I had two young students sitting outside my office earlier today, staring at each other with silent hatred. It reminded me somewhat of daily encounters in Shattrath before the Shattered Sun Offensive ended the conflict between the Aldor and Scryers forces. Walking along the broken ground of the Lower City you would frequently see Aldor soldiers on guard, tense with readiness, as a Scryers mage walked past. Each would stand with their hands resting upon their swords or wands, ready at a moments notice to run the other through and stain the rocky ground with each others’ blood.
These students sat on opposite sides of the small antechamber to my office within the Library. The silence of the stacks of books caused the hatred between these two to echo and build a thick tension in the small room. Were it not for my presence, I am fairly certain they would still have been screaming at each other.
As young students are want to do, these two had little interest in resolving their differences without supervision. This is not unusual in a school full of young individuals, just learning about the Horde and its many varied cultures. The stories that could be told just from the entry of the Blood Elves into the Horde could fill many volumes. Though whether anyone would want to read pages and pages about petulant children is debatable.
You might be asking yourself at this point, ‘what were they arguing about’? An excellent question and one that, as I expected, was rather amusing. Apparently the first student’s mother had sent her an old piece of jewelry that had been in the family for hundreds of years. She had intended it to provide motivation and confidence to her daughter who was training to take on a tribal healer role in their small troll village.
The second student found this piece of jewelry to be horrifically offensive, and demanded that it be burned, or at the very least removed from campus entirely. This student wrote his parents and demanded that they apply pressure to our Headmistress Nephytus. He wanted to ensure that if the young healer was not going to remove it herself, that an administrator did it for her.
Somehow they ended up in the library, the young healer using a few books to prove her point that the piece of jewelry not only was a family heirloom, but had an intrinsic anthropological value in and of itself. Before a librarian could step in and quell the growing argument, the two were rolling on the floor punching each other. I am personally thankful that none of our short tempered students stepped in. Being a school of healing, some of us tend to turn a blind eye to physical attacks since it provides an opportunity to practice the healing arts.
Did I mention that the piece of jewelry was a necklace of mummified elf fingers that her ancestors had collected in the wars between the trolls and quel’dorei many thousand years ago? Oh, and the second student was a blood elf from Silvermoon City who had a long history of war veterans in his lineage. To each, their positions were entirely logical. To each the solution was simple. Yet these two could not be further apart.
These situations are not unusual. The frequency with which they occur are quite honestly staggering, and in a school with at least five different cultural groups, and many additional subcultures, it can perhaps be overwhelming to find a solution. Yet in almost every case, there is a path through the overgrown forest that will lead to a peaceful solution. It is just a matter of finding it. Whether it be two quarreling students, two skilled adventurers in the heart of Ulduar who each feel they have earned the respect of their companions, or two leaders in an organization who feel they have the better plan for growth, there is almost always a solution.
It is just a matter of finding that solution, with a little effort and hard work. I hope to show one method to find that common ground in the coming essays.
Ghosthorn Dreamstalker
Lorekeeper, Da Doctas School of Medicine
