He snapped back into consciousness with a sudden start as an overwhelming nausea settled deep within the pit of his stomach. It had almost felt as if it were all some horrid nightmare, but Talon had neither dream nor nightmare for at least two years at this point: A ‘side effect’ of his brush with Death. However this was no mere nightmare and he knew better than to ignore that nagging feeling in his gut.
While the details of the delivery remained blurry, he could vaguely recall the congenial greetings of The Construct intermingled with the gravelly prophecy of Gaebral whispered into his ear. It was the premonition of his son’s death that replayed over and over within his mind in vivid detail as if he were there watching and unable to help. He could feel the all consuming panic Daxion felt as his blinded eyes burned in their sockets and his lungs filled with the toxic black fog. Not even his own Light could save him in time from the wide-swinging cleave of the scythe.
And that was his end.
There would be no coming back.
No miracles,
No resurrection,
Just death.
Unfortunately the vision didn’t end there. Talon was forced to watch that final gasp of air as the blood pooled and his sundered body was lost amongst the continuing battle. While the older man had seen a great many atrocities in his lifetime, witnessing the death of someone you love changes you. That was a lesson he learned long ago.
In the blink of an eye, he was outside the tent with comm device in hand: Fuck leaving fate to run its proper course. Talon had already lost too much, he wasn’t about to lose Daxion as well. His attempts in reaching the other man were unsuccessful, something was interfering with the signal and he could only assume it was Antorus. A courier could not be trusted with such a precious message and he doubted that his son would properly heed a warning delivered in that manner; if the two had one thing in common it was their sheer stubbornness.
This message needed to be delivered in person, by himself.
A duffle bag was hastily packed and armor thrown on, only stopping his urgent actions to wake Naralinthe. He couldn’t very well just disappear without word. “I have to go. I don’t have time to explain, just know there are no other options, this is something I need to do on my own.” Gloved fingers stroked lovingly through her golden locks before a kiss was pressed to her temple, much like The Construct had done to him mere moments ago. “Just let the others know something of the utmost importance came up, some of the older men will know what to do and take over in my stead. I love you, I will return when I can and all will be explained. Keep everyone safe.”
He left her little time to answer before rushing from the tent,
off into the early morning haze.
He needed to find his son now
and question the why this vision was given to him later.
Even if this put him in debt to Gaebral once again,
it would be worth it.
some content warnings for depression, suicidal ideation. ))
Something had broken.
Some deep, angry crack that she had ignored so thoroughly these long months had finally broken. She had not allowed herself to grieve for Waraylon; not fully, not entirely. A passing sadness here, or there. But she had given herself wholly to the deployment in Argus, and had not thought about it since except in passing.
Oh, what a fool she had been. As her body wracked in pain, watering eyes staring up at the stars that extinguished one by one above her, she could not imagine anything she should have done more than grieve for her lover. The darkness saw into her soul and saw her fault lines: the pride, the arrogance. I should have died instead. I should have died. He shouldn’t be dead. Foolish girl, thinking she could take on the world’s ills when her own clawed at her heart so thoroughly. She could not bear the weight of the world and also the weight of her own self-imposed torture.
And so she had broken; she curled into a ball, unwilling to move. Eleeria had, for one of the rare moments in her life, let the pain wash her somewhere else.
Let me die.
She wanted nothing more. She wanted to go wherever Waraylon had gone -- she did not want to exist here, in a world so vast and lonely that she would never find another quite the same. The world was awful without him, a fact she rarely allowed herself to accept. But now, as the awful force of the void bore down upon their camp and swept debris past her face, as structures collapsed around her, she accepted how awful she felt. She accepted that she was miserable, that she was lonely, that she could not imagine a world in which she didn’t come home at the end to Waraylon’s smile, his voice, his touch.
The tears were not from pain; even as Buran healed her and others passed from around her still form on the ground of Mac’aree, she curled into herself. She could not understand what they were saying around her -- or perhaps she didn’t want to know. She did not want to care any more.
At some point, she found her legs. They carried her back to wherever she could find a tent to lay in -- her own tent had escaped destruction, it seemed, which was well enough for her. She wanted to lay down and never get back up again. Eleeria didn’t understand why the world had given her such a good thing only to take it away; she didn’t understand why she was still here when the good in the world was not. She didn’t deserve it. If anything, she wished that Wild had left her to die on that field tonight.
Eleeria let the remnants of her acid-slashed armor fall from her form, mutely pulling on one of the last shirts she had that belonged to Waraylon in their stead. Slowly, the small woman curled into her cot, eyes staring at the beige of the tent, at the darkness encroaching, at nothing at all.
The hand signal was short, a series of motions passed from rogue to bear in silence. Eldriana and Valkyria hid, cloaked in invisibility and situated behind a decent set of brush on a quiet hill not far from the encampment in Mac'aree. The bear could go for days without a meal, but rations weren't enjoyable for a grizzly any more than they were for an elf. Eldriana, at least, had the sense to eat them; Valkyria had rumbled, and grumbled, until at last Eldriana had ridden her a short distance away in search of relatively uncorrupted creatures to hunt.
The talbuks in front of them grazed quietly, unaware of their presence. At the signal, the bear charged forth -- the talbuks alarmed cries echoing in the air as they scattered. Eldriana followed, still in stealth, as Valkyria trundled towards them, large paws bringing down a gentle doe. Watching her bear eat was gruesome, but satisfying -- assuming they were no different than normal deer, the creature began to feast, tearing into the doe's hide. The alpha talbuk, enraged, turned face to fight the bear who had felled his mate. Valkyria glanced up, raising to her hind legs; it was all Eldriana could do to restrain herself from gasping in awe at her bear’s sheer strength and size. Rarely did she ever see the creature fight, and it was magnificent -- even more so now that she was fully grown, easily larger than other bears.
Valkyria fell to all fours and swiped with her long claws, the talbuk rearing back to stomp at the creature, unafraid. The fel had empowered it: Eldriana could see it from her stealth-ridden vantage point, the streaks of vibrant green that cut through its hide. “Valkyria--” Her voice didn’t carry far enough, was not loud enough, muffled by arcane, to reach the ears of her bear, currently circling the enraged creature.
If Valkyria was hurt by this thing -- what would happen? Eldriana wasn’t certain; she wasn’t certain she wished to find out, either. In a breath, the small woman rose from her hiding spot, bow already drawn. She could not get close to the flailing claws and hooves with her daggers, not without harming herself in the process. This was the only way to end this swiftly.
But her fingers had only just alighted on an arrow when the sounds of other hooves moving through the brush behind her caught her attention. Eldriana turned, eyes widening at the sight of an Eredar. The demon’s grin was wide, axe already in her hands at the sight of a single Sin’dorei -- in the open, away from her kin, certainly she looked nothing like a threat.
“Well, well.” Fel had warped the woman’s voice, pitching it lower, like something drawn across gravel. “Look what we have here. Such a small, weak elf. Pity I have no patience for playing games with my meals.”
Disgusting. Eldriana flipped the eredar a middle finger, earning a snarl from the demonic creature. “Fuck you! Come at me and see what I’m made of, if you talk such big shit!” Her heart was beating rapidly, and Eldriana forced herself to calm, retreating into the corner of her brain she had long since trained for avoiding panic during combat. At close range, the eredar’s size and strength would overwhelm the tiny rogue. Her fingers clenched the bow that still rested in her left hand automatically. Valkyria would not be able to help her -- she could hear the sounds of the bear’s combat against the fel-ridden talbuk behind her, but not tear her eyes away from the demon to look.
The only way. It was not her voice -- it was Ithranicus’s. Steady words for a motion she had practiced for a year and a half at this point. Eldriana took a breath, settling her nerves. Pushing her fluttering heartbeat to the back of her mind. She pulled her bow up -- your feet should be pointing in the direction of your target, take care that they’re not pointed at awkward angles -- her body and sights set directly on the eredar woman in front of her.
A breath. That was all she got, to plan ahead.
She didn’t need it.
Eldriana drew just as the Eredar charged, the demon’s speed unnatural for something so large. She had anticipated this -- anticipated that the woman’s axe would reach her long before she could fire her shot. Hundreds of years of training, of learning to gauge her enemy and react appropriately, could not be overwritten in a few years of stagnation. If anything, Eldriana felt sharper: her awareness better, mind more focused than it had been in years. She had shaken off the malaise of losing her hand. She had shoved and clawed her way through Northrend, through the Plaguelands, through Suramar. She would not be felled by a lone Eredar in pursuit of sport. Eldriana was meant for better things -- she was meant for greater deaths.
She blinked backwards with a spark of arcane -- once, twice -- going through the motions of drawing and aiming as instinctual as breathing. She did not need her mind to do what her body had honed for over a year. It was instinct: instinct that had never failed her in a do or die situation before. Ithranicus had mentioned that the motions should be fluid, should be natural extensions of her body. Alone with her mind to bother her, she had never quite managed it. But it made perfect sense to her that here, a demon charging after her, alone and otherwise vulnerable, would be the time in which it made sense. After all, had she not learned that she was a creature of war? A being created to destroy? Practice yards could sustain her for awhile, but the tigress had been made to hunt, not play at hunting.
So she did.
The arrow shot from her bow as her feet landed in the grass after her last blink, aimed straight for the Eredar’s eye. The demon roared, so angry she could not see the arrow speeding towards her -- or perhaps so confused as to why her easy prey had suddenly slipped out of her grasp. Eldriana’s arrow stuck in the creature’s eye socket, the runes drawn across the arrow alighting immediately with a spoken word of power. Synthiel had taught her that: runes for sudden ignition, for combustion. On a large scale, certainly Synthiel could blow up a building. Lacking the senior mage’s breadth of practice, Eldriana could only replicate it in miniature on the battlefield, her mana management nowhere near skilled enough for such grandiose displays of fire and ash. However, she imagined that shrapnel exploding inside of one’s skull was painful enough. The Eredar shrieked, a strangled sound that quickly dripped to anguished silence as she slumped to the ground, dead. Eldriana did not lower her bow, drawing another arrow as she turned back towards the talbuk and Valkyria--
Only to find her bear back at her feast on the doe, the fel-ridden talbuk’s carcass left in the grass, staining the beautiful golden landscape with hideous green.
“Well.” She lowered her bow slightly, watching her bear eat. “That takes care of that, I guess.”
