Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Jun 5, 2023 16:31:49 GMT
(( The following post is a re-write from something I wrote a couple years ago and posted elsewhere. It's for an RP I wanted to do but didn't really get the chance to do, an RP that is integral to Nat's storyline. I made an IC allusion to this dream in Nat's most recent (as of the date of this posting) diary post, mentioning ICly that the "recurring dream" has evolved with the current state of Nat's life. It is now the prelude to the RP adventure I hope to begin the evening after the date of this post! ))
Stifling. Stuffy. Humid. Smells awful. Can’t hardly breathe...
Natasha Ebonlocke’s soft steps echoed along the desolate little valley through which she strode. The enclosed mountain pass was barren, little more than rock and the occasional scraggly tree. The pass was, at least, illuminated by the moon and stars, though it shone upon nothing one would particularly care to see. Someone had strung up old corpses by the neck from the few trees there were – or had these men been alive when this happened? Either way, they appeared to have been hanging for quite a long time from a few of the occasional old trees that happened to grow, twisted and tough and possessing knotholes in the patterns of ghostly faces, from the rare patches of dirt among the rock. There was nothing else to see, other than the old, worn road through the lifeless pass.
Wish I could breathe!
Nat strode alone, shuddering as she passed any tree that might have a corpse or two dangling from it, averting her eyes and deciding not to look. She scurried along toward her ultimate goal: POWER. A destination that held untold power. Something she’d been warned since she first started learning magic that she should avoid seeking, yet, surely she’d grown enough in her magic after the war against the Burning Legion and her work ever since that she could manage this… right? She put her hand over her heart, smiling a little, feeling alive in that moment as she felt her heart race. She’d never have even considered going to this terrifying place to seek more power before the last few years.
Onward she scurried, seldom looking up, panting for air. The stuffy pass didn’t have a single breeze, and the air was thick enough one might jab it with a fork and have a bite.
Gosh, it’s horrible here…
Nat tried not to think about where she was. Instead, she focused on where she was going. The power to be had at her destination made all this worth it. She just had to make it there alive…
"Nuh-uh. No. Not doing the heroism thing and getting yourself hurt! I'm in!"
Nat looked to her left. There, startlingly, was her friend Carilina Halverson, dressed in blues and greys and wearing a blooming flower corsage. Her fancy wand, looking to be made from some sort of tree, was on her belt.
Nat considered Cari’s wishes as she hurried along. She nodded her agreement, fully intending to send a letter to Cari at the earliest convenience, detailing everything that happened. Cari was one of her oldest and most favorite friends she’d ever made outside of Darkshire. She was tough, cool, and loads of fun to hang out with. Not to mention, Cari was also a pretty strong mage. For these two reasons, mostly because Cari was one of her favorite people, she wanted to make certain to keep her in the loop. But to take Cari with her? She could never ask that…
The air thickened even further as she went deeper into the desolate valley. Everything around reeked of death, and there was no breeze to blow the awful stench away. She pulled the collar of her dress up over her nose, holding it there tightly, trying to block it out.
“I got your six, Nat,” a deep, gruff voice said to her from her right, saying nothing further. She looked to her right, where the soft sounds of plate armor clanking together could be heard. Somehow taking noiseless steps beside her was her good buddy Grim’Un Oakenbloom, another of her favorite people. Grim certainly looked grim, wearing his black armor that came up to the bottom half of his face, covering it with the spiky gorget. The twin black, two-handed swords he was able to hold in either hand, thanks to his huge, hulking, muscular frame, were slung in the shape of an X at his back. Yet could Nat really ask him to go someplace so mortally perilous any more than she could ask Cari? For all she knew, with the nature of the place she was going, she could step around a corner and just… disappear into nonbeing!
“Och, an’ ye think yer gonna survive in there all alone, do ye?”
Nat looked left, wincing a bit, then gasping at what she saw there: not only was her most crass, crude coworker striding to her left in Cari’s place, but she was wearing that horrible collection of Amani forest troll armor she called “trophies.” Crafted in typical troll fashion and adorned with skulls, her friend Jaslyn “Jazz” Summersong, black sheep of the noble House Summersong of the old Quel’dorei kingdom, was striding along behind her, carrying her triple-bladed, giant bird-skull adorned two-hand axes crossed at her back like Grim did his swords. The wisecracking fireball of a Farstrider was looking at her through the horrible wide-grinning voodoo skull mask she wore with this set, yet Nat could practically feel the sneering smirk behind it.
“Take some o’ us, ye numpty bawbag,” Jazz said, her voice, accented from a century living with the Wildhammer dwarves at her home in Quel’danil Lodge in the Hinterlands, muffled and distorted behind the mask. “Per’aps not me; that much magical power isnae good fer a magic-addicted race like mine. But yer bum’s oot th’ window if ye think yer goin’ alone. Ye’ve got too much tae lose, lass!”
Nat winced at that. Jazz was right; she did have too much to lose. Celeste. Her new friends. Her old friends. The safety of everyone in Darkshire, Stormwind, Ironforge, anyone anywhere she came into contact with, really, if she lost control of her new powers. All her loved ones that would miss her if she were killed. Her father, who surely didn’t want to lose both his children. Celeste most of all. Her love. The Catch of Her Life, the Sun of her World.
Celeste…
A softer voice and a softer footstep was heard to her right, and Nat turned to find Grim’s place taken by Dame Annabelle Baker, a respected, high-ranking paladin of the Light from Greyridge County in the Redridge Mountains.
“Nat,” her friend Anna said, “you fought once for the defense of Redridge. You was just hanging out with us when the alarm bell sounded. You didn’t run away when it did. You instead ran towards the danger and saved a handful of lives by using your magics so footmen did not have to go. So really, it does not matter the danger you go to now; I feel my aid owed no matter what. Please never do anything alone and without allowing favors to be repaid.”
Again, Anna cited the orc-Redridge wars. The first was fought at times in Redridge and orcs had to be driven back. The second war, for months before it really started, Anna and her fellow followers of the Light from Greyridge County went around and helped others for favor. They would flat out say that a war was coming and they needed help. But instead of begging for help, they would ask what they could do to get their prospective allies to pledge help, and then they went and did it. And because of the added resources, the fighting was all in the Burning Steppes instead of the Redridge Mountains and less costly. Anna made her point about favors owed and earned and that it was wiser for Nat to basically cash in than go off and throw herself away.
The other thing is that it is errant season now as well. Greyridge was not rich, and what it had was used. The war was done and the mourning was over. The knights were expected to go work and earn their keep. Anna’s boss Mags, the Lady of Greyridge County and an old favorite friend of Nat’s, was aware they must branch out to go “pay for upkeep” to an extent. She would be more willing for Anna to risk herself with Nat than send her to a job posted being a triage medic for say, the Booty Bay conflicts currently, or the tension near Theramore, or the Dragon Isles shadowflame mess.
"You don't think you're going without me, do you?" came Maya's voice with a giggle from her left, where Jazz had been. The perpetual smile was on Maya's tanned face as usual, framed by her blue-black dyed hair. That smile lit up the dark, stuffy, spooky path just as much as the glowing array of tattoos on Maya's arms did, and was a rather more welcome site than the old corpses dangling from the eerie, ghost-faced trees (or the rippling going on with Maya's clothes despite the lack of wind, knowing what causes it). Yet Nat looked deeper, and, beneath the smile and the giggle was a look of deepest concern. Another friend wanted to go with her to this dangerous place, to place her life on the line! She couldn't allow this; not for a simple grasp for more magical power! Yet she couldn't deny the wisdom of taking so powerful a druid as Maya any more than she could deny the wisdom of taking her other friends...
“Heheh!” snickered Nahlia Felbloom, suddenly strutting along the path with her on her right, occasionally leaping up, Illidari wings outstretched, high into the branches of one odd tree or another before backflipping back down to land lightly on her feet like a cat.
"Going there, all by yourself?” Nah snickered again. “What, not even bringing your Bestie around for the fun? Heheh... aww, well, you just promise me to be safe, 'kay? No getting yourself roasted like some kinda Darkshire marshmallow! We've got s'more Deathrolls to play together, after all! Hehe!"
Nat smiled, overjoyed to see her friend. There was something odd about her appearance today, something that felt like it was from the past. But Nat didn’t think much on it. Nah was one of her oddest friends, but one of her coolest, and certainly her BEST friend. She was a lot of fun in a game of Deathrolls, and interesting to talk to any time she ran across her in Stormwind, perched on top of a lamppost or something equally startling. She remembered sitting with Grim’Un Oakenshield on the wall overlooking the crescent fountain around one side of Lion’s Rest, listening to Nah’s life story in detail once. She knew if ever there was anyone she could ask to come with her, it was this smirking, snickering elf in a suit.
Nat bunched up the front of her dress around her nose a bit more. The air here was getting downright putrid, and though it was too stuffy to be comfortable stifling the air around her nose even further, she held the fabric tightly in place anyway. A sweat broke out on her brow and at the hairline in front of her ears.
Gosh… This is awful…
"What's this power you're trying to get?” Celeste inquired, suddenly there on her left, looking at her curiously from under the wide brim of her fishing hat. “You've never mentioned it or needing stuff like that before. Is it because of Tom attacking you? He's been gone for years now. You're safe."
Nat’s heart leaped with joy as she spotted her love. “Celeste!” But her Sun resolutely plowed on.
"It's not the going into a dangerous place that scares me. It's you being there alone. I know you can handle trouble, but having someone you trust watching your back is just good sense. It doesn't have to be me. Take your best friend Nah, take Grim if you have to go."
Nat nodded her agreement. Celeste and all her other friends were each right, of course. There was no reason to go in there alone. But, who would want to risk their lives over something so dumb as a power grab? Would anyone really want to go with her on this? Celeste especially had good questions. She didn’t really know how to answer any of them, aside from the one about Tomlin. She knew, if she’d exercised even just the powers she already did know, Tomlin would have been ripped to shreds and immolated at the same time before he could speak more than a few words to her. But she also knew she could never have done that to the love of her life.
Not to Celeste’s twin brother.
“Nat,” Cari prompted again. “Really, take me with you.”
“Nat,” Dame Annabelle said calmly. “We’re indebted to you. You risked your safety for our people. Let us do the same for you.”
"Precious says she's coming too, Nat," Maya grinned at her, "which means I'm coming for sure!
“Nat,” Grim growled. “lone mission me arsehole. I’m coming too.”
“Tasha, you little softie,” Nah smirked slyly. “You really think you’re risking your life alone to keep mine safe? Besties, remember? I’m with you.”
“My moon and stars, please, take someone with you!” Celeste pleaded again, reaching to grab Nat’s hands in her own, even as Nat strode down the path, causing Celeste to walk backwards.
“Ye wee shite,” snickered Jazz. “Yer toast. If ye dunnae have the wits of a bucket o’ shrimp tae bring an ally or three, yer nae goin’ tae last ten seconds, aye!”
“Nat…”
“Heh-heh, Taaashhaaaa….”
“My love, please…”
“Nat.”
"Ye daft twit."
“TAAAAshaaaaaa…”
“Nat!”
“My stars and moon!”
“Nat!”
"Do it for Precious!"
“Tashaaaa! Hehe!”
“Nat!”
“Nat!”
“YE NUMPTY BAMPOT!”
“NAT!”
“NAT!”
“BESTIE TASHA”
“CAW!”
<GASP!>