Shrines
The loss of Kul’Tiras was a hardship that Norei believed would forever plague its previous inhabitants. Whether they had picked their new home in an attempt to live within the shadow of their pain or because it had been a convenient land grab, she was uncertain. Regardless, it remained a large and looming question: Why here? Ruthe regarded the city state with clear disdain despite Norei’s ease. This place, though it lived independently from Kul’Tiras, was more Tirasian than anyone would ever know. A place like this, that let smells and grime linger for decades clearly knew how stories were told in Kul’Tiras. Kul’Tiras was a place of shrines, each revealing a weathered soul that had endured, and this place’s soul was earmarked too. Ruthe could only see it for what he believed it to be: a collection of lost names and faces trying to disassociate in peace. Norei knew better. Kul’Tiras was old and it wore sagacity well, but this place wore its silence even better.
She had invited Ruthe, Brother Alaban Rutherford as he would have preferred to be called, for his talents with the light. Norei had omitted most details regarding their destination and purpose. She was certain Ruthe would follow through regardless of how little she let on. He was a man of the clergy and when called upon, he served dutifully. Norei had wished many times before that he might come to resent her, to look disapprovingly down upon her life, and eventually break ties with her. Yet every time she slinked back to the Cathedral, battered and bruised, Ruthe failed to press her on the circumstances of her wounds and instead quietly and compassionately tended to them. She hated that about him, he took so little and gave so much enabling her greediness and only asking in return that once a year Norei abscond into a confessional booth and pour the muck of her sin into his lap. Ruthe had come to find that coaxing stories out of her was a losing battle. Eventually enough time would pass and the guilt and shame would build its way up into her throat until she overflowed. Only then would she allow him to wade through the grime, break her open, and finally reveal the smaller terrified woman within.
To ask him to surrender an entire weekend away to Norei’s plans- that was asking more than to simply be a confidant and her personal medic. She knew she would owe him and so she’d hoped that for once, just this once, maybe she could have seen a glimmer of the man behind the priest. She wished he’d arrived late at the docks that morning, or not at all. Maybe then she could see a ray of humanity inside of him. Maybe then she could feel whole again, but Ruthe had arrived not a moment late or a moment early. Perfectly on time.
“We are not welcome here, Ms. Tremaine.” Ruthe’s eyes focused on the island’s only inn as he grimaced.
“Norei,” she interjected to correct him before continuing on, “And don’t tell me you have never been an unwanted presence before? I’d have figured the feeling was familiar to you, Ruthe.” Norei shot a patronizing grin up at her companion. Any attempt at humor now seemed better than the silence. She knew that he would not appreciate it but, at least he could acknowledge her effort.
The two pressed forward into the building’s shelter, ignoring the lingering eyes of the townsfolk outside and their hushed musings. They did not belong, Ruthe was correct. Norei had put tremendous effort into looking perfectly drab that weekend, her usual attire and frequent array of leathers left behind in Stormwind. No, this weekend she had sworn to be a perfectly unidentifiable smear in the world. Simple shirts and a few sweaters, none of them Flynn’s, accompanied by a few thick pairs of pants and a single set of brown boots. Ruthe dressed as he always had, vestments finely crafted and clearly indicative of his profession. A trade that had no meaning or weight here. As far as Norei could see the stragglers of Kul’Tiras were godless folk, just like her. She felt apologetic in part for not having forewarned him of the locale or how suspicious the inhabitants may be of them. Maybe then he’d have packed more appropriately, but it was too late to change their situation now.
The first floor of the inn opened to a small bar. Several tables that appeared to have been uninhabited for years greeted patrons first. Just beyond them stood a counter whose backdrop appeared to be an endless array of liquor and various alcohols, its master a single human of about fifty. Across the bar sat his own personal audience, a collection of three barflies. They all craned to give a good look over at Ruthe and Norei, if not perturbed by their presence then deeply interested. The room triggered a nostalgia for her, of a place she had never been to but knew well enough. The bar was a miasma of stale cigarette odor. Despite the establishment’s ‘no smoking’ signs, years worth of seafarers had left their stories here.A thousand impatient hands had broken each of the bar-stools and railways over the years. Each had a different fix, chairs nailed or glued and railings sloppily soldered back into place, each fix gifted by hands that kept the stories of those impatient ones alive. The bartender and those barflies worshipped the spirits in that bar, making certain everyone who passed through this place knew how old they were. Everyone worshipped, even if they didn’t know it.
“A room, two beds please.” Ruthe was the first to close the gap to the bar, all he saw were silly pastimes and an unrelenting sadness. He couldn’t see it quite like she did and she forgave him for that. Norei’s eyes connected with a few of the patrons, they no longer had their ashtrays with them, but the practice was still Tirasian. A spirit still lived, even without its shrine.
The barkeep hesitated to break from the protection of the counter before proceeding to collect a single brassy key. Norei seized this opportunity to whisper gently to Ruthe, “Relax. We are fine. These are simple people, they know everyone in this town. They don’t know us. They’re allowed reasonable suspicion.”
Ruthe couldn’t read the stories in these places as she did. He grunted a response, “Yes, Ms. Tremaine. As you wish.” Maybe by the time they found what Norei was searching for he’d understand. Ruthe spent too much time in places maintained and cleaned rigorously. His home eradicated the shrines nightly. A home barren of any natural stories.
“Thank you. May the light bless you.” Ruthe offered a polite smile to the barkeep, sincere but begging for acceptance. Norei turned to study the flies once more. Their hands were worn and calloused, burnt around the nails, irritated and red. She wanted to walk into their den, to ask each what they loved and what they hated. Norei wanted to read their stories. She wanted time away from Stormwind, time away from her own stories. She could recognize only the surface of spirits here and Ruthe did not permit her time to delve deeper.
“Ms. Tremaine, our room. You should rest your shoulders, set your pack down.” He waved a hand to usher her along, so she played her part. This was not the time nor the place to be defiant, to stand out. Here she had no stories, she was just a woman. These shrines were not hers, she only wanted them to be. She wanted to get away from a life and people she loved immensely, who were all just trying to stay clean. Homes pretending no one lived in them, people pretending to be fine, just as she was.
The duo shuffled upstairs to their room where they both quietly deposited their belongings before redirecting back outside. Ruthe’s reluctancy grew with each step, he wanted out. He didn’t want to have this place carve a tale into him, but his righteousness would not allow him to abandon Norei. This amused her far more than it made her sympathize, she’d hoped for so long that he would just do the ‘wrong’ thing. After all, they were there because Norei had wanted to understand Flynn, to see what it was he’d seen in this place that made him resent it so. She wanted answers despite being unwilling to give her own. They were there because she was doing the ‘wrong’ thing. Ruthe’s response to this had been as she’d expected, disappointment shrouded behind the thin line of his lips.
Norei was feverish in her attempts to locate Flynn’s parents that first day. They covered most of the population they could find within the first few hours. Hopeful and occasionally overjoyed at the prospect of a familiar face. Yet every single one had been lost within the minute details. Blue eyes that lacked flecks of green, a chin that wasn’t chiseled quite the right way, lips that didn’t hold the same life Flynn’s had. Norei begun to believe that perhaps her pursuit had been all for naught. Perhaps her blind confidence in coercing her passage here had come at the price of being swindled. Maybe this had not been the home of the people she’d been looking for. Maybe the Walters had been long since decamped to a far more private destination.
Norei trudged down the side of a cliff onlooking the most eastern beach. Her footsteps heavy and her shirt soiled from the hours of reconnaissance they’d done. The fabric was stiff from starch and stained from the filth of this place, it didn’t cling to her from sweat, but all the same it felt like a straightjacket. Ruthe followed behind with a more graceful and practiced descension, watching Norei carefully and noting the obvious signs of her frustration before choosing wisely not to engage. The girl gave a pregnant pause, bending over and collecting a single rock. She hurled it downwards so it bounced over each plateau and descended out of view, to what she could only hope was its inevitable death. She wanted very desperately to pretend this would sate her frustrations. She wanted to persevere onwards with her head held high. Instead her chin dropped and she glared downwards at the rocky structure she teetered upon, feet occasionally swinging to kick at dirt. Ruthe found a comfortable section of rock just beside her and stood patiently while he glanced out over the water. His left hand rose to rest over one of her thin shoulders.
“We should go home, Ruthe.” Norei spat the words with clear disdain.
“We’ve only just arrived. If they do not live here then consider it fate. A lost connection would not be the worst result of this weekend, Ms. Tremaine. Why is it you fear not finding her?”
The girl's eyes narrowed and shifted to stare out over rolling waves, her feet still kicking occasionally at the rock beneath her. This was her debt and Ruthe was collecting. She owed him. “I’ve made a fool of myself if I’m incorrect,” she mumbled the words passively.
“Is that all?” Ruthe’s brow raised precariously high up onto his forehead. Norei only wished she could bat it off and clear his sage expression. She resented how much he knew about her already. He didn’t need more.
“Fuck Ruthe! Not everything is deeper than what it I say it is OK? I’m not a fucking book of emotions!” She brushed his hand off coldly before turning to descend a few more steps,looking once out onto the strip of beach immediately to their right. Her irises widened and focused onto something in the distance.
“You used to be,” Ruthe let on softly before following her, “Why is it that version of yourself is no longer allo-” A small porcelain finger suddenly smothered his lips. Silencing him effectively, so much so that he couldn’t help but feel particularly offended. She’d owed him this one simple pursuit of virtue and here it was being dismissed forever.
“This is incredibly unbecoming of someone like you, Ms. Tremaine. You do not engage in serious dialogues often but you’ve invited me here. You must know that I am honor bound to ask-” His words were silenced again but this time by a hiss of air from her lips. She’d never shushed him before. Even in her most dismissive of moods she’d always maintained her own brand of ‘banter’. His eyes shifted to locate the item of her sudden attention. A small speck of a human lingered somewhere far off on the beach. He craned his head and focused, a woman aged and worn enough to reasonably have had children of Norei’s age wobbled up and down the strip of beach while staring impractically down at the sand. Occasionally she’d stop, almost tipping over, to scoop something up between her fingers before depositing it into a pouch held loosely in her digits.
“That’s her.” Norei’s words were decisive as she dropped a few more feet down the slope. Ruthe stared in disbelief over at the pip of a woman. He had hoped when Norei had revealed her reasons for coming here that their efforts would turn up fruitless. As Norei descended to a innocuous perch he couldn’t help but feel an abysmal sense of defeat. This place wasn’t going to carve a tale in him.
She was.
Three days of watching the woman was more than enough in Ruthe’s opinion. Three days allotted anyone who possessed even a slim fragment of sanity the chance to recognize the woman was dying. Yet every morning Norei rose, pulled him limply from his bed, and herded him down to this rocky alcove. At first she’d seemed in disbelief about the progression of Mrs. Walters sickness, as if she held out hope that the severity had been exaggerated to her, that just maybe the woman was salvageable.
That was all before the tortured and forlorn looks out to the sea gave way to long and wailing cries. They’d been far enough away that the sound was muffled but not hidden. Ruthe looked away each time. It pained him, these were not moments he’d been permitted to watch. These were ghosts that haunted her and would follow alongside her long and ambling death up and down that beach. She had not asked anyone to lay witness, and he felt sickened with the prospect of being an unwanted spectator to her failing memories.
Unlike him, Norei stared. Each wail bore across her back, a lashing of a life forgotten. A life she had nosed her way into. She took each one with an air of stoicism that Ruthe felt did not bode well. Norei couldn’t see the scars forming in her skin, but he could. She could see the stories written in grime. But he could see the stories written in flesh.
“Tell me what you can do,” Her voice startled him. For three days they’d sat in silence, a dutiful audience for the ballad playing out before them. More than that, the question itself startled him. He knew the answer and so, he believed, did she. Yet even after all of the beatings she’d taken in the past seventy two hours, he found it hard to believe she’d withheld enough hope to think there was any line of action left. Ruthe diverted his gaze back to the wiry frame, watching the dip and weave of her body, as Mrs. Walters re-discovered treasures left behind by her own hands.
“Do you think this is wise?” His tone was firm and even a bit scolding. Not entirely his intent, but it served well.
“What?”
He exhaled at her confusion, breaking his eyes away to study her face. He’d always regarded Norei as being an uncomfortable kind of beautiful. The kind that very well knew just exactly how attractive they were and so they allowed the world to stare, for mouths to hang, and they practiced patience as people gawked. She’d become accustomed to a world that developed slowly around her. Accustomed to a comfortable amount of time given to process her emotions, but now as the mist of a restless sea rained over them, he couldn’t see any of that. Today she was not beautiful. Today she looked like just all the other folk here did. She’d read their stories, she’d observed their shrines, and she’d given part of her soul to each of them.
“Do you think this is wise, Norei?” His tone shifted as all formalities dropped and his features hardened under the sinking pit in his stomach. “To interject yourself into this pain, do you think it’s wise? This is not Rose. You don’t get to pretend like saving his Mother redeems your own. You don’t get to make this about you, Norei. You are adopting pain because you’ve convinced yourself you can fix it. And even then you’re not doing it because you care. You’re doing this because you’re in love with reckless abandonment. You need excuses to validate why you feel like your actions will never matter. There is nothing to do. You know there’s nothing to do. You just want to hear me say it. You want to pretend like you gave it your all so you can whine about how the whims of fate swindled you again. Fuck you, Norei. You don’t get to write this narrative, you don’t get to smear yourself all over his pain. Fuck you.” The rage poured out of him like a carbonated drink. Each bubble a pent up fury waiting to burst. He wasn’t certain if it’d ever settle.
Norei stared up at him, clearly confused and awestruck, “What is it I get to be then Alaban?”
“Yourself. You get to be you- If you’d asked me before we came here who Norei Tremaine was, I’d have said; ‘A woman of great potential shrouded by a past she’s unwilling to let go of, but will ultimately triumph over’. But now? Now all I can possibly say is: ‘A woman destined to die alone, with only the chip on her shoulder for company.’” Ruthe rose from his position on the rocky incline and began his ascension. Norei allowed him the proper and polite amount of time one should give a person who’d just released their pent up rage of three days. Her trot back into town was slow and tiring. She knew up in the inn Ruthe was fuming on a bed unwilling, even after everything, to leave.
She stopped in the center of what could have reasonably been called the town square, examining each of the buildings around her. There were cracks everywhere. As if the cobblestone pathways and the wooden buildings both wanted to crumble, the grime inside each of them gushing out into the island where it would dry up and inevitably blow away into the sea. Eradicating what should’ve been forgotten, what should’ve never been written. Norei tried reading another story there, but there were none.
The only remaining story she could find was back at the docks. The rickety structure was surrounded on either side by coastline, separating the island from the sea. A single fisherman’s chair, likely never used for its intended purpose, sat no less than twenty yards off. It was an ashtray. Hundreds upon hundreds of cigarette and cigar butts surrounded its legs. The miasma had no room to fill, no roof to keep it contained, so it didn’t reek. She hadn’t noticed the coastal ashtray until she walked into it. Norei wondered how many of these butts told the same story as Ruthe and hers. A friend wondering why he was here. Why he couldn’t tell the person with him to fuck off. A scared woman pretending she understood more of the world than she did. Maybe many of these were just the remains of a satiated night. Norei rifled into her bag and produced her own cigarette, a vice she couldn’t remember why she’d held onto. Maybe her butts would be the first stories of a coerced woman. Maybe these were the cigarette butts of coerced men. She couldn’t tell.
Ruthe hadn’t come out of the inn after forty-five minutes. Norei had gone through her entire stash of smokes at that point. The longer she waited the more she could feel herself carving a tale into him- into everyone. A story she didn’t have the right to narrate. It wasn’t worth it anymore. She needed more cigarettes, and she needed to not see the shrines anymore.
She got on the next available boat. She left.
