Bloody Nether!
Bleed. Bleed. Bleed.
The words pound in Raven’s skull as he stares stupidly at the awkward cluster. Nothing about this situation is tenable. Nothing. He must shriek.
“BLOODY NETHER.”
The troll, the tauren, and the elf all tilt their heads at Raven at the same time. But at different angles, so it kind of looks like someone broke an intricate toy. He chokes on a pained laugh.
So this is what Lady Bloodcraft meant by “ragtag.”
The voice is still roaring bleedbleedbleed into his mind’s ear and Raven claws at his forehead. “Doesn’t anyone else hear that? No? Just me? Okay great I’ve snapped. I’ve finally snapped. At least it’s front of strangers and not all of those dearest friends I’ve never had!” He breaks down into a cackle, then into a strangled cough.
As the air leaves his body in racking rasps, the voice in his head slows… then stops. Rushing in to fill the strange stillness left by the voice’s vacancy is a vivid recollection of that stage, that light, those eyes.
Raven covers his eyes with his palms and carefully counts his breaths. Four, three, two, one—AND! In, four, three, two…
That stage.
It consumes Raven. He’s wanted to stand on that very stage for as long as he’s known of its existence. He remembers it as if he’d really been standing there: the wood slick as ice under his silk shoes, the burn of the spotlight on his fair face, the thrum of the hungry audience reverberating in his skull.
Could it have been a mere vision? Raven had come to Lady Bloodcraft for her abilities as a seer, so he had expected her mansion to be littered with scrying bowls and diviner’s rods. He had hoped she would take him to one of these and flourish her long nails—and he would know the answer to the question he asks himself every morning, the question he doesn’t dare voice aloud.
But no. Instead: the stage. The audience. The eyes. Visions thrust upon him without his consent.
Raven groans and hisses his breath out between his teeth. He misses Jika terribly. He’d give anything for the hawkstrider to nip at his shoulder right about now, sporeling breath and all. But when he’d arrived, Raven had been asked to leave Jika down at the stables “with the rest of the dirty livestock,” and since Raven had never won an out and out fight, he declined to punch the stablehand right on his stupid pointy jaw.
When Raven uncovers his eyes, the other elf is only a few inches from his face.
The words pound in Raven’s skull as he stares stupidly at the awkward cluster. Nothing about this situation is tenable. Nothing. He must shriek.
“BLOODY NETHER.”
The troll, the tauren, and the elf all tilt their heads at Raven at the same time. But at different angles, so it kind of looks like someone broke an intricate toy. He chokes on a pained laugh.
So this is what Lady Bloodcraft meant by “ragtag.”
The voice is still roaring bleedbleedbleed into his mind’s ear and Raven claws at his forehead. “Doesn’t anyone else hear that? No? Just me? Okay great I’ve snapped. I’ve finally snapped. At least it’s front of strangers and not all of those dearest friends I’ve never had!” He breaks down into a cackle, then into a strangled cough.
As the air leaves his body in racking rasps, the voice in his head slows… then stops. Rushing in to fill the strange stillness left by the voice’s vacancy is a vivid recollection of that stage, that light, those eyes.
Raven covers his eyes with his palms and carefully counts his breaths. Four, three, two, one—AND! In, four, three, two…
That stage.
It consumes Raven. He’s wanted to stand on that very stage for as long as he’s known of its existence. He remembers it as if he’d really been standing there: the wood slick as ice under his silk shoes, the burn of the spotlight on his fair face, the thrum of the hungry audience reverberating in his skull.
Could it have been a mere vision? Raven had come to Lady Bloodcraft for her abilities as a seer, so he had expected her mansion to be littered with scrying bowls and diviner’s rods. He had hoped she would take him to one of these and flourish her long nails—and he would know the answer to the question he asks himself every morning, the question he doesn’t dare voice aloud.
But no. Instead: the stage. The audience. The eyes. Visions thrust upon him without his consent.
Raven groans and hisses his breath out between his teeth. He misses Jika terribly. He’d give anything for the hawkstrider to nip at his shoulder right about now, sporeling breath and all. But when he’d arrived, Raven had been asked to leave Jika down at the stables “with the rest of the dirty livestock,” and since Raven had never won an out and out fight, he declined to punch the stablehand right on his stupid pointy jaw.
When Raven uncovers his eyes, the other elf is only a few inches from his face.
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