#eredis

[my-effervescent-perhaps]

sometimes you have to wear the other person’s glasses so you can understand how they see the world in a literal, and, curiously, other metaphorically resonant ways.  How very!

[sniperct]

OC Pride Month Day 12

Eredis, Lord of the Rings She/Her Aromatic Bisexual

[silentauroriamthereal]

I stumbled upon your fics not long ago and they're all I've read for the past few days. I just finished one, in fact, and I just wanted to let you know that your writing and characterisation are wonderful! You've quickly become one of my favourite Johnlock writers, without a doubt, and I'm looking forward to reading more. Also, I noticed your bio says you like lx and phonetics, so, high five from a fellow student of linguistics :)

Ahh, that’s so nice!! Thank you so much for not only reading my stuff but liking it, and not only liking it, but taking the time to come and tell me! That just made my day and it was sorely needed. Thank you so much!!! 

And yes, definitely! My main bread and butter is teaching English as a second language to adult French speakers, so I basically live in a world of grammar, but it naturally comes with a ton of phonetics and etymology, and I love that. :) High five indeed! 

[valdiis]

And then I get a wedding gift that leaves me legit sobbing for a good ten minutes...

I’ve known for years that @celuur wanted to make a book out of the Knights’ stories, but I never imagined he’d do something like this. When people say WoW brought them together... It’s things like this. It’s finding the people who mean- who mean everything.

I write all the time. And I have no words for this right now. I’m humbled beyond belief.

[valdiis]

Entry #4: King for a Day (Eredis)

(With his permission, I am also going to be occasionally posting some of Eredis’s older pieces - because his work leaves mine in the dust most of the time and I’m damn proud to call him my partner-in-crime. Also, because during the Site Write, several of our entries fed off one another.)

“It is done, my lord.” ‘Lord.’  That’s a new one.  How many years have I been avoiding the trappings of nobility? The Death Knight stood wearily on the dais where but minutes before, Lady Sylvanas had fallen to a Draenei’s spine - still wriggling, mind you - with the brain-stem wrapped in leather. “The most useful the Sergeant has ever been,” he mused as two Geists hauled off the body.  He kicked the bow aside, noting to himself to turn it to dust in front of the collected Hunters of the Horde later.  He would have to make his presence known, and more than a few would find that incredibly funny. “What will you have us do, Lord?” The Val'kyr that hovered to the Death Knight’s left was the model of subservience.  It had been nearly fourteen years since their positions were reversed - first came freedom, then came vengeance, then irony rolls on in to bring the trifecta.  He was King of the Undercity. “Recall the Royal Apothecary Society.  I want any and all plague strains held for testing and then stored for a rainy day.  The Wrathgate was bad, Gilneas made it worse.  I won’t throw away a weapon, but I want both the Alliance and the Horde to be quite certain the only thing walking around down here after another siege will be ghosts. "After that is complete,” he continued, “Send two Death Knights as emissaries to the Horde and Alliance.  Have them know that the Undercity is now independent and we will suffer no sieges upon these walls.  Have the two reiterate the plague stocks as a note of deterrence.” “It will be done, Lord.” The Val'kyr flew off to begin the onerous process of herding zombified cats - that is, the apothecaries.   She passed by a hooded Forsaken that came forward to salute Eredis as he stood on the dais. “Everything is transitioning according to plan!  Hee!” she said.   “Captain,” Eredis said,  “Good, good.  You saw the Val'kyr just leave - assemble the Dark Rangers.  Request the Val'kyr to assemble in the rear courtyard and read them this."  He handed over a rotted parchment that had a curious seal - one of a skull and crossed runeblades, though the skull wore a baker’s hat.   "What’s this?” the Captain asked. “A royal declaration to decimate the Val'kyr.  I want them to be absolutely certain they exist at my sufferance, and my sufferance alone.  Ten percent reductions in their numbers should get the idea across.” “Hee!  This’ll be great!” the Captain exclaimed - and with a puff of smoke, she sped along the shadows to do his bidding. “RENFIELD!  LACKEY!” the Death Knight bellowed.  Two Geists ambled in, faces rubbing across the floor in their zest to appear humble. He extended two more parchment rolls, one to each.  “One goes to Highlord Fordring, the other to Highlord Mograine.  You are to present them both, personally, and await a response from each.  I will have them know that the Undercity desires peaceful coexistance with the components of the Ashen Verdict.  Her borders will encompass all they do now, and we cede the territory in the Plaguelands to each to do as they will.  Now go.” “Yes, Master!” Renfield cried.  “We will do as you ask!” yelled Lackey. “We go!” ==== “…And that’s what I would do if I were King of the Undercity,” Eredis said as he reeled in another fish.  He and a Draenei both sat on a quiet dock, fishing the day away. “So you would create-"  the Draenei started. "Yes, an undead haven,” finished Eredis.  “Think of it like Shattrath, only a minimum of Light and a place where the undead can get back to what they were doing before we all died.” “Interestink,” mused the Draenei. “I thought so,” replied Eredis as he cast his line back into the water.  “What would you do?”

[valdiis]

Crucible

Written while listening to Marunae by E.S. Posthumus.

((I blame this one on Yulenia of Moon Guard. “Write a Val story,” he says; “write a war story,” he says… The ‘current’ battle in Hellfire occurred as an AEGIS/COBRA skirmish in-game years ago. The discussion between Eredis and Valdiis comes from in-game RP; much thanks to Eredis and Bergmann for letting me run off with those characters a bit. The format – specifically, the timing of the three threads – of this particular story is somewhat bizarre. Hopefully, it is not too obscure to be understood.))

-----

The acrid mixed scent of sulfur and flux, of melted iron and crushed rock, hung on the hot, dry air swirling lazily through the open balcony of the second floor of the building. As acclimated as any native of the city by now – or perhaps just too dead to smell it – a draenei female in light plate armor sat motionless at a desk piled high with papers. In her hands she held a report detailing the buildup of sin’dorei troops on the other side of the Dark Portal – a clear and immediate threat to Alliance trade interests that must be dealt with swiftly.

Plated boots clomped up the stairs and the draenei never moved, her glowing eyes fixed not on the report, but blankly at a spot on the wall opposite her chair. The clomping continued as a grizzled, older human male in heavy plate covered by a black tabard moved through the path of her blank stare and sat down across from her at the desk.

“Commander Valdiis. Just the person I wanted to see.”

The draenei Commander took several seconds to focus her attention on the man across the table from her, and several seconds more to form something between a sigh and an acknowledgment. “Hrhn. Major…”

The human Major raised his eyebrow inquisitively at this unusually slow response.

After another several seconds, she blinked and seemed to shake herself out of it. “Major Eredis, sir. Ehm. Alright, so I am just ze person you vanted to see?” The paper went down on the table and her hands – covered as always in articulated plates over leather gloves – folded atop the desk in what would have been a casual gesture if the creak of tightly-clutched leather didn’t give her away.

The Major nodded. “You’ve read the reports on Sunguard activity in Outland.” It wasn’t a question.

She glanced down at the paper under her hands and nodded mutely. One of the ebon-gray tendrils set behind her ear twitched.

“I need you to represent AEGIS at the Temple of Telhamat.” The Major scratched his bearded chin. “Bergmann will be your aide, as usual.”

-

The land on the other side of the Dark Portal was as barren as the land from whence they came – blasted, sere, and scarred. Their hooves kicked up clouds of red dust while leaving behind a trail of navy smears. Several of the draenei males were supporting one another in order to keep walking forward. Just one more step. Just one more step. As long as they could walk, they would keep going. A draenei female – one of only two amongst them – wept silently as she moved up and down the marching line, summoning what she could of her connection to the spirits of this blasted land to mend the worst of the wounded.

As she approached the only other woman in the company, the second gave her a dry-eyed curt nod. “Do not waste your powers on me, Beluuma. It is not so bad a wound.” She jerked her head back to indicate the two stumbling males behind her. “Ordrion there is wheezing badly.”

Beluuma gave the draenei female a skeptical look, the direction of her gaze on the obscene inward-bend of the warrior’s breastplate on the right side. “Valdiis…” she said warningly.

“It is not fatal, Beluuma. Just ugly. I will live.” With a slow, pained shrug, the warrior jerked her head again towards the ones behind her. Firefly Company’s only shaman and remaining medic moved to help the wheezing Ordrion.

“Keep moving, soldiers,” came the gruff rumble of their Commander. As bloodied and battered as the rest of them, he led the line – only a quarter of his original Company – away from the Portal through whence they’d arrived some five miles behind them and still looming massively. Ahead loomed a pass clogged with moss-draped trees and smelling wetly of swamp, a scent the self-proclaimed ‘swamprats’ of the Firefly Company marsh-guard unit were familiar with. “We’ll not tarry here long. Keep moving.”

-

Portal travel was the only way she was going to be able to do this. The orders she followed were truly pushing the edges of her sanity inwards and threatening to crumble the self she’d rebuilt over the last six months. The leather of her gloves creaked as she clenched her fists and stared at the shimmering blue portal to Shattrath in the back of the enclave in Dalaran.

“I hate portals,” she murmured under her breath in Draenei.

Then she stepped through.

The heavily-plated draenei female doubled over as she landed on her hooves – barely – at the center of Shattrath. “There ya are, lass!” The tip of a long, red beard entered her vision while she fought back the entirely ridiculous nausea. She hardly had much of a stomach left, how could it roil so much?

“Ugh,” she growled as she straightened to tower over the dwarf at her side. “I hate portals. It alvays feels like my brain is beink pulled out through my spine and shoved back in through my eye sockets.”

The dwarf didn’t even acknowledge her gruesome assessment of mage portals, instead beaming a cheery grin at her. “Come along, then. We’ve birds ta catch.”

She spent the majority of the gryphon-back flight looking straight ahead, the shattered sky dancing with arcane and fel storms less awful to look at than the shattered ground racing by beneath her. The speed of the flight and the passing rush of air made strategizing with her companion impossible, despite his gryphon flying only a wingspan away. In contrast to her stoic forward stare, the dwarf spent most of his flight looking down at the ground or down into his mug. One day, she was going to have to ask him how he managed to not spill his ale on a flight… -

“I truly think he’s taken a liking to you,” murmured Major Eredis. The draenei Commander was staring blankly at a point just beyond his head again, but he didn’t seem to notice. He let the silence drag on.

Commander Valdiis’s leather gloves creaked again as she squeezed her hands tightly and finally looked at Major Eredis, her voice quiet and her question abrupt: “Sir, vhere vas your last big battle? Before beink raised.”

The Major raised one dark eyebrow at her, hesitating a quarter moment, but he saw no harm to the inquiry. “That would have been during the Second War. Blackrock Spire, where Lord Lothar fell.”

“Have you been back zere since?”

He nodded. “I have. I can’t say I like what the orcs have done with the place.”

“I lost a hundred and twenty-three men on zat last march, sir.” She was still for a moment before continuing, her voice flat as she gave the briefest summary possible, “I have been back all of once.”

“To the Peninsula.”

“Yes, sir.”

-

Hoarse cries for aid competed with the harsh clash of blades on metal armor and shields. Her brothers in arms were dying all around her and all she could do was fight to take another step forward to the massively looming Portal ahead that would take them to an unknown land on the other side. “Val! Your back!” shouted a sky-blue-skinned warrior several feet to her left as he swung a heavy two-handed blade at the green-skinned fiend trying to cut him down.

Valdiis spun and crouched simultaneously, barely missing the whistling blade that would have otherwise taken her head. The large double-bladed axe in her hands connected with a body covered in felsteel, bit deep through the metal, and channeled the blackish-red blood down to her ungloved ebon-gray hands and beneath the vambraces strapped to her forearms. As she pulled her axe free by kicking the corpse backwards with her hoof, she felt a familiar thump at her back as her brother resumed his usual position guarding her back while she guarded his. The siblings cut a whirling, well-synchronized path of death towards the Dark Portal.

Other warriors of Firefly Company did much the same, fighting in pairs or clumps to regroup and press forward. Those draenei who fell, if they could keep walking, were gathered up; if they could not, they were trampled by the rabid orcs before their comrades could retrieve them anyway.

A gleefully battle-crazed green face leered up in Valdiis’s vision as she reflexively parried the oncoming swing of a mace. Unfortunately, she missed the fact that the orc squaring off with her was wielding two. With a sickening crunch, the second mace hit her khorium breastplate on the right side and crumpled it against her ribs. Spears of pain pierced her with each panting breath, but she spat no blood, so she gritted her teeth and lashed out with a plated forearm, her spiked battle vambraces connecting with the side of the orc’s head. He fell. To her right, so did another draenei – a younger fellow she knew had a wife back at Orebor praying he’d return and come with her to Tempest Keep; so many of them she knew so much about, and would never be hearing from again.

-

“Did you need time away from the Temple to see to them?”

If a death knight could manage to look green, Valdiis did exactly that, slow horror spreading over her formerly blank expression. “No, sir. I vould like to be stationed elsevhere if at all possible. Nagrand is vonderful zis time of year.” The flatness had left her tone, but there was no false hope behind her suggestion of Nagrand either.

“Nagrand isn’t where the Horde is massing, Commander.”

She looked down at the report on the desk unseeingly. “Sir. Is zere anyvhere else you could station me?”

Major Eredis Orill folded his hands on the desk, thinking for a long moment. “Yes. Yes, there are several places I could assign you.” He paused as the draenei across from him looked at him expectantly. His expression never changed. “After you report to the Temple to deny the Horde any strategic advantage.”

The draenei shoved her chair back and stood with a clatter of light plate falling into place, her face a resolved and unreadable mask – the blank mask of a ‘good’ soldier. She snapped a stiff, almost jerky salute at the man sitting on the other side of the desk. “Sir. Yes, sir.”

“We must all make sacrifices for the greater good, Commander.”

-

The dwarf was deep in his cups by the time the gryphons landed at Telhamat, each being kept in reserve to allow for the draenei and the dwarf to use them in battle. She’d fought at his side long enough to know he usually battled sauced, and so gave it little heed. They walked across the dry, blasted, red land between the buildings, discussing defensibility and strategic advantages of each. The lack of massing Grand Alliance troops at the Temple was worrisome.

“AEGIS coordinator Valdiis?” A gryphon wheeled a few feet overhead, a lean, battle-worn elf at its reins.

The draenei paused and looked up at the hovering warrior. “Yes?”

“There’s been a change in the strategy. AEGIS member units are massing at Honor Hold. We have elected to leave the Temple defenseless in the face of our-” the elf looked away sharply, “-diminished defensive capabilities.”

“Diminished? Wot are ye on about?” asked Bergmann.

“We don’t have enough forces to support the action here.”

The death knight cursed and turned back towards the stabled gryphons. “Felfire and night! Come on, Bergmann, ve vill have to go meet vith zem zere. Who is runnink zis Nether-blasted operation?”

-

The Temple of Telhamat was empty, an eerie ghost town of draenei architecture. Once, it had been built on the edge of a fertile - if dangerous - jungle, but fel magics had blasted this land and scoured it of life. The Temple’s priests and the small sect of Seers training here had long since fled through the pass Firefly guarded and reached safety at Orebor Harborage. Or so the one hundred and sixty soldiers of Firefly Company hoped as they took up residence in the abandoned buildings to have the medic corps see to their wounds, clean their own armor, sharpen their blades, and get a night’s rest before pursuing the orcs across the barren peninsula.

A fire was built in the shelter of an open-fronted shop, the officers of Firefly Company settled around it after the rest of the soldiers had eaten and gone to prepare themselves for the impending battle.

“So how many of them do you think are between us and that Portal?” asked a large, sky-blue-skinned warrior as he ran a whetstone along the edge of his two-handed blade.

“Best estimate, Rulaam?” Commander Magtoor rumbled, “I’d say upwards of five hundred.”

“So we each get three kills. That seems fair enough. I’ll even take Beluuma’s three, since she doesn’t kill.” The speaker, an ebon-gray female warrior laughed as Beluuma, a pretty, middle-aged draenei – one of those new Seer sorts – gave her a droll look.

“You can leave my extra kills to Arteros, Valdiis. I trust my husband to pick up my slack.”

“I’ll bet your ‘slack’ is not what he’s picking up tonight,” laughed Rulaam as he mimicked a gesture of having a woman on his lap.

The nine warriors and lone company shaman kept up the good-natured ribbing between strategizing, trying to plan a way to escape through impossible odds, pinched between a lost pass back to the marshes and a mysterious Portal to naaru only knew where – or take as many of the hated orcs down in flames with them as they could.

-

“Fifteen?!” The death knight’s voice was a quiet hiss, but her disgust was clear. “Ve are fieldink a force of fifteen Alliance soldiers against an expected attack by fortyHorde troops?”

Out of earshot of the commander of the sole unit who had shown up for the battle, Valdiis and her aide, Bergmann, conferred in hushed, angry tones. If the draenei kept glancing towards the walls of the Hold and twitching like a caged animal, the dwarf was polite enough to ignore it. “Aye, lass. Some sort of conflictin’ mission in Azeroth, it sounds like.”

There was a faint ringing sound as Valdiis stamped one titansteel-shod hoof against the flagstones of the tower door behind them. “Zat leaves us vith barely enough forces to defend ze Hold, much less to put forth any attack on zeir resources!”

Bergmann looked down at his ever-present mug of ale. “We defend what we can then, aye?”

Valdiis threw her hands up in exasperation, then turned the gesture into hailing the elven commander over to them. “Alright. Strategy adjustment. Ve vill consolidate our forces vithin zis tower, defend ze Hold from here. Ve must stay together and keep fightink to be even moderately successful.” She tilted her head to the left with an obnoxious crack of vertebrae, her fists clenched at her sides. “It is still likely zat ze Hold vill take some damage in ze attack, but if ve can get ze Alliance forces to hole up and stay defensive, ve have a chance of vearink zem out and sendink zem back empty-handed.”

With that, the coordinator of the Alliance Expeditionary Group Intelligence and Support project headed into the tower, barking out defense orders in her heavily-accented Common, preparing for a defense against impossible odds for a trade route the Alliance hardly seemed to give a damn about.

-

Valdiis turned sharply from the desk and headed towards the stairs out of the office, one plate-gloved hand coming up to tangle in a mithril chain around her neck, the unseen pendant weighing it down clattering against the inside of her breastplate. She looked at the human still seated at the desk. “You know one of ze first slurs against ze draenei I heard vhen I arrived in Stormvind, sir?”

Eredis raised an eyebrow and waited.

“Cobblestone.” Her accented voice was harsh. “For ze bones linink ze Path of Glory.” She looked as if she might spit on the stone floor to say those last three words, if she had any spit remaining in her dead mouth.

The Major pursed his lips, then sighed. “Commander…Valdiis. I do not deny that your people have suffered terribly, and I understand you have no wish to ever step foot near that path again. I do not blame you for it.” He paused. “We have all lost…much in this regiment, for those who remember it.

“But I can say with certainty that you are not a ‘cobblestone.’ You are the granite that turns the droplets of the Horde aside as so much moisture.”

The draenei stood at the top of the stairs and nodded tightly, her hand still tangled in the chain around her neck. “Understood, sir. And…appreciated. I vill report for duty at Telhamat as ordered.”

“I do not send you there for the people who call you such silly terms. I send you there so the one hundred and twenty-plus troops who were with you then will know that not even death can stop you honoring their memory. Not. Even. Death, Valdiis.

“Bring our foes the winter that heralded your rebirth, Commander. We will not tarry there long.”

She nodded tightly again, her movements little more than stiff jerks. Light glinted dully off the scoured gold rings around the tendrils behind her ears, the faint twitching betraying her agitation. “I… Yes, sir.”

Major Eredis nodded at her. “Thank you. And, Commander?” Valdiis looked at him for a long moment, then he went on. “I order you there because you, above all others I have served with, can get the job done.”

Valdiis reached up to the dead skin of her neck with her hand still wrapped in the mithril chain she wore and appeared to pinch herself before dropping her hand back down to rest against the top of her breastplate. “Zank you, sir. I vill not let you down.”

“You never have, Commander.”

[crowgram]

Past Tense (Entry #5)

Resurrecting some old stories and Knights' guild canon idea for the fun of it. This was written by the player of Eredis Orill and is reposted with permission.

New Hearthglen was burning.

Few Crusaders ran to and fro with buckets, desperation fueling their efforts to dampen fire that seemed to burn even the white stones that they had used to build their city.  A splash of water here and there did nothing to quench the conflagration that had gripped what was viewed as their great, shining hope for a future free of the Scourge. Abbendis was dead.  She did not survive to see Arthas destroyed, and it seemed that the Crusade would not live long past the moment that the traitorous Alliance called 'Kingsfall.'  The Admiral had gone missing as well; there were rumors among the survivors that he had appeared at Onslaught Harbor, then vanished again while the legions of the dead, led by the Knights of the Ebon Blade, tore their naval base apart soul by soul.  Now they had come for New Hearthglen, and to crush what little remained of the Scarlet Onslaught. James, the wall guard, had never felt like he should be called an 'Onslaughteer.'  'Crusader' had a much better sound.  It was nobler, so noble that the Argent Crusade had stolen it.  And now, Crusaders were en vogue, and he was standing guard on a wall waiting for the end of the world, dark figures visible around small cook-fires in the distance. He explained this in great detail to the scarlet-robed figure that had joined him on the wall that evening.  The robes were so voluminous that he couldn't tell if the figure was male or female, but it was slight, and wore the most supple leather gloves he ever did see.  It wasn't until the figure interrupted his tirade with a soft query that he realized that it was a she. "What is 'life', to you, James?" she asked. "Well isn't that a little philosophical?" he retorted.  It didn't stop him into launching into a detailed response of what he considered life to be, including doing one's duty, doing what they enjoyed, taking pride in their crafts, being with their loved on- "Being with your loved ones is to be alive?" she asked. "Well, I think so," he responded. "Strange," the figure in scarlet robes started, "As I had a loved one.  I suppose I still do, and I loved him even if he did not know it.  If he did know it, he did not show it overtly.  And yet, love can turn to hate.  I could hate him for what happened, and did.  Hated him for what he became, and what I became.  Is that living, James?" "You should hate the Scourge, miss," he replied. "I do," she said.  "And I hate him, for he is out there."  She pointed with a gloved hand into the evening, towards the shadowy figures and the cook-fires.  "And yet, I still love him, for he found the strength to let me go instead of chaining me to servitude.  Is that not love, James?" "I-what?" James asked.  "You mean you- he's- A death knight?" "Yes," the figure replied.  "It would have saddened me once, but I still feel love, and hatred.  And now here we are, on opposite sides of the wall." "He- Who are you, anyway?" James asked.  His spear dipped. "I was called Nancy, once," came the soft reply.  "And I am again.  If one feels love and hatred, are they still alive?" "Well..." James started.  "Yes.  Yes, I can feel both, and I'm alive." There was a moment of silence from the figure, then the barest of whispers in James' ear. "Were, James.  It's better this way." The smell of decay was nearly overpowering.  Formaldehyde, rot, mold, and- dark bread? The sentry slumped to the ground as the figure removed the dagger pressed into his kidneys.  The Forsaken looked across the gulf and the darkness, seeing the dark figure in plate raise his hand. "I am dead, and I am alive," whispered Nancy as she raised her hand in return. "And I hate you for dying, and I love you for freeing me." She had disappeared from the wall before the smoke bomb had touched the battlement, but few noticed over the screams of mounts and men as the angry dead flew in on wings of bone.

[crowgram]

Surprise (Entry #1)

Resurrecting some old stories andKnights' guild canon idea for the fun of it. This was written by the player of Eredis Orill and is reposted with permission.

The child cowered away from him every day.

Few knew why the plate-clad man walked the same route every day, but even so he was twice-born, and therefore automatically half the man that the living of Stormwind assumed he was.  This one was stranger than all the others, in that it walked the same route every day, one way, and did not return until the next. The large circular patrol faded from the memories of most, as few ventured half as far as the man with the cold aura, and none followed. The child followed at first.  Homeless, hungry, orphaned, she followed the man at first until the creaking of the head caused her to cower away, then scamper into an alleyway, or even once dive into the Canals to avoid his wrath that she knew, knew was hiding behind those dead eyes.  She told her friends of this, other street urchins and orphans who ranged from the Cathedral Square to grub a copper from the canals, or see if there were kind passers-by that would grace them with a biscuit, or a coin, or even a rack of foam swords if it was their special week in particular.  On select days they would get sugar cookies from the cook near the Stockades, and sit and tell stories.  Hers was of the Twice-Born Man, and his dark armor and wicked intents.  He was a warlock ("No, I've seen the ones they call warlocks at the Slaughtered Lamb!  None of them wear plate armor!").  He did 'riturals' ("No, there haven't been any kids missing!").  He was evil  ("Nuh-uh, prove it!  Where does he go?"). Every day that passed, the Twice-Born Man followed the same path, and every day the child moved a little farther, to see where he went, before her courage failed and she fled.  The other urchins laughed, and teased her.  She didn't have the heart to see if her stories were real! That night, she declared that she was going to follow him all the way, and if she disappeared, then they would know her stories were true! She took special care the next day to follow the Twice-Born Man on his path. Her heart raced faster as she passed her alleyways, the canals, the safe places where she knew he would not follow if he desired to give chase.  She saw him enter a dark alleyway in the restaurant district, and stopped at the edge. The waif stared into the darkness, mustering up the courage to follow.  With a gulp of air, she dove in after him - and ran smack dab into his plated legs not six steps inside. Fear froze her in place.  She could see the glow in his eyes as he bent down to stare at her tattered clothes, her thin figure, and her messy hair.  She could hear the click of metal against metal as his fingers moved, drawing something from a satchel as he reached for her.  Her scream was a muted squeak as the object came into focus, and dumbfounded pause replaced terror as she looked at the cupcake in her hand. "Are you...surprised?" asked the Twice-Born Man, while he picked up the waif and set her on her feet.  She nodded, and bit into the cupcake - a squirrel of a girl, nibbling on confections. "So am I," he said.  "I am continually surprised at the courage you young ones show.  Would you like to see what I do every day, why I take this path?" She nodded again.  The man straightened and opened a door in the alleyway, releasing a rush of aromas - Breads, pies, cakes, and many other meals. "Come inside and see," he said, stepping aside and pulling off his plated gloves.  "I am certain you will have a wonderful story to tell your friends this evening." She went inside, and he followed, closing the kitchen entry to the Canal Street Bakery.