A World of Warcraft character blog for Mason Kohler, an adventurer and poet (WRA-A). Kohler in-game. Avatar art by nocturnedreaming. Follows and asks come from luminashdawnwing.
The older I get, the more I realize, I don’t want a busy life. I want a deep life. Slow mornings. Focused work. Calm people. Meaningful progress. Good books. A quiet mind at night. Nothing flashy. Nothing trendy. Just a life that feels good to live. Depth over noise. That'll do.
“We appreciate your interest in the traditions of Quel’Thalas, sir, but are you certain that these books will be to your liking?” The librarian at the University quirked a delicate golden brow at the broad-shouldered, shaggy looking human standing across the counter. Her Common had the distinct musical quality of the Thalassian accent despite how slowly she spoke, being sure to enunciate for the benefit of the city’s guest.
Mason only nodded, a slight look of disappointment flashing across his face. It was not the first time he had been questioned in a library, and it would likely not be the last.
“Ma’am, I thank you for your concern, but I’m quite certain,” he replied, the Westfall drawl to his own Common no doubt giving her some pause. He smiles, though it does not quite reach his eyes, and pushes the stack of books across the counter.
Among them was a textbook, rather scholarly, for the learning of Thalassian, an updated edition of one first published in Dalaran some hundred years before and intended for human use. Alongside it, appropriately, an extensive Thalassian dictionary, and a few collections of elven poetry and literature ranging from short lyric poems focused on the beauties of Eversong to foundational epics celebrating the flight of the Highborne, and the establishment of Quel’Thalas, with all its glories and shames.
“Now, I know they’re beyond my reach now, but they won’t be for long, ma’am,” Mason continued as she placed the proper stamps in the proper places for lending.
“I am sure, sir. Please do make sure they are returned on time, and in an…acceptable condition,” she intoned, keeping a professional voice despite her look askance as the guest departed.
“Shorel’aran, ma’am,” Mason called back as he stepped out into the courtyard. The librarian had to admit, much to her chagrin, that this strange man’s pronunciation was excellent.
* * * * *
“How does it fit?” the seamster asked, pulling back after adjusting a layer of cloth over Mason’s chest, leaving the human to look upon his own reflection.
The neck was higher than anything he had worn outside of truly formal settings before, and the red and black embroidered in gold was a bolder color choice than he would normally have picked.
He plucked at the fabric, tailored nearly to accentuate his shoulders—a “striking silhouette” he had been told, worth showcasing, certainly the humans in the south could understand that hiding behind such baggy clothes was a crime against such a fine young man.
“It’s…” Mason started, shifting as he grew accustomed to the snugness of the shirt, and the ornamentation, so foreign to him, staring back from the mirror, “It doesn’t look bad, I’ve gotta admit.” He tried to speak slowly, so that his accent would draw less scrutiny.
“Ah, what a compliment!” the tailor exclaimed, sarcasm biting in his tone, “What could be different, my fine guest? I can see you are unused to such fashion, but I would not see you leave without taking a bit of local color with you, hm?”
Turning before the mirror, Mason grew ever more self-conscious. The black clung to him more than he cared for; he felt completely exposed, though not an inch of his skin was, when he was so used to hiding behind armor, or his usual ragged work clothes.
“Can we at least make the legs a little looser?” he finally settled on.
With a shrug, the seamster gestured to the changing room, “If we must, sir. Go get yourself changed, and I’ll see what we can do. Then, come back tomorrow and we’ll set you up right.”
* * * * *
The clang of hammer on anvil was a familiar song, its rhythm stirring Mason’s heart and hands to create, to build, to coax new form from formless metal. Yet, this blade was not his to craft.
Instead, the human sat, conspicuous in his distinctly human outerwear, plaid and rough fabrics designed for cooler climates and harsher labor than sitting on a storage crate and watching as elven smiths worked copper and tin into gleaming bronze, and guiding it into sinuous curves. Their blades, their armor, were works of art in their own right, and Mason took careful note of how their hammers struck, with what care they ground down rough edges.
Finally, as one of the elves quenched his blade in the vat of oil for a third time, its hammered edges smooth and sharp, he looked over to the human with a raised brow.
“Can I help you? I apologize if we’ve kept a customer waiting,” the elven smith said, bowing his head regretfully.
Mason shook his head, then held up a hand in a gesture to wait. The elf gave him a puzzled look in return as the human glanced down at some jotted notes in a notebook on his lap. Even more surprising was when the drawling man spoke again, he spoke in a reasonable approximation of Thalassian.
“Your work, it is good. Elegant. Are you able for me to show more?” Mason asked, the elven words flowing from a slow, all too human tongue. He smiled broadly, hopefully. From the look on his fellow smith’s face, he knew he had made some manner of error.
The other smith laughed though, a bright and ringing sound much at home in the smithy, “You are practicing, aren’t you! Not bad, not bad, but come,” he said in Common, “I’ll give you some direction, both in our metalworking techniques, and perhaps some pointers on our tongue as well, while we work.”
W Wednesday —
What kinds of poetry does Mason write the most of? Is this more out of habit or personal choice? Would he consider writing other formats or mediums (novels, plays, theses, etc.), or is he rather dedicated to the art of poetry?
Mason primarily writes poetry to reflect on his experience, which, for better or worse has been a lifetime of upheaval and war. Most of his work is either alliterative verse (OOC note: loosely inspired by Old English alliterative verse, which shares a common origin with the Skaldic tradition of ancient Scandinavia—and therefore I tie it in-universe to his time with the Valarjar), or lyric, which he can accompany with music. He does write with the intent to sing!
In addition, he has a deep and abiding love of heroic epic, and appreciates the beauty it sees in even the bloodiest conflict, as perhaps it means his own life is not without beauty too; he has hesitated to write any of his own, however, out of fear that it would strip away the magic, as it were. In time perhaps?
He would certainly consider writing in other genres! Fiction, or storytelling, he feels belongs in poetry, but from decades of smithing and combat have made him wonder at writing manuals, or even military analyses.
Mason’s feet dangled down off the wooden overlook, the river on its course to the sea below rushing over rock, stone, and branch, a dull roar, though a peaceful one. Though he no longer gazed at the stars overhead, or the flashing of fireflies drifting by, they found new homes on the page.
In Quel’Thalas, the Voidstorm yet raged, and though there would be pain enough, soon enough, on this excursion to Northrend of all places, the price of waiting in order to settle mind and heart was worth paying if it helped to strip the doubt-laden whispers of the Void of power.
And so he wrote, pen scratching on the pages of his worn journal:
You asked me if I felt alone, and I
replied that it was true. The stars watch o’er
us now so still, no trace of icy hoar,
a flick’rng dance, as motes of light do fly.
The sands of time slip by, as on the shore
one holds those grains and lets them slip through hands
by passage smoothed, the mem’ry on skin stands.
When you turned to go, I spoke not before
it had become too late. And so alone
I sit and write my record of this time,
a hope that when we meet again sublime
my nerve will fail me not, my tongue not stone,
and ask that you stay, a ward against the rime,
as night comes on, and moon begins to climb.
When he finished, the moon was higher indeed; he did not know how long the fevered rush of his composition had taken him, only that inspiration had seized him, and the words flowed forth.
He returned to the lodge, padding as quietly as he could on the wooden floorboards, hoping the creaking would not wake Vix. He began to settle on his own cot, but as he caught a glimpse of the stars through a crack in the window’s shutters, he stopped, and reopened his journal.
Though it pained him to injure the book so, he tore the newly-inked poem from its bindings and folded it gently, hoping it would not smudge. He feared his feet dragged like leaden weights as he left his cot to where his companion had hung her cloak and slipped the page into its folds, but his spirit dragged the fearful body on.
When he did return to his bed, sleep did not come, yet he rested still, eyes cast through the shutters and towards the stars.
( @tannoraste for Vix mention, inspiration, and screenshot credit!)
The sound of whetstone scraping across the blade’s newly beveled edges soothed Mason’s frayed nerves. The entire process had: heating the steel, hammering the glowing ingot into shape, coaxing out the artwork hidden within cold metal.
Some might not call it art, but the weapon in his hands, gleaming in the glow of the forge that had yet to cool, sang to him. It had almost begged to be released from the prison of unformed metal; the length of a shortsword, it was a massive two-bladed spearhead, a ring open in the center awaiting the presence of the storm. He had seen such weapons wielded by the Valarjar in years past, and something days ago had driven him to his forge before even breaking his fast, a compulsion he could not explain.
As he fastened the spearhead to its prepared ashen haft, he saw the shadows lengthening as evening drew on, and exhaustion struck him like his hammer had struck the anvil since the early hours. His limbs grew slack as he rested the new greatspear next to his other arms and began the rote process of tidying the forge for the next day’s work. As often, his mind wandered.
* * * * *
Blood pounded in Mason’s ears, the other sounds of battle—the clash of steel, the shouts of pain, the groans of the dying—fading away to nothing as darkness crept into the edges of his vision. He had been told this excursion would be his death, a return to the Broken Shore to scout for the lost and forgotten after the disaster at the Tomb. He, though, had yet to fall.
His armor moved with him, a second skin, as he hacked away at the foe, demonic ichor spraying across the fel-blighted, blackened soil, the sting of it splattered on his skin and into his eyes only deepening his concentration on the sweep of his axe. The pain was distant, and offered clarity, surety that he still lived, as Legion forces fell before him.
Trusted companions, those who had followed, and too had been knocked from their gryphons by Legion attack, fell in the dust. Others clawed their way to survival with Mason, one even forcing a felbat into the sky and back towards Dalaran. He had spent many nights in planning, in perfecting his approach, his strategy to quickly scout the terrain and flee before discovery; how little it had availed him!
He brought his axe down with a guttural scream, crushing through the felguard’s armor and sinking halfway into the brute’s shoulder. Pulling the weapon out, he struck again, cleaving across its torso and sending it to the ground. Mason’s lungs burned with exertion, but he was so blessedly alive; he did not realize, then, that the others had gone, and he was alone. Even the Legion forces had withdrawn, and yet his blood shrieked for war.
The thunderous steps of a pit lord’s approach were met not with the terror they ought to have evoked, but with another battle cry and brandished axe.
The battle that ensued would be Mason Kohler’s glorious end, bloodied and broken in the dust as the annihilan breathed its last, a blinding bolt of Light from above spearing the demon, a gout of felfire from its husk swallowing the frail mortal who had almost bested it.
* * * * *
The dinner Mason had set before himself was simple: brown bread he had baked the day before, hard cheese and cured meats from the market, and fruit plucked from the orchards near his home. Each day now was simple too, their rhythms calm and familiar. The haze of war was far away, the violence and fear only a haunting memory. Honest money from his work made its way back to his aging parents, enough remaining in his hands only to keep himself comfortable.
And yet, that was all he was now: comfortable, almost lost in a different sort of haze, like one waking, knowing of what awaits beyond the warmth of the blankets, but lost all the same in their embrace.Â
The recent companionship of Vix was a welcome disruption to his routine, a few moments to talk about something other than his craft. There was poetry—his little library had been lain bare, and its contents shared for the first time in many years—and pain—memories of the frozen north he had thought best left unstirred—but together it became reality. However it hurt, pressing on those bruises, as it were, reminded him of what he had lost in his safety. It was a brief glimpse through a foggy windowpane into the wider world outside; he longed to follow her there.
That window had been utterly shattered the night of the great storm, when Sigfa had appeared at the lighthouse: the val’kyr had been his savior that day on the Broken Shore, snatching him from certain death and granting him new purpose among the mortal Valarjar. The more he thought, the more he felt she had doomed him: he should have been another casualty of the Legion’s war, another weapon broken in the heat of battle. Yet he had been reforged, made stronger, and forbidden from breaking. If he leapt through the broken panes, what fate awaited him?
The walls of his little house seemed to close in, and he found himself swallowed unbidden in the gulf of bitter memory.
* * * * *
Mason looked back over his shoulder, the Kohler farm fading away in the distance as he ran, blade in hand, lightning crackling along its length, pulse pounding in time with the thudding of his feet on Westfall’s soil.
Everything he had built had come crumbling down: a home reclaimed from the devastation of the Legion, made into a safe haven for the rudderless and unwelcome. The crime of one man, a murder committed in desperation, had brought Stormwind’s guards down upon his benefactor. That benefactor, then, had sealed his fate with righteous anger, raising arms against his own kingdom.
He did not know how long he had run, but when golden fields began to slope downwards towards a river, beyond which was a bleak and hungry forest, made more unwelcome by the darkness of the night sky, he finally stopped, dropping his weapon and surrendering himself to the soft grass.
Whatever became of his home now, there would be no turning back for Westfall’s lost son.
* * * * *
He took a series of deep breaths, counting as he did, and felt the grip he had on the edge of his table slacken, returning to his repast in an effort to banish the painful thoughts, giving in to the necessity of the body to soothe the mind. As he ate, the food became as ash in his mouth, and he stood abruptly enough to knock his chair to the floor, a scream in his mind overwhelming his senses.
He had not heard the Radiant Song before, not like many others, and yet it struck in this moment, a scream of terror and a vision of the sun swallowed by a starless, inky blackness. He saw panicked elven faces frozen in a moment of suffocating fear.
He saw Sigfa in his mind’s eye, resplendent in golden armor, impassive under her helmet. He heard her voice, a call to become a shield for his world. Darkness was coming, and the Valarjar were silent.
There, too, he saw Vix. A shadow threatened Quel’Thalas, she had told him, the pair leaning against the counter one night in a dimly-lit Boralus harbor tavern. His mind had raced, then, how best to fight against an unseen hand. A thrill had risen in his breast at the thought. It was that window, again, another peek through the glass.
Then she was among the others, an exiled mourner of an eclipsed sun. Her sorrow became his, and he felt himself lost in the dust of the Broken Shore, lost in the grasses of Westfall as he fled, an exile of sorts himself, mourning the loss of peace, the loss of innocence.
A flash, like lightning, and the smith’s senses were lost again to the Song.
Blood pounded in Mason’s ears, the other sounds of the village in the evening—farmers calling livestock in for the night, children managing a final few moments of play, the distant crash of sea waves—fading away to nothing as a brilliance flashed in the smith’s vision.
It was enough to send him to his knees as he rushed out of his home’s front door, panting and gripping the dust in clenched fists. He choked back the agonized howl that threatened to erupt from his lips from the pain of his memories, from the pain of the Song, from the fear playing on Thalassian faces, the gnawing dread of that blackened sun. He had seen enough, had felt enough. Wherever he went, war followed; it was in the very beating of his heart, a war drum in his very breast.
The message in the Song focused Mason’s mind, and as its racing calmed, he saw with clarity, the colors of the world clearer and crisper even in the evening twilight than they had been in some time, the sky a rich indigo, the horizon gripped by the last of dusk’s rosy fingertips.
He would not—could not—abandon those in need again. If war was his lot, then he would suffer it so that others would not.
* * * * *
While the battle at the Sunwell raged, the Devouring Host pressing against the walls and rampaging through the gardens and terraces of Quel’Danas, there came a bolt of lightning, a peal of thunder from the darkened sky.
In its wake, a lone mortal Valarjar rushed against the Void’s onslaught, a shield wreathed in storm, raised not by the Light, not by any others’ urging, but by its own will, to stand between the innocent and their destruction.
(@tannoraste for Vix! And here for certain backstory references.)
Mason’s life had been a long exercise in yearning.
In his youth, it was yearning for the horizon. Westfall, although its plains were near-endless to the child’s mind, was a small place: few new ideas were born, few of his peers appreciated his desire for more, and fewer still adults cared to expand his world. And so he sheltered himself in what few books Moonbrook held, and eagerly devoured tales of the wider world.
Later, Mason yearned for hope. After the First War, after the farmlands had been forced, by slaughter, to lay fallow, after all that remained for him there was a smith’s apprenticeship, after the Defias lay claim to what was left, all he wished was to flee over that horizon of his youth, but in the hopes of a future, not adventure.
In Northrend, Mason yearned for home, as broken as it was, and for peace. After Northrend, he still yearned for home, even as he looked over the golden plains of Westfall. Home had changed, or he had changed—or both, more likely.
He yearned for purpose, and still for peace, but in finding purpose, that peace was denied.
In the years since the Scourge resurgence, he had isolated himself utterly. Even as he put up new walls, piled high the stones of his own furnace, his own smithy, the prickling yearning for something different remained. The simple rhythms of life were a soothing balm for the troubled mind, yet a void remained.
At times, he would awake in his empty bed, his empty home, a feeling of dread settling upon him, the chasm that loneliness—a curse of his own making—had opened within him.
And so, he lit the forge, hefted hammer in hand, and set to work anew each day, burying the yearning for companionship in the burning of tired muscles and the hope that, one day, the labor he did here would be enough to wash away the past.
The farmland outside Mason's home was cast in shadow, pelted and flattened by the downpour the late winter sea storm had brought to the island. A peal of thunder followed the blaze of lightning across the sky, rattling the windowpanes and even rippling in the tea steaming in the smith's cup.
The dark of night had come on earlier than usual from the storm, and not a soul stirred outside, but for Mason. Leaving behind his drink, and pulling the hood of his heavy, oiled cloak over his mane of hair, he trudged into the cold, driving onslaught and towards the lighthouse.
That last bolt of lightning seemed too direct, too unnatural, and the certainty of what—who—it was drove the man's feet onward.
At the top of the lighthouse, her radiance piercing the veil of wind-dashed rain, a second beacon in the night for all approaching by sea, clad in full golden raiment was precisely what Mason had expected.
"Sigfa," the smith said, voice booming to carry through the roar of the storm, both greeting and accusation.
"Mason Atlisson," the val'kyr responded, "You have hidden long enough!"
"Straight to business as usual, I see," he replied, moving under the eaves at the lighthouse's peak in a vain attempt to keep his already-sodden self drier.
"Surely you know now that darkness comes, child. The Valarjar—"
"Tend to Odyn's needs, yeah?" Mason interjected, "Especially after the dragons' insult."
Sigfa tensed, but nodded, "You speak truth, Atlisson."
"And you think I'm gonna drag myself out of the little life I managed to build for myself out here, away from the noise of battle, and the blood, and the horror?" Mason's volume rose as he spoke, a desperation creeping in, as if he were some skittering creature newly exposed to the sun, the safety of its rotting log torn away by a some bumbling woodsman. Shock, and fear, and indignation.
The smith motioned with a jab of his finger towards the growing village hidden in the rain, the dim glow of lamps from within window panes scarcely cutting through the blackness, "I'm not letting this one be taken! Not again!"
He'd run after Northrend, and no matter what solace he found, it always fell away, always left him with more scars on body and mind. Every step since the Broken Shore, a felguard's blade piercing the would-be hero's chest, lifeblood pooling on the fel-blasted sands, was the step of a ghost.
"I should've died, Sigfa!"
Thunder rumbled as if in response to Mason's growing rage. The val'kyr, though, remained unmoved.
"Everything I've built since then, every life I've tried to start, has gone nowhere. I—" His voice was drowned in another peal of thunder, yet he carried on, "Will not go! Not this time!"
The stones of the lighthouse shook with the next peal, the flashes of lightning seeming to grow closer and closer.
"I knew before I came what your choice would be. But at times, child, there can be no choice. And when that time comes, you will act, Valarjar. Return to your hearth, Atlisson, and know this: your strength is not the burden you believe. You need not be a weapon, but a shield."
With that, the val'kyr spread her wings, mist rising from them as the black torrent washed over her, and with a heavy beat, the golden figure rose into the air, leaving Mason alone at the lighthouse's peak, his drenched hair and beard illuminated by another bolt of lightning, his very bones shaken by the violence of the thunder.
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