The barely adolescent human pushed through the crowd that had amassed around the goblin-run kitchen in Lower City in hopes of catching some leftover scraps of food. Her dark doe-eyes glittered in the last rays of Outland’s sun as she peered beyond the hungry gathering. She was looking for someone with determination steeled by the promise of a reward, she was alert for something not often seen in Shattrath since the renewal of the Sunwell.
“Star-child. Star-child...” she kept repeating to herself.
A slender figure came into her field of vision. Tall. Slender. And autumn? Uncertainty twisted in her gut as the runner questioned herself. Was this the one? She decided that there can’t be many of the star-elves that set foot in the lowest and most squalid parts of the ancient capital anyway.
The urchin darts towards Linevi, too focused on her task to bother slow down and crashed into the kaldorei. A long chain of murmured apologies escaped the young woman's lips as she pushed the stained piece of parchment into Linevi’s hands. Fear of her reward or even punishment overrides the urchins sense of courtesy and she sprints away from the elven priestess back into the crowd of starving refugees and vagrants.
Someone Wrote:Sister of Heart and not of blood from another surface, these words I impart to you.
Doom looms but the threads of the Warp has not yet revealed itself to the Blind Sight.
The Devouring Plaid consumes fire to feed their own.
Big eyes caught the glimmer of starlight as they observed the mouth of the popular sandstone building. He had set a foot in there before but it ended with a proper beating and a stern warning from the proprietor.
“Not this time”, he tried telling himself,
“I’ve survived two more summers, now I’m wiser and quicker.” The boy instinctively held his breath when his quarry appeared again.
“A keeper of peace yet not one was what he said... this has to be it.” the urchin thought as he rested his gaze upon a large draenei dressed in a garb familiar to that of a peacekeeper. But two things were different; a leather hat tugged down over his eyes and a big blade slung over his back. He had watched this brawny draenei visit the infirmary more than once and now he moved there again.
The wheat-haired boy drew in a deep breath through his nostrils before he set off towards the tavern. He hid behind a stack of crates and walked in close behind a rugged and worn human to appear to be in company and avoid being thrown out.
“It worked!”
In the simple room there was a bed whose sheets still bore images of the original stains not purged with hot water. He places the note on the only table in the room, a low one with a candle upon it. For a moment greed knocked at his temples and urged him to look through the backpack that rested on the bed. But thoughts of theft were quickly dispelled when he heard the clatter of hooves against the stonefloor outside the room. Instinct took over for and he slid down under the bed. His heart raced and pounded against the inside of his chest.
Someone Wrote:For you are the Sword twice seen, by eye and not. The Halls have looked into both of us.
Thy path lies in the shadow of the Light and yet you have not seen the Truth in the spoken words.
Lest the fiery blood is liberated, the words will become yours.
“Of course I know where the bakery is, every kid with a head upon their shoulders know of it!” the young lass thought to herself. Soot-brown eyes nestled on a bed of countless freckles narrowed at the diminishing veil of smoke. That was the sign she was waiting for, the oven was cooling down and the location soon empty.
A trickle of saliva inelegantly escaped the girls mouth as her attention was stolen by the baked goods left unsheltered beneath a table. She quickly wiped the drool away but was unable to shake the childish greed that glittered in her widened eyes.
“It has to be so much better than taffy.” The hunger-fueled mirage came to an abrupt end when the sound of hooves and armour reached her ears. Reflex kicked in and the urchin dove in behind some barrels and she bit down on her lip to not gasp. Her hand was pressed against her chest as if to make sure her racing heart wouldn’t burst out of her chest.
After that close call, focus returned about the task at hand.
“Hide the letter -then- snatch an extra reward.” she convinced herself. The piece of parchment was carelessly folded and slid between the cracks in the lid of a barrel filled with flour. Then her attention almost fully turned back to the confectionery set in her sights; a semi-sphere covered in a crimson blanket of something smooth and sweet, a spongy and bronzed base with soft innards the colour of sunshine.
Someone Wrote:Wilted pondstars and blackened gardens once gazed into you. Now your hooves are aligned.
Even the slightest candle blinds the one who dwells in darkness so open thine eyes.
All writhes beneath my fingers, locked and orbiting. Everything must come full circle.
Now the path returns.
A mild netherwind rolled past the gnarly trunk of an olemba tree. Tiny claws dug into the smooth bark when the tree stirred.The small black nose wiggled nervously against the waning wind. It carried no ominous scent of raptors or other predators this time. One last look was aimed towards the canopy above and sky beyond. Four padded paws dropped into the grass and a bolt of red fur darted through the brush of Terokkar Forest.
The rodent came to a halt on top of the sandstone wall that encircled the big city. It raised its head and sniffed the wind again just to make sure nothing had followed it from the forest. Countless of vaguely familiar scents bombarded the poor animals olfactory sense; rotten arakkoa eggs, stale and watered down ale, smoked clefthoof, talbuk droppings, ogre sweat and molten adamantite.
A nook left beneath one of the supporting beams allowed the rodent to squeeze into the room where the target resided. Suddenly instinctual panic ran shivers along the spine of the critter. Somewhere within the room lay a carnivorous threat. The threat was avoided and left snoring by following a lath that supported a waterfall of mauve fabric.
The squirrel assumed a comfortable pose close to the face of the sleeping sin’dorei. It then chittered and very softly clawed at the slip of parchment rolled around its tail.
Someone Wrote:Thy eyes reminisce of how you tasted the gift of the Flame.
The Candle tries to bestow upon you another gift but the heart of the child refuses to see.
Celestial bodies move and veils part, the sunshadow closes in on the hour of Truth.
I know not how long you and your friends remain upon the pivoting zenith.
An aged and hunched figure challenged the ramp circling upwards to the Infirmary of Lower City. Once it had been a female draenei with voluptuous hips and a smile that could captivate the hearts of mortal men, but now it was merely a shriveled and toothless husk alive to suffer the ridicule of those that suffered nothing. At the top, her knees buckle and her tired body crashed into the sandstone floor. Attendants came rushing to her side and were swift to move the broken one over to the only empty bed.
“They fell for it, everyone always falls for it.” she smugly mused to herself. Two of them tended to the krokul woman during the last few hours of daylight; a retired vindicator that had sought penance through healing any and all, and a young human surgeon that came to Outland to learn about new cultures and only found poverty and needless suffering. She had become tired of entertaining the attendants need for helping the helpless and closed her eyes.
When the sun had hid itself behind the horizon and the Infirmary had almost entirely calmed down to sounds of sleep and the pitiful whimpers of pain, two beds covered entirely by sheets. The krokul left the bed and embraced the shadow and the shelter provided by darkness. Quietly she skulked towards the ramp and left the place of healing without notice. Apart from the slip of parchment left on her spittle-stained pillow, addressed to Allira.
Someone Wrote:You and the one lost are one and the same, yet alternate.
Your words or your Silence will be that which solidifies the path towards doom.
At the end he will return to a life lost and you gain the life you always wanted, with or without him.
It is my sorrow and yours that this cannot ever happen.
The usual mess of dirt-blonde hair was thoroughly greased to give the appearance of hygiene and wealth. Silvered-embroidery that lined the high collar chafed against the lad’s neck, he stuffed his fingers in between the garment and his skin and tried to loosen it, but without success.
“Stupid, lard-filled people. You gotta be mighty daft to willingly suffer clothes like this!” He looked down and frowned at the cream-coloured, crochet robe adorned with silver and bundles of blue pearls. Despite the discomfort, the robe had the effect it was intended to upon the boy. With his head lowered he passed several peacekeepers on his way up on the Aldor Rise and none took any special notice of the overdressed urchin.
By the edge of the pond he spotted his target: a fellow human that looked like the jewelry box of a spoiled queen. The urchin tugged at the end of his robes and freed it from under his bare foot. While lifting the fabric, he sprinted to the building closest to the paladin and hid in one of its many nooks. His unwashed and stained hands frantically sought beneath the too long garment. He produced parchment folded multiple times and marveled at the fragile thing. Hoofsteps heard just around the corner hurried the young man, he pinched the parchment between two fingers and then flung it towards the water. The paper-plane crashed softly into the head of the paladin.
Someone Wrote:Betrayal. It lingers upon the cold lips. Is it the Truth?
Among the unseen does Water change into Fire and the flames will dance a final time.
Close your eyes and see what he has shown you, these are not times to deny an old path.
Sin of the father, sin of the son. Legacy can be denied.
Straggling droplets from a waterfall clung to the pale blue skin and cooled the sweaty draenei. The view from the balcony, both ahead and below, was breathtaking but nothing the spiritualist perceived. His eyes were closed, and so was his mind to the world of the flesh. Focus was drawn to a mysterious realm of spirits and memories come alive. A moment played out before him but he couldn’t intervene, he never could. It was an argument... between mates? No, father and daughter.
The third image of a draenei female appeared from nowhere, not noticed by the others. Her eyes were covered by dark cloth but Kapre could feel her eyes lock onto his person. When she walked towards the spirit walker he jerked back and all the images washed away around him... but her.
The woman claimed to have no name and denied the spiritualist knowledge about her affiliation. She came bearing a message to Kapre, but refused to reveal its source. Her raspy voice delivered the ominous message and disappeared as suddenly as she had appeared.
Someone Wrote:We walk towards the abyss beyond gardens of lost serenity, where the Damned Ones linger.
A silvered Hand in the shadow of a Lion, pawns that led you here before.
Despair he once tasted has heralded this hour of Truth.
When the Song is at hand it will bring clarity, but also strangle words.
A ruffle of dirt-blonde hair bobbed just a few paces behind the strong and statuesque figure that despite losing her title still carried herself like a peacekeeper of Shattrath. This was the third time he wasn't fast or quick-witted enough to hide from her suspicious glacer over one of the dark pauldrons. And the mouth-watering scent wafting into his face from the bakery only ruined his childish patience.
Panic rushes the blood through his supple veins and he didn't dare open his eyes to see where he was taken. Pangs of hunger kept interrupting his focus on the task but the many voices that spoke with those weird words reassured him - this had to be the place.
It's so fluffy...
Someone Wrote:Waxing and waning. The bottomless heavens breathes before us.
The precipice have arrived and we can not avoid it further. Yet the hour of Truth has yet to pass.
Within the Silent Song of captivity can become that of freedom and sorrow become relief.
Thirty fingers this path has woven and it can be undone when the unseen sixth blade is broken.