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| - “Get the fuck off my lawn, the lot of you!” She pulled back the bowstring until it was taut. These must have been new recruits for the Defias’ Elwynn camp, trying to trespass onto the little two-story house in the hills. There had been a very clear message when the lovers had moved into it; normally the cutpurses would not even consider starting up the lantern-lit path after Creel had “dealt” with the camp below. The two juveniles raised their hands, practically hyperventilating through their red masks and eyeing the crazed, tall elf woman. Her hair was long and peppered with sapphire and silver, the mix making it appear more of a light blue. Her long eyebrows, similarly colored, were lowered above her narrowed eyes that gave off a dim glow in the sunlight. The tattoos on her face ran down her cheeks and looked like cuts from a blade, symmetrically placed. The elf then hissed loudly and from behind the house a giant, winged snake came flying toward the Defias boys. They both widened their eyes and glimpsed at each other. The bizarre feathered and scaled creature was nothing they had ever seen before, and it flapped menacingly before them, its blue eyes fixed upon their smaller bodies. “I SAID CLEAR OFF!” the elf yelled and immediately turned the bow downward, releasing the arrow at the boys’ feet. It landed with a thonk into the dirt a moment before the Defias recruits went running for their lives, skidding down the hill. “She’s a shaman-witch! She’ll hex you!” “Bleeding elfs is takin’ over!” Naiama shook her head and rolled her eyes as the echoes of their shouts reached her elongated ears. She stepped forward and yanked the arrow from the earth it was buried in. Kethinal tilted his blue head as he often did, flapping in the air. “What are you waiting for, Wind?” she straightened and eyed her windserpent with a frown. He only flicked his tongue and flew up the steep side of the hill above the house. For a creature of such importance, he displayed nothing. Naiama strolled back into the house and shut the door. After opening the window and peering out at the hill and the forest below, she sat herself down at the kitchen table. Only it wasn’t much of a kitchen. Most of the ground story was one room. She began to unscrew a blue inkwell, then paused. Why did she say those things about the creature? Say she loved him, that he had no part in this? She recalled running from Creel to protect the serpent in Darkshore, then fainting into one of those dreams. She recalled many months before, the Soothsayer asking of the serpent’s associations. Then, not more than two weeks ago, to her humiliation, fainting in front of both Creel and the old man as he was planning to leave their house. Was he right? Something about it was bothering Naiama. For all his talk of Fate during her night of kidnapping, did he know it then? And what the fel was the “gift” he hadn’t delivered to her? The elf clenched her teeth in frustration, as she often did when near the Soothsayer. She longingly thought of the time before her disappearance from the world, but it was vague like a spot on the horizon. Instead she thought of the time she spent gone from Azeroth. It didn’t seem possible to her anymore, what she had seen and felt in nothingness. Reliving a century or two, seeing different sides to the people she knew, and then returning with a letter in her pocket written by her deceased mother. “It’s all tauren shit,” Naiama cursed and laughed, leaning back in her chair. She wished she had her old journal, the one she had given to Sirithil. A flash hit her behind the eyes, of a red spiral in the darkness. Vertigo made her slap her temple, but it did nothing. She grabbed the edge of the table and blinked furiously until it passed. Ironically she laughed again. Naiama considered going to Alkan for help, but the last time she spoke with him he had passed off this problem as something that was possible to be solved. No one understood the nature of this. It went further back than Naiama was allowed to remember. In a terrifying moment, she wondered if the blank spot in her mind would grow until she remembered nothing more. “Alkan…” she muttered, her thoughts turning to him. He had something to do with this, somehow. She could barely remember what he did in those days. Always a young man of unusual magics, but always a friend. Naiama was convinced then that he was worth more than he gave himself credit for. He didn’t have to be Alkan the Black, he didn’t have to…he did something, damn it. She slouched in the wooden chair, remembering their talks aboard the ships, drinking themselves under the table in Ratchet, and how they had been simply, friends . Without all this judgement. He was distant now, after their moral disagreements, after a lady became involved. One that he was supposed to save. “Fuck,” Naiama swore to herself. She was never obligated to be polite when not in public. What had Yumeko asked her that night in the Laughing Jester? Why are you here? What had Naiama answered? It wasn’t so apparent to her mind now. It was something incredibly vague, like so many things in her life now. One thing she knew, if she left the Eastern Kingdoms forever, she would be abandoning everything and everyone for nothing and no one. No father, no Creel, no humans, no obligations…but who could say all her problems would dissolve? And where would she go? Teldrassil? Feralas? To face the wilds and be a lonely maniac? Naiama outright rejected the idea of living with her own kind. She was too different from them. She didn’t fit in, she could feel it. “Bloody demons beyond!” The elf rubbed her forehead as she cursed in Darnassian. She unscrewed the inkwell fully this time, jabbed her owl feather quill unceremoniously into it, and opened her blue suede journal to a fresh page. She ran a hand over a long eyebrow. Naiama shoved away the saltshaker to make more room for her hand as she wrote. The owl quill quivered once she continued, then paused. “What in the name of –” she murmured in Darnassian and turned her eyes up to the ceiling. A noise was coming from above, right about the spot where her and Creel’s bed would be. The chair scraped against the wood flooring as she pushed it back, stepped across the room and went up the stairs. A very peculiar noise emitted down the narrow hall from the last door leading to the master bedroom. Naiama approached the door and flung it open, regretting it immediately after. The stench of fel magic clung to the walls and permeated the hall. Flabbergasted, Naiama walked into her bedroom and stared at the little gnome girl. “What are you doing?!” the elf gasped and pointed to the imp beside the girl, who was, in fact, taller than her, if one included the horns. She deduced that the sound had been the humming of a summoning. “I- it’s what I remember how to do,” the brunette gnome whispered and peered up at Naiama with large, green eyes. She grabbed the imp’s reluctant hand. Naiama clenched her jaw furiously. She knew it. She had used Sprigg for summonings to Alkan’s merchant ship. She didn’t agree to it, she hated it, but it was useful. “NEVER IN THE HOUSE!” she bellowed and bit her tongue, regretting that too. “Never in the house,” Naiama repeated and closed her eyes while exhaling. Regret and guilt flowed through her. Had she made the poor thing she’d found washed up at Theramore an indentured servant? Naiama wanted to protect her; the poor thing couldn’t remember her full name. She placed her on the ship, with all the sugar and food she could manage, as long as she worked with the sailors and summoned Naiama and her allies when she called. There were four things the gnome remembered: loving tea, being a deckhand, the term “Sprigg” (Gnomish, Naiama assumed), and fel magic. Sprigg shuddered and mumbled something. She looked down and dropped her hands. The imp had been dismissed. “You know what I said yesterday, little one?” Naiama knelt before the gnome. She nodded in response, her pigtails bobbing up and down. Despite this puerile mask, the elf knew there was something churning beneath. “When I picked you up from the inn – and nice Mr. Daemri had checked up on you – I told you that you could live with us. Under the condition that you would not practice magic under my roof.” Naiama blinked and stood up. “Come on downstairs, I’ll fix you some tea.” Sprigg’s eyes lit up and she reached for the elf’s slender hand. “I love tea!” Exhaling as calmly as she could, Naiama hung the kettle over the fire. She turned the chair nearest the fireplace away from the table and sat down. She patted her thigh with a smile and held out her hand to the gnome. Sprigg grinned and clambered up onto the elf’s lap, not resenting being treated like a child in the least. They embraced, Sprigg curled into Naiama’s lap with her head resting on her chest. A slight breeze came in through the window, and the logs in the fireplace crackled. The room grew darker. The sun was setting over Elwynn. Naiama closed her eyes and hugged Sprigg tighter. The two women were alone in the house, save for her slumbering father in the guest bedroom. She wished Creel was there with her, but he was still recovering in Feathermoon from assisting Elishtar. Sprigg needed Naiama. So did her father, Py’amus. Ignoring that sickly, slithering feeling in her spine, she thought of Creel and smiled. He was a desperate sort of man, the kind that wanted to save others and went to extreme measures to do so. At times she was grew upset with him for such things, but also for his strange beliefs, which she knew were based on Elishtar’s word and ritual. Creel spoke of the troll Loa. He even temporarily gave his heart to Ula-tek in exchange for the ability to speak with serpents. For what? Naiama trembled, then watched the fire. She had seen her once, not long before this night. Her, the spider goddess. The one too benevolent to convince Naiama she was a real troll goddess. Shadra, a troll goddess who knew Hakkar was upsetting the balance. The spider had placed webs all about Naiama’s head to protect her. But it only seemed to help in the goddess’ realm. Naiama bit her lip to keep from crying. Feeling silly, she nudged Sprigg’s head with her cheek. The breeze outside the house was growing with a hissing noise. The fire was beginning to die. The gnome sat up and pouted at the lack of fire and the dark room. She looked up at Naiama’s wet face. “Nai-Nai? What’s wrong?” ((August 5th, 2006, for August 4th. ))
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