Heresy

Normally, when Fireflower received a package, it was expected. Its not like many people had things to mail to half-demonic psychotic warlocks with a chip on their shoulder and a tendency to name others anything she wanted, regardless of how much they actually liked her choice.

But then ‘normal’ wasn’t a word that ever applied to anything in her life. She was the isolated halfling, the walking experiement that got away thanks to a certain undead rogue’s misguided – but well meaning belief – that she could perhaps be ‘saved’.

Fireflower no longer hated Heresy, but not because she’d grown more fond of the rogue so much as she just had other things to do, distractions, new things to see, kill, eat, drain, shard, step on, bounce across or torment.

And then..there was that weird man…Xelius. Distraction? That was an understatement. Fireflower’s mind simply wasn’t equipped for his continued assaults on her fragile sense of violent but predictable order. The barely-functioning streams of consciousness that she clung to for some small degree of sanity usually got shaken up so badly by the crazy priest’s behaviour that she would just stare at him, little fists shaking and eyes glowing with frustration every time he bounced up and hugged her, or flipped her cloak up when she was focused on obliterating an unfortunate orc.

It had all started one cool, foggy morning standing by her mailbox - the typical start to any given day - when yet another Draenei passerby had glared at her angrily as she yawned lazily in front of the temple. Frowning back at them and letting out a tiny squeak as she stretched, extending her thin white hands into the air, she would briefly contemplate killing them then, and there, except that the guards were many, and she was but one sleepy warlock barely coherent enough to stand. Fireflower may have been nuttier than a wet cat, but she wasn’t stupid. The phrase “odds not in your favour” was not one she had heard – but she would have understood exactly what it meant.

It wasn’t that she was afraid to die; Fireflower still knew she was immortal though even thinking of the fact she was sent her into fits of confused rage. It was more that she was afraid to lose in front of those silly, prancing tentacle-people. So she behaved, they frowned, and somehow an uneasy truce was met between them.

There was a polite cough, and the words that followed were spoken hesitantly.

“Ah....Miss…Fireflower…?” an uncertain voice spoke and she turned to face it. Before her stood a messenger, one of the Broken.

“Yeah? I didn’t miss nothin’. I’m right HERE.” she rubbed her eyes and blinked,gazing down at him, bent over as he was. She wasn’t a particularly tall undead, but by even her standards the messenger was short.

“Package for you.” He extended a tall tube of what appeared to be paper and waited expectantly for her to take it from his grasp.

“Me? What is it?”

He merely shrugged.

She took it from his grasp eagerly. “Maybe its presents!!! PRESENTS PRESENTS!” she shrieked, not once considering that.. a) nobody she knew would send her gifts because her only real friend was a felhunter, b), she tended to either drive everyone around her crazy or kill them and c) see ‘a’ and ‘b’.

Bouncing back to the rear of the Inn and flouncing onto one of the cosy beds, she ignored the messenger further and began tearing the paper away.

“ooh..”

Her eyes glowed.

If there was any shred of humanity in this halfling creature, it came out in her adoration of two things: her felhunter, Maazhum…and roses. It wasn’t a sensible thing; that a girl of such brutal carelessness was fond of anything, really. But to be half demon, and half human, was to be a walking ball of chaotic and irreconcilable thinking. If you looked for patterns in her behaviour, explanations for her quirks and idiosyncracies, you would grow cobwebs before you found them.

Their modest covering now fully removed, before her lay a small bouquet of velvet-petalled roses, bound in two delicate satin ribbons, one pink – and one black - criss-crossed along the stems like the ties of a ballerina’s slipper. The roses themselves were almost black; not quite…each ebony petal fading slightly to a violent ruby at its base, they were the very darkest red.

A girl of virtually ANY species would have had a hard time not ‘oohing’ at them, bound sweetly up as they were, the fragrance terribly dark and rich; perhaps a bit too much so, as if their blackness had been magically enhanced. She would not have contemplated this…all she saw at first was the roses and ribbons. Her consciousness shut down, much as it did when she was fighting. For a moment all Fireflower felt..

..was wonder.

She reached out and touched one carefully, like she’d never seen one before, biting her lip and tilting her head as she smiled slightly.

It was then that she finally noticed the little parchment letter, folded beside them, sealed with royal blue wax; a rather elaborate ‘X’ stamped into it.

She frowned slightly, as the brief and fleeting moment passed and some form of tortured awareness returned to her.

She broke the seal, and began to read it, mumbling sotly to herself as she did.

They cannot compare to you, of course, but one does what
they must. Its only a matter of time, M’lady, I’ll make you see;
we are meant to linger within the shadows together. - X.

Fireflower raised an eyebrow. Her mouth twitched slightly.

It was then that the pathways in her mind begin to twist upon each other and explode. Something understands, something doesn’t. A war begins inside her mind between that which can never feel, or be, and that which can. Both.. are her, both will remain. There is no victor in this, there is no reconciliation. There never is.

Her fists tighten up into a tight ball as the parchment crumples slightly in her grasp; the pathways gone, a single thread of consciousness remains; her insatiable curiosity.

“What is this?” she shook her head slightly.

“M-lady…? What’s ling-gurrr? What’s an emm-lady..? And what am I supposed to do with these, I can’t make em into potions, not even bloody ones, everyone KNOWS that.”

Despite herself, one dainty finger continued to twist the ribbons around it, almost of its own mind, the smooth satin surface gleaming gently as sunlight streamed into the inn, and over their surface.

”Pretty.” She said, blinking, unaware of her own voice.

The pathways began to reconstruct themselves, those tortured knots of thought that had no way to unwind, that defined the very essence of her behaviour.

Lines crossed her pale little face as it screwed up into a confused and childish frown a moment before she slammed the base of her staff against the floor of the Inn with a loud thud. As if resenting her rough handling, the shard spinning softly in the head of the weapon began shaking and humming as she bellowed…..

“CAAAAAATTTTTT!!!!!”

Breaking glass was heard as the shrieking undead’s voice caused the still-sleepy Draenei innkeeper to jump with shock, and drop her tray of morning refreshments.

Shortly afterwards, a long and patient sigh, and the sound of sweeping could be heard, but Fireflower paid it no mind, only stomping her foot and shouting and wailing once more.

“CAT!!! I NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED YOU…CONFUSIN’ STUFF, ITS CONFUSIN’ MEEEE!!!”

Somewhere in the Xorothian plane, a distinctively languid feminine sigh could be heard as one particular succubus was summoned back into the realm of the living and away from a particularly delicious daydream involving a riding crop, five naked tauren, a swing, and a bottle of gromsblood wine.

“Its always at the worst possible moment….. “ Cattwyn shrugged, inspecting her nails (still perfect) as she slipped off the ethereal chaise where she preferred to recline when the little nutcase wasn’t needing something from her. Cattwyn, as succubi went, was old. Aeons old. World tree? Old news. That’s old.

And as such, she had developed - almost – a sort of persona along the way. To say she had a personality would be not quite accurate in that she was still, essentially, a demon. But she had become a rather complex one, bordering on a naughty sister and protective mother to Fireflower in what could only be called a bizarre twist of reality.

Was Cattwyn bad? That depended on where you were standing when you looked at her. She was just ..what she was. A very smart, cunning, ageless but ancient succubus, who did pretty much what you’d expect something of that description to do.

That…and file her nails. A lot. Even though they never needed it.

Daydreaming was a skill Cattwyn had perfected only with the greatest of efforts; a supremely skilled manipulator, she’d realised daydreaming was only a matter of manipulating herself into thinking what she wanted herself to see. It was as if she sat at a chess table with her own reflection, countering each move with another. Sometimes she won, sometimes she lost. But when you’re thousands of years old, you tend to take such things in stride.

All the same…she sighed, as her form began to fade and be recalled to Shattrath…it had been a particularly good daydream….Fireflower had good timing when it came to killing things…including everyone else’s good time.

“Coming, kiddo…coming…” she frowned, fading into nothingness.

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"I wrote the story myself. It's about a girl who lost her reputation and never missed it." - Mae West
Fireflower's Words of Wisdom: http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/a...ompilation.jpg