Kaetze's Journal (Updated 3/4!)

[Shillatae]

((Congratulations, both on your Mageblade and excellent RP of a difficult IC situation perhaps in some ways inevitable in the attempts at balance between RP and raiding that folks like us aspire to hold. I anticipate analogous personal turmoil when Shillatae's beloved and hard-won Zul'Gurub treasures begin to be overshadowed by others, or the few she never found prove no longer worth the stiving. Until then, I pay for my choices mostly with a dearth of inventory space. : )

Thank you as always for posting, even if I don't reply I am reading.

Tae))

[Kaetze]

((FYI~Wynterfell is my hunter alt. ))
I am unsure of what to write, once again. Always the theme, I have something I think I need to say but I hesitate as if there's some perfect phrase that will release the thoughts.
In the midst of searching for history I forgot the present. There it is plain and simple. I have been pouring over old records of troop movements to see if what I know of my father's movements coincide with theirs. It seemed to me to be no pattern, he simply wandered as if following some other calling.
There is no further news. I do not even dream of him at night. As if even in the one place he could be together with me again, he hides away.
My clan was gone many days to the burning steppes and the searing gorge in search of those of Nefarion's brood. We wanted to claim the head of the broodlord for the glory of our clan and to be of aid to the Cenarion Circle in their battles in Silithus. We battle through many of the dragonkin, though each time we pulled back to rest it seemed more had come to aid the fight, or had hatched and aged quickly to be able to join in the attack. Many of my comrades fell, and praise to the light indeed that our priests are devout and could bring them back to their battered bodies repeatedly.
We got far. We claimed the head of the broodlord. Even now we wander the sands of silithus collecting items for the Cenarion Circle and to put together a famed scepter they talk about.
Nolrathe was there....as he usually tends to turn up when I am in holdings of the Kaldorei, unannounced and inscrutable. No one saw him come, no one saw him leave. But he pressed a note in to my hand, looking in to my eyes as he did. Though only regular parchment, I felt as if he had handed me something of lead. Then without a word, save the twitch of a smile at the corner of his mouth, he turned heal and disappeared between the riders of an incoming supply caravan. I knew it was foolhardy to even try to run after to see where he went. I feel he could disappear in to a rockface if need be.
His arrival and delivery of the note were made clear when I saw what had happened. The note had been addressed to the wrong place...to an old hut I no longer occupy. For the most part to be closer to where my clan needs me, I have taken up a long bed in the Undercity. The note never would have reached me, as I'm told the hut in Orgrimmar is deserted. How he came by it or knew it was headed the wrong place I will never know, I'm sure. I am content to know that he thought enough of me to redirect it to me.
My family dwindles with each passing year. The whole of the Darkspear dwindles as war tears through our ranks and our families like a beast with grinding metal teeth. I thought I had come to accept it and that the news would be met with resignation if I heard of another of my tribe or my immediate family passed into the earth or upon the pyre.
There are truly only two members left to my family, the rest having been sent that way either by this war or blessedly by old age. My uncle on the side of my mother and his daughter, my cousin; both of the white-haired Darkspears. We barely speak, truth be told here on these pages. They are of a far different mindset. My cousin is well suited to the life she's chosen out in the wilds amongst the various animals. The last I heard, she was calling the Barrens home. Wynterfell. I want to record her name here in case I die, and she dies, and it disappears in the wind and the dust.
My Uncle, Uk'tene, was a warrior. A swift and sly man, though never malicious. He simply was ever watchful. I remember his eyes on me constantly as a child watching what I did. He knew when I put a toad in Wynter's sack, and he knew I snuck stew before it was served. Uk'tene, Swift Axe in the common speak, was quick and observant. And now not even those traits serve him as he dines in the Hut of the Warriors with our ancestors, drinking from the Horn of Victory and toasting the battles unfought of those children yet unborn.
The Alliance, it appears, overran an outpost that had recently become disputed. He was there passing through with others on the way to fortify another battle. The Alliance overcame the patrols and guards, stormed the barracks and slew every troll and orc in their sleep. The undead were thrown on pyres and burned alive by all reports. And those tauren warriors that did not fight until they died on their fight of massive wounds were enslaved and made to pull the war chariots until they fell dead from exhaustion. Thankfully there were few of them to do this with.
According to the account I have been given my Uncle was awake and attempting to run to the barracks to wake the other soldiers when one of the Kaldorei stepped forth from the deep shadows and slit his throat. The witness never even saw the maneuver, only saw dark figure spring forth, then strode past him as he knelt doubled over, bleeding. The witness fled at that point, but returned later to find Uk'tene's corpse still and one with the earth. In his death he had taken one of the Alliance with him, his hand still clenched hard around the handle of the axe he took his name from while the blade was parked between the surprised eyes of a dwarf.
They tell me the witness was one of the lucky undead who escaped the bonfires. I am thankful that he escaped from such a horrid fate.
I am entirely unsure of how I feel about my uncle. I knew little of the man and he spoke little to me. I remember him from my childhood but saw him only once or twice in my teenage years. I have not seen in in the course of 4 summers. I find I am saddened because another of my blood is wiped from this earth and feel an incredibly loneliness grip me. But what of my pain compared to that of Wynterfell? She has no doubt already stood alone before the bonfire and set the timbers ablaze, seeing the last of her family disappear. She watched his earthen form disintegrate in to ash with the spirit guards there to steady her and witness. There would have been no family there save herself and perhaps the close friends he had. I wonder now if he had very many. Either way, a small cremation unbefitting one who died in battle attempting to to awaken his comrades to fight instead of being taken out like pack beasts as they slumbered.
I wonder if Wynterfell cried?
I wonder if her heart seethes with hatred against the Alliance now that they have taken her family from her?
I envy her this death and this knowledge and am ashamed that I do so. It is a terrible thing to be alone when one does not choose it to be that way. But she knows how her father came to be in this state, and she has had closure.
A mourning period is decreed because he is my mother's brother. I have taken pains to be sure that I am dressed in a fashion that is obvious to any culture that I am in mourning. Gone are my usual reds and purples. For now, until a time that seems fit, I am clad in black.
This final line here is the bitterest pill. I quote it for you, and know that I am being petty in so doing:
"Your family member was a tremendous asset to the Horde's battle for freedom. May his death bring honor to your family and pride to your name."

In her 23rd year, full of the moon in the seventh month.

[Kaetze]

Kaetze's eyes narrowed as she walked back in to the old hut in Orgrimmar. She'd been gone so long she'd found the door padlocked and had to use magics to melt the metal until it fell away.
She was singularly focused, sweeping her gaze about the dust- and dirt-clouded room, seeing the motes rise up and dance in the hard gold of Durotar's sun. It had to be in here. This was the last place she had to look.
She trailed two fingers along the length of what had been the old table she'd eaten many meals at and written many, many words. There was still the charred streak where she'd misfired practicing an arcane spell in her earlier days.
Past that were the hammocks where she'd slept. Mice had been at them and some of the crossed ropes now hung like limp snakes, stirring slightly in her wake as she walked past.
After letting her eyes acclimate to the darkness in the back of the mud-daubbed structure, she peered at the few shelves there, marvelling at how much red soil could sift in through tightly closed shutters and under wooden doors. She took a moment to draw a small glyph with a fingernail that light up with a dim blue glow...not enough to destroy night vision but enough to allow her to see more clearly what was there.
A stack of books. Books she'd emptied from her sack in her rush to meet with her clansmen at the portal. Maybe...?
She held them up and shook the dust from the various covers one at a time. Long-outmoded spells, a book of maps from places she knew like the back of her hand, and there, on the bottom was a well-worn leather book that still smelled sharply of ground ink, tied with the leather thong to hold it shut.
She yelped in joy and slapped the dust from it, then clasped it to her chest like she'd found an old friend again. So many things to write about...so many things she'd seen. Her head was full of clutter and she hadn't been able to do her meditative writing to empty it. Now she could begin again.
"Now then, old friend...there's a brave new world out there and I haven't conveyed the first of it to your pages."
A moment and a flash of blue light later and the hut in Orgrimmar was as empty as it had been before the footprints were left in the earthen floor.

[Guest]

(( Kaetze! I was so happy to find another update from you! I skimmed back over the past few posts and just got chills. I love the grace of your style - your posts are always a joy to read. Please let this mean there will be more soon! ))

[Kaetze]

((Yes!! I realized I'd done so much and mostly I'd been away out of courtesy to someone. Well, that and I forgot my password. :oops: Already I'm trying to figure out how to write up some of the awesome stuff we managed to accomplish since the last post! And thank you for your kind words.))