A Winter Veil Carol

I hate Winter Veil. It’s the ultimate exercise in deceit. Everyone pretends to be happy and nice to everyone else because they’re expected to show this “holiday cheer”. People usually pretend all year long, but never does this giant lie reach such giant levels as during Winter Veil. And don’t get me started on all those tacky decorations. Trees cut down en masse and placed in houses only to be decorated by these awful lights and glass bulbs. Seriously, who came up with this stuff? I can’t stand looking at those Winter Veil trees at all. And then come the presents. Because everyone pretends to be nice, they have to spend more gold than they have on presents for their loosely defined friends and family. And don’t try to forget about someone who thought was your friend, or imagine buying the wrong present for someone. Suddenly all that deceit of holiday cheer is dispelled. Humbug!

Apparently someone thought I need a lecture on what makes Winter Veil so great, and went about it the most horrible way possible. A couple of nights ago, I had the strangest dream, starring Ikiss. Imagine this – Ikiss! The false Talon King, the usurper, the sect leader who went so insane he kept squawking like an animal every few words, and when he wasn’t squawking all he talked about was pretty trinkets. So that guy shows up and gives me a prophecy, of a sort, telling me that in the following three nights I will be haunted by three ghosts – one representing past Winter Veil, one present and one for the future. Never mind I could swear I heard that plot somewhere before, it was just plain stupid. When I woke up, I decided it was simply a sign of mild indigestion and went about my business. Unfortunately, this was not to be the end of this.

The next night, the first ghost showed up. It looked like my counterpart from the parallel universe, probably using his winged imagery just because he’s younger than me. So where does he take me? To my childhood. I don’t know why I would want to re-live being laughed at by other hatchlings and all the deceit I had to go through to survive that, but that ghost had to remind me that. Obviously, I wasn’t very happy with this, so he decided to torture me some more and show me my failed marriages. The purpose of this was apparently showing me I wasn’t always like this, but all it’s proven to me was that my past misery shaped me into the being I am now, and that I will stand by my decisions.

But that wasn’t enough. I looked around for culprits behind this situation, but no one here is quite powerful enough to give me nightmares of that kind. I thought, it was still just a rare coincidence and next night, I went to sleep like always. But these infuriating dreams continued. This time Lunk showed up and decided to give me a tour of some of the places he’s visited around Azeroth. He showed me slaves working inside the Cauldron, a village being devoured by ghouls in Northrend, that night elf village in Silithus full of crazed ghosts… All he showed me was more misery in this pitiful world. Just another reason to stand by being what I am.

When I woke up again, I knew someone was doing this. I started asking about people able to do this kind of things, and the only answers I came up with were Freya, Malfurion and that Albino satyr, apparently a new Nightmare Lord. The last one made no sense, as he would never want me to be a “better person”, and the former two probably have no knowledge of me. Everyone else is not very likely to be powerful enough to do that to me. I even checked my dreamcatcher, but there was still nothing to show me any clue as to what was causing this nonsense. When the time came, I went to sleep again, but I was ready for more nonsense.

The third ghost showed up as Ughul the Cancer, that saurok that fled from Ihgaluk with a flesh-shaping device that we captured. The culprit for these dreams was probably going for “scary”, but all it ended up with was “ugly”. The mutant saurok spoke in his mangled Common, trying to show me visions of the future. Seriously, he can sometimes be hard to understand. “Spin sequences. Loose strands.” Who talks like this? Anyway. So he showed me what looked like my wake. Everyone was happy – Orkan took over the Tower, Menrim left for Uldum, Yu Gwai left for Pandaria to become a king… I was probably supposed to be terrified that people are happy about my demise but I couldn’t give a damn. All I could concentrate on was some snippets of information about the threats Azeroth has endured in those fifty years since now. In the end, the Cancer tried to frighten me again by showing me visions of damnation in the Twisting Nether, but it’s not like I haven’t seen that either.

The dream finally ended and with past, present and future done, I knew this should end now. It was really frustrating, but there’s an ounce of good in everything – in this case, the knowledge of the future this gave me. No, I’m not telling you what’s attacking next, or how are those wars ending, or who’s the king of Stormwind in fifty years. I’m keeping that knowledge for myself so I can use it to maximize my profits. Because seriously, how would a bunch of strange dreams make someone a better person in three days? Laughable.