He's come back. My father has come back to us for the first time in many years, and he is alone. I would be joyous, but he is changed, somehow. He still smiles to all of us, and he passes the day as he used to, but there is something decidedly different. The sense of him itself has changed—something I cannot put my finger on.

Well, it is clear. His blood elf is gone.



He does not speak to us anymore. Not truly. He was always quiet, my father, always someone who kept to himself, but he does not speak to any of us at all anymore. I brought him my son and he smiled barely, but said nothing. I watched him practice and he moved his fingers so quickly he could not have been remembering the motions correctly. He spoke in a low slur, all the words as one, and he spends all day sitting alone outside his hut, doing nothing, not even mending. The chief has spoken to him, I think, but I did not dare listen in on that conversation.

I asked him, once, why he came back. He only smiled and said that he had no reason to stay away, did he, and didn't we like having him around? I bit my tongue on further words because I could hear something he was not saying, and said of course I was glad.

I would be, but.



He. Has died. My father has died. My mother is the one who told me, and the chief is the one who told her. She says that he let his control loose—his magic burst around him.

I think only that he must have been hurting, and I know in my heart what must have caused it: his elf. I can think of that creature as nothing else now, even if he was still terrible while he was here. He was my father's blood elf, his sworn love, and I promised myself I would respect that, even if I do not understand.

I think it must have been destroying him. My dear father.