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The Legends Are Wrong

Writing Prompt: Write about the character who happens to be an ancient magical creature, though they don't look the part. This character has lived for so long that they actually used to be acquainted with the people who later went on to become legends. Explore the point of view of this character as they overhear the retelling of a particular legend, and realize that they got it all wrong.

Sometimes I can pretend to forget them, the people I once called my friends. Sometimes I can lock the memory away so deeply I can get some sleep at night. It’s always a lie; there will always be something that brings them back, crashing through my barriers and locks and chains just like they used to do – like I used to do with them. Everything floods back as if I was reliving it, though it was so very long ago.

I like to walk alone in the woods, along the same paths I have haunted for hundreds of years. It calms my mind and helps me pretend. I never fear for my safety; it’s been a long time since I’ve feared anything beyond my own past. The creatures of the forest know and respect me. Some I even call friend, though their lives are fleeting. It is good not to be alone.

“…at that moment she knew things would never be the same…”

The young voice floated through the still night air, accompanied by the crackle of a campfire and the smell of roasting sugar. The crunch of s’mores was hard to mistake. Campers. I was nonplussed; they weren’t a rare occurrence here, and I generally let them be.

“What did Alira do?” Another voice, even younger, asked with awe.

This made me pause, the memories straining against their bonds. I knew the name of course. Alira, hero of Numeria, and the best friend of my youth. I creep closer to listen, standing in the shadows beyond their fire to listen. It was a group of six children, huddled around a small fire with their camping snacks. What appeared to be the oldest of the group held the others enraptured in her tale.

“She needed to prepare,” she continued, growing confident in the attention of her audience. “Alira gathered the people she knew she could trust and set out to find the Stone of Yadeer before the king.”

The gates slammed open and the events that ensued consumed my mind. Once again I was living through my past, this time narrated by a child. The journey, the battles, discovering the gem… yet as the story progressed, her telling of it began to diverge from my own recollection.

“Alira was strong and brave. She was the life of her team, the glue that kept them together when the doubted. She never lost faith.”

I remembered a girl who was ridden with anxiety and doubt. She was afraid and lacked confidence in her ability. It took all of us to keep her going. Not one of us could be labeled the ‘glue’, but if I had to pick one it would have been Katile, small but fierce.

“She was unbeatable on the battle field, charging in first and cutting down any who stood in her way without looking back.”

Alira cried for weeks after she took a life for the first time and had nightmares almost every night for the rest of her life. She’d nearly died many times in the avoidance of killing.

“A model for all, the Noble Alira was the perfect leader for her crew of honorable questers.”

We played dirty. We would gang up on smaller groups, steal food and other resources, sneak in through the back to take out the head before a proper fight started, and set traps and ambushes. When it’s five against the world, you had to break the rules to survive.

“Though the evil Kusit tried again and again to tempt her, Alira was never swayed to leave her course.”

“That’s not what happened,” I whispered, though it was barely a breath between my lips. Kusit was never evil, just naïve. He was trying his best with what he had, and he needed to protect his own. He begged us to stay out of the way, to let him save his brother. Just because he was too young to know the consequences did not mean the young ruler was evil.

There was a pause in the narrative as the children surrounding the fire eyed the dark trees around them. Their storyteller soon resumed, voice hushed as she approached the climax. “When they finally found the Stone of Yadeer, Alira entrusted her closest friend, Zali, with its protection.”

I could remember the warmth of the apple-sized gem cradled in my palms. It was smooth, round, and a translucent violet. Some kind of energy seemed to skitter across its surface in the wake of a finger stroke and tingled where I touched it. I could feel its odd sensation dancing across my skin.

“Victory was finally in sight, but before they could celebrate Kusit appeared and captured Alira!” The exclamation was met with gasps and the girl was clearly pleased with the aghast expressions of her friends. This part was only somewhat true; Kusit asked to merely talk to Alira and hoping to avoid bloodshed she went… and never really came back.

“Her friends came to rescue her, and everything came crashing down.”

I closed my eyes. I could see it happening before me, as if I was a third-party witness again and again and again. Alira called us in, and like fools we went without question. It was a trap. She had turned against us, convinced that there was a way to save the young prince and protect the people from the Stone. We tried talking sense into her, tried to warn Kusit.

They took the Stone from me anyway, and the king’s men restrained us. Alira kept apologizing, telling us this was for the best, that we would all be able to go home soon.

Katile struggled. She’d sacrificed too much to prevent this moment. It wasn’t that we hated the king and his little brother… we just feared what we knew would come from using the Stone of Yadeer. It was a curse we were trying to save them from. Katile broke free from her captors and sprinted towards Kusit…

“During the struggle, the evil king gained the Stone and used it to kill one of Alira’s friends.”

Violet light blinded us, and everything grew scorching hot for only a few moments. Katile lay on the ground, grey and unmoving. Alira dove for her, but the moment her fingers touched our friend, she dissolved into ash.

The room erupted into screaming as we all fought to escape. Alira turned slowly to Kusit, who was staring in horror at the smudge that once was our friend. Though the ruler of many, the boy looked even more the child he was as he went pale, eyes never leaving the empty space. He was unaware of the danger he now was in.

“Noble Alira launched into battle to avenge the fallen hero!” The girl’s voice began to crescendo.

“Alira no!” I’d screamed as she’d surged towards Kusit. His eyes flicked up and he flinched, and I saw the stone start to glow again. I broke free and ran to protect not only my best friend but also the child she was attacking.

I darted between them, wrapping my body around Kusit. I was aware of two things: the heat spreading across my back, and Kusit’s piercing shriek in my ear.

The narrator’s voice continued to echo back through the years, tone hushed again. “The evil king pulled Zali in front of him at the last moment. Alira had no chance, no time to turn aside, and her best friend fell dead to the floor.”

I shivered. I could remember how at first there was no pain when I slid to the tent floor, unable to make my limbs work. It was hard to breathe. As soon as I realized what had happened, pain slashed across my back and I gasped. Alira’s horrified face swam above me, and I could hear Kusit crying at my side.

“In that moment,” the girl whispered, “Kusit knew he couldn’t escape his crimes and smashed the Stone of Yadeer.”

I looked down at my hands to make sure they were still there and saw them peppered with the shards of a broken gemstone.

“’What have you done?’ Alira gasped.” The storyteller continued in her quiet tone.

But she had said that to me, not Kusit. I had shattered the Stone, not him. “I didn’t mean to,” I’d choked out, still struggling for breath. My heart raced as ice began to creep through me.

“Alira, now having two friends to avenge, would show the villain no mercy.”

My friend had snatched the king, holding him by the throat and snarling. All traces of the girl I had grown up with, tender and kind with nightmares about killing, was now lifting an ten-year-old boy off the floor and strangling him.

“No! He’s just a kid, he’s just a kid…” I tried to protect him, dragging myself around her feet and grasping at her clothes, begging her through my pain to spare him.

That’s when the true pain began. It started with burning in my fingers, little pieces of hellfire spotting my body where the shards of the Stone of Yadeer hand landed. I cried out and convulsed as my body naturally tried to curl into a ball. The burning spread quickly, and I tried to get my flaming clothes off me – only to find there was no fire. It was in my skin, bubbling and searing; my own body cooking me alive.

“The pieces of the Stone began to glow, igniting. Alira pinned the king down and screamed for her friends to run!” The air around the campfire was thick with tension. “They didn’t want to leave her, but she insisted, and they finally fled.”

The pain faded to a mere throb, pulsing with my heart. The blood soaking my shirt was gone, and my formerly rubbery limbs now felt stronger than ever.

I sat up, black powder falling from my shoulders as I lifted my hands to gape at the purple lights dancing down my arm. They looked like tiny lightning bolts leaving a faint lavender mist in their wake. My skin prickled, not unlike the charge in the air before a thunderstorm.

I was alone, surrounded by charred tent poles and ash. “Alira? Kusit?” I’d said meekly, still trying to ignore the throbbing in my body.

Then I saw the arm, and when I scrambled to pull Alira from the blackened remains of the tent she dissolved, just like Katile. A wail was building in my throat, but before I could release it quiet sobbing drew my attention. Kusit was not far from me, buried beneath the burned earth. He had miraculously survived what could only have been an explosion.

“It’s okay,” I had whispered, tenderly extracting him. The same light hovered over his body, though as it moved it almost took on an indigo hue. I cradled him, whispering comfort into his ear while he cried. “We need to be dead,” I’d finally said, still fighting the panic rising within me. I couldn’t fully wrap my head around what was happening… it had all been so fast. This morning we were happily starting the last leg of our journey. In the afternoon we found the Stone. An hour ago Kusit had asked Alira to talk, and fifteen minutes ago the rest of us walked into the tent. Now Alira and Katile were dead, as well as the king’s guard. I didn’t know where the rest of my friends were, but I knew they would be back soon and I had to protect the child in my arms.

My mind focused on getting us out of here alive and I calmed. I was able to get him to his feet and guide him away, still sniffling.

I had gotten lost in the memory and was only snapped out of it by the narrator’s somber voice. “They managed to escape the explosion, but when they returned it was too late. Alira was gone. She had sacrificed herself to save her friends and her country. The evil king Kusit died with her, and she can rest in peace knowing she succeeded. The Stone of Yadeer’s power was spent, lost to the cosmos and can never hurt anyone again. The three surviving friends went home, where they became powerful allies to the new ruler and brought peace to the land.”

I blinked. I couldn’t begrudge Alira a little honor; it had all started our innocently. I wished poor Kusit didn’t have to take the brunt of their rage and the blame for their deaths. I was the one who really killed them, after all. The best thing I did in this whole thing was take Kusit away from them.

As the children began to settle and the younger ones asked questions, I looked down at my hands. Faint purple bolts dashed across my exposed skin. I’d had many years to learn to control the powers the Stone had imbued me with, though I hardly used them. I could still feel the throbbing pain throughout my being. I’d long since grown used to it and only really noticed when I thought about it.

A hush had fallen, and I realized the children were all staring into the trees. Staring at me. I froze, the flickering lights vanishing. It was too late; they’d already seen me and were now shining a light at my face. “Who are you?” The storyteller asked in a quivering voice.

I smiled. “Once I was someone, but now I’m merely a part of a legend told around the fire.” I let the energy momentarily swirl around my person, careful not to let it reach them, and faded back into the night to continue my walk. I could hear them still speaking in now-hushed tones, trying to figure out who I am and if I was lying. I felt an odd sense of contentment as I left them behind. It was nice to be remembered all these generations later, even if the story was inaccurate. I would have to tell Kusit next time I visited the arctic.

My new hobby is intruding on conversations that I shouldn’t have been listening to in the first place and I think that’s very sexy of me

#evesdropping #im not sorry #thats a lie

Some Things Never Change

It wasn’t often that Percival strolled through the city of Stormwind anymore. For a while it was to avoid brazen invitation of knights and soldiers to try and take his head for his crimes. But in reality, the city itself didn’t have time to deal with the destruction of distant nobles and homeless abductions. The world was at war, his transgressions were often ignored in favour of conflict with the Horde. That, along with a new face, awarded him a certain level of freedom to take advantage.

It was during this nights stroll that Percival came across something...disappointing.

Just like when he walked the streets of Stormwind before, the exact same circumstance played out in front of him. A cast of nobles gathered their guards and their assassins when questioned by the law and common man. They used fancy words and pathetic attempts at intimidation to thwart one who sought justice. The only difference was the point in their ears.

These ‘Ren’dorei’ clung to their foolish notions of nobility like an infant to their mothers breast. All they had was words. Words and illusions of grandeur. They threw their attitude and spat down at the law simply because they believed themselves above consequence. What could he do in the city? What he could do with out permission from the higher ups? Nothing. Even though they were foreign aliens with no real rights or power, just an abundance of coin and arrogance and venomous tongues.

They were exactly the same. Human or Elf, all nobles acted the same because they did not understand fear. They did not understand that their power is an illusion. So deep in their own delusions were they that they genuinely believed themselves omnipotent.

The lady among them who had such fools rally to her standard when she was the guilty party, she would be the next filthy noble to face Percival’s reform. Ren’dorei or human, it didn’t matter. All nobles are scum.

@aredhelvaltieri

#IC #evesdropping #Public RP #City RP #I'm coming for you #Aredhel #As promised!