Originally written Dec. 20, 2010.
I readily admit to lacking expertise on the elements, I gratefully assign that knowledge to Koryander. When we first came to know one another as low-ranked Templars, I listened to what I considered "babble" about lords, planes and balances. I find myself a careful student now, with late nights spent with books on my lap, and an ear trained on Koryander's instruction. It is a new kind of training that I did not anticipate after years of specializing in undead, and demon.
Dragons likewise pose a threat unfamiliar. I find myself with a trained core of elite demon and Scourge fighters, but with expertise on dragons and the elements sporadically dotted from one rank to another. It is perhaps a blessing that we are readily bellied by the knowledge we already possess, but the gaps between scholars and students is a horrid weakness we must seek to remedy.
Still, I lie awake with other thoughts. I think of a recent return of a name and memory I have not recalled for over a year. I still question whether my time as dame to Meishka ended in failure, for while I deemed her prepared to tackle the world's dangers, her training lacked enough to end in her untimely death. I question whether something on my part could have altered the path she eventually tread. It is childish of me to entertain such possibility, and rare to dwell during the late night hours. But still, while I recount the evening's happenings, and her beg for sanctuary among myself and the Templars, I question whether she can be trusted again, and whether she has the strength and will to atone for her time as the Lich King's servant. She came to me weakened, and added to my name the word "mother." I am mother to none, but was once dame to one. I look upon her today and still recall the younger squire with inspiring determination. Time will see whether that tenacity returns after the torture and death she herself afflicted upon her mind and soul.
Lanria Forsythera has likewise returned to the Templars, her recovery too takes place within the cathedral. Out of caution, I requested that they be kept separate from one another, and the presence of a Templar be shielded from Meishka. It is a cruel tactic to withhold one comrade from another, but should Meishka return to her previous ways, Lanria will not be left helpless in the fire.
Strange that the Twilight's Hammer brings comfort in much of the late ill thoughts – a cult of shadow is a familiar foe to myself and the Templars, even with their unsettling infiltration of Stormwind's higher command. There is a charisma to those within the cult that I will never understand, but their zealotry and power lust is familiar, and will usher final judgment. No quarter for traitors who abandon faction, family and honor alike, and attempt to be heralds to the world's death. Their fate, at least, has little reason to be argued with beyond swift judgment, and final fall of a hammer.
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