Post by aleros on Sept 27, 2008 1:14:06 GMT -5
“You mean to tell me that you don't remember their names?” Xionn slammed his fist down on the table; if Aleros had been a little bit closer he would have considered hitting his own brother.
The two sat across a table from each other in Booty Bay. Earlier, Aleros agreed to meet his brother at the famous Booty Bay tavern, mostly because his brother wasn't seen as too welcome within the walls of any horde or alliance city. Up to this point, he hadn't been entirely sure that this man claiming to be his brother was actually that, nor had he wanted to acknowledge it.
“You idiot, you were with them longer, you were with them when they died.” Xionn spoke with a very good pronunciation in Darnassian, aside from his thick accent and occasional inability to articulate words from the old language of the elves. His common was much different, it was coarse because he learned it in the South Seas islands. Aleros told what he remembered of himself. When Xionn related his own story first, many old memories came rushing back like a torrent, the head of a flood rushing down a barely trickling river. Ever since Aleros's resurrection on the sands of the desert, only certain memories came back, and they came back slowly. Xionn's words helped trigger many more.
You were born many years before I was, yes we were born not too close together, but close enough in Kal'Dorei lifetimes. You were the first son to a loving but busy mother and father. We lived on the south edge of the Well Eternity, that pool of magic gifted to us by the gods, the creators, the titans they call them. We all lived in a simple cottage, there would be no ruins located where our house was. The ruins today are relics of Azshara and the surrounding provinces with stone temples that fed the glorious capital of ours. We lived a simple life, that of meager farmers in a small village.
-
I was born first, the child to a mother and father whose name I cannot remember, whose family name neither me nor my brother bear any more. I bear the name Crescentwing, he We did not use the well, at least not as much as many of the others. We lived off the land and I grew up living a simple existence as a child. However, my druidism did not bud until Xionn was already born. A beloved pet of mine lay gasping and dying. Unlike the Kal'Dorei, the animals were not touched by the eternal life of the well. I always wondered why that was. I had seen many beloved pets and animals die, but this one in particular, a cat, lay gasping for its final breath. It might have been hours, it might have been minutes, but I sat there and watched.
I did not see a dying cat. I saw a circle before me, a cycle, and death was just part of that cycle. My parents had always explained that the spirit of all things that die go to the well and to the gods that made the well and the land around us. I had always believed them. Now I was not so sure of their beliefs myself. I saw before me the cycle of life, and nature itself working to always preserve a balance, something that the Kal'Dorei defied by the powers of the well. Nature was aware of the well, and at the time did not mind its presence. However it did not partake of the well itself, and for its own good reason.
I was curious, fascinated by nature and its ways. I spent more and more time in the wilds. I learned much by being in contact with the land, the trees, the animals. I was not sure if I was teaching myself, or if something else taught me. Soon enough I felt the natural energies surrounding me, their flows and ways I could feel like wind upon my skin, or water upon my feet. I felt them there, I could touch them, and then I began experimenting in controlling them, manipulating them. In time I was able to make plants grow faster, I made wounds and cuts heal faster and eventually I felt I could even control life itself and prolong the life of some of the animals around me. However, when I thought they would be healthy and energetic, they were taken away from me. I was confused by this and why my control of life did not work on them. I sought answers, asked why, but nothing in the wilds told me.
It was not until the antlered demigod came to me in a green tinted dream did I find out why. He told me that nature was to be respected, and it had rules of its own. I was gifted with an affinity that very few had, and that this forest lord had not quite realized existed within the race of the Kal'Dorei until he had met one near Azshara. One that had felt this same affinity that I had, but also understood it to a much greater extent. He had called out to the forest lord and communicated with him. I was invited to the grove of druids, to come and learn the ways of nature properly. However my brother and family were not to be forgotten.
-
I was born second, the younger brother. Like all Kal'Dorei I was touched by the well. However I was not able to draw from its power. While many were able to and chose not to, I was simply unable to. I did not feel anything, no magic, no power. All I could feel was what was around me. My brother could feel it, I knew he could, but he like my parents did not use its power either. Instead he focused on a fairy magic, something else that he said existed as well. Another set of magics separate from the well's. He was mad not to use it. I wanted it myself, what he had, what they all had, but I couldn't so I had to rely on my own strength.
The other children knew of my strange brother who refused to use the well, and inevitably found out my inability to use magic of the well. They wielded the magic clumsily compared to the elders of the village, but they could still use it to effect. Me and another were the only ones who were unable. Squabbles started civilized enough between children, but children are always children and those that could use magic isolated themselves from the rest, calling us names because of our difference. They mocked my brother, but for different reasons. There were fights, and they always used what they could. I loathed them for it. I was teased with the magics, shown things I could never do to them, and they stood behind their wall. Cowards. I strengthened my body, the only real weapon I had. I planned to use it against them, to show them that magic wasn't the only thing that could be used. I used force, I jumped one of them, a priestess's daughter; she wasn't able to retaliate. She couldn't even breath by the time she'd realized she had an assailant. I first felt her windpipe collapse, but I didn't stop there. The neck became smaller in my hands and my grip tightened until I crushed her spine. She was sometimes considered their leader, their alpha. She was not a priestess like the kind and gentle ones of the small temple in our village. She played with minds. She was always the one that would look at me with a smile, but inside my head I heard mocking laughter. I heard the sounds of a dying body, post mortem squeaks and gags as the blood came to a halt in her veins.
I felt bad for what I had done. I was told I should feel bad and everyone stared at me with glares of contempt. None of our generation had ever experienced death of other Kal'Dorei before. I saw great sadness around me. I did not feel the sadness I was supposed to. I felt strange knowing that my very own hands had taken the life. A life of this girl who played with magic, who played with emotions and tormented others... tormented me. She deserved it.
I was no more in the right than they were. The sentinels came for me and I was taken...
-
They took my brother from us, he was considered a threat they said. We had not grown up together much. He had come out to visit me in my meditations, but he would often get bored too fast and leave. We did not have much in common, but we were brothers after all, and I could not understand the hatred he felt that drove him to kill.
Our parents were distraught. Had they not done enough? Had they done too much? Should they even attempt to appeal to the elders? What could we do? He had killed, a high crime of the Kal'Dorei. We lamented the loss, he was sure to be executed. But among all this I had another vision, that I needed to come to the druid's grove right away. I told them of my vision and that I must travel – we must travel to the groves west of Azshara. Having already lost my brother to the high crime, our family would have lived in shame had we stayed, so we traveled. I showed them my abilities over nature, and we lived off the land, and the land accommodated us in our passing.
-
My parents nor my brother acted to keep them from taking me. What were they going to do with me? I had killed, was I to be killed? No, that's what others were told to appease for the death. I was taken to a barracks by a woman sentinel, nearly a head taller than me. To this day I have not grown much, I was and still am shorter by nearly half a head than the average Kal'Dorei. She took me to an isolated room in the barracks, throwing me in a corner and watched me. Her eyes near burned a hole in me, and I could not even meet her gaze.
“You crushed clean through that little girl's neck.” She spoke slowly, calculating, studying me.
“What of it.” I caught a gaze with her for the first time. “She deserved it, their magic and her mind games, her voice in my head, laughing. She deserved it... Goddess damned psychic bitch!” I couldn't hold her gaze for long, and as soon as I said what I did, she crossed to me and I felt a strong hand across my face before she lifted me by the front of my shirt.
“And you're one to decide who deserves what? You're an Elune cursed moron if you think that.” She threw me back and and pulled her glaive to my neck. “I could kill you right now. I have full authority to do so.” The cold blade touched my neck. I didn't realize it at the time, that one little bit of bloodletting me had set me up for a lifetime. I loved it, I loved the feel of the cold metal. She held it there for a moment, I thought she was going to use it. She didn't, and it almost seemed as if she expected something of me. “Do you not fear death?” She pressed the blade forward and I pushed back into it. Dark blood trickled down my neck into my shirt as the cold metal cut my skin. She pulled it away before I could apply even more pressure. “You are mad." She turned to the door and walked out, but turned back before closing it. "You'll live for now, but we shall see come tomorrow.”
So it turns out, they were under orders to kill me, but they did not. They wanted me for my capabilities, they saw potential in another soldier that they could train and use to their whims. Not only was I young and willing to do anything for the privilidge of living longer, I was flattered enough that they wanted to keep me alive. They trained me over the weeks, keeping it hidden from the rest of the village that I was still alive. I had killed, and that meant I had killed one more than most there. Military presence was only ever developed to keep provinces at peace with each other. While Kal'Dorei provinces were all under the Queen, there was often disputes, but military was never used save in a couple of cases. Otherwise, the only enemies of the mighty Kal'Dorei empire were the cowardly forest troll. But soon we would have more than trolls to fear.
I wasn't allowed out of the grounds of the barracks for obvious reasons. I was however curious of what happened outside. The scouts had reported seeing mysterious tracks at first, then came the husks. Kal'Dorei bodies that looked like dried fruit, shriveled and dead. The cemetary of our Village was located right next to the Barracks, so I was able to look out the window and see the unusual amount of bodies. More than one death every few years was unusual. Then the demons came. There was commotion to the northwest, a strange disturbance in the woods. The demons entered into our village without warning. When the alarms went out I couldn't just stay in the barracks. I was told to, but why should I have?
I saw the beasts that had been draining the Kal'Dorei of their energies. The demon dogs, a small pack of them, all led by a single large demon, unarmored from waist up save for large shoulder spikes and a helmet. He was shouting commands at the dogs in that strange language and they obeyed.
"What in the Goddess's name are you doing?" My sergeant shouted at me.
What else could I do? She couldn't push me back inside out of the way, I was there to kill. I was threatened just as much as anyone else. I fought with them, and many of the villagers apprehensive looks, but none seemed to dare speak up.
Many of the sentinels died that day, as did many of the villagers. We learned the weakness of the demon dogs, their strange tentacles that came out of their head. It would be useful to us, as that was not the last enounter we would have with them.
My family couldn't be found anywhere, no bodies, and the house was empty. Had they moved from the village out of shame of me? I spit at the thought.
I was commended for my job, for I had landed the fatal blows on many of the dogs. However not all were happy to see me.
"What in Elune's name is that monster still alive for?" The high priestess saw me, and as I turned around I saw an accusing finger pointed at me. It was her daughter whose neck I had broken. I snarled at her, and was about to speak, when my sargeant answered for me.
"He's alive because of my discretion and judgement. If it weren't for his help along with the sentinels, many more would have died. Need I remind you that executions are carried out by us?"
I felt proud, my chest swelled a bit, but I still stared the priestess down.
"This still does not change what he did. I assure you, me and my family would have been perfectly safe through the protection of Elune whether you had this despicable boy helping you or not."
Come to think of it, I hadn't seen the priestess during the attack at all...
"I want him dead. My daughter is dead by his hands!"
I spit in disgust, it hit her dress, the next thing I knew my mind was lashed in pain. This wasn't a mind game like before. Every nerve in my body burned in agony. Everything faded to black.
-
We made our way to the great city of Azshara, however we were unable to get too far within the city. The centers of the city were heavily guarded. We weren't sure why, and none of the citizens of the great city knew either. After some searching and asking, I found out where to go to meet this Malfurion and the druid circle that I had learned of. Just outside the city, west and slightly north.
We were welcomed by a small gathering of druids, but far more than I had ever imagined there would be. I had thought from the treatment of others back home that I was one of the only ones, but here I found a gathering of many that knew what I knew, felt what I felt. My parents found a place in the city where they could stay while I learned the druidic arts. I learned much under the guidance of other more experienced druids and the Demi-god Cenarius, but my training had not been underway long when we all began to notice the taint around us. It spread through the waters of the well like a sickness, and there were strange happenings in the center of the city, particularly in the palace of Azshara. In my lifetime I would see many wars begin and end, many loved ones live and die, but nothing could compare to the War of the Ancients.
(( Chapter 1, Part 1, whatever you want to call it, more to come, it's being polished up. This was actually supposed to have happened several months ago before the venture to Northrend, the storytelling part. If anyone here hasn't read the War of the Ancients/Well of Eternity Trilogy I highly suggest it, although I'm figuring most have. ))
The two sat across a table from each other in Booty Bay. Earlier, Aleros agreed to meet his brother at the famous Booty Bay tavern, mostly because his brother wasn't seen as too welcome within the walls of any horde or alliance city. Up to this point, he hadn't been entirely sure that this man claiming to be his brother was actually that, nor had he wanted to acknowledge it.
“You idiot, you were with them longer, you were with them when they died.” Xionn spoke with a very good pronunciation in Darnassian, aside from his thick accent and occasional inability to articulate words from the old language of the elves. His common was much different, it was coarse because he learned it in the South Seas islands. Aleros told what he remembered of himself. When Xionn related his own story first, many old memories came rushing back like a torrent, the head of a flood rushing down a barely trickling river. Ever since Aleros's resurrection on the sands of the desert, only certain memories came back, and they came back slowly. Xionn's words helped trigger many more.
You were born many years before I was, yes we were born not too close together, but close enough in Kal'Dorei lifetimes. You were the first son to a loving but busy mother and father. We lived on the south edge of the Well Eternity, that pool of magic gifted to us by the gods, the creators, the titans they call them. We all lived in a simple cottage, there would be no ruins located where our house was. The ruins today are relics of Azshara and the surrounding provinces with stone temples that fed the glorious capital of ours. We lived a simple life, that of meager farmers in a small village.
-
I was born first, the child to a mother and father whose name I cannot remember, whose family name neither me nor my brother bear any more. I bear the name Crescentwing, he We did not use the well, at least not as much as many of the others. We lived off the land and I grew up living a simple existence as a child. However, my druidism did not bud until Xionn was already born. A beloved pet of mine lay gasping and dying. Unlike the Kal'Dorei, the animals were not touched by the eternal life of the well. I always wondered why that was. I had seen many beloved pets and animals die, but this one in particular, a cat, lay gasping for its final breath. It might have been hours, it might have been minutes, but I sat there and watched.
I did not see a dying cat. I saw a circle before me, a cycle, and death was just part of that cycle. My parents had always explained that the spirit of all things that die go to the well and to the gods that made the well and the land around us. I had always believed them. Now I was not so sure of their beliefs myself. I saw before me the cycle of life, and nature itself working to always preserve a balance, something that the Kal'Dorei defied by the powers of the well. Nature was aware of the well, and at the time did not mind its presence. However it did not partake of the well itself, and for its own good reason.
I was curious, fascinated by nature and its ways. I spent more and more time in the wilds. I learned much by being in contact with the land, the trees, the animals. I was not sure if I was teaching myself, or if something else taught me. Soon enough I felt the natural energies surrounding me, their flows and ways I could feel like wind upon my skin, or water upon my feet. I felt them there, I could touch them, and then I began experimenting in controlling them, manipulating them. In time I was able to make plants grow faster, I made wounds and cuts heal faster and eventually I felt I could even control life itself and prolong the life of some of the animals around me. However, when I thought they would be healthy and energetic, they were taken away from me. I was confused by this and why my control of life did not work on them. I sought answers, asked why, but nothing in the wilds told me.
It was not until the antlered demigod came to me in a green tinted dream did I find out why. He told me that nature was to be respected, and it had rules of its own. I was gifted with an affinity that very few had, and that this forest lord had not quite realized existed within the race of the Kal'Dorei until he had met one near Azshara. One that had felt this same affinity that I had, but also understood it to a much greater extent. He had called out to the forest lord and communicated with him. I was invited to the grove of druids, to come and learn the ways of nature properly. However my brother and family were not to be forgotten.
-
I was born second, the younger brother. Like all Kal'Dorei I was touched by the well. However I was not able to draw from its power. While many were able to and chose not to, I was simply unable to. I did not feel anything, no magic, no power. All I could feel was what was around me. My brother could feel it, I knew he could, but he like my parents did not use its power either. Instead he focused on a fairy magic, something else that he said existed as well. Another set of magics separate from the well's. He was mad not to use it. I wanted it myself, what he had, what they all had, but I couldn't so I had to rely on my own strength.
The other children knew of my strange brother who refused to use the well, and inevitably found out my inability to use magic of the well. They wielded the magic clumsily compared to the elders of the village, but they could still use it to effect. Me and another were the only ones who were unable. Squabbles started civilized enough between children, but children are always children and those that could use magic isolated themselves from the rest, calling us names because of our difference. They mocked my brother, but for different reasons. There were fights, and they always used what they could. I loathed them for it. I was teased with the magics, shown things I could never do to them, and they stood behind their wall. Cowards. I strengthened my body, the only real weapon I had. I planned to use it against them, to show them that magic wasn't the only thing that could be used. I used force, I jumped one of them, a priestess's daughter; she wasn't able to retaliate. She couldn't even breath by the time she'd realized she had an assailant. I first felt her windpipe collapse, but I didn't stop there. The neck became smaller in my hands and my grip tightened until I crushed her spine. She was sometimes considered their leader, their alpha. She was not a priestess like the kind and gentle ones of the small temple in our village. She played with minds. She was always the one that would look at me with a smile, but inside my head I heard mocking laughter. I heard the sounds of a dying body, post mortem squeaks and gags as the blood came to a halt in her veins.
I felt bad for what I had done. I was told I should feel bad and everyone stared at me with glares of contempt. None of our generation had ever experienced death of other Kal'Dorei before. I saw great sadness around me. I did not feel the sadness I was supposed to. I felt strange knowing that my very own hands had taken the life. A life of this girl who played with magic, who played with emotions and tormented others... tormented me. She deserved it.
I was no more in the right than they were. The sentinels came for me and I was taken...
-
They took my brother from us, he was considered a threat they said. We had not grown up together much. He had come out to visit me in my meditations, but he would often get bored too fast and leave. We did not have much in common, but we were brothers after all, and I could not understand the hatred he felt that drove him to kill.
Our parents were distraught. Had they not done enough? Had they done too much? Should they even attempt to appeal to the elders? What could we do? He had killed, a high crime of the Kal'Dorei. We lamented the loss, he was sure to be executed. But among all this I had another vision, that I needed to come to the druid's grove right away. I told them of my vision and that I must travel – we must travel to the groves west of Azshara. Having already lost my brother to the high crime, our family would have lived in shame had we stayed, so we traveled. I showed them my abilities over nature, and we lived off the land, and the land accommodated us in our passing.
-
My parents nor my brother acted to keep them from taking me. What were they going to do with me? I had killed, was I to be killed? No, that's what others were told to appease for the death. I was taken to a barracks by a woman sentinel, nearly a head taller than me. To this day I have not grown much, I was and still am shorter by nearly half a head than the average Kal'Dorei. She took me to an isolated room in the barracks, throwing me in a corner and watched me. Her eyes near burned a hole in me, and I could not even meet her gaze.
“You crushed clean through that little girl's neck.” She spoke slowly, calculating, studying me.
“What of it.” I caught a gaze with her for the first time. “She deserved it, their magic and her mind games, her voice in my head, laughing. She deserved it... Goddess damned psychic bitch!” I couldn't hold her gaze for long, and as soon as I said what I did, she crossed to me and I felt a strong hand across my face before she lifted me by the front of my shirt.
“And you're one to decide who deserves what? You're an Elune cursed moron if you think that.” She threw me back and and pulled her glaive to my neck. “I could kill you right now. I have full authority to do so.” The cold blade touched my neck. I didn't realize it at the time, that one little bit of bloodletting me had set me up for a lifetime. I loved it, I loved the feel of the cold metal. She held it there for a moment, I thought she was going to use it. She didn't, and it almost seemed as if she expected something of me. “Do you not fear death?” She pressed the blade forward and I pushed back into it. Dark blood trickled down my neck into my shirt as the cold metal cut my skin. She pulled it away before I could apply even more pressure. “You are mad." She turned to the door and walked out, but turned back before closing it. "You'll live for now, but we shall see come tomorrow.”
So it turns out, they were under orders to kill me, but they did not. They wanted me for my capabilities, they saw potential in another soldier that they could train and use to their whims. Not only was I young and willing to do anything for the privilidge of living longer, I was flattered enough that they wanted to keep me alive. They trained me over the weeks, keeping it hidden from the rest of the village that I was still alive. I had killed, and that meant I had killed one more than most there. Military presence was only ever developed to keep provinces at peace with each other. While Kal'Dorei provinces were all under the Queen, there was often disputes, but military was never used save in a couple of cases. Otherwise, the only enemies of the mighty Kal'Dorei empire were the cowardly forest troll. But soon we would have more than trolls to fear.
I wasn't allowed out of the grounds of the barracks for obvious reasons. I was however curious of what happened outside. The scouts had reported seeing mysterious tracks at first, then came the husks. Kal'Dorei bodies that looked like dried fruit, shriveled and dead. The cemetary of our Village was located right next to the Barracks, so I was able to look out the window and see the unusual amount of bodies. More than one death every few years was unusual. Then the demons came. There was commotion to the northwest, a strange disturbance in the woods. The demons entered into our village without warning. When the alarms went out I couldn't just stay in the barracks. I was told to, but why should I have?
I saw the beasts that had been draining the Kal'Dorei of their energies. The demon dogs, a small pack of them, all led by a single large demon, unarmored from waist up save for large shoulder spikes and a helmet. He was shouting commands at the dogs in that strange language and they obeyed.
"What in the Goddess's name are you doing?" My sergeant shouted at me.
What else could I do? She couldn't push me back inside out of the way, I was there to kill. I was threatened just as much as anyone else. I fought with them, and many of the villagers apprehensive looks, but none seemed to dare speak up.
Many of the sentinels died that day, as did many of the villagers. We learned the weakness of the demon dogs, their strange tentacles that came out of their head. It would be useful to us, as that was not the last enounter we would have with them.
My family couldn't be found anywhere, no bodies, and the house was empty. Had they moved from the village out of shame of me? I spit at the thought.
I was commended for my job, for I had landed the fatal blows on many of the dogs. However not all were happy to see me.
"What in Elune's name is that monster still alive for?" The high priestess saw me, and as I turned around I saw an accusing finger pointed at me. It was her daughter whose neck I had broken. I snarled at her, and was about to speak, when my sargeant answered for me.
"He's alive because of my discretion and judgement. If it weren't for his help along with the sentinels, many more would have died. Need I remind you that executions are carried out by us?"
I felt proud, my chest swelled a bit, but I still stared the priestess down.
"This still does not change what he did. I assure you, me and my family would have been perfectly safe through the protection of Elune whether you had this despicable boy helping you or not."
Come to think of it, I hadn't seen the priestess during the attack at all...
"I want him dead. My daughter is dead by his hands!"
I spit in disgust, it hit her dress, the next thing I knew my mind was lashed in pain. This wasn't a mind game like before. Every nerve in my body burned in agony. Everything faded to black.
-
We made our way to the great city of Azshara, however we were unable to get too far within the city. The centers of the city were heavily guarded. We weren't sure why, and none of the citizens of the great city knew either. After some searching and asking, I found out where to go to meet this Malfurion and the druid circle that I had learned of. Just outside the city, west and slightly north.
We were welcomed by a small gathering of druids, but far more than I had ever imagined there would be. I had thought from the treatment of others back home that I was one of the only ones, but here I found a gathering of many that knew what I knew, felt what I felt. My parents found a place in the city where they could stay while I learned the druidic arts. I learned much under the guidance of other more experienced druids and the Demi-god Cenarius, but my training had not been underway long when we all began to notice the taint around us. It spread through the waters of the well like a sickness, and there were strange happenings in the center of the city, particularly in the palace of Azshara. In my lifetime I would see many wars begin and end, many loved ones live and die, but nothing could compare to the War of the Ancients.
(( Chapter 1, Part 1, whatever you want to call it, more to come, it's being polished up. This was actually supposed to have happened several months ago before the venture to Northrend, the storytelling part. If anyone here hasn't read the War of the Ancients/Well of Eternity Trilogy I highly suggest it, although I'm figuring most have. ))