▸ Column · Medieval Lordaeron — a feud between two neighboring estate-holders over competing lawn statuary
ARTHAS MENETHIL replies.
Replied to by Arthas Menethil, with a rebuttal from Illidan Stormrage.
The letter
My neighbor, Lord Gerald, set a single carved gnome of stone upon his lawn this spring, so I answered with a taller gnome and a basin for the birds — merely to keep the balance, you understand. He raised a flock of wrought-iron herons; I had no choice but to erect a rotating beacon-tower four feet high. Now midsummer is upon us and the lane we share resembles a tourney ground dressed by a madman: Gerald boasts a wishing well, two stone toads, and a wind-spinner broad as a windmill's sail, while my own grounds bristle with a wagon wheel, seven concrete geese I dress in seasonal livery, and a ship's anchor I cannot honestly account for. My wife begs me to halt. But Gerald has just installed a mechanical footman that waves, and I have a six-foot fiberglass lobster waiting in my cart. Do I deploy the lobster — or is there an honorable ceasefire to be had before we both beggar our estates?
Arthas Menethil replies
"I had no choice." "Merely to keep the balance." I know those words. I spoke them on the road to Stratholme, certain each measure had been forced upon me by another's hand. It never is. Gerald did not set that lobster in your cart. You did, one reasonable answer at a time, until the geese wore livery and an anchor stood upon dry land you cannot explain — because there was never a reason, only the next step that felt owed.
Mark the lobster for what it is. Not a jest. A threshold. Frostmourne, too, waited within easy reach, and I told myself I could take it up and remain the prince. I could not. You will not deploy a six-foot lobster and remain a man who can someday laugh and clasp Gerald's hand; you will become the man who needs the next thing larger still, and there is no top to that stair.
Your wife begs you to halt. Uther begged me. I named his caution weakness and walked past him to a throne of ice. Whoever loves you enough to say stop is the last warning voice you have. Heed her. Leave the lobster in the cart. The smaller peace that leaves you whole is worth more than the grand victory that does not.
— Arthas Menethil
Illidan Stormrage weighs in
Arthas, you see Frostmourne in a lawn ornament. Of course you do — you saw an abyss in everything and threw yourself in regardless. Hear me: not every cart holds a cursed blade. The only test that matters is whether the cause is real, and this one is not. There is no Legion in Gerald's wind-spinner. You are not battling darkness; you are decorating against your own boredom. I burned away my eyes for a war worth the ruin. Do not lose one sleepless night to geese in costume. Make your peace — not from fear of what it will make of you, but because nothing here was ever worth the fight. Save your resolve for an enemy that exists.
— Illidan Stormrage
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