The Fale’norore doesn’t make a habit of taking passengers for transport. Too many variables to worry about and usually more headache than it’s worth. But this half-dozen? They had seemed the alright enough sort — alright in that the lot of them of them were dour, craggy-faced mercenary types that kept to themselves and had paid, handsomely, upfront. So, when they put up the money for a seventh — seven’s a lucky number, after all, and what’s a sailor without superstitions? — it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. There’s a sky of pillowy white clouds with a blanket of gently rolling seas, a good omen, and he’s feeling in a good mood to match. It’s easy to agree when the gold is already changing hands, a tidy...
This masquerade is stifling: too many self-important elves palavering about inconsequential topics they somehow manage to still be dreadfully misinformed about, too few servants manning feathered fans to offer a respite from the balmy Eversong evening.
The drudgery invites his mind to wander. His thoughts seem to idly return to the same subject matter — a luxuriously long-legged one — as he goes through the motions in playing this evening’s role: Silvermoon son in denial about his dissolute nobility. There are plenty of interruptions but none as distracting as the hostess of this stale affair who comes over and interjects herself into banal conversation.
She’s tall (not as tall as he would like) and supercilious (not as...
She wasn’t sure if it was her heartbeat, or the bass, that rattled her ribcage; if it was the flashing lights that kissed the tops of her tanned shoulders, or the lithe elf with the high, hollow cheekbones that flashed with glitter; if that taste on her tongue was his lips, the memories, or the drugs.
Like a flea-ridden purebred, was the magic city - or was it more like a whore too prettily painted? Dalaran, proper and upstanding. But all those mages had to cut loose somewhere...as did the innumerable members of Horde, and Alliance looking for a break from the constant war. Tomorrow, they’d cut each other’s throats. Tonight, they’d drink and fuck and forget...
In a place like this, the more exotic, the better - thus horns and...
The man’s breath panted hot against Talyn’s ear, filling his nostrils with the scent of whiskey and pain. They were a pretty common cocktail, served up on the regular in that particular corner of the Row, where he’d often spent his nights in search of a little coin.
In the beginning, he’d thought it easiest to exist where he didn’t really exist, to blend into the faded edges of their bright and beautiful City. He was a born scout who’d found his footing with the Farstriders as soon as he could enlist- only to eventually lose it (but that was another story). He hadn’t yet mastered the art of hiding in plain sight, when he’d first taken to the streets.
So it had been a strangely natural progression, going from...