Knickknack
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Seatbelts/Cowboy Bebop Soundtrack – The Real Folk Blues
Kaoru Wada, New Japan Philharmonic – Hikari/Kingdom Hearts Instrumental
Bernadette Seacrest and the Yes Men – Sweet Salvation
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It was raining in Stranglethorn.
The unfortunate side effect of this was that you could smell Harpalyce before you saw her. The combined scent of wet jaguar, wet frostsaber, and wet night elf waifted clearly in front of her. Normally the scent of wet night elf would be laughable, but considering Harpalyce's last bath had been several months off (and this springtime rainshower, she figured, counted as a bath), the accumulation of sweat, grime, and blood was quite fierce. Harpalyce didn't see the point, honestly. As soon as she dried off, she would just get dirty again, so why bother? Better to save time now and leave more later for hunting and drinking.
Grumbling, she tucked her floppy rain hat over her eyes further. Her frostsaber snorted the water out of its nose; her jaguar Iarbas similarly grumbled. A fat raindrop bounced down from the canopy above, growing fatter with every leaf, to splat on the shoulder of her mail armor just so it had enough leverage to sneak through and soak her shirt underneath. Cursing loudly in Darnassian, she gave her frostsaber a little nudge to try and persuade it to go faster; that seemed to only make it give a large, quasicanine shake as it became tired of all the water in its fur. This time, her loud curse echoed to startle birds in the treetops and to make Bloodsail sailors in the distance roll their eyes as she clung to her saddle in an attempt not to be thrown off by her mount's thrashings.
Stranglethorn seemed to be plotting against her, even as the rain slowly tapered off - that much was clear. Harpalyce sulkily began muttering to herself about conspiracy theories. She knew who was ultimately responsible, of course, or at least who was handy to blame. It was becoming more and more common to see a blood elf in Booty Bay nowadays, not just in the regular ragtag bands of pirates, either; ambassadors boldly walked the streets alongside orcs and trolls, busy talking over treaties and courting favor. The Alliance had apparently sent a token ambassador that was promptly ignored, and everyone seemed to think it mostly for the best, but the increasing worry in the faces of leaders was clear – if the blood elves were joining the Horde, the Alliance similarly needed to reach out to some distant connection.
Harpalyce had long considered this none of her business. She never caught the sneers of the blood elf ambassadors as they walked by her, and even if she did, she missed their meaning. But the researchers in the Blasted Lands had taken a distinctly cold tone when talking to her, when they had once been so eager and happy to have any help at all, and those were just two of many. Harpalyce was slowly but surely getting the point with each new boatload of what the Horde called refugees, and what the Alliance called reinforcements.
Another fat drop of rain darted from leaf to leaf, as if in a pinball machine, before finally landing on Harpalyce's hat. It dripped down onto her nose. She sneezed, following it up with a disgusted groan: "I 'ate this weather." As soon as she spoke, her jaguar trotting beside her stopped, suddenly giving its full attention to something in the distant brush, ears pricking, fur bristling. The frostsaber shook its almost comically large head before it squinted into the foliage and similarly began to bear its teeth, wet fur going up in pointed quills of bristles. Harpalyce just sighed, staring flatly and unobservantly ahead as she nudged her frostsaber again with her boot. "Aw, c'mon, yeh can't 'ate th' weather as much as I do, eh? C'mon, gerron… 's justa bush…"
And that was when the bush burst into a nightmare.
The horse – if you could call the obviously borrowed abomination that – crashed through the brush with reckless abandon, unwillingly obeying the commands of the saddle and spurs of its rider; it reared to a halt, hooves pawing the air to find a foothold before clawing the ground. Bones were all that remained of it, bones and ether that seeped out of its eye sockets and nose as it snorted and panted. But even the gleaming ivory reminders of its undead state had been censored – a frostsaber skin of excellent quality lay draped over it, fangs draped over its head, eyes eternally stitched closed, empty paws holding claws clacking against the horse's bones as the skin swung back and forth. It was a bastard, hybrid creature – too confused to know what it was truly, but angry, pawing at the ground, biting at its bit, exerting wrath in any way possible.
The horse was not what worried Harpalyce, it was the rider. He seemed to take full advantage of his height to look down upon her, resplendent and gleaming in the dappled jungle light. Compared to Harpalyce's forgetful filth he might have well been some forgotten statue or golden idol – certainly it seemed time had begun to wear at the corners of his face, lines digging in the way sand and wind work at a desert rock. He said nothing when he saw her, despite the fact that they had once been kin: sharply pointed ears and delicate features remained the same, one colored for night and the other day. He said nothing when he saw her, despite the fact that they were now enemies. Expression motionless and unreadable, he simply stared, goldthreaded cloak swirling back behind him as the undead horse pawed and snorted in frustration.
She skittered back as her jaguar redoubled his growling and hissing, the animal tensing like a coiled spring, waiting for a word to jump forward. It was an awkward, suffocating near-silence as she waited nervously to see what he would do – not quite like those familiar times in taverns when someone would tell a joke and it would fall flat, the would-be comedian chased into silence by glares. No, this was worse – she knew this silence, the silence that in the middle of Tanaris or Ferelas made her lift her head and squint before the shadows moved and a rogue's dagger found its home in her back again, and again a kindly-looking winged spirit told her it was not yet her time and ushered her back to reunite her soul with her body. So she waited, holding her breath – never the first to draw her weapon, always the first to die.
The undead horse took a half-step forward; Harpalyce clenched the reigns of her frostsaber, her jaguar hissed. The blood elf continued staring at her a moment more, expressionless – Harpalyce half wondered if it was a trick someone was playing on her, jungle spirits wearing a new mask – before with great ceremony pulling a dagger out from his robes and gingerly plucking at a branch from the overhanging canopy. Apparently deciding Harpalyce was not worth his time, he began to work at sawing off a good-sized twig. As he worked a pendant around his neck gleamed modestly – polished wood on a leather cord, carved into a pendant, the most basic runes of protection etched into the woodgrain. The need for the overhanging twig and the ornate dagger suddenly became clear in the pendant's well-loved, hand-carved appearance.
For a moment the pendant almost seemed familiar, or perhaps it would have to Harpalyce if at that second the hideous undead horse trapped in a frostsaber's hide had not snarled at her in a way that made her flinch. "Iarbas? I thin' we better go," she whispered nervously, almost to herself, as she turned her begrudging frostsaber around. Her jaguar stood his ground a few paces after she began to crash through the forest at full speed. It took until they were on the gravel road again until his fierce growling subsided.
As they entered the gates to Booty Bay, it started raining again. This time, Harpalyce didn't mind quite so much.
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Soundtrack:
Earlimart – It's Okay to Think About Ending
The Fray – How To Save a Life
The Weepies – Citywide Rodeo
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Harpalyce was stupid; she knew this because people had told her so many times, and because of the frequency with which common conversation's meaning slipped away from her like a fish that stubbornly refused to be caught. But there were a few things she did know. The way a rice patty had to be plowed just-so. The way sunlight struck mist rising from the fields. The special green of new, fresh rice seedlings.
But above all else, Harpalyce knew that it was good to be home.
The speck of a village, if you could call it that, sat on a secluded retreat of Darkshore, away from Auberdine, away from corrupting influence, away from the war. The closer you got to it, the less visible the path became, the calmer the animals looked, the less signs of civilization there were, until you finally found the village. It was barely deserving of the word, really nothing more than a group of houses surrounded by farmland. But it was home, and that is what mattered.
It took Harpalyce a little while to understand why when riding into town they didn't recognize her, or then mistook her for a new sentinel. Then it took her a little while more to understand why her mother bursting into tears at the sight of her would be a good thing instead of bad.
For the next few weeks the mail armor that had dazzled her parents so sat in a polite, crumpled corner in their meager house, only to be remembered at every meal, after Harpalyce and her father had come in from the fields again, dirty, dusty, exhausted, hungry. Her mother always passed the gauntlets around at each occasion – were they real dragonscale? Supple like silk, yet tough as iron! And the polearm, almost as tall as her mother herself, glowing softly blue at night from the runes on its tip that made it just a bit stronger, was it truly cursed to blight its enemies?
Each object was another story, told and retold, another path to another tale. Her parents listened as she told even the wildly exaggerated versions of her exploits, even after her old moonsaber Amalthea had long since curled up to rest her tired limbs at her feet, even after her current swamp jaguar had grumblingly settled for a place near her to close his eyes and have nose-twitching dreams of exploring. The wild big-fish tales didn't scare her parents as much as the true ones did. Her mother's knuckles turned white as she tried to downplay her meeting with Teremus the black dragon in the Blasted Lands – but how do you shrink a dragon to manageable size? Every night Harpalyce went to bed leaving her parents with another bit of accidental worry, a hapless sort of guilt gnawing at the edge of her mind.
By the end of the week the rice was harvested, gleaned – a happy respite at home couldn't possibly last forever. Harpalyce got up early that morning and after she finished her work, stood for a long time in her old room, sitting on the straw mattress that was hers. Her feet hung off the bottom, it was far too small, but it was hers. Her mother was cooking breakfast, she could smell. For a moment she felt like a small child again – a happy thing to pretend – as long as she didn't look at the shining pile of armor in the corner. The green tabard was delicately draped over it all, bearing the emblem of the Farstriders. She sighed. It was another family to go back to, and she knew she couldn't abandon either of them.
Begrudgingly, she got up, stretched, and then quietly rolled aside the rug on the dirt floor. By the bed there was a small hole dug into the floor – her secret hiding place for all the knickknacks of childhood. A squirrel skull, meticulously cleaned and found in an anthill. A broken compass. A tattered, ragged cloth sentinel doll, point felt ears and armor flopping, braided yarn hair coming loose. And a wooden pendant on a leather cord…
She lifted the old necklace up to look at it in the light. It was old, familiar – a gift from her father. Her father wasn't much for storytelling, but she remembered the story of him once going to Market (because in stories, Market was one immovable place, despite its frequency of change in the real world) to sell the stores of rice for that year. An elf had come up short, and given him the pendant in exchange. The rice was for a journey, part of many ships heading to nowhere. Her father didn't continue with the story, just turned it into an emphatic warning against the warnings of magic, true magic, magic against the forces of nature and Elune. Looking at the pendant, Harpalyce was starting to believe it. It was not carved with smooth, graceful lines inspired by the whispers of Elune in the middle of the night, but something harsher reverberated in the woodgrain, echoes of harsh sun.
After staring at it a moment more, she tucked it in her pocket. She had a feeling it would be more of a bad luck than good luck charm, but it was at least something to show for her father's anxiousness.
Breakfast came and went too quickly.
When Harpalyce put it back on, her armor seemed far too heavy. After a week the night elf that stared back at her when she let the water still in the small washbasin seemed to be only a distant relative, if that, one who had heroic adventures she could only dream of doing someday.
She walked out with her father. He led the old family ox attached to the cart full of that year's harvest; she led out her frostsaber, her jaguar walking alongside. Only a few steps took them to where the road parted. Her father cleared his throat ceremonially, the way he always did when announcing he was going to say something, and clapped both of his hands on her shoulders. Harpalyce waited expectantly.
"You're a good daughter," he declared firmly.
Harpalyce smiled sheepishly as her mother wandered over and captured her in a hug, heedless of all the slightly spiky armor she was wearing. "Be safe."
"I will, Ma."
"I mean that, Harpalyce," she implored, wiping a few tears from her eyes. "I don't want you getting eaten by dragons or – or crushed by ogres or – or – " The elder night elf flailed a moment in frustration, the sleeves of her simple dress flapping. "I only have one of you, dear."
Gently, Harpalyce hugged her mother back. "I will, Ma. I promise."
Those were all the words that needed to be said, and those were all that were said. Harpalyce tucked the ragged sentinel doll underneath her arm and remembered to wave when her parents could just see her. Her mother waved back, the moonsaber Amalthea patiently standing guard by her. And with that Harpalyce journeyed again from one home to the next.