Jakk’ari and Zachary


With light dimmed to nothing, you proceed through the marsh, keeping close to the edge of the road and the hard-packed, elevated earth that you know you can rely on for footing. The stars are slowly being devoured by the threatening dawnlight, but there is enough starshine and reflection in the swamp for navigation, especially with Zachary’s chemically enhanced talent for tracking and night-work. Twice, your instinct compels you to stop and listen for fear you’re being stalked by something; twice, you discover that it’s nothing to worry about. The first time, a young crocolisk has boldly explored up to the roadside encouraged by the wet of the night’s rain; but it decides better than to try the travellers, and slinks away. The second time, it seems to be nothing at all - just a schlup sound of mud, displaced by their movement, resettling into its own hollow.

Following the information gleaned from the elemental encounter and Brother Bright’s addendum, you veer off the road deeper into the marsh to see if you can find old Jarl’s hut. It’s not terribly difficult, after you’ve skewed into the marsh further. A single hut, built out of the marsh on stilts that look like cannibalized mizzenmasts and a loosely circular exterior wall of packed mud and driftwood planks seems to fit the bill. It’s illuminated in the gloom by a trio of lamps placed equidistantly around the structure. Each lamp has a twisted copper wire frame around it, and each one is drawing in a small cloud of dazzled, buzzing swamp insects ranging from button sized to finger sized. The larger bugs squeeze in through a tunnel in the woven wire, but can’t find their way out; and the smell of the unluckiest bugs caught in the trap and baking against the hot glass of the lamp is truly unpleasant. The door is closed and there is no sound of activity - but who would be up at this hour, anyway?

Spoiler: Rolls!
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I would like Stealth rolls and Perception rolls from each of you - and since Zachary has pre-emptively offered his in the OOC already, just from you Jakk’ari!


Mor’Lag


You dream.

Spoiler: You wonder if you'll ever be so strong.
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On The Deck Of Tuur'Nog's Fist

You wonder if you will ever be so big, and strong, as they. But you doubt it. Like all fathers, yours are titanic figures when you are so young, striding across the world in mere steps, capable of smashing mountains and turning aside mortal blows. In your case, this is less of an exaggeration than it otherwise would be. Tuur’Nog, known amongst the Gordunni ogres as Tuur’Nog Heart-Eater, is mighty even by ogre standards. They were one of those ultimately rare ogres who was born with the Twofold - a one in a thousand mutation, and a sign of great destiny. And one to which he lived up, in most eyes. Tuur’s keen eyes were like those of a hunting Rylak, and his club arm was as strong as any warrior’s. Nog’s cyclopean focus extended into his capacity for the old rune magics, and his capacity to conjure and cast matched descriptions of the heroes of old, from grand days of High-Maul, when the orcs were still young and soft, and their spines had not hardened under their oppression. When the Old Horde began assembling, they led much of the Gordunni host in war against the fickle birdmen, and the blue-skins who had invaded and haunted their world. When Gul’Dan was selecting students, Tuur’Nog was recommended by the grand warlock Cho’Gall himself. Everyone knew they were destined for greatness - perhaps, even more greatness than Cho’Gall. As they stood on the deck of the Juggernaught, the other ogres howled their loyalty to him, and he rewarded it with a display of the power that so inspired them.

The Felguard he had summoned to the deck was taller than they; and had been so bound with muscle that it was not difficult to imagine that if it had caught Tuur’Nog with a swipe of the demonic axe, it might have cut them clean through. Yet they had stepped back from that blow, Tuur’s fist cranking back to deliver a swift, sharp stunning blow to the demon’s face, and Nog’s fingers curling to elicit sparks of green Fel energy to capture and bind the Felguard’s limbs, dragging it to its knees, and folding it roaring into a reverse arch. To glorious approval, they plied the clawed nails of both hands to the demon’s chest, twisted open its black bone ribcage with a gristly snap, wrenched free its spasming, green-lit heart from its wicked carcass and devoured it in one messy bite to each head. They seemed like a god to them, and they gave them their praise.

This, of course, was before the Battle of Hillsbrad, where his legend would be truncated with such brutality as to empty his legacy of value for all time.

“Glory to the Conquerers!”, roared Tuur.
“And shame to them that die here, on alien soil, without the blood of ten warriors on his fists!”, declared Nog.

Thus, the die was cast. Glory to those who conquered. Shame on those who died without reaping their toll of ten.

The crew gets back to sailing, full of vigor and barking brags and promises for the war coming. Your fathers return to the aftcastle, where your mother stands in her veils and twinkling golden ornaments. She is no slouch in combat herself, but for this journey across the span between the human islands, she plays her part as Tuur’Nog’s wife, desirable and prized. Indeed, she is most desirable - for she has bred true to Tuur’Nog’s Twofold, a thousand-in-one chance after another thousand in one, making Mor’Lag one… or rather, two in a million. Henceforth, the birth of such ogres would become far more common - one in ten - but it was their parent’s blood that was strong, not the strange, invasive magics of the orcs.

Your fathers come to you, and kneel beside you; and pointing over your shoulder, indicates the distant, cloudy grey shapes on the horizon. You can hear the grin in their voices, as they egg you on with doting bloodlust.

“Do you see, girls? This is the land of many kings. Here, we will carve a legend in the blood of those kings, and their horses, and their sons and daughters. Tell me, Mor’Lag - when you are older, and you have your magics, and you can fight - what will you do, to make your name even greater than ours?”


Isaera

You dream.

Spoiler: You hear your parents arguing.
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From The Western Staircase Of Your Home Estate
“They’ve called in the ancient pacts, Aunara. The humans remember the promises of Dath’Remar Sunstrider, and they are such brief people. How can we forget our promises to the sons of Thoradin?”

Aunara Starsong doesn’t answer - not right away, atleast. She leans on the windowsill, her raven black hair stirring in the night breeze as her gaze tracks over the ancient spires of Silvermoon. Her long lashes sweep low to her cheeks; and her melancholy does its strange magic of enhancing her loveliness. Her warm contralto voice is cast back over her shoulder, without the benefit of eye contact to back them up.

“And what if you die, Daeden? What if the orcs kill you? Shall I then feed our children to them, one at a time, in service of an ancient pact to people fifty generations past those to whom it was made? It’s absurd. Let the Farstriders go in their numbers, and fletch the trolls and orcs, and come home. Why do you need to go?”

Daeden Runescribe sighs deeply, combatting his wife’s objections with some melodrama of his own. His hair is gold in color, falling straight down his back to just above his waist; and when he glides in behind Aunara and embraces her around the waist to hold her close, his golden locks form a pleasing visual contrast to her black ringlets. She wriggles once as he embraces her, just to emphasize how mad she is, but settles back against him in resignation. They stand together in the kitchen of the estate, with only the hush of the night air, and the whisper of a single animated cleaning cloth discreetly wiping the benches under its own power nearby.

“I’m not going to die. The king will call for one fighter from each family, and Kaleneus isn’t ready. Aleeana has more talent, but not nearly for battle magic. Not yet. And Tarien and Isaera are both just too young. We’ve lived so well for so long, Auna. They’re spoiled by peace. If I don’t set an example for them, how will they know what it means to have loyalty, and honor? Don’t be mad at me.” Craftily, he slides a hand down the length of her slender arm, and weaves his fingers interlocking into her own. “Just be strong for me.”

And then they are dancing, in the starlight in the kitchen. The kitchen island and stools glide to the edges of the room to accommodate this, at a tiny gesture from Daeden who has a great deal of practise seducing his wife with just such craft. It’s a spring waltz, and so it is done most appropriately in this manner, with the woman pressed back to the man’s chest with hands entwined at her shoulder, and hip; both parties facing forward or, in this case, adoringly at each other over the shoulder. For a minute, they’re just dancing; and Daeden hums warmly to a simple, danceable tune the significance of which is lost on you. Your mother still looks angry at him, even as she consents to being wooed; and then she simply looks sad again, which your father has many times said is her most compelling aspect.

“...I will not abide an ugly husband, Daeden. If you come back with a single scar, I shall divorce you on the spot and take a younger, unmarred man.”
“Will you? Then I shall scar him. What then?”
“I shall take another, and another until every knife in Quel’Thalas is dulled from your desecrations.”
“I bet they’d keep coming, too. I would.”

The dance slows, and they abandon their affects - his exaggerated smugness, her exaggerated sullenness - as he begins whispering in her ear, such that you can’t hear it.

From where you sit on the spiralling staircase, with its shadowed perch and view into the kitchen, the scene plays out and you are privy to the information before your parents formally announce it at breakfast tomorrow. Tarien, sitting beside you runs his hands through the ravenblack tresses he inherited from your mother. He’s older than you by a year, but considerably less responsible; and you can’t help but think of him as your little brother.

“So that’s it. Father is going to war for the humans. I don’t understand it at all, but more than that - how can he say you and I are too young? Even if we’re not accomplished magi, we’re still old enough to become archers.” His eyes swivel side to side defensively, as if anticipating someone will leap from the darkness to contradict him. “You know, if we… if we wanted to, and trained for it. Anyway, mother is right. We need to find some way to stop him from being so reckless.” He looks at you with all the paper-thin conviction of a teenager, hoping you’ll back him up, and not crumple him with even a mildly firm contradiction.



Marion


You dream.

Spoiler: You smell the mountain air.
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Upon The High Terrace Of Your Family Spire

The high mountain air is good, and crisp with the promise of a snowfall to come. From the high terrace, you can see clearly for miles and miles through the jousting peaks of the other mountains in the Alterac range. Down below you, the lamp-lit streets are so dark and far they seem to your young eyes almost a second starscape, with tiny dots of firelight amidst an inverted canopy of dark stone. The only obstruction to your vision at all is your Uncle’s tower, to the west of your family’s own; the seat of his baronial privilege. The wind changes, and now you can smell the hint of coalsmoke from the forges below as the ore hauled up from the guts of the mountains is smelted and ingotized around the clock, then to be carted up and shipped down the mountain to one of your father’s clients. The child you are, you have no idea - not yet - that this mineral wealth is not being purchased so much as extorted as war-debt by the long sequence of travelling nobles from Lordaeron, and Gilneas, and Stromgarde, and all sorts of places you’d never been to. On the terrace below, you can see the shape of your father’s fur-collared robe, and the crown of black hair familiar to your eyes, and your hands. He speaks with a man you do not recognize, in a red and grey armor that seems to you quite fancy indeed. Even so young, you find yourself uncomfortable with the relative postures of the men - your father, arms wide, gesturing with the invitation of a party who seeks friendship and cooperation; the stranger, arms folded, pointing down further at the forges and worker’s houses, sometimes shouting and demanding. It is not easy to watch.

With you on this high terrace are two figures; your mother, and a young boy. Your mother is a fantastic beauty who married up, as the daughter of a poor knight who had distinguished himself grandly in the first war. Having expatriated to seek his fortune in Stormwind, he served with honor and assisted the flight of the refugees to the Northern kingdoms, returning to his homeland in turn to restored knighthood from the king of Alterac, and recognition from Anduin Lothar. With his honor, he mustered all his effort as a simple widower proficient only in horse and lance, to drive your mother into the best schooling, the best etiquette classes and a handmaiden who had once served Princess Beve Perenolde. Her natural intellect and drive to excel permitted her to devour all the teaching put her way; and when she attracted the eye of Geordan Mortis, he was able to feel peace for the first time since he lost his wife. Giving your mother away to become Geneve Mortis, she had once told you he announced at the wedding, was the crowning glory of his life - this from Sir Benthan Orlo, the hero of Mercedes’ Gap. She cried a little, when she told you that story. It is the only time you remember this iron pillar of a woman crying at all.

The other figure on the terrace is Randal, the son of the noble below who speaks to your father so harshly. He is rugged up in furs, but looks cold and miserable as he waits for the negotiations to conclude, under the theoretically care of your mother who infact has little time for him. If he had wandered off the terrace to his death, she would hardly have been able to stop him; her focus is on you, and you detect her disdain for the boy. Between your mother’s disdain for him, and your father’s interaction with his father below, a cold seed of hate blooms slowly in your little heart for him: the easy target for projected fantasies of nonspecific vindication.

“Don’t look at him, Marion. Look out over the town. Show me what Tutor Laerden has shown you. Show me what you’ve learned.” She plucks a black feather from her coat’s extravagant collar, and flicks it our into that clean, sweet breeze that promises the snow; and it dances in the air, flitting up and away. The elf woman, Tutor Laerdan, has been teaching you magic since you were five. Now you are eight - practically grown up, honestly - and you have mastered some of the basic tricks which seemed impossible to understand when you were younger. The last time your mother brought you here and did this same gesture with the feather, you tried very hard to summon the mana like you were taught and fling it like a weapon at the target; but your heart became too excited, and the spell buckled. Now she’s asking you to try it again - and with the boy watching, too.

She lays a firm hand on your shoulder, and squeezes. “Quickly now, before it drifts any further. Like Laerdan taught you.”