Throughout the remnant halls of the Dawnspire grew a trembling exuberance in the aftermath of the battle. Thanidiel, herself, had allowed herself to stir the sense of triumph that that seared into her bones, set alight the insides of her lungs. To bellow. To call it. She and Ithanar had called it. Realists, or pessimists, they were the last to celebrate in that bloodied chamber of the Phoenix Heart.
And she was one of the first to stop celebrating. She shouldered past the tearful Dragonsworn still staring at where that fucking bird had manifested. She stepped over Broken- and Not-Broken-Novastorms, the screaming reaching her ears not. She glanced at the stricken Fel Claw, her vision scattered by loosened curls of platinum flecked with dried blood in the shake of her head. This victory is already ringing hollow.
The night air was cooler then she had wished for it to be. So cold…or was she changing now?
Either way, the sun had already kissed the earth goodnight to this day as the moon kissed the earth good evening to rise up in the sky.
‘Why do they cry?’ She asked herself as she could hear the victims of the Dawnspire close by.
They cried the same as the citizens of the Burning Isle…mixed with joy…mixed with agony…mixed with prayers. All the mortal things.
The soul whelp gasps as she stopped in mid air chirping. Her boy felt warm…too warm..it was too soon. Ducking in cover she hid in the bushes to transform into a small elf child. Panting she held her little stomach and sat under a tree. Staying small, she forces herself to stand and walk around the grounds. As she tread alone in her journey, the little girl looked around and saw familiar places in this strange unfamiliar place.
The familiar face of the stuttering priest wasn’t far from Siil’vi, staring at his left hand which was enveloped in vines and fragrant red flowers. The halo flickered dimly over his head and the smile that was so often there was gone. His face was filled with raw emotion as he silently looked at the flowers. “He’s just asleep. Rey’s just asleep.” A loud sniffle came and he pressed the palms of his hands to his eyes. “I- I gave him a bedroll to rest his head on.”
To the man’s credit the lie kept him quiet for a few moments until a soft keening wail escapes his lips but his quickly clenches his jaw, putting his hands over his mouth. He begins to force himself to take slow, deep breaths to keep control of himself. Wide eyes stared at the ground, he was exhausted and no matter how he changed his clothes since the battle it didn’t hide his emotions. “Light, please, please, please.” Begging for a miracle that seemed less likely to come with each minute that passed.
“I- Guide his soul home. Please, show m-mercy. I’ve asked for so very little for myself but this isn’t for me. Buttons, the babies, Sil’vii, Khal, Laz- he was going to get married. He k-kept bringing home so many clothes.” Again his hands press to his eyes and he breathes again as his halo flickered. “I-” A choked noise. “I know. I know I should feel lucky. But,” The upset man gestured, losing whatever words he might have had to say. Biting his lips he pushed himself away from the wall. “I’m going…g-going to make sure his head is comfortable. Then after my walk, I’ll sit next to him again.”
Slow, exhausted steps move away from Sil’vii where she hides. “Gods fuck it all- i hope Buttons doesn’t know. The poor baby. Oh, my baby.” He turns a corner and he’s gone, wandering the Dawnspire’s halls in search of respite that wouldn’t come and answers to questions Buttons would have that wouldn’t come easy. “I- Light have mercy I’m a wreck. Smile and breathe. Smile-” The rest of his words fade away as he leaves earshot.
News hit the island like a knife wound as lives remembered well of the late Sunsworn’s work. To hear the last Sunsworn had finally died off the face of Azeroth brought grief from the good, and joy from the evil. It was during these times where humanity truly is shown their faces….revealing the masks to their facade.
All had a mask…all had a part to the play….including the little princess Sil’vii.
She had no emotion to share, none like the other whelps of the manor….none like the wisps who wailed like banshees while blaming themselves for her father’s death….none like the icy grief and heartbreak that her mother Khalagos had when she saw him return from his outing. When he found out…she did not care to ask….she did not dare make herself seen.
Only one went after for her comfort. As she was about to leave through the window a familiar gurgle from a particular the proto-drake was made behind her. Turning her golden head, she gazed her eyes into his beady button-like eyes. The whelp was a funny one…always speaking in Murloc instead of Dragonic. Buttons were confused more than weeping. ‘Good, fewer tears, fewer things to undo.’ she thought to herself before she glided down to him.
“Where is our papa?” gurgled the boy.
“…He’s sleeping.” the princess replied.
“But people say-” the proto-drake was ushered back away from her as she swung her tail at him. He knew he was annoying her. She lowers her head in forgiveness.
“..You remember why I was made…yes brother?” she inquired to him slowly…waiting for his small mind to remember.
“…You are going to wake papa up?” he finally responded…the tone of his question implied that he understood. In the beginning of her birth…she would never get to live like he would.
“Indeed…be the older sibling in my departure yes?” she asked to him. She had little time left…she had to leave now or else…or else…
“Okay….hey Sil’vii?”
The Soul whelp hisses in irritation as she was halted ones more.
“What now?” she snapped at him.
“…I’ll miss you.” was all the boy to gurgle.
The whelp was taken back for a moment…a long silence between the two was held before she nods to him.
“I’ll be in your dreams.” promised the princess.
And then…there was just the boy….and the island’s cry for help.
The air burned as she ran for her life…how long as she been running? Hours?….days?….Months?…
It was all the same.
Every crook and every crevice of her mind was the same. It was never been the same….had it all been the same?
No. No thinking. Keep running. They will find you, they will wake you up, they always do…they…
“Hello, there little kitten~”
Catriah stopped with a look as pale as freshly fallen snow. The voice was as familiar as it was gut retching…. kind as it was taunting….the darkness has found her thoughts….it has found her friends….it has found…him.
“Come where are your manners….can you not say hello?~” the voice purred while staying in the shadows of her mind, refusing to come out into the light.
The young girl tried to speak….only blood spilled from her lips before she fell to her knees in horror clasping her mouth shut.
“Ah for shame….The Legion breaks pretty things….as did the Alliance.~”
No…stay away…..
The figure stepped closer, the wide demonic lips spread upon his lips as the shadows came in closer.
You are not …him…stay…
“Stop dreaming my Catriah~….Stop dreaming like a child… of false hopes….there is none for warriors such as us….for in the dead of the night.”
She gasps in horror as he kneeled down….no words could describe what the void and shadow of her mind made her see what was right before her.
Away….
His face was close to hers now…more eyes appeared on his demonic features as he lets out his last toxic whisper of a purr.
“…In the dead of the night ….no one can hear your screams…..”
The inner gates were only a few more strides away. The Sunward’s flowing red hair served as a guide for him to follow. He was right behind her.
But something gripped him. All around him. Squeezing, constricting, leather and bones creaked in protest. He was pulled back. The Sunward grew further away and the small Deathstalker was lifted off the ground.
He looked down in shock; his arm was pinned to his side, gripped by fat, scaly fingers. A visage of gnarled teeth drew near, fel smoke coiled around its fangs, and a gurgling, horrible laugh boiled from its throat. It was surprised.
Of all the things to pluck from the armies of Silvermoon, the Pit Lord had in its grasp a lasting reminder of the Legion’s Scourge.
Jonathan struggled and fought. His dagger plunged into the demon’s swollen fingers over and over again, but it only incited more amusement from the beast. There was no escaping its grasp.
Its cavernous jaws closed in on the boy and crunched down on his armor. His leather crisped from fel fire. His legs and torso were crushed beneath its teeth. Bones cracked until they shattered from the pressure.
But the Pit Lord’s prey kept fighting, frantically stabbing and scarring its jaws, its face, until his knife found purchase in something precious; the demon’s eye. The Pit Lord ripped its head back with a bloody, guttural scream! Fel ooze gushed from its wound and Jon’s armor and bones were viciously torn apart from the sudden, pained recoil.
The creature retaliated, cruelly crunching Jon’s severed legs in his teeth and spat them upon the courtyard of the Dawnspire. And as for what was left of Jon, the Pit Lord crushed the puny Forsaken in its claws and launched him over its shoulder like waste.
Refuse. Useless…
The Legion hordes trampled over Jon’s remains and all he could do was watch. Packs of felstalkers pounded their paws near his face as they passed by. Felguard and Praetorian marched over his corpse. Demons flooded the fields, eager to cross over the Dawnspire’s crumbled outer walls.
It was then he realized how far the Pit Lord had thrown him. He wasn’t even in the courtyards anymore. He was outside, completely at the Legion’s mercy. He was completely still. Just another body on the battlefield.
He recalled this happening once before, but that was different. He was waiting for his prey to step over him then, unwitting, and unaware that the corpses that littered the fields would be the worgens’ doom. This time he was helpless.
More demons flooded over the gates. How could they ever achieve victory?
As the endless stampede rumbled by, a shadow stopped to loom over the boy. Jon’s eyes briefly flickered to see a crown of blackened antlers. Its vaporous form approached, its many eyes blinking and staring, peering into him.
Blinding light shined in its wake, and the Dawnspire beyond threatened to erupt. The horrid Light spread and so too did the black stag’s shadow, engulfing him…protecting him…
Everywhere
she looked, bodies littered the landscape. An ocean of blood which threatened
to drown the Dawnspire. The sound of plated boot on grass the only noise for
miles.
I have been here
before, surrounded by the broken bodies of my people. It drove me away then.
She was weary. Numb. A void. She dimly realized her steps
had brought her near a cluster of bodies. Her heartbeat quickened, and a surge
of adrenaline coursed through her veins. She stared, but they did not rise. She
exhaled slowly.
They can’t. Not like
they did.
Unbidden, the image of the phoenix heart consumed her vision
and her hand rose to clasp the golden kraken around her neck.
Unbidden, she remembered.
The studies he would have done. The joy and awe in his eyes
at the sight of a god wreathed in fire and light.
Instead, his eyes had been aflame with pain as he turned to
look at his daughter. Full of rage, anguish, regret…and love.
Love, as he and the horrors of flesh and bone around him
burned away in a blinding inferno borne of obsession.
For her.
Cold metal pressed painfully into her palm as tears began to
fall.
It happened far too quickly. Without realizing, the inevitable had taken him down before he could react or even make a sound. Again, he thought. Again, he failed.
For months he moved forward without thought or emotion. His decisions, his statements, and even his commands done as if he was on autopilot. There was nothing to do but do as instructed and expected. Life had become doing the standard and making those around him content. That was all that mattered now. To him, there was no existence of him, all that mattered was that the world moved on.
How did it come to this? Where there was nothing to do but to do the expected? A decision he had fallen to on default. Nothing he had planned or even told himself. It just happened that way. It felt natural to him. Perhaps a means to protect his heart and its inability to keep from being weak to those he gave it to. Perhaps a fear of failing those he loved or doing something he might regret or worse. Or maybe he had just given up all hope.
Dawn was a welcoming reprieve to the residents of the Dawnspire.
Muroco sat upon a fallen stone, resting his muscles. After the pyrrhic victory over Baal, the tauren had taken no respite. He had spent the entire night employing his strength to carry the wounded to safety, clear the rubble, and put out fires that ran rampant throughout the citadel.
It was also needed to bury the dead.
The battle and its aftermath had been long, harrowing ordeals. They didn’t rattle Muroco – violence and death were part and parcel of his life. The weeping and wailing of agony that took place afterwards had filled his ears as he toiled. Where he had lived, others had died. Even as his allies were cut down, and he was left face to face with Baal, he had lived.
And the realization of why he still lived dawned upon Muroco.
It had been just over a year that he gave his oath to Zalin Shadowsunder, finalizing his place in the Sunspears. In the course of a long year, he had traveled far and wide, fighting against bandits, the Alliance, the Nightborne, agents of the Old Gods, the Burning Legion, and other fell, deadly foes. He remembered the battle of Suramar. Orgrimmar. Thalassian Pass. Oakvale. He had grown stronger, mightier, with each battle.
But he didn’t create his success by himself.
As a child, his father, Hrumin, had beaten into him the notion that he must be strong to succeed in the world. It was a harsh lesson that taught him to be self-sufficient, to never rely on others for help, to never expect anyone to come to his aid. Even after his exile, Muroco wandered the world, alone, never establishing lasting friendships or alliances.
However, he was only alive because of the Blood Elves. The people whom he was once sworn to fight against.
Strong as he was, one warrior cannot stand against an entire army. The task is too great for a single individual. Every time he held the line, alone, his allies took great lengths to stand by him, even at the cost of their own safety.
Some of those allies did not make to see the rising sun.
And some were gone because they chose to help him live.
Muroco was not the type of tauren that grieved. He did not feel pain in his heart. And yet, he bowed his head. For once in his life, he prayed. He prayed that the souls who had saved him were saved in return. They were true warriors, all – and Muroco was proud of them.
They had won the war, but the fighting was far from over. Other threats would arise to threaten the Sunguard. Further still, others needed time to rest, time to rebuild, time to mourn. Until then, Muroco would act as the immovable shield protecting his new tribe – the only friends he ever had – from harm.
Muroco’s reputation as a savage, relentless killer had diminished, and in its place he was becoming known as a stalwart warrior, fearlessly leading the charge with Mammoth raised high.
It was a small price to pay for the peace it brought to him.
For just as iron sharpens iron, so too do friends strengthen each other.
“NOO! Let go of me! Unhand me now! I need to be there! T-the D-Dawnspire! ….ADRIANAL!!”
His desperate cries fell on deaf ears of the grove wardens, restraining the flustered avatar of Felo’thore’s consciousness and dragging his silhouette by his heels away from the doorway in which he slammed through. In flesh, the attack from the Prime Consort Kala looked something brutal, but the truth had been the worst of it struck his face on broken marble when his body collapsed so suddenly from the retreat of his mind. The runes across his chest ripped him into the safety of the Emerald Dream before the demon’s sorcery could take hold of him.
Screams, flame, rubble and horror were now a quiet autumn breeze, ethereal and gentle, and spirits looming in quiet curiosity over the commotion. Felo’thore twisted and yanked himself from the burly centaur’s grips, his whitened hair and cloak whipping behind him as he bound back for the doorway, only to jam himself against it’s invisible barrier, preventing him from traveling back through it. Felo’thore pressed his long hands to the glass-like surface, picking up and pounding a fist defeatedly against it as he watched the ghostly movements of oathsworn hot in combat with the invading demon swarm. His silver eyes widened watching Avada’s rage light her spellblade ablaze, her courageous shouts too muffled by the dreamspace to be heard. Adrianal in sorrow and horror, hairs on the astromancer’s ghostly arms standing as he felt the paladin hold his shattered shell. The shouts and courageous fury of the sunspear holding fast the attention of their adversaries, Tyleril’s pleading prayers heard clearest among the blur of sound. He felt the determination, the vigor, the despair, the exclamation- all of it grow heavy on his glowing chest, pressing his forehead against the visage of the living realm in grief.
The window closed into nothing, and Felo’thore dropped to his knees on the loamy earth, pouring into a harsh sob.
“You cannot return to the living realm at this time,” snorted the grove warden, stepping forward where his hoof plotted to a halt before Felo’thore. “Your body is broken. Your mind yielded. It is too dangerous, and by Elune’s will you are to carry your oath to nature. It is not your time.”
The pale facade of the astromancer lifted up, hiccuping through his words with his sobbing. “They…..need me. Please.”
The grove warden stared expressionlessly, flicking his tail in what appeared annoyance before turning and walking away. Felo’thore’s apparition sat there alone, listening to the distant ghostly sounds from another time and place. His heart tugged but he knew…he was brought to the dream for a reason. For now, it was a matter of when the door would deem him ready to emerge, and if those fighting alongside him, and the home in which they defended would be there for his return.
Days in the Emerald Dream felt like hours in the realm of flesh….
Tyleril Silversword 
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