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[Sparkyle]

Let me tell you a little bedtime story about a not-so-poor little rich girl and her first days in the big wide world. Feel free to bring a violin.

This not-so-poor little rich girl grew up in the North, in a land where the dead walk into the orchards on a regular basis to steal more than apples. Here in Stormwind you have crime; thieves, brigands, murderers and suspicious faces with glowing blue eyes, up where this girl came from the howling wolves at the door have orcs on their backs and the tapping at windows is more often than not someone you know to have been buried two weeks previously. And she could assure you they never want to warm their clammy flesh at your fireside.

So she was a tempered rose, this poor little rich girl. Stems of steel. But there was no escaping the ‘rich’ part of her being. Her daddy was a merchant; one with enough gold in his coffers and land to his name that he could flex his muscle with the local barons and lairds. He was their superior in all but name; he snapped his fingers and the withered old men with veins full of aged brandy and emeralds would dance. And it was doubtless that one day our poor little rich girl would be married off to one of these old men, who would paw at her ebony skin like a murloc with a herring until soon enough he would be swallowed by the Nether, leaving her an exceedingly-rich little widower, free to sport scandalously with gameskeepers and stableboys like all widows of old, dead noblemen.

But no; her daddy wanted more than this for his poor little rich daughter. He wanted her to be educated in the ways of science, the mercantile arts, the arcane and the worldly-wise. So he put this poor little rich girl, who had being trying for months to ascertain which of the old noblemen was most likely to curl up his toes the moment her dresses fell to the boudoir-floor, on a long journey to Stormwind, to begin her transformation from poor little rich girl to Lady.

The poor little rich girl is, I assure you, no longer talking to her daddy.

For starters, she was forced to take passage in the only ship available, and not directly to Stormwind either, but to Menethil. She then endured a day’s sailing in a fishing smack from Southshore to the dingy marshes of the Great Wetlands (about which, she could assure you, nothing actually is Great at all).

The romance of travel is dulled somewhat when you have to use salted cod for a cushion.

Once there she was to ride for interminable days through the foothills, past dreary Loch Modan and into the frigid peaks of Dun Morogh. The poor little rich girl was stoic in the extreme. She was, after all, trotting on a horse more fit for the gluemaker’s yard than for a long journey, towards a city filled with men of action; lords and counts with strong arms and blonde tresses, with scars on their chests from battles against the Horde or worse, and fortunes broad enough to ensure the poor little rich girl would never go without dresses, jewels and that oh-so-important education her daddy was obsessed with.

Instead she was waylaid in Dun Morogh. By trolls. TROLLS.

The poor little rich girl barely escaped with her life. Her companions however were far from as fortunate. Their fate was not to reach Stormwind but to end up lining the stomachs of wolves and bears picking through the rose-tinted snow that marked their resting place. So our bruised, battered heroine fled, through the cold and the dark, to Ironforge. Here she would report her loss of gold, dresses, letters of introduction, and the murder of her companions naturally, to the dauntless Guards of Ironforge; the tireless defenders of the icy wastes.

Only the poor little rich girl discovered that there was at least one tavern open when she arrived, so the ‘assistance’ offered by the dwarves was less than forthcoming.

In fact, it was nonexistent. Kegs to empty, and all.

So, spitting foul epithets about ale-stunted jackasses hopefully choking on their beards in their sleep, she was directed towards the Deeprun Tram (where she was pawed at ignominiously by a greenish creature she was certain was a organ-grinder’s monkey on its day off) and after a wait that seemed to take longer than her whole journey to that moment, she rocketed to Stormwind. Things had to improve there. They just had to.

But life for this particular poor little rich girl was no fairytale.

She reported at once to the City Guard, who while not downing in beer were up to their necks with paperwork. The bruised and battered figure of the damsel in distress pales into insignificance when her competition is documentation, sealing wax, writs and reports. The girl was almost about ready to loose her temper; she was a heartbeat away from kicking children into the canal and seeing how much it would cost to secure a shady character with a swift dirk to go home to the North and punish her daddy. Alas, she was penniless and at the mercy of the capitol; a city with more noise, light, reeking water and beggars, trials and temptations than any childhood story. Despite this poor little rich girl’s ire, she was, in retrospect, more alive than she had been waiting to be wed to someone as old as her father.

And the city was, after all, full of stableboys.

The Guard sent a letter home to her father, who in due course organised the eventual replenishment of her lost possessions. She would, however, need to pay her way for some time. Work. This word mortified the poor little rich girl. She was not going to waste what education she had cleaning floors in an alehouse filled with puking drunkards with wandering hands and men with four titles, seven medals and no life away from a battlefield.

However, a kind soul (a noble gent who was indeed as old as her father, though not a sordid sort, with a crooked nose and honest smile) directed her towards a set of noisy, smoking buildings where people with the knowledge of words could make money making them work in their lieu. The place was called The Alliance Herald Publishing Company. They even gave her her own desk to sleep under. They promised her she would certainly live happily ever after, though she was not entirely convinced.

She still isn’t. Should you happen to be an old nobleman with a weak heart, several estates and numerous stablehands, you know where to find me.

And no, I’m still not talking to you, daddy.


<This is an interesting experiment... channeling Candace Bushnell in a medieval setting... >

[Curin Hallow]

I apologize for not handing in storys as of late. I've been somewhat busy with things. However i assure you i shall try too get some news ones.

Aaaaaaaanyway.

I love the style and impression of this story. The almost angered and contemplative tone of the entire thing. Nice work Sparky.

[Sparkyle]

All is quiet in the Herald offices. Thankful, really, considering that Chairwoman Sparkyle has indeed made good on her promise of a desk to sleep under. I have managed to make it at least somewhat comfortable, though this ‘finding my feet’ in the big city is so much less than I expected.

Perhaps the naivety of the country has given me unrealistic expectations, but I thought Stormwind would be a place a woman like myself would thrive in. The capitals of the Alliance are painted as places of opportunity, where the clever and industrious can make their fortunes in mere days. The streets are painted in hues of gold, and rich, handsome noblemen are supposed to caper through the streets, purses jangling as they go, seeking brides.

Thus far, Stormwind is failing in all expectations.

I went out a few nights ago to circulate in the city. Soak it all in, Madam S had recommended. What would I be soaking in though? Sewage-laced runoff from the canal? A whole new dictionary of foul language? Sweeping up telltale bloodstains with the hem of my skirts? I can’t say I was convinced. But the Chairwoman insisted that there was a ‘wrenchdaddy’ out there for me (whatever that actually means… I have a suspicion, but most of the time when Madam S speaks to me I smile and nod to avoid the inevitable three-hour lecture that follows “I don’t understand”), so off I should go.

I was told the cathedral square was quiet. Once again, the small one was prone to exaggeration.

Whatever you might say for Stormwind’s street life, the Cathedral of the Light is a wonderful thing. Built by true craftsmen of the art, it rises towards the sky like a congregation of giant white marble choristers. It shelters the poor (sometimes to the detriment of the atmosphere within) and houses a fine band of hospitallers and medicants who tirelessly patch up the City Guard after one of the city’s occasional bouts of civil unrest or the wounded who find themselves mysteriously deposited at the foot of the cathedral’s steps. The place is a beacon that draws to it the needy, the hurt and the noble of heart.

And “noblemen” looking for duels, it seems.

Imagine my surprise when I was distracted from my usual evensong hobbies of pondering how exactly our big blue friends totter around on those little hooves and why gnomes and dwarves wear such inappropriate clothing for their figures (I would go as far as recommending bags for dwarves) when I spy a pair of men trading insults on the cathedral steps.

The thought of a pair of red-blooded noblemen having-at one another makes any maiden’s heart flutter, regardless of what she says. So I slipped closer to take a peep. The standards of chivalry are slipping in Stormwind, it seems. Maybe I arrived here too late? Either way, let me describe the scene…

On one side is a fairly conventional fellow; dark hair, a neat beard, dressed like a soldier carrying rank in some time off duty – a fine weapon at his side, ornamental shield on his back, cape, sash, etcetera. Passable, but a little too stern and fatherly-looking for my liking; if he was not married to a woman, he was obviously married to his job. And if he was married, she would have to be carrying on with either his brother or a stableboy. That or she rides horses. A lot.

On the other… to call this man a ‘noble’ would have been an act of charity on a par with what goes on within the cathedral. Madam S would no doubt have said something like “beaten with the ugly-mallet.” I would opt for his parents would have had to string sausages around his neck to make the dog play with him (or hope the mutt savaged him to death and spare them the abject horror of introducing him as their heir). In the country, children like that are kept locked in attics. In Stormwind, we call them ‘sir’ it seems. Perhaps looking like you were stitched together out of oversized parts and then smacked in the face liberally with a shovel is all the rage in Orgrimmar, but this is the heart of the Alliance. Scars from battle I can understand, but looking like your parents were brother and sister is not something to celebrate in public.

I’ve seen Death Knights that were more handsome. No, really.

I hoped for his sake he was at least eloquent, like the handsome noble cursed with the visage of a monster in that old fable. It was not to be. I’ve heard more eloquence from ice trolls. Fairytales are just that, it seems. The more conventional looking man was not much better at deporting himself, though. They practically came to blows right there on the cathedral stairs. Even stranger, the dispute seemed to have arisen over a woman. Either Normal’s wife had very poor eyesight or Abnormal was wealthy enough to correct a woman’s vision. Whatever the case, I was horrified. Then the ugly one accused the other of being a member of the Scarlet Crusade.

I expected the worst to happen, so I sat down and got comfortable.

I was no unsure as what was worse; the prospect of a bloodbath on the cathedral steps, permitting the ugly out in public or allowing the Scarlets to wander about in the city. Does the City know these zealous murderers are abroad in the streets and alleyways, possibly recruiting the young and naïve? Do the Guard know, or is catching petty crooks more profitable than taking on dangerous martyrs like the Scarlets? Does anyone care? I’m not unrealistic; I understand that Stormwind is a huge city, a stone and timber home for thousands of souls, some good and some bad. I understand that to police and protect people within the city requires almost eternal vigilance on the part of the men and women of the City Guard and the strength of will of the commoners and nobles that dwell within its walls to do what is right. To report the whispers in taverns, the cries in the alleyways, that is what is expected. While I’m not talking about rounding up every suspect person on the hearsay of a crowd of barroom drunkards (and if they did a full half of the Herald’s staff would vanish), but when the Scarlet Crusade, the living paragon of irrational hatred and destruction and colourful reflection of the Scourge they claim to be so vociferously squared against, are walking about in our city, perhaps it is due time for us all to raise our voices that much louder.

The two bruisers did not come to blows. They both went separate ways; the Scarlet one way (to put his tabard back on I expect) and the sideshow exhibit the other (probably to wipe his chin). And what broke it up? A mouthy old gnome with a stick.

Maybe Madam S has a point about her people. At the very least they don’t look quite as ugly as some people here.

<And here's the next Pandora - needs a little edit, but otherwise it's all there>