Alexandria laid awake in bed, staring at the familiar ceiling of her quarters in Eastburg. Falconwatch Castle was luxurious, spacious, with amenities that the knight could never have dreamt of during her tenure as a knight-errant. Her connection to Terez and the founding of the Order of Eastburg had delivered unto her a degree of privilege that might have made her teenage self wretch, but those thoughts that occasionally floated in the periphery of her mind felt selfish now as her spouse carried a child.
She was a Knight of the Silver Hand; to desire the fortune and privilege of nobility was something that she could not stomach. What clawed at her was a desire to be recognized by her chivalric peers, her friends, and her family. It drove her, and it had driven her far… but now that she had obtained that recognition, it felt out of place. She felt out of place.
Slowly, Alexandria rose up from the spacious bed more than big enough for three with caution not to wake the other two. A tender smile and a moment of loving adoration was spared for each of them before she softly paced across the wooden floor to her armor stands. There were two, an unsubtle duality that the knight was increasingly aware of: on the left, brilliant silvers and bright blues with heraldry of the Order of the Silver Hand; on the right, a bold mix of red cloth and brassy plate over a skirted gambeson bearing Eastburg’s coat of arms. The delicate balancing act she played between these two versions of herself was one that weighed heavily upon her shoulders, and many days she still yearned for the openness and adventure that errancy offered. Still, she knew she could make a difference here within the borders of the Kingdom of Stormwind.
She already had.
Alex drifted lazily another few steps across the triad’s shared bedroom. A display table sat next to her armor, bearing accolades and awards that she had earned throughout her two decades of service to the Order of the Silver Hand and the Alliance. Her fingers grazed along each one – her recognition as a paladin, her promotions within the Silver Hand up to the rank of Champion, a letter formally issuing her a crest of holy fire from the Silver Hand’s armory, campaign awards issued by the Grand Alliance, and finally… the Dire Decoration of Sir Gavinrad, presented to her with a letter from one of her own knights, Sir Jie Meng.
The dead of night carried with it a darkness that precluded her from properly reading it, but she had stared at it long enough over the past weeks to remember the words.
“Led by Marshal Alexandria Williams-Hallewell, the forces of the Grand Alliance, rallied by Eastburg's banner, stood strong in the face of adversity as they ensured the safety of champions that attempted to win freedom for their loved ones. Having done so with honor, and as well invoking a miracle of the Light, Dame Alexandria is hereby to be recognized by Stormwind's Ministry of War as a most pious individual of the realm, and one of the Light's best keepers.”
A miracle of the Light. Alexandria focused upon that phrase as her mind drifted to the night of the Dance of the Dead.
* * * * *
The ruined home of House Goldcrest, a small city in northern Lordaeron once held by a notable noble family in the region, reeked of plague and ash. Alliance and Horde alike gathered in great numbers to play out the bloodsport that the Forsaken had orchestrated, and as each champion faced their opponent and every fate was met, Alexandria grew more tense.
She was already shaking, filled to the brim with adrenaline and righteous fervor. The injuries she had suffered from combat against Lightslayers of the Cult of Forgotten Shadow and from a two-hundred-foot plunge from the top of the venue of the Masquerade of the Damned were barely healed, but she was still in fighting condition. She had little choice but to be, and the divine spark within her had seen to her wounds well enough.
Of course, the Forsaken held onto their leverage, and saved Lady Terez Ascania for last. As she was brought forward, wearing pathetic scraps of torn clothes and bearing a malnourished frame that said more about her time in the Forsaken’s custody than Terez herself ever would, the executor of the sick trials stepped forward and spoke as he had before.
“Who will fight for her freedom?”
The congregation of the Alliance’s forces, led by Eastburg banners, turned to Alexandria as she dismounted. She stepped forward, helm cradled beneath her left arm.
“On behalf of Eastburg and the Alliance, I stand for her freedom.”
The Horde’s champion, a risen knight, stepped forward and armed themselves as Alexandria drew her blade and raised her voice.
“I understand why you have done this -- that this is a justice you and your people feel you deserve. We are both motivated by that sense of justice, by our love. You fight out of love for your homeland... and I fight out of love for her. Both of us risk our love being twisted into hatred, that embarrassment being twisted into spite. I have hope, though... for we both bear the same burden of loss. We have lost our homes. We have lost loved ones. We stand to lose more, now. In service… you and I are the same.
The longer I have lived, the more I have suffered this cynical world’s dismissiveness towards what I believe to be true in my heart. There are those behind me who believe that our peoples will never understand one another, but I have faith no matter the past. Through purpose, or service, or kinship… even combat can bring some measure of understanding -- and through that understanding we may bring peace. It requires only the strength, the will, to make it so.”
Golden ribbons of energy danced through the sky above as Alexandria spoke. The clouds slowly parted to make way for a midnight sun, a resplendent presence between the clouds that stared down at the paladin below.
“We stand before our peers poised to set an example… lest we ourselves be consumed in this world’s terrible cycle of hatred and violence. For all of the anger in my heart, there is no vengeance. Even now, seeing all that you and your allies have wrought and what you have done to the beloved, peace-loving woman I am here to recover, there is a part of me that remembers only the peace and harmony of the Tournament of Ages. Lay down your weapons. Release Lady Ascania. Surrender.”
Her words, earnest and heartfelt as they were, were met with little more than jeers and boos from the opposite side of the crowd. The Forsaken wanted blood. Alexandria's focus drifted towards her shackled lover, chest swelling with retribution. The paladin had spent her entire life studying and practicing the five wisdoms of the Holy Light, ancient virtues bestowed upon humanity thousands of years ago, and in that moment, each of them was exemplified in absolute mastery.
The midnight sun in the sky struck down upon Alexandria, bathing her in a divine Light that sang a hymnal chorus. Its blinding radiance lit up the dark city for those few moments. Her Oath was fulfilled, the Light’s tenets upheld, and its blessing came: efflorescent wings erupted from Alexandria’s back. Brilliant and golden, they slowly extended out to a full span of nearly twenty feet, illuminating her armor and the ground beneath her. The ground itself shone with a gleaming golden energy as the pillar of Light faded, even restoring any minor wounds or tattered banners in her vicinity. Her longsword, seeping that same radiant fire, was drawn from its scabbard and held idle at her side. She was left as an exemplar of the Light, carried upon those angelic wings above the ground she no longer stood upon, stoic now as the path forward revealed itself. Alexandria raised her voice again, speaking in a resolved divine command.
“So be it.”
A great flash of Light filled the air as Alexandria launched free from the ground, carried forth by the wings that had erupted from her back. Her sword, ablaze with gouts of righteous fire that were flung forward like a whip as her blade arced around in the first and only strike, met her opponent’s guard. The shock of impact as dissonant cosmic forces met erupted throughout the dueling ground, and Alexandria’s angelic wings, rather than follow through with inertia, violently shot from her back like exhaust from a steam tank.
The human herself, beneath the armaments of plate and faith, was barely visible in the moment. She was bathed in blinding Light that made her difficult to look at, and certainly difficult to bear the presence of for the undead. What flew before them was hardly, in the moment, Alexandria; she was an amalgam of the faith and confidence of the gathered congregation of Lightbearers, an arbiter of the Light’s judgment, an exemplar of its Virtues and Wisdoms, of its love and grace… and of its primary drive to eradicate those who would bring harm to the innocent and defenseless. Another divine chorus sang as power gathered within the paladin lashed out through her blade, and the two warriors locked together as a microcosm of cosmic warfare played out in the ruins of Lordaeron…
It was a single, masterful strike that delivered all of the might of the Light’s divinity. Her opponent’s guard shattered as her blade fractured, and Alexandria’s longsword fell the rest of the way as bright and hot as the day it was drawn from the forge. It sank deep, cleaving through even the mighty saronite defenses of her enemy and well through their chest, stopping just shy of severing the spine. Sickly, plague-ridden ooze pooled around her blade and draped her enemy’s armor over just a few moments, and without so much as a word, they fell to the ground.
* * * * *
The duchess had been left in the plagued forests of the Eastweald, abandoned by the retreating Forsaken to be recovered by her champions. As Eastburg’s party arrived, Alexandria was the first to dismount and rush to her beloved. Terez could barely process her presence, delirious from starvation, thirst, and every other need that had gone unattended in the weeks of her captivity. The Forsaken were notoriously indifferent to those who were, in their words, metabolically active.
Alexandria’s embrace was warm -- unusually so. Even through her armor, Terez could feel the sensation of a familiar hearth. Positive memories flooded both of them with the sympathetic touch of the Light within Alexandria: a mother’s praise, the intimate touch of a lover, a cozy blanket shared with a loved one… but the Light still raged within her, crying out for Retribution. It would be days before it truly settled.
“I have you,” Alexandria whispered. “I have you, Terez.” The duchess could feel the shaky rise and fall of her chest as tears of joy and relief rolled freely down her cheek. Built-up emotion that she dared not show in the face of the enemy finally rose to the surface, and she wept. “Stay close. Stay here.”
The duchess, still in shock from the torture she had endured, was quiet besides her dehydrated weeping in the arms of her beloved knight. Recovery would be long and arduous.
* * * * *
The ordeal had left its mark upon Alexandria, sitting again upon the side of the bed she shared with her partners. Quite literally, in fact, it had left a permanent reminder of the divine fire with which she had erupted: wings indelibly burned upon the flesh of her broad, muscular back in an angelic pattern that belonged more on a Kyrian than upon Alexandria. Such a thing was not entirely unheard of; paladins, for as long as they had existed, had experienced moments of legend where the Light’s favor shone upon them with a pair of wings.
Alexandria’s eyes drifted to the nearby dressing mirror, as gilded and exquisite as the rest of their chambers. Even in the darkness, she could make out the barest silhouette of her own figure, lit from behind by the soft illumination of the divine pattern emblazoned upon her back. From childhood, Alexandria had been hungry to prove herself, to be recognized, and she would remember for as long as she lived the moment that she had achieved that goal. In that realization, a fog that had hung over the knight since her childhood as a refugee suddenly cleared. As if for the first time, she saw herself clearly in the mirror. She held proof in her hands of what she had known in her heart, despite her loud protests and modest denials, for years.
Alexandria was among them now, no matter the indignance with which she hesitated to admit it. No amount of pretending that she was another ‘ordinary paladin’, oxymoron though the phrase was, would remove from the memory of the present Alliance – neither the Horde, for that matter – what had happened that night. No matter the trepidation she showed in bearing the moniker granted to her by her impenetrable crest of holy fire, that was her true legacy. The Order had seen her worthy of it. Lady Ascania had seen her worthy of it. The Alliance had seen her worthy of it. The Light itself had seen her worthy of a permanent showing of its faith in her, bestowed through the performance of her oath’s heavy burdens.
The shield did not carry the name. It granted it.
She did not wield the Truthkeeper, a legendary crest of holy fire, an artifact weapon of the mightiest order the Silver Hand could create; Alexandria was the Truthkeeper, a legendary knight in her own right, a beacon of hope and faith upon any battlefield, and a foe that, surely, evildoers had rightfully now learned to fear.
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