#10.2.5

[artistofdragons]

[ask-naraenil]

A Garden of Winter - 12.11.23

There was an otherworldly aspect to the Dream that she had not experienced before.

Nara’enil did not have time to piece her thoughts together. Between the time her staff was burnt and slowly revived, the combined forces all over the Dragon Isles had gathered, and then collectively moved through the gate at the Ancient Bough. By the time she joined them, they had started to establish themselves under the very secret that was harboured within the Dream the entire time. 

There was a lot to take in and process: how Amirdrassil came about, how long it was there, and the adversaries that all of the forces were now facing. 

It took a while, but Nara’enil eventually found a quiet moment of respite, amidst the orders and briefings. While everything sank in, there was one significant aspect that stood out about their new home. It was under its immense roots: the same strange blue that threaded through its bark, visible across the entire region they were in. The same blue that faded the living beauty of the Dream into ethereal shades of twilight and indigo. 

Nara’enil almost expected wisps to be present, but they weren’t. It felt as if they were woven into the very body of the World Tree itself. As if the large pond with its odd landscaped swirl, that was unlike any of the other intricate grassy patterns throughout the Dream, held its own secrets that only those who passed on knew of. In this garden of dusk under Amidrassil, this space of winter amidst the verdant summer of the Dream, she felt both safety as well as the notion that she did not belong. As if she was standing at a precipice, at the brink of a change in seasons, a step in the unending cycle of life and death. A cycle of balance.

She sank onto the azure grass by the edge of the water, next to the arrangement of druidic stones that decorated the circles of the pattern. Nara’enil could not help but feel the emptiness that she had tried her best to overcome over the millennia. It resurfaced every time someone she knew passed away, and gnawed at her chest like a hungry beast wanting to be fed. 

It was quiet where she sat. All the activity fluttered above. Few druids came this way. Her staff, rejuvenated and no longer charred, was propped beside her. The smallest furls of leaves had started to sprout - a miracle wrought by “Elder Bearclaw”, a tauren from Hyjal who turned out to be an emerald dragon the whole time, and who told her that the staff was not of Azeroth, whatever that meant. 

Amidst the encircled calm, the emptiness within her slowly faded into a familiar anaesthesia as she regarded the shimmering water. All she could think of were the faces that she once loved and still remembered. Were they part of the multitudes who gave up their existence for their new home and their people, or were they still on the other side, perhaps witnessing everything that was going on through their own similar patch of water and unusual swirls in the ground?

A memory came to her, random and unbidden, as she absently stared at the broken reflection of herself.

“I was Dreaming in the Barrow Dens north of Ashenvale when the satyrs attacked. All I knew was when I woke up, I was surrounded by the healers resuscitating me, with the branch already in my hand.”

It was another made-up story of the origin of Veldrinath’s staff. The very same she now carried. Nara’enil vaguely remembered the banter: how she joked that the healers gave it to him to hold as they expected him to violently lash out at them; how he laughed and retorted that he stole it from the Dream, or beyond it. 

The numbness turned to pain. Somewhere in her consciousness, she always knew that she missed him more than anyone else who passed on. Somehow, she hoped that she was sitting on a patch of water, earth and grass that was touched in some way by his soul, that maybe all of this could have been a way for her to see him again. Or hear him. Anything to know that he was still around. 

But he was gone. He had been gone for almost a thousand years. Neither he, nor min’do Ilisana, nor so many other sisters and brothers whom Nara’enil lost over the years, would be coming back. 

She had to move forward. She needed to move forward.

Like many times before, she brushed aside the unshed tears and steeled herself. After all, she would be dishonouring their deaths if she was to continue to mourn, and not live on for the sake of those who survived. 

In the near distance, she heard her name being called. Fresh instructions were being issued, and she was needed elsewhere. Her staff touched the water lightly as she manoeuvred it to support her standing. Nara’enil reluctantly tore her lingering gaze from the pond, then turned and walked up the slope without looking back.

As she did so, a bud of dusky blue that matched the pallor of winter’s air began to sprout at the head of her staff.

[ask-naraenil]

Farewell - 21.1.24

The worst part of Veldrinath’s passing was how she never had the chance to say goodbye. There was no body, and his spirit didn’t return as the wisps their people tended to do. After all, he passed away in the scarab, old god worshipping infested desert of Silithus.

——

A distance from the central hub of Bel’Ameth, Nara’enil wandered until she found the area where the barrow dens were going to be readied. People poured into the town every day, be they visitors or those who intended to settle at the kaldoreis’ new seat of power. The High Priestess declared all were welcome, including the now-former outcasts that were the Illidari and the undead, along with the sorcerers of the Shen’drelar who leaned towards more sinister magics than the arcane. Only two named defectors of Druids of the Flame were with them. As for the Horde, they were allowed to visit, albeit with the invisible watchful eyes of the Sentinels constantly trained on them.

Though it gladdened her heart to see the new town built from scratch and to witness the joy of her kin as they celebrated and started their lives anew, Nara’enil felt the same hollow that never left her since she could remember. The same hollow that yawned more painfully in the wake of the deaths of both friend and family. The same hollow at witnessing the estrangement between her foster father turned honoured teacher and his son, her brother and best friend once upon a time.

Don’t be ridiculous, her sisters in battle often chided her over the millennia about the latter. You can’t mourn those who are still alive, they said. Immortal then and with immortality taken for granted, the end of a life was the utmost incomprehension despite how many were lost in the war of the ancients, and were still lost in the war of the satyr and of course the shifting sands. How ironic, thought Nara’enil at the time, that the lives of the hated were taken so cheaply in the years after the exile of the Highborne when the strays were hunted down and slaughtered.

And immortality taken for granted meant that any rift, while seemingly permanent, had the chance to heal be it centuries or millennia later. A disowned son, a former friend, a divorced spouse - any of them may return and perhaps be forgiven eventually as the passage of time healed the wounds that caused the separation.

But it wasn’t the same any more.

Some felt their mortality more than others. Nara’enil’s own hair, a rich navy for her entire life, greyed after Nordrassil was attacked by Archimonde. Fatigue had set into her very bones, despite her being in the prime of her adulthood at a few centuries before her fourth millennium, and she suspected it was less physical than emotional.

It was astounding how the state of mind of a mortal being affected its body.

But perhaps her late sentinel compatriots were right in the end: here at a new beginning, feeling the consequences of borrowed time both bad and good, it was her late husband whom Nara’enil missed the most painfully.

——

Those who passed or looked towards the southeast of the isle would see a solitary druidess strolling near one of Amirdrassil’s mighty gnarled roots threaded with the unusual blue that pervaded its bark. They’d see a wisp appear, seemingly from thin air, and float towards her.

Minutes later, if they were still watching, they’d see the athletic form of the woman hunch, her shoulders sagging while the wisp circled her. It touched the staff on her back, a wooden branch of blossoming blue leaves curled around a dreamcatcher at its head, and turned the living green threads into a soft blue similar to the threads patterned throughout the world tree. The wisp then hovered by the tear stained face of the druidess as if to give her a kiss, and then it floated away, disappearing into the non existence from whence it came, leaving the elf sobbing and defeated as her fingers tried in vain to reach for the spirit of her lost love.

She crumpled to her knees on the grass in a perfect picture of utter grief.

——

[noxith-sky]

ok, not really a patch spoiler, but in the Azerothian Archives, Zenata the tech draenei has the line, "I feel......at home...in the Azerothian Archives. Girl, who is holding a gun to your head??

[spo0ky-toast]

happy patch day to my wow mutuals

[techosta-blog]

iOS 10.3.2, macOS 10.2.5, tvOS 10.2.1, watchOS 3.2.2 Updates Now Available: Here's What's New

iOS 10.3.2, macOS 10.2.5, tvOS 10.2.1, watchOS 3.2.2 Updates Now Available: Here’s What’s New

HIGHLIGHTS All updates mostly focus on bug fixes Apple is gearing up for WWDC in June All the big features will be announced then Apple is officially rolling out software updates for its iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, and Mac lineup. The iOS 10.3.2, macOS 10.2.5, tvOS 10.2.1, and watchOS 3.2.2 software updates are now available for compatible devices. iOS 10.3.2 update The iOS 10.3.2 update…

View On WordPress