Isharlon

What's wrong with me?

I woke up in a hammock not mine, under a thatched roof not mine, listening to the surf crash. I was on the isle of the Zandalars, where my love had brought me when he found me.

The smallest things...

The baby cries. And cries.

At first we thought he was just upset, but he's sick. And neither of us know what to do about it, how could we? We are both young by the standards of our people, neither of us have had another child or even been around one much. The baby, newly weaned (and was he ready for that? How could I know?) and bereft of a mother who didn't want him, is in the hands of two people who know nothing about children and have no one to ask.

I woke up in the early dawn, earlier than usual, but my schedule was almost entirely thrown off by the last few days. Stretched out in the hammock I'd woven, the nightmist cool on my shoulders and hip. Isharlon warm beside me, my leg thrown over his hip, my arm stretched across his chest.

Isharlon took me in, into the home he says belongs to both of us, our haven, our grove. He and I had… tried to talk, about Olm, about Valgasha, about… us, but I was too distressed at the time. I couldn’t explain to him why I was so… backward. I couldn’t explain my reactions to things, the ones that make no sense to people, the ones that led me into this net in the first place. And I was too upset to explain.

"Stop... blaming... yourself."

That is what Tundra told me. To stop blaming myself. To let myself have time to heal. To think about healing and not about fighting.

"There is no child, put that fear out of your mind."

he leering jawless mouth. The dark-socketed eyes that see too much. The darksong voice floating around me, behind me, invading my head the way the screams of the damned and the roar of the flames press against my ears. The claws creeping across my stomach, sliding along my skin, moving and invading...

"Come, my dear, enjoy the flames. Aren’t they lovely?"

I started out the day at loose ends. No one really needed my time or attention, no wardrums cried out for help, so I decided to explore. So much beauty in the world. I found a massive waterfall, bigger, I think, than the one in Jintha'alor, and watched it fall and tumble for a long time. I was sorry Olm wasn't there to see it.

I couldn't go back to Stranglethorn. Not then. What if he followed me? Isharlon doesn't even know what's happening? How can I be responsible for seeing his light snuffed out, he the only one of us not in the line of fire? Valgasha would lose to know about him, I'm sure. Torments flicker through my mind, the space behind my eyes fillwed wih fire and blood and peeled flesh. Choose: Valgasha loves to make people choose. What would he make me choose in exchange for Isharlon's life? The thought makes me mad, makes me want to break things, makes me want to take my dagger to myself again just to shut the pointless circle of these thoughts.

Never a moment's rest.

It was such a beautiful morning, too...

Well, they say this is a new year. I'm not sure how they reckon such things, who decides when a year begins or ends, what month is at the end and which loops back to a new beginning. How could they reconcile a calendar, with so many differet people in this world, who come from different worlds and past the edge of death, who cannot speak a common tongue and who kill each other at will for the wearing of a flag. Perhaps the goblins manufactured this holiday to sell fireworks and drinks, the way they seem to have taken over Winter's Veil to sell heavy-gut food and head-swimming drink.

Orgimmar was packed. It seemed that everyone in the Horde was crowded into it, wanting to buy something, sell something, yell something, have a last bargain or arguement or kiss before the turning of the year. There were those in the crowd that I almost thought I recognized, tales being told about them... but what do I know of such things. No one tells me tales any more, and what I pick up by gossip is rarely the truth. Still...

I am writing this in the rain. The rain is warm, like tears, as if the sky is weeping, though whether it cries in joy or sorrow I'm unfit to say. I am curled mostly beneath a shred of canvas spread between a corner of stone troll-ruin. This protects the north and east from rain and wind, but leaves two sides open. My left leg is drawn up to my chest so that I can write on the table my knee provide; my right leg is getting wet, stretched out before me. My back is warm, and there is an arm around my waist. I don't know if he is sleeping. Ajitabh is up a tree, sheltering from the rain among the leaves. Chapal is browsing near the river.

I don't know if I have tamed anything here... or if the jungle has made me savage.