Aradhel

Life, I love life
but fear a world too similar
life, I love life
but fear imitation

And any man who knows a thing knows
He knows not a damn, damn thing at all
And every time I felt the hurt
And I felt the givin' gettin' me up off the wall

Mother told me of the man I only remember in the briefest dreams. My father. I remember my other mother - the Kal'dorei Aradhel Shar'alah. We grew without a father, my sister and I. We journeyed to the Shu'halo lands to speak with our mother's blood-sister, a Shu'halo named Laughing Water. That was our family, and I do not think that it harmed us. My sister Nehanda Alayra is a skilled and compassionate young woman with hair the same colour as mine.. hair my mother says like our father's.

My childhood was a good one. I grew strong in Mulgore, in Nagrand, in Feralas. Our home was on the Aldor Rise, and I learned only when I was ten why - mother had taken me and fled my father, my sister growing within her. Aldor was our hiding place, she told me. A place my father dared not come to steal us away... to make me into something like him.

I suppose I never expected her to return.

It's a chapter of my life that I thought was closed, locked with tears and grief and hatred so deep that it burns in my marrow.

Should I cast my mind back into those jagged memories? She cannot help that I do so. I have no solace now to ease them or distract me from contemplating that greatest failure. I have failed often in my life.. in my choices since then.

But it was the greatest and most painful.

I lost them all.

I had thought I'd lost her.

We went singing into battle. But the green-skins had become flushed and red, and with their axes they hewed the Forest Lord himself as if great Cenarius were a log they were tearing at. My sisters died screaming before the demonic energy of them. My sisters.

He was a madman.

This had been made clear before, but it's always good to have it stated again.
This time he was out on patrol with some of Stormwind's finest.
Every once in a while he liked to remind them that he was still a knight, odd that they seemed to forget it if he didn't.

On this very patrol they were ambushed by the horde, as sometimes happens, and they sustained losses, as also sometimes happens.
Unfortunately, this time they were ambushed by a party larger, much larger, than usual. As such their losses were sadly great.
What's worse, early in the fight, Tarokk and his spotless, glorious, shining silver armor were spattered with blood.
Tarokk fought on, berserk, in the midst of the remaining horde, surrounded by the corpses of his fellow knights and fallen enemies both.
His fighting style need not be related once more, as it was no different than usual.

Swallow sat relaxing in her apartment high above Shattrath. The Aldor had been good hosts. Good friends. Chaminuka, now almost three, had befriended some Draenei children, and used some of their tongue interspersed with Kadanga at home when he sat at the low table Swallow had purchased. Nehanda watched from within her playpen, clinging sturdily to the upper edge of the slatted construction.

(Acknowledgments: Thank you to Tamlin, Navires, Aradhel, Aktarin, Aquanus and the rest of the Nightsabres for being good sports. )

It was a relatively calm, warm day with a steady breeze from the northwest. The Lusty Maiden moved swiftly through the waters rolling gently with the waves. On her aft quarterdeck, the newly-made Captain Serinova stood with his hand on the wheel, steering the boat in a more or less straight line around the southern tip of the Silithan Peninsula, staying well away from insect city of Ahn'Qiraj, but keeping land in sight at all times. Behind him, a young man wearing a midnight-black robe and a cowl which hid his face waited patiently. Beside him were two guards, a gnome and dwarf. He had introduced himself as the representative of Commodore Norrington, a luminary and rising star within the Northsea Buccaneers. This was particularly significant because he was standing on the aft quarterdeck of a recently mutinied Southsea ship, falsely flying the Southsea Buccaneers' colors, in the southern seas; and this consequently justified the use of the cowl and the robe, and the bodyguards.

Swallowtail lay on the bed she had made in the corner of Aradhel's room. The huge Kal'Dorei warrior insisted they share a bed, but when the human wished to curl in her own blankets, Aradhel never asked otherwise.

There were still nights when Swallowtail did not wish to speak or think, but only lie and feel her baby's kicks in her belly, and try not to think of the man whom she'd once loved. It wasn't easy to forget someone she'd loved so utterly and deeply. She'd meant it when she'd sworn to him that no other man would lie with her. None would. Only Aradhel, her lover and mentor. Only Aradhel would know Swallow's lips or the feel of her body beside her in the bed they usually shared. After Ythfas... other men felt hollow to the girl from the jungles of Stranglethorn.

Swallow sat with her back against smooth polished wood. It was a reassuring pressure, and somehow supportive. She had spent so many hours reflecting on her life until so recently, only to come to a realization that nothing mattered but now. It was a truth she'd known once before the wiles of the grubby world outside her home permeated her vision. She was only truly free so long as she knew that single essential truth. The chains of the past were impossible weights otherwise, clanking sullenly about her ankles, tainting the future and the present with the rattle of their imprisonment.

Greshin stood before the Eredar, the magical wards he had cast on himself as he closed to his target hummed loudly to his magically adept senses. Each layer of protection barely containing the mana he poured into them, for he knew if he did not, the demon would most likely lay him low with a quick volley of his childish magic. This demon did seem rather short for his kind though, not even eight feet in height. Greshin’s lips curled into an arrogant smile.

“Tell me, oh short one, were you dispatched to lead this rabble because you could not please the resident six-armed demon wench?” The Eredar’s face contorted into a snarl.

Aradhel stood at the end of a ten foot wide path, cut straight through the middle of the opposing forces.  Both sides felt her wrath as she cleaved, slashed, and tore anything that got between her and the Pit Commander now standing before her.  The undead her mage friend had risen lay motionless at the beginning of her trail, the Sin’dorei and Demons making up the opposing army lay on the ground, though cut open too recently and not in lethal enough areas to kill them in the few minutes it took her to reach one side to the next. 

Greshin and Grimbolg stood amongst scores of Sin’dorei and demon corpses, their hair and robes caked to their bodies by sweat and blood.  Arcane power and holy energies crackling about them; occasionally, arcing through the smoke wisps emitting from the dead forms littering the ground.  Breathing heavy, they turned in unison to stare at a distant ledge of one of the many jagged rises of Netherstorm, waiting.

(Continued from Swallowtail's Lines of Communication)

Sekhet takes the letter up with a raised eyebrow, noting the handwriting. Was she unable to write herself? The nightstalker flushes, realizing that she really did not know much about the warrior. Carrying it back to her room, she curls up on the bed to read the contents, realizing that the letter is written in a firm Draenic hand

I would be happy to meet with you and speak over a drink, perhaps. I hope you do not mind me bringing a companion as I am sure you can imagine my concern that the man we both speak of intends my death, as he is both cruel and vengeful.

~Zakrath Lightbringer, writing on behalf of the human warrior, Swallow's Tail

 (Continued from Sekhet's "A Request" )

Swallowtail eyed the message sitting in the slot at Aldor where she usually found ores her friends sent her, or gifts from her teacher and lover. It was writing. Writing!

Ugh.

She'd never really understood why the so-called "civilized" peoples of the world felt a need to limit themselves to such transitory things as paper. Their memories faded like leaves after they ceased to exercise their minds. And the notion of capturing thoughts.. it was repugnant. But, it was common, and typical.

She eyed the bird-like scratch marks on the page, and briefly entertained a fantasy in which a bird had written to her.

I miss you, Owaissa.

The clouds veiled the sky in a soft gray, and the rain pouring from them wove a haze which obscured the details of the distant mountains. Swallowtail sat with her back against a tree which dripped with residual moisture from when the storm had been squarely overhead. The mossy green branches of the single gnarled tree indicated no shortage of such storms, which was unsurprising in a temperate rainforest. Her hair was damp, and a bead of cool humidity formed to plop from her chin to her forearm.

It wasn't the jungle. The trees did not sweat beneath a burning sun, and the dappled shadows did not loom with spotted shadows ready to leap and claw. There were no distant screams and howls as troops of monkeys moved through the gloom beneath the swaying branches.

But it was beautiful.

Aradhel slid quietly out from under the thin covers of her bed, moving softly and silently as not to wake the other who lay holding her. Slipping on a light loincloth and nothing else, she leaned down over the woman who still lie in the bed, her lover, the young savage, Swallowtail. Running her hand lightly down the side of Swallowtail's face, she kissed her as softly as a feather falling on her lips. Swallowtail squirmed slightly in her sleep at the touch. Smiling, satisfied, Aradhel rushed away and hopped out through her window, sprinting away into the forest.

Swallowtail turned and looked around the room she'd bought for a handful of glittering coins. The Aldor Rise loomed high above the city of refugees below, and held a sort of perfect beauty to it. The Light which coruscated upward like some trailing ribbon of joy lent an air of peace to both the Rise and the City below.

Swallowtail hefted the pack to her shoulder. She'd carefully oiled her ceremonial blue - and -gold armour and felt that curious lump in her throat again. It didn't defend her, and this place was filled with enemies from the top down. She would have liked to wear it. Would have liked this to have been the home she'd wanted it to be for herself and her son. Her face dark and cold - a good mask, she was finding, to hide how very much it hurt inside to be betrayed in this way - she pushed open the door, taking the steps to the nursery, trying to force her mind from how bruised her heart felt to how much she loved her son.

The air was thick and hot, flakes of ash floated along with the currents. Aradhel stood atop a large plateau amidst the mountain range seperating the Searing Gorge and the Burning Steppes. Azuregos told her this was his nest, now she would find out. She eyed the broken eggs that lay before her, her handiwork.

As Aradhel made her way down the long curving tunnel in the caverns of time, she thought back on her conversation with the blue dragon Azuregos. It was true, she understood, that the things she asked for were quite selfish and near impossible. Though, she had seen many a stranger thing in her time. Having to convince Azuregos her intentions were not to be misunderstood before he gave his answers, he was no stupid beast, he would indeed die before giving powerful advice to the wrong people; she argued with him for some time, contrary to his urgency to "go eat more treasure hunters".

Some sand crept into her boots as she continued down the tunnel, her lips twitched in annoyance.
"The bronze and their damned deserts..."

Aradhel cursed herself as she wandered through the many ruins of Azshara. The demons within her daring to speak to her mind while she slept. She clenched her gauntleted fist, the strain of the enchanted metal groaning as it nearly creased under her strength. She had let a few of her mental barriers slip as she drifted to sleep, listening to the beautiful singing of her beloved Swallowtail in the girls native tongue. To which the most powerful of the demons she had drank from, took full advantage.

Twice in one century, Aradhel. That is quite unlike you.