A Canvas-Bound Diary

[Stefanis Redwrath]

The book is bound shut with leather straps. Bring a dagger with you next time.

[Stefanis Redwrath]

The next time you check, dagger in hand, you scowl as you find the book unbound. Still, this is why you were here, and slowly, you open the book to the first page, thumbing through the short entries within.


I am ashamed.
But I'm not sure why. I have killed hundreds of men in the third war, I have slain countless beasts to defend myself, yet...
Knowing my brother has returned sets a cold stone in the pit of my stomach. Why is he here? I thought he was never going to pass his final trial-but there he was, a sneering Blood Knight, every misconception I had fought against laid bare in one person. For a moment, I understood why so many hated our order.
I left then, but I know he saw me. His glittering blue eyes, shining at me through a haze of green, followed me until I disspeared into the crowded Bazaar. I barely made it four steps before I got sick admist the bushes.
More on this later. There is a Cartel meeting to attend.
-
I feel nostalgic. Perhaps the past will help me forget the present.
I remember, at my youngest, freshest memory, my Mother sailing into port, hanging off the rigging of her ship. The twin swords hanging on her hips wavered as ahe leapt, landing on the dock and running forward to sweep me into her arms. We were laughing the same way, clinging to each other.
We both knew each day we could see each other was a blessing. My Mother was a pirate-this I am sure of now-but at that age, I was convinced she was a merchant, trading rum and foodstuffs to Orgimmar and Booty Bay.
Hah.
And there was my father, striding off the boat ramp, Blinking to us in a flash of magic, pulling us both into his arms. My father the Blood Mage, the honoured, a man in service to Kael'thas himself.
Here the ink of memory smudges. I don't remember what we did after that, not for years, until my brother was born. I didn't like him as soon as I saw him-pink and screaming, like a little girl having a tantrum. And after him, I was forgotten. Rencius was stronger, smarter, faster, and neater than I ever was at that age, and as soon as he grew into his limbs and out of them again, he was taller too. And more handsome.
But infintely cruel.
This is doing nothing for my mood. Later. Vanyn calls upon me.
-
What a man! An assassin and a thief, a boon companion! And handsome, clever and charming. He knows not what he works upon me, with his words and when he shoves me down to bind a wound I refuse to let him see.
Of course, one does not have my tastes and lack a sense of these things-he has no interest. It is disheartening, almost as...Enough of this. I have remembered more, I think.
I remember my first day of training as a cadet.
Lord Bloodvalor was overseeing our sparring practice. My brother and I were trying to outdo each other-we always were-both claiming the largest two-handed practice swords we could, pushing our young bodies into exhaustion with just a few strokes. I can with pride still say I always swung a few more than he did before I could not longer carry the weapon, or we were caught by Bloodvalor and forced to take up the one-handed swords to practice properly.
I remember the final sparring tournament, the top ten moving on to become true Blood Knights. I was in the final bracket against who else but my little brother. No one could explain our animosity. Bloodvalor made the mistake of giving us blunted steel weapons.
We nearly killed each other, my blade deep in his gut, his smashing into my head over and over 'til we were seperated. Obviously much was blurry afterward. It was called a tie and hushed up.
And now here he is in Silvermoon, and we are both knights, and I do not know why I burn with disgust and shame when he looks at me. I am sick of writing. Another time.

[Stefanis Redwrath]

You spare a glance over your shoulder, so far undisturbed. Still, you read faster, knowing the Diary's owner will return for it soon.


I don't remember when I started drinking.
I just knew that at the end of the night, when the world was wobbling and blurry, there were voices and laughter and pain, and my brother taking off his shirt.
I can see it, painfully clear, over and over.
The scar on his stomach was still there. He pulls his shirt up and above his head, lets out a sickening laugh, and then instant transition to cold cobblestones, lamps leaving dull, flickering pools of light on wet cobbles. My thighs were sticky with blood, I think. I was crawling.
A 'good samaritan' wrapped me in a towel, then paid me to fellate him. And then more thistle and drink. And word spread.
And suddenly I was being paid to be 'had' in the most carnal and sadistic ways possible. I'm not even sure when I agreed. But it was my life for so long I almost forgot I was an adept.
And then she found me.
-
Nessima.
She found me wandering through Fairbreeze village, drunk and alone. She gifted me with armor, got me back on my feet, back on the path of the paladin.
But my time at Eversong Academy was to be short lived.
I had met Vanyn.

Here you find pages torn, pieces still clinging to the spine with only fragments of words upon them. It's now that you hear footsteps, and you abandon your curiosity to dart out of the room even as the man who owns this diary steps within.

A close call, to be sure.

[Stefanis Redwrath]

You open quickly to the next-mostly intact-page. Though a small section of the top is missing, what's on it is interesting enough that you stop to re-read after scanning it.

-f any part of her were a nation, I would defect from the Sin'dorei to become a Utopian.
Damn her. She made it seem so easy-a flash of a smile in her eyes, beneath her mask, but the smile in her eyes was so fake that immediately I connected with the feeling.
The smile grew real as we spoke and flirted. It was obvious where it was going, and Vanyn was uncomfortable and angry about my speaking with her. I don't understand how he can hate so quickly and unconditionally.
Her hands are a nation, and each time she touches me, I am a defector, running from Silvermoon to live in the Utopia she gives me. It's not just the sex, though it's good. She's creative, unafraid, rough, and dismisses the fact that we do it in my current lover's house and bed almost weekly.
When I was young I was always fighting to be noticed. Fighting fighting fighting. Fighting everything, my family, my brother, honor...And one day my Mother took me aside and said "Reathe, there's something you're going to understand. You can fight forever, until you die so tired you can't move, or you can wait and choose your battles. That's how I married your father."
Of course, I was young, and this made no sense to me. I knew the story of how they met and wooed-and it seemed my Father had done all the work. The tale went something like this:
My Father had been working with my Mother for weeks. The tension between them seemed obvious, and finally, my Father said "When you understand what I am talking about, You'll love me."
Mother, of course, was said to get frusterated and confused, always asking him what he was talking about before finally silencing him and stalking off while he just smiled confidently.
Every day, month after month.
About here my Mother usually caught the storyteller, grabbing him by his chin. She would smile, as if not to let any of the rumors out of his mouth, and finish the story herself. One day, she just looked at him and understood. They looked into each other's eyes and smiled, and my Father proposed.
And I think I understand.
There are some things you have to fight for, to work for. Men are good at fighting for love, at working for it. It's all we talk about-the things we've 'worked for' in the relationship. Women, on the other hand, focus more on the moment-to-moment, the happiness...
When I looked into her eyes with their false smile and their hidden emotions, I loved her. When our clothes felt like they were dropping off like water, I loved her.
When she took away the only man I ever thought I would love, instead of fighting to get him back, I kissed her in front of him.
I love her.
Celyn Dawnwhisper.
What is it with me and assassins?

[Stefanis Redwrath]

I touch the wound on my throat and wonder at how it doesn't split open and leave me dead, bleeding my life upon the floor. I can't make words...can't form words.
I want a drink. I want to get messed up.
But more than that, I want to keep her, I want to serve in the Regiment, and if I screw up again I lose both. So what to do? I go between moments of idiocy and happiness to unfeeling coldness. Sometimes I wonder if it would be easier to just die.

But that is the cowards way out, and I will die when it is my time.

I guess that's all, then.

[Stefanis Redwrath]

I am staring my hand tremble as it forms these words. My skull feels as if it would beat into twenty pieces, my body aches, my teeth ache, the shoulder not-so-long-ago impaled skill feels strange and fluid and each time I raise my shield to block a blow it sends a jolt of pain through my body so intense I can barely stand and it whites out the rest of my vision.
I am staring at my shaking hand, watching the ink blot and the end of this sente-
It is here that a large pool of ink sits, barely dry, obscuring that and the end of the next sentence.
I draw my hand back, I write again. I am in so much pain that I know if I stop-
Moment to moment, then I will have no hope.
So I will live moment to moment. I will think of Celyn. I will think of my duties as a soldier. I will take the blows to my ruined shoulder and I will fight for Quel'thalas and by the light I hope that this torture ends.
Tomorrow I will find something happy to write about. I am sick of scowling as I read over this journal.

[Stefanis Redwrath]

I stepped into the bar and ordered a drink. It was relfex, and I sat down. As the glass of rum was set down in front of me, and instinctually I took a sip.
I had nearly lost her.
DRINK ME YOU PIECE OF-. said the rum.
I had nearly lost her. I had promised. I wasn't going to lose her. Least of all for a glass of rum.
-HIT. YOU WORTHLESS LITTLE WIMP PLAYING SOLDIER. said the rum.
"No." I told it.
But I couldn't move. I just sat there. And stared at it.
Just watching it until the bar emptied and I was thrown out.
The rum watched me from the bar.
I'll get you, worthless bastard. it called from the door.
"Go ahead and try." I said.
The man who threw me out must've thought I was insane.
Go ahead and try. Like I've written over and over, I won't lose her.

Damnit. This was supposed to be happy.

[Stefanis Redwrath]

I feel strange.
My arms and chest feel as if they’re cut from ice, but my head is hot, my hands are hot, they shake remembering my boldness. I snaked my hot hands across your cool stomach and you turned and looked at me so indignantly that I climbed out of bed and slept on the floor. I woke with a blanket and pillow.
But you still don’t want to be near me-because I ruined things. It takes you or something else I can’t have to cool this burning heat, but now I can’t have either. I spend my time training and trying not to get sick, not to shame myself in public.
Rooku is there for me. He tells me over and over that I will beat this. He tells me to hold onto you, he takes care of me, feeds me pie and ice cream, puts me to bed when you aren’t here, waits up until I fall asleep. He is a temptation but I need you more.
We live in the same house, but you’d never guess it. We don’t speak, don’t take meals together, just sit and stare out windows. And when you lave I’m alone all over again. I am tired. It is an effort not to drink, to not just break down and drown all these feelings in booze and thistle and give into temptations all around me.

I cry myself to sleep.

[Stefanis Redwrath]

Damn I'm an idiot.

I don't even remember who told me that Ruthven was looking for me, but it's normally against my better judgement to meet the parents of people I'm dating. Restlessness and insomnia claimed me, and I decided to speak with him rather than wandering myself to exhaustion on another 'walk'.

Not like it made a difference. Rooku was M.I.A. and Celyn hadn't returned from her latest 'job' yet. My first thoughts upon meeting the man was how much he reminded me of a client I used to service, a man who begged to be beaten and had-rather opposite of what I was used to at the time. He gave off a different air, he was too well-groomed to actually be that man, but the familarity somehow set me at ease.

He was more handsome than I expected, too. I ended up talking to him 'til my jaw hurt just trying to urge out a few words from his lips. He had a soft kind of voice, the kind that Celyn used to use on me, but that's disspeared as of late along with her smiles. I was talking and talking and talking, my head in his lap as he stroked my hair, my face, my lips. I told him about my past, and he didn't grow bored or disgusted with the novelty of it. He just smiled and listened.

And I asked him to kiss me. Like a fool, he obliged, and like fools, we kissed several times, breathless casual mumbles mixed in between. We tried to walk away from each other but I couldn't help it. He seemed so miserable, and I could draw a smile to his face with little effort.

By the light, what have I done?

First Rooku, now his father? I really haven't changed. The only difference now is I can't even blame it on the alcohol.

[Stefanis Redwrath]

This book gathers dust-as does the home around it. Gradually, the place fills with a musty scent, something only found in unlived in houses. The door remains unlocked, and occassionally upon return valubles go missing...
Until one day, naught remains but the barest of furniture.
The diary sits alone and forgotten on a battered desk. The leather strap that once held it shut cut, pages open to the last entry. The dust here is strange-it clings to your fingers like ash.

It seems as if he won't be writing much any longer.