“There is the sun and then there is the moon. Both are important and we talk on them often- but we never stop to consider and ask what the sun and moon think and feel.”
Adrianal arrived to the infirmary with Avada at his side. He looked withdrawn, holding the little baby girl in his arms to his chest with a wide eyed and broken look in his eyes. His red hair was tied back out of habit, his clothes clean out of kindness of his maids. But his blind eyes were blank, hollow, void of emotion or feeling. He took in a shuddering breath, looking warily to Avada now, “I…thank you….for coming with me today….”
Avada had a similarly drawn look to her face. Though her hair shone bright and silky as ever, her black cloak from the previous night hadn’t been changed. Exhaustion tugged beneath her eyes, a tribute to her long vigils at her friend’s bedside. “There’s no place I’d rather be. I’m here for you both, and for your daughter.” She pulled her lips upward in a kind smile that didn’t touch her eyes, the most reassuring look she could muster. “He will wake. Of that I am confident. He just…needs time. As grass seeds lie dormant for the rain, he needs time.”
The paladin seemed to curl in on himself at her words, disappearing inside himself in the emotional agony. But his daughter reached up, a lovely delight of a child with curly brown hair and wide starlit lavender eyes. She tugged Adrianal’s hair and gave a crystalline whine, it made him shudder alive, taking an uneasy breath as he touched her small heart-shaped face. “Okay….” he whispered, voice barely audible. He was a man only living for the child in his arms now, only functioning because she needed him still.
Avada’s eyes deepened in sorrow. She took Adrianal’s elbow and gently guided him along to his husband’s room. The phoenix on her shoulder seemed to sense his handler’s stress. He fluffed himself up, gazing between her, Adrianal, and the baby.
The room still smelled of incense, and by the altar it looked as though a certain spellbreaker had kept his promises, a very chocolatey slice of cake sat on a plate uneaten upon it. But in the bed, Felo’thore had not stirred, the man appeared in an endless sleep, comfortable, his arms placed by loved ones as if he slept casually even. The astromancer was inert as a dormant tree with a jarring scar along its bark. The mark seemed not as red or blotchy as it did evenings ago, but there it remained a reminder of the trauma the man had been through.
Day 1: Write a diary entry for your character, dated 10 years in the future.
It’s been a long time since I’ve written in this. The days have been blending together into days of both chaos and wonder. The children are growing so quickly, I keep worrying with Felo’thore, wondering if perhaps they were going a little too quickly. He knows of my desire for more, I wonder when we’ll have more…I suppose it’s a discussion for another day.
Orionus fell off a swing set today, he was determined to reach the stars. At the sight of blood I had fainted and Felo’thore had to call Xenus to come check his scrapes and cuts and embarrassingly offer me some ice for my head. Her and Thordemar’s gaggle of children are incredible to see. All blonde and smart and gorgeous, they all have blessedly inherited their parents good looks. One of them was asking me about paladin works today, they met the Knight-Commander it seems and were quite impressed. Perhaps Xenus will teach her in the way of the Light.
Cassiopeia has a crush, to the bane of my entire existence. Vaelrin came for dinner the other night, Orionus had tried to convince him to put a spicy red sauce, pickles, and onion onto his sandwich. The man has a way with children, able to place the massacre of food onto the wayside and not hurt Orionus’ feelings. Cassiopeia though.
Murder was on my mind certainly, though Felo’thore did remind me it is by no way Vaelrin’s fault. Cassiopeia seems to now believe he is a knight in shining armor with his long, flowing hair and that beastly horse he had ridden up on. She had watched his arrival from her window and, ten year old minds being what they are, she was certain it was to be as the fairylands that Felo’thore reads to them at night. She put on one of her favorite “princess” dresses, something Tyleril had sent again and flounced down the stairs like a Queen coming before her court. To my dismay she seems to be inheriting all of Felo’thore’s swagger and charm. Bless Vaelrin’s heart for not being harsh with her, he even kissed her hand and called her “Lady”. I fear for the inflation of Cassiopeia’s ego by that action alone. Through the whole dinner she was determined to sit by him and she chattered his ear off about her tea parties and her dresses. She confided in Felo’thore later that those were the things all fine “Ladies” spoke about with a “Prince”.
Belore above please let that girl grow up to realize Vaelrin is anything but a damned prince. She’s in the kitchen now with Felo’thore; baking him cookies and yearning to send him a letter with updates of her stuffed bunny Duchess. I refuse to be any part of it, the last thing I need is my daughter having a crush on that man. But Felo’thore is abiding by it with great amusement, giving me entire lectures on the importance of child development and positive role models. Positive be damned.
It vexes me, but there could be worse people for a child to have a first crush on, innocent and simple minded as it may be. Despite our bouts and how I sometimes still snap at him, Vaelrin is kind to the children.
Felo’thore is everything a father I told him he would be. The children worship him and the antlers that grow from him day by day amuse them to no end. Though he complains they are quite itchy. A near decade later and we are still so happy, and the fires of our passions have not seemed to dim. Let us hope going into this new year they never do.
That is all I have to write for now I suppose. Cassiopeia is crying in the kitchen. Apparently Orionus has stolen an entire bowl of cookie dough.
There could be worse tortures than an upset stomach.
Featuring his new look after the aftermath of the Legionfall finale, druid tier 19 armor recolor & some lasting changes in his appearance. Final painting of the year, dropping a compilation of techniques I picked up in my class this year. I don’t think I’ve worked on a piece quite this long, and so much effort went into trying to spew the image my mind wanted to tell of this character I’ve grown to love dearly. Some of my work in progress shots can be found [here]. Thank you so much everyone that has supported me this year and years past.
Felo’thore Novastorm awoke from his coma today ((12/29)) and seemed to be doing fine. I let him go home and discharged him from the infirmary, telling him to take it easy and eat soft foods for a while. Once he’s up to it he can return to the infirmary to get his teeth fixed. No need for his jaw to get used to lacking teeth.
“NOO! Let go of me! Unhand me now! I need to be there! T-the D-Dawnspire! ….ADRIANAL!!”
His desperate cries fell on deaf ears of the grove wardens, restraining the flustered avatar of Felo’thore’s consciousness and dragging his silhouette by his heels away from the doorway in which he slammed through. In flesh, the attack from the Prime Consort Kala looked something brutal, but the truth had been the worst of it struck his face on broken marble when his body collapsed so suddenly from the retreat of his mind. The runes across his chest ripped him into the safety of the Emerald Dream before the demon’s sorcery could take hold of him.
Screams, flame, rubble and horror were now a quiet autumn breeze, ethereal and gentle, and spirits looming in quiet curiosity over the commotion. Felo’thore twisted and yanked himself from the burly centaur’s grips, his whitened hair and cloak whipping behind him as he bound back for the doorway, only to jam himself against it’s invisible barrier, preventing him from traveling back through it. Felo’thore pressed his long hands to the glass-like surface, picking up and pounding a fist defeatedly against it as he watched the ghostly movements of oathsworn hot in combat with the invading demon swarm. His silver eyes widened watching Avada’s rage light her spellblade ablaze, her courageous shouts too muffled by the dreamspace to be heard. Adrianal in sorrow and horror, hairs on the astromancer’s ghostly arms standing as he felt the paladin hold his shattered shell. The shouts and courageous fury of the sunspear holding fast the attention of their adversaries, Tyleril’s pleading prayers heard clearest among the blur of sound. He felt the determination, the vigor, the despair, the exclamation- all of it grow heavy on his glowing chest, pressing his forehead against the visage of the living realm in grief.
The window closed into nothing, and Felo’thore dropped to his knees on the loamy earth, pouring into a harsh sob.
“You cannot return to the living realm at this time,” snorted the grove warden, stepping forward where his hoof plotted to a halt before Felo’thore. “Your body is broken. Your mind yielded. It is too dangerous, and by Elune’s will you are to carry your oath to nature. It is not your time.”
The pale facade of the astromancer lifted up, hiccuping through his words with his sobbing. “They…..need me. Please.”
The grove warden stared expressionlessly, flicking his tail in what appeared annoyance before turning and walking away. Felo’thore’s apparition sat there alone, listening to the distant ghostly sounds from another time and place. His heart tugged but he knew…he was brought to the dream for a reason. For now, it was a matter of when the door would deem him ready to emerge, and if those fighting alongside him, and the home in which they defended would be there for his return.
Days in the Emerald Dream felt like hours in the realm of flesh….
The blue dragon arrived at night when everyone was sleeping and all other mourners had gone. It was easier for him that way. Asleep, no one could see how heavily grief hung on him and weighed down his shoulders. They couldn’t hear how hoarse his voice was when he spoke or see the tear tracks that marked his otherwise expressionless but perfectly shaped face. His movements that were usually meant to capture and hold the attention of others were subdued, stilled in the heaviness of sorrow.
He could hear the heavy, labored breathing of the injured but healing as they lay in restless and nightmare fueled sleep in silent agony. How many had been injured, how many had been killed he could not say, but the burst of magic that had emanated from the center of the Dawnspire had been hard to ignore even from where he sat within the Ivory Spire. The magic had pulled him mind and body out of the sanctuary that was the great library, but it was the hushed words of the great still form of the dragon that had drawn him here to this place of pain and healing.
He pushed open the doors of the infirmary. His footsteps were ghostly silent, the sound of his moving robes a passing whisper in the night. Here and there as he passed a cot, those laying in them would shiver as the cold chill that always followed the dragon passed over them. It would be gone come the morrow but for the moment the chill of winter settled through the building, provided some relief for the few that felt the stifling heat of so many bodies pressed together. With pure intent and purpose he passed over the bodies of others and made his way towards the golden mane of hair that could only belong to Felo’thore.
Felo’thore. Flamboyant and lovely, an icon of fashion and good taste. Now the scar that stretched across his face and marred it was gruesome and unbecoming on the magi turned druid. Where his jaw had broken and lips split the skin had swelled and bruised in a way that made him almost unrecognizable. At his side and curled around him with hands clinging to the lithe and limber body was a much larger man with a face dusted in freckles and hair as curly and wild as a lions mane. His husband surely, for no one that was merely a friend could look so awake with grief even while asleep.
‘ You at twenty-five hundred years old, you will be cranky. But you will be stronger and far wiser. You will see ancient trees grow from seed to root and maturity and watch the titans of forests grow old and die. You will know the hearts of all wild places, and the wolves will pass your names down to their descendants where you will be nothing more than myth.’
Now the man lay trapped in dreams and a magic that not even a child of the Spellweaver could pull him from. The future the dragon had so lightly spoken of may never come to pass.
He knelt down beside the cot and with the barest brush of fingers pushed back blood stained hair from Felo’thores face to deliver a cool kiss to the burning skin of his forehead. The dragon stood, turned, and moved on. Where his feet stepped unnatural fog formed and spread across the floor as that which remained hidden could reveal itself. It followed him outside where now he could see the huge and still form that was the red dragon laying on its side.
Reynllinstraz. Nine thousand years old. Ancient. Beautiful. Charming and charismatic. A good friend. Companion.
Dead.
The snow had already begun to fall in earnest where it rarely snowed in Quel’thalas, and the ground soon frosted over wherever the thick white flakes fell. Sounds of footsteps of the already fallen snow echoed behind him. Although the figure was not close…the warmth of the sun was undoubtedly intense. Where she stepped the snow and frost melted from the heat only to quickly form again as she moved on.
“Mother….go back to bed. Father will be home soon.” Her voice was a whisper he could still hear clearly. She appeared to be an adult now where she had been a child before. Time was short now. Too short.
“Sil’vii. You should know better than to think that I will leave.” He turned back to face the woman, his brows knit slightly as he took her in. In her mortal form she was the perfect mix of Reynllin and himself. Pale skin, delicate features, golden of hair, and nothing like himself save for how she looked. “What are you doing out here, child?”
“….I came to say my goodbyes.” was all she could manage to tell him. Her cheeks were wet…it seems as though she had been here all day telling people the same she had been telling him. “..Mother I…I won’t be coming home. I’m bringing father back..we…we talked about this day..before you came along.” Her hands were starting to glow, but in a failed effort she hides them quickly in her robes sleeves. “I’m sorry we never got to tell you sooner….”
‘Mother’. It as a word even in his other self that he was unfamiliar with and it put an ache into his chest to hear the soul of the red dragon say it so genuinely. “Don’t be.” He stepped towards her and ran both hands down the length of her golden hair, trying to comfort her as much as he could. “You are still so young. Is there no other way, Sil’vii?”
The young woman peered down and sighs. “I’ve already changed….I’m already an adult…as beautiful as it is…I wasn’t meant to live like you. I came from father on the evening Deathwing died…when the Soul was shattered I was born. It was meant to be…but…” slowly she walks over, reaching out her hands to feel Khal’s touch one last time. “I’m happy for the years I was given under father’s wing.”
He squeezed her hands and forced himself to voice his question. “Do you want me to leave?”
She hesitated before answering him. “…..Please?…I don’t want anyone to see…he’ll be back in the morning.” Her hands were growing uncomfortably warmer now. “Promise to keep him happy?”
“I’ll do everything I can, Sil’vii.” He cupped her chin and gently pulled her face up to look at his and, as with the druid, planted a kiss on her forehead. He squeezed her hands one last time and then dropped them as he turned back towards the infirmary. Perhaps it was cold to not even spare her a goodbye but he had no time for useless words. She had her part to play.
So too did he.
In the same silence as he had arrived the dragon departed, leaving nothing behind but the chill mist that settled on the sleepers inside the building, the frost covered ground and the snow. It would be the only signs that had ever been there, and they would be gone come the morning. Some might have heard the sounds of enormous beating wings that flew quickly overhead, but none would see the form in flight they belonged to.
He would mourn in his own way, and there were still demons that lingered in the land left to kill.
Blood stained his robes and exhaustion weighed his body, trying to pull him to the marble floors. His halo was so dim the spare Light Tyleril had been accustomed to had faded until it was barely there. The infirmary was filled with the rushed movement of the menders. They didn’t stop, they didn’t tarry, they rushed. Countless wounded need aid and in his heart he could feel their pain. Deep in his soul he could feel it all.
And by the Light did it hurt.
How long had it been since the battle was done now? Time had no meaning in the infirmary. Worry and fear was as thick as the smell of antiseptic as he walked towards one bed in particular. “Never done, pavement to cross and wounds to b-boss.” He whispered. Without looking to see if another was there he pushed the table close to the bed, setting out the stones and candles atop their own silvery cloth. A small vial was poured into a stone bowl. It was the very last he had of the sparkling liquid and as it escaped the vial he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sorrow that tugged at his heartstrings deeply. One deep pain-filled breath as he finished assembling it all. Carefully, his hands began to move, imitating gestures he had not seen in over a decade. This had to be perfect and he wasn’t going to let his current state prevent it.
“Hail to you Elune. Hail to the Moon Gooddess
Hail, to the mother of the night.
With kind eyes look down upon your fallen
and grant them and their loves on serenity.
Hail to you Elune! Hail to the White Lady.
Hail to you that givest all.
Peace for Adrianal and quick recovery to Felo’thore I beseech from you
as he rests.”
The trembling began in his hands and he clenched his jaw, resisting the urge to curse. Palms upwards he lowered his head in prayer. The altar to Elune on the table with its vial of moonwater was bright in his eyes. He had no more moonwater for his altar at home now- it was the last of it his husband had given them.
“Fair Goddess, who shines in the sky above
Hold Felo’thore in you arms so tight
and protect him with your love.
be between him and harm in the empty places he may walk.”
Shoulders sagging he felt the last of his emotion drain from him. The water in the bowl glimmered brightly and though he did his best to feel for her, he did not feel the presence of anything but the Light. “I- I hope you heard it.” He offered a respectful bow. “Please come back soon F-felo’thore. I’ll- I’ll be back with offering and prayer. I know- I k-k-know what to offer. I just…others need me now.” The healer turned and walked away slowly, hand pressed to his stomach. So many fallen and wounded- he would pray for all of his friends first.
Then after he had gotten a short nap after he was done he’d go find Reynllin’s corpse outside and hide under one of his wings, praying again for mercy and grace.
Tyleril Silversword 
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