[A book lies forgotten on the table, stacked diaries sit beside it, and beside them a forlorn looking candle burns all the way down to its end.]

[Zandali] Revantusk Village is great.  It is so great.  It is so great in fact, that if my skin were a little greener, maybe covered in moss, and my hair weren't so flamingly PINK I'd drop down, give up magic, move here and learn to fish.  Maybe sell pretty flowers and beads or something.  There are only a few people here my age and of course, all the women scare me.  "Tonks, you're soooo skinny, why don't you eat something?!"  "Tonks, are you sure you can even call any sort of power with those little stick arms of yours?!"  "Tonks, way to be built like a blade of grass!"  Okay, maybe they aren't really saying these things, but I know they're thinking them.  I know it.  My skin is covered in little spots, my tusks are puny, my hair sticks out and refuses to be proper, my breasts are nonex and I don't know why this is all bothering me NOW, but it is.

Lately I've been getting headaches.  I assumed at first that I was staying up too late, reading too many books by candlelight.  But it hurts nearly all the time now.  Local healer gave me some tea that's supposed to help in exchange for some of my tobacco.  I've been teaching myself to make smoke rings.  I wonder if Lapu smokes?  He obviously drinks.

I hope Mister Matojo is all right.  He has a woman and a kid to worry about.  He probably has more than one.  They're probably all older than I am.

While it's nice here and I'm left in peace for the most part, I feel like I'm hitting a wall with my arcane studies.  There's only so many books I can beg, buy, or borrow that aren't in some stuffy old elf's private library.  There are more stories to write.  I've learned a lot so far, some of which I'm not even sure is true.  But it feels right, and I only tell stories that feel right to tell.  I mean I tell them to myself at least.

Ah, who fucking cares.  I'm all right and it's just me and Lakwa, who is getting sassier by the day.  Why am I holing myself up and away from the world in order to study?  Because it's suits me.  Because all I've known is to take you and everyone you love somewhere far far away and live until you die.  Thanks Mama for being a liar.  Gurubashi, Amani, Bloodscalp, Frostmane, Winterax, Revantusk, who knows, who cares.  Troll.  Troll with some books, her raptor, and her pipe.

That is all.

[Zandali] So it's about giving gifts.  I get it.  I got Matojo some booze.  That was about the most pirate-y thing  I could think of sending that didn't somehow suggest I was still all was imposing myself.  He sent me a ring.  It's very pretty and I'm wearing it right now. 

That's the only thing I gave anyone.  I couldn't quite recall Matojo's kid's name.  Joonee, I think?  Anyway, it would have been weird to try and send her something, seeing as we only met once. 

He isn't getting anything from me and I expect nothing from him.

Crazy Bull Man never sent me any more letters, which makes me think he was either on just putting me on, which makes sense.  I guess.  I'm assuming he's a regular at that tavern.  And because he's a regular I'm assuming he's also a drunk and a lout.  Maybe I'm just making myself feel better.  Drunks and louts don't write back Maybe I don't care because he was just a bull, and that's not really who I should be talking to at the moment.

My present to myself was a raptor.  Mama had one when I was growing up; said she bought the egg from a one-eyed peddler who swore there were great things in store for her and she would have many children, so on and so forth.  The raptor ended up biting off Papa's toe when I was in my sixth year, and the next morning Mama told me it had run away.  We had a big roast for dinner because Papa stayed home from fishing.  I feel kind of sick.

His name is Lakwa.  He's a very vain bastard, always preening himself and picking up speed when I least expect it, as if to remind me that he is the fastest thing on two legs.  I hope he likes conjured bread.  I find myself talking to him a lot, which I'm sure convinces anyone around me that I am crazy.  However I am not crazy, because I know that he understands me even though he may not give a damn.

I'm taking Lakwa to the Hinterlands.  Zjolnir told me the Revantusk tribe lives there and wouldn't try to eat me if I approached the village, so that's a good enough incentive for a little visit.  I even had him draw me a map!

In my other book--my elf one--I've started writing down all the stories I could remember, and a few I made up or dreamed, and a few I heard from other trolls.  Stars piss into the sea to make storms, women turn into tigers, love turns into smoke, and an old troll sleeps in a cave at the end of the world, waiting to drown it.  I need more.

To buy
candles
new matches
saddlebags
ink
blanket
new canteen
knife
incense
tobacco
yarn

[Zandali]

• Old tauren who think they're so smart when they really aren't and are really just big stubborn jerks.  Gryshka told me she saw him recently.  He looked better, a little wilder, and he was with some other cow woman.  She laughed at me when I asked for a description.  The woman looks soft and sleepy, and walks around with feathers in her hair.  She murmurs rather than speaks.  I wonder if some day I will see both of them, strolling down the street, and what will I do?
  
• Mama.  Sometimes I wonder if she is watching me.  She could watch me, very easily.  She is probably why I danced so hard the other night, why I talked so much, why I laughed so loud.  It wasn't Papa I burned away, it was her.
• Silvermoon.  Fuc The singl Worst place ever.  I've learned to travel to nearly every city Horde, I can open up holes in the nether that take you to any of them, but going there makes me ill.  Every time I'm there, I get stared at, I get talked down to.  Never mind just the meanies sitting in the street waiting to tell you their life stories over a complementary bottle of booze, but every respectable mage doing research in Silvermoon is a snob.  I went there to find a bookseller who told me he might have a manuscript copy of some elf's study on the Amani.  Said the author had never completed it and was probably dead.  I thought it would be interesting, since most of our books have been lost.  It was a dead end though, of course.  And I had to sit there over tea while he implied constantly what a great novelty it was to have a barbarian such as myself drinking tea and discussing arcane theory.

I keep getting letters from that bull that spoke to me the other night.  I can't remember his name AT ALL, but he always signs [copied in Orcish] "L.R." and I feel like an enormous idiot because of course I can't write in Orcish very well.  I can read it fine, but writing it always makes me feel so clumsy and obtuse.

And yet so many trolls I meet are completely illiterate in Zandali but can write in Orcish just fine.  ARGH.

[written in Orcish in sloppy hand]
OH HI MISSTER BOOL,

WHY NO I DONT KNO HOW TO RIGHT.  I WAS DROPED ON MY HED AS A KID.  MY HAIR IS SO TALL BECUZ OF THE LUMP.  WANT TO SEE?

LUV,

LUMPY

[Zandali] PS- What the hell is this weird holiday?!

[Zandali] Few things...

+ Last night was amazing.  Write to this Mel'lodi.  Possibly ask him t

+ Matojo has kids (this surprises me) and a woman (this doesn't surprise me).  I feel kind of bad about it but I there's I don' I need someo  I met his daughter and she seemed pretty nice.  Where did all these other troll girls come from?  Where did all these trolls come from?

+ Write to Matojo.  Possibly ask HIM to

+ Stupid bulls are stupid.  If he was ever young and had an ounce of cockiness he'd be [A whole series of lines are crossed out beyond recognition here.]

+ Man, I ache.  Can't make fun of anyone if it feels like my calves are going to collapse out from under me.

+ Yellowtusks next time.

+ Orc women are amazing.

I feel a lot better.  I feel free.

[Zandali] You have no idea how expensive elf books on magic theory are.  NO IDEA.  Perhaps the trader was just being a complete cockroach to me because my pointy ears are not half as pink and I have three digits with which to perform all the more complicated ritual gestures, but come on.  At least he put me in touch with a nice deadman, Mr. Bloch in the Undercity, who had no qualms with placing my orders.

He asked me a few questions about myself, said he didn't see many of my kind who dabbled in the arcane.  We discussed a little history, I explained how woefully stupid I felt in the face of troll history, considering 90% of what I know is based on stories where people turn into tigers, women vanish into smoke, and the stars piss into the sea to make storms.  I suppose it's not a bad sort of history, but sometimes I feel so disjointed isolated.  Frostmanes stick with Frostmanes, Bloodscalps be yelling their heads off at everyone, Skullsplitters will try to eat you, Darkspears seem friendly I guess...  But me, what am I but some crazy mutt?  Exiled parents who refuse to tell me anything of their own tribes, of my own history.  It seems

[Added later in hurried script.  There is a light blue stain on the corner of the page.]

Mr. Bloch gave me a good idea.  Said most apprentice mages--most human and elf mages when he was alive anyway--studied under one master until they had come into their own, usually by creating or modifying some spell or making some magical discovery.  This sounds like a plan.  A good plan.  I would have to find another troll mage though.  One who isn't content with sitting in Ogrimmar all day pretending he knows what the pretty elven runes mean (I am looking at you Uthel'nay).

I sold a few of my knitted hats to a group of orcs stationed in Arathi.  They seemed to like them, said they kept their ears warm.  I used the gold to buy a few more pots of ink and one large, properly bound, elf-made book.  The cover is leather and the pages are real paper.  The first words I have written are:

"Long ago"

((Several pages have been torn out and the remaining pieces are tied together with bits of twine.))

[Zandali] So Mama is a Frostmane.  Was a Frostmane.  Before leaving home, I didn't even know what the other tribes were called.  They were different and that was all that mattered.  They were outside this valley, had different tusks and different skins.  Funny hair.  And what was I anyway?  It used to not matter.

She's gone now anyway and it's like a thunder storm has blown through the house and left everything swept up in its wake.  Mama told me not to read.  Said everything I'd ever want to know, she would teach me.  She taught me stories, taught me to climb trees, to pick flowers, to hate my body, to not look into anyone's eyes, to spit, to cast bones, to see into the heart of a fire.  But I never learned how to be alone and now, I am.

I'm leaving Papa tomorrow.  He's old now and content to stay in his little boat forever.  He looks at me sometimes, out of one scarred eye, and I think he is going to beat me, or cry, or say something but he doesn't.  He whittles more wood.  He made me a pipe as a present.  Said I was old enough now to quit acting like a fool and a child.  Said I had no home now and that I would have to make my own way.

I like the pipe, it reminds me of nice things.

I asked him where I was supposed to go, to which tribe did I belong?  Am I supposed to go to the frozen north now?  Or across the sea again to go find Mama's tribe and ask them to take me in?  Would they even do such a thing?  I don't look like them.  I've seen Frostmanes in Orgrimmar and they chill my bones.

I haven't crossed out a thing and this surprises me.

I will go somewhere and I will be someone.  I will read until my eyes cross and be more than Mama ever thought was fit for me.

I think I will take one last swim in the lake.  I spent the whole day out there yesterday and just got more freckled than ever, which it turns out is what sets me apart from the moss-skins and furry trolls.  I don't know why I didn't think about this.  Probably because I was too worried about other things.  The water is so nice.  I just float around, try to spy a hawk in the sky, and sometimes feel the little fishes nibbling at the tips of my fingers.

To pack:
journals
candles
matches
compass
map
dried rabbit
dried fruit
water
extra clothes
bottles of ink
quills
bandages
herbs
pipe !
tobacco
sewing kit
knitting needles
(note: buy more thread and yarn)

I think that's it.

I tried not to think about him, but I hope he found his woman.  That's all.

[Zandali] [the script is incredibly shaky and several wet spots on the page smudge the ink in several places] It's done.  I don't care about this person who's more important to him than I am.  I don't care about his bird.  I don't care anymore.

A tantrum, huh?  Such a stubborn bull!!!!  "I'll tell you why I've been dragging you from place to place for the last three months... oh, wait!  You accidentally found my secret memento when you were rifling through my things 'looking for tea', YOU DON'T GET TO KNOW ANYMORE."

Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid jerk.

I just want to go back home.

[in much smaller writing and in ink that seems inconsistent and almost dry]
What if Papa died?  What if I hurt him so much that he died?

Mama will kill me, I know it.

Mama's gonna kill me.

I don't know where I should be.