Shattered Silence
s e v e n d a y s p a s t
The whispers had stalked her. Quiet, insistent, the small voices insinuated themselves where once His voice alone had sought for her within the crooked passages of her mind. Soft, sibilant, their words barely an echo, but always present. Their insistence had drawn her to seek silence, but even the Alchemist’s refusal and grudging capitulation had not borne promised solace.
I̸i̴l̸t̷h̸ ̵v̸w̶a̴h̸,̶ ̴u̶h̸n̷’̶a̷g̴t̷h̶ ̵f̸h̷s̴s̵h̵ ̷z̷a̵ (Where one falls, many shall take its place.)
The old dream had been forgotten, she had closed the doorway, and Seraanna could only discern a portion of what the whispers bore. Words were spoken and repeated over and again, so unlike the murmurations that once assaulted her in her first weakness.
Until the Truth was torn asunder.
At that moment, she did not know where the distant pieces had fallen, where the gaping wound of shattered Truth was laid bare. But in the dead of that night, as her eyes flew open wide with the expectation that she would find her own bedchamber splintered and rent, they spoke. Finally. Clearly.
E̴n̸’̵o̴t̴h̵k̸ ̷u̴u̸l̴g̴’̷s̶h̶u̷u̶l̸.̶ ̷M̵h̴’̸z̴a̵ ̵u̸u̴l̸w̶i̵ ̶s̴k̶s̴h̵g̴n̴ ̷k̴a̸r̶.̴ (There is no light after death. Only a place where even shadows fear to go.)
“they don’t always lie”, the child’s delicate voice followed, “not to us”
Seraanna knew.
n o w
Oh, she reveled in it.
No longer suppressed, no longer hiding. Wreathed in darkness upon the very stairs of Stormwind’s Cathedral, Seraanna was welcomed and embraced among those dispatching of the risen dead. A tenebrous wraith herself, flitting through rifts torn in reality’s fabric, moving above and across the rooftops of Stormwind.
Tearing them asunder. Sharp-edged shadows rising from dark alleys to rip and tear at the rotten walking flesh that dared to assault the place Seraa barely called home.
It left her exhausted, but the distraction granted by those around her? Exhilaration. Fear, anger, righteous vengeance. Joy. Guilt. Relief. Writ large in the near hysteria that grew by the day. She barely had to reach out to know it, to feel through others what now came so difficult to her own experience.
The night was spent near the Huntress’ side, no longer a distance between them measured in devotion, of what was accepted and denied. Only the grim revelry.
And when all fell briefly quiet? A guest unexpected, seeking... no, drifting, to a change of scenery and questioning words within the warded bounds of her apartment.
Not since she shed tears at her mother’s grave had she been so close to true feeling.
And still, the shattered Truth laid distant, an open wound at the edge of her perception. Its time approached.
Seraannna knew.
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{Several references and tag-ins: @easternkingdomer, @theparkhurstalchemists, @mozelledeliond, @abighail-stalsworth and others. I didn’t get to tell all the stories I wanted before Shadowlands officially starts, but this? This will do.}