A box with a bright gold bow sits outside Jayir’s door as someone knocks on it at an ungodly hour, but is gone by the time the room’s occupant unlocks and opens his door.
Inside said box are the following: cat outfit patterns, cloth, thread, findings, new sewing needles, high grade nip, fuzzy blankets, three of the hard light candles, tomes on healing, and a set of new tools.
Carefully wrapped at the bottom is a drawing of Jayir, Jadoth, Wiggles, and Sketches hanging out.
An overwhelming flurry of memories flooded the mind of Knight Jay Pyreanor as he lie asleep on the floor of Ria Sunhammer's rented part time room at The Pyreanor Boarding House.
He had been caring for Ria since she had absorbed and drained all the curses and darkness from her cousin's souls so they could live without dangerous compulsions. The price was the darkness and compulsions were on Ria instead.
A guardian ranger, the savant Dead Shot Kemnebi Sunrunner, saved her and a flurry of spellcasting from the Sunbrand Brothers, Vosathiel, and Zan pulled her from the darkness. The inner war drained her so intensely she could barely call the light and her eyes practically ceased to glow.
Ria's state concerned Jay. He had sworn apprenticeship to her, seeking to learn more, unusual, and unorthodox techniques for healing. Ria was a priest before the Order and her holy order's old ways lived on in few aside from her. Jay recalled Ria's hinted offer of accelerated teaching using mind connections.
With rumors of the Legion's arrival any day now, Jay worried that Ria, if she went to the battlefield, might not return alive. To preserve knowledge he went to Ria and had her implant his mind, and her cousin's mind, and Zan's mind for being at the wrong place at the wrong time, with hundreds of years of techniques, training, experiences, and memories.
Some of the memories were ones those born as men did not experience, like the monthly visitor, pregnancy prevention, and what woman soldiers do to protect themselves against predatory allies and enemies. Other memories included herbal techniques, priest healing techniques, paladin techniques, and both Pandarin healing and martial defense techniques.
So many hundreds of years of memories were exceptionally difficult for Jay to cope with as he suffered incurable amnesia and only had a few years of actual memories himself and he received many times that length of memories. The memories swirled in his head and he found some of the more recent techniques lingering. In his dreamlike state, he processed the knowledge--Pandaren Arts.
He stirred from his sleep with a soft groan and uttered the words, "I know Kung Fu."
It was a sudden request from Zan that led to Jayir having a chat with Miss Ria Sunhammer about his experiences on Draenor. Miss Ria sat there with him and as they talked she filled out paperwork then had him sign it. She made it clear it wasn't about making Jay feel better, but about acts and assuring that he actually reap the benefits, such as a pay grade increase, for his acts on the field.
A retroactive promotion to Adept, Jay could agree to that, but the paperwork he was asked to sign went beyond just that. He tried not to actually read what Ria wrote, he just turned his mind off and signed. If it were wrong, the order would reject the papers.
Zan summoned Jay to the square some time later to bring food for an emaciated Tauren of sorts. He then sat by with Sketch and watched the scene unfolding. Ria and Zan were there and were waiting patiently for Mourne.
Jay's cousin, Zan, in his own shitheaded way, suggested the local lingering Knight Lord do a ceremonial promotion and was told to fuck off (which was probably deserved, after all, it's Zan). The Knight Lord then congratulated Ria on her promotion, which led to confusion all around.
Finally, Mourne looked over and signed the paperwork, recanting that he did indeed witness what was written on the papers and Miss Ria Sunhammer and Zan went into the hall to file the paperwork.
Jay sat there for a while then moved away, over to the signpost, unsure if he should return home or linger. With no instructions to return home, Jay decided to wait a while longer, so he sat with Sketch in his lap.
Eventually, Miss Ria Sunhammer returned with Zan on her heels. She knelt down before him. She requested his Initiate's tabard and exchanged it with the tabard of a Knight in a quiet sort of ceremony there in the middle of the square at just after midnight. She then handed him a copy of all of his paperwork. She explained that his retroactive pay would come spread out over six month increments on top of his new, higher pay grade pay.
Jay fought back tears and eventually got to his feet and headed home. He had a brief stop along the way where Knight-Champion Drimmari Dra'zar congratulated him.
The freckled Knight eventually arrived at his room and his cat hopped from his shoulders onto his bed. Jay removed the cat's leather Blood Knight Armor lookalike then the cat tabard, freeing the little silver tabby from his uniform.
Sketch rolled around on the bed as Jay held the little cat tabard in one hand and the stack of paperwork in the other in a state of surreal listlessness. Was any of this actually real?
Jay set the paperwork down on his desk and removed his tabard, laying it out on his bed. He lay the cat tabard down beside it and stood for hours staring at the two as his mind wandered.
The Pyreanor family was actually quite rich, and getting richer, through businesses and marriages and family mergers. They did not live a lavish lifestyle of nobles despite owning quite a bit of land and having right to titles. Instead, the family typically chose to be frugal, save, and live simply. Beyond his rent to the boarding house and costs for his sewing hobby and care for Sketch, Jay tucked most of his pay and dividends away in a savings account he never touched.
What would he do with the extra pay, and back pay if this were even real? Jay'd tuck it away and continue living as he had before. He contemplated the idea of a celebration, if this was real it was cause for celebration... but his heart sank. He felt he didn't deserve it.
Jay's eyes stared at the new tabard and Sketch's tabard replica for another long moment then looked around his room. He didn't deserve it, but Sketch? Sketch deserved a celebration for his noble service to his Knight. Sketch deserved a reward for his loyalty and valor.
Sketch deserved the cat trees in the land, several cat trees, from floor to ceiling, leading to shelves and ramps up on the walls that allow the kitty to run and play around the whole room, with places to perch and stare out the windows. Jay nodded to himself. That's what he would do, that and a nice dinner for kitty... and for himself too.
Jay removed his own armor and changed into his favorite pajamas with a yawn. He then moved to his bed and spotted the two tabards laying there. He eyed the tabards again and frowned... he saw an imperfection. The tabards no longer matched.
The newly promoted knight moved back to his desk, his eyes glanced briefly at the paperwork, and then he fetched his embroidery kit from a shelf above the desk and moved back to the bed. Jay climbed into the bed and grabbed both tabards, laying his own tabard out beside him and taking the small, cat sized tabard up into his hands.
Jay reclined back against his pillows and sketch climbed onto his chest, sitting in a loaf position with his face tucked under Jay's chin.
Diligently, the freckled elf lay awake in his bed for hours, hand-embroidering Sketch's tabard to match his own new Knight tabard, trying to make it as accurate a reproduction as possible. When his job was complete, he slipped the embroidery needle into its box and fell asleep.
Ria Sunhammer stepped quietly into the room at the Pyreanor which she shared with her brother while she was in town, and smiled down at his sleeping form.
The exhausted paladin sat down at the desk and willed the candle to life with a snap of her fingers and a spark of holy fire, then poured herself a glass of wine and took a sheet of parchment, and began to write.
“Today I was able to take a step toward righting some overlooked wrongs of the Order. I was able to research regulations regarding battlefield promotions and, as a result of his conduct and valor, bring such to the attention of a Champion who had witnessed his actions on the battlefield.”
She paused, smiling, before continuing to write.
“As a result of his demonstrated ability to wield the Light, his ingenuity in cobbling together two communicators which were broken beyond repair - and sending of a distress signal using the dot code, he was able to aid himself and an injured Adept of the Order until rescue came. This happened in the cold and hostile environment of Frostfire Ridge in Draenor.”
“Additional acts of valor were also recorded for his records, and paperwork was filled out and signed to bring him his promotion. Additional paperwork was filled out and signed to bring him and the Adept commendations, and to bring him his retroactive pay and station.”
“I recommended raising him to Adepthood, with additional promotion to Knighthood, and signed in the place where it was my authority to do so, by rank. Champion Sunblaze attested to this knight’s valor and signed off on the authority to raise him to Knighthood.”
“Additionally, a commendation was written for the Adept, based on the testimony of the Knight. This Adept was bounced to Initiate for bad bahavior and is being made to work his way up, and hopefully the recognition for his ability to aid in their survival in the hostile environment will be an incentive to advance.”
“I then took these documents into the Order Hall, where they were officially recorded and filed, with copies to the Knight, myself, and Champion Sunblaze. I then took the new Knight his tabard and badge of rank, and stripped him of the Initiate’s tabard, handing him the new tabard and badge”
Another pause.
“We should not be allowing our Knights to fall through cracks due to inattention and lack of knowledge, or will to promote, and give commendations where due.”
Jay's cousin Zan pressured him into joining the Blood Knight Order because he had natural light talents. Zan, disheartened with the order, no longer encouraged Jay to keep trying.
Jay went to a meeting with other initiates and Adepts just the other week. He stayed away from them. No one said hello to him. Not even people who knew him. He wasn't like them, he was a failure of an initiate who had quite possibly the longest record for being an initiate in the history of the Order.
He was so bad that even for the brief period he tried to take his Adept Trial, no one would test him. Most of the elder Knights had given up on training him. Champion Lightrift still offered him morning runs and practice when he felt up to it but the darkness and alienation in his soul was all consuming.
Jay tried to reach out and was ignored for hours for the sake of others sparring. His own importance to the elders of the Order was lower than the daily occurring spars.
He did not belong. This was not his place. He was a loser rather than a beloved combat maniac and the Order had no place for people like him.
Jay rose from his bed and collected the lovingly crafted miniature set of Blood Knight armor and tabard from his home made feline dress form and tossed it in the wastebasket beside his desk.
Jay slipped downstairs from his room and collected a crate then retreated to his solitude. The disparaged elf collected his standard issue armor and carelessly tossed it in the crate. He then tossed in his tabard and even the red and black shirt he had proudly acquired to go along with his tabard in the crate.
Jay reached for his old resignation letter. He then paused and instead wrote a new one.
"On this, the 24th day of the 6th month, I, Jay Pyreanor resign the Blood Knight Order: No one will give me my adept trial and I simply do not fit in with the rest of the Order. The order is not my home, not where I belong, and my success is of the lowest importance to my superiors and peers. Thank you for the opportunity and light bless."
He carelessly tossed the note, with its ink still wet, into the crate, then tossed his com device, and latched the crate shut.
Jay plugged the sink and filled it with water. His eyes were sunken in with dehydration and the skin on his face was gaunt, he had long-time stopped eating but once every three days.
He then opened his large container of homemade kibble, gave his little kitty Sketch a kiss on the forehead, and slipped from his room with the crate in hand.
Tired. Jay stepped in the door to his apartment at the Pyreanor-Sunbrand Boarding House and kicked the door shut with his foot. You'd think with the force that Jay shut the door it would slam and rattle the whole building but for whatever reason it doesn't.
He removed his armor, piece by piece, throwing them into a corner of his room, each making a loud clank on impact. Frustration.
The tiny grey perma-kitten sized Sketch hopped onto his bed and mewled then flopped over, concerned.
It was another fucking awful day for Jay and he was absolutely infuriated.
Every time! Every time Zan makes him go out to "have fun" and "be social" there's something that always makes it awful.
Today some braggart asshole that joined the order after he did hassled him. Somehow, the guy is a Master after a year while Jay himself was still just an initiate. In addition, that person ordered him to practice at eleven at night when he was tired, when he had already been up training since the asscrack of dawn.
Jay slipped into his favorite pajamas then stomped from his bedroom, down the ramp, to the kitchen. He piled a heated food box full to the brim of leftovers, which Zan left in the covered heat boxes. He then filled a chilling food box with chocolate pie and a flask full of milk then went back upstairs.
He flopped onto his bed and ate his turkey dinner, sharing pieces of meat with the cat as his mind wandered.
That guy was totally not officer material, there's no possible way that THAT asshole, the asshole who physically touched him without permission, earned it or was fit for the position.
Infuriated, Jay could not figure out what he was angrier with; was he angrier with the man who made him feel violated and showed him not even a basic shred of respect or was he angrier at whomever the awful man bribed or did sexual favors for to buy the promotion that made him act so cocky and rude?
One thing was certain, Jay was even more disenchanted, and infuriated with the Blood Knight order than before for allowing such bullshit to fly. Once again, he wanted to quit the order, but he would have to face Zan and justify it before his cousin would allow him to quit.
Stuffed, he sat on his bed and hugged Sketch close. He would not sleep that night.
Shivering and Darkness. It feels like is all I know and all I have ever known. A feeling of cold coursing through my entire body, an odd sensation in my right arm, pressure around my wrist and upper arm, a cold sweat and then light.
I squint at the brightness of the light. It is as if I have never seen light before in my life and it burns to my very core. After some time I finally open my eyes, now used to the light.
I am in a place. It is a strange place with a white ceiling, and off-white walls. I am laying. I move and feel surrounded by soft. I am laying on something soft. I am lying on a bed.
My right arm is restrained. I look at it. Straps. Made of... leather? There is a bandage wrapped tight around my arm just below the elbow. There is a clear thing... a tube? It is coming from beneath the bandage on my arm.
My eyes drift up the length of the tube. There is a clear container above, a clear container with liquid in it. The liquid is going into me through the tube. A liquid making me feel cold. Why?
I swallow saliva and I can feel an awful feeling in my throat. I go to smell and I can feel something going down my nose. I investigate it with my free hand and there is a tube in my right nostril. Why?
Just how many tubes are in me? Three? Four? A general feeling of discomfort comes over me. Where am I? Why am I here? What is happening to me? I panic and let out a scream.
Almost immediately, I hear a door open. It is so loud it hurts my ears. I have never heard something so loud before... or have I?
Someone is standing beside me. I can feel their warmth. I can feel warm air, a draft, against my skin. I look to them as they lean over toward me.
I hear a voice. A man's voice speaks to me. He sounds cheerful. He says, "Hey buddy. Glad to see you're awake."
His voice is so loud it hurts my ears. I wince and the voice lowers its volume to a whisper, "Hey buddy. It's okay."
I look at the man. He has pale skin, a round and spotted face, messy red hair. Green, he is wearing green. He looks familiar. His face looks familiar. I recognize it. I know it. It is familiar, so deeply familiar. This stranger, I know him. I trust him.
I know him but I am uncomfortable. I let out a frantic word, my voice cracks, "Out!"
The man tells me, "Stay calm. I'll get the catheters out in just a moment." He then leaves and returns with another man, this one is mean looking with white hair. His face is boney and he does not smile. I feel I know him too. While he seems mean, he carefully unwraps my arm and removes the long, thick needle from it then puts pressure on my arm.
His hand glows a golden color. I can feel warmth. This... this is the light. It is healing. The man, familiar angry man, is healing me.
The red man runs his hands along my face and speaks softly to me, "It's okay buddy. I'm going to get that tube out now. It may sting a little."
The red man gently removes the tube from my nose. It stings just as he said. I feel tears rolling down my face. They are warm. They remove a few more catheters, my right arm is liberated, and I feel a lot more comfortable.
I curl up into a ball on my left side, pulling blankets over me. The blankets are red and fuzzy.
The men leave me and then the red man returns. I smell something. It smells... interesting. My stomach lets out a terrifyingly loud noise. I am... hungry.
Red man fluffs my pillows and sits me up in the bed. There are funny metal things on the food tray. I grab one and instinctually know how to use it though I feel as if I have never seen it before.
I eat. The man speaks to me.
"Hey buddy. Do you remember your name?" The red man asks.
Do I remember my name? What... what is my name? Who am I? I do not know. I shake my head.
The man frowns. He bows his head for a long moment and then speaks, "Your name is Jay. Jayir Pyreanor. You're my cousin. I'm Zan. Zandrae Pyreanor." He does not look at me.
Yes. My name is Jay. Jayir Pyreanor. The red man, Zan, is family. He says so. I am Jay. I struggle and sound it out, "J-Jay-eer P-peer a-ann-ore. Jay."
He keeps his head lowered. Solemn, is he a bearer of bad news? He speaks again, "You suffered a head injury and you have been out for quite a while. I'm glad you finally have woken up."
He says I have been out for a few weeks. I cannot remember what happened. He says that I fell and hit my head. I cannot remember anything. I know things. My muscles remember. However, I cannot remember.
My brain remembers objects and people, but I cannot remember. I see familiar things. I remember some words. Some words I remember when I see things or touch things. I cannot remember how to say words. I struggle.
Zan the red man helps me. He helps me to a room with a bath. A bath... room. He helps me wash, go, get in bed. He brings me what he says is my favorite blanket, my favorite pajamas, my favorite food.
After a few weeks of recovery, I am starting to speak coherent sentences, though my vocabulary is weak. My word choices are like that a child.
He takes me to my bedroom but I do not recognize the room. It is a room. It has stuff I have never seen before. He tells me stories about stuff in the room.
I sleep in room. In my bed.
In my favorite pajamas.
Under my favorite blanket.
Hugging my favorite toy cat.
Years later, I can speak normally but everything I have ever known is a lie.
I sleep in my bed in my room in my actual favorite pajamas.
I sleep under my favorite blanket hugging my real kitty, Sketch.
I am a Pyreanor. I look like all the other men in the Pyreanor family.
I am a Blood Knight Initiate. I use the light but I cannot fight.
I like tinkering, making jewelry, and sewing cat clothes.
I am Jay Pyreanor and I do not remember most of my life.
I simply do not remember and I am sad.
I live a lie.
Jay returns to his bedroom from the fleshcrafting session with Ollie, the frown lines and worry lines wiped from his face once more. He slips into his bathroom and looks at himself in the shattered and bloody mirror, still frowning.
His lips upturned slightly, but his mood is so low that he often just frowns without thinking. Jay plants a finger on his cheeks and lifts them, trying to lift his face into a smile. As soon as he pulls his fingers away, he’s met with the hundreds of reflections of his own face wilting into a frown. His ears join his face in wilting.
Sketch mewls and rubs against the elf’s feet, but the little spotted and striped grey cat is unable to lift the ginger’s mood. He pulls the Blood Knight com device from his ear. He hasn’t used it in a week or two, ever since he was told to shut up and clear the com.
Surely no one missed him.
And the com had been so quiet. Why does he keep it in his ear? It’s not like anything he says will be listened to, valued, or respected. He’s just a stupid initiate, after all.
Jay clenches the device in his fist then, with a growl, throws it from the bathroom against the wall above his little table in the corner. It bounces against the wall and lands on the red carpet in the middle of the room. He doesn’t need them. He doesn’t need any of them or this.
He should stop trying, he’s a healer and a healer alone. He will never be good enough to be anything other than a failure of an initiate. Maybe he could quit the order and join his half-elven in-law Danil Sunbrand and be a shopboy, or work permanently as a caretaker for the special needs people of the boarding house.
He scooped Sketch up and set the cat on his shoulder. With a trill, Sketch paces back and forth as Jay returns to his bed, to sewing. He looks at the embroidered tabard and the miniature leather Blood Knight armor he’s making for Sketch.
Why was he bothering to make an outfit for his cat to wear, when that something is a place he doesn’t feel he even belongs?
Jay Pyreanor sits on his bed, his legs under the covers and a petite grey cat with tabby stripes and leopard spot sits in his lap, a sleeping loaf of warm and fuzzy. The plush red tomato with pins and needles in it sitting beside him along with a pile of fabric, a basket of thread of varying thicknesses of all colors, scissors, patterns, colored fabric chalk, crafting hoops. He's got some brown leather sitting nearby as well.
In his hoop is a black 'cat tabard' with its front in a crafting hoop. There is a Blood Knight emblem on it, half red, half black and outlined with chalk. He is using a strange mechanical needle, punching it through the fabric, to embroider the emblem onto the hooped cloth.
It's tuesday night. Extra training night. Surrounded by other initiates, new, wide eyed green initiates who hadn't seen what he has, who couldn't understand him. Who didn't care to.
The feelings of worthlessness for having been an initiate so long. The feeling of invisibility compared to the young eager knightlings who would seek praise through any means. Jay wanted praise and approval of people that mattered. But he would not earn such praise by brown nosing or being the teacher's pet. He wanted genuine recognition. Not as a response to coaxing, not from family, friends, or people whose job is supposed to be to praise and coddle him. He wanted genuine recognition.
What was the homework again? He couldn't remember. He grabs a rolled up sheet of pattern paper and cuts a 5 inch by 3 inch square and holds it up to his sleeping cat's head. He then takes a piece of chalk to him and repeats holding it up and marking it several times.
As he begins work on his first little set of cat leather armor, he decides that he's going to stay home. With a deep sigh the ginger gingerly removes the small cat from his chest, puts his work aside, and stumbles towards the bathroom at the call of nature.
After doing his business he looks at himself in the mirror. His eyes look sunken in with purple bags beneath them. Dehydration. His eyes are also a bit red beneath that green glow from tears. There are frown lines forming around his mouth and worry lines on his forehead were back. The not so young elf frowned deeper and planted his fist into the mirror, which shatters under the force.
Jay slips from his room as blood runs down his hand, Sketch on his heels.
He seeks his cousin, who is now his step brother, the forever young Oliver Pyreanor--death knight who specializes in flesh manipulation. Through a painful act of fleshcrafting blood magic, Ollie would smooth out the frown lines and worry lines on Jay's aging face, hiding the traces of his chronic poor emotion.
There is a conspiracy among the Blood Knights to infect everyone with a kitten pet. But I know. I will not be swayed by fur and little cute noises. I will stand against this aggression, for the good of Azeroth!
Haha! You cannot stop the Holy Order of the Sacred Feline! The young knights will learn qualities like responsibility, caring, compassion, patience, and respect for all creatures. Pet cats will help make them better people.
The order needs a generation that does not continue to sew seeds of discontent towards the order in the civilian population.
You cannot stop change, and change is now.
Besides, we Sin'dorei are not unlike fancy cats with great hair, hot bodies, and some fashion sense. Our ears are arguably expressive and I know a few who hiss. We should take care of our unevolved kin.
Today Zan told me to go meet Mourne and be social. I couldn't find Jadoth so against my better judgement I went alone.
There was an orc, a funny orc, he was nice.
But there was a woman, and she was reacting similarly to me at the orc unknowingly saying things that were euphemisms. Clearly this lady was of the same mind as me.
And then I mentioned seeing Lady Liadrin and my own anxieties about being seen by her or being in the way and getting kicked out of the order and the lady starts carrying on about how we're a cult of horrible horrible people that only care about ourselves and our glory and nothing else. And that's untrue for a number of reasons.
First off, I'm not like that, though I don't care to help or defend bad people, I don't particularly favor others of the order over a normal person.
Secondly, the order has never shown me such comradery ever. Had I not tapped on my com and annoyed them until we were rescued they would have never come and probably never even noticed we were gone.
And she couldn't understand why I got offended at her telling me to my face I'm a bad person. She said it was just a rumor, something people were saying about the order. She said she was a mage so I brought up the rumors that the Magisters are just pawns of the nobles and she got offended.
I love double-standards. I should have known better to think that this lady was actually capable of understanding me.
She doesn't seem to realize--no one seems to realize--what happens when people tell someone over and over again that they're a bad bad horrible person. Eventually they start to believe they are the monster everyone constantly accuses them of being and they start acting the part.
Maybe just because I followed Zan's orders to join the Blood Knights I'm a horrible person.
We went down to the portal. It's now secure. The orcs seem to have been pushed back and the charge for the portal is building.
Many many people are there. Jadoth and I went to say hello to people. There were too many people there and I stepped away. I turned to see Jadoth and he was surrounded by friends who were happy to see him.
From talking to the others in the order, it seems everyone thinks Jadoth and I are some sort of couple. That isn't true at all.
I don't understand why everyone is obsessed with this whole sex thing. I don't understand why two people can't just be friends, they have to be having sex. Am I from another world? Is that why I don't understand? Is that why I don't feel sexual desires or attraction? Is that why things like romance are unappealing and strange?
I don't want anything stuck in me. I don't want to stick it in anything else. I don't want to kiss anyone or have romance with anyone. My loins do not quiver at the sight of others, I do not want or desire anything. In fact, if my unit fell off I wouldn't even care and I wouldn't miss it. At all. Why is this so hard for people to understand?
Jadoth is my best friend. My only friend. Family is the most important thing to my family, and friendship IS family.I desire to make him feel happy when he's feeling sad, to calm him when he's angry, to heal him when he's wounded, to cure him when he's sick. I want to give him shelter when he has none, to give him blankets when he's cold, to be his company when he's feeling alone, to comfort him when the nightmares come. This is what family does.
Tonight he invited me to spend the night in his rooftop pillow nest. He was very cold, still thin from his previous kidnapping and starvation. His body does not seem to hold heat. I covered him in blankets, including my heated one and spent the night there.
I made a promise to not let him be alone anymore. When we go through the portal and fight the orcs in a blaze of glory I will heal him until I lack the power to heal him any longer. With the last of my power i'll raise a barrier over us and hold him until he passes. Then I'll lower the barrier and let them send me to the afterlife too. Then we can finally be at peace and be happy.
Jadoth and I have decided we'll go through the Dark Portal and we'll go down in a blaze of glory, together, and we'll take as many members of the Iron Horde down with us as we can. .
I swore that he would never be alone again. That I'd stay with him until his dying breath, then I'd stop fighting and I'd join him in the afterlife... if I have a soul and can experience such a thing.
We'll leave Sketch and Wiggles, our kitties, in my bedroom with a week or two's worth of kibble and lots of water. By the time they're discovered we'll be long gone.
I regret not going to the snow and having fun. I regret not cuddling Sketch more.
But no one will miss a monster and a mistake. No one will eve notice we're gone, and if someone finds our remains, they'll celebrate the fact that we're no longer making trouble..
In the meantime, I plan to live the next few days as if they are my last--because they are. And I want to feel comfortable, and eat good food, and enjoy my cat and my best friend.
I have been overtaken by a series of strong feelings in the past several weeks. Loneliness, uselessness, hopelessness, feelings of invisibility, of inferiority, of worthlessness, tiredness, and a lack of desire to get out of bed or live.
I don't remember when these feelings started. I wasn't always this way, was I? Maybe I have been this way the whole time and recent events just woke me up. Perhaps I am just aware now. I feel like I've been this way my whole life, as far back as i can remember.
I think I became aware after the Cascade thing. I began to doubt, I began to observe, and doubt myself and my ability to achieve success. I began to realize the pecking order, of others above me, of my unimportance an insignificance, something my family had not really introduced me to that I can remember.
When I got captured by the Iron Horde, I didn't expect anyone but Jadoth to try and save a lowly useless initiate. In fact, I wish they would have just left me to die, I'd be suffering less if I were dead.
Jadoth, in all his hurt and pain, is comforting to me, because I feel like he understands. As my own pain and hurt have grown he has expressed this understanding and in spite of his own pain has attempted to comfort me in mine. He's the only one outside of my family who even cares.
When Jadoth went on his retreat I fell into deep sadness. I dragged myself from bed to train each morning then returned to the bed to sleep. All day.
I've reached a point where socialization and interaction with others is stressful. Where speaking takes great effort and I'm nervous about speaking to my peers and moreso my superiors. I only go out to Surwich to stay near the only person in the world who even remotely understands me.
I'm right in my feelings of stress regarding my peers and superiors. I'm a failure of an initiate that can't do anything right. I can't even get myself killed right. These days I don't care if I live or die, in fact I hope I die. I think Jadoth is the same way but I don't want to lose him, so I try to help him and I think he tries to help me too.
Jadoth gave me some of his blue taffies, an anxiety medicine from Doctor Goldweaver. They make me stop worrying. They let me briefly lose my inhibitions. I speak and act in ways I otherwise would not, I express my emotions instead of burying them. I worry less and act more.
Last night Jadoth and I assisted in transporting tanks through the Blasted Lands. We, of course, were attacked and the two of us had to coral an animal that was pulling a tank. It had gotten frightened, ran, snapped its reins. and we had to collect it. I failed to use the light to ensnare its legs and trip it. I failed to restrain it.
Once we finally succeeded an enemy tank appeared. I ran to the tank our animal was pulling, hooped inside and turned it on. The tank was at close range so I turned the machine on, threw ti into full gear, trying to ram it into the enemy tank, only to find out I'm such a failure that I put the machine in reverse.
When I finally got the tank moving in the right direction the others were in close quarters with the vehicle, on foot, and ramming the other machine would have harmed my companions.
I sat in the tank for some time, just looking at the controls, hating myself for being such a failure. I looked for a self-destruct option, orcish tank, surely there's an 'or death' option for when victory fails. I couldn't bring myself to press what I thought was the self-destruct because I'm a coward.
I waited, hoped, prayed to the light that the other tank would fire on me and destroy my vehicle, but it did not. I gave up, turned the tank off, and sat atop it. I waited, hoped, and prayed to the light for a stray bullet to hit me from my perch but none did. I just watched the others fight like the useless excuse for an initiate that I am.
Once the tank was dealt with Jadoth sat with me and we watched the others take care of the few renaming orcs from the attack. I took more medicine from Jay while we sat up there, courage in the form of blueberry taffy. In the end the tanks made it to our destination and we returned to Surwich.
I stood by Jadoth, still pained from being a complete failure on the mission and a complete failure at life. I felt down, slouching, it must have been pretty obvious I felt like shit. What happens? Cascade asked if we were dating.
Jadoth has... or had,,, a girlfriend. And I am about as sexual as a bolder. No. We're not. The entire question was meant as an insult, to insult that I stand close to my friend while I hurt. To insult and invalidate my feelings, my hurt and pain and my ability to feel them. Clearly the only reason someone stands next to someone else is sex.
I got in Cascade's face and swore at him. He continued to make light of my pain, so I summoned the light to my hand and punched him. I intended to just knock him on his ass, not throw him across the yard. but. um. He got hit harder.
In the aftermath I was questioned, why I got so upset, why I stayed so close. And I snapped again, a second time. And I told the truth, the reason I stay so close to Jadoth is because he's my only friend, he comforts me and keeps me from killing myself. That I had hoped I wouldn't have survived the mission. And I left.
Cloudbreaker tried to talk to me but I don't think she understands. I tried to explain that Jadoth is the only person who understands. That we keep each other going. My feelings of worthlessness and uselessness. She made some comment about me being good at trying. She tried. I just. I don't know.
In fact after she went downstairs and Jadoth stayed with me, we overheard her blaming Jadoth for making people miserable, wanting others to be like him.
So we went home and Jadoth made me talk to Zan. We went to one of the vacant rooms, sat on a bed, and Jadoth made me tell Zan about my sadness, my thoughts of suicide, my feelings of doubt, how I'm not good at anything, how the only reason the family cares about me is family obligation.
He... He didn't make any jokes or make light of my feelings. He didn't dismiss them. Instead, he told me some things about myself and about my family.
He said that I seem to have depression and anxiety. That it runs in the family. That he has it too. He said I have low self esteem and poor self-confidence. He knows what it's like, he's dealt with it throughout his life. That no, he does really care, and it's not just obligation.
He encouraged me to go see Doctor Goldweaver and get my own treatments instead of taking some from Jadoth. He told us he cares about both of us and how we're doing.
He also told me that I shouldn't be mad at people who don't understand how we feel just like one shouldn't be mad at a kitten who misses the litterbox. He said that things like depression, anxiety, and combat fatigue are more likely to occur in intelligent people and that both Jadoth and I are intelligent. That people who don't understand are just a little... not as smart. They've never experienced it, they don't think on the level we think. They can't help it.
Most importantly, Zan told me that we are of the same bloodline. That in spite of my anxiety, my depression, my low self-esteem and self-worth, that anything he can achieve, I, too, can achieve. That if I want to I could become an officer, that I could find happiness, that I could be confident. That I can conquer my own demons.
I think this morning, for the first time in a long time, I'm feeling a little bit better about life.
Several nights ago Jadoth and I came across a horribly snarky Knight who started insulting him. She flaunted her rank and used it to belittle and chide us. Her rank? Knight. Not master or champion, just Knight. I couldn't help but feel as if I wasn't even a person to her, and I hate her for it. Maybe I'm not a person.
A few nights ago I was asking a Champion that my family speaks highly of for guidance and in the middle of my talking someone walked up, stood there, then asked if he was interrupting anything, as if I wasn't there or couldn't be heard. It was then that I realized that I'm really a person of no value to anyone. Nothing I say or do is important nor will it ever be. I might as well be invisible; I wish I was invisible.
I haven't seen Jadoth since I finally got to meet his mentor and outside of my morning training I've had little interest in socialization. I've remained home and slept. No one really will miss me; I don't matter.
Last night I was woken by Zan and told to get to Surwich. Cascade was there and Jadoth was on com with two of the elder Knights and they demanded we talk about things.
Apparently they've heard that some of us newer Knights were having low morale after the whole trial business and I was one of the people called upon to speak.
I didn't really feel like being there, and Jadoth wasn't there in person. I should have just remained in bed. Regardless, I stood there and when questioned I said a few things. Pretty much what was said was that the whole trial was an attempt to teach a lesson about actions and consequences. In a twisted irony, it did indeed, but, it was a lesson upon the officers where we useless underlings were just bystanders. I questioned the whole trial by combat thing.
Obedience, authority, and respect were discussed and I mentioned that I will not follow orders that are stupid or humiliating, like being punished for standing near some Master's lamp post. I pretty much told them I don't care about ranks or structure even if some of them view me as not a person because of my own insignificant rank. I pretty much said that if I follow someone's orders it's out of personal respect or respect for their experience.
I also mentioned that I was taught to question everything and use my common sense. I also pointed out that ruling by fear is no way to encourage camaraderie. I spoke up about how people being upset about their friends getting kidnapped was not a bad thing. I also mentioned that I was surprised anyone came to save me at all, being a worthless initiate and all.
In the end there was talks about obedience and clean slates, though I honestly don't need one. I went home. I'm not sure if I feel better about the whole Knight thing or not. I'm left with more questions than I had before.
When Prince Kael'thas took a number of our people to go assist the Alliance remnants at Dalaran they were faced with a man who sent them on unimportant impossible to complete missions. And monsters gave us the means to complete it. A monster saved our people from a suicide mission. And when our people were imprisoned for treason for accepting help instead of dying, that monster saved our people and took us to outland. And there we learned the syphoning methods which kept our people alive. There our people captured the Naaru M'uru, and allowed us to make the Blood Knights, and while some of what we did was bad, in the end, that Naaru reignited our Sunwell.
If it weren't for Lady Vashj, a monster, we probably wouldn't even be alive. Any of us.
And monster heroes walk among us every day. The death knights. Fallen heroes, brought back from the dead by the Lich King. Undead abominations with the need to inflict pain and suffering on others regularly to prevent murderous rampages. Yet, they broke free of their master, and many death knights of the Ebon Blade joined the Ashen Verdict, alongside the Argents. And side by side heroes of the Light and monsters stormed the citadel. If it weren't for those monsters, Azeroth would have fallen to the Lich King by now. And now the death knights like Ollie have come home to family. And in spite of their need to cause hurt, we love them. Because they're family... and monsters are people too."
