#karanina

[snackerston]

A Drinking Story

Prompted to write a short story by a conversation with a friend on twitter back in winter.

Played with settings and ideas for our guild, about a group of wayward cartographers finding themselves on front lines in danger, and creating a ruckus for themselves in Stormwind when they weren’t.

Nameless NPC narrator, fickle dialogue. I played with a couple of tricks and ideas for this, not sure I like them, but I was glad to try!

It's not as though we had expected to see a drinking contest between a night elf and a draenei, so as you would imagine: nobody had given the Princess any kind of chance. I don't even think she's actually a princess. But every one in the Waypoint offices call her that. So maybe she is? Or she has a good sense of humor about it. Meanwhile Ilaniel, every one had heard rumors of her skipping out on the Cenarion Circle - people get nervous around her, because sometimes she got this look in her eye like a wild animal, and you'd never know if she was all about business and you just crossed it, or if she was too far gone like one of those druids who give up on being people and run off to crap in the woods for the rest of their lives. Anyway, it's a busy night, the map makers came back from the Other Draenor. They left and the guild hall was a burned out husk, came back and it's all nice and fancy and because The Boss wants us to have a place to crash in Stormwind, it's next to an inn. Or in an inn. I'm not sure of that sometimes. Anyway, there's a dwarf bartender, there's food and drink, there's a room to pass out in. Sweet gig, if you can get it, right? So, the night's busy, and Ilaniel's gettin' rowdy and the others are keeping up and some others are getting rowdy and it looks like it's about to be the kind of night that ends in a few of us in the drunk tank, you know? So the dwarf, he's got this thick brogue going on and we're pretty far gone so we don't know what he's saying but we KNOW what he's saying, you know? And he's up in arms and he's standing on the bar and yelling at us and then he points at us - our table, I mean, the one with Ilaniel - and he says, "THEM'S THE ONES!" And the crowd gets quiet, weird and quiet the kind of quiet that usually follows when The Boss shows up, but it's not The Boss, it's just The Princess and her buddy Quaras, so we're thinking, "Oh whatever, this won't be so bad, what could she possibly do?" And we laugh it off and she's smiling and she laughs and Ilaniel laughs and it's kind of weird but we don't even know what to do besides laugh so that's what we do, swear on the Light! So the Princess, she speaks and she speaks softly but if there's anything we know from The Boss, if someone speaks softly it usually means there's about to be busted furniture but she speaks softly and she looks Ilaniel dead in the eye, and says, "I trust this means your reports are done, and I will see them in the morning?" She doesn't even flinch she just smiles this little smile and everyone's laughter kinda trails off as we remember our paperwork ain't done either but not Ilaniel, nah, our buddy just grins right back at Karanina and its a toothy kinda grin and she changes the subject like, "You know, I saw this thing in Shattrath City that said you were singing! But here, none of us has ever seen you sing a note!" I mean, she didn't say that word for word, but you know, it's what she said. And Karanina nods, just once, and her smile don't move or budge or change, and Ilaniel's grin starts bearing teeth and she keeps going, "Maybe if you sang for us, we'd feel a bit more motivated to write!" And we cheer because we're drunk and we're being encouraged to cheer and we're nothin' if not agreeable. And the Princess, she's all, "Oh I couldn't possibly, I haven't sang for years" and Ilaniel's all, "Other Karanina sang like shit I bet you suck at it too" and then the whole hall kind of sucked in breath because we were pretty sure we was gonna see a murder happen. The Princess, she narrows her eyes and gets the same look in her eyes that The Boss does when shits about to go down, and she's all "is that so" and Ilaniel's like "yeah!" And Quaras is like "oh no" and she's trying to talk Karanina out of whatever it is she's doing but it's too far gone and Karanina speaks up again, "out drink me, and I'll sing, right here, right now" and Ilaniel's all "pfft whatever, you'd be drinking to catch up" and Karanina looks aside to Quaras, who pulls a chair up for The Princess to sit in, and I SHIT YOU NOT first thing she does is take Ilaniel's mug and downs it in a few gulps, finishes it out. EMPTIED IT! Swear on the Light, she did! So Ilaniel's treating it like a race and Karanina's knocking drinks back leisurely and stopping to talk with people and smiling and having a good ol' time and Ilaniel's still racing and we notice that Karanina's catching up because the elf is slowing down and Karanina pauses and starts talking with Ilaniel about the work she done. And Ilaniel's kinda unnerved, right? She's like, "what the hell, what's going on even what is this" and Karanina stays quiet and softy spoken and you can see Ilaniel flinching and kinda gritting her teeth and Karanina looks Ilaniel in the eye - RIGHT IN THE EYE - one eye, Ilaniel's hair fell in her face and she never took a moment to fix it you see and Karanina spoke loudly for every one to hear, "So, I'll be in the office early tomorrow, bring the coffee won't you?" And that's the moment we realize that SOMEHOW she caught up to Ilaniel and we're all hooting and hollering and there's dwarves fainting every where and then this bear comes out of nowhere to start bussing tables and people were CLAPPING oh, you'd never seen anything like it in your- what? What's that look on your face? Of COURSE it happened! Wait hey, where are you going?

[snackerston]

I wrote a thing, to conclude another thing, for a thing I didn’t actually write.

In the pulsing green of the fel rivers beyond, the room had remained - empty, for the most part, except for the two women: the dead, and the dying. She laid on the floor, pool of blue blood beneath her: where her skin had turned red from fel exposure, was where the sword had bit her. She winced, cringing in pain upon the floor. Her eyes welled with tears, the Sargerei whimpering, "This isn't how it was supposed to happen, I was supposed to see Mother again!" The dead woman on her hooves loosened her grip on her sword, turning it about in her hands, raising it high above the Sargerei and with all the force she could muster, pierced the metal slab beside her, turning to come to a rest against it, sliding down the long slab of metal - armor scraping against the flat of the blade, until she came to a rest in a seat. And, in a moment of kindness, of tenderness, she reached to the body of the Sargerei, lifting her and bringing her close: resting the Sargerei's head against her lap. "Were it a kinder world, we would." The dead woman reached, peeling her gloves off, loosely tossing them aside, her bare hand caressing the red cheek of the Sargerei. She flinched - trying to pull away - but sobbed, pain in her voice and tears in her eyes. "You don't know what I could do!" "You are wrong. You often are, my sister," she whispered, soft. "Did you know I renamed you, when we fled Argus? After the Naaru, who had saved us." "You aren't my sister! She is- she has children! She is soft! You are a monster!" her protests were wet, heavy, her eyes full of tears, her lips stained with blue as she coughed. "Time is a strange thing, my sister. I wondered what would happen if things had been different. Perhaps I would find happiness? Perhaps, you would find justice? I hoped," she spoke, her voice quivering, "I had hoped this would be a world kinder to us than this, Karanina." The dying sargerei seized in the dead woman's lap. She raised an arm to push the dead draenei away - an arm that no longer had anything attached to it, thanks to the sword she sat against. The blue blood splattered against the woman's armor and face, as she continued, "In another time - my time, I suppose - you have become a heroine. I am proud to be your sister. I am proud to have seen you to such heights, but I realize, I had little to do with your ascent. I held you down, often. Too often. I had hoped, perhaps foolishly, to have chance to repair that with you. Here." The sargerei cried, her tears flowing freely, as she squirmed in the dead draenei's lap, "No, no, just kill me, I don't want to listen to you!" "Shh, shhh. Do you remember, Karanina, the lullaby Mother sang?" The dead woman's bare hand fell lightly upon the sargerei's cheek, pale blue skin soft against the violent red. "I don't. Not so well. I can... I can hum it though. I remember the sound of it, but not the words." "Mother says she forgives you, Visper, don't-" The dead draenei set her hand upon the sargerei's face, hand clutching her mouth shut, pinching her nose to interrupt her. With her other hand, she gripped the woman's neck, rightly, pinching the windpipe. And as she did so, she hummed, a sorrowful sad tune, tears streaking down her cheeks and falling as crystalline tears of ice upon the red skin of the sargerei, singing the last few words of the song as the sargerei's kicks and struggle lessened, then finally became still. "May you always find home." For the first time since Northrend, Visper cried. The death knight commit herself to this, her final murder: and the dead would mourn the dead.

[snackerston]

Karanina, "Discipline"

Suggested by @walkstumbles Karanina focused on her hands, her brow furrowing as she watched the light dance and play between them. The light danced and bent about a point, and she moved her hands closer together, forming a tight sphere in between two pale blue hands. The Anchorite moved close, examining the golden ball between her hands. It was rounded, held in its shape by will and Kara moved her hands apart – fingers hooking and catching on nothing as she pried her hands apart, pulling the sphere wider, more open. The bubble grew, and the light shimmered as if it reflected off of a surface of glass, clear and thin. A moment of pondering, watching the sphere, and then shrinking it again, focusing it to a tiny tight ball of light, and repeating, pulling it apart, wider this time, but still held between her hands. Shan Di watched Karanina’s exercise, closer than she had on Pandaria. Stormwind’s Waypoint Offices were quieter than Pandaria’s, and without the need to meet with representatives of all the townships and the Vale and the Alliance military and the Waypoint cartographers every day, Kara had done this more with each day. “You are staring, Shan Di,” Kara spoke, finally breaking silence, “I have not minded your gaze, but you are confused as to why this?” The ball tightened, and she held it in one hand, letting the ball roll forward, hanging precarious on curled fingers… and then, a flick of her wrist to catch it in her other hand. “Before Pandaria, I served and healed. I did so well. I have faith in the Light, but I also realize the Light helps those who help themselves,” Karanina moved her hands, clasping the ball between her hands again, fingers hooking to catch and pull, “So I practice. I practice everything. I practice bending the light into a bubble, I practice changing the size – I practice so I may keep it strong enough to protect those whom I can.” She pulls her hands wider, the light expanding about, and with a wink and a smirk, she turns her hands, pushing the light at Shan Di, wrapping and encircling the Pandaren in a glowing sphere of light. “We will not remain content to sit at a desk when those about us adventure forever, after all.”