Earthwielder: Dustwallow

This story features Ursala Earthwielder during her player's Winter 2010 absence from the game. It follows the shaman's struggle with the Elements, and the wilderness of Dustwallow, what with the onset of the Shattering.
It will be filled in as it is written.
==23rd November: Plummet==
The first thing I felt was the wind on my face.
At first, I assumed I was sleeping outside. I did that sometimes – sometimes roofs were too stifling, or I just wanted to see the stars. Then I realised that wind rarely blew directly down on my face. Perhaps something was flying above me, or Air was waking me up? No… no, Air wasn’t talking to me.
I opened my eyes just in time to see the trees rapidly hurtling towards me. I panicked and instinctually threw my arms out in front of me to break my fall – one of them, at least. My left one was still broken. The foliage swallowed me in a rustling crack of broken limbs.
I landed on a branch. It winded me, but it did more damage to the tree. Groaning, I pulled myself up onto the branch properly with my one good arm, ignoring the jabbing agony in my left forearm. I heard another crack, and looked up towards the main stem of the tree – the limb was beginning to splinter off from it under my weight. In a groggy panic, my head still pounding, I scrambled up towards the trunk. The branch snapped and fell just as I grabbed onto the one above it. With only my right arm, I didn’t have much chance to pull myself up. With a groan, I fell another few feet onto a larger branch beneath me, landing heavily.
I screwed up my eyes and leant forwards on the wooden limb, trying to steady myself. My head felt like it had a pulsing globe of liquid inside it, threatening to break my skull at the temples. I had an arrow lodged in the armour on my left shoulder as well, although that would come out. Where had the arrow come from again? Oh, oh… night elves, that was it. Night elves had attacked us. And then…
Wait, where was I?
Reluctantly, I forced my eyes open. I was beneath the tree canopy here, so I could see what was underneath me. Just about – the light here seemed bright. It wasn’t. It was mid-afternoon, but the trees filtered out all but the dankest of shafts here. The earth, as I regarded it, seemed to shift under my vision, but it looked familiar. Damp. Wet. Swamp.
Where was I again? Oh, I… oh. Night elf attack. They’d taken… I was with someone. I’d been with someone. And I’d fallen, and he’d fallen as well… no, he fell first, and I’d climbed down after him and fallen the last few feet. Who was it I’d been with? Why was I here alone? Why wasn’t he here with me?
An angry, vicious temper flared up momentarily inside me. It felt indignant. He’d abandoned me. I didn’t even know who he was, but he’d been there and then he hadn’t. I’d climbed down after him and he’d left me all alone in this forsaken swamp.
But no, it hadn’t been like that. The clarity hit me like a wall of cold water, intensifying my headache. The elves had taken him – I hadn’t known where, but my arm had already been broken and I couldn’t climb back out of the pit I’d ended up in. There’d been lava. There wasn’t supposed to be lava. It was all wrong. All this was wrong. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.
Slowly, I began to climb down the tree. It was slow going, not least because of the headache which actually seemed to get stronger the more I tried to head for the stable, grounding Earth. My companion had been taken. By elves. Where had we been? Why wasn’t there meant to be lava? Ah. Barrens. We’d been in the Barrens. I’d forgotten what we’d been doing there, but—Gremkarc! I had been with Gremkarc! And the elves had taken him, and left me, but one of their hippogryphs had come and picked me up. The sudden change in altitude had caused me to pass out. That was what had happened.
Why had we been in the Barrens again?
My feet touched the ground, and suddenly I remembered it all.
The screams hit me first, almost deafening me in that initial strike against my eardrums. It was physically painful and for a moment, just one shining moment, I genuinely thought that I was going to die because of it. They weren’t mortal screams, though. I was here all alone in body – just me in miles of swamp. How did I know that? I didn’t know how I knew that. I knew that there were screams, and these screams were Earth’s. That was what we’d been investigating in the Barrens. Earth’s screams.
I threw up. I couldn’t handle this. Earth had been there for me when Orcish society hadn’t – always stable and safe and warm and comforting and stoic and determined and wise and old, and all of those things I wished that I could be but never could. And now it was screaming in agony, pain caused by something I couldn’t see or hear. I felt it, too – acute pain in my temples now, like they were being jabbed at with knives, and in my ears like hot pokers were tickling my eardrums. I tried to cover my ears with my hands, block the noise out, but it was no good. One of my arms was broken.
I’d have to do that first, then. I gritted my teeth and barked against the blaring noise, covering it with sounds of my own – sounds on a more mortal plane, more solid and less transcendent – then dropped heavily to my knees, taking my backpack off. I found the splint. Almost in a trance, I applied it to my forearm. I’d done this so many times before. I didn’t even need to look; which was lucky because my eyes refused to focus on the task, tuning out as I attempted to concentrate on the moves my right hand was making.
And when it was done, I cupped my hands over my ears, curled up into a foetal position, and waited for the terror to cease.
==24th November: Shattered==
It didn't cease.
No. It went on and on. The agony in Ursala's head didn't subside as she gave it her full attention, trying to calm the spirits surrounding her like a maelstrom as they tried to escape whatever it was causing them pain. She was an anchor, yes, but she was being swallowed up in a tidal wave of tiny agonised Earth spirits – they were swirling around her, covering her, consuming her. She was steady and they needed stability, so they took it away from her and ate it; she gave it, with no choice in the matter.
It didn't work like that, though. All that ended up happening was that Ursala was dragged down with them into the well of pain they were experiencing. She saw things, vividly as though she was stood there herself – she saw Earthen walls made of rock and stone and mud and living faces that tore at their physical bindings of rock to get away before those very bindings were smashed. She didn't see what smashed them, but she knew what it was anyway.
She'd been having these dreams for months now. It had always been scales. Large scales, overlapping and forming patterns and rivets and tracing some inconsiderably large form; sometimes made of chitin and other times made of metal, it seemed. They appeared to form some sort of suit of armour, although what would need a suit of armour this big she had no idea. A giant, perhaps? No giant would be that big. Maybe she was dreaming of the Earthmother herself? Why would she be wearing armour? Perhaps it was not the armour-wearer who was large, but instead Ursala who was very small? What would that imply? She'd never been able to work it out. Ursala had never been talented in the interpretation of dreams, although she knew they could be used to tell the future sometimes. But she'd been able to discern two things from these dreams: that the subject of them was big, and that the subject of them was scary.
And then, one day, when she'd been defending Orgrimmar, she'd collapsed. It was as if someone had grabbed her mind and forced it to look into the spirit realm once more and see these scales. As always, the field of vision she got in the dream was slowly panning sideways – slowly as though to invoke an even greater sense of scale than she otherwise would have got. These scales, mottled and odd though they were, just seemed to go on forever. And then – and then she'd seen the eye.
It was set into the scales as though it belonged there, metal plates cupping what appeared to be a cheek chiselled out of the thing's face. The eye had been huge and with a slit pupil, almost invisible; the irises were red like furnaces, and they burnt with immeasurable hatred. She hadn't been able to comprehend the pure fury held within those dreadful eyes. She'd snapped out of the trance, coming around to face Watrus and Zelkal back in the mortal world. She hadn't been able to explain to them.
And now she knew what it was causing the pain. It was the thing to which those eyes had belonged – those eyes so full of hatred and destruction. In a dreadful moment, Ursala had a shining bright and horrid clarity of exactly how big this thing was. Most of what Ursala had thought was Earth was actually this thing's momentous mass; it was writhing like a dreadful insect under the skin of the world, like those dreadful burying pupae which ate under your skin and stayed there until they needed to become moths and fly away. She threw up again – moreso this time. Just the concept she was considering made her feel nauseous; that she was feeling it so intensely, through her spiritual faculties, made it all the more real. It was more real than the tangible things she felt in her life.
It was destroying now. It was angry and it was going to take everything out. Earth comprehended this in its own way, taking it out in the only way it knew how – transmitting its displeasure through its shaman. Ursala was bound to Earth tightly, and thus she felt it with the most strength. Water did not try to soothe her. Fire did not try to give her warmth. Air did not try to caress her to sleep.
The wolf howled, and the vocalisation turned to a screech and then a baying whimper. Ursala's form in the physical world was shifting and changing as she tried to focus on something which could give her strength, but it was no use. She was an orc grabbing at the spongy, fuggy moss around her, trying to find comfort in it; she was a wolf, rolling in the undergrowth, trying to scratch itself free of a dreadful parasite; she was a child, screaming and crying for its mother being dragged so disrespectfully naked through town and tortured in a way that all could see and she could feel; she was alone, sobbing and shaking.
The earthquakes continued. The people of Azeroth were feeling them – the non-shamans, as well. It was getting on towards night and they did not stop. Across the sea, in the Maelstrom, Deathwing the Destroyer was making his advances. He had been an Earthwarder once – the dragon aspect charged with caring for the very Element he was so gravely rupturing.
Ursala didn't comprehend this. She didn't understand the circumstances, or know the history or the names or the places. She didn't know exactly what was happening, even. But she knew the implications. She knew it hurt. She knew it damaged – irreparably in one way or another. And as she rolled in the swamps and tried to block it all out, muscled tensed and spasming as she desperately tried to block out the sheer walls of noise hitting her in waves as the dragon's wings flapped with sulphurous fire, Azeroth was shattered.
==25th November: Broken==
I didn’t sleep so much as collapse. The visions didn’t let up. They plagued my dreams and my mind, sending me into a feverish, twitching unconsciousness. I did not know how long it persisted for; the visions themselves were demanding my full attention, not letting me concentrate on anything else.
Until such a time as a sharp pain in my stomach roused my attention sharply back to the mortal world. In a way, I was loathe to separate my consciousness once more from the spirits of Earth – they needed my help, and, as much as empathy hindered me, I couldn’t even begin to help if I wasn’t talking to the things that needed my help most.
But my body had its demands. Today, those demands appeared to be food. My stomach growled loudly at me like a feral animal as I slowly sat up, groaning quietly. My head was still pounding and I could still hear the spirits – they were shouting more so than screaming now, but it still felt like I was back in the middle of that angry crowd outside the gates of Orgrimmar when they’d introduced the border checks. The feeling wasn’t a pleasant one. It battered me from all sides as I stood up on unstable legs and tried to think.
I’d been in this situation before where I’d needed to find food in a swamp. I’d done it a year ago, when I’d been weaker and less experienced and more naïve. It should be easier now. I asked Earth to speak instead of shouting – no use, but it was worth a try. With a grunt, I rubbed my forehead and looked around.
I had to be in Dustwallow. I’d been carried over from the Barrens and I would have been able to tell if I’d crossed the sea, regardless of my unconscious state at the time. I didn’t know much about Dustwallow… I’d been here once before, investigating rumours of Black Dragonflight activities. That had been the source of the oft-quoted “what this mean” from Aenon, but his words were occurring with increasing frequency to my own mind.
My body growled at me. It was hungry. The hunger was a sort of dull burning ache, but one that it was imperative to silence. I tried to take steps – in any direction. I fell again, landing hands-down in the mud. Agony shot up my left arm where the break was and I cried out, rolling onto my side, cradling the splinted limb.
My ears were closer to the ground and the loud spirits were making themselves more known. Their yells came to a peak, coming in rumbles of low-pitched, uncomfortable whines before rising again into a high frenzy. I shuddered again as they seized hold of my mind, plunging it again into searing hot visions of lava and brimstone. I awoke spread-eagled on my back and panting heavily, each breath wheezing with that odd whine that presented itself after exertion. The pain washed over me in purging waves now, from head to toe.
It eventually coalesced around my arm, although the noise itself did not stop. No… I didn’t need this, I needed food. I needed to stand up and feed myself, or I would shut down and die. I had too much to do. I was nearly past my twenty-fourth winter. I had a mate, and a clan. If Gremkarc wasn’t lucky, I’d need to be Den Mother. I couldn’t afford to concede.
Sharp lances shot through my temples as I tried to sit up. I shuddered violently, my entire body shaking and jerking uncontrollably. Earth was demanding I stay where I was. It was hurt and it needed… it needed. It almost felt like Fire in the way it wanted. It felt like Fire had in the Twilight camps.
“No,” I snarled through gritted teeth.
But Earth needed, and who was I to refuse it? I would take so much, they said, and I needed to give. They needed to take. They were hungry. They wanted. I found myself almost bound to the ground, the swamp seeming to try and swallow me – the mud sucked at my armour and belongings. It was trying to take my sash.
“No!” I was shouting now. I pulled myself up with a great grunt of effort, standing on my two trembling legs, boots spread apart in the mud for stability. My wolf hat was slipping from my head; I put a hand on it firmly, keeping it where I wanted it.
Then I held out my left arm. I knew what I needed.
“You,” I said, growling the words ferally whilst facing invisible minds, “are going to help find some food for my stomach, and you are going to fix this arm, and we am not going to die because by the Ancestors that will not help any of us!”
The shouts turned to anger. I was demanding beyond my station. Taking things without giving. This wasn’t the way. It wasn’t the way.
“It is now!” I roared, thrusting my arm forwards. My temper flared up viciously inside my heart, becoming as Fire – I needed and I hungered, and I would take. I needed them to heal my arm. I hungered for sustenance. And I would take both in the same way.
“Give.” There was no room for argument. I gestured angrily with my left arm. I heard the small spirits quieten and begin to form around my arm in their timid manner. Only the small ones would listen to assertions like this, but that was all I needed. They didn’t do it without spite – I needed to control my breathing rigorously to prevent myself crying out in pain as the bone was knitted together, but it happened. I could almost feel the marrow melding back together with the forced roots and then the spirits subsided.
They were crying now instead of shouting. It was quieter but, in a way, it was worse. Right now, though, my priorities were for food.
==26th November: Ailing==
Getting food was difficult, actually. Even with my arm mended, sources of it weren’t nearly as readily available as they had been in the Wetlands. The species here were less variable, less tangible. In the Wetlands, there had been raptors, crocolisks, clams, fish; and then when I was hungrier, murlocs. Here, there were just crocolisks – and they were much larger than the ones in the Wetlands, and much more menacing. I didn’t have a shield – I’d dropped it when I scrambled down the cliff to try and help Gremkarc. I didn’t know where to get a replacement. Aside from anything else, my shield arm still felt weak. Even if I managed to source one, I wouldn’t have been able to hold it up in the face of a fearsome maw of crocolisk teeth.
In the Wetlands, though, there’d also been roots and herbs. Whilst the landscape had looked drab and dull at first, after a week or so there I had learnt that it was almost the opposite. On my return to Durotar, I had seen the difference and known that one tiny patch of the Wetlands had possibly had more life in it than the whole of our parched homeland. When catching animals had failed me, I had been able to find Liferoot and chew that – it wasn’t filling, but it gave me energy and sustenance regardless. When I hadn’t been able to find that, some of the bark from the trees was edible. When that failed me, the Dragonmaw orcs always had more supplies, as did the gnolls.
I didn’t know what else lived in Dustwallow. Oh, I knew there were humans, but I didn’t want to disturb them if I could help it. Even in this situation, I wanted to be loyal to Thra—Go’el’s will, and he’d always encouraged cooperation between the orcs of Durotar and the humans of Theramore. I didn’t want to antagonise myself to them.
These thoughts were all rigid in their direction. I was heading towards a logical conclusion as to what action I ought to take, and nothing different. Earth was wanting me to feel hurt and to curl on the ground where I had been before; Fire was wanting me to anger, let fury burst through my veins and cleanse them of all else. Water wished for me to let the guilt and sadness wash over me like the incoming tide and cry. Air wouldn’t speak with me. But I was blocking all this out in favour of something else – the pragmatism I had come to rely on before. I needed food, so I would have food and until that goal was successful, nothing else would matter.
I didn’t want to try and tackle a crocolisk yet, either. I didn’t have the Elements on my side. They were angered, upset. Whatever I tried to do I would need to do alone. So herbs it was. I’d never studied what kind of herbs grew in Dustwallow, so I’d have to hope some of them were edible.
But as I looked around, I found I wasn’t seeing things quite the same as normal. Normally, things that were important to me stuck out. It wasn’t magic – it was just being observational. I could sweep my eyes across an area of the Wetlands and see the herbs straight away without trouble, but here in Dustwallow I was having trouble picking them out from the undergrowth. The vegetation seemed even drabber; the only colour was dull grey-green. Eventually, my eyes did settle on a peculiar-looking root. With a stumbling gait, I approached it.
I tugged it out of the ground. The mud made a disappointed queeb sound as I removed the root, but the hole quickly closed up with water. I took a few moments to regain my bearings, shaking my head clear of the whines and requests that were making themselves known to me from the Elements, before sniffing cautiously at the root. To my nose, it smelt edible, if spicy. I decided to risk it.
It tasted much more bitter than it smelt. It was difficult to chew, not least because my canines and carnassials were best suited for slicing meat – it was stringy and mush-like in my mouth once I’d torn through the initially difficult bark growing around the root. It tasted muggy and sharp and horrible. I forced myself to swallow it, though. I couldn’t afford to starve out here.
Then I threw up. I didn’t just throw up the root, though. I threw up things I wasn’t aware were still in my stomach, retching several times once I was done emptying it only to try and throw up once again things which were no longer present. The acid burnt my throat and I coughed for a good minute afterwards, trying to spit the taste out.
That didn’t work, then. Meat it was.
I began making my pleas long before I found a crocolisk. I was right about needing the Elements’ help, and it was Fire I made appeals to. Fire was more than willing to listen to me – I felt its furies entering my heart as I begged with it to lend me its heat. It manifested in my body and changed my mood. The Fire here was far more feral than anything I’d come across in the Wetlands, or in Outland (although I had usually stuck to the far more tame areas of Outland; Nagrand as opposed to Shadowmoon), and was far more domineering than my own will was at this moment.
So I let it take me.
I found what we needed; the crocolisk we assaulted was lethargic, probably settling down to rest. The creature did not know where the fire had come from, but it ripped out of my mouth and down my arms towards the beast. I did not see it fall; I felt it as a righteous jubilation, transmitted through the Element which had brought it about. I began to eat of the flesh from the fallen giant, my sharp tusks ripping through the thick, armoured hide with surprisingly little trouble.
I ignored the burns that Fire had seared on my arms.
==27th November: Uproar==
I felt numb. I’d been stumbling through the swamps for hours today, trying to find my way out, but I’d felt as though drunk. My judgement was impaired; my gait was meandering, and I was half-sure I’d been walking in circles. Thankfully, my body had begun forgoing relaying to me the stinging sensation up my arms and on my chin.
The burns on my arms were beginning to blister. They were swelling up into ugly mars on my lower arms, threatening to pop; they were on my neck and chin, as well, cracking when I moved my face (which was increasingly little. What was the point of expression when there was no mortal to see it?). Superficial though they were, they rendered movement painful. I was needing to climb trees in search of a particular kind of fruit which I was fast becoming accustomed to. At first, I had found the taste intolerable, but I had begun to seek them out on purpose once I realised that they served to abate the blistering hunger growling in my stomach.
It only grew in the tallest branches of certain trees. These trees were indistinguishable, to my delirious eyes, from the others. The swamp seemed to shift and move under my vision as I walked from tree to tree, climbing them one by one – I was needing to spend all of my waking hours looking for food. And yet, when I climbed, the bark of the trees scraped and snapped at my forearms, bringing the burns out into agonising rashes and threatening to pop the blisters.
I was single-minded in my approach to finding food up until such a point as my stomach was full. It took a long time; I did not realise how little I ate, in all, but I assumed the time it had taken meant I had eaten enough. With a grunt, I sat down in the mud on slightly higher ground, my back to the trunk of a particularly sturdy willow. The tree gave me no comfort, merely grating on my back. I closed my eyes and let my mind drift for a few moments.
The Spirits were still shouting, but my ears had been dulled to their voices over the last few days. Now, I let my mind shift into phase with their thoughts again. It was a process that felt similar to falling asleep – it was easier to let the pain fill my mind from ear to ear, passing through and leaving nothing behind. But I didn’t need that. I needed to ask something of them.
We need something from you, said a voice which smouldered into my mind’s eye before fading. I snarled at the pain it left.
“Need something from you first,” I said, aloud.
Yesterday has not been forgotten. The words stung. We need fire from you as you took Fire from us.
“You burnt my arms,” I stated bluntly.
I grunted before reached for the hipflask bound to my belt. I was lucky – it had been enchanted long ago to produce water as I needed it. Often, I avoided using it, fearing for the unsustainability of the methods that the water was produced by – now, I needed it. The brackish marsh water was not safe to drink. I took a long drink from the flask then screwed the cap back on. Luckily, my hands, protected by gloves as they were, did not sustain any burns.
“And they need healing. Let me speak to Water.”
We need fire from you as you took Fire from us.
“Stop repeating yourself!” I snarled loudly, moving to stand up and make angry gestures. All that happened was that I fell backwards and hit my head against the tree. Stars danced before my eyes. They faded into drifting embers, then back into stars, before disappearing.
You took and now you must give. Go to the driest point and build a fire.
“I said stop repeating yourself! Have said that before!” I closed my eyes, my breath hissing through gritted teeth. “Have said that before and is not helpful. Need to speak to Water before I can do anything else!”
You took.
It was at that point that I realised what manner of creature I was dealing with. My mind was yanked forcefully from consciousness and thrust into a body of lava. I screamed out and turned to face it.
“Am mortal,” I shouted. My voice sounded hysterical when it echoed back to me. “I need food and shelter! And cannot have either with burnt arms! Need hands for both, and cannot have them without healing! Need to speak with Water! Can pay you back after that!”
Begging will do nothing, said the Elemental, its tone infuriating. You took and now you must give.
“I will do it LATER!”
With strength of will that I did not know I possessed, I pulled myself back into the mortal realm. I woke up sweating, clutching onto my ankh with both hands – my body had fallen onto its side, and… oh. Oh, nice. Now I had mud in the open sores that were forming on my arms, even moreso than before.
I made curses under my breath, but they held no meaning. They served only to vent my frustration. I did not find it within myself to understand what was going on – I only knew what I wanted, and what I needed. I wanted to go home, but I needed food and shelter, as I had said.
It occurred to me that I had a fever now – although the marsh’s atmosphere was generally humid and clammy, I felt cold. Perhaps this was Fire’s way of spiting me; perhaps I was just ill, or had been asleep for longer than the few moments it had seemed like. I did not care.
My stomach growled at me. My arms throbbed and burnt. My chin itched and stung. My legs felt like they were made of cloth, not blood and bone. I forced myself to stand and move, despite the Elements’ strange wishes for me not to.
Was I even going to survive this?
==28th November: Inebriated==
I needed food and I wanted to go home.
I knew that I was beginning to deteriorate, although a certain presence of mind had kept me functioning. I had eventually made me collect enough of those fruits to see me through for a few days. I was resting often, but hardly sleeping; dreams were violent and painful experiences, and I had no potions left to make them leave me be.
But I had food now, and I had water. My arms and face still hurt, but my experience with Fire had extinguished any hope of getting them healed. For some reason, applying mundane bandages had not occurred to me as a thing that was possible to do – despite the first aid kit hanging heavy on my hip. If the Elements couldn’t help me, then I was lost. But where else could I get help from?
The thought occurred to me all at once. The Clan. I thought about the past, when the Elements and I had our disagreement – where I had turned to ask. I had asked my Clan what the problem was, and relied on them. For the most part, they had not spurned me. I trusted them enough to show my weaknesses. There were other shamans there, who understood. Their names did not occur to me, nor their faces; but I understood who they were, knowing them better somehow than I knew myself. I gave their characters more thought than I did my own.
I did not know where to find them, though. I would need to travel to get to them. I understood that, but the thought process was clumsy. I knew I was here, and I knew that they were not here. That meant that they were somewhere else. That, in turn, meant that I would need to be somewhere else other than here in order to ask them for help. But I did not know where here was in relation to somewhere else…
Maps. Maps were for this kind of thing. They told you where you were and showed you how to get to somewhere else. With stinging arms, I climbed a tree and took my bag off my shoulders, then started looking for my map. It took me five minutes of searching before I remembered that I never bothered to carry the damn things.
I was hungry, so I ate some of the fruit from my bag before reaching up into the branches. For a fruit that wasn’t there. As if I’d managed to grasp something in my hand, I pretended to put it in my bag, then shut it and put it on my back.
I couldn’t read maps. I’d never been able to, so I didn’t bother carrying them. I’d always assumed that people who could read maps would carry their own. It was perhaps the greatest and most significant void in my training, but one that my clanmates usually managed to fill. They were somewhere else, and I was here.
I frowned. There was something of a problem with this, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
My stomach growled again, so I fed it another piece of fruit. After a thought, I tossed another one out of the tree to land in a shallow puddle with a splash. I laughed.
“Enjoy it,” I said. “It’s a gift.”
Then I grunted, bitterly, and looked at the sky again. The weather wasn’t nice today. Water wasn’t sympathetic to me; the atmosphere was humid, the moisture clinging to my breath, making it difficult to properly exert myself. As if the burns weren’t enough. It wasn’t my decision to make, I knew. It wasn’t fair, I knew; but these things never were.
For a moment, I felt dizzy; I leant against the trunk, screwing up my eyes. My chin felt like it was burning again. I gritted my teeth.
How else would I get home? I could… ask for help. From the Elements? I—No, no. They would strike against me as they had before. I couldn’t even hear Air in the mix of voices. Maybe it wasn’t talking to me? I didn’t understand why not, but Fire had made it clear enough that it wasn’t my place to try and negotiate these things.
“Air, I know I am at the mercy of your whim, but may I speak with my clanmates?”
The silence I was met with spoke in greater volume than any words could. The air stood still around me, heavy with heat and insects and Water. I groaned.
“Alright, alright.”
This was just like the Wetlands, only the Elements were distracted now. I recognised what was happening to me; I was beginning to think about the same things they were, as I had in Azeroth. Only here it meant that I was not going to get home.
I asserted myself again. In the Wetlands, I had my buzzbox taken off me. I had it with me now – it had been damaged in the fall, but it was simple enough for even me to put back together. I’d done so a few days previous whilst attempting to distract myself from the spirits’ voices. Whoever had designed it had done a good job. I shook it and turned it on, then tried to speak through it.
I was given silence. With clumsy fingers, I tried again to turn it on. It should work… I nearly dropped the damn thing, swearing under my breath. This was needlessly difficult. Then, almost by accident, I caught another switch on the tiny base-unit with the side of my hand.
My ear was met with a burst of loud static. I yelped, almost falling out of the tree, then hissed with pain as the bark grated against the arm that had flung out to try and stop myself from crashing head-first into the muddy ground below. I snarled loudly.
“How am I supposed to do it, then?!”
No answer. I didn’t deserve one. I laughed a little. There was no way I could do this myself – my thought processes were too addled, too distracted. I couldn’t focus on anything long enough to see it through. Taking another fruit out of my bag, I slowly began to laugh more.
I wasn’t sure why, but I supposed laughing was better than crying.
==2nd December: Guilt==
In which Water rejects Ursala directly.
==3rd December: Hunt==
The wolf stalked through the trees. Her paws left prints in the mud which closed up behind her. They made noise as they fell, squelching and splashing. But her form did not leave the same firm, tangible impression on the eyes; it was ghostly, semi-transparent and wild.
She had initially been surprised that the Elements had let her take the form of a wolf. They were not letting her use any of the rest of their gifts. But they had told her that she was allowed to take the form of what she was, and that she was a wolf. She had questioned that she would be able to turn back into an orc again, and they had told her that she was an orc. This being a satisfactory answer for her, she had taken her wolf-body and was going to seek food.
Now she had sniffed out something to eat. It was mortal food but it would function for what she needed. The problem was that there were some beings guarding it. About four of them, she figured; maybe five, if one was small. Or was that last one a memory? They were pinkskins. Pinkskins always smelt strange.
She shifted into her orc form to look with mortal eyes. There were four of them, indeed, and they were talking. Definitely humans. They had Theramore uniforms on, and a few tents. One of the tents contained supplies and boxes and blankets. Blankets… how she wanted to be comfortable at night when she slept. Maybe she could let herself take one of those as well as food. She hoped it was rations in those crates.
She couldn’t understand the words that the humans were saying. She’d been brought up in a camp, yes, but the humans had tried to reserve their language as one that they could speak to each other in without worrying that the orcs might understand, or overhear. Nonetheless, the vowelful language still rolled against her eardrums as she tried to work out how to get at their ration tent without them attacking her.
--
“It’s been a few days, Captain. I’m worried.”
Jennings sounded earnest. That was because he was. He was worried about John. John Southwell had gone with them on a routine patrol to the south on Monday. The party had come under attack from Black dragonwhelps. That was hardly surprising, considering their Aspect had burst out of the ground just a few days previous. That had been a bizarre report to receive, although it explained the extreme weather phenomena, at least.
Theramore was very aware of this sudden crisis. They had taken full advantage of the chaos to make a move on the Southern Barrens and the surrounding areas. The Barrens' topography had been shredded by the earthquakes, which gave the Alliance the perfect opportunity to take some of it for themselves. They had long been wanting some land on Kalimdor that was of more use to them than Dustwallow – which was bad for pretty much everything of interest to anyone. This particular unit had been a part of securing the highway which was used to transport materials.
It was normal for units to be attacked. It was normal for men to die. But John Southwell had actually disappeared. In the middle of a battle, too – usually if men disappeared, it was when they walked off, or during the night. But Southwell had disappeared whilst everybody else was fighting. Jennings had scolded himself many times over for his lack of attention – he should have seen him being taken – but now he just wanted to find his friend.
“I know,” said the Captain in return. “But we can’t afford to keep looking, Jennings. I’m sorry, but we just can’t run the risk. We need to report to Fort Triumph tomorrow, as planned.”
“What if he’s still alive, though? We’re meant to stick together…”
The Captain gently rubbed his forehead. “I want to go looking as much as you do, but we have our duties. The Alliance needs to put as many of its resources into the new strongholds as it can, and that includes us. We can’t afford to make them worry, especially with the buzzbox towers still being knocked out."
"Alright..." Jennings looked down, and to the side.
The Captain leant over and patted Jennings sincerely on the shoulder. "I'm sorry," he said. There really wasn't much else he could do to offer condolences. He knew that Jennings and Southwell had been good friends – maybe even the best – but this was, in a way, the life of the soldier. You fought things for a living. Your friends were going to die sometime. As far as the Captain was concerned, disappearing inconspicuously during the middle of a battle was one of the better ways to bow out. He could have been killed by a crocolisk. That would have been embarrassing to have to explain to the family.
"Hey! There's something in the undergrowth!"
The Captain drew his sword instinctually as the call went up from the Corporal. Either it was a dragon, a crocolisk, or something worse. He knew there were ogres and Tauren. He'd heard rumours of ghosts further north.
So he didn't expect to see one bursting out of the bushes and making a dash for their supply tent. Such was his lack of expecting it that he stood, dumbfounded, as the wolf ghost darted into the tent and... turned into...
The first thing he noticed was how messy the orc was. She – it had to be a female, a male would never be able to get that skinny – was muddy all over, and it was caked and dry in places and wet, fluid in others. She looked like she hadn't been eating, either. On her head was a wolf mask, but from underneath it was a tangle of dirty hair which reached down past her shoulders.
"Just like the one in the Wetlands!" shouted the fourth member of their party. "What do we do, sir?!"
The creature was unarmed and harmless. She took one of their supply crates, though, grasping it clumsily in both burnt arms. The Captain took a split-second decision.
"Get the crate back!"
He watched his soldiers follow the creature into the undergrowth. He was older than them – less able to run around. It wasn't vital that they got it back, but it was still important. He wondered what could possibly have occurred to lower an orc to such a state. Usually they were such proud creatures...
He shrugged and watched to see when his men would come back, listening to their shouts echo through the marsh.
==4th December: Astray==
In which Ursala meets an old acquaintance.
==5th December: Desperation==
In which Ursala eats a longpig.
==7th December: Detached==
In which the humans find the corpse of their missing comrade.
==8th December: Priorities==
In which Ursala attempts to fulfil an Elemental request.
==9th December: Concede==
Tired. I was so, so tired. And hungry and hurt, but those pains had been dulled to mere nuisances. My stomach stabbed in anger at my insides, and my arms jabbed spikes into my bones as the burst boils on them refused to heal, but most of all I was tired.
I knew where I had said I would go. I had convinced myself I would travel to the coast. No more pigs there. Proper meat. Fish. I could fish for fish. I’d have laughed at my turn of phrase, but I was too tired. Those times where I could share a joke were long passed into deprivation of rest.
Even after the events of the previous night, the Elements would not let me be. Yes, they were quieter now… more gentle, almost. They knew what I had almost lost. Most of them did. Some did not understand still and told me I should have, would have, could have died; and then I could have joined them, they said, and it would be better than now. I could help.
I was beginning to think that they might be right. I told them that I might still die. I knew well that my body was running out of itself. I still had fat on me, that would help; but I needed to rest. These burns would not heal. But if I rested I would not have food…
Food. Fish.
I forced myself to stand up. I was shaking dangerously, quivering and quaking despite the hot and humid environment; from my perspective it was the world that was wobbling. The Earth’s shoulders were shuddering in sobs and sadness for what had happened. I had no name for the creature, but I knew only hatred for it.
I would try and get fish and if I did not get fish, then I would die. I told the Spirits this. I heard their reply but did not listen to it as I pulled my left foot out of the sticky mud. Then my right foot. Left. Right.
I walked.
The trees blurred and tipped in my field of vision and I fell forwards. This time, there was no playfulness in the mud which hit my face, like there had been all those months ago in the Wetlands. The burns on my chin had thankfully mostly healed, by now. I did not wipe my face clean. I spat out the mud that had wormed between my teeth, gritty and thick where my saliva was thin and dry. It tasted bitter – not at all like Earth should. Crying again, silently as always, I walked onwards.
Each step was difficult. The place came to an incline now, steeping upwards. The hills! I was told the hills were by the sea. I just had to get over the hills. Just one last obstacle.
I put a foot on the slippery rock and fell. I banged my head – my wolf mask took the brunt of the hit, making a yip of its own accord. Or was that my voice? I couldn’t tell. I saw red, then black.
And then I felt better.
Was this how it ended, then? On the ground of a swamp with no energy left in my body? Hardly an honourable ending. Defeated by a hill. No… my heart was still beating, slow and regularly. I could see it now. My body temperature was lowered. That meant my metabolism was slowing up. Sensible, but not needed. I could get food as soon as I got fish. But of course… the burns, yes. That was the tipping point. Needing to mend those would be the kick which stopped my vessel from functioning.
And now, I supposed, I waited. I could hear the spirits much more clearly here, where I was sat on top of my body. I wasn’t dead, no, but something close. And it let me see them. Fire was so angry here. And Earth was shattered in more places than mortal eyes could see…
I looked down, at my body. That was easier to look at. My own broken form was mortal. It was meant to be expendable. These elemental spirits were not so. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I screwed up my eyes and turned my head aside from it.
Slowly, I began to meld back down into my unconscious body. Somehow, it was easier letting sleep take me. I did not know if I would wake up, even. I didn’t exactly know what would happen to my spirit when I died. I had assumed some sort of afterlife, given words of ancestors speaking to their shamanic descendants. I had hoped to some day meet with my ancestors, although perhaps not this soon.
I faded, slowly, into unconsciousness proper. Blackness consumed my thoughts and nothing replaced them. It was almost soothing to give up. Stop fighting. Let my body slow its heartbeat almost to a stop, curled up here by the foot of a tree on the hard ground that the mountains made up.
Only one thought made its way into my mind before I slept.
I never did get to speak to Gulgrim…
Category:Story