Daily Writing Challenge (May 2025)
Day 5 / May 29
Restless / Faith
@daily-writing-challenge
The late night wound on through Stormsong, and Roselyn still sat at an overly cluttered desk with a restless abandon only the drunk or creatively tormented could really have. At least Rose thought that sudden urge to create must be a sort of torment. A very sensible person would have found sleep so many hours ago. She had her moments and her wit here or there, but she certainly was no sage or paragon of good habits. Art was sometimes pure compulsion.
It wasn't as if she weren't comfortable. She did mean to sleep. Her little cottage was warm and cozy, she'd made a bit of evening tea with honey to relax with, and the fireflies hung prettily in the air outside her window, crickets harmonizing somehow just enough to lull her to a restful sleep. Even her large wicker bed and its very soft mattress seemed to wait, her swirl of throws and pillows particularly inviting a nestling right among them. She'd bought some particularly rib-sticking meat pies from an eatery all the way out in Stormwind for dinner, the Gilnean kind that were made with the sort of home made magic that used to put her in a pleasant coma when she was very young.
But no, she was a mad woman at her desk now at 3 bells in the morning, trying to find some meaningful completion before she could dare rest. Life wasn't always filled with these little compulsions, of course. Her mind had mostly agreed with the tiredness that set in after her days as a lay sister some years ago, trading laborious work for efficient shelter in another Cathedral after Gilneas fell apart. And she'd waken each day before dawn as she was trained to for “faithful” tasks she felt no more personal devotion to than a dog felt for the collar it was forced to wear.
Even working as a scout and sometimes cartographer for Empyrean Imports now was more duty and necessity than devoted compulsion. She was thankful for the opportunities Lady Shadowsun had given her, but Rose didn't want more to do with it than her current 3 day schedule allowed for, despite the many offers to become an official courier. It was only the promise of some stable pay; it was never her passion, mapmaking or scouting both. It all made her tired at the end of her day and certainly paid for her little cottage, but none of it completed her.
No, completion was the finishing of lines of a collection of dumbfounded giant skippers this night, actually, something that drew out beats of laughter from her as it all came together. She'd lost her faith and sleep for many things throughout her life, but Rose knew she would somehow find room for both again once she figured out what swathe of color to use to highlight their silly, googly eyes and fishy tendrils.