Slowly, painfully, the little
gnome warlock picked herself up. The snow was cold and it bit at her
as sharp as the dragonkin's talons had. In the moonlight it glistened
silver, but she turned her head from it, not wanting to see the dark
marring of the pristine blanket that was fom her own blood.
It took her a long, long while to finally be able to stand, and even
then shewas rickety. Her gear was in tatters, and each puff of frosted
breath hard and painful. The vale of Mazthoril fell down towards the
caverns about her, and in the shadows, at the very edge of hazy vision
she could see the shimmer of movement that was the sapphire and white
protector of this land.
Very over-protective protectors.
Dissy was going to be very unhappy with her. She should have listened
to the flightly succubus, who tried to remind her that her sense of
direction was that of a blind gnoll from Redridge with vertigo issues
after being tossed about in a Silithus tornado and deposited in the
Old Town section of Stormwind City.
Just before she stumbled into the den of dragonkin.
Slowly she pushed herself back through the Winterspring snows, favoring
one leg, wading through the drifts, for whats up to most folks knees
tended to bury her short stature.
Until ...
Cresting a hill, she had to stop.
So much like home.
Black and silver and white, the mountains rose above her, shrouded
in argent, stepping back in deepening sillouettes until it was impossible
to tell where the peaks ended and the midnight sky above. And deep
winter, all above in their great curve so many stars sparkled, diamonds
on velvet as far as one could see.
The wind slipping through the pines was a gentle song, a melody wrapping
about her.
She raised a torn sleeve to her eyes and rubbed them, until see should
see clearly again.
And there was the setting boom, its pale illumination sifting through
the needled canopy in gentle beams, the pattern lain upon the snow
like the finest quilt, sewn not by thread and fabric but by magic and
light.
She pushed back her hat, to look again, with eyes wide.
"So ...
"So ... beautiful."
Breathless, lost in the forgotten valleys.
But something was missing. Something not there ...
She couldn't help but smile, as she drew on the very last reserves
of her strength, knowing it would take her to her knees, but she'd
get back up again. Eyes close, to speak the words, to feel the circling
energies of magenta. She reached out, to dare beneath the jealous watch
of Those Who Should Not Be Spoken, to feel the heat of their fires
and knowing if she got caught it would be her soul they'd burn. But
through the twisting nether she sought, she hunted, she called out
a name.
" ... Mezznuz ... Mezzy."
There was a roar, a sundering, the smell of magic and the weight of
power as from the darkness the Voidwalker came forth, Mezznuz calling
out to the night with a deafening roar. His bracers, raised as his
talons cut through the air, sent reflections dancing through the sheltered
copse as instinctively the fel demon searched for those who would hurt
the one who summoned him.
And found just Nellisynthia.
Who hugged herself, just looking forward.
"Isn't the moonlight pretty?"
The little lass looked shyly up to the big Voidwalker, the stars in
her eyes sheltered by a spray of
unkempt hair and a hat's floppy brim. A foot scuffed through the snow,
humble, gentle and even coquettish.
"Walk with me?"
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