01 – Air
Breathing was a painful process at first, the harsh in-out of the air in her lungs seemed like ice filling her throat. She staggered for a moment, hands reaching out for something to hold onto while she tried to get enough oxygen to keep the dark spots at bay.
02 – Apples
Like the strange trees in Stonetalon that would only grow after crippling fire, Stormwind seemed oddly renewed. At least so long as one ignored the obvious damage. The Park, for one. Gone. But it was hard to be bitter when apples overgrew their branches and spilled onto the road. Applesauce.
03 – Beginning
What beginnings she'd had, Kitrasina mused, would be similar to whatever end she faced down the road. Far down the road, she hoped. Maybe life would just pass her gently by, like a forgotten friend in the city. Then she could simply fade away rather than have to meet Death.
04 – Bugs
Those long, skittery legs finally fell still. Hands outstretched, she was ready to level one more fireball at its glistening carapace. And then another if need be. Or however many more until the thing just -stopped moving-. The big ones made her skin crawl. Silithus was teeming with big ones.
05 – Coffee
When Kensei told her she should stop, Kitrasina's initial thought was to singe one of the legs of her chair down to ash, upending her sister-dear onto the floor. Hands shaking in the throes of caffeine overload, she decided not to. To burn Kensei instead would be a horror.
06 – Dark
As far as she could recall, she'd never really been afraid of the dark. But, swearing and screaming obscenities as her shins radiated pain to the very tips of her nerves, she decided maybe fear wasn't all there was to it. Monsters in the dark were nothing compared to furniture.
07 – Despair
It threatened to overwhelm her and so she'd lied, telling the patient but overwrought medic in Lakeshire that she was fine and would head to Stormwind for medical treatment. Instead she limped over the rise where nobody could see and raged until the air around her ignited. It didn't help.
08 – Doors
Her Father, all important Archmagus muckety-muck of the Kirin Tor ("My ass," she had politely retorted. "They thought he was crazy."), had compiled his research for them to finish. The daughter he always wanted turned him down, and the daughter who ruined his life took it up almost obsessively.
09 – Drink
Everybody drank when times got hard and shadows stilled over your life. That was just the way of things. The drink was meant to soften the edges of pain but she found them turning sharper instead and the clarity that was forced upon her made her want to cry. Again.
10 – Duty
It had been duty that kept her initially in Dalaran, serving the Kirin Tor as a fresh new Archmage. But when her task was complete, she took on more and more work until she felt busy enough that she didn't need to rationalize why she didn't, wouldn't, couldn't leave safety.
11 – Earth
There was a fascination in her, one she couldn't admit to anyone for fear of looking like a fool. Or maybe worse; like a child. Upturned, the earth took on such a splendor of colors from place to place and when it squelched, muddy between her toes, she felt alive.
12 – End
When did an end simply become another beginning? She was almost certain it had stopped in Redridge. But here she was, one blistering mountain range from where she thought it had ended, and it was starting anew. The fighting. The feeling of -belonging- to something, however small it might be.
13 – Fall
Everybody seemed to believe that when the leaves turned red and started to drop it was the death of a season. But the smell, sweet Light. The smell! It was alive, and crisp with the scent of coming winter and no matter how she hated the cold, she loved autumn.
14 – Fire
Her hands cupped the small flame, a gently burning ember of warmth against her skin. It was effortless to call it, guide it and control it. That was what a pyromancer did after all. She was as much fire as mage and she laughed in giddy excitement at the comparison.
15 – Flexible
Stringing a bow was nothing like learning how to sling fireballs. Strings snapped. Or slipped from her fingers, whipping bow-shaped bruises into her skin. But she had been determined to try something new and no damned chunk of wood was going to defeat her in a battle of wills.
16 – Flying
Kitra had screamed her first time; the wind tearing at her and grasping hold of whatever bits of robe it could, doing its damn best to drag her off the back of the gryphon. From that day forward she was always careful to tuck her robes as tightly as possible.
17 – Food
Cooking should have been easy but all she really ever managed at first was to sear the edges, leaving the inside doughy. Or bloody. Or, Light forbid, runny. Even her fox, who gnawed rodents like they were delicacies, turned up his nose. Hunger led her to the Pig that night.
18 – Foot
Bravo had gone from starving to spoiled. Kitra had fed him, loved him, treated the damn fox like he was a purebred dog those showy ladies liked to parade around. She taught him to attack. Stay. Patrol. He still ignored her when she ordered him to stop eating her boots.
19 – Grave
The gleaming stone struck her as cold insult to somebody she had seen so much fire and life in when the mage was alive. Five stones in dress right dress formation; as solid and dependable as old soldiers. Four had names, the blank fifth was a painful reminder of mortality.
20 – Green
She could have choked on all the green. It was heavy, miserable and humid, making her long for the deserts of Tanaris that had seemed so desolate in comparison. Un'Goro was a nightmare of wet grass, wet trees, wet air. It even refused to burn, politely snuffing out her flames.
21 – Head
She was going to have to burn her nice, worn in pack when she was done. She was completely certain of that. Why was it when people wanted proof of bloody vengeance, they never asked for personal affects, or weapons? At least the bloody thing wasn't looking at her anymore.
22 – Hollow
The Twisting Nether seemed like a terrifying thing but she couldn't seem to stop staring at the strange horror of it. All that was left of Draenor was a crust and she was certain one day that the darkness would overtake it and sink the rest of the broken world.
23 – Honor
To be a thing of legends, of stories passed down for ages seemed like it could turn into a burden. Sylvanus had been a skilled Ranger devoted to her people. Arthas had been a great but overprotective Prince. What other heroes would time and circumstance have the chance to corrupt?
24 – Hope
She had considered that small shard of hope like a dagger over the heart, ready to drop once she could expose it for the lie that it was. Shockingly, the hope had been right. As happy as she was to be wrong, anger made her want to pummel somebody's face.
25 – Light
Waiting outside the Chapel while the others went inside, she stared at their disappearing backs and wondered why they didn't seem to get that awkward and somewhat compressed feeling like she did. The Light was not an element she understood much, and one she had no desire to toy with.
26 – Lost
Lost but won. Lost the fight. Lost something so damned intangible she couldn't name it. She had been quiet after the initial pain had faded away and while the medic said that she would heal; the fine, spiderweb scarring from the indirect blast of dragon fire might never go away.
27 – Metal
Some said blood smelled and tasted like metal. A hot, copper tang that melted across a person's tongue. When she clumsily sliced her thumb open on the arrowhead and jammed the bleeding digit reflexively into her mouth, she didn't taste anything remotely metallic. Her tongue felt heavy with cold ash.
28 – New
The leather had been odd, but the mail armor was stranger still, weighing her down in odd and uncomfortable ways even though it also seemed to offer a clear and irrefutable sign of freedom. Quiver of arrows bumping against her thigh, she left the gates of Stormwind without looking back.
29 – Old
Sunlight caressed the soft edges of her room. Soft because she'd made it that way, she supposed. The alchemical implements, the endless piles of books. And her mage robes, folded primly at the end of the bed. Kitra knew she would be back, but not for a good, long time.
30 – Peace
Stones dug into the rigid arch of her back and her entire body felt stiff with the layers of dust and sweat that she'd accumulated over the course of the day, but with the stars overhead and the warm bulk of Bravo sprawled at her side, it was still -right-.
31 – Poison
Weren't they both orphaned by the same cause? Abandoned by comrades who had retired early; filling space in graveyards? Each name seemed carved into him; his own agonizing burden. Kitra doubted that he knew it was hers as well. She wondered if it would kill them both to share it.
32 – Pretty
Oh, how she wanted them. The gems sparkled clear and bright against her skin, dangling from or entangled within gently gleaming chains. Their simple presence added a measure of delicate beauty and refinement to her appearance. Purchased on a whim, they only ever enhanced the beauty of her jewelry box.
33 – Rain
One might get the idea that the rain was acidic, watching her squeeze herself farther and farther back underneath the shelter as the rain whipped it in a variety of directions. It splattered against her in eventual victory. With a groan of surrender, she marched sullenly out into the downpour.
34 – Regret
It was deceitful. Rotten. But she couldn't reason her way out of it. So near now, his sleeping face was still as hard edged as in waking though it did seem less troubled. Moving with glacial slowness, she half dreaded (and hoped!) he would wake as she stole a kiss.
35 – Roses
The stalwart roses immediately fascinated her; so full of life and color that they gleamed like droplets of light in the consuming darkness of the rotting troll lands. She carefully dug them up and carried them back, shrouded in white paper. They stubbornly refused to grow in less hostile places.
36 – Secret
It was almost embarrassing, but she appreciated his lack of shirts. Whether he simply lost them, or he couldn't replace them as fast as he destroyed them didn't matter. Watching him was her guilty pleasure; a powerful, war forged example of humanity, scarred skin glistening in the always-there heat.
37 – Snakes
Not all snakes slithered, though it had taken her time to learn that. Most of them walked on two feet and boasted scales that only existed on the inside. Even knowing something was off, she took the old coot's reward. And later, took his life. Snakes needed to be culled.
38 – Snow
Shoulders hunched underneath an almost smothering layer of cloaks, she hissed in frustration at the world enveloping whiteness that didn't drift across the sky so much as ambush down from it. How she was meant to accomplish anything, she had no idea. Northrend stretched out before her, an icy wasteland.
39 – Solid
The secret in walking away afterward wasn't in knowing how to jump. Or even how to fall. The secret was in knowing how to -land- in the water. As she smacked into the surface in an arm-flailing, spread eagle leap; she truly, painfully wished she had known that beforehand.
40 – Spring
As the world began its reemergence from another winter gone by, leaves began appearing on the trees and blossoms began to make their way shyly back into the light. Feeling something like a hibernating creature, Kitra threw the windows open to let the early spring sun beat down on her.
41 – Stable
Kensei told her she thought too much about things not worth agonizing over. In return, she told Kensei she should think more. Or at least think about things other than her long-eared harem of boyfriends, lovers and dalliances. Kensei only laughed. "Those are the best things to think of."
42 – Strange
All manner of objects had found residence on the strong shelves that lined her room, turning the walls into laddered displays of whatever had captured her attention. Glowing globes set beside bits of bone set beside odd statues and more. A collection of oddities that hadn't yet revealed their secrets.
43 – Summer
While others sought the shelter of shaded alcoves and cool drinks when the sun hit its high point, she was sprawled next to the receding lake shore; stripped down to nearly nothing and basking in the glorious, baking heat. The warmth from the searing gaze of the sun was hypnotic.
44 – Taboo
Don't swim after eating. Don't fly after drinking. Don't pester hungry devilsaurs. Don't bring your library books back late. Don't make deals with wind traders. Don't eat yellow snow. Who had thought up all those "don't"s in the world? Didn't everybody have common sense? Where were the "do"s?
45 – Ugly
While she had never been one for vanity, the scarring seemed to change that. Deep in the deserts of Uldum, they kept their faces wrapped against the merciless sun and so she found it a convenient excuse to spend her time there; the small scar buried beneath ages old custom.
46 – War
Life was, and always had been, one war after another. She had lived it and wasn't certain that it would end. Even if there was an eventual peace, war would follow. If only in her mind. And if good times ever did come, what would she even do with them?
47 – Water
The waterfall cascaded down the mountainside and through a carefully position fire orb before hitting her, the newly warmed water sluicing down her skin to wash the grit and grime of long days that only seemed to grow longer. Hidden by a cloud of steam, the world just fell away.
48 – Welcome
Standing over the fissure that had broken the Barrens, she looked down into the flames. A thousand tongues hissed in a babbling choir that was passed off as the noise of the world burning. Eyes fixated on the molten earth below, she listened to the murmuring of a fiery welcome.
49 – Winter
If there was such a thing as a repeating challenge, winter was surely it. Standing at the mouth of Ironforge and looking out into the snow, she advanced a few steps and passed through the impossible curtain of warmth into icy chill. Retreating back to the heat, she simply glowered.
50 – Wood
The trees arched gracefully overhead in a cathedral dome of green leaves and impossibly knit branches. A wild city, grown rather than built and untended by anything but time and nature. It was a rare beauty and she felt instantly uncomfortable when the desire to burn it all hit her.