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| Details |
| Author: | Alli |
| Summary: | Thalstan writes back to Oranna's letter, ready to set aside metaphors (for the most part) and embrace clarity. ~2300 words. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
Chain: Orastan
Thalstan Stouthammer sits in a too-large wooden chair, papers in front of him on the sturdy table. His room in the Aldor’s Tier is clean and quiet, and sunlight filters through a window set a little too high on the wall for dwarven comfort. His usual shining armor is secured in a thankfully dwarf-sized armor stand, and it appears to have been thoroughly cleaned and polished.
Thalstan holds a pen in one hand, holding back his beard from the ink with the other. He looks down at empty pages, lost in thought. Nearby is a letter, several pages of dense writing, with some damage on the edges as if they’ve been read and re-read many times over the past few days.
‘Dear Oranna,’
Thalstan writes, and then pauses. He smiles at how the words look, and glances over at the counterpart. Then he considers – is that dramatic enough? Should it be ‘Dearest’ or ‘My Darling’ or ‘Rarest Gem’? No… maybe that’s a bit too much too soon. ‘Like’ can be a delicate thing, easily stifled or nurtured. He frowns down at the page for another long moment of thought, and then lets the greeting stand as it is.
—
Dear Oranna,
I was happy to receive your letter, and maybe I ought to start with the part that’s likely to give more suspense. You know Outland’s not been destroyed, or you’d have heard by now, so I’ll leave the how’s to later on.
Aye, I remember that book, The Diamond Spyglass. I said at the time that I didn’t think rifles really worked like that. I’d not yet had much practice with them myself – that came later. Anyway, the artist said the main thing was the looks, and no one would notice the impracticality. It’s good to hear you noticed the silliness, and that it made you laugh instead of groan in annoyance.
That is to say, I like knowing a thing happened that made you laugh, or smile, and that it had something to do with me, even if you didn’t see me or know me at the time. To be plain and bare and not hint around anything, you have read things as I hoped for them to be read. I like you. I can’t promise I will always understand exactly how it is with you and with cookies, so I might step awry sometimes and need to ask. For me, I saw you that first time in the Nightmare Battle, beautiful dark eyes, flowing hair, and deadly sniper rifle, and I thought you would always be a beautiful girl I’d remember seeing in a dream.
So that was me glimpsing a cookie in a store. A cookie that looks lovely, but I didn’t really see enough to know the flavor or the ingredients. Then when we met again in Ironforge, it was a dream made flesh. I could see you truly, Oranna Stormbreaker, as a real woman in the real world, and not a dream mirage.
I like talking with you. I like hearing the way you think through a thing, and how you sometimes see angles I’d never have thought (even if they’re worrying angles). I like hearing you speak about the things that interest you, like guns and animals. I like how you’ll do a thing because it’s the right thing to do, whether or not it’s also terrifying. I like how much you care about those around you, and how that care anchors you. I like your attention to details. I look forward to your letters. I read them each multiple times, imagining what it’s like for you out there.
And because I am a sort that sees cookies, I could drown in your eyes and the waterfall of your hair. Not literally, that was a metaphor, and I meant it as a good thing.
—
Here Thalstan pauses, holding the pen above the paper, thinking of the subtle curves of hips and things that might be compared to melons and whether any of that is respectful to say to a lady outside narration. Even if it were, would it be welcome for a lady who has only just observed the presence of a cookie? Maybe not.
—
I could go on, but I’m afraid it’d sound a bit like a Firststone novel and you’d think me unoriginal. But as we get into these kinds of waters, I tend to fall back onto stories, romance and adventure, since that’s the language I know to speak of it.
And to be clear on history, I’ve had a couple of romances before. Both are long since over now, and for some of the most common reasons. People not sure yet what they want, and accidentally hurting each other as they figure out at least what they don’t.
—
Thalstan pauses again, wondering if he should say more or leave it as it is. That’s a hard balance, just after a confession of romantic ‘like’. It wouldn’t be good to leave his own history as a surprise, but he’s never had a lass that was to him what Bargrimm was to her. Maybe the bare facts suffice, for now.
—
I can tell you more later, if you’d like. I only mention it now to say that I respect your love for Bargrimm, and I expect I’d have liked the fellow if I’d been lucky enough to meet him. I recognize that’s a big part of your life, and I am here for it if you want to talk about him and that time. You and I both know so many different kinds of grief, but walking forward never has to mean forgetting what came before.
I suppose that’s the big thing, then. I like you, Oranna. I’m so happy to hear that you like me. And I’m glad you liked the literal cookies, too. Let’s keep writing these letters, and keep learning more about each other. Sometime soon, I hope to see you again. Though if you tell me you need me there now, the Burning Legion itself couldn’t keep me away. Until and unless that happens, I know you’re doing important work in Pandaria, just as I am in Outland.
We’re making pretty good progress here, such that the main thing left is to handle this Savar fellow himself. I think it was worthwhile, stopping to talk with one of his high-ranking followers last time. We ended up having to fight him to the death, but I think others might’ve overheard us. We said a lot about the ends not justifying the means, and that a lot of people were living on Outland and ought to be protected. It took some weeks after, but it seems like some of Savar’s people started turning against him.
The rebels are maybe not exactly on our side either, but well, at least they’re an enemy’s enemy. The Sha’tar got hold of a few to question, which is how we know about the whole situation at all. As well, they threw the old draenei prison ship into chaos, which gave us an opening to go in and have Art deconstruct the final rune engine. You should’ve seen the creature Savar built that engine into. Or maybe you shouldn’t. It was pretty awful, a construction of metal and demon-flesh. Anyway, what I mean to say is that the world-ending plot is foiled. All the same, this Savar fellow is nothing if not resourceful, so I won’t rest easy that he’s stopped for good until we’ve faced him in person.
It’s also gotten a little unexpectedly personal for Vesyllah – the one I call Vengeance sometimes. It’s a particularly suitable name right now, because she’s on the track of her own vengeance. One of the demons in the prison ship mentioned the name of another demon, one who killed Ves’s sisters. We’re still after Savar for now, but I trust you’ll understand if I need to stay on a little longer to help Ves fight her demon. I’d hate to leave a friend to face such a thing alone.
As for Pandaria, it sounds like you’ve had your work cut out for you as well. I’ve a few solid guesses on who Ian is at this point, but I’ll let him keep his pseudonym for the time being. He sounds like a young man trying to sort his own path. Making missteps along the way to be sure, from your past letters, but with a heart set on helping. That’s a good surprise, isn’t it, when you find someone you seek to help, and find they’ve already turned what strength they have to help others?
I worry some about your accounting of the despair. It sounds as though the masks at Zhu’s Watch helped out those particular pandaren, and the same with the large one you defeated at the temple. But it’s still there in some way, isn’t it? In the rain, softly falling into the dark soil of the jungle. If you see hints of it in the fisherfolk, then I trust your instinct. I hope it’s just a thing like death throes, after you all cut the head off the Sha beast at the temple. I hope it’s not the sort of thing you beat back, only for it to regroup over time and come at you again. Like demons.
Still, that might fit the details we have. Let’s suppose the pandaren of long ago did try to defeat Sha, and found it wasn’t something they could destroy once and for all. In that case, what they’ve done may make a sort of sense, finding a way to live with the danger you can’t drive out. It still doesn’t explain why now, and why so sudden, for the recurrence. It seemed at first like it was the Alliance and the Horde kicking it off, but with what you’ve seen since then, the cause and effect might be swapped. At least, it might not be as clear as it first appeared.
The jungle sounds dangerous enough without the Sha problems, given the tigers, crocolisks, murksweat snakes, sauroks, and mogu traps. I’m sorry to hear you weren’t able to save the messengers, or the one sha-infested monk in the temple. The world is a dangerous place, and it’s a sorrow that there’s some we’ll always be too late for. I’m glad there were so many you were able to rescue, though. The fisherfolk, the pandaren at the temple, the kaldorei in their arcane trap, and so on. Just because we can’t save everyone, it doesn’t diminish those we do manage to save.
Also, I hope you all won’t be doing anything with teleportation in the jungle. A gelatin life-sucking bubble trap sounds like a horrible thing to run into. I’m pleased to hear that the kaldorei have other goals than the quest for immortality. I reckon it must be hard to be a folk that once was immortal and now is not, but having known only one side of it myself, I’m fairly pro-mortal. In my experience, dwarves who aim for immortality tend to run into all sorts of dangers in the digs, and often end up cutting their own mortality tragically short in the process. Whatever Tyrande’s got them after is likely a worthier target.
I see what you mean about Chi-Ji, The Red Crane. That’s always a risk with languages. If I had a gold for every time I heard someone refer to the “Khaz Modan Mountains”, well… maybe I could support my ma’s tavern for a good long time. Chi-Ji could well be a name, though, like one of the kaldorei Wild Gods? I doubt folk would take amiss a few questions. Surely they’d appreciate an outsider taking an interest in their language and beliefs.
As for pirates, I’ve had about as much experience as you had, which is to say mostly fiction. It does make a bit of sense that they’d find their way to Pandaria once the mists lifted – pirates love hidden islands, don’t they? Or at least, it seems they’re often making pirate bases on hidden islands. So a whole new land suddenly revealed from hiding seems like something they’d like to explore. As for where they’re off to, we could assume the most hopeful for them or the least. I’d say the least is they turned on each other (pirates do that too, in stories) and the one you saw was the last one standing. The most might be that they decided to go exploring, and that fellow was the one left to mind the boat.
I suppose if you run into a pirate who’s now a follower of Chi-Ji, or maybe one who was swayed from a life of crime by Ian, then you’ll know how it came out. If you never do, it’ll stay a mystery, and the only thing for it is to imagine the ending we’d prefer. If I have a choice, I’d choose the hopeful ending, for heroes and villains alike. Like in Outland, you never know, maybe one day one of those Savari rebels will play a role to protect the world instead of endanger it.
So in closing, let me say that I know the rain will still fall, soft and quiet. Whether or not the Sha is defeated for good, despair is still in the world. But it won’t rain forever. Sooner or later, the sun will peek through the clouds.
—
Here Thalstan pauses, considering how to sign off. Simply his name, as usual? It feels like there should be some kind of softer touch here. Not coming on too strong, not so soon, but making his intentions clear. After a moment, he nods and lowers pen to paper again.
—
Yours truly,
Thalstan Stouthammer