Story Time: A Paladin's Tale (Chapter 12: The Cut)

The petulant demon sat on a cushioned throne. This was a room designed for debauchery. The succubae giggled nervously. They had tried to get his mind off of the girl, (bitch), and focus on their talents. They were like cats, only purring and rubbing if ignored by their master. One flicked her tail under his nose, and was rewarded with her liver being removed through the lacings of her corset.

Demons’ tales of self-serving histories are apocryphal tales; demons share their triumphs with wanton disregard for another’s point of view, with their grandstanding monologues and soliloquies to such esteem that their own mothers blush at their spawns’ self-love. Demons never think they are wrong, because they never lie.

Their motives are honest.

They want what they want.

And cannot be stopped.

However, the demon had not prophesized Dacianna. Reckoning on the rogue’s folly, and the arrogance of whomever hero he could dredge up, the demon monster used a mental abacus of careful measurement and game play. He would win, the sister would be taken, and the rogue would die. The heroes’ hearts would be savored: the male paladin’s especially, would be a trophy.

But…the female paladin soured his stomach, like a badly digested rat. His room of masks usually played the best games of all: mind games. Torturing intruders with their own anguish, flipping it back on their own worn roads of doubt and fears. But onward she strode, the bold little bunny.

Daci entered the chambers with her right-foot first. Gaenlon stood by her side.

Micah followed behind, in the shadows, and went to his sister’s side. She smelled like rusty incense and polluted oils. She did not smell clean. Her embersilk dress was soiled and sweat-stained. Her long iridescently icicled locks were dulled and matted. Looking in her tattooed eyes, Micah’s sour face was reflected her eyes, like two cracked mirrors. She smelled like she had been washed in lies.

She scampered in his arms, not relieved to see him for her sake, but for his. He did come back for her; whether or not she wanted to escape, that was another matter. He was alive, foolish, but alive. She forgave him everything, from putting her in the arms of the devil in the first place, and using her as collateral in a lopsided bargain. Sold to the demon for blades. She considered the offerings: be the concubine of a powerful demon and giving him heirs was not necessarily an unfortunate fate.

But Micah’s sister looked in his eyes, back at Micah’s gaze, and with an unseen light, grace covered her soul. He tried, he tried, and he tried. Everything he had done had been to protect her, in his fashion. She saw all with clarity. Being the consort of a powerful demon would never be worth the warmth of loyalty, however misguided, the missteps, and mistakes. She needed to go find her home, and help him find his, too. She knew where to start.

Under the cushions, as a bitter nuptial gift, the demon had given her the blades her brother had sold her for, the very daggers that danced in Micah’s nightmares, stabbing him in his heart, but never killing him, slowly poisoning him with plum and crimson-colored regret. Micah’s sister gave him the blades. “Here is what you come for, Micah.” Micah looked at his sister with fresh painful guilt. “Did the demon take everything from you?” Micah asked, choking, softly, afraid of the answer.

His sister responded, “He doesn’t know who I am: he was going to make me his bride and take his name tonight.” Freshly covered with poisons, he put the daggers in his side scabbards, their enchantments quietly but inviolably peeling off deadly fumes. Rogues’ immunity to poisons is not infinite, and their resistance to the toxins they use may ultimately cause their death if sour deals and traitorous negotiations do not kill them first. Death, for rogues, can be a slow seepage of sewage, either cutting their veins open from the inside, if not by another’s blade from the outside.

Dacianna confronted the demon. She just saw him as another foe, one who would test her, certainly, but he seemed a bit flaccid in her opinion. Besides, Gaenlon was right here, although he looked pale and waxy. His cloak hung on his back in tatters, as if shredded by claws, and his red hair was oily and dirty. He glanced at her with tired eyes. There was a thin scratch running from his eyebrows to his chin, curving ever so toward his mouth. The only desire Daci felt was to bring him home alive, and to end this. She felt oddly detached from what happened to him after they left this place; she squelched a tiny but stinging shudder deep in her chest, like she had swallowed an itch.

The demon shifted restive on his throne. Daci did a mental calculation of all the players in the room: the rogue was by his sister’s side, and would know the best time to strike, she hoped. There was an enhanced greenish aura about him Daci couldn’t place, but a feeling of renewal struck her. The sister—out of the way. Probably drugged and weak, they’d have to work together to get her out safely once this over. Gaenlon was ready to fight, although he seemed—she could not allow herself to think it. He was weakened. But yet, there was still something of an inner fire in him. He could handle his blade. Dacianna doubtfully counted on it.

The goblin servants and slutty succubae had vanished—not likely to be back. This was not their fight. (One succubus scraped some offal off of her hob-nailed footwear on her way toward the gates. A goblin manservant boldly slapped her on her tail, and promised he knew a friend who could clean up her outfit for a bargain. She giggled. As if she would pay.)

Daci spoke to the demon: “We only came for the rogue’s sister. Stand down, or you die.” No quaver or falter in her voice. Her stance was bold and strong, her muscled thighs bent at the knee, turned three-quarter stance so as not to absorb any direct hit. Her shoulders held the shield at a protective angle, meant to block as well as hit with its strong force, her sword held like a handshake made in faith and truth, its enchantment thick and powerful.

The demon chuckled. “Little pink paladin, pink, pink, milk and blood, pink. The little rogue girl is beautiful, indeed, but stupid as an imp. She cannot seem to remember her own name. The rogue brought her here drunk or drugged, and left her to me. I wish she would tell me her name, but can’t seem to get it out of her, she is that dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. Maybe all pinks are dumb. He has the daggers he came for now, so just give her up. I need her name to perform the ceremony tonight. The moon is almost full, fat old cow that the moon is, but you, tiny pink paladin, bore me to tears. Go back home now, there’s a dear.” And with a wave of his clawed hand, tiny sparks of purple and scarlet began to rain from the illusion of a ceiling.

Daci surrounded herself with great threat, height, and righteousness as naturally as she breathed. Her presence, her righteous presence, created energy of another soul at work. She tried to use her shield to coalesce the tiny sparks, but though each one was harmless as a sparkle, a shower of them began to burn.

Gaenlon roared as the fire mist grew to raining shards. A stream of holy light from a guardian spirit poured over him and Daci. Only because of Kiindra’s gifts was this possible, the extra healing she had bestowed. The demon squeaked, ignoring their attempts to stop him, “I want this girl, paladin. I want to have her, bed her down, and eat her soul. Give me another, and I shall set her free, and you as well. Give me another. We’ll trade. I like trading for better deals. One foul girl for a fresh pink one.”

“Never” thought Gaenlon. He could barely speak. His voice was scorched by smoke.

“Not this time…”

Dacianna continued to fight in her formally trained style—shield hit, shield hit, power infusion, sword thrust, she missed again, hit, missed, not causing enough damage to weaken the demon…she felt outside of herself, desperately wanting to be unorthodox, to hurt, to kill this devil, to beat him down, but her training had not prepared her for imaginative deaths…she called upon her Na’aru sprits, her own guardians of light, but for her they offered only a straight path…enough…she threw herself into the demon with her off-side, swinging around and kicked him like the animal-warrior inside of her that she was born with. She had been given these horns and hooves for more than freakish jests, by gods.

Micah just wanted to get his sister out safely. The paladins’ rage was a blur of feathers, light, blood, and sweat. He couldn’t estimate the time left. With his throwing ax, and one of the daggers in quick succession aimed for the demon’s skull and throat, respectively. Though Micah still possessed lightening speed, the demon was a hair quicker, and caught the dagger between two fingers. The fiery rains increased, scorching their vision, the smell of burnt fur and hair infused the room.

But the throwing ax, the old, dulled throwing ax, hit its target.

The demon’s skull began to crack, the point in between his eyes, and fissured down his face. He seethed out words, for if he screamed, his face would open…”What is her NAME PALADIN?”

Gaenlon did not speak her name.

The demon deftly spun the blade in his fingers. Poison dripped down his forearms, leaving tiny shots of smoke, bullets of acid.

“I will cut it out of you.”

He pulled Gaenlon’s head back, and while the demon only saw the pulse of a jugular vein, Gaelon saw lights. He saw two lights, light as shadows, leaving, away, spirits…gone. Daci fell back, her shield sliding across the floor. Scrambling up, she was strong enough, but not fast enough. Gaenlon smiled at the demon as he slit Gaenlon's throat, opening a gash, spilling pure blood, crimson black, like overripe fruit. The blood spilled on his cloak pin. The blood spilled on his lap, and in his hair. Gaenlon twisted and thrust his blade under the demon’s groin, up through his midsection, the entrance being his foulest path, soiled, and oozing blood and bile, a viscous mix of fecal drippings: the blade sliced up the curved spine of the demon, nicking its blade on the bone but making its target, and out of the bottom of his throat, just at his clavicle, the tip of the blade cut off his voice, his words, and all his power.

The demon spoke no more.

There were a few more sad breaths. Kiindra’s gift, the Na’aru blessing, made it so as Gaenlon’s life subsided, he stayed full of love, forgiveness, and hope.

Not thoughts, no pain. Just peace.

Micah and his sister continued out, away, away, away…

Daci fell to her knees. She could not leave Gaenlon there; this was no proper tomb for him, not in a pool of black blood and demon butchery. She scooped him under his shoulders, his head lolling back, and then flopping sickly forward. But he wasn’t heavy...she carried him away and conjured her grand elekk, taking his body to the foothills nearby, and buried him next to a boulder pile. She buried him with his shield, his sword, and all of his armor, save his cloak pin and pauldrons. She didn’t want him to feel burdened in the next world to shoulder any more weight.

Dacianna went to Gaenlon’s parents and told them his final deed. They took comfort in their son’s heroism, as it was befitting his station.

“Here is your son’s cloak pin,” Daci handed the piece to Gaenlon’s mother. Just for a moment, a look of such grief, deep and black, passed over the mother’s face. She aged twenty years in front of Daci’s eyes: “Please, my brave girl, you have it –take it, please,” whispered Gaenlon’s mother. Standing immediately upright next to her husband, they vowed that the world would know of his final brave act. Dacianna never understood the humans’ arrogance and need for braying. The superficiality disturbed her greatly. Perhaps she would seek out Micah’s sister, and see what they could do. She sensed a survivor in her, someone who would balance her with friendship and grace. New lands were opening up, and they each deserved someone who loved them, for life.

In another land, far away, through emerald hills and violet skies, Kiindra went to check on her small girl, an orphan. At the doorjamb, her knees buckled under. Something was wrong. Something happened. A loss. The sense of having something, knowing where everything existed, and then, her heart felt as if it had caved in. The baby girl slept. Kiindra went to the tall chest, and pulled a letter out of a hidden pocket under the ancestral treasures and trash she kept for sentimental reasons. The paper was thin, weakened. She read it again. Time stopped. The movement of the world whirled around her. It was a letter of sorrow, of regret.

Micah and his sister hobbled their way to their homeland, their mother’s empty house. The way back seemed inexplicably shorter. On the hill where the grandmother Cenarion tree grew, Micah collapsed. Their dead mother’s cottage was within view, a glowing lantern beaming like open arms. There was some movement inside, a shadow passed. Micah spewed blood and spittle on the grass. His sister cleaned up his face, wiped back his hair from his sweating, clammy face, and held him upright. The poisonhoney’s stings leeched Micah’s life. His sister kissed him on his forehead. The grass was so fresh with its own dance of clover and honey; she could not smell his sour, burning, fading breaths. Two large roots from the tree encircled and cradled him, his sister knelt next to him. Micah reached out to her, and she grabbed his hand, grasped his finger, and held on tightly. She smiled at him,  in innocence and love. His finger slipped from her grasp, he smiled at her, and let go.

Alone, she walked down the hill, toward the house, with the light on inside.

Chapter 1 and onward...

Story Time: A Paladin’s Tale (Chapter 11: Sorrowmoss)

(continued Chapter 10): Gaenlon moved uneasily down the corridor. Details demanded his attention as never before. Every inanimate object felt alive, and threatening. A vase held an arrangement of sorrowmoss and kingsblood. This portrait spewed incantations to the passersby. The lights blinked, and watched. Twelve simple lights on the walls, illuminating a corridor, a half-skip to the next room.

And in that room hung twelve porcelain masks, a dozen faceless souls ready to devour.

Story Time: Sorrowmoss (Chapter 11: A Paladin’s Tale)

A dozen featureless faces. Amorphous bodies writhed and grind on the walls. A grey, orange-brown mist dulled the room’s illumination. But the faces looked on, ready, like mirrors in a dream. Three to a wall. Four walls.

Gaenlon felt sickly bewildered, walking like a drunken man toward one of the masks on the wall. Gaenlon fell to his knees, stultified.

His tailbone had been perfectly comfortable on that pub perch. And for what? For a little bastard's blackmail ploy? So what if Micah informed his family where he was? He had done one wrong thing, an error of judgment, based on youth’s fear. One wrong thing. He was never going to marry her anyway; his parents would never have allowed that. He was never going to save her, or stay with her. She was a placeholder, a friend on the grass, just a girl for the time. 

Oh, but her face. Her face. Her face. The masks on the south wall merged as one, and became her face, in living dimensions. His knees dug into the hard ground. Her beautiful eyes looked at him, and she saw him, or at least the mirage of her did. “Gaenlon,” she whispered. “Everything’s all right. Nothing hurts me. I am sorry, Gaenlon. I am sorry.” But the voice was not really there, it was as if she were standing behind him. The voice came from the mask on the wall, but all he saw was a vision of her, a wavering frequency. He could not turn around, to look for her, to see her. What had he done? The regret of his betrayal of her ate out his heart like a slow scorching cancer.

She has always been. When she looked at him she saw him, the real him, the true man. Her only true fault was not her fault at all; her Naaru gifts were too strong for him, for his fragile humanity. Imagine feeling strong all of one’s life. The chosen. Fate throws a draenei female, in his path, one who is indeed more powerful, stronger, than he could ever be, and found him worthy of love? He would never be enough. His cells exploded with energy and health at her unguarded touch. He knew he could not withstand that damnable “gift” for a lifetime. He refused it, and he rationalized: it was her innocence, and her ignorant trust. Those may have killed her, not him.

She bled in the pool. She chose to be stupid—her fault, not his. Her blood, exacted by a quick blade in her carelessness, her blood, not his. Not his.

But now he did not know what became of her, after he spoke her name. Was she dead? Was she alive? The moment her name left his lips, and into Fandral’s greedy ears, he did not have the right to ask. Her name left his breath with his honor, and with his soul. He was doomed as only a traitorous man is.

He looked in the face of the mask. It was Fandral’s face. “Tell me paladin, how will you burn? Slowly? Flash of fire? Tell me who bled in the sacred pool. Tell me whose blood, paladin, and yours will not be spilled.”

What is the nature and truth derived of torture? Do we tell the truth? Or do we just want to survive, and that is the only truth?

Fandral didn’t really care about the pool’s pollution with draenei blood. He just wanted names to eat, so no one would remember them. He just wanted to feast on other’s love. No one remembered his name, it seemed. They had all forgotten. The taste of other’s names would satisfy his appetite, and leave only room for his name, and his master’s.

Gaenlon spoke her name:

“Kiindra.”

Gaenlon, the brave, young, righteous paladin, sworn to valor and honor, was then taken to the grey, ashen pathways of Deadwind Pass and left without the means to return home. He assumed the druids had taken Kiindra into captivity after he gave up her name. He did not know what become of her. He had heard rumors she had escaped; he heard every story from she had settled down with a leather worker in Old Town and was raising a shack of orphans to leading a rebel smuggling cartel, running supplies to the front. Either extreme suited her. He never knew what she was wholly capable of, but did not believe, in his deep heart, she was capable of surviving fire. And his ego would not allow him to believe, not completely, she was capable of surviving without him.

He knew he could not go home. His home became the pub, and his hearth a pint. The vision of her face turned dark, and he blacked out.

Micah scratched the small open sore the poisonhoney stings were not the trade-shop poisons. He picked open a festering scab, more scabs, more wounds, more arterials of necrotic tissue. He felt as if a thousand stinging insects swarmed on him, and slapped futility at the invisible infestation.

Pragmatic as always, the visions Gaenlon and Micah suffered did not affect Dacianna immediately. Daci saw only masks made of pale clay, and no exit from this room save for the way they came in. She heard a splintering high-pitched crackle, crepitating faces all around her. She was tiny again. And he was so cruel. She picked up a mud clot, and with steady aim, shot it at the jeering face. The mocking mask shattered, and the walls fissured and folding, marbleized cracks shimmied and broke. This was all done in her dream. There was no mud clot, and there was no rock. If anyone had been watching, an uninvolved observer, they would have seen a human, a night elf, and a draenei swirling, eyes half-shut, in a white room with twelve masks on the walls, moving as if drugged.

But indeed, the walls came down with Daci’s strength of thought. The walls came down, the masks cracked. The sound shook them out of their stupor. Gaenlon found his legs again, and Micah stopped scratching and dancing, the poison demons temporarily exorcised. Daci blinked once, and regained her stance. Micah’s sister lay prone on silken cushions, just behind the wall. It was her prison, and they had opened the way.

Gaenlon stood close to Daci, and whispered in her ear, the question, and now was the time for the answer:

“Daci…did she live?”

“Yes, Gaenlon. She did.”

Story Time: A Paladin’s Tale (Chapter 10: Corridor)

The bloating moon waddled away. She was getting bigger, fuller, with age. She was the third sister, and when she blossomed, came of age, demands must be met.

The Boss had a name that was not “Boss.” That is a silly name, meant to be asinine and childish. But those who knew of him and had borne witness to his malignancy could not say his true name easily. If they spoke his name out loud in any language, the very act burnt and altered, like drinking a boiling liquid that scorched one’s tongue, destroying the ability to savor sweetness. He had taken more than his share of maidens, destroyed the honor of the steadiest of paladins, and corrupted the souls of warlocks and priests alike. In an ancient time, there may have been the luxury of empathy for him—all creatures start off small and innocent, even those counter to light. They are needed for balance, bred and imagined to interlock for all eternity with their opposites. There is salt in the cake, just as there is sugar in the sauce. Even Death needs love, otherwise it would fall upon itself. But that time had passsed. 

Micah’s sister—no ordinary girl this one. As hard as she tried to be, she could not completely manage the loss of her soul. Her quick blade stayed clean: she always kept it as sharp as possible so her quarry would feel no pain. She hit a little harder and truer, so as to end life faster. She never stole from anyone lower than she, who had less. She never hurt children, even if she was the loudest one to protest their existence. “Rubbish spawn!” she would yell just as loudly as the others when the matter came up.
As she sat on the cushioned floor, she unconsciously rubbed her tummy where a baby would be, if she could have one, if it wasn’t too late. If she could be helped. And, if Micah set her free. A handful of “ifs” was all she had. Boss wanted her: he wanted to keep her in his possession, and tempted her with a handsome face, and promises he had never shown or given anyone else. She was still terrified of him, but with every visit, the seduction of those things she wanted, secretly desired, he knew, and wanted them himself. A child. A hearth. A home. It may take cutting out her heart so she would never see his true self. For now, what she saw was the spell he cast: he was in his Night Elf form. When he came around, the goblins and succubae skittered away; he protected her from them, explaining they came with the territory, but he would never let them harm her. Not really.

He had her, kept her, and had only allowed Micah the three full moons not as protection or a gift for Micah or his sister, but from himself. Even Death needs love.

And it made the immortal boredom a bit more interesting, too, to see these stupid creatures squirm and give them hope.

The thing we fear the most we cannot name out loud. It has to remain unidentified, faceless, and lost. If we find it, inadvertently pull it out of a hidden corner in a closet, or misplace our hand in a spider’s web and get bitten, we believe that we have done something to provoke it, which implies control on our part. Oh, silly little mortals—to deem that you have any control at all. Micah's sister also felt she had some modicum of control.

Say Death’s name out loud. You can poke it, prod it, and come up with ways around it, but Death will not change.

Micah’s sister could say his name. He demanded it, needed it, from her. When she used her heartbeat, her breath, her voice, to move her lips and form his name on her tongue, it corrupted him as much as it did her. She had no need to struggle against what she desired, too.

Daci, Micah, and Gaenlon met with no challenges entering the estate. A dour-looking manservant provided access to the great room. He didn’t bother asking for their weapons, but only smirked, and faded into the walls.

Earlier, after they had broken camp and resumed their journey, the three of them debated the best way to approach and enter—should Micah remain in the shadows? Should Daci stay behind with the horses? Gaenlon thought the best strategy was the most straightforward approach: use the power of the three and go in without deception or games. It wouldn’t buy any time to try to use subterfuge here: there were no tricks or spells that could destroy, and they just needed to get Micah’s sister out alive. That was all.

The chamber sconces shone with such a dewy, golden hue, they nearly disoriented  the trio. The smallest detail of the estate was a work of art, from the lights to the furnishings. Usually, Gaenlon took no notice of many of the details in a dangerous situation—he had no need to. Someone’s sense of style or comfort meant nothing to the obtaining the boon. He wasn’t there to enjoy the scenery, for gods’ sake: the boons constantly changed regardless. He had so much gold, weaponry, shields, potions, enchanted scrolls, stockpiles of natural goods that he could have lived like a vagabond king forever in that pub, until he drank himself dead. This time, the boons were intangible: regain the love of his parents, and the forgiveness of his own heart, and from hers. If he failed, he was lost. His prodigal return would never happen, and they would never know. The rogue had promised, or threatened rather, him, not to bear witness if Gaenlon failed. The truth would die with him, the only true promise the rogue made to Gaenlon. Now Daci’s presence was an inconvenience to the rogue’s threat, that was certain, but Micah believed her tiresome paladin honor would reign over gritty gossip. She wouldn't say a word. And she didn’t seem really all that tough herself; a bit green around the horns. So what if she had had one lucky shot in her? Meaningless.

This place was different, thought Gaenlon. Every inanimate object felt alive, and threatening. A vase held an arrangement of sorrowmoss and kingsblood. This portrait spoke to the walls. And even the lights watched. Twelve simple lights on the walls, illuminating a corridor, walk to the next room. In that room hung twelve porcelain masks, a dozen faceless souls ready to devour.

Previous Chapters

Story Time: A Paladin’s Tale (Chapter 9: Locked)

“Kill me, and your sister is dead, too, rogue,” whispered Gaenlon.

Micah spun his left-handed dagger into the air, caught it by the spine of the blade, and placed it back in his heart-side sheath. A tiny of drop poison perched on Gaenlon’s neck, like a blackbird on a branch, deciding which way to fly. It soared down his neck, landed on his clavicle, and nested on his chest.

“I have no intention of spilling your blue-blood, paladin. I only wanted your attention. You have something I need: your skills. It churns my stomach and makes me want to shit the words instead of speak them, but you have the truth of it. Spelling things out is something I am not used to, but I forgot I was dealing with less complicated folk.”

Gaenlon sat up: the rogue’s dagger to jugular vein shook him up more than he wanted Micah to see. His exhaustion had made him precipitously careless.  

“Who is this girl? She seems…superfluous,” Micah asked.

“Her name is Daci. She is, first of all, no concern of yours, and second of all, can help us both. It will take all three of us to bring your sister out of there alive. You were ambitious to think I could do this with only you as my joker in the deck.”

Daci began to stir out of the sap; the smell of her bruised scalp was almost detectable. Her worg pup had been off chasing night voles and rousting rabbits out of their dens. He now squirmed next to Daci, agitated, nudging her awake. He could smell the wound. A rogue’s sapping not only bruises the skull, but also casts a deep burn inside one’s brain, lingering like a cheating hangover, the pain without the pleasure beforehand.

“Joker? Go to hell, paladin. This is serious, and we need to move forward. I didn’t count on extra baggage, but if you say she stays, she stays.” Gaenlon was surprised by Micah’s seemingly genuine admonishment, his brief vulnerability. The moment felt oily and thick.

In Daci’s swirling stupor, she dreamed. She was small again, and there was the boy. His face contorted in mocking cruelty. He called her Ugly, Stupid, Worthless. Ugly, Stupid, Worthless. Ugly, Stupid, Worthless. Again, she picked up a mud clot, and instead of breaking on impact, it was a rock. But this time, instead of leaving a knot on his forehead, it shattered his grotesque mask of a face. She woke on impact. The image of fear on his skull sprinted by, as quickly as a wink. Fear behind the mask.

Dacianna stood to her full height. The effects of the sap wore off. She unwrapped her cloak, and shook it out like a rug, not caring if most of the dust blew into Gaenlon’s and Micah’s eyes. She casually put on her cloak, and walked up to Micah, gently brushing back his hair, and accusingly touched the small knot on his forehead with the end of her pointer finger.

“We’re even, little boy. You still have your scar tissue, and you have taken a bit from my noggin, too. Guess neither one of us is going home crying to our mommas, are we?”

Micah stared at Daci. In the hour beyond the moon’s reach, in the dark, he realized who she was. His night vision was excellent, but her dark skin and hair made her features difficult to discern at first, even for him. The smoldering campfire offered little illumination. But her words lit up his memory. This was the little girl who stood up to him, who threw the rock that flattened him out. There had been so many girls and women who had hit, slapped, and cursed him—but her rock and true aim—that one left a bump.

“Mudpebble?” ventured Micah. “Is that you? All grown up now, eh?”

“My name is Dacianna, and I am a paladin, same as my colleague here. I understand you need our assistance,” she said in her most formal manner. “I’ll kindly ask you once not to use any of your rogue tricks on me again. They will not kill me, but you know as well as I, power lies with the righteous. I knocked you down once, and I can do it again.” With that, she pointed toward his head, but didn’t touch him.

The three knew the path. The three knew the way. But that didn’t mean the three knew what lie ahead. 

And in a room, lined with silk and satin, Micah’s sister cried. Her tears made the ink on her face shine like patent leather. The tattoo on her face, a permanent marking of banditry and honor among thieves, both signified her willingness to mar her natural beauty, and announce her unsavory affiliations with lesser gangs and thugs in the kingdom. Survival for her had meant staying loyal to her brother, even if that loyalty meant making difficult promises. Promises to stay away from love, promises to think for herself and her brother only, and broker no allegiances to her own hearth, home, or heart. She knew Micah was only trying to protect her. If she knew how to pick-pocket, if she knew how to fight, and she knew just how worthless love and marriage were, that they were about as valuable as the spit of a grub, (lessons from their father), she would be among the survivors in their tribe of two. She didn’t realize what she had sacrificed for Micah’s sorrow.

The girl stopped crying.

Previous Chapters

Story Time: A Paladin's Tale (Chapter 8: Blood Loss)

One might think, that with the endless buffet of the traitor’s rations Gaenlon had been feasting on, that when Micah tracked Gaenlon to the cobwebby corners of curmudgeonly cravenness that Gaenlon may not have cared, that his nihilistic apathy would have protected him from putting himself in harm’s sites again. But Micah was a gambler, and could read men’s souls. He took a chance. Once Gaenlon was renowned throughout the kingdom as the superlative protector of the realm. No scourge or revenant, seen or unseen, could match his or her dark soul to his power of light. It was unthinkable.

Daci was lying on the scratchy grass, wrapped by her cloak. The materials were strong and rare: the finest virgin wool, carded by blind ogre-wives in the hills, interwoven with savage leather reinforcements and boiled truesilver dust. The needlework displayed a pattern her mother designed, something to represent her family’s past traditions and present conditions: a lasher-flower bathed in golden light, with human hands encircling the petals.  She had worked months for this cloak: her trainer tested her through a series of high-stakes war games that had deadly consequences for the losers. Fortunately, she was not one of them.

She slept so deeply. Gaenlon watched her. The breeze from sighs of the foothills tickled her cheek with her hair, broken loose from her braids, but she did not wake. Breathe in, breathe out. The ground could not have been remotely comfortable, even with her thick cloak. He admired it when he noticed it. Her gear was not the highest quality, but it was excellent. Most look handcrafted, which is not as prized as those found in epic quests, but made with a magic that elitist warriors would not find. Someone loved her, and had set her into the world as prepared as they were able. He vaguely remembered her parents, just strong, proud Draeneis who were always working. Daci’s father was a man Gaenlon would not have liked to cross. Gaenlon thought to himself that Mudpebble could take care of herself just fine. He envied her sleep. His own heavy cloak kept him warm in the damp night air, and her earnestness exhausted him. The night took him over, as well.

Micah shadow-stepped like a tomcat. Following them for the day, and watching them both fall off guard, neither seemed a threat, but they were obstacles. Micah sapped her strength so she would not rouse quickly in case she awoke. He needed Gaenlon to step up the pace a bit, and time was running short. His companion was a hindrance, baggage, to getting to his sister. He put his dagger to Gaenlon’s throat, just so. 

Previous Chapters

Story Time: A Paladin's Tale (Chapter 7: Pathway)

Tally-mark the moon: Full. Waxing. Taxing. New. Waning. Gaining. The sun always knocks on the front door, wiping its feet politely before entering the moon’s house.  It is never taken to the back, dark room.

In the great hall of his parents’ manor, a small castle really, is a gathering of large portraits of the male lineage of his noble ancestry, the last acquisition being one of Gaenlon. The commissioned artist chosen was a technical genius with materials: paint, lacquer, varnishes, and mediums were at his symphonic command. Sable-tipped brushes in a range of widths and girths were like extensions of his hands and fingers when equipped. With composition, he intuitively understood balance, weight, and structure. On the topic of figurative, anatomical knowledge, he was as skilled as a physician, and his subjects felt three-dimensional and animated on canvas. What he lacked in artistic insight was the ability to capture the nature of a being, of a soul: if there was any sort of complexity to the subject’s personality, this artist often failed to capture these intricacies. The viewer of his portraits were often so awed by his technical ability they failed to realize that once having seen one of his masterpieces, they had no further insight into the person in the painting. He failed to capture heartache, joy, or tragedy: ultimately, he failed to capture complex consciousness. However, the exception was Gaenlon’s portrait. The artist painted the youth just after his vows to the Knights of the Silver Hand. To be fair, there was only ego in the portrait, and not capturing Gaenlon’s pride would have been as remiss as not capturing that the light came from the eastern window, or craftsmanship of his cloak pin. Gaenlon’s smug expression, with an edge of both entitlement and innocence, had a presence equal to the pigments and varnished layers. Every brush stroke displayed Gaenlon’s self-involvedness, even as a young man.

Gaenlon had been bred to believe in his unconstrained role as protector, hero, and that he was uniquely qualified and chosen. From the tales of the first paladin, Lord Uther the Lightbringer, all paladins hence carried this light with demigod-like powers.  Paladins were both holy men who could both enlighten and smite with gods-like judgment. Gaenlon’s vows were taken long after Uther and his trusted friend, Terenas, had turned to ash and were boxed away in masonry sarcophagi. Nowadays, those who were a paladin by choice, birth, or happenstance, would find themselves in a precarious profession. Paladins, though loyal, true, and powerful, were also a divided, diminished, and conquered lot. Only their egos remained, flying banners of self-preservation, barely one step up from swords-for-hire, taking others through the treacherous and perilous, scarcely hanging onto disparate groups of both heroes and villains, fighters and monsters. It was difficult to tell who was on what side, for light and shadow fell on everyone alike, so that all were shades of grey. Once the light and cause of righteousness were extinguished, squabbling and self-interests became the rule of law. He had turned to mercenary acts to earn gold, his training being solely as a protector. He had no other skills or trades. A well-educated door hinge was how he felt now. Keeping out the wolves while keeping in the pigs, in and out on the threshold, depending who had the better offer.

Not all paladins were aware of what had been truly lost by Arthas’ deeds and betrayals. The forsaken would never forgive nor forget, and somewhere two proud Ladies, as different as the sun and moon, pragmatically, without sentiment, continued to fight their enemies, but they had each paid too high of a cost. By the time Daci had taken her own vows, she was oblivious to this history of the order. Rather, she was oblivious to the ramifications. She knew what the history tomes read, and she knew the stories. Ask her a factual question, she would answer by rote. Ask her to consider what it meant, however, Daci would feel tricked. What she lacked was the ability to see how the past directs the future. Daci lived in present tense. She looked down on Gaenlon from the top of her elekk: she would stable the beast at the next resting point, and retrieve a shorter mount so they could ride more as equals.

The pathway, ensnared by weeds, brambles, and thorny vines was in a neglected, forsaken area of the kingdom. The breeze smelled stale and slightly sulfurous. These were old, old lands. Daci seemed in no hurry to be anywhere else but next to him, patiently waiting for him to tell his tale, ask for her help, or tell her to get lost. He made pleasant side-chatter, but even her honest nature was suspicious.  Obviously, he was in sorry shape. He looked haunted, just there…see? The specter stayed behind his eyes, behind his muggy smile. All he would allow about his current state was that he had been asked to help a rogue—just another dangerous call, nothing out of the ordinary. And, would she be so kind to help? Was she up for an adventure, for old time’s sake? He imagined the mission, a rescue mission he told Daci, would be fairly routine. She guessed he would get around to the details at some point. She heard a human say once, “The devil is in the details.” What a silly thing to say. “What did that even mean, anyway?” Daci mused to herself.

There, to the west, a ghoulish banshee screamed. Daci’s pet worg pup chased after it, but it left no trail. They decided to set up a small camp for what remained of the night. She was just happy to be next to him, even if she didn’t know what to do with her hands and arms suddenly, or scuffed her hooves in the dirt, digging grooves where she dismounted, taking care of her horse and gear. Daci began to feel something, a nagging something. Like she had done something wrong. She searched through their history. She knew it by heart, and took stock: he was the boy she followed. He followed the older girl. She worshipped the older girl, too. He couldn’t have been anything more to the older girl than a friend, because she was a few years older and probably interested in older boys. He hadn’t asked about the other girl, either, so maybe he had forgotten about her, or didn’t care. Daci shrugged. He had just been through a lot, she supposed. His omission of details were more dangerous than what he did tell her.

He had committed one act for which he could not find forgiveness. When the rogue found him, he had almost bleached out the memory of what he had done.

He loved her with all that his heart had room for. He told her one night, just her and the stars, all his fears, that he had been promised that he would be a king in the world, and now his status was reduced to existing as a shield with legs. He told her he was afraid of never being enough for his parents, his king, or her. She listened, and soothed him. Her Draenei gifts were too much for his human body to take. She was too much. He realized with jealousy, that for all of his consecrated and hallowed light, gifts of gold, and power, there were other gods more powerful than his. Hers were the other. And he was suddenly afraid of her gods, and her. And his fear weakened to cowardice, and that made him angry. And his anger made him hurt her. He confused fear with cowardice. He could no more control her than control a storm. And he didn’t want to try, didn’t want to understand her, and didn’t want her. When he hurt her, she left, braver than he would ever be. But all he felt was betrayed at her final act of self-preservation.

He remembered the turn, the night of her betrayal, and his.

The rogue’s rough blade sliced her, surgically, imperceptive, along the rib’s thread, near her heart. And for one who hated to show weakness, this sting caused the rims of her eyes to burn with tears. He was merciless, menacing in his attack, even her wolves could not protect her…. dying, reborn, but diminished. To heal, she would have to bathe in a pool of Elune, sacred and holy to the Night Elves, and fiercely guarded. But if she did not tend to this wound, wickedness would bleed her. Scarlet, thin, poisonous.

Deeply muscled thighs clutched the curve of the saddle, her tail painfully marking every jolt on the cantle. She pushed her stomach into the swell of the seat, the motion making her feel more in control, as if she could somehow will her mount to fly faster. The hour was past late, the time when changelings are exchanged and mothers are indifferent. Only the moon shrugged at her presence. The late-layered spring air, warmth and frost, was undecided. The drake circled in on a pool, flowing waters bubbling silently, lit by its own bioluminescent forces. Elvin guards stood at their posts, never resting, but subdued this evening. Perhaps the crinkling and balmy spring night fogged their keen intellect. Even with those magnificent ears, they did not hear her dismount. Elune forgive her…she had to be healed. She couldn’t summon the power of the Na’aru on her own. Her iridescent lavender skin turned grey. One hand holding her wound, the other unbuckling armor, the chain mail falling like scraped fish scales, the armored boon she had fought for and earned. Cursing her carelessness and pain, her warrior’s training made it possible to finish undressing and slip in the pool, unnoticed. The water…the water of the pool is not of this world. It is a life force of its own, magic and dark matter. The water sinks into her skin, like an emollient, deeper, holding her; she lay on the bottom using her water breathing spell to stay under as long as she could. Elune was kind to the girl. Water sought out her architecture, her curves, her inner places, she became the water’s home.

Regaining strength, she composed herself on bended knees. The wound and its toxins dissipated like mage smoke. No amount of elfish healing could erase the thin silver scar though, her memento of impulsive battle mistakes. The stars, being outmatched by incoming clouds, angrily protest that they will not be able to witness her beauty for much longer. The moon nods away, the crepuscular light matching her skin color, returning to her soft shades of indigo horns, periwinkle cheeks and moon-spun hair. Body and light mix as lenticular imagery.

The new, and perhaps more dangerous dilemma than dying by a rogue’s blade: How to exit unnoticed, and find some safe place to sleep?

He’s been tracking her since the battle. He could not get to her in time when the troll attacked. His rage, his frustration felt nearly unforgivable. But his forgiveness is not his salvation; finding her is, just as she had found him.

But he could not protect her tonight. She makes too many miscalculations. Believes she is more redoubtable than she is, or in contrast, underestimates her powers, not using them to full capacity. He would like to shake her sometimes; she is so bloody infuriating! His human pragmatism is indeed strength, but also fogs his ability to see how complex she is; this is one fight he can’t win. But King and country help him, he knows her as much as anyone can.

Here she is. Curse her…in a pool of Elune! Those night elf guards will surely catch her, and although allies, have none of their druidic patience for this trespass. He grabs the saddle blanket off of his horse, and anticipating the guards’ moves and looks, gets to the edge of the pool, whispering her name – amazingly, she doesn’t make a sound…stepping out onto the ground, he wraps the blanket around her body, rubbing her dry as best as he can. She is shivering, and her own body can’t decide between the frost and heat. How does he always find her, exactly when she needs him?

He did find her that night, and cared for her and protected her. That was the last time he felt more than a man. But after she had left him, he fell.  And when Fandral found him a season or an eternity later, for he had lost track of his days, and questioned him about the blood in the sacred pool, he confessed. Not quickly, and not without complete loss of honor. Gaenlon tried to stay strong in the face of fire and heat. Gaenlon knew Fandral had lost all that mattered to him, a son, and a granddaughter, so maybe Fandral would show him mercy if he were forthright. Fire is cold comfort for the love of a son, a child, but Gaenlon had no concept of this level of pain. And the fires were coming fast.

Chapter 6 and other chapters

Story Time: A Paladin's Tale (Chapter 6: Matters at Hand)

Daci spun her elekk around, surprisingly quickly, considering the tight radius for such a large beast. This sweet giant followed her like a lapdog, not aware of its size, and its ignorance in its own dimensions made him responsive as a lynx. (Certainly, on occasion, he bumped into a plinth or two, disturbing the statuaries, but what are a few cracks in clay feet among friends?) Gaenlon couldn't have gone far. 

Gaenlon’s reaction rankled her. Who did he think he was, or rather, who did he think she was now? Daci misplaced his dismissive act as a personal insult. She was no longer the little nuisance who followed them, him and the older girl, behind the keeps, cottages, and campsites. Her training had been rigorous and structured. She had earned her place among the paladins, and her devotion was solid: no one was more loyal or dependable. But intuition, sensuality, and sensitivity were not her gifts. When she did have small epiphanies they almost caused her pain. It wasn’t that her intelligence was being taxed; it was that her narrow ranges of emotions were. She knew right, and she knew wrong, and what he did was wrong. He was headed toward the stables, on the southeast side of town. The narrow alleyways in Old Town were in for some bumps and bruises from her sweet elekk.

The gods must have had a change of heart about the day, and the day's glory become a prank. If one had bothered to look up toward the hills, they would have seen the slight-of-gods'-hands: puffy grey clouds materialized out of unseen vapors, like a magician’s trick—surely there were white rabbits being pulled out of top hats on the mountainside, turning clarity into opacity. The fall crispness exited the stage, and the curtains opened to wooly unbleached clouds and muted debris. No applause, but trepidation from the audience of citizenry. The winds picked up. Daci found Gaenlon haggling with the stable master, bits of sticks and straw swirling around on quick air funnels, blasting stinging dust in eyes and discoloring everyone’s cloaks and shields.

“Gaenlon.”

Both he and the stable mistress turned in Daci’s direction as she dismounted. She approached the pair with one hand on her satchel, and the other on the hilt of her sword. A heavy elementium shield protected her back. Her posture was perfect, as if her spine and shield were attached. Emeralds and amethysts ornamented the sigil, the only small announcement of femininity and grace.

“Stable mistress, is there an issue with my friend here?” she asked, authoritatively.

“Mudpebble, this is no concern of yours.” 

The stable mistress, a muscular human female, leathery as a saddle, believed that paladins should only be of the human race. A Draenei paladin was insulting, and a disgrace to the memory of Terenas. What did those others know of honor? They were really demons in disguise. She could barely mask her disgust, but this paladin may have the gold necessary to buy this deadbeat’s mount out of her stables to make room for paying customers. The stable mistress had taken good care of his horse. She would never be cruel to an animal, only the talking two-legged ones. Besides, paladins still carried some jurisdiction, and though good King Wrynn was preoccupied with recent events, she did not want to bring down the judgment of those in power. Manure piles and shovels did not decrease her shrewdness.

“He owes me 150 gold pieces for the care and feeding of his mount. He has seventy-five. He does not seem to understand math, and I am tired of explaining it to him. He cannot have his mount until he has paid his debt.”

Daci reached in her satchel and counted out seventy-six pieces. “Gaenlon, give her your seventy-five, and here is the balance. Consider it a loan. My good lady, please bring us his mount and tack. An extra gold for your expediency.”

The stable mistress pocketed the money in some secret cavity in her chest piece, and retrieved his mount. She tossed the horse’s plate armor to the ground, along with its other raiment and finery. The horse seemed to be the only creature in the group sincerely pleased to see Gaenlon. She nuzzled her soft chin groove next to his cheek, and when he rubbed her withers, seemed to shiver with delight. Daci helped him pick up the pieces, saddle up his horse, clean the bags, armor, and gear. Her focus on the task distracted her from the sudden onslaught of debilitating shyness. Here he was…behind the pallor, the crust, she still saw him. He wasn’t going to escape now—he owed her. Daci was the one who was momentarily stunned.

Another cruel joke of the gods is this: once in awhile, without reason or sense, a body calls out to another, weakened, armor-less, and vulnerable. Sometimes the other body and soul calls back, or not. Nothing to be done for it. Wait and hope, or wait with resignation. But it never changes. Some call it lust, and some called it true love, but it was something else. No matter how the visage changes, or time steals beauty, the call waits. Only death can change it, and sometimes not even then. Daci felt that way about Gaenlon.

When she saw him, she was right back where he left her. Ignored as a child, and then a maiden, he never saw her, but his being crushed her. A heavy weight. When she was near him, she could barely move, or stay away. Her tongue would tie in knots, and then blurt out silliness. She would punch him on the arm during a serious task, and be devastated at his admonishments. 

“Daci, my thanks. You’re an angel, little one. I believe I owe you more than gratitude, however, and am not sure how I will repay you. It was always like you, wasn’t it, that you would just show up?” He was going to add, “…when unneeded,” but didn’t say it. He felt the warmth again from her Draenei aura. And the weight of the remaining 500 gold pieces the rogue had given him in his satchels.

“Mudpebble, or should I call you by your beautiful name, Dacianna? Do you have time for a ride? In any case, we can catch up, now that you’ve helped me back in the saddle.” Tapping into his redheaded charm, he offered her a smile and this request. She couldn’t refuse. 

Chapter 5
Chapter 4
Chapter 3
Chapter 2
Chapter 1

Story Time: See-Saw (Chapter 5: See-Saw)

Once in awhile the gods allot the mortals a perfect day. The breezes kiss like young girls, and the leaves flutter like prayer kites, granting motherly protection. The sun shines low, clear, fruitful, a honey harvest of pollen-toting bees, bringing offerings to the service of their queens. Magisterial clouds promenade down aisles to their altars, two by two, and summer swan-sings their praises. Whether the gods are bestowing these masterpiece days as gifts, or taunting the mortals with their stingy skills, it is hard to say. Those who were optimistic see only blessings: those who are less so are skeptical of gods’ motives.

When he fell, it was on one of these exquisitely crafted days. He would have missed it if not for the rogue’s pact. His reflexes, creaky with atrophy, found their manners after he did, “Pardon me, my lady, please. The sun blinded me for a moment.”

Crab-scuttling under his weight, the young woman loosed herself from the humiliating position, almost tripping again when her palm bolted the edge of her cloak. She quickly recovered and stood up to her full height. Impressive, and daunting, he thought. He knew her, his memory gaining steam and speed, moving toward the destination of her name. But she recognized him first.

“Oh, Gaenlon!” She blinked, not sure of her guess, he didn’t look the same—the Gaenlon she remembered was, well—healthier. “It’s me, Dacianna.” In spite of her regal armor, bearing, status, and rank, in her heart she was still the impulsive little tomboy, and gave him a bear hug and knuckle-knock punch on the shoulder. And she was always a little blunt: “What happened to you?” she asked unabashedly.

“Daci! Of course! Long story, little Mudpebble, long story…I am, well, in somewhat of a hurry, and I don’t mean to be rude. I would love to know how you are, and your family—are they doing well?”

“Mudpebble! I haven’t heard that name in ages! Oh, I am sorry you are in a rush…” and Gaenlon bowed, and hurried away. Daci was confused, then angry, and confused again. He remembered her nickname. When she was small, there was a time when a neighbor boy was bullying her. This boy was relentless. Her mother said it was because he liked her, but his taunting had an abusive edge that did not have any sweetness or shyness in it. One day, she had had enough. She picked up a mud clot, meant to scare him and break apart upon impact, and took her shot. Her aim was true. (A quartermaster had shown her how to properly throw a ball, spear, or knife.) The mud clot was not a mud clot after all, but a rock covered in mud. She can still see him falling back on the green hill. It hit him squarely on the forehead, erupting in a goose egg the size of a giant’s pimple. He ran home crying to his momma, and she stormed out of the house, grabbed Daci by the ear, and gave her a tongue lashing that dissolved Daci to slobbering tears. She hadn’t meant to hurt the boy, just teach him a lesson. She later found the unfairness of his mother’s reaction almost unbearable. But the mother was creating the son, honing a weak bully. She cursed the both of them again at the memory. Gaenlon had been a few years older at the time, and didn’t pay her much attention. She was the tag-along, the underfoot nuisance. He saw the knot on the boy’s head, asked him how he got it, and of course one of his toadies told Gaenlon “It was a GIRL!” Gaenlon gave her the nickname as a reward for her good deed. The boy was a well-known troublemaker, and it made him smile that a little girl had given him this scar-tissue reminder to always pick on someone of equal size.

If Daci knew him, it was certain Gaenlon didn’t know himself anymore. What was he running from, or to? Why wasn’t he able to talk to her, walk with her, go sit in the grass for a spell, in the sun, on this perfect day? These answers he knew. He was weak, and time whipped him down. Hidden by the blue sky was a moon in motion. However, he was not left untouched by their encounter. The golden healing inside of her seeped in him, just a splintered piercing, imperceptible, the unnerving strength of Draenei. Those gifts, those weird otherworldly gifts they carried, had shaken him to his core once before. He would want to ask how another one of their acquaintances was. Daci knew her as an older girl who lived down the lane, and would help care for Daci on occasion; he knew her as the girl who lived down the lane, a few years older than he, and out of his reach. He would be disappointed in any report. If she was well, he knew it was not because of him. If she wasn’t, he knew it would be.

Gaenlon made his feet haste. The rogue had given him some gold to retrieve his mount, shaming him by his lack of resources. His first stop would be to the stables to get his steed out of hock. He hoped the stable master wouldn’t be greedy, but fair, for the cost of feed and fresh hay for the time when Gaenlon wasn’t able to care for his commissioned paladin steed. He glanced back, and saw Daci on her own paladin elekk, going the opposite direction. A spark of an impure thought about the luck of her saddle…and he quickly extinguished this vulgar path. She might throw a mud clot at his head if she knew! Oh, she was gorgeous, though. His time in the dark did not blind him completely to Draenei beauty. Cinnamon skin, hair so thick and soft, a sugar-kissed smile and kind eyes, and they always smelled like peaceblooms. Or at least the two he had been close enough to smell. 
Gaenlon's heart smelled those peaceblooms on the breeze today. He had felt as if he been in the bottom of a deep well. Now, a shaft of light glinted and speckled down on him. He had fallen, and fallen hard. Perhaps the light would provide a soft place to land.

Story Time: A Paladin's Tale (Chapter 4: Unintended Consequences)

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. The moon swung in the sky. White petticoats flying, dark side never revealed, the moon arched her back, straightened to thrust, tucked to pull.

The darkened inn was no longer a blackened sanctuary for the paladin. He considered the rogue’s offer. He had been sick at heart for so long, trying to anesthetize himself, leech the light out of himself, that he struggled to remember his own name, so washed and bleached he felt: not clean, more poisoned and stripped bare.

The solidity of a human paladin is forged at birth. His former glory days spent housed in court, like a well-fed guard dog. The one beast who tugs at the master’s heart and gets special treatment, letting the rest of the pack know he’s next in line: not the alpha, no certainly not that, but licks the master’s hand.

Gaenlon. His name was Gaenlon. There was an infamous betrayer’s name so close to his own, that when he introduced himself he was surprised when he didn’t get that second twitchy-look in others. Diligence and honor proved his trustworthiness: deed upon deed, quest after quest, saving others time and again, sacrificing his gear, his blade, to those in need, never questioning their worthiness or honor. If they were in danger, he protected. Soon all harmful associations with the similar namesakes were gone, like mouse droppings mixed with the meal. Everyone ate him up.

His noble parents had raised him perpendicularly. It was the nursemaids who waited on his child-self, every need and want cared for, to the point he barely learned how to blow his own nose. He was one of those children who are perfectly shaped and proportioned, and anyone who saw him knew he would retain his features into adulthood—his face was like a promise of beauty. He never suffered from the injuries of spots or blemishes, or awkward, joint-wrenching growing pains. One nursemaid, who did not last very long in service of the nursery, foolishly expressed her worry about his red hair, though. She was a superstitious and ignorant woman, and believed tales from her region that a red-haired child lies, that they had been kissed or bitten by an imp in the cradle, like a mosquito bite, and this infected their hearts. She was ordered to cut onions and potatoes in the kitchen. Her tongue tossed to the cats.

His sword masters trained him well, but he soon surpassed their skills. On his nineteenth birthday, his parents presented him with a stunning suit of armor and a lord’s wardrobe. The shirts alone were works of tailoring art. Edged in green velvet, which brought out the color of his rich, burnished red hair, the fabric of the shirt was interwoven with spider webbing, dyed emerald green with indigo blue piping. The shirts kept the wearer cool in warm weather and warm in cold.

More impressive than the breathing shirts or the gleaming armor was his cloak. The cloak was a miniature version of a tapestry that hung in his father’s manor: it was a hunting scene; a party taking down a gigantic, monstrous stag, his ancestor depicted as large as the beast, while the rest of the cowering figures seemed yellow-belly marmot sized. The cloak pin was a special gift from his mother. When she pinned it on his cloak, she kissed the pin before she fastened it around his shoulders. The pin was as round as his closed fist; iridescent hues of purple, plum, green, and burgundy interchanged depending upon the light’s direction. In the center of the circle, where the pin would skewer, it had a silver heart. When the pin was in its place on the cloak, and fastened, it completed a targeted heart image. Arrow hits heart. It couldn’t miss.

He fumbled with the pin now, and his cloak. No mother was there to wrap it around his shoulders. He suspected she had put some sort of magic in it; curse or blessing, he wasn’t sure. Mothers say they have their children’s best interest in mind and heart, but they don’t want to lose their place, either. Usurpation is unacceptable to mothers.

The rogue had given him instructions to leave the bar within the hour, but not too soon. He would leave first, and then Gaenlon should use his judgment wisely. Timing was important. The more the sand slipped through the hourglass, the further Gaenlon’s resolve slipped, too. He got up, and walked out the door.

He tripped in the sunlight. Not a very auspicious beginning. The fall was softened, until he felt a sharp elbow in his ribcage.

“Get off me, you ass!”

The light he had been trying to leech out was growing again, softly, rounded edges infusing his cells: he had fallen on a Draenei. 

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3

Story Time: A Paladin's Tale (Chapter 3: Bargain)

The moon led Micah, the rogue, to the paladin: a swinging pendulum, knocking sides of clouds, new to wax to wane. He had three moons, and two were spent.

Deals with the devil are seldom fair; no matter how balanced the scales, one of the parties will be shortchanged. Winners have their turn, and losers often go bare-chested after losing shirts, vulnerable to the elements and ridicule. But the underworld isn’t filled with merely one or two gleaned souls: the spirit dust of the ages reside eternally in the multitudes, having lost their bet, or broke a contract. Because the luck always favors the house.

But make no mistake: Devils want their due, too. The advantage can be gained. Consider in any trade, there is the expectation that one will be better off with the object or service. The barkeep in the Old Town pub has no desire to sit on his wares, and the healer needs that water. He makes a profit, keeps his nagging wife happy: meanwhile, she serves others, and basks in her arrogant glory. There is an exchange of gold and silver, goods transferred, and each is better for it. The barter of time and money are more abstract than the weight of a copper in a palm. Money indeed makes the world go round, on an invisible gyroscope of love and lust.

But when deal sour, regret reigns.

Micah traded his sister, bargained her soul, in exchange for his worthless hide.

“Rogue,” the Boss paused, “Options?”

Micah had stopped squirming hours ago. Never had defeat and futility been so palatable. Rarely had there been any occasion he couldn’t talk his way out of, sneak around, hide, maneuver, or manipulate. For a chest of gold, he believed he could win this time, too. The chambers had been deceptively easy enough to slip into. The concubines soothed him, caressed, and giggled. He used their apathetic lust to his advantage. The paid guards were no more than dogs at the door, pacified with meats. Instead of a bone, he used their stupidity to slice their throats while they were easily distracted by shiny pretty baubles. Micah smirked. And was a tad disappointed. This was the security of the vilest fiend in all the land? He found the domicile’s protection amateurish. In his over-confidence, it never once occurred to him that the main resident of the keep lured him there, and used the rogue’s arrogance to his advantage. The bargain had been arranged before Micah had crossed the threshold. The boon he was seeking were two daggers of such renown, which in his hands guaranteed his lethality and dominance. He brushed the dirt off of his patched leather pants. The glamour was fading, and it had become increasingly difficult to keep up appearances. His time for glory was calling. He deserved those powerful daggers, was entitled.

The chest was reported to be under the Boss’ bed. Only took a few goblin jugular veins to spill that secret. Simple enough. The snoring alone indicated the lord of the house was half dead and drowning in his sleep. Micah slithered under the tall bed frame, reaching for the chest, when two cold palms snatched both his wrists, dragging him to a deep hole. Slammed against sharp crags, tossed to the bottom like a wishing penny, the fall broke his left wrist and tore out his shoulder blade.

Up from the dirt pit floor, sprung poisonhoney vines. Wrapped quickly, his entrapment was more than sufficient. These vines grew in one area, and required soulless druids to harvest them. Each thorn pierced flesh with slow-acting poison that diminished mental acuity to the point of a slobbering idiot. No antidote exists. Each barb had a thousand infinitesimally small needles that burred into the skin, irremovable and parasitic. Even when cut from the mother plant, the vine would seek a new host, growing tentacles around legs, groins, and breasts, caring not for gender or status, seeking, attaching and winding along the pathways of veins and arteries. The damage of the vines could be lessened with quickness of freedom. Micah knew for every second the vines bled him, poisoned him, it would mean another year off of his life. And he very much loved his own life.

Options? He had no options. The most dangerous place of all, the realization that all is lost, and the choices belong to the one with no soul to lose: death or death, but whose?

“I know from the whispers of blood, Micah, what you came here for. And I want you to have those daggers, my venal friend. I need something in return. I abhor lies, so to the point: bring your sister to me.”

The Boss gave him three full moons to complete this task. Simple enough.

Oh, here was an out. He’d promise anything to the Boss. Any deal. His sister? Once he found her, they could figure an escape, break the deal. He agreed, so quickly the Boss cocked an eyebrow; a flicker of an expression Micah caught, but couldn’t interpret. It unnerved him, but the deal was done.

Chapter 2
Chapter 1
Chapter 4