It was sunny, for once, though, as we picnicked high above Crystalsong on one of the ancillary floating rocks held up by the levitating spell keeping Dalaran afloat, the winter trade noreaster blowing hundreds of feet above the forest chilled us a bit.
Bolde and I didn't care. We wanted to have our picnic anyway, though Bolde had to coax me out of from under the bear skins I keep in my flat on Aranda Street, east of Runeweaver Square. Even with those, I keep 4 braziers conjured and blazing at all times. It drives Bolde insane. He doesn't like the heat. Humans, I think, are a bit better acclimated to the cold then we Sin'dorei. Eversong is always sunny. Bolde is from the Alteracs, and after that he lived in Lordaeron before it fell, and after that, the old Dalaran. He actually enjoys the cold.
But we'd been meaning to do it since before...a lot of things. I couldn't remember when we'd agreed to it, but it must have been over a year ago. There were so many problems. So many things keeping us apart. But there was no better time than now.
So I unrolled my carpet and gave it to him, told him the incantations to get it flying and direct it. Harkostrasz down from the spire stables overlooking Krasus's Landing. Harko seems to enjoy hanging out with the Wyverns and Gryphons. I would not expect this from a dragonkin, and I've asked him about it, but the drakes are of fewer words than their more mature counterparts.
It was rather funny watching Bolde wrangle this carpet into carrying him over onto one of the floating masses to east of Dalaran, and eat some real food. Harko carried the food and wine in his claws. Bolde could barely manage to even keep himself on the carpet, let alone hold the thing rigid and flat enough to keep the food from being scattered about the forest floor below Dalaran. And I didn't want to conjure anything to eat. Unless you were an absolute master of conjuration, real food tasted better. Bolde did manage to maneuver himself into a sort of between his legs, so that he was both mounted as though it were horse he had to lay almost face down on. Ha!
We chose a big hovering boulder that didn't seem to be doing too much rotating and staying level, and laid everything out. Harko took to doing laps around the city while we waited. The food was delicious, and the view was spectacular. In the distance, the crystals of the thicket chimed against each other, their music faintly audible over the wind even as far away as we were. It sparkled like a million diamonds.
Bolde and I said nothing to each other for a few moments while we drank and ate. I wanted to say more, but it was difficult. I could not think of what to say to him at times. Both he and I had been with other companions here and there, and we had not been without jealousy. But spending so much time away from each other, it wasn't that. It was that, after so long- years actually, now I'd thought about it- it still felt new. We'd met four years ago in Deadwind Pass, when I'd received a mysterious missive calling me to Karazahn, from what I would later find out was the Violet Eye.
He was already there, though not working directly for the Violet Eye. I'd thought he was another of the dislodged spirits roaming the catacombs beneath the town surrounding the tower, and was about to incinerate him with a scorching blast of fire. He'd counterspelled me and went about scratching in the dirt with his instruments that the gnome Zizzy Arcfire had built for him (I would later meet her brother in the Exchange.) .
It was a staggeringly strong counter, or so I'd thought at the time. Of course I was much less of a spellcaster then, but it had knocked the wind out of me. When I recovered, I asked what he was doing down there. He'd told me, without even looking up, that he was trying to find equilibrium points on the ley lines, that below Karazahn they were complete mess. The Kirin Tor needed this information because they were thinking of using a massively powerful set of spells to move Dalaran. I laugh now when I think of how I hadn't believed him. My formal elven sensibilities caused me to take umbrage at what I thought was his sarcasm, since it seemed so outrageous.
The Violet Eye asked him to stay and investigate the tower. At first he seemed aloof, preoccupied with his work. My people were a courteous and ceremonial one, and I thought him rude. But I hadn't been out of Silvermoon very long then. In the camp outside of the tower a few days later, he'd asked me how the Sin'dorei had learned to pull the arcane energies into our bodies directly, without an incantation or conduit, particularly since the origin of this ability was demonic. When I corrected him and said that they'd had little to do with each other, and how we actually did it, and what the fel magics had done to our bodies and our minds, he listened, without judgment. When he spoke, his voice was without admonishment or disgust. He believed that not all of us were so far gone. He spoke about it with knowledge far beyond even what some other elves could muster, let alone human. He was obsessed with the science of magic in all its forms, like I was.
The Violet Eye sent us into Karazahn to investigate, with others. Working with him was inspiring. He showed me a trick actually. It seemed the ley lines were arranged in such a way that enormous arcane potential was stored at certain hotspots, and these were probably what was producing the odd phenomena and visions. They could also produce odd kinematic patterns in small objects with the right stimulus. In the stables he told me to feel around for where I felt the magic potential to be strongest. I highlighted it with a ring of fire, and he shot an arcane bolt from his wand into it. The hay scattered about the ground formed stick figure animals, which jumped through the hoop of fire. Neither of us had intended for this. It simply happened. It was short-lived, and had nothing to do with anyone's work directly. But it was amazing.
Karazahn had many eldritch dangers lurking around every corner, which have become famous by now, and not all of which any of us understood. but somehow, we knew that we could trust each other from the first moments of our acquaintance. We talked endlessly, to the annoyance of the other members of our teams, about the nuances of this spell or that, how that incantation interact with this ritual at that hotspot. Even in the face of death we wondered at the magic behind and within everything in that mysterious tower.
Later, after the demons had been defeated, we explored the tower together, alone, hoping to find some artifact to take with us. Perhaps to learn more about Medivh's magic, divine something of the past in the tower, or simply to commemorate our time together. Really it was just to be near each other for a bit longer. Nothing was found worth keeping. Instead, we made love in Medivh's library that night.
Bolde and I didn't care. We wanted to have our picnic anyway, though Bolde had to coax me out of from under the bear skins I keep in my flat on Aranda Street, east of Runeweaver Square. Even with those, I keep 4 braziers conjured and blazing at all times. It drives Bolde insane. He doesn't like the heat. Humans, I think, are a bit better acclimated to the cold then we Sin'dorei. Eversong is always sunny. Bolde is from the Alteracs, and after that he lived in Lordaeron before it fell, and after that, the old Dalaran. He actually enjoys the cold.
But we'd been meaning to do it since before...a lot of things. I couldn't remember when we'd agreed to it, but it must have been over a year ago. There were so many problems. So many things keeping us apart. But there was no better time than now.
So I unrolled my carpet and gave it to him, told him the incantations to get it flying and direct it. Harkostrasz down from the spire stables overlooking Krasus's Landing. Harko seems to enjoy hanging out with the Wyverns and Gryphons. I would not expect this from a dragonkin, and I've asked him about it, but the drakes are of fewer words than their more mature counterparts.
It was rather funny watching Bolde wrangle this carpet into carrying him over onto one of the floating masses to east of Dalaran, and eat some real food. Harko carried the food and wine in his claws. Bolde could barely manage to even keep himself on the carpet, let alone hold the thing rigid and flat enough to keep the food from being scattered about the forest floor below Dalaran. And I didn't want to conjure anything to eat. Unless you were an absolute master of conjuration, real food tasted better. Bolde did manage to maneuver himself into a sort of between his legs, so that he was both mounted as though it were horse he had to lay almost face down on. Ha!
We chose a big hovering boulder that didn't seem to be doing too much rotating and staying level, and laid everything out. Harko took to doing laps around the city while we waited. The food was delicious, and the view was spectacular. In the distance, the crystals of the thicket chimed against each other, their music faintly audible over the wind even as far away as we were. It sparkled like a million diamonds.
Bolde and I said nothing to each other for a few moments while we drank and ate. I wanted to say more, but it was difficult. I could not think of what to say to him at times. Both he and I had been with other companions here and there, and we had not been without jealousy. But spending so much time away from each other, it wasn't that. It was that, after so long- years actually, now I'd thought about it- it still felt new. We'd met four years ago in Deadwind Pass, when I'd received a mysterious missive calling me to Karazahn, from what I would later find out was the Violet Eye.
He was already there, though not working directly for the Violet Eye. I'd thought he was another of the dislodged spirits roaming the catacombs beneath the town surrounding the tower, and was about to incinerate him with a scorching blast of fire. He'd counterspelled me and went about scratching in the dirt with his instruments that the gnome Zizzy Arcfire had built for him (I would later meet her brother in the Exchange.) .
It was a staggeringly strong counter, or so I'd thought at the time. Of course I was much less of a spellcaster then, but it had knocked the wind out of me. When I recovered, I asked what he was doing down there. He'd told me, without even looking up, that he was trying to find equilibrium points on the ley lines, that below Karazahn they were complete mess. The Kirin Tor needed this information because they were thinking of using a massively powerful set of spells to move Dalaran. I laugh now when I think of how I hadn't believed him. My formal elven sensibilities caused me to take umbrage at what I thought was his sarcasm, since it seemed so outrageous.
The Violet Eye asked him to stay and investigate the tower. At first he seemed aloof, preoccupied with his work. My people were a courteous and ceremonial one, and I thought him rude. But I hadn't been out of Silvermoon very long then. In the camp outside of the tower a few days later, he'd asked me how the Sin'dorei had learned to pull the arcane energies into our bodies directly, without an incantation or conduit, particularly since the origin of this ability was demonic. When I corrected him and said that they'd had little to do with each other, and how we actually did it, and what the fel magics had done to our bodies and our minds, he listened, without judgment. When he spoke, his voice was without admonishment or disgust. He believed that not all of us were so far gone. He spoke about it with knowledge far beyond even what some other elves could muster, let alone human. He was obsessed with the science of magic in all its forms, like I was.
The Violet Eye sent us into Karazahn to investigate, with others. Working with him was inspiring. He showed me a trick actually. It seemed the ley lines were arranged in such a way that enormous arcane potential was stored at certain hotspots, and these were probably what was producing the odd phenomena and visions. They could also produce odd kinematic patterns in small objects with the right stimulus. In the stables he told me to feel around for where I felt the magic potential to be strongest. I highlighted it with a ring of fire, and he shot an arcane bolt from his wand into it. The hay scattered about the ground formed stick figure animals, which jumped through the hoop of fire. Neither of us had intended for this. It simply happened. It was short-lived, and had nothing to do with anyone's work directly. But it was amazing.
Karazahn had many eldritch dangers lurking around every corner, which have become famous by now, and not all of which any of us understood. but somehow, we knew that we could trust each other from the first moments of our acquaintance. We talked endlessly, to the annoyance of the other members of our teams, about the nuances of this spell or that, how that incantation interact with this ritual at that hotspot. Even in the face of death we wondered at the magic behind and within everything in that mysterious tower.
Later, after the demons had been defeated, we explored the tower together, alone, hoping to find some artifact to take with us. Perhaps to learn more about Medivh's magic, divine something of the past in the tower, or simply to commemorate our time together. Really it was just to be near each other for a bit longer. Nothing was found worth keeping. Instead, we made love in Medivh's library that night.
