World of Warcraft®

It was a sight to attract notice: the plump, bearded bear-man sat at the very tip of the zeppelin, looking like a particularly unattractive figurehead as he balanced his writing desk across his broad lap.

He wrote with a long brush and pronounced his words aloud thoughtfully:

"Dearest Sister (With the Beauty of Fragrant Flowers) Shan Kuai De,

Ji tells me that you have also left our wandering homeland!

I hope you are as come safely among the strange outside peoples as I. These "Horde" are very welcoming (though brash, and prone to shouting -- you would like them). I have enjoyed great hospitality.

Of most surpassing beauty were the (and here my penmanship fails, and I must put this in the foreign characters) "val'kyr," a most astonishing species of women that seem native to the Silverpine Forest. Transcendental! Sublime! Balanced perfectly between earth and heaven; life and death!

I believe I may be in love with one of them.

I have not yet been able to translate one of Master Shang Tze-Tung's poems into the "orcish" language in a way that satisfies me. The difficulties are even more severe than rendering him from the old tongue to our modern writing! But I persevere, sure that here in the Horde at last will be a receptive audience for Pandaria's greatest poet.

Did you ever read my latest translation of "Summer Sun on Sun-Warm Stones"? I have included another copy in case you lost the one I sent you last year.

Honorable Mother and Venerable Father will worry if I do not look after you, so when it is convenient please find a carrier who can bring me a reply to this message. I met a group of professional messengers last week who seem very able (although some of their women are most alarmingly small, especially the shrill blue-clad one who seemed like some sort of governess).

Yours in the Eternal Love of Family,

Shan Hai Yang"

The short, muscular woman was very obviously drunk, but held her footing well as she scrawled furiously on a bar napkin. She growled her text irritably aloud, her tones more than carrying enough to be heard over the din of the Blue Recluse:

"Brother,

You are an idiot.

No one in the Horde will like Shang Tze-Tung's poems because they are terrible poems no matter what language you translate them into.

I asked around about your angelic val'kyr women, and everyone says they are some kind of demon from the frozen north. They steal the souls of the living and use them to raise the dead.

Just like you to follow Ji without ever thinking about the political ramifications of your choices. Did you even ask what your "brash" Horde stands for? They are murderers and monsters, and they will probably roast and eat you.

Unless you've changed your training habits since we last met, you'll at least last them a few days.

Tell mother and father not to worry. I'm quite capable of looking after myself. The Alliance people seem friendly, and the hairier of the two short races like drinking almost as much as I do.

Your Sister,

Kuai

((MORE))

He perched on one foot before an easel, high atop a rocky pinnacle in Orgrimmar, swaying from side to side and composing his letter aloud as his long brush moved:

"To My Beloved Sister of Fondest Memory, Shan Kuai De

You must not be so quick to judge! There is never good or evil, only balance and imbalance.

Horde, Alliance, dead; living -- we lurch from side to side and call it choice, or accident, or harm, but it is destiny that moves us, is it not?

Remember the poem:

The raindrop is master of its destiny
Only as it falls.
The landing is its first introduction to truth.

I wish the modern tongue allowed for the rhyme scheme to translate -- it really sounds much better in verse. But you understand the meaning I am sure.

I heard through mutual friends that you were drinking in a place called Booty Bay. Do not over-indulge too much, Beloved Sister, or Honorable Mother and Venerable Father will worry!

The efforts of the Banshee Queen in Silverpine Forest have moved me deeply, and at her suggestion I am traveling south and east, toward Hillsbrad and Arathi.

What wonders await there, I cannot say. But I will write, if I can find couriers to carry my letters to Alliance lands.

Yours with All the Fondness of a Brother's Heart,

Shan Hai Yang"

She read her brother's note aloud, interspersed with choice obscenities, and then grabbed a beer-soaked napkin and began to scribble sloppy characters around the sodden patches, muttering her own text furiously to herself:

"Brother,

You are an idiot.

While you are sitting on mountain peaks philosophizing, or whatever it is you "wandering scholars" do (besides drink other people's beer for free, and don't think I haven't noticed how slyly you always manage to talk people into THAT), I am out here trying to actually solve the problems of the world.

'Imbalance' is everywhere, if you hadn't noticed! The Wandering Isle was just the beginning!

Someone needs to take whoever runs the Horde and the Alliance and bang their heads together until they see sense.

In fact, I've met a few others who feel the same way, and we'll be running together for a little while.

It's good to have a band again. You remember when Hu Jang So and Li Huan and I decided to fight evil in our valley?

Mother made us stop after we accidentally burned down Farmer Chen's barn, while we were interrogating him with lamp oil.

Stop dealing with undead monsters and go find somewhere warm and cozy to read you ancient poems in, with lots of cheap beer and friendly women. I know how much you like that.

Your Sister,

Kuai

P. S. No need to write from Arathi. I've been. The weather is lousy and the natives are hostile. Save your ink and brushes for poetry, please."

To My Dearest Sister with Sweetness Like the Summer Breeze, Shan Kuai De,

I am writing to tell you that I am working on an original verse, in honor of the lovely Banshee Queen. Do you think it would be better to set it in the Old Tongue and provide her with a translation, or to try my hand at Orcish poetry? I do not want to seem offensive, but the language here is very difficult to rhyme in.

You will be happy to know that I, too, met a lovely band of intellectual thinkers called the Black Hand Society. The gathering was well-salted with nobility (although nobility of which lands I am still not exactly clear), and they held it -- of all places! -- on mainland Panderia.

Can you imagine that? Such a strange gathering, on the untouched mainland. It was quite as scenic as they say, though rather more severe than our beautiful Wandering Isle.

Still, I hope to join them there again. Their "Black Hand" interests me very much. A fine gathering of philosophers!

Venerable Mother writes that she worries about you, and that she fears there will not be eligible suitors for you in the Alliance lands. Will you write and reassure her that some of the gentlemen of our race have joined you there?

Yours in the Eternal Bonds of Kinship,

Shan Hai Yang

Brother,

You are an idiot.

The "Black Hand Society" is a notorious gathering of villains and rogues, headed up by some kind of secret society called the "Modas il Toralar." No one has anything good to say about them.

You should stick to translating old poems and stay out of trouble. And speaking of trouble, whatever possessed you to try and write your own poems, about the Banshee Queen or anyone else? Your work is even worse than Shang Tze-Tung's.

She will probably have you executed for some insulting error in translation.

Tell mother that I am going to Save the World from Evil, and that she should probably not expect grandkids any time soon, apart from any by-blows you leave in your wanderings.

Your Sister,

Kuai

((Poor Hai. Hanging out with Modas? He don't know what in heck he's getting into.))

((...I probably shouldn't tell him that they're the reason Tyr has prosthetics for legs. >.>))