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| Details |
| Author: | Alli |
| Summary: | It took a while for Oranna's letter to wend its way to the mainland and then to Outland, and for a reply to follow the same track back. Today, though, Thalstan replies to Oranna's letter. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
Chain: Orastan
Oranna,
You’re welcome to crowd my mailbox anytime you feel full up on doubts and need to spill them all out in a way that’s not shadow goo. Ink is much better, and sometimes even just getting the worries out in a little ink row like ducklings can help keep them from swimming around and around in circles in your head until they make a whirlpool. Sometimes I try to tell myself my own story like it’s an adventure, to turn all the things that are scary or uncertain into opportunities for heroic deeds and mysteries to uncover.
This mission of yours is already quite an adventure! A whole new continent and new sapient creatures to meet! What a thing, like a story sprung out of the pages of books and into reality! And you’re right there in the middle of it, one of the leading lasses. I could just imagine you on the cover – dwarven lass in a pandaren land. A cascade of dark hair, gun on your shoulder and those deep, hypnotic brown eyes staring into the reader’s soul. And Befound, of course, she’d make a fine cover cat.
I remember a time when a mysterious, misty continent would mean Kalimdor. I do not know if folk knew of Kalimdor when they made the name Eastern Kingdoms, or if they meant to refer to it as being east of the Maelstrom. I admit I did not think much about Kalimdor myself, up until my pa went to Silithus with the Explorer’s League. That didn’t end up all that well, but Pandaria already sounds like a much different adventure, with forests of jade instead of endless deserts.
I never really left Ironforge until Cobalt. Still, I feel like my world has always been bigger than the one I’ve seen, through stories and the Hall of Explorers. Now, it always amazes me to see all the new things with my own eyes, like storing up the whole world in the library of my own mind. There’s so much beauty and wonder out there to encounter, so I hope you’re seeing that too and not just the rage globules and hatred goo.
I’ve not had the chance to meet a pandaren yet, but we talked about them in the Blade when we heard the news. I feel like they might have some things in common with the dwarves, the way folk have been talking about them, and not just because of their hair. On that note, not every dwarven lass could pull off a beard, but I agree you probably could. I don’t mean pull off someone's face – which I hope Brannagen’s still got his, the description was not clear on that – but look stylish wearing. You’ve got the bone structure for it, and the hair thickness. I bet your Great-Aunt Nettie was a fox in her day, but not a literal one.
I’m imagining the jinyu and the hozen as murlocs and kobolds, but I’m sure that leaves a lot unimagined. I’ve not really had a look at any murlocs’ balls nor prophecies from them, so I don’t suppose I could compare the two fairly. In any case, I expect you’re one of the right people to be doing the outreach to them and the pandaren, just like you were for the Wildhammers, and the Earthen before that. You seem to have a knack for bringing folk together and helping them understand one another. If there was anyone who could train a hozen, I bet it would be you. And if not, at least you’ve got the hands to get them off the jinyu.
Sorry to hear you’re having trouble with the Horde, on top of everything else. Given what they’ve been up to in past months, I suspect some of them brought in a lure for sha in their own selves. In that case, it’d be hard to disentangle whether the kidnapping and such was sha-inspired or sha-inspiring. Might be if they figure out what’s happening to them, their leaders will get a bit more calm and level-headed? A fellow can hope.
I’ll hope that you’ve found Ian by the time you get this. I expect Bran will have drunk the strange brew as well. Sometimes that’s a thing heroes have to do, after all. I hope it was helpful and not poisonous.
Sounds like your Bran and Shine might be sha-proofed for different reasons, but your Dane and Erixa might bear watching. Just for their own good, in case you see danger signs of sha mess leaking out of them. On feelings, I get angry too, and sometimes I let it fill me up inside till I feel like I’m so full of the need for justice I could explode. That sort of feeling can push a person to take control and get things done. But it doesn’t linger. When I think of rage, I think of the kind that settles in a person like a hot coal, never quite going out and ready to be stoked up into flame at a moment’s notice. I wonder if sha reacts differently to the short-term feelings than the ones that endure. Do you suppose sha gets into the rocks too? Maybe that’s the ore’s problem. Can a rock feel rage and hatred and doubt? When I’m stoneform I feel quite calm and settled.
On my side, I’m still over here in Outland. I spent a lot of time chasing an Arakkoa tailfeather. Apparently, this tailfeather is very desirable, and we were trying to grab it before a blood elf fellow Savar got his hands all over it. I should clarify I had no particular desire to get my hands on the tailfeather myself – our team took it back to the Arakkoa where it belongs. Now it’s safe, but we’ve got a lead on Savar finding another way to cause a major explosion, and not the fun kind.
It’ll be a little while yet till we’re sure things are settled here in Outland, but I’ve started thinking of plans for the future. We originally got Tadget on our team because she needed a way to sharpen back up after birthing three babies, so she’s started thinking about going back to the Legion. The 7th one, I mean, not the Burning one. Might be a good place for most of us to head. I think we’re all probably eligible by now, or if not, Tadget’s happy to help us make up the difference.
As for the others, Arthur’s teachers have got to admit he’s a genius, after all the success he’s had in the field. Tabetha the swamp witch could be a reference, since he passed her tricky tests. I would have liked to be able to say Archmage Tervosh as well, rest his soul in Theramore. I don’t know about Vesyllah – she only does what Elune tells her, and far be it from me to understand the heart of a goddess. And then Zaara is probably the most experienced of us all. I think she’d be in for it – she lived through some of the same history as Erixa, after all.
That’s all thoughts for the future, though. I’ll keep my team safe in the here and now, and myself as well. You take care of yourself, too. You’ve got a good team, just like I have, and you can let that soothe your doubts and calm your fears. I have no doubt that you can handle this, Oranna. If it helps, remember that, and picture your heroic self on that book cover with your snow leopard lass. Imagine what adventures we’ll have to share, when all this is over.
-Thalstan