There's a special place in hell for monsters like me.

I think I just had the saddest experience in all of WoW.

Though my hunter has been level 100 for a few weeks already, I've pretty much just been winging it in LFR, never changing from the talents I used to level and definitely never brushing up on which pets give what new buffs. This weekend, I finally decided to update my stable with all the necessary raid buffs and the most attractive skins, and I headed over to the Jade Forest to get myself a pretty chocolate-colored stag.

Maneuvering through the canopy to touch down in the grassy lands of eastern Pandaria, I surveyed my surroundings to find my prospective animal companion. Almost immediately, I came upon a Shrine Elk standing amongst the trees that was taking its time to pick tiny bites at the grass in a glade void of any apparent danger. I took it as a sign that it was the first stag that I saw and had already decided not to look any further when I noticed a tinier yet identically-colored deer hanging around close by. Obviously, it was my target's child, and I hesitated setting up my trap for a second, but I had plenty more pets to tame that day, and my desire to get my task over with was most likely the driving force behind my ultimate determination that the fawn looked old enough to get by without its mother.

And so I proceeded to tame the elk, an act that would ultimately end in great sadness because I forgot a couple important elements of the situation. One, if I tried to tame a doe with its child nearby, the child would come and attempt to defend its mother despite having no chance of winning. But no matter. I didn't need to hurt the fawn; I would just feign death after I finished taming. Two, after I tamed a creature, I would have a fucking pet, so before I could even feign, my newly incorporated minion saw that I was being attacked, turned right around, and killed its own child.

There I was, standing in a clearing with a loyal new charge, sick with horror at the tragedy I had just facilitated. In my many years as a hero/errand runner of the Alliance, I may have slaughtered plenty of animals, accepted work as a strikebreaker, and accidentally assassinated undercover agents of my own team, but I have never felt more horrified at myself than when I forced a mother to kill its young, all for a 3% buff to versatility, a stat universally accepted as the least arousing. It was enough to make me question the benefit of a combat style in which I am the cause for sad events like this one. Is the life of a hunter worth such a high cost in misery?

...

Well yea, my main is a warlock, but that's a different kind of misery. The good kind. For serious.

-Avia.