she saw it. She saw potential.
Tonight, she looked up, having opened the curtains to the sky and fallen asleep on her sofa. She woke gently to darkness and a glimpse of stars over the city’s silhouette. She stretched and rose. Not long after, she ducked out her door and then the gates, pulling up her dark cloak.
She had spent a few nights in Suramar recently, visiting with Jencir, and that had been lovely, but it had felt silvered not shadowed. She had visited the Hearts of Tenacity festival for an evening, but there had been glitter and magic and music. It was not at all a gloaming sort of situation.
Her green eyes flickered back toward the city only once before she slipped between the trees. It felt good to have land under her feet, and not stone. So much stone in Silvermoon.
When sunrise approached her feet reluctantly dragged the walk home. Her heart was light from all the spiderwebs and owl calls she had caught. When she placed her palm to the translocation orb up to her apartment, she felt deep satisfaction. A trip to the woods at night was always restorative.
Elthen had spent his entire life bathed in color, light, and love.
His grandfather, Camithar Crimsonrune, had been a glazier by trade. He crafted windows that were sturdy, serviceable, and unremarkable, yet true artistry lived in the gifts he fashioned for his beloved wife, Lorince. Their modest home glittered with delicate glass treasures: tiny birds perched upon shelves, flowers that would never wilt, stars suspended from silver threads. Of all his creations, however, none brought him greater pride than the colorful blown-glass pens he made for her. With those pens she filled page after page with tales of love and romance, weaving dreams into ink while holding his craftsmanship in her hand.
Their daughter, Liridrae, was raised in that kaleidoscope of color and wonder, and she fell hopelessly in love with glass. She inherited her father's hands, but where Camithar created glass that was merely good, Liridrae forged glass that was near perfection. Technical excellence was not what made her heart soar, her true passion was stained glass, great radiant mosaics that transformed sunlight into living color. She was passionate about the brilliant way brilliant colors were cast across stone and wood, almost as passionate as she was about Pel’eron, the man who supplied the metallic compounds that lent her creations their brilliance. Together they transformed ordinary light into something breathtaking.
By the time Elthen inherited the family home, every surface seemed touched by colored glass. Sunlight never simply entered a room; it poured through in the rich sades or high windows, or bounced of the smaller pieces and danced on the walls. Every room marked by the legacy of those who had come before him.
Though he earned his livelihood supplying medical-grade glass vials, beakers, bottles, flasks, and every manner of vessel demanded in the medical trade, his soul sought expression elsewhere. His creativity poured into sculptures that showcased sweeping forms of glass that captured movement as beautiful as nature itself. His works found homes in gardens, where they stood among flowers and trees enchanting their beauty without overwhelming it.
It was through one such sculpture that he met the woman who would become his wife. She was a landscape designer searching for the perfect centerpiece for a client's garden. One sculpture became two. Two became three. As the project expanded, so too did their relationship. What emerged was more than a garden, it was a marriage of horticulture and glass. Her designs elevated his art. His sculptures transformed her landscapes.
Together, they made the world more beautiful. Then she left, taking Jovi'drae and Lirise, their daughters, with her, and in their absence the colors seemed to abandon him as well. No longer did he lie on the floor of the playroom beside his daughters, gazing upward as sunlight danced through the flock of suspended glass birds that wheeled across the ceiling, scattering rainbows over delighted faces.
It pained him to enter the office she had occupied and see the grand stained-glass window above her desk. The brilliant reds, golds and blues that had once filled the room with life now felt like a wound in his heart that couldn’t seem to heal.
Worst of all was the garden. Every path, every flower bed, every carefully chosen tree bore the imprint of her artistry. His sleek contemporary sculptures still stood among her plantings, perfectly balanced, each complementing the other exactly as they always had. The garden remained beautiful. It simply no longer brought him joy.
With the dissolution of his marriage, Elthen felt as though he had lost the inheritance of generations. The vibrant legacy of color, beauty, craftsmanship, and love that had defined his family for centuries slipped from his grasp. After that, he made only what was ordered. Perfectly matching glassware for clients. Day after day, year after year. No inspiration, no wonder, only repetition.
Then she walked into the hot shop, in an instant, he remembered what it felt like to be an artist again. The furnace's glow reflected in colored molten glass. The way color could transform something ordinary into something miraculous. Watching her work was witnessing the magic of creation.
The greatest gift was not what she re-awakened in hi, it was who she was,Lirise had come to learn from him. His youngest daughter stood before the furnace, determined to master the craft that had built their family name for generations.
And of all the countless things she could have chosen to create, all she wanted to make were vibrantly colored glass pens. Just like the ones her great-grandfather had made for his wife, the ones that had once carried stories of love into the world.
The apartment was dark aside from the faint glow filtering through the curtains from the streets below. Silvermoon never truly slept, but at least for now it was quiet. Veilos stood by the window with a mug of long-forgotten tea cooling in his hands, looking out onto the city with a thousand-yard stare. Behind him, the apartment felt different than it had a few months ago. There was another presence here now, another person who occupied space in a life he had spent years believing would remain largely solitary.
Altherei was asleep in his bed, the thought alone was enough to make him glance over his shoulder toward the bedroom door. She had stayed over before, and each time it remained a little strange. Not in a bad way or unwelcome at all, just unfamiliar. For years, his apartment had been a place he returned to alone. No matter how loud and exhausting the day, the silence had always been waiting for him when he unlocked the door.
He wasn't certain when concern for her had become something deeper. There had been no singular moment he could pinpoint, no dramatic moment of revelation. Instead it had happened gradually, through conversations, shared meals, walks through the city, and countless small moments that seemed insignificant on their own at the time. Somewhere along the way, he had started looking for her in crowds, and at some point, he realized that hearing from her had become one of the better parts of his day.
That realization should have made him happy. In many ways, it did. Yet there was a lingering discomfort he couldn't quite shake, and he knew exactly where it came from. Kyrisa's memory quietly lingered in every corner of his life, no longer the unbearable wound it had once been but still very much so present. Time had softened the sharp edges of the grief, but it could never be erased. He still thought about her, and their children, and he still missed them dearly.
The guilt was irrational, and he knew it. If Kyrisa could somehow see him now, she would likely be relieved that he had allowed someone into his life again. She had always possessed far less patience for his self-destructive tendencies than he did. Even so, there were nights when he caught himself feeling as though he were standing on cracked, uneven ground, caught between the life he had lost and the possibility of building something new.
His gaze settled on his reflection in the window. The man staring back looked older than he remembered becoming. There were more scars now, more lines around his eyes, more grey in his hair. He could not help but reflect on all that had changed since the life he once thought he would have. Sometimes he felt as though he could divide his life into two halves: before the Scourge and after it. Everything that had happened since had been shaped by that single catastrophic event, whether he wanted it to be or not.
The worst part was not the guilt, but the uncertainty. He worried constantly that he wasn't giving Altherei what she deserved. Years of grief had taught him how to endure, how to compartmentalize, and most especially how to carry burdens without asking for help. They had not taught him how to be emotionally available or how to start again. More often than he cared to admit, he found himself staring off into space, trapped in memories she could not possibly understand.
He worried she noticed every distant look, every moment his attention drifted somewhere else, and every occasion he became quiet without explanation. Altherei had never complained about any of it. In fact, she was remarkably patient, which almost made it worse. Patience had a way of highlighting his own shortcomings more effectively than criticism ever could.
Part of him wondered if he was waiting for some magical clarity to arrive. A moment when all the fear disappeared and he suddenly knew exactly what he was doing. The older he got, the more he realized that life did not work that way. The most important decisions seemed to involve moving forward despite uncertainty rather than waiting for it to vanish. He was discovering that relationships were no different.
Veilos set the mug of cold tea aside with a frown and rubbed a hand over his face. He was exhausted, though not in the physical sense. This was a deeper weariness, the kind that came from wrestling with thoughts that had no immediate solutions. He could treat injuries and reinforce mental barriers, yet when it came to his own emotions, he often felt remarkably unequipped in these situations.
A soft sound from the bedroom drew his attention. He tilted his head and listened for a moment and heard the rustle of blankets. The sound grounded him more effectively than any amount of introspection had managed. Altherei was here because she wanted to be, not because he had convinced her, not because she expected perfection, and not because she was unaware of his flaws. She knew enough of his scars to understand.
The realization eased something in him. Not enough to make the worries disappear, but enough to quiet them for the time. He cared about her deeply, whether it was love yet or something still growing into it, he couldn't honestly say. What he did know was that the thought of losing her had terrified him on Quel'Danas, and that her presence made his days brighter in ways he had not expected.
She had become someone he sought out without thinking, someone whose opinions he valued and whose happiness genuinely mattered to him. It had been a very long time since another person's presence felt so natural in his life. Perhaps that was what unsettled him as much as it comforted him, the realization that despite everything he had lost, he still had room in his heart to care this much for someone again.
After a few moments, he finally stepped away from the window and returned to the bedroom. The mattress shifted beneath his weight as he slid carefully beneath the blankets. Altherei stirred slightly and moved closer in her sleep, settling without waking. Veilos stared at the ceiling for a while longer, listening to her breathing in the darkness, and for once he allowed himself to stop searching for answers he didn't yet have. Some things were allowed to unfold in their own time.
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On the isle… built from nature and order,
Music and dancing into wee hours under star freckled skies,
You banish all gloom… and all sorrow.
I long to take you in my arms and let you feast on my words,
To know their flavor as they were forged and formed for you,
Woven, tangled and entwined like soul threads in a tapestry,
A cape and fabric spooled of the poetry you provoke,
Would that I could spend every moment feeding each to your lips in kisses,
Could compose with the affirmations I can draw from you,
A symphony that is the siren's allure,
The unspoken but undeniable that I am utterly yours.
The colors fly and sing their secrets or their sins,
Declare their pride and sometimes their pain…
They define, and paint the world a more vibrant spectrum of shades,
I wish to understand… but I know only one Love.
It is you.
Not like you, not of like presentation or persuasion
My pride resides within the world with so many colors in our court…
But I have only ever known one Love
And it is that which I have for you…
A passionate blazing declaration that I will make in every artform.
That I will pluck like starlight from the cosmos…
Just to make you smile.
Just to know my Muse.
Just to live upon an Isle that is a stage…
And a dance that is endless in starlit petals and singing lanterns.
I know no word… no colors to fly.
I know only that I love you.
That there is no me that does not need you.
That there is only the way you are the heart those you meet…
That you are ever the force of inspiration that awakens me.
And that reminds me if it is for you…
Our world our stage becomes a canvas…
And we live in colors.
(Happy pride from the court of Lilies and Lanterns)
@daily-writing-challenge
Tristan Black loved the stars before he knew they could die. He would lay back in the cool grass on summer evenings and gaze up at them, feeling small and insignificant. This humility was relief. They are like me, he thought, shining in the dark, all alone. Perhaps he had brothers and sisters worlds away, looking at the same stars and wondering about him. This was a different kind of lonely ache. It held hope along with longing, dangerous things for him to feel.
In his five thousandth year, laying in the grass, listening to the night wind hiss through the trees, he discovered the sky was wrong. A bright star called Adhara was gone from the sky. In her bright place was a hazy smear.
He sat up, heart racing with a cold, sick sinking feeling in his guts. So this was the legacy of all things, even the stars, to die? Would he witness the very last one blink out of existence leaving him in the cold, vast forever?
Tristan had convinced himself that after all these ages, he had mastered his emotions. He hadn’t shed a tear in a thousand years and now, he found himself hunched over on his knees, sobbing, snot and spittle on his face, his chest on fire with tight horror and grief.
Adhara, his beautiful star, the star that had been shining since his lonely birth, abandoned him at last. Immortality was a long road of grief and if one waited long enough, unmoving, the road changed until it was unrecognizable…but the direction never changed. Forward. Forever leaving loves and enemies behind. Forward with no destination.
He felt the air warm, night blooming flowers a thick perfume that drove away the salt scent of his tears. Light filled the glade, soft and silvery, making him raise his face from his hands.
There, standing before him, was a unicorn, slender as any cervine, coat white and shimmering. In all his long existence, he had never seen one. They only appeared to the innocent and pure of heart. He’d been monstrous since birth. He didn’t belong here and this wasn’t for him.
His ego could not stand in the face of divine beauty born of the magic of the world he so loved. He stayed on his knees, weeping because he couldn’t avert his gaze though he felt he should.
“Get away from me,” he begged. “Please…I am foul and I ruin everything I touch. I’m no innocent.”
But the unicorn only lowered her proud head and nudged him with her muzzle. You are innocent for what you are, came her soft voice inside his head.
His brow twisted in desperation and confusion. “What am I? Please…tell me there are others like me.”
The unicorn chuffed and began to graze in the glade as the moonlight broke through the canopy of trees. There is nothing like you because you carry the power of nothing. You don’t belong in the world.
Tristan felt the black tide of rage sweep over him, drown and suffocate him and the thread of reason in his mind. He stood, fists clenched. “No! You lie, creature!” He snarled like a fox with its leg in a trap.
I cannot lie. You do not belong but that does not mean you are unimportant. You will give me a name. The unicorn paused her grazing to look at him with dark, mysterious eyes.
Trembling, the anger drained out of him at such an honor. Perhaps she felt kinship with him, another immortal. She felt ancient in his mind, her magic wild and of the earth. She was the Old Magic that had been fading from the world.
“I will name you,” he said softly. A little, sad smile curled his lips. “Adhara.” He reached out to touch the unicorn’s neck.
The light of her was snuffed the moment he spoke the name. Without word or explanation, just relieved sigh as she crumpled to the ground and began to dissolve like mist hit by sunlight. He screamed in horror, on his knees again, begging.
“I’m sorry! Please! I didn’t know…please don’t…please,” he ended his pleading with a thin whimper.
He kept the unicorn’s horn. It became his secret treasure, never to be used in spells, with him wherever he ended up. It was subtle, his love of the mythical creature he had only seen once, when he was still innocent…for what he was. Little porcelain figurines hid between thick tiles on shelves. A fountain on a balcony with a marble unicorn resting through the spray of water. Brass statues in his library. Carved into his headboard, looking down at Nesnora’s sleeping face.
He felt strongly then, gazing at the two, beautiful countenances that had pierced his heart, that he didn’t belong. But how could he stay away when everything in him needed these lights. Ached and bled for them. More than death, he wanted them.
Wanted her.
He’d promised Nesnora he would never apologize to her. There could be no forgiveness for all he had done. For the first time he wished he could go back and do it differently.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered to her as she drifted in dreams, not hearing him.
To her he gave the only material treasure that had ever meant anything to him. On the pillow beside her beautiful, sleeping head he laid Adhara’s spiral, golden horn. He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “I hope this is goodbye. And if it is…don’t mourn me.”
He left in the dead of night, his magic taking him to the Shadowglade estate crawling with undead. He made his way unmolested to the dying iron tree.
Tristan kneeled in the poisoned soil and gazed up at her black branches. “I do not belong, mother. No good deed made you answer and so no evil deed has either.” He paused. He didn’t expect to hear her voice. But he still hoped. Still gave her the silence in between beats of his broken heart.
“I can’t exist. There is no place for me. I can’t…even love properly,” he said with shame, tears sliding down his cheeks. “But you can fix it. You can wipe the world clean of me.”
He took in a breath, afraid but resolute. “Name me?”he asked in the pleading voice of a child.
He returned before Nesnora and his….guests woke. Tristan never spoke of how even now, his mother refused to name him.
By the time you find this, I wonder how different our lives will be. Will we, perhaps, be living in a different home? Will we even still be in Quel'Thalas? I know well that your heart takes you to places so far away, though I have questioned often enough if it is your heart that does or if you are merely avoiding that which seems to cause you no shortage of distress.
I know I have convinced you, persuaded you many times over to humour her. I know what you must think of me for doing as much. If our roles were reversed, I cannot say whether I would take the same approach or not. If it were my parents who tailed after us, wanting to be a part of our lives on such a level, would I have the heart to turn them away? Likely not. I have always had something for them that you have not.
Love.
I know that things are more complicated than they seem, that there are things you have not told me. That you will not tell me. From the very beginning, you have been a man of secrets. I worried, some, when our engagement was decided upon. If the man I was to marry was anything that he seemed. If anything he spoke to me was true, or if he merely let lie after lie after lie drip from his tongue.
I would like to think that by now, I have a much better understanding of who you are, even if there are still so many shadows that embrace you.
There is little doubt that our marriage was not what you had wanted or envisioned. Perhaps you had a mind to choose your own, or, I presume you might not have chosen anyone at all. At least, not in that time. Perhaps not ever. I hope that as our years have passed on and we have encountered so many other things together, that you have not come to resent me for being at your side.
You might have wished to conquer the entire world. If you were a conqueror. You are no such thing, are you. But not complacent either. No dreams of glory or romanticised ideals of perishing on front lines for a greater cause. Some might call you selfish for that. Heartless, even. But I know the truth, and if I do not, then I know the truth that I perceive. For where you have shown a certain coldness to others, to even the rest of the world, you have shown me kindness and understanding.
I suspect that the you which you perceive in a reflection is a very different man from the one that I do. And I imagine our future children will think the very same, though that future may come sooner than you think. I have not told you this yet, but it seems there is some discussion about the markets, the city, that I may be with child. I have not noticed a difference myself, but I would hardly know what to expect and others are sure of it. I will be going for examination to determine the truth of that soon. I hope that it comes with fortuitous news and that you will be just as pleased. But I fear that you may think it is only a representation of traditions and ideals we are expected to uphold, rather than the very symbol of life that we have created with one another.
Until then, though I see you smile so very rarely and even less do you laugh, I hope that you have found some joy with me. For though self-sufficient as you are, you ought not to face the world alone. Even should you feel that it has turned against you or that you have lost your place in it, I hope you will come to realise that you always have a place here with me. In my embrace. At my side. In my life.
As where I thought I might find cruelty and a lack of kindness, you have shown me otherwise. If you have ever questioned it, questioned your worth, questioned your significance, I assure you that my life is all the better for you in it. You have brought me a great many joys. And though we do not say such things to one another, perhaps looking back on this will remind you of something I think you do so much need to hear.
I love you.
You are a man worthy of love. You are a man worthy of mine. You are a man worthy of me.
Yours Always,
Ei'riya
He had read it only once to begin with, though as time took its toll, weathered him down, and took from him the things he had felt he connected with, his eyes occasionally looked it over.
Soryk wondered how he had ever been a man who deserved it. Her letter. Her love. Her life. Her devotion. In the same breath, he wondered if that man who existed then still existed in the prominent present. He was certain that man had long since died. Not on the fields of battle. Not for glory. Not for those romanticised ideals Ei'riya had sometimes teased him over.
He had died for nothing, he was certain.
No matter how he questioned it, however, no matter how he turned those sweet and considerate words from his late wife over in his head, Soryk realised that as much as he had in so many years past, he still had no answers and no words at all.
As ever and even in death, she had struck him speechless.