Burying the Dead

This is an account of a small, wonderful bout of RP myself and a few others had [many nights ago] after the attack on Darnassus. I can't remember all the names of those involved, but it was a beautiful way to end the conflict, and I do wish some others had have stayed to see it too.
Big Chingo listened on as infuriated defenders and heroes called for a counterattack on a Horde city. How dare they attack us, they shouted and screamed, how dare they pillage our lands! It was time for payback! Except the ones that were pillaging and attacking were the same ones lying dead outside and inside the Night-Elven city. A few were routing, and would probably be spotted at nearby towns, and filled with spears, arrows and destructive magic. They had seen their payback at the hands of a stalwart but frenzied defense.
And besides, more important things had to be done. In the morning, the streets couldn't be littered with the blood and bodies of the fallen, from both sides. It was bad for business. Chingo turned away from the argument he had nothing left to give to, and regarded the corpses. Most had been reduced to skeletons - a testament to the power of the sword and spells being tossed around. If they could do that to a hardened warrior, Chingo tried not to think about what it could do to a small child. And when you were fighting in a city... all it took was for a child, or a fleeing civilian, to get in the way of a misplaced bullet, and then you didn't have yourself a battle. No. You had yourself a massacre.
This was what people didn't understand... and this was what war led to. People who had nothing to do with the slaughter of innocents being blamed, and flamed, for it...
'Alright, who wants to help me burn the dead?!" he shouted. It wasn't the most sensitive phrase he could have used, but Chingo was as subtle as a brick wall, and he wasn't about to change. A few did follow. Most stayed behind to plot the demises of the enemy, or to go back to their adventures. Whether they found themselves to high up in the foodchain to help, or whether it'd disturb them too much Chingo didn't know, but neither reason made him liken to them much...
He watched on as Ormel knelt by the body of a dead troll just outside the portal to the city. The Draenei gripped his huge hand on the Darkspear's tusk, and yanked it off. What blood was left in the body seeped out of the opening.
'A trophy,' Ormel explained. Chingo nodded. It ran through his mind how pleasant the world would be if no one had any desire to be sentimental. He knew he wasn't. He ordered people to move out of the way, and then he ushered a Flamestrike over the corpse. It burnt right through.
Skeletons littered the city. A lone Draenei corpse lay defeated on the bridge. He, Ormel, and Naleyna, a druid, trooped over to it. Chingo tried not to look at Ormel as he ordered the warrior to pick her up, and carry her to the grass. He nodded on approvingly as "Nallers" turned into her bear form and started to dig the grave at the side of the road. Chingo mentioned getting a plaque for the fallen, and for the others who died on the day. This was met with agreement.
The bear was swift with her work, but it was evident that dread was heavy on her shoulders. This had been an attack on her city. She might have known a few of those who died. Chingo had to hold in his annoyed spit. It'd just upset people. As the druid stood back, a neat and large grave having being formed, Ormel knelt over the hole, and dropped the body in. The corpse flopped in, and soon the soil was covering her. The Draenei prayed in his language. Chingo did not. He just watched on.
Tension throttled his mind. It was increasingly hard to prove to people the Horde were worth making peace with when such rogue bands would storm the cities that the Alliance loved willy-nilly. Most didn't even consider themselves part of the Horde. Thrall's lack of action on tracking attackers down and punishing them didn't help, but the Horde had their own problems. One of them just happened to be frequent Alliance attacks on the Crossroads...
Lightly punching Ormel on the leg, a sign of support, he looked over his shoulder to see a gnome's corpse on the ground. He didn't linger on it so long. So what? A gnome? He's dead, just like the rest of them. What does it matter what race he was? Chingo scolded himself with these arguments, and turned away. There was to be no significance to be found in that body, he told himself. No more than the rest of them. Rven the blood-elves had died as much as everyone else. The difference being, they were stupid enough to attack a city...
As the defenders started to pull the skeletons into a pile, Chingo pulling the lighter ones by the leg, others came and helped. Foreth, a night-elf he had once seen in the Fishmonger's Wife, during happier times, and Gehax, who seemed determined to honour the dead. The others Chingo didn't really know. But all the same, they helped.
They stood, after the pile had been completed. They stood looking at the dead. Looking at all those lives lost. Looking at all those widowers and widows made. Looking at all those orphans made. Looking at the stories cut to an end. Looking at the aftermath of something people were too stupid to realize was wrong and should have never been attempted. Solaaru trotted in, aboard his elekk. He dismounted and looked on as well.
'Anyone got any words, 'fore I burn 'em?' asked Chingo. He didn't. But if there was anything he had learned through his times as a hero, it was that others did, and he had to tolerate that. What he took as being weaknesses and fallacies others took as being an important part of being.
'Just two. No more,' said Foreth. After a slight bit of confusion that ruined the atmosphere somewhat, it was established that "No more" were those two words. Chingo felt a bit like a git. The others whispered more prayers.
In one stupid, stupid moment, Chingo reached for his hat. He stopped himself just in time. No, he thought. No. This had affected him too much already. He wasn't going to contradict himself. They were dead. Nothing more to it. It was sad, but they needed no respect. There was no one to receive it.
As he summoned another Flamestrike, and watched the corpses disintegrate, he heard Ormel say something about this all being really hard to not want to take revenge for. He turned to the Draenei, pulling the rim of his hat down.
'Then this'd jus' happen again,' he said. He regarded the ash. 'Would you wish this on anyone, Ormers?'
'I know, and no, I wouldn't.'
'Good man.'
Chingo felt guilty. But he had to respond to comments like that in the worst possible way. Or else people would take revenge, and people who had it in them to see the attacks like this for the terrible incidents that they were, that shouldn't ever have been followed up.
He muttered. It wasn't a prayer.
And then, of course, it was time to go to the Recluse. He needed a pint.
Category:Story