A slender tome (Quin's journal)

9 March

Patrol last night, my first official one as a Servitor.  I kind of knew that it wouldn’t be entirely quiet when the lead said something about it being “just a patrol.”

Famous last words.

Something’s killing in the Hinterlands, tearing things apart and sucking the marrow from the bones of its kills.  We tracked it to at least one of its lairs.

I burned the body we found in the foothills.  It was the first time in a while.

At least I didn’t set anyone or anything else on fire.

Went to Hearthglen and Light’s Hope after, made arrangements for some anti-plague vaccinations and agents to be shipped down.  The Forsaken are active in the Hinterlands and that’s typically not a good thing.  It certainly bears watching.

I didn’t mention that to Connar.  It’d only make him worry and he worries enough as it is.

He was there when I got home last night and I was glad of it.  I’d gotten a good scrubbing in while I was in Hearthglen--for as much as I’ve smelled stenches like that before, that doesn’t mean I like smelling it on me when I don’t have to.  He had a fire going and the bed warmed up quickly after I joined him in it.  We got to talking and talking led to his worrying about what sort of price I’d be willing to pay if it meant we’d be able to reverse the process that made him into a Death Knight, if we were somehow able to find a way to bring him back...

There are prices I wouldn’t pay, though there aren’t many.  I love him.  You do things for love, crazy things.

I should talk to the Servitors about it.  Maybe they’d have ideas that I haven’t come up with yet...

11 August - First year of the Legion invasion

There's a part of me that's glad that I buried this thing in my field kit.  I'd almost forgotten about it, as evidenced by my last update--and the time between them.

I'm rambling because I don't want to think.  I don't want to think about what I heard over the old Retribution comm, beneath the static and crackling.

I have to tell Mindspanner.  I have to tell Sky.  I just--

I can't.

How could I?

Maybe I imagined it.

Dammit, he's my best friend.  He's my brother.  This can't be happening.

He was supposed to be the only one of us that was actually safe, at sea, far away from all of this.

For the moment he's alive.  More than we can say for Bromm's cousin and his family.  More than we can say for a lot.

They're alive up there.  I know they are.  The Keep wouldn't fall in one might, in one moment.  Not with the people there, the preparations that were made.

They'll be there when we get there.

If we get there.

When we get there.

Dammit.  Dammit.  Dammit.

I don't want to think.  I can't think.

I'm going to drink some whiskey and go to sleep.  Hopefully, I won't dream.

I'm afraid that I will.

25 August - first year of the Legion invasion

 [A few tears stain the page, smearing the ink on this page.]

I sit and I watch them all deal with loss different ways--not just losing Masana and Sky, but others.  Lovers.  Brothers.  Fathers.  Children.  Family.  Friends.  Some of them are handling it in more healthy ways than others--not that I should honestly be one to judge, and I don't.  Not really.

I miss them, too--I'll always miss them.  I just wish they weren't just more names on the list of people I've buried since I was a teenager.

My parents.  Joshua Merovingae.  The expedition.  Andry Moreau, who died on my sword, his blood staining the deck of that airship that brought us home.

Ser Asteris and his little girl.

The Retribution at Theramore.

Tanith Auroran.

Now Masana and Skybrooke Shadewhisper, M's daughter Thira, Sky's father, Bey's brother Rhodge.  There will be more, I know.

There always are.  It's a war, and I've learned the lessons of war already.

At least Anny came home alive.  That's something, right?  Lyyn said she saw Garmir in Stormwind, Jude is "safe" in Dalaran, the kids are here.

If I'd heard from Connar, I'd be a little more secure, but I'm sure he's fine--when has he ever not been?

Just once, when we had that fight on Jude's birthday and he went all one-man army in southern Lordaeron.  I'm glad I didn't lose him then.  I don't know what I would have done.

I should go give Cere a hug.

18 October

Cere is worried about the Commander, and truth be known, I am, too.  I can see the threads starting to fray at the edges, the glue starting to disintegrate.  It’s like watching Jude all over again at the end, in those last few months before I left with Connar, before Theramore happened, in those last few months when she would talk about how tired she was, how much the Retribution’s command was weighing on her, but only in private and only to her sister and I—to the two of us, because who knew her mind better than the sister who would sometimes wear her face when it grew to be too much and the almost-sister who would have taken her place if things had gone differently.

 I thank Elune and the Light that it didn’t turn out that way, but I wish it hadn’t been the way it was, too.

 I hope that’s not what I’m watching all over again.  I hope it’s not.  I hope whatever Cere tells him when they have tea helps, that it fixes what’s started to break, what’s already broken.

 I just hope it helps.  He’s one of the finest men I’ve had the pleasure of knowing, and I’ve known many in my time.  They call him “Unbroken” and I pray he continues to live up to the moniker that I suspect Mena gave him years ago.

 Goddess knows, though, he deserves to be happy after all he’s been through.  I know I’ve only heard a fraction of his story, but I’ve heard enough to know in my heart of hearts that he’s gone through enough and deserves whatever happiness he can scrape together—with his children, with his husband, whatever and whoever he chooses.

15 January

He has every right to be angry with me.  I should have told him or at the very least called him home sooner.  I should have done more than trying to send a note, than hoping he'd ask a question that would let me tell him what had happened.  After watching him hurt so much for the past few months, there shouldn't have been any hesitation.

And yet, there was, and I did it for reasons that weren't as wrong as they feel now.

Is it so hard to believe that sometimes you do things like keep these secrets because you care about someone and not in spite of caring?  I didn't want him to hurt more, and I can't help but believe that telling him myself why Sky should have done sooner would have hurt more than this.  At the same time, I can understand that he'd feel betrayed, that his trust was misplaced when he put it in us, and knowing that hurts.  In some ways, we did put her needs over his and in some ways, that act was selfish.  It was easier for us to say that she had to be the one to tell him, that she should be the one to tell him, that he shouldn't hear it second or third-hand.

At the same time, it was harder not to tell him, made easier only by the fact that he was away, that it hard to talk to him.

But I ask myself how he never heard her voice on the COMM, because I swear I had.

I understand his anger and I understand his pain.  I just want to make it better.

Cere's my friend and his belief that we've betrayed him hurts the most because that was the last thing any of us wanted.  I don't know what I can do to earn that trust back, but I know I have to try.

I said I'd bring breakfast and he'd promised he'd be there.  I hope he is.

We need him.