Twenty-Two

My Mistress Ashari, Part 1

My mistress is not what one would call a bad person.  She is caring, loyal, and meticulous in her duties.  Some may distrust her for being of the Rogue class, but it only seems natural for a Night Elf to stick to the shadows.

Yet this journey of hers has lead some of her own people to view her in a negative light.  It is my fear that if she doesn’t keep her mouth shut, she might get herself exiled.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

First of all, let me introduce myself.  My name is Pépé.  I lived out my younger days in the Elywnn Forest, overlooked and ignored by the band of Defias thugs that had been camping out near my home since before I was born.  I had no love for them, since they would frequently knock on our door and harass my mother’s mistress, but neither did I hate them.  Instead, I watched them:  watched the way they fought, they way they stole, the way they killed.  Before I knew it, I was mimicking their movements in my own hunting, stalking down rabbits with the ruthlessness and brevity of a Defias.  I even began to improve upon their methods; stealthing up behind one’s prey and then unleashing a furious attack is much more effective than belting out an arrogant challenge.

But I digress. This is not my story.  This is the story of my mistress, Ashari.

My mistress’s story began long before I met her, before she made the journey from her homelands to the Eastern Kingdoms and based herself out of Stormwind.  I met her when she purchased me at the place of my birth, and I have remained by her side ever since.

She has never given me reason to be anything but loyal.  She has never given me reason to doubt her.  Which is why when she decided on a whim to journey back to visit her homeland, I did not protest.

That was when I began to learn more of her story.  The day she set out for Darnassus.


The image I have of her sitting on that ship, on the crossing of the Great Sea to Kalimdor, is an image that will no doubt remain with me for the rest of my days.  She was sitting on a deck chair just outside the Captain’s cabin, her legs crossed, left arm on the armrest, right arm holding her ledger, looking as casual and contented as could be.  The clash of colors on her person was enough to make anyone blink, not just someone with the powerful eyesight of my kind.  The dark leather armor she had on her top and bottom accented her natural dark-blue Night-Elven complexion and the navy-blue braid that always hung over one shoulder.  However, the tabard of the Stormwind Blood Knights was a blazing red accented with brilliant gold, and the cape she wore was of a bright, lime-green; the clash was enough to make one blink with a single glance.

But Ashari never seemed to notice or care that she was a walking eyesore, and that moment was no different.  She merely lounged in that deck chair, flipping through her ledger, making little notes and calculations in the margins.  

She seemed to have that notebook on hand as much as her daggers; indeed, whenever she wasn’t stabbing something, Ashari had that ledger out, always keeping tabs on every item she had up for auction.  She would record new items she found, keep accurate, up-to-date records on their market prices, and check off what had already been sold.  She was dead-set on saving enough gold to buy a mount someday, and for someone of her relatively low fighting caliber, she was already well on her way.

The only thing that could interrupt her meticulous record keeping was my overt plea for attention.  As she was sitting in the deck chair, I leapt up onto her lap, rubbed my head against the heel of her hand, and purred loudly.

She smiled down at me and set her pen on the side table, then indulged my whim by stroking my silver-striped fur.  I encouraged the act by purring even louder.

“So you think I’m working too hard, do you Pépé?” Ashari chuckled quietly.  “Think I should take a break, huh?”

Indeed, I thought she should.

“Well I’m almost done.  Just need to figure out if these Copper Battle Axes are worth the crafting, or if I’ll get more just selling off the Malachite I’ve mined.”  Her iridescent eyes flitted back to her ledger.

Insistent, I rubbed my head against her ribcage, purring like mad.

Ashari laughed.  It was a jovial, carefree sound, more like the laughs of the humans of Stormwind than the reserved, enigmatic laugh of the Night Elves.  “Okay, okay!” the Elf conceded.  She put the notebook down on the side-table next to her pen, wrapped both of her long-fingered hands around me, and pulled me closer to her chest.  I curled into her arms, purring happily as she stroked my furry back.

After a few minutes, Ashari’s eyes drifted to half-mast.  The lulling rock of the ocean beneath us and the lulling hum of my constant purring relaxed the Elf.  I could feel the tension start to bleed out of her body as time wore on.

“Do you think they’ll be surprised, Pépé?”

Taken off-guard by the sudden breaking of the silence, I ceased my purring for half a second, then started back up again.

“By how much I’ve done?  I mean…after being gone for so long I should be even stronger than I am now, so that’s not really what I mean…what I mean is, do you think they’ll be surprised by the kind of things I’ve done?”  She turned her iridescent eyes down at me.

I looked back up at her with my completely-neutral, yellow-eyed stare.  I gave a slow blink.

“There are no Blacksmiths in Darnassus, did you know that?”

In fact, I had not known that, but being without the capability to speak Common, could not say so.

“The folks back in Teldrassil will probably think I’m odd, practicing such a Dwarven profession.”  A smile flitted back onto Ashari’s face.  “But there’s nothing wrong with the Dwarves.  I like them, actually.  They may be surly and easily annoyed, and a little too obsessed with alcohol, but they’re plucky, stout, and absolutely brilliant.  And they never let their guard down.  That, and their homelands are beautiful.”  Her smile grew, and she turned her gaze down to me again.  “You remember Loch Modan, right?  And the snowy mountains outside Ironforge?  Ah!  Gorgeous.”

In truth, I didn’t remember much of Ironforge, as we had only passed over it on our way to Menethil Harbor.  I hate flying, so I had been huddling in my cage the whole time, trying to escape the cold, whipping winds.  Ashari, meanwhile, had been striding that Griffen with her head going back and forth, taking in the landscape below with the widest of grins.

Her smile faded as the next thought occurred to her.  “And what will they think about me swapping my Hearthstone to warp me back to Stormwind?  And joining the Stormwind Blood Knights?”  The Rogue let out a heavy sigh.  “They’ll probably think I’ve abandoned my homeland and heritage…but I haven’t.  I just…I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the day.  The light of the Sun is just as holy and radiant as the light of Elune.  I don’t think it’s wrong that humans worship that Light.”

Religion?  I gave my mistress a slow blink.  This was a new one for her.  I had never heard her talk about religion, not even the Night Elf belief in the Goddess of the Moon.  She had regarded the Cathedral of Light in Stormwind as just another building, occasionally smiling in the direction of the altar on her way to and from First-Aid training.  So what had suddenly brought this on?

Ashari sighed.  I stretched out across her lap and gave a wide yawn, then curled up again.  She looked down at me, and I was glad to see the smile reappear on her face.  She was really giving this whole venture too much thought.

“You’re right, Pépé.”

I blinked.  I was?  I didn’t recall having spoken.

“I’m worrying too much.  I should just relax, like you.  This is Teldrassil we’re talking about!”  She gave a light chuckle.  “Everything will be fine.  There’s nothing to worry about.”

The ship’s bell gave off a loud Ding!  Ashari’s head jolted upward; the motion sent her long ears bobbing.

“We’re here!”

I leapt off her lap just before the Elf stood.  She gathered her ledger and pen into her backpack, slung it over her shoulder, and exited the cabin.

“Shadowstepper!  Belvedere!” Ashari called out, looking around the ship’s deck.

Two other cats appeared from behind a crate on the deck.  One was a green-eyed, sable Bombay who walked with the deadly, reserved grace of a panther.  The other was a delicate-pawed Siamese who came out of her hiding place with the disdainful air of being interrupted at something she wasn’t supposed to be doing.  I stood nearly glued to the heels of Ashari’s boots, giving them both a level, even stare.  The sable met me look for look, but the Siamese refused to glance in my direction.

Ashari smiled down at the three of us, unaware of the bad rapport going on between her pets.  “Come on, guys.  We’ve landed at the continent of Kalimdor.  Next stop:  Darkshore.”