Dear Diary

Roiya's journal - Book of Grace

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(The book is bound in deep green leather with a silver leaf button closure.  The cover is embossed with a pawprint crowned by antlers under a crescent moon and the writing inside is in a dialect of old Darnassian.)

 My initial return to service was not quite what I expected it might be.  Instead of finding service with one of the kaldorei units being sent through the Portal, I was detached to one of Stormwind’s platoons.  The commander, one Octavio Andrel, likely would have gotten the lot killed in the initial charge if not for the skill of Xaq McCullouch.  Thank Elune the boy survived Northrend so he might serve on the battlefields of Draenor.  He healed as I defended, and by some miracle we made it to the fallback point with the rest of the survivors.  I counted a half dozen from Andrel’s unit, though I saw no sign of the commander.  I don’t know if he survived the assault or not.

 As uncharitable as it may seem, I’m not certain I entirely care.

 I traveled with the vanguard’s survivors to Stormshield, to assist in setting up a new base of operations there, again accompanied by McCullouch.  I penned my report as the mages worked to stabilize the platform for a portal back to Azeroth and bided my time until I had the opportunity to return to Azeroth, to Darnassus.  I know that I will return to Draenor at some point, but I will return on my own terms.  I have made that abundantly clear to my sisters and they have consented--not that I left them much choice in the matter.  I was happily retired, living quiet with Keydyn and Aneria, helping Aeka with Shiawase and trying to forget the hell that was Theramore and the pain it caused us all.

What was I to do?  I didn’t want to venture out alone again.  The Retribution was dead.  There were whispers that Mena’s old unit was still out there, still alive.  I wrote.  Etharion Longsight contacted me--the name was vaguely familiar; one of them must have spoken of him long ago.  It had been so long since I thought of them, seen any of them...

(The ink here is smeared, as if by tears.)

I met with him on the evening of the sixteenth, at Aerie Peak.  Some things don’t change, I suppose.  He is young, but I can sense compassion in him that will make him a good leader if he allows himself the opportunity--if the world allows it.

For the moment, I am one of them.  I hope that I will remain so, but Elune works in mysterious ways.  Even after ten thousand years and more in her service, there are still things that surprise me.  I pray those surprises never end.

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(This letter is folded and tucked into the journal.  It is written on good parchment, though it’s a bit ragged around the edges.  The ink has a deep green tinge to it.)

 

Dalah'surfal,

 You were right to think that I would be relieved to know that the Servitors had accepted you into their ranks.  I hate to think of you alone again out there in the field, the same way you spent so many days and nights across the centuries.  Knowing their reputation, I’m comforted to know that you’re with them.  There will be someone there to watch your back when you need it.  Don’t let yourself go unguarded, Roiya.  I couldn’t stand to lose you.  I don’t have the same strength.

 Aneria asked me yesterday where you had gone and how long you would be away.  I told her that you were traveling far away and would come home again with more wonderful stories to tell her at night.  She asked if they were the same kind of stories that Nikus has been telling her.  Do you know what she’s talking about?  I haven’t the faintest clue what tales he’s been spinning for her—I dearly hope that you do.  I’m sure they’re mostly harmless, but with him you never know.

 He’s worried about Katy, dalah’surfal, more worried than I’ve ever seen him.  I almost wish you were here to reassure him, but I begin to wonder if perhaps he’s beyond that now.  I don’t even know what she’s doing, other than venturing out on her own.  I thought he’d be relieved that she’s no longer kicking around Ironforge or mechanically bundling herbs in the garden.  Maybe he’s just afraid that she’ll join another unit, one wholly unlike the Retribution, and get burned for her efforts.  The more I think about it, the more I believe that must be the case.

 He asked me to tell you to send his greetings to any of the Servitors who might remember him.  I laughed and told him that there probably weren’t any left, considering unit attrition and his narrow focus.

 I think he still feels guilty, still regrets it, even if in the end there was nothing he could have done to change what happened or to stop it.  I know better than to try to sooth that hurt.  Hearing that there was nothing he could do from me wouldn’t do him any good, given our collective history.

 If my travels bring me to Aerie Peak, I will seek you, dalah’surfal, and I will keep you updated on where my duties take me.  I will keep my eyes and ears open as you’ve asked for potential work for the Servitors—I’m sure that there must be something.

 Love always,

Keydyn

 PS – Arcavius found some correspondence that he felt that you should have.  If you can, you may want to find him in Stormwind to retrieve it.

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I typically do not enjoy surprises as much as I enjoyed the one I received last night.  I’d been in Ironforge, keeping my promise to Nikus to check on Katy, and returned to Aerie Peak as the sun was starting to slip toward the mountains in the west.  I was weary and was hoping for a hot drink and a spot by the great hearth with a book—it’s not as if I could have expected much more than that.

It was when I headed down to the mess that I heard his voice, amiable, cheerful even, talking about me to another of the recruits—a draenei girl I hadn’t yet met.  She’d just ask him what I did, if I couldn’t heal.

Elune preserve me, I don’t know what possessed me to say “I kill people.”

Oh, I know it’s the truth.  It’s been the truth for ten thousand years and it probably be true until the day death finally takes me.

But why did I say it?

The girl—Sandy—didn’t miss a beat, though.  She asked if they deserved it and by Elune, I hope it wasn’t a lie when I said yes.  I know that it couldn’t have been, but sometimes I wonder.

Sometimes, I wonder.

Keydyn, of course, brushed it all off as if it were nothing.  He has that gift, but then again, he’s known me since before my shadowy gift was discovered, so he’s had ample time to get used to what’s asked of me—and an unwavering faith that’s carried him through more hardship than I can scarcely imagine.

I love him so much.

He introduced Sandy and I, of course, and we settled in to chat about things of little consequence for a brief time before Silverwright appeared, apparently looking for something to eat after a long day—though something lighter than the steaks that Sandy and Keydyn were enjoying.  I confess, my thoughts were more on how long it might be before Keydyn and I could politely take our leave of company and retire to bed together than on whatever was being said.

Of course, that was before code started erupting on the COMMs.

I remember saying that it felt like old times, like with the Retribution when the resources were scarce, when we were fighting on too many fronts—when the Alliance was fighting on too many fronts.  Perhaps history does repeat, in part because High Command is incapable of making intelligent decisions about deployment, about where to get involved and what can wait.

Oops, I set that to paper, didn’t I?  I suppose I’ll have to burn this tome.

No matter.  No one cares about what one of Elune’s Grace sets down in her journal these days.  It is the age of human power, now.

We’ll see how long it lasts.

Keydyn had drawn lodgings from the Wildhammer before I’d arrived, as he wasn’t certain I’d be in Aerie Peak at all.  We spent the night together in one of the guest rooms, probably much to the relief of my fellows in the Servitors.  He’s still sleeping as I write this, though he’ll be gone again soon enough.  There are a dozen letters in his satchel that he’ll need to carry to their destinations before his circle takes him home again.

I’ll miss him when he goes.  I always miss him.

He’s the only one I’ve ever truly wanted, the only one I will ever want.  He is mine, and I am his, and most of the time, that is enough.

But I still miss him when he goes.  The day I stop missing him is the day that I know that I am lost forever.

0

He did well last night.

I would compare him quite favorably to the best of commanders I have known—and I have known many in my centuries—and he acquitted himself under difficult circumstances in Draenor.  I don’t know that I would have done as well, were it me in his position.

“Where you lead, I will follow.”

I reached Darnassus at exactly the right moment, reached the temple just at the right time.  A young priestess tried to bar my passage to her private chambers—“You can’t go in there, she is not to be disturbed.”  One of the elder priestesses laughed at her.

“Let her pass, child.  It is good to see you, your Grace.”

Perhaps my legend yet lives, because the girl turned pale and stepped aside.

It is a dubious honor.

She welcomed me and gave me one long look before she bade me to sit with her.

“I know that expression well.  Tell me what troubles you, sister.”

We sat together, knee to knee as we once had when we were both novices, and I told her everything—what I had seen, what we had done, what I had failed to do.  She was quiet as she listened to what happened on Draenor that night and when I had finished, she nodded sadly.

“All too common,” she said.

“It shouldn’t be,” I said, even as the old anger coiled in my belly.  After all, there was a high price for the Horde to pay for the atrocities we’d all suffered at their hands.  And yet...

And yet.

“You did right,” she said.  “Though part of me wishes that you’d put a dagger in him.”

“I had my orders.”

“Yes, I know.”  She was quiet then, staring at something beyond me, something I couldn’t see.  Perhaps it was nothing.  Perhaps it was more.

“You are still Her hand, Roiya,” she said at last.

“I know,” I said.  “I will perform the necessary duties attendant to the role—if I must.”

“You are permitted latitude.”

“Not if I am to set an example.”

Then she smiled.  “You have my blessing, Roiya Shadowpaw, not that you’ve ever needed it.  If more of the same occurs, you’ll tell me?”

“As soon as I can,” I promised.  “You’ll pass the information along?”

“I’ll act on it as I can.”

She kissed my cheek and saw me out.  I stood in the darkness of the temple later, listening to the sound of the fountain.  I knew she would be true to her word, but still I was troubled.

So I went home, to Nikus and Siryn and their grandson and my Aneria, to pretend my life was as it was a few months ago, before this all began again.

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I can’t say that I’d spent much time at all in Surwich before this evening—I’d barely heard of the place, to be honest, knowing it more as a speck on the map in the southern reaches of the Blasted Lands than anything else.  Now I’ll remember it as the place where we first encountered the Iron Knuckles.  I don’t know exactly what kind of history these orcs had with the Servitors, but I know it was enough for the Commander to take a risk and for the orcs to want us badly enough that they’d indiscriminately kill human slaves to draw us out.

The battle was short and we won in the end, but there were injuries on our side.  Not for the first time, I lamented my lack of healing ability.  Sergeant Boltscrew took a blow to the head, I think, Silverwright caught an arrow to the shoulder and Sandy took a broadhead to her thigh that we didn’t dare remove until we reached Ironforge.  She’s asleep downstairs as I write this.  I let her take the bed—insisted on it, in fact.  I prefer the space on the second floor, with the bearskin and the pillows.  In truth, I suspect my niece still spends more time sleeping up here than she does below.  I can see the traces of her life within these walls—unsurprising, as this is her home—but I can see echoes of her past as well, the detritus of love found and lost, of friends that now seem long ago and far away.  Jovaus’s spare cloak and his boots are still here, quietly waiting, as if he’ll return to claim them someday. Silvanar’s bow hangs on the wall near the front door.  In looking for a robe that I might borrow while I washed my own, I found a chest of clothes, neatly bundled and labeled with the names of their owners—Anthus, Shiawase, Varenn, Rylas, Nischa, Ascalon, my brother Qanathal and so many others.  I sat there and stared at the chest for a long time, a familiar tightness building in my throat.  She had to know as well as I that some of them would never return to claim what she held in trust for them.

The door to this house had always been open to whoever needed a soft place to fall—that’s why Sandy and I came tonight, because I knew that we would find a comfortable place to lay our heads before returning to Aerie Peak.  I wonder, though, how much that open door has cost Katy over the years, and how much it may cost her still.

In many ways, I wonder how much my service will cost me—and how much pain I’ll suffer as I finally allow myself to give my friendship freely again.

What will I lose?  What will I gain?  In the end, will the scales balance?

I don’t know.

We brought prisoners with us when we came to Ironforge—a bare few surviving orcs—and their former slaves as well.  I don’t know what the Commander plans to do with those prisoners.  I suppose I’ll find out, perhaps in the morning.

The translation of the sigils from the mine in the Plaguelands bothers me more than I care to admit.  They’re terribly familiar, but the words don’t come.  My skills have rusted over the years.

I will have to fix that.  What good is my age and experience if I can’t use it when we need it?

Ankleshank said something about a friend.  Perhaps two heads would be better than one.  It’s certainly a more attractive option than dealing with the Chancellor these days.  I’ll have to consider it.

It’s one mystery that I can’t afford not to solve.

0

 

Near a week since I earned my colors.  Nearly two since we cracked the translation of the sigils—now all that’s left is to puzzle out the riddle they’ve left us with.  I’ve spent nights and days in the temple archives, trying to unravel this latest mystery, often with an erstwhile Nikus Dawnstar at my side, though I wonder sometimes if he is being more hindrance than help.  Still, he reminds me to sleep and brings my sweet Aneria to help us lift and carry—and to raise my flagging spirits.

 

It frustrates me to no end that I am no closer to unraveling this mystery than I was when I started—pains me almost physically.  What good am I to any of them if my age and expertise does nothing?

 

I am a priestess who cannot use her magic to heal.  I am a sharp blade, a sharp mind, an elf older than some of the dirt they walk on.  These are my swordbrethren and I am vowed to defend them, to aid them.  What good am I if I cannot solve a mystery that threatens us all—threatens our very world?

 

Damn the men who broke into the oubliette and freed this menace.  Damn the menace that threatens us now!  What does this nameless evil want?

 

Maybe I am on a fool’s errand.  Perhaps there’s nothing for me to find here, despite my stubborn insistence that there must be.  Perhaps the answer lies in Dire Maul or Silithus, perhaps even in one of the lost libraries in Northrend.

 

I will return to the hearth tonight.  Nikus has been to see my swordbrethren more recently than I, and he no longer bears even a tenuous connection to them—simply to the place where they live and the traces of his presence there once upon a time.  He said he went to retrieve a book he’d left long ago.  I suspect otherwise, but he is dear to me and I know well enough when to hold my tongue.

 

He misses those that he has failed, mourns them still.  I cannot blame him.  Unlike me, he has failed few in his long life, and I pray that remains so.

 

Goddess, grant me peace in the shadows of your light...

[A few tears spatter the end of the page.]

 

0

 

Even a simple supply run can be dangerous.  I have to remember that next time.  Nothing is harmless.

 

Bleeding hellfire, my ribs hurt, probably more than they did in Outland thanks to a certain healer’s prodding.  I suppose I should be grateful for the help, but...

 

Always but.

 

It’s been so long since I’ve put ink to paper—I’ve been remiss, though perhaps not because there’s been nothing to write about, but perhaps because my thoughts have been too full, too distracted.

 

Nikus has been spending a great deal of time at the keep lately.  I think—almost fear—that it may be a prelude to approaching the Commander.  Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked him to stay close, but we have no real healer among the swordbreathren and that’s the type of gap that Nikus Dawnstar has always been willing to fill without question, without expectation of recognition or thanks.  I worry, though, the same nameless, faceless worry that always plagues me when I’m unsettled without knowing why.  Perhaps it’s nothing—it’s been nothing before.  Perhaps this time it is, too.

 

[A sketch of a round, cut gemstone is in the margins of the next paragraph.]

 

The Nameless problem is still out there, though we have to hope that the solution that Reminial has come up with will solve the issue once and for all.  Several of us came together at the forge at Aerie Peak to put together a portable prison for the ancient evil that’s been unleashed upon the world—but has been oddly silent these past weeks.  What does it plan?  What is it lying in wait for?  The possibilities send shivers down my spine.

 

What sort of revenge does it seek against our ancestors who imprisoned it?  What havoc is about to rain down on us all?

 

I keep thinking that we are too few, that we are not enough, but then I remember that the wars are different now, that we fight once again on another world, not our own—a proxy for the battles that have raged for three human generations now, linked to the war that has been going on since I was young, our fight against the Burning Legion that never seems to end, only ebb and rise like the tides.

 

I am afraid.  I pretend that I am not, but I always have been.  I have delivered two daughters into this world of endless battles.  One I have lost to darkness, to madness, to duty and rage and pain.  I will not lose another.

 

I won’t lose again.

 

There are too many who have lost as I have and children who have lost the parents who should have been there to love and care for them.  In a week’s time, the swordbrethren will be ensuring that some of those poor orphans will have enough in the coming months and years.  Why I accepted—nay, volunteered for—the duty of organizing the fundraiser, I’m not sure.  Perhaps because my guilt rises this time of year as I think of Kaedyriel and how I should have been there, of the mistake I should not have made and the mother I should have been to her.

 

No matter.  The task is mine, and I will acquit it to the best of my ability.  I can do no less.  I owe them—I owe her—that much.

 

0

 

Morning comes and I feel better, just like Nikus promised I would.  Damn the man for being right more often than he’s wrong.  I should be grateful, but I’m not.  Elune knows that I don’t easily forgive.  It’s why she chose me for the path I walk.

 

Jo showed me the kittens last night—Uther’s kittens, the litter we knew was coming, though not exactly when.  Which is to say, she showed me where they were, I didn’t actually see them myself.  I wasn’t about to climb up onto a tank with my ribs feeling the way they did last night.  Perhaps I’ll have a look after the unit meeting today if I’m feeling up to it.

 

I was right about the bruise on my hip—it’s certainly the size of a cannon ball and far more tender than I’d like.  I’ll be damned if it’s not the side I wear my dagger on, too.

 

Can nothing ever go right?  I’ll have to see if Nikus will actually work some magic to heal it rather than letting it heal on its own.  I know it’s better to do that than rely on magic, but sometimes...

 

I just have a bad feeling I can’t shake.  I hate it.

 

I really, truly hate it.

 

 

 

[A letter is tucked into the journal with this entry.]

 

Shal'nar,

 

I’ve decided that it’s more than time that I return to Ironforge, maybe for good.  I’ve let Mum and Da know and Shia is going to be coming back to live with me again.  He thinks the world of Aneria, and I know that you’re stationed out of Aerie Peak these days and that Da has been spending a lot of time there.  It’s nearer to Alliance headquarters in Stormwind, too, so it wouldn’t be much out of Keydyn’s way, either.

 

I suppose what I’m asking is if you would be amenable to Aneria coming to stay with me for a while?  Shiawase’s grown used to her tagging along with him and it doesn’t feel right to leave her in Darnassus when Ironforge is so much closer to Aerie Peak.  I know that your duties do take you back to the Temple of Elune, but it’s not nearly as often as it once was, is it?

 

I’ve given up looking for Jovarus, as much as it pains me to lose him.  If he’s still out there, if he’s still alive somewhere, if he still loves me, he’ll find me.  It’s time I break the cycle I keep finding myself in.

 

Sometimes, you just have to wait.  I guess in some ways, I learned that from you.

 

I’ll be back in Ironforge next week.  Please let me know what you decide.  There’s more than room enough in that old house and it feels so empty when it’s just little Shia and I.  I want to hear laughter again.

 

Elune’adore and much love to you,

 

Aekatrine Dawnstar

 

0

 For the first time since Theramore, the killing rage came over me—washed over me like a wave crashes on the shore, like a storm surge, leaving nothing but pain in its wake.  It was the cold rage, the noble rage, but no less murderous for the righteousness of my reasons.

 The monster was killing children.  That has never been a thing that is sure to bring out the killing machine within me, to hear of the senseless—or worse yet, the malicious and wanton—killing of those too young or weak to protect themselves.  As fierce as a child might be—and Dick Grunnel nonwithstanding—they could not have stood a chance toe-to-toe with this thing.

 It had to die.  It deserved to die.  There is no doubt in my mind of that, none at all.  But still...

 

 [a few drips of ink mark the page, as if the author sat for a time with pen or quill poised to write before continuing]

 

  I should not have allowed myself to do it.  I should not have lost control.

 I knew I would walk a razor’s edge again when I came back.  I am not as I once was.  Tyrande said that I was still walked with Elune’s mandate settled on my shoulders, my duty to my goddess and my people not yet complete.  Of course, she knows as well as I do that our work will never be complete—walking away is a dream.

 A good dream, but a dream nonetheless.

  

 Sergeant Rattlecrank wasn’t able to join us last night; I took the lead instead.  Perhaps I shouldn’t have—Jo could have done the job as well as I did, I think, and in terms of total time with the Servitors.  I’ll have to ask her why she let me take this one.  Clearly, she was as disturbed by what was occurring as I was.

 I didn’t hear her come back last night.  I’ll have to seek her out once the sun rises.  I think she’s still on kitchen duty…

 I’ll have to pen a report for the Commander on what happened last night, I suppose.  I’m not sure anyone else would do it.  Much is still a blur, but the details become sharper and clearer as night wears into dawn.  That happens sometimes.  It happened at Theramore.

Thank Elune for Nikus Dawnstar.  Without him, I doubt the nightmares would ever end.

 I’m worried about the Commander—about Etharion.  I’ve barely seen or heard from him since our fundraiser, since he went to Menethil to talk to them about the job that we just finished.  Something feels wrong.  I don’t like it.

 I’ll have to seek him out today, too, if I can, if he’s in his office.  It seems he’s always there, except when he’s not.  Except when I come looking, I guess.

 I’m worried.  Damn, but I’m worried.

 Guard duty or crowd control of some kind tomorrow eve, I think.  Something.  Perhaps I’ll see him then if I don’t catch him sooner.

 Goddess grant there’s nothing wrong—with any of them.  Last night was messy, and I didn’t quite see if anyone was truly hurt.  I’m sure Nikus or Shrel saw to them if they were.  Maybe.

 I hope.

 

[A map of Arathi’s southwestern shore fills the rest of the page, the cove and the cave where the shard of chaos was slain clearly marked with a dot of red ink.]

 

0

 

I worry.

There is so much to report and yet when I sit down to commit words to paper, they refuse to come, dammed up inside like a river after a rockslide.  I try to force them out and still they defy me, slipping through my fingers like so much sand.

I don’t know when the last time was that I felt such a wellspring of frustration, of impotence.

That bastard Needler will die, either by my hand or another’s—but one of us will kill him, and I pray that it will be before he does much more harm than he already has.

The Quel’dorei he slew somehow reminded me of Ildanan, though Sunstar is long dead and turned to dust.  The highborne at the outpost near Aerie Peak were gracious enough, of course, but I could still see the suspicion and fear in their eyes.

I cannot blame them for it.  I have earned these things alongside respect.

I wish that made it easier to bear.

Warden now, near a week.  The title still feels strange.  I suppose I’ll grow used to it in time.  I always seem to.  Etharion’s managed what Jude never could, in that—to make such a thing official rather than quiet and informal.  Perhaps I’ve changed, or perhaps it finally felt right, with these people, at this time.

Our enemy targets the Commander, knows too much of his patterns.  My hands have not shaken that badly since I was barely more than a novice.  How could we have been ignorant to how deeply the Needler penetrated our defenses?

He knows we’re getting close and that perhaps we’ve almost found a way to stop him—almost.

Poor M.  I’ll have to look in on her in a while, just to make sure she’s recovering from her experience.  Nikus healed anything physical, and guarded her dreams, but I fear that this is a thing she’ll not get over for a long, long time.

Gave Arcavius a letter for Keydyn should some terrible ill befall me.  It explains everything.  Elune grant that he never reads the words and Arcavius can burn the letter someday soon.

Elune safeguard them.  All of them.

0

He did what I asked and I thank Elune for it.  We’re likely to bring hell down on our heads, but at least they’re out of harm’s way—my boys, my beloved, beloved boys.  I hope against hope after last night that the same can be said of the ones loved by my swordbrethren.

I worry.  I worry about M, the burden she’s taken onto her shoulders, one I cannot seem to help with.  I worry about the Commander, who barely sleeps and tries to remain strong in the face of a threat that would rob anyone of their courage.  I worry about Jo, strange and distant lately, about Sandy, whose vigil in Outlands seems unceasing, about Davvi and Ankleshank, Wakefield and Frovelos and all the rest.

Elune, what have I allowed to happen here?

The lice story may have been enough to keep this quiet—but how long will it be before the bastard strikes?  Before we face a reckoning, a fight we may not be able to win?

My family may be safe in their ignorance and far away, but what about everyone else?  Should we—I—have done more?

I don’t know.

Perhaps someday this book will be found amidst trophies or ashes.  Perhaps this entry is my last.

Elune, give me strength as I walk in the shadows of your light.

There’s work to be done, and done shall it be.

0

Dawn comes and finds me slumped in a chair in the infirmary, journal in my lap, inkpen in hand, but too tired to write.  I’ve been here all night, trying to help as I can, bandaging and hauling water, keeping vigil when exhaustion began to take its toll.

So many injured.  Too many dead.

The Needler struck last night, as we feared he would.  There were three that M couldn’t trace, three he hadn’t used in so long that their trails were long cold, almost forgotten.  Perhaps—

No.  No, that way lies madness.  There’s nothing for it—only to stop the threat that remains.

The Needler is gone, but his master, the Unnamed, remains.

Nikus and Aekatrine both tried to send me to bed at one point or another.  They came when I called and have worked tirelessly since their arrival, bandaging and healing and comforting in the ways that druids can.  They see the state I’m in, have tried to tell me to go to bed, to rest and gather myself again, but I’ve stubbornly remained.  Though I’m shit for healing, a few prayers can’t hurt, and those prayers as much comfort to me as to anyone—succor for my heart, a balm for my shadowed soul.

Goddess, Frovelos’s eye.  I hope they can save it.  I’m almost too afraid to find out, but I know I will.  I can’t avoid it.  And then the Commander...

Damn, we should have been faster.  It shouldn’t have happened.

None of this should have happened.

Elune forgive me.

Swordbrethren...forgive me.

0

It’s taken too long to gather my thoughts, I fear.  I will need to remedy this, put ink to paper more often.

Discipline, Shadowpaw.  Discipline.

The commander continues to recover, though slowly.  Another druid joined Katy and Nikus here at the Keep to help with the wounded—Thoran’s shan’do, Belenos Oakheart.  The name was vaguely familiar, but I could say that of a hundred names attached to a hundred faces, a hundred people.

I’m getting old, perhaps a touch forgetful.  Another thing I’ll have to somehow remedy, unless I just...let it go, let it happen.

Goddess knows I won’t, though.

Frovelos told me a tale the other night that echoed a few I’ve heard over the course of long years—and when I looked, I saw that the tale he’d told was true.  I hope he listens, talks to a druid, someone who walks the Dream.  Perhaps I should nudge Katy in his direction.  She tended to his eye, after all.  Maybe, just maybe, he’d be comfortable talking to her in light of that.

I try to give him space.  If he wants to speak more of it, I hope he’ll trust me enough to come to me.  I could tell that it hurt.

Many things do.

Two new recruits since the attack, a draenei and a worgen, both female.  I’ve met them briefly, both of them, though I hardly know them at all.  Time enough later.  Familiarity will come, I’m certain of that much.

First disaster class went well enough, though the numbers weren’t what we’d hoped.  Hopefully more will come for the rest of the lectures on the list.

Still need to finish that conversation I started with Davvi…

[The writing trails off with a few drips of ink.]

0

It's been hours since it ended and I haven't slept.  I can't sleep.  Katy  keeps giving me these worried looks and perhaps she should.

I haven't told her what we saw.  She only knows that for better or worse, it's over and  we won.

So why does it feel so much like we lost?

Do I tell them what we saw?  That we saw their ghosts, that they're proud of us, that some of them

<the ink is smeared as if by tears>

forgive us the sins of the past?

I should have

But no.  No, it wasn't the time for it, no matter how much there was to say.

Ser told us that if we carried Fro out of that place, he'd recover.  He's right, of course, but M and I--and perhaps the others, too--realize that it won't be the man we know, the man we've come to love as a brother, as a son.

Goddess, I feel like I've failed him.  Perhaps I did.  Another sin to add to the list that's already too long to countenance.

But the Unnamed is gone, hopefully now forever, his prison given over to the caare of Death himself.

Binky.  What kind of name for a horse is BINKY?

It's the sort of thing we'd laugh about.  With Fro.

Elune help me, what am I going to do?

M is as shaken as I am, if not moreso.  I...

<a few drops of ink dot the page>

I don't know what we're going to do.  I don't know how the others will react.  I was so numb those hours ago, even when I told them what M and I already knew.  I didn't tell them all of it, of course.  It didn't feel right.  If the Commander or Davvi--perhaps Jo, too--if they ask, I'll tell them.  The rest, I don't know.

Goddess, life and love incarnate, give me strength in the shadows of your light.

0

It's been days and still no change.  It's only a matter of time before they start doing more than urging me to sleep--they'll want me to abandon this vigil soon.  I can't, though--it's one of those things that I just can't do.  Even if he's not the man we remember when he wakes, someone should still be here and I've been here the entire time.

There's a tug, the kind that I've not felt in a long while, one that keeps me rooted in this damned infirmary, waiting.  Watching.

It's as if she knows we've reached a crossroads and she wants me to be here, where I need to be.  I'm well beyond the point where I would question my goddess in this.

My heart hurts.  I know we'll be disappointed by what happens when he wakes, but there's nothing for it.  Whoever has Frovelos's body now deserves care--and a chance to earn our respect as our dear friend and brother did before.

<drips of ink trail off the page>

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