[Prompt] Failure

Lore World's End Tavern: Role-play and Fan Fiction
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Everyone fails eventually. Failure isn’t a topic we like to discuss. Tell us about a time your character failed something. It could be small, like picking up apples instead of oranges, or it could be something major, some accident or failure that killed someone.

This is meant to be a fun exercise, so there aren’t many rules.

Prompts are fun little things meant to inspire. You don’t have to perfectly match the prompt. Just let it inspire a thought.

I’m going to try and post these weekly, sometime between Saturday and Monday probably. Feedback and prompt ideas are welcome, so feel free to post them in here as well. Some prompts will be more thought provoking, some more whimsical. Respect your fellow writers.

Disclaimer: I cannot take full credit for every prompt. Some of these I create on my own, some are prompts I’ve seen that I’ve taken a WoW spin to, and some I’ve seen and used in the past, some are ideas spoken in passing between me and coworkers, or guildmates, or some are offered directly from folks on the forums. If I’ve been directly given a prompt from another person, I will credit them unless they do not want to. Otherwise, know some of these are gained through many means.

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The ballroom in Zin-Azshari was stunning - golden lanterns hung from the ceiling and a transparent domed roof let moonlight shine onto the floor. Night Elves danced and swayed to the gentle harp music, while some collected at a table of food.

Aanka was in the middle of it all, enjoying the ball with her lover, E’illorne. They stepped to the rhythm, performing a circular dance around the outskirts of the hall. A line of dancing elves followed, laughing and enjoying the night.

“This is the most stunning yet!” Aanka said as she twirled and landed on one foot. E’illorne caught her and smiled.

“Yes, indeed it is. It’s Azshara’s gift to us.” E’illorne responded as he caught her and they began the dance again. Something didn’t seem right as the music faded - it was silent now. The dancing ceased and the guests looked around in confusion. The harp players bloody bodies lied on the floor, and a large demon stood over the corpses.

“What’s going on!” Aanka yelled as the guests started screaming. Night Elves crowded around the single door of the ballroom, but it slammed shut. There were no windows and no exits - it was just them and the demon.

The creature launched itself at the crowd of elves, slaying ten of them with one blow. It killed the remaining Night Elves and began to shove the door to the guest suites open.

“No!” Aanka yelled as she struck the demon with a broken harp. It roared and struck the ground with a large axe, smashing her against the wall and through a cracked window.

“I will not let you-” The Night Elf yelled, clinging to the edge. The demon laughed and stepped on her fingers.

Then Aanka fell.

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Perfectia has failed in a lot of things. First being any level of approval from her mother, while she was a child Perfectia’s mother Kel’Donas rarely saw her after she grew out of toddlerhood. Even for the brief six months they lived together in Quel’Thalas she was treated like a problem or a burden until she was eventually kidnapped. Even in Perfectia’s dreams her mother is disapproving and treats her like she’s a disappointment.

Next is failing to get her father to step away from the bottle. When Perfectia and her father Lachance escaped Silvermoon they were eventually teleported to Tempest Keep by Malfurion Stormrage when they traveled to Moonglade with a rhyming druid named Starmaster. There they were kept in underground mines enslaved by the blood elves soldiers that served Kael’thas Sunstrider. Perfectia took little notice of the abuse her father took from the demons that force her people to work until starving and Wretched. Even though Perfectia helped her father escape the caves and traveled to Shattrath City her father took to drinking to help him forget the abuse. She holds onto some of the guilt from that happening but doesn’t dwell on it too much, because he’s an adult that chooses to waste his life away.

Another is a failure to show sympathy, empathy, and mercy, to the women in the Den of Mortal Delights. At the age of 13 before she escaped Tempest Keep, Keal’thas’s soldiers noticed that she was looking womanlier, and offered her a job as a handmaiden, but she would be trained there before she arrived at the Black Temple. They tried to force themselves on her, but they didn’t…

Seeing all of them there, she saw what her fate could have been, and she brutally slaughtered those women like scared lambs.

During the Lich King campaign Tirion Fordring blatantly told her that she would not be allowed to enter Icecrown Citadel even though she bested great warriors in the Argent Tournament. A simple, no, without any reason or explanation. A failure to kill the man that murdered her mother.

Perfectia weight went from 135 pounds to 190 pounds and she is 5’6. As it sits right now she is at about 150 pounds but has failed to be able to go back to the skinny frame that is defining for so many elves.

For a while she was ordered to spy on the Silver Covenant because after being stuck in a drunken stupor for weeks on end during the cataclysm her body detoxed out all traces of fel energy. She failed to protect her first love Oranio, a draenei that was killed while Garrosh was moving the Divine Bell. Even though the injustice happened in front of her empowered her with the Light. Garrosh used the Divine Bell on himself and it wasn’t enough for her to kill him. Garrosh smashed Gorehowl into her lower midsection after she told him she might be pregnant, cracking her pelvic bones, killing her unborn child, and rendering her unable to carry from that point on. Perfectia spent the rest of the Pandaren Campaign in intense care, physical therapy, and a lot of psychological help from Isirami Fairwind the innkeeper in Hero’s Welcome.

During the Draenor Campaign Perfectia failed to rekindle any of her relationships for the sake of command and temporally lost one of her close’s friends Protecto. A Timewalker dragon that would not only fly her around but someone she had trained in the ways of the Light, but that time stuck in the garrison lost her a lot of friends and relationships with other adventurers that were never rekindled.

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As the dust settled in the Ring, a stocky figure stumbled around on unsteady legs before finally falling over on the ground. A mighty roar went up from the assembled crowd that was quickly replaced with the sound of muttered cursing and the soft clink of coins exchanging purses. On the other side of the ring, a jade clothed figure dusted some dirt off of her hat.

“Well fought cap’n” Another pirate broke free from the assembled crowd towards the Pandaren as she put her hat back on.

“Aye, wasn’t much o’ a fight.” She said with a smug smirk. “Cap’n Windshear will check double ‘fore thinkin’ he can git ‘way wit callin’ me an Alliance dog.”

Now that the Irontide were chased out of Freehold, the Ring of Booty was used to solve disputes between captains as well as occasional tournaments between various pit fighters. Aorasia was a common appearance in both. Her crewmember handed her a tankard of golden ale of which she took a large draught from.

“So did ya learn how ta fight on da the back o’ dat giant turtal of you’s” The shipmate asked, impressed with the captain’s combat skill. Aorasia’s eyes went wide and she choked on her ale mid-drink. As she coughed and tried to get air back in her lungs a long-suppressed memory came forth. She was angry, so angry. She didn’t even remember what she was angry about. Her master had his back to her. A quick leg swipe sent him toppling. Oh, how smug she was having gotten one over on her master… but then he didn’t get up. A slow red stain began to trickle down the rock his head was resting on. Her failure to control her anger killed him just as much as her sweep did.

She expression was much more somber. She pushed the tankard of ale back into her crewmember’s hands. “Aye, Ah learned ta fight on da back o’ da giant turtal.” And with that she walked through the dispersing crowd towards the docks and her ship. The pirate stood there stunned for a moment. The Jade Pirate was not known to turn away good ale.

Author's Note

Short-ish story. I keep wanting to actually write the details of Aorasia’s upbringing and training on the Wandering Isle, but every time I do I gloss it over >.> Maybe one day. For now the events are decently simple.

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pops in to offer applause and brief input

Despite the short length, you’ve done a wonderful job of illustrating the character’s memory. The main motivations are readily understood, while other details are left up to the audience’s imagination and add a certain mystery and desire for more.

It’s not a matter of stuff you have; it’s a matter of how you use the stuff that you have. Sometimes less really is more, and this story is an excellent example of that.

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I echo Mori here. Also I’ve enjoyed the reads thus far in this prompt :smiley: Thank you all for posting.

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Small Note

I, too, will try to condense it into a short story, but not skimp on the details:

The young Druid had been right. His nose, now that of a giant nightsaber’s, sniffed an inch above the ground. Sure enough, there were two scents, and they were easy enough to follow. The huge cat prowled silently, slinking between the trunks of great trees, and shafts of dappled moonlight.

About half an hour of following their trail, and Galenorn came to a small clearing, immediately sighting the one thing he had hoped not to find. There was his lover, their willowy frame softly illuminated by moonlight, in the arms of someone else. The Druid felt the feline form silently melt from his body, two small antlers sprouting from his head as he stood upright, an Elf once more. And he walked out to confront them.

They started at his intrusion, too shocked to speak, at first. But soon, protests and explanations began spilling from their mouths in tandem. Galenorn heard none of it. A gale picked up around him, the branches of the trees creaking as the winds screamed through them. Blood roared in ears as a rage he hadn’t felt since the demons came coursed through his body, accompanied by grinding in his head as he bared his fangs. His hands curled into fists as he stepped towards them.

The pair fled. Immediately, a predatory instinct gripped the young Druid, and he pursued them. Shan’do Stormrage’s teachings of balance and restraint screamed from the back of his mind, but were drowned out by an animalistic roar of fury and rage. He raised a hand, and roots sprang from the ground, lashing and reaching, grabbing onto the feet of the fleeing couple. And then, the roots were their feet. As Galenorn began to catch up, bark creeped up their legs, fusing them. They twisted, thrashing, trying to escape as the bark climbed their bodies, branches now beginning to erupt from them at odd angles. They reached for each other even as their arms stiffened, their screams falling silent as their lungs, throat, everything became wood.

Silence fell. The wind stopped. His breathing ragged, Galenorn slowly looked up from under his mane of hair, hanging lank with sweat. Two young, thin trees stood before him, indistinguishable from those around him, save for how their trunks twisted, seeming to reach out for each other. Numbness took the Druid. He… had killed. Then horror and revulsion. He had lost control. He has misused his powers. The Cenarion Circle were already on edge over such matters, being formed over the recent disaster regarding the Pack Form, and Ralaar. Numbness took him again. He had to turn himself in. He would be executed, most likely, but what he had done was unconscionable.

Almost in a daze, he stood up, and turned towards Lorlathil. Without thinking, his feet pulled him in that direction, where he would give himself up to the Circle.

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