Eulogy at the Funeral of Kinndy Sparkshine [Eulogy]

As delivered by Archmage Jaina Proudmoore

Apprentice Kinndy Sparkshine… how so full of potential you held. To see your life – and living – cut short by a most heinous, brutal, and cowardly of ways to wage war… it shocks me, and no doubt all others of reason, down to the very essence of the being. Even though you have passed on, dearest Kinndy, your legacy yet lingers, one that may well herald peace in this world mired in conflict.

You had always showed a passion for your studies, Kinndy. Your youthful energy, unrestrained like the arcane itself, got you through your gruelling readings and lab sessions. It had fed the asking of endless questions on the most mundane. <Caesura for laughs> And, perhaps, it had galvanised your optimism for the future, one of quiet devotion to magic, innocent of the horrors of battle…

<mp>Innocence… To see yours shattered in your final hours with the living, defending Theramore, it pains me, to say the least. No amount of research can prepare you, Kinndy, for what you face on the battlefield, yet you displayed a curiosity hallmark of a promising mage. For that reason, I could not approve to shove you through a portal, as Rhonin did me- <Caesura for laughs> -yet, in hindsight, I probably should have. You remind us, all of us, how debilitating conflict is to our livelihoods, and how we ought to do our utmost to prevent, or otherwise, resolve, it.

You, Kinndy, leave behind your mother Jaxi, and your father Windle- <Caesura for weeping> -both grieving for your ultimate sacrifice. It is a great irony for you to die of the very thing you strove to master, magic, manifest as a mana bomb, obliterating this world’s final bastion of peace with the Horde. As much as I grieve all loss of hope for harmony in this world, <mf; staccato>I grieve you. Yet, despite such tragic irony, you also died doing what you loved, using every ounce of your magical skill, striving to keep lit this last beacon of hope. You did me, and the rest of us, proud, shoring up the western gate, even as the northern one fell. Theramore may now be in ruins, but not our resolve; it is stronger than ever thanks to your example.

Oh, Kinndy… You took the force of a weapon of mass destruction… one not only obliterating, but also <mf>lingering at ground zero. I am thankful you were spared the aftermath, for it is for no heart, weak <Accent>or strong, to bear. To see our years of labour reduced to rubble, to smell metallic death in the air, to hear popping and hissing to continue for days. And when I tried to bring comfort to your still, still body… it was more than your form that crumbled. <Caesura> Oh, Kinndy, how so much I wished to <Shake fist> avenge you and the other sons and daughters of the Alliance who died with you. But to use the Focusing Iris to drown Orgrimmar, as coward [Garrosh] Hellscream used it to bomb Theramore? No, I <sfz>refuse <Diminuendo>to stoop to his level! I am not the monster he is… and I know it would sorrow you if I become it.

We have known it all along, but it takes people like you, Kinndy Sparkshine, to really hammer it home; that if we fight, we fight with <Accent>honour, for only what is necessary. We will not disgrace your death by holding element, creature or the arcane captive, to have them do our bidding while we sit back in relative safety; nor will we become hopelessly addicted to territory or power. Thank you, Kinndy, for reminding us all what is important in our lives: friends, family, livelihood and, most importantly, certainty. There can be none of those if tyrants like Hellscream get their way, and we will do our utmost to <f; staccato>bring him <sfz>down! <Pump fist in air>

Bibliography

• Golden, Christie (2012), World of Warcraft: Jaina Proudmoore: Tides of War, 1st hardcover edn, Gallery Books, New York.