Sketches, Friends & Reflections
It wasn’t uncommon to find the Ren’dorei tucked somewhere quiet and solitary with a well worn and well used leather bound journal in her lap. It was her bestiary and she’d been working on it for many long years now in her longer lived life, adding pages over the times when it was needed. But today it was no beast she was sketching, but a personal sketch.
She’d done these before in the past, in fact Illdraes’s house had three hung on the walls though they were all of Na’mu. She’d even given a sketch of an Argi once to another she happened to meet in the past. But this… this was one of her rarer and more personal sketches. One, she probably would never show to another and keep tucked in the back of the book where other such sketches remained.
She pushed the charcoal along the whites of the pages and found her subjects taking form, two subjects who had been deep and heavy on her mind as of late. And as she continued to sketch the attention to detail for both were in her own way a reflection of how much she had come to care for both of them. Yet as she sketched she reflected on several things. Several moments in time with both of them but more pressing this day was the conversation she’d had but mere nights ago with the Gilnean who’s scar she was intricately bringing to life across his eye.
“No more cult… no more gang, sure. But that doesn’t change the fact that… there’s blood on my hands.”
“My actions are in the past- but I still did ‘em. Consciously. Willingly. I can never change that.”
Ivan’s words had provoked something in her that night, a truth she had never admitted aloud but only in the solitude of her own mind. Yet after all they’d been through in the past week she no longer saw a reason to hide her thoughts. If anything, she hoped it might help him see his own truth. A grim ugly truth, but he was not alone. None of them were alone.
“There’s blood on all our hands Ivan, even mine. You and Illdraes don’t judge my past anymore than I judge your own because we’re all bloodied with our actions despite our different reasons. People like us… We are the lions in a world of lambs. Predators, hunters if you will. But what sets us apart is if we choose to embrace the darkness, or if we choose to fight against it. In both choices we can become limitless and fearless but that transition can be one of the hardest things to obtain.“
“I was told once, that to capture a predator you can’t remain the prey. You have to become an equal in every way. I have chosen to be the hunter. No matter what I must do to see to it that they can not harm me anymore. That is why I finally made the choice to end the part of me that made me the prey. But I had to find an equal to help carry me through it. Or in our case, equals.”
~Equals~, she reflected on the word as the sketches took more life within the faces of the Kaldorei and the Gilnean both. Each of them had bared one another’s trauma and each had been abandoned in one way or another. All three of them had lived similar lives that brought them to this moment and all three of them had just been stripped bare before one another after a mission gone wrong. But instead of tearing them apart it had only brought them closer, and made painfully apparent to her at least that she had one great weakness that was eating her alive because she was letting it. That was why she called on them both to be at her side as she finally chose to destroy what she had been. A choice, and a separate event which had taken yet another toll on the three of them and only proved in her mind at least that the three of them were far more than just comrades now.
“The three of us know far more than perhaps either of us were ever meant too of each other after what we’ve been through. Despite how bare events at the cave left us all before one another, it also made us realize perhaps how similar we are in our walks of life. You Ivan, have the misfortune of walking it in far less time than us…. and Illdraes has the advantage of having far more years than either of us to cope and harden his shell. He’s better than you, far better than I even and I envy him for it. But he willingly chooses to fight with us and stand by us. Even to call us his friend. I honestly think it’s because he sees the same in both of us. We just…. are much younger in our development.”
“Despite that, I think we each care for each other in our own way. We certainly have come to trust one another, and in a way it’s almost… familial. To fear what you are now Ivan, is to fear what we all are. Perhaps it’s time you embrace it, and use it and the events leading thus far to lead you in your own direction. Whatever that may be at least it certainly should be stronger than before. And you’ve two allies who would probably walk through fire to aid you if you called on us.“
Equals in every way… her words reflecting in her mind as she traced the last bits of details in each of their faces. The two faces that were always on her mind now. Friends, who were quickly becoming more like family to her. Both could rouse such confusing emotions within her in their own way, but both had proven they’d remain at her side no matter the cost. And so too would she for them… even if her own feelings were never realized.
((First of all a very warm thank you goes out to @littleliongod for the sketches. They were a wonderful person to commission and happy to make these look like legit charcoal sketches that my character would have done IC. I highly recommend working with them and I thank you again for this wonderful art of my good friends @ivanvukoja and @illdraes. There is also a very slight mention to @devsash‘s Toranos too in the writing above.))
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