Almárëa trudges wearily into the small flat she calls home, located above one of the many shops in the Bazaar. Her armor and skin are stained with ichor from the countless Scourge she had slain that day. She passes by a mirror and momentarily marvels to herself how little has changed since giving up her four decade career as a warrior for the calling of the Blood Knights. She pauses in the corner of the room, peeling off her helm and dropping it on the nearby mannequin for her gear. Despite the grime on her face and neck, her ebony hair is surprisingly clean. That is, until the ponytail flopped downwards over her back, the sweaty strands almost immediately clinging to the filth on her shield.
The straps of her shield give way as she picks at the buckles, letting the heavy piece fall to the ground with a metallic clang, too tired to bother with even setting it upright. Her mace quickly follows suit, the strap on her belt giving way easily. Her deft fingers work the catches on her shoulders, undoing the clasps to release the adamantite pauldrons, lifting them off and setting them on the armor dummy in front of her.
She reaches for the catches on her breastplate, determined to remove the heaviest pieces before sleep can claim her. Without warning, an initiate bursts through the door, looking flustered. “Lady Liadrin is calling for all Blood Knights!” he gasps, out of breath. Before any questions could be asked, the youth takes off, seeking the next of her brethren.
Sighing heavily, the Blood Knight picks up her pauldrons and sets them on her shoulders, not bothering to buckle them down, and slides her helm back on before grabbing her shield and mace. She straps her weapons into place, leaving her mace to dangle at her waist as she redoes the clasps on her shoulders and walks outside.
“Come, Thalion!” she calls out, offering a bit of her mana to bring forth the charger bound to her. The petite figure jumps to get her foot in the stirrup, swinging her leg up and over in one fluid motion, and settles herself into the saddle before checking her gear and kicking her steed into motion.
She takes off at full gallop, her weary mind already sharpening as she tries to think of what could possibly be important enough to call the entire Order together at once, especially at this hour. The sight that greets her at Farstrider’s Square is far from what she had expected; corrupted elves – which she would later learn were called “felbloods”— overrun the area, locked in combat with the defenders of the city and her fellow knights. Her mind recoils at the overwhelming aura of fel energy; she sampled from that source sparingly to survive, but she had only come into contact with such a concentrated field of it when battling the fel orcs in Outlands.
Anger spurs her into action and she digs her heels into her mount’s sides, urging him into the fray as she readies her shield and mace for battle, her emerald eyes searching for her brothers in arms. A lone figure stands out amongst the chaos, his presence seeming to emanate a golden glow around him; Kael’thas, the prince, returned! Fighting desperately, her long day weighing heavily on her, she worms her way through the disgusting mockery of elvenkind towards Kael’thas. She pauses in shock and horror as she sees her beloved leader send a fireball squarely at a Silvermoon guardian; their prince was not here to lead them into battle, but to challenge them, instead!
As uncertainty and doubt flood the petite holy warrior, everything around her seems to simply disappear. She is not given long to dwell on the betrayal of Kael’thas, however, as a frostbolt hits her squarely in the chest, knocking her back a few paces. Due to her diminutive stature, she was not afforded the more comprehensive coverage of full plate like most; she wears a lighter version referred to as field plate.
Shaking her head to get her bearings, gritting her teeth through the pain as she summons up holy energy to heal her wound, she turns to face her assailant, bringing forth her shield to protect herself. As she twirls her mace in her hand, readying for battle, she is momentarily caught off-guard to see her foe adorned in a hood. She hardly has time to contemplate the reason behind the armor difference as he sends a rather sloppy fireball her way; she easily deflects it, pushing closer to her attacker while searching for an opening in his defenses.
She takes another spell on her shield, inwardly smiling at his lack of control, something sure to work in her favor. She steps forward to break the felblood’s guard before sweeping low with her mace. She is rewarded with a sickening crack as it connects full on with the creature’s knee, breaking bone, and sending her opponent tumbling forward. With a ferocity she did not know she possessed, she swings her mace around to meet the side of his skull, shattering the bone.
His body wavers unsteadily for a few moments before toppling sideways, twisting to land on his back. As it does so, the hood falls back, revealing the felblood’s face. The air rushes from her lungs; that deep nauseating feeling of her first kill coming back as her eyes remained glued to his now vacant ones. No…it can’t be! I—I know that face! But it can’t be! The world seems to tilt beneath her as she tries to make sense of it all. Her misery is interrupted with a sharp blow to her side, sending her tumbling to the floor, her vision spinning before settling on the sky above. There should be rainclouds… some small voice in the back of her mind said softly. Exhaustion, despair, guilt, confusion. Too many thoughts and emotions run through her mind as she lies there, trying to understand.
Her only saving grace is that, with the amount of blood staining her gear, the crazed, demonically twisted elves mistake her for dead—though her brethren do not. A moment later, she finds herself staring back into the jade eyes of another Blood Knight, who, upon noticing her look, turns to join the fray once more.
Despite the acute pain in her ribs, her body moves on by itself, dragging her off the floor and into the middle of a band of Blood Knights. Tears well up in her eyes, threatening to spill over, as the face continues to haunt her mind. Her mace was lost somewhere, most likely when she had taken the blow to her side, not that it matters too much at the moment. Digging deep within herself, Almárëa draws upon her mana once more, golden light dancing at her fingertips as she begins to weave her spells. The spark of the fight has left her, but it is no longer all she can do. She calls upon her relatively recent training in the realm of healing, determined to aid her fellow Blood Knights. Her brethren that surround her are rather inexperienced; most of them had never seen a real battle before today. Even so, they do not question the sudden change in the petite woman who has taken upon herself an equally important role. Her eyes glaze over as she continues to chant softly, forcing her thoughts upon her duty to her fellow knights, doing her best to block out the visage that currently haunts her.
Countless hours later, the battle draws to a close, bodies of felblood and Blood Elf alike littering the grounds like discarded trash. The stone pathways are bathed in blood, stained a deep sanguine. Unfortunately, they were not able to stop Kael’thas from achieving his goal; M’uru, the source of the Blood Knights’ powers, was gone. Exhausted and overall defeated, the weary knights head back towards their respective beds. Sadly, sleep is not in store for Almárëa tonight; not after what she had seen. What she had done.
Her quarters are all too quiet, the bed too large and cold. She mechanically goes through the motions of removing her armor, placing it on the mannequin out of habit, until all she has on is the thick cloth shirt, pants, and socks she wears beneath to pad the heavy metal. Left with nothing to distract her, her mind wanders back. She grows ghostly pale and begins shaking as sobs overcome her small frame, and she curls up into a ball on the bed. Her right hand twists off the truesilver ring from her left and throws it against the wall, where it bounces to fall on her rug with a soft thud. “Oh, Dûrion, my love, what happened to you?” she cries, her voice raspy from her tears. She closes her eyes, only to have that horrible moment in time replay behind her lids; her mace drenched in blood and her armor coated in gore, her opponent collapsing to the ground, his hood falling back to reveal the face of her beloved husband of thirty years…
The small woman leans over, sickened once more, and heaves beside the bed. For several moments she stays there, sprawled across her bed, drenched in sweat, tears continuing to flow. Finally, she begins to calm some. She had seen many battles, and lost many loved ones over the years; she had never been one to dwell on the cruel hand of fate. Then again, she had never been the one to actually kill her own loved one, either…
She pulls herself upright, sitting for a moment as she waits for the room to stop spinning, then wipes the tears away before heading to the washroom and washing her face. Her countenance is still pale, but no longer stained and streaked from her crying. She reaches for a nearby pair of leather boots and pulls them on before straightening up, her face determined, and leaving the flat, destination unknown. All she knows is that she cannot stay there, not tonight.
Her feet lead her to a nearby tavern whose service and quality had begun to slide due to a change in ownership. She doesn’t care tonight. Rarthein, the barkeep, is off drunk in a corner as usual, so she decides to help herself. As she stands behind the bar, scanning the shelves for a decent wine, a bottle of amber liquid catches her attention. Reaching up to grab it, she notes that it’s a fine Dwarven whisky.
She settles down on one of the nearby couches with the bottle and a glass half-filled with ice cubes. The first glass burns like hellfire, sliding down her throat with the consistency of blood and ichors. She hardly feels the second, or the third, or the fourth thereafter…
Almárëa awakes the following evening, her head cushioned on the pillow of the sofa, although how she got there, or even to the bar, was lost in a haze of too many drinks. Her head pounding, she begins to prop herself up on one elbow in an attempt to sit up when flashes of her husband’s corrupted face hit her once more and she falls back again, groaning from both misery and the increasing migraine.
With a soft moan, she turns to her head to face the rest of the room, only to find herself staring into a pair of kind sapphire eyes. She blinks a few times, squinting her eyes in an attempt to sift through the fog surrounding her, before rasping out, “Who are you?” her voice hardly her own.
A familiar soft, deep chuckle resounds in her ears as the face pulls back, allowing her to see more of the person in front of her. “Surely you recognize me, little one?” Snaga says, placing a concerned hand on her shoulder. She winces slightly as the dim light from one of the chandeliers filters past the Tauren’s head, seeming to pierce through her eyes into her very mind. She swallows roughly a few times, her mouth feeling like cotton, and tries to sit up once more.
“Ah course Ah recahgnize ya,” she said softly, gratefully accepting his assistance in guiding her to an upright position before sitting down next to her. “Jus’ caught me offguard when all Ah could see was yer eyes, furball…” Snaga smiled softly at her nickname for him, relieved to see her bender hadn’t taken that big a toll on his guildmate. Her accent was thicker than usual, likely from the hangover.
Taking pity on the petite elf, Snaga places a healing stream totem down by her feet. Almárëa sighs as it begins to offer relief, then turns slowly to look up at the shaman, her light green eyes piercing his. “So what’re ya doin’ here, anyway? Thought ya didn’t like Silvermoon…” she trails off lamely, wincing as someone nearby clatters glasses together, the noise harsher and louder than normal to her.
“It is not that I don’t like it, so much as it differs so greatly from my home in Thunder Bluff and the plains I grew up on. That does not matter right now, however; I heard of the attack,” he states bluntly, a hint of concern and sympathy coloring his final words. He peers at her searchingly. “And something tells me your hangover is not a mere coincidence… are you alright, Rea?” he asks softly, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
The petite elf looks over at his hand, idly marveling at how it is easily thrice the width of the shoulder it rests on, before dragging her eyes upwards to reluctantly meet her friend’s. “Not really… it was hard ta see so many of my people like that.” She closes her eyes as if to ward off the images, shuddering slightly, before continuing. “A-an’ Ah did somethin’… Ah don’ know how Ah’m gonna get past it, Snaga,” she says softly, a lone tear welling up in an emerald eye before trailing slowly across a tanned cheek.
“Surely it cannot be that bad. Would you like to talk about it?” he asks, wrapping his arm around her in a fatherly gesture. “It might make you feel better to say it out loud…”
She snorts sarcastically. “Somehow Ah doubt it, but Ah guess it won’ hurt ta try,” she says, pausing to take a deep breath and fortify herself before locking gazes with him once more. “Ah-ah killed my husband,” she says, her lower lip trembling as her eyes search his face for a reaction, waiting for the disgust or horror that she fully expects to see. She blinks in surprise as she sees the Tauren’s face soften further, his expression entirely sympathetic and comforting.
“I’m sure you didn’t mean to. Would you like to elaborate?” he urges gently, patting her leg reassuringly. She closes her eyes and nods slowly, looking down at her hands as she continues. “I-it all was happenin’ so fast… first Ah saw Kael’thas,” she spits out the name with obvious venom. “H-he was attackin’ Silvermoon guardians…” She pauses, gathering her thoughts, sighing heavily. “Then Ah got hit by a frostbolt. Ah acted on instinct… fought back. As his corpse was fallin’ ta the ground, his hood fell back… an’ there he was. Dûrion, mah husband. Dead. By mah mace…” Tears begin to fall silently from her closed lids, spattering on her clasped hands unnoticed.
Without thinking, the elder shaman wraps her up in a warm, comforting hug. “You didn’t know. And you must remember… that creature that he had become was no longer your husband. What you did released a tortured soul to find peace.” One large hand gently slides up and down the back of her head, and, despite the immense size difference, Almárëa felt almost like she was back in her mother’s comforting embrace, before… She mentally shook away that negative thought, trying to concentrate on the solace the Tauren offered.
“Ah-ah guess you’re right… it’s jus’ gonna take me a while ta get used ta such an idea…” she pulled back slightly, looking up at Snaga once more. “There’s another problem, though… Ah don’ think Ah can return ta combat. There’s still family an’ friends out there that I don’ know where they are. Ah-ah can’t bear the thought ah runnin’ inta them like that. Not again,” she says softly, blinking away remnants of tears.
The shaman nods sagely, fully understanding her concerns. “Blood Knights are holy warriors, yes?” he asks pointedly. At her nod of agreement, he continues. “You are not only defenders, but healers. Perhaps you should see this as an opportunity. Refocus yourself on the other aspect of your abilities. Maybe the Earth Mother has other plans for you; plans that are seated in the holier side of your calling,” he urges gently, his eyes beginning to crinkle with a hint of a soft smile.
Almárëa considers it for a few moments before locking gazes with her friend once more. “Maybe you’re right. Ah guess it couldn’t hurt ta try it…” She straightens up, Snaga removing his arms now that she seems to no longer need the comfort. He smiles at her reassuringly. “That’s the spirit, little one. Look for the silver lining,” he advises sagely, relieved to see the familiar stubborn and determined spark beginning to return to the Blood Knight.
He moves away from her on the couch, turning slightly to face her more directly. “And always remember that I am here for you. You have friends. You can get through it. And if you ever need to talk, you merely have to ask,” he states, looking at her pointedly. “No one should ever have to go through what has happened to your people recently alone.” She nods, shifting with renewed purpose.
“You’re right. Mah people need me right now. Ah can’t let others go through this alone. Not as a follower ah the Light. Speakin’ of… Ah need ta go talk ta Lady Liadrin. M’uru’s gone. She’s gotta have a plan ta get our Order through this,” she contemplates, her petite features scrunching up in concentration.
Snaga chuckles softly, patting her reassuringly on the back. “Good point. Better get on it,” he says, winking at her slyly. She grins up at him, straightening her shirt, before looking down in surprise at her attire. “Ah, bloody…” she mutters, wincing in embarrassment. “Maybe Ah should go change before Ah go anywhere else…” she says ruefully, earning another chuckle from her friend.
“Good idea,” he says, standing and offering a helping hand to get her on her feet. “Need an escort to your door, since you’re in close to your skivvies?” he says teasingly, his eyes crinkling in amusement. She smirks and playfully shoves him. “Nah, Ah’m fine. Don’ worry ‘bout me. Ah’ll see ya later, furball,” she says, walking towards the door, looking for all intents and purposes like her old self. No one could see the ghost still haunting her as she moved to get back on track…
