Ode to Locke

This is my cat, Locke.



Formerly known as Rak'Shiri, Locke was tamed at about 4am server time while I was wearing the Leper Gnome Halloween costume. I'd wanted Locke for a while. He is teal, after all. Teal is my favorite color and basically the main reason I rolled a night elf-- teal hair. Teal hair!! So I camped out for him (he's a rare spawn) and finally managed to nab him.

We were level 57 then; today we are both level 70 and he is my Official Grouping Pet. This is mainly because a few people have taken issue with Tux's immense wingspan and I don't want to be a pain-in-the-butt, so I use a pet with a somewhat lower profile. (It's also helpful because I can keep Tux spec'd more for PvP and Locke for PvE.)

Locke has successfully "emergency tanked" two dragons: the last boss in Hellfire Ramparts and the last boss in Old Hillsbrad. He usually manages to somehow double the DPS output of any and all other hunter pets that happen to be in the group. And he has really come to be loved by our little group of instance-runners. He has become our willing guinea pig more than once: "Hmm, do you guys think we can jump here? ...hey Tawyn, have Locke go check it out!" And he has spawned many a guild inside joke. One is that one of these days mid-Heroic Mech run, he is going to randomly disappear and then replace Patheleon the Calculator as the new end boss. (We decided that he is going to be wearing a monocle when this occurs. "When", not "if".)

The other big inside joke is that if anything bad happens and there's no apparent scapegoat-- it's Locke's fault. Many a mysterious wipe or pull-gone-bad has been irrevocably decreed Locke's fault.

We were in Heroic Mech the other day and after one of these "Locke's fault" occasions, we all sort of had a good laugh about how ironic it was that nothing had ever really truly been Locke's fault. Nothing in recent memory, at least (because I recall a few slipups in Dire Maul and Scholo). Locke has always performed his duty masterfully and has never caused any issues unless it's my own mistake. Hunter pets seem to get a bad rap a lot-- but Locke? Nope. He's pretty much got a halo on his fuzzy teal head.

...we spoke too soon.

A couple hours after we'd finished Heroic Mech we made a new group and headed to Heroic Underbog. We were about halfway through, working our way up one of the ramps and slowly and carefully pulling naga mobs out from behind a little open door. Everything was going as intended and I sent in Locke to attack skull, as is customary. And then it happened. I send Locke in to the mob, he somehow manages to position himself so his butt is pointing towards some other naga-- and they must've not been amused because suddenly these extra naga were targeting Locke and charging over to him.

Well you can probably guess what happened next. We already had our hands full with our current pull-- the extra nagas were the death of us. Not to mention I was petless, with Locke having met his untimely demise due to an unfortunate and accidental mooning-incident.

It was all partially very funny and yet also partially very embarrassing and shocking to me. For once, it really had been Locke's fault.

Yet another guild inside joke of ours is that if you make some silly mistake or screw up, you are informed "And that's why you're not going to Zul'Aman." And Locke was not spared. He was informed that he's not going to Zul'Aman and that Tux is going to get to go instead.

Poor Locke. Tux is givin' him heck in the stable, I'm sure.