Altitude

As a race, the Kaldorei had always been known for their spirituality and perhaps even more so for their culture's deep losses. History was pock-marked with battle after battle, each seeming to take a little something away from the Kaldorei each time. Still, they clung fiercely to their culture and beliefs, determined to retain what they had fought so hard for. In Ashenvale it was common to see Kaldorei praying, at one with the wilds. Villages often held long, sprawling prayer meetings, feast days devoted to the Goddess and Cenarius, moonlight vigils at times of war or fear... Yet travel north along the coast and the atmosphere changed. Perhaps not enough to be noticed by all, but to the devoted few who travelled between Ashenvale and Darnassus, the harbor village of Auberdine was becoming diluted, tainted by those from the East, or mourning as wide-eyed Kaldorei youths chose to leave and explore far from home.
Nhaera Darkenbough had always been stubborn. She had noticed the village changing, set her jaw, ignored the strange looks and harsh words and settled herself on the shore. The sun was hidden, obscured by the thick veil of mists that shrouded the northern Kalimdor coast, and if she closed her eyes she could almost believe it was night. She bowed low, murmuring a brief prayer of thanks to Elune, then she began to chant and pray, begging for a blessing for Ashenvale now that the Horde intruders had left, their camp abandoned. She prayed for her brother, lost somewhere in the wilds, for the Kaldorei who had passed into the next life and on, and for the Kaldorei she surrounded herself with now, her friends, comrades and kin. She sank to her knees as her momentum grew, her words still barely above a whisper, though each rang loud and true in her mind. It had been too long.
She was lost in the trance of chants and prayer, but she could feel their presence. Easterners, humans most likely, stood not far from her and watching what they considered to be a strange spectacle. Their voices scratched through the rhythm of her prayer, trying to drag her attention away from her devotion and towards her growing irritation at their intrusion.
"Ain't tha' one a druid? All green an' that?"
"Aye... wha's she doing?"
A hiss, a fizz, a gulp. The humans were drinking.
"Well, she ain't goin' swimming tha's for sure. Looks like she's cryin'. Or talkin t'herself..."
"Crying? On the beach?"
"Aye... Shame, like. An there's no cathedral here for 'em. Shame, really. Sh'looks skinny... she'll freeze when the storm comes in..."
Another hiss. A small thud, the cork flying from the bottle and landing in the sand close to her knees. The druid shifted slightly, head still bowed, the first wave of the incoming tide beginning to lick at the folds of her robes. To any other Kaldorei, the druid's irritation at being stared at would be clear - prayer was sacred, never to be disturbed. But, as sure as time passes, slowly the sanctuary of what was now known as Darkshore was ebbing away, diluted by travel and war. Time passes and changes.
"Andu'falah'dor..." With a final bow the druid cast her prayers to the wind, hitching her robes enough to stand and giving the Easterners a cold glare. She could see their jaws slacken and their throats constrict, the buzz of whatever they had been drinking making them lose any sense to try to respond to her accusatory glare. Stepping between them and ignoring their huffs of discontent, she held her arms aloft and called upon the form of the storm crow.
The transformation itself was instant, each second illuminated and enhanced in the druid's mind. What had once been hair and flesh became a sheen of slick feathers, each shimmering between petrol-blue and an inky black in the light of the obscured sun. She called out to the night, to the Goddess, her own personal thanks for the gift and soared, following the coastline south until the darkness of sand and fog turned to thick, lush forest.
Like all her animal forms, the crow form she now took heightened her awareness of her surroundings. She could sense everything, from the smallest rodent to the largest Shadowhorn, even as the air rushed past her and she flew at such speed, her talons glancing leaves as she swept onwards. The druid flew as fast as she could until her wings ached and her eyes stung with tears from the chill of the air against her. Astranaar was far behind her now, and the Silverwing encampment to the south would be busy with sentinels and lay-folk alike. She hovered for a time, enjoying the silence of altitude and the sensation of flight, before an idea struck her like a spear. Mid-hover, she turned and let herself fall like an arrow towards what had become her target.
"It has been too long..."
**********
She ached.
In her Kaldorei form, time passed too quickly. Nhaera had once tried to explain to a Sentinel how the shape-changing affected her, but the warrior had laughed and rambled on about how pleasurable flight must be, and had asked about the tactical benefits of being able to stealth in the shadows whilst in the form of the lynx. Nhaera had always held those thoughts as somewhat "separate" to her - to those outside the Circle, her ways were exotic and alluring, and to the Druids they were just a small part of one of the Great Mysteries. Benefits and pleasures came second to her own introspection, and despite the nagging feeling that this was not a quality to be proud of, she knew it was engrained in her. She had been a solitary child, roaming the wild hills by day and watching the adults of the commune pray and make rituals by night. There had been older youths, her own blood-brother amongst them, yet she had shunned their time and company in favour of... watching. Learning. Praying.
How far away the dreams of the temple were now...
...and despite all the changes that had occurred since those lonely years, she still held onto that introspection, and still found it hard to understand outsider's thoughts.
Her heart raced in her chest, and she glanced at the sky. The sun was low now, and she knew the first stars of evening would soon appear - it had been hours since she had landed and shaken off the guise of the crow, and her limbs burned with the effects of her fighting. The lumber camp was a scar on the landscape, and after the fall of the army of the camp to the north it had become lazy, slow, with even the most obedient of peons slacking under the gaze of their bored masters. Attacking alone was something she had always warned others against, and yet there she was, a mace in one hand, a dagger in the other. The bells began to ring, a cry of Orcish cutting the silence in two. She heard the thud of footsteps and knew it would begin again. She was prepared to spill blood once more.
**********
She let her mace crash against the already falling form of the nearest orc, her wild emerald hair swirling around her like a tangled wave, twisting and turning in the air with each of her leaps as she flew from corpse to peon and on again. She had forgotten how much she enjoyed the sport at the Lumber Camp. For so long she had focused on the Orcish camp west of Forest Song, with its tree-stump walls and fel-cursed runes painted in what she suspected to be Kaldorei blood adorning the battlements. She knew, from various messengers and crude translations that the Orcs had named it "Splintertree" - just thinking of the insult caused bile to rise in her throat, and she took the rage-rush out on yet another terrified peon, her silver dagger easily slicing its throat as she sprung, cat-like, from the forest floor up into one of the few ancient boughs that remained steadfast is this ravaged part of Ashenvale.
She pulled herself from one branch to another, deeper and deeper into the rose-stained canopy until the leaves began to thin enough for her to see the sky unobscured. She was safe, so high from the corpses and injured peons that she had left in her wake - the ones unlucky enough to have survived her whirlwind of blades, spells and mace would be picked off soon, once the other Kaldorei heard the Orcish warning bells and screams carried on the wind.
Her arm stung, cut in the rush of the battle. She watched, curious, as a thin lilac line bled from the wound and over her silver skin, slipping over the curve of her taut arms and finally pooling at the seam of the leather cuffs that she kept strapped tight above her wrists. She dipped her head and traced her tongue over the trail, licking her skin clean and holding her hand over the wound. She felt the blood seep between her fingers even as she channeled her healing into it, an Orcish wound, rebellious and raging to the last, even as her spell sealed the cut with what would become a faint blue scar. She licked her hand clean and relaxed against the tree, kicking her legs against the trunk like a child. At this height, she would be forgiven for thinking Ashenvale was always as peaceful. Pushing the thoughts of the Orcish dead to the back of her mind, she shut her eyes and soaked in the peace of altitude once more.
Category:Story