The prompt: One train leaves Chicago traveling at 45 miles per hour; another leaves New York traveling at 65 miles per hour. Both trains are accelerating at an even rate, though Qing’s 11:45 from Grand Central is newer than Russel’s 12:30. Hers has wifi, but they’re both reading books.

A common misconception about trains is that they all ride the same rails; two trains whose origins match each other’s destinations may, like packets, pick entirely distinct sets of nodes. Russel and Qing have a statistically even chance of passing each other as they kiss the southern edge of Erie.

When will they meet?

The prompt: The most important thing is the thing most easily forgotten.
- Oblique Strategies (over one hundred worthwhile dilemmas), Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt

"How do we know he won't become a liability?"
"With all due respect, sir, how can I know you won't? You served the Sun Prince, too."
"And I left his service! Lieutenant, you are well out of line. I can't allow this."
"You left his service. Other blood elves shouldn't have that opportunity? Voren'thal..."
"You've been nothing but an asset to the Scryers, Dawnforge. But I can't have you charging cavalier into the Manaforges simply because you think this 'Naztheros' might possibly be your brother."
"You had me charge cavalier into Eclipse Point wearing an Illidari tabard and the scent of felfire to disguise myself. You want my team to storm Tempest Keep while you keep court here in Shattrath. The living windchimes down there spoke to you in a dream, so you call yourself the Seer; you can't see the advantage in this?!"
Voren'thal, the Seer, gazed grimly back at the enraged Blood Knight. Behind him, the Scryers' retainers went about their business as if oblivious to her outburst.
"I'm going to do it anyway," she announced, stripping off their tabard and throwing it to Voren'thal's feet. She stormed off, muttering in the polyglot of Eredun and Thalassian she had picked up trying to infiltrate Crimson Watch. The Seer watched her storm out of his library, his aged features impassive. Volali knelt to pick up the black and gold garment, gently dusting it off. From their balcony, Enchantrix Volali and Voren'thal watched the blood knight accost one of the ex-Netherblood mages and then stalk out of the library, leaving it in quietude once more.

"Gods damn it," Arienne muttered, tossing her hair angrily before whistling into the wind. A wyvern alighted on the Scryers' Tier, lowering her head so that the blood knight could clamber on. Digging in her heels, knight and mount lifted slowly into the air, headed northward toward Netherstorm.

It occurred to her as she dodged the erratic outcropping of the Blade's Edge Mountains that she should have asked Logan to come with her -- if not because she would need backup, then because she would want company. He'd probably be annoyed with her when he discovered that she'd taken his mount, as well. Nudging Violet toward the ground, Arienne slid from the wyvern's back, patting her tawny fur affectionately. A few clicks of her tongue and she took to the air, scribing slow circles in the violet sky. The air crackled with mana, a huge tube overhead carrying the blessed energy toward the distant forge. Pulling on her goggles, Arienne surveyed the scene: Sunfury archers fighting back a swarm of mana worms and a few ravagers. There, in black and red mail, was there commander. Had to be. She'd have to take out a few of his men first; then she could engage him in single combat.

Arienne didn't notice the small orb of fel energy that snaked between her legs and retreated back over the Vortex fields.

Huh. So the blood knight was here. Yes, they'd been friends in Quel'thalas, but now she was a threat to the crown. Why couldn't she have seen reason, like her brother had? Shadowhand hissed out a sigh, padding silently over the hard-packed ground.

At first, Arienne surmised the slight itching underneath her skin was just a reaction to the raw energy crackling above her, and that it was her thirst trying to consume her, and ignored it for several long seconds as she observed the archers' formations, watching the way their commander patrolled, but the itching grew more persistent -- fire in her veins. Arienne tore her goggles off, whirling around to survey the fields behind her.
There, some few feet away, stood what could only be described in the vaguest of terms as an elf: her skin was sallow, green fel energy shining through its thin membrane in places where the veins ran close to the skin. A pair of black-feathered wings protruded from her back, and her tattooed face was curled into something between a snarl and a smirk. Her red hair was a wild mess, her fingers weaving another spell.
Arienne drew her sword, jumping down from the outcropping she'd used as cover to charge the -- the thing, who whirled aside, sending a blast of shadow energy toward the knight.
"Dawnforge! How unexpected," the felblood called, the knight finding her feet quickly.
"Shadowhand?" she asked. "What the fel happeend to you, Ascilia?"
"What the fel, indeed," the warlock laughed, spreading her tattered wings proudly. "Our King has rewarded me for my loyalty."
She still hadn't learned! Arienne thrust for her again, the tip of her sword grazing the warlock's arm, that glowing blood oozing out over Ascilia's bare skin. A single word in Eredun weakened Arienne's form, rendering the blade too heavy for her to wing effectively, the blood knight managing a few clumsy strokes before tossing the sword aside. A gesture purified the land around her, the consecrated soil burning through Ascilia's boots and blistering her feet; a word in Thalassian shocked her with holy energy. Ascilia fired off a few more shadowbolts, bringing the paladin to her knees. Slumping forward, Arienne grabbed the girl by the ankle, murmuring an exorcism that ignited the felfire in her old friend's veins. Yanking the girl's foot out from under her, Ascilia fell hard against the stony ground, Arienne scrambling for her sword, the tip of it against the warlock's throat.
"Where is Naztheros?" she demanded, and Ascilia just laughed.
"Is this about your brother?" she asked mockingly. "He isn't here. He's with the Sun King."
Arienne cursed in Eredun, jabbing the girl with her sword. Ascilia laughed until the sound became a gurgle, then died away completely, her fel blood seeping into the Vortex Fields. Arienne didn't even whistle before Violet dropped down to carry the paladin away.

The prompt: A situational site-write: your character has been offered a job.
- Kharnis of Moon Guard US

"What are you still doing here, whelp?"
Adriestia looked up from the book she was casually inspecting, open in her hand to a diagram of a certain scrying circle. She met the angry emerald gaze of one of the Scryers' lieutenants, taking a step backward as she recoiled from the vitriolic address. "I beg your pardon?"
"'I beg your pardon, Lieutenant,' and I asked what you were doing here." The dark-haired blood knight sneered down at the young girl, reaching over to close the book with one gauntleted hand. She took it from the girl and set it back on the shelf.
"I beg your pardon, Lieutenant Dawnforge, but I don't understand what you mean." Adries smiled placidly, turning back toward the bookshelf.
"You know as well as I do that the 'Netherblood' cell of our operation was dissolved months ago, and we can't afford to support hangers-on." She grabbed the warlock's wrist in midair, wrenching the girl around to face her once more. "Go back to Silvermoon to cut your teeth, Nether-be-damned tramp." Dawnforge let the caster go, turning on her heel to march angrily out of the Seer's Library. It was only after a moment Adries realized that the Lieutenant hadn't been wearing the Scryers' colors, as she usually did so proudly.
Adriestia didn't reach for the book again; though the blood knight was a rapidly receding memory, she was sure someone would be happy to repeat Dawnforge's performance.
A few moments later -- though it could have been hours, for all Adries knew -- there was a soft, cold hand on her shoulder.
"Don't mind the Lieutenant," Volali murmured comfortingly. "She's just lost her brother and --"
"I'm sure she doesn't need you making excuses for her, Enchantrix," Adries sighed.
"Yes, well ... I don't think she needs to know, do you?" The warlock only shook her head. Volali straightened, glancing up at the book the blood knight had wedged into the topmost shelf. She laid it out in Adriestia's hands. "When you're finished with that, you'll put it back where it belongs," she said. Not imperiously, but with the conviction of someone who could judge the future. "And once you've done that, maybe you wouldn't mind helping us do the same for others, who aren't so courteous?"

The prompt: List seven reasons to turn down a marriage proposal.
- Prompt #296, Creative Writing Prompts

"So," Adriestia asked, over her morning tea, "if he ever were to ask, why should I say no to him?"
Zahrah laughed softly, flipping through a small notebook absently. "I got a letter asking the same question last week, you know, although it was more along the lines of 'Help! My family wants me to marry this man, but I don't want to! How do I get out of it?' I ended up recommending to the girl that she join the priesthood and take a vow of chastity."
"You don't think that will actually work, I hope. Since I've come to Silvermoon, I've seen 'priestesses' caught up in all unseemly manner of things." She regarded the demon across the table evenly. The Sayaad refused to meet her eyes, snapping her notebook closed. Most thought it odd that Adriestia allowed her pacted servant a side-job, as it were, but many were glad of the succubus' romantic guidance, in the form of her weekly column. "But, if Sathien were to ask, why should I say no?"
Zahrah lifted her chin then to regard the warlock dourly. Adries had become aware some time ago that Zahrah didn't actually approve of her relationship with Sathien, but she knew the succubus wouldn't say anything.

It wasn't her place.
"Well, I doubt your father would approve, mistress," she opened, laying the book down on the kitchen table. Adries' eyes flashed with anger, lifting the teacup to her lips. After a moment's contemplation, the warlock cleared her throat.
"And he would approve of Alekzander, then? He'd approve of me, in all my red-haired glory with a demon at my side? I think not. Try harder."
"Sathien Ambermist isn't one to make a woman happy."
"He's asking, not me. Flunk."
"You saw how his last marriage worked out, with him running to the arms of another woman. Not that I'm blaming you in that, mistress ..."
"They were engaged," Adries growled, "and I didn't know about it."
Zahrah held her hands up in a surrenduring gesture, blustering out a sigh. "Let me get the last four out of the way so that you can reject them out of hand: The Tauren was right, and he's not your 'one true love,' whatever that's meant to be. You're too young to know what's right for the rest of your life. The two of you won't be able to support one-another, much less any children you might have. Oh, and?
Deep, deep down in that secret oubliette behind the walls you want to erect for yourself in your heart, you will always desire Alekzander Felsun, and you will always belong to him."
"I won't!" the warlock shrieked. "I hate him, I hate everything about him! He disgusts me!"
"He owns you, mistress, as surely as you own me, and you learn to fear -- and to love -- those who hold you in thrall."

The Prompt: A first time for everything ... This is another historical site-write, how well do you know your character?
- Jende of Moon Guard US

Adriestia swallowed, hard. If she did this thing, she was not her father's daughter. Astore Eventide was dead, but she'd heard him questioning her mother in harsh tones when he thought she was asleep:

"... not fit for enrollment in the Farstriders, Coronis, and she failed out of the most basic arcane theory classes. Why is that?"
"I don't know, Astore!" The woman's voice was high and panicked.
"Why," the angry ranger growled, "does she have red hair? Why, when both of her parents are blonde?"
"Astore, please! She's doing the best she can --"
"And why can't she do more?"

It had taken her weeks to reconcile the angry voices she'd heard with the image of her doting father. She'd been too young, then, to understand what he was implying. She grew older. Her hair remained that deep burgundy. She watched the older girls in Sunsail Anchorage marry off and bear children -- blonde babies to blonde parents, and she understood why her loving Father was secretly ashamed of her.

"Don't you want this, Adries?" the older warlock prodded, scowling his disapproval.
"Of course I do," she murmured, not meeting his gaze.
"Then say the words and taste power beyond the grasp of your rivals."
It was easy -- it was far too easy -- to repeat the words she'd been taught, standing in that casting circle her master had scribed for her. It was easy to give in, to feel a spark of energy course through her.
The tiny imp appeared before her, and she blistered her hands as she grabbed him, holding him still as she bound him to her will.
Her master smiled, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Very good, Apprentice Eventide."

The Prompt: The morning routine, do you ever role play it out? Or do you just slap on your gear and mount up? Well, here it is, tell me what it is your character does to get ready for the long haul.
- Jende of Moon Guard US

Routine? Pfeh, it had been months since she had a routine. Slowly sitting up and wiping the sleep from her eyes, Aurelia recognized this was as like the "old days" as things were liable to get. She yawns -- a big, unladylike display -- and only then does she look over, watching Ishbaneer set his book aside with a smile. Or as close to a smile as he could muster, at least. She leans over him, eyes scanning the spine, and her expression flickers with fond recognition.
"Told you it was a good one, eh?" she murmurs, kissing the man on his forehead. He nods in agreement, pulling his arm back from around her shoulders as she turns to rise from the bed. No words pass between them as she brushes the sleep-tangles from her hair and changes from her nightgown into a simple linen shirt and a pair of leather trousers, but it's a comfortable silence, like an unspoken understanding. Aure smudges her lips with gloss, applied by the tip of her pinky, and only lets out an amused "huh," when she turns around to regard the empty room.

She finds him by the fireside in the Gallows' End Tavern, a small glass of juice and a bowl of porridge on the table in front of him. Aure smiles gratefully at the rogue, and, if she was undainty when half asleep, she makes up for it now with all the niceties of her race.
"I kin see why ye like that one, Sunny," he offers, and it takes her a second to realize he means the book. She nods, setting her moonberry juice aside
"How far in are you?"
"Just had th' nightmare about her coronation." The elf chuckles.
"Gets better'n that, even. You'll see."
And after this brief exchange, they fall silent again. She doesn't mind, what's there to say? They said everything that needed to be said last night. Right? Swallowing down the last spoonful of porridge, she reaches for her husband's clawlike hand.
"I love you, Isaac."
"I love you too, Aure."

And then she lets him go. Lets him go from being her husband back to being the shepherd, and even after she's reliquished her hold on him, it takes the man a moment to pull away from her.

The prompt: List 10-15 things worth saving, then choose one of those things and write about it.
- Prompt #64, Creative Writing Prompts

"Why loose your venom on me?" Roberts asked, eyeing the princess warily.
"You killed my love." There were tears straining Buttercup's voice, but she stood her ground.
"It's possible," the pirate said nonchalantly. "I kill a lot of people. Who was this love of yours? Another Prince, like this one, ugly, rich, and scabby?" His tone was laced with disdain.
"No," she said sharply. "A farm boy. Poor. Poor and perfect, with eyes like the sea after a storm. On the high seas --"

Aurelia threw the book across the room, whimpering.
It wasn't the first time she'd read the book -- it had been her favorite as a child. And she'd never seen Isaac Shatten's eyes, but the aching in her chest told her it was probably true.

He still loved her.
"Faithfulness, he talked of, madam, your enduring faithfulness." The tone that read the words was mocking, and when Aurelia Sunhome looked up, she was unsurprised to meet the slanting, reptilian eyes of Ralistrasza in her blood elven guise. "Taking a trip down memory lane, are we?"
"None of your business, whelp," the paladin said stonily, drawing one knee up under her chin and draping her arms around it.
"I can only wonder which you're mourning, Danashj: that you left Derenel for Ishbaneer, or that you left Ishbaneer for Derenel."
"Isaac," she corrected. "His name is Isaac."
"Not since he died," the dragon smirked cruelly. "Here's what I don't understand. You bargained a debt of servitude: his lifetime. A lifetime in our service equal to the number of years he would live. Derenel took on that debt, and then you completely disregard his sacrifice in leaving the poor boy we were supposed to be helping."
"Here's what I don't understand, Ralistrasza," the elf sighed. "Why meddle in mortal affairs?"
"It amuses me," the girl replied, tossing her hair. "Despite what you think, though, I didn't plan for you to fall in love with the boy. Derenel was my servant, and I don't like him thinking himself beholden to another."
"I didn't plan it either."
"And I didn't send the rogue to you."
"I never said you did."
"And we had an agreement."
"Aeliristrasz and I did, yes," Aurelia nodded.
"And Derenel took on your debt."
"I don't understand why I didn't have any say in that."
"And it wasn't my idea for you to sleep with him," the girl went on, and the elf rolled her eyes.
"And what's your point, Ralistrasza?"
"And I didn't kill him."
"Didn't kill whom?"
"Derenel."

The Prompt: Site-write, if you've never done it before it's pretty simple. A short little blurb completely improvised and spell-checked on the spot. A little brain exercise to help you better understand your character. Faith or drive is important, if you have a hard time writing this it'd be best to think about the composition of your character some more.
- Jende of Moon Guard US

"Happy we'll be," the elf sang merrily to herself in Goblin, "beyond the sea, and never again, I'll go sailin'." She'd unabashedly sang to herself almost the entire journey, and it had been a long one indeed. The Defilers had been generous enough to lend her one of their skeletal horses when she arrived in Hammerfall, and the strange animal had served her all the way to the Sepulcher, where she left it in the care of its masters.
At her heels, a tiny netherwhelp had fluttered most of the way. She carried him now, like he were a tired child.
"Think he'll be happy to see me?" she asked Rothaku, smiling as if she already knew the answer. Of course he would. He was her husband. He'd be just as overjoyed as she was. She had run through every sea shanty she knew, but that was alright -- she didn't plan to do much more sailing, as the man said.

The rain fell soft on the rooftops of Brill, the Deathguard barely acknowledging her presence, but she didn't care. She'd traveled the whole of Azeroth, walked the whole of Lordaeron, and she knew in her heart one thing after it all:
She belonged here.
It was good to be home.

The prompt: Retrace your steps.
- Oblique Strategies (over one hundred worthwhile dilemmas), Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt

"Why do you call yourself Dawnforge?" Orannis asked her, catching the knight by surprise. Arienne Songblade looked up from her Eredun documents, surveying the Farstrider wordlessly.
"Isn't that a personal question?" the Blood Knight retorted, lips turning downward in a scowl at his intrusion.
"So let's get personal." He planted his hands on the corners of her desk, leaning in to catch her gaze once more. His long, unbound hair spilled over his shoulders, squinting at her as if he was confused.
"I'm a Blood Knight, Whiteglade." She looked back down at her orders, signed in her Prince's own hand: incontrovertible proof of his betrayal. "You're a Farstrider." She didn't need to say more; her order had taken over the rangers' training grounds and sparked a rivalry so fierce, her earliest assignments had been keeping the other adepts from the jaws of death, mending their wounds and setting broken bones.
"We're a long way from Silvermoon, Arienne." She'd opened her mouth to speak over him, but froze as he addressed her. To him -- to all of them -- she'd always been Dawnforge.
"Get out." She lifted a hand, pointing back toward Shattrath. Orannis just stared at her a long moment, contemplating the growl in her voice. "Out," she said again, much more quietly, but the way she glared at him conveyed her serious intentions. He straightened, turning to go with his pale blonde hair fluttering behind him. But his question lingered in the air: When had she become Dawnforge, and why?

She had not been Dawnforge at her governess' knee, playing idly in the sun. Nor when her brother Valendar had bleached his hair and taken up the title Spellbreaker. Later, he had become the prince's royal guard and disappeared into Outland. Nor had she been Dawnforge when her elder sister Archana had begun an apprenticeship in Dalaran that lasted until the city was destroyed. Had she been Dawnforge, after the city was destroyed, when she'd told the woman betrothed to her brother that he couldn't afford to marry a woman with no title? Had she been Dawnforge in the throes of her magic addiction, waking in a cold sweat?

Perhaps she had only begun to be Dawnforge, she decided, in her training as a priestess in Tarren Mill. In that place, not far from where Thrall had been held prisoner, she had dedicated herself to the Holy Light. In the next town over, men of all causes had missioned themselves to protect Lordaeron's borders from the rising threat. Perhaps the first time she had been Dawnforge was when she had knelt before Highlord Mograine and pledged her service to his Scarlet Crusade.

In the halls of the Monastery there was a word, whispered across corridors from mouth to ear: Ashbringer. The Scourge were as nothing to him, and Arienne recalled trembling hands weaving a spell to close his wounds as their undead forces fell before him at their gates. At his side fought Dathrohan. Days later they had rode, along with the Ashbringer's son and the mage Fairbanks. Renault Mograine was the only one to return from Stratholme.
She never saw the Ashbringer again.

Better that she didn't, she had decided when a shambling corpse had pounded on the doors to their monastery, screaming that he was Fairbanks: that he was what was left of Fairbanks, what had become of Fairbanks. That the Ashbringer's own son killed his father with the blade that bore his name. That Dathrohan was not what he seemed.
Nobody believed him. Renault Mograine exorcised the ghoul himself, named himself commander.
She saw Fairbanks again, years on. She was already Dawnforge then, though she didn't know it, having deserted the Crusade to return to the ruins of Quel'thalas. The Ashbringer had fallen and the Crusade had failed.

Arienne had walked the Dead Scar from Lordaeron north, through the scorched forests of Eversong, the defunct runestones dotting the landscape at a day's interval. When she arrived at the ruined elfgates, her hands were shaking and there were hollows beneath her eyes. None of the creature comforts of her family's estates were offered to her; Arienne buried Archana and mourned the missing Valendar.

A dark-haired, vaguely familiar nurse had tended to her when she finally collapsed, and bore to her the news that their Prince had surely saved them all. The woman, probably twice Arienne's own age, showed her how to drain mana from her foes, told her of the fate of the Sunwell, and finally revealed herself as the magister Valendar had been arranged to marry.

Arienne would have none of it, dissolving the contract on the grounds of the woman's loss of title and her brother's disappearance, although Averill remained convinced that he had caught up with the Prince's caravan somehow.

It was only a matter of weeks before Liadrin and Magister Bloodsworn were petitioning the newly-dubbed Blood Elves to join their cause. Arienne was only one of hundreds of priests in the ruins of Quel'thalas to be confronted, and one of fewer to accept.

When she saw Fairbanks again, there was a heavy, two-handed sword in her hands, aimed to strike at him.
At her back were a blood elf rogue with silvery hair in a ponytail and a foul-tempered warlock girl who'd tailed her ever since her initiation on Sunstrider Isle.
She could swear up and down he thanked her for his release, though the younger Mograine was nowhere near as composed.

Ascilia Shadowhand had deserted her at the Dark Portal, tossing aside her Argent Dawn commission and her Horde insignia to chase the demonic pipe dreams of a prince Arienne couldn't convince her had gone mad. And so it was the warlock left her service and she hired on Logan.

And she was alive, at Manaforge Duro. Arienne knew that much. But the documents she'd been reading when that damn tree-hugging ranger had interrupted her detailed the movements of someone they called, in Eredun, Naztheros. Naz. Theros. The cry of blades.

They didn't have a word for "song" in Eredun.

The prompt: Begin a story with "The hallway was silent..."
- Prompt #139, Creative Writing Prompts

The hallway was silent, a hundred households asleep behind a hundred doors. When Logan had left Arienne, she was sound asleep and cradling a pillow. In one of her small hands there had glittered a vial of pristine water from the Well of Eternity; she could have filled a shot glass with immortality.

They'd returned victorious, finally, worn out and caked in blood. He'd had to carry her to her apartments, drawn her a bath and washed her hair. She'd been holding onto that little vial for gods-knew-how-long, and she clutched it throughout her bath, just staring forward, unseeing.
"She killed him," the blood knight finally said, though she didn't clarify exactly who had been killed. "So we killed her back." Her voice was a whisper, barely louder than the splash of water in the tub. "Her," the elf knew, was Lady Vashj, Arienne's target for months. Hers and her team's, some of whom he knew by name, some of whom he'd heard her speak about, and some of whom he recognized only by their insignia: a cream-colored flower on an earthy brown background. Arienne said nothing more, and Logan didn't pry.
The warm water did her some good eventually: her eyes came back into focus, actually seeing him instead of looking through him, and she moved under her own power when she stood from the bath, curling up in her bed and drifting off. Logan wasn't sure he should have left her alone ... but she wasn't alone, not really, and Damien had been there and knew what she had seen. He could entrust his lady to his brother's care ... as it was, he was late, and if anything earned a goblin's ire, it was wasting their time. Logan hurried off through Outland's swiftly darkening skies.

"Time is money, kid," the goblin greeted him, nodding toward the sun that was sinking over Booty Bay's harbor. The elf bowed, mumbling an apology in his best bad Orcish, then remembering the goblin spoke Common anyway. They ducked in to a small, well-kept shop emblazoned with the name Goodstitch, which must have been the goblin.
"Well, let's see it," the rogue said, and the goblin produced a stone that might not have impressed anyone who didn't know what they were looking at. It couldn't have been larger than his fingernail on any one side, irregularly shaped, but as clear as that mountain water in Arienne's precious vial. Logan squinted, holding a loupe in place as he held the stone up to the last rays of the sun. It was as flawless as Goodstitch had claimed, the goblin wringing his hands as the blood elf turned his attention back to the dealer.
"Four hundred." More than Logan had expected, but then, he had been late.
"I can get one transmuted for less!" the elf protested.
"Yeah, and then you've got a lab diamond." The goblin rolled his eyes, Logan looking indignant. "That's fine if you're going to cut it and slap it in a socket, but I have a feeling this isn't going in anyone's helmet."
Well, Goodstitch would know, right? Logan gazed longingly at the stone for a moment, his mind back on the Scryer's Tier, thinking of Arienne. She looked radiant even when she'd been covered in naga blood, and it brought him no small amount of pride to see her wearing his jewelry; to think of how the gems he cut aided in her efforts, even in some small way. "Four hundred," the goblin said again, jerking him out of his reverie.
"Two fifty," Logan countered. The goblin sized him up, leering at him as if he couldn't quite work out what it was he was looking at.
"What's your arena team called, boy?"
"Cloak and Bolt," he straightened, trying to look proud of his accomplishments in the circuit, no matter how meaningless he felt they were. "Duskmourn." He introduced himself.
"My second cousin's an arena promoter. Three seventy five." Logan wrinkled his nose in dismay.
He didn't want to, but ... "Well, then, do you know Dawnforge?" It was a long shot. Goodstitch shook his head. "She's an engineer, done her fair share of work for the Steamwheedle Cartel and logged a lot of time around Area 52." The dealer didn't look impressed. "The Consortium would know her by name, and since it's for her ..." Now he looked outright dismayed. "Three hundred."
"Three fifty."
"Done."

"I didn't know elves exchanged rings," the goblin commented absently, counting out the gold coins Logan had given him.
"They don't, usually." But they'd both spent so long around humans that the custom felt natural to him. He wrapped the stone delicately in a handkerchief and tucked it away.

It was the dead of night when he stood on the threshold of the Dark Portal, which meant it was dawn on the far side. Stepping into the Outland, Logan whistled his wyvern to him, gliding on the morning's air currents back to Shattrath.
In the Scryer's Tier apartments there were now the sounds of stirring: running water, quiet conversations, Damien's name, Arienne's name, their companions names, on more than a few lips. When Logan walked in, his younger brother was carefully polishing a red lacquered breastplate, which gleamed in the morning light.
"Did she sleep?" Logan asked in hushed Common, and his brother responded in that rough, rasping dialect the rest of the Horde called Gutterspeak.
"Through the night, yes. Where were you?"
"Booty Bay. Who died?" he asked abruptly. Damien's lipless face was hard to read, but his tone conveyed some measure of surprise:
"She told you about that? We lost one of the priests, a Forsaken."
"All Arienne said was --"
"She killed him, so we killed her right back." Arienne leaned against the doorframe of her room, her slender form wrapped in the soft expanse of her white linen sheet. Damien averted his eyes, and Logan crossed to kiss her on the forehead.
"How are you, princess?" he whispered in Thalassian.
"I'm fine -- did you go somewhere?"
"Just something I had to take care of ... I'm back now."
"Good," the blood knight murmured, wrapping an arm around his waist and pulling him into her chambers. "Come to bed." He had no time to protest as she draped her long limbs around his form, dragging him down into her soft bedding and, with that vial still in her hand, buried her face against his shoulder, falling back to sleep.

The prompt: Write about Valentine's Day without mentioning these words: Valentine's Day, Cupid, love, roses, flowers, hearts, February
- Prompt #65, Creative Writing Prompts

What Arienne had discovered was this: the sickness that had spread throughout Azeroth was the doing of a single man. She didn't want to know what he'd put in his perfume to make the stalwart soldiers of the Horde weak in the knees. Nor did she want to admit that perhaps, for a moment, she'd fallen under it's spell.

"Put this on," the orcish windrider said, handing her a familiar violet-and-green tabard, then tossing one to Damien. Arienne obediently stripped out of her guild tabard and pulled on the Illidari standard. Aside from the lingering scent of felfire, Arienne didn't seem to notice any change. She gave the windrider a skeptical look, but he lifted a hand to point over her shoulder at the Forsaken warrior. Only that when she turned she was greeted by a trim, muscular sin'dorei. Arienne could only stop and stare for a long few moments, the sound of beating wings alerting her to the departure of their Kor'kron commander. Beauty ran deep in the Duskwhisper line, she decided.
"Let's get to work," Arienne said, trying to shake herself out of it. The pair of them strode across the tainted soil of the Eclipsion fields, toward the settlement of giants there. It was their mission to sunder the alliance between the Illidari blood elves and these colossi, and the easiest way -- in Orcish eyes -- was to slaughter them while in disguise. Arienne couldn't say she disagreed. Maybe the giants would even retaliate against Eclipse Point.
The colossi seemed as nothing before the blood knight now, too used to trying her steel against the lieutenants of Kael'thas himself. It meant Arienne had time to steal glances at the disguised warrior, his silken coal-black hair and kind face a direct counterpoint to the Damien she was used to seeing. His movements were halting at first, as if the body were unfamiliar to him, but in time they became more fluid. More Thalassian, more like his brother's. It was only then that she noticed the fields were quiet, its inhabitants strewn across the soil as so many boulders.
He turned to look at her, and Arienne was shocked by what she saw in his eyes. She held his gaze for only a moment, then broke it, whistling for Shekinah.
"Let's get the fel out of here," she said in Orcish, then added, in Thalassian, "before I start to like you."

The prompt: Use this line anywhere in your story: "Behind her, the noise escalated."
- Prompt #137, Creative Writing Prompts

They'd come back to Shattrath, as Arienne had wanted, defeated. Though they bore a new head on their pike of victories, it wasn't that of the Coilfang matron. The blood knight decided she could live with that.

They were - every last one of them - bruised and broken and bloody. Some of them came to the Scryers' tier; others filtering off to be tended by the Aldor anchorites. And despite all her attempts to leave her roots in her past, Arienne Songblade was still, in her heart, a combat medic. So she mended them, those that she could, and half-listened to the story of how Leotheras the Blind had fallen before them. And every day in Shattrath, there was a new face that wanted to join them.

Maybe Logan was right: maybe this really was an army that they were building, even if it hadn't seemed that way to her before.
"Next time," a bruised blue shaman promised, in between hacking coughs, "we be bringin' you." Arienne only nodded at Zaniya, not really sure she believed it.


"The time is now!" a garbled female voice cried. Zaniya had been as good as her word. "Leave none standing!"
In the center of her dais, Vashj was cocooned an a shroud of steam. For a moment, the lot of them stood there as if unsure what to do with themselves.
Then they heard splashing from the moat beneath them.
"Kalimar!" one of the shamans cried out. Elementals.
"You, and you. With me." Arienne pointed in turn at an orcish hunter they called Longrifle and a Forsaken rogue named Nexic, waving her arm in a grand gesture as they ran back toward the steps.
Water elementals were already bubbling up from the surface, advancing toward their mistress. Sword drawn, Arienne laid waste to them: they were fragile things, their bond to the world tenuous at the best of times.
Behind her the noise escalated.
The was a bellowing shu'halo voice behind her: "Myrmidons!" and from the roiling surface of the reservoir's water, an honor guard of male naga slithered, one from each point of the compass.
They were stupid, but strong: one charged directly for Arienne, and she brought her shield up to knock the wind from him, but the blow resounded through Arienne's own body and she knew she wasn't a match in single combat.
But Roka was. Her fellow blood knight wore thicker plate and carried a heavier shield, bending the Light to redirect the myrmidon's attention to himself.
"Keep yourself up!" he instructed Arienne in harsh Thalassian, and she nodded, tipping back a shot of blue liquid that took the edge off her acute thirst for mana.
But she wasn't priority number one: something had beaten up her comrades badly, and her stolen Light went to them first to close their wounds. Orc and Forsaken fought on tirelessly, the growing swarm of elementals cut down on the stairs before her.
Somewhere behind her there was the scuffle of feet, and she glanced over her shoulder to note one of the Farstriders strafing along the rim of the dais.
In pursuit was one of the hugest fen striders she'd ever seen, picking its way after him on spindly legs. The elf threw a net around his pursuer, but the thing nimbly picked its way out of the weave of cloth.
An overwhelming panic coursed through Arienne's veins and before the strider, she and her companions scattered and ran.
Something spit poison in her eyes, and the blood knight passed out.

She knew the touch of stolen Light when she felt it: Roka had been the one to return her to consciousness, but it was Nexic who knelt over her, a vague look of concern on his face.
His wounds were still bleeding. She said a single word in Thalassian, a shock of healing energy suffusing the Forsaken as he offered her his hand to get up.
When she took it, it was warm, as if he were living.
"Vashj?" she asked in a hoarse voice.
"Escaped," he sighed, displeased. "Dove into the water. Looks like we're making our escape too." He nodded toward a troll mage who'd torn a portal to Shattrath and was fixing to jump through it.
Arienne let the rogue's hand go, shooting him an almost-stern look.
"We'll be back."
"Oh, of course," he said evenly, his voice as quiet as death and as soft as fresh-turned soil. "Once we muster our strength again, her life is forfeit."
Arienne shot him one last, long look, and stepped through to the Terrace of Light and the almost-comforting presence of A'dal.
It wasn't over yet.

The prompt: Write about something that really bothered you this week.
- Prompt #110, Creative Writing Prompts

"They went without me!" Arienne fumed, stamping her heel against the hewn stone of her floor.
"You mentioned that." The rogue looked nonplussed, sitting on the edge of a chaise in his mistress' dimly lit salon.
"Yes, but --!" She broke off, stalking across the room, lifting the gauzy curtain to look out the window at Shattrath's lower city. "They went. To Serpentshrine Cavern. Without me." The light coming through the thin slit of a window fell across Arienne's face, bisecting her left eye and her furrowed brow above it. "When you join an expeditionary force, it's with some expectation of sticking with it," she fumed. "I was good enough for Medivh's little tower; I was good enough for Gruul the Dragonkiller. They'd have been lost without me in Tempest Keep! Nobody knows Thalassian tactics like I do! But I'm not good enough to slaughter the Coilfang?" She whirled back around to face the silver haired rogue, curtain fluttering back down into place. He didn't look up from his work, delicately polishing a few freshly cut gems.
"You are good enough, Arienne," he said evenly. "It's obvious you have talent. The Scryers see it, A'dal sees it, and every dead foe you've left in your wake has seen it."
"So why leave me behind?"
"Because," he said, slowly seeming to grow frustrated. "We're building an army, Arienne." He paused, looking up to meet her glaring gaze. He was still wearing her livery. "Milady," he amended, then continued. "We're building an army to stand against the Legion, and that means every blade we can muster needs to be brought to bear. Every combatant needs to try his strength on something more substantial than helboars."
Arienne just looked annoyed. "But I want to contribute to that effort!"
"And sometimes that means standing back and letting those in command do their job."
The blood knight huffed. "I hope they come back to Shattrath licking their wounds."

The prompt: Freewrite for three minutes on this cliché: "ice water in her veins."
- Prompt #152, Creative Writing Prompts

I've never had a frost mage so it's never literally been true. All of my females can be said to have chilly dispositions under certain circumstances: Aurélia to those who've wronged her, Ocelot to those who aren't worth her time, Arienne to anyone but Logan ... Still the character who sprung to my mind was Aléri Lenchantin, half-elf necromancer. Her full name is Aléri pèr-Vaelis mèr-Lenchantin dês-Denaria, and she is the eldest daughter of the exiled son of a high elven emperor.
IE a princess in exile. And in a death cult. She will inform Arienne as a character a lot during her descent into Death Knighthood.
Why is she cold?
She lost the one person who could have redeemed her, then was forced to eat his remains.
That'd chill anyone's blood.

The prompt: Write a mini-story (100 to 250 words) that begins with: "They had nothing to say to each other."
- Prompt #161, Creative Writing Prompts

They had nothing to say to each other. Adriestia could hardly look the Farstrider in the eye, only sure that Calendre was there because of the lingering scent of a bloodthistle cigar. Hypocrite, she thought. And wondered why she was here again: hadn't Calendre tried to kill her once?
Adries hated her because everyone else in Silvermoon loved her. Including Sathien, who'd gone on to live happily with his new wife and abandoned her. She should have been angry with Sathien, but she couldn't be angry with the dead. She hated Calendre instead.
"I'm sorry for your loss."
"Yeah. Me too."

(Apologies to Anacrusis for the 101-word format. The Anacrusis-style title would be "Adriestia".)

(or "The King of Durotar")
The prompt: Weave a story around the cliche, "drown your sorrows."
- Prompt #141, Creative Writing Prompts

Arienne would never understand what he saw in it, she decided. She'd been to the gladiatorial arena every day for two weeks with the corpse that called himself Damien.
No. Damien Duskwhisper, she corrected herself, staring down at her Halaani whiskey. Logan's little brother.
Which brought her back to the Steamwheedle Cartel's Arena Exhibition, about which Logan seemed so passionate and Arienne could hardly care less. The mornings were early, and she was more than a little sick of getting whacked upside the head by a rogue's maces or the huge hammers most warriors preferred. Ari rubbed at her temples, and swore she tasted blood in her whiskey.
It seemed to appeal most to the kal'dorei and the Forsaken, from what she could remember before the goblins inevitably carried her out on a stretcher into the care of medics both magical and mundane. No scars, they'd promised. They hadn't been so generous about pain. Arienne Songblade rose to her feet at the insistent buzzing of her hearthstone, a tinny voice calling her name.
"Dawnforge," a familiar voice greeted her, the crackle of the Twisting Nether making Logan sound far away.
"Duskmourn," she replied, nudging a few gold coins at the sin'dorei barmaid in exchange for a skin of whiskey to take with her. It was silly, these noms-de-guerre, but it went with the whole Arena ... mess, she decided. "What is it?" she replied in easy Thalassian, making her way out of the World's End.
"Come to Durotar." Like she hadn't expected that already: it was unsanctioned, but there were always at least a handful of people milling around out there.
"Already on my way," the blood knight purred in reply, stepping through the portal into Orgrimmar.
The transport sent a chill all through the sin'dorei girl, making her side hurt anew. No scars. Bruises maybe, though she hadn't bothered to check after stripping out of her plate. She was garbed more simply now, in a silk shirt and the tabard she'd plucked from an Illidari champion, scale-mail protecting her slender legs. A whistle summoned Shekinah, and Arienne quickly mounted up on the Charger, trotting through the streets of the orcish capital. Midday here, though it had been evening when she'd left Shattrath. The high noon sun beat down on the cracked earth of Durotar's deserts. The older and wiser were probably napping in the orcish huts she'd seen dotting this parched land, but there were still a handful scattered about on the salt plain. Stormaxe stood as steadfast as ever, two female grunts glaring stonily at the knot of duelists from their post at the gate. Arienne saluted each of them, offering greetings in Orcish that still felt like stone on her tongue.
"Dawnforge!" he called out from on the plains, and Arienne dismounted from her Thalassian horse, wincing, and approached the only blood elf amongst the group.
Logan Duskwhisper, she found herself thinking, was unlike any other blood elf she'd ever met. Probably because he'd lived for so long away from other elves, so close to humans. And when the plague had come, then, he'd been surrounded by the Forsaken. He'd confided to her once that the Deathstalkers had trained him.
Which explained why he fought less like a Farstrider and more like a savage. Those near-Scourge, they frightened her, and she sometimes saw too much of his younger brother in him. But less so in broad daylight, even with that death's-head helm. He shook back his hood, pulling up the faceplate to smile at her. There was something in her retainer's green eyes that a stranger might not recognize, or might misplace as the simple loyalty of a servant. Arienne knew better: Logan had his own quarters and his own bed in her apartments above the Scryer's tier, but they went largely unused. "Did you bring lunch?"
"I wasn't really aware it was lunchtime," Arienne laughed. She lifted a hand to greet the blue-haired Forsaken who stood behind Logan. Just as she was always partnered with Damien - whom they called "Stormfall" - Logan and this mage were partners. She had no idea of his nom de guerre. "Hello, Bill," she greeted him in Orcish. "I don't suppose you'd be kind enough to make us a refreshment table?" The frosty arcanist, ever a man of few words, simply nodded and began weaving the spell - with Arienne's help, and Logan's. The group of them ate a quick lunch; Arienne had never much cared for the taste of mage food but she had to admit, at least to herself, that it made her feel much better than her whiskey had. The three didn't speak, Logan watching the rest of the gathering crowd with eyes like a hawk until Arienne nudged him in the side. "What's going on?" in Thalassian, "I thought that the activity out here didn't pick up until the evening."
"King of the hill tournament," he responded, plucking the canteen of water from his mistress' hands, and she shot him a faux-annoyed look.
"It's not sanctioned, is it?"
"Of course not!" he laughed.
"Then why bother?" Logan turned his head to regard the knight now, his lips curling up into an amused smirk. "If I were in your position, I'd save my strength for this weekend's bouts."
"Have you seen my new sword, Arienne?" he asked then, and she nodded. She could hardly miss the weapons he wore so openly, an unspoken warning to her enemies that he was a force to be reckoned with; her crest on his tabard noted that such a force was hers to command. "The goblins gave it to me," he remarked.
"Yes, and they've made such promises to me as well. All the more reason --"
"And do you see what the rest of them carry?" He pointed at a troll woman with a shock of violet hair who was slathering a pair of maces in foul-smelling poisons.
"And I scavenged my equipment from Medivh's tower," she remarked. "What's your point?" He handed her back the canteen of water, rising to his feet and quickly dusting off the leathers he wore, pulling his hood up over his silvery ponytail, hiding that handsome elven face behind a skeletal mask. She'd never quite cared for the look, though she understood why he did it. Arienne watched with slight interest as Logan coated his own weapons with poisons.
It had never really struck her, before, just how accustomed to him she'd become. He'd come back into her life on the heels of a betrayal, when she'd had desperate need of a companion and protector. When Ascilia Shadowhand had succumbed in Outland and joined the Illidari, Arienne had lost the most successful deterrent against highwaymen she'd ever known. And then there returned Logan, who had agreed to enter her service for reasons that Arienne still couldn't fathom as she watched them stamping out the outlines of the ring, pairing off for their initial bouts. Logan ended up with the troll woman, who shook back her braids as she sized up the sin'dorei.

Arienne watched most of the fights with disinterest; the more skilled combatants quickly weeded out the lesser duelists among them. She watched Bill tear apart a shaman, and a familiar-looking Forsaken warrior quickly overpowered an orc warlock. The losers were sent licking their wounds to stand further in the desert, drawing up brackets to skirmish amongst themselves. The warrior - Damien, just as she'd expected - snatched Arienne's whiskey from her hands, settling in on the sand dune next to her.
"Why aren't you competing?" he asked.
"Don't want to," the blood knight responded simply. "Besides, we both know I'm the weak link in our team." They were both silent a moment. "The only match left is Logan's. Is it another rogue he's fighting?" Elf and troll circled each other a moment, fading to shadow and leaving Arienne to wonder just how they did that in midday.
"Her name is Renata," Damien offered in a gravelly voice. "We haven't fought her, but the word is that she's good."
"Logan is better," Arienne replied, and in the same moment the troll landed a strike that left Logan stunned for a moment. Her maces rained blows, but Logan was quick to recover, whirling on the blue-skinned rogue to parry her attacks and riposte, driving her back a step or two. Renata cried out in fury, lunging forward - too late; Logan already behind her. "Shadowstep," the blood knight observed quietly. "We never see that in the Arena."
"Most combatants specialize in other things," Damien replied, watching the pair raptly. "Mace combat, for example." For all the good it did the troll: Logan had her in lockdown, those debilitating blows rendering her unable to move until she fell to her knees, shouting a single word in Zandali. Mercy, a word Arienne knew because she hadn't granted it when she fought the Darkspear's jungle cousins. Logan stayed his blades, and Renata stood, dusting herself off in shame. Arienne rose to her feet, muttering an incantation in Thalassian to call the Light. Logan lifted a hand and she stopped silent, rogue and warrior glancing at the brackets posted up by a troll voodoo priest. "Heh," Damien laughed, plate armor clanking as he walked away. Logan said nothing, only scrutinizing his blades to ensure they were still thoroughly poisoned.

Another round of fights about which she could hardly care less; she watched the duelists from behind her skin of whiskey and shrinking stack of biscuits. At least until she realized the source of Damien's amusement, both of the Duskwhisper men entering the ring. Each bowed humbly to his brother before Damien lifted his axes and Logan faded to shadow. Arienne jumped to her feet, making her way down to the edge of the ring to watch in fascination. The ringing sound of a blow on plate; Damien stood reeling before his brother appeared behind him, drawing a garrote along the warrior's throat. Putrid blood leaked slowly from the wound, the warrior whirling on his brother in a flurry of blows. Logan's blows glanced off the warrior's breastplate, harmless, until the rogue found a weak point and tore into it. Damien retaliated by knocking the swords from the elf's hands. Barefisted there was little left to Logan but to try and dodge the incoming blows, but Damien pressed him, overpowering the sin'dorei and staining his sharpened axes in his brother's blood.
And then - he licked his blades, as Arienne had watched him do so many times in battle. Every time, it brought the bile rising in her throat that she considered such a wretched creature her ally. Yet she couldn't look away. Logan dove to retake his swords, grabbing a handful of desert sand and throwing it into the Forsaken's face to blind him. He sprinted off into the desert, found a shadow to hide in and slunk back to the center of the ring. He buried his off-hand in Damien's back, strafing away. The warrior gave chase, but the poison in his veins left his movements sluggish, and he left a trail of blood behind him in the dust. One last burst; Damien dropped his axes and charged forward, rending the elf's flesh with bare, clawlike hands. Logan intercepted the movement, landing a solid kick to the warrior's chest and knocking him backward in the sand.
"I give," Damien muttered, and Logan slackened. Arienne moved immediately to hold him up, blood still oozing from the rogue's wounds. Everything in her, the priestess she'd once been, the blood knight she'd become, screamed to heal him and then exorcise the undead threat. She steeled her jaw, pulling off his helm to trickle water down his throat. After a moment, he seemed to recover slightly.
"The whiskey," he muttered, stripping off her livery tabard and his tunic to expose the deep gouges left from the warrior's assault. Arienne offered him the flask, and he immediately doused a few scraps of cloth, cleaning his wounds, then binding them. The girl could only look on; when she healed it was by virtue of magic and not through the use of poultices or bandages, but he'd staunched the blood flow somewhat. With her arm around his waist they made their way out of the ring.
"Are you going to be alright?" she asked, whispering in Thalassian. The rogue nodded, shrugging out of her support after a long moment. Back in the ring the undead frost mage faced off against another opponent, but the bout escaped Arienne's notice completely. "Why wouldn't you let me tend to your wounds?"
"These are duels, Arienne. Solo combat. I survive through my skill alone, not through depending on you." The knight nodded solemnly, the rogue glancing at the duellists in the ring before wiping his blades clean and reapplying his poisons.
"And Damien?"
"He'll recover." She had to wonder what kind of bond the pair of them had, that they could so easily forgive the brutalities they'd inflicted on one another. She'd never asked Logan for a duel: he'd beat her, easily, and she wasn't sure she could forgive him. Another cry of yielding in the distance, the crowd gathered around the ring clapping for the victor.
"I don't suppose a kiss for luck would go amiss?" she asked, glancing at the preoccupied crowd. Not waiting for a response, Arienne kissed her retainer's forehead lightly, giving him a warm smile as he rose to his feet.

The final match came down to Logan and Bill. Hardly a surprise, given how well the pair had done in Arena. The noon sun had sunk somewhat, the heat relenting, and the orcish peseants came out of their huts to look on. Even the guards seemed a little bit intrigued. As for Arienne, she maintained her vigil on top of the sand dune, digging through her pack for a few sprigs of mana thistle.
Logan stepped into the ring, stripped to the waist and swords at the ready. He and his partner bowed to one another, and as always, he slipped into stealth. Almost immediately after the referee had thrown down the duel flag, Bill began muttering an incantation. His words faltered immediately as Logan drew the garrote across the mage's throat, remaining behind him to land a few quick blows while the mage was silenced. A few gestures and muttered words in Gutterspeak froze Logan in place and Bill transported quickly away. He whirled around to sling a few bolts of ice at the rogue, but the shadow embraced him - in much the way it did those Forsaken priests they called "Shadow Ascendants" - and the spells simply fizzled. Now on top of the mage, Logan quickly gouged him and stepped behind him to bury his blades in the frail mage's back, the robes he wore offering little protection, though some cantrip or another coated Logan's blades with a veil of rime. Whirling, the mage began once again to cast, the wind knocked from his lungs by one of Logan's sturdy boots. Though the blood elf continued his vicious assault, Arienne could see the mage steeling himself, gathering his wits. A single word in what must have been Kalimag, and there was a figure beside him forged of all the wrath of the tides, and held in check only by the thick bracers bound around its wrists. Pet and master both began to cast now; the elemental freezing the rogue in place and the mage throwing shards of ice at the frozen rogue, who tossed down a flashbomb and was gone from sight, prowling away. The bindings broke after a long few silent moments, the elemental reduced to a puddle of water that evaporated quickly and quenched the parched earth, nothing more than mud now. This a signal, Logan impaled the cryomancer on his sword, and finally, Bill muttered, "I yield."
A roar went through the crowd, the defeated brother cheering the victor's success. Holgar Stormaxe broke into thunderous applause and turned to survey the assembled duelists.
"Soldiers of the Horde, I give you Duskmourn, the King of Durotar." Arienne smiled proudly, setting the woven mana thistle crown atop her guard's silvered hair with reverence.

The requisite revelry went on throughout the afternoon, the crowd dissipating a few hours later as the sun sank, leaving the desert skies clear and dark, a chill overcoming the land as severe as the heat that had preceded it. And yet nightfall found a very sleepy Arienne Songblade not returned to her apartments in Shattrath, but still atop the same hill with her retainer, who was now its king.
"I still don't see what any of this has to do with the arena," she murmured, nuzzling his shoulder as he stitched his tunic back together where it had torn. His tabard, already mended, sat folded in Arienne's lap, where she traced the outlines of her house crest with one slender finger.
"Arienne," he addressed her gently, looking up from his sewing. "Why do you compete?"
"Because you do," she admitted. "I thought I could make you ... proud of me, I suppose." He laughed, and the knight looked bewildered. "Have I done something funny?" she asked, furrowing her brow.
"Not at all. You just don't understand," he sighed, though his lips still twitched upward in that grin of his. "I hate the whole system. Damien thinks the goblins have rigged it and he probably isn't wrong."
"So if you hate bloodsport, why compete?"
"Did you see what Renata was wearing? Did you see what any of them was wearing? Goblin armaments. Goblin weaponry." He sighed again. "I compete in group situations so that I can keep up to standards in duels." Arienne nodded slowly, pulling forth the last of her Halaani flask, but in moving to press it to her lips, Logan took it from her to drain the last of it. "I hate it."
"But you're good at it!" the girl protested. "Your team is one of the top ranked in the circuit."
"But I hate it, Arienne. My partner and I don't have a damn thing in common; we have nothing to discuss except how our last matches went and what we can do in the future. You pay me well enough, but all my money goes back into that system. Charter fees. The herbs I need to make my poisons. The cloth I need to make my bandages. Armor kits. Enchantments. Gems, all of it to have the upper hand in a match whose outcome I don't actually give a damn about except that it gets me what I need to pursue my hobbies." He pulled his tunic back over his chest, and the blood knight wrapped her arms loosely around him. She didn't speak for a long moment.
"Does this make me queen?"
"It might, at that."
"Then it's high time the Queen learned to hold her own in a duel. Do you think you could teach me?"
Logan laughed, reaching over to take the tabard from Arienne's lap. Instead of pulling it on, he tucked it away safely in his pack, giving the elven girl a loving smile. "In the morning."

The prompt: A drunk man sits next to you in a bar, thinks you're his buddy and starts confessing "the truth." Write about what "the truth" is.
- Prompt #58, Creative Writing Prompts


Loved drinking, hated bars. Those were Averill's general feelings on the matter - and she hated Silvermoon, too; if she had to be in a bar, well, better make it the World's End. But here she was, halfway through a bottle of wine in the Wayfarer's Rest.
Alone. Like it was wise for her to go to Silvermoon alone, the place it had become these days. Like she could just walk out to the Bazaar and find a bodyguard. A gorgeous, scarred, blonde, paladin bodyguard. Her heart ached, and she drained the wine, red so deep it was almost black. Averill nudged a few thick golden coins toward the bartender, picked up her bottle of wine, and headed for the fountain at the center of Silvermoon's marketplace. To the place where she had been standing when she'd met him.
Shoulder jostles a stranger on the way out the door and she mumbles an apology, determined to reach the spot, and the rogue slouches onto the bench, opposite the Rest's entrance to the Bazaar. Watches their patrons come and go as the cover of night deepens, the city's streets lit by floating motes of silvery arcane energy.
And drinks the rest of her bottle of wine, and tries not to think about the man she had come to this place to remember.
Dezeras Trollbane was dead.
They had told her as much only a few days after he left for Northrend; his ship was beset by naga the first night.
She hadn't believed it, but when she had gone down to Desolace (as the steward had instructed her weeks prior to do) she had slaughtered the whole brood of naga there, all the same.

There's the vague jingling sound of mail armor and suddenly there's a man beside her. She tries to ignore him, pretend he doesn't exist.
"You wanna know the truth?" he slurs, in Thalassian. "The truth is you'll probably never find your soulmate. Lost mine, six years ago. She looked a little like you," tipping his hip flask in the rogue's direction. He's maybe half her age, a young adult as she looks him over in the briefest of glances. An attractive young blonde Blood Knight, she gets in that first pass, wearing their black and red insignia on his cloak clasps.
"I ain't her," she replies, quickly, in no-nonsense Orcish, and he laughs.
"Just sayin' you look like her. Wouldn't be caught dead in leathers, my girl. Guess she was a mage."

Averill has to set the bottle of wine aside now, and though the general look of him makes her heart ache, she scrutinizes him closer. No scars - a fresh-faced youth. His eyebrows are dark, and she thinks, briefly, of another missed opportunity, a man she'd never met.
There's no hollow sense of longing in thinking of the man she was once betrothed to; if she met him now she wouldn't know what to do with him.
"Songblade," an unfamiliar voice, female and commanding, rings out through the Bazaar and the novitiate Blood Knight straightens.
The woman in plate approaches with a swagger, sword and shield at her back. "You will return to Farstriders' Square in two hours' time, Adept Songblade." There could be no mistaking the surname now, and it hits the rogue like a slap in the face.
Valendar Songblade. Spellbreaker. Her would-be husband.
"Yes, Champion Sunforge." He salutes her receding back, turns back to the rogue. Averill is pretending, as adeptly as she's ever lied, that she doesn't recognize her fiancé. Ex-fiancé. His luminous green eyes dart toward the Rest.
You wanna know the truth? she thinks, crossing her arms over her chest. The truth is I got over missing you around the same time I came to realize I'd never cast a spell again. Though it had taken the ex-mage a lot longer to actually come to terms with that fact, and Dezeras had helped in that. The truth is that I am who I am now. Not because of him, no, but with his help all the same.
"So, you wanna continue this discussion over drinks?" he asks.
Or under you, something in her growls, and for some reason she's repulsed by the thought of her once-betrothed bedding her.
You wanna know the truth? I'm not drunk enough to not remember this in the morning. I'm drunk enough to close my eyes and let you fuck me and think, "young, blonde paladin" and pretend you're him. I'm drunk enough to call you by the wrong name in bed, maybe you're drunk enough not to care, maybe I'll tell you my name is Jessica, the first name springing to mind - her dead friend. Maybe we'll never see each other again. I hope we won't.

The truth is I love him enough to accept the time we had, and not betray his memory by faking that with you.
"No," she says simply.