▸ Column · The feast-halls of Orgrimmar and the clan-moots of the Horde, Warcraft era
GARROSH HELLSCREAM replies.
Replied to by Garrosh Hellscream, with a rebuttal from Thrall.
The letter
I have been bonded to my mate three winters now, and we have no children — a fact that grants his clan-aunt, the matron Greska, what she plainly considers a standing right to question me about my womb at every feast. We sit at the long tables roughly once a moon, and every time she finds the moment. At the last harvest-moot she cornered me over the roasted boar and asked, before four other kin, whether we had "consulted the healers about the trouble yet." The truth I keep from his whole clan: we have lost two children before their birth, and we have chosen to speak of it to no one. So I am left to lie, to mumble some deflection, or to let my silence be read as proof that I am broken. I have begged my mate to speak to her. He says she "means well," that to confront her would tear the peace of the clan for nothing. When may I silence this myself — and how, without shattering the family harmony he guards so fiercely?
Garrosh Hellscream replies
"When may I silence this myself." You ask permission to defend your own ground? You already hold the right — you lack only the nerve to use it, and you are waiting for your mate to hand it to you. He will not. He calls her prying "means well" and names his cowardice "peace." Hear me: a warrior who will not stand between his bonded and a tongue that flays her at the feast-table is not keeping peace. He is hiding behind it. Stop waiting on him. Depend on no one — every hand you wait on is a hand that owns the moment you should have seized.
And you owe Greska NOTHING. Your wounds are yours; the strong do not lay their grief on a table for the curious to pick over. So do not lie, do not mumble. Next time she reaches for your womb, meet her flat and unsmiling: "You will not ask me that again." Let the silence after belong to her, not you. Make the cost of the question too high to be worth her amusement. That is not drama. That is a border drawn.
...Though mark this. I drew borders against everyone, until I stood alone among ashes with no one left to guard. Draw yours against the prying. Not against everyone who loves you.
— Garrosh Hellscream
Thrall weighs in
Garrosh tells you to stand alone and make the question "too high to be worth her amusement." He would. He stood alone at the end, surrounded by what his certainty cost — I was the one who handed him the trust he burned, so believe me when I name it.
Greska is clumsy, friend, not your enemy. Do not sharpen her into one and pass your grief forward as a wound. Speak plainly, yes — but the failure here is your mate's silence, not your softness. He calls hiding "peace." It is not. A weight like two lost children is not yours to carry alone at that table while he guards a quiet that costs you everything. Make him stand beside you. That is the border worth drawing.
— Thrall
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