dazaralor

[dazaralor]

I forgot about the funniest item. When the hell did he write this

[dazaralor]

Guy in the pit just said “forgive me master” I gotta get the fuck out

[dazaralor]

It is a dream of birth, I suppose.

It has re-occurred for as long as I can remember, this dream, yet I could not assign its genesis to a singular point, am incapable of hanging it up on a particular year or even season or period of my life. Perhaps that should be expected with so prodigious and flexible a thing as an elf's lifespan, particularly an elf of my persuasion, but it seems an outlier when compared to the acute recall with which I can browse and place other events in my life. I have no doubt of when I kissed my fifth person, broke my arm the second time, or when the lounge in the western end of the Commons rotated out their decor for something they considered more avant-garde, which was in fact stylistically regressive for how thoughtlessly it involved the aesthetic of the empire before the barrier. All of these insubstantial, shallow details I can order and arrange by time as if they were suspended in my mind with a date in the upper left corner, but this dream I cannot.

It is ever the same, unchanging and static, uncompromising with the sequence and specifics of its details, and once this was something I could have tied to the equally static nature of life in the barrier. The world has since changed, however, and the dream has not. Suramar has regained an authentic sky and let the world filters through its borders like a river washing through a sluice, and I have slipped said borders to see other places, other people the likes of which are wildly unlike any soul I had ever encountered in the rote captivity of my home, and the dream does not change nor cede its regular place in my unconsciousness. A part of me wishes I could say that drifting off into unconsciousness with Zulajanna at my side, my body attached to hers like she were a rock in the river of the world rushing by, ensconced by the shroud of her warmth and the scents of worked metal, smoke and suete that perfume her strong hands and invisibly halo her adoring smile, brought any respite or change, but this too fails to wring any change or reprieve from the depths of my subconscious. It is as if the dream is a mandatory part of my slumbering at all, a price paid to allow me the indolent pleasure of rest.

It is a visceral thing, this dream, but I do consider it specifically a dream, rather than a nightmare, even if it has some character of the grim and macabre.

Always it begins with not darkness, but oblivion. A nothingness brimming with potential, a void that brackets throbbing possibilities. It is RED, and as I inflict every emphasis possible on the word I mourn the way it fails to convey the totality and depth of the experience. I am formless and insensate in this place, an inchoate life cradled by the intangible pulse of what could be, but its nothingness around me is tangible as it swirls and shifts and migrates over the non-space my nascent awareness occupies. Perhaps it is the instant of a spark, the precursor to order and form that exists in the moment before detonating into creation, but truthfully I do not know.

There are voices among the RED, voices that do not speak, for if they spoke I would have no ears to hear them, but still they speak all the same. They are cacophonous and harmonized all at once, a panopticon of conspiratorial babble coherent only in the most primeval seams keeping whatever coalesced existence I am dreaming so loosely connected, whatever vital gravity that has me loosely bound in this nowhere feeling and hearing these nothings. They are loud and silent, they spear through me like the instruments of martyrdom and make me whole and tear me apart and disassemble my thoughts like foam on a still pond and press them together anew and for the singular instant and boundless eternity I know this I wish it to never end, I wish it to end immediately, for surely no mortal was ever meant to know the whole breadth of even a tiny, living animal of a cosmos as this.

That is another thing I am certain of, though I cannot explain it: this liminal realm where I begin is living, for all its nothing and nowhere. It is living and I am both within the bounds of and separate from this emanation of its totality, this illusory tier of its breadth and magnificence

[dazaralor]

Suddenly I am gifted with form, I am wronged with shape, and by some indescribable compulsion I outstretch a hand that is knitting itself together from nothing, attached to nothing, and I spear it forward through the nothing flesh of the RED as if I am drowning and if I do not breach the water's surface I will sink down into it, consigned to the blithe whim of something far worse than drowning could ever hope to be.

A hand grabs mine, and I realize I can feel cool, sterile air against the track of my nascent skin, tension in the neophyte lay of the muscles it lacquers, and as the realization an arm has been rapidly knit together from the gory mouth of my wrist another hand claps over the backs of my blood-drenched knuckles like a jailer's irons and I am hoisted up.

I am aware of my head and shoulders for the sudden contrast between cool air and sheets of hot blood resolving itself into rivulets absconding in disparate trajectories. I realize as my mouth opens to instinctively suck a greedy breath that, at first, nothing happens beyond the working of my jaws and the ineffective gnash of my teeth. There is only an instant for a panic I do not yet comprehend as instinctive struggle against suffocation, before my lungs alchemize into being behind the delicate and flexible armature of instantly-assembling ribs, the elegant and articulated scaffolding of a gracefully curved pair of collarbones uniting in the altar of a fetching clavicle and by now I am sucking in air with a wheeze that hisses over my teeth, and I am Becoming so rapidly as I am pulled out of the RED I cannot parse the divine creation unfolding as I am manifest into being in one great, literal heave.

I come down onto the floor in a near-boneless heap, naked and covered in birthing blood, held up only by the one hand gripping mine and the other that has now transitioned to bracing the underside of my elbow. I cough and hack wetly, discharging pockets of assorted viscera, my muscles still reaching consensus on how to cooperate with the architecture of my bones and the congress of my organs, and without fail I always turn my head feebly to the side to peer upon the womb from which I sprang.

It is unfailingly a corpse, its entire torso opened like reverent hands raised in adulation of a god, perhaps the moon mother once so prominent among my forebears, and I understand implicitly that that is where I have emerged from, as ludicrous and impossible as it may be. I am not shocked by this, not disgusted or wracked with confusion or guild or doubt, it simply Is What Happened. I cannot see the corpse's face from the floor, all I can see is its side splashed in the discharge of my egress from nothing and nowhere, that living singularity of a dream world that bristles voices like the hairs of a predator excited by the scent of fresh prey, a single naked breast sagging groundward from the angled splay of burst ribs, nipple lolling like a dark, lazy eye.

There is never time to fully take in the room before I awaken, and I ever follow the same course as my vision negotiates its function between my eyes and brain. I gasp both with the exertion of birth and the clumsy novelty of automatically operating lungs at all, and my eyes fall toward the floor which I am struggling to remain separated from. Invariably my eye wanders along the incarnadine shapes splattered on the cool, once-sterile surface on which I impotently flounder, and just as I begin to reconcile a nearby blur into the lower half of a leg, I awaken.

This dream is, again, for all its implied horrors, not a burdensome nightmare, rather a perplexing staple of my nightly rest. It never fails to play out, never varies its sequence, and yet for all its strain and morbid qualities there is an aspect of thrill to it, a lingering notion of longing for that living and unified cosmos from which I spring, haunting some part of my thoughts like a weary and quiet phantom. I muse on it now as I wondered if my visit with Zulajanna would deviate its presence or progress, but neither a change in company nor location brought the slightest variation. I must also admit, with some confusion on my part, that part of me is relieved by this, though I do not recall being concerned of it being changed in the first place. Perhaps this is for the persisting of routine, for it has been a staple so long that perhaps if it were to alter or cease I would find myself bewildered and uncertain, or perhaps it is for another reason entirely.

Perhaps it is because, in the most private and quiet moments of starry dark, alone away from the late night bustle of the Evermoon Commons, the dream feels more real than any event in my waking life.

It is a dream of birth, I suppose.

It has re-occurred for as long as I can remember, this dream, yet I could not assign its genesis to a singular point, am incapable of hanging it up on a particular year or even season or period of my life. Perhaps that should be expected with so prodigious and flexible a thing as an elf's lifespan, particularly an elf of my persuasion, but it seems an outlier when compared to the acute recall with which I can browse and place other events in my life. I have no doubt of when I kissed my fifth person, broke my arm the second time, or when the lounge in the western end of the Commons rotated out their decor for something they considered more avant-garde, which was in fact stylistically regressive for how thoughtlessly it involved the aesthetic of the empire before the barrier. All of these insubstantial, shallow details I can order and arrange by time as if they were suspended in my mind with a date in the upper left corner, but this dream I cannot.

It is ever the same, unchanging and static, uncompromising with the sequence and specifics of its details, and once this was something I could have tied to the equally static nature of life in the barrier. The world has since changed, however, and the dream has not. Suramar has regained an authentic sky and let the world filters through its borders like a river washing through a sluice, and I have slipped said borders to see other places, other people the likes of which are wildly unlike any soul I had ever encountered in the rote captivity of my home, and the dream does not change nor cede its regular place in my unconsciousness. A part of me wishes I could say that drifting off into unconsciousness with Zulajanna at my side, my body attached to hers like she were a rock in the river of the world rushing by, ensconced by the shroud of her warmth and the scents of worked metal, smoke and suete that perfume her strong hands and invisibly halo her adoring smile, brought any respite or change, but this too fails to wring any change or reprieve from the depths of my subconscious. It is as if the dream is a mandatory part of my slumbering at all, a price paid to allow me the indolent pleasure of rest.

It is a visceral thing, this dream, but I do consider it specifically a dream, rather than a nightmare, even if it has some character of the grim and macabre.

Always it begins with not darkness, but oblivion. A nothingness brimming with potential, a void that brackets throbbing possibilities. It is RED, and as I inflict every emphasis possible on the word I mourn the way it fails to convey the totality and depth of the experience. I am formless and insensate in this place, an inchoate life cradled by the intangible pulse of what could be, but its nothingness around me is tangible as it swirls and shifts and migrates over the non-space my nascent awareness occupies. Perhaps it is the instant of a spark, the precursor to order and form that exists in the moment before detonating into creation, but truthfully I do not know.

There are voices among the RED, voices that do not speak, for if they spoke I would have no ears to hear them, but still they speak all the same. They are cacophonous and harmonized all at once, a panopticon of conspiratorial babble coherent only in the most primeval seams keeping whatever coalesced existence I am dreaming so loosely connected, whatever vital gravity that has me loosely bound in this nowhere feeling and hearing these nothings. They are loud and silent, they spear through me like the instruments of martyrdom and make me whole and tear me apart and disassemble my thoughts like foam on a still pond and press them together anew and for the singular instant and boundless eternity I know this I wish it to never end, I wish it to end immediately, for surely no mortal was ever meant to know the whole breadth of even a tiny, living animal of a cosmos as this.

That is another thing I am certain of, though I cannot explain it: this liminal realm where I begin is living, for all its nothing and nowhere. It is living and I am both within the bounds of and separate from this emanation of its totality, this illusory tier of its breadth and magnificence

[dazaralor]

It is a dream of birth, I suppose.

It has re-occurred for as long as I can remember, this dream, yet I could not assign its genesis to a singular point, am incapable of hanging it up on a particular year or even season or period of my life. Perhaps that should be expected with so prodigious and flexible a thing as an elf's lifespan, particularly an elf of my persuasion, but it seems an outlier when compared to the acute recall with which I can browse and place other events in my life. I have no doubt of when I kissed my fifth person, moved into my third apartment, or when the lounge in the western end of the Commons rotated out their decor for something they considered more avant-garde, which was in fact stylistically regressive for how thoughtlessly it involved the aesthetic of the empire before the barrier. All of these insubstantial, shallow details I can order and arrange by time as if they were suspended in my mind with a date in the upper left corner, but this dream I cannot.

It is ever the same, unchanging and static, uncompromising with the sequence and specifics of its details, and once this was something I could have tied to the equally static nature of life in the barrier. The world has since changed, however, and the dream has not. Suramar has regained an authentic sky and let the world filters through its borders like a river washing through a sluice, and I have slipped said borders to see other places, other people the likes of which are wildly unlike any soul I had ever encountered in the rote captivity of my home, and the dream does not change nor cede its regular place in my unconsciousness. A part of me wishes I could say that drifting off into unconsciousness with Zulajanna at my side, my body attached to hers like she were a rock in the river of the world rushing by, ensconced by the shroud of her warmth and the scents of worked metal, coal smoke and heated sweat that perfume her strong hands and invisibly halo her adoring smile, brought any respite or change, but this too fails to wring any change or reprieve from the depths of my subconscious. It is as if the dream is a mandatory part of my slumbering at all, a price paid to allow me the indolent pleasure of rest.

It is a visceral thing, this dream, but I do consider it specifically a dream, rather than a nightmare, even if it has some character of the grim and macabre.

Always it begins with not darkness, but oblivion. A nothingness brimming with potential, a void that brackets throbbing possibilities. It is RED, and as I inflict every emphasis possible on the word I mourn the way it fails to convey the totality and depth of the experience. I am formless and insensate in this place, an inchoate life cradled by the intangible pulse of what could be, but its nothingness around me is tangible as it swirls and shifts and migrates over the non-space my nascent awareness occupies. Perhaps it is the instant of a spark, the precursor to order and form that exists in the moment before detonating into creation, but truthfully I do not know.

There are voices among the RED, voices that do not speak, for if they spoke I would have no ears to hear them, yet they speak all the same. They are cacophonous and harmonized all at once, a panopticon of conspiratorial babble coherent only in the most primeval seams keeping whatever coalesced existence I am dreaming so loosely connected, whatever vital gravity that scantly sustains the association of notions and impulses that comprise me in this nowhere feeling and hearing these nothings. They are loud and silent, they spear through me like the instruments of martyrdom and make me whole and tear me apart and disassemble my thoughts like expiring foam on a still pond and press them together anew and for the singular instant and boundless eternity I know this I wish it to never end, I wish it to end immediately, for surely no mortal was ever meant to know the whole breadth of even a tiny, living animal of a cosmos as this.

That is another thing I am certain of, though I cannot explain it: this liminal realm where I begin is living, for all its nothing and nowhere. It is living and I am both within the bounds of and separate from this emanation of its totality, this single illusory tier of its breadth and magnificence. It is alive. It is more exultantly alive than I have ever been.

[dazaralor]

some sketchings

full pic on pillowfort

[dazaralor]

nosferatu? no. tuferatu. no es mi problema.

[dazaralor]

Some dumb memes of varying ages feat. My Beloved Idiot bc + wrath classic main

[dazaralor]

[dazaralor]

For the last time dude, my leitmotif sounds exactly like it always has. There is no symbolism for creeping corruption in there

[dazaralor]

I have never been so stricken, never rendered so incapable to act as when Meva's hands placed themselves on my cheeks and began to smooth her fingers across that she might better know her night time watcher of the past week. Every bit of skin and scale she caressed felt like fire, and tingled as if struck. I realized my heart roared as if for battle, yet I felt any act I might have taken in that moment was already defeated by this small, blind woman knelt by my fire pit, holding the whole of me by one hand as if I were a trained raptor awaiting her master's pleasure. It was only when the smell of the food, still cooking inside my dwelling, penetrated whatever tension that had coiled in that moment and gave me something I could accomplish to set myself to: saving our meal from burning. It is unfortunate that Meva had to depart then, called to some duty elsewhere in the jungle, but she expressed enjoyment of my company and took the meal I had made for her graciously before departing. There are other things that have happened I could write of, other casual and good engagements with my crewmates aboard Damballah's Wake, but it is this one that sticks in my mind; it is this one that makes quiver my focus and will whenever I impose it on my glaive, and besides all else my focus for writing of other things has been similarly unmoored. I find my words trail off when directed towards other events than this moment, and I find my will frays and is directed so subtly but certainly off-center when I draw my blade. There is a gravity in me now, pulling me toward this moment by the fire pit, Meva's caress anchoring me to her will, her face so near mine, the smell of ylang ylang a miasma enshrouding her with a mystique that I have yet to bat my way out of. It is unacceptable. We are in the midst of a terrible campaign against a terrible foe, and I cannot have my resolve, my focus, my will so compromised. My blade must swing true and on target now more than ever. I must understand this and do something to correct it. Perhaps one of my crewmates will know a solution.

Things have settled into a relative peace since the excursion to Duskwood, and I have been making what efforts I can to enjoy it. There is a surreal absurdity to be found in the quiet, lonesome moments of reflection and tranquility, the persisting notion that there is a malevolence looming beyond the bounds of our knowledge and accumulating in power. But for the moment there is little to do as we investigate for a path forward, and in the aftermath of our last encounter it would be wise to temper preparation with recovery, though for the moment I find my training beset by shades of distraction, a quivering in my focus that strays my blade from its true path.

Deh'meva, Red Lily, accepted to join me for an afternoon in Zandalar, and it was refreshing in a way I had not anticipated. She rode with me on Xochi out into Zuldazar, where we stopped to parcel off an offering of gratitude to an old brutosaur that inexplicably came to my aid years past during the height of the Empire's turmoil, when the Nazmani's foul god had only just been vanquished, and the Alliance was encroaching on our home. She seemed to like Meva, judging by the way she bumped my friend up off the ground so gently with her nose, and Meva in kind seemed to enjoy meeting such a noble and driven beast. From there we flew further north, to the bound of the Savage Lands, where I've erected the closest thing I've claimed to a home in some time. It is a remote place, but I enjoy the quiet and the solitude, and there are no city lights to disrupt the night dark when it washes over Zandalar. Meva accompanied me to my home, such as it is, and opted to spend time in my humble garden while I prepared us a meal. I know that horticulture is one of Zandalar's less well known, but more outstanding pleasures, but I must confess my roaming does not give me the time to tend to it that I would like, and I was a touch nervous she would find the blooms and herbs to be middling, unimpressive. I was both disappointed and relieved to be working at the stove as she occupied herself on its simple path, for while I found myself possessed of an unexpected want to admire her among the humble bounty I have cultivated, I was also spared any disappointment she may not have had the opportunity to cover up. When things were ready and I stepped out to let her know she had already sat herself by the fire pit, and had selected for herself a small collection of yucca flowers, with another bloom tucked over her ear. It was a queer thing, the way I froze as if struck by an unanticipated blow at the sight of her, for surely I felt winded as if I had been thumped in my breast, yet with a surge of blood erupting through me that made everything feel...electric. I did not move till the flower over her ear shifted out of place, at which point I lunged forward to correct it in the same instant she made to. Our hands touched, and though I had held her during her affliction to bring Hi'reek's darkness over her to ease her burden, this caught my heart in my throat like a fist. I told her she was beautiful, and something about this made me nervous, so I clarified that I meant with the flower, though this changed nothing and was perhaps embarrassing of me to say. She remarked that I sound beautiful, for naturally she can not know my face by sight, and so I unthinkingly offered to let her touch my face and know it.

[dazaralor]

Things have settled into a relative peace since the excursion to Duskwood, and I have been making what efforts I can to enjoy it. There is a surreal absurdity to be found in the quiet, lonesome moments of reflection and tranquility, the persisting notion that there is a malevolence looming beyond the bounds of our knowledge and accumulating in power. But for the moment there is little to do as we investigate for a path forward, and in the aftermath of our last encounter it would be wise to temper preparation with recovery, though for the moment I find my training beset by shades of distraction, a quivering in my focus that strays my blade from its true path.

Deh'meva, Red Lily, accepted to join me for an afternoon in Zandalar, and it was refreshing in a way I had not anticipated. She rode with me on Xochi out into Zuldazar, where we stopped to parcel off an offering of gratitude to an old brutosaur that inexplicably came to my aid years past during the height of the Empire's turmoil, when the Nazmani's foul god had only just been vanquished, and the Alliance was encroaching on our home. She seemed to like Meva, judging by the way she bumped my friend up off the ground so gently with her nose, and Meva in kind seemed to enjoy meeting such a noble and driven beast. From there we flew further north, to the bound of the Savage Lands, where I've erected the closest thing I've claimed to a home in some time. It is a remote place, but I enjoy the quiet and the solitude, and there are no city lights to disrupt the night dark when it washes over Zandalar. Meva accompanied me to my home, such as it is, and opted to spend time in my humble garden while I prepared us a meal. I know that horticulture is one of Zandalar's less well known, but more outstanding pleasures, but I must confess my roaming does not give me the time to tend to it that I would like, and I was a touch nervous she would find the blooms and herbs to be middling, unimpressive. I was both disappointed and relieved to be working at the stove as she occupied herself on its simple path, for while I found myself possessed of an unexpected want to admire her among the humble bounty I have cultivated, I was also spared any disappointment she may not have had the opportunity to cover up. When things were ready and I stepped out to let her know she had already sat herself by the fire pit, and had selected for herself a small collection of yucca flowers, with another bloom tucked over her ear. It was a queer thing, the way I froze as if struck by an unanticipated blow at the sight of her, for surely I felt winded as if I had been thumped in my breast, yet with a surge of blood erupting through me that made everything feel...electric. I did not move till the flower over her ear shifted out of place, at which point I lunged forward to correct it in the same instant she made to. Our hands touched, and though I had held her during her affliction to bring Hi'reek's darkness over her to ease her burden, this caught my heart in my throat like a fist. I told her she was beautiful, and something about this made me nervous, so I clarified that I meant with the flower, though this changed nothing and was perhaps embarrassing of me to say. She remarked that I sound beautiful, for naturally she can not know my face by sight, and so I unthinkingly offered to let her touch my face and know it.

[dazaralor]

[dazaralor]

It has been longer than I intended since my previous entry. I shall explain why.

My excursion to Duskwood saw several days of uninterrupted observation, investigation, and rumination on the nature of what I discovered there. A second sigil had been discovered, one not yet complete, and after being delayed by fruitless posturing from the unliving locals I proceeded with a more appropriate investigation. Indeed the nature of this second, unfinished sigil was of such a repulsive aura as to surpass the miasma the Nazmani inflicted on Nazmir, even at the height of G'huun's activity prior to its destruction. It sought to entrench its magic in my veins, and corrupt me from the inside out. I held vigil for several days until Zajora and others arrived, much to my relief.

This relief would not last long.

In the course of briefing one another on what had come to pass and repairing to the sigil's location unknown hands had rapidly completed its shape, ushering in the rise of its macabre power. The mindless undead which teemed around us responded to it, and hordes of carrion insects assembled in the sky like a great war band. We had to act, and as some among us took to disposing of the grand and befouled stump in which the sigil had been carved to loom over us like a promise of our impending death, others lead the charge on the trail of a mysterious figure perhaps connected to its completion. This led us to an old memorial, I assume to some important human or another, and as the swarm roared closer and the air became heavier with the coalescing power of the grave some among us became unnerved.

For my part I took to steadying Deh'meva, taking her by the shoulders and offering a warm, living presence to anchor her amidst the undead, sapient and otherwise, that choked the space and air about us, as well as steeling words bereft the charnel rasp of the grave. She found her center then, there in the dark, and I was not surprised: I saw her face well for the first time, and amidst its beauty I could also see a quiet strength, something perhaps unassuming to others, but plain to myself, for in my own way I also know the dark.

As her and others among our number recovered themselves the botflies descended upon us and attacked, decimating the statue in an eruption of pulverizing debris. I lunged for Deh'meva, bringing her out of the trajectory of the shrapnel, but others were not so fortunate, and our situation became desperate as the flies prepared another strike, our stricken required aid, and the dead began to marshal themselves to join the attack.

Our flight was quick, and one amongst us stayed behind to keep the dead at bay. I do not know yet what has become of them. Our pursuit of this stranger led us down into the crypts, which we sealed behind us before continuing our pursuit. Leading the vanguard I found myself coming upon the figure in the sepulchral dark, discovering him to be no more than a human farmer enthralled by whatever malevolence was orchestrating these myriad terrible events, and though I tried to calm him enough to cleave his head from his shoulders and set him free, he doused me in rancid blood and absconded into the dark. Though I attempted to follow him I was thrown back by an unseen force, and as Deh'meva helped me to my feet more blood was loosed upon the charnel earth, amalgamating into a most concerning form:

Dire trolls.

It is troubling that here, so far from even the fallen Gurubashi, something so singular and intentional with its shape should be formed against us. The implications for the potential reach of whatever entity is behind these malodorous hauntings and possessions are dire, to be mild, and we must hope it is but an extenuating circumstance that allowed something tied to the ancient depths of Zandalar's histories to take root so far from her verdant and lovely shores.

The battle that followed was not without casualties, but our number at the least did not dwindle further as we pressed deeper into the crypts and were confronted with our quarry. Where we expected a last great battle, however, he instead was simply rotted away, no longer useful to the entity marionnetting his body and soul. I have not forgotten the atrocity and grief the humans brought to Dazar'alor, indeed to all of Zandalar, but this man had nothing to do with it, and in the end was likely consumed like kindling for nothing more than wanting the return of his son. Another tragedy I could not avert, even if it was not mine to do so.

The entity did not depart idly however, and Deh'meva was stricken with some affliction that left her screaming and terrified. It was not until later, after ascertaining my own health and purity, that I was able to visit her in the infirmary to ascertain the nature of what had been done to her. As I took my place beside her bed she was fitful and restless, disquieted even in her solitude. I took her hand, and it was not so warm as it should be, and asked her what ailed her.

I can see, she told me, but all I see is dead and rotting.

Such cruelty dragged my heart to depths even Gral could not brave to dive, nor Hi'reek navigate the dark of. I squeezed her hand and began to speak to her of other, kinder senses, and as we walked away from the deceit of her eyes together she began to calm. Most auspiciously, the Lord of the Midnight Sky was able to use myself as a conduit to return her to the dark which she knows so well. Not blindness, but darkness, for I believe Deh'meva likely sees many things the rest of us do not. There, anchored closeby and sharing the dark of Midnight, we helped Deh'meva find peace and rest, and I stayed with her for some hours into the night so she could sleep unbothered. It is a ritual I have repeated some nights since, though she is improving rapidly, to my great delight.

There is much to do still, much and more that needs to be learned about what we face and what hold it may still have over our companions, but we cannot burn our own spirits down to cinders in an endless toiling, either. The days and nights have been hard, and I think that tomorrow I will ask Deh'meva if she'd like to accompany me into Zuldazar to enjoy an afternoon of proper tranquility to offset the nightmare of the aftermath of Duskwood.

If she says yes, perhaps I'll show her my garden.

[dazaralor]

To cut is to seek obliteration of the self. This precept is infallibly true, for to cut clean and true one must erase all illusion of self, efface all distraction and desire till all that remains is the flame of will bared and roaring like an inferno. One must swing not with their arm or their wrist, but with the center of their chest, bereft of all doubt and other desire, knowing with absolute certainty that their will is to be made manifest on reality, and the sword, the glaive, the blade is the extension of that will, so as the brush is when composing verse, or illustrating an image.

I have walked the sevenfold path and confronted my aspects, have meditated toward the oblivion of self to see my will become manifest in reality with every stroke and swing of my glaive, yet even for all my years of pursuit I would scarcely claim to have even approached the cusp of mastery. It is a lifelong dedication for all but those select few, who whether by the grace and favor of the loa or the fire of their own hearts step into the hall of high legends, or the annuls of cataclysmic villains. I would not say this, yet neither would I say my progress is negligible, or even middling. False modesty is worse than unfettered ego, for at least ego is loud and honest, and guides one to its heart.

I do this so my blade might find purpose, for a blade honed for its own sake will inevitably cut down any it find it has opportunity to cut, and such indiscriminate violence is the ruin of the soul, the fallowing of the heart into a desolation in which nothing may grow or flourish, only die a lonesome death.

Of late my purpose has taken a new and unexpected trajectory, seeing my glaive raised on behalf of a man by the name of Zul'Rajai, the captain of a vessel in service to Zandalar and, by extension, the Horde. He is an intriguing man with a comportment that reminds me of a distinguished hero from one of the epics from the Empire's younger years, works of such age and character that it's a wonder they survived the turbulence of the age of the Council of Tribes. He is a man with a want to see good done, but tempered with a pragmatism that I shall take the measure of as time goes by and provides opportunity. They must be carefully balanced, good intention and pragmatism alike, else either lead to ruin of the soul. It is my hope we will share drinks, draw blades, and exchange stories soon.

I encountered Zul'Rajai, his wife Zajora, and a blind healer also amongst their crew named Deh'meva while attending the opening night for a gathering known as the World's Faire Carnival. By circumstance we all wound up occupying one space among the crowd, and certainly I had an appreciation for their presence as I watched a troupe comprised largely of members of the Alliance perform an oddly familiar style of drumming, and perhaps a familiar story, mere years after assaulting our ancient capital city and assassinating our king. I suppose some things simply can't be helped however, and once the opening ceremony finished, we dispersed. I may have gone on my way had I not encountered Deh'meva on her own, separated from the others, and though I had no doubt she could find them regardless of her being sighted or not, I still volunteered to assist her so she would not feel surrounded by small, pink creatures. We wound up separated along the way, but eventually I came across Zajora, reunited with Deh'meva, and we were re-joined by Zul'Rajai not long after.

I would be remiss to neglect to remark on either of the women I shared the evening with. Zajora, Zul'Rajai's wife, is a woman who makes an immediate impression of her practical and decisive nature. Though I could only hope to know the particulars through a gift of scrying, for certainly a woman as her would guard the secrets of her heart and story as a Sabertusk guards her young, she still makes apparent the strength of her character, her impatience for meandering and time wasting. A woman that would be excellent to befriend or ally with, and terrible to have as a foe. As for Deh'meva, she was more reserved, quiet. I believe the most we spoke of was regarding her unfortunate allergy to birds before she succumbed to its malady, and retired for the evening. A shame, for though I only briefly engaged she seemed a sweet, thoughtful soul, and I hope to find a moment to share her company again soon.

The evening that followed was almost inauspicious, a variety of sedate night as I seldom find myself in possession of. I am often on my own given the unpredictable course of my journeys, but even with these strangers there was a pleasant tone to what may well have otherwise been an obnoxious evening for the simple charm of their company, company that did not feel so jarringly misaligned to my own as is often the case when I sojourn from village to village, city to city, following what esoteric guidance I am prescribed by the accumulating presence of Hi'reek, or the jeering cackles of Jani. Perhaps it is good my solitude is ending, for a time.

Eventually we joined another of their crew, Harun, and while I had spoken with Zul'Rajai and Zajora of their work and the possibility of joining their crew, the circumstances of Harun compelled me to expedite my decision, as he had been afflicted with a terrible curse tied to some undead malady afflicting the Stormwind province of Duskwood. The particulars of this curse, at least such as they were outlined to myself, and the way they taxed the tauren, compelled me to take action sooner rather than later. I will be absconding for Duskwood following the completion of this entry, and will outline my findings upon my return. May Hi'reek's shadow never be far from my path.

[dazaralor]

Snakes

[dazaralor]