Don’t forget to make your last-minute suggestions for Garrosh’s Poetry Challenge this week! The last installment was the Sylvanas poem from Friday, so be sure to put your ideas in the comments there. In the meantime, let’s have a look at this week’s mail…

Dear Warchief,

Since you’ve shown an interest in this week’s Noblegarden activities, I thought you might want to know about some rather…strange events going on around them. Down here in Bloodhoof Village, many of us have been engaging in the traditional egg hunts. As you probably already know, some of those eggs are magical, and when gathered they spawn several bunnies. So fairly early on in the holiday season, the village ends up being filled with dozens of these little rabbits, hopping around all over the place and going about their business.

That much is fine, it’s part of the holiday and we don’t mind the rabbits at all. The problem is that this year, we’re having an extra, unexpected guest whom we weren’t expecting. A few days into Noblegarden, the forest nymph Mylune, whom I think you’ve met, showed up unannounced and…well…just started going nuts. Not violent nuts or anything, she just saw all the bunnies and flipped. She’s been scampering around the village hugging as many rabbits as she can herd together, talking baby talk to them, and squealing on and on every time she sees more of them.

She’s not bothering anyone, really, just minding her own bunny-hugging business, and I can’t say she’s doing any harm. We tauren generally are on good terms with the dryads, so I don’t think we’re going to have any real trouble with her. It’s just…really weird. So I thought you might want to know what was happening.

–Maur Raincaller, Bloodhoof Village

Huh. Well, Maur, as long as she’s not actually causing any real problems, this might be one that we just let sit. Not to stick you guys with her charming company down there in Bloodhoof Village, but honestly? After last time, I’m not going anywhere near that chick. You should be fine, the holiday’s over now so she’ll probably go home soon enough, just make sure your newbie druids down there don’t try shifting into animal forms while she’s around. And you might want to tell any hunters you’ve got to keep their distance if they have pets. Oh and also, it might be a little inconvenient, I know, but you might want to give your windrider master a day or two off and just close down the flight path. I know from experience the wyverns probably aren’t going to get a lot done while she’s around, and your flight master will probably appreciate being spared the headaches. And possible bosom-clasp bruises.

Hey mon,

How come people always be makin’ a big deal about dese death knights? I be pwnin’ dem down here in de Echo Isles ever since dey started seein’ dey trainers here.

–Bob, Echo Isles

Um, okay, first of all, idiot, there ARE no death knight trainers in the Echo Isles. There aren’t any baby death knights running around the junior league training areas like Echo Isles or Razor Hill or whatever. Because – NEWS FLASH, dimwit – all the death knights in the Horde are former Knights of the Ebon Blade, who were turned into death knights by Arthas back in the day, so the ONLY place they can train is in their own damn floaty city out in the Eastern Plaguelands. Which you would KNOW if you didn’t have your head jammed so far up your ass that you don’t have any fucking idea what’s going on AROUND you.

Which brings me to my next point. Dude, what the fuck is up with you? Seriously. Every few weeks I get some letter from you where you’re asking about some shit that absolutely anybody with a brain already knows, and half the time you’ve got something cringe-inducingly WRONG, so like, really, what’s your deal? Did you just get dropped on your head like eight thousand times? Did you, Dontrag, and Utvoch draw straws to see who got how much of the one brain you’ve got between you all, only you wound up with nothing because you lost focus and stuck your straws in your nose and started cracking yourself up making walrus noises? Or did you put on a bear suit for who the fuck knows what reason, then made the bad decision to drop by Hyjal, and next thing you knew that aforementioned prancy head case Mylune ran up and started squeezing you till she literally made you shit your brain right out? Because I’m really trying to figure you out, and I’m not coming up with much of anything other than something like that.

I tell you, I give Vol’jin a lot of crap, but spirits help him if this is the kind of wall-to-wall hired help he’s got to choose from down there.

Dear Garrosh,

I’m not quite sure how to begin, or even if you would want to hear from me. I’m sorry that I haven’t tried to contact you until now. I hope that in the end you’ll understand why.

When the red pox tore through our people in Nagrand, you and I were both afflicted, like most of the rest of the Mag’har. It was probably so long ago that you barely even remember it, if you do at all. I remember it well. I remember how sick you became. But I knew you would make it through. Even then, you were strong. You were always so strong.

Eventually the healers of Garadar began to cure our people of the red pox. Bit by bit, our little forgotten village began to recover. My symptoms, though, continued undiminished, no matter what our shamans did. Worse yet, in a few cases, those who had been cured found themselves reinfected after being around me, only this time with symptoms that were far more severe, and resisted all attempts at treatment. Almost without exception, they died.

I, on the other hand, lived on, suffering but alive, as if the pox and I were locked in a stalemate: me too strong to die, the disease too strong to fade. The shamans decided that somehow I had become a carrier for a far more virulent strain of that hateful disease.

In time, Garadar recovered, and I was the only one left, with no end to the pox in sight. More and more, those who came close to me found themselves infected. And more and more quickly, those who fell infected would die.

In time I decided that I could not remain a burden to our people. I exiled myself from the Mag’har, taking up shelter in a small hovel hidden away in the mountains near the Ancestral Grounds. When time and illness finally took me, I thought, at least I would be close to our sacred place. Perhaps the spirits would help guide me to the next life.

I disappeared quietly one night. At my urging, Greatmother Geyah told the village that the pox had finally taken me. In the eyes of Garadar, I had died. Only a handful of the elders knew the truth.

Years passed. The pox carried on unabated. So did I. All the while, I watched from afar as best I could. I watched as the demons’ hold on our once-beautiful world waned. I watched as the Mag’har slowly regathered themselves.  And I watched you, Garrosh. I watched you grow up, strong as you always were, a man before your years, denied the luxury of a childhood. And I watched you live in a self-made purgatory forged of your father’s sins.

It broke my heart.

Years more passed, and you left Draenor to pursue a new life. A better life, I prayed.

Then, not long ago, a group of healers found me in my mountain refuge. I did not know them, and their garments were of a make unfamiliar to me. They were not of the Mag’har, some not even orcs. I do not know how they knew to find me, but they claimed to have new medicines from the world the orcs had taken up as their new home. While they could not offer a cure, they claimed they could contain the pox enough to prevent its spread. Under their treatment, the disease would no longer be airborne, only contagious by contact. A small comfort, but now at least, they said, the pain of the disease need not be compounded by the misery of solitude.

In time, I decided to risk revealing myself. I returned to Garadar, to the welcoming embrace of Greatmother Geyah.

In the days since my return, she has updated me on much that has transpired in my absence. The war, the internment, the demise of Mannoroth and the lifting of the blood haze. But most of all she told me of you. Strong and proud. A hero of a faraway war, fought against the icy talons of death itself. A leader of men, and now, Warchief of our people.

I do not wish anything from you, Garrosh. I have decided to reach out to you now only that you might finally know the truth, and know that I am so very, very proud of you. Do honor to our people and lead them well. As I always have, in this life or the next, I will be watching over you.

Love always, my Garrosh,

–Lakkara, Nagrand

Um…

<blink>

<stare>

…Mom?