Chapter 7

The next page announced that she had moved on to Terokkar Forest:

I went to Stonebreaker Post today. It is also a depressed sort of place. But it's busy, with a sort of subdued bustle about it that gives it a greater sense of life than first examination indicates. But there is an underlying current of darkness there, a grisly kind of hardness inherent in all of the people who reside there.

My first task was unpleasant in the extreme. I had to collect seeds. The pods they were in were sticky, prickly, and stunk. It was altogether a very unpleasant business. When I was finished, I decided to go back to Shattrath. It was suggested to me that I might choose whether to follow the course of the Aldors or the Scryers. This of course, must be done in Shattrath.

I didn't manage to make the choice just yet, as when I arrived in the presence of A'dal; I was quite distracted by the music. I've never experienced anything like it, and I could only stand and listen to it for what must have been hours.

Indeed, I listened to it for so long that even Canker became quite sore with me and started snorting and shuffling around. That's right, I call my dead horse Canker. It's hard not to, what with the two cancerous growths coming out of his head. Or horns, whatever they are. I try not to look too closely at them, or any of the rest of him for that matter.

But it was then that I saw my healer. He passed quite close, so I greeted him. I prepared to ask him if perhaps he would enjoy getting a drink at the bar (as I am relatively clueless in what to invite a man to do as a date that doesn't portray me quite poorly), when the people he was apparently there to meet approached him. He waved good-bye to me and headed off before I could ask him.

Then, of course, I was too proud to chase him down…

Okthar shook his head. Poor guy didn't know how close he had come to enjoying the company of a woman who seemed to him to be quite likeable, if not even highly admirable. No matter how low her own opinion of herself. He went back to his reading:

… in order to beg him the favor of his company, and so I let him go.

But I left then, arriving back here after a long journey, wherewith I decided not to return just now.

The next posting in the journal seemed almost to pick up from where that entry left off, and Okthar read it with interest:

It was a difficult night, as not only did some fool who felt he should bring his dragon into the Inn where many of us had set out our bedrolls to be free of the weather tread upon me, but also I continually reawakened throughout the night, with disturbing dreams of my healer.

I'm quite ashamed to say that my dreams of him were quite graphic and of such a nature that I must say I am lucky not to be a man. Such was their nature that they would surely have betrayed me to anyone who might have looked my way were I a man. Fortunately for me, the dragon-stepping incident was the more embarrassing.

People really should learn to leave their mounts outside, even when the Inn is large enough to accommodate them. A drake's pinion to the face, I must tell you, is quite a painful affair. Glad I am that it was but a junior one.

Okthar grinned. So she was having sexual dreams, huh? He wondered if she'd taken another lover to alleviate those frustrations. It was common practice among his own people, and even more so amongst the elves. He was relatively certain that she had.

He couldn't contain the bit of disappointment that surfaced that if she had done so, she hadn't chosen to write about it- in depth. He would quite have appreciated and enjoyed reading about it. Though it could be slightly embarrassing if she had shown up while he was reading that, so he supposed he should be happy she hadn't written about it.

He wondered, though, with less than idle speculation, what her elf looked like. Was he Priest or Paladin? Was he at all aware of her regard? Or was he, as she was pining after him, lost in a sea of women and wildly erotic nights, unaware that such a prize longed for him?

Okthar sighed. Who knew, she was probably nothing like her journal portrayed her in person. After all, doesn't everyone wear a mask? He wondered what hers would be like. Brash and bold? Quiet and shy? Withdrawn and sullen? Who could say, really, until he met her?

He strained his brown ears, they trembling slightly as he searched for any indication that anyone approached.