Picking Up Chicks

[Darkweald]

[[ Based upon in-game events last night. ]]

When Lord Draco Visca returned to the Scryer's Tier hours after having dismissed the meeting of the Order of Eversong to still find Saturna and Cerryan standing in the same spot, conversing intensely with one another, his interest was piqued, but when his nether drake landed beside them and they both grew strangely silent, the tingling at the back of his mind was sure to be the seed of paranoia, planted in the furrow of disordered interests exhibited by the discussion a quarter of the day earlier.

The arrival of Xamus was nothing of the sort. Sweaty and with a few flecks of blood and gore still clinging to his armor from his recent foray into Nagrand, the paladin instantly denounced the somber mood, saying "We are blood elves! We should enjoy this beautiful evening with the love for life that only we would understand!" Which, naturally, involved inebriation to the extreme.

Chucking his legs out over the edge, Xamus produced a flagon of mead and began to imbibe of it as Draco reminisced of the simpler days. Though he offered to share his drink with the companions, Draco declined and he did not notice Saturna's silent acceptance of the offer with her outstretched hand, Xamus having quickly fallen into a drunken stupor from the combined effects of the mead and this many days' strenuous activity in the Outlands. Saturna, too, sat with her legs dangling over the dizzying drop into the Lower City, and Cerryan stood nearby, though apparently less tense about the peril off the edge with her firmly seated, despite his concern from earlier when she had stood balanced on one leg, the other hanging over the void. Draco remained on the back of his drake, both of them surveying the city below. He continued to speak of the old days, the beauty of the evening sky of Shattrath eliciting the fond feelings in which nostalgia loves to rise, Cerryan nodding and Saturna continuing to sit silently, statuesque as always when not involved in great motion, her left arm still perpendicular to her body in acceptance of Xamus's offer.

Xamus drained the flagon and dropped it to shatter many feet below. Without pausing he pulled out another flagon seemingly from thin air and took a heavy drink. In mid-swallow he noticed Saturna's apathetic, supplicant gesture and handed the mead over to her. She took a sip. Xamus, not waiting for the return of the flagon, produced a flask with Halaani whiskey from his breastplate and began draining it. Saturna likewise took a deeper draught of the mead, bringing the back of her hand across her mouth as she finished, the movement masking the ingestion of something else with her deft sleight of hand. Xamus, even higher in spirits now that he had imbibed so many, began to turn his attention to the beautiful young elf-girl. Cerryan queried whether or not the garrulous paladin had already surpassed his limits, but, as all intoxicated elves are wont to do, Xamus scoffed at the notion that he even had limits, or that they could be set at a level lower than astronomical. The hour grew late and Cerryan excused himself, most like to lay on his bed with his mind still reeling in confusion from the conversations in which he had partook that eve.

"So," effused Xamus toward the pale girl new to his Order, "there'sho many new fashous within the Order these daysh, I don't believe 'at I've officially met you. Might I ashk your name?"

"Which?" she asked.

Xamus chuckled, "Why, yours, pretty lady! And to be perfectly clear, I'm talking about you and not Lord Draco 'ere...hic! No matter how goodlooking he considers his long hair to be, he ain't got nothin' on you."

She shook her head at this statement. "Which name?"

"Any of 'em!" cried Xamus throwing his hands up in the air. "What name might you go by if you were out lookin' for a good time on the town!" He grinned.

She considered this and then pointed out to the other side of the city which lay out before them. "Sacikiri."

"What?" asked Xamus, blinking.

"Shacikiri ... hic!" she said again, slightly tipsy herself from the substances coursing through her veins.

"...bless you!" he replied. "Fine, 'en ya don't have to tell me your name. There'sh many thingsh ya can do without names." He paused philosophically. "Actually, there'sh a lotta fun thingsh ya can do without names."

A corner of her mouth twitched up in a brief half-smile, and she said, "As you say, rebel."

"Don't call me that!" Xamus huffed. "I was a Knight once, an' I shtill adhere to the ideals! I used to march around with the Blood Knightsh in full armor an' everythin', formationsh and matchin' setsh.."

... and so Xamus regaled Saturna of his abilities and times with the Blood Knights. She sat statuesque as ever, until she sobered. And then she slumped to one side, catching herself weakly with a hand. Xamus chuckled and remarked that perhaps she had an inability to hold her liquor. Her head swung forward and she nodded once, twice, three times before toppling forward to slip off the ledge into the air below. Xamus leapt to his feet yelling for her to come back, but it was neither within her power or his to make it happen so.

As she plummeted toward the quickly approaching stones of the Lower City, perhaps many of her acquaintances would care more to know what thoughts passed through her inscrutable mind then more than at any other time, nor would they likely be successfully in speculating correctly on the matter, despite their investigations and queries. But for the moment the reader may know that as she was dimly aware of the rushing air and hard ground before her, she had but a brief moment to wonder whether she might ever reach the end of her fall. Just moments before she dashed against the rocks, she answered herself: Not before Kael'thas.

[Darkweald]

Skrattik wound his way slowly toward the top of the tree, passing other Skettis Outcasts moving hither and thither along the wooden walkways of their home in the Lower City. He couldn't imagine why Tishkri would have sent for him, nor did he imagine the need was as urgent as the old bird had made it but to be in his note. As he neared his destination, Skrattik gave only passing glances to the alchemists busy with their work, his mind preoccupied with the annoyance of being summoned without clear explanation. Tishkri deserved his respect as loremaster and fellow elder, though the tired old bird's unassuming air usually earned him little, and though they had been friends since they were callow chicks, Skrattik felt not even a pang of guilt for his irritated thoughts, particularly when he passed into the tree to Tishkri's dwelling and deduced the reason for his inconvenient summoning. Tishkri's notch in the tree was filled with piles upon piles of disordered scrolls and parchments, most containing histories of Draenor and Skettis, though a few Skrattik knew to contain enchantments and spells. A pallet lay in the corner where the loremaster slept, twigs knitted together around it in an elaborate configuration in order to create a snug berth, the "nest" then lined and interwoven with downy feathers to make it soft and comfortable. And lying in the bed-nest was a pale, white "egg" over which the elder Arakkoa now stood watch, wringing his hands and pacing fretfully, stopping every few moments to cock his head to one side and stare at his charge.

After a few minutes of watching this, Skrattik clucked disapprovingly at Tishkri from the doorway, "Skraak! Tishkri, I might have expected such indiscretion from the young warriors, but you, old friend? How is it that one of those long-eared dirt-crawlers has come to lay in your nest?”

Tishkri started, his feathers ruffling at the surprise of Skrattik’s voice. He turned and held up his hands, “No, no, she is different!”

“Bad eggs! Don’t tell me it has gone that far!” cried the other. “Ravenous kaliris! Don’t tell me she bears a clutch! Have you not seen how these people regard ours? They think themselves to fly on the wind peering down at us below, while it is they themselves wallowing in self-gratification on the ground grasping at their magical mud and suffocating themselves. They have no interest in old birds as you and I, my friend, they do not see the beauty in our plumage, while they are drawn to the arcane ethereals and Light-bearing naaru. They pass me by without speaking in the Lower City, excepting the haughty looks of their eyes, and I do the same to them.”

“That is how she is different! She has spent this many weeks speaking with our kind, seeking to understand our people and our history! We have spoken of ancient legends, of the evil of Terokk, of the wind dancers, of hatching kaliri, of courting rituals, of the castes, her asking questions all the while.”

“So she finds us a curiosity! I don’t see how that gets this long-eared—”

“Her name is Sacikirí.”

Skrattik blinked at the loremaster and cocked his head to one side. “… how is it that she came to have a name in Ravenspeech.”

Tishkri looked fondly at the sleeping girl. “She selected it herself. She has been learning to speak to us, and though she is still far from mastering the subtleties, you would marvel at the fluency she displayed when we had our discussion on the spirits.” The old bird turned his head to make eye contact with his friend. “As I said, she is different. And I did not bringer her here as a consort. I brought her here because she was in danger.”

“Danger? From whom?”

Tishkri side and walked over to the window. “I was out for a walk when I saw her falling from the sky, her golden-white hair flapping in the wind like a broken wing. She fell down to the rocks behind the bazaar. When I rushed over to her, she was injured and unconscious. Skwak! I brought her here and tended to her wounds, but I am not as experienced in such matters as a wind dancer like you.”

Skrattik looked over the sleeping form. He supposed his initial assumption had been unfair; it did seem ridiculous now in light of his friend’s story. Though he still held no high regard for all of the Outsiders that had infiltrated Draenor, he could tell that this one was important to Tishkri, so certainly his own affection to Tishkri would be enough for him to help this … Sacikirí.

“She knows the meaning of her name?”

“She makes some mistakes still, but I could not dissuade her from the selection,” Tishkri replied, looking over Skrattik’s shoulder nervously. “Will she be okay?”

The wind dancer inspected the cut that ran from one cheekbone across her marble forehead to the temple on the other side. It was healing well, nearly whole in fact. Her arm was in a sling, but as Skrattik tested its rotation he could not see why. One of her legs was in a splint; though Tishkri had little experience in healing he held much knowledge from all of his learning, and the splint was well-made and keeping the limb in a good position. It would probably be strong enough to take it out of the splint soon.

“She looks to have seen the worst of it already, my friend,” concluded Skrattik, while Tishkri sighed with relief. “I understand why you might have been afraid to come to me sooner, but you really should have sent for me when her injuries were fresh. Instead, time and your care have healed them. How long has she been here?”

“Two nights,” answered Tishkri. Skrattik squawked loudly and then stared at him, and so he sought to explain his delay. “I stayed up the first caring for her, and then I slept through the next day or I would have called you then.”

Skrattik squawked. Tishkri looked at him worriedly before continuing, “I am glad she is healing well, but she remains unconscious! Is there no way for us to revive her?”

The loremaster’s query distracted him from the own questions in his mind. Skrattik peered down again at the patient. She seemed to be in a deep sleep, her chest slowly rising and falling once for every ten breaths he took through his beak. Tishkri pressed further, “I fear that she will never wake. Do you think that you could go and attempt to bring her back from whatever world she walks in her dreams?”

“I do not think we need—”

“Please, old friend. For me?” Tishkri pressed.

Skrattik sighed.

[Darkweald]

The fading daylight send shafts of light through the steam wafting up from the cups of olemba tea. The two elder Arakkoa sat opposite one another at the little table, one of the few uncluttered surfaces in Tishkri’s small knothole of a dwelling. A few paces away a tumbled mountain of scrolls still lay scattered from when Skrattik had been thrown against them as he came out of the enchantment. Huddled together over their tea, Tishkri listened to the details of Skrattik’s journey, ever the listener to experience. Skrattik paused for a moment then continued.

“It was the strangest place, Tishkri. It was as if I walked Draenor before it was ripped by the magic that nearly destroyed us all. I have never seen anything so fantastic.”

“And you could fly.”

“Yes, oh yes! It was wonderful! I flew over the treetops of Terokkar and the verdant valley to the east, wheeling about the mountains. Kaw kaw, I was so free!”

“Did you see her there?”

“Yes. Terokk’s quill, Tishkri, I saw her. Sacikirí … beautiful and deadly. She chose her name well.”

Tishkri squawked. “Oh?”

“I wheeled about her, I knew she knew I was there and so I landed. I looked up at her—she was taller in that place!—and she stared down at me with such judgment in her eyes that I trembled. I wanted nothing more than to fly away again, but she rooted me to the ground with her eyes.”

“Did you ask her to come back to us?”

“She spoke first. ‘You are not welcome in this place. You do not understand.’ I begged her, ‘Please,’ I said, ‘Your friend Tishkri is worried,’ I said, but she would hear none of it. She scowled at me and it was as if the sky darkened with her expression and lightning cracked with her words. ‘You presume too much,’ she said, and swung forward her bow, sending forth the power of air which cast me from that place.”

“And into the Chronicles of Rakarrik,” concluded Tishkri.

There was a long pause before Skrattik spoke again. “I want so much to attempt to go back, Tishkri,” he said, looking over at the elf sleeping in the soft nest.

“Come, my friend, I do not think that would be wise, nor do I believe that you think it so,” the loremaster gently replied.

Skrattik nodded. “Yes, yes it is so, my friend.” He rose from his tea. “Then I must leave before temptation gets the better of me.” He walked to the door and then paused, looking down at the slumbering form once again. “She will wake in her own time.”

“Yes, I imagine so. In the meantime, I shall watch over her as if she were my own chick.”

[Darkweald]

Tishkri puttered around amongst his scrolls, digging through various piles to find that which he sought, tossing the others aside so that they would be equally difficult to find at a later date. “Ah, here it is!” he said as he pulled out a particularly dilapidated scroll from beneath a dusty stack in the corner. As he made his way back across the room, he paused for a moment to look at Sacikirí. She lay sleeping serenely as ever, though the whiteness of her skin and rarity of her breathing often gave her the appearance of a corpse, though the blood-red of the cut across her face was thankfully absent so that she looked less terrifying. After the slight pause he then continued toward the scroll spread out at his desk on which he was working, muttering to himself as he glanced over the one in his hands. “Naaru … powers … now where is my, oh there it is! … prophecy … blood … my, my so many … quill, quill, quill, there! … yes, now … Shattrath, not Tempest Keep, of course … Kael’thas …”

Over in the nest across the room, Sacikirí’s eyes snapped open. She sat up softly, her gaze on a pile of scrolls. For a moment there was no sound by the scratch of the quill against the scroll, and then she spoke in the birdsong of the Arakkoa.

“Elder, I sleep long?”

Tishkri squawked in surprise and sent his quill wafting away, turning at the voice and staring at his ‘chick’ with a mixture of panic and relief, his feathers ruffled and his body twisted in the chair. “Sacikirí, you awake!”

“As you say, elder, but sleep long?”

Tishkri continued staring as if rooted to the spot. “Yes, you were asleep for a week. How is it that you could sleep for such a long period?”

Sacikirí sighed. “Not long. Sleep enough for time to stay awake.”

Tishkri cocked his head to one side, peering at her. “Your speech is unclear. Do you mean that you need to stay awake now or that the time you spend sleeping is enough for the time you stay awake?”

“Yes,” she said, “I must stay awake now and I spend enough time sleeping for the time I spend awake. You watched over me?”

“Yes!” cried Tishkri, and instantly the old Arakkoa became a nexus of energy, leaping from his chair and gathering items for her care. “Would you like some olemba tea? A rag to preen? I left some of your items over here in the corner. Here are your boots, beneath the nest. Would you like some olemba tea? Do you need anything?”
The girl nodded. “I accept tea.”

As he prepared it she rose from the soft nest and walked amidst the clutters of scrolls to the table where she sat patiently. He poured her a cup and slid it across the wooden surface slowly, looking into her eyes which, as ever, where looking at nothing in particular from her beautiful, unmarred face. “Sacikirí, you … my friend Skrattik attempted to awaken you.” She brought the cup slowly to her lips and closed her eyes as she sipped the tea. Tishkri hesitantly pressed forward. “Is it true, what your name implies?”

She finished drinking her tea and set the cup down, though her eyes remained closed. “Yes,” she said.

“Skwaak! How can this be?” cried the old bird.

She opened her eyes and looked into his, and told him.

- - -

Many hours later, Saturna Starsummit made her way down the wooden walkways and then up the stone ones to return to the Aldors’ Terrace. Tishkri remained in his dwelling, the quill scratching against the parchment rapidly as he attempted to record all of the tales he had heard before his mind forgot them.