Wednesday (31 July 2013) - The Sun Sets

Wednesday (31 July 2013) - The Sun Sets

[Note: I was expecting Happy to have today, 31 July, to wrap up the last items he had received from the AH, but when I logged in this morning the account had been closed. Ah well. The other account remains active until 7 Aug, closing on the 8th. I am giving Naithipe the last say. I suspect that you have already deduced her real name, but let me know if you've figured it out, and if you know the connection between the names. Her real name is revealed at the end of the post.]

The death knight was draped over a bar stool at the Inn shoehorned into a corner of Dalaran. The pig tails drew stares. The armor she wore warned of a more dangerous story. The baleful glare was that of a creature lost to her pain and willing to take all who dared down the dark road she trod.

She was bone tired. Cursed as a death knight, murderer of a trusted friend, and mother of a fatherless child. She had never wanted to be any of those things, in the early years. Now, she accepted her solitude and wrapped her crimes around her to protect her bruised soul.

There were whispers around the edges of the bar. "Naithipe," they murmured. She was known here in Dalaran. Washed up on a forgotten chunk of floating rock and caught in the eddies of a land falling into obscurity. It fit her mood. It fit the dingy Filthy Animal Inn and the decrepit denizens who thought they had a life. It fit the blackness of her heart.

That was her state of mind when she left Dalaran for the Valley of the Two Moons in the land of Pandaria. That had not been an easy journey. The Pandarens, strangely, had let her be. Perhaps they sensed the blackness she carried, and let her pass lest some of that blackness spill across their beautiful world. Perhaps they pitied her, or thought her not worthy of the effort to obstruct her. It made no difference to Naithipe.

Her journey ended at Halfhill Market. At the Lazy Turnip Tavern, Naithipe watched from a dark corner while her only child danced without music on the counter of the bar. She watched with wetted eyes. She could see the darkness in the child, a darkness that Naithipe carried in her own soul. She had not wished to pass that on at her birth, but there it was. Perhaps the curse will pass her by anyway, she hoped. In a quiet way she was proud of her daughter. She had advanced much farther than herself, and surpassed even her mentors. Her daughter was happy in her own way, Naithipe knew, as no daughter was ever watched so closely as her.

Her daughter slowed to a stop and stepped lightly down to the floor. She passed a coin to the barkeep for letting her share his counter. There was appreciative applause without the ugliness that seemed to follow Naithipe. There was envy, there was lust, but there was also respect. There was also that smudge of blackness on her heart. Which way will your life turn? Naithipe wondered of her daughter.

Naithipe rose and spoke. Her daughter turned at the sound of her name, "Plumrosefist." Plumrosefist turned her head to one side, and then the other, seeming to take in and accept every secret Naithipe had ever had. "My little Rose," Naithipe called her, for the first time out loud, for the millionth time in her heart.

"Mother," Plumerosefist said then, and embraced her with a smile.

Someone in the bar murmured, "Naithipe." Plumrosefist's mother turned to the voice, her arm still around her child. "No," she said firmly. "My name is Tiphaine."