03-10-2021, 11:42 PM
Part One
The silence was simultaneously comforting and deafening.
For a time, Velameestra had tried to quietly consol the avian mount she sat astride. The thick down of the hawkstrider’s feathers was warm against the chill of the Northrend day, and once she had attempted to risk gently touching her hand against the side of the creature’s neck.
The way it shuddered at her touched stopped any further attempts, her hand instead returning to a loose grip on the reins in her lap.
If her companions noted the attempts, they made no acknowledgement of them. Briefly, the elf debated requesting a pause so that she could summon a creature less unnerved by her presence, but the notion died in her throat.
Perhaps in part because she didn’t want to interrupt the grim procession.
Perhaps in part because the unsettled creature served as a convenient distraction to her racing mind.
There’s still no doubt.
Her eyes flickered up to the cloaked rider ahead. Her aunt’s golden hair was obscured by a dark hood--protection against the light of an overcast day--and the ranger-captain’s gaze was the rough path through the trees.
Vel had never known Alleria well. The tenday of daily contact had been the most interaction she ever had with her eldest aunt, and much of it had been spent in companionable silence or research-centric focus, but that did little to diminish the kinship that had been found.
Nor the worry behind Alleria’s initial rebuttal of her niece’s request. Worry that had never ceased, but instead simmered to a resolute acceptance.
She was the only one that would be burying her niece twice.
Why is the lack of doubt what scares me?
The corner of Vel’s lip disappeared beneath her teeth, her eyes falling once more to the heavily plumed head of the hawkstrider. Kael’thas was riding close behind her, with the dark-haired Grand Magister at the rear. Rommath, too, had initially fought her decision, only to relent once he saw the conviction behind it.
The pattern had been the same with Elissa. Then Uther. Then Remnii.
All wreathed in concern, but ultimately accepting.
Alleria had fought the most.
The young mage’s thumb absently ran along the cool metal of the ring on her finger. Even Kel’Thuzad’s pragmatic warnings had caused no waver.
There was no telling what her loved ones back home would say when they inevitably discovered what she had chosen to become. Despite Alleria’s own anecdote, the mage had convinced herself that her family would realize they were both still who they always were.
As long as they were allowed to be.
After all, for as long as Vel could recall, she had always been closer to death than she ever had been to life. Ever since it’s shadow had entered her life and refused to leave.
Even if others had failed to see it.
Her fingertips brushed the polished stones woven into the cord along her wrist--cyan flanked by emerald and sapphire--and she felt her heart stop.
I miss them.
The acknowledgement came unbidden, her wandering mind left to meander through a quagmire of her thoughts as thick as the dark fir trees and foliage that rose on either side of their procession: the still-fresh goodbyes, despite the passage of weeks, and the warm, familiar song of the lullaby that had steadily bled into her subconscious.
She was only distantly made aware that Alleria’s hawkstrider had stopped.
But Sylvanas was right. We will wake our people, and our family, from this nightmare.
Vel looked at the tree that rose before them, the roots of the breached trunk twisting around the cliff face in the form of an open, dark maw.
And none of us will be alone.
The silence was simultaneously comforting and deafening.
For a time, Velameestra had tried to quietly consol the avian mount she sat astride. The thick down of the hawkstrider’s feathers was warm against the chill of the Northrend day, and once she had attempted to risk gently touching her hand against the side of the creature’s neck.
The way it shuddered at her touched stopped any further attempts, her hand instead returning to a loose grip on the reins in her lap.
If her companions noted the attempts, they made no acknowledgement of them. Briefly, the elf debated requesting a pause so that she could summon a creature less unnerved by her presence, but the notion died in her throat.
Perhaps in part because she didn’t want to interrupt the grim procession.
Perhaps in part because the unsettled creature served as a convenient distraction to her racing mind.
There’s still no doubt.
Her eyes flickered up to the cloaked rider ahead. Her aunt’s golden hair was obscured by a dark hood--protection against the light of an overcast day--and the ranger-captain’s gaze was the rough path through the trees.
Vel had never known Alleria well. The tenday of daily contact had been the most interaction she ever had with her eldest aunt, and much of it had been spent in companionable silence or research-centric focus, but that did little to diminish the kinship that had been found.
Nor the worry behind Alleria’s initial rebuttal of her niece’s request. Worry that had never ceased, but instead simmered to a resolute acceptance.
She was the only one that would be burying her niece twice.
Why is the lack of doubt what scares me?
The corner of Vel’s lip disappeared beneath her teeth, her eyes falling once more to the heavily plumed head of the hawkstrider. Kael’thas was riding close behind her, with the dark-haired Grand Magister at the rear. Rommath, too, had initially fought her decision, only to relent once he saw the conviction behind it.
The pattern had been the same with Elissa. Then Uther. Then Remnii.
All wreathed in concern, but ultimately accepting.
Alleria had fought the most.
The young mage’s thumb absently ran along the cool metal of the ring on her finger. Even Kel’Thuzad’s pragmatic warnings had caused no waver.
There was no telling what her loved ones back home would say when they inevitably discovered what she had chosen to become. Despite Alleria’s own anecdote, the mage had convinced herself that her family would realize they were both still who they always were.
As long as they were allowed to be.
After all, for as long as Vel could recall, she had always been closer to death than she ever had been to life. Ever since it’s shadow had entered her life and refused to leave.
Even if others had failed to see it.
Her fingertips brushed the polished stones woven into the cord along her wrist--cyan flanked by emerald and sapphire--and she felt her heart stop.
I miss them.
The acknowledgement came unbidden, her wandering mind left to meander through a quagmire of her thoughts as thick as the dark fir trees and foliage that rose on either side of their procession: the still-fresh goodbyes, despite the passage of weeks, and the warm, familiar song of the lullaby that had steadily bled into her subconscious.
She was only distantly made aware that Alleria’s hawkstrider had stopped.
But Sylvanas was right. We will wake our people, and our family, from this nightmare.
Vel looked at the tree that rose before them, the roots of the breached trunk twisting around the cliff face in the form of an open, dark maw.
And none of us will be alone.