Wayward Arrow
Slightly mentioned: @chandreiunderbrush
It had been a while since her wandering had brought her back to Quel’thelas. She’d been avoiding the area until certain matters regarding her title had been resolved. However an exception was made on this night. Her footsteps came naturally as she made her way through Eversong to the seaside cliffs west of Silvermoon. She perched herself at the edge and peered down the sheer cliff face towards the turbulent sea below.
A glance both bitter and forlorn was given to her right as if she expected to see a figure beside her. This is where they used to come to talk, her estranged mother and her back before she considered her a mother at all.
She hadn’t returned to this spot in years. And she could not recall if she’d ever visited it on her own. She took a deep breath and leaned back, palms kept her torso propped up and allowed her to recline. Her eyes drifted towards the sky and she questioned why she had even come here. Had she hoped - she might cross paths with her mother? Perhaps she was simply doing as she told Chandrei and expanding her area of wandering in order to possibly run into Kaidon. She had been wandering to wider variety of places since they spoke. Still, when she tried to find an answer for why she had wandered to the places she had - she could not seem to find one.
She hissed quietly to herself.
The words of the Shal’dorei woman she’d met earlier that night in Duskwood stirred in her mind.
“Chasing the butterfly, you underestimate the gusts. Her wings flap. This one was brought here like a leaf. Naturally. Guided by the wind.”
Vel frowned. The words were those given to her when she asked the Shal’dorei void-priestess what had brought her to Duskwood. It was the sort of thing she would say.
She let out a heavy sigh as she flopped her back onto the ground and reached into her bag for the gift the priestess had given her. She held the vial up and peered at the dark liquid within as the pale moonlight illuminated it.
A gift of blood. It was unexpected. And it meant enough for her to offer a gift in kind. She closed a fist and ran her fingers over the cut she’d made in her palm, sealing the wound with a jade mist. She closed her eyes as she recalled those mismatched purple hues that had stared back at her. What were the odds she’d encounter another corrupted being, with mismatched eyes? From the way she spoke, Vel assumed she had been exposed to the void far longer than she had.
“Voices of the many. They tell her things. They whisper. They yell. They scream. They laugh. They are always here. To close the eyes is to make them louder. This one's cursed head always hears them. Never end.”
It was hard for Vel not to feel like she had been staring at the future she had to look forward to herself. Once she’d been listening to the whispers of the Void for long enough.
She opened her eyes and took a deep breath and stared up at the sky again, she tucked the vial of Nira’s blood away. Some words still haunted her.
“Getting slapped around by the cold wind is fun! This pale skin inhaled a lot of different air! What's the point of aim, if your hands are shaky? If you can't hold the bow straight, do you have to? Just shoot and let the arrow go wherever it goes! Fun! Life is an ant. Trapping yourself in someone's dirty soles is not what this one wants to be. Nira is free! Captured by the own skins of her home hive for thousands of years, the cursed one wishes no more. Suramar. Ugh.”
Vel sat back up and stared out over the waters. While she’d been wandering through Duskwood, elsewhere the Lunar festival was being celebrated. Yet, she had chosen to drift instead. She had chosen to let the cold wind slap her around. She was the arrow that had been fired by shaky hands. No aim. Just - headed wherever it happened to head. Like Nira, she too was free, but - she couldn’t help but notice that Nira had been sitting alone in Duskwood, talking to the whispers in her mind. Disconnected from the world, and just as content to ramble to herself as she was rambling to another.
And that was a future Vel wasn’t sure she sought for herself. Still. She as she stared out over the sea she didn’t know what else to but dissolve into mist and drift away on the next breeze.
An arrow fired by an unsteady bow.














