Blurring Edges

He had been sent home after four days. Four full days in the pit, never taking a break except a few minutes to get water, and once to eat. He had doubled his cash prize and then nearly tripled it when finally he’d been kicked out, gold in hand and enough bruises and broken bones to last for a week of care and mindless ache. Then he’d healed. 

Saeris had then gone to the city, not stopping until he’d reached the Inn by the Row. He had ordered three casks of their finest dwarven whiskey, two casks of Dalaran red, and six cases of regular Sin’dorei bourbon, had used all of his winnings to pay for it, and he’d gone home to prepare. All of the plants in the main room had been moved to their greenhouse, and he’d locked the door, hidden the key, and turned on the two month water supply that kept the plants happy and healthy. He had cut open a hole in the back of the house, making a small door for Nara to get in and out as she pleased. He wanted to say that he hadn’t planned this...but the crimson haired elf had, he really had...and now he was a month in. 

There had been no real communication coming from the quartermaster to his captain, to the purveyor, to his adopted niece or to his boyfriend. There would have been no sign to their neighbors that either of the boys was home except at random times in the night they would hear incoherent shouting and smashing, but they didn’t question, it wasn’t their issue and not their problem. Someone would come figure it out later. At least the shouting would keep away the thieves that sometimes liked to frequent, nothing like a loud roaring incoherent swearing drunk to scare off the pickpockets and drug addicts that were looking to make a small amount of coin. 

He was drunk too, Saeris could not remember a moment he was actually sober now. He woke up in the morning, usually passed out on the floor, grabbed the nearest bottle and threw it if there was nothing inside. The floor was littered in broken glass, some bloody where his bare feet had found it, and he hadn’t even noticed. The brawler barely ate, his food normally liquid form with whatever had been left of the bourbon (had he already gone through the red?). He was rapidly running out of bottles, the two dwarven barrels looming by his door, blocking his escape. He sneered at them, scratching mindlessly at one of his tight ropey scars on his bare stomach, digging into it, not caring that his ragged nails pulled at his irritated flesh, making him bleed. 

Abandoned. Left behind. Why should he care? They didn’t. None of them did. Riz, Kurel, Leona. Their names became the volatile mantra that surged like black fire through his veins. Snarling the crimson haired elf grabbed a nearby opened bottle, downing it fast, the harsh burning liquid chasing away the fractured thoughts that burned. He could hear them sometimes, their letters he’d read and memorized dancing in his mind. He could almost hear their voices..maybe they’d come back. Maybe, someday, if he was good maybe? Maybe if he was a good boy they’d come back...maybe if he had been a good boy they wouldn’t have gone in the first place. 

Sometimes he heard screaming, he didn’t really remember why. He could see a smaller version of himself, he could hear him screaming, and sometimes he did remember and that was when the bourbon helped the least. He didn’t know what day it was, he hadn’t seen Nara since his last fit which had glass shattering everywhere and he thought maybe she had been there, but never again. She needed to go too...they all did. He was nothing, he tried, he had tried to show them but he was nothing. Everything about him was nothing, made up, why would they want him? 

He was out of bourbon. 

Staring at the bottle like it had betrayed him, Saeris felt that angry black fire burning through his veins again, it ignited the second he stopped drinking, and it was the bottle’s fault for being empty. He screamed himself hoarse, throwing every bottle he could find directly at the walls, at furniture, and Leona’s map she’d made him, anything to get them to shatter. He dropped onto cut up destroyed knees, the tatters of what had been pants clinging barely around his legs as he sobbed. Black and bruised fingers (had he put the hole through the  bedroom door?) reached shakily for the opening of the whiskey barrel. This was it. He would either get better, or this would be the last of it. Digging broken nails into the top he managed to get it open, hearing the tell tale slosh and smelling the strong liquor inside. This was where he’d decide if it was worth surviving or not. 

Saeris stared blankly at the brown liquid, before reaching for the metal mug attached to the side of the barrel. He scooped some out, dropping into a sitting position, not caring as glass dug into his thighs and even up his back, resting back as he stared out to his destroyed living room. He snorted finally, staring down at the mug. 

“No’ worth i’.” 

He started to drink. 

( Mentions of @rizzythemonk @batandmole )

Reactions

(Leona Letter and Riz Letter)

He had received the first letter from two massive Tauren. For a split second the crimson haired elf had feared for his life as the two bulky males stared at him with squinting suspicious eyes. It turns out they were the only ones from the postal ship that had been able to carry the massive package Leona had sent, and their squinting was from them not being used to the heavy sunlight in the area. He moved to the side and they came in, placing the map down on his desk with an ominous thud. He had paid them both generously for bringing it to him and then had read the letter. He had reacted in a multitude of ways, mostly anger and rage, that Leona had been tricked, that she had been put through whatever these trials were...and then sadness. She wasn’t going to return. Saeris had frowned at the last part, something was going to happen? He didn’t understand. He would wait until Riz came home, he would show him the letter and ask for his advice before replying, he had decided. 

Which made the second letter so much harder. 

He had spent three days pouring over the quartz monstrosity the young jewel-whisperer had made him. It was insanely detailed, his numb fingers had been tracing every ridge, every facet of the massive map of Azeroth so lovingly created. It had not moved from his desk, mostly because he could not lift it. He had been considering ordering a new desk...or maybe someone to put enchantments on the rocks so it could be levitated, when he received the next letter. 

‘I don’t think I’ll be returning to Sunspire’

The rest of the words had faded out, the small smile on his lips from the reminder of the Tiger and the Lotus falling as his heart clenched painfully in his chest. Leona wasn’t coming back...and now Riz. He tried to read the rest of the note, but the words wouldn’t process. It was like when he’d first come back and Shade had given him books, it had taken him three months to process written words again, to make them make sense, and now he felt like he was back at the beginning. When all he’d had was a name, and a place to go, and nothing else. He didn’t understand it. Had he been a bad boyfriend? A bad uncle? He knew his temper sometimes flared but...had he done something wrong for them to leave? 

What had he done? 

Saeris gripped the paper as he felt hot tears sting his eyes, Nara was not there right now, as she had gotten bigger she had begun to hunt on her own, returning three or four days to stay with him three or four days before going back out to hunt unless she was needed. She had left that morning. He began to pace, the letter placed next to Leona’s and he would walk up and down the entire cottage, reading them over and over until nothing made sense, trying to piece together. They spoke of love, of travel and of not belonging. They didn’t tell him how to fix it, how to repair whatever he had done to make his family leave him. 

Water my plants! 

Saeris absently flipped on the circulation system that kept the plants watered as long as they were gone, grabbing his bag and storming out of the house before he could wear a hole into the floor. He didn’t stop until he was at the door of the Wyrm, stalking inside and looking for the goblin that ran the establishment. 

“I nee’ th’ ring.” He said sharply, forcing his voice not to break. 

Greasenut raised a brow at him. “You ain’t drugged again are you?” he asked. “Not that I care about your well being but I wanna know what I’m gettin’ into y’know?”

The crimson haired quartermaster snorted. “No. I’m no’ drugged.” he pulled out a heavy satchel of gold. “Put tha’ as the pot, winner gets fifty thousan’ gold.” it was what he had been saving to take himself on a trip. This...this was the trip he needed right now. Mindless pain and fists and not thinking. 

It didn’t take Greasenut long to accept that, the bag was practically out of Saeris’s hand before he finished the word gold. In ten minutes the crimson lotus was back in the fighter pit, and while it was early, there was always someone who was willing to try and punch someone else for an exorbitant amount of money. This time was different, he would remember this, and he could leave at any time. He wasn’t chained, he wasn’t captured...he walked into the pit willingly, and he would either walk out willingly, or be carried out. Either way meant a break from the agony in his chest, a reprieve from trying to figure out how to make them come back. 

Love always, Rizzy

Love and kisses,  Leona

Saeris looked up at his first opponent. 

“You better make this good.” 

( @rizzythemonk @batandmole )

Despair

“Saeris can you...ensure her container of Sha is secure?”

He felt it in his skin, digging at it. The container had cracked, leaking over him and Saeris had felt the sudden sharp swooping sensation of cold flood his system like that day...he had sat beside Kurel then, almost needing to physically feel the heat emanating of the other elf to remind himself he was truthfully there. He no doubt looked ridiculous, and he could feel Kurel’s curious head gesture but he just continued to look down, trying to focus on the words as he scratched at his hand so hard it bled, just trying to get the last remnants away. 

By the time he left Erudition that evening, Saeris was exhausted. Pumpkins, the trip to Highmountain, possible phantom sigils, nothing made sense and he was distracted too much by Fiori and her Sha fear...he knew it intimately, and he felt sorry for whatever had happened to her. A heated shower usually made him feel better, but there was the feeling in his chest, a heavy darkness that he had felt before. Curling up in bed, Riz not there this evening, the monk closed his eyes, Nara’s weight behind him as she cheated and stole Riz’s spot for now barely bringing him warmth as he just lay there, letting his mind roil like a storm. 

He remembered this place. The Vengeance, rocking slowly on it’s journey back to Sunspire, the shores of Pandaria in the distance. He had stood at the wheel for nearly an entire day before Riz and the others had convinced him to rest, but Saeris hadn’t. He had sat on his bunk, staring blankly at the floor, shaking violently. He had turned away the mission, there had been nothing stating the crew...his crew now, would be picking these flowers encrusted in Sha energy. He had known very little about the Sha then, but he knew about Titans, about Gods and Loa, and until Seo-yun had come in to try and heal him, had cleansed him and let him fight for himself, that was who Saeris had turned to. He prayed, he begged, he snarled and snapped in a low voice to every being he could think of. Then he simply focused on Kurel...he prayed to Kurel, his friend, his ally...more than anything else his family. 

“What’s dead shoul’ stay dead.”

He had started saying that the second time. Saeris could feel the darkness in his heart, the anger as he read over his letter, handed a mantle and a ship, a crew, and a hole in his heart, in his soul, that still bled even to this day. He heard the voices, saying that Kurel had not truly come back, that it was a doppleganger, that it was some sort of monster they had accepted back as their Trade Lord. Saeris had silenced as many as he could, but he wondered...he wondered what had happened, what Mavas had done. He kept saying that phrase when others spoke of bringing back the dead, but no one truly understood what he meant. Even if Kurel was a monster, or completely different, having suffered through the fact Kurel had been dead twice now...having lost his family twice now, Saeris was fairly certain he couldn’t survive a third time. He had almost healed, he had felt his heart start to close up, but he had still prayed...when no one would be there, he had begged for him back. 

Twice now the Gods, or Loa, or whomever had responded to his prayers. They had brought Kurel back to him, to them, to the Vengeance and now the Gambit. Saeris wondered what he owed to them, truly. One did not get their wish granted for nothing, after all. One day he would have to pay, and it frightened him, deep down. What would they ask for? What did he have to sacrifice? What if it was his fault Kurel was...was wrong? What if he was a monster, and it was all Saeris’s fault...what if...what if...

Nara’s whimpers were becoming louder until she all out shriek barked into his ear, making Saeris jump and nearly fall off the bed. He stared at her in shock and confusion, but she just adamantly licked his face, whining at him and growling at him in worry as she continued to lick at him. Saeris tried to push her away but his arm caught his attention...his grey arm. 

“Shi’.” he cursed as he leapt out of bed, staggering but Nara was there, the huge direwolf balancing at his hip now, easily big enough to let him lean on her as she took lead, beginning to head for the door. He needed a healer...a cleanser. He wished Seo-yun was there suddenly...he was in trouble. He could hear the whispers, the darkness closing in as he could feel his own heavy blame, the fears and sadness magnified tenfold, threatening to consume him. 

“Nara...fin’ th’ cap’n...fin’...anyone.” he said to the direwolf, sliding slowly to the floor of the house he and Riz now shared. Nara whined at him, but nudged open the door, one last look before she was gone into the night to hunt someone to assist him. 

Saeris let out a slow breath, focusing on the weak chi magic he could call upon, letting it slide up his skin, slowing the Sha manifestation that threatened to consume him utterly. A temporary fix, but enough...he hoped Nara was fast, and he really hoped if Kurel was the one she found, he’d listen to her. The crimson haired elf closed his eyes, just laying flat on the floor. He stopped himself from wishing again...his salvation would come, or he’d pay his debt. That was how this was going to work from now on. 

@kurel-andiel @rizzythemonk