#placate

Day 2: Placate

The nightmares had come back full force. Giida had been so little, barely six and had already experienced more trauma than Lukel could have ever grasped. He had not been made to be a father - to sire a child, certainly, to pass along the Mantle most definitely. But it would have been a transaction, not a family, not love. He would have made his own protege, trained them and then cursed them. 

It was something he never could have done and ensured he never did. But Giida was his, most assuredly. He'd found her in Shattrath and somehow the Matron had convinced him to take her out to see the sights. She'd been an insistent woman who, despite Lukel's hesitation with children, didn't let him leave without her. She had taken Lukel's wrist, led him over to the child, and placed Giida's small hand in his own. The outrage of her brazen touch had not shocked him as much as the truth he felt when the little girl took his hesitant hand. She was his.

And here she was, sobbing into her pillow, angry tears soaking the silken pink pillowcase. It was always anger she felt when these dreams assaulted her. Not fear. Not sadness - but rage. A sense of hopeless injustice at her inability to make it right, to fight back at the things that frightened her. 

This was certainly something she had gotten from him. If her blood hadn't told him that somehow, some way, she was his child, this reaction to her nightmares alone would have solidified his suspicions. Never fear, only the need - and current inability - to deliver retribution.

It had taken him months to learn how to soothe the child, how to placate these irrational (but understandable) fits of anger. It was never him she was mad at, but she hadn't known where to put the anger, how to let it out. And he knew that anger could poison someone if they held onto it long enough.

So he'd begun to teach her how to defend herself in the waking world. How to assess a target and attack. The target dummy was a few pillows strung together around the handles of brooms and her sword was whittled from wood, but already she struck with confidence. Over and over she assaulted the pillow, ducking in low before lunging her wooden blade into its plushy heart. Whacking the sides of it, imaginary gouges taken out of a very lack luster opponent.

But it helped. It gave her a place to put the anger, it gave her an outlet and it gave her training that she would need in this world. 

When she was done and spent, when the vengeful light had left her blue eyes, she would curl up in Lukel's lap, wrap his long strands of sanguine and snow colored hair around her little fists, and fall back asleep. He'd hold her there all night, ensuring no further nightmares found her. He wove them all away, staying up until morning, running long fingers gently through her fair curls. 

He would make certain that peace was all she would ever know when she was in her father's arms.

Day 2 Placate / Graceful @daily-writing-challenge Upper Left Arm, His Kinship Path

The ink sat heavy on Vaelsnipe’s upper arm, just beneath the curve of his shoulder, where armor often failed to guard the soft places. It was no roaring beast, no symbol of conquest or threat. Instead, the bear’s head was etched in calm lines, fur flowing like water caught midstream, its mouth closed and eyes lifted just slightly as if watching the stars with quiet wonder. There was a gentle stillness in it. The kind of strength that didn’t need to announce itself.

Vael hadn’t planned the tattoo. He rarely did. His skin told stories the way trees did, layered in rings of survival, of turning points that refused to be forgotten. But this one was different. The Bear Spirit hadn’t come from rage or vengeance. It came from something rarer and harder to keep. A bond built not on dominance but mutual respect and soothing presence. Radiateing grounded grace, the kind that shelters instead of startles.

It started in the mountain wilds of the Storm Peaks. He was tracking a target across a narrow ridge when he heard it, a high broken cry, thin with pain and rising over the wind like a child’s scream.

He found the cub tangled in wire. Too small to be orphaned, too young to be alone, its paw crushed in some crude trap. Some poacher’s snare that’s was Illegal, vicious, and careless. Vael had stood there for a long minute, rifle slung but unraised, war warring in his gut.

“Cubs grow up,” he’d told himself. “They grow teeth. They forget.”

But it didn’t stop him.

He took a claw rake across the thigh for his mercy. Little beast had fight in him, even mangled. But Vael endured it. He always had. He disabled the trap, unspooled the wire and dragged the bleeding cub free beneath a leaning pine. He didn’t sing to it or whisper comfort. He just stayed until the storm passed, then left without waiting for thanks. He expected to never see it again.

He was wrong.

Weeks later just beyond the fjords, he caught the scent of fur in his trail. Bigger now, stronger. Quietly watching. The cub had found him and this time, it didn’t cry. It didn’t beg for food or try to follow too closely. It simply… stayed near. A shadow beside his shadow, paws silent in the snow. A presence.

They never named each other. They didn’t need to. They hunted the same ground, shared kills, slept back to back when the nights got too cold. Three full seasons passed. No commands were given nor leash tied. Just a bond that grew by being left free. And then, just as it had begun, it ended.

One morning, Vaelsnipe woke alone.

No blood or signs of violence. Just bear tracks leading into the trees, vanishing into mist like a story half-finished. When he returned from Northrend, scarred and half-starved, he went to a quiet tattooist in Dalaran and asked for a bear, not fierce, not charging, just watching, dreaming, and calm.

And now, when he rolled his sleeve back and stared at that ink, Vael remembered.

He remembered the gouge on his leg. The weeks of wordless tracking. The silent company of something untamed that chose to stay without chains. And when the world grew loud, when betrayal whispered in his ear or trust felt like a fool’s game, he ran his hand over that fur-lined ink, and let the memory settle him.

Loyalty isn’t built on blood. It’s a quiet thing. A choice made every day. You don’t earn it by holding something down. You earn it by freeing it and letting it come back.

(Content warning: hints of assault)

Placating the wounded and dying was one thing, but offering the same level of peace to the broken was a whole other situation. For all the pious and noble virtues the Arathi possessed, this was one path they seemed less familiar with. Society dictated for them strength and faith were the pillars of success, a firm hand with a righteous cause could overcome anything. The Light would guide all home by the flickering flame.

Fayle was broken in their eyes and the one word whispered among the methodical healers was harsh than any sword could have been sharp.

Failure.

9 to 5 (1980)

Lily Tomlin as Violet Newstead