“I look a fool,” the warlock thought to himself. It was a Hallow’s End party, costumed gatherers celebrating the festival in typical fashion. Oh sure, there were plenty of amazing costumes. Master Dravir was dressed as Mister Laurus Drachmas the mage, which caused all sorts of laughter. Madam Aely was dressed as a farmer, even going so far as to carry a shovel for the whole of the evening. Master ap Danwyrith was dressed as a Stormwind Guard. Arrens was certain there was a mocking insult somewhere in that particular disguise, though he could not be certain.

But the Headmaster came dressed as a Twilight’s Cultist. And he looked a fool. “I can see your nipples,” Dravir said, as if the warlock wasn’t self-conscious enough.

He kept quiet for most of the night, his thoughts elsewhere. He found himself easily irritable of late. Irritability that was lending itself to moments of blacking out and waking to find his body bruised, bleeding and battered and dead creatures surrounding him. These were his…friends…around him.

Are they friends or merely mutual associates? he thought to himself. He could not remember friends taunting one another about showing their nipples, that was certain. So the warlock kept to himself, standing atop a small mound.

Until Rosie showed up.

She had come in the company of another. This, in itself, was not unremarkable. Rosie had introduced Bairix to those she recognized, including Arrens. He seemed a nice enough fellow. When Arrens asked how she knew him, Rosie said he had shown up and began doing odd jobs for her; showed promise with a sword. She had called him a “looker,” a term that didn’t sit particularly well with him.

When she sat next to him, she asked him to hold out his hand. When his palm was laid open, Rosie placed in it a small coin. It was the same coin that Arrens had given her but a week ago, a memento he desperatly wanted her to have. “I figure you could use the luck,” she said. Luck. That was the last thing he needed.

His blood boiled. He flipped the coin in his hands, looking at the last reminder of his days as a mage, before he had followed the darker path of a warlock. He stood up and threw it as hard as he could, deep behind the graves of the nearby cemetary. “The fuck was that?!” Rosie asked, outraged.

Arrens merely marched away, calling for Shaaroon to follow.

Rosie called after him on his buzzbox. She was livid, Arrens knew. But he didn’t care. How dare she return that gift! How dare she think so little of him! He had meant that for her! Not for it to be returned like some unwanted piece of jewelry!

Summoning his dreadsteed, Arrens rode hard. He had to find an outlet for his rage, to search for something beautiful to destroy. He rode towards the Dark Portal.

Felguards marched a mindless path, Felhounds at their side. Arrens and Shaaroon killed them all. Too easy, he thought. He went towards the Tainted Scar, the area where Doom Lord Kazzak once stood, the area where the Legion’s most powerful demons yet rode on Azeroth. He stood there watching over them, rage coursing through his veins. He stood there about to attack when he heard the sound of a rumbling engine approach. Turning to look at the unwanted intrusion, Arrens saw Adel Ashawe. “Go away, Adel. Leave me be. This is not a place for you to be in your condition.”

She approached, a limp in her step from an encounter several weeks prior with a crazed assassin. “Neither is Icecrown, but I’m still fighting a damn war.” She continued approaching. “And your condition may be a little worse.”

“My condition is of little concern!” Arrens spat.

“Then neither is mine.”

Arrens sighed and trudged forward, closing in on the demons. “Very well.”

Adel hobbled along, her gait belying her injuries. “So what happened?” she asked, her tone stern.

“It…was…nothing…”

“You are normally quite calm and collected. Or is this the private Arrens, the one who comes out when you’re alone?”

“This is not a matter for you to concern yourself with. This is something I must deal with. Alone.”

She gazed at him. “Normally not, no. But I don’t want you tearing yourself up over something I may have caused.”

Arrens turned towards her sharply. “What do you think you may have caused? This? My being here? My hands the way they are?” He displayed his hands, demonic cuts still festering. “Hardly. Now if you will excuse me.” He turned, expecting her to leave.

She didn’t. “You want Rosie. You want her to see that you’d take care of her, but she denies you, turns away and runs to another man.”

“Stop. Let it go, Adel. This is not a matter I care to discuss.”

She continued, “The only man she wants, because he was ‘safe,’ my presence made him ‘safe’ for her to fall for.”

Arrens cast his eyes downward. “Stop. Not now.”

“You don’t even know what fucking mess you’re dealing with,” she said.

“And you don’t know the mess that stands in front of you right now. Go away, Adel, before one of us gets hurt.”

“You’re blinded, Arrens. I’m offering you the clear truth.”

“What truth?!” he spat. “That I’m clearly out of my league? That she wants nothing to do with me? That my love is being turned away for the prospect of a cheap fuck?! Is that the truth?!”

“No,” Adel responded simply. “The only reason Rosie ever falls in love is because the guy isn’t an option. The minute he is, she freaks out. Tiforis was moony over me, so she saw it as a challenge. You were a challenge.”

“Wonderful,” he said sarcastically. “A pawn. A game. Just what I had always hoped.”

“Now maybe you should sit back and realize she’s not worth this little drama of yours. Not until she gets her own life on track.”

Arrens sputtered. “This drama….of mine? How…Go. Go now, Adel.”

“I’m not the one standing with a broken heart over a girl I hardly know.”

“No, you’re not. I am. And I’m dealing with it, ok? Now go,” he continued angrily.

“How are you dealing with it?” she asked. “I want to make sure what I’m saying isn’t going in one ear and out the other.”

“Fine. She doesn’t want me the way I want her. I get that. I understand it. I will…come to grips with it in due time.”

“By destroying yourself in the process? She’s not worth it. No one is.”

“I believe I reserve the right to make that decision.”

“You being laid or not doesn’t mean shit in the long run. Everyone dies alone.”

“I am not in this to…get laid, as you so eloquently put it.”

“Then what are you in it for,” she asked. “Love and companionship without physical contact? Don’t spin me that bullshit. It’s part of the whole.”

“Of course it is! I know that! Do you believe I wanted this? To fall in love with her? Gods!”

She pressed, “Do you think it’s easy for me to watch Dravir move on, to flirt with other women, plan dates? Don’t act like I’m some stranger to this shit. I’m doing this for your own good. Because if you don’t get reality’s slap in the face real soon, you’re going to tear yourself apart.”

“I said to let it go, Adel.”

“Or you’ll what? Go slice up your hands and play with demons until control slips away?” she asked mockingly.

“I do not ‘play’ with demons. Would you care to see what I do to them? There are plenty to choose from.” Arrens waved his hands around, the large demonic brutes lumbering nearby. Arrens selected one, a shadowy curse cast as Shaaroon charged in upon command from his master. Shadows flew from his hands, coursing through his blood. How DARE she come here, he thought. How DARE she question me! If I could I would….

Arrens felt it, the darkness creeping over him. He felt the change consuming him as he became one with the shadowy magic he wielded. In short order, the demon lay dead and Arrens, exhausted, laid upon the fel-tinged soil before Adel.

“I see,” she said, staring down at him coldly. “So this is what you’ve let yourself do.”

“What?” he looked up, confusion in his eyes. How had he been put on the ground? What happened to the demon? What happened…to him?

“For your own safety and others, you are likely best to find yourself another outlet for your…frustrations. You become what you wield, Arrens.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“You truly don’t know, do you?”

“Dammit, Adel!” he yelled, rising from the dirt. “I’m tired of these games! Just speak what you wish and be done with it!”

“You became your power! The same way when lost, I become mine. Is it only when you’re angry that it happens? Do you black out, or just suppress it? Does it happen when you think of things that destroy you inside?” she asked.

“I’ve been blacking out….after thinking of Rosie, or something that truly gets me upset. Which of late, has been Rosie.” He looked up, his expression one of confusion and pain. “What happened, Adel?”

“Shaaroon doesn’t speak? Or maybe he likes you better that way?”

“He’s rather timid. He doesn’t say much. And likes me better in what way?”

Adel openly mocked him. “Angry. Dangerous. Wrong. Does it only happen when you think about Rosie rejecting you? Or maybe it surfaces when you imagine her running to Tiforis, begging for his arms?”

“Enough,” he said, his blood beginning to boil.

“She did, you know. Was doing that even when she went on the date with you.”

Arrens approached her, their faces a hair’s width apart. “Go away,” he said, his voice carrying with it a menacing tremble.

“No. It pisses you off, doesn’t it? She doesn’t love you. She loves a man who’s treated her like shit. You treat her like a princess and get what? Nothing?!” Adel’s hands twitched, as if ready to  cast a spell.

Arrens’ eyes closed, his voice barely above a whisper. “Go…now. Go away.”

“She rebukes you over and over. Who knows how many men she’s been with? Or maybe…”

Adel looked the warlock in the eyes. “Or maybe it’s because I’ve kissed her and you haven’t.”

Arrens felt the now-familiar shadows creeping into him. The fear remained, but there was a pleasure associated with it, a power that consumed him. He could see the look of fear in Adel’s eyes as she attempted to cast a spell. Arrens approached her, his body seemingly moving of its own volition when, at the last, Adel was able to cast. Arrens felt a soothing presence, a familiar face in his mind that, moments before, was clouded with rage. “What…what is this?”

“Look at yourself!” Adel screamed. “Fucking look!”

The warlock glanced down. The hands that he moved were not his. The skin he could feel was not his. The hooves he had grown were…clearly not his. “What have you done to me?!” he screamed.

“Shut up and look! Close your eyes and see! You’ll never wake up if you don’t understand!”

Just then, Arrens’ buzzbox chirped indicating a message on his private channel. “Where are you?” It was Rosie.

“…help,” was all that he could muster.

“WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?!” she screamed.

“She’s coming. She’s coming and she’s going to see me…like this,” Arrens said.

“Rosie?”

“Yes.”

“No. I will keep her back,” said Adel.

Arrens’ voice bellowed in the demonic tongue he had grown to learn as Adel continued her mental assault. “RAKKAS IL ZILA!” Please, no more.

“No…no more. Stop,” he sobbed. “I…I can’t.”

“You know it now, don’t you?!” she demanded.

“No more…”

“Don’t play this game!” she said. “Fucking tell me, yes or no?! You either understand or you don’t.”

“No…yes…I do. Please…no more.”

“Good,” she said. “Now you are aware.”

Arrens picked himself up, his normally fastidious robes dirtied with the soil of the tainted lands around him. “What…what do I do now?” he askd.

“You gain control again. You take the things that make you lose it and you face them.”

“Yes…yes, of course. I must…do some research…” Adel frowned at him. He looked at her, fear in his eyes. “You’re…you’re not going to induce another outburst, are you?”

“No. But I had to make you realize how bad it was. The shadow and the energy you and I use are not that different. I lost my family in the war. My fiancee. My entire identity and my life. Then the shadow was born. The shadow from priests is faith and disrest.” Arrens simply nodded in understanding. “I am no stranger to the loss of control due to emotion.”

“I should have expected this. I should have known. I should have…been prepared.”

“Now you need to focus on you and your health. Not on others. Seek answers where you’ll find them, not where you desire to escape to. Remember that. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think Rosie is afraid I went to throw myself in a pot of boiling water.”

Arrens cast a downwards look.

“I’ll take care of her, don’t worry,” said Adel.

“Tell her…tell her I’m sorry,” said the warlock.

“I will.”