Chryseth's blog

The boy walks up the path, pausing as he nears the stables to take a small paper sack out of his satchel. When he looks up, he sees the ex-warstrider already standing at the fence, leaning as far over it as his long neck allows, watching him. Watching the sack. Waiting, expectant, crest up in eager anticipation.

"Sunset, d'you hear my footsteps? Or is it the bag? You best n-not be waiting for me all day here," he calls to the bird as he quickens his pace into an almost-run, a trot designed to cover long distances. Then, remembering this is not an endurance race, the boy breaks into a sprint, moving off the path to go directly to the waiting hawkstrider.

The bird leans even further out, making not-so-soft greeting sounds that shift into excited warks as he beaks at the paper bag. The mage laughs and vaults the fence, landing almost gracefully on the other side. Sunset shifts closer, offering a steadying wing, then returns to his bag-explorations.

Wark. Wark? Cheep? It's a shift to a pseudo-hatchling call that makes Chryseth laugh and hug him every time. Chry opens the bag and pulls out a banana, just yellowing into ripeness, and Sunset play-lunges at it.

So it turns out the Ebon Blade knows what my current mailing address is. Well, sort of. Got a letter sent to me at the inn in Ratchet, and Alevh nearly saw what was in it. Could have been a disaster given the surname. Come to the Plaguelands to talk to somebody about stuff involving Jiel's    maint. and all that.

I panicked a bit.

I don't think Alevh likes it when I panic.

Went to Unu'pe. Needed to see Jiel, make sure he's doing okay after all of whatever's been going on. Didn't want to see the horrible little creature, but he suggested Haken take it inside shortly after I arrived, which was okay. Meant I didn't have to deal with it.

I've been having some nightmares again. Not as bad as it used to be, not like if I were    alone. These aren't things that happened that were bad. More like things that won't happen but are still bad. Things like Haken and Jiel, become   ducklings. Me being out in the Netherstorm wanting to end it all and I'm hanging off my rig by my fingertips just savoring the sensation of being just about to let go, and it's delicious and only a nightmare when I'm falling and wake up.

I don't know if I've been waking him up with them or not.

[A map sketched in three dimensions, not drawn to scale. Azeroth (Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor). Northrend. The Outland, as a bunch of islands hanging over Azeroth's continents. The artist has attempted to reconstruct his travels, carefully annotated with smileyfaces, frownyfaces, and thumbnail sketches depicting events that occured at various places over the past several years. But he's given up partway through, and the page is scribbled over with colored ink. Underneath: The past does not matter. Only the future counts.]

[Ink. A wolf cowers against a rocky outcropping; one of its ears is shredded, and a forepaw is badly mangled. There is a deep gash in its side, and blood stains the ground below. Its ears are flattened back, its back is arched, and its tail is tucked between its legs.]

The necromancer's hands know this work intimately, and they do it almost of their own accord. His scalpel is sharp, the bonesaw is at the ready, and the paladin that stands at his shoulder is a comforting presence. Not having to worry so much about the physiological end of things is a relief. All he has to do is the surgery.

So say, for argument's sake, there's this emotion. We'll call it zatsu. This is an emotion I cannot describe adequately in Thalassian for it is not an elven emotion; it is a goblin thing, a sort of smugness-pleasure mixed with anxiety that a goblin feels after having made a particularly good deal when he knows that this may not be the best deal he could have made, and is uncertain that his customer will be a repeat patron if they believe they were gypped. This description does not do it proper justice; however, it is the closest my poor elven brain can come to a proper approximation.

I have never felt zatsu and indeed I cannot for I am not properly equipped to experience it. I was not raised as a goblin, so I do not have any socialization that might be necessary to have it; I do not have the mind, body, or soul of a goblin so I do not have the proper hardware; I am not particularly concerned with money, or deal-making, or anything of the sort so I lack the personal characteristics that might be helpful in coming to a better understanding.

But for the moment, take my word that zatsu is a goblin emotion, and those of us who are not goblins can never comprehend its exact nature, or what it feels like to experience it, for all that we might try to imagine it.

[The brain, a diagram. The artist seems to have a good idea of where some functions and bodily controls are localized; he has made careful notes, some with question-marks or frownyfaces, perhaps to indicate things he is unsure of or feels do not fit. Beneath is a rendering of the body's system of nerves, and under that the circulatory system with a lot of fiddly capillaries. "In this, where is Love? Where is the Soul? My instruments are insufficient, or thinking I could find either in my work is like thinking one could answer the question 'what color is the sun?' by trying to smell it."]

One guiding principle of design is elegance. This is not always going to be seen the same from one engineer to another. A sin'dorei's elegant solution is not same one a tauren student of Cenarius might create. And this is in the main a good thing; the greater variety of solutions there are floating around out there, the better chance we have as a group to find a good trick to tackle any problem that we might face.

But one common distillate of elegance is simplicity. Do not add unnecessary features.

He circles the hillside carefully, looking for any sign of life that isn't scared off by his bike's motor. No travelers, no Scourge that wandered over from Zul'drak just to the north. No furbolg from the south. Just trees and a bit of snow and what he most needs right now: Solitude.

[Watercolor. The gates to Sunwell Plateau, Blood Knights in armor standing in guard formation before it. It is evening, edging into night, and the sky is clear.]

He sleepwalks through the days, each blending into the next -- a haze of waking next to Alevh, being enticed with breakfasts he knows ought to be appealing, heading north for what passes for work first for the Argents and then on his own private projects, returning to Ratchet for some measure of affection and a dinner he can't stomach. When he sleeps, the dreams are troubling but they leave no lasting impressions.

[Ink. An elf stands at a cookstove, flipping griddlecakes. He's dressed casually, shirt untucked, hair slightly mussed -- a fellow about twice Chry's age, with a lazy smile. He stands slightly off-center, seeming to favor one leg a bit. There are notes in the margins about his posture, and some small sketches of parts of his musculoskeletal system. "Abnormal gait may be maladaptive; is this root cause of pain?"]
 

[Ink. A Kalu'ak kite flies in the sky, the sea spread out behind it; fishing boats dot it, and a great turtle swims in the distance. The kite has a long and wonderfully made tail, not Kalu'ak work.]

[A map tucked into a notebook which is otherwise mostly leg-obsessed. It details a small island, with notes on the retreat of the resident murloc population over time and sketches of these murlocs in the margins. There is a mountain in the middle; the amateur cartographer has attempted to determine where old lava flows have taken place, and there are what seems to be predictions of what the island might look like after a catastrophic eruption. There is a rather satisfied scribble to the effect that "and then the rest of the feldamned fishmen will fry." Overall, it might be a pleasant place, though not a tropical paradise by any means. A cave system is shown in inset; it appears to have been labeled "home" which was then scribbled out violently. A final note: caves do not burn.]

[Ink. Legs. Legs dissected. Legs in planes and sections, with points of damage and thus interest pointed out. A leg with the growth plates pointed out, along with a brief scribble that "one hopes they'll feldamned be done soon". Broken legs, mangled legs, amputations in progress. It rather seems the artist has developed a lower limb obsession, as he has filled pages and pages with drawings of the things.]

[Watercolor. Sunset over Icecrown, from somewhere near the Citadel and looking northward. The clouds are a strange orangey-yellow, and the valley below is dotted with bonfires that burn green. Off in the dusk, things loom; their shapes are rendered without anything remotely resembling firm lines, and the overall effect is somehow menacing. A note underneath indicates this is a scene from a recent dream.]

[Pencil. An elf sits at at a fountain, guitar in hand, long hair in his face. People walk by; some have paused to listen, and one fellow in magister's robes is caught in the middle of tossing some coins in the guitar case open at the fellow's feet. A note scribbled underneath says "spring, ~2 years before the world ended. Did I toss in some silver? Can't recall. Do remember the songs he sung; ought to have been studying for exams."]