▸ Column · Azeroth — the Undercity of the Forsaken, where the Banshee Queen reads a letter about pilfered provisions from the communal cold-vault
SYLVANAS WINDRUNNER replies.
Replied to by Sylvanas Windrunner, with a rebuttal from Arthas Menethil.
The letter
For the third dark-watch in a row, someone has been pilfering my carefully cured ration from the cold-vault beneath the Undercity, and I have grown certain it is Gravelle from the Apothecarium — he reeks of the same embalming spices afterward and bristles whenever anyone so much as mentions "sharing." I marked my crock with my name, then a courteous note, then a less courteous one bearing a hand-scratched skull, and Gravelle has the gall to praise my "artwork" every single time. Last week I set out a decoy labeled as a rare delicacy but filled with bitter, unseasoned filler — Gravelle's eyes wept the whole watch, which I choose to read as guilt rather than fumes. I would rather not drag the Dark Lady's wardens into a squabble over a trifle, but I cannot keep laboring over elaborate provisions only to feed a thief's bottomless appetite. Is there a respectable way to rig a container, or must I simply accept Gravelle as my permanent freeloader?
Sylvanas Windrunner replies
Three notes. A name, a courtesy, a skull — and each one was you asking permission to be left alone. Gravelle answered by admiring your penmanship. That is the whole of your problem rendered in miniature: you are performing a boundary instead of imposing one, and the thief has correctly read your decorations as exactly that. Decorations. The world does not honor labels. It honors cost.
So stop subsidizing him. You are laboring over fine provisions and depositing them, unguarded, somewhere his hand reaches — and you call him the freeloader. Remove the access, or remove the anonymity. A vault he cannot open. A watch who sees him lift the lid. Make the theft witnessed, so the price lands on his standing among the Forsaken, where it costs him something. That is leverage. Notes are not.
What I will not hand you is the poisoned crock. I was murdered and bound to serve my killer; I know precisely what it is to be the thing that does harm because it found it convenient. I will not make you a smaller copy of that over a stolen meal. Take back your provisions. Do not take back your better self in the bargain.
— Sylvanas Windrunner
Arthas Menethil weighs in
You are certain it is Gravelle. So was I, every mile to Stratholme — certain, and not entirely wrong, and ruined all the same. Examine the evidence you have actually assembled: a man who smells of spices in a place full of spices, and weeping eyes you have chosen to read as guilt rather than the obvious fumes. You already fed him bitter filler as a punishment for a crime you have not proven. That is the curdling, friend — not the great cruelty, the small one you dressed as cleverness. Confirm who the thief is before you rig anything. I convicted a city on my certainty. Do not convict Gravelle on a runny nose.
— Arthas Menethil
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