Stars, they sparkle bright, making the water shimmer, black and white below, black and white above.

Clear.

Perfect.

Until the little warlock dipped her finger into the stone bound pool, sending a ring of circle across the water, concentric circles rolling out and shattering the mirror smooth surface. The bounced off the uneven walls, until the water was then a shimmering of white and black and a ripple of so many shades of gray. Here and there a crest caught the light of a lamppost, of the park trees, adding a splash of orange and red and deep night shaded emerald to Stormwind's moonpool.

"And that's just it, Mezzy ..."

The warlock's voice was soft, as soft as the evening breeze, of the starlight, of the pool. She cast a glance to her oldest friend, peeking out from beneath the brim of her hat at the tall voidwalker.

"I think ... I think some folks only want to see the world in black and whites, night and starlight, good and evil ... us and them.

"It's easy ... its the easy way, I guess. To set everything in a place, define it by draconian rules, to catagoritize and catalog like books in the Keep library to be taken off and used in a proscribed manner, some offered to everybody, some just for special folks and some locked away.

"I guess its very tempting, Mezzy. Seductive almost ..."

She leaned down and tapped the water's surface again, transforming the staid order back into a dynamic swirl of light and dark.

"Because then you don't have to worry for the fact that the world just isn't black and white, night and day and doesn't quite want to run by your rules at all.

"Like you and me."

A breeze slipped into Stormwinds park, rippling the surface of the pool again all by itself.

The little gnome lass turned to the voidwalker, listening as he raised his hands to the sky and roared. She managed a small smile and nodded, calming her companion by just a touch upon his beautifully wrought bracers.

The only part of him that was real enough to touch. The rest magic and dreams.

"I know.

"I was brought up taught of fairness. But was that just a lie, Mezzy? Or something just for other folks, and not for you and I?

"She asked me to dismiss you ...

"As if such a soft betrayal would make everything all fine."

Leaning back, beneath her protector's shadow, the little gnome lass turned her head, to look up the little arched path and to the tavern entrance. It was quiet now, late in the night. The evening conversation, the evening drink, finished and partings to aquaintences passed into yesterday.

"And yet ... and yet even when walking into a world supposedly so black and white, it just couldn't stand against a breeze rippling across their pond.

"You know Mezzy, it is kind of empty. That I never got an answer. Never got an answer beyond a reflexive repetition.

"When we spoke of honor. Of sacrifice. Of injustice. None of those challenges met. And even when it was laced in patronizing sweetness, the hint of condescending understanding, it was just the same words whispered in a different mantra.

"We could not stay because it was against the rules. No substance, just a reptition of only following orders.

"And of course we were the villians, Mezzy. Painted black and white, a book on their library to be cataloged away. Well anyway until they needed us. To kill for them, I guess. Especially when we didn't surrender and break and take a compromise. I think, I think if you find out just what a folk will quietly submit to, then you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.

The little gnome considered that. She considered it and then turned back to the tall voidwalker.

"And then there's Mister Ingarath.

"We walked through those selfsame doors.

"Me and you."

And then she had to flush. Flush and cover her cheeks with her hands.

"Me and you and all of the rest of us, and there was nothing that could stop the revelry, cause that morning we had taken Lady Onyxia's head and then delved deep into molten heart of Blackrock Mountain to send the Lord of Fire Ragnoros back into his pool of magma.

"Now, Mister Ingarath, he was both strong and resonable. It was, none to say, a rowdy bunch. Methinks they all had way too much to drink afore we came in. But how many mornings do you take down one of the city's most deadly foes?

"And yes he spoke of order and propriety. But of the practical things that mattered. Like dancing on the bar. A lot.

"... though he didn't seem to mind Miss Anglachel dancing on the chandelier ...

"But I can understand the dancing on the bar. Folks were being rambunctious ... and he asked those folks who were being rambunctious to stop."

Small shoulders shrugged.

"An there was nary a word spoken 'bout the fact that you were standing next to me at the bar.

"Especially when we stayed behind to explain the over exuberance.

"Nary a word.

"Not at all."

For a long while the little gnome sat quiet, tugging on her pigtail now and then, lost in thought.

"And last night?

"In the Jester.

"When we made our parting, but a few hours ago, Miss Meris' friend said he was happy to have met you Mezzy ..."

Silent then, against the nightime bustle of the city. From pool to tavern, from dark to stars, to the many shades of shadow and light that cloaked the city of Stormwind.

"In the end Mezzy, maybe its just simple.

"A soft betrayal.

"Is just that.

"And making it kind and gentle doesn't make it any less wrong."

"Who you are, and who you want to be ... they may be different things.

"But you can't let someone else tell you what that is."

A breath, a pause.

"I hope Miss Meris figures that out."

She leaned then, to rest her head against a cool bracer, so light.

"I really do."

In this conversation, the quote Nelli paraphases was originally spoken by Frederick Douglas. And I suspect that Nellisynthia's response to the conditions set up wthin the Earthen Ring's Laughing Jester role-play tavern are perhaps just as controversial and politically incorrect.

They reflect the In Character experiences Nellisynthia had within this tavern upon three seperate occassions. Each with three distinctly different reactions to her presence there.

A roleplaying environment upon a roleplaying server ...

There is a song in this tale ... but thanks to the kindness of Ingarath, there was no need to sing about the cost of soft betrayals.

The icon used for the title of this story also happens to be the same one used for phase-shifting an Imp. Phase shifted, the Imp is impossible to be tagged ... kind of like the inconsistant state within the Laughing Jester.

Alas though ... as time would subesequently tell, when set before his peers, Master Ingarath slipped from the high road, with the ease of a chameleon changing color.