A low rumble broke the oppressive silence of the darkened tomb.  Eli didn’t pay her complaining stomach any mind, it would stop eventually. 

How many days had it been?

Time passed unmeasured while she sat hunched down beside the intricately carved effigy with her only movement being the tender brush of her knuckles against the cold marble every now and again.  Her hunger went ignored, the urge to sleep was negligible, the pull of shredded leather and dried blood crusted to inflamed and infected skin barely registering as the days ticked by.

Safe.  She was safe here. 

This small corner of the world she had protected so well even before she left.  The blood ward she had built so many years ago still held firm, protecting the land and the people within even without it’s lord and lady there to personally oversee it all.  Here they hid away from the woes of the world, untouched by most of the turmoil that waited just outside of their borders, and here she had run to when the memories long lain dormant rose up to break her all over again. 

The torches that had long been extinguished flared to life even as Eli hovered on the last step that led down into the cool earth.  Shame, fear. Heartbreak and anguish so terrible she had wanted to drop to her knees where she stood.  The putrid stink of undead blood and flesh that clung to her armor lingered in her nose, making it all the worse as she finally managed to put one foot in front of the other before sinking down to the ground next to one of the raised sarcophagi.  Her vision blurred and her head bowed, it was too much too quick and she still couldn’t bring herself to raise her eyes to the face of the one she had loved most in the world.

So many years had passed.  Lost in the dark haze of hunger and the need to feed the Fel that fueled her and the demon she had bound herself to, there was no place for him in her thoughts.  Of all that she had done never would she allow the monster she had been taint the memory of him.  There had been no room for softness or sweet remembrance in those days.  Now with it all shoved into her past it was easier to reconcile the two different faces she had worn, but even with it having been nearly two years free, there were still bits and pieces of herself that had been locked tightly away. 

But now the Scourge had made it’s return.  Once again there were savage creatures slaughtering anything and everything in their path and leaving only death and destruction in their wake. 

She had not fought that first time.  She remained behind, weaving and feeding the shield she had laid down to protect their people and their lands.  She never had so much practice nor raw talent as her elder siblings had, but there was at least this one way she managed to outdo them all.  How she had wanted to be there, fighting at her family’s side.  She knew better though, knowing how much stronger her wards would hold with her there and consistently weaving her strength within the shield’s structure.  Her husband had gone to protect the Sunwell.  Her beloved Baradir who tried so hard and had suffered so terribly after the source of their magic had been corrupted and extinguished.  That was what most remembered of her husband.  However she knew another truth – how much of himself he had poured into their defense if only to give him another focus than the gaping wound left behind in the both of them. 

“Gaelion,” she had whispered, the name catching in her throat while tears burned at her eyes.  Her hand had reached out to gently touch the hard marble mimicry of his cheek but paused a hairsbreadth away with the realization of the blood and gore that stained her armor.  Unlike her usual self, she fumbled just trying to tug her gauntlets free so that they could drop carelessly to the ground.  A little better, at least.  The coolness of the marble drew back memories of the long days she had spent in that very spot, her fingertips gliding over each feature so as to commit them to her memory.  Once there had been soft flesh and a cocky grin that only one with Lightsworn blood could manage.  There was the warm tenor of his voice calling out for some reason or another.  His hair had been his own, the burnished copper of her Baradir lightened with her own silvered white.  Then too, there was that secret pleasure of seeing her son bear the same birthmark that she also bore, having inherited it from her own mother.  Her pride and her truest joy from the moment she discovered that spark of life resting beneath her heart.  The others that came and went without so much as a whisper, he had been different.  She’d known it from that very first moment that this, her son, would irrevocably change her life forever.

Those fleeting few years were the happiest she had ever known – both then and even today. 

And so quickly they had been cut to the quick. 

She had felt the ward shimmer from the eastern quadrant.  A small band of Rangers hurried across the fields to where their seat was located, perched up on one of the rolling hills.  She remembered them rushing in to where she stood, her having sent out the call for healers to hurry and be prepared to tend to any of their wounded.  As a one they dropped to their knees, all three of them easily familiar with as much time as they spent with her Gaelion.  Their faces she still remembered though their names were lost to her.  Their lips had moved, she remembered that.  Her ears remained deaf to the words that were spilling out, her eyes roving over the lot and noting the blood and the wounds, the mangled armor and that the four were instead three…

He hadn’t been there. 

He should have been there, grinning and regaling her with whatever escapade they’d found themselves in. 

But he wasn’t. 

A roaring took over the silence echoing in her ears.  There were tracks of fresh skin carved through the blood and muck – tears then?

They stirred, each revealing hastily bound parcels they had been holding close to their chests.  Gently they had laid them on the ground before her, Virlance, wasn’t it?  He had bowed his head and revealed what he had carried. 

Blood and gore, skin torn and shredded and limbs in various states of dismemberment. 

His hair, that beautiful color of a pale sunset, was stained, tangled and matted. 

The face that had been so handsome in life, was such an ugly thing in death.  His features were bruised and torn, chunks of flesh missing looked as though they had been gnawed away.  One of the boys – no matter they had all passed their first centuries, they were still boys – held out a hand and offered her a small handful of metal.  Her fingers were numb when she reached out to accept it, her gaze dropping to the familiar amulet that never was separated from it’s owner.  Her own family’s sigil had been carved into the small disk of metal, their name spelled out in an old tongue that was fast fading into the annals of time.  It still radiated with the magic that had been imbued into it, protections and blessings from both his father and his uncle. 

A terrible sound finally pierced through the noise deafening her ears, a pain like no other dropping her to her knees as the realization of what those boys had brought home to her finally broke through the protective haze of denial.   That it was her screams echoing through the empty halls.  Only vaguely did she recall arms trying to lift her up, someone trying to lead her away but she lashed out before dropping down again to where all that was left of her son lay. 

At some point someone had managed to pull her away.

At some point they had done what they could to clean and arrange his remains on a pyre.  There had been no precedent for it.  The family crypt held ancient bones of all of those who came from her husband’s line, but even in her son’s state, it was better to be safe.  Tales had reached them of the dead rising again, there was no point in tempting the fates any further.  Gaelion’s remains were cremated with his mother holding vigil long after the embers cooled to ash.  She would allow no one else to touch him, it was only her hands that collected what remained and transferred them into small golden coffer.

Nothing had been the same from that point on.  The fall of the Sunwell was devastating.  The losses of her nieces and nephews weighed heavily on her already broken heart.  Already there had been a rift growing between her and her beloved Baradir, setting them both on a path of unspeakable horrors.

She had forgotten her son.

The lost years, as she had taken to thinking of them, had not been ones where she could allow herself any sort of weakness.  The heart that had been thoroughly broken and bruised and all but shattered beyond all recognition had been locked away.  The past was the past and her present and future were gated by a path of blood, pain and destruction.  To the outside world there were whispers, those who saw her grief for Ailos and the tragedies that struck down nearly all of his children and his wife but nothing at all for the son she had so long hoped for.  It seemed easier, somehow.  She mourned the nieces and nephews lost between the war and the eventual deadly withdraw of the Sunwell, but her own son could not be mentioned within her earshot lest her wrath come down on the unfortunate one who misspoke.  Not even Ailos had been spared when he had tried to speak to her about it.  That had been the worst fight they had up to that point in their lives, the one thing she considered unforgivable when she herself refused to dwell on her son once the initial consuming grief had taken her over. 

Of course, back then, little did they know what was to come…

With her demonic handler carved away and bound within blade always carried on her person, bit by bit Eli had tried to remember the woman she used to be.  With the family it was easiest, even with the bad blood between she and Ailos that would reach out to stir up trouble now and again.  Lormeus, the newfound brother, they had found some sort of easy stride even when she thought she might truly enjoy killing him at one point.  That he came with another child to the family only increased his value to her, the oddity and joy that Arabella was never ceased to amuse Eli.  Dathro’serian, her fellow black sheep in exile.  Somehow she never held his undeath against him, even with her own son lost to her and Dath offering a glimpse of what might have been Gaelion’s fate.  In the dark years their connection was the tiniest glimmer of who she used to be, the game of thwarting Ailos’s spies one tiny spark in an otherwise dark existence.

There had been so many little pieces of her slowly falling back into place, but it was still hard to shake the bleak past that clung to her like the shadows she frequented.  She couldn’t bring herself to open that door fully, too long had she been locked away without such cares and concerns and feelings that it still overwhelmed her.  Her aloofness with most others granted her a shield of sorts, something she could hide behind while she puzzled out how a normal person should act.  Of course it was far easier to stare people down until they let her be, or offer some cutting comment to ideally drive them further away, but she was at least trying.

Autilion was still her greatest challenge, and her greatest source of happiness and peace.  Usually.  Not that she often dwelled on it or even vocalized it, but it was something she had accepted.  The thought of him just then briefly drew her out of her state, that sudden need for him.  His was the strength she could depend on, he was her rock that had not disappointed since their reunion.  He had been there the handful of times the floodgates had opened and she had been left open and raw, but this dwarfed all else. 

How could she go back and simply fight like everyone else?  On one hand she wanted to burn the world down.  Lay waste to Scourge the way it was gearing up to plague all of the lands in a fashion never seen before.  On the other, the memory of her shattering heart and a nearly paralyzing fear of what it could do to those she loved and those she cared for.  There was no way they would come away unscathed – her family and the Accord.  People would die.  Perhaps some will be raised to serve the enemy.  Perhaps some will be lost to whatever awaited them when they left this world. 

How could she bear it?  Even the thought had her clutching at her chest with the sharp ache that cut through her heart.  Would she see her nieces and nephew lost with the others?  What about her brothers?  Autilon?

Times like these she almost missed the blessed nothingness.  No worries, no fears.  No tethers and no responsibilities. 

Here at least, she could hide while trying to come to some sort of a resolution.  Only a scant handful might have some idea of where she might have disappeared to, but there were other more important things they would be wrapped up with rather than her flitting off without warning.  Her mind was almost blissfully silent, her having the foresight to shut herself off from her sprawling network of feathered spies and those always under their surveillance.  Eli’s eyes slid shut and she drew her knees to her chest and let her head fall forward to rest against them. 

It was just too hard.  Perhaps it would have been better if she had stayed away.  She could have faded from the world with no more than a whisper and been spared from all of this.  To have gone through this loss once before had been terrible.  To relive it all over again now…there just were not words.  Everything seemed so surreal, everything except for unspeakable agony of her heart breaking once more. 

She wanted to scream.

She wanted to cry.

She wanted to rage.

Why?

She hated this, this weakness. 

Every time she thought she had her feet planted firmly on the ground, something else happened to rip the rug out from beneath her and it was just beyond exhausting. 

Minutes passed.

Then hours.

Another day.

For the briefest of moments Eli thought she heard a deep throaty chuckle, but still, she didn’t stir.  Perhaps in time the undead would breech her borders.  Perhaps they would find her there and maybe, just maybe, she would be reunited with her son before being shunted off to a place of torment to atone for her crimes.  It would be an end acceptable to one such as she.  A satisfying one truth be told.  

@lormeus

Lament for Those Lost.

The sound of explosions going off in the distance rang in the man’s sensitive ears, reverberating in his circlet and sending a chill down his body. Snapping quickly back to the task at hand, he squeezed the grip of his spear, the wooden base creaking under the weight of his metal glove. He tightened the reins in his hand to keep his warhorse steady. Its alabaster armor blackened by the soot in the air and the beast neighing, shaking its head in its discontent. It paced to the right and Ailos quickly corrected back to the left and centered himself. Looking across the battlefield to an Elf astride a pitch black horse with pockets of fel bubbling on its skin. The Elf himself resembled a Sin’dorei, but his skin was marred with burned skin, reddened by the great amount of Fel corruption and his eyes were a bright neon green. The man across the way manifested a spear made of fel and molten rock from seemingly nowhere and pointed it at Ailos, making his challenge known.

Ailos took in a slow breath through his nose and raised his spear over his shoulder, snapping the reins of his steed and spurring him forward into a quick gallop. Time seemed to slow as  the other man took off as well, charging over the corpses of the Legion and Azerothians alike. All he could hear was the extremely slowed down pace of his breathing, the spaced out clopping of hooves on rock beneath them, the clanging of armor against skin and hide. He locked eyes on the man gunning for him, the traitor to their kind. Their very world. In these quiet, slowed down moments, Ailos had time to think.

Everything he’d done up to this point told him to hate this man before him, to revile him, to treat him as no longer worthy of existence. To end his life with no reservations. And yet, he felt a pang of grief in his heart knowing that his aim would strike true before the man’s spear had a chance. It was not for the man himself, that much he knew. Though, he felt sorrow at taking another Sin’dorei’s life. They had lost so many, sacrificed so much to simply survive and not be exterminated from the face of Azeroth. Yet, here this man stood in defiance of everything they had fought for. Yet, here this man stood as a force of destruction to subjugate their homeworld or see it burn as so many other worlds had.

He knew that the only thing he could do, was to end this man here and now. To cleanse him from existence, but he still felt this overwhelming guilt as he closed in. Only but two meters away now, he aimed his spear on a collision course to its most devastating mark. A slightly downward angle just above the manubrium. So it would pierce his heart without the pain of it snapping through the bone and inwards. He had never aimed for mercy before in his entire life when it came to fighting the Legion, but this man with simply existing caused him to. And now, the time came to strike.

As all four hooves of the steed left the ground and Ailos cocked his spear arm back, focusing intently with his one good eye on his target and compensating for what he lacked due to the loss of his right eye. He could only think of his prayer for the man, his lips moving in tandem silently mouthing. “Belore dela a thalas.”

As slow as the buildup had been, when he pushed his spear forward, time resumed its usual speed. Before he realized it, the man was sent flying from his horse with a spear in his chest and being overcome with a bright shining light. Golden rays cracked under his skin and then flared a bright red as he smacked into the ground, turning to ash.

Ailos let his steed slow and then turn about to see the fel infused steed fall over and turn to ash as well in the absence of the man who summoned it forth. He sat there in his saddle, simply staring at the pile of ash for a few moments. That one eyed stare showed the grief he felt, and the lament he silently held for the man he had just killed. He decided he would mourn him, this man he never knew outside of this one showdown. This man who had tried to kill him. This man who was simply the same race as he, but had given himself to the Legion. He would mourn him. And so, upon that decision, he turned his steed away and led it into a trot back to the main force. Not once looking back.

Siege, Day 1

30th day of the 3rd Month General Silverwing’s Journal

Though the Warlord saw fit to terrify us half to death by not appearing with the fleet until the Alliance were nearly upon us, he did in fact arrive -- with much flash and fanfare -- and lay siege to the four Alliance ships attempting to bring reinforcements and, perhaps, Tidesages to the shores of Northwatch. This left the main bulk of the Warband's forces to focus on the initial siege.

The Alliance sent forces to meet us in the rocky no man's land between our camp's position and the gates of Northwatch. With the elites at the fore, Champion Dusksong and Centurion Summerlight leading the infantry -- and Dalah'rona Warbringer Pyresong leading the cavalry. We lost several soldiers in the initial push, but managed to clear the token forces in the gap between camps and push forward nearly to the gate while the Warlord with our Fleet and our steadfast Ironstead Engineers laid assault to the outer walls of the Keep. The artillery crews also provided bridges to cross the water straight to the Keep itself. Though a boon to us (no swimming in plate armor, thank Belore), it also means the Alliance can cross directly to our encampment. We'll have to keep watch on it. For last night, it allowed us to cross that water safely and march nearly to the walls of Northwatch.

Unfortunately, the Alliance commander appears to maintain a steady wave of incredibly powerful priests that work together to erect a holy barrier of light. Nearly everything we threw at them -- napalm, siege equipment, hell, even the Undying -- were unable to break past that barrier. On top of that, the Alliance has sent in reinforcements from Lowenherz; the Eleventh Legion has answered the call, or at least, some remnant of the forces formerly belonging to Ailos Lightsworn. They swarmed our forces from the flank, forcing us to stop pressing our attack and make a tactical retreat back across the water. Azkaellon also reported an Alliance airship out of firing range. I don't know if they were flown in, or if the airship will be a constant threat to our land forces without air support of our own. Either way, they did not press their advantage, and instead fell back behind their walls.

Although there was one boon, it was bittersweet. E'risse's Undying unit sacrificed himself to save the majority of our forces as we retreated. I watched the Azerite explosion from the shore. He took out hundreds of Alliance in a rush of blue and gold flame, as well as the central pass of the Keep. The Ironstead also managed to do significant damage to the walls, as did the Warlord's fleet. Though Ardvandor's sacrifice bought us time, it also pressed our advantage despite the tactical decision to back away. E'risse is heartbroken. I don't know what to say to her.

For now, we need to keep looking ahead. We need to find a way to dismantle the barrier. More light magic? A counterattack of shadow and void? I'm not sure at the moment. But it's one of my less-pressing concerns; of more importance to me is continuing to dismantle the structural integrity of the front wall of the keep. Artillery begins this morning. We have Talons scouting the lines of reinforcement for the Alliance to notify us of any troop movement, starting today; the Regiment is already repairing and rebuilding our own siege weaponry from last night. I need to talk to Ailos, as well. Though their Commander saw fit to take to the field last night, I doubt he will always be present. He's too valuable an asset.

I've sent for my personal research on Azerite to be delivered by my House courier. If we have to use more of it to win this war, then it's something I'll consider.

@autumnspyre @blackheart-warband @theirondragon @azkaellonlightsworn @summers-light

First Assignment

Warnings: Language, violence, torture.  Some really smushy stuff too.

Saturday, November 25th

The hour was late when Sadyra finally crept into their home, still the one they shared on the canals while they had waited for word to come as to their new living arrangements within Lightsworn's new lands.  She crept quietly through the house while listening carefully for any sound of her better half or either of their spawn with their propensity for wakefulness at the oddest of hours.  Even though already she missed their beautiful home up north, the sprawling and plentiful rooms more than they'd ever need, there was something to be said knowing where exactly to look seeing as there was no sign of life downstairs.  Quietly she moved, well remembering the one step that creaked loudly, or the loose board that always made noise when it shifted before stepping into their bedroom.  

Immediately a smile curled her lips as soon as she pushed the door to their bedroom open.  Their things were strewn out into boxes and chests with barely enough room for a large cradle to rest at the foot of their bed.  In it she could make out one small form, her dark curls a stark contrast against the pale pink linens.  It only took a quick glance to her bed to find the other, Emmy, she noted, sound asleep against Altiel's chest while he dozed with his back to the headboard.  That darkness that she had embraced while she mentally planned her way through Ailos's task dissipated without a second thought the moment she returned to what mattered most, her heart warming with so much love for the three it was amazing it didn't burst right then and there.  And while she craved nothing more than to curl up in bed beside her husband, instead she went to one of the chests that was packed in preparation of their move.  With just the barest of sounds she pulled free a set of her gear, the black leather softened by wear and by age.  Her gear, an assortment of weapons.  A small and carefully packed tray that offered a soft felted interior where a number of vials were tucked snugly.  Plucking a few of them free, she slipped them into one of the many pockets her gear had to offer.  Several minutes later Sadyra mentally ran over her checklist of supplies and deemed herself prepared.  She piled it all neatly to the side so that she could dress easily when it was time to go.  

That seen to, she crept quietly to the side of the bed and carefully extricated her sleeping daughter from her father's embrace.  Altiel stirred first, his eyes shooting open but he relaxed once he saw the familiar form and the soft hum of his wife's voice soothing their daughter as she too threatened to wake.  Giving Altiel a wink in the dim glow from the fireplace, Sady managed to lay Emmy in the cradle alongside of her sister without the baby waking.  

"You seem relatively blood free, so I'm going to assume it went well?"  A flash of teeth met the low rumble of her husband's voice before Sady bent down to ensure both of the girls were tucked in well.  As silently as the rest, she stripped down and slipped beneath the sheets being held up for her, her arms and legs immediately twining around Altiel as she breathed him in deeply.

"Aye, we've reached an accord.  Not a drop of blood spilled, I'm sad to say, but it will be interesting to see how it all pans out."  Quietly they spoke in their tangled embrace, ever mindful of the two little ones sleeping soundly at the foot of their bed.  

Too soon sleep reached up to pull the two under, and too soon Sadyra's inner clock had her stirring just before the sun was set to rise.  She laid there for a moment, her fingertips lightly tracing over the tattoo that decorated her husband's profile, content in the quiet sounds of his breathing and the tiniest of snores and sounds coming from the cradle nearby.  But too soon she pushed herself from the bed.  Silent as the shadows she donned her garb, knives and daggers slipped into every possible hiding place that her gear had to offer.  The seal that was included with Ailos's reports was tucked away as well, everything else had been committed to memory and then burned.  Her hood hung loosely around her neck as she turned to survey her sleeping family.  Excursions to the city aside, it was her first time out in the many months she had stepped down while she carried the girls.  For the briefest of moments panic rose up, the fear of being gone for any length of time and the horrors that could happen in her absence reached up to curl its fingers around her throat.  But just as soon as it came on, she swallowed it back.  They would be safe, no matter what happened to her.  Ailos gave his word, and she had to put her faith in that, much as she hated the prospect.

Her feet moved across the floor without sound, coming close to the cradle before she knelt down beside it.  Her lips brushed over the baby-soft cheeks of one and then the other, before she paused and pulled free one of her daggers.  Gently, so gently for fear of waking them, Sadyra cut away a small lock of hair from each of her girls, then rose to stride over to her sleeping husband.  The bed dipped when she sat beside him, leaning forward to press her lips to his even as she carefully trimmed a small bit of his own hair away to add to the little pieces she held close.  

"Going somewhere?" he murmured, green eyes glowing in the darkness of the room while she busied herself with tying the small bundle of hair together with a bit of garrotte wire.  

"Aye, I've got a small job to do.  Should have known better than being able to slip away without waking you, but I should be back in no time at all."  She finished her project with a tight knot, kissing it lovingly before it was tucked away in a small hideaway over her heart.  "Lightsworn should be sending someone not long after first light to come and help get you and the girls to Raven's Reach.  He and the wife will see us settled and give you a hand until I get back.  And I will be back, where we can start christening wherever it is they're setting us up at," she leered, leaning in for another kiss.  Instead she inhaled sharply when his fingers speared through her hair and held her close as her mind blanked with the sharp bite of teeth and tongue that briefly made her wonder if she might be able to hold off leaving just a little while longer.  

"You be safe.  Get done what you need to and come back as you left, mm?  We'll be fine in the meantime.  Worry about yourself and not us."  Sady stared back at her husband, nodding her head briefly before leaning in to give him one more loving kiss.

"I will not make a promise I might not be able to keep, but you can be sure I will be back and any scratch I get will be returned tenfold.  Keep our treasures safe for me, please.  And try not to worry too much, will you?"  She gave him a cocky grin, another quick brush of her lips and one more for good measure before rising and leaving without looking back for fear if she did, she'd not leave.

-----

Even with the heat and glow of the forges, shadows ran rampant which gave Sadyra plenty of choice hiding spots as she watched on silently.  Carabrembor went about his work, oblivious to the woman watching from the shadows.  For a little while she sat and observed, waiting to see if there were any others who may be expected.  It had been entirely too easy to slip in unnoticed.  Between her own knowledge of the area and that which Ailos had so kindly provided, the ward he had given her just making it all the easier to creep into the forges of Suel'thuash.  Minutes and hours ticked by as she lurked about, her eyes never leaving her prey while she imagined all of the things she could do to him before she finally allowed him to die, her anticipation building to a fever pitch.  

Finally she couldn't take it anymore.  A dagger was silently pulled free and she lept lightly from her perch.  The shadows fell away from Sadyra as she hit the ground in front of Carabrembor, only a few scant inches between the two.  Slowly she stood, brandishing the dagger that she ripped across his chest as she made her grand appearance with a wicked grin in place.  The light caught the metal as she observed the dark stain on her blade while he staggered back a few paces, a hand touching his chest in disbelief.  

"I really feel like I'm going to be disappointed in how easy this is going to be," she grumbled, turning her back to him while she strode across the floor to where a small device was tucked away.  Squatting down she fiddled with it for a few moments, obviously unconcerned with the elf behind her as the device finally kicked on and synced with the others she had settled around the room.  Standing once more she pulled her mask free as she fanned herself, finally turning around once more to see Carabrembor having armed himself with a hammer and a sword that had been sitting in one of the nearby racks of his finished work.  

"Really don't know how you stand to be down here.  All this heat is really miserable."  Conversationally she nattered on, hopping up onto an anvil while she watched him with some amusement.  "And now, we've got all the time in the world without having to worry about anyone walking in before we're finished.  You can be as loud as you'd like, there'll be no one to hear you I'm sorry to say.  But I hope that won't make you shy, because I really, really do like it when they scream.  Just so you know."  

"You.  You're that human woman Crimsonheart bound himself to," Carabrembor ground out as he watched her warily.

"Aye, that I am.  Much to your misfortune, else you'd be having a visit from someone else entirely.  But you and I?  We've got some business that needs to be seen to.  You see?  I've got this quirk - quite annoying really.  Not for me of course, but those who find themselves on my bad side.  These past several months, I've taken great pleasure in tormenting the ever loving fuck out of that Lightsworn prick.  I've got my reasons, of course, but most above all?  I take issue with how he had bound my husband and used him as he had for so long before I came along.  Only by Altiel's grace is he even still living, but I am entitled to my fun, aren't I?"  Her feet kicked back forth as she spoke on, though slowly her lips began to curl when she saw a small frown work its way across the elf's features.  "Ah, I was wondering how long it'd take.  Damned elven metabolism or some shit."

Hopping down from her spot she closed in the small distance, easily disarming him of his sword and even more easily stepping aside to miss the swing of his hammer.  "You see, I've got plenty of lovely tricks up my sleeve you'll become well acquainted with in our time together.  This?" she gestured to oozing wound across his chest.  "Shouldn't be much longer at all.  You?  You're an artist here in your forges, but me?  Oh I've my own masterpieces."  Again she held up her dagger, still stained with his blood and something darker beneath it.  "This is a lovely one I'm quite fond of."  The hammer suddenly clattered to the ground and Carabrembor snarled in disbelief before swinging wildly at the woman, anything as he felt himself slowly losing control of his limbs.  Sady chuckled, antagonizing him all the more as she danced out of his way with a friendly pat to the back.  "You see, you can still feel quite well, but it has this delightful way of shutting down your ambulatory capabilities."  As if to prove her point, she pivoted quickly when he made to attack once more and plowed her fist into his nose in a crunch of bone and explosion of blood that left her sighing happily.  A quick sweep of her leg tripped his out from beneath him to deliver another wonderful sound of his head smacking against the stone of the floor.  

"You're insane!  Wait until Lord Lightsworn and his son hear of this!" Carabrembor snarled, his hand trembling from the poison as he lifted a hand to his face.  Sadyra cackled as she prowled around his prone form, her dagger rolling between her fingers.  

"Oh, but that is where you're wrong, boy-o."  She squatted down beside him, using her discarded mask to wipe away at the blood that stained his face.  "Don't want you suffocating on that when we're just getting started, but you needn't fear for my sake.  You see?  As I said, I was content to make Lightsworn's life misery for as long as I remained on this earth but that there came this little discovery."  She watched on as the poison took its full effect, his arms falling lifelessly to his sides and most of his movements stilled save for his eyes moving to watch her carefully, his chest rising and falling with his breath.  "It seems you've been quite the naughty one," she singsonged with a maniacal grin.  She stood and actually rubbed her hands together in her excitement before pulling out a variety of daggers, knives and a vast assortment of other tricks of her trade, being sure to hold each and every one of them up for the elf to see.  "It's just your misfortune that this is my first chance to play since we found about the girls, and even moreso because this really is quite personal.  We don't know one another very well, but oh, we will here for the next day or two.  Maybe three, depending on how we get on here.  It's hard to say."  She stepped over to where his sword had fallen, testing its weight with a quick nod approval.  "You do do good work, that is for certain.  I'd ask if you would mind me perusing some of your offerings, but then you're really not in a place to deny me.  There'll be time enough for all of that," she said, flipping the sword in the air and catching it with ease before walking over to rest it so the blade could heat in one of the nearby forges.  

"You're mad!  Whatever it is you want, whatever you'd like you've only to say and I'll see it to fruition!  Money?  Power?  Stop with this and we can come to some sort of accord!"  

"See?  You damned elves, you all seem to think that is all people want in this world," Sady turned the blade, letting it become a molten red before she turned to face the elf.  "There are some things no amount of gold can purchase.  As I said, I've this quirk.  I really don't care for those who only see a body for what they can do for them.  Or believe that they own them, use them as tools."  Casually she strolled back to where he lay, lowering herself to sit astride of his hips with the glowing sword hovering close.  "I've been in that position, granted it was a number of years ago, but you never really forget.  My body wasn't my own.  It was trained and it was used in many different ways.  But I was crafty, even when I was young and foolish.  I found a bigger wolf, or a lion I suppose I could say, who took me in and trained me even better."  Gently she dragged the heated edge of the blade along his cheek, not deep enough to cut but the smell of seared flesh wafted up between them before she moved over to mar his other cheek in the same fashion, then over his eyebrow to match the scar over hers.  "I never forgot though.  No matter that I sold myself to a higher bidder, that first one, I wasn't going to let that slide.  So I went back."  Her lips twisted as she let herself remember.  "Thirty-seven men, eight women and then my dearest old friend.  My highest count at once to this day, but I've still some years ahead of me.  Perhaps I'll yet top that, but I digress."  Even though the sword slowly cooled, it still was devastatingly hot as she amused herself with carving away his clothing, being sure to leave burning trails along his skin as she worked.  "It was delightfully messy, but I made them pay and ensured they'd never do what they did to me to anyone else ever again.  My dearest friend, if it weren't for the fact that I saved his pretty face there wouldn't have been pieces big enough to identify him.  But sometimes you have to make a statement, and I think I made a pretty loud one that day."  Her voice hardened then as she snapped back from the sweet memory to present, adjusting her grip to drive the tip of the sword into Carabrembor's shoulder.  His howl drowned out the hiss of the heated blade cauterizing the wound before she ripped it free.  "There is no amount of gold or pretty goods that matched the satisfaction I found that day.  Just as will be the case here today, you can be sure of it.  Because of you.  Because of what you did, my husband suffered under that prick.  How many years was it?  Even I've not been privy to the exact number, but it was too many."  

The sword was laid on the ground beside them as she caught one of his hands in hers, the other reaching out for one of the daggers she had set aside.  Not his dominant hand, not yet, but she held his hand within hers as she observed it, turning it this way and that.  "How many wonderful and beautiful things have you created over the many years you've lived, Carabrembor?  You couldn't have just contented yourself with your skill and knowing how treasured you were for it."  As she spoke, she lifted her dagger and meticulously set about ringing it around the upper knuckle of his finger, relishing in the noises he was making while she dispassionately popped it out of joint and carved it away entirely.  Finger to finger she repeated the action before lifting the sword to seal off the wounds.  "Make no mistake, you'll not live to make another thing, but I just want to make sure what it feels like to not have any control of yourself, to feel each piece of yourself lost by something outside of your control.  Even if it's literal like this, you'll still have no idea of the suffering you've imparted on others."  Standing to reheat the sword, Sadyra just barely caught the dark red glow of a raven's eyes, perched not far from where she was as it watched on.  Curiously she saw them flicker to a sickening green if only for a moment, but then back to the same red as they were when Ailos had spoken with her the evening before.  

For the next few days, Sadyra slowly and methodically tortured the master of the forges.  Truthfully she lost all sense of time herself, only now and again counting the hours between her reapplication of her poison to keep him from being troublesome.  His fingers were slowly carved away knuckle by knuckle before she did away with his hands all together, sitting the bits and pieces just to the side so that he could see the instruments of his craft.  His skin was flayed, bones were broken and crushed, many by his own hammer; his body marred with so many burns and cuts, his blood slowly staining the stone floor beneath him.  Dull glints of metal decorated here and there from where she had dribbled molten metal to eat through his flesh, but even though she chatted on endlessly about this and that, never did she reveal the true extent of her knowledge.  Not until the dawning of the third day when she finally felt her own exhaustion creeping in, and Carabrembor just barely clung to consciousness.  Sadyra pulled free the small box that Ailos had given her, eyeing it for a long moment as his warning to not look upon its contents echoed in her ears.  Curiosity nibbled at her as she turned her eyes on the mass on the floor.  

"I hope it was worth all of this," she muttered, squatting over Carabrembor.  "He knows, if you've not been able to figure that much out by now.  Lightsworn knows what you've done, and so I was sent in his stead."  Slowly she opened the box, keeping her eyes on him while displaying the contents for him.  The ring she couldn't see swirled sedately in its own power on the bed of velvet as Carabrembor sputtered and tried to form words, before she snapped it shut and tossed it to the side.  "The bastard still has a way to go to make up for what he has done, but you, my dear Carabrembor, you'll have the reminder of this to carry you into the Shadowlands where I can only hope you'll relive these last days for the rest of eternity."  Slowly she slid the edge of her dagger across his throat, watching the blood begin to spill and hear his gasps for breath as it began to trickle in and fill his lungs.  She sat there unmoving as he slowly drowned in his own blood, barely blinking as she watched the life fade from his eyes and her assignment completed.  Bones cracked as she stood, stretching and flexing while she yawned.  His sword she swept down to grab, moving quickly to completely sever his head from his shoulders and gave it a kick away from the body.  In doing so her eyes caught sight of the box she had tossed aside.  She stood there for a moment before tossing the sword aside in lieu of the box, carrying it over to where molten metal waited to be shaped.  Using one of the tools set nearby, she dipped out a small gather of it before opening the box.  And froze.  

The metal slowly dimmed as she stared at the ring nestled on the velvet, before she managed to shake herself out of the odd trance and dumped the ring into the cooling metal.  She dipped the lot of it back into the forge before moving over to dump the small blob into a nearby quenching bucket.  It had been her thought to just the mess melt away but with the magic it so obviously held, she wasn't sure if it would even dissolve away.  After enough time had passed she cautiously plucked the blob of metal with just an edge of the ring visible free from the water - still warm to the touch but it could be handled.  That seen to Sadyra turned about to collect her things before tucking the piece away as well.  For the briefest of moments she thought of returning to her home within Quel'venoraal.  A hot bath, a large meal and sleep for days, but she touched her fingertips over her heart and she knew where she wanted to be.  

"Go ahead and report back, though I may well beat you there," she called up to the raven who had never moved until that moment, cawing in response before disappearing in rustle of feathers.

Moments later Sadyra herself appeared back in her home on the canals, the hearthstone still glowing between her clenched fingers.  There would be no changing, only an all-encompassing cloak thrown over her shoulders to cover the soot, blood and gore that stained her from head to toe as she made her way to where her horse was stabled nearby.  Steering it towards Raven's Reach, she half dozed in the saddle as she dreamed still of her hot bath, a large meal, her husband and her girls.

"First Agent of the Inquisition.  A fine impression I'd make on that lot if they were to see me now," she mumbled to herself as she was granted entrance into the county where the Lightsworns had taken up residence, nodding beneath her hood as the watchman gave her directions to the main keep.

@ailos-lightsworn

@ailos-lightsworn, @linedari

Sneaking In

Erudition was quiet... Eery... The placidness of the atmosphere almost felt like a veneer, as though waving it aside would reveal something mortal eyes weren’t meant to see.

But all the same, a shimmering, unreal mass of blue streaked across the night sky, and came to rest upon one of the roofs of the slumbering hamlet.

“Thank you, Etherfang,” said Aranya to the netherdrake that had borne her, her long-time loyal companion. “I’ll be good from here, don’t linger.” The nether-born dragon dipped his shark-like head and went aloft into the sky once more. The sin’dorei woman went to the edge of the roof and jumped down to the window ledge just below her...

But instead of booted feet, it was on soft black paws that she would land.

Aranya’s green eyes shone brighter than fireflies in the dark, as she padded her way over to where the window was cracked just a bit. A look inside showed Kerrwynn, resting, yet it was possible that he was not quite asleep. She nudged at the widow to crack it open wider and poked her whiskered nose inside, and soon the rest of her sleek, furred body was through.

The mage leaped from the ledge to land softly on the floor...

Her toes back in their boots once more.

The phoenix-mage stepped carefully over to where Kerrwynn lay, coming to sit down beside him. He had clearly seen better days. His time is the cell had left its marks on him for all to see, but at least he would recover, now that he was among friends again and in safe hands.

Scant minutes passed, and he opened his eyes, they looked haunted for a moment, but sparked with recognition once they found her smoldering gaze.

“I would slap you if you weren’t still in such rough shape,” hissed Aranya. “A goblin airship, over Alliance territory? Where the hell were you going and what the hell were you thinking, huh?”

{Doing something a little different! I recorded one of the major lines in my RP post as a voice track clip. Lemme know what you guys think of this!}

@kerrwynn @thebuildingcacophony @roewyn @ailos-lightsworn @goodguygarog @lledwynlomeriel @velerodra

Old Loyalties, Old Heart

((This was suppose to be posted days ago, but my god I just kept getting busy and work is kicking my ass in terms of time consumption. Enjoy the post friends! :D ))

The flame within a fireplace, burning away the carcass of wood or charcoal within the handmade hollow chute of stone. Fire conjured in his hands as his storm stained eyes peered within the visions that lingered in the endless shift and shape of the flames, always something new and yet, something old and refreshing. A Respite. It always calmed him as the flames lingered across his hands from touching the fire from the link of fire or even the ones found within the fireplace. It was comforting as the warmest of bathes for the men, women and children of the world. He could take on the world from the feeling of the flames, the endless power, and the devastating destruction it could bring! With tonight’s events… He wished for all of it.

The showdown at the barrier, House Firaval bringing forth the news of the fall of Winters, the Queen of Wolves. The Black General. The Heart Thief. The hostility presented by the scions could’ve been tempered and Garog did nothing, but fan the fires burning inside. A challenge of his honor by the raven-haired woman, the rather bold statement from the Lord of the House directed toward him and the aura surrounding them, the body language and the tone of voice. The thunder rolling across the mountaintops and clashing with the crash of fortius earth. Winters. Working under that woman… He grew fond of the woman and couldn’t say he had the most personal and helpful dealing directly with her, but a soldier does what the General commands and she brought exactly what the Orc craved. Purpose. Leadership, the men and women who brought forth the foundation of the morale and unification of their people together to forge stronger bonds than that of Iron and Fire. Elders, chieftains, warchiefs, kings, commanders, lords, and ladies. All would find that their footsteps carves the path for others to follow and the blood spilt to earn the sacrifice of their people. Every drop of blood in his vein and even inch of flesh and bone, the orc was a soldier at heart. A shaman of the elements, a pyremaster for the flames and dead, a medic for the wounded and lost, and a soldier to those who used the orc. She. Is. His. General. Yet, even the greatest will fall and the morale will shatter. Old Habits die hard for the Orc, old loyalties and affection for his previous superiors. The babble of the room surrounded him as he focused on the fire, seeking comfort and power from it. To keep his head mellow and ready for the coming tide of fury, it boiled in his veins and the conversation of his fellow scions fanned the flames even more. Flames would feed off of whatever fuel you gave them, and with the elements of fire, even the emotion of one’s spirit and body could bring out the explosive force of the Volcano. “I say screw what they think. They got us fighting multiple wars now... WITH THE LEGION OUT THERE!” Brimming with rage for a hot-tempered death knight, Neri Bloodstrike matched even his own anger in this moment. “Neri, go to the Shore and take out your aggression on some demons, dear.” The Elf of Light, a fond moment between the shaman and paladin. Ailos Lightsworn brought the peace of the conversation into the heart of it, giving the agitated deathknight a moment to think of her choices of action. “... The Legion cares nothing for honor, Neri.” His voice that of gravel and rocks, eyes turning for a moment to take notice of the living beings around him, he wished to be trapped in his own thoughts for this moment, keeping the blood fury locked away in his being is the teaching of all Frostwolf Orcs, to tame the beast and flames within. “I, however, do. Legion or not, the pack and clan must be saved from the threats on the inside before we can focus on the outside threat.” The conversation around him went silent for the golden moment, devolving into a topic he cared little for. Focus captivated by the dancing flames of the fireplace as he tumbled the ideas and course of action within his mind. He will not believe the death of Winters until he sees her cold, lifeless being. He deserves to the know the fate of the Black General. Even then, does he even want to find out? Is it worth shattering the compassion left inside for his comrades? The booming thunder of the crashing mountain, the flicker of a flame losing more of its fuel. Soon it could perish and be snuffed out with a single puff of a word.

Mentions @wolf-queen, @wolvesof-winter, @ailos-lightsworn

The Ties That Bind

"Family, it is part of our world and I would never forsake it even if you or our brother swore yourself to Sargeras. I would still love you and care."

The ghost of words long since spoken tickled at the edge of Eli's memory.  The dim light of the waning moon faded as a cloud passed over it's face, dulling the glint and glitter of the delicately worked circlet she turned over and over in her hands.  Tucked away in a corner of her gardens, she sat with her knees drawn up to her bandage-wrapped chest, her back still aching and burning from the explosions that had decimated the battlefield left behind in Ashenvale. 

Ailos.

She had watched him die and she had watched him raised again, but the man who claimed to be her brother there on the field of battle was most certainly alive and just as arrogant as Ailos ever was.  They were two distinctly different men, but there were so many questions and nearly no answers at all.  Nearly two years had passed since Ailos had called her back from her exile and in those two years everything had been twisted and turned and Eli still wasn't quite sure of what to make of it all.  A brother she never knew existed, and from him a niece as well.  So many secrets had been kept from her, but even in her moments of darkest hate and despair, the memories of a time long past were never forgotten.  It had been Ailos who she had always looked up to and loved without question.  Drakar and Talynna were there too, her beloved older sister and their ne'er-do-well brother who tried, but it was always Ailos who made the time for her and with whom she had always been closest. 

Who else could have shattered her heart and her world so thoroughly when he sent her away?

"You are not a little girl or young woman anymore, but you are still my younger sister. So I shall still always care for you in such a way."

The years apart had not been kind to what ties bound them, even though they had both gone their own ways and she had reforged a new life.  It never stopped her from watching over what remained of her family from afar, but the damage had been done.  And yet still, while there were still bumps and hiccups along the way there had been progress in rebuilding what was lost, or at least finding some sort of new ground between them.  There were still arguments and agreements but there were also apologies and some level of forgiveness.  When she had seen Ailos die, she felt some part of her die too. 

"While you do not hold number one in my heart...no one can anymore. I still love you as my sister and value you second only to my late wife...And the other thing I wish to do is apologize for not respecting your wishes to distance yourself from me, from the family you were shunned from for so long...it is time things change for the Lightsworns. I need you here with me."

Despite all of her claims to the contrary, there was no one else who she would have gone to the lengths that she did to see his death avenged.  She put herself at risk, she put the lives of their people at risk to see her brother's honor restored as best she could.  Even now there was always the thread of concern that her actions would merit consequences, no matter how careful she had been to keep her trail clean, but she would have done everything exactly the same if she had to again.  But if it had all been some new twisted ploy - the delicate gold filigree dug into her palm at the thought - there would be hell to pay that he would never be able to believe. 

"Do not ever question my care for you, that is the one thing I demand of you."

Retribution was coming.  No matter what face the imposter wore, he was marked for death.  Eli cared little for the cry of treason, but there were lies twisted into the mix and to her that was what was unforgivable.  She made no secret of the fact she cared little for the faction wars or this side or that, but it was going to be an issue now if what Lormeus believed was true, and either brother was poised at the head of the opposite side. 

Her loud exhale broke the silence of the night, and she lowered her face into her hands.  How did she choose?  Lormeus was still very much an enigma, but he was her brother no less than Ailos was.  He had managed to do what no one else had, he and her lover together, and there was a debt to be paid there.  Ailos, however, had been there since her birth and was tied into her very being - for both the good and the bad.  No matter what had transpired between them, he was always her brother and she would have died for him.  That wasn't even a question in her mind, but it was the same for all of her family, of which Lormeus also fell under.

"Just please don't leave me or betray me like everyone else seems to do."

She needed time to think, she needed time to plan.  Lormeus's order echoed in her ears and she was so very tempted to strike out on her own, order be damned.  It was a family matter no matter the colors worn and the armies now twisted up in the middle.  She had to worry about the Warchief's dog now out for Ailos's blood, she had to worry about the people who would accompany her to hunt her brother.  She half wondered if her healers hadn't kept that thought in mind when they deemed her well enough for release, but left her still sore and aching rather than tip-top condition for concern she may do just what she wished.  A side thought that allowed a scowl to flitter across her features, that her people were becoming so compliant that they'd dare, but it was still something that warmed a tiny part of her that there were those connections still forming that weren't there before.

"No matter your path in life just remember I love you as I always have and I will never stop that."

The moon peeked out from behind the clouds and the rubies embedded in the circlet sparkled and caught her eye.  It had been a gift and an apology given to her that night long past, and something that had seen her through the journey that carried her to where she was today.  Unlike Ailos, who had always had an obsessive fondness for the pieces, enough that surely he had vaults tucked away that only stored his collection, the one he had gifted her was the only one she wore when she needed that extra touch of something else in her role of state. 

Temper teased at the edges of despair, the heart she had long since forgotten ached with the doubt and questions that ate at her.  A few days to rest, to attend Lormeus's council to make plans.  Rather than rushing in blindly, this whole situation required something more and she would do this right.  Eli would have her answers or she would die trying to find them.  There wasn't a person living or dead that would stand in her way of what she sought, and woe to them who tried. 

@lormeusnamaraen @sworn-to-death

Pilgrimage of a Broken Man

The troubled thoughts of Ailos Lightsworn bore down on his mind as he made his yearly pilgrimage to the desolate lands of Icecrown.  He made this trek every year without fail to the cursed lands of death. To the lands of the freezing cold. Ailos was clad in his usual ornate armor, its dull bronze coloration reflected the mood that the man held. His hair was tended to with great care, his face cleanly shaven. In nearly every way he seemed like he was meant for something of great importance.

Yet, his path led him to the frozen wastes of Icecrown. Alone, both in mind and company, the man walked. Metal boots crunching the ice and bone beneath his feet, his eye glued downwards as he watched each bone fracture and splinter further. To those who might have watched him, he appeared to be guided by some unknown force, for his eye never left the ground.

After long hours of trudging through the cold, Ailos crossed a small hill and came to stop at its low peak. For the first time since he arrived, his gaze moved upwards, even furthermore he looked to the sky. A sudden gust of wind caught the man and made him snap his gaze level again.

As he looked over the wastes before him, his eye saw what he more than expected to see. He knew he would see it. Swords, axes, shields, staves, skulls and other assorted bones littered the landscape. Carcasses long frozen and decayed poked from the icy tomb of the ground, a mass grave for those of former scourge and other forces. Banners of the Crusade laid tattered along the ground, held firm by the moisture that froze them in place. The lands had been so cold that even the fallen horses that could be seen were hardly even decomposed, if at all.

The scene was something out of a work of horror, or so one would be led to believe. For the man who took in the sight, it was a harsh reminder of his failures and successes. Of loss of more than just manpower. It was the place where he lost who he was, what he truly loved. An experience that forever changed him, never to recover from the tragedy.

He thought back to what caused this scene, a memory dating back to many years ago during the Crusade. He began to live it again, his body reacting to the mental act with increased pace of breathing, causing said breaths to become even more shallow than the cold forced them to be. His eyes darted around the scene, reliving it all over and over.

--------

The sound of hundreds of men marching through snow, the crunching sounds of wheels moving across the densely packed snow, the sound of his own voice barking orders to those under him. It was all one could hear for a long while, no sign of Scourge, which was odd. He should have sent his men into a more defensive formation, yet for some reason or another, he had neglected the thought as unnecessary.

The formation increased their file as they came to a small mountain pass on the way to their objective. Horse mounted troops towards the front, infantry in the middle, archers and mages in the rear with the carts. Ailos was three ranks back from the frontline, an ideal position for his manner of command. He looked up to the spike like mountain ranges as they slowly marched into the pass, not at all expecting what would come next.

It was nothing but confusion at the beginning, front line of horses, marching four by four were suddenly pulled downwards. The alabaster path fell before the formation, the horses screaming in their fall with their masters astride them in the same manner. He would never forget what that sounded like. No one could.

Next, the same cries came from the rear. Though this time the loud bangs and the crashing of carts accompanied them. The well trained unit had quickly come to a halt by now and took up position on the flanks. Infantry to the sides with archers right behind them. The cavalry moved to the center and dismounted, joining the frontline. The mages in the formation rushed to the center with the horses, working their incantations.

Oddly, the chaos seemed to immediately subside, no follow up to the path collapsing to box them in. Ailos was near the front of the file, on the frontline with his troops. He turned to a warrior, human and quite young. The boy couldn’t have been more than seventeen, but he had somehow found himself to the front where the veterans were to be. He would have to chastise later. For now he ordered the directions he needed followed to be passed down the line. Calling out to those within earshot. “Crusaders, eyes up and heads on the swivel! They’ll be-”

The ground began to shudder before they heard it, the snow laying on the mountains came sliding down in small amounts to the small path below them. What came next was a sickening screech made by the Frostwyrm that had decided to wreak havoc upon them. Ailos’ chest reverberated as the screech turned into a booming roar that caused rocks and the likes to bounce about at their feet. He looked up, trying to keep his voice calm, but there was an urgency and worry to it as he barked out again. His eyes falling on the looming figure of bones on the horizon. “Shields up, mages get to a work on a barrier! Or we’re damned to undeath!”

They worked in unison, most of the mages being Sin’dorei and Quel’dorei were able to use the same formulas and construct a barrier in a large area. The magic the mages summoned forth crawled out slowly, but just as it finished passing over the frontlines, the Frostwyrm who had bellowed so loudly came swooping down. Breathing a wave of cold frost against the barrier and breaking through it before its completion.

The mages did not recover, and the rest of the force reeled. Some were struck by the breath, others by the concussive force in its wake. Ailos was unaffected as was much of the front rank, due to the initial breath always being of lesser potency. Of course, they still were dazed by it all. So much so, that they did not notice the snow of the mountain part as skeletons, ghouls, monstrosities and other soldiers of the Scourge forced their way out.

They let out their war cry and charged before the force could properly reform. The rear and sides immediately collapsed, falling inwards and making the formation a circle. By now, Ailos had gotten to his feet and raised his shield and longsword. They were nothing fancy, not even enchanted by the Light at this point. He had not truly reestablished his belief yet. So he did not call on its grace.

The lines clashed and it seemed like they would immediately break as more and more fell to the onslaught. Ailos was fighting, though more so defending to no avail as those on his flanks fell around beside him dead. As he looked to his right to see the cold stare of death coming from the face of the boy, a large ghoul began to charge him. He lost focus, lazily holding his shield level with no real strength behind it. His eyes locked on that stare from the boy, that questioning look of ‘why?’.  His face, so young and innocent was one of that eternal question asked about so many things. His eyes slowly turned lifeless in their upwards stare, their brown iris standing out on his snow white face. He could almost hear the voice in his mind as he watched what color remained drain from the boy’s cheeks. ‘Why did this happen?’ ‘Why didn’t the commander see me home safe like he promised us all?’ ‘Why did he lie?’. Those questions rang in his head repeatedly, echoing in his thoughts as he attempted to pry his eyes away.

It felt like his arm was almost torn off as the shield was simply smacked from his grasp, the cold claws from the ghoul having crashed into him in a strong swipe. He went sailing back two feet, smacking against the ground as more fell to his sides. He coughed, coming to terms in his head that he was finally facing death, it utterly broke his will, more than the loss of his wife and three of his children; more than the hunger left in his body when the Sunwell had been destroyed.

Yet, something forced him to his feet. He could no longer hear anything going on around him, save for a few muffled screams. His hand released the Human made longsword, and slowly his hands went to either hip, his arms crossing. He found the hilts of both finely crafted Quel’dorei short swords on his hips. He pulled each from its scabbard, the refined metal singing as he moved against the leather.

He held the blades in a reverse grip, the men he had with him had all but died now, though not without thinning the undead numbers significantly. Three ghouls charged the man, yet he did not move or flinch. His eyes looked down to the sea of bodies at his feet, the blood staining his bronze colored armor a deep crimson. Today he would exemplify the reforged name of his people, coated in the blood of his fellows, and driven to the point of madness.

The ghouls moaned in their forced charge, closing within five feet. Ailos moved without even thinking. The first one came, and he took a singular step forward, his motions fluidly moving from the step into a single cut that severed the ghoul into two parts. He did not hesitate to move further, quickly slicing the next one apart in a couple cuts along the torso. He spun on the ball of his foot to meet the final, swinging down in a diagonal arch to decapitate this one.

The undead now realized their mistake in not simply rushing him all at once. They would not allow that mistake to happen again as the remaining horde beyond measure for the single man moved upon him. Each ghoul and skeleton came, and he moved almost as if he was in an elegant dance. Simple, no move was unnecessary or wasted, they were cut down as he moved in a waltz of death.

Finally, the smaller monstrosities were pushed aside by a large fleshwork, the abomination stood three times the man’s size. Patched and sewn together as miasma flowed from the seams. It attempted to roar, but with no voice box it simply sounded like a large bag having all of its air pushed out. Spittle and bile scattering about the area in its attempt.

The abomination lumbered forward, attempting to smash him. However, Ailos quickly had moved to the side and sliced along the seam holding his wrist together. The hand snapped and fell with a puddle of puss and blood. Coating the ground as he continued moving around it. He continued his surgery on the thing, cutting its legs out from under it, and finally freeing its head. The puss and meat sickened with diseases unknown oozed out to cover the ground. He stood over the kill, his stoic face with wide eyes scanned the battlefield.

The Scourge forces had made a circle around him, not showing any signs of aggression or intent to charge. He continued to shuffle around as he looked to the circle, wondering where they would come from next. He had repositioned to look to what had been the rear of the formation, the sea of bodies leading to the edge of the perimeter. The wall of ghouls parted, allowing a figure of saronite to step forth, the body was female, easily told by its physique.

As the figure came towards him, he was ready to strike, but the figure did something he did not expect. It held its runeblade in their right hand, the other moving up to their helmet. She removed it and what was beneath made his heart sink. The cold white skin was new, but those eyes of pure blue starlight gazed into his soul, black hair draped down her form like a sea seen at night. The face of an angel, the very pinnacle of beauty in his own eyes.

The sight caused his mind to race, his eyes looking over her more than once to reaffirm his suspicions. When he confirmed it in his mind, his lip quivered as he held back the raw emotion of the blow this dealt to him. He wanted to rush to her side, to hold her, to cry as he expressed how much he missed her. This was the wife he had once held dear, the one who had birthed his young into the world and died fighting to defend their home against their Scourge when they marched through Quel’thalas. Her voice, though laden with the echo of undeath, made the final confirmation for him. “Ailos, my beloved. Don’t you think it’s long overdue that you join me, my dear?” A sickening smile stretched across her lips, meaning to torture him.

He could not speak, and it seemed as though he would not even attempt to. He simply became numb, he would always remember this moment as the one where he finally lost his capacity to truly love and care for another. In his want to not believe it to be true, he simply charged her. Each strike he attempted was expertly parried by her runeblade as she toyed with him. The pace increased, the resounding clashes echoing through the landscape as the intensity increased as well.

His breathing was erratic, struggling at some points to fill his lungs with enough oxygen in the cold weather. He became more serious, his attacks coming in close succession. Using the second blade to knock hers away after she parried or blocked. Finally catching his opening, his left handed blade sliced along her pearl white cheek. Green liquid slowly trickled down her skin, and she had no time to wipe it as he simply continued. Forcing her to the defensive end of the fight, no longer of her choice.

He was giving her no chance to counter attack him, and surprisingly she had used no magic for what seemed like a Death Knight. Her runeblade hummed under the barrage of blows by Elven metal. She backpedaled, and in the man’s following flurry of strikes, he knocked her guard up. She stared down at him as she remembered the tactic, but not having anyway to recover, she sneered in that instant.

He stepped into her guard, and with both blades crossed he swung upwards and cut through her armored forearm. Slicing through the small gap in her armor meant to allow movement, and severed her arm. Her blade fell into the ground with the even more so lifeless hand gripping onto the hilt.

She fell to her knees in the shock of her defeat, he was blocking her from getting to her blade to continue on fighting. So, it seemed as though she could not use magic in her undeath. A half baked Death Knight in the Lich King’s desperation.

He loomed over her, lowering his left blade to his side, his right coming down to rest on her right shoulder and press to her neck. He looked to the perimeter of Scourge, wondering why they did not attack yet, but that line of thought was broken as she spoke.

“Ailos, joi-” The world went quiet, the blade made no sound, the wind stopped blowing. Green bile worked its way up the woman’s throat, pouring from the growing line forming midway up. More poured from her lips as well. The head gradually leaned to the side and rolled off her shoulders, followed by the body falling as well.

He stood erect, his right hand extended to his side, a thin splatter of that green ooze across his cheeks and nose. That same bile dripped from the edge of his finely honed blade, a steady patter hitting the snow beneath. His breathing finally slowed, normal as his body stopped shaking, he seemed almost immovable.

His left blade dropped as his fingers unfurled from its grip, the same happening to the one in his right hand. The right one fell down and stuck itself within the snow, the other simply clattered onto its side. Never before had the world seemed so devoid of color, the white of the snow appearing gray, the blood on the ground a deep burgundy. After that day, he never saw the world the same as he had before, ever again.

----

To this day, he could not recollect how he had come to escape from the ring of undead. The only memory he was ever able to summon following that incident was at least a week afterwards. He moved his gaze to the right, spying those fallen blades among the bodies of the fallen, the lump of saronite only showing through the snow slightly.

He turned about, the places where the ground had fallen through years ago was now filled. He assumed it was simply by continuous snows, however he was to never know the true reason. His breathing now would finally return to a more steady pace. His face riddled with the agony of his recalling of the scene.

He turned back around, hurriedly moving over to the frozen blades, and he pulled them from the ice. He tucked them under his arm, and then began the long trek back to a Gryphon master so he could return to an encampment to take a portal back home.

.Companion piece to follow this.

They had been separated when the ceiling began to chip away and everything shook and rattled.  He dove in one direction, she was too far behind to follow and took another sharp turn in the passage.  Panic had set in far too easily when Talorei had caught one last glimpse of his fair hair before the rocks fell in behind him.  How she had called after him.  She only vaguely remembered someone hooking an arm about her waist to pull her away.  One of his knights, she supposed.  None of the magisters who traveled with her would have dared.  Her feet had barely touched the ground in the gloom of the fel-hazed afternoon before she was darting back in, a sharp command echoing along the cave walls as a ball of flame came to life to light her way.  She had to stop and pause, her teeth grinding against a wave of fel that washed over her like the caress of a lover.  Too easily it would have been to lift a hand, running her fingers through it and claiming just a touch of it for her own, but the ground shook then.  More dust and pebbles showered down around her with the movement and low growl of the demon they'd been hunting echoing through the cavernous depths.  Faster she pushed forward, stumbling over the debris that littered the ground until she could go no further.  

The flame brightened as she examined the cave in, her brow furrowing as she flattened her palm against the rock that separated her from Ailos.  She pushed her panic aside, forcing herself to breathe and to approach this like she would any other puzzle she enjoyed picking apart.  A simple blast would be easiest, but with things moving precariously all around her, that hardly seemed like the best option.  There was no way to tell how thick the barrier was, so trying to port herself was equally out of the question, especially when she had no idea of what was on the immediate other side.  Again came a terrible roll of what sounded like laughter, her hands bracing against the rocks as everything shook around her.  Not enough time to think and too little time to act.  Tal widened her stance as she grounded herself, pooling all of her energy while her lips began to move in quiet incantation.  Runes began to glow violet against her pale skin, illuminating the small dark space as the flame above her sputtered and died.  Carefully, so carefully she pushed it forward.  Tendrils of arcane slid between the minute cracks and crevices, mapping out the fallen rock.  Even more carefully she worked, edging bits and pieces aside while trying to keep the integrity of what was holding the ceiling as stable as it was. Pebble by pebble, rock by rock, she worked.  She heard the voices of their forces behind her but she held her focus.  Finally she exhaled, knowing she was nearly through.  For the briefest moment she thought she heard the voice of her love, but then suddenly the thin veil of stone that remained heated to near molten, searing and scorching at her palms that had been resting against them.  Confusion warred with her heart that suddenly jumped into her throat, fear threw away her caution and she blasted through the last of the tunnel she had created, calling out to Ailos all the while.  

Stepping forward, Tal waved a hand to dissipate the dust...ash?  The walls of the cavern glowed dimly as an oppressive heat staggered her.  Too quickly it darkened once more and she struggled to call forth some sort of illumination, finally raising her staff and using it to channel through so that the crystal at the end glowed softly.  It was still sputtering to life when she stumbled forward, her foot catching on something.  Tipping the glowing point towards the floor she found what she knew to be Ailos's sword, his shield a few yards ahead.  Picking up both she hurried forward, breaking into a full run when the light finally reflected dully off his armor.  His arms skittered across the floor even as she fell to her knees beside him, crying out his name as she reached forward to turn him over.   As soon as her hands touched him they drew back, the heat emanating from him startling her as it had moments before from the stone.  Above them the cave shuddered again, leaving Tal to hover over Ailos to try and protect him from any falling debris.  Voices called to them both and she called back, warning them to get out - that she had him.  Slowly the shaking subsided and she forced herself to move quickly.  The rocks and whatnot tore at her hands and knees as she crawled forward, snatching up the fallen sword and shield so that she could place them both on his chest.  Quickly she worked once more, drawing a quick succession of runes around the fallen paladin, etching them into the stone as she drew on the last vestiges of the power that was hers to command.  Again the cave around them began to tremble just as she fell to her knees over Ailos.  Raising her staff above them both, she grit out the words necessary to complete her spell, a spot just outside of the cave fixed firmly in her mind's eye and the magic shimmering in the air around them.  It finally took, wrapping around the two a split second before the cavern caved in on itself entirely.  

Outside, their comrades stood in silent disbelief as the ground shuddered and fell in on itself before a crackle of arcane drew some of their attention.  The dust cleared to reveal Talorei and Ailos in a jumble of limbs and arms just a bit away from the gathering.  One shout drew others and the pair were quickly swarmed.  Tal was pulled away under protest, ignored despite her barking out orders to leave her be, to focus on the paladin.  From there it all became hazy for the woman, exhaustion and fear settling in heavily as their people extricated them from the Broken Isles.  To the floating city they first went, handling the worst of their troops injuries and working tirelessly to stabilize their leader.  No matter what they tried, his body didn't seem to take any of the healing offered for whatever reason -- no one seemed to have an answer when the woman who hovered nearby demanded them.  Tal never let Ailos out of her sight, only finally agreeing to be treated and seen to so long as she stayed in the same room as he.  In a corner out of the way she allowed them to bandage her hands, tend to the minor cuts and abrasions while she slowly took in a few mana crystals to help stabilize and begin to rebuild the energies she had expanded.  Her focus ever remained on him, watching on while they did what they could with traditional medicine since nothing else seemed to take.  Once all that had been done that could be and yet he still showed no signs of waking did Talorei give the order she wanted him returned home where she believed he would be most comfortable.  When the doctors rose their voices in protest, she fixated the lot of them with a look that would have done Ailos proud had he been awake to see it and enunciated quite clearly that it wasn't something that was up for debate.  

They were going home.  

With what little energy she'd been able to replenish and a favor or two called in from associates within the Kirin Tor, Tal saw their people returned to their home and Ailos safely ensconced in his own bed with their own people there to care for their fallen lord.  Again their concern for her she waved off, ordering them to focus on Ailos and Ailos alone.  At his side she remained.  Even though it cooled from when she had first come across him, his skin seemed unnaturally warm whenever she reached out to ensure that he was still there with her, to just let him know through his unconsciousness that she was still there with him.  Throughout the night she remained at his side, speaking quietly on any and all manner of things while she held his hand in hers, only pausing whenever one of the caretakers came in to check on him.  Meals brought in were studiously ignored.  Idle conversation would ebb and flow, stretching between some new project she was working on to railing on how damned foolish he had been to go forward without her.  Slowly the sun crept over the horizon, flooding his rooms with the warm morning light and still he did not stir.  Shadows moved across the room as the sun passed through the sky, caregivers and servants came and went.  They also continued to gather beneath Talorei's eyes as each moment passed.  In direct contrast to Ailos's having been cleaned and neatly bandaged before being tucked into the large bed that they often shared, Tal still wore the tattered and torn armor she had when they had been out on the hunt.  Her hair hung loosely about her shoulders from where it had fallen free of the tight braids she wore to keep it up and out of her way, her hands were wrapped snugly in bandages much like her love.  What aches she still felt were all but ignored as was all advice for her to go and find some rest herself.  

It was late in the afternoon.  She'd barely noticed the slim woman who slipped in with a small tray in hopes that perhaps this one would tempt Tal's appetite, having shifted herself so that she was folded over the edge of the bed from her chair, her head resting near Ailos's hip while she continued to prattle on.  When it finally came, the slight twitch of his fingers was barely registered so weary and worn was she - surely it was a trick of her imagination.  And then it came again.  The slightest of pressures between their bandaged hands jerked Tal from her stupor and jolted her into sitting up.

"Ailos?" she called softly, leaning forward so that she hovered over him, nearly crying aloud when she saw the slight shifting of his eyes beneath the closed lids.  Another twitch of his fingers was quickly followed by muscles moving and then freezing as his aches and pains made themselves known.  A low groan wisped past his lips before his eyes finally fluttered open, Tal's hand quickly rising to cup his cheek as she smiled tearily down at him.  "Belore be praised," she whispered, leaning in to gently press her lips to his.  

"Talorei?" he rasped, making to mimic her gesture but pausing with a sharp intake of breath with the movement.  "Where are w...we're home," he noted, finally recognizing his surroundings.  

"Yes, you're home.  I figured you would be far more at ease here than in some clinic.  As soon as you and everyone else were stable we brought everyone here who wanted to return."  For a long moment she simply sat there as relief washed through her.  All the worrying, the fear that he'd never wake up, that last glimpse of him before the cave in took place -- all of it ran through her beleaguered brain and finally culminated with her finally swatting him against the chest.  "Just because you have two working eyes now does NOT mean you get to go out and get yourself killed without me!"

"In my defense, he started it!"

"And I'm going to finish you if you ever think to do something so damned foolish again."

"But I won."

For a moment Tal just stared at him in disbelief before reaching forward to prod viciously at one of the thicker bandages decorating his form.  "Only just barely, though winning is a stretch when you had to be pulled out of there.  Unconscious and barely clinging to life, mind you."

He grunted and just barely stifled a scream as he tried to edge away from her finger. "But...I...won."

It was the wrong thing to say to the incensed woman as she just moved to another spot.  "Does this feel like winning to you? Does it?!"

Before she could move again he then moved with surprising speed, his hand wrapping around her wrist and holding her still as he spoke quietly to her.  "Most of these were not of the demons making. I felt Belore flow through me, my muscles still feel like a pure fire burns beneath them."  She stared down at him, not really hearing the words she saw his lips forming.  The shadows under her eyes seemed that much heavier with the heat of temper coloring her cheeks, but slowly even that slipped from her as her hand fell limply to the bed cover.  In direct contrast to her viciousness the moment before, when she finally moved again she gently wrapped an arm over his middle and stretched out alongside of Ailos and eased herself as close as she could without causing him any discomfort.  There was nothing she could think of to say though so many words threatened to overrun her.

I was so scared...

When I saw you there so still…

I couldn't get to you in time…

So scared…

Thought you'd never wake up.  That you were going to leave me here alone again…

Tal buried her face against his chest, exhaling loudly when she felt his arms move to wrap around her in turn.  She could hear him murmuring to her, feel the press of his lips to the crown of her head.  And then she knew nothing as exhaustion finally pulled her down into the velvety clutches of sleep.  It was there they were both found some time later when one of the doctors stopped by on their scheduled check.  The young woman only smiled in relief when Ailos turned to her, stiffly raising a hand to gesture quiet so as to not stir the sleeping magistrix.

Tilt

The night was a cool one, not cold enough to be uncomfortable but the chilled marble of the bench Eli laid on was welcome against her heated skin.  She tried to ignore the aches that still wracked her slender form.  The dressings itched and any movement made the stitches all too known.  Between the priestess' efforts and those of her own personal healers at home, they'd done the best they could, but some things still just had to come in their own time.  A frown pulled at her features, all too well aware of how much she had depended on the handful of physicians that she trusted with her situation, especially since she had allied herself with the Warband.  

The stars watched her as she watched them, her eyes unfocusing on the pinpricks of light in the sky as her thoughts drifted to her newfound brother.  There was that tiny flicker of hope in that distant part of her thoughts, the ones he supposedly hidden away from the parasite she bound herself to all those years ago.  Instead she made herself focus on anything else but that promise he had made to her.  She still hadn't spoken to Ailos since, the sting of betrayal rearing its head once again.  Almost every time she thought they might have come to some sort of reconciliation, something else came to light or happened that would set them right back to where they were.  Lormeus?  Azkaellon?  She still hadn't decided what or how to think of him.  No matter the excuses given to her, it still manage to hurt that something of that magnitude had been kept from her for so many years.  Not only Ailos, but Drakar even had kept silent.  Had Talynna known too before she met her end?  Her parents, it seemed everyone but her had known.  She was quite sure Altiel had known too, but she could at least accept his silence to date as part of whatever had initially bound him to Ailos.  Of course she could strike out at him as she had the others, but after everything else, what purpose would it serve?

A soft breeze rippled the silken robe she wore, the silvery fall of her hair dancing over the smooth pebbles that marked the paths through her gardens.  As they often did these days, her thoughts moved to the man she left sleeping in their bed.  Her irritation with her brothers certainly hadn't dissipated, but still they lingered as well.  

"...you will need others in your life besides me if you are to ever be happy again..."

"Maybe even find a reason to live to the fullest...You deserve happiness. Both of you."

"You will have a happy fulfilling life if I have anything to say about it..."

Three different people, all the same thought process.  She had had a fulfilling life, or at least some sort of life that she had been content in before being brought back.  But happiness?  Her frown at the stars only deepened as she stretched her memories out before her.  There had been a time, yes.  But like with everything else, they seemed muddled.  There was that time before her husband had overstepped that last piece of humanity he possessed and brought her down with him, and then there was everything that happened since.  Every minute detail, the pitch and tone of his voice when he told her he could save her, that maddened look made only more terrifying as she truly saw how the Fel addiction had been eating away at him bit by bit.  The warmth of his blood on her hands, the burning of the seal and that rich feminine laughter echoing in her ears.  Those were things she'd never forget.  

But before, the memories were still there.  She could remember the look on his face when she finally told him there was to be a child of their own after they had tried for so long.  She remembered when he asked for her hand.  She remembered all those years growing up with Ailos and the smiles that would make their faces ache as they plotted something or another to break her out of her studies for a day.  But all of those, she knew intellectually there had been happiness and joy, even as there was heartache and sadness.  She just didn't remember what it felt like.  Happiness, joy, love - she knew she knew of them once, but how long had it been?  None of them had touched her since she sold herself for the promise of life and power, an unknown sacrifice she had offered away as easily as she had her husband's life.  The brightest light of her life, could she even remember what her son had even looked like now?  His joyous laughter when he'd pounce into bed with them both on a cold winter's morning was simply a shadow now.  Bit and pieces, that's all she had left of him even though she could too easily remember the shattering of her heart when word came of his death.  Those of Ailos's children over the years, her nieces and nephews who had been the sparks in the darkness.  The light and the dark of all those years before everything changed, who even was that woman back then?

The woman who had fallen and risen reborn as something else entirely, the one who laid there listening to the soft rustling of the evening breeze rifling through the leaves and brush of her own personal Eden.  Every so often the silence was broken by the trilling croak of one of her ravens, but that was as much a comfort as anything else.  This woman knew nothing of that happiness the fools around her kept speaking of.  Anger, hatred, hostility and rage - those were the tenets of her being now.   They kept her safe and they kept her alive, fueling her existence  by shielding herself in them and using their strengths to keep the demon who held her pleased.  

Happiness and love, these things being offered about so easily, never minding the weakness they brought with them.  Her family, was that even love?  They were her people, they shared her blood.  There were unbreakable ties, no matter how they pissed her off more often than not.  For all of her blustering and threats, she knew she would never truly harm any of them.  There was some lost sentiment there, but not love.  There was duty, there was responsibility to all of the Lightsworns that came before them.  But love?  

Then there was Altiel.  How easily he spoke of it and laid it so readily at her feet.  Even now she still waited for him to break off into laughter and turn his back on her.  It was only a matter of time, right?

"Weakness."

Eli started, but then forced herself to relax, her eyes closing as if they too could shut the voice away.

"He has made you weak, they've all made you weak.  Look at what they've done to you."

"No, an explosion did this to me.  This bloody, pointless war has done this to me."

"But who involved you, hm?  There were never sides to be chosen, everyone was an enemy or an asset.  They involved you because you involved yourself with them.  This family who threw you away and kept you at arm's length, what have they done to deserve you?  Not a thing.  You've let them make you forget how you were so much stronger without them."

The voice was a silken one, at least for now.  That sweet and wheedling tone that seemed so sensible, why would she ever second guess it?  

"They are of no concern to you.  For now it amuses me to involve myself with their world.  When it no longer amuses me then I will leave them as they left me.  It's just that simple."  Her bravado she pulled close to her, wrapping herself in an attempted air of indifference.  It didn't stop the soft hitch of her breath when she moved then, pain rippling through her as she eased herself up and off the bench.  Altiel was still sleeping, or was for the moment.  He was only a short distance away and it would be easy enough to wake him and distract herself from the demon's prattle.

Or at least that had been her plan.  Eli stopped short when after only a few steps, a shadowed projection of the Shivarra stood before her.    Though they spoke often, there was only a handful of occurrences where the demon would actually show herself in some fashion.  As such, it was enough to make Eli lightheaded, the air around them suddenly so thin it was hard to draw breath.  

"I grow tired of you."

Five words, but five words were nearly enough to make her heart stop in her chest, and Eli was left scrambling for thoughts of all that she hadn't yet gotten to do if her life were to be snuffed out in this very instance.  

'Not now...too soon...Not alone...Idontwanttodie…’'

Her thoughts tripped over themselves as she swallowed thickly, wanting nothing more in that moment for her brother to hide behind like she did when she was a child.  Or Altiel, his hand resting reassuringly against her back.  Letting her know without the words she so often scoffed at that she wasn't alone.

The Shivarra stepped close, her incorporeal form moving silently but Eli could easily feel the brush of her fingertips caressing her cheek.  Her two middle hands slid down Eli's arms before encircling her wrists, holding her in place as a grin spread across the demon's lips beneath the gauzy veil she wore.  

"I have warned you.  I have chastised you.  Still you persist in this foolishness.  I gave you everything you asked for and asked so very little in return, and now you seek to renege on our little arrangement.  I had such wonderfully high hopes for you, little one."

Fear, true fear, froze the very blood in her veins and left her unable to move, unable to reply.  The demon’s voice was no longer the silken whispers that so often plagued her thoughts.  Instead now they were laced with menace and the promise of punishment.  Her hands were still held tightly, another was stroking her claws idly across Eli’s cheek.  The Shivarra grinned down at her malevolently as she leaned in ever closer until they were nearly nose to nose.  

“Where to even begin, hm?” she taunted her, the stroking fingers snatching Eli’s chin and holding her firmly in place.  “Oh, I know.  We’ll start off with a little secret, and then what you can and will do to get back into my good graces.”  A clawed finger tapped at her cheek.  Fear still froze her voice, but her mind lept at the phrasing that indicated she may just live to see the sun rise.  Whatever it was, she could endure.  Anything at all, just she had to hold on long enough for her brother to come through as he said he would.  “You have your secrets, and I have a few of my own.  So lost in your own thoughts and delusions, you really are quite ignorant and oblivious, my darling.”  While the Shivarra purred, so very amused with herself, her lower arms reached down to rest her hands on Eli’s hips.  “But then I suppose you wouldn’t have known any better, hm?  Your poor husband, it was all his fault really.  Perhaps if he hadn’t been so weak, you would have been more mindful, eh?  But you never knew.  Even after all this time.”  The creature’s grin slipped into a wide smirk even as one of the hands at her hips slid over to rest against her lower belly.  

“He was weak.  In mind, in body, in soul.  Even down to his very seed.  Oh, I know you always believed it to be you, but it never was.”  Her voice whispered so clearly into Eli’s ear as she leaned in all the closer, like a friend sharing softly spoken confidences.  “Do you think I’ve allowed you this long simply because I was fond of you?  All that you’ve given me for our little arrangement, and you never knew of those sweet little morsels that grew within you?  They tipped the scales only slightly in your favor, and you’ve never known.  Not of a single one of them. ��Those of the purest of hearts that you’ve felled, they have nothing on something that pure, that untouched.”  Eli didn’t breathe, didn’t blink.  Trapped as she was in the demon’s hold she wasn’t even sure that her heart still beat as what was being told to her registered.  The Shivarra pulled back enough so that she could see her pet’s expression, that stunned bloodless face staring back at her in the dim light of the gardens.  Still taunting her, the demon rested her forehead against Eli’s, a self-satisfied sigh rippling her veil as she relished in the memory.  

“You never knew.  Not then, and even now you’re just as oblivious as that which again grows within you.”  

Eli’s eyes held hers, the weight of her words finally widening her eyes as what was being said.  Never had Eli’s strengths been as Ailos’s had, or any of her other family.  She knew of the Light, but she never had the skill to wield it in any true sort of fashion.  But with that pronouncement, she only then remembered back all those centuries ago.  She and her husband tried so long to have a child.  There were so many false hopes, miscarriages, all gone before they had any hope of being.  But she knew, she always knew when she felt that tiny little spark within her, even though it was only the once that that spark grew into the son they finally rejoiced in after so long.  In all of the time since, there had never been hope that she’d know that again, so what was the point?  Some part of her raged that she should have known, no matter hope or disappointment that would have followed.  It was that same sense of knowing then that the demon spoke true, against all the odds that one secret wish she had borne since even before her world came crashing down - Altiel had given it to her.  He taunted her about the little girl who wanted only that one and only love, to have that happy ending that only fools dreamed of.

Whatever might have come about from the revelation that she was carrying a child once more was lost in a whole new level of fear that would have sent her to her knees if she hadn’t been caught up in the demon’s hold.  The Shivarra on the other hand, her fingers stroked almost lovingly against the flat of her stomach and true glee was written plainly on her features as so many emotions flit across Eli’s face.

“I could leave you as you are, the warning and fear of what may be could be just as delicious,” she mused, but then her features darkened and her fingers dug suddenly into the still healing flesh of Eli’s stomach, still hidden beneath the bandages.  “But you allowed that creature to threaten you, to threaten me.  For that alone I should kill you where you stand, that you didn’t even strike him down.  Especially after all of this misbehavior from you of late - you have no one to blame but yourself.”

For the first time since the Shivarra appeared before her, Eli strained and thrashed against her hold, panic and fear making her desperate enough to try and pull away, no matter how futile her efforts were.  She felt that connection open between her and the demon, that familiar pull when her handler pulled from her own feedings.  Whatever had been done before, this time with her eyes opened, that small spark she felt inside of her began to dim, slowly, so slowly, until it winked out entirely and a whole new kind of pain ripped through her as her body reacted and rejected that hollowness that existed in place of the life now snuffed out.  Rage, agony and sorrow ripped from her throat though it did little to muffle the pleased cackling that echoed in her ears as she was finally released to crumble to ground, the Shivarra’s form slowly fading away.  

“It’s life to prolong your own, just as your husband’s did when we first met.  Kill the one that dared threaten us, and maybe I can find it in myself to forgive you.  Fail to, and this is just the first of many who will suffer and fall before your very eyes.  I will destroy all of them before claiming my prize, only when all that you’ve ever loved or even cared for is naught but ashes on the wind.”  Her voice faded out as the final vestiges of the demon faded away in wisps of smoke, leaving only Eli there on the ground with her arms clutching tightly at her midsection.  Tears burned at her eyes as the unexpected sobs choked her.  She could only vaguely feel the warmth of blood leaking down her thighs as her body caught up with what the demon had wrought.  

There was no sense of time as she laid there, balled up on the smoothed pebbles as she mourned the loss of something she had only known for a handful of seconds, the promise it might have once held.  

Alone.

If only she hadn’t fallen into this foolishness, none of this would have ever happened.  She should have killed Altiel before he was able to lay a hand on her, she should have turned her back on Ailos as soon as he tried to lure her back.  Alone she was safe, alone there was no worry or fear of anything like this.

But it didn’t stop her from wanting Altiel with her now. The genial trickster who somehow seemed to think everything would just fall into place.

It didn’t stop her from wanting Ailos.  Even with all that they’d been through, she never forgot that he was the one person who could right all of the world’s wrongs and make things right.  

It didn’t stop her from wanting Lormeus.  To do as he claimed he could, to trap and hold the demon.  Hopefully in some fashion where she could return some of the torture and agony she’d been subjected to for so long.  

A low croak broke through her thoughts, and Eli uncurled enough so that she could see the raven through the veil of her hair and tears.  The bird’s head tilted to the side and he crept close, croaking again softly.  She knew she could send him off, to seek for help, but before she could manage her eyes rolled back and her eyes slid shut as the shock and trauma of everything just pulled her back into the soft darkness where nothing could touch her.

Alone

Originally posted here some time ago.

The great hall rang with conversation of the occupants below, her brother and his burgeoning family relaxing after the evening’s meal had been cleared away.  Eli sat back, reclined against a column listening with half an ear while feeding small bits of raw meat to one of her ravens.  A bright bubble of laughter caught her attention suddenly, and a rare smile pulled at the elven woman’s lips as she glanced down to see her niece laughing over something that had been said.  Her brother’s human wife laughed right along with her daughter, the other two occupants smiling as well.  Her brother looked at ease, a rare enough sight in itself but with his family, it was a different brilliance about him.  

Her smile slipped away as quickly as it appeared when her gaze slid over to third woman in the room.  Still she couldn’t fathom what either her brother or the human woman were thinking, but it wasn’t her business.  She’d voiced her displeasure when the woman had turned up once more and made her thoughts well known though Ailos had brushed them to the side.  That the magistrix still lingered had been bad enough, but the three had come to some sort of twisted arrangement, Eli shook her head and turned her attention back to raven who lightly nipped at her fingertips in a bid for another bite.  Eli easily acquiesced, chuckling softly before ruffling the bird’s feathers indulgently.  Her hand froze suddenly as did the bird perched on her knee, that telltale nudging at her subconsciousness drawing her away from the here and now to that of one of many of her pets that were tucked away all throughout the land.  Fel green eyes shuttered then and she saw as her pet did.  Silently she watched, a sharp vulgarity hissing from her when she released the vision.  A split second later when the family below glanced up at the unexpected noise, all that could be seen was a frantically flapping raven that did one loop above their heads before it made to follow it’s mistress.

The shadows welcomed her as an old friend as Eli dashed out into the night, moving swiftly and silently as she lept up into a nearby tree.  She let herself be guided by her ravens, following their presence through the treetops until she came up on the small gathering of men and women just outside of the castle’s perimeter.  Elves, not a single human among them of course.  Leaves barely rustled as she lit onto a branch nearest to them, her ears easily catching the whispers as they readied themselves.  

“Traitor.”

“Usurper.”

“Move quickly, no mercy.”

“No survivors.”

Just over a dozen of them, she noted, her fingers flexing briefly before she reached to pull free a pair of blades.  Some looked more at ease than others, a few looked downright uncomfortable with the sword or weapon that they had chosen to arm themselves with.  Not really threats, but sometimes they were just as bad for a lucky strike.  Some were large, others easily showed they were well used to battle.  A rag tag group, she sneered from where she was safely hidden away yet.  She’d just been about to pounce down when a silken voice slid into her mind and left her scrambling to remain up in her perch.  Her throat worked painfully as the familiar thirst began to rise almost immediately.

“Dearling, it has been far too long.”

“Not the time.”

“Oh but I beg to differ.  It seems to be quite the perfect time, especially since you’ve been so shameless in ignoring me.”

“Can’t this wait?  Little busy.”

“No, oh I don’t believe it can.  I’ve been quite generous in your lackadaisical attitude of late, but seeing what I’m seeing, I think you can make it up to me just fine.”

“Later.  I don’t have time for this now.” The thought had barely crossed between them when Eli felt those invisible fingers reach out and clamp around her heart.  She gasped audibly, a hand slapping out to dig her fingers into the tree’s brittle bark as her vision swam.

“No, now.”  This time there was nothing sly or teasing, but forceful and an order that couldn’t be denied.  “Too long you’ve denied me my recompense, playing house with that family that turned you away.  You need to decide and decide now.  Either those there, or you leave them for far easier prey.  You’ve allowed weakness to touch you and that isn’t something I care much for.  I have no use for weaklings.  So you have a choice.  Those you were about to dispose of so wastefully, or those who you left behind so that you could come play in the darkness.  Which will it be?  Oh, and that dwarf you’ve been playing with for days?  Do not even consider him as anything worth mentioning.”

Eli fought to breathe through the demon’s grip, her favored Dhu croaking somewhere nearby to cover any noise she may make.  “Open up then.  It was going to be bad enough trying to down them all as it was, but if I can’t kill them outright, you’re going to give me a little more assistance.”  There as a moment’s silence before the grip on her heart slowly loosened and Eli worked to quickly level her heartbeat and her breathing before she felt that circuit between she and her jailer open.

“There’s a doll.  All you ever had to do was ask.”

Steadying herself, Eli rolled her eyes silently while gauging the crowd below one last time before she shoved off from the tree branch.  Her feet sunk quietly into the soft earth, none of them the wiser until the two furthest to the rear suddenly cried out and crumpled to the ground.  She didn’t allow herself even a second’s hesitation, the shadows wafting away when she moved in to knock out the next nearest pair before the rest had a chance to react.  Another quick slash across one’s lower back to render them immobile, another precisely landed blow to the temple.  Nearly half of them were incapacitated before the others finally reacted.  Even then, Eli didn’t pause, only stepped in close when the apparent leader came rushing at her.  Instead of attacking outright, her fingers curled into claws and she grabbed him by the face.  Her eyes began to glow brilliantly and a sickening fog of Fel began to curl around the woman’s form, the man freezing still as she slowly began to drain the life from him in front of the rest.  “Fools.  You have no one to blame but yourselves.  You could have accepted what was and lived long and full lives,” she sneered, her eyes never leaving those of the man that she held.  “But no.  You thought that this pitiful little congregation would be enough to bring down Lightsworn?  Like your former lord, you miscalculated.  And you’ll share his fate for your stupidity.”  The man’s skin began to shrivel and crack, his body shrinking in on itself as she drained him dry.  It seemed like ages, but less than a minute had passed before she let the withered husk fall to the ground.  

Eli rolled her shoulders, very nearly smiling with the lovely feeling she had denied herself for too long.  The softest of sighs echoed in her mind even as a stifled shriek cut through her haze, the soft thump of a weapon hitting the ground and footsteps hurrying away.  Without even looking in the direction a hidden blade was whipped out and flung at the fleeing woman.  Another shriek finally broke her smile free, knowing that the paralytic poison cured onto the blade’s surface wouldn’t let the girl get too far off.  It was enough to break the rest free of their stupor as they rushed at the lone woman.  Eli let them come, easily dodging this blow, taking the next in a bid to steal in close.  

“Five on the ground, one dispatched.  The runner would be pulled back.  Eight…” she mentally counted, too easily disarming a young man - just barely an adult - before knocking him out as well.  An older female lunged in, her elbow raised to crack Eli in the face, earning her a sharp hiss and crunch of bone.  Warmth spread from her nose and down over her lips and chin, but it was worth it to see the female’s bright blue eyes widen just as suddenly.  She glanced down to see one of Eli’s daggers jutting from her stomach, a horrifying discovery in itself but she stood frozen as the first fingers of Fel spread through her veins.  Eli’s lips twisted into a feral grin as the realization struck the Quel’dorei and she began to claw at the dagger that had helped to deliver the infection.  Even in the dark the fine tracery of veins and arteries began to radiate that same vile green that sang through her own veins as it worked it’s way through the woman’s system and fed on her from the inside out.  “Nine…”

Whirling about, Eli quickly deflected an incoming blow and pulled free another dagger to replace the one she just lost, parrying a young man’s attacks with ease.  Her focus cost her, only just catching the hiss of displaced air a moment before an arrow burst through just below her collarbone.  Uncaring of the consequence, she ripped a dagger across the man’s throat without a care of salvaging him to feed her handler, a low snarl echoing through head as she whipped around to advance on the woman who was hurriedly trying to nock another arrow.  The demon’s temper fed her own and she could feel her canines elongating to cut into her busted lip.  The woman shrieked and dropped the bow to the ground as Eli came close, but she fell just as quickly as her companion had with her throat torn out.  Again the demon voiced her displeasure, nearly causing Eli to fold in on herself, but she reached out to try and drain whatever lingering trace of the woman’s life force may have been left in an attempt to placate the beast.  Her hand began to tremble as she wrapped it around the woman’s gaping throat, her patron withdrawing her assistance in her displeasure of the wasted souls.  Still, Eli tried to pull what she could to offer, but she suddenly froze.  Her eyes dropped down to where she saw a foot of steel protruding from her chest.  

“Well now, cousin.  Don’t believe I expected to see you out here,” came a soft purr in her ear even as she tried to draw in breath.  “Or perhaps if I had, it would have been with you at our side.  Certainly not playing as your brother’s little lapdog.”

Slowly she craned her neck while trying to ignore the growing taste of blood in her mouth and distinct sound of echoing silence ringing between her ears.  Just barely she could make out the somewhat familiar visage of her cousin, a son of the recently deposed despot whom Ailos had unseated.  Mentally she made note to give him hell for leaving loose ends, but for the moment she made do with curling her lips into a sneer.  

“That’s where we differ.  I don’t need to hide behind others and let them handle what I can do myself.  Something your father didn’t understand either, but it matters little.  You two can compare notes here very soon,” she snarled, dropping a dagger to grab tight onto the sword’s end to hold it and him in place while her other hand reached behind her to slash at his thigh and groin.  He yelped and tried to pull back, not realizing her grip on his sword only pulled her with him.  She hissed out a pained and wet sounding breath but held on tightly.  He yanked once more, jerking her back against him before he released his hold and staggered back trying to stifle the blood pouring down his leg.  Eli stumbled forward, groaning with her holding the full weight of the sword.  Reaching behind her she pulled it free before turning about to stare down her cousin while straightening as regally as she could manage.  She spat out a splatter of blood while wielding his sword in front of her.  “Please, keep me upright and you’ll have the offering promised to you,” she pleaded internally as she slowly began to advance forward.  “Just like your father, you’re weak,” she sneered, trying to muffle her ragged breathing, taking great pleasure in her cousin’s panic as it settled in that he was the last standing, and regardless of if she made it to him or not, unless he could get to a healer, he would bleed out soon enough.  

“Bitch!” he raged, stumbling back into a tree, his hand pressed uselessly to his thigh.  His sword was tossed to the side, it’s weight an unnecessary burden as she slowly closed in.  Eli raised her hands as if to shield herself from his slurs he slung at her, but only laughed while reaching out to wrap her fingers around his throat.  Fingernails dug into the tender flesh and her lips peeled back from bloodstained teeth.  

“Die,” she hissed, her eyes flaring once, dimmed and flickering brightly once more as she began to drain his life away slowly and painfully.  His screaming and weak flailing helped to distract her from her own dwindling strength, her eyes never leaving his while his skin began to wrinkle and shrink into a flimsy hide stretched tightly over bones.  Finally she let what was left of her cousin fall to the ground as she staggered back, only then pressing a hand to her chest as the first fingers of fear tickled at her.  Her handler was silent and she felt her strength failing her as the adrenaline wore off.  Soft whimpers from those fallen around her were all that broke the silence of the night, that and the gurgling breaths that came more labored as time went on.  

“Please,” she tried again, falling to her knees while trying to pull enough energy to start draining those poor souls who had followed her cousin on his failed uprising.  Several heartbeats later there finally came the smallest of flickers.  It had been just enough of a delay that Eli had thought perhaps her end would be that night, same as the rest, but it was enough that she exhaled loudly, hacking up more blood as her shredded lung struggled to hold.  She had no words to share, only crawling forward to slowly drain one before moving on to the next.  Whatever strength there was gained from her efforts was quickly whittled away, passing from her to the greedy shivarra, the elven woman only the conduit.  Eli winced as she passed over the two she killed that were lost to her and the demon, knowing there would be hell to pay, but after what seemed like hours, she finally collapsed, gasping for air and struggling to hold onto consciousness.  

“It is done,” she whispered softly, knowing she’d be heard regardless.  Again, there was a long silence before that familiar velvety voice spoke.

“Wasteful,” came the admonishment before a sigh echoed through her mind.  “You should be grateful that I’m as fond of you as I am, dearling, even if you are a troublesome one.”  It was all the warning she had before a scream was ripped from her and her body bowed off the ground.  It didn’t matter how many times she had suffered it before, the sudden flare of Fel cauterizing her wounds left her throat ragged and her torn body aching a thousand times worse.  It wasn’t the gentle healing she remembered from the time before, but then the Fel wasn’t meant to heal.  It would keep her from dying, even if she had to suffer until her body could knit itself back together in it’s own time.  Several moments later she fell back down to the ground, shadows creeping in on the edges of her vision as she wheezed out sharp breaths.  “Just remember this.  Here you are as you are, and for what?  To keep that so called family of yours safe?  They don’t care about you, else they’d have followed you, they’d have wondered what sent you out in the night.  And will they wonder when you don’t return them tonight?  I doubt it, my dear.  The only one you have to depend on is me.  Something to remember if you think to try and forget about our little arrangement again.”

The words pricked at her, as did the truth they carried, leaving her to swallow thickly around the coppery taste that filled her mouth.  Before she let the darkness take her, she reached out for her ravens that hovered close.  With a thought, two darted off towards the keep.  The first sought out the old reprobate, it’s feathered form dissipating into smoke to find the smallest cracks and crevices before reincorporating to caw raucously as it swooped and clawed at her brother’s sleeping seneschal.  

“Get up, get to Ailos.  Rally the guard and increase the patrols.  Guard them, keep them safe,” she ordered weakly through her raven, letting it convey to Altiel what she had found and what had happened.  The other easily found her brother, he and his women having retired to their rooms in the time since she left.  In her mind’s eye, she saw him frown at the presence of the bird before carefully extricating himself from his bed.  Dhu lit on his finger as he too passed along what had happened.  “Stay put.  Crimsonheart is seeing to the guards,”she ordered, then cut the connection while her other trailed Altiel as he hurried about, his wife close as the keep locked down.  Relief finally slid through her veins as things finally settled, her breath growing shallower as her brows knit together.  Drawing on the last vestiges of her energy, she whispered a few words of archaic Thalassian with the image of her rooms fixed firmly in mind.  Her breath caught as the spell struggled to take, but finally it did and instead of the soft earth at her back, it was the plush carpeting of her rooms.  With Ailos prodding at her head, ever demanding, darkness finally swept to claim her.

Retribution

Originally posted here some time ago

Her comings and goings were often erratic enough that most of the guard and household staff didn’t give Eli a second look when she allowed herself to be seen, but as she passed through the elaborate hallways that wound their way to her rooms, those who were about sensed enough of her mood to give her a wide berth.  The cloth wrapped parcel under her arm and the rank odor wafting from it only gave them all the more reason to, and it was with some hesitation that one of the maids came close when Eli gestured to her.  

“Find Crimsonheart and have him attend me immediately.”  Her words were short, but without the normal heat and irritation that most had come to associate with the woman.  Eli didn’t give her another glance as the maid dipped her head and scurried off, her pace only slowing as she approached her suite.  She didn’t pay any mind to any others who lurked in the halls, she didn’t see the stain of blood her fingers stained across the door as she pushed it open so that she could disappear into the sanctuary within.

“I need these blessed.  Whatever you need to do to infuse them with a lethal level of Light.  As quickly and thoroughly as possible.”  The priest blinked at the order, or perhaps more so who it was coming from.  Eli hadn’t been anywhere near the holy places contained within Quel’venoraal, let alone what had once been her brother’s seat within the great cathedral in the heart of Suel’thuash.  The petite woman stared him down, almost daring him to deny her request as she held out a small case for him to take.  That she stood there encased in black leather, no markings or sigils to identify her only made the bishop swallow audibly before he inclined his head and accepted her burden, hurrying away to do her bidding.  Eli rolled her shoulders and tried to ignore the uncomfortable crawling beneath her skin, her nose crinkling when she turned her head up to some gilded relic that hung just above the entrance.  The bishop found her waiting some hours later, sitting on the back of one of the great pews that lined the cathedral with her hands folded and her eyes forward, though unfocused.  Only the clearing of his throat caused her to blink, her attention shifting forward just as he offered the darkly stained wood case back to the elven woman.  

“With more time we could have done better, but I believe this should suit you well, my lady.”  

Eli opened the case and looked at the two daggers, looking no different than they had when she delivered them but as soon as her glove-encased fingers came close to the folded metal, she could feel the heat reaching through the heavy leather to sear at her fingertips.  

“They’ll do just fine.  I’ll be sure to commend your assistance to Lord Lightsworn,” she said crisply, snapping the case closed once more before hopping off the pew and disappeared as quickly as she had arrived.

Eli sat on the edge of her bed, a box of medical supplies opened at her side but yet untouched.  Her rooms were silent as they always were, a long unoccupied wing of her family’s estate and as far as she could manage away from most other occupants.  It suited her better, knowing she could exist with minimal contact with anyone else unless she chose otherwise.  For the moment though, even her mind was silent.  The first time in many days and she just reveled in the moment.  Even the ache and pain from her mangled hands couldn’t take away from the relief that came in this rarity.  Bits and pieces of her armor littered the floor, only remaining in the form fitted leather that covered her torso and legs.  Her gauntlets were a total loss, but it was one she’d take - their charred bits left behind in the gross muck that seemed to cling to every surface in the Undercity.  

She sat in the same decrepit chair that she recognized from the vision her raven had gifted her, leaning back in it with her eyes shut.  She heard the same sickly drip that had been one of the last things Ailos had heard, she smelled that same rank that permeated the lost kingdom.  The chair toddled precariously on it’s back two legs while Eli coached herself to patience.  Sure, she could hunt her target down through the city - it surely wouldn’t have been the first time.  But there was something to be said for her chosen spot, a small touch of irony she couldn’t and wouldn’t overlook.  

So she waited.  

Time passed immeasurably deep beneath the place human kings once called home, but soon enough Eli cracked open one eye when there came the approaching drag of footsteps.  Muffled gutterspeak barely registered as she focused so intently on the door that slowly swung open.  There came first a pair of deathguards, some poor soul hanging unconscious between them, her eyes passing over them two for the third bringing up the rear.  Again came the swift sting of heat when her hands wrapped around the daggers she had set within reach for such a moment, the chair flying to the side as she flew forward.  Before either of the three could raise the alarm, the first two’s heads were quickly severed from their bodies.  Two thumps as they hit the floor and rolled away, two clatters as their bodies crumpled to the ground.  Another thump as the unconscious elf fell between them and a louder one when Eli used the force propelling her forward to ram the third deathguard into the door, slamming it shut behind him.  Her low chuckling filled the room then, seeing the runes dance around the frame of the door and sealing it shut before she pranced back a few steps.  The vicious cursing coming from the last of the three was tsk’ed at, her eyes lighting over to where the unmoving heads and empty shoulders smoked slightly, something that curled her lips with satisfaction even as her hands continued to burn.  

“Apparently morale isn’t the only thing low in these times,” she murmured, stepping over to nudge one of the heads with the tip of her boot and turning her head to give the remaining deathguard a smile as if they were sharing secrets.  “Skill is so very lacking as well.  A pity, really.  But do not worry.  You and I, we will have a bit more fun.”

“You have no idea what you’ve done!  The Dark Lady will have your head,” he hissed, ripping his rusted sword free of its sheath as he lumbered forward.  Eli straightened and let him plow into her, her back impacting the grimy wall behind her.  Her eyes flared briefly and a manic grin slowly curled her lips as another set of runes flickered to life beneath them.  His golden eyes swiveled around in the deep sockets when he struggled to move, the trap holding him tightly in place.  Eli made a grand show of slowly leaning to the side to deposit her daggers on the table that held all sorts of grizzly concoctions before straightening once more, only to lean forward to breathe softly near his rotting ear.

“She can try.  But unlike you, and unlike an idiotic relation of mine - I know far better than leave loose ends that will only unravel and bring about ruin. We’ll have our fun, or at least I will, a debt will be repaid and no one will ever know who brought you your final death.  Because you’re incompetent.  You’re a failure to your Dark Lady.  Your name and those of your friends here will be cursed and then forgotten, swept under the rug and tossed out onto trash heap.”  While she spoke she carefully unfurled the deathguard’s skeletal fingers from around the hilt of his sword before tossing it safely aside.  “You think just because she gave the order that you wouldn’t pay the price for what you’ve done?”  Eli straightened and carefully step aside, being sure not to disturb the runes etched into the muck-covered stone.  Silently she steeled herself before taking up one of her daggers, pushing the burn aside as she turned back and gripped the deathguard’s nearest hand.  Ignoring the sickening slide of rotting flesh, she carefully set about carving away each joint, each finger.  “Poison would have been more poetic, I realize.  But too quick, and not nearly effective enough against your like as it would have been for a human or other of the shorter lived races.”  She spoke conversationally as she worked, the blessed blade severing and carving through the necrotic magics that animated the corpse and kept it together.  The trap kept him immobile and silent while she continued on, slowly amassing a pile of digits and bones as she worked her way up to one shoulder before moving to the other arm.  The larger manacle that had once held her brother was tugged forward and snapped shut around the deathguard’s neck, adjusting the links so that his feet dangled just above the floor.  “And still even now, you wonder maybe just who I am that brings me here to spend this time with you.  That really is just one small slap in the face of so many others.  You assume that all of those you toy with down here will keep their secrets.  But you see?”  She paused to tap a bloodied finger to the side of her head.  “If you weren’t so inept, you might have seen that you weren’t so alone in this cell when you signed your death warrant.  I saw everything you did, and I swore I’d see that you paid for it.  And here we are now.”  Kneeling down, she continued on, slowly breaking the deathguard down piece by piece so that even if they were interrupted, there would be no chance of reassembling him back into service.  That her own hands suffered, the Light reaching out to burn away all that was unnatural, she cared not.  Nor did she care about the sludge of blood and flesh that mingled with her own, all that mattered was the task at hand.  

Eventually all that was left was the deathguard’s skull and a few vertebrae just barely dangling from the chains, his jaw steadily flapping from where she had released him from the trap once his legs had been rendered obsolete.  She had wanted to hear his screams, she had wanted to hear him beg.  Rising slowly she arched back to crack her own bones, rolling her shoulders and stretching while he continued to rail at her.  She froze suddenly, realizing the elven prisoner had awoken at some point, and sat against the far wall, watching her owlishly, but silent.  Seeing that he hadn’t presented himself as a threat, or was at least content to enjoy the fate that was to have been his, Eli turned back to the deathguard and lifted her chin high.

“While poison may have been all you deserved, there is some small sliver of justice in that you will die by the very Light you robbed from the world.  Perhaps you believed we wouldn’t find out what had happened, perhaps you believed us to be cowards such as you, and would not seek retribution.  You were so very wrong, and you will pay for your idiocy.  If there is any sense of justice, I will be there too when your Dark Lady falls - because her day will soon come just as sure as yours is today.  Even if I’m not, I will rejoice and be content that day in the knowledge of itself.”  She stood there silently for a moment, just a hairsbreadth away so that she could small the reek on the Forsaken’s breath, see the fine tremors causing the glowing light in his eye sockets to vibrate in their positions.  “For the death you brought to Ailos Lightsworn, know that is why today is your own ignoble execution.  I only wish it could be for all to see, but it is not to be.  Still, we Lightsworns will know that retribution was sought and justice was served.  You?  You will know nothing and none will mourn your passing.  Your head will be my trophy I gift my brother, and I can only imagine some of the delights he may find in such a thing.”  She let him rail on at her for another moment, her fingers flexing around the slick-handled blade before she finally moved.  With all of her weight behind it, she slammed it forward and drove it into the center of his forehead, the force shooting sparks out from where the blessed metal struck the wall behind him.  The cold golden glow slowly faded from where his eyes once were, the Light-touched blade destroying the necromancy and dark magic that had given him his rebirth.  

Eli stood there for several minutes, staring blindly at the deathguard’s skull and trying to find the relief she believed would be there to greet her at this ending.  There was some relief, but it still seemed somewhat hollow.  Prying her blade from the wall, she moved over to one of the small tables with the skull still hooked onto the blade.  It was tossed carelessly aside for the moment, her focus then turning to the elven man still on the floor.  She crept over to where he was and knelt down until they were eye to eye.  

“It is nothing personal, but you realize I cannot let you live.  You’ve seen my face, you saw what happened here today.  And unlike these fools, I don’t leave loose ends.”  She paused for a moment, sighing heavily when he simply closed his eyes.  

“Will you at least let my family know?  I’d rather they know that I’m gone instead of left wondering.”

“What is your name?  Where are your people from?”

“Brightsorrow.  Colmus Brightsorrow.  My family has a small leather goods business within Silvermoon.  I was stupid and got involved with some people that I shouldn’t.  But my death will keep my family safe, or I hope that it will.”  

Eli stared at him for a long moment before nodding her head.  “They will be informed.  And I will add to it my word that I will do what I can to ensure that they’ll be safe.”  She heard his sigh of relief, but didn’t give him the opportunity to speak further.  A hidden blade was palmed and driven deeply into his heart with a quick twist to bring his death as swiftly and painlessly as she could manage.  

From her bed Eli stared at the head wrapped in a length of cloth, both it and the daggers tossed aside on a nearby table.  A small box sat with it’s lid removed, clothing that her brother requested packed securely on the bottom.  Comfortable clothes to fit his new form, a fine set of leather gear in case he needed to leave his hidden dwelling until proper armor could be tooled.  Hoods and encompassing head coverings to hide his identity should he so choose.  Waiting beside it all, a horrifically gaudy robe and other garments that could be called nothing but an eyesore - something he’d see at first and quite possibly have a lovely fit about.  A pity she’d not be there to see him receive it, but after their last parting, she wasn’t ready to deal with him face to face again.  Not yet, at least.  She knew she should probably see to the final packing so that it was ready when Crimsonheart finally turned up, but she couldn’t bring herself to move.  Not even when she heard the rapping at her door did she rise, instead just calling out with an “Enter,” not deigning to look up when she just barely heard the quiet footfall of the house’s former spy master as he stepped foot within her private domain.  

Game On

Originally posted here some time ago.

Eli had avoided Erudition for several days, choosing instead to haunt her ancestral home while she tried to come to grips with all that had happened.  She may not have been there in person, but her eyes had seen all and relayed it all back to their mistress.  Another unfamiliar pang caught at her heart, the woman’s pacing pausing as she breathed through it.  

The woman who seemed to be a new constant at her brother’s side merited little thought from her as yet, but at the same token Eli could appreciate that she had kept close through all that Ailos had endured.  It had been difficult, watching him writhe and scream and trying so hard to hold back the urge to rush to him; to try and keep him tethered and safe.  She had seen the writing on the wall even as he’d stuck his hand in the ground, she had noticed the changes that were already beginning to take their hold even before his great fall.  Her pets hovered ever close, so near so that not a word passed without her hearing it, not a thing happening without her seeing it - the little good it did when all was said and done.  

It was a hard pill to swallow.  To have born witness to the hidden face Ailos had shown her briefly when they had reconciled was one thing.  To know that he had fallen entirely, embracing that darkness that clung to him, just waiting for that perfect moment to strike - it made her nauseous to even think about it.  He was supposed to be the incorruptible one.  The Light had always shone so brightly for him and from him as far back as she could remember…and to watch? Unable to act as that flame was snuffed out?  It tore at the woman.  

The servants seemed to understand that something was wrong, that something had happened to put her in a way.  Always unpredictable even in her younger and better days, Ailos’s staff gave the younger woman a wide berth.  So it was with some surprise that there came the rapping of knuckles at the door to her rooms.  Anger at the intrusion lashed out at the unfortunate behind the ornate wood, revealed a moment later to be Altiel.  The same Altiel who stared down at her, unamused when she snarled at him.

“What do you want?”

“You have a visitor.”

“There is no one I wish to see right now.”

“Which is precisely what I told the fellow, but that he then handed me one of these.  You will speak to him.”

Eli bristled and bowed up, preparing to rip the older man a new one for his audacity but that the sigil on the small packet caught her eye and she paled visibly.  She snatched the packet out of Altiel’s grasp, turning it over this way and that as if it were some sort of prank, that her eyes were playing tricks on her.

“Show him in,” she ordered, turning away from the door with the packet caught tightly between her hands.  Her eyes fluttered shut and she exhaled long and slow, trying to collect herself before she heard the movement behind her.  A familiar enough gait, one she recognized from one of the trio who were among her most trusted associates.  He dropped to a knee as she turned back around to close the distance.  

“Apologies to you for the intrusion, mistress,” the man murmured, tilting his head to the side to give Altiel a look where he’d set himself up to listen with the doors closed behind him.  Eli scowled, but waved her hand to soothe his conscience and to speed things up.

“Pay no mind to him Vyen.  Whether he hears this now or later, it will not matter.  What is the meaning of this?  Where did you get it?”  It was then she took note of the small chest between the man’s hands.  

“It was found with the normal correspondences, mistress.  No one saw it delivered, no one saw anyone or anything unusual.  It created quite a stir, as you can imagine.  Our…place of business is secure as it has ever been.  Or was until this.  There was only a small card with your name on it.  We opened it to ensure it wasn’t something explosive or dangerous, or so far as we could tell.  After seeing the sigil, I came straight away despite your warnings to keep our distance.”

“No, you were right to come,” she said lowly, looking from the small packet she had in hand to the chest stuffed full with neatly packed rows of similar packets.  She gave it a small shake, a furrow working itself between her brows at the muffled rattling sound.  There was no label to identify the contents, absolutely nothing save for the disturbing sigil that marked the packet and all those in the chest.  Briefly she raised her eyes to Altiel’s before she cautiously ran a fingernail along the seal.  She tipped the packet over into her hand, the furrow deepening further at the half a dozen seeds toppled onto her palm.  A sharp breath hissed between her teeth, and she hurled the seeds away from her as if they burned.  "Of course,“ she snarled, her fingers balling up into a fist as she began to pace, anger warring with the touch of fear that would flit across her features.  "They’re quick, but how could even they know that fast?”  She muttered softly as if there weren’t still two other occupants within the room.  

’Look what havoc a single seed wrought.  Here are a metric shit ton just to drive home that we know.’  "Snide sons of bitches.  I’ll run each and every one of the bastards through for this,“ she growled, coming out of her brief reverie to pause and stare down both Vyen and Altiel.  Stalking forward she snatched free one of the packets and flung it towards Altiel.  

"See what you can find.  I’ve my methods, you put yours to work as well if you wish to keep him safe.  No matter how much or little you manage to dredge up, report it to me.”  Eli didn’t bother waiting for his response before turning back to her minion.  Another packet was passed over to Vyen, then after a moment two more for his brothers in arms with the same order.  She picked up the chest without another word and strode through the winding halls of the estate.  Only when she reached the large courtyard did she stop, plucking free a few more packets that were safely tucked away before she dropped the chest to the ground with a clatter.  She closed her eyes, sending a silent command to her two remaining pets that were nearby, the third still trailing her brother closely, so that they flew swiftly and silently around the surrounding land.  

That seen to, her eyes roved over the landscape briefly before she held out a hand and tried to call on the magic that ran innately through their blood, though she never had so much skill in it past a few parlor tricks.  It was enough though, to call forth a small ball of flame that danced and flickered over her palm, a few wispy tongues of Fel green dancing among the natural fire.  With little pomp or flare, she hurled the flame at the chest, a small smile of satisfaction curling her lips as it burst into a bright ball of fire.  

“Be careful just who it is you think you’re toying with.  I won’t play nearly so nicely as some others,” she said for the benefit of any ears that happened to be nearby, standing there until nothing remained but ash.

Dare

Originally posted here some time ago.

“I’m going to fucking murder him.”

The words were muttered though there was no one else nearby to hear her threat, save for a pair of ravens crouched on a nearby window sill chittering almost sympathetically.  Eli scowled once more at her reflection before turning away from the wavy glass of the old mirror.  In truth, it was such a small thing, but seeing a reflection of her past staring back at her was something that bothered the woman more than she liked to admit.  The resemblance between the eldest and the youngest was a staggering thing, too often had they been compared as twins for those unfamiliar with their family.  Only the beauty mark below her left eye that was inherited from their mother separated the two even though none of the others had managed it.  

Still, it had been so very difficult not to tell her darling brother to go fuck himself when he threw down the gauntlet the other night.  Theoretically it could have been a great deal worse, but that logic was lost as she stormed around her rooms with her now pale hair trailing loosely behind her.  The other dare thrown out she was safely exempt from at least.  There wasn’t anyone she loved or respected enough to fill a spot closest to her heart let alone a secondary person.  

Easy. 

Her brother’s dare though, it wasn’t nearly as cut and dry.  A full turn of the moon catering to this eccentricity of Ailos.  She snarled in her irritation, spinning about on her heel to snatch up a dagger that rested on a nearby table top.  Catching up a small lock of hair, she quickly sheared it away before securing it with a bit of garrote wire.  A small strip of parchment was scribbled with a quick note of “Fuck you” before she clucked her tongue and lifted a wrist for one of her pets to come to her.  The one flew over on near silent wings and lit upon her wrist, obediently lifting a leg for her to secure the small bundle.

“You know where to take that,” she grumbled, ruffling the feathers of his chest with a knuckle.  The raven gave her a small servile bob of the head before it lifted with a soft ‘caw’ and disappeared through the open window.

Back in the Swing of Things

Originally posted here some time ago.

Companion piece to this and this.

Twilight slowly fell over Erudition, lengthening the shadows even though people continued to scurry about below.  Eli lay reclined against a rooftop, as she often seemed to be these days, a foot bobbing off her knee while she watched the darkening clouds pass overhead.  All in all it had been a remarkably quiet sort of evening.  A touch surprising after all the weird shit that had been taking place since her arrival.  Then tack on the personal matters she had tried to steer clear from - here she snorted softly as a frown wrinkled her forehead - for the hundredth time Eli wondered if perhaps she didn’t make the wrong decision in heeding her brother’s call.  

Her eyes slid shut and all too quickly the memory of his room came flickering to life.  For the first time in so many years, she had gone home.  They’d not spoken since that night weeks ago when they had parted in disappointment and anger and no little bit of fear, but that she’d woken and upon getting dressed, turned up a coin with an all too familiar symbol pressed into it’s face that had somehow found it’s way into a pocket.  It was enough to light a fire under her ass, quickly she recalled the ancient words that fell with a bittersweet familiarity from her tongue so that a portal quickly ripped through air.  The woman paid no mind to the surprised looks that turned to her as she appeared without warning at the courtyard of her ancestral home, nor those that followed her when she began to move through the estate.  A few tried to stop her, calling out to stall her but they were brushed aside without the slightest hitch in her stride.  The great doors that barred entry to her brother’s private rooms were pushed open without any thought to his state of dress or anyone else who may have been occupying the rooms, but whatever Eli had thought to find it certainly wasn’t the destruction that awaited her.  A trio of servants froze in place with the unexpected intrusion as did Eli herself, her mouth going dry with the stain of blood on the battered wall, the demolished shards of furniture strewn about.  Rage and a touch of fear burned hot and bright when she stepped forward and snatched up the nearest servant by his shirt front, slamming him into the nearest wall with a surprising burst of strength.  Malevolence roiled from the woman with her lips peeling back from her teeth and a low snarl rumbling from her chest.  

“Where is he?  What has happened here?  Where. Is. My. Brother?”  Each word fell clipped from her lips, the hand not holding the writhing man hooked her fingers into claws and a sickening glow of Fel began to emanate around it.  The other two servants never moved, only watching with wide eyes like rabbits too afraid to run from the predator for fear of drawing attention to themselves while the one pinned to the wall stuttered and sputtered.  Her patience never being too great a thing, Eli snarled and made to attack when her hand was suddenly caught just before it could make contact.  

“He wouldn’t be too pleased should he know the unholy terror you’re being right now.  As it stands I doubt poor Rhal’nis here will ever be quite the same with the way you’re manhandling him.”  Eli slowly turned her head, regarding the ever-familiar Altiel in silence while she waited for some sort of explanation before she entertained releasing her prisoner.  Somewhere in her temper it registered the way the old man spoke of her brother, indicating in some way that he yet lived.  “Calm yourself.  Lord Lightsworn is alive and well, or as well as he can be under the circumstances,” he murmured, slowly lowering her arm while being careful to avoid the energy still swirling around her hand.  He then turned his attention to slowly peeling her fingers from the unfortunate Rhal’nis.  “He did this, no one else.  Much like with your temper right now, he struck out when he found himself the recipient of some unfortunate news.  And aside from a headache of his own making and the broken heart that was the basis of all of this, I swear to you that he is fine.”

Slowly Altiel’s words seeped into her consciousness and she relaxed her grip enough that the servant was able to make a quick and graceless escape.  It took a moment to collect herself, breathing slowly and steadily while tamping down on the magic that would much rather feed on her rage and uncertainty.  

“If you’re lying to me, I will kill you where you stand.  There is nowhere on this world or past it that you would be able to hide from me,” she said softly, her eyes looking to where what was once a large and elegant bed stood in a splintered wreck.  Quickly and quietly the older man began to speak, discreetly waving the servants from the room and away from the volatile woman while he filled her in on what had transpired.  Again her anger began to rise, but staying within manageable bounds with the tale of the woman who had spurned her brother’s proposal.  Silently she began to plan, already thinking of which of her contacts to call upon and send out even as she nodded in silent response to Altiel’s words.  Her full attention was drawn back however, when he began to speak of some other troubles that had risen in the past weeks.  Where temper had flushed her skin, the blood drained from her face with the report the man delivered to her, this old ghost from the past threatening to rise again and debts that were yet to be repaid.  

“I will make inquiries,” she finally responded, her fingernails digging into the toughened flesh of her palms.  “And you will keep me informed, whether you feel inclined to share that little bit with your lord and master.”  She left no room for his refusal, her eyes locking on his until he just barely inclined his head.  

“Of course, Lady Lightsworn.  I already have my own connections at work, and he will no doubt be pleased with any further assistance you could lend.”  The elder Sin’dorei didn’t bother hiding his smirk with her sharply hissed breath, nor the soft growl of warning before Eli spun on her heel and left as quickly as she had arrived.

She and her network had gone right to work, moving swiftly and stealthily, digging deep into the accusations and whispers that threatened her family’s home and the line she so often and loudly disavowed.  Thankfully the right pockets were lined, the right throats were slit and within a few days Eli was listening to one of her best as he kneeled before her with the revelation of a name that had set her teeth on edge.  As quickly as she could manage she had sent one of her ravens out, the scroll attached to it’s leg written in code so that only her brother and his most trusted could decipher.

“It seems the whispers were spurred on by someone much closer to home, fuckwit.  Someone whom you thought would always maintain your trust like the idealistic fool you are.”**

Her duty was done for the time being, Eli had left Ailos to clean up his own mess though not without having her eyes nearby.  It was these eyes that suddenly crowed raucously from above, drawing the woman’s attention to the raven that wheeled about in the sky.  It lit down on the proffered wrist, chittering to her almost companionably.  “Back so soon, are we?” she murmured softly in greeting, ruffling the bird’s feathers gently with her knuckle.  “He didn’t hesitate then.  There is that at least,” she continued on, lifting her hand to touch the fingertips of her first two fingers between her eyes, and then lightly to just between the raven’s eyes.  She saw as her pet had, perched unobserved from her brother’s inner sanctum.  It had followed him as he tore through the keep, and she saw as it had when Ailos had confronted their uncle and the coward’s too easy acceptance of his fate.  “And so all traitors should fall,” she smirked, blinking her eyes rapidly as the connection fell away.  A bit of preserved meat and some quietly offered praise was given in reward for a job well done before she lifted her hand back to the sky to send her pet on his next mission.  

“The puppets have begun their dance, now only to reveal the masters behind the strings,” she sing-songed to herself, lifting the sigil-bearing coin to run her thumb over the raised inscription.

**Please note slight variation between one’s report and the others thanks to a little careful rewording of a certain minion.