Blood Night

This story is part of 'The Skydancer Chronicle''. 
 The next installment is here: Blood Knight
The previous installment is here: Sorrie
== Blood Night ==
FOR THE NEXT years of my life I tried to live as Thaladien had asked me to. At the time, I would have done anything he asked. If he came back from the grave at told me that I must cross the Great Sea and spend the rest of my life in uncharted wilderness, I would have. In fulfilling his wishes, it somehow kept him alive, and when I failed to do as he had asked, I felt ashamed of myself, as though I had disappointed him and were unable to say sorry. It went well, to begin with. After I had done my grieving and was ready to face Quel’Thalas again, I threw myself into the thick of things. To all intents and purposes, I was an adult. I had lived through my long and troubling younger years and had come out all the stronger for it, at least on a personal level. Naturally, I still wasn’t the brightest dust in the sack and my social awkwardness hadn’t mystically vanished as I had foolishly hoped it would. Yet, we were no longer opinionated and young any more. If those who I chose to integrate myself with had a bad word to say about me, about how I conducted myself, or how I looked, they kept it to themselves. The problems began when I realised how I was so very different from them all. How I began to see that, despite my efforts to fit in, I was always on the outside of the circle, hovering and dipping in now and again but never really remaining close. They all had bonds with each other that I failed to have with any of them. What they had between them was what I had with Thaladien. Except Thaladien was dead. They understood each other in ways in which I couldn’t hope to comprehend. They had their own vocations, and their own houses. Some, although not many of them, even lived on the grand estates of nobles. Their conversations were above me. Somehow far, far out of my reach. I knew I should have experiences things as they did. That I too should have become more independent, should have found work, a home, a lover. But I hadn’t, and in my own foreseeable future, I wasn’t going to. My development had been hindered by my shyness as a child, and without Thaladien here to plough me through the social decorum I found so confusing and alien, I was lost. It wasn’t long before I slipped back into my old ways entirely. It wasn’t even a painful transition for me. I had made no close friendships, so saying goodbye to these people wasn’t an issue for me, and I was almost certain that they wouldn’t miss me hovering around them like a pesky dragonhawk hatchling. “What are you doing this evening?” I would often ask them.“Not much” or something similar was often the answer. I knew, or was paranoid enough to believe, that they were telling me lies. To me, “not much” was some secret code for “something fun, but not with you.” I would smile at them, clasp my hands a few times, rub the back of my neck and slowly turn around and be off on my way, my cheeks flushed with the embarrassment that I simply wasn’t welcome. To begin with my mother would often ask why I wasn’t out and about. She would remind me what a wonderful evening it was (as if every evening in Quel’Thalas weren’t wonderful) and near enough try and push me out of our front door. It was like being a child again as I shook my shoulder free of her hands and dug my heels into the rug on the floor, which crumpled under my weight until we almost fell over each other.“You’re too stubborn!” she yelled at me once as I picked myself off the floor. I had actually fallen this particular evening.“I have better things to be doing,” I stated my lie with an angry face. “Stop treating me like I’m a child.”She huffed, shrugged her shoulders and leant cross-armed against the hallway wall, watching me as I tugged my jerkin back down around my stomach. My ears twitched at her.She was exhausted with me, I could tell. As was my father. I saw less of them both than I ever did growing up, despite still living under their roof. Their daughter, not the easiest of children to begin with, was broken in ways they couldn’t dream of fixing. Or so they thought. I was quite content with my life some years after Thaladien’s death. Not that his memory didn’t weigh on me every day, or that I didn’t care that he was gone. But it didn’t impair me as they seemed to think it did. They were treading on eggshells around me, and it was painfully obvious. If something between us became even the least bit heated, they would drop the subject almost immediately. It bred in me the first seeds of being spoilt. As an adult, I developed the traits of a child. I always got what I wanted. I thought my life would continue like this forever; me hiding away, doing the odd jobs for my father. The world outside nothing but an unchanging landscape of perfect woodlands full of people I didn’t know, or really want to know. Was I content? Not entirely. I always felt guilty for so vehemently disobeying Thaladien’s last wishes in his letter. But the girl he wanted me to be just wasn’t me. I couldn’t do it without him. Assuring myself of that, I settled. It would be like this forever. The world around me would never change. THE SKY WAS filled with dark clouds. My hair stood up on the back of my neck. This was wrong, and I knew it in the very core of my being. Quel’Thalas did not look this grim, it did not get this cold. The woodlands around me were silent. Not just silent, but devoid of all things, as though life dared not make itself known around me. The leaves were not rustling, for there was no wind. No birds fluttered in the skies. There wasn’t the distant, lazy grumble of a tired Springpaw. I had a terrible feeling of being alone wash over me. It was as though the hands of gods had picked me from my business and placed me in my own private pocket of existence. In here it was quiet, it was cold and I was shivering and on the verge of tears. A pained cry ripped the still air and snapped me back to my senses.“Fall back to the trees!”All around my was suddenly awash with movement. The ground near shook with the heavy fall of running feet as wave after wave of Farstrider darted past me. Some yelled at me, the voices strained in their chaos and hard to understand. I turned on my feet, looking all around me, taking on the sights of the leather clad warriors pacing through the trees at an alarming speed. They were bloodshed, almost all of them. Their armour was torn and used, some of their bows snapped, swords covered in an oozing substance I couldn’t identify. My legs refused move except for allowing me to pivot. I twirled frantically, trying to catch any of them by the arm as they shot past me. My instincts told me to run with them, that today of all days I should have been alone. Ironic, looking back, that as a girl so attached to her parents was alone this day. And were it not for that fact, my life would have been vastly different. I may even have died. I almost choked as a ranger grabbed my mid-stride around the waist, knocking the wind clear from my lungs. I dropped my satchel, the herbs I’d been collecting for my father spilling out onto the ground. I gripped her arm tight and kicked my legs in the air like a child. I would have screamed if I had the breath. “Stay still!” she roared.I was panicked. I didn’t listen to her. I noticed she had darted us both away from the others. As they ran closer to the walled city in the distance, we ran at ninety degrees from them, deeper into the outlaying woodlands. I had just about gathered my breath again and was about to scream at her, and ask her where in the nether she was taking me when she dropped me hard against the roots of a large tree. My back roared with pain, my head throbbing as it crashed against the hard, ancient wood. Either side of me tall roots blocked my view, hiding me from the outside world. I was about to stand, to scream at this woman for handling me in such a manner when she ripped her cloak from her shoulders and tossed it at me.“Hide!” her voice was laced with sincere urgency. “Hide and do not move!” She began to run back to the others, stopped a few moments and glanced back to see me sinking low and covering myself with her brown cloak. She smiled what may have been the last smile of her life. For a moment I thought of Thaladien. I regret not saying “thank you” to my saviour.The chill around me intensified as I peeked out through a small hole I’d ripped in the cape. There were terrible cries filling the air now; the chilling voice and screams of people dying echoing through the woodland realm in a deathly requiem. I was crying by now, trying hard to keep my sobs quiet and my movements still. I had no idea what was happening. I had yet to see anything terrible and monstrous. I only felt death’s chill, and heard its destruction.Then I saw it all.A great, shambling army of undead monsters marched on an unrelenting path to Silvermoon. In its wake the earth turned to black, the wildlife withering and dying as they passed. Some were closer to me than others, but they were all united in purpose, all moving towards an unknown goal.I became somewhat thankful I couldn’t see much from beneath the cloak. What visions filled my eyes were enough to make me vomit in my lap. The smaller creatures were bad enough; what once appeared to be men, or elves stumbling forward on weak legs. Their skin was grey and lifeless. The elves had seeping, oozing wounds still covering their bodies from where they had been slain not long ago. There were larger beasts, creatures stitched together from rotting flesh, spewing bile and blood as they rampaged across the woodlands. The army was hundreds, if not thousands strong, each creature I saw somehow more disgusting than the first. I closed my eyes, begging for the nightmare to end. Then the fighting began. The air whistled with the sounds of a hundred arrows falling from the trees.“For Anasterian!” a proud, female voice rang clear in the chaos.The shambling zombies pressed on through the barrage of arrows. Even with the sharp metal piercing through their heads, they continued forwards to their goal, undeterred by the ranger’s attacks. An order I didn’t catch was shouted, and as if appearing from the very bark of the trees themselves, the defenders of Quel’Thalas appeared in their final stand. In close quarters they fought Scourge and Elves falling with every passing moment. I clenched my eyes shut tight as one of the blue-clad rangers fell too close for comfort. I could hear his screams as something tore into his body. When I dared open my eyes, his mauled, bloodied body was twitching, wreathed in a dark energy. It stood, set its head straight and turned for Silvermoon. I was sick again. I passed out shortly after. “DEATH ITSELF HAS come to claim the high home of the elves!” That voice. That chilling, cold voice I will never forget. It roused me to an otherwise quiet and desolate world. My city burned, my people were dying. The Bastard Prince, the Herald of Death, Arthas Menethil, had all but destroyed the ancient society of the Quel’dorei. My ears twitched. I suddenly felt empty.In one last affront against my surviving kin, the death knight tainted and destroyed our Well. The desolate night lingered on without any movement. There was no feeling. No sadness, no anger. Nothing. Laughter filled my ears, more terrible than any sadness. The laughter was mirthless. It was as cold a frost. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to describe how I felt for the following months after the invasion of Quel’Thalas. A thousand questions rattle in my head, all of them without answers. What had happened to my parents? Why was I alive? Who had attacked us? What would happen to me? Fear had gripped me truly and deeply, and I didn’t move from my spot in the trees for over a day. I stayed there, feeling as though I were the only creature left alive in all of Quel’Thalas. My vomit had dried to my lap long ago, and the stench would have overwhelmed me were it not for the already overpowering stink of death and decay that was so pungent in the air. It wasn’t until I knew that if I didn’t drink something I would have died. I hadn’t survived all I had witnessed only to die of dehydration, I owed myself and my mystery saviour so much more than that. Elrendar river still ran clean. At least from the side I approached from. Yet, I found myself terrified of it. I couldn’t trust my eyes anymore. Agents of death where everywhere, on occasion their deathly moans and wails rung clean in the still air. This water, for all I knew, was contaminated with their blight. Nevertheless, I took a small sip; I had no choice. I let the seconds tick past slowly, waiting for my body to seize, stiffen and die. The moment it dawned on me that I was safe I threw myself into the river. It was freezing, but that didn’t matter to me. This was an act of cleansing. Physically and mentally I had to wash myself clean of everything that had happened to me. The waters stilled as I stood up from my frantic splashing and I took a deep breath, watching my own grime float away from me as I shivered in the pale sunlight. I stepped back onto the riverbank and turned to my ruined city. Now was as good a time as any to get some answers. SILVERMOON WAS NOT as bad as I had imagined it would be. Splitting the city in two was a thick, black taint of land where the dark army had walked. I dared not go near that path through fear that I would wither should I so much as touch the tainted ground. Instead I entered the east side of the city, far away from my home. Most of the taller buildings still stood, although the walls crumbled and the windows appeared mostly smashed. Small fires burned here and there. The smaller buildings fared worst, apparently overrun by scourge, they barely stood in any recognisable form. The streets were empty. Having expected to see bodies, limbs and blood covering the broken pathways, I found myself relieved that only a few dead elves scattered the floor. I felt drawn to one building in particular. The emptiness that filled me since the day before had been growing, and soon became impossible to ignore. Faint warnings of a migraine pulsed behind my eyes, and my skin almost constantly itched. I was aching for something, but at the time I couldn’t tell what. I stepped as carefully as I could through the broken doorway, finding inside nothing but upturned furniture and smashed, scattered belongings. I imagined this was what a robbery would have looked like. On the floor, solitary and bright a blue gem shone out amidst the mess. It called to me, drew me closer as if only the gem and I existed. For all I knew, this was true. I reached down to pick it up, the itch of my skin intensifying as I drew closer, but soon after dissipating to a comfortable nothingness as I felt the arcane energy of the crystal seep around me.“Disturb us no more!”Ghostly apparitions flashed around me from nowhere, their cries for me to leave screeching within my head loud and ominous. I screamed and dropped the crystal, falling over backwards to smash my head against the rubble. The spectral elves descended upon me, their talon-like hands outstretched as if to strangle the life from me. Clenching my eyes tight shut I awaited my doom. Moments later the loud whir of the nether filled my ears, like a static wind. I opened my eyes again, watching as bright streaks of arcane energy circled the room in a violent vortex, my ghostly assailants shrieking back into their non-existence. A hand gripped me firmly by the arm and dragged me to my feet.“You shouldn’t wander alone. We’re leaving.” The voice was male and elderly.After he dragged me from the house we settled in the middle of the quiet, empty street. I looked over the other elf long and hard, tracing my fingertips across every contour of his face as though I were blind. “You’re alive,” I whispered to the stranger, disbelief in my tone. “There are others,” he assured me.Hearing these words I buried my face onto his chest and began to cry. WE WERE FEW.	And we were different. So very different from the people we once had been.Prince Kael’thas had returned to us from Dalaran and had rallied us under his banner. He was the hope we all needed in these dark times. His presence shone out like a beacon of the purest light, drawing us all to him like insects to flame. The attitude of the surviving elves permeated me. We all shared in our grief and loss. We all shared in this inexplicable sense that something profound and ineffable was missing from us. We were muddled. We were edgy. Above all else, though, we sought vengeance. Blood elves, he called us. Sin’dorei. The name I carry proudly to this day. Gone were the days of the high elves. Those who were valiant and worthy would be remembered eternally in our tribute to the fallen. For our brave kin who defended our lands with their lives we were named. In their memory and their blood, we pressed on. In their name, vengeance would be ours. The scourge, Arthas Menethil, would suffer at our hands. Not all amongst us were of similar opinion. Some felt we were following a dark path, that out lust for vengeance, our insatiable anger and our seething, unnameable need were driving us on a path they couldn’t follow. These are today’s high elves. The cowards. The spineless traitors who would rather see us in ruins that do what they must to have us survive. I despised them then as I despise them now. When the Prince gave the order to burn southern woods they protested the most. I felt torn, at the time. “We will not let the Scourge enjoy their plunder!” Kael’thas had cried to us. It made sense to me. I hated them, I hated what they had done to my home, my people, my family. If there was even the slightest victory to be had, even at the cost of our woodlands, I would have it.“Burn them all!” I cried into the crowd.One of the high elves protested vehemently. He protested until the very end, where he was slain by our blades. Many of them left soon after. MY SHYNESS SLOWLY crumbled away as the months passed. Being thrown into a situation where I needed to be part of a community forced me to change. I needed to talk to people, to be a part of things. Slowly, the blood elves would reclaim Quel’Thalas and I would be part of that. The social boundaries had been torn down. No one had any claim to being of a higher class than another any more, what with all of us in the same, ruined boat. It was easy to push myself into the fray, to make bonds with these people who I now shared my entire existence with. Soraya the high elf was but a fading memory. Soraya the blood elf was coming into her own. 	It wasn’t an easy time for any of us. We had discovered the itch was withdrawal. We had been addicted to our Sunwell, had relished in its presence for as long as we had existed and without it, we were lost and broken. Our need for the arcane ran within our very veins, and it was destroying us. I had long since learnt to brave the crossing of the Dead Scar. Sometimes in groups, and sometimes by myself. We would go seeking the ruined streets in packs, pillaging the shops and houses for anything that might state our terrible withdrawal. The west side of the city we left lost. It was ours to take from what we needed as we lived in what could be considered relative safety on the east side. We had reclaimed enough buildings there to serve our little commune; a gathering that was getting smaller every week. If it wasn’t enough that we were dying from starvation, addiction or remnant scourge attacks, Kael’thas and his strongest had been called by the Alliance army to fight in their lands. This sickened me to my core. The Alliance who had not so much as lifted a finger to aid us in our time of need was now calling upon us to help them. They, who had not sent care to Quel’Thalas all these months, who had not so much as showed an interest in saving the little what was left of our civilisation were commanding us to fight their battles. The truth of the matter was worse.Not only were my people fighting for them, they were being slaughtered. Words were whispered amongst us that the humans wanted us dead. They would finish what the Scourge had started. Out soldiers, our Prince, were being sent on missions that they could not hope to fulfil. It was genocide. Hatred welled in my being. They were no better than the death knight. They were merely finishing off his job.I couldn’t sleep that night. For the first time in my life I wished death upon people. The Scourge was different, unloving and unnatural. But as I tossed and turned on the hard floor, images of dying humans crossed my closed eyelids. I sat up sharp, panting and drenched in sweat as if recovering from a nightmare. I looked around me, the bodies of my companions all laying still, the gentle sound of their nights rest tickling my ears. My head throbbed with my heart, each painful pump letting me know that I was alive. Alive, but slowly and agonisingly dying. I scratched my arm. It itched and prickled, worse now than ever my skin ached for magic, my blood tingling to feel the arcane seeping through me. I stopped scratching when I drew blood, thin lines of broken skin running the length of my arm where my sharp nails had dug too deep. I got to my feet and headed west. I needed to be somewhere I felt safe.Thaladien’s bedroom was a mess. A large hole was broken through the roof, and thick rays of moonlight shone through, illuminating the dust-covered floor. All his possessions were gone, long since removed by his parents. But his bed remained, covered in dirt and rubble. I walked in small circles, my hand trailing across the wall as I went. The touch seemed to give me memories. I saw myself running around, chasing after a young Thaladien who was waving a stick in my face. Our younger selves stumbled over each other, and suddenly we were grown up. Young adults, whispering sweet nothings into each other’s ears. I watched on, not recalling well if this ever actually happened. He kissed along my jaw, I writhed beneath him. I felt my hand tracing on my own face where his lips pressed to the memory. Down, slowly down towards my neck, my breasts. Down.With a sharp breath I ran out of the room, back out into the empty streets. That was no memory. I shook, catching my breath, feeling as though I were losing the last vestiges of my sanity. Across the way, past the broken fountain, was my house. I staged over to it, bending low to pass through the wooden beam that blocked the entrance. My father’s counter was smashed in two, splintered chunks of wood strewn in all directions around it. Behind, the shelves of medicines and potions were all but empty, smashed glass and the dried goo of what they once contained coating the floor. My ears twitched as something primal sped up my heart. Before I knew it, I was behind the counter, licking the floor clean of the mess. My body trembled at the feeling, all my hairs standing on end as I fed my addiction in the basest of manners. It wasn’t until I had splintered wood to my lips, sucking the dried remnants of a mana potion from the grain that I stopped. I curled up into a tight ball, suddenly despising myself for what I had become. My thoughts fled to my parents. Not for the first time since they had disappeared, but here it was most poignant. They would have hated me if they saw me. I wondered what my mother would have said. I imagined my father looking at me in shame. I didn’t know what had become of either of them. They may have died, or they may have escaped. There was no trace of them either way. I caught sight of parchment laying in the rubble nearby. Unfolding it, I noticed my father’s hand. It read:I held the old note to my face, blood from my splintered lips coating the bottom, my tears beginning to stain the top as I gently trembled.“Ann’pa… Minn’da…” I sobbed into the night. I was never going to see my parents again. GRAND MAGISTER ROMMATH returned to us. Not that all of us realised he had ever been gone, or rather, where he had been. We all sat in awe as he recalled to us stories of our Prince’s bravery. His persecution at the hands of the Alliance, his dangerous journey to Outland to find us not only help with our addiction, but eventually, a new home. He showed us all the art of tapping latent magical energies, and beyond that, the use of fel magics to give us what we needed. Some were uneasy at first, but few protested. The speed at which we were recovering and growing as a people, as a nation, was astonishing once we had these abilities under our control. Silvermoon was beginning to shin in its glory once more, her people no longer suffering wretches, but powerful and strong-willed beings who would defy demons themselves to press on in the world. I watched this all happening around me with a new sense of pride. Never before had I felt this way about my people. Before, I was simply Soraya. Another elf amongst many, an elf who did not fit particularly well into the works. Now I had purpose, and meaning and my people, the sin’dorei, were gaining strength and would one day make their mark on the world again. I was proud of them. I was proud of what we were doing, what we were achieving. We had been pushed to th edge of our existence. Scourge and humans alike had tired to exterminate us. We suffered losses from treacherous, weak willed kin who would rather flee back to those who hated them for comfort and safety than help their brothers and sisters. Yet still we persevered. Still we were carving society afresh, doing what we had to –without shame– to turn our culture into what it always should have been. We would be glorius.I had taken to joining a small civilian militia that kept the city walls safe from the weaker remnants of Scourge. I was by no means adept in fighting in any way, shape or form, but my seething need for vengeance drove me to this. I felt compelled to do what little I could. It also put my mind of the itch, still present, if lessened. “Light be damned. We never needed it in the first place!” one of my comrades often brought this topic up.“I guess,” I was indifferent. “I never really thought about it.”“Let me tell you, Sora,” he flinched as I snarled at him viciously. That was too familiar. “Sorry, Soraya. Let me tell you. The Light abandoned us. The Light the humans worship would see us rot and die, just as they would!”I nodded vaguely. This made sense to me, and the more people told me these stories, the more I found themselves believing them.“It doesn’t matter anyway,” I grinned over at him, then glanced back at our slowly recovering woodland. “We’re doing better now than ever before. Light be damned!”“Light be damned!” he agreed with me hearily.Later that night I rethought my words. Peering into the dark glass of the room in which I stayed gently fingered around my eye. It was a strange aqua colour, a flowing wash of blue and green that mixed together constantly, as if the faintly glowing colours were fighting for dominance. “What’s happening to us?” I spoke quietly to myself, pursing my lips. Every pair of eyes I met looked similar. Some were worse, flaring a powerful green. The same green, I noticed, of our fel crystals.