Dayas Theledrin

"I am of a mind to burn it all… every paper, every quill, the desk, and the entire house… but then I am reminded of myself and I cry. I could never. Never never. Writing is my disease. No, life the disease, writing the symptom. And I am incurable."

- Dayas Theledrin

The high elven poet Dayas Theledrin was a deeply troubled individual. Born to country gentry, he would spend his early life enamored with nature and natural life, and he was considered quite the eligible bachelor and wit. However, the Troll Wars would strip him of that character, as well as his emotional stability; deeply traumatized by the horrors he witnessed fighting the Amani Empire, he became a recluse in southern Quel'thalas. He turned to poetry and bloodthistle to survive. He became known for his poems that interwove nature with the horrors of war, and for his eccentric and self-destructive habits and personal relationships. He ultimately died of a bloodthistle overdose, and many of his then-unpublished works were destroyed by his family out of shame.

Theledrin's poetry and history were both fairly unknown in the centuries after his death. A magister named Belu’thelan Sindenomil, working on behalf of the Silvermoon Royal Library, is the only known biographer of Theledrin, and even then his biography is little more than a forward to Sindenomil's own edition of Theledrin's poetry.

An Introduction to Dayas Theledrin - Belu'thelan Sindenomil
In our long years on Azeroth’s surface, with lives stretching outwards practically without end, it is inevitable that many of our kin turn to writing, many of them to poetry. Some find it elegant, others noble, some avant-garde. Many do so simply because they lack the ability or the will to write a longer, more structured work. Our libraries are inundated with the eclectic musings of lesser poets, if I dare ascribe to them the title. It is rare, then, to find such a one as Dayas Theledrin. His words are simple but elegant; though some meaning is hidden behind inked gates, it is not meant to be obscured from our eyes. It is a raw poetic exploration. It is something that rings true, regardless of age, regardless of whatever lies between him and us. I for one believe that his words will live on far longer than even we, in our near-immortality.

Dayas Theledrin was born in the year 3782 SF (since the founding) to a minor noble house in eastern Eversong. He was the fifth of seven sons to a father already 25th in the line of succession, and it was clear from an early age that he harbored no delusions of ever holding any political sway over his house, or truly any political sway whatsoever. He spent much of his youth learning woodcraft; he was fascinated by the natural world - as would any, I believe, who had come to age in Quel’thalas - and quickly became an avid naturalist and hunter, pursuits that would remain with him for the rest of his life. As he would later write to a friend: “I wish that in every palace in every city [there] would grow a great tree whose roots would crack the stone and whose sap would stain every carpet and tarnish every crown. Then perhaps we could have peace.”

Though Theledrin would be known later as a recluse, and indeed he was never much of a Silvermoon socialite, he could have been called quite the country gentleman in his youth. Judging from his written correspondence alone, he was acquainted with several notable persons in Eversong social circles, and in his 103rd year began a decades-long tenure as First Lord of the Dawning Arrow Club, a sportsman’s association of which he would remain a part until its dissolution in the opening years of the Troll Wars. In a letter to a prospective admittee, fellow Club member Ro’sathel Delaenne touted Theledrin as a “true brother, friend to all elves, proud son of Quel’thalas.” Several letters in Theledrin’s hand have been found in the possession of presumed lovers, but there are none of particular note, and indeed, I believe the elf of his later years would have been aghast at his younger self’s poetic scribblings.

Theledrin’s youthful adventures came to an abrupt end with the outset of the Troll Wars in 3997 SF. With elvendom’s borders threatened by the brutal Amani Empire, Theledrin and many of his Club comrades joined a corps of volunteer rangers that would later become part of the Farstriders. Theledrin’s ranger corps would engage in several battles across Quel’thalas’s borderlands, mostly in skirmishing roles but occasionally in the midst of more pitched battles. He would be present for the Battle of Alterac that ultimately brought an end to the war in 4002 SF. He notably did not write during this period, or at least nothing that has been recovered. Some of this can be attributed to the lack of available resources for doing so in the field, but he would cut himself off from many of his old friends and family members upon his return, leading many scholars - including myself - to believe this was largely a personal choice.

Those few who did remain in touch with Theledrin unanimously agree that he was a changed elf upon his return from the war. He was one of three survivors out of the Club members who volunteered for the war. After a troubled year he left his family estate with a small sum of inheritance and war earnings and relocated to a small house in the far south, near the mouth of the Elrendar River. Here he would spend the majority of his remaining days and write the bulk of his work. His contact with the world at large soon dwindled to his comrades from the war, to whom he would send many of his poems; they in turn feared that he had succumbed to melancholy. In a letter to one such friend, Theledrin wrote: “When night falls I can still hear the pagan chants of the Amani, and I am again on watch, waiting for the spear that will end my life or yours, and I wonder which would be the worse fate. I call ‘belore, belore,’ feverish, maddened, but when the sun rises I hide away from the harsh light, the unnatural warmth, and I wish for night again. It seems I am beyond pleasure, beyond joy…” Indeed, it is widely believed that it was around this time that his bloodthistle addiction began.

Theledrin spent a little over two centuries at the mouth of the Elrendar. His melancholy and his addiction both worsened as the years wore on. He would write: “I find that immortality is a curse, a condition that none should have the misfortune to bear; I believe with all my heart that longevity is a poison that runs through our veins, corrupting us, turning our eyes to glass, and driving us again and again through this cycle of damnation. And the tools to end it are here before me, and yet I’m still here. I cannot bring myself to end my own life, though I am disgusted by it. I am [a] hypocrite. I deny my own truth, and call myself wise.” At times he would lift out of his melancholy for a year or two and he would travel, typically to Arathi territory, where he would begin learning their tongue. However, he would ultimately relapse and withdraw back to the Elrendar, and each cycle of this plunged deeper into his own misery.

At the end of his life, Theledrin stopped sending out his work. In one of his final letters, dated a few months before his death, he wrote: “I am of a mind to burn it all… every paper, every quill, the desk, and the entire house… but then I am reminded of myself and I cry. I could never. Never never. Writing is my disease. No, life the disease, writing the symptom. And I am incurable.” On July 28, 4186 SF, Theledrin was found by a traveling merchant on the riverbank outside his Elrendar home. The local authorities quickly identified him and concluded that he had overdosed on bloodthistle. Judging by the level of decay, it was assumed he had died a few days prior. The family was notified and they immediately made arrangements for a private funeral, eager to keep the scandal out of the public eye. Unfortunately for them - and fortunately for us historians - Theledrin had already developed a reputation as a thistlehead, and the cause of his death was common knowledge despite the family’s best efforts. Dayas Theledrin was destined to die alone and in infamy.

No completed poetry is known to have been recovered from Theledrin’s home. The Theledrin family seized all of Dayas’s papers in the aftermath of his death, and it is likely that the original drafts of his canon works - as well as any new works lost to us today - were destroyed in the purge. As such, our records of Theledrin’s work are drawn entirely from drafts sent to friends and family prior to his death. In writing this book, I have collected as many different drafts as I could and to the best of my ability selected the most recent and therefore final variants for display here. Where such clear distinctions between drafts are not apparent, I have been forced to make judgment calls; I have tried to remain as true to Theledrin’s original intentions as I can, but there is always the possibility for mistakes. In this, I beg your indulgence.