Niviene glared at the woman sitting across from her, the woman looked back with an air of obstinance, her blue eyes narrowed, her brow furrowed. The priestess looked closely at the woman’s features, trying to trace the furrows of grief and pain in her eyes and the lines of her face.

She wondered if anyone who looked at her might read the trials her own life had taken. Could they see that she’d been married twice before, both men leaving her for something they considered better? Could they see that she was a mother though she’d never given birth? Could they see the shadows that lurked beneath the surface, always ready to seep through her consciousness, to shrine through the blue of her eyes, making them gray pools of madness?

If...

*knock knock knock*

“Do you have a minute?”

Lord Shadowbreaker looked up from his desk to see Braghaman standing in the doorway to his office along with another gentleman behind him.  “I do. Come in.”

The two men stepped inside as Shadowbreaker got up from his chair and moved around the desk with his hand outstretched. “Doing well, I hope, Larethian.”

“I am,” Bragh answered as he shook the paladin trainer’s hand. 

Shadowbreaker then turned to the bald man beside Braghaman and held his hand out. “Eric, right?”

“Yes, sir,” the rogue said as he shook the paladin’s hand.

“What can I do for you two?”

“Eric,” Braghaman said, looking back at his guild mate and nodded towards the door. Without any...

It had felt like a kind of static shock. Startling. Not quite painful. But a surprise, none the less. She had jumped and so had her heart. No one looking at the scene would have understood the woman's jolt. It was quiet in the room Khaeris had been granted. Her alchemy tools were neat on the dresser top. Perhaps not the best work bench, but it was doing the job in a pinch. Mr. Hale had not minded. His generosity was evident in the superbly crafted set of tools in front of her now.

Her mind whirled with the possibilities. Her gaze fell unseeing onto her research journal. She leaned on the dresser while she thought.

No. It hadn't been true static, of course. She didn't know exactly what, but something had happened. Something she was...

The death knight stumbled out of the cave and onto the bleak landscape of Icecrown. Even with the wind and snow pushing against it, the death knight only heard the ring of the explosion echoing within his helm. Shaking its head slightly, the death knight gripped its sword and turned to look back at the smoke that was streaming out of the cavern. He gave a metallic growl as he listened to the grunts of its last remaining men inside.

“Fel-damned warlock,” the death knight spat as it stood and waited.

After a few moments, a vague form started to separate from the smoke. A figure in dark brown robes moved towards the entrance of the cave, his mask hiding his features and likely protecting him from the smoke. In his hands he held a...

The walls were thin here, out in the middle of Durotar, and they smelled like rust and sweat. I wasn’t sure if the metal I was smelling was from the thin sheet-metal that they used for the walls of the temporary warehouse-arena, or from the blood that had probably wafted from the ring.

The crowd outside the small room I was in was like a dull thunder, something that reverberated hard off the walls. It was something I could feel in my bones. It was something primal, I think, something that played to the animal inside everyone. All of the chanting, all of the roaring, all of the percussion of stomping feet. There was something written inside us that responded to the violence of fanfare.

I tried to tune it out.

Artennis’s father...

It wasn’t even a question of which one to follow, Regynn’s presence was felt throughout the docks and people would flock to her, eager for the extra food she brought them. Clair pushed off from the wall she’d been leaning on and went after the young boy, certain to stay in the shadows, silent and fleet; fast enough to keep him in sight but not so fast that he might guess she was there.

The child took a winding path, ducking into a muddy alley before he stopped at a large building and looked around. Clair melded into the shadows as his gaze swept the area, her sense more alert now that his actions had become more furtive. Satisfied that all was well he turned to a heavy wooden door. Being only a small child he struggled with the...

Sunlight streamed into the room through the crack of the curtains. Outside, the sounds of animals awakening began with the new day. The bells in the tower rang out.

Sabina opened her eyes and took a deep breath. Closing her eyes again, she raised her arms above her head and stretch in her bed, kicking the covers off as she did. Slowly, she relaxed her arms and legs and opened her eyes again, staring up at the ceiling. Finally, hearing the echo of the tower bells fading away, she kicked her legs over the side of the bed and sat up. She reached over and scratched her shoulder and looked around her little room in the abbey. 

And then she let out a startled scream. Soon after, there were footsteps outside the room and banging on the...

She sun shone brightly, turning the briney puddles in the rutted roads along the docks into mirrors. Regynn was struck by the simple beauty of the still life reflected by the water’s surface, quickly shattered by a rattling cart as it rolled, uncaring down the quay. She frowned and shook her head as if to erase the image, turning to give a half hearted smile at the sound of her name.

“I’m fine Jonah, it’s nothing.” she said in response to her companion’s questioning concern. She hefted her basket to her hip as she looked around the area, “I think we should go this way today, we went that way the last time.”

As the two stepped toward the street Regynn had indicated a young boy came barreling down the street,...

“Wake up, Marc!”

The young paladin’s eyes shot open and he looked around. He was sitting in a chair next to a small table in the barracks, where he’d apparently nodded off to sleep. On the other side of the room, sitting on her bunk was his squadron mate Nara, writing on a pad of paper.

“What?” Marachius asked, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

“You were getting rather loud there, Marc. Must’ve been some dream.”

“Dream?” Marachius repeated, finally starting to focus on the day.

“Yeah. Way you were grunting, I figured you were in a fight or something. But then you started saying someone’s name, and I wasn’t sure anymore,” she added with a smirk. “Dreaming of your girlfriend?”

“No,” Marc...

Gabriel swiped the rag across the bar, the sound of the bustling Dalaran streets tricking through the door behind each patron who entered, a brief nod from the bartender could sometimes be caught but for the most part he kept his head down, mixing drinks and cleaning.

Occasionally a regular customer would wander in and greet him warmly, Gabe joked that bartenders see their customers at their lowest, sometimes those would climb out of their sorrows while others remained in the pool of tears and alcohol they drowned their feelings in. Even fewer touched the staff in a lasting way, today one of those few stepped through the doorway.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw her, an odd sight given her lack of armor and the soft smile gracing her...

I am your collective memory,

a living record, collected to stand the test of time.

Hard copies written on the backs of my eyelids;

my mouth is full of names, and places.

Dressed in my shadows and once-fine fabrics,

this body is only half mine by now.

Hands made for every one of these delicate works;

Held in my father’s, they were his opus.

Soaked in bleach and silence, they were yours.

They stir and strain,

tend to open mouths and open wounds,

stitching the memories of others back inside.

Once, I had forgotten the sound of my voice,

buried beneath the stacks.

Locked up and the key swallowed;

I existed to keep you.

In last whispers, in bleeding cries.

I know you hear it now,

in the corner of me where you live.

I...

Vanir’s hooves cut a strange sound on what remained of shattered roadways as his rider picked a path southwest. The Ghostlands had borne the brunt of the Scourge attack, and with the annihilation of most of those who had lived in the area, the roads had fallen to ruin. While residents kept paved areas around their scant houses well-lit at night, the woods seemed nearly a safer option even with the addition of dangerous wildlife. The road itself was perilous compared to the loam and underbrush, but was the only real way to know she was headed in the right direction, with the tree cover so thick and gnarled.

The residents of Tranquilien had warned Eleeria of as much when she had passed through. The paths be nearly as dangerous as the...

“Curse you, Percy the paladin!” Braghaman said in a gravely voice as he closed the book he’d been reading.

Looking down beside him, he saw Banagan curled up against his side with his eyes closed. Next to his son was Korissa, also curled up asleep though she was leaning against her mother. At the other end of the couch was Niviene. She rested her head against her arm on the back of the couch, her own eyes closed as well. All of them had a large quilt pulled over them as the paladin had read the children’s book.

Bragh smiled and gave a quiet chuckle. Carefully, he set the book down on the floor beside the couch and picked up the drink he’d set there earlier. Trying not to wake anyone, Bragh propped his feet up on the small...

“I thought you’d be happy. She’s not alone anymore, she’s got someone.”

Kya shook her head and glanced at her sister, “Not the right someone though. Not the one she’s meant to be with.”

Clair speared another bite of egg, waving it at Kya for a moment before popping it into her mouth, “You’re not the one who decides these things.”

The red head looked down from the window of her flat, watching Regynn and Jonah walking down the street laden with baskets of food. “I didn’t, fate did.” She said, slumping into her chair and giving her untouched breakfast a dejected glare, “But fate is fickle.” She muttered.

“Well I don’t believe in fate, we make our own fate.” Clair answered, her own gaze turned...

Sabina Jensen shot upright in her bed. 

The room was dark and only a bit of moonlight was peeking in through the window. With her eyes wide, she frantically looked around the room as she tried to calm her breathing. Something had woken her up from a deep sleep and she couldn’t figure out what. Just as she was starting to calm down, she heard a piercing scream from outside.

Throwing her covers off, Sabina ran to the window of her room and pushed it open. Leaning out, she noticed the chill of the evening air as she was still only in her nightgown. Looking to the ground, she saw one of the sisters of Northshire Abbey standing below, holding a lantern high in the air. Just a few feet away, she saw the broken form of someone else laying...