(2026-04-07) Mogu Cannon Road Trip

Details

Author:	Athena
Summary:	After a successful cannon heist, Baird, Lena, and Melancholy escort the lovely lady through the southern Pandaren jungle to her new home at the Lion's Landing harbor. They take turns on who chooses the songs on the radio. 9700~ words.
Rating:	T for Teen

Zhu's Watch has not gotten less muddy or depressing since White Squad came to its aid months ago. Less depressed, perhaps, but not less depressing. It is still a small, muddy village surrounded by pitted fields that still boil with tendrils of sha energy, standing alone at the edge of the wilderness.

It is also still raining.

Right now the rain is — mercifully — a drab drizzle rather than a downpour. Bryn Baird waits by the kite-master, holding the halter of a miserable-looking cream-colored yak hitched to a broad sledge. (It is unclear whether the yak is actually miserable or just shaggy and very wet.)

Baird himself is also wet, but he does not appear to be miserable. He does not appear to be anything, in fact (besides wet) as he stands patiently gazing into the distance. He is wearing a sailor's oilcloth jacket with its collar turned up, sturdy canvas workman's trousers, and laced boots. The drizzle is attempting to gradually flatten his curly hair; periodically Baird lifts a hand to drag his hair back from his face and scrub at it with one hand, which only serves to make it peculiarly and temporarily cowlicky.

The next person to sail through the drizzle to land at the kite master is Lena Shine, dressed in her waterproofed sailing clothes, shirt and trousers and boots. There will be no wet skirts to trip her up in the jungle trek. She hops down lightly from the enchanted kite and steps to Baird's left side.

"Think we'll have much problem with the sha today?" Lena asks casually, by way of greeting. "Or the sauroks?"

Melancholy arrives with Lena, and the cannon, the two of them both dressed up and ready for transport. The cannon is an elegant arrangement of ropes. Melancholy is not. She's in much of what she always is in, with the addition of a prim black caped overcoat that covers her a little past the waist. Her skirt is tied up to the Adventure Position, around to her knees, exposing the fishnet and black tights and lace up boots. Her hat is one with a wide brim, tied down with sheer black marquisette into a bow under her chin, the usual diamond shaped black lace over the front hanging down over her eyes. She wears her little black lace gloves, and black eye makeup with a bold red lipstick.

Melancholy scrunches up her nose as she gets down delicately off her kite, looking up slightly at the dreary rain.

"Don't know about the sha," Baird answers Lena. "Haven't dealt with them directly. The saurok, though, nah. Not between the three of us." He flashes Lena a smile, nods at Melancholy, and steps away from the sledge to help direct a group of pandaren workers in wrestling the cannon onto it.

The elegant arrangement of ropes for air transport becomes an elegant arrangement of ropes for tying it down, as Baird repurposes them and moves around the sledge tying swift, sure knots and checking tension. "Thanks," he tells the pandaren as he works. "Thank you. Appreciate it."

He steps away from the sledge to offer each of them a handshake.

"Watch out for tigers," one tells him helpfully. "And panthers. And saurok."

"Yeah," says Baird, unfazed. "We will."

Melancholy reaches into a pocket and into a bag to remove a funereal looking black umbrella, popping up over her head as she watches Baird and the pandaren work. She wears her focusing athame at her waist for the moment, the cane perhaps in a pocket or in the Emotionless Void. "Tigers, panthers, and saurok. Oh my," she says blithely.

Lena has a dagger sheathed at her waist today, though she does not look likely to start knife-fighting anytime soon. It is probably a similar focusing tool. There's a flicker of something in her eyes at the discussion of saurok — worry or fear or something in the vicinity, but she banishes it as they turn towards the task at hand.

"Reckon we'll stick to the roads as much as possible, anyway," Lena says, looking over the cannon. "Don't like the prospect of trying to lever something like that out of the mud, and I bet Hua doesn't either."

Baird goes to the sheltered underhang of the nearest building and takes from beneath it his pack. There is a conspicuous canvas-wrapped object protruding from the top, and Baird draw this out first and unwraps it; he slings the rifle on its strap over his shoulder, then picks up his pack and sets it on the sledge, tucked beneath the cannon.

"Okay," he says, and rakes at his damp hair again. He flashes a smile at the two women. "We ready?"

"I am," Lena confirms, and turns to her apprentice. "Melancholy?"

"We're ready," Melancholy asserts with a red lipped smile, spinning her umbrella slowly in an idle way.

Baird moves up to stand beside the yak's head, putting Lena on his left. "Okay," he says to the yak. "Time to go." He takes her halter one-handed and clicks his tongue at her, which is probably not the conventional way one makes a yak go, but Hua is a good-natured yak and plays along. She lumbers out onto the road, dragging the sledge behind her.

As they pass by the first shimmering pit in the earth, Baird observes, "That's despair. The aftermath, I guess." He is silent for a moment and then adds thoughtfully, "Looks exactly like the aftermath of doubt."

Lena stares at it, and nods slowly. "If it's like doubt, it ought to heal eventually, over time. I don't know that I… feel it? That's probably a good thing. I mean, it feels dreary, but that could be just the weather. Must not have as much power behind it, after Cobalt defeated the big one at the Crane temple."

"I camped out where doubt broke loose in the Jade Forest. The aftermath. Captain wanted eyes kept on the place, and that was me. I didn't feel that one either, so it must just be… like stains left behind." Baird watches the smoke tendrils eddy for a moment. "Can't imagine what it's like to see your own feelings loose on the outside. Made into monsters. Though I suppose in some ways it's easier to fight 'em on the outside."

"All in all, think I'd rather keep them inside," Lena says, staring at the twisting darkness. "Might be less comfortable sometimes, less straightforward to fight, but… not every fight needs to be."

Baird nods. "And some fights are private."

After a moment he adds a little more dryly, "Wouldn't want your own feelings climbing out to run wild and hurt people."

Melancholy is quiet as she considers the smudge of sha energy, keeping pace with the others and the yak. She gets a distant expression on her face at the mention of feelings climbing out and running wild. She flicks it away, turning up a smile instead. "No, wouldn't want that," she agrees lightly. "I think I'm mostly glad it's called the Sha of Despair and not something like the Sha of Melancholy — can you imagine how that would go over?"

Baird considers this in silence for a moment. "Yeah," he says. "But I don't think they're synonymous. Melancholy is a state of pensive or wistful sadness. Despair is the utter absence of hope. You can be melancholy and still be hopeful." The definitions sound like he is quoting a dictionary from memory. "Also, I think if someone said 'the Sha of Melancholy' to me at this point, I would just picture you leading a little sha around on a leash or something."

"It could rest its feelings in the Emotionless Void," Lena says with half a laugh, clearly picturing such a thing. "But seriously, I don't recommend trying to tame the sha. Not sure that's even possible, or if they're even creatures really. Might just be like… bits of energy, leftover feelings of others long gone."

Melancholy laughs with delight, twirling her umbrella in a little spin. "Yes, well, I might say the same to the sha: I don't recommend trying to tame the Melancholy," she says brightly.

Baird flashes that half a smile at her. "I don't think the Sha would dare."

Lena gives a brief laugh. "Well, I'd suggest we keep our spirits up, regardless, just in case there's anything dangerous lingering. I don't fancy being tamed by any sha either, and I expect Shine would have words to say on the matter."

Melancholy smiles, looking rather not-melancholic herself. Maybe she has practice in keeping her spirits up. "I don't think I fancy being tamed by anything; I don't think I'd look good in a leash. So, that's fair," she decides.

"Hey," says Baird. "The Emotionless Void reminds me. I was talking with Colson Aspenwood and he said his sister would be happy to fix your skirt."

Melancholy brightens further. "Oh, is she here?"

Baird shakes his head. "Have to send it to Stormwind."

Melancholy tap-taps her nails against her umbrella handle with a pout. "Oh. If I'm sending it to Stormwind, I might as well send it to the tailor who made it in the first place. I was hoping to find someone local here, but I haven't had any luck. Pandaren have a lot of experience with silk, but lacework and crepe, not so much. I'll wait a little longer. Maybe someone who knows exactly how to fix it will show up just in time."

Someone like Cressidha Aspenwood, for example.

"In time," Lena repeats quietly. "Is there a deadline?"

Melancholy considers that. "Maybe by the next laundry day where I should have another skirt," she decides. "Without it in the rotation, I have to have my clothes laundered an entire day earlier." The Tragedy.

Baird casts a sidelong glance at Melancholy and says nothing. Boy has he got some news about ships for her.

"Well," Lena says, and the word carries something of Baird's unspoken news. "Reckon we'll just see when laundry day comes along then, I suppose. What… have you been doing for laundry, here in Pandaria?"

"Paying a washing person, of course," Melancholy says primly, as if Lena's asked her how she puts on her boots and the obvious answer is one foot at a time.

Baird gazes at the sky and contemplates the existence of Washing People.

"Ah," Lena says, and does not volunteer her own methods. Let's let Melancholy believe it is the same. "Good skill to have, washing. Anyway, would be good to have a tailor know nearby. Likely that skirt won't be the only one to take damage in a war campaign."

"That's a good point," Melancholy agrees. "Or have more clothes I don't mind ruining. Perhaps I should do some shopping."

"How much has your brother told you," Baird wonders mildly, "about living aboard a ship?"

"That it's close to the ocean, which is the most beautiful form of nature in existence, and he has rather a lot of poetry to back up this claim," Melancholy says with a smile. "I don't know how much Woe is really aware of the ship itself beyond as a conduit to the ocean. It hardly ever features in his letters at all. You'd think he was simply swimming out there by them."

"I mean," says Baird. "He's the Gunner's Mate. He's pretty aware of the ship. But yeah. 'A conduit to the ocean.'" He nods thoughtfully. "When we get to the harbor, Mrs. Shine can maybe take you aboard and show you around."

"Be happy to," Lena says with a smile. "I've spent enough time aboard the Blanche it's like another home, last few months notwithstanding. As for shopping, lot of the local things are silks and wools, which neither are excellent for shipboard. I have some battle robes enchanted up, but mostly I wear things like this when we're sailing." Lena gestures at her trousers and shirt.

Melancholy glances sidelong at the outfit. "Hmmm. I don't think I know enough about clothing materials to know what could be done with ones that are good at sea. I didn't know that it was a consideration at all — I suppose it didn't seem like it would be much different than on land. I'll have to ask some questions to the tailors," she decides. "I would like to be prepared ahead of time, if I can be. Like with the saluting."

She gives Baird's knuckle salute. But she's holding her umbrella in the usual hand, and so she uses the other one, as if it may be interchangeable.

"Here," says Baird. "Other hand. And that one's pretty casual. Which is mostly fine, honestly, as you've seen. But properly…." He pauses in the road, straightens up and demonstrates a sharp salute. Then he relaxes and pats the yak on the neck. "It gets windy at sea, so you'll want to figure that into account with your clothes. And you're going to get wet. Might want some oiled or waxed cloth."

"Good to have some mobility, too," Lena adds, patting the thigh of her waterproofed trousers. "That is, clothes easy to move in aboard. Might need to move fast, like in a battle or a storm, and you don't want to catch yourself on things."

Melancholy goes through a sharp salute and then the knuckle salute again with the air of someone making mental notes. At the mention of getting wet, she wrinkles up her nose with all the attitude of a cat being shown a tub of water. "Wear… trousers, you mean?" she asks Lena, clearly aghast.

"I suppose it's not required," Lena says, shrugging slightly. "Not yet, anyway, unless we put that in the rules for fleet warlocks. But it is convenient. You don't like trousers?"

"Clearly not," Melancholy says, in reference to the fact that no one there has seen her wear a pair of them ever. "I look terrible in them, for one — all stick legged and gangly. And for second, they're horribly boring."

"Ah," Lena says again, turning to watch the jungle passing by with interest. Or maybe she's keeping watch for tigers.

"'Stick-legged and gangly,'" Baird repeats quietly to himself. He shrugs. "Boring I'll grant you, but the rest of us will be in uniform or working clothes all the time. Which isn't to say we're not boring — Mrs. Shine excepted, beg your pardon — but I'm guessing you're too Melancholy to be boring, even in trousers. A person's clothes can be interesting, but if they're not interesting in themselves then there's nothing to the clothes either."

"People always say, 'don't judge a book by its cover,' but the truth is that they're actually informative. They're deliberately chosen, so that you can understand a little about it on a first glance. Obviously not all the nuance or substance, but an idea of whether or not you should bother opening its pages," Melancholy says with a pout. But she taps at her umbrella. "I'll have to reflect on it of what I'll do about it, and how I'll adapt. I don't intend to be deterred from finding way to serve with the fel just because I don't like the uniform requirements somewhere, or am not used to the conditions. That is not where I'm meant to push back against fate, I'm certain of it." She sighs off the start of a different mood, and instead looks at Baird, pulling up a smile. "Will you show me the proper salute again?"

Baird tips his head in half-smiling acknowledgement, straightens again stern-faced, and salutes crisply. Then he relaxes from being Lieutenant Baird to Just Baird once more. "That's a fair point, about books and covers and choosing." He regards her levelly in that distant, seeing-through way, thinking before he speaks again. "It's not to say that an interesting cover wouldn't make me pick a book up in the first place. But on the whole I prefer to read a book before I decide what I think of it."

Melancholy salutes back. She's getting it better each time, a little crisper. She nods. "You know, that's also a fair point, especially since I do the same. I don't think it's fair to judge a book by its first few pages in particular. I read the whole thing — or at least the whole part of each poem if it's an anthology — and then I consider what I think of it. And, of course, sometimes someone else has another read on it utterly different from my own, and I like to hear them out, and then consider that. It doesn't mean I'll change my mind — Theris and I will never really agree on what I consider excessive use of spacing in poems — but if I don't know something that the other person does in particular that made them think of something else, sometimes I'm the one who read it wrong."

Baird nods mildly. "Okay," he says. "So what do you consider excessive use of spacing in poems?"

Melancholy purses her lips. "Well, you know those poems do that thing with putting a word here," she says, lifting a hand to indicate a place. She moves her hand all the way across her body in the air and down a little. "And then the next one is over here. And then a whole new line, and it's another word over this way, all scattered around?" She moves her hand in front of her in demonstration. "Excessive. Theris likes it, though. It's a structural interest of his of the physical construction of the poem."

Lena hangs back a little as Baird and Melancholy get deeper into conversation, watching the two of them speak with a quiet curiosity. Then she crosses over behind Baird, to check on the yak and its arrangement of ropes, making sure nothing is coming loose in the transport. She glances over to the other two as they speak, studying their expressions in the questioning and answer.

Baird thinks again in watchful silence. "If you asked me without his explanation, I'd say I don't like the sound of it much, because it doesn't sound like poetry. I can't say I've read many poems like it, though, and the idea of considering the physical construction of the poem is interesting." He walks and contemplates, his winter-sky gaze still directed at Melancholy but not actually on Melancholy.

"The one type we do agree on that you might find interesting," Melancholy says, and adds her address to Lena, "Both of you, is contrapuntal poetry. It's where you present two poems, side by side, using columns and lines of structure to have each one read individually as a poem, and then they can also be read together to create first one story, then a second, and finally a third complete one that brings into a whole. It's quite complicated, but it's fascinating even in only a technical way. I think that even the least well written ones that focus only on the cleverness of the structure still end up writing their way into saying something profound, by a matter of course of the demands of the style."

"Oh," says Baird, and his eyebrows go up. "Oh, yeah. That sounds interesting as hell."

"Wait, so two poems separate, and you add them?" Lena asks, startled into turning away from Hua entirely. "Like line-by-line or one after the other?"

Melancholy nods. "Well, there's no firm rule, but generally you read one column," she says, demonstrating in the air in front of her as if she can see a poem there. "And then the other. And each column is in itself a poem that says something. But then, you can combine them, reading straight across on each line, and it's another poem. It's hard to demonstrate in recitation — you would have to have a firm memory of each line as I spoke them. But, I'll show you one when we get back for the full effect. I have some examples there with me. For an example though, as it's appropriate," she begins and as she recites, she marks the stop of a line with a hand gesture like a conductor in an orchestra.

"A gentle rain falls,
like snow, dusting the
lazy Sunday curiosities
filtering from the leaves'
heart-pressed isolation.
it falls like an apology
in the incomplete spaces
between these lines. hands
open with the practised brevity
of strangers passing
each other to receive
the thunder thawing after rain

"after all these years
memories barely remembered
still shimmer, sunlight
and their shadows'
flickering quick on my tongue
pooling
ever so silently
ticking on. umbrellas
of strangers exchanging glances,
under grey skies and through
what remains of the past.
my life has moved on from
everything but the rain.

"A gentle rain falls after all these years
like snow, dusting the memories barely remembered
lazy Sunday curiosities still shimmer, sunlight
filtering from the leaves' and their shadows'
heart-pressed isolation. flickering quick on my tongue,
it falls like an apology pooling in the incomplete spaces ever so silently,
between these lines. hands ticking on. umbrellas
open with the practised brevity of strangers exchanging glances,
of strangers passing under grey skies and through
each other to receive what remains of the past.
the thunder thawing after my life has moved on from
rain. everything but the rain."

Baird nods slowly, his gaze distant. "Yeah. Okay, yeah. That's amazing." It is entirely possible he has just memorized substantial pieces of the poem. "So I can see how the physical structure — the separation on the page — matters there. And there's a question of reader agency too, I think. How you choose to read it and why." He turns his gaze straight ahead now, contemplating.

"A lot of poems seem to be about loss and moving on," Lena says, her gaze going distant as she thinks through the words. Then she considers Baird's words and adds with a faint blush, "Or could be just me reading into it. Anyway, it was a lovely poem. I'd like to see it writ down, to see how the pieces fit together sometime."

Or possibly it's the person who has chosen to collect a certain type of poem. Melancholy twirls her umbrella, a distant expression on her face as she looks out over the jungle. She flicks it off like rain on her umbrella. "There's poems about everything really. Ducks and dandelions, and eating sugar plums kept in an icebox that someone else was saving," she says blithely. "I don't have many of those memorized though. What do you usually like to read, Lena?"

"Oh, I… I suppose mostly work things," Lena says, and the blush doesn't really fade. "There wasn't much opportunity past primers when I was small, and then the next thing was the fel. Then math, for the fel. And then just whatever I came across in the Fallon library. Histories and other things like that, but I did read some adventure stories. I suppose those are… fun?"

Baird has resumed watching the road and the landscape around them with his weird serene intensity.

The sledge grinds along heavily on the dirt track as Hua plods. They have entered the margin of the jungle now, past the last brazier that marks the edge of the wilds, and though the rain itself has abated, an occasional windblown branch cascades streamlets of water onto unwary passers-by. Passers-beneath.

"Oh, work things," Melancholy grabs onto. "Fel work things or Fleet work things, or both? Are there books on being part of a naval fleet, nonfiction I mean. I don't think I should like to model anything on a fictional one, in case so much of it is wrong. I hadn't thought to look into it. I suppose I know so little about the navy beyond a concept that I don't know even what questions to really ask. Like the different times to call Lord Fallon Captain or Admiral or that there's a Leftenant and a Second Leftenant."

"Oh, you can always ask, most won't take it amiss," Lena says with a smile. "They'll know it's just not knowing, not being impolite. A lot of my reading is on the fel, but there are books about the fleet, explaining rank crew make-up and the like. There are some things you'll want to learn hands-on though. You can look at a diagram of a knot, but its no substitution for rope in your hands."

Baird nods, still watching the shadows between the trees. "Mrs. Shine learned her knots and rigging after she'd been with us months. Knows 'em like a rated seaman now."

"Knots… That's certainly something to learn," Melancholy says with the tone of someone trying to summon some level of enthusiasm for a subject she isn't interested in but wants to treat it fairly as possibly could be. And then she thinks, twirling her umbrella back and forth. "Knots. Is that somehow related to what you said before, Baird, about the albatross? You said it can fly up a speed of knots. I don't know if it's the same word, or nots or naughts." She over enunciates the words, attempting to convey the different words.

Lena laughs. "Same knots, but different knots."

"Well," says Baird, with a nod at Lena, "yeah. It is, actually. Not particular kind of knots or anything, but how we measure speed. There's a rope with a wooden weight on the end, and knots tied in it at intervals. You throw it overboard and count how many knots run out in a set amount of time. That's a knot. One knot is basically one nautical mile an hour. Or 1.15 land miles."

"What a concept!" Melancholy exclaims with interest. "That sounds rather like fun."

She may or may not be picturing having to do this in the middle of something like a hurricane. Probably not.

"Yeah," agrees Baird, who finds a lot of shipboard things fun, even during hurricanes, fortunately for his chosen career. "Use a rope to measure depth, too. Marks on it every fathom. Sink it and count how many fathoms to the seabed."

"I don't think I've thought much about how many things a person could use a rope for," Melancholy says. "Is that a job done by a specific person? Or do we each get a rope assigned to us and we measure as we have interest?" Does Melancholy get a Cool Rope? Inquiring warlock apprentices want to know.

"It's a job given to a specific person, when the measurement's called for. Like if we're in waters we don't know. Usually it's a midshipman or the master's mate, but someone who's learning how can ask to do it. The Captain's ward Rae learned to take the measure not long after we got to Pandaria." Baird shrugs. "So if you've got an interest, then yeah, someone'll show you how and you can have a turn at doing it. Like Mrs. Shine says, anything you want to know, you can just ask someone. No one minds it, and me and Mrs. Shine are both examples of how far you can get that way."

Melancholy uses the opportunity of the walking pace to take out her notebook, and a pencil, holding her umbrella tucked against her with an elbow. She makes several notes about knots, fathoms, and the job titles as described.

Baird's glance shifts briefly to the notebook and then away again. If he glimpsed anything at all, he doesn't remark on it. He continues to scan the jungle as the shadows around them deepen. The noise of the sledge grinding along the road seems particularly loud in the darker wilds here.

The darker shadows make Melancholy glance up and then to Lena. "The soulstone — I should refresh it," she says, as she puts away her notebook for her athame, to cast another on Lena.

"It's good of you to be so diligent, but I will be alright," Lena says, looking back over to Melancholy again with that faint touch of concern. "I've died before in any case, and came back from it. If you call me with your soulstone after, I'll answer you."

Melancholy picks at her gloves. "Not if I'm dead already," she says lightly, staring straight ahead. "Then I won't be able to cast anything on anyone. And since I'm less adept than you as a warlock and with far less combat experience, I'm more likely to die first."

Baird turns his head to study her profile again in that level, unblinking way. He doesn't say anything.

Lena stares at Melancholy for a long moment, trying to read something from her manner. Then she nods, and says, "I suppose that's true enough, as far as it goes, but really no one can predict the future. And you do know that I'll do my best to keep you safe. I take my responsibility to you seriously."

The words do the opposite of comforting the young woman; if anything she seems a little paler, if that's possible. It takes her two tries to pull a smile into place. "I do know so. All the more reason for me to be so diligent, don't you think? After all, if you took your responsibility so far as to be killed on my behalf or in my place, then the only recourse I should have to remedy that would be if I had my soulstone properly applied. That's one of the reasons I became a warlock." Her voice gets a little higher, but not brighter.

"It's a unique power, the soulstone. There's no other power that can really do quite the same thing. It's a special interest of mine. So, the practice is useful." Melancholy picks so hard at her glove, a little of the lace breaks, and she forces her hands around the umbrella to stop further damage. "Are we getting closer to the harbor? I don't know the lay of the land well enough to tell how far away we are."

"Not yet," says Baird almost gently. "You can smell the salt when we get close, and the trees start to thin." He pauses. "You want to talk about something else?"

Melancholy smiles cheerlessly. "Yes, I believe I would." She breathes deeply. Maybe she's testing the air for a baseline versus salted. "I should ask, shouldn't I, what sort of things you like to read, Baird? Beyond about albatross and poetry, I mean."

"Anything," says Baird. "I like poetry. I like history. I like fiction, natural history, biography, uh." He puts his head back to think. "Astronomy. Math was hard to get my head around at first, but higher-level math's pretty interesting. Had to teach myself trigonometry so I could learn to navigate. Can't be an officer if you can't navigate. I was reading a biography of the Gilnean astronomer Grayson Ellis, but I left it on the ship. At the Shrine I've mostly been reading pandaren folktales." He shrugs and pats the yak on her neck again.

Lena watches Melancholy's reaction, biting her lip with a touch of puzzlement. There's a bit of a sense of someone realizing they'd been putting pieces together into a picture that's the wrong shape, and trying to turn the pieces to see how they better fit. Then, at the change in subject, she smooths her expression away, putting on a smile as she listens to Baird.

"Oh, aye, if you're in for folk tales, you really ought to come around to Lorewalker Cho's," Lena says, brightening. "I'd have mentioned that before, but it's more storytelling than reading. He's got all sorts of old stories."

Melancholy's honey eyes are wider, somewhere between impressed and maybe a little baffled at the indiscriminate appetite. Anything. Gracious. "Lorewalker Cho's a real treat," Melancholy agrees. "With so many stories and books to keep all in place, Baird, why, it's a bit like you're building yourself a complete library in your head, with every genre. You must have quite a system to find something in there." Now she's just impressed.

"I have a pretty good memory," says Baird with a shrug. "And I like to know things. I didn't go to school so pretty much everything I know's because I read it. And then one thing leads to another.

"And yeah," he says, turning his head to look at Lena. "Been meaning to talk to him. I know Lieutenant Shine was doing that mogu shit with him."

Lena nods. "Aye, he knows a lot of the history, the bits that haven't been lost to time. He went with Shine and the others when they finally went into those Vaults, with the soul library and the construct machine and whatnot. I'd really like to see it all, when we get a chance."

Baird nods. "Me too. But I didn't really have anything to do with it, so I'd just be gawking." He looks back at Melancholy. "It's kind of a house, more than a library."

Melancholy looks with interest at Lena at the idea of a soul library. A library! Souls! Intersectionality of interests.

"There can always be both, like a library in a house. We have one at home," Melancholy says to Baird, because she is that sort of lady who has that kind of thing at home. "But that doesn't mean you think of it like that, which is fair. Do you organize by subject or by interest? Like a grand foyer for your favorites, and a deep basement for the things you wish you could unlearn, and an attic for the things you also wish you could but you should keep around just in case it's useful one day?"

Baird tilts his head, his pale gaze intent on some inner distance. "I organize by… where I got things. I don't know. It's hard to explain. Everything I learned about albatrosses goes next to 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' and there's a bit about Gilnean superstitions there too. Things I learned about sea ice when we were in Northrend go with a different poem and then there's also some stuff about fish. Contrapuntal poetry goes with umbrellas. Because 'umbrellas open with the practised brevity of strangers exchanging glances,' and you've got an umbrella."

Melancholy brightens with a pop of a red lipped smile. "See that sounds perfectly reasonable to me, although you can't possibly organize a library like that, since it's so personal. I was going to try something similar in our own library at home until I learned better why the library at the Keep is organized the way it is for being able to be navigated by anyone. I would have been able to find anything in our own library, but I don't think anyone else would have after all." She twirls her umbrella, which is slowly drying now that it isn't raining directly on it all the time. "I wish I could organize on purpose in my head. I can't seem to actually do it. Things just get filed away, and then I have to go looking for them, and learn where it is that I put the thing. Once I know, I can remember, but the first time is always the worst, where it never seems to be where I think I should have put it."

"You have to be in the house," Baird offers helpfully. "In your head. So you can walk through it and arrange stuff."

"I visualize shelves. Lots and lots and lots of shelves, but I can move them around anywhere I like," Melancholy says. "If I'd learned the library system when I was young, maybe I could have had Dewey Decimal shelves, but nope — I'm afraid it's all chaos in here. I don't seem to have any control over it. It's genuinely fascinating though to hear of anyone who can. A house! Well, maybe I'll give it a try, see if the shelves will let me put them in rooms. Worst thing that happens is nothing changes."

Lena seems fascinated as well. She's listening with intent curiosity, like maybe they're halfway speaking a foreign language. She ventures, "That's interesting… I don't really picture things in my head like that. There are connections, like a smell or a sound might make me remember a thing in particular, but not like, a mind house."

"Smells, too, yeah." Baird nods at Lena. "Not sounds so much."

"I think it's always so strange that I can be sure that I would remember a smell if I did smell it, but I can't actually seem to recall it. Or the sounds of people's voices after a time. It all seems to go away somewhere," Melancholy says, with honestly a bit of a melancholic sort of tone, which means she decides to not continue down that lane. "If it's not too personal a question, what's your favorite thing you've learned recently? Something that you were really pleased to add to your mind house."

"Not too personal," Baird says equably. "Not a lot of stuff is too personal, I don't think." He puts his head back again and contemplates the leaf-canopy overhead for a bit.

"Okay," he says at last. "So I read — you know how they say the grummles used to be troggs? So I read that back in the beginning of the world, the jinyu used to be murlocs. But the ones that lived here near the waters of the Vale evolved into the jinyu after a time. They were the first mortal empire of Pandaria and had the first written language in the world. It got lost during the mogu empire, though." He shrugs. "Maybe it’s true." After a moment’s silence he adds, "No idea where the murlocs came from in the first place, though.

"And that goes in the house with the all the names of rivers I know, because the legend also said that all the rivers in the world used to flow into the Vale. And that goes with stuff like the difference between damselflies and dragonflies, and that goes with, 'A living flash of light he flew.' And I learned that paladins have a healing spell they call 'Flash of Light,' so that goes with the conversation I had with the Aspenwoods about healing."

There is another silence and then he says, deadpan, "So that's how you get from murlocs to paladins."

Lena listens to the stories with interest, and then follows along with the stream of consciousness to paladins. She tilts her head, thinking through the line that connects that series of dots, and says, "Wonder if there is such a thing as a light-wielding murloc. If the jinyu — that is, I know they've healing magic — so maybe murlocs…"

Baird turns his head to look over his shoulder toward Lena when she starts speaking. He nods thoughtfully. "The jinyu heal with water, though, like Kaerix and Brother Eli."

Melancholy laughs at the murlocs to paladins, clearly both amused and delighted by this newly described mind house filing system.

"Also," Baird says, "I remember things a lot by remembering a thing in the room that leads to it, so like if I was remembering what Colson Aspenwood told me about paladin healing, I might start at 'murlocs,' or 'rivers' or 'dragonflies,' because I know it's there somewhere. It's like… turning the key that opens the right room. But if if say it out loud sometimes people don't get it. Like, Colson Aspenwood thought I was calling him an Emotionless Void because I saw his bag and was remembering about your skirt and his sister." He shrugs equably. It happens.

Lena winces, and moves up to stand at Melancholy's other side. "He's a bit… maybe muted? In how he shows his feelings. So I could see folk saying things like that for a cruelty. Colson Aspenwood is definitely not emotionless, though. I hope he realized it was just the thought chain, and not him."

"I told him," says Baird. "I don't know if he got it, but I did tell him. I don't mind telling people how I was thinking."

Melancholy tippity taps her umbrella. "Hmmm. Theris can be a bit like that — muted I mean. I think some people might think it means he doesn't have emotions, but he does. He cares about things, and people." She smiles, but it's wistful. "Although, I suppose it's true that I don't know if he was like that before he died and everything with the Lich King. I didn't know him before." Tappity. Anyway. "But, I'll be sure to wait to know Colson Aspenwood first before I make any judgments. It's harder when they're famous, like Sir Dane Atley."

Lena stumbles a little over a stray root — yes, yes, that's what it was, a stray root — and then recovers with an indrawn breath. "Theris is… undead? I'm afraid I've not met him at all, only Lord Kyris and Lady Alaisa."

Melancholy's brows go up. "Yes, a death knight, as they're called. He was never knighted, actually, so it's a bit of a misnomer," she says, twirling the umbrella. "I met him when he was staying with Blind Mary, a local ghost I visit from time to time in Duskwood, trying to see if I can't find some way to make her feel a little less, well, melancholy. He was keeping her house nice. Now he lives in the Lysander Manor in Raven Hill, by the worgen."

"Oh, I didn't realize…" Lena shakes her head, casting this away. "I suppose Duskwood is a good place for a death knight residence, seeing as how the Ebons have an interest in keeping the other undead from hurting folk. And you've ghost friends, as well?" Lena seems more curious than horrified. "I know a few of the death knights, myself, some of them before and after. It does clearly change a person, but aye, I'd not call them emotionless."

Baird looks interested. "I never met any ghosts, myself," he says. "Death knights, though, yeah." After a moment he adds, "I have been told I don't have a lot of feelings. But most of the time I'm just thinking. Got nothing to do with my feelings." He shrugs. Siri, does thinking have to do with Baird's feelings?

"I think you have plenty of feelings. You certainly have interest in a great deal of things as well, and that doesn't come from emotionless voids of any sort. I've always had lots of feelings, but not really much of any of the ones a death knight eats. I decided early on in life that I wouldn't be melancholy, only Melancholy." She looks off into the wilds, staring at something with a genuinely sorrowful expression, one she refuses to keep on. "Well, we write letters now," she continues blithely. "I can't do that much with any ghosts I know. 'Ghost writers' are something else."

"I think," Baird observes, perhaps unhelpfully, "that you seem melancholy sometimes. As well as Melancholy." He pauses. "I reckon."

"That's one where I have to push back against Fate," Melancholy says lightly. "It's not as easy as it used to be. 'Thinking things unknown and awful, / Thoughts on wild, uncanny themes, / Waking dreams. / Spectres dark, corpses stark, / Show the gaping seams / Whence the cold and cruel knife / Stole away their life.'" She pauses, skips several stanzas. "'Dreams, like ghosts, must hie away; / 'Tis the day. / Rosy morn now is born; / Dark thoughts may not stay. / Day my brain from foes will keep; / Now, my soul, I sleep.'"

Baird nods, watching her unblinking, and then turns his gaze away again to sweep the jungle around them. He puts a hand in the yak's shaggy mane again absently and looks back to check on the cannon.

Lena suppresses a smile at the 'I reckon', but then sobers as Melancholy recites the poem. That faint look of concern returns to her eyes for a moment before it fades.

"Push back, sure, but having the occasional dark thought doesn't define a person," Lena says. "Which is a bit what your poem is saying, isn't it? I try not to linger on dark things, either, unless the situation calls for it."

"Warlocks use shadow and dark things, don't we?" Melancholy says primly. "The poem is called, 'Melancholia' by Paul Laurence Dunbar. He did a lot of poems that work for us Grimlockes. He has one that speaks about woe, and another about misery." She tests out the state of the umbrella, as if considering putting it away. "We show up in a lot of poetry."

"Can I ask," asks Baird, "why your parents named you as they did? I mean, not that they aren't interesting names. Poetic. Just… wouldn't they be worried about fate? And how do you know when to push back against fate and when not?"

"The names you mean are from my mother. Our father named us other things, for the middle, that are nothing like our first names. If you want to know exactly why Mom named us as she did, you might have to ask her. I think it's because she's not afraid of the dark and terrible things. That she finds something beautiful in all of it, the gloom and the tragic sinking emotions that people ordinarily turn away from. She's one of the brightest people you'll meet, full of life and light and love, and maybe that's why it's easier for her to go into the dark. She always knows how to get back out again," Melancholy says lightly.

"As for what we did with the names, of when to push and when to accept fate, well, I think a person just knows as best as anyone can know anything. Sometimes we do get it wrong, and we have to change course."

Baird nods thoughtfully. "What's your middle name?"

"Jane," Melancholy answers.

"Melancholy Jane Grimlocke," he says. "Yeah. My dad gave us our middle names too. He's Bryson, and that's why we're Bryn and Bryling. You have a middle name, Mrs. Shine?"

"I do, yes," Lena says, raising a hand to tidy her hair, as she looks up at the passing trees. "I was Averlena Jeanettie Coit. My mother was… a little flowery on the names. I was the youngest, and the only girl, so I suppose she'd been saving them up."

"Jeanettie," repeats Baird. "Is it Lordaeronian?"

"I think so, yes," Lena answers, glancing at Baird with a touch of sadness in her smile. "Anyway, it's a family name. It was my mother's sister's name before me, and likely she could've said who had it before her."

Baird nods again. He is watching the treeline but his head is tilted in Lena and Melancholy's direction. His hand remains on the yak. Every so often his gaze focuses on the animal and he watches her intently for a moment or two, and then he resumes his study of the jungle.

"Not too long now," he says. "You can smell it a little. But there's some saurok that hunt near the beaches. Keep an ear out for them."

Melancholy takes a loud sniff in. And then crinkles her nose. "Disagreeable lizards," she declares.

"Disagreeable indeed," Lena says. "They're the culprits behind my injury, when we first met. Of course, those particular sauroks are likely dead now."

"Pretty sure dead, ma'am," says Baird. "After tangling with you and Lieutenant Shine. Pretty bad call."

Lena flashes a quick smile at Baird and agrees, "Pretty bad call. And the knee's near fine now, just a twinge every now and then."

"I haven't heard a single person of any race in Pandaria with a nice thing to say about the saurok. The hozen can go either way, and some people had some odd respect for the yaungol, but the saurok are completely reviled. They seem even more unpopular than the mogu, because even the mogu don't seem to care for them," Melancholy observes.

"They used to be mogu slaves," says Baird. "The mogu wanted them for slave soldiers, so they trained them to be ruthless fighters. And that was not a great decision by the mogu, it turns out."

"A pretty bad call," Melancholy agrees.

Baird looks over at that and flashes his half-a-smile.

"Nicest thing I ever heard was from Lorewalker Cho," Lena adds, "Which was just that he didn't see any reason why they oughtn't be friends, and that he'd always be open to it. That is, if any of the saurok ever showed the slightest inclination of communicating with anything other than a weapon."

"That's fair," Melancholy says. "Though at the moment, that appears to me to be rather large if."

Beneath the steady grating sound of the heavy sledge on the dirt road rises a new sound: from the south, in the direction they are curving, the faint tock, tock, tock of distant hammers. Sunlight has begun to filter faintly through the trees.

"Nearly there," says Baird, but he does not stop scanning the jungle around them with impassive gray-eyed intensity.

Melancholy makes a little oh! sound, and tries sniffing again. Whether or not she detects any salt, she lowers her umbrella, closing it up, testing the dampness lightly with a gloved finger, and then she takes out a bag from a pocket to put it away — and pulls out a Different Umbrella.

Excuse me, not an umbrella. This one is funereal-esque laced parasol to block out the sun. Completely different.

"It's not raining anymore," observes the (quite tan) Baird, with some bemusement.

"No, it's sunning, which is another concern. I peel like a carrot if I get too much of it. I have a delicate complexion," Melancholy, a person who has agreed to be on a ship in sunlight, says. "Surely you've seen it happen to Woe. Mom worries about it all the time that he's not wearing enough sun protection."

"Oh," says Baird. "Uh-huh." His tone definitely implies that he has not seen any such thing.

"There's a kind of cream for that," Lena offers mildly. "For keeping the sun from burning too badly. Lot of sun out at sea, during the day — not so much in the way of trees and such to shade."

"Yes, I have a great deal of it. I'm already wearing some," Melancholy says primly. She does like to be prepared when she can be, after all. "But avoiding the sun in the first place works the best." She twirls the parasol in demonstration of her portable shade.

Baird contemplates a lifetime of avoiding the sun. "I… yeah. Never tried that."

This is extremely obvious, Baird.

"You would need… a lot of sun cream, I am guessing," he ventures thoughtfully after a moment. "On a ship, I mean."

"We could always let you hearth and summon you back if you needed more," Lena adds. She's a problem-solver.

"I appreciate that," Melancholy says politely. "I will always try to adjust to the proper amount once I'm certain of it. I went in the direction of possibly over necessary, rather than be caught underprepared. I'll see how much I over or under estimated. Or if I managed to simply — estimate."

Baird nods. He knows which his money's on. "Did you wear sun cream, Mrs. Shine?" he asks, peering at Lena. Again, that neutrally curious tone. Siri…

"I do," Lena says, rais. "I'm fair-skinned as well, though more tanned now than I was when I started with the fleet. You build up some resistance over time — I confess I hadn't considered a sun umbrella."

"There was a jest once that I could probably find a way to burn in moonlight when both moons are up," Melancholy says. "I haven't tested it. Once, on an unusually cold winter when the lakes froze over, I burned in the snow."

"Burning in snow," Lena says, raising her eyebrows. "That's impressive in a certain way. I hope there's not too much sun for you aboard ship, or that you don't mind a little bit of tanning."

"Hmm, well a burn is a burn, isn't it? So I imagine I might be able to do something about it with a healthstone. I can summon them without a soul shard, so perhaps it will be a way to keep in practice," Melancholy says, spinning her parasol.

Through a break in the trees ahead, a stretch of pale sand becomes visible; beyond it, as they draw closer, is the shining dark plain of the sea.

The sound of hammers — and now, distantly, of calling voices — is coming from their left, east along the beach.

"Okay," says Baird. "This is gonna be a bit of a shift for the yak, from the road onto sand. Might take a minute to get her and the sledge settled."

"Right, I'll get over on the other side," Lena says, crossing over to put the yak and sledge between herself and Baird. "Just in case it starts to topple."

"Is there something you need me to do?" Melancholy asks, peering over at the yak.

"I think we got it," says Baird. "I'm just gonna lead her out. Mrs. Shine, you watch out it doesn't start to tip over?"

"Mmhmm, I'm on it," Lena says, watching the cart and raising her hands, ready to balance it.

Melancholy watches the cart, Lena, and Baird, with all the air of an interested spectator who may be taking mental notes for later.

Baird takes the yak by the bridle and, with his other hand, tries to brush her shaggy hair from her eyes, in case this will help. It neither works (there's a lot of shag) nor seems to make a difference in Hua's pace. "Okay," he tells her. "Come on." He clicks his tongue and steps backward onto the sand, half-leading and half-pulling on the yak.

When Hua's front hooves reach the sand and sink in, she balks briefly and nods her shaggy head up and down. What is happening to her front end is not the same as what is happening to her back end?

"Come on," Baird says encouragingly, and tugs on her bridle again.

Because she is a yak, Hua decides eventually that the change in terrain is acceptable to her, and struggles out onto the sand. The sledge glides more easily now on the smooth beach sand, but conversely Hua seems to have more difficulty dragging it, because her footing is weird.

Lena doesn't have to rebalance the cart, as it turns out, but she stays on Hua's other side, just in case the yak stumbles. "Bit of an adjustment for Hua, too," Lena says, with a fond smile for the creature. "Reckon she's much more used to the mountain trails."

"Come on," says Baird, still encouraging. "Here we go."

He does not really have to encourage her, as Hua pulling a sledge basically knows one direction — forward — and is going to go in that direction until she is stopped or meets an obstacle.

Ahead, they can see plainly now a rising stone structure: a fortress block and a series of uneven, half-built walls going up. Another wall lines the waterfront and beyond it can be seen three heavy docks. Over the wall, a trio of masts is visible; her sails are furled, but from her mainmast she flies the blue and gold Alliance flag and, above that, a night-blue pennant with a silver kraken.

The sounds of construction and the clamor of many voices calling directions and questions and cursing good-naturedly all at once are much clearer now, as workers swarm on the sand and stones.

"Hey," says Baird. "There's the Lady Blanche." He points at the distant topmasts for Melancholy's benefit.

Melancholy leans forward and lifts her veil up briefly to be able to even better see, and then gives the Sharp Salute. "There we are, then," she says brightly.

"Yes, there she is," Lena agrees, and something in her manner lightens, just at the sight of it. "We're doing valuable work in the. Vale, I know, but it feels good to see the coast again. The sea."

"Yeah," Baird agrees. He tries to coax Hua to go a little faster.

Hua does not go faster. Hua has one speed.

They have been spotted, though, as they approach the construction site (a yak dragging a cannon along the beach is not a commonplace sight) and as they get nearer, a gangling uniformed sailor with a mop of black curls comes jogging out to meet them. "Lieutenant, sar," he says, grinning broadly — he has a gold incisor — and salutes Baird. "And Messes Shine. And — "

He turns to Melancholy and stares. Not in an intent, thoughtful Baird way. Just in a regular staring way. "… mess," he manages.

"Keating," says Baird. "This is Miss Melancholy Grimlocke. She's Grimlocke's sister, and Mrs. Shine's apprentice. Will you run tell the Captain and Grimlocke that we're here? Got a present for 'em."

Keating nods dazedly and salutes Baird again without taking his eyes off Melancholy. He turns and jogs away, casting a glance back once at the Goth Apparition on the beach.

Baird also glances at Melancholy. "We could… get out of the sun?" he suggests dubiously. He has heard this is a thing people do.

Melancholy seems either inured or immune to stares, giving Keating a red lipped smile. When he glances back, she wiggles a black gloved finger wave at him, resting her parasol against her shoulder.

She turns the same smile on Baird. "Oh, if we'd like. I have the parasol, but there's not much room to fit anyone else under it." Not without getting very personal with the Local Goth Girl using it. "Or would the brighter light be better for viewing of the cannon?" She appears to be genuinely curious in the asking, as someone who doesn't know much about cannons. Is there an optimal location for First Viewing?

"I'm fine in the sun for now," Lena says. "And I don't think the cannon will mind a little extra light."

Baird flashes a smile at Lena and then moves back to the sledge to lay a hand on the cannon again. He caresses the ornate brasswork of the carriage. Hello, cannon. We are home at last, baby.