Children’s Week Ficlet

This was a WoW ficlet I did back in ’08 for Children’s Week, and it amused me enough that I thought I’d repost it.  It stars Lyestra, my warrior, and her bastard half sister Jamethera, my hunter.

Fish Out of Water
A Children’s Week 2008 Story

“Don’t look at her like that, Ly.”
Lyestra Shadowbane turned towards her half-sister and gave her a blank look. “It’s a child. A Draenei child, at that.”
“And cute!” Jamethera swept her own little orphan girl into a hug. “I think it’s nice that we get to take them out to see some stuff.”
“Yes. We get to drag children through dangerous places. Totally wonderful and completely logical.” Her tone was as dry as Tanaris.
“Think of it as practice!”
“Practice for what?” Lyestra quirked an eyebrow.
“Well, what if you and Hazard decide to have children?” The huntress grinned wickedly.
Lyestra again gave her a blank stare. “What did Illyana feed you this morning? Whatever it was, you can’t have any more of it. Clearly, it’s a hallucinogen.”
“Don’t act like you don’t like them! You helped raise me!” There was a six hundred year age difference between the two…not that Lyestra always liked to be reminded of that.
“And clearly you don’t remember the time I locked you in the closet because you wouldn’t leave me alone.”
Confusion flickered across Jamthera’s face. “What? You didn’t do that. Did you?”
Lyestra just smirked. “Come along, child.” She held out her hand for the orphan’s pale blue one. “Let’s go to Nagrand.”
“…you know,” Jamethera said with some exasperation as she scrambled to catch up, “You and Hazard deserve each other. I consider him an agent of karma. He fucks with your head, but it’s what you get for fucking with everyone elses!”
“Watch your mouth around the children, ‘Thera.” It was all the warrior could do to keep a straight face.
“Oh please.” Jamethera rolled her eyes.
“You argue like me and my brother,” Ly’s little orphan girl broke in suddenly.
Lyestra flashed the girl–Dolorra? Dorna?–a grin. “Well, she is my sister, so I guess that makes sense.”
“Deep down, she truly loves me and regrets all the horrible, mean, evil things she does to me,” Jamethera said as she helped her little girl aboard her massive netherdrake.
“Like hell I do.” Ly winked at the young draenei.

Lyestra had mostly tuned out the children. Though she still loosely clasped the girl’s fragile hand in her calloused one, both girls seemed content yakking Jamethera’s ears off. Between her netherdrake, the giant blue talbuk, and her deceptively cuddly snow leopard, she was by far the more interesting sibling.
They had already passed through Nagrand and the rather desolate Ring of Observance. Now they wandered down the tunnel towards the Caverns of Time. As they passed one of the side passages leading towards the known rifts, Lyestra stopped, face shuttered.
“What’s ‘smatter, Ly?” Dolorra tugged at her hand. “We’re going to see the dragon over there!”
Jamethera’s gaze caught her sister’s knowingly. “Haven’t been down here yet?”
“No.” Abrubtly, Lyestra gave herself a slight shake and strode past the route to time’s echo of Hyjal. Just when she thought it didn’t haunt her… “Let’s go see the dragon.”
“You okay?” The draenei tilted her head back to peer up at the elf, her pale brow creased.
Ly seemed flustered by her genuine concern. “Just remembering unpleasant things.”
“Oh.” She paused. “Do they give you nightmares, too?”
Ly halted again, but this time she looked at the girl and gave her fingers a light squeeze. “Sometimes. But then I wake up and remember that it was awhile ago now and it’s okay.”
They resumed walking and for a time a silence fell between them. Then abruptly, her breathy young voice surprisingly solemn, “It does stop hurting after awhile, right? They aren’t lying to us about that?”
“They aren’t, not really,” it was Jamethera who responded first, her voice soft. “I lost my mother a few years ago. It hurt a lot then. It still hurts now, but not all the time like it used to. Just sometimes when I’d miss her the most, like her birthday.” She glanced at Lyestra. “And I had other people who cared about me, so it was okay. You’ll be fine.”
Ly gave into a random urge and tousled the girl’s hair. “Don’t let it hold you back, little one. What do you want to be some day?”
“I want to be a paladin!” She skipped along the sand as they resumed their trek. “Then I can be strong and help people.”
“I know a paladin,” Jamethera replied, her tone once more cheery. “Maybe we can take you to see her when we’re done. Her name is Ambrosine, and she is an orphan too, actually.”
“I want to be a shaman!” The other girl trilled. “Do you know any shamans?”
“We’ll see who I can find later,” the huntress promised.
“I thought we were just going to take them to these three places and then give them back,” Lyestra said quietly as the girls ran up to the pedestal with the great bronze dragon on it.
“I don’t see the harm in taking them to Stormwind as well. It’s not as if they get out much, Ly!”
She sighed. “I know, but what will Ambrosine think of us just dropping in on her?”
“Pfft, ‘Sine loves kids!” Jamethera dismissed her concern with a flick of her long fingers. “Don’t be so eager to get rid of them.”
“Jamethera, I don’t know what to do with kids! Never mind apparently disturbed orphan draenei.” The warrior eyed the pair warily.
“Again–good practice!”
“…what would I need practice with disturbed children for? Unless you’re saying something about my supposed parenting skills, which considering the lack thereof, would probably be pretty accurate. I would indeed produce warped, disturbed children. Which is exactly why I shouldn’t.”
“You and Hazard would have cute children! Adorable little half-elf babies!”
“I swear by all that’s holy, Jam, if you continue bringing that up, I really will shove you in a closet.” She scowled.
“Gotta catch me first, LyLy!” The lithe night elf took off running.
“Dammit Jamethera!” Though she knew it was fruitless, Lyestra took off after her.
“Watch your language!”
The two draenei girls exchanged glances, eyebrows raised. “They’re supposed to be grown-ups?”

Later that evening, with both young orphans back in Shattrath, the sisters wandered down the street to the home Jamethera shared with Illyana. “Come in, have a drink before you leave. I don’t know why you insist on still living in Ashenvale.”
“I like my little house out in the woods, thank you. It’s quite cozy.”
Jamethera opened the door and gestured her in. “I wasn’t kidding earlier, you know.”
“About what?” Lyestra’s brows drew together in puzzlement.
“You and Hazard making cute babies!” Jamethera grinned, easily dodging the blow intended for her shoulder.
Ly scowled again. “Stop it. I prefer being the aunt, or the older sister. Then I get to do the fun things with the kids, give them the obnoxious toys, and give them back to their parents for the unfun stuff. Suits me just fine. I’ll tell you what. If you have kids, I’ll play with ‘em. How about that?”
“Oh yes, Illyana and I will get right on that.” Forget dripping with sarcasm, the sentiment was well-nigh saturated with it.  She cut Ly off before she could make any obvious lesbian elf jokes.  “Come on! You two are getting married, it’s naturally the next step. I want to be the aunt.”
“…is Illyana home?” Lyestra glanced down the hall.
“No, why?”
“Good.” The closet had already been opened so they could hang up their cloaks. Ly shoved Jamethera into it and slammed the door shut before the huntress could do more than squeak. A handy chair wedged under the door handle completed the job. She glanced at Schneeflocke but the cat just blinked at her lazily. Apparently it amused the great snow leopard to let her two legged companion be confined.
“Remember,” came the muffled threat, “She’s bigger than you! And coming home soon!”
“Exactly why I’ll begin running in a moment here.” Lyestra hastily scribbled a note. It read: Please don’t kill me Illy. I had to do it. She was being obnoxious. …I love you, almost-sister dear?
Leaving the note on the table next to the closet, Lyestra turned and ran.

Dear Fingers

Dear fingers, DA2 =/= WoW.

Space bar is not jump.

Tab won’t target the next mob.

Numlock isn’t autorun.

BRB SCYTHING THROUGH PEOPLE LEAVING ONLY BLOOD SPLATTERS BEHIND.

For pony!

All I did yesterday was mine and level engineering, none of which makes for interesting blog posting.

I also took the time to draw.  My piece for the Twitter Secret Santa Art Trade is almost complete, so I let myself get distracted!

Here, have a pony.

Yes, that is a Deathcharger wearing the tattered, tarnished remnants of a paladin charger’s armor.  It’s obviously a very simple piece of work and lacking much in the way of detail, but it was a late night concept doodle, really.

And yes, I detest the illogical saddle shown in World of Warcraft and plopped a dressage saddle on his back instead.  I think that I’d like to crack the shoulder shield and add some more tears in the barding, as well as include some of the decoration details I left out.  If you’re wondering WHY a deathcharger is in that get up, well, that all has to do with an alternate version of my paladin Ambrosine that I RP on my original server, Earthen Ring.   When Paladin-Ambrosine fell to Death Knuggethood, her charger Justice fell right along with. 

Anyway.  There’s my doodle.  :)

OT: Unintentional Funny

The Lost Amber jokes are by now so old as to almost be tiresome.  In fact, now it seems that they are unintentionally haunting me IRL.

It’s 8:20–I don’t start work for 10 minutes, so I’m hiding in the back room reading a book.  One of the regular employees wanders in a few minutes early and asks my co-worker, “Where’s the other girl?  Did she get lost?”

I’m surprised she didn’t head the THUMP of my head hitting the desk.

Random Monday Commentary

The best thing about RealID for me is that I can go frolic and RP on other servers and still be reachable by guildies on Azgalor if I’m needed.   That’s not to say that I’m going to abandon Azgalor except for raid nights–that does not make for good GMing!–but it takes away a lot of the guilt associated with my other severs.

I may be making my hunter my main.  O.o  I doubt little will change here at ILB, however.  Moar flowcharts!  Moar fight strats!   Just a little more non-priesty rambling.  Kind of like this post, actually.  So yes, not much will change.

Speaking of strats, I really need to toss out LK’s strat.  A little late to the party but there you go.

OT: You’re in trouble now.

Twitter can be dangerous.  It introduces me to manyu things I might not have stumbled across on my own…things like this: the Periodic Table of Swearing.  Oh man.  Oh man.  Forget twatwaffle, I’m now going to be calling people a COCK GARAGE.

COCK GARAGE.

Link to Awesome

Have you read this open letter at Shades of Grey?  If not, go on ahead.  It’ll be better than anything I can post here.

OT/BoO Bash: How to Warlock Floor Tank IRL

Cirsi, Expert Warlock Floortank

Step 1: Spec into Small Person for lower Alcohol Resistance. 
Step 2: Ask the co-GM and tankadin for one of his infamous versions of a screwdriver.
Step 3: After finishing that, ask the co-GM (who is, incidentally, Russian and thus has vodka for blood) for something that will “fuck you up”
Step 4: Drink it and then stumble into another room.  Congrats, you got what you wanted and will have floor aggro for HOURS.
Step 5: Regret.
Step 6: Hangover.

Sunday Surprise

This is the only time you shall see me playing a fail angel:

“Amber, did you reactivate your Champions Online account?”

Maaaaaybe.

“And did you really sit there and try to recreate a Spirit of Redemption?”

…maaaaaaaaaaaaaybe…

Why I Continue to Play

I am definitely someone who plays for the people, not the purples.  I have dragged many of my WoW-friendships outside of the game–onto Twitter, onto gtalk, into IRL.  We do talk about the game a lot, but sometimes we have rather heated debates over mundane topics.  Like, oh, salad dressing.

Pixelated Executioner: …but other than caesar, there is no dressing more wonderful than blue cheese. MY BUFFALO WINGS MUST BE TREATED TO THE BEST, DAMMIT.
Me:  …
RANCH
RANCH IS THE ONE AND ONLY GOD OF DRESSINGS
Pixelated:  BLASPHEMER! YOU WILL BURN FOR ALL ETERNITY! TURN, FOUL HERETIC! TURN!!!!

Life is better with CAPS OF (FAUX) RAEG.   My life would be a lot more boring without these nutty WoW people in it.

The biggest shame is not recording the 3 am vent conversation about the state of Evee’s testicles…