A girl sat in a dark house, the wooden boards around her stained with the remnants of death. At some point, the tears had stopped coming from her and her voice felt as if it had been scratched away.
It was painful. More painful than anything she’d ever experienced before.
She hadn’t known how much time had passed or cared honestly for it. All that her thoughts filled with were an echo of the past.
Mother’s face, twisted into pain. The dark red that had stained her beautiful dress that they’d worked on together. The door locked behind and the rushed words that made her heart pound in her chest.
She was scared. She was so scared.
Pounding at the door, their mouths covered as they hoped it would leave. That it would be gone. The strained breath of the older woman that held her close in her warmth.
She was lost.
The moment that her eyes settled on mother’s dead eyes. Felt her stomach drop as she shook frantically, begging and crying. Praying to the light and beyond for someone to bring them back. She didn’t want to be alone, she couldn’t be alone. Just come back.
She’d do anything, just please don’t leave her here alone.
The pleads fell on deaf ears, yet the motions brought to life another horror. A shudder to the body, a strained sigh that almost gave her hope. But those weren’t her mothers eyes, and those weren’t the loving hands of the woman she knew.
It was all so quick, the sudden jolt of the woman, chasing after her. The way she tried to plead for her mother to stop. Stop, stop, stop. Please, mother, please.
The stumble over a fallen chair, the tearing of her flesh by her back as it was raked into time and time again. Her voice cracked as she screamed in pain, falling to the side. Some prayer was answered, and the girl could push away. She’d turned to see the familiar woman turned horror and scrambled back away, her fingers slipping on the red blood that now soaked her back.
Please, mother, please. Please stop.
Mother got up. Free of the chair, and crawling towards her with a snapping jaw.
Please…. Please….
The girl was shaking, her world feeling like a haze as she stared in horror. She prayed for someone to take her away from this. To make this stop. She’d give anything to make it stop.
The answer came soon to her pleas, and a coolness seemed to spill out around her. Like the first brush of the morning air in winter. Darkness like the night sky followed, reaching around her fingers and holding back the oncoming horror.
Eyes were focused in as spears of night stabbed into Mother’s crawling form. Again and again, violently ruining the woman’s body as it cried with some mockery of pain.
Blood seemed to fall everywhere, shooting out along old furniture and ruining their floor. It was a sort of primal savagery that she’d never seen before, and it scared her.
Please… please stop…
She didn’t want to see her mother’s face any more. Didn’t want to see her body jolt as spear after spear of that strange night ran into her. She didn’t want to be there.
But, instead of continuing, her saving grace drew back. A broken corpse left with a gorey scene surrounding it. Those tendrils of the deep dark sky fell away, back to her. Back into her.
Her body was shaking, her breath heaving, and the girl vomited out all she had.
She didn’t want to be here.
And yet, now, for however long it had been she sat there. Staring at her hands and praying to be saved from this. Praying to wake up. Praying and praying for her to find some other life to be in right now.
No one came for her now, though. No answer to those prayers but the numbness that came to her. Only the shadows and echo’s of her life there, ruined by her own hands. At a point, it seemed to dawn on the girl to move. To raise up on shaking legs and start to move.
One step after the other, again and again. Take down the wood that barred her from leaving this nightmare. Take the food with you that you could. It was as if another person just told the girl what to do, and all her poor mind could do was mindlessly follow.
One step to another to another.
Her feet were sore, her stomach was empty. She didn’t sleep.
One step to another.
Her back hurt, she felt a heat that she couldn’t bear. She almost wished she could feel that coolness from before. Almost.
One step…
The news of what happened, the truth of it all. All that she’d lost. The girl cried in another’s arms, held close and protected by a deal that she begged to make.
Slowly, she was pulled up to her feet again. She was urged to follow and wipe away the tears. She looked back, across a land that was unfamiliar yet hers all the same.
She didn’t want to be there.
Eventually, her violet eyes turned forward again. Red and raw from tears, but a meek hope building in their depths.
“Forgive me if I don’t want to break rocks for the rest of my life!”
“There’s nothin’ wrong with an honest day’s work, not that you would know! Spend all yer time flouncin’ around... chasin’ tail like nothin’ matters.”
“Except it DOESN’T matter, paw, don’t you see? The lords and ladies up the hill don’t give a single damn what happens to us. They’d bury you in that mine if it meant another gold piece in their pockets! Just like they did to Harry!”
“You better watch yer mouth when yer speakin’ of him in this house, Kordya.”
“Or what?”
“Or else.”
Kordya sat up in her bed. The gentle creaking of the ship was the only sound to break the stillness of the night. She wiped her brow with the back of her hand and found it damp with sweat. To her left was the sleeping form of Prisa, who she had fortunately not awoken with her own start. She had been dreaming, of course. This dream came to her often as it was not a dream at all, rather a memory on replay in her subconscious mind. It was the last fight she had with her father- the last conversation she had with him at all. There was no changing the ending, she knew that by now. No matter how many times the dream came to her, she still watched her younger self walk out the door and never turn back. It was too late to change the past.
The wind whipped against her back as Kordya stepped onto the deck. That was a good thing- it meant that they would reach their destination faster. The Great Sea churned and crashed against the bow of the Merry Mogu, but the Captain’s sea legs were strong and she swayed along with it, matching the rock and rhythm. It was wet and cold, and she shivered in her nightclothes with only her duster wrapped around her shoulders. As she leaned on the railing and stared out over the open sea, her mind wandered back to that fateful day. She could still hear the anger in her father’s voice, still feel the sting of his judgement.
“You been stealin’ again! When are you gon’ get it through yer thick head, girl? They’ll throw you in the stocks for sure. And I’d let ‘em this time! My daughter, a thief!”
“It wasn’t my fault! Jinna and Rory said-”
“Oh, Light. Not THOSE two again. They ain’t yer friends, girl. They just wanna use you until they find somethin’ better to waste their time on. Buncha’ criminals. Runnin’ round with them will only get you in trouble!”
“They ARE my friends, and you don’t even know them! You don’t know me!”
“Oh yes I do, lassy. I know that yer headin’ down the wrong road, and I’m tryin’ to help you before you get into somethin’ where there’s nothin’ I CAN do, understand?”
“You aren’t trying to help me. You just want me to be like you. Well I’m nothin’ like you and I never will be!”
The memory of their fight was still painful even ten years on. Kordya was only seventeen when she left home. By the time she was nineteen, there was no home to return to even if she desired so. Southshore was wiped off the map by the Forsaken’s ‘New Plague,’ and most of the little port town’s residents with it. When word of the attack finally reached her, it came almost a year too late. She returned to her hometown to search for her family, yet found nothing but wreckage and blight where life and warmth used to be. Her father, mother, and brothers were all gone. Even the little cottage she was born in- they were all born there save for her mother- was reduced to rubble. The plague had burned through stone just as easily as it did soft flesh. Not even bones remained. She searched for survivors, but by the time she found any they were mostly picked off by the Forsaken. She was, for the first time in her life, truly alone in the world.
Instinctively, her hand reached for the tattoo on the back of her neck. A found family of sorts. But the Blue Scarabs couldn’t offer her the unconditional love her real family provided. Their love was conditional on making a profit and doing what the boss told her to do. Her father had asked for the latter, but never the former. They didn’t have a handful of gold between them when she was a child. She would never get a chance to show her old man that she could make it on her own, and with each passing year she saw his face reflected in her more and more. That’s where she had been mistaken; she was like her father, for better or worse.
“...Kordy? Are you feeling alright?”
Kordya hadn’t realized she looked a bit mad standing out here in the middle of the night. She had been so lost in thought she had forgotten the cold for a moment, but the soft sound of Prisa’s voice calling for her from the doorway sent a shiver through her bones. She shook off the veil of painful memories, rubbing her eyes with a sleepy smile.
“Yeah, Pri. Just... needed some air. I’m coming.”
Prisa yawned a response, then retreated back into the captain’s quarters with Kordya following behind. Crawling under the warm covers, she nestled her nose into the nape of her lover’s neck and released a shaky sigh. The past could not be changed, that much was true. But family was a fluid thing, coming and going throughout her life. She had found it again, it seemed. How long any of it could last was as unknowable as what laid beyond the blackest night sky. Until then, she would savor every moment.
Prisa sat alone before a busy, bustling tent. Despite the state of the North, it seemed there was always something to do in the Argent encampments. Workers going about their jobs, shouts and laughter here and there as people lived out their lives.
So far, the journey had been rather stressful, but never had the woman felt as alone as she did right then. Even if there were so many around, none of them were more than passing figures in the background. She felt, for a moment, bitter at how things had turned out.
Of course they’d turn out this way…
For the thousandth time, Prisa began to wonder if she’d made the wrong decision. Perhaps she was making a mountain out of a molehill with Kordya’s ‘ignorance’ to her emotional needs. Was it fair to even ask that kind of thing of her partner? She was so busy, after all.
The priestess’ shoulders slumped downwards and she let out a long breath. She felt that dreadful sadness washing back into the emptiness of her stomach. It made her tired and heavy.
Abruptly, a thick figure sat beside her, the fur cloak around them causing their size to double at least. A mug was offered, steaming with warmth from the liquid inside. She caught the smell before anything- It smelled like Bricini.
Coffee.
Prisa straightened, lifting herself to take the warm mug. “Thanks.” A simple, kind word.
Beside her, there was a grunt, and the gravelly voice of the bear of a man next to her rose out of the cloak. “No problem, lass. Seems like you’ve been in a world’a trouble, eh? Never thought you’d be the type, of course.” He shook his head, his hood now falling back to reveal the bald head and thick beard.
The dwarf’s name was Kortiv. An ‘old friend’ as she said; one whomst she’d worked with back during the wars to the North. It’d been quite some time since she’d seen him– but the sight of him relaxing, back with his signature bear-fur cloak made her slip back to those stolen moments. He had been heavily burdened by the things they’d seen during the war and she’d been the shoulder for him as he needed. So often, they would get a drink and talk: about their beliefs and problems, and any other juicy bits of gossip from around the camp.
Those few, nice moments when they were allowed before the undead swarmed once more.
Those times, of course, were behind Prisa. The undead were more controlled, and while still a present and terrifying threat, there were far more important things to worry about. Things that were not in the past, but the -present-.
“Ah, a bit.” She said, holding the drink closer to her now. “It’s more that I keep finding myself in difficult situations, that’s all. As if that makes it any better.” She looked down to the dark liquid and watched the reflection back to her in it’s inky surface.
Kortiv stayed silent for the time, taking a drink of his own and watching the people as they passed. Nodding his head to something only he knew. Eventually, he spoke up again, “Well then?”
Prisa gnawed at the inside of her lip, fingers pressing into the warm wood of the mug in her hands. So much had gone on, and so little she wished to say. Even so… she felt like she was boiling over with all that had happened, and had no one to -really- talk to. No one that wasn’t involved, at least.
Kortiv wasn’t involved, though. He was trustworthy and a kind ear, and always had been.
Taking in a breath of the ice cold air, she’d finally start to speak up, “It’s been complicated.”
The dwarf snorted, saying, “Isn’t it always, lass?” He offered her a big, toothy grin, his own way of comforting her.
Prisa just rolled her eyes, shaking her head. “Oh, most certainly. I wish life was far more simple, but I just… can’t seem to quite catch a break.” She huffed. “I mean--” She hesitated, then just let it out. “There’s so much that’s gone on. I’ve gone to all these places to ‘help’, when in reality I know that I did a lot of these decisions for selfish reasons. I mean, I -literally- had gone to Quel’thalas because of a woman who dumped me half a year later only to fall into the arms of the very -next- one and end up doing even worse things.”
She sounded bitter. Hurt.
“And I do mean -really- bad, Korv. I mean, I practically killed myself going to the land of death and light knows that was worse than it sounds. I’ve gotten myself involved in… less than favorable business, and now I’m dealing with a woman I saw blow up in front of me coming back to life and trying to make sure I don’t bring the entire ire of the alliance down on her because they’re following after -me- calling -me- a traitor!”
She was keeping her voice down, but her inflection changed and became more strained. It was hard to talk about, but it felt good to let it out. She hadn’t even felt able to tell -Alana- this much.
“I’m not a traitor, I just… I’ve… I’ve made a few poor decisions. I’m allowed to make those decisions, aren't I? I’m not -trying- to become an enemy of the state or something.” She frowned, her brows furrowing in consideration.
“I wouldn’t have even had an alliance agent after me had I just not left--” she hesitated, then said, “If I had stayed in more neutral territory, I would be fine. I know I would. But now it’s bringing trouble to the people I care about from all angles. It’s -fine- if they blame me, but not them. They don’t deserve that, you know? Not from my mistakes.”
“I didn’t mean to make Kordya unhappy. I didn’t want to fight with her, but now I feel like it’s just ruined any sense of peace and happiness I had for a time. I didn’t want that to end.”
Prisa felt a lump forming in her throat, making it hard to breathe. She tried to swallow down the feeling uselessly. She felt her face heat, and a stinging in her eyes. Why was she being so emotional about it? She shouldn’t let this bother her so badly.
Kortiv stayed silent for a time, letting the priest vent her feelings. As he had always been, he was the ear that was needed at the time. When it seemed that she wasn’t going to continue, he’d merely cast a brief glance to her, then back forward.
There was a low hum resonating from deep inside the bear cloak, and the man took another drink. He motioned with his mug, “Look around you, lass. What do you see?”
Prisa’s eyes rose and she looked around, brow pinching.“A well established camp… people working…” She spoke the obvious; she didn’t know what he was asking.
Kortiv grumbled. “I see people that made their decisions. People that made their mistakes and have lived through varying levels of hell. That one-” He pointed to a short elf carrying a large sack over their shoulder, “Used to be a little thief. Fingers stickier than you could imagine. Bold little thing, too. Ended up killing the wrong person, almost was executed, and barely managed to escape to the Argents Custody to fight the undead.”
He continued on, pointing to an orc who was talking casually with another dwarf over some opened box of goods. “That one was all in it for glory and honor, wound up losing an arm and badly messed up their leg. Took almost a year before he calmed down that rage that’d been built up from it.”
Prisa felt like she got the idea of where this was going.
The man went on, “You see, there’s tons of them like that. I could go on, telling all the dirty little secrets, but the resounding idea of what I mean is there. We all make decisions. Some are like the thief, who had no other choice but to run and find a new life. Some are like the warrior who had to find a bit of peace in their new reality.”
“I know, I know. I should move on and look to the future. I get what you’re saying.. But it’s not that easy.” Prisa was quick to retort, bitterness tinging her tone.
“I’m not saying that it’s easy and I'm not saying that you need to move on. What I'm saying is that you’ve made your decisions, just like anyone else. You’re blaming yourself, just like others do all the time to themselves. It’s hard to step outside of your blame and realize that they are just the stepping stones to our path. Some are sharper and rougher, some are too far.”
Prisa listened to his words, but it was a thin comfort. She took a slow drink of her coffee, rather than trying to find words to say. Kortiv continued on, filling the quiet.
“I know it’s not something you’d like to hear. You’re in the worst of it. You said you left your lass, lost your home and comfort, and now you're being chased about by something- still not entirely sure on that one.” He shifted, leaning forward on his knees. It hunched his frame, the difference between them more striking. “You do need to move forward, but you need to decide what it is you really want. Out of all you’ve said, from the moment you’ve come back, I've been seeing what you look like. Lost. Like a wee babe trying to find her family again.”
He glanced at her again, and this time he met her gaze when she looked at him. “So the question is, what do you really want?”
Prisa frowned at the question, glance sliding sidelong to avoid the intensity of his eyes.
When she did not provide an answer, he continued on.
“Do you wanna go back to that home of yours? To the lass you left behind? Do you wanna move on? Come back to the Argents and do the work you did before?”
Prisa had no answers for him; or for herself. She remained quiet, offering him the same resounding silence that filled her thoughts when facing the only questions that mattered. Kortiv nodded, understanding warming the grumble of his words. “I’ll let you think over it, lass. You don’t have to make the decision now, and I'm not going to question you. I’m just here for you as you need, aye?” He pushed off the little seat they had shared, stretching as he straightened out, a loud ‘ahh’ escaping him. He kept his eyes forward as he spoke. “Listen to me lass. For now, you drink and eventually take yourself back inside to help out some with some organization we’ve been meaning to get done. Think a bit more on what I said. Think about what you want. What you -really- want. You’ll find the answer. I know you’re a smart lass”
Prisa watched him uncertainly; how should she respond to the wisdom he had tried to share?
As he turned to leave, she spoke quickly, breaking her silence. “Alright. I’ll… think on it.” She smiled at him, which he returned in kind. Her eyes flitted over his face as she fought for the right words. She settled on the simple. “Thank you, Korv, for listening for a bit.”
“Anytime, lass.” Kortiv shot her a wink, turning away. As he moved off, he said “We’ll I’ve got to knock some sense into Devon. Bastard bought twenty crates of cloth and didn’t list a single reason as to why it was twice the price we set for it. He’s going to be the death of me..” The old dwarf grumbled goodnaturedly, and meandered away.
Prisa watched him retreat, and she couldn’t help but smile enviously. He was a gruff old war veteran and even still, the man moved and acted as if he was thirty years younger than he was. Always busy, and always with something to say. No matter what life had sent him, he seemed to always come out on top in the end. His experience was one reason she felt comfortable speaking with him; he’d seen everything, and had no judgement left.
Yet despite the comfort and wisdom, all Kortiv’s warmth left with him. Prisa settled, hands wrapped tight around the cup, a chill creeping into her frame and her thoughts. Without his mass, the emptiness around her was more pronounced, and not even the coffee’s heat, held close, could banish the sense of isolation.
“What I really want..” She muttered to herself, barely above a whisper. She snorted, shaking her head, “As if I know.” Frustration colored her tone. She really didn’t know what she was going to do. She’d been… too comfortable with Kordya and the scarabs. She should have known better. Should have known it could so easily break apart, just like this.
‘But,’ she thought, ‘had it been easy?’. After all, it had taken weeks and weeks and -weeks- of her trying to speak to Kordya. It hurt to see her partner show no empathy, no understanding of Prisa’s pain. How callously Kordya had told her to just ‘move on’. She didn’t, though; that had been the problem. Kordya moved on, and Prisa… hadn’t.
Was she really the one to blame? Could Kordya have done something more?
The thoughts continued to swirl, each chasing after the next, claws and teeth in her mind. She gripped the coffee cup harder, until the heat didn’t feel like anything but pressure. Did Prisa even want to even go back? Did she expect that things would somehow return to normal after leaving? After what she said?
Kordya was not often forgiving.
Prisa closed her eyes. All this, and it wasn’t even her only problem. Of course. Her thoughts framed the figure then. Agent Black, they’d said their name was. They were a threat to Alana and her family situation.
It was all tangled. How could she -move on- from being accused as a ‘traitor’ to her people? Were they even wrong? She had served a horde organization. All the alliance soldiers that had been killed… horror filled her, then and now. The disgust, discomfort of knowing what she had been party to. The only reason she’d been able to escape that quagmire was because… of Kordya.
And there she was again. It all came back to Kordya, again and again.
Prisa pursed her lips, silently shaking her head. She wished that she didn’t have to think about the blasted woman right now. Oh how it hurt…
Slowly, Prisa pulled herself up from her seat, setting the mug aside. Abandoned, for now. Taking a few steps away from it and the comfort it had offered, she decided to put away those thoughts. Kortiv had said she didn’t have to come to a decision just yet.
All she had to do was keep moving… and Prisa was determined to do so. Keep moving, and never stop.
The rumors were true. It was colder in Quel’Thalas than she remembered. So cold that Kordya regretted not bringing her fur cloak with her as the open sea air burned her cheeks with salt and frostbite. She had waited as long as she could, but the message never came. She wondered if Prisa had ever received it at all. Still, can’t blame a girl for trying. The smuggler had packed up and high-tailed it back to her dinghy, careful to avoid any contact with Horde or Alliance. One tiny boat rocked against a black sea and even blacker sky, while Kordya struggled to row on the choppy current. The ship that carried her here was out there, hidden in a tiny cove just around the corner. She only had to make it back without being spotted--
“HALT! IDENTIFY YOURSELF OR YOU WILL BE SHOT DOWN.”
Kordya’s boat was suddenly bathed in a bright yellow spotlight. Shit.
Shielding her eyes from the glare, she saw a slightly larger vessel, about the size of a fishing boat, with five soldiers in silver armor aboard. They spoke to her in common, so chances are they’re humans like her. She pulled her oars in the dinghy and raised her hands above her head.
“Johanna Rhoderick, I’m with you! Don’t shoot!”
A rope was thrown to Kordya’s boat. Rolling her eyes, she grabbed ahold and let them pull her towards their own. Time to think fast.
Two pairs of strong arms hoisted her up on deck. From here she could see the blue and gold tabards slightly glistening in the lamplight. They patted her down for weapons and found many, stripping them away with unnecessary vigor. A burly looking gentleman removed his helmet and eyed her with suspicion.
“Rhoderick, eh? And just what the fuck are you doing out here, in an unmarked vessel, in the middle of the night then?”
Kordya put her hands on her hips. “Are you serious?” Her tone was stern.
“Am I serious? Answer the fucking question! Who are you and what are you doing out here? These waters are under Alliance occupation, no one in or out.”
“I’m well aware of that,” she quickly sized up his uniform, “...Ensign. I am on a classified clandestine mission, you dolt. And you lot nearly blew my cover with that obnoxious light. What on Azeroth possessed you to do something so stupid? If those knife ears saw you waving that thing around like a ten foot cock, they’d blow you out of the water before you had time to piss yourself.”
The Ensign stuttered, he had not expected this. Kordya played into it, grabbing her weaponry back from the confused lackeys. She tutted at the stunned group, confidently walking around the deck to size them up.
“What do you think Master Shaw would say about this? Disrupting a mission? Assaulting an officer? Risking my life and the lives of your own men? Disgraceful.” She kicked an empty can that had rolled into the outer wall of the galley. “Just look at this place- filthy. You take pride in this vessel? Clearly not. I’m gonna have to report this.”
“N-no, wait! You say you work for Master Shaw? Please ma’am, my humblest apologies. We had no idea-”
“Of course you didn’t, you fool. That’s the point of a clandestine mission.” Kordya circled the deck one last time, snatching up any supplies that were handy and shoving them in her bag. “Here’s what you’re going to do: You poor excuses for sailors will scrub this ship til it shines. I don’t want to see another can or cigarette or speck of brine on her. Then, you’ll tell no one that you saw me tonight, and I will know if you do. We keep this little encounter to ourselves, and Master Shaw never has to know that five ogre-heads nearly bungled a crucial mission. Do I make myself clear?”
The men saluted. “Yes, ma’am! Right away, ma’am!”
“Good. At ease, gentlemen.” Kordya returned a half-assed salute before climbing down into her dinghy and rowing off into the night. She watched the figures scramble across the boat as the Ensign barked orders until the sound faded from earshot. Finally, only when the Alliance vessel was completely out of sight, did she release a pent-up breath. That could have been bad. Some of her finest work to date, if she did say so herself. Too bad Prisa hadn’t been there to see it. Kordya would have to find some other way to impress her.
Yet another letter was sent by the Sunguards hawk delivering with the man a message. It was set specifically to reach to wherever the first had been given, even if it had never been responded to.
Again, it read in common...
To you,
Again, I find myself wanting to reach out to you. Even if it’s just a ghost of the person I knew. I just wish to speak to someone that fully understands. That fully knows me and the way that I am, without insults or judgement.
I keep thinking to the last letter I sent, and a part of me is almost embarrassed. I was like a child that sent out some message in a bottle to the sea, and believing that maybe someday it would find a distant friend.
Those things do not happen, Alana. Yet i’m here again sending out another bottle.
I feel like I miss more and more the presence of a friend like you. I didn’t feel so much that way before, when I was surrounded by others. Surrounded by distractions. But here? Here I feel so alone sometimes. Even though I talk to those that remind me somewhat of you, it’s never the same.
It will never be the same.
Even now, they talk like you. I feel like it almost was a case of deja vu, considering. That same woman I wrote of before, you recall, right? The one that has that same bold attitude you had. The talks I have with her end up on the subject of my work- the work I take from others to focus on while i’m left here by myself.
She tells me I shouldn’t do that, or more specifically, that I need to grow a spine. Again and again. I believe she sees me as weak, but what am I honestly supposed to say about that? What use would it be to argue senselessly where actions would show so much more. It does not change how frustrating it can become. How much i’d like to explain the reasoning for my determination to sink into work.
Still, despite all, it seems like something you would say. While it’s understandable and, at the time, perhaps playfully frustrating i just hate how much it reminds me of you.-
I don’t know anymore what to say on it, or what to feel. In part, I appreciate the company, and in a way I do believe that they mean well to it. They have strange ways of showing it, but it is there.
I miss the company I kept before, and familiar faces that I felt more relaxed around. It’s almost a year now, I think, and it still just feels unfamiliar. All of it. I just don’t know how to make it anything but that, and the more I stay here, the more I wonder if I will come to feel more at home.
No matter, I found some relief in the past few weeks. While I am keenly aware that many of the faces I meet here are elves, orcs, goblins and even sometimes trolls, I have found that there was another more common presence that I ran into.
There was a woman- another human that I had ran into at the edges of one of the forested lands not far from the Dawnspire where I work. A days trek out, if anything. She was strange. Held me at gunpoint, even, then proceeded to treat me as if I were some honored guest. I admit, despite her rather aggressive approach, it was such a nice breath of air.
Her coffee did not taste good.
Maybe you’d yell at me for being foolish. I mean, she did try to rob me- or rather, she appeared to try to. Light, I know I was being a fool, but it’s moments like that I just wish to cling to.
I haven’t seen or talked to Kyranyx in something of a few months? I don’t know where she’s gone, and even then, considering the pressured conversations, I don’t think I should continue hoping that maybe i’ll see her again.
Maybe I shouldn’t hope to see that other woman again either.
I know I can leave at any time. Perhaps go somewhere no one knows my name and find a place there. It is not as if I am bound by any oath, but I still feel as if this is the right place I need to be. That the light urged me to be in this place, at this time, for a reason, Alana.
Then again, what use is it to waste my time on thinking of it. I have work that I can set myself to, things that I can help with. Distractions, really, until real work is offered to me to help with where I can. Things a priest like me could handle. I should not be so fickle in my thoughts.
Then again, maybe this is my way of dealing with it. Sending my thoughts away to some emptiness in my life as if it will become what it was before. Maybe someday i’ll find someone else to step into the same role again in my life. Maybe I won’t.
Is there any point to think of that, Alana? I know you’d probably tell me there wasn’t. That I should instead look to what matters more. Not such burdensome thoughts that detract me from my goals.
At least no one will know that I still feel this way. I take comfort in that.
“Please understand, that if you are truly who you are- a shell of the woman I knew so well, then I cannot see you for what you have become. I fear too much of it, of the undeath.”
“... Done anything to set you on a different path then what left you dead.”
“ I loved you, Alana.”
The thin parchment crackled under Alana’s bony hands. She read and reread those first passages again and again. Her face grew hot. Pressure built up behind her glowing yellow eyes- eyes that had been borrowed and sewn into her skull when her own eyes burned out.
When she died.
She had thought of Prisa at the end. In the seconds before she made her decision. How her only friend would get by without her. How she had no other choice. How this was her duty, the only thing she had ever been good at- killing dragons.
As the living bomb attached to the mage detonated, she thought of Prisa no longer. She only thought of the agony as fire burst from her eyes, nose, and mouth, burning her alive. The arm that cast the spell was blown from her body, and in an instant, she was no more. Everything went from immense pain to nothingness. The light of the flames went black. The flesh-melting heat turned cold.
And then there was light again.
She had been brought back, but she wasn’t herself. What was left of her mind was dim and hidden away behind the stark walls of death. She couldn’t remember much of this time, only the necromancers faces.
And that was enough for both her lifetimes.
She had been nothing more than a corpse on a string- a puppet- at this point. She did the bidding of her masters, vaguely aware enough to listen to commands and nothing more.
But then there was magic. That delicious first spark of arcane hit her rotting brain and brought with it her mind. Her true mind, one which had been lost to the grave for what seemed like eternity. That one taste was enough to make her crave more... and more. She remembered what she did to her captors. How she cornered one in the dark. How she drained the life from his body just as he had forced the life back into her own. With each one she felt stronger. Smarter. Until she had drained them all...
“ Perhaps this letter will find you truly, or perhaps it will only be greeted by some hallow shell of the woman you were before. That perhaps I could just have my words seen by the woman I loved, and to imagine she sat there, listening to me.”
Snapping back into reality, Alana flew over the letter. She was looking for that one exception, that one “but,” that would give her a glimmer of hope. Maybe Prisa would accept her after all. She had been discouraged by her old friend’s words at first, but there must always be hope. She read on.
“ I found a woman here...”
She read and read, but the exception never came. If Alana could shed tears, she would do so. None would come, as it were. As she was. Dead. Alive, so much alive with the sting of emotions thought long lost, but dead.
“ ...can you blame me for seeking the comfort of another human in a land of elves? To allow myself something of what I wanted with you?”
The mage stood, tossing the letter down onto her bed. She had to walk away. Standing in front of her dresser, she slammed her fist down on the wood in frustration. Was she truly so hideous now that even Prisa wouldn’t see her? Her mother and father she expected somewhat, but even you?
She looked up at her reflection hanging before her. Her skin was gray. Her once shiny blonde hair was dry and straw-like. Her eyes glowed that sickly yellow of undeath, further exaggerated by the black ash stains shooting out around them. Yet her face, for the most part, remained the same. Perhaps a bit thinner, more sunken... but she recognized herself when she looked in the mirror. How had Prisa not? Why could she not see past this fragile shell? Am I a monster?
A few minutes passed before she could pick up the letter again. Her hands shook as she held it, almost as if she feared just by touching it she would destroy it. Yet despite the pain she felt in her long-still heart, it was the most precious thing in the world to her.
“I miss you, Alana, and always will.
Love,
Prisa”
Alana stood holding the parchment for a long time, staring at the name. She remembered her friend’s dark silky hair. Her soft smile. Her laugh. Perhaps, without knowing it, Alana had loved Prisa too. She had been a steady figure in a life that was anything but. A life that had brought Alana pain and suffering. She had never been accepted by those she desperately clung to. Her family, her lovers... But Prisa was not like them. She looked at Alana as if the mage hung the moons personally in the sky. And she would have, too, just for her.
Peeling off her shirt, Alana looked to the mirror again and ran her lithe fingers across the jagged scar where her arm had been reattached. The stitching was horrid and left the skin pinched and wrinkled. As her fingertips traced each stitch mark, she imagined the sadness it must have caused Prisa to never find her body. To bury an empty box, while the corpse of the woman she loved was being paraded around doing Light knows what. Like a...
“...Like a monster,” she murmured out loud to herself.
Gently folding the letter closed, Alana laid it on her bedside table. She crawled into bed, under the covers as she had done in life, and laid her head on a soft pillow. She knew sleep would never come to her again, but maybe just for this moment she could pretend. Pretend that she could close her eyes and this nightmare would be over. That she would wake up alive, breathing softly next to the woman she loved. The woman who had loved her. She had all the time in the world to pretend.
In the earlier hours of morning, a lengthy letter would be delivered from a tired worker- a hawk delivering the mail. The hawk seemed to eventually either find the woman themselves or whatever place she might stay. The letter passed off again from hand, and inside was the simple writing of a long lost friend.
It read in common...
To you,
I don’t know if you are who you say you are, i don’t know if I can trust what it is you’ve become if you are. I remember getting your note, your call to remind me that you were living as it were. That you were still there. I’ve kept that note, I truly have. It’s one of the few items I brought with me when I came out here to Quel’thalas, as strange as it all has been.
I don’t know why i’m writing this now, other than to ease my own mind, in some ways. The recent events leave me unsettled, and in a land where everything seems so foreign despite my exposure to so much, I am looking for some sort of anchor. Some sort of hope in understanding.
I miss you, Alana. I miss being able to sit with you and release my own doubts as if you were a priest of the chapel yourselves. You made me smile, you made me laugh, and you made me care so much for you. I miss you.
Please understand, that if you are truly who you are- a shell of the woman I knew so well, then I cannot see you for what you have become. I fear too much of it, of the undeath. I feel it is cruel to bring you from a rest such as that.
But, if I shall be honest, I am so hopeful that it is you. That you read this, and that you understand despite my fears. That, even though I cannot see you for what has happened to you, I still yearn to be able to just get a few more words to you of things I never said. Things I felt I never would get to say.
I hated not being able to save you. I hated my own inability to do the only thing I have had a talent for. To be unable to save the people that I care the most about, and to instead see them die once more. I ran away from that in the past, and yet it still lingers even now. It is like a haunting shadow that I feel will never be shaken for the rest of my life. Only lived with as I pray that someday it will be forgotten to my mind when I grow older. I feel like I am cursed.
I told myself time and time again, perhaps, if I had just one more chance. One more time to go over it, I could have stopped you. Could have stopped you from going to that man that abused you so. Could have argued more for you to see what I felt I so clearly saw. Done anything to set you on a different path then what left you dead.
I almost had wished I could bring you back, but I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there to do any of that.
I shed many tears over it till they no longer came and my face was raw. It’s painful, even now. I keep thinking again and again over the same events, even though I try so hard to allow myself to move on in a better manner.
I said I wished to tell you things yet, and I will again admit to what I couldn’t before.
I loved you, Alana.
I mean that in matters beyond our friendship. And I know that you did not know it; that you more than likely would never share such an affection like that with me. And so, I told myself I was happy enough to be your friend. I was, Alana, and I still hold those memories fondly. But I did not allow myself to be honest to you, and to admit what I held closely to my heart.
It was one of my largest regrets when you died.
Perhaps this letter will find you truly, or perhaps it will only be greeted by some hallow shell of the woman you were before. That perhaps I could just have my words seen by the woman I loved, and to imagine she sat there, listening to me.
I’m scared for where the world is turning and the battles that are being fought. I am scared for my position and the allegiances I have settled in. I had only wished to help, but now I have fears that I have only made things worse. The world tree was burnt, the alliance and our kind are fighting. I hear words of what this warchief has done to Lordaeron.
I feel pain for it. Pain for how close it has happened to the lands of my birth- lands that I know you did not come from, Alana, but things you might understand. It was in ruins before, and now furthermore with a plague and blight that covers the land to pull it further from hopes of ever being some echo of what it once was before.
I do not confide in the people here, Alana. I fear that my opinions and words would be looked down upon for people who have lost far more in the wake of their own ruins. It’s my burden that I bear, and bear it I shall. That does not shake away the feeling, though. Does not completely push the thoughts out of my mind, and instead lets it linger there. My doubts echoing.
I found a woman here, a woman that I felt myself growing close to, but I cannot feel close enough to offer these. She has her own worries that encompass her, and I feel that I should not bring up my own problems. I know that is not how such should go, but can you blame me for seeking the comfort of another human in a land of elves? To allow myself something of what I wanted with you?
It is not the same, though. It never will be, and I know that. Even now, it has been time since I last had time to speak with her. To spend time with her. She has her own life to lead and be lead by.
I instead am left with the few that wish to speak with me, the elves that at least seem to tolerate me in a manner. Perhaps you’d like them, one does have quite a sense of terrible humor, which I think you would have indulged in plenty. The other is more stern. She reminds me of you and I enjoy speaking to her alone the few times I have. It’s almost the same. I wish it were the same.
I wish I could hear some knowledge of yours. Your insights and perhaps some of that bullheaded nature you so often displayed. That you would say that perhaps there was ways around it, or to tell me if I had made the right decision in being here.
What do I do, Alana?
I suppose I will never truly get an answer to that. I shall simply write this for comfort of my own sake, a selfish act that I take. I will continue to pray, to work, and to keep my head down and help where I can. To help, as I had originally wished to do.
I miss you, Alana, and always will.
Love,
Prisa
@postmoderndaughter @jessipalooza @thanidiel @carrefxur for mentions primarily
