page 162

Talked to some random guy named Reid during my wandering in Stormwind's park. Shared my spider kabob with him. Nice enough fellow. Most of the humans in this part of town seem pretty laid back, which surprises me. I guess I have spent too long in Northrend to expect hostility at every turn.

Annoying, though, at least a little bit. He kept trying to convince me I could get a new tongue, just like that, and have a tailor or something sew it on. Even suggested ravaging a fresh corpse and tossing in magic, like I'm some pot full of potion brewing and need more ingredients.

Idiot. Lived long enough. Does he not think I /tried/ everything?

And lack of a tongue is the least of my worries these days...

Still. It would have been nice to talk like a normal person instead of writing everything down or attempting charades that no one gets.

Highlight of my evening so far has been sticking a scorpid down some uptight twat of a kal'dorei's cleavage.

Have not laughed like that in ages. Felt good to do something a little silly for a change. Doubt Astarin would have approved of such frivolity though.

page 161

Met a guy later on in the evening. Not like that. Thought he was gonna jump off the Stormwind bridge just outside the front gates. Wondered if I should join him. He ran off pretty quickly; think I embarassed him with my morose assumptions.

Promised me drinks though next time he is around. Cannot recall his name. E-something. Looked like a simple farmhand from Westfall trying to play soldier when daddy was not looking. We'll see?

Stormwind's cold tonight. Missing Astarin. What am I going to do? Cannot talk to him about this. No-one else to talk to. I wonder what miss Annaliese would say.

No. Cannot go back. Cannot go forward.

So lost.

Wish I had the stones to just gut myself and get it over with.

I feel disgusting.

page 160

I hate druids. Nothing ever good comes from association with one.

Today was no exception. Dustdancer that miserable one-armed bastard might be the sum of my disgust and dislike, but today I met one that was just outright nutters. And stupid. It pissed on me! Scent-marked me I think? Whatever. I reek of cat and there's no getting the stink out of my leggings. Or my boots. I have had to trash them both and I am not happy to be wearing my spare set. Good, quality leather is by no means cheap and I spent months tanning, shaping, and stitching!

I loved those boots.

I considered burning the ruined gear, but in the end decided it was too much hassle and settled for tossing them in Stormwind's nearest canal. Would like to skin that Yuurie, except it (she?) probably has fleas. Looked rather mangy to me.

Fucking druids. They are all insane.

pages 135-159

page 135; the Darnassian words have lost a lot of their fluid, elegant penmanship and scrawl haphazardously across the page. there are a lot of sentences scribbled/scratched out or doodled over.
I got my journal back obviously and hardly a minute or two had passed since its weight was felt under my fingertips did it compel me to recount the interim between then and now. I am a little tipsy a little drunk fucking plastered. It is hard to focus my thoughts, but I could not focus them when I was sober, either. And the need to pen them down in all their discoherency is that a word? stupidity is stronger than the bourbon pretending to be blood in my veins.


Not a whole lot of time has passed since my last entry, yet I managed to go full circle and made all kinds of mistakes. At least some of them were new, even for me.

A lot happened. The end.


So: I left Silvermoon.


For good, I think. Left them all. Could not take being so alone in that city anymore. Felt stranded. Lost. Hard to get up each morning, and face another day with myself and nothing, no-one else. Faking Emissary status did little for my stress levels, but that was to be expected, being stranded for so long with no other recourse or defense against my looks as well as the expected prejudices of the Horde.


Did not give any notice nor warning to anyone.Felt it best this way. I try not to dwell on the fact that there will be no one who might have noticed my disappearance Does not matter, although I hope miss Annaliese will forgive me. Of them all, I will miss her. Sweetest deader woman I ever met. I will miss her fruit baskets and her kind notes in the mail. I have kept every single note she wrote to me, they are tucked in the back of this so I do not lose them.


Okay I might be missing Crolan, too. One-eyed Fox, that rotting corpse Corpus, too, Elune help me but I have no idea why him. And the boy. Thalsen? Thalsen. Sweet kid. Wish I had a son like him. The rest of them can all rot in the Nether. Not that I am bitter. Megid can have my ex. Mathadris, that loathesome fel elf YOU LOOK LIKE A TOMATO DUMBSHIT I hope he chokes on Rahmiel's fat dick Rahmiel. I miss that old man I miss him. Why did he not renew my contract?

Past. It is all in the past. I have something to focus on now. That is what I mean to write about. Not all of their dumbassed selves.


That is what is strange, though. I have to keep reminding myself I have something to focus on. Someone.


I left with every intention of going to Booty Bay and finding the first whore or drunkard that might take me in for a night--I would figure out how to pay in spite of empty pockets in the morning--yet my feet dragged me nowhere fast, and somehow between walking down the path that skirts the Dead Scar, the next thing I realized, I was at the Golden Dawn and so was Astarin.


I will finish after I find something to keep me from breaking apart. Where is that other bottle I brought with me? Did I drink it already?


page 136; the Darnassian written here is slightly improved in penmanship, if not in its meandering.

All out of bourbon, and all out of gold to buy any more; a familiar situation like always.


Got my head a little clearer, but it does not make it easier to think, or to write.


Spent the night with him after running away from Silvermoon. It was not anything like I could ever have thought it might be.


We drank. A lot. And then I drank some more for the both of us. Still cannot figure why he agreed to any of it, much less the drinking. He never drinks, so even though it was Brewfest at the time, his joining me to get shitfaced was real strange, considering that he had never done so before during that holiday that I was ever aware of, and had always made such a fuss about staying away from drink in the past.


I had a point. Bourbon? No. Fuck. Hah. Yeah, that. Drank until I had enough guts to talk to him, really talk, I mean.


He was barely into his second cup but I knew despite that careful voice and the rigid posture that his small body could not hold even that mild amount and stay sober. I was drunker even than I am now, probably inhaled a good six or seven bottles before the wall started blurring behind him and his mask-hidden face took on softer edges. But I did it. Mother Moon, I still do not know why I asked. I had some vague idea of requesting to stay on permanently, stick around with him and that weird crew he runs with. Was really desperate for work, for any kind of salary at all when no one would pick up my contract.


Instead of asking for work, I think I said something ultimately stupid that ended with my kissing him through the rough linen of his mask and crowding his body to the wall. I cannot remember all the details--and still find it embarrassing that I wish I could--but I distinctly recall the way his soft, ragged breathing filled my ears and how saliva between us had the fabric of his mask all damp, sticking to his lips and outlining his mouth under mine.


He smelled like armor-polishing oil, the inside of a well-scrubbed pot--that tangy metal smell?--and the weirdest thing of all, mageroyal petals. Wish I could say what he tasted like but lacking a tongue kind of ruins that.


page 137


I remember asking him to remove his mask and how he was so abruptly quiet that I thought he would tell me to leave. Should have learned by now Astarin is not like that.


His face was as ruined as any of the other times I had seen it in my bouts of spying, but it had lost all shock value and all revulsion by then. Drink or my own brand of disinterest, I was not certain, but I found I did not care about his disfigurement any longer. At that point it was just another part of him to touch, and I remember the way his breathing hitched in his throat when I traced grey fingertips across the thick, knotted tissue making up the left half of his face. I remember liking the contrast of our skin, but not the discomfort in his expression.


After that it is all just bits and pieces; he was even smaller without armor or clothes. From previous conversations I know he is a few inches shy of six feet, but simple numbers fail to convey how short he really is when the majority of his height lies in those weird draenei legs of his. His body was cold, too, colder than I expected, but at least several degrees lesser than ice and Elune's tits but he warmed up considerably after effectively leeching all my body heat. That part was a little annoying. Maybe that is why he failed to begrudge my stealing his blankets later to roll up in. Difficult to tell motivation or reasoning with him.


I was drunk, but not drunk enough--never drunk enough--to forget what I look like naked, too, and I did not want him to see me. Almost sobered me up when I got my tunic off and those blue eyes of his flicked from me to the bindings around my chest. Wanted badly to tell him he might have been okay with letting himself get that vulnerable, but I was not. Ended up not having to say a word. He just looked at me and all he said was, "I do not like being seen, either," and then rolled up his mask to tie around his eyes. Just like that. Think that was the sweetest fucking thing anyone's done for me in a long time. Think I cried a little. Not sure. Hope not. His lips were cold against my eyelids.
Hate that I tend to be so emotional, and Astarin's the one guy not to be emotional around. Still kind of wondering how he managed to get near me, much less--


Fuck me, this is all so personal. I feel creepy writing it all down, but the point of keeping my thoughts in this Light-damned thing is to be honest and write everything. Wish my ears would stop burning.


So here it is, then. Brewfest and cheap bourbon and one albino meant I woke up with one of the worst hang-overs of my life, in a bed decidedly not mine, with a cold little body curled up against my side. Oh, and with an elbow in my ribs. First time I can think that I had occasion to be happy about an elbow digging into my ribs.


page 138


Contentment was an unfamiliar feeling, and I still wonder if it was real or just leftover remnants of bourbon in my system.
Downside to the entire thing? Forgetting to get the hell out after because my hung-over, idiot self decided being abused as a personal source of heat was not that bad a way to spend my morning. Windila decided that was the most opportune time to show and beat on the door. Wanted to 'do the rogue thing' and stick something pointy in her kidney for it. Or both kidneys.


She keeps popping up at the damnedest times, and I swear by Elune she does it on purpose. The Lake Jorune incident comes to mind, for example. Barely days later, Astarin was on one of his little fishing tasks, and of course by this point I tag along wherever he is like some stupid lost puppy. Feel pathetic but grasp at anything that cheers me up, and his company does that somehow.


Windila knew how to find him--starting to be convinced she tagged him or something like an animal--and crashed my hopes of spending the night out in the woods under stars like one of the romance novels I have stashed in my pack. Took her hours to leave, and then she circled right fucking back around and spied on us after pretending to leave, which is how the whole mess started. Ended with me not getting any, too. Leave it to her to screw me over on sex.

Girl's got some stones, though, trying to play voyeur. Certainly was not very good at it. Got to see her flat on her ass tangled in a bush for her efforts, but that was kind of downplayed when she mocked me. Convinced herself I lack the talent or ability to give a decent blowjob because of my handicap. Heh. Guess she did not expect me to give her a show to prove her wrong. She got real pissy. Should not have used Astarin like that, though; think he was really mortified. Cannot really blame him.


Our relationship--can it even be called that?--is a source of endless amusement, frustration, and envy for her. I cannot puzzle out why, though. Astarin can only tell me what he gets from her--which, while she broadcasts her feelings loud enough to smother him, they apparently do not come with an instruction manual or guide.


Think she is lonely. Deothar has been gone for nearly a year? now.


Cannot bring myself to sympathize. Where was she when I was so unhappy? She is supposed to be my 'friend' but she is such a nuisance. It feels like she is a little tag-a-long sister.

I am a heartless bastard. Wish I knew what Astarin sees in me to let me in his bed.


Then again, his choices on past 'roommates' have not exactly been stellar. Windila and I agree at least on that much. I still want to skin Baelyn. He ruined a perfectly good silk shirt. I hate druids.


page 144
Not been much to write about. I am a sappy, sentimental, romantic idiot. That is all.


page 158


Windi should have kept her fucking mouth shut. Her and that stupid kal'dorei. Duskdancer? Dustdancer. Their fault. Wish I had the guts to Wish I could die


I cannot face this. Cannot face that she might be right, that the druid might actually be telling the truth.


Sorry Astarin.


page 159; the majority of this entry is heavily scratched out and spotted with salt-stains, tar, and ink splotches.

Ran away. Feel like a coward, but panicked. Where to go? Came across Thalsen, of all people. Talked while I froze my ass off at Kama'gua watching him pretend he knew how to fish. Offered me a place in his home while I sort myself out, but he does not know about me. Does not know I am I refuse to think about it. Refuse to think about the thing growing in me. Fuck.

Why? We are not even the same race. Mother Moon, you fucking bitch, your sense of humor sucks.


How can I call myself a man when my body continues to remind me I will never be one? When my body continues to betray me?

I do not know what to do.

I am so fucking scared.