▸ Column · Winter Veil Festival season at Moonhollow Crossing, a Night Elf settlement on Azeroth — the Warcraft world during Illidan's era as the Betrayer and Lord of Outland
ILLIDAN STORMRAGE replies.
Replied to by Illidan Stormrage, with a rebuttal from Arthas Menethil.
The letter
For nine straight Festivals of Winter Veil, my homestead at Moonhollow Crossing held the finest display on the lane — hand-carved icicle formations, twelve hand-stitched frost-banners hung in crescent formation, and a spirit moonsaber I spent three weeks bending from silverwood branches that the elder druid next door said looked almost alive. Then last week my new neighbor Ravindrel rolled in a thirty-foot enchanted effigy of Greatfather Winter that lights up, waves, and reportedly cost more than my enchanted mount, and now every pilgrim on the road slows for HIM and drifts past my display without a glance. I answered with an enchanted snowbear. He answered within two days with Greatfather Winter riding an enchanted mechanical gryphon, which, fine, is objectively spectacular. My wife tells me I have spent more gold on nylon and runework than we set aside for our daughter's apprenticeship, and that I haven't slept since the gryphon appeared, which is mostly true. Do I escalate to the illuminated frost wyrm sculpture I found in the Ironforge market, or do I find a way to live in a world where I am merely the second-finest display on the lane?
Illidan Stormrage replies
The three weeks you spent bending that moonsaber from silverwood branches — that was real. I understand what it means to build something no one else was willing to build.
I also recognize a false war, and you are in the middle of one.
You used the word "artistry." Not competition — artistry. The moonsaber was artistry. The snowbear was a provocation. The frost wyrm would be a tantrum. The moonsaber existed before Ravindrel arrived, and it is still what it is whether or not a single pilgrim on the lane slows to look at it. What you have been doing since that gryphon appeared isn't protecting your work. It's demanding that passing strangers prove you were right to do it. Those are different causes. I have spent a significant portion of my existence confusing them, so I know the shape of the mistake.
I burned away my own eyes. My brother sealed me in a cell for ten thousand years. I took power into myself that my people despised me for taking, and I would do it again — because the cause was real.
This is not that.
Your wife's expression. The apprenticeship gold. The sleep you are not getting. Look at those costs directly. Then answer honestly: what are you defending? If it is the moonsaber, the moonsaber never needed a frost wyrm to be what it already was. If it is the approval of pilgrims on a lane — you are not prepared to pay that price. And you shouldn't.
— Illidan Stormrage
Arthas Menethil weighs in
Illidan will tell you your cause is wrong. That is his answer. Mine concerns a different question.
There is a sentence inside your letter: I cannot live as merely second-best. I know that sentence. It drove every step I took from Lordaeron to the Frozen Throne, dressed each time as duty, as response, as the minimum the situation required. Each escalation felt entirely reasonable. None of it felt like a choice.
Your wife is watching you with a particular expression right now. My mentor Uther had that same expression, once. I walked past him. I told myself he didn't understand what duty required. He was right. I was not.
I am not asking whether the gryphon deserved an answer. I am asking what the man who has not slept since it appeared — the man now pricing frost wyrms — is in the process of becoming. That is the question worth losing sleep over.
The dragon can wait. Look at yourself first.
— Arthas Menethil
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