DWC August 2025 - Day 4 - Languish / Direction - Tinnaire
Tinnaire worked to prepare the small sample of skin and scales while the rest of camp rested. She had only taken a limited sampling, getting dour looks from others in the crew as it wasn’t thought to be safe out at the remains of the devourers and the giant worm. Scavengers would arrive quickly here in the wastes and there weren’t any unoccupied people available to help her. And no one wanted to drag the beasts inside the Eco-Dome. She had testing and experiments to do. Hides with spell reflection seemed like they could be useful.
But she needed direction and immediate distraction; she needed to keep her mind occupied to keep from spiraling. She knew what she had done out there on the sands. She could still feel the supple fel power swimming through her mana, corruption so sweet and strong.. People who normally might have given her a haven were unavailable to her at that moment. Fio had her own issues and recovery, severely injured and being tended. Xylaes was … well. Unavailable. Guilt and worry welled for that, too. He’d be all right. He was resourceful. Jencir was on a whole other planet, hopefully as safe as he usually was (however safe that might be). Nahilvi was also out of reach. And Andaeros was not an option for a multitude of reasons.
So later that night, Tinnaire set up small targets of the hide for herself and some of her recuperating friends. She recorded findings about what worked and didn’t. Tinnaire wasn’t typically one to keep a rigorous scientific journal, so notes were scattered in the negative space of her sketchbooks; numbers and spells curled around pencil sketches of purrkins and exotic Tazavesh fruits. Materials and magics were combined and tested for durability and refraction. Others helped, carefully firing off small and varied magic missiles. They laughed when the small projectiles ricochetted harmlessly, though there was an edge of nervousness to the chuckles. No one had forgotten the day before, and they weren’t likely to forget any time soon. All in all, it made a good way to keep her hands and mind busy when Talon didn’t have her assigned to something else.
By the end of it, Tinnaire had fashioned herself a small wrist cuff that could deflect a mild amount of magic. She added her jade worry stone to it at the last, and she sighed. The elven woman looked up to the foreign stars outside the dome and felt the weight of sorting through her emotions settle on her.
@daily-writing-challenge
soft mentions: @fio-renze @xylaes @wildswalk-the-stars @nahisummerhold @andaerosdawnflare @themercenaries
Eluvianna stood before the wardrobe, wide-eyed at the riot of gowns and silks. Looking alone was a sin, wasn’t it?
Serenya plucked one from the row. “What do you think?”
“I think your mother is far less a tyrant than mine…”
A laugh, devilish, brimmed with implication. “This? This is barely a scandal. Perfectly suitable for a first season.”
Eluvianna frowned. “Oh, no—”
“—oh, yes. Aren’t you the least bit curious?” Serenya pressed it closer.
Fingers betrayed her, folding around the emerald fabric. She stepped before the paneled mirror to sway it against the tragedy of her own billowing obedience.
The gown held a modest shimmer, sleeves belled with elegant embroidery. But the transgression lay in the daring neckline, the tempting cinch of a gilded braid. This was not something Tavora would have chosen for her. No, it was far too flattering. She imagined her mother’s disapproval simmering beneath a saccharine smile—if she dared.
Serenya tapped a finger at her cheek. “See…it begs to be worn.”
Their eyes met in the reflection, intrigue slowly curling Eluvianna's lips—perhaps she did.
“Hm. Well, these things have a mind of their own, don’t they?”
Lillandyr felt strange, insubstantial, flowing over the landscape, moving faster than her legs could have ever carried her. She moved as air, unseen, a spirit drawn to a dark pond. There, she saw Heathcliff and she tried to go to him, to talk to him. To tell him she was sorry for lying, for keeping things from him. Lillandyr felt compelled to explain herself so she did it to his back, helpless words stumbling out of her, stuttering and crying.
He wouldn’t look at her. He threw something into the pond and then huffed and paced before jumping into the cold, dark water without acknowledging her. Rushing to the shore, she shouted in dismay. Lillandyr didn’t know she was dreaming and thought she’d made him hate her so much he…
So, she plunged into the water after him. She couldn’t feel the water swallow her up, she couldn’t feel the cold of it. In the dark and rush of fear, these things weren’t noticed. It had all the logic of dreams as she tumbled in the water, only able to watch as Heathcliff plucked something from the murky bottom.
Something foul moved in the water near him, around him. If only he would see her so she could warn him somehow. I deserve this, she thought. The thing in the water became all of her lies. The fake marriage. Aronsen. Everything. And it was going to kill him. Because she didn’t deserve him, just like she’d known all along. Every slap, every denial, every stupid game she played and every kiss they’d never talked about…all of it was wasted time and she thought she’d have forever to do this with him. Lillandyr thought they could dance around each other until it all crumbled to dust because…
Because she needed him and it couldn’t end this way, in the cold and dark without him even looking at her. She saw his blood in the water and great baleful eyes and razor teeth.
And then she was yanked awake.
Blearily, she was pulled to sit up, vision still blurry with the sandman’s dust. She protested softly, crying a little, heart racing so hard it hurt as she floundered in the space between awake and dreaming. Heathcliff, his hair damp, his clothes wet, poured himself over her lap. She could smell the iron tang of his blood, see it on his clothes.
A trembling gasp of horror left her lips, her hands feeling of him, making sure he was all right. She thought she was still dreaming until the cold metal band of the ring slid over her finger. He spoke of sharing pain and all of her felt hollow and small. She felt reduced down, shattered. This was what she wanted and somehow it felt like too much for her. More than she deserved. How could she tell him this truth?
She couldn’t. Her lips wouldn’t move. Because selfishly, she couldn’t resist him. Wouldn’t. She wanted him to press all the fragmented identities, all the names of herself together. Finally, she thought, this is love.
Anya understood the story of the Pearl now. She would wither away, languish by the stormy sea, listening for his whispers in shells, never selling the pearl he gave to her. She knew what it meant then…how it slipped in past defenses and curses. She knew it as the treasure it was. The pearl in the story was love.
She cried, only nodding until he kissed her. It was a rough, desperate kiss. And she needed it so badly. She sank herself into it, dragging back all the forgotten kisses and pressing them together inside herself and returning them back to him, greedy fingers clutching at his sodden shirt.
When he broke it, features crumpled in anguish, ruddy gaze filled with the exquisite pain of love, he wept without shame and told her he wanted to KNOW her and he wanted to earn this. A thousand protests died because it was too late. Her defenses had long ago been breached and just because she’d refused to look at it, didn’t mean the pearl wasn’t there, colors shifting, the unblinking eye of it always so patient.
Lillandyr nodded again, lips unable to say yes, pulling at his shirt, tearing it. She had to see him. Feel of him. It hung off his shoulders, bunched in the bend of his elbows as he proposed with more eloquence than she was capable of.
“Marry me, so I may honor all that you have given. Write our names in history like your poem on my body. I beg you to let me love you until it makes me sick. If I'm to die from this, let it be with you, thanking the gods for it,” he said, his voice rough, his eyes wild.
“Yes,” she said immediately as all the venom and acid inside her fled. Her features crumpled as she cradled his face. It was terrible, this love, she thought. It felt like dying. It felt like being alive in a way that even the air was too heavy a sensation on her skin.
She wanted to give him poetry then. It had been so easy to write a thousand words and more when she thought his heart could never be hers. Now that she had it, there were no words, only the sudden sensation of empty places inside her she’d not known existed being filled. It hadn’t bothered her before that she was this mean, unlovable monster…but it hurt now.
“I need you,” she breathed voice thick with tears and desperation. And she meant sex and she meant his love. She meant all…no less.
“Please,” she gasped out, even as his hands were already on her, peeling her night gown off, ravenous mouth on her skin.
With the red silk bunched around her waist, he painted her skin with his black blood, his tears. He wasn’t gentle and neither was she. She wanted to claw her way inside him. She wanted to be the only pleasure he’d ever remember. She wanted to be better than all those worthless women before her. Lillandyr meant to sear herself like a brand into his marrow.
I can do better
Than any other before
I can sink deeper
and wrap lips around
all those sacred parts
Sink teeth in
To prove I was there
Lillandyr wanted to be a wildfire that burned the memory of those who came before. It was an unhinged feeling of possession and lust and love dredged up from the darkest parts of her black heart.
So, she bit him. She begged for it to hurt. She came sobbing and raking her nails over his wet skin.
They lay in the dark together, her head on his chest. She’d not spoken but she trailed soft touch on his skin and breathed in the scent of him. And for a moment, she knew stillness.
He spoke in rumbling, soft tones. "I chose this ring five years ago. I've kept it in my coat pocket over my heart. I had to be sure, for your sake. It's a magic ring called The Black Heart." he caressed her hand.
"Touch the stone and close your eyes and you'll feel the kind of love I felt for you last. All I have to do is think of you when we are apart and if you will it, you can feel it too by touching the stone. I never want you to doubt or be without any comfort you seek."
Her eyes moved to it, the huge black diamond glittering in the pale, thin light of dawn. It set very heavy on her finger and she felt the weight of it like an anchor. Not chains. Not prison. It kept her vagabond heart tethered where it belonged.
She felt like the girl in the story of the Pearl if the story had continued. When his whispers left the shells and she had resigned herself to being alone, her dark prince came back and stole her away to his wicked castle where she faced danger, death and monsters to make her way to him, to capture his heart as he had captured hers.
Lillandyr told him the story of the Pearl. How it had been read to her by a courtesan named Mirabella. How that story had inspired her to learn to read and how she fell in love with poetry and how falling in love with him made her poems mean something.
“I’m sorry,” she began, voice a thin whisper.
But he shushed her.
She’d have time to be sorry later. Or maybe never at all.
"Lass, you're awake! That's good," Rynga's voice lilted over in warm, dwarvish brough.
That meant the unfamiliar canvas she was staring up at had to be the roof of the healer's tent. Did she want to be awake? Her throat felt like she had swallowed a white hot coal and she was starting to rapidly become aware of the other parts of her body that ranged from the general post-battle sore to terribly painful.
"Y'might just be the luckiest lass on this planet. If ya can sit up, there's a potion in it for ya. Well, there's one in it for ya if ye can't either, but I'd like ya to try," the healer's voice was encouraging.
Fiorenze had learned early on that she was an extremely hard woman to say no to, and even feeling as wrecked as she was she wasn't planning on starting now. Rynga slid a hand under her back and took her hand on the side that hurt the least, and Fio used the leverage—but mostly Rynga's strength—to slowly get more vertical. This was deeply unpleasant, but it didn't last long. A few of her silk Tazavesh cushions were quickly piled behind her back and she was allowed to settle in a more comfortable recline.
She started to ask what time it was. The way her lips moved and the intention was there even though her voice didn't follow was something that would probably stick with her forever. A wash of fear briefly stifled the rest of the unpleasantness, but Rynga gently folded a potion vial into her hand, "A couple millimeters to the side would've severed an artery an' when ya stopped bein' a glowin' bear th' exceptionally clean entrance and exit wounds in yer neck meant y'were havin' trouble breathin'."
Luckiest lass on the planet.
She worried the edge of the potion's cork with her fingernail, a thousand thoughts and concerns whirled through her mind in a way that meant she couldn't really grasp any of them.
"Might nae be permanent. Hard t'say at th' moment, yer still healin'," the reassuring pat that Rynga gave her non-terrible shoulder alongside her speculation did help. "Plus you have some of th' most interestin' scars I've ever seen."
Maybe it was the quirk of her silver eyebrow or maybe Rynga had already planned on it, but she gestured for Fiorenze to drink the potion—which she did, to almost immediate relief—and then bustled off to gather up a fairly plain compact mirror that she held up for her to see. Centered in the deep, splotchy bruising in the middle of her throat was an odd, iridescent pattern. It lacked the chaos of a Lichtenberg figure but wasn't perfectly neat either; frankly it reminded her of a spiraling crop circle she'd seen once in one of Pyraelia's Mystery of Southern Humans books she'd had growing up.
Magic did weird shit sometimes. Perhaps that wouldn't be permanent, either.
She was handed a pen and paper then, which was an immediately grounding act. The first question she scrawled in her neat-as-a-pin Common was 'Comm?', then 'What time is it?' and 'What next?'
Rynga chuckled and answered, "I'll ask Tinnaire to get it from yer things when she's awake. It's late on Azeroth by my watch, and what's next is up to ya. Yer not healin' poorly, one more day in here an' ye should be back on yer feet. Y'could head back home an' see a specialist for yer voice if it doesn't start comin' back in about a week, but that's between you an' yer conscience."
Or, she could stay and let the chips fall where they may.
Would that really be so bad?
Plenty of the other crew members could hand sign. She'd have to learn, but that didn't seem unobtainable or overwhelming. The comm had a text-to-voice feature in the in-between, and there was always ink and paper.
Staying active here meant no time to languish or wallow alone in her home-tree back in Eversong.
"Yer ears are goin' on a journey, lass," the amusement was clear in Rynga's tone, but it was enough to make her wilt a little. "None of that now. Dinnae rush, y'can always figure out yer direction tomorrow."
A bitter wind blew through the monastery halls. Fresh snow blew across the smooth tiles of the floor. Well-worn boots tread upon a determined path out the colossal doors of the antechamber leading to world outside.
"Ruzzell, where are you going? You still haven't recovered from your Burdens!"
"I'm doing exactly that. Facing my Burdens."
Boots march back in and down the labyrinthine halls to his chambers. He picks up another duffle bag of his personal belongings and storms off past Gentle Yue. Leaning against a carved pillar, Warden Pao blocks his path. The Shado-Pan would not let his peer leave the sanctum so easily.
"Move Pao."
"We are warriors, Ruzzell. Not therapists. Your mind isn't clear."
"It's clearer than it's ever been. I know what I'm doing. Move."
"You want me to knock out the rest of your teeth?"
There was a little huff out the goblin's nose. That actually tickled him. A chortle. The Shado-Pan tried to maintain his intimidation to the smaller one, but the moment was too amusing. Pao let out a stifled snicker. A chain reaction as both started busting up in hysterical laughter. Yue looks on baffled by the two friends yacking it up over broken teeth.
"Ah... that's funny!"
Ruzzell lets out a satisfied sigh as he quickly slipped past Pao.
"H-hey, no fair! Get back here!"
The goblin looks back with a bright grin on his face as he loaded up the last of his cargo onto his zeppelin.
"Don't worry, I ain't gonna kill myself or nothin'! I gotta take care of somethin' I shoulda done a long time ago!"
Yue and Pao take off after him, standing out in the icy flurry outside as the rising sun illuminates the mountain peaks in a royal marriage of pinks and citrine light. The airship already taking an abrupt flight and soaring off high towards the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Yue lets out a worried sigh as Pao rests his paw on her shoulder. They knew their Leaping Grasshopper would be alright in the end, but his path would be a long and painful one still.
The pilot's practiced smile slowly faded. Stress and fatigue began to settle in his bones. This path he set on needed to make as expedient a trip to his destination. Zoning in and focused, the man made a beeline past the Golden Gates and rounded past the low, rolling hills of the Vale, arcing around in a grand turn to fly straight towards the Shrine of Two Moons. Expert landing, the engine shuts off with a deft motion. The tap of a runestone and the airship vanishes into the ether. The magical curiosities of Azeroth were not above Ruzzell's usage from time to time, especially as he comes to terms with the greatest adversary to his airborn transportation services: mage portals. Swiftly ascending the stairs, his trained legs dart back and forth along the steps, ascending and entering the portal room. Past several mirages of major cities, he leaps into the swirling portal leading to Orgrimmar. The taste of magical vapors linger in the back of his throat as he emerges into the dry heat of the orcish stronghold. He wastes no time, trudging on steadily up the wooden stairs, around the warmages and grunts guarding the partnered portal room and out into the dusty commons.
"Comin' through! Zeppelin incoming!"
Projecting his voice out like some madman, the crowd outside cleared some space as he taps the runestone again, his zeppelin landing on the ground with a magical hum as it rematerializes. How do these runestone even work? With drilled discipline, he's already hopped into the cabin, ignition started, engines fueled and injected as an explosion of fiery speed cracks out behind his vehicle, searing the metal wall behind him. Such speeds locks his skull back into his headrest as the massive gates are cleared and the dry canyons of Durotar quickly become a vague rusty haze below him. His zeppelin screams through the skies once more, cargo shifting behind him as the intense gravitational forces holds the hull of his fuselage together. The navigation system on his dashboard comes alive as he taps at the glass pane, selecting the destination he is deadset on making record time towards. The consol blurs in his sight as his vision falters a moment. Restless nights and worry was beginning to catch up to him. He shakes his head, trying to regain his focus. So close to his destination that there was no way he could let himself crash and burn like this. Clouds fly by in a blur. Mesas and cliffs become a passing smudge of browns and yellows in his studied sight. The pilot could only see before him the not-so-distant town of Ratchet closing in. Within seconds, the earth would rapidly come into view again. Landing gear deployed, they manage to cushion the rough landing of the haphazard descent he made. It was sloppy, but luckily no one was nearby to get hurt. The engine barely has time to stop before the goblin leaps out the cockpit and storms into the bank, rushing past the Ogre guards. The bank teller looks up from his ledger, his dreary humdrum rudely interrupted by a familiar face.
"Mr. Goldgrin, what a pleasant surprise! Are you here to make another depos-"
"I need to access my lockbox! NOW!"
Ruzzell reaches past the cage to accost the stuffy banker by his silk lapel. The twin Ogres are right behind him with massive mauls, ready to smash the desperate goblin when the teller raises his hands in command.
"Now now boys! It's alright! Mr. Goldgrin here is just making an express withdrawl. One that he will most definitely be paying an additional charge for..."
His fist let go of the banker. He didn't care for the financial penalty levied against him. All that mattered was getting into his vault, as soon as possible. The Burden he had remembered days earlier, of the enchanted torch he had left in the vault, of the entity it has absorbed. That 'thing' could not be ignored anymore.
"I can not understand why you would be in such a hurry to arrest me so violently! We had such a pleasant rapport when we last met in the Spring, and now here you come acting like some common brute from the dregs! I swear, I don't know what this world is coming to when people think tha-"
"Please, I just need to withdraw my lockbox. It's urgent."
"Yes yes, you've made that abundently clear. Gruk, Thokk, if you would."
The twin Ogres standing guard by the massive vault door blinked slowly, taking a few seconds to realize the posh goblin was instructing them. A simple grunt and sniffle were their response as they labored to push the solid vault door open, letting the pair into the inner room. Ruzzell rushes in with the banker, imploring him to hurry as he takes him by his wrist.
"I need access to my Void Storage!"
"Yes, I assumed that was reason for the urgency. Very well, let me access my holocommunicator."
The teller attempts to make contact with his associate in The Consortium but his device seems to falter. A furrowed brow, he slaps the arcane device, causing it to project an image of the ethereal broker they had liasoned with months prior. A pre-recorded message played out in the exotic intonation of the entity.
"Greetings and salutations, Mr. Goldgrin! I so very much wish that I could speak to you in person, but alas, I am afraid that some recent unpleasantness has come about in our homeworld of K'aresh. I know this must be distressing for you, as you have likely come to retrieve your 'artifact' you had left in our care. Rest assured, it is still very much safe in our care, though I lament our inability to travel at this time. Should you wish to make your withdrawl, you will have to come here to main branch out here in Tazavesh. We hope to see you soon, our most esteemed and valued customer~"
The projection fades and the room goes quiet. The banker looks mortified as this news of Void Storage being unavailable will surely hurt the bank's reputation. Ruzzell on the other hand, turns away with a begrudged sigh and makes his way out the vault and back to his zeppelin.
Continued from @lillandyrshadowglade post here and Heathcliff's part 1 here.
Heathcliff entered his own bed chamber in haste, like he was an invading conqueror. A monstrous, twisted mania covered his face as feral, large ruby eyes adjusted to the darkness. He looked for Lillandyr/Anya/Asmira.
The beam of light from first dawn caught on her soft curls, fell down her shoulder over a dark rosy silk nightgown. Sleeping, she looked every bit the angelic sweetness she only reserved for absolute pleasure. He hated her peace, this comfortable oblivion as she dreamed. He wanted her pouts and sneers and snickers, her laughter at anything that he knew she was trying to hide. He needed her twisted about him, like he felt about her constantly. He wanted her to cry so his didn't feel like insanity. But instead, she looked like a fairy queen with her loveliness; unbothered, serene in the faint sunlight.
He grimaced meanly and took off his boots, keeping his eyes on her. They clunked loudly to the floor. She wouldn't react to that, but she did to him snapping off the sheet that covered her, his fist yanking it entirely off the bed. Hands seized her barely waking body by her bottom and yanked her smoothly over his silk sheets to the edge so she was sitting in sleepy shock.
His body crumpled on the floor to his knees, draped over her lap, hair wild, clothes still wet and bloody. He grabbed her left hand and forcefully shoved a massive black diamond ring on it like he was possessed. Eyebrows furrowed as he did this, mouth quivering like a man giving a curse. His touch gentled once the ring rested at the base of her finger but his words did not.
Heathcliff found her eyes with agonizing love, adoration.
"There is no greater suffering." he rasped, messily bending to kiss her hand before lifting his head again.
"I know you share this pain. Bear it with me." he looked angry, furious with passion. Hands trembled with tension before lunging forward to seize her in a desperate kiss before she could react. Needy and consuming. He pulled away to take her hand into his. Tears flowed from his eyes as he stroked her ring finger with his thumb, trying to form a proper proposal. His voice was hoarse and his explosive state made it unpoetic and messy, but it was all true.
"I don't want to know all your secrets, all your names, Asmira." he swallowed.
"I want to earn them."
His face scrunched in frustrated passion, as if no words sufficed how he felt and speaking it was offensively insufficient. He attempted to become more direct and elegant with great effort.
"Marry me, so I may honor all that you have given. Write our names in history like your poem on my body. I beg you to let me love you until it makes me sick. If I'm to die from this, let it be with you, thanking the gods for it."
His body shuddered with a breakdown of composure, saying one last thing before giving a pause for her to answer.
"You have all I can give. Will you keep it?" his voice broke in agony with his tears, head hanging for a moment, bowed like a knight in front of his queen.
“She is not sure, Nahi,” Irenthalas said, shoulders slightly slumped.
Nahi looked at her stepfather. “So she’s getting worse. The decline is so gradual the new specialist can’t say how long until she loses everything? And she can’t heal her?”
He only gave her a knowing look, quiet, saying everything without words.
“I know,” Nahi muttered. “If she could be healed, you, or the dozen specialists before, would have done it.”
It had been nearly twenty years since her mother’s injury at Tempest Keep. Weeks in a coma, then the struggle of learning simple things again. Even back then, Nahi had known something was broken deep within her.
Iren patted Nahi’s shoulder. “She lasted longer than most expected.”
Was that a good thing, though? The thought came unbidden, and guilt followed quickly, not for herself, not even for her mother, but for Iren. He loved her to distraction. If Nahi hadn’t spent so many years helping her mother prepare for performances, hadn’t seen firsthand who Acenadalia truly kept company with, she might have believed he and her mother had been lovers, so fierce was his devotion.
“It’s just… frustrating,” Nahi said, voice tight, “to hear the same bad news again and again.”
“You’re studying medicine now. You know there are limits.”
“Yes, but we have magic! She isn’t a spellbreaker…” Her words caught, frustration burning out into a sigh. She already knew the answer. That didn’t make it easier to swallow.
Her feelings swung wildly when it came to her mother. The Diva had been difficult, often cruel and abusive, in her youth Nahi had wished her harm more than once. But not like this. Never like this. Perhaps that was why she felt so bound to care for her now, ironic that a woman who demanded attention her whole life had found herself with an illness that required it endlessly.
She stepped forward and embraced him, feeling the shudder in his chest, the crack in his composure.
“I don’t want her to go, Nahi,” he whispered.
How he could say that, after living this slow-motion nightmare for so long, was beyond her. Caring for someone with dementia was a trial of patience, and watching them fade piece by piece was its own torture.
“I know, Iren.” She couldn’t bring herself to lie and pretend she wanted the same. Instead, she just held him, offering what strength she could.
Stepping into Tazavesh was unlike anything she could’ve imagined. Even what she did imagine fell far short. She could all but taste the magic in the air from the arcane barrier, and she couldn’t help but quietly marvel at the sights and sounds around her. In every direction, something new- yet not so foreign she couldn’t make a parallel in her mind to something familiar. A city was a city; a market was a market, after all.
She tried to keep her gawking to a minimum to keep up with the other dozen or so researchers and the two guards assigned to them. The undead one, Marne- though she didn’t know him- made her uneasy. She chalked it up to her general fear and unease of the undead, and his more decomposed state certainly didn’t help his case.
The other researchers seemed to have little to no interest in Tazavesh, the guards, or conversation. It felt a bit silly to let it get to her- she was here to study, after all, not necessarily make friends. Yet there was a little bit of a sting to it. So she kept to herself, following the group through the massive buildings.
Her eyes caught sight of a handful of wounded being treated- from what, she didn’t have time to learn. Some had already been healed and bandaged.. some, unfortunately, must have just come in, and they made for a grisly sight. Alth looked away quickly before she had a chance to grow lightheaded at the images, but not quickly enough to stop something deep in her memory from unlocking and forcing her to remember why the sight of someone else’s blood was enough to leave her feeling faint.
****Year 15*****
“No- you must be mistaken.” Her mother’s voice- Lethelle’s voice- cut through the elder Farstrider’s explanation.
“There is no mistake, Mrs. Darkwind. I saw it with my own eyes- I.. we.. tried to get to him in time, but we were overrun.”
“No!” She exclaimed, expression one of anger, but her tone one of denial. This couldn’t be happening.
The elder Farstrider speaking to the lot of them was silent for a few moments- this was not the first time he’d had to break news to a family; she wasn’t the first to react like this, either. Unfortunately, repetition made this no easier on anyone. He steeled himself with a slow breath.
“We need you to confirm the identity- any of you.” He said with finality.
Altherei, her mother, and her father all stood there in silence for a few beats. Finally, Darsamane spoke.
“I’ll go.” Everyone could hear in his voice that he didn’t truly want to- they all knew, reasonably, that it was Arathaer on the other side of the curtain; none of them wanted to see how bad it was.
The elder Farstrider nodded, pulling the curtain back and ushering him in. In a moment of impulsivity, Lethelle scurried after. Altherei stayed behind only long enough to hear the gut-wrenching wail that came from her mother. Her feet moved her before her better judgment could stop her, and she pushed through the curtain.
Immediately, her stomach twisted in regret.
Her father stood to the side of the corpse of her brother, the sheet that had covered him pulled back to his waist. Lethelle was clinging to Arathaer- her baby boy, the youngest of her sons- blood already smearing on her hands and face as she touched his cheeks, his hair- as if the languished desperation alone could wake him.
Altherei had no tears; it was far stranger to see a body than she had expected. Her own body felt foreign to her, as though she watched from a distance. Her eyes lingered on Arathaer- at least, what of him she could recognize.
The vibrant green and gold of his Farstrider armor was caked in blood.. and she wagered nearly all of it was his. There was a sizable, ugly dent on the side where some blunt weapon made contact with far more force than a body could withstand. Her gaze slowly moved up to his face.. or what was left of it to discern.
It was readily apparent that whatever sort of Amani had taken him down, was one with the strength of ten elves. His face was marred and disfigured, and perhaps by some small blessing (or the merciful act of a compassionate mender before they arrived), his honey-blonde hair had been arranged to cover the worst of where his skull had been caved in by some other large, blunt instrument of death. The ear on that side of his head was gone, and she really didn’t wish to know if it was from the force of the impact, or to be kept as a trophy by his killer.
No sound came from her, and even the screams of her mother sounded distant and muffled, now. Her father said nothing, but she saw him nod in confirmation to the older Farstrider. Altherei watched as two gentle healers came to cover Arathaer’s face with the sheet once more, despite the agonized protests of Lethelle. With Darsamane’s help, they brought her to her feet, and the trio were quietly ushered out of the area so preparations for burial could begin.
She wasn’t sure how she got back home that day; only that she was one moment looking at the mangled corpse of her youngest elder brother.. and the next, she was in her house, alone, coming back to herself. All at once, it hit her: every detail she’d seen, the sounds, the smells. Feeling faint, she tried to push herself to the kitchen to get a glass of water, only for her legs to give out beneath her, and she dry heaved over the floor.
At some point, she willed herself to stand, gripping various objects to get herself to the kitchen for that blessed water. At some point, she was sure she forced herself to try and sleep. And as the days went by, her mind built up the walls, brick by brick, to shut away the horror and the gore for the sake of preserving her peace. It would make her forget she feared the sight of someone else’s blood. It would make her forget the smell of death.
And she had forgotten all of it, repressed in some deep, dark corner of her psyche, until Tazavesh brought it all back. In an instant, that wall came crashing down, and the memories poured in like a flood.
As the research team made their first camp outside the city near an eco-dome, she did all she could to will it back to the dark- back into hiding, where it wouldn’t plague her every thought. And every time, the memory refused. It would not be forgotten.
It demanded her attention; to be reckoned with. Acknowledged. And all she could do was weather its storm.
