(2026-04-17) A Melancholy Letter, Then

Details

Author:	Athena
Summary:	Melancholy has reflected on how her friend Theris won't know the context of her opinions and thoughts on poetry going forward unless she tells him about it, and so, a letter, then. 2300~ words.
Rating:	T for Teen

In a beautiful, professional handwriting with ink so dark it seems to absorb light.

Dear Theris,

I know it’s technically your turn, for a rebuttal or agreement on the batch of the modern Stormwind poetry, and I don’t have anything more to add on my own opinion (nor have I changed any; I am still annoyed at the so-called experimental single word per line poetry style and it irks me every time I think about it). I had the thought about how many things are happening here that have a great deal of an effect on my sense of context of what poems do and don’t speak to me, and normally I would tell you about that in a visit, but obviously I can’t visit, so all my thoughts on poems will seem to come out a void. So, a letter, then.

I’m staying in a place called the Golden Vale, at an inn called the Golden Lantern, and I have been helping a group of Pandaren locals who call themselves the Golden Lotus. It may come as no surprise that the place is rather golden, in nature and in palatial construction. The pandaren aren’t responsible for the latter – though they are stewards of the former – except by labor, as the ones who ordered the construction were the mogu, a horrid race of slave owners who have not the slightest redeeming qualities of any people I have ever heard of in my life, save for another local, the saurok (disagreeable lizards). If you were here, I am certain they would be considered more than fair game for your dietary needs; that is how reviled the mogu and saurok are, and they have earned every poor opinion.

My apprenticeship is going well. I have made an enormous amount of progress. I am completely certain that I made the right decision, both in having a long term teacher, and in the particular choice, as Mrs. Lena Shine has been extraordinarily helpful in not only providing many opportunities for experience in as controlled an environment as is possible, but also a great deal of practical advice for how to use the powers I have read about. It’s one thing to read that an ideal structured form of attack should proceed with a curse, then a use of various shadow attacks, followed by several direct attacks, but in practice the reality of what I can cast in the time and how many types of enemies I face are so varied that following the rote described would have likely had little to no use. She’s also much more subtle and discreet than I am, and while I don’t know that I’ll do all the same things myself when all is said and done, I have seen the wisdom in a quieter approach about my profession with the fel. She has learned a significant amount of nuances over the years that she’s been a practicing warlock.

I am still so much slower than Lena, and if I were on my own, I should have never been able to be here in Pandaria – safely at least. I suppose I could have come here and come to some horrible end, if I had been so over confident, but I don’t think I was ever in danger of that sort of hubris. With all the different types of grand heroes I’ve encountered (I’ve personally met Sir Dane Atley the Red, Lady Cressidha Aspenwood, Gwenivene Whittle of the great portal magic from Outland, and I technically worked with Sir Colson Aspenwood, but I wasn’t really aware of it at the time), I rather feel like “Little Melancholy” all over again, the youngest and the one who can’t do all the things the Big Kids can, but here I am trailing after them anyway!

One of those, though, is Leftenant Bryn Baird of the Fallon Fleet and the Lady Blanche. The Fallon Fleet isn’t in the Golden Vale; they’re in a harbor in the south of Krasarang, at a place that they’re calling Lion’s Landing, and there isn’t much to do there besides construction, so Admiral Siamus Fallon (he’s also the captain of the Lady Blanche, but he’s an Admiral in title off the ship, and Captain while on the ship – I learned this recently) sent Bryn here for one reason, and then kept him here for the business with the Golden Lotus.

I do believe that I’ve made friends with him. I like him very much. I think you would, too. I told him about you, and contrapuntal poetry, as well as your favored physical structured poems, and he came down on the side of considering the cleverness of construction, pending examples. He’s introspective, but also gregarious, and good with people, and he’s extraordinarily deliberate in just about everything he does. It’s accurate to describe him as handsome, with striking colored light blue eyes, and he has several tattoos, including a crossed pair of cannons on his left hand (it means he was a Gunner’s Mate in the past which is what Woe is, a type of specialist on the ship, sometimes called a petty officer or a warrant officer).

Sometimes, as you know, it's difficult for me to tell when someone isn’t only being polite and hopes that I will stop talking or go away because they find me unsettling or peculiar, and they’re only too nice to say it properly until finally it comes out. I don’t think he is doing so, though – pretending. He has an incredible mind, and an extraordinary memory, which he organizes inside his mind as a sort of house, where he can walk through it and gather up anything he puts in there (like my shelves, but only in the way that me with my little curses is “like” Lena as a fully realized Affliction warlock). The other day, I couldn’t remember this poem that I must have written for Woe at some point, and all I could say of it was that it was written from the point of view of sunset by the sea and that it wasn’t saying anything metaphysical, and he plucked it out of the air as if he could see my own book shelves of memory better than I could!

He’s also been keeping an eye on me, which I appreciate keenly, as I’ve come to somewhere of a dangerous middle ground of being neither powerful enough to fully defend myself, but also powerful enough for things to start taking notice of me. Not that Lena doesn’t watch over me – she’s diligent in her duties as my instructor – but she’s often doing so by a much broader application of her powers. Bryn’s faster with his rifle, as a sniper, and a single shot is often all he needs.

Cressidha Aspenwood also said that she would look after me when she can, and that I remind her of herself from five years ago. Can you imagine that! Me, someone like Lady Cressidha Aspenwood in five years! You’d be able to read about me in the papers.

Of course I have to work harder on making certain I don’t need people to watch over me so diligently, especially if I become a liability to them. I won’t always have Bryn around, I’m sure, since he’s a rather important person, and has much more important things to do. Of course, Cressidha is a world famous mage, and I musn’t grow accustomed to that sort of thing. I’ll be studying some techniques to help redirect focus away from myself, maybe even quick summon a demon if there isn’t anyone but myself around, and I already know two techniques to deal with direct harm (one only reduces it, but improves my ability to concentrate, and the other makes me temporarily invulnerable, but the damage is deferred by half, so it’s only a short reprieve).

Can you tell how much I’ve been learning between warlocking and the navy? One of the great benefits to Bryn’s memory and his propensity for wanting to learn everything it seems is that he’s willing to share it, and I’ve been pestering him for more. I don’t think it annoys him though, how little I know, and how much I would like to know. I probably could learn even more if I ordered some books, but I think I prefer hearing it from Bryn, because then I can ask when an explanation only makes me have more questions.

That’s the great weakness of books, that you can’t speak to them or ask them anything. Of course, they have the great strength of being willing to be read at any time, and never grow annoyed when you need them to repeat a part or slow down when all the new vocabulary becomes meaningless jargon.

I’m learning Alchemy by book for instance (it seems like a useful profession in this line of work), and I don’t think I’m ready for a teacher of it yet, if I ever do want one. I bought Lady Niris Ference’s An Azerothian Herbalist’s Compendium of course (and I realized the last time I read it this week that I have met the actual Estel Herald to whom it was dedicated! I put a soul stone on her! Isn’t that a treat?), but I knew so little that the first few times I read it, I felt like I was studying a Thalassian text, complete with pictures of fantastical flowers I could swear I’ve never seen before (despite some being apparently common in Duskwood!). I’m still weeks – if not months – away from trying out making something myself, but at least now I can read most of the Compendium and understand it, and I am almost ready to start reading the Alchemist How-To instructional texts. I expect that if it goes badly, I can practice my healthstones. I can make an entire well of them at a time! But the recommended carry is no more than three, and to space them out over a minute, to avoid toxicity.

I’m also going to be learning how to swim! Cressidha is making me a swimming suit, and Bryn is going to teach me (it isn’t something that should be learned by book and self-study). I had thought I might get by easily between the ability to sometimes walk on water (I need a soul shard for it), or ride the dreadsteed over the water (I got the enchantment done before I left), and breathe underwater (it’s just a spell), that I would manage, but he doesn’t recommend it. Also, apparently when you go down far enough in the water, it’s no longer a matter of if you can breathe, since the water will crush you. I keep thinking about how I like my boots nice and heavy and then falling down forever into the black, and I think I would rather know how to swim.

If I could draw at all, I’d also show you that I’m changing my colors and some styles. I thought about it a lot when I became a warlock that the red didn’t really suit the new bookcover of Melancholy Grimlocke. I was between green and purple for a while, but I’ve finally decided on purple after talking to Bryn about it. Cressidha is going to make me several new outfits, and try out some different shapes. I wanted to make sure I keep at least some color, so you can always see it, too. It is darker though, more appropriate for the shadow of Affliction. I also have a new lipstick color. I think it suits me.

The only downside of all this adventuring out here is that when we do take to the ship – and we will, probably after they’re no longer in the harbor (and I will get to learn how to measure speeds and fathoms in knots!) – is that I am highly recommended to wear trousers. I dread the day. Cressidha is making me one to try out soon, and I do hope it doesn’t turn out to be terrible. It looked lovely in her sketchbook, but of course that wasn’t with it on me. But, I don’t want to be a nuisance, and I don’t wish to end up in some embarrassing situation because I insisted on a skirt, so I’d rather just be out there with my sad stick legs exposed to the world. There’s no point in vanity anymore anyway.

If I said that I needed you here, I’d not really be telling the full truth, at least in the meaning of needing a death knight. I am getting along well, and I’m kept safe as you can see (and within my reasonable limitations – Lena never tries to push me beyond what she thinks is my maximum). But I suppose I think how much you might like to see some of these things for yourself, or meet some of these people who would talk to you about poetry and art, and not look at you wrong. Lena and Bryn worked with death knights before, and I think Lena knows several. They didn’t think anything odd about you when I mentioned it. I talk about you often.

Sincerely,
Your friend,
Melancholy

PS – I helped steal a magical mogu cannon! We delivered it to Woe, who was surprised, but I didn’t get to surprise him fully that I was a warlock, because Mom told him before I got there.

PPS – Bryn got some poetry for Woe of pandaren poems, and one of them had a line that would ordinarily be only poetic, but because of me, it was turned into a silly uncouth one. “Spring arouses melancholy in my mind.” I was afraid I was going to burst with laughter, in front of Captain Siamus Fallon (it was on the ship) and everything!