There is this new thing happening...

[ezra_pyreborn]

Who: Ezra, Anyone
When: Arrival
What: An undead arcanist gets a library card.

Ezra L. Pyreborn, historian, linguist, and arcanist, architect of peace in his native Lordaeron, speaker to Titans and dragons, was lost. This wasn't the first time for such a thing. Wandering the world of Azeroth, crossing and re-crossing the line between death and life, negotiating between the competing factions of the Alliance and the Horde, had led him far afield. He was confident in his ability to navigate unknowns. But this time was different.

The interview with the Bronze Dragonflight was the last thing he remembered. They had opened a portal across time and space, and told him that his next destination lay beyond. Trusting them - for what else is there to do against an entire flight of dragons? - he stepped through.

He'd come out in a library. That much was clear. There were books, stacked and shelved to the lofty ceilings of a grandly furnished old building, and more books than he'd seen in one place in his life. Reading was clearly the business of whoever managed this establishment. His unnaturally glowing eyes found the darkness not at all troubling, though he found only a few candles, and no lanterns at all. Were there living patrons? If so, did they come only during the day?

Was the portal still there, closed and quiescent? It was not. Damn those dragons. What are they up to?

There was a reason he was here, surely. There was meaning in all this vast conglomeration of knowledge. There was no rush to be anywhere - dragon magic could cross time as well as space. And so Ezra Pyreborn, undead, zombie slave of the Scourge turned crusader of the Forsaken, loyal follower of Sylvanas Windrunner, tireless servant of peace, did what he had lacked the opportunity to do for a very long time. He sat down, and he began to read.

Comments

[homeless_pard]

"My apologies," she offered softly. "It was but curiosity, I did not mean to suggest you put yourself at risk for such." That was what she had gathered from his statement at least? "Though as of yet I do not believe any here would take umbrage to misunderstanding and wreak calamity as you say."

[ezra_pyreborn]

Ezra peered with his living eyes, the lies of flesh that he wore for the moment in place of glowing undead orbs. "Is that what you think? You, whose fear I could smell as you approached, might have bolted had I shown you other forms I have worn in the past. In my own homeland, the words of my people are shunned and ignored by those who could have been their greatest allies. On my world, the Alliance and Horde twist and corrupt the peace gestures of their respective leaders, until war and war and useless war is the result."

"And now I come to this place, this siphon of power, this black emptiness, without explanation for why or how." He twisted and tilted his head, searching this way and that for the source of the voice overhead that he remembered hearing earlier. "My best hope seems to be this voice. But what should I say to it, eh?"

His head swiveled back, eyes gazing steadily at his companion. "I am not used to feeling safe. I do not feel safe now. Even you could be a danger if pushed, though I prefer not to explore that possibility."

[homeless_pard]

"I cannot harm you," she noted immediately. "I cannot bear to do harm to another. The one time I did was in panic and in capture and had I been able I still would have returned to heal him from the wounds my claws made." Yes, even then, with that man.

"To harm is against everything I am and if it did not kill me I would be very, very ill from it." She was a healer. She could cut and stitch in the cause of healing, but harm was a different case.

"As for the rest, ah...I do not believe you were entirely speaking to me? I apologize I cannot follow all your thoughts and speech. You seem to speak on many topics at once."

[ezra_pyreborn]

Ezra's smile was tinged with regret. "The best intentions, to help.. admirable. But.. well, never mind."

"I apologize. Yes, I'd hoped to taunt our unseen friend a bit. My thoughts flow like a river, and sometimes one finds streams branching from it. I have a lot on my mind. The safety of a world, of my friends, my family, and a new mystery."

"You could do me harm, even without trying. I simply .. prefer to believe that you will not. That is all I can offer you for now."

[homeless_pard]

"It is not intent, it is calling," she admitted. "I must. To stand by when there is need would be the greatest evil and anathema. I could sooner cease breathing by my own will than harm. Would healing this form you wear harm you? Should I endeavor to never touch you?" These were important things to know ahead of time!

"And I sorrow for you to be pulled from a world you are needed. Should any I speak to learn how to leave I will ask they tell you."

[ezra_pyreborn]

"'Harm' is subjective." Ezra licked his teeth with his tongue, a subconscious gesture perhaps due to the unfamiliarity of the sensation - or any sensation.

"On my world, the Light is anathema to the Forsaken, as to all other undead. As a living being, I have been examined by no less than a personage than Arcanist Doan of the Scarlet Crusade, as well as Elaine. Their use of the Light did nothing to me while I live." He flexed a fleshy hand in demonstration.

"If what you wield is simply another face of that holy Light, I expect it will be safe. Even if not, it is an interesting enough experiment that I would hazard it. Attempt it if you wish."

"But that is not the only form of harm one could do. Betrayal, intended or otherwise, has been my constant companion. Say that you were told by a friend to lead me to a certain place to meet them. It is a trap for me. Was it evil you meant? Of course not. But it is still harm of a kind." He gestured up, indicating the direction of the voice from earlier. "Lies. Deceit. Misdirection. I am wary of them even from a fair face standing before me."

[homeless_pard]

"The worlds beyond my own must be terrible and strange places," she admitted softly. "Not that mine own is lacking in Darkness, but a word binds better, and many of the things you fear and watch for in my own lands have signs. Even in the case of a friend asking me to play bait unaware? I would scent it on them. All I have met it seems are such as those of the Dales. Younger, far less power bound, and less contained by the paths they walk." What was it like to have a world held by only one people? Or by all youths as the world may see it?

"It is strange to ever meet those who do not know my words bind me. Very strange. I could not, and would not, bring you harm. But that is past, now. I know these things no matter how many people may disbelieve such." And she was simply continue being herself and they would learn in time mayhap.

Moving on. "I had thought to see texts on the medicines and history of such in this new world. Have you stumbled on such while here?"

[ezra_pyreborn]

Ezra shook his head. "Medicine, no. The lore of transportation, of history, of politics, have been my focus. In this new place, I look for a door leading back home. Lacking that, a sense of the place itself, so I know to whom I might plead a case for aid. But from what I have managed to read, there is little division between history and mythology here. It is.. a difficult thing to understand."

[homeless_pard]

"Ah, then by your leave as caretaker here may I claim time in the medical stacks? I am unlike to be a bother, nor do I cause harm to books."

[ezra_pyreborn]

The wizard gestured theatrically. "Do as you wish, wherever you wish, with whichever volumes you wish. I trust you will do no more harm to my library than you say you could to myself."

[homeless_pard]

"Thank you," she noted, slipping off the top of the card catalog in a wash of skirts. "When next I visit I will bring tea. And I will endeavor not to be as...jumpy...?"

[ezra_pyreborn]

Ezra tipped his hat politely, and smiled a peculiar smile. "I can not promise to be any less undead, but we shall see."

[homeless_pard]

"Ah...yes...thank you for what grace you allowed me this eve, I hope it is not a discomfort to you to hold this form." But she truly did appreciate it.

[ezra_pyreborn]

What more was there to say to that? To one "born" undead, being alive was as foreign to him as undeath was to those who remembered their mortal lives.

Ezra settled for a polite nod. "Think nothing of it."