Told by Flinch
Part 5 of the Homegrown Help series
Master took me fightin’ proper today, and I’m writing the whole of it down while it’s still fresh, same as I do with everythin’ that matters.
Started small — a rabbit, a squirrel, right there in Stormwind, nothin’ that could’ve hurt me even if it tried. Went well enough that we pushed on to Duskwood after, and I learned there that a skunk’s a fair sight tougher than it looks, and a black rat tougher still, though I got past both in the end. Tirisfal came next, lookin’ for a bat, and though I never found one there, the ground itself did somethin’ to me — same stillness as Revendreth, same grey light, and for a moment I forgot I were meant to be fightin’ at all and just stood there feelin’ the shape of home under different sky. Silverpine after that, then the Plaguelands, east and west both, one levelin’ fight after another till the numbers stopped bein’ somethin’ I had to think about and started just bein’ true.
Seventeen, by the end of it. Started the day scared of me own Haymaker missin’, and finished it further along than I’d let meself hope for that mornin’.
Master had somethin’ waitin’ for me when we got home, besides. Took me to Revendreth — proper Revendreth, not just the corner of it I come from — to a bat who’d been sleepin’ in stone for longer than anyone could say, and paid ninety-nine rubies to wake him rather than fight for him, same gentle way I come into bein’ meself. The Count, they call him. Siphons a bit of blood off whoever’s carryin’ him, so I’m told, though nothin’ that’d hurt. Master asked did I want him for company, and I said aye, though I asked, careful, that he not be caged for it. Bein’ kept somewhere you can’t leave of your own choosin’ ain’t much different however kindly it’s meant, and he’d already spent long enough shut away without me askin’ for more of the same on his behalf. Master agreed straight off. No cage. The stairs instead, high enough for wings if he fancies ’em, close enough to me and the stonefiend both that none of us need be alone in it.
Then Master showed me me own room, finished proper at last. A bed, real this time, not just the shape of one I’d imagined off a bit of stone. The lantern, small and green, exactly the size I’d asked for and no bigger. Somethin’ on the chest I’ve not looked at closely yet — a scroll, rolled tight, waitin’ on whenever I work up the nerve to see what it says.
Don’t feel like a stink hole no more. Feels like a room, mine, with things in it I asked for and things I never thought to ask for besides. Started the day not knowin’ if I could throw a proper punch without fallin’ over from the swing of it. Ended it seventeen levels stronger, a room finished round me, and a bat asleep on the stairs nearby who I’m rather fond of already.
More in the Homegrown Help series
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