Merry Christmas

A year ago, one of my brothers expressed surprise that I still celebrated Christmas. Without Jesus, he thought, there would be no point, no reason, as it were, for the season. I just wanted to point out, to friends, families, and everybody else...I do have a reason to celebrate the Christmas season. And that reason is you. You are the ones that give me hope and comfort, you are the ones in whose love I find peace. So, thank you.

Happy belated Thanksgiving!

Marcus (unfinished)

Her lungs burned. Her vision blurred. She could not keep this up much longer. Already her legs were refusing to keep running, her feet starting to stumble. Fear and adrenaline had kept her on her feet this long, but she was fast coming to the end of their assistance.

She tripped, stumbled, and unable to catch herself, fell to her knees. This was the end. It had only been a few steps behind her, and now she could feet breath on the back of her neck. Then, darkness.

...

Marcus caught the girl as she started to fall. He grunted as he swung her over his shoulder and started the trek back to his cave. His lair, the villagers called it, and he the beast the lurked within. Many times they had come, armed with pitchforks and torches, to drive him out. Their friends always found them the next day, unharmed, peacefully asleep in the sunshine. He was no master kelok, but he did know some small magics, more than enough to protect himself from a few angry villagers.

He shifted the girl to his other shoulder. How had she gotten free? It was hard enough figuring out what to do with these girls they kept staking out for him without being led on a merry chase through the forest for hours. His anger burned as the thought of the first girl they had chained to a stake in the little clearing outside the village. He had no use for girls, virgin or otherwise. He had left her there, assuming the villagers would come in the morning and be overjoyed at finding her alive.

They had come, certainly. But they reacted with anger instead of joy. They blamed the girl, saying she must not have been a virgin, that she had failed, that she had put their entire village in jeopardy. Then they... He shook his head vigorously. Suffice it to say that the girl died there and the villagers went back to the village bearing the brands of murderers and rapists. It had been one of the few times he had wished himself actually able to take human life. The brands he had set on them ensured them their punishment at the hands of their fellow men, at least. Such marks could only be set upon the guilty. But since then he had been careful to collect the virgin offerings left for him.

Marcus ducked through the opening to his cave, careful to avoid hitting both his head and the girl's on the ceiling or walls. It was small, and strewn with bones and other grisly trophies. It truly looked a beast's lair. Two strides took him across to the opposite wall, where he laid his hand on the wall and whispered "open."

For Better Things

I wrote this several months ago. I did not publish it because she did not want people to know that she was dating us. So I will post it now, a record of things that were.

For life's freedom now to start
For the fear of starting new
For the love within my heart
For what I hid yet always knew

For the breaking of love's chains
For heart's opening once more
For its joys as well as pains
For the wealth no longer poor

For the recklessness of joy
For the doors no longer locked
For heart though not a toy
For the hours that run unclocked

For a love not one but two
For a strength that runs threefold
For caresses old and new
For more arms to rock and hold

For refusing to look back
For rejoicing in our song
For a trust that never lacks
For a love that is not wrong

For all these I hold love fast
For all these I look past pain
For all these I leave the past
For all these I live again

Molithe: Sunstrider Isle

I awoke to unfamiliar surroundings, uncertain as to how I had gotten there. My pet dragonhawk, Dragon, nuzzled my face...and judging from the drool all over me, had been doing so for quite a while.

"Dragon! Stop that, boy!" I pushed him away as I sprung gracefully to my feet. I am a blood elf, after all. We do everything gracefully. I looked around more closely. This must be Sunstrider Isle! I had heard stories of the place of course, but I had never visited. Few did. A nearby Magister beckoned me closer.

"Molithe! Your training awaits you!" she stated firmly. "You see all those mana wyrms over there? They've broken free of our control and need to be dealt with. I need you to kill a few for me." Without waiting for a reply, she turned to the young priest next to me, tossing "For the glory of the Sin'dorei!" over her shoulder. "Death to our enemies," I replied absently, my eyes already on a mana wyrm nearby, and my mind on how to best perform what would be my first kill. I was a little nervous, but if ever I was to make something of myself in this world of warcraft, adventure, and danger, I had to start somewhere!

After killing six of the wyrms, I returned to the Magister, eager to claim my reward. She gave me a sweet new belt and told me to check the mailbox. After buckling my new belt on, I pulled a giant package out of the mailbox and opened it excitedly. Inside was a note signed "Good luck! Mom" and several pieces of high quality armor! This was even better than a new belt! This armor would last me forever if I took good care of it, just as it had lasted my mother and probably her mother before her. After buckling on this new armor as well, I looked around for something to do. Remembering the Magister had told me to visit the experienced Ranger Sallina inside, I ran inside eagerly. Sallina wanted me to gain more experience killing the different creatures around the Isle, then practice my skills on the training dummies she had set up outside. It seemed several different people now had tasks for me to perform...an older elf wanted me to gather some of his property he had left carelessly sitting all over, the Magister wanted me to kill some lynxes that had gone feral and reclaim their leather collars, and an arcanist wanted to teach me how to suck the magic out of the area immediately around me. That last one gave me the shivers. I suffered from magic addiction, as did all blood elves, but stealing it from a living creature, even one I was going to kill anyway, just made me sick. I resolved to use this ability sparingly.

I retrieved the older gentlemen's belongings while crying over killing the baby lynx cubs and their mothers all over the isle. Did we really have kill them, just because they were feral? It wasn't like they were hurting anybody. I did as I was asked, however, and gathered collars from all of them to return to the Magister. She praised me and sent me on to her apprentice a bit down the path. He too wanted me to kill things, which made me a bit sad. I'd gone quickly from being all excited about my first kill to being tired of killing, already. I suspected I would see quite a bit more before I was through, though! At least this guy wanted me to kill tenders, which are just animated sticks, basically. These tenders had slipped out of their makers' control and essentially started running in circles. They weren't really dangerous, but they were annoying. After killing several, I returned to the apprentice, who gave me my first really important job: executing a leader of the Wretched. I despised the Wretched with that burning hatred one only feels for that which they truly fear. I knew that if I didn't control my addiction to magic, I too would end up a slave to it. So I killed the guy. I almost felt like I was putting him out of his misery. What kind of life is it to be so totally controlled by something that you would kill even those dear to you for just a taste of mana? I brought his head back to the apprentice guy as proof that I had completed my task. Ugh. I tell you what, a few coppers are NOT enough for me to go carrying bloody heads around in my pack. At least the self-cleaning magic my mother put on the pack is holding up well. I hardly notice it is there, but come to think of it, that might be why random blood elves keep glancing at me hungrily. And here I thought it was my stunning good looks and stellar personality. Oh well, a girl can dream, right?

Having delivered the head to what's-his-name the apprentice, he sent me to an outrunner at the edge of the Isle for further instructions. I don't even know what the guy is going to do with a head. Especially a Wretched head. If there's anything uglier than a wretched I don't know what it is! Maybe Forsaken. They look somewhat similar. Anyway, the outrunner sent me in search of a second outrunner that was supposed to be on her way to Falconwing Square with a package but never made it. I found her body a short ways down the road. Life is so short and easily snuffed out. I grabbed the package and ran back to the first outrunner, but she just gestured for me to continue down the road to Falconwing Square myself. Fair enough! I was happy to leave Sunstrider Isle. It was probably all the loose mana floating around, but the place made me feel very unsettled. I would be glad to get to Falconwing and take a nice nap in the inn.

The Story of Molithe

Molithe is a word I recently came up with and became enamored with very quickly. I'm not really sure why, but for some reason the word appeals to me, especially as a name. So my current goal for this blog is to write out the story of Molithe the Hunter as if she were actually there, experiencing it for the first time. I plan to use minimal add-ons and avoid group content as much as possible. My goal for Molithe is to make her feel as if her story is one of the epic adventurer who grew in power until she saves the world, some day. So I've just started her story tonight, and I'm hoping to write a new chapter every few levels. Wish me luck and perseverance!

Molithe

Molithe. The name both terrified and attracted her. Molithe. Slayer of a thousand dreams. Yet she had seen a glimpse of something else in those shadowed eyes, something more than death or dreams.

She was probably just lying to herself. After all, people tried to get close to Molithe all the time. She had seen one such person at the market just last week, babbling by turns of death and demons and angels and light. Nobody was quite sure what to do with these broken-minded wretches. Once a vengeance-crazed mother had found one wandering in an open field beside her house. The mere whisper of Molithe was enough to send her into a frenzy and she bashed his head in with her household god. She awoke the next morning to find her village in flames and her neighbors slaughtered. They fished her body out of the river a week later. After that, Molithe's cast-off lovers were treated with care, if not respect.

Yet still they came, once or twice a month, from every corner of the world. With Molithe's name on their lips and dreams in their eyes, they trudged straight up the temple steps. The great golden gates would swing open to receive them, and them alone. Some had mates or children trying to drag them back, yet still they strode forward.

Molithe. She shivered. What was it that brought men and women of every race to the Temple of Dreams? What could draw them so strongly? And why were they always found mindless, weeks or months or even years later?

Nobody knew what went on in the presence of Molithe. Those who went willingly, not drawn by dreams, found the gates closed to them. If they managed to climb the wall, they were found later missing both eyes and tongue.

Except her. She had seen Molithe. She had waylaid a dreamer and convinced him to smuggle her through the gates in his pack. She was small and he had been a large barbarian from the North. It had been easy to convince him, but then, dreamers would agree to anything so long as it didn't keep them from Molithe.

So far as she knew she was the first mortal to see Molithe and still retain all her sense. She wondered if she would start going slowly mad, or perhaps if this growing obsession with Molithe was how it started for dreamers. She almost thought it would be worth losing her mind to see Molithe just once more, this time without the hood and veils, face to face with the Keeper of Dreams.

So it was that she found herself striding up the long staircase to the great golden gates of the Temple of Dreams. The people gathered to watch her go by, muttering the same words of condolence and regret they always bestowed on a dreamer. "I'm not a dreamer!" she wanted to yell at them. "I just want to see Molithe!" But she held her peace. To her surprise and slight dismay, the gates swung open at her approach. She hesitated, then strode boldly through them before falling to her knees in front of Molithe. As her eyes met the eyes of the Keeper of Dreams, she felt a sense of peace. This was where she was meant to be. This is what she had been dreaming of all her life.