Paranoia and Self-Control on Valentine's Day
Chavie - February 14, 2006
It was all Desdemonah's fault, as far as Chavie was concerned. It
was that stupid trip into the Razorfen Downs when Lady Des
started getting all philosophical and questiony. No, that wasn't
fair. It was the assorted Forsaken talking Sylvanas this,
Sylvanas that. Chavie loved the Lady Sylvanas, but lately she was
getting... scared of her.
Lately Chavie was hearing such talk. Such talk. "Without Sylvanas
here, you'd still be a mindless slave." "If not for Lady
Sylvanas, none of us would be here." "You should take care of
her, if not out of respect, than out of self-preservation." When
Maledictus had brought this up when Chavie first met him, back
before she was Grim, and when he still was, she had brushed it
off... Yes, they owed a lot to Lady Sylvanas, but surely now that
they were all awake and aware they were fine. Right? Of course.
Of course.
But Chavie was there when RSA invaded the Undercity again. They
were defeated and it was glorious, but Chavie ran into the throne
room and saw Lady Sylvanas surrounded by Horde and other things,
skeletal guardians Sylvanas had summoned to protect her. What
power she had! That was the kind of power that kept the Lich King
away.
That was last night. Now, sitting on the stone floor of an empty
passage in the Undercity, hugging her knees, Chavie felt tiny and
insignificant. All her preaching about having a strong enough
will, so strong that even if Sylvanas perished Te Chil Ren would
be fine... What a joke.
Who was she to think she could match her will to Sylvanas'? For
years she couldn't even keep control of her body from a
normal...wait.
Chavie's mind blanked. She was thinking some very unhealthy and
unproductive thoughts. She closed her eyes and took a deep
breath, then let it out in a string of slow, nonsense
syllables... singing softly to herself, clearing her mind of
everything else. She began rocking slightly, took another deep
breath, let it out in a nonsense song... She didn't have to
breathe most of the time. The very act of breathing could be
trance-inducing for her. Adding her secret wor sa fa chal--not
the kind she used to communicate with other people, but the
deeper kind with no meaning anyone could ever understand--adding
that to the deep breathing, she began to feel more at peace. She
took out her skinning dagger and began tracing designs in her
skin, letting the green ichor seep out. In through the nose, out
through the mouth...
Of course she wasn't as strong as the Banshee Queen.
But that didn't mean she couldn't try to be. And someday, like
she said to Desdemonah in Razorfen Downs, someday she was going
to look the Lich King in the face. And then she was going to melt
it off. "Tens for un det, no tens for sle ve ri, nao a kil yu, o
ke? Gu ba, Ar Tas!"
Chavie opened her eyes and grinned. She stood and healed her
self-inflicted cuts and put her skinning knife away. What was she
sitting around crying for? She had a Valentine to see today, and
Alliance to kill! She was so close to her thirty-ninth season,
and already she had saved up enough for her mount! Buying her
next spells was another matter. And of course she wanted to get
back into battlegrounds, that fight at Warsong the other day with
some Grim had been great, and was Chavie's second time leading a
raid against Alliance. And it wasn't going to be the last.
She broke into a run, laughing, and ran into a wall, for no
reason other than to feel the impact. Then she took out her
hearthstone to see if Vuudu was around...