#i wish that wasnt the case but i severely underestimated just how much work one of my professors was going to give me

[lyricalambrosia]

Quick update about where things currently stand regarding my writing:

College has really picked up the last 2 weeks, so i find myself swamped with assignments that leave me very little time to do much else between those and personal responsibilities. When i do have free time, I try to spend it relaxing by playing some of the new games that have come out recently, and other times i try to write where i can.

All this is to say that progress on cyfts is going extremely slowly, and i likely won't be able to participate in millionsummers week like i wanted to :/ i am still making progress on cyfts, but i think thats the only thing i can manage to work on right now because i simply do not have the time to start other projects.

[redandpointy]

wish fic: Kalec goes for a drink with khadgar and severely underestimates just how strong dalaran wine is and gets completely hammered. Jaina comes back from wherever to find Kalec professing his undying love for Khadgar (cuz he's a sappy drunk, lbr)

oh geez. Dramatically the room would fall silent except for drunk dragon. I think Jaina would just stop and it would *hurt*.  but then she’s brought this on herself hasn’t she? As much as her anger is outward there is far, far more facing inward. She tried peace. everyone rejected it. she tried war and suddenly everyone wanted peace. Her father died over it. Her brother. Her entire city. She tried to work things out in Dalaran and was betrayed again. She left while the world was in peril and wasnt that just a fucking brilliant choice, Jaina? She’s come back to try to help..and shes been replaced.

She wasn’t good enough, she wasn’t magical enough, she wasn’t strong enough. she was discarded, dismissed, unheard, because somehow she wasn’t worthy - Khagdar’s fucked off to  Light knows where in the Outland for years and he’s a fucking hero, no questions asked, and everyone listens.

She returns to make amends, to at least try to save the planet because fucking what? There is a rift in the damn sky and that’s the broken shell of Light-forgotten Argus... and she’s been replaced. Utterly. In position... and affection. By the one who gave her hope she could live, by the one who stopped her from killing everyone in Orgrimmar. With the special chosen mage everyone loves without reservation, who has never done wrong even if his methods or actions might have been questionable and he abandoned the world for years... and it kills her because he was right, because the legion is vast and terrible and every hand is needed.

Except, perhaps, hers.

Every choice she has made has turned out to be the wrong one, hasn’t it? It shouldn’t hurt, she should be stronger, she’s used to this dismissal (and it is hurt own fault isn’t it?). but it hurts savagely.

There is no place for her in the world.

Is is a dark thought. She has had it before. It has happened more often as of late. but now it gains traction. it sticks. And something inside her breaks.

And Jaina would turn from the scene of live and love going on before her, because she is unwelcome and uneeded. And she would go to the violet hold and retrieve the Focusing Iris because there is some savage satisfaction in using *that* particular artifact. It isnt like the wards are very hard to bypass either? And she’d just start taking other things. Rhonin’s armwarps from the mage who found them because he was lost to her folly. A ring which resonates with the power of the Exodar itself. A kilt inscribed with runes. A necklace with protective magics. Other items. for her shoulders, her waist, her neck. The demon contained in Aluneth was tempting, but she has always been a mage of frost. in the end she simply takes Ebonchill.

Ilidan is taller than she expected. His grin is the same smug sneer on so many men of power she has had to deal with. She sneers back because she knows his type, she has his measure. Here is one of the most reviled villains of recent history and here he too has an army of followers. her body almost cannot hold this much power as the various artifacts vie for attention and power, each one resonating discordantly. The demon looks her up and down.

“What the fuck are you waiting for?” she demands.

His lips pull back in a shark’s grin. “Apparently not all as... prepared-”

“Stuff your dramatic bullshit, asshole.” Jaina turns away from the demon-infused power-mad egotist, she’s had practice, and sneers at the broken world in the sky.

She finds Velen near by. Vereesa is also there with some of the hunters. She ties to catch Jaina but the Archmage brushes her aside and interjects hserlf into the conversation he is having with the legendary Warden. How pissed must she be? Jaina wonders Idly.

The ancient dranei’s eyes widen slightly as the bow-wave of arcane energy around her hits him. Maiev’s grip on her glaive tightens.Jaina has released the Focusing Iris from it’s case and has once more shrunk it down to something a human could handle. It orbits around her head. She faced the dranei leader. He ababdoned his people to save some. He’s hailed as a hero isn’t he? She ignores the haunted look in the glowing eyes, the one she reocgnizes; they are the knowledge that this is your fault because you were not strong enough. not good enough.

“Get your people together. We’re leaving.”

“There are many-” he falls silent as her hands snaps up in an interrupting gesture.

“I’m making you a beachhead. Wasting it will be on you.”

The old Dranei’s eyes widen. “No. I will not allow-”

“You didn’t stop Archimode and Kil’jaden. What makes you think you can stop me?” The words are intended to would and she sees the pain blossom as if she’s stabbed him. It doesn’t matter.

She doesnt know how much time passes as she draws on power. Around her activity has kicked up into overdrive. She sees the mages whose gear she has taken and they stand aside as she becomes a magical bonfire, an inferno that they dare not approach. She waits a little because it would be just like her to fuck this up too? So she does give some time for them to get their shit together. She pulls from the Leylines orf the world, drawing energy from Azeroth herself into the Iris, filling the artifacts she wears, shoving it into ever facet of the staff she carries.

“Where do we need to go, demon?” she asks Ilidan, the only one who she allows to approach. Even Khadgar and Kalegos are held back, shock and dismay on their faces. Anduin appears and she turns her back on him.

“Where?” she asks.

The demon lord stares at the planet then points. giving her a location.

“Make it count.”

And then she leaves.

Time and distance have no meaning for a powerful mage and Jaina is a powerful mage. The tidal wave on Orgrimmar showed her that.

she appears on Argus. Dmeons die. Pit lords die. Massive constructed nightmares which make even Fel Reavers look like children’s toys die under the onslaught of her great and terrible power.

There is no place for her on Azeroth. So she carves a beachhead on Argus, scoring the land free of life, right in front of Sargeras’ seat of power. And she begins to rip down the door. More demons come, it doesn’t matter. She rips away at the barriers before her. The Mad Titan himself comes in avatar and she slashes into him. Aegwnn did once. Why the fuck can’t she do the same? It hurts, she is beginning to lose the momentum she’d gathered as another appears, strange and twisted demonic creations. She attacks because she has nothing else to lose. She is vaguely away of otehr foces landing behind her. They don’t matter to her either.

Her choices have all been questionable and led to destruction. The dark voices in her head remind her of this with each successive demon she kills. She has reached a point beyond caring, beyond emotion, where there is only the goal before her. Her taken artifatcs begin to fail, her staff of ice burns, her limbs weigh heavy even with the focusing Iris to help her lift the weight of her own magic.

Jaina has no place on Azeroth. But neither does Sargeras.

She stabs at the heart of the Mad Titan, knowing she will perhaps only barely crack his defenses. A crack is all she wants and all she needs. He’s angry and she knows she is close to success. SO she surrenders herself to her magic utterly, weaving a single, final, blow as it burns through her own soul and begins to warp reality around her. She smiles at the perception of surprise on the titan as the armies of Azeroth follow through the holes she’s made in his protective wards.

She lets her magic go, wild, powerful and untamed by any concern for her own self, becoming the center of a small, brief sun.

In the brief moment just before creation and destruction she has one wistful moment of regret for her own choices and not resisting harder.

“I just wanted to study.”