#chahni

[shadoloran]

Vin... help me...

He woke up from his dream, sitting up slightly and quickly looking around. The room was softly lit by the night light nearby and his bleary eyes looked for any shadows that might be lurking; he saw none. Donavin looked down at his sleeping girlfriend, his arm still around her as she breathed peacefully. Was he dreaming again?

He carefully rolled out of bed and washed his face in the sink. The timepiece said it was still pretty late in the evening but he didn’t want to go back to sleep with the haunting voice on his mind that he’d known so well. So he checked on Chi, made sure she was tucked in and wandered down to the practice room.

He’d learned quite a few meditative techniques but the ones that worked the best were those he and his brother often did together. He missed his presence, but he set into motion, calming his nerves and letting the shadows play over his form. 

Sliding one foot out... arm up... slowly turn... balance...

This place was possibly starting to get to him. It had a way of warming up to you and trying to get things out of you that it thought would be beneficial to both. But he wasn’t quite convinced. The runes in the room glowed as he continued to let the shadow dance around him in his full control. He didn’t notice when the manifestation of Yxxarion hovered in the mirror nearby, watching.

battement... lift and hold... 

His toes spread against the mat as he balanced, breathing evenly. His muscles stretched and held, flexing to keep him still on one leg as the other raised higher. He slowly rotated his hip, shifting it in front of him. Shadows danced around him like fire. 

“You’ve learned that your body limits you.”

Vin opened his eyes and lowered his leg, turning toward the mirror. “Grandfather Yxx.”

“You are more powerful without the void. Be careful.”

And like that, he was gone again.

[shadoloran]

Grief

Donavin rubbed his hand over his head, feeling the way the stubble was growing back in. He missed it, but he knew it would just be a matter of time before it grew back in and they were all losing his elastics and pencils again. The temple was quiet without anyone there but him and Chi and the demons... but they were enjoying a time of peace and research and Vin was working on the spells that his Dad had given him to do.

He and Chi had still kept up tradition, having breakfast together in the time that the whole family often came home even if it had been mostly just them and Darnath on occasion. It was one of the mornings that he decided to go out and get the mail, finding one for Chahni and one for himself aside from the usual official spam mail from the two cities his family was allied with. 

Curious, he wandered into the library and plopped on the couch to open his. 

Young Master Shado'loran,

It is with deep regret that we inform you...

He had to read it twice over and then a third time as his eyes watered. Chahni looked to him curiously, making her way with concern around the desk but he was suddenly wracked with a sob and she wrapped her arms around him. 

"Vinny... talk to me what's wrong?"

But all he could get out was one name. "La'ret..."

[shadoloran]

Donavin awoke out of a dead sleep; suddenly there were hundreds of whispers coming from who knew where and he held his ears as the volume increased. He tried to make something out... a word, a phrase and yet they were so jumbled together that it was all static on a goblin radio stuck between broadcast stations.

-ocent...

ki...

do-...

He squinted, trying to concentrate but there were so many of them! It was the hands on his arm that shook him out of it when he looked at Chahni and all of it was quiet again. Sleepily, his girlfriend pulled at him to lay back down. "Mmback to bed Vinny..."

And they were gone.

Donavin looked around the room hearing nothing as if they'd never been there. He sighed, giving one last look around before he wrapped his arm around her and lay his head back down and closed his eyes but sleep was a long time coming.

we-the-faceless

[shadoloran]

Needs

Since he'd been awake, he'd been working on trying to stay as calm as he could. Somehow his emotions had been moving spirits and making bulbs explode in the slightest twitch. It was difficult to have to control his anger, his fear and most of all his confusion about what he was even feeling at all. But he was sleeping when Alinith retook the Temple and became its Master. He sat up straight from his sleep and suddenly felt the pang of hunger that he'd been missing. The ache of his head and the throb of his limbs!

He understood very quickly why his Father had sometimes gone days without eating when he'd been its Master - it provided as best it could even if it couldn't understand what the flesh really needed. It was such a blinding ache that he didn't check on Chi who was laying right beside him this entire time and was on his feet, padding through the hall in his pajamas to get to the kitchen.

Food... dear gods he could smell it... and his throat was parched. Foodfoodfoodfood....AHA!

The icebox was stocked somehow, and he didn't dare question the how or why. It was a gift from the Titans themselves and he grabbed some sort of hoagie and some fruit and a dinner roll... juice and some jerky and started to dig in even before he sat at the table. His happy moaning and swallow grunting was all that could be heard...

[shadoloran]

Vin's Journal

For more than half my life I've had this hole in my chest. Not a metaphorical hole but an actual sucking void that was left behind from a foolish attempt at cleansing scourge magic. Unable to be seen from the outside of my flesh, it is seated magically inside near my heart and has been feeding on anything I consume.

Magic, pleasure, food and even the strength of my life force; it has been slowly picking up speed and causing me to over-indulge in so many vices as if it were a demonic mouth, whispering to me for years just so I could get enough for both myself and what we've always just called, The Void. My strange abilities and talents for magic kept in in check for a long time but there were always precautions. Again I feel the need to talk about all of this in case it can benefit others and perhaps prevent anyone else from thinking that they can accomplish such a cleansing without consequences, no matter how powerful they are.

With Chahni's strength in time magic, she was able to place a spell around it to slow its hunger down. It was a good fix but that was all it was. A sort of fix that can last me and yet still make me very much aware that it is still there - this hungry and magical mouth that steals my sustenance. 

I'm rambling. But only because I now sit in this anti-magic room, denying myself of food and pleasure of any kind to starve it into submission. Dad has found a way to remove it but we had to make both the Void and I weak, so it was susceptible to his machinations to get it removed. After so long I don't know what it's going to be like - or what I'm even going to be like. Will I finally get my confidence back? What was my life like before the Void? That stain of a magical vampire, vacuuming the very life I consume.

I'm dying for a steak. I'm dying for a fuck. Give me anything. Just make this be over so I can live again.

[shadoloran]

Missing

He'd been searching her usual haunts and meditation places. Donavin had even gone as far as starting to plan a trip to Dalaran to make sure that she hadn't been kidnapped. He paced the farm above, waiting long hours on the side of the road for a glimpse of her and then going through the portal to also wait on the other side for an equal amount of time. When his brother noticed her absence, then it was time for him to worry.

There were other places he could go look for her but he hadn't wanted to go alone, just in case. If the Ethereals had come for her again he wasn't sure if he could manage it alone; but he hadn't voiced that to Darnath. Not just yet. But it was a very good possibility that they had found her and he would have to learn very quickly how to fight one of those strange creatures.

He'd asked around in Silvermoon but the library hadn't seen her in some days. He wrote an encrypted letter to her family, simply asking how everyone was and trying to keep it simple so they wouldn't panic. He never let on that their daughter was missing and hoped that if the letter arrived, she would at least write him back if she was there.

Had he done something wrong? He'd cleaned up his act and straightened himself out, hadn't he? Every night he stayed up and rolled their last days together through his mind to look for signs and it was another frustrating twilight spent on dwelling on the details that could drive him mad. 

No longer sharing his body with anyone else. Check.

Keeping his addictions under control. Check.

Working on his self-restraint. Check.

Giving her the space she needs.

He frowned and stopped pacing outside her bedroom door again. Had he been giving her the space she needed? Had he been smothering her and acting needy? Had he been directing his needs on her too much? 

Donavin sighed and slid down to sit with his back against the wall. He gripped his hair in frustration, trying not to let his anger get the better of him. He wanted to hit something. He could feel the tense energy building up in his muscles and it made him grip tighter. 

Self-control... Vin... Self-control.

He closed his eyes and tried to think of other things and his feet tapped on the floor like an outlet. He and Dar would be heading out later that day to head for Karazhan, where she'd last mentioned in her notes. He hoped to the very Makers that he would find her in one piece.

[shadoloran]

Fear

His trip to Ulduar was cut short, again. His brother was back and he'd not realized that he'd been spending the time with Chahni, making up with her instead of being with his brother. But that was part of the point, wasn't it? To try and stand on his own for now on? The only kink in that plan was that his parents had been missing for a while without a word.

Donavin was a family kid but that was putting it mildly. He heavily relied on his family unit and had many difficulties when one of them was gone, let alone all of them. He recognized his own behavior, becoming clingy with any that were around him as his mind tried to avoid all thoughts of possibly bad things that may have happened; so when he learned that his brother Darnath was back, he opened his mind to him after almost a month of silence.

Sure his brother was off on make-out beach with some female he'd just met with a demon for a husband that was suddenly jealous. His clingy behavior of being near his brother paid off although and Donavin was there as soon as shit started going down. Everyone walked out of there with their dignity and their digits and all was back to being alright with the world. Until Dar mentioned that he'd noticed their shared Dad gone too...

Now they were back at the Temple, raiding Teir's liquor cabinet while Vin paced and tried to ignore his frayed nerves. He tried his best to keep his distance but with alcohol in his system and fear in his belly, he was a little more clingy than he meant to be with his girlfriend and his brother to keep from breaking into tears.

[shadoloran]

Things were starting to settle down but it was also oddly quiet. Vin took the time to check out his brother's haunts, wanting to let him at least know that he and Chi had reconciled and were going to work on this new direction. It was when he found the note, stating his brother had gone to Ulduar.

He had meant to go there for some time. He'd give Chi the option, of course to accompany him or stay with Uncle Tin and Aunt Vivi at the farm. He would send a letter to Lord and Lady Solaris and then finally get himself in motion. But where were his parents?