DWC May 2025 - Day 7 - Punish / Infinite - Tinnaire
She hissed and sucked on her fingertip; even the drop of freshly welled blood tasted sour to her. Carefully, she set down the pelt she had been practicing her leather embroidery on. Her eyes narrowed and she bit back a curse for herself. It was easy to be unkind to herself right now, she deserved it.
Punishing herself infinitely was not in Tinnaire’s nature. The elven woman leaned to optimism even after everything. She had fallen into despair only twice in her lifetime; sorrow, shame, and sadness visited, but never brought their bags for long.
She had slipped; with the needle, and days prior, with her words.
Though the encounter was over, her recriminations from outside and inside were many. She could see Taric’s face in her mind. He had been rightfully angry with her. She had fumbled his feelings badly, and she was sorry for it. But it wouldn’t change the fact that in trying to soften things, she had simply slid the dagger in more slowly and twisted it.
She had to keep herself from invalidating his feelings, and accept the responsibility that she had hurt him. She could feel how easy it would be to snap about her own hurt feelings over the last several months, but Tinnaire knew it wasn’t fair. It would have just been lashing out to distract from her own transgressions.
Time would soothe both of them, she hoped, but for now, she would dwell and examine the lessons she needed to learn. She would internalize them. She would never hurt someone so carelessly again, she hoped. She would try.
She picked up the pelt again, sighing softly and noting the bloodsmear that had stained the back of the work. She sighed again. That was life, wasn’t it?
The truth was that she wasn’t missing anything. She simply didn’t know it. Couldn’t see it. Couldn’t perceive it. Couldn’t acknowledge it. What she sought was an ideal, not a physical manifestation the way she’d thought.
Laeynna had taken it all very seriously. The conversation she’d had with Ankalei before during their early morning outing. The conversation she’d had with Tinnaire at her taxidermy shop. The bravery it’d taken for her to speak with Veilos once she’d gathered her courage and leashed it to keep it from fleeing with haste. She thought about every little thing each one had said, turned words over in her head, and considered each way they applied to her.
Change was never easy, never convenient, and never quick. Just as it hadn’t been for her to become who she was in the moment.
Drawing in a deep breath, she counted the number of seconds that she held it. Then in the same amount of time, she loosed it. She had not imagined herself here. Not in this place, not at this time. An early afternoon she could only describe as ‘content’ in the garden of the Luridveil estate. Her father had given her permission, perhaps likely thinking she’d meant to study the flowers they were growing when she explained she no longer had a garden of her own. If he’d meant to offer her land for her to begin hers anew, Laeynna never let him get that far, explaining that she only needed a quiet place to be, a quiet place to exist.
That was precisely what she got. Nothing but trees and flowers and plants and springy grass beneath where she sat. She could still just see her true family home in the distance, but did not feel so smothered by it that it would otherwise hinder her ability to concentrate. On the ground beside her, opened to a page of diagrams and fine writing, was the same book that she had wasted little time in seeking out.
Was Light thought or was it emotion? Was it both? Was it intention? Was it philosophy? Was it principle? Was it everything that comprised an individual’s motives? When she’d begun reading, it certainly felt like a more abstract ideology, perhaps something defined differently by the one experiencing it. But how did one go experiencing it, anyway? Veilos had said he learnt the way of his better through immersive use. Hands-on learning. But he had also spoken on books and tutelage, all ideas that Laeynna had assumed would likely come into play.
The Shielded Mind likely had many people who were familiar with the Light and its usage, but this was also a clinic of doctors and nurses and other caretakers. They certainly had better things to do than to teach someone. And Laeynna’s only skill with caretaking had come from natural and organic means, especially as she strived to move further and further away from use within the realm of magical arts. At least, that had been the intention.
Andaeros had once reminded her that they, their people, were beings of magic. That no matter how she tried to separate herself, she would never fully be able to do that. The veins of glowing green fel that spread from her very heart outward and upward was more than proof of that. Every time it pulsed and stung, Laeynna never forgot it. She was as bound to the idea of magic as she was to her every action that had turned her into the woman she had become.
She supposed it was important for her to understand that wanting to learn more about the Light, that wanting to learn how to wield it was not meant to be a cover for her past. It was not meant to be a blanket response to the things that she’d not been proud of.
I desire it to make me more than who I am now. I desire it to make me more into this woman I can become.
If she allowed it. If she truly wanted it.
But to truly want it, if what her book held was true, it would mean a true acceptance of herself. The good, the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly. Every shade and grain of her person. Not shame. Not admonishment. Not condemnation. Acceptance. That, she thought, might have been the most difficult.
She wondered as she sat, eyes up to the sky, if she had faith. In herself? Perhaps. She had faced so many things. She had endured so much. She had fought and survived and with an animal’s ferocity had come to still live. If she could have done that in the years of her exile, then certainly she could have faced anything. Laeynna did not always feel strong and whilst strength was certainly not perceived the same as all people, when she put aside her own uncertainties and simply examined based on factual information, she held no shortage of strength.
Shutting her eyes, she drew in another breath, holding it, and releasing.
In my hands, I wield strength. In my mind, I wield strength. In my heart, I wield strength.
There was no crime in making such an admittance. It was not arrogance. It was an acknowledgement of her person. If she meant to travel a road where she wanted to do more good than harm, then intention was important. Understanding that intention, not just for herself but for others. And yet, before she could begin to think of others, she had to prioritise herself. Instead of continuing to travel that path where tried to make herself so small and insignificant, especially when it came to those around her, she would have to make herself a focal point. To understand that she had value, even if she did not always feel that way.
For not all days could be or even seem perfect, and in fact, so very few of them would be. ‘Perfection’ itself, an unattainable goal, set forth by doctrine that was archaic and outdated. A relic of the past meant to be learnt from and applied to her present and to her future.
Seek not perfection.
Laeynna squinted, tilting her head as she lost herself in thought, instead of a turbulent sea filled with them, one that centred on the very real and present moment. She lost herself in sound, every rustle of flower and leaf, touched upon by breeze that was a song of its own kind. She lost herself in sensation, the cool feeling of greenery against even cooler pale hands. She existed then in that moment in time, for a rare instance where she did not find herself obsessing over the future, her insecurities, the doubts that had often fluttered in her mind, or what others might have thought of her.
She simply existed there with herself. Within herself. And in that, she found something that… felt almost like peace. It was a small, tiny thing, not something she could have seen with the eyes, but something that felt like a very miniscule sentiment that might have been relief. Perhaps a lifting of weight. Or perhaps like a balm to something that had lingered deep within her.
It would all take time and perhaps she would not have enough time to see it through to its completion, and that was all right. If nothing lasted forever, then at the very least, she could appreciate the things, the people, the ideas that were with her in the living moment. To love them and cherish them in her way. Without pause. Without worry. Without fear. She did not need words to express that. She would not use them, even. In a world of language that did not rely on such things, Laeynna could find another way.
She wondered then, idly, if a part of her resolve had strengthened. Perhaps it was only that she thought it had, but maybe that was the point. As she pulled her book into her lap, Laeynna considered that the notion of the Light and acquainting one’s self with it might have been more a personal journey. A personal connection. Something less tangible than merely a step-by-step process.
Perhaps part of that experience was the act of seeking her own healing. Allowing her own healing.
As she dropped her gaze down to her book, she touched a page with care and reverence, a thoughtful expression drawn across the soft, fae-like features of her face. She wasn’t alone. Not really. Not the way she thought she’d been. But to see it, to feel it, to embrace it, she would have to see, feel, and embrace herself first.
She would write to each of them, simple things of gratitude, for each was responsible in their own way. The first foot forward was always the most difficult. But if not then, if not in the present, then when? If she had spent nearly a lifetime chaining herself to something cruel and unkind, then she could spend another lifetime truly living.
She would break those chains, hard as they would be to escape from. Laeynna deserved that. As she held herself in time, in moment, in breath, she believed it.
— @daily-writing-challenge
(Soft mentions for @kharrisdawndancer and @veilosdaigoa.)
I still see you both when I look at myself in the mirror. For a while, it was too painful to even do that. It hurt to think that I’d forget what you looked like or what you sounded like. But those fears have been put to bed.
I still carry you guys with me. Beyond just the family resemblance. I still have the lessons you taught me when I was growing up. The stories that you would tell me. The memories we made together.
Mom, I remember how dad would tease you about me taking up work at Keel Harbor. Just like him. But you both wanted more for me. And dad, I remember those big hugs you’d give when I was feeling down.
I’m a knight now. Like mom. Maybe not exactly the same. A paladin like some of the stories we’d hear from the Second War. I know you’d both be proud of me. No matter what I’d be doing now. I miss you two but I know you’re both with me in more ways than one.
Love always,
Avalear
Few bonds were stronger than the one that existed between a girl and her horse. For Turasil, this was no different, and while her horse was not truly ‘hers’, she loved it entirely, as though it really were.
She called the horse ‘Doom’, because Doom would darken her door whenever she wished, and there was little Turasil could do but welcome her. Doom was a wild horse, a mare hailing from the green hills of the Arathi Highlands. She had once chanced upon her during an excursion there, and gave her some of her own rations as a kindness. This, Doom remembered, and when Turasil made her way back home, Doom followed in her shadow.
But, despite Turasil’s best efforts, Doom would not be saddled and bridled. No, she would remain a wild horse, free to come and go as she pleased. And go she would, and she would always come back- be it for food, or care, or simply companionship.
Thus, she was Doom. A beautiful, completely black mare, with eyes that bore a glint of cunning within that darkened depth. She drew the gazes of others, in both awe and fear, as she carried herself with the dignity of a prize horse, but the temperament of an untamed animal would always lay in wait beneath. Because of this, Turasil did not make a habit of riding Doom into populated areas, out of respect for both her wild nature, and that of the people's goodwill. Instead, Doom would bear her on the roads in between, to be left to her own devices when she no longer wished for a rider.
Most animals did not suffer Turasil to come near, a fact that had always mystified her. Perhaps she had some unidentifiable quality that made them wary, even when she tried to be approachable. Doom was not affected by this quality. She approached Turasil without fear, time and again.
For the first in a long while, Turasil had a trustworthy companion, and was happy. It was Doom that thawed her heart, made her receptive to the outstretched hands of friendship from other people. Like the animals that feared her, Turasil was a wary creature, shunning strangers and trying simply to survive. But after Doom, she was a mite more willing to give people a chance.
Yet none would stand above that wild, black horse who rode unbidden, free as the wind, noble as a king, lovely as a rose, and graceful as fey. None would surpass Doom.
There was a quiet way it always crept up on him, the loss of what he had prior. He could be doing anything, and it would hit, just as raw, just as real, and just as if it happened the day before. He'd always been one to keep the monsters lock up within, but in this instance, in the moment of still..
He'd let them out.
It wouldn't come with tears. It wouldn't come with words. It always came as an onslaught of anger, rage. An insatiable pit that demanded everything and wouldn't relent until the man was spent. Booze had, for a while, filled the void of his heart. At one point he'd even thought he'd find the comfort of another's touch. Someone much like him; But even that was fleeting at best.
In the moment of wreckage, he'd hate everything about himself. Punish even. His inner monolog something as sharp as knives and as potent as poison. Dripping, cutting, tearing. Blaming himself for every single loss. But the biggest was her. The frozen tundra that left him warm. Could he have stopped her death?
No.
But he was still going to guilt himself into believing he could have. That in all of this, he could have kept them both. But fate in its twisted humor, made sure the mans' only source of comfort was ripped cleanly from his fingers.
Mind you, he had picked himself up, and moved forward, inch by inch, day by day. If not for himself, for his animal companions, and his twins. He was a fighter, through and through, and had been through far too much - Made a promise that he wouldn't give up.
But in the quiet moments like this, it was hell. Burning, twisting, infinite hell. In this moment, all he could do was brace for impact and hope he came out alive from the aftermath.
For this episode, he would have taken the nearest bottle of bourbon he had stashed within the home, dragging it with him to the nearest cliff side out in his home in the Jade forest, and had just sat in boiling anger and guilt. Drinking every single thought out until they were a dull noise in the distance, a quiet ache inside his chest. Every so often he'd look across the space of darkness, no lights of city to be seen. In that, thoughts he felt even more guilty for would surface.
He could just jump. Just, vanish. There wasn't anyone who'd miss him. He led a good life.....
But they never won. He'd sit there for hours, until the bottle was near gone, before stumbling home on the high. Until he'd pass out into the nightmares and darkness.
The sky over Quel’Thalas burned, a sickly green haze choking the sun as black smoke twisted upward through the eternal autumn forest. The screams had faded. Most had. In their place came the relentless scrape of bone against stone, the guttural growls of the risen dead, and the mournful scraping of the Scourge winding through the trees.
Tycil couldn’t move her legs. The weight of her home, the place where love had lingered in quiet corners, where hearth bread and silverleaf oil had soaked into the very walls, had crumbled. Now, shattered beams and quarried stone pinned her, stealing even the possibility of escape. Her fingers, raw and torn from digging, twitched against the dust, but she knew. She would die here.
She lay twisted amid ruin, black hair matted to her face with sweat and soot, green eyes fixed beyond the broken archway. Winethol was there. Or the thing that had been her son. Too still. Too wrong. A bow strung without purpose.
He had been tall, lean, strong, a blacksmith who shaped metal like it was clay beneath his hands. But now, the light in his eyes was gone, drowned beneath a sickly gold that shimmered like molten coin. His freckled skin, once warm, had drawn tight over sharpened bones, gray and lifeless.
He had died in the middle of the village, fighting with a handful of others. She had watched him fall, loosing arrow after arrow, screaming his name until her throat tore. Her quiver had emptied, but not in time. The plaguebone and ghouls had swallowed him into the mud, into silence.
And then, he rose.
Her hands still shook. Not from fear. From failure.
Bacath lay at her feet, his once-gentle face torn beyond recognition, reduced to mangled flesh and slack horror. Her love of a thousand years, her husband had reached for her even as the roof splintered overhead. She had tried to shield him, to hold him, to protect him. She had failed.
His hand remained outstretched, even now. Even in death.
Tycil swallowed against the bitter taste in her mouth. She had always hated crying. Hunters didn’t cry. Hunters endured.
Winethol moved. Leather creaked. Sinew stretched.
Tycil’s chest clenched tight as her son’s fingers curled over the hammer they had given him when he apprenticed at sixteen, the handle warped and blackened by whatever unholy force bound him now. His head tilted, his gaze sweeping the wreckage.
His gaze landed on her.
She did not breathe.
For one breath, a heartbeat, he hesitated.
A flicker. A thread of something buried beneath decay. The boy who had cried when he snapped his first bowstring. The boy who tucked berries into his father’s cloak when he thought no one was looking. The boy who had kissed her cheek before marching to the gate.
Hope fractured through her chest.
Winethol’s fingers twitched. The hammer scraped against stone. He was still in there. Screaming. But whatever controlled him did not care.
A shadow of breath escaped her lips, ragged and hollow. He’s going to kill me.
Not as her son. Not as the boy who had cradled by his older brother and pressed kisses to his mother’s brow. As a thing. A husk. A puppet twisted into mockery.
And part of her welcomed it.
She had nothing left. Bacath was gone. Winethol was gone. Quel’Thalas was dying, choking on ash and horror, devoured by the infinite tide of undeath. What was left for her but the quiet relief of oblivion? She could let go. Close her eyes. Let it happen.
But then, the mother stirred. Not yet. Her hand slid to her belt, fingers closing around a jagged sliver of iron. Not a weapon. Just a shard. But still sharp enough. If she could not save him, she would make damn sure she did not become like him.
Then, a sound. Far off. A voice. A flash of blue over the trees. The multitudes of Scourge turned. Winethol turned.
She knew the dead along the way would be made anew, the destruction, the punishment of their lands for the power greed of a megalomaniac. His name wasn’t known to her in the present, but in the future the entire world did.
Tycil’s lungs ached as she held her breath, as her risen, hollow son faltered.
Then, as though yanked by an unseen thread, he pivoted toward the magic. Toward the city.
Toward Paranir. Hope flickered, fragile and trembling. Her eldest was in Silvermoon. Surely they would be stopped there. Surely he would be safe. Surely.
A mother always worried. Even when her sons had grown, when she had laughed at their protests that they were five hundred years old and she needed to stop pestering them about settling down, she had worried. Now, worry felt like prayer.
If Paranir lived, if he survived, he had to remember. He had to carry their name. Tycil let her head fall back against the ruin, eyes tracing the sky through the fractured ceiling.
The smoke parted, just enough to let in a sliver of golden light.
She smiled, blood staining her teeth.
“Fight, my son,” she whispered, not knowing which one she meant anymore.
Drustvar bled with the hunt. A legacy of darkness that spoke of curses and inquisitors alike.
But its fetishes—things hung from thresholds and gallows across Kul Tiras—they weren’t warnings. They were reminders. Not for the living, but for the land.
In most places, you hung them to keep things out. But in Drustvar? They weren't for evil, they were for the soil. The stone. The air itself. Because everything here had a memory and a mean streak.
That was the real purpose of a Drust fetish. Not protection. Context. You’d stake your presence into the land like a footnote in a very old, very angry book. A fetish said: Someone was here. Someone saw. Someone didn’t leave willingly.
Eske flicked a bit of dust off the one above her, finger slowly turning it as if to give Ozzie a better view—a bundle of black thorn and cracked bone, wrapped in a scrap of linen dyed with something dark that hadn't dried right.
“Been saving this one for ye, ‘specially.”
A lie.
She winked, idly touching the beads draped at her chest.
She was trying to make a sale. But like any merchant in Kul Tiras, coin was only part of it. Though, looking at him, Ozzie hardly seemed like he had any to spare. Gaunt, grizzled, eyepatch pushed up on his brow like a wink.
He sighed, crossing his arms. A press for something candid, but all it really did was make his shoulders creak. He winced. Wasn’t interested in this one.
They were still dancing around it—the reason he was in her shop in the first place. Like it might bite. But truth be told, he didn’t mind. After all, bone witches made for terribly interesting company.
“Looks like someone's still home.”
“Bah,” she narrowed an eye, “just a squeaker.”
“And if it do more than squeak in me vaults, I'll be puttin’ ye on the pyre,” he said darkly.
Her eyes widened, giving him the satisfaction. “Why, Mooreland, how ye be callin’ prophecy with that one. Though comin’ to see me without a torch...” she tsked, lips withering, “I know ye'll be takin’ it now.”
“I came…” he seemed to be reminding her, “for ones that be needin’ a guide.”
She tilted her head, holding the reluctance a little longer. She knew the man well, imagined he had earned her better items by now. Better knowledge. It was just old habit to test patience. Maybe even what kept her amused with business. It certainly hadn't made her rich.
Then with a nod, she gave the charm another turn, “Suppose ts’what ye came for.”
They moved through a tangle of hanging fetishes, and as they passed the door, Eske took a jar of ash from the shelf, tucking it under her arm.
“Not far.”
The walk to Barrowknoll was mostly silent. Their presence only summoning the calls of curious ravens—skipping between dark boughs, leaves snapping beneath fine claws. The path was unseen, overgrown, but Eske’s steps sank into the moss with certainty. Undeterred by the herald of shadowed wings.
When they reached the gate, her fingers brushed the iron with a greeting of reverence, leading them to a lone shanty. It hunched at the edge of the graves like it had grown from the rot. The cemetery’s only remaining guardian.
Just under the eaves, she gestured toward a few charms swaying with cobwebs.
The most interesting objects were never the most flashy. They didn't want to be known. But these…these were what Ozzie came to her for. The ones with the best secrets. The darkest secrets. And they needed the blessing of one bound to their shadows.
Still, they had to be quick.
As he studied, he heard the beads at her throat rattle to a different tune. The graveyard didn’t like something. With the living, it never did.
A bone witch was a conduit of rot. Walking into a graveyard with one was never a casual affair. And one unsettled…that was a whistle in the darkness. As much as any warning from her lips.
Tonight, with her company, he hoped the dead would keep their distance a little longer. But truly, all they did was wait.
“The spirits are restless. Ts’more than our presence tonight.”
Wonderful. So their timing was shit.
His attention left the fetishes, following her gaze toward the moonlight over the graves. Something already set in motion. Something they would have to face, however small. And gods, he hoped it was.
The quiet finally cracked—a shift of air, and the jar slipped from beneath her elbow. It hit the ground with a hollow pop, then shattered in a puff of ash, scattering glass at her feet.
Ozzie groaned, muffling a cough into his sleeve. He kicked the shards aside, stepping closer in spite of himself.
The unseen began to work beneath the hag’s skin, slowly, urging flesh and bone into unsettling angles—toiling, tuning her body to a sympathetic channel. Her chest rose and fell in waves, swaying with the weight of communion. Eyes fluttered, unfocused, and one hand found his arm.
He steadied her as best he could, though he had always made for a poor anchor. But this was tame, considering.
True possession could be far more violent—bone witch or no. This wasn’t that. This, well, this was meant to be a conversation. Something needed to speak its peace.
And now.
“̵B̷e̴n̸e̴a̵t̷h̴ ̴t̷h̷e̷ ̸g̴r̸o̶u̸n̵d̸…̶”̶
Her body rolled, eyes now closed. Her voice layered with others, distorting the pitch.
Dust motes swirled in the sunlight that filtered down through the gaps in the Silver Squid's deck. The little trader's sloop had been sitting in drydock for the better part of a month while the investigation into its captain was ongoing. It should have been an easy open and shut — they had bountiful evidence that Lord Quer'il had headed the conspiracy, used this very vessel to transport his wares, and trafficked them through Swiftsail Trading, owned by Onomir Swiftsail.
The latter had confessed once presented with the evidence, his execution came with little fanfare. Ystalis fucking Windbinder was the last piece of this little puzzle. Keranna slowly turned in the cargo hold of the little ship, eyes searching for something, anything the cleaners had missed.
They knew this belonged to Ystalis, had a recording of him talking about the ship by name, she had seen him with the other two conspirators — and technically had a few witnesses to boot. By all accounts that was enough to send him to his grave and move on, but she couldn't in good conscience until they were able to get a clean confession.
She unsheathed one of her concealed daggers and carved a series of runes into one of the interior planks. Pyraelia had taught her this one; in fact, most of her skill with the arcane was a strange patchwork of practical magic and true sorcery. By the time she had been born it was too costly to send a third daughter to be properly trained, but that allowed for more creativity. Keranna placed her hand on top of the rough script and flushed magic into it.
Brilliant blue-and-violet energy flooded the carving and raced through the wood grain of that plank at first, then all the surrounding and beyond until the entire ship glittered in a fibrous map of itself, reeking of ozone and warming pitch. Anything that wasn't wood would become apparent. Tens of thousands of nails, frayed fabric from sail and rigging, sand, and … scales, too big to belong to any fish, wedged deep between the boards in a couple places above her.
Keranna pulled her hand away and all that magic raced back to the runes leaving a blinding after-image in their wake. She blinked a couple of times to disperse the phantom light and immediately mounted the stair back to the main deck. She stepped into the Captain's quarters and crouched down where those scales were determined to be. Her lips pulled into a slight frown as she realized her dagger wasn't quite thin enough to wedge in. Perhaps she wouldn't have to.
Mending cantrips fixed things by nature, the runes were simple enough — but the inverse of mending was destruction.
The tip of her knife charted a spell in reverse, and as soon as she activated it the plank became brittle and unmade by her magic. Her prize fell back down into the hold, but not before she saw it. A dragon scale, glossy black with an unnatural white blaze along the edge that made it seem to glow in the dim light. It landed with an audible clatter and bounced before landing face up, taunting.
She exhaled and sheathed her dagger, swapping it for her communicator as she rose elegantly and turned to leave back out into the sunlight, "Starcinder, please arrange for the cleaners to come back out to the Silver Squid, I want it dismantled plank by plank. Tell them to save all the sand they find, I want a couple of our better scryers to trace it to the origin location."
Without waiting for a reply she changed contacts and reached out to her Magistrix of the Archives, "Pyraelia, do you have time for tea today?"
"A short one, sure, I'm at work but I can come by your office?" Pyraelia's voice came through with a slight crackle.
"Please do, and bring any notes you have on people being seamlessly swapped between timelines. It happened to your friend, didn't it?" Keranna's brow knit as she stepped down the gangway, not stopping until she reached her little cafe racer.
"Kinda, yeah. Khaeris. Why?" The arcane interference from the archive tower wasn't enough to keep the suspicion in Pyraelia's voice from creeping through.
"We'll call it curiosity. It's not about her, I promise. See you soon, darling," she closed the communication and pocketed the device before starting up her motorbike and racing back to town.
Their Ystalis was not an Infinite Dragon, but that didn't mean that their Ystalis was their Ystalis.
