Faerran braced himself against the gust, batting away at loose leaves and twigs as they caught in his hair. His latest experiment was wilting before his eyes, shedding the foliage that had given him so much hope over the last week.
He watched as another trail of leaves fell from the stalks and vines and were scattered to the wind. He could only sigh at the sight. For the third time in the month he had been there, he watched all of his work literally die right in front of him. He couldn’t bear it any longer.
Dropping to his knees, his fingers gripped the earth, clawing into the dirt as if to clutch at someone’s shirt. Why? The only word in his mind was that same constant, burning question.
Why had all of his efforts been for naught? Why was he able to do absolutely nothing? Why could he not bring life back to this place the way it had meant to be?
It was nothing like the other places he had heard of. The Plaguelands of the Eastern Kingdoms this was not. There was no rot or scourge to fight and steal away life from the land. Nor was this the Barrens, where far more stubborn druids than himself were seeking to supplant desert with life.
But this was Ashenvale. Here there was still so much life around him. There was nothing to stop it, nothing to fight it. But here the simple rules he learned in his youth, the very things he had known to be immutable were somehow not true. That life would always find a way.
The ground shifted under his hands, sinking away from him. His heart sunk as his eyes burned. The dirt was unstable. He could feel the whispers course through his fingers, the voice of the forest as it rejected something against the natural order.
He hated to admit it but he knew it was true. He had cheated. He had rushed, used whatever he could call on to move dirt and coil vines to keep it there. Despite everything he knew would fight it, he had his ideas still to shape the land how he saw it.
How he remembered it.
Surely this was how it should be. He had seen it with his own eyes. He had walked it in the Emerald Dream. It had to be true. It was the only memory he had. How else could it be? What else could be right but that perfect image he had dreamt?
In the corner of his eyes, he saw a wisp appear from behind a tree. It almost seemed lost at first, seeming to examine everything around it before taking off in a flash of light towards him. As it flew past, the ground under him shook once more. Getting to his feet, he quickly backed away, understanding all at once.
It was his answer, though one he didn’t want to admit to himself. It never would have worked. The plants there would never have everything they needed, struggling to eke out an existence on uneven ground where the water would not naturally flow. Even if the ground settled, everything else around it would suffer trying to keep the balance.
The wisp knew. It was restoring that balance.
Standing with his shoulders low, he brought his eyes to the spirit and nodded. “I thought it was worth trying.”
The breeze carried the faintest sound to his ears, that of distant chimes. Even without words, he heard. The wisp seemed to nod back before disappearing, flying with the wind as quick as it came.
Looking around, his vision was double. Even as he saw the holes, the gaps, the scars left behind by the cataclysm the Destroyer; he could still see that dream. The visage he spent so many years within still lingered, taunting him with glimpses and pulling at him with regret.
And that was the answer. He could guide and tend life, but he couldn’t move the earth, he couldn’t add what simply would not be there again. What he knew was how things should have been, but not how they would ever be again.
The hole in his heart ached as the countless years spent in the dream flooded back, his vision now showing a cruel reflection of himself. The gaps and holes were at once so familiar, resonating with his own past, with time that could never be reclaimed or filled. So much time spent looking at something that would never be…
The land itself whispered a harsh lesson to him, but true for more than just the earth beneath his feet. There was no going back.
To mend his beloved Kalimdor, and himself, he could not just fill. The things he sought to fix could not be undone. All he could do was hope to cultivate something new.
All at once the weight of everything pulled at him at once. Letting out a heavy sigh, he rolled his shoulders and wondered. Maybe there was another way. A better way to weave life back into the world.
At that moment, he didn’t know what that way was or where he could learn it, but he knew it was out there. It had taken hold in some untouched part of his heart and tugged.
The second wave of what was now being called the Pandaria Campaign had begun, with ships moving out from harbors along the Eastern Kingdoms toward this still very unknown land. The fleets were a bit out of the ordinary for the forces being sent ahead, however.
This was not mere reinforcements. These were expeditionary forces. Everything was needed. Supplies, crafters, surveyors. Bases of operations were needed along with all of the supporting pieces of infrastructure. In many ways the fleet appeared less about establishing a foothold and more about settling the new land.
An idea which considerably irked some of the more conscious passengers of the fleet. Whispers and discussions of the right to embark on inhabited land in such numbers, wonders of what made it any different from invasion. There was a lot of time ahead of them in the journey from continent to continent, with plenty of time to mull over the complex issues at hand.
Ferranne, however, was bored of discussing it and tired of thinking about it. There seemed no point to it. There was no changing the direction of the Alliance or the Horde, their decisions now set in motion like landslides unleashed after a storm. The ground underneath both sides had been weakened for years. He had expected something like this to happen eventually.
He never expected himself to be caught up in such, however. For a while he had prided himself on staying out of such large conflicts, but in the wake of the Cataclysm, it was difficult not to see war itself as another natural, primal force. He had failed to bring life to so many places, to preserve it in others, always finding destruction one step ahead of him. He finally had begun to wonder if there was any use in fighting it.
And that was how he found himself on this bulky, swaying mass. He had been enlisted to help with things he had honestly lost track of by now. Mending the injured, scouting the unknown, tending to the land for some project, even helping to restore what he heard called a “jade forest”. It was honestly all a blur that he had just agreed to for no real reason. He just didn’t see a purpose in saying no anymore.
Soon enough, he found himself on a supply ship with a job suited to both his druidic talents and his increasingly reclusive preferences. Possibly the most boring thing in the Alliance fleet, there wasn’t much to do or see on the ship. Lagging behind the main force and distantly flanked and followed by escorts, it wasn’t likely to see any action at all during its long journey and its crew mostly kept to itself, used to long journeys ferrying things they never had to even look at.
But what for most would be an exercise in boredom, for Ferranne was instead peace. He considered himself lucky to be assigned to such a ship. His task was menial at best, but suited him. All he had to do was ensure that everything in his compartments was safe and tended to, half of which took care of itself. The massive cases of botany equipment, herbalism tomes, and other paraphernalia in the lower compartments were barely even his concern. The compartments were reinforced and the containers would not budge even in the worst of storms. For those to be endangered, the ship would have to be sinking. Instead, the real bulk of his work was directly above him in the rear deck.
Laying on his back and staring at the ceiling, he stretched out on a large rug in one of the smaller compartments where he had stashed his few belongings and just let the time pass. In some ways, he felt like he was in a time capsule, no longer part of the world or time itself but just existing in a bubble. Some part of him whispered that it was no real way to live, not for long, but he enjoyed it nonetheless. This job was all he needed for the time being.
Getting to his feet, he climbed halfway up the stairs, pausing with practiced balance when the ship tilted with the waves. Proud to have at least kept his sea legs all these years, he waited out the rocking of the boat and strained to listen. Voices and footsteps were always going back and forth above deck, but were distant, kept mostly to the fore of the ship. Beyond that was the same slow hush of water and creaking wood. The rear deck was, as usual, left alone.
Stepping up the last of the stairs and to the deck, his eyes were greeted by a flood of light from the windows stretched all along the rear of the ship and a blur of a new color, different from the endless brown of wood below deck. Instead, all around him was green.
In pots and windowboxes and hanging bowls were plants of all sorts, littered across the entire rear deck. Very little else occupied the room save for some small tables and stools. This was his real job, the real reason a druid like himself was assigned to a supply vessel. Not just to babysit boxes any deckhand could keep an eye on, but instead to ensure that all the crates of soil samples, pouches of seeds, and carefully secured plants made it to their destination. For the duration of his journey across the ocean, this was all that really mattered to him.
The large windows let in as much light as possible and he would open different ones to control the flow of air. There was no lack of sun for most plants in the deck, but when a few looked to struggle he would move them outside, to another set of boxes on the top deck. Carefully rotating them over time, they would all get the attention they needed.
His talents as a druid were barely even needed, his knowledge of herbalism and botany more than enough to ensure his seaborne garden could thrive. It was almost encouraging to be back to basics, to not feel so reliant on the nature magic that he had been struggling so much with ever since awakening from the dream. While magic had felt off to him, almost out of range some days, nothing could take away the simplicity of gardening, even on a boat.
A flash of yellow caught his eye. The sun came through the window and hit a windowbox of goldthorn, illuminating it as if to bring attention to the curling in its barbs. That was definitely a difficult one. Goldthorn needed something more like marshland to thrive. Fresh air and sun wouldn’t be able to solve as many problems as it did for the others, even if it didn’t need the exact same environment.
He gave himself a few long minutes to think, absentmindedly pushing fingers through his hair. It just needed a little more moisture in the air, more humidity. Thinking first to put it near the engine room, he knew that would just starve it of sunlight. Thinking of what compartments were below him, a possibility flashed through his mind and instantly made him smile.
Carefully pulling up the goldthorn’s box, he carried it down below deck, watching each step on his way lest the ship lurch and send thorns right into his chest. He brought it to a small room in the back, one where a pipe that safely carried away steam from the engine passed through. The room was essentially just a mechanical access point, something only ever used in case of repairs. The side of the pipe had a small release valve where sometimes it would let excess steam out to ensure there was never too much pressure, making the small enclosure very humid.
He normally hated being too close to the room, but it was perfect. The humidity. The space. It even had a nice enough window to provide enough sun for the goldthorn. His stubborn little charge now had a much better home.
“Well now at least someone will enjoy all that steam.” He said aloud, carefully petting at a low hanging bramble.
Noticing the way the sunlight came into the back compartment, he briefly wondered about the time. Sunset would be in an hour or so, but that was all he could surmise. He had already lost track of how much time had passed on the ship, how many weeks it must have been.
Stepping backwards from the small room, he decided none of it mattered. For however long it lasted, this was enough.
Suramar City spent thousands of years isolated from the world, living in its own decadence. So many taught themselves to be happy within the confines of the barrier that protected them, not knowing of the condition of the world outside, if one even remained. Most believed it was gone, that everything under the barrier was all that was left.
But others could not be so satisfied. Many held onto memories of what the world was, what it was supposed to be. Even as the almost countless years stretched on, as the arcane energies trapped under the shroud changed them all, they longed for the outside, even as the hope of ever seeing it dwindled.
The canopy of twisting energies that they began to call a sky became a dark omen to many, a constant reminder of the small world that was left for them. Quietly, as centuries became millennia, a specific kind of artisan within the Shal'dorei became heavily sought after, their talents gaining a new facet of value.
Artists.
Those who still held onto some kind of hope wanted something they could set their eyes upon. Reminders of the sky they all once looked up at or impressions of new ideas, of skies that may never exist anywhere but could transport them away from the confines of their shrouded home.
These images started from the lowborn, the outcasts. The ones who had nothing except these memories to hold onto, to keep their spirits up as the small fragment of what used to be a larger world tried to keep them down. They made their way up, peddling the one thing those in the upper castes dare not conceive of.
Hope.
They work tirelessly to find reagents, plants and oils and magical enchantments, to make the exact colors they needed, seeing the world is wider palettes and brighter shades than those who didn’t question the world around them.
They made and shared images of with clouds, fluffy formations in different shapes and sizes, things that were more than just undulations and interferences inside an arcane field. They made images with colors that the nobles struggled to even remember and found themselves quietly addicted to, finding it sating a need that magic itself could not.
Commissions were offered to those they could find to make a new color for them, to discover a new kind of sky. They always feared the resource of art might run out somehow like the dwindling diversity in the ecology of their confines, underestimating the infinite bounds of imagination itself. All they knew was that they needed it.
Images of vistas shrouded at their tops in clouds and horizons with brightly lit oceans always fetched high prices. Grand displays became entangled in complex bidding wars. Favorite pieces became treasured family heirlooms.
As demand created new pressure, despite the opportunities, the artists sought new ways to replenish their own souls, to return to a state of simple remembrance and imagination. They shared freely with each other, work together, and dabbled in what magic they could to make their skies come alive.
Some made paintings that moved, that sought to bring back a passage to time itself under the unflinching shroud. They showed sunrises and sunsets upon walls that would otherwise have seen none. They went from blues to oranges to blacks in homes where many had long sickened of pale stone.
But some went further. A few with expansive talents both with a brush and with magic found themselves holding a special talent, able to bring their magic off of the canvas itself. Careful strokes of the brush could paint celestial bodies that rushed forward to brighten their rooms. They painted clouds that floated above the heads of others. Inspired in the quiet, they toiled, however ephemeral the magic, and made their own skies.
Blue skies to calm the nerves of those who felt trapped, like the barrier had shrunk and might one day collapse atop them all.
Skies of constantly shifting gray, imbued with chaotic energies for those who missed adventure and sought the wind.
Sunsets that stretched oranges into pinks, concealing dark purples in their corners, to bring back sparks to old loves that withered with the years.
Night skies of deep blacks dotted with bright spots, streaked with waves of color and clouds of shimmering dust, to help some sleep, finding it a more comforting darkness than the staleness of light under the barrier.
For thousands of years, Suramar stood by itself. Left as an island with no ocean, as a prison with no places to wander. But hope remained, for some had remembered and, in their memory and imagination, they gave back what they could.
After the loss of the Peak of Serenity to the invading Burning Legion, monks of all disciplines and walks had gathered on the back of Shen-zin Su, the great sea turtle, to regroup and rebuild their orders. As this effort grew, Faerran found himself dividing his time equally between attentions within the Emerald Dreamway and here. Seeing the counter-offensive build from two different angles lent him deep insight, not just into the world he was fighting for, but to himself. There was much to meditate over and little time for pause.
But there was still time. It could be found in the shade beneath a tree, in the rustling of leaves in the wind, or in passing through a quiet little nook at the Laughing Crane. Standing at the side of the Temple of Five Dawns, just away from most of the bustle of training and strategizing, the tavern for the time being, mostly empty besides a few patrons enjoying a moment to relax.
Faerran sat alone on the second floor, peering at the different corners of the room as it was lit by hanging lanterns, bright and freshly lit. Various corners of the room were in use for supplies, storing anything from ingredients for the cooks below to surplus for the campaign. It was easy for the conflict to be the first thing in his mind, but he pushed it away, curious at the sight of something tucked away towards the back, where most would not be looking.
A collection of unassuming pottery and other items, put away just at the end of the light’s reach atop several boxes. They at first just seemed like they were left there carelessly, but the smoothed out tapestry they were organized neatly on showed they were left there to be found and the lack of dust showed they were used often. Makeshift tables and other places to keep items were common on the Isle, with more people and possessions there with the losses of so many temples and other places making for more than there was room for at times.
With no one else around to question him, he stepped back and reached for one of the lower hanging lanterns, carrying it over for a better look. As the light washed over the corner, the objects atop it reflected back at him and he could not help but smile.
The craftsmanship of the objects was immediately recognizable, though they were all from different places. A tea set centered between two teapots, both of which did not match the set. Some bowls and a plan off to one side. Two matching vases off to the other. The materials were varied, from simple polished stone to porcelain to what he could only guess was ghost iron. They were all from different places.
One teapot, its ghost iron faded from use, looked to have been from a farmer from the Valley. The vases were painted pottery from the Temple of the Jade Serpent, art of Yulon gracing their sides. The bowls were in some ways crude, but still beautifully crafted with their etchings of the Black Ox, showing the telltale signs of Townlong’s sturdy folk. The porcelain teacups showing careful blue patterns on their rims, a sign from the Temple of the White Tiger.
They all told stories, all precious in their mere presence, that these were things some saw fit to keep with them, to carry to another continent as reminders of home, of what they were fighting for. But other stories lingered within, glimmering in the dancing light of his lantern as he set it down to get a better look.
They were all, every single one of them, broken; though that was more appropriately said in the past tense. They had been broken, but since repaired. Mended carefully, colorful streaks in their materials where their sundered parts had been rejoined. Ghost iron had been carefully filled with trillium, swirls of black and white amidst faded silver. Stone had been sealed with jade, bright green streaks curling up the sides. Porcelain had been joined with gilded lacquer. All of them put back together with something meant to call attention to their damage, to their impermanence.
They fought to retain these objects, just as those who owned them had fought to survive. And, fittingly, these showed their own scars, just like the many who had survived.
Survived the Legion. Survived the Sha, the Klaxxi, the Mogu. The Pandaren were survivors. They knew the importance of scars and the frailty of life. They knew the strength in things that were rebuilt. And there was a lesson in that.
There was always a lesson with Pandaren. They kept their lessons with them, all around them. Even in something as simple as a teacup. Even after being broken, there was still life and value here, in everything, no matter how small. He learned this lesson in his training, as the masters sat him and others down to slowly make such restorations as one of their tasks. It was easy to wonder how such a thing could benefit a monk, but they never would tell it to students.
They didn’t have to. In time, everyone learned. The patience built from the slow and careful pace and time spent putting one single object back together. The keen eye and steady hand developed in joining and securing every piece. And most of all, the importance of the bright colors settling into every crack, holding each piece together. The value that remaining in anything that might be considered broken.
“Nothing is lost unless you let it be.” Lessons of memory and tradition were passed down amongst the Pandaren, but so was history, even when it carried pain. This didn’t even need to be told. After days spent working on them, seeing even something like a teacup come together once more, strong and whole again, was inspiring, the lesson learned silently.
Carefully trailing a fingertip along the edge of one of the bowls, he felt the slight shift in texture where one material blended with the other. His mind was flooded with similar memories, of carefully finishing a restoration, checking that each join was smooth but strong. He came to see himself in every one, each restored object sharpening his mind as the calm grew, gaining solace as he learned hope from each rejoined piece and the ability to do so with his very hands.
The memories of the time before his training crept in, remembering the tailspin he found himself in as his druidic ability dwindled underneath doubts. He was turbulent, lost feeling so many things about the holes in himself, whether they were real or perceived. But now, the damage and breaks, were restored, filled with something else.
Through the sundered objects they had restored, but did not hide the faults in, they had showed him the beauty not only retained but gained in having a deeper meaning by showing its past. The scars were part of a story, they had meaning; and that meaning was important and beautiful.
The gaps being filled were not just function, they were art. To cover them as if it had never been broken hid the lesson, the story.
The breaks in himself that were filled was his story. The holes in his druidism were filled with the colors of being a monk. That mixed nature brought him a deep comfort, made whole through the marks of what had filled the gaps.
Carefully looking over the restored objects laid out one last time, he picked the lantern back up and nodded. There were no longer two parts, pieces of druid bonded with a lacquer of monk. There was simply one whole, one him. His monk training had brought together the pieces of his druidic talent, but in that bond, he was more, overflowing and connecting with life, to restore and weave however he could.
He would take care not to forget that lesson. To not forget himself ever again.
He thought he was done with this part of his life. After what felt like months, he thought it didn’t have to be this way anymore. No more running, he said.
But run was all Ferran could do. He relied only on the strength of his legs and the basic instincts deep within in him to carry him forward, far away from the ruins he had turned into a home for himself.
It had taken him so long to make it the way he liked, using the power he had been given to bring life the way he saw fit to it. Curling vines around stones, settling any plant he adopted into little beds of fresh soil, illuminating it with all manners of warm bioluminescence. It was a home just for him, and the first time he saw the world finally shape itself to his whims. It was what he always wanted, wasn’t it?
It came at a price. He should have expected that. Everything came at some sort of a price. It had to. But the power he had used to make his home what not his. It was no gift. It was not given to him, but lent. And he was not the one in control.
The voice of his old master echoed as he recalled the misshapen and twisted forms of his rescues. The petals gaining strange patterns and dark blotches, the stems curling at strange angles and gaining thorns, vines gaining a mind of their own and digging into sheer stone. He had been warned.
“This land has power within its very heart.” He was told. “And it will speak to you. It speaks to all of us. When we sleep, when the clouds are dark. This land tests us.”
He had always taken his master’s words as fable, as parable. The warning itself a mere lesson. It was far more literal than he ever wanted to believe, even as someone who had listened to the land for millennia. He had forgotten the simple truths from all of his days as a druid. He had forgotten to listen.
To the land. To his teachers. Even to his instincts. All he listened to was his longing, the emptiness in his heart that told him to erase, to mold, to change the world and retreat from it.
Finally unable to run a single moment longer, he stumbled and fell to his knees. He was a fool and he knew it. He thought making a home for himself meant he could finally stopped running, but he had never stopped. He may have stopped moving, but he was still running from the world, from reality. He was hiding.
Hiding from everything that had pained him, torn away at him, taken away from him. He wanted to never lose again. He watched so many things burn… The Sundering. The Cataclysm. Hyjal. Even the simple boat that had taken him here. The entire world smelled like fire.
He just wanted to breathe. Was that so much to ask? Struggling to fill his lungs as he had run an unknown distance for an unknown amount of time, all he could do was try to breathe. He had lost again.
Another home had to be left behind as his arms still stung, remembering as vines turned against him and tendrils of dark energies reached to hold him, to keep him in the lair he had fashioned for himself. It didn’t want him to leave. It needed him. But he had gotten away, refusing its supposed “gift”. And now left without a home once again. No place to call his own.
Or so he thought.
As the blood rushing through his ears pounded with echoes of a quiet voice, a familiar whisper telling him that he can always run but he can never get away, another sound caught his attention. Soft but quick, a pattering. Something was rushing through the woods, quickly approaching him from behind. He was too tired to be threatened, merely digging his hands into the dirt and readying himself for anything.
Expecting an enemy, he looked behind him only to find simple crane running towards him. Dashing quickly along the road, his eyes followed, watching the innocuous creature. As it passed him, carrying his eyes back to the road before him, he found himself face to face with an unexpected figure.
At least twice his height and flickering with bright red light, the visage of a large crane stood in the middle of the road, staring directly at him. Time froze as another voice spoke to him, one that was lighter, calmer. He had heard it before in dreams and its sound drove away the other voice that had followed him from the ruins.
“Why do you run like my children do?” The crane asked.
Ferran found himself short on breaths. He understood the question was more than just his current predicament. He ran for more than to just escape the Sha. “Because there is nothing for me.” He replied, his heart pouring out without another thought. “Everything behind me is gone. Why not run? I keep losing everything. It’s hopeless.”
“Is it?” The crane spoken with notes of curiosity and knowing. “You have run so much and for so long. How many times have you run not from danger or loss, but from fear? From failure?”
The question dug into him. He had left more behind than just losses.
“You seek so much from yourself. But you have been carried forward by such a simple desire.” The red crane’s voice softened, emitting the energy of a wide smile despite its form. “You seek to cultivate, to care for. You have merely lost the way of how. But it is not a lack of ability. A nightmare of despair has taken root within you.”
“But what else is there to do? I have tried everything.” Ferran founds his fingers digging into his palms as he gripped the dirt beneath him. “All I can do is run. I can’t stop.”
“I never asked you to.” The crane replied, a hint of joviality in his voice. “I asked you why.”
Tears formed at the edges of his vision, blurring it as he could no longer bear the sight of bright white and red feathers any longer. He had so many questions, so many things to say and ask as his heart felt ready to burst with fear, and doubt, and despair.
“Do not run away, looking back over your shoulder.” The voice rose with a challenge. “Run towards. Chase. Create the destiny you seek.”
“But where? Run to where?” Ferran asked, his voice breaking as he finally looked back up. But instead he saw nothing before him, the middle of the road empty once more. Slowly getting to his feet, he stumbled forward towards a single bright red feather. He reached down and took it, contemplating it and the figure it had apparently come from.
The Red Crane… He was unsure what had just happened and as his mind wandered, he finally found himself able to breathe. Exhaling slowly as the breeze whipped around him, he let go of the feather and watched it spin and curl as the wind carried it away. Following it slowly, his eyes were drawn to something in the distance.
A tall towering structure with a statue atop it. Silhouetted in the midday sun, he barely made out the shape of a crane. He gasped. In all of his running, he had lost all bearings of where he was until that moment. The Temple. It was still a long ways in the distance, but he could make it there before nightfall.
Questions instantly rose in his mind. Would he be accepted there? Was this even what he wanted? His legs didn’t care for any answers, already pushing him forward and dashing off of the road in the direction of the temple.
He had run from training before, shunning his lessons for what the whispers had promised him. It felt foolish to go back, even after ignoring the warnings he was given, but he knew. He had to make things right. And he couldn’t do it by himself.
Eldarra’s mind had been a storm for two nights and it had begun to take its toll. A paleness had reached across her face and tugged at her eyes, just as a strange weight did the same to her shoulders. She could not fathom what had brought this on as the last month had been relatively uneventful for her. The injured were less numerous with less travelers on the roads, the interim between seasons granting a much needed reprieve.
But still something cast her mind in shadow, lurking over her without seemingly any reason or form. All she could do was hope her morning prayer and meditation would provide an insight, to show some beam of light through the specter over her mind.
A sharp ringing followed by a crash told her that would not happen this morning, however. Running her hands through her hair, pushing the short strands that had fallen into her face back, she sighed, hoping to expel her worries long enough to handle whatever her sister had gotten herself into this time.
Before she had even stepped out of her own room, the voice she was looking for called from the door.
“I’m fine! Don’t worry about it!”
“It is my job to worry.” Eldarra called back, her voice flat as she turned the corner to see her younger sister trying to shuffle a sword behind a screen. After taking a moment to look her up and down to be sure it actually was fine, her voice softened despite the new dent in the wooden walls of their home. “Practicing again?”
Haeleth didn’t answer, instead muttering back “A storm is rolling in, so I can’t really do much outside.”
Eldarra shook her head as she carefully looked at the walls, searching for any other possible accidents. “You’ve still not told me why you have taken up a sudden interest in the sword.” She said, almost absently as she walked towards the screen.
Haeleth stepped forward, as if to stop her sister, but did not keep her from reaching for the simple weapon that she had put there moments before. “It’s not sudden.”
“Shall I rephrase?” Eldarra said, inspecting the sword’s edge almost out of habit. “I know you’ve been practicing for about two years now. You never told me why.”
“I said family tradition-”
“Which you and I both know is false.” She cut in, tilting the sword at her sister with a stern glare. “You have never cared one bit for tradition, especially in this family.” Her voice grew quiet as memories flashed before her with the strike of lightning outside. “Neither of us have.”
“You’ve cared for traditions, just ones very different from our family’s.” Haeleth corrected.
“So why… this?” Eldarra asked, carefully turning the sword around in her hands to hand it back. “We walked away from our family traditions, away from this. Are you having second thoughts?”
The rain poured outside as Haeleth stared at the polished blade before her. She did not reach for it as she finally answered with her own question.
“Do you remember whose that is?”
Eldarra could only blink. “I can’t remember if you ever told me.”
“This sword…” Haeleth finally grasped the handle and took the blade, raising just high enough to catch another flash of lightning. “…is why I followed you to The Evenlight.”
The sound of the rain seemed deafening as Eldarra thought back to when they joined the order, when they both sought out the priesthood. Memories rushed back to her, but none held answers.
“When our family split in petty squabbles and competitions about their hunting prowess, when their sisterhood failed because their concerns became about who was the better fighter, we looked to the past. Beyond when our mother’s mothers vied to be called Sentinels or Wardens.”
A disgusted look crept across Haeleth’s face, finally making Eldarra realized just how dishevelled she was. How long had she been practicing? How long had she been awake?
With a deep sigh, her sister continued. “You had always been the true rebel in the family. Respectful, but no one was the wiser when you so effortlessly slipped away and found your true calling to Elune. I… didn’t have that. I just had you. I knew I didn’t fit in with them either, but my path wasn’t the same as yours. I never knew what to do with myself… until you brought me to Kistra.”
The picture in her mind finally came into focus. The day before they had made their final decision to leave, there in the Temple of Elune when they met her, when they learned of The Evenlight.
“You were always meant to be a priestess.” Haeleth sighed and stepped backward, peering down at the sword in her hands. “But I always felt more complete with a weapon. I felt lost, torn between you and the rest of our family. Until Kistra said her name.”
Eldarra remembered all at once and spoke without thinking. “Eisuna.”
“She saved our family. And barely anyone even remembers anymore.” Haeleth could look at the blade no longer, placing it on the table beside her.
“Grandfather’s sword…” Eldarra remembered the stories, about the knights in the family who fought Azshara’s traitorous guard. Only a few managed to survive as the rest of the family escaped.
Haeleth’s hand began to shake. “She blessed this blade as the simplest gesture, to help our grandfather when he asked to simply protect his family. He asked for nothing else but a chance to fight. And now all ‘fight’ means in this family is to bicker or have a pissing match.” She closed her eyes, her voice beginning to fail her. “I just feel like I should be doing more. That I should be like that. That somebody should remember what this sword means.”
The thunder roared once more, drowning out a sob as Haeleth could say no more.
“You are doing exactly what you were meant to.” Eldarra stepped towards her little sister and took her in her arms. “You remember what this family was meant to do. Your instinct has always been to protect. As long as you follow that, that is enough.” She felt her sister crumple forward against her shoulder and just held her.
It pained her to remember Haeleth ever feeling so small to her, the rare sight of doubt in her headstrong little sister bringing her back to holding her when she was a child. She shushed her as the rain continued to pour.
“You remember. That is going to lead you where you were always meant to go.” She said, brightness creeping into her voice. “And whatever your path may be, I just hope mine doesn’t stray very far from it.”
Faerran knew the feeling well, of wanderlust building over a week of walking the same three roads. It was a hazard of being an envoy for the Cenarion Circle. At times, he would have to stay put. Looking after nature or some ally or even the occasional negotiation, it forced him to avoid his usual tendency to travel, and to take the scenic route whenever possible.
It would be two more days before he could move on, to say goodbye to the strange trade agreement that was being worked on between Tauren, Goblins, and Trolls. He wasn’t sure how he was considered a third - technically, fourth - party to this discussion, but at least it was interesting. However the mental stimulation of it had worn down, with only the last few details of amounts needing to be worked out. The numbers really had nothing to do with him and so he was left with little to occupy his mind with anymore.
With the roads of a wandering soul and bored mind slowly intersecting, he knew where it would lead him. Before laying down to rest, he was sure to slip on his sandals, preparing for precisely where the roads would turn. As slumber overtook his body, his mind began its journey.
His immediate surroundings were committed well to memory by now, having needed to traverse the worn paths between each party’s camp enough to be able to follow them with his eyes closed. Now, with them actually closed, he could see them clearer than was he awake, the dust along each kicked up gently by the breeze as the wind urged him towards a southward road. The one leading in the opposite direction of where he came from a week prior.
That road was mere days away from the chance to walk them, but his mind could no longer wait. His spirit could not bear to be tethered to a simple tarp hung from an even branch to protect him and his supplies from the elements. He began to walk.
The firm undersides of his sandals left no footprints as he followed the road, taking in the sights as the dirt gave way to stone. The haphazard pavement was worn from traders and troops alike having made their way over hundreds of times, but this was not what caught his attention, nor the shape of the land flanking it or the distant trees.
The struggling weeds and sprouts, pushing between rocks and cracks within the paved road, held his gaze. He counted them as he walked, watching as every step seemed to invigorate them, creating small blooms as more pushed upwards to meet him. They brushed against his feet, seeking to follow him on his journey.
As more began to rise up from the road beneath his stride, he was no longer traveling south. He was traveling inward. An unnatural breeze swept in from all directions, kicking up dust until it swirled and became dirt. Rocks began to turn over and sink into the path as it slowly disappeared, overtaken by grass from every crack and it spread toward the horizon.
The breeze became gusts, carrying clouds in to envelop the sky, covering the sun until everything was cast in an even, pale light. The overcast was not gray, but green as sprouts from the ground rose to match and surpass his own height, making stalks and vines, arching over the now unmarked path, leading him forward with a quiet invitation.
Blossoms of every color stretched from the green around him, greeting him with morning yawns and sighs of dew. For him, it may have been time to rest, but along the path he was now taking, it was time for something else to wake. The road ended just ahead, the arching vines leaning into each other like an embrace over an ellipse of swirling mist. The wind brushed locks of his white hair across his cheeks as he smiled at the familiar window of green with hints of purple and infinity.
He was at his destination; the beginning of his chance to wander. The entrance to his true homeland. His chest was filled with warmth, his spirit flourishing as he took the final, yet first steps into the cure for his need to walk, anywhere as long as it was for miles.
His slumber would never fail to take him where he needed to go. All roads would eventually lead here. The Emerald Dream would always be there should he feel the need to wander.
She relaxed the constant tremolo in her heart as best she could, bit by bit. Despite her prayers, her breathing, her stillness, it was a calm not easily achieved by the young Highborne woman. Her family demanded increasingly more from her, and it often left her without stamina or wellness. Even then, as she knelt beside the central moonwell at the Temple of Elune in Suramar, Eisuna could feel their fingers tugging at the strands of her hair, the hem of her dress; pulling away the strings of delicate chimes she wore strung across her hair and shoulders.
She shuddered, clutching a string that dangled across her upper arm. Her unadorned hood covered most of her pale rose hair. It was attached to a long, simple cloak and robe in hues of dusky purple. It covered her lavish dresses and chimes from view, but not from sound. Should she move too much, the gentle bells she’d been unable to part with would ring out. Eisuna hoped it would not be something that could easily identify her…. Highborne magi were not supposed to become priestesses.
Eisuna closed her eyes and focused on the well. She gently laced her fingers together, slowly moving them together. She soon found her inspiration, and sat a little straighter. Hands crossed over her chest at the wrists, the hopeful priestess allowed the movements of her hands to guide her imagination.
They were the wings of a butterfly, softly rising and falling upon the currents of magic that began to flow through her and all around her. Deeper and deeper into the meditation she went, the warm, loving sensation building in the air around her. She would focus on whatever could draw her closer to Elune, and intuition dictated just how she would attempt communion.
I am love, she murmured, I am home. I am healing.
Sweet rest flooded into her heart. Relief pulsed throughough her chest, pulling up the invasive roots of fear and shame and casting them aside as visions of an ethereal, radiant butterfly delicately fluttered in darkness.
I am hope, I am rest. I am here.
Stronger magicks swirled through her arms and fingertips, about her shoulders and arching gracefully down her back. They formed a shimmering coccoon around her, protecting her from anger and hurt and betrayal with strands of woven starlight.
A soft smile pulled at her lips. She felt herself rising, rising, rising….. Dark, thrashing nightmares reached at her, but her feet had long left the ground within this vision. She floated high above negativity and malice on ethereal wings, the dull tremolo in the base of her mind slowly being drowned out.
I am love, I am light.
I am here, it is alright.
I am the love of Mother Moon,
and her wishes I oblige.
I will shine in this dark night
to guide her children home.
She recited a prayer she’d heard the priestesses murmur within the temple’s halls, hoping it would empower her. Overwhelming feelings of sadness welled up in her chest, rising into her throat even as she silently spoke.
Mother Moon, please flow through me.
Let me heal their scars
and with your fury, build them up
your Children of the Stars.
Eisuna’s heart throbbed in a vice grip. She opened shimmering iridescent eyes, misted from her emotional journey, upon some urgent interest in the graceful scene of tranquility that she had so often come to behold. The light pouring in from the moon crystal focuser atop the domed roof looked somehow different; gentle rays floated through more brightly, far more intensely than she had ever seen.
For a moment, Eisuna was caught in its splendor. Carefully, she rose to her feet and reached for the light of Elune. Her pale skin gleamed in the bright moonlight, so much that each finger looked to be illuminated entirely on its own, with long, shining rays shooting off into the dimmed ceiling, where the stars were.
Happiness overwhelmed her. She closed her eyes again, pulling her hands to her chest and feeling a burst of light radiate from her. She pulled her arms gracefully to her sides, low, with palms open. A single, fragile breath passed through her lips as the feeling of bursting light evened out over her entire body. The light…it sounded like music. Like chimes.
Bewildered murmurs began to reach her ears. She blinked away the tears that blurred her vision, suddenly aware of herself. Eisuna shyly lifted her eyes to survey the room. Many temple priestesses stood around the well, lingered in the hallways, all staring.
Staring at her.
Eisuna drew in a breath, her cheeks burning like fire. Her hand flew to her lips, arms attempting to cover herself as shame flooded her body like heavy, molten stone. It was then that she saw it.
Soft, prismatic light covered – no, radiated from her. She held her hands aloft before her, gazing at them in wonder. She looked helplessly to the priestesses.
It was this moonless nights when her mind wandered and her fears came pay a visit that she dreaded the most sometimes. The empty room full of trinkets, the goodbyes in an eternal life, regrets and losses. They accompanied her like her skin and bones, but like her tattoos shone on the light of Elune this ones took force in its absence.
The house felt so cluttered, so small in it’s peaceful solitude, that her insecurities boldened to be despair, and from despair they became rage: rage to her mind to not let herself enjoy the life she had achieved, the friends she had, the–
A mote of light disturbed her blight, shining in the window alone like a snowflake that never reached the ground. A wisp, alone, fluttering in the dark. “Elune shines always: if you can’t see her in the sky it’s because her light is stronger inside you”. The thought raced through her mind, across her very being. A distant memory of her sister helping her sleep in a dark night so long ago it felt like a fable more than a fact.
Kistra followed the wisp outside, to the empty blackness. The spirit went down and up and around, as if it was dancing a greeting. Her entranced feet followed it’s flow, focused on the warm pale light that seared the night; and as she finished her first turn a new light bloomed as if summoned by a silent enchantment. Her hand gently reached out without trying to touch it as her body twirled softly encompassed by her glowing partners, which grew in numbers with each graceful motion.
There was no music, no pattern to follow, no cue for her moments to take. There was no fear, no sorrow or pain: gone they were along with her thoughts of days of old and yet to come. They hadn’t been erased, they didn’t cease to exist; just, for as long as the dance lasted, they were gone. There was the dance and the light, two as one, and nothing else.
And the waltz ended, her feet again stood in one place. So did her mind. The whirling body stopped and with it the whirling emotions. There was again balance where recently had been chaos, shades where colors had drifted in blocks. They were all in there, none new, none gone. All hue of feelings flowing smoothly, like the colored wisps that danced in the black night.
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