#azerea

[kiichilog]

2023.5.27 大入道~剣が峰

シロヤシオ探訪 今年は十年に一度といわれる当たり年？ 素晴らしい咲きっぷりでした！

[melosjournal]

Y’llarith and Ashafael’s tension comes to the boiling point, and Temperance decides they need a break -- from both of them.

--

Eversong Woods should not be this cold.

Nestled into a hollow tree, Temperance opens their weary eyes. The sun has barely kissed the horizon, and it’s much too early for them to wake up. Without body heat of their own, their downy feathers do little to protect them from the morning cold. They huddle into their little nest of moss, closing their gembound eyes, praying to an unnamed god for sleep to take them - but it’s day again. They can’t fall back asleep. They rise and stretch their wings and hop out onto a branch, into a lonely, autumnal forest. All the birds are gone. The mere presence of Temperance is enough to chase them away - alongside the critters, the deer, even the lynx. It’s curious that, for the first time ever, the Prince misses their presence. Any presence. Any sign that they’re not truly alone. They wish for a warm body, a hug, a comforting murmur - they wish to fly back into the arms of their lover.

Former lover. Night makes way for day, and the little white bird makes way for a white-haired high elf. They land onto the forest floor with a soft thud. Their selfish mind begins to wander, looking for an out, a reprieve. A sob chokes out in their throat and dies there. Sacerdos was dead. Azerea was gone. They couldn’t bring their shame to the Order, not again. They wouldn’t humiliate themself in front of their friends. Every person Temperance would normally confide in felt so far away, like an invisible barrier had been raised between them. Except…

A mote of warmth linger from the previous evening. The san’layn dips their hand into their back pocket, trembling, pulling out a crumpled up receipt. They stare at it, memorize it over and over again until there’s no chance of forgetting. Then they tuck it away into their nest. Family. Through hunger and bloodshed, their bond had persisted. There was no judgement in their family. They had already seen and felt the worst of each other -- of Temperance. Of…. Y’llarith. They swallow their pride and their sob. Business first. They had a tea party to prepare. Then, perhaps, they would set their sights to Kalimdor. To the Barrens. 

To Stixit.

[melosjournal]

Azerea

Following the first Sanguine Night Market, Temperance’s friend, Azerea, had gone missing.

---

“Madame,”

“Temperance. Madame is not my name.”

“Lorentzia,” they correct, “any news? Any traces of her?”

The Venthyr sits by her writing desk, glasses perched atop her hooked nose, red pupils moving along the lines of the letter in her hand. Temperance is not so rude as to read over her shoulder, so they read her expression instead. Black brows are coiled into a tight knit - not annoyed, but focused. Even as Lorentzia lowers the letter, her expression doesn’t change. Temperance had heard the creatures and people of Revendreth had been carved for stone. With a candlelight casting dark shadows across her sharp gestures, the Madame certainly looked every bit the part of a statue.

“I am sorry. The hounds lost the trace again.”

Temperance had already known what the answer would be. For the briefest of seconds, Lorentzia’s eyebrows had softened, as if to shield the Prince from the blow. It hurt less this time than the last. When they were unable to track Azerea themself, they had asked their friend the Madame for help. The Madame, in turn, had issued a command for a Hopebreaker to investigate the scene of Azerea’s disappearance. The Hopebreaker was hopeless without a quarry. Azerea was well and truly gone.

By the time Temperance returns home, to Azeroth and Suramar and Y’llarith’s bed, their own hope has dwindled away into an anxious knot in their stomach. Talundriel’s interruption of their family reunion had already made them brittle, and the blow delivered by Madame couldn’t have come at a worse time. The porcelain had cracked.

Even as they sate themself on their lover’s scent and kisses and blood, Temperance’s thoughts stray to Azerea. Where she could be, how hungry she could be, how cold, how lonely. 

Everything Temperance had been, once. Everything they swore to protect their friends from. 

Temperance had failed her.