Into the Outlands

This story is part of 'The Skydancer Chronicle''.
The next installment is here: The Scryers and the SeerThe previous installment is here: True Masters of the Light
==Into the Outlands==
EVERY DAY THAT passed I had thought of her. For what must have been around twenty years, there hadn’t been a single day where Soraya Skydancer hadn’t crossed my mind at least once.
It was strange, with so many other things to keep me occupied in this foreign land. There were spiders, with hides of shining crystal, as tall as I and ten times more ugly. There were the trees, so familiar to me now, but so alien when I had first arrived. I had never seen trees so tall in all my life, even in the woodlands of Quel’Thalas which, I hoped, I still knew like the back of my hand. They reached to touch the sky itself, every one of them parent to a number of seeds that shone down onto the world below with a blue efflorescence like lamps bathed the midnight streets of my sun-touched home. The sky itself was a marvel, stars so unusual I could spend an eternity staring into them and never knowing them all. It was as though the night sky changed daily and, for all I knew, it may well have. The sky was unsettled here, just like everything else since the orcs had torn the world asunder. On rare occasion, it seemed that the fabric of the heavens themselves would tear asunder, leaving thick, twisting streaks of gold and purple. I didn’t know what they were, but I knew I wanted to follow them. I was sure one of them would lead me home.
Still, she crept into my head. Sometimes, I admit, I forgot how she looked. Her image became a jumble of girls I knew, their faces blurring into featureless form that was framed with locks of near-white gold. Then, in a moment’s clarity, she would snap into focus; her blue eyes showing the depth of her struggling smile. I added twenty years, changes that no human would recognise, and looked again. If Soraya Skydancer were alive, she was beautiful.
I hadn’t obsessed over her, like it’s beginning to sound. Not quite, and not for long. Perhaps in the first year I had been trapped on this world, it was easy to fall into daydreams and longing' to bring my mind away from the troubles we all faced. I knew, after a while, that daydreams were all they were. There was no going back to see her and she was never going to come here. I didn’t even wish that she could, despite all the wondrous things I wanted to show her. Eventually, I locked her letters in their box for good, and placed them high on the shelves of my room. Out of sight; almost out of mind. I married seven years later and had a daughter three years after that. We called her Adalia, “after a girl I knew”, I told my wife. She seemed okay with it.
Life was simple, in retrospect. We just survived, making a new home for ourselves. Everyone within Allerian Stronghold was certain that we would be alone here for the rest of our lives. We were family, a strong community of all walks of life that was going to thrive on a broken world. Then everything changed.
I saw them for the first time in a small band, between them all a green, swirling ball hovering in golden chains. They draped themselves in deep red, and when I caught a glimpse of their eyes from the bushes, they were nothing as I had remembered. My people had come to Outland, yet there were not my people at all.
For months we kept out of their way, watching from afar in the forests we knew far better than they did. They built grandly, towering spires of red and gold that reminded me of home. And there they stayed; doing what, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
“Shouldn’t we talk to them?” the question was raised in the town hall.
“We do need to know how they got here,” I pointed out. “It might be a way home, too.”
This stirred an odd reaction. We were so ingrained into this world now that the prospect of ever going home had all but been dismissed as flights of fantasy. Now here we were, for the first time in years, presented with that opportunity. That reason, if no other, seemed the deciding factor in revealing ourselves.
Myself and four other elves were sent to their outpost. It had been decided that if they were going to be visited by anyone, it had better be their own kin. The dwarves and humans, as ever, were reluctant to delve deep into the affairs of the high elves.
We approached slowly, each of us noticing that the air grew thicker as the red towers came closer. Thicker in what way, we weren’t sure, but it was a hazy purple and it seemed to seep into our skin, into our lungs and heads. It made my hairs stand on end. It was something beyond arcane.
Guards stood on either side of a winding path they had made for themselves. Two, then four, then six spread evenly on either side, each dressed in crimson armour, a blood-red phoenix covering their chests. The colour set me on edge. Red had always been a symbol of death for my people. We wore red to the funerals of soldiers, to respect those who had passed by shedding their precious blood. Now everything around me was red, as though awash with the blood of thousands.
I saw them long before they saw me. None of them Farstriders, clearly.
“Bal’a dash,” I said.
He replied with a word I didn’t quite catch. It sounded awfully like Thalassian for ‘scum’. I stopped in my tracks, listening as he called to his comrades. This I understood better, although the occasional word was lost on me, as though the dialect and nuances had been changed. “The traitor scum are here!” he cried, drawing his blade. “Lay waste to them!”
There was a blade in my face, crossed with my own as I struggled to push the elf off me. Behind me, one of us collapsed, an arrow lodged somewhere between his eye and mouth.
“What the fel is this?!” I had to ask, however futile. The green-eyed elf swung his blade at me again.
“You encroach on the land of the Sun King. This will be his world. The Children of Blood will have their vengeance on your treacherous, spineless breed!”
I rammed my sword through his head so hard his teeth broke. “I’m Thaladian,” I told the dying mess impaled on my blade. “It was nice to see you, too.”
EVERYTHING ERUPTED INTO madness after that.
It wasn’t just the arrival of these so-called blood elves that threw us. Not long after, the Alliance contacted us all. It didn’t feel right. Suddenly, our community was thrown back into a war we had all but forgotten about and there were factions in play that took some time to comprehend.
More interesting that that, to me, was news of the Horde. The Horde which now encompassed my people. Funny. They said we were the traitors. I hoped Soraya had better sense.
TEROKKAR FOREST WAS largely ignored by the greater wars being waged around us. It was largely untouched by the Legion that was using Outland as platform to strike at Azeroth. Some said that was to do with the great light that shone from the abandoned city, far to the west. That pillar of light hadn’t always been present, and its origin remained a mystery to me. Through day and night it shone constantly, breaking through clouds to pierce into the sky itself. Some said it was the only thing keeping us all safe from demonic invasion. I didn’t know what to believe.
The blood elves weren’t numerous enough to attack our stronghold, and kept largely to themselves. Yet, watching them, I knew there was more to it all than met the eye. Terokkar wasn’t their only outpost. Messengers came from Shadowmoon to the east, and from the roads west; that could have been almost anywhere.
If there’s one thing I had learned watching them, it was that they suffered infighting. Not much, but it was there. Elves clad in dark blue, a black and gold tabard across their chests came in small parties, no more than two or three and spied. From my distances amongst the trees I watched this week on week. They rarely did anything more, perhaps save occasionally pick off a patrol. They were all the same to us, though – clearly our enemy. For the most part we would leave them be, yet if they came too close to the stronghold we sent them running with arrows through their shoulders.
I wasn’t comfortable with it all. If they fought amongst themselves, then it seemed sure to me that we shared a common goal with those in black and gold. I decided to follow a party, to uncover the truth of it all.
I kept far out of sight, slipping through the thickets of the ancient forest with as little sound as I could manage. They were well out of earshot, barely specs on the path through the trees, but I had to remain vigilant. They weren’t the only things that might try and kill me.
They were travelling for almost the entire day, taking a large detour to avoid the ruins of an old town that was overrun with mutated inhabitants. Broken, they were called; the suffering inhabitants of this planet who had once made it their home. I wasn’t quite sure what happened to them. I didn’t care to know. As the sun began to drop down over the Barrier Hills we edged ever closer to the ancient city and it pillar of light. I had rarely come this far into the forest, hearing tale that the place was infected with fel and vile, dark sorcery from a war long fought. To my surprise, what I saw was quite different.
The ruins bustled with life. I could just see over the walls, into the heart of the city itself. Below its impressive bridges was what seemed to be slums, the most crowded place of all. I noticed creatures from Outland, and creatures from Azeroth. Some things I had never even seen were wandering in the mix as though there were no differences between any of them. Above all that, on the central tier was the light. It was encased by a temple-like structure, from the roof of which the pillar shone brighter than it had ever seemed from all those miles away. I felt awed by it, even looking from the outside as I was.
My gaze drifted upwards, where I caught sight of something familiar. On the upper tier of the city hung great, black drapes lined with gold. I could just make out the guardians that walked the perimeter; arcane golems like the ones of Silvermoon. This must have been where the other blood elves had come form, and where they were returning to.
I waited out the night, continuing my long vigil, trying to learn from sight alone what I could about this other faction of elves. They were blood elves, most certainly and very few in number. I imagined their entire contingent didn’t amount to many more than a single division of the military, if that’s even what they were.
With this closer vantage point I realised that the pairs they travelled in were not always clad the same. Often there would be one in their colours, and one who bore no apparent allegiance. After some hours, they would return and either go their separate ways, or stride back into the city, the tabard-less one usually carrying some kind of trophy; a tabard, an armour scrap, a weapon. Some kind of test, I deduced. A test of fealty.
When it was dawn, I headed back. I made sure to co-inside my trek with that of one of the pairings that were to be tested. I hadn’t kept a close eye on them, having no reason to do so until they neared the enemy outpost. Waiting for me there, hidden amongst the foliage, was Jeoleth, an old friend.
“What did you learn?” he asked.
“They’re not our enemy,” I said. “Perhaps not our friends,” I thought to add, “but certainly not our enemies.”
We waited and watched as the couple went about their business. The male worse the black and gold colours, his companion female. She was dressed in the same blue attire as him, closer resemblance than some of the other pairings I had seen, but still had no tabard. Instead, around her arm was wrapped a black and gold ribbon. This wasn’t her first time here, I reckoned. As they picked off a wanderer, she took no prizes. Rather, she looked a little sickly, and turned him onto his face so she couldn’t see. Then she stared right up at us.
Jeoleth pulled his bowstring tight. “She’s seen us.”
“Wait!” I commanded him. We were still. She kept pacing our way. I kept warning Jeoleth to wait.
Something about her told me not to let him shoot her. She drew her blade; still I held him back. She way at a hundred yards now, I could pick her face out clearly. Her eyes flared green. I knew this girl. I knew her as a child.
“She’s too close!” Jeoleth let the arrow fly, just as I reached to knock his arms away. It pelted at her, missing her head by a hand’s breadth. I swore at him as she turned and ran, sprinting after her as fast as my legs could carry.
“Wait!” I cried after her, not caring if I drew the attention of anyone else. “Wait! It’s me, Thaladien!”
She staggered to standstill and turned slowly on her heels. Staring at me, now only feet from my face, with a look that was confused, relieved and beautiful all at once, was Soraya Skydancer.
I WATCHED HIS expressions change constantly from something like love, to disgust, to sympathy. As I told my tale, it was as though Thaladien wasn’t sure what to make of me anymore. I knew myself and I knew that, naturally, I had undergone changes since we had met. What I didn’t realise was just how drastic those changes were, and how I was now ‘Soraya’ and could never again be ‘Sorrie’.
Some parts of the story he had a hard time believing. The razing of Quel’Thalas had made him angry, so much so that I had to hold his wrists to stop him from punching the tree we had sat under into oblivion. I took my flask and cleaned up his knuckles.
He also wasn’t pleased about the Horde. That may be an understatement. For a good thirty minutes after I had explained the details of that allegiance he wouldn’t talk to me. He wouldn’t leave, either, and despite me telling him that I was no doubt just as uncomfortable with it all as he was, he looked at me a little different from then on in.
I decided not to tell him how many men I had slept with.
I picked up a terocone and fiddled with it in my hands as I waited for him to calm down. It shone dimly in the coming dusk, illuminating my features with it’s gentle glow. I felt almost terrible for what I had done to him. Everything he had fought for and believed in, I was no longer a part of. The Silvermoon he remembers, and the girl who grew up there with him, no longer existed. It seemed wrong to me somehow. Wrong, that he had been trapped out here and remained the same Thaladien I remembered whereas my life had u-turned and changed so much that he barely knew me at all.
Something was chirping. I wasn’t sure what in this alien land, but I thanked it silently for filling the air with a noise other than my breathing. I glanced right; Thaladien still had his back to me. His hands were between his knees, reaching down to pick at the grey-green grass that he sat on. I wanted to be beside him. To wrap my arms across his shoulders and lean him back against me so I could finish my story with quiet whispers into his ear. As it was, though, I felt as though he would run if I touched him.
“I wasn’t finished,” I broke the silence between us. He shrugged. “Don’t you want to know how I got here?”
“I want things to go back to how they were.”
I didn’t tell him how childish he sounded. Now wasn’t the time for that sort of thing, and somewhere within me I knew that I longed for the very same thing.
“Will you at least sit with me?”
He got back up and trod back over to where I was fiddling with my cone.
“The light looks good on your skin,” he took it from my hands as he sat. There was still a little distance between us, but he was making an effort again. “I have to tell you something.”
I didn’t want him to carry on. Those words were always trouble. I asked to finish my tale first.
“Sure,” he conceded, edging slightly closer. “But I do need to tell you.”
I took my terocone back and twisted in my hands. We had reached my Masterhood, and the reassignment of Deldorian and I that followed. With the inclusion of the blood elves in the Horde, we had been sent to…
…Hellfire Peninsula. That place, Thaladien, did you see it? I couldn’t move the moment I had stepped through the Dark Portal. It was just… it was too surreal for words. The way the sky was broken and there were planets, or moons, or suns that I never knew existed. And ribbons of gold and green and purple that stripped across the stars like some celestial wrapping. It was beautiful and awe inspiring, but it was also hell.
I couldn’t stand the heat of the place. Our uniform was heavy plate, black and red. Deldorian and I both wore it, along with shield, swords and supply satchels. It was heavy and uncomfortable and I think I nearly fainted at least twice coming down the grand stairway, only to be greeted with a damned war zone.
We were both greeted by some lumbering orc, who stank, by the way, who ushered us both quickly aside.
He asked why we were there over the noise of fighting. His breath was worse than his body odour. I told him we were pilgrim escort. Deldorian nodded. He wasn’t very good at speaking up to orcs. The orc ordered us onto the windrider.
I honestly hoped he was joking. There was no briefing as I had expected. No “welcome to hell” pamphlet – don’t give me that look, it was funny – we just got tossed straight to the Horde base called ‘Thrallmar’. And no, Thal, I’m not going to divulge any strategic secrets to you so don’t even bother asking.
We arrived, somewhat disorientated and no doubt looking a mess to a group of around fifty blood elves, all looking to us to guide them to a place called ‘Falcon Watch’.
Deldorian leant close to me and said…
…“Do you want a drink?”
I blinked, stopping my story at Thaladien’s sudden interruption. He had slipped his arm around my back, unnoticed until now, his thumb was gently caressing the bare skin of my midriff. I tried my best not to blush, but I knew that he would remember what my twitching ears revealed.
“No, thanks,” I lied. My mouth had suddenly become dry, but I didn’t want him to have the satisfaction of knowing.
“They really didn’t tell you anything about Hellfire?” he asked.
“Not much,” I said. “We knew to be on the ball, and that pilgrim safety came before our own. We didn’t know what kind of troubles we’d be facing.”
“And what were they?”
“If you hadn’t interrupted me, you’d probably know by now,” I laughed a little.
I settled back into his embrace, I stared over to the horizon…
…which was a jagged mess of red rocks.
We had been walking for hours, the heat causing several of the group to need to be carried on the few carts we had for supplies. I was already fed up with the it all. There’s no grass, no trees or anything in Hellfire and I wasn’t really understanding how in the name of the sun this could be a Promised Land.
I don’t think the pilgrims understood either. They were looking for guidance that Deldorian and I couldn’t give them, although he tried his best. He was a good knight, really. I’d made him less shabby around the edges, and he simply had a way with people that inspired confidence without intimidation. It made me proud to be around him, proud that he was, in a way, my product. He was sort of how I’d always imagined you to be, with the rangers. Just maybe a little more clumsy!
I remember being quite bored when it happened. My feet were hurting and I had a headache. I barely noticed the ground rumbling below us, but it was all to apparent to me when some worm-beast-thing ripped through our convoy, taking up two of our group with it in a bloody mess.
Everyone was screaming and panicking, and it was difficult to keep them under control and well as deal with whatever the fuck it was that was going to kill them if we didn’t do something about it soon.
“What the fuck is that?” Deldorian was yelling at me. He asked me some dumb questions, sometimes.
Do you know the things I’m on about? I don’t know how long it was, because I have some sickening feeling that most of its body was still underground. But what was shown was at least three metres tall, with a thick red carapace to match the dirt. It had some sickly, sharp teeth that oozed some green gunk, probably poison. Hanging from its jaw were the remains of the couple it had ripped apart.
“This isn’t like home, is it?” He asked. He asked some really dumb questions.
“Go for its underside! I need to help the pilgrims!” I made up tactics on the spot. It looked sort of squishy from where I was standing.
I herded them like a human herds sheep. They ere still all screaming and crying, some of them being sick all over themselves. I dared a glance over my shoulder to watch Deldorian as he made a wild charge for the beast. It dived its disgusting head for him, missed and then roared in pain as he draw his sword through the yellow scales of its belly. I almost was in the mood to laugh as I watched him get coated in the much it unleashed from its wound as it thrashed around.
He ran from it, getting back to the group of us and urging us to make the final leg of the journey at this pace. I think they were all too scared to disagree.
I wasn’t sure if that thing had died, but my heart was…
…Thumping fast beneath my breast.
It was hard not to be intoxicated by him. Everything that had driven me wild as we had grown up together was coming back to me, from the way he smelled to the way he would give me his undivided attention as I rambled on. I even caught his gaze slipping across me, as though he were still unable to control his more base instincts, even in the prime of his adulthood. That thought only got me even more excited.
“So, about that drink?” I cleared my throat pointedly.
He smiled and me and pulled a small flask from a bag at his side.
“You first,” I joked.
“It’s not poison,” he sounded indignant, the humour gone well between his ears. He took a long sip to prove his point.
I rolled my eyes at him.
“You’re shaking,” he noticed as I brought the flask to my lips.
“I’m not,” I lied, somewhat pointlessly. “Your ranger-eyes have gone all wrong.”
“My ‘ranger-eyes’ are never wrong, miss Skydancer.”
I grinned. There were a thousand possibilities for me to continue this flirt. Instead, I decided to remain silent. The tension was enjoyable.
“This Deldorian. You always talk about him in the past tense.” This was true. “Where is he?”
I pursed my lips a little. This was going to be a difficult topic to discuss, but it was something I had to get to anyway. It was my own fault, but Deldorian was in trouble…
…without knowing it, and there wasn’t much I could do about it.
It was an offer that every blood elf wanted. Remember how excited you were, when you went off to fight wars in service of Alleria Windrunner? Think of it like that, but being in the personal army of Kael’thas Sunstrider. The Sunfury, they’re called. The crowning jewel of all military operations.
The position had been offered to me, initially, as we rested at Falcon Watch, making ready for the trip back to Thrallmar for the next batch of pilgrims. The place was bustling with rangers – you’d of loved it – and overseeing it all was a small unit of knights and spellbreakers; some sent from Silvermoon, some veterans to this world from when the Prince had first arrived.
They told me later they often head-hunted like this. Picking away those who had been assigned guard duties or escorts. They went for me because I was ranking. Deldorian got all sad, like a child who hadn’t got what they wanted for Winter Veil. I felt bad for him, knowing how much it meant to him. He was the kind who always aspired to greatness, and I didn’t want to hold him back.
They weren’t very pleased with me, to say the least. Apparently they had already been making perpetrations for the arrival of a Master into their ranks, and they told me out of his earshot, that Deldorian wouldn’t do. This annoyed me a bit. Well, a lot. I shouted at them some, made them reconsider, then shouted at them some more.
Deldorian would leave within the week. I was going to be sorry to see him go. We were close, almost like family since I’d taken him under my wing. He was a good elf to have around, you know? I trusted him to look out for me.
He was happy, and I was happy for him until later that night. I was approached by someone I’d never seen before. The look on his face…
… Told me he didn’t quite follow.
“This doesn’t sound like trouble,” he looked inquisitively at me.
“I’m getting there. Be quiet.”
I took a deep breath…
…feeling just about ready to punch him for what he told me.
“It’s the wisest choice you could have made!” he insisted, raising his hands defensively.
He’d confided some ‘truths’ to me just moments before. Truths that were, I thought, blasphemous lies. I thought he was a traitor to our kind, under the influence of the Burning Legion, such were the things he told me.
He told me Kael’thas was leading our people to destruction. He spoke of visions and prophecy, of a need to fight back before it was too late.
I was so angry I nearly gutted him there and then. But I also know conviction when I see it. He truly believed every word that came from his mouth, and that scared me. And for Deldorian’s sake, if nothing else, I had to follow it up.
I told him to prove it to me. I gave him two days to show me his truth.
As if prepared he brandished various documents at me. I knew they were official; I’d seen that sort of paperwork before within the Order’s libraries. I remember feeling sort of sick as I read them all. I don’t… I don’t want to tell you what they said, Thal. No offence. It’s sensitive information.
I didn’t know what to do. I told him to leave, and he did, promising he’d be back in a few days. I sought out Deldorian, I needed to tell him…
… I still loved him.
I realised that, as he wiped a tear away from my cheek. I composed myself a little, trying to get past the memories that were still stained too fresh in my mind. I let my mind wonder to other things to try and calm myself down, like if he loved me too and if I should as him? And what kind of special hell that would cause if he did. I decided well against it.
“Is that why you’re fighting one another?” he asked. I nodded. “Civil war, within a larger war. That’s not good.”
“It’s not,” I agreed simply. “But there’s nothing to do about it now, but hope I picked the right side.”
“You have doubts?”
“It’s hard to know what to believe, anymore.”
He had both arms wrapped around me now, and I was practically sitting in his lap. I knew it wasn’t his intent to be sexual. To him, it was a way to comfort me as we spoke – a cuddle between friends long estranged.
I closed my eyes, and tried to temper my emotions…
…which was proving extremely difficult as Deldorian lost it.
Just a few days ago I had told him he was to join the Sunfury. Now, I was telling him I was going to do everything in my power to stop it.
He didn’t often get angry, and it was unnerving for me to see him like this. He tried to show respect to me, like he knew he should but occasionally he called me a bitch. I had to let it slide – it really wasn’t the time to make things any worse.
He didn’t understand because I didn’t want to explain to him. I didn’t know who I could trust anymore, and in the mood he was working himself into he risked getting us both executed for treason if he went out screaming.
I tried to reason with him. I told him it was for his own good to go home and work in Eversong.
He told me I was a spiteful, jealous bitch. I hit him. I hit him so hard he fell onto his back, with his cheek bleeding and my knuckles red raw.
That was the last we saw of each other. After that, he wouldn’t speak to me other than to tell me to get out of his room. He left later that day, starting his journey early just to spite me.
I began to cry…
…heavy tears that rolled down my cheeks in torrents. Thaladien was trying his best to shush me, to cheer me up with stupid jokes that I couldn’t make sense of amidst my sobbing.
I turned in his lap, and buried my head into his shoulder. His hands rested on the small of my back as I shook gently. They were warm against my skin, his thumb trailing small circles. I wiped my eyes, then began to kiss his neck. He tensed beneath me, leaving it a good few seconds before he slipped his fingers beneath the waistline of my trousers. My lips trailed to his jaw, from his ear to his lips. I rested my hand on his cheek as we kissed. One of his was pulling my trying to tug my clothes over my backside. I slid mine to his crotch. He grabbed my wrist.
“Sorrie,” he panted breathlessly, trying to move under my weight. “I need to tell you something.”
“Now?” I pouted.
“Now,” he suddenly looked upset and mournful.
I knew this was a queue to get off and dress myself proper again. My heart was skipping beats in my chest, my skin tingling and head aching. I knew, within my gut that at that very moment something horrible would happen.
He took a deep breath. “I have a wife. And a child. I’m sorry, Sorrie. I can’t do this.”
I felt as though I had been stabbed.