History
Ser Edgthorn N'ha Talvethren
(('Ported over and updated from the GV site. ))
Name: Ser Edgthorn n'ha Talvethren
(Notes about Edg's name: 'Ser' ='White, pale'. Edgthorn = 'Silent'. n'ha Talvethren = 'Son of Talvethren'. Edgthorn's real surname is Asteris, but he does not use it because his family disinherited him. These words are all Thalassian, which is the Highbourne language.)
Race: Night Elf
Gender: Male
Age: Roughly 4000 years old, give or take.
Class: Druid
Occupation: Troublemaker.
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Physical description: Edgthorn is a fit, well-muscled, middle-aged Night Elf. His face is handsome and slightly cruel. He bears most of his scars from fighting on his arms and shoulders; a haze of crisscrossing white scars that vary in age and width. He is also missing the middle finger of his right hand, a fact he usually disguises with gloves.
His mannerisms betray a soldierly origin. His Darnassian is archaic and formal, and his Common is stilted and very poor. He has obviously learned it only recently.
Personality: Arrogant and prideful, Edgthorn has learned to rein in his temper and observe those around him.
Skills: Edgthorn puts his despised druid skills to good use identifying herbs and plants, and taking the useful parts from animals he has killed. Most of this he sells at a profit. He has most of the skills of a domestic servant, including the ability to anticipate people's actions. He is capable of singing and playing his father's harp, but rarely does so. Edgthorn was also trained as a common soldier in his youth. He can assemble, disassemble, clean, and fire rifles and other weaponry, but - again - rarely does so.
Recent History: Edgthorn is currently attached to the fighting unit known as the Servitors Of Lothar. Their base of operations is Fray Island, off the coast of Kalimdor. Previously, he spent the better part of a year employed as a butler and all-purpose servant at the Golden Veil, a guild of professional Companions in the human city of Stormwind. Before that his whereabouts cannot be traced.
Combat Tactics: Fight him and see.
Phobias and Weaknesses: Like most Night Elves, Edgthorn was raised with a fairly xenophobic outlook regarding the 'sub-elven' races. Since he is, for personal reasons, unwilling to stay in the Night Elf territories, he is actively trying to deconstruct his prejudices.
Despite these attitudes, he seems to avoid the company of his own people, most especially elven women. When he must travel in Night Elf territories, he tends to hide his face under a hat or hood. Perhaps he's avoiding someone.
Pet Peeves: Human warlocks and mages, arrogance in other people. (it's just fine when he does it!)
Special Possessions: His father's harp.
Origin: Edgthorn is one generation removed from the War of the Ancients. His parents fled to Nordrassil, and took up Malfurion's pledge to eschew magic, willingly undergoing the transformation from Highbourne to Night Elf. Edgthorn has always resented this abandonment of his 'true' heritage. He grew up arrogant and bitter, with a talent for sowing strife. He was forcibly conscripted and sent into the Emerald Dream to Malfurion's Druids, in the hope that the Druid training would 'straighten him out' and cure his delinquent tendencies.
Edgthorn today is only an indifferent Druid, but he is a skilled fighter and a cunning manipulator. His bitterness towards his own people festers underneath a cool, collected demeanor.
Name: Ser Edgthorn n'ha Talvethren
(Notes about Edg's name: 'Ser' ='White, pale'. Edgthorn = 'Silent'. n'ha Talvethren = 'Son of Talvethren'. Edgthorn's real surname is Asteris, but he does not use it because his family disinherited him. These words are all Thalassian, which is the Highbourne language.)
Race: Night Elf
Gender: Male
Age: Roughly 4000 years old, give or take.
Class: Druid
Occupation: Troublemaker.
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Physical description: Edgthorn is a fit, well-muscled, middle-aged Night Elf. His face is handsome and slightly cruel. He bears most of his scars from fighting on his arms and shoulders; a haze of crisscrossing white scars that vary in age and width. He is also missing the middle finger of his right hand, a fact he usually disguises with gloves.
His mannerisms betray a soldierly origin. His Darnassian is archaic and formal, and his Common is stilted and very poor. He has obviously learned it only recently.
Personality: Arrogant and prideful, Edgthorn has learned to rein in his temper and observe those around him.
Skills: Edgthorn puts his despised druid skills to good use identifying herbs and plants, and taking the useful parts from animals he has killed. Most of this he sells at a profit. He has most of the skills of a domestic servant, including the ability to anticipate people's actions. He is capable of singing and playing his father's harp, but rarely does so. Edgthorn was also trained as a common soldier in his youth. He can assemble, disassemble, clean, and fire rifles and other weaponry, but - again - rarely does so.
Recent History: Edgthorn is currently attached to the fighting unit known as the Servitors Of Lothar. Their base of operations is Fray Island, off the coast of Kalimdor. Previously, he spent the better part of a year employed as a butler and all-purpose servant at the Golden Veil, a guild of professional Companions in the human city of Stormwind. Before that his whereabouts cannot be traced.
Combat Tactics: Fight him and see.
Phobias and Weaknesses: Like most Night Elves, Edgthorn was raised with a fairly xenophobic outlook regarding the 'sub-elven' races. Since he is, for personal reasons, unwilling to stay in the Night Elf territories, he is actively trying to deconstruct his prejudices.
Despite these attitudes, he seems to avoid the company of his own people, most especially elven women. When he must travel in Night Elf territories, he tends to hide his face under a hat or hood. Perhaps he's avoiding someone.
Pet Peeves: Human warlocks and mages, arrogance in other people. (it's just fine when he does it!)
Special Possessions: His father's harp.
Origin: Edgthorn is one generation removed from the War of the Ancients. His parents fled to Nordrassil, and took up Malfurion's pledge to eschew magic, willingly undergoing the transformation from Highbourne to Night Elf. Edgthorn has always resented this abandonment of his 'true' heritage. He grew up arrogant and bitter, with a talent for sowing strife. He was forcibly conscripted and sent into the Emerald Dream to Malfurion's Druids, in the hope that the Druid training would 'straighten him out' and cure his delinquent tendencies.
Edgthorn today is only an indifferent Druid, but he is a skilled fighter and a cunning manipulator. His bitterness towards his own people festers underneath a cool, collected demeanor.
Last edited by Edgthorn on Nov. 21st, 2009 9:25 am; edited 3 times in total
"...Elune preserve me, he is a sword brother. I cannot keep hating him. I cannot do anything else."
Edgthorns' History (expanded)
(WARNING: LONG. For the TL:DR version, see previous post.)
*****************
-9,999 CE: The War of the Ancients rages. The Highbourne magister Talvethren Asteris pledges himself to Malfurion and Tyrande, fighting alongside them against Queen Ashzara and the Burning Legion. After the War ends, Talvethren swears Malfurions' Oath: an oath to forsake all magic. He settles in Ashenvale and takes to wife another Highbourne refugee, Larissa.
roughly -8,000 CE. Talvethren and Larissa have a son. They name him Sarath (after Sarath'Najak, a comrade fallen in the War).
roughly -7,000CE: Dath'Remar Sunstrider begins his campaign to lift the Druid's ban on arcane magic. Talvethren is involved at the beginning, but soon drops out, refusing to betray his oath. Despite this, Dath'Remar considers Talvethren a political ally, and becomes a friend of the family.
-7,300 CE Dath'Remar and his fellow Highbourne are sentenced to exile for acts of terror and sedition. Talvethren and his family are implicated but eventually acquitted, mostly through Asteris's political connections. Talvethren and Larissa remain in Ashenvale, but their son chooses to join Dath'Remar in exile. Sarath's name is stricken from the records, and the Asteris family formally renounces him.
-4,000 CE: After long wandering, the nation of Quel'Thalas is founded by Dath'Remar and his exiles in Lordaeron.
-3,830 CE: Talvethren and Larissa have a second son. They name him Edgthorn, ("Silent"), because he is a solemn baby. As a boy, Edgthorn shows a deep aptitude for the druid arts, but his parents are reluctant to give him up for Druid training.
- roughly 3,800 CE: News of the Founding of Quel'Thalas reaches Ashenvale. A small number of Highbourne sympathizers and relatives announce plans to join their fellows in their new homeland, sparking civil unrest. A very young Edgthorn excitably announces his plan to sail away with them. Alarmed, Talvethren drugs him unconscious until the ship has sailed. This act drives a deep rift between father and son.
- 3,700 CE: Edgthorn begins a long history of trouble with the law, arrested for petty theft and vandalism. His relationship with his parents rapidly deteriorates. He spends several centuries alternately running away from home and being dragged back by the Sentinels. Though a respectable 150 years old, he is still considered a child by those around him. He attracts a like social circle of disaffected youth, and rapidly becomes a source of despair for his parents.
- roughly 2,500 CE: A small group of Night Elf murderers, brigands and other criminals expelled from Nordrassil start to become organized. Calling themselves the Trollkillers, they begin raiding Troll settlements all over Kalimdor. At first, their influence is minimal, but their notoriety soon grows. Within a few centuries, their ruthless banditry pushes the Trolls all the way south, to the deserts of Tanaris. Lacking targets, they switch to raiding the so-called 'beast' tribes - the Quillboar, Tauren, and Centaur of central Kalimdor. The Trollkillers justify their actions with a screed of xenophobic bigotry calling for the extermination of all non-elves from Kalimdor. Many Night Elf youths are attracted to the violence and lawlessness of the movement, though they rarely stay in it for long. Though they avoid the 'civilized' Night Elf lands, the Trollkillers recruit freely in the forests of Ashenvale and Feralas. The Sentinels monitor their activities, but do not interfere.
-roughly 1000 CE: Goblins found a small enclave in the Barrens, at a natural harbor. Called Ratchet, the tiny city attracts the notice of the local Quillboar, Centaur and Tauren tribes. Originally planning to mine for resources, the Goblins readily turn to the lucrative art of arms dealing. The constant small-scale raiding between the beast tribes rapidly escalates with the advent of firearms, explosives, and steel.
The Trollkillers also take advantage of the new technology, expanding the scope of their operations to include slavetaking - primarily from Troll and Tauren tribes. Over the next four centuries, the Trollkillers' priorities gradually reorient from violence to profit. They decrease the amount of attacks on 'useless' races like the quillboar and furbolg, who cannot be enslaved, and they acquire the backing of Undermine's Goblin Princes. They make Ratchet their headquarters. The goblin outpost fattens on the slave trade.
- roughly -650 CE: Edgthorn joins the Trollkillers. His good looks rapidly gain the attention of the bandit leader, Huraka, who makes him an officer. Edgthorn is soon his second-in-command. After several failed attempts at reconciliation, Talvethren Asteris disowns his second son.
- 640 CE: The warfare between the Tauren and Centaur clans flares into all-out genocide. The lands of Desolace and Stonetalon are laid waste. The Tauren as a race begin to dwindle, a process considerably assisted by goblin/elven slaving operations. They are driven from the Barrens and Mulgore completely, into the red lands that will someday be named Durotar. The Druids of Moonglade, who number many Tauren among them, begin to take an interest in the conflict.
-595 CE: The end begins for the Trollkillers. A powerful Goblin Prince begins to pressure the group for Night Elf slaves, offering considerable incentives. The group begins to fracture along doctrinal lines. Huraka is assassinated, and the new leader accepts Edgthorn as his second-in-command. Edgthorn counsels against the raid, but is overruled. The Trollkiller warband razes a small Night Elf village to the ground, slaughtering the men and taking the women and children to sell. It is the excuse the Sentinels have been waiting for.
-594 CE: A coalition of Sentinels, Druids, and Tauren tribesmen methodically exterminate the Trollkillers from the face of Kalimdor. Ratchet is burned to the ground, and the Goblins expelled. Most of the Trollkiller leadership falls with their men, but a few are taken back to Nordrassil to stand trial. Edgthorn is among them.
-593 CE: Talvethren Asteris, now an old man, uses the last of his political favors to intercede for his son. Instead of a public execution, Edgthorn is offered the 'choice' of reassuming his Druid training and entering the Emerald Dream, for a minimum of 1,000 years. If he serves Malfurion and the Emerald Dragonflight faithfully, he will be discharged, his crimes forgotten. Edgthorn accepts, and undergoes the mystic bindings to keep his body preserved. He is drugged and buried alive.
-roughly -200 CE: Talvethren and Larissa commit mutual suicide, possibly to avoid the shame of old age. They are buried in a grove outside Astranaar. Lacking any heirs, the forest reclaims their estate.
0 CE:The Dark Portal opens, heralding the first Orc-Human War. Edgthorn is asleep. The Night Elves take no notice of the first Orcish invasion, half a world away from their own lands.
20 CE: Malfurion and his Druids are summoned from the Dream to defend the World Tree during the Scourge War. They leave a smaller party of untrained or untrustworthy druids behind them to maintain the Dream, Edgthorn among them.
Nordrassil, the World Tree, is destroyed in the Battle of Mount Hyjal, along with thousands of Wisps, the immortal souls of the Night Elven race. The resulting shockwave echoes through the Dream as well as reality, causing madness and sundering in many of the remaining Druids. Either because of this or despite it, the Nightmare begins to seep into and corrupt the Emerald Dream.
After the Scourge War ends, Teldrassil is planted off the coast of Ashenvale.
25 CE: World Of Warcraft begins. Edgthorn's barrow, long abandoned, is damaged and the magics guarding his body dissipate. He claws his way frantically to the surface, to find the world utterly changed.
**********************
((Afterword: Please note that This history isn't common knowledge! A lot of elven records were lost during and after the Scourge war, and many of the older generation of Night Elves were killed at Hyjal. Edg's backstory shouldn't be plainly obvious to anyone who meets him; he's not a notorious criminal like Illidan, he's small fry, and one face among many. After 500 years, even the Sentinels who arrested him might have difficulty remembering his name or his face. Scandals come and go even in a reclusive society like the Night Elves.
I've tried to stay mostly true to the Warcraft Official Timeline. A few dates - the founding of Ratchet, the Centaur-Tauren wars - are made up because I couldn't find any official date for them. The Trollkillers (I don't like that name, either; I'll take suggestions for a better one) are likewise completely made up. If you have a source of Lore (For instance, the RPG books) that contradicts what's written here, please tell me so I can rewrite. Thanks! - Edg.))
(WARNING: LONG. For the TL:DR version, see previous post.)
*****************
-9,999 CE: The War of the Ancients rages. The Highbourne magister Talvethren Asteris pledges himself to Malfurion and Tyrande, fighting alongside them against Queen Ashzara and the Burning Legion. After the War ends, Talvethren swears Malfurions' Oath: an oath to forsake all magic. He settles in Ashenvale and takes to wife another Highbourne refugee, Larissa.
roughly -8,000 CE. Talvethren and Larissa have a son. They name him Sarath (after Sarath'Najak, a comrade fallen in the War).
roughly -7,000CE: Dath'Remar Sunstrider begins his campaign to lift the Druid's ban on arcane magic. Talvethren is involved at the beginning, but soon drops out, refusing to betray his oath. Despite this, Dath'Remar considers Talvethren a political ally, and becomes a friend of the family.
-7,300 CE Dath'Remar and his fellow Highbourne are sentenced to exile for acts of terror and sedition. Talvethren and his family are implicated but eventually acquitted, mostly through Asteris's political connections. Talvethren and Larissa remain in Ashenvale, but their son chooses to join Dath'Remar in exile. Sarath's name is stricken from the records, and the Asteris family formally renounces him.
-4,000 CE: After long wandering, the nation of Quel'Thalas is founded by Dath'Remar and his exiles in Lordaeron.
-3,830 CE: Talvethren and Larissa have a second son. They name him Edgthorn, ("Silent"), because he is a solemn baby. As a boy, Edgthorn shows a deep aptitude for the druid arts, but his parents are reluctant to give him up for Druid training.
- roughly 3,800 CE: News of the Founding of Quel'Thalas reaches Ashenvale. A small number of Highbourne sympathizers and relatives announce plans to join their fellows in their new homeland, sparking civil unrest. A very young Edgthorn excitably announces his plan to sail away with them. Alarmed, Talvethren drugs him unconscious until the ship has sailed. This act drives a deep rift between father and son.
- 3,700 CE: Edgthorn begins a long history of trouble with the law, arrested for petty theft and vandalism. His relationship with his parents rapidly deteriorates. He spends several centuries alternately running away from home and being dragged back by the Sentinels. Though a respectable 150 years old, he is still considered a child by those around him. He attracts a like social circle of disaffected youth, and rapidly becomes a source of despair for his parents.
- roughly 2,500 CE: A small group of Night Elf murderers, brigands and other criminals expelled from Nordrassil start to become organized. Calling themselves the Trollkillers, they begin raiding Troll settlements all over Kalimdor. At first, their influence is minimal, but their notoriety soon grows. Within a few centuries, their ruthless banditry pushes the Trolls all the way south, to the deserts of Tanaris. Lacking targets, they switch to raiding the so-called 'beast' tribes - the Quillboar, Tauren, and Centaur of central Kalimdor. The Trollkillers justify their actions with a screed of xenophobic bigotry calling for the extermination of all non-elves from Kalimdor. Many Night Elf youths are attracted to the violence and lawlessness of the movement, though they rarely stay in it for long. Though they avoid the 'civilized' Night Elf lands, the Trollkillers recruit freely in the forests of Ashenvale and Feralas. The Sentinels monitor their activities, but do not interfere.
-roughly 1000 CE: Goblins found a small enclave in the Barrens, at a natural harbor. Called Ratchet, the tiny city attracts the notice of the local Quillboar, Centaur and Tauren tribes. Originally planning to mine for resources, the Goblins readily turn to the lucrative art of arms dealing. The constant small-scale raiding between the beast tribes rapidly escalates with the advent of firearms, explosives, and steel.
The Trollkillers also take advantage of the new technology, expanding the scope of their operations to include slavetaking - primarily from Troll and Tauren tribes. Over the next four centuries, the Trollkillers' priorities gradually reorient from violence to profit. They decrease the amount of attacks on 'useless' races like the quillboar and furbolg, who cannot be enslaved, and they acquire the backing of Undermine's Goblin Princes. They make Ratchet their headquarters. The goblin outpost fattens on the slave trade.
- roughly -650 CE: Edgthorn joins the Trollkillers. His good looks rapidly gain the attention of the bandit leader, Huraka, who makes him an officer. Edgthorn is soon his second-in-command. After several failed attempts at reconciliation, Talvethren Asteris disowns his second son.
- 640 CE: The warfare between the Tauren and Centaur clans flares into all-out genocide. The lands of Desolace and Stonetalon are laid waste. The Tauren as a race begin to dwindle, a process considerably assisted by goblin/elven slaving operations. They are driven from the Barrens and Mulgore completely, into the red lands that will someday be named Durotar. The Druids of Moonglade, who number many Tauren among them, begin to take an interest in the conflict.
-595 CE: The end begins for the Trollkillers. A powerful Goblin Prince begins to pressure the group for Night Elf slaves, offering considerable incentives. The group begins to fracture along doctrinal lines. Huraka is assassinated, and the new leader accepts Edgthorn as his second-in-command. Edgthorn counsels against the raid, but is overruled. The Trollkiller warband razes a small Night Elf village to the ground, slaughtering the men and taking the women and children to sell. It is the excuse the Sentinels have been waiting for.
-594 CE: A coalition of Sentinels, Druids, and Tauren tribesmen methodically exterminate the Trollkillers from the face of Kalimdor. Ratchet is burned to the ground, and the Goblins expelled. Most of the Trollkiller leadership falls with their men, but a few are taken back to Nordrassil to stand trial. Edgthorn is among them.
-593 CE: Talvethren Asteris, now an old man, uses the last of his political favors to intercede for his son. Instead of a public execution, Edgthorn is offered the 'choice' of reassuming his Druid training and entering the Emerald Dream, for a minimum of 1,000 years. If he serves Malfurion and the Emerald Dragonflight faithfully, he will be discharged, his crimes forgotten. Edgthorn accepts, and undergoes the mystic bindings to keep his body preserved. He is drugged and buried alive.
-roughly -200 CE: Talvethren and Larissa commit mutual suicide, possibly to avoid the shame of old age. They are buried in a grove outside Astranaar. Lacking any heirs, the forest reclaims their estate.
0 CE:The Dark Portal opens, heralding the first Orc-Human War. Edgthorn is asleep. The Night Elves take no notice of the first Orcish invasion, half a world away from their own lands.
20 CE: Malfurion and his Druids are summoned from the Dream to defend the World Tree during the Scourge War. They leave a smaller party of untrained or untrustworthy druids behind them to maintain the Dream, Edgthorn among them.
Nordrassil, the World Tree, is destroyed in the Battle of Mount Hyjal, along with thousands of Wisps, the immortal souls of the Night Elven race. The resulting shockwave echoes through the Dream as well as reality, causing madness and sundering in many of the remaining Druids. Either because of this or despite it, the Nightmare begins to seep into and corrupt the Emerald Dream.
After the Scourge War ends, Teldrassil is planted off the coast of Ashenvale.
25 CE: World Of Warcraft begins. Edgthorn's barrow, long abandoned, is damaged and the magics guarding his body dissipate. He claws his way frantically to the surface, to find the world utterly changed.
**********************
((Afterword: Please note that This history isn't common knowledge! A lot of elven records were lost during and after the Scourge war, and many of the older generation of Night Elves were killed at Hyjal. Edg's backstory shouldn't be plainly obvious to anyone who meets him; he's not a notorious criminal like Illidan, he's small fry, and one face among many. After 500 years, even the Sentinels who arrested him might have difficulty remembering his name or his face. Scandals come and go even in a reclusive society like the Night Elves.
I've tried to stay mostly true to the Warcraft Official Timeline. A few dates - the founding of Ratchet, the Centaur-Tauren wars - are made up because I couldn't find any official date for them. The Trollkillers (I don't like that name, either; I'll take suggestions for a better one) are likewise completely made up. If you have a source of Lore (For instance, the RPG books) that contradicts what's written here, please tell me so I can rewrite. Thanks! - Edg.))
"...Elune preserve me, he is a sword brother. I cannot keep hating him. I cannot do anything else."
((This is an old, old Edgthorn story, practically from when I first rolled him. As such, it's waaay out of date, but it does have interesting bits about his past in it. So I'll put it here. I plan to 'port over "Bad Omens" as well, in which he and Maikel bump into each other. XD))
In A Dark Mirror
Below him, the bustling sounds of life did not dim, even though the hour was late. Dishes clinked and rattled in the kitchens, human laughter welled up from the common room. Lakeshire was a quiet town, by human standards, but its people lacked grace. At this hour, he knew, Darnassus' lamps would be extinguished, its people elegant in their silence. Edgthorn looked to his left, where a door was pushed open, just a crack. He knew, from her breathing, that she was asleep already, but a faint glimmering of candlelight limned the edge of the door. It was an invitation, he knew.
Foolish girl. I am not the only man here.
He took a deep breath and turned away, letting his eyes find his own door in the gloom. The room was cramped, a tiny manservant's cubby under the stairs. The dry boards creaked alarmingly under his weight. His ears brushed the dangling cobwebs. He looked down at the too-short bed with distaste. He would not care, should not care - he was a servant now, not the idle, spoiled child of nobility - were it not for the lure of Brudinna's room, only a few steps away. His father's words, unbidden, swam up out of his memory.
I would kill you myself, boy, before I permitted you to pollute your body with sub-elven filth!
That hadn't been about a human girl, of course. One of his cousins had gone sword-faring, as young men were wont to do, and brought home a trollwoman as a captive... How long ago had that been, now? two thousand years? three thousand? He remembered the trollwoman's eyes, dark and shining, like black beads. The Sentinels had killed her, of course. There were laws against what his cousin had done. At the time, he had even believed in the rightness of them.
The bedclothes smelled of mold and disuse. He stripped them, and murmured a faint spell of rejuvenation. The straw ticking welled up with hundreds of shoots and leaves, just for an instant, and then withered again, leaving the musty scent of hay. He nodded quietly to himself in satisfaction, but his thoughts were far away.
He had found the double-grave in a small grove outside Maestra's Post. There had been no stone, no carved monument, only two white trees, slim and tall, side by side. He had touched their bark, briefly, and seen the glowing runes shine out, a message only for him. The sward beneath them was wild with neglect. There were no funerary tokens there - no ribbons twined in the branches, no incense or coins left at the root. He had stood there in the verdant silence and watched the trees for a long time, his thoughts churning.
So, Father, I have finally outlived you.
He could not tell what emotion surged in him at that knowledge. The darkness outside made a mirror of the narrow window above his bed, and he touched the shadowy reflection there with one hand.
Tell me, Father, what was it like, when old age came for you at last? Did you kill yourself and Mother at the first grey hair, or did you cling to every scrap of life - every hour, every day - as a miser grasps at his coins? Did you go to your death clawing for the last second, howling at the unfairness of it all?
His father had been so many things - the last of the old guard, who had fought at first against Malfurion's rebellion and then, reluctantly, joined it, realizing at last that the Legion meant to destroy not only the unworthy, but all people, everywhere. He had given up immortality, given up the vast, eternal magics of his people - one of the greatest magicians of the Age, turned into little more than a farmer under the white boughs of Ashenvale. He had laid all his hopes in Edgthorn, and seen them dashed to ruin.
His father had not seemed old, that night. Before the Sentinels had come, bearing news of Edgthorn's crimes. Perhaps he had known, even then. Perhaps he'd been trying, in his own way, to tell him... something. Edgthorn leaned his forehead against the cool pane of the window and listened to his father speak to him, across the ages.
Words are all we have, my son. They are the only immortality left to us. Your word, once given, rings forever, even if no one is there to hear it but you. That's all an oath is, but words. To give someone your word is to bind yourself, forever, to that purpose - and to break your word diminishes you - it ravages the soul, makes you less of what it is to be a man. I took a sacred oath to my Queen, and I did not break it lightly, boy. That wound gnaws at me still. When I die, I will be only earth, for my honor is broken on Ashzara's wheel.
He already regretted the words he'd spoken to Brudinna - told her that he cared with one breath, and pushed her away with the next. He did not want this burden - he'd wanted only dalliance, a pleasant diversion from the reality of his exile. Her eyes haunted him, dark and shining. Beast eyes, his father would have said, soulless things that have not Elune's light. How could you, my son?
It doesn't matter, now. I gave her up. I ended it myself.
Had it been cowardice or panic that had led him to speak to the guildmistress, Fiammetta, about Brudinna? Injured pride, perhaps - he was his father's son, after all. Afterwards, he had written a hasty, fumbling letter to Bru in broken Common, hoping for - what? To reconcile in secret? To undo the slander he'd said against her? He wasn't even sure himself. Naturally, it had only made things worse - Bru had shown the letter to Fiammetta, and now they were both angry at him. Fiammetta had threatened to pull the soul from his body if he toyed with Bru's affections further - and, being a Warlock, she was perfectly capable of it. Edgthorn gritted his teeth in frustration. He should never have begun this foolishness, he should never have come to Human lands -
But you could not stay in Kalimdor. They will notice you are missing, eventually. They will come for you, hunt you down -
Edgthorn knocked his forehead against the wall. "Shut up."
- and perhaps, this time, it will not be conscription into the Dream, or imprisonment. Perhaps this time it will be death.
Edgthorn shivered with something that was not quite fear or despair, but something between them. Brudinna knew he was a criminal, he'd let it slip in their teasing conversations. But she didn't know he was an escaped criminal - she assumed his debt to society was paid. If she told Fiametta - or worse, Tethkin - well, it wouldn't take a lot of digging to find out what his crimes actually were...
He had a chance. If he could make himself a place here, make himself useful enough, perhaps when the Sentinels came, the Veil would hide him. The guild rode the ragged edge of respectability as it was - Fiammetta, he sensed, was a woman who took a practical view of the world, rather than an idealistic one. He needed to be indispensable. He couldn't let his desires ride him into becoming a liability. Edgthorn knelt slowly down on the straw ticking, letting the smell enfold him. Forget her. Get over your stupid infatuation with Bru and befriend her, recruit her into your cause. She'll find other lovers. So should you. Preferably ones who won't get you into worse trouble than you're already in.
His last thought as he slid into sleep was of dark eyes, shining.
*******************
In A Dark Mirror
Below him, the bustling sounds of life did not dim, even though the hour was late. Dishes clinked and rattled in the kitchens, human laughter welled up from the common room. Lakeshire was a quiet town, by human standards, but its people lacked grace. At this hour, he knew, Darnassus' lamps would be extinguished, its people elegant in their silence. Edgthorn looked to his left, where a door was pushed open, just a crack. He knew, from her breathing, that she was asleep already, but a faint glimmering of candlelight limned the edge of the door. It was an invitation, he knew.
Foolish girl. I am not the only man here.
He took a deep breath and turned away, letting his eyes find his own door in the gloom. The room was cramped, a tiny manservant's cubby under the stairs. The dry boards creaked alarmingly under his weight. His ears brushed the dangling cobwebs. He looked down at the too-short bed with distaste. He would not care, should not care - he was a servant now, not the idle, spoiled child of nobility - were it not for the lure of Brudinna's room, only a few steps away. His father's words, unbidden, swam up out of his memory.
I would kill you myself, boy, before I permitted you to pollute your body with sub-elven filth!
That hadn't been about a human girl, of course. One of his cousins had gone sword-faring, as young men were wont to do, and brought home a trollwoman as a captive... How long ago had that been, now? two thousand years? three thousand? He remembered the trollwoman's eyes, dark and shining, like black beads. The Sentinels had killed her, of course. There were laws against what his cousin had done. At the time, he had even believed in the rightness of them.
The bedclothes smelled of mold and disuse. He stripped them, and murmured a faint spell of rejuvenation. The straw ticking welled up with hundreds of shoots and leaves, just for an instant, and then withered again, leaving the musty scent of hay. He nodded quietly to himself in satisfaction, but his thoughts were far away.
He had found the double-grave in a small grove outside Maestra's Post. There had been no stone, no carved monument, only two white trees, slim and tall, side by side. He had touched their bark, briefly, and seen the glowing runes shine out, a message only for him. The sward beneath them was wild with neglect. There were no funerary tokens there - no ribbons twined in the branches, no incense or coins left at the root. He had stood there in the verdant silence and watched the trees for a long time, his thoughts churning.
So, Father, I have finally outlived you.
He could not tell what emotion surged in him at that knowledge. The darkness outside made a mirror of the narrow window above his bed, and he touched the shadowy reflection there with one hand.
Tell me, Father, what was it like, when old age came for you at last? Did you kill yourself and Mother at the first grey hair, or did you cling to every scrap of life - every hour, every day - as a miser grasps at his coins? Did you go to your death clawing for the last second, howling at the unfairness of it all?
His father had been so many things - the last of the old guard, who had fought at first against Malfurion's rebellion and then, reluctantly, joined it, realizing at last that the Legion meant to destroy not only the unworthy, but all people, everywhere. He had given up immortality, given up the vast, eternal magics of his people - one of the greatest magicians of the Age, turned into little more than a farmer under the white boughs of Ashenvale. He had laid all his hopes in Edgthorn, and seen them dashed to ruin.
His father had not seemed old, that night. Before the Sentinels had come, bearing news of Edgthorn's crimes. Perhaps he had known, even then. Perhaps he'd been trying, in his own way, to tell him... something. Edgthorn leaned his forehead against the cool pane of the window and listened to his father speak to him, across the ages.
Words are all we have, my son. They are the only immortality left to us. Your word, once given, rings forever, even if no one is there to hear it but you. That's all an oath is, but words. To give someone your word is to bind yourself, forever, to that purpose - and to break your word diminishes you - it ravages the soul, makes you less of what it is to be a man. I took a sacred oath to my Queen, and I did not break it lightly, boy. That wound gnaws at me still. When I die, I will be only earth, for my honor is broken on Ashzara's wheel.
He already regretted the words he'd spoken to Brudinna - told her that he cared with one breath, and pushed her away with the next. He did not want this burden - he'd wanted only dalliance, a pleasant diversion from the reality of his exile. Her eyes haunted him, dark and shining. Beast eyes, his father would have said, soulless things that have not Elune's light. How could you, my son?
It doesn't matter, now. I gave her up. I ended it myself.
Had it been cowardice or panic that had led him to speak to the guildmistress, Fiammetta, about Brudinna? Injured pride, perhaps - he was his father's son, after all. Afterwards, he had written a hasty, fumbling letter to Bru in broken Common, hoping for - what? To reconcile in secret? To undo the slander he'd said against her? He wasn't even sure himself. Naturally, it had only made things worse - Bru had shown the letter to Fiammetta, and now they were both angry at him. Fiammetta had threatened to pull the soul from his body if he toyed with Bru's affections further - and, being a Warlock, she was perfectly capable of it. Edgthorn gritted his teeth in frustration. He should never have begun this foolishness, he should never have come to Human lands -
But you could not stay in Kalimdor. They will notice you are missing, eventually. They will come for you, hunt you down -
Edgthorn knocked his forehead against the wall. "Shut up."
- and perhaps, this time, it will not be conscription into the Dream, or imprisonment. Perhaps this time it will be death.
Edgthorn shivered with something that was not quite fear or despair, but something between them. Brudinna knew he was a criminal, he'd let it slip in their teasing conversations. But she didn't know he was an escaped criminal - she assumed his debt to society was paid. If she told Fiametta - or worse, Tethkin - well, it wouldn't take a lot of digging to find out what his crimes actually were...
He had a chance. If he could make himself a place here, make himself useful enough, perhaps when the Sentinels came, the Veil would hide him. The guild rode the ragged edge of respectability as it was - Fiammetta, he sensed, was a woman who took a practical view of the world, rather than an idealistic one. He needed to be indispensable. He couldn't let his desires ride him into becoming a liability. Edgthorn knelt slowly down on the straw ticking, letting the smell enfold him. Forget her. Get over your stupid infatuation with Bru and befriend her, recruit her into your cause. She'll find other lovers. So should you. Preferably ones who won't get you into worse trouble than you're already in.
His last thought as he slid into sleep was of dark eyes, shining.
*******************
"...Elune preserve me, he is a sword brother. I cannot keep hating him. I cannot do anything else."
Bad Omens
----------------
((Another old Edgthorn story, set about Six months ago))
***********
The wind blowing through Theramore smelled of salt and the sea. Deceptive. It led you to think of the lands surrounding Theramore as a clean place. Maikel tugged his gloves back on as he strode out of the inn. It had been two days since anyone inside had seen Ser Edgthorn, the Veil's sharp-tongued butler. Captain Vimes had sent him down the road to investigate some old fire, a task that should have taken only a few hours. The druid had not returned. Maikel tugged out the rolled up shirt he'd poached from the Veil's laundry room and held it under his War Bear's nose. "Seek." He mounted up and rode through the massive stone gates of the fortress, his bear's blunt muzzle snuffling close to the ground.
The trail ranged across half the swamp, and Maikel's expression got grimmer as he followed it. Muddy imprints showed Edgthorn's pursuer, alternately heavy boots and the deep pug-marks of an armored Nightsaber. Edgthorn's own tracks shifted freely between man and cat, plunging frantically across mires and bogs, crawling through thickets and doubling back on itself in frantic attempts to shake whatever - no, whoever - had hounded him. Maikel pulled a broken crossbow bolt out of a stunted swamp tree, noted the slashed tallgrass where a polearm had cut across at waist-height.
They drove him, let him run to tire him out.
A strip of road on the western edge of the swamp had old, dry splashes of blood in the dusty earth. A handful of arrows were scattered from a slashed quiver. This was where he turned to face them, Maikel thought. The dusty hardpack had preserved little of the battle, but here the trail split apart again. The hunter's tracks disappered up the road, towards the Barrens. Maikel made a note of what details he could and followed the other spoor, splashes of blood and dirt scraped across tree trunks and fallen logs, back into the noxious swamp, towards Theramore.
He almost made it back. Almost.
Maikel found the druid in a shallow bowl of tall grass, near Witch Hill. At first, he thought the still form was a corpse. Then, the body twitched feebly. Maikel knelt down next to the man and carefully rolled him over. Edgthorn groaned softly.
Maikel let out a hiss of dismay. "Goddess, you don't look good."
----------------
((Another old Edgthorn story, set about Six months ago))
***********
The wind blowing through Theramore smelled of salt and the sea. Deceptive. It led you to think of the lands surrounding Theramore as a clean place. Maikel tugged his gloves back on as he strode out of the inn. It had been two days since anyone inside had seen Ser Edgthorn, the Veil's sharp-tongued butler. Captain Vimes had sent him down the road to investigate some old fire, a task that should have taken only a few hours. The druid had not returned. Maikel tugged out the rolled up shirt he'd poached from the Veil's laundry room and held it under his War Bear's nose. "Seek." He mounted up and rode through the massive stone gates of the fortress, his bear's blunt muzzle snuffling close to the ground.
The trail ranged across half the swamp, and Maikel's expression got grimmer as he followed it. Muddy imprints showed Edgthorn's pursuer, alternately heavy boots and the deep pug-marks of an armored Nightsaber. Edgthorn's own tracks shifted freely between man and cat, plunging frantically across mires and bogs, crawling through thickets and doubling back on itself in frantic attempts to shake whatever - no, whoever - had hounded him. Maikel pulled a broken crossbow bolt out of a stunted swamp tree, noted the slashed tallgrass where a polearm had cut across at waist-height.
They drove him, let him run to tire him out.
A strip of road on the western edge of the swamp had old, dry splashes of blood in the dusty earth. A handful of arrows were scattered from a slashed quiver. This was where he turned to face them, Maikel thought. The dusty hardpack had preserved little of the battle, but here the trail split apart again. The hunter's tracks disappered up the road, towards the Barrens. Maikel made a note of what details he could and followed the other spoor, splashes of blood and dirt scraped across tree trunks and fallen logs, back into the noxious swamp, towards Theramore.
He almost made it back. Almost.
Maikel found the druid in a shallow bowl of tall grass, near Witch Hill. At first, he thought the still form was a corpse. Then, the body twitched feebly. Maikel knelt down next to the man and carefully rolled him over. Edgthorn groaned softly.
Maikel let out a hiss of dismay. "Goddess, you don't look good."
"...Elune preserve me, he is a sword brother. I cannot keep hating him. I cannot do anything else."
Edgthorn's eyes flickered open for a moment. "Phinn...?"
"Not Phinn. Save your voice." Maikel's speech was curt.
The druid's breath came in shallow rapid pants, like a wolf. What bare skin Maikel could see was swollen almost red-black, blisteringly hot to the touch. The shoulder and left arm were the worst. He took note of the ragged slash that had virtually severed Edgthorn's palm along its length. One finger was only attached by a thin flap of skin, swollen and black. The rest of the fingers were broken, ragged bone showing just under the skin. The shoulder joint felt oddly soft, and Maikel knew without thinking what he would find there.
He started methodically stripping away the druid's armor, using a knife to cut where the leather traces were stretched taut over the hot, swollen skin. The wound at the shoulder was a deep puncture surrounded by a dark ring of bruise. A crossbow bolt, Maikel thought, - but he pulled it out. Several ribs were broken, and the druid was covered in cuts and bruises. He stripped the druid to the waist before standing and calling his bear over closer. He rummaged in his saddlebags, pulling out several vials and a heap of bandages.
Edgthorn's head tossed feebly, his words barely audible. "...No.. I won't..." He let out a gasp of pain as Maikel poured the contents of the vial over the shoulder wound to cleanse it. Maikel pressed the bandages into a rough field dressing and wrapped it, only then letting his focus go to Edgthorn's ruined hand. He spoke, briefly, hoping Edgthorn was lucid enough to hear it.
"I apologize in advance for the pain I'm going to have to cause."
He carefully lifted up the maimed hand and poured the last of the vial over it, then started snapping the fingerbones back into place. The screams that burst from his patient's throat were raw and agonised, and Maikel ignored them, planting one armored knee into the struggling man's uninjured shoulder to pin him down as he worked. Edgthorn gasped something out in slurred Darnassian. Maikel grunted, answering in the same tongue."Fight it less... It's harder to set when you do."
It seemed like an eternity before he was done. He gently laid the hand, now rudely splinted, on Edgthorn's chest and wrapped it. "...lucky you have that hand."
Edgthorn's eyes snapped open in sudden clarity. "I don't know you."
Maikel realized, belatedly, that in his fanged helm and armor, he was practically an image of Death. He put the thought aside and shrugged. "We met, once. Save your strength." Edgthorn let his head drop back with a thump, the questions written across his face unspoken.
It was a few more minutes before Maikel was satisfied with his work. He was no healer, but he'd been in enough battles to know about wounds in the field. The bandages and splints would hold long enough to get the druid to Theramore. Maikel carefully slipped his hands under the druid's arms, and hefted him upright. His War bear shambled closer at his whistle, a furry wall of muscle. Maikel eased his charge into the saddle, mounting up behind him.
"We'll get you to an inn... some real medicine."
"Not Phinn. Save your voice." Maikel's speech was curt.
The druid's breath came in shallow rapid pants, like a wolf. What bare skin Maikel could see was swollen almost red-black, blisteringly hot to the touch. The shoulder and left arm were the worst. He took note of the ragged slash that had virtually severed Edgthorn's palm along its length. One finger was only attached by a thin flap of skin, swollen and black. The rest of the fingers were broken, ragged bone showing just under the skin. The shoulder joint felt oddly soft, and Maikel knew without thinking what he would find there.
He started methodically stripping away the druid's armor, using a knife to cut where the leather traces were stretched taut over the hot, swollen skin. The wound at the shoulder was a deep puncture surrounded by a dark ring of bruise. A crossbow bolt, Maikel thought, - but he pulled it out. Several ribs were broken, and the druid was covered in cuts and bruises. He stripped the druid to the waist before standing and calling his bear over closer. He rummaged in his saddlebags, pulling out several vials and a heap of bandages.
Edgthorn's head tossed feebly, his words barely audible. "...No.. I won't..." He let out a gasp of pain as Maikel poured the contents of the vial over the shoulder wound to cleanse it. Maikel pressed the bandages into a rough field dressing and wrapped it, only then letting his focus go to Edgthorn's ruined hand. He spoke, briefly, hoping Edgthorn was lucid enough to hear it.
"I apologize in advance for the pain I'm going to have to cause."
He carefully lifted up the maimed hand and poured the last of the vial over it, then started snapping the fingerbones back into place. The screams that burst from his patient's throat were raw and agonised, and Maikel ignored them, planting one armored knee into the struggling man's uninjured shoulder to pin him down as he worked. Edgthorn gasped something out in slurred Darnassian. Maikel grunted, answering in the same tongue."Fight it less... It's harder to set when you do."
It seemed like an eternity before he was done. He gently laid the hand, now rudely splinted, on Edgthorn's chest and wrapped it. "...lucky you have that hand."
Edgthorn's eyes snapped open in sudden clarity. "I don't know you."
Maikel realized, belatedly, that in his fanged helm and armor, he was practically an image of Death. He put the thought aside and shrugged. "We met, once. Save your strength." Edgthorn let his head drop back with a thump, the questions written across his face unspoken.
It was a few more minutes before Maikel was satisfied with his work. He was no healer, but he'd been in enough battles to know about wounds in the field. The bandages and splints would hold long enough to get the druid to Theramore. Maikel carefully slipped his hands under the druid's arms, and hefted him upright. His War bear shambled closer at his whistle, a furry wall of muscle. Maikel eased his charge into the saddle, mounting up behind him.
"We'll get you to an inn... some real medicine."
"...Elune preserve me, he is a sword brother. I cannot keep hating him. I cannot do anything else."
********
He feels adrift in a sea of fever. Mostly, images swim past him chaotically, past and present jumbled together with things wholly unreal. Occasionally he surfaces in a moment of lucidity (The fanged armor leans over him, opening tusked metal jaws to reveal a man inside it, looking at him with cold blue eyes. "I don't know you." "We met, once. Save your strength."), and knows what is happening to him. The fever surges and ebbs inside of him, a fire in the skin. His hand is gripped and pain sears through it, removing every sensation but bone and nerve. Someone is screaming. His throat is raw, and he asks for water. He hears a woman's voice, and feels a surge of shame. The reason is forgotten as quickly as everything else. He can feel her hands on him, stroking his hair. She will burn her hands in that fire, surely. Someone puts water to his lips, and he drinks thirstily. Micel is standing over him, the leather collar in her hands. He puts up a hand to stop her, but his hand splits apart, like a flower unfolding, tearing and peeling and burning. He shouts, but no one is listening. The darkness that pours in around him is hot, sticky.
Memory: Night, outside Ratchet in the Barrens, almost 700 years ago. He is standing to one side as the warleader - Huraka - dickers with the goblin merchant. The goblin pries open the crate with a flourish, revealing the polished sheen of steel and wood - Dwarvish guns, this first ones seen in Kalimdor. The merchant launches into his pitch.
He wanders off, towards the other crates, and pries one open out of curiosity. The others don't notice, until he calls out Huraka's name and holds aloft his discovery - custom rifles, decorated with raven feathers and black horn, and scribed with Tauren luck-runes. Huraka turns back to the goblin, who is stammering some excuse. "Selling weapons to both sides, Hezzik? Bad mistake. Make an example of him, Edgthorn."
He looks down at the unloaded rifle in his hands, tries to decide between that and the knife. He smiles, and reverses his grip on the rifle.
The goblin tries to run.
"Be still."
Cold leaches around him. He is in a bed, laid atop the sheets, stripped to the waist. A gauntleted hand holds him down, and icy fog pours out from it, swathing him in its coils. He gulps air like a drowning man. Brudinna's voice cries out next to his ear, in the human tongue, 'D-don't hurt him worse!" The voice that answers her is cold, cold as fire. "Hurt him, Brudinna? He is burning up."
Memory: Dustwallow Marsh, two days ago.
He scrabbles desperately up onto the road, his fur matted and slimed with mud. He is panting, exhausted. Her voice comes from behind him.
"I could kill you anytime I want."
He turns, snarling, to face his pursuer. "Why? I've done nothing to you!"
She sits astride her armored Nightsaber - far faster than his dappled panther-form - and laughs at him. Her voice is a child's voice: eager, greedy. One armored glove is curled loosely around the haft of the long boarhunting spear at her hip. His blood is already on it, dripping off the long, jagged blade from where he'd caught it, thrown it aside with a bare hand and fled, shifting to his panther-form to run faster.
She looks at him and smiles, lazily. "But I don't want to kill you."
His hackles raise as she slides off the great cat's back and steps towards him. Her free hand digs into her satchel for a moment, then opens to reveal the rough-sewn leather collar. The bell on it tinkles tinnily as she dangles it between her fingers. For a moment all human thought flies from him, and his fanged cat's-mouth opens in a scream of rage and fear. He struggles to remember the speech of men.
"Never!"
He is awake again, suddenly, sweat drenching his skin. Someone gently sponges off his forehead. He sees now that his arm and ribs are swathed in white bandages. He licks his lips, parts them. "Water. Please." The cold man is still there, gauntleted hands still hovering over his wounds. He cannot see the face of the woman he leans against, but he knows her by every sense other than sight. He sinks into her lap, feeling the softness of her. The cold man speaks, though not to him. "Give him this...better than water." He is too thirsty to taste it, sucking greedily at the flask she holds for him. The cold man continues speaking. "...need to find a priest, or healer of some sort. The closest would be the Cathedral but I'd be hesitant to move him before he rests. With the fever, and... if he has been gone at least..." The white-haired man looks up for a moment, frowning. "..A day? Day and a half?" The girl behind him shifts. He knows her, knows her voice with an ache that goes right to the bone. Surely, he will remember her name in a moment. "I dunno... I've been in and out so much I cant tell honestly... Shush Ser... Slow down- not too fast..." The cold man speaks again. Edgthorn remembers him, now. He found me in the Swamp. Why would he help me? Who told him I was worth saving? "- eat something as well, though I don't know how easy that will be. He's severely dehydrated." Brudinna's hands take the flask away, and he reaches for it fumblingly, not understanding it is empty. Brudinna. Brudinna is here. Why...? He leans back again, stuttering out in Darnassian, "I am not d-dreaming. Why are you here?"
************
He feels adrift in a sea of fever. Mostly, images swim past him chaotically, past and present jumbled together with things wholly unreal. Occasionally he surfaces in a moment of lucidity (The fanged armor leans over him, opening tusked metal jaws to reveal a man inside it, looking at him with cold blue eyes. "I don't know you." "We met, once. Save your strength."), and knows what is happening to him. The fever surges and ebbs inside of him, a fire in the skin. His hand is gripped and pain sears through it, removing every sensation but bone and nerve. Someone is screaming. His throat is raw, and he asks for water. He hears a woman's voice, and feels a surge of shame. The reason is forgotten as quickly as everything else. He can feel her hands on him, stroking his hair. She will burn her hands in that fire, surely. Someone puts water to his lips, and he drinks thirstily. Micel is standing over him, the leather collar in her hands. He puts up a hand to stop her, but his hand splits apart, like a flower unfolding, tearing and peeling and burning. He shouts, but no one is listening. The darkness that pours in around him is hot, sticky.
Memory: Night, outside Ratchet in the Barrens, almost 700 years ago. He is standing to one side as the warleader - Huraka - dickers with the goblin merchant. The goblin pries open the crate with a flourish, revealing the polished sheen of steel and wood - Dwarvish guns, this first ones seen in Kalimdor. The merchant launches into his pitch.
He wanders off, towards the other crates, and pries one open out of curiosity. The others don't notice, until he calls out Huraka's name and holds aloft his discovery - custom rifles, decorated with raven feathers and black horn, and scribed with Tauren luck-runes. Huraka turns back to the goblin, who is stammering some excuse. "Selling weapons to both sides, Hezzik? Bad mistake. Make an example of him, Edgthorn."
He looks down at the unloaded rifle in his hands, tries to decide between that and the knife. He smiles, and reverses his grip on the rifle.
The goblin tries to run.
"Be still."
Cold leaches around him. He is in a bed, laid atop the sheets, stripped to the waist. A gauntleted hand holds him down, and icy fog pours out from it, swathing him in its coils. He gulps air like a drowning man. Brudinna's voice cries out next to his ear, in the human tongue, 'D-don't hurt him worse!" The voice that answers her is cold, cold as fire. "Hurt him, Brudinna? He is burning up."
Memory: Dustwallow Marsh, two days ago.
He scrabbles desperately up onto the road, his fur matted and slimed with mud. He is panting, exhausted. Her voice comes from behind him.
"I could kill you anytime I want."
He turns, snarling, to face his pursuer. "Why? I've done nothing to you!"
She sits astride her armored Nightsaber - far faster than his dappled panther-form - and laughs at him. Her voice is a child's voice: eager, greedy. One armored glove is curled loosely around the haft of the long boarhunting spear at her hip. His blood is already on it, dripping off the long, jagged blade from where he'd caught it, thrown it aside with a bare hand and fled, shifting to his panther-form to run faster.
She looks at him and smiles, lazily. "But I don't want to kill you."
His hackles raise as she slides off the great cat's back and steps towards him. Her free hand digs into her satchel for a moment, then opens to reveal the rough-sewn leather collar. The bell on it tinkles tinnily as she dangles it between her fingers. For a moment all human thought flies from him, and his fanged cat's-mouth opens in a scream of rage and fear. He struggles to remember the speech of men.
"Never!"
He is awake again, suddenly, sweat drenching his skin. Someone gently sponges off his forehead. He sees now that his arm and ribs are swathed in white bandages. He licks his lips, parts them. "Water. Please." The cold man is still there, gauntleted hands still hovering over his wounds. He cannot see the face of the woman he leans against, but he knows her by every sense other than sight. He sinks into her lap, feeling the softness of her. The cold man speaks, though not to him. "Give him this...better than water." He is too thirsty to taste it, sucking greedily at the flask she holds for him. The cold man continues speaking. "...need to find a priest, or healer of some sort. The closest would be the Cathedral but I'd be hesitant to move him before he rests. With the fever, and... if he has been gone at least..." The white-haired man looks up for a moment, frowning. "..A day? Day and a half?" The girl behind him shifts. He knows her, knows her voice with an ache that goes right to the bone. Surely, he will remember her name in a moment. "I dunno... I've been in and out so much I cant tell honestly... Shush Ser... Slow down- not too fast..." The cold man speaks again. Edgthorn remembers him, now. He found me in the Swamp. Why would he help me? Who told him I was worth saving? "- eat something as well, though I don't know how easy that will be. He's severely dehydrated." Brudinna's hands take the flask away, and he reaches for it fumblingly, not understanding it is empty. Brudinna. Brudinna is here. Why...? He leans back again, stuttering out in Darnassian, "I am not d-dreaming. Why are you here?"
************
"...Elune preserve me, he is a sword brother. I cannot keep hating him. I cannot do anything else."
************
Brudinna's hair falls over him in a black wave of perfume. "Because you need aid, Ser."
He can feel the fever pulsing in his veins, ebbing lower as the cold man's fog enfolds him. His maimed hand throbs with every heartbeat, every breath. He knows it will start hurting again, soon. He takes another breath and speaks, still in Elvish. His thoughts are still too jumbled to parse words in the human's barking ape-tongue.
"I thought... I thought she was harmless."
He can feel the cold man's eyes swivel to him suddenly, his attention a palpable force. "Whom?"
He frowns, struggling to keep his thoughts focused. He cannot drift away again. "...That girl."
Brudinna wipes his brow. He cannot tell if he is hot or cold. The cold man frowns for a moment, considering, then pulls out a small, shimmering vial from a pocket. "Give him this. I dont know what it will do, but it comes from a very old holy spring. It's potent. May ease the fever...." Brudinna takes the vial and lays a few drops on Edgthorn's lips, hesitantly. He tries to speak again, but it is difficult, difficult. He can feel the fever rising up again. Brudinna's voice is soft in his ears. "...Why would ennyone do it.. "
The cold man answers her, his voice brisk. "People are cruel."
His mouth remembers water. "More." Brudinna lets him drink again, and he struggles to catch up the threads of his thoughts, to pull himself into the modern day. He leans his head against Brudinna's thigh, and continues. "She seemed shy, but a friend. I didn't know... I didn't know she wanted..."
The cold man leans over him. "A name. A name is all I need." The figure swims in Edgthorn's vision. He is going under again, and he struggles to stay lucid, struggles to speak. Brudinna's voice pulls him back up from the blackness. "Ser? Do you know her name...?" I never knew any of their names, he thinks muzzily. Recent events flood into his head with a rush, and he remembers who they are speaking of. His voice is a ragged whisper in the gathering dark.
"Micel. It was Micel."
He sees the cold man look up to Brudinna questioningly. Their voices blur into a soft murmur around him. He closes his eyes and finishes his thought, before the nightmares pull him down again. "She tried... she tried to put the collar on me..."
Brudinna's voice is a liquid drop of sound. He answers her query before he slides back down into blackness. "She tried to make me a slave. Too strong... couldn't..."
Memory: Ratchet, nearly 700 years ago.
Edgthorn crumples the paper in his hand, throws it into the fire. Huraka looks up, questioningly. "A message, from Father. He says never to return." The warleader grunts, and returns to his weapons, examining the keen blade for flaws. "I guess there's no reason for you to leave, then."
Edgthorn looks out of the crude tent-flap, into in the gathering darkness. The night air is cool on his bare chest. "It doesn't bother you? It means the Sentinels know what we're doing."
"Pfaugh, they've known all along, boy. D'you think they care?" Huraka grins crookedly. He is a craggy, powerfully-built elf. "Every village we burn makes this land safer for our people."
"That was true of the Trolls, but the Shu'halo..."
"...Still eat our grain, and hunt our meat. They breed faster than we ever will, Ser. If we don't cull the beastmen, they'll crowd us out. Never forget that, boy. If it's not an Elf, it's an enemy."
He does not realize the warrior has moved until a scarred hand caresses his cheek. He looks up to see the firelight reflected in Huraka's teeth. "Forget him, Edgthorn. I've taught you more in a year than that old faker ever will. You want magic? I'll show you magic. The oldest magic of all."
Edgthorn's voice is raw with mingled fear and ambition. "..You said you'd make me an officer."
"Soon. When you're ready."
He is too young to see the strings that pull him.
The voices buoy him up, let him find his way back through the threads of memory and dream. Brudinna's hands trace across the bruises dappling his shoulders and chest. ".. why'd she try t' enslave 'im? Wouldn't she just'a killed 'im an been done wit it?"
The cold man is leaning back against a wall, his voice distant. "Possible."
His ears twitch at the grief in Brudinna's voice. "Oh this just ain't roit... Who 'ave you ever 'urt? Why'd anyone want'a do this t' you?"
Memory: Desolace, 650 years ago. The Shu'halo girl looks up at him, black eyes pleading. Her skin is dappled grey, with fresh spots of blood. He pulls his spear out of the brave who was defending her and puts it to her throat, urging her out of the hut. She cries out, an agonized sound. He has never bothered to learn their language, but he knows she is asking him why. Huraka raises a hand from the hill, and the men fire the last of the huts. Soon the smoke will bring the avenging tauren warband - the Grimtotems, they call themselves. He tosses down the centaur weapons, bayoneting corpses. The trail they leave in their retreat will lead straight to the centaur village. It's too bad they can't take captives this time - Undermine's thirst for slaves is rapacious, and the tauren make good ones. Once the war has started, though, the supply will be plentiful. The tauren girl cries out her question again and he laughs, answering in Darnassian. "Why? Honestly? Because we ran out of trolls."
He prods the the girl back towards the others. Thunder gutters across the sky, echoing his laughter. He wonders if this is what his father felt like, when he was immortal.
He pretends to lapse into sleep. He cannot face that question, perhaps not ever. His skin feels cool, now, and he can feel the heat radiating out from Brudinna's body. The night air is redolent with cooking smells and human voices, but it lacks the familiarity of Stormwind. He thinks they are still in Theramore. There is the tinny click and buzz of Brudinna's speaking-stone, the little gnomish clockwork thing the Veil uses to speak over distance. She sniffles as she whispers into it, listening intently to the response. After a long silence, she shifts, turning to the right.
"Thank'ee... for... findin' 'im."
"It is the least I could do. You are the Lady's people. And... the Veil could use more looking out for it, besides." There is a soft creak of armor as the cold man shifts uncomfortably.
******************
Brudinna's hair falls over him in a black wave of perfume. "Because you need aid, Ser."
He can feel the fever pulsing in his veins, ebbing lower as the cold man's fog enfolds him. His maimed hand throbs with every heartbeat, every breath. He knows it will start hurting again, soon. He takes another breath and speaks, still in Elvish. His thoughts are still too jumbled to parse words in the human's barking ape-tongue.
"I thought... I thought she was harmless."
He can feel the cold man's eyes swivel to him suddenly, his attention a palpable force. "Whom?"
He frowns, struggling to keep his thoughts focused. He cannot drift away again. "...That girl."
Brudinna wipes his brow. He cannot tell if he is hot or cold. The cold man frowns for a moment, considering, then pulls out a small, shimmering vial from a pocket. "Give him this. I dont know what it will do, but it comes from a very old holy spring. It's potent. May ease the fever...." Brudinna takes the vial and lays a few drops on Edgthorn's lips, hesitantly. He tries to speak again, but it is difficult, difficult. He can feel the fever rising up again. Brudinna's voice is soft in his ears. "...Why would ennyone do it.. "
The cold man answers her, his voice brisk. "People are cruel."
His mouth remembers water. "More." Brudinna lets him drink again, and he struggles to catch up the threads of his thoughts, to pull himself into the modern day. He leans his head against Brudinna's thigh, and continues. "She seemed shy, but a friend. I didn't know... I didn't know she wanted..."
The cold man leans over him. "A name. A name is all I need." The figure swims in Edgthorn's vision. He is going under again, and he struggles to stay lucid, struggles to speak. Brudinna's voice pulls him back up from the blackness. "Ser? Do you know her name...?" I never knew any of their names, he thinks muzzily. Recent events flood into his head with a rush, and he remembers who they are speaking of. His voice is a ragged whisper in the gathering dark.
"Micel. It was Micel."
He sees the cold man look up to Brudinna questioningly. Their voices blur into a soft murmur around him. He closes his eyes and finishes his thought, before the nightmares pull him down again. "She tried... she tried to put the collar on me..."
Brudinna's voice is a liquid drop of sound. He answers her query before he slides back down into blackness. "She tried to make me a slave. Too strong... couldn't..."
Memory: Ratchet, nearly 700 years ago.
Edgthorn crumples the paper in his hand, throws it into the fire. Huraka looks up, questioningly. "A message, from Father. He says never to return." The warleader grunts, and returns to his weapons, examining the keen blade for flaws. "I guess there's no reason for you to leave, then."
Edgthorn looks out of the crude tent-flap, into in the gathering darkness. The night air is cool on his bare chest. "It doesn't bother you? It means the Sentinels know what we're doing."
"Pfaugh, they've known all along, boy. D'you think they care?" Huraka grins crookedly. He is a craggy, powerfully-built elf. "Every village we burn makes this land safer for our people."
"That was true of the Trolls, but the Shu'halo..."
"...Still eat our grain, and hunt our meat. They breed faster than we ever will, Ser. If we don't cull the beastmen, they'll crowd us out. Never forget that, boy. If it's not an Elf, it's an enemy."
He does not realize the warrior has moved until a scarred hand caresses his cheek. He looks up to see the firelight reflected in Huraka's teeth. "Forget him, Edgthorn. I've taught you more in a year than that old faker ever will. You want magic? I'll show you magic. The oldest magic of all."
Edgthorn's voice is raw with mingled fear and ambition. "..You said you'd make me an officer."
"Soon. When you're ready."
He is too young to see the strings that pull him.
The voices buoy him up, let him find his way back through the threads of memory and dream. Brudinna's hands trace across the bruises dappling his shoulders and chest. ".. why'd she try t' enslave 'im? Wouldn't she just'a killed 'im an been done wit it?"
The cold man is leaning back against a wall, his voice distant. "Possible."
His ears twitch at the grief in Brudinna's voice. "Oh this just ain't roit... Who 'ave you ever 'urt? Why'd anyone want'a do this t' you?"
Memory: Desolace, 650 years ago. The Shu'halo girl looks up at him, black eyes pleading. Her skin is dappled grey, with fresh spots of blood. He pulls his spear out of the brave who was defending her and puts it to her throat, urging her out of the hut. She cries out, an agonized sound. He has never bothered to learn their language, but he knows she is asking him why. Huraka raises a hand from the hill, and the men fire the last of the huts. Soon the smoke will bring the avenging tauren warband - the Grimtotems, they call themselves. He tosses down the centaur weapons, bayoneting corpses. The trail they leave in their retreat will lead straight to the centaur village. It's too bad they can't take captives this time - Undermine's thirst for slaves is rapacious, and the tauren make good ones. Once the war has started, though, the supply will be plentiful. The tauren girl cries out her question again and he laughs, answering in Darnassian. "Why? Honestly? Because we ran out of trolls."
He prods the the girl back towards the others. Thunder gutters across the sky, echoing his laughter. He wonders if this is what his father felt like, when he was immortal.
He pretends to lapse into sleep. He cannot face that question, perhaps not ever. His skin feels cool, now, and he can feel the heat radiating out from Brudinna's body. The night air is redolent with cooking smells and human voices, but it lacks the familiarity of Stormwind. He thinks they are still in Theramore. There is the tinny click and buzz of Brudinna's speaking-stone, the little gnomish clockwork thing the Veil uses to speak over distance. She sniffles as she whispers into it, listening intently to the response. After a long silence, she shifts, turning to the right.
"Thank'ee... for... findin' 'im."
"It is the least I could do. You are the Lady's people. And... the Veil could use more looking out for it, besides." There is a soft creak of armor as the cold man shifts uncomfortably.
******************
"...Elune preserve me, he is a sword brother. I cannot keep hating him. I cannot do anything else."
**************
A cloth wipes across his forehead, fingers smooth his hair down nervously. "No.. this is above 'an' beyond..." The speaking-stone buzzes again, peremptorily, and Brudinna jitters again. "Uh... Grithy says we need alcohol.. an... hot water..."
Edgthorn frowns, his eyes still closed. Grithorn. Not Winona?
The cold man's voice again - hard, suspicious. "What is this 'Grithy'?"
Bru answers him, one hand still riffling gently through Edgthorn's hair. "Grithy? One o' ours... a good 'un. 'E's a Druid - a Healer..."
The cold man snaps irritatedly, "Tell him to bring the healing of the Goddess, or Cenarius then. I've used what normal medicine I can, we need more."
Bru is only half-listening, her ear at the stone. "...An... somethin' fer him t' bite on.."
The cold man shifts, his armor creaking. His voice is irritated, but it fades into distance.
Memory: Six months ago, Stormwind City.
The meager pouch of gold clinks between Zardeth's fingers. The warlock hefts it thoughtfully. "I can give you a name, but you mustn't mention me. I hope you don't mind menial work - at first, anyway. No doubt she'll find better uses for you, eventually."
The walls of the stone room seem to crawl in the eerie light of the bonefire at its center. The other demonologists in the room whisper and chuckle at the borders of his vision.
Edgthorn's voice is wary, his Common stumbling. "I no take slave work."
Zardeth's teeth flash white. "Oh, there are no slaves in Stormwind, my long-eared friend - aside from these." A black-gloved hand gestures to the imp and succubus, huddled wretchedly beside him. "...You needn't fear. The woman I have in mind is known for honorable dealings. I warn you, though - don't cross her. She's a very... practical-minded... woman."
Edgthorn tilts his head to the side. "Meaning she not kind?"
"Oh, she's -very- kind. Meaning that if she decides to rid herself of you, they'll never even find your bones." Those white teeth flash again, unpleasantly.
Edgthorn hesitates, taking time to sift as much meaning as he can from the Warlock's layered tones before nodding curtly in agreement. "The name."
"Mistress Fiammeta Castelon, of the Golden Veil. Tell her you're answering the call for a butler. I'll provide a few references for you. Forged, of course."
The sound of a door brings him awake. He recognizes Grithorn's hesitant, halting step.
The cold man's voice is impatient. "And there he is. Did she relay my messages?"
He can hear the wry humor in Grithorn's voice as he answers, carelessly, "Nope." He suspects the cold man hears none of it.
"His bones have been set. And what normal medicine is able to do has already been done." The cold man begins to painstakingly enumerate the steps taken. Grithorn's mild voice cuts him off. "Mm-hmm. Well, we'll see what we can add to that. Do you have the hot water and alcohol?"
The cold man's voice snaps into genuine anger. "I've already done all that! He's as disinfected as I can make him! He needs ~healing~, not - "
Grithorn's hands are deft and gentle across Edgthorn's skin, pulling gently at the scabbed bandages. He is ignoring the cold man's ranting. Edgthorn's mouth twitches up helplessly - he wonders how far Grithorn can push his rescuer before he storms from the room. Grithorn speaks again. "...What attacked him, Brudinna?"
Bru shrugs. "Some woman - S'all oi know..."
A cloth wipes across his forehead, fingers smooth his hair down nervously. "No.. this is above 'an' beyond..." The speaking-stone buzzes again, peremptorily, and Brudinna jitters again. "Uh... Grithy says we need alcohol.. an... hot water..."
Edgthorn frowns, his eyes still closed. Grithorn. Not Winona?
The cold man's voice again - hard, suspicious. "What is this 'Grithy'?"
Bru answers him, one hand still riffling gently through Edgthorn's hair. "Grithy? One o' ours... a good 'un. 'E's a Druid - a Healer..."
The cold man snaps irritatedly, "Tell him to bring the healing of the Goddess, or Cenarius then. I've used what normal medicine I can, we need more."
Bru is only half-listening, her ear at the stone. "...An... somethin' fer him t' bite on.."
The cold man shifts, his armor creaking. His voice is irritated, but it fades into distance.
Memory: Six months ago, Stormwind City.
The meager pouch of gold clinks between Zardeth's fingers. The warlock hefts it thoughtfully. "I can give you a name, but you mustn't mention me. I hope you don't mind menial work - at first, anyway. No doubt she'll find better uses for you, eventually."
The walls of the stone room seem to crawl in the eerie light of the bonefire at its center. The other demonologists in the room whisper and chuckle at the borders of his vision.
Edgthorn's voice is wary, his Common stumbling. "I no take slave work."
Zardeth's teeth flash white. "Oh, there are no slaves in Stormwind, my long-eared friend - aside from these." A black-gloved hand gestures to the imp and succubus, huddled wretchedly beside him. "...You needn't fear. The woman I have in mind is known for honorable dealings. I warn you, though - don't cross her. She's a very... practical-minded... woman."
Edgthorn tilts his head to the side. "Meaning she not kind?"
"Oh, she's -very- kind. Meaning that if she decides to rid herself of you, they'll never even find your bones." Those white teeth flash again, unpleasantly.
Edgthorn hesitates, taking time to sift as much meaning as he can from the Warlock's layered tones before nodding curtly in agreement. "The name."
"Mistress Fiammeta Castelon, of the Golden Veil. Tell her you're answering the call for a butler. I'll provide a few references for you. Forged, of course."
The sound of a door brings him awake. He recognizes Grithorn's hesitant, halting step.
The cold man's voice is impatient. "And there he is. Did she relay my messages?"
He can hear the wry humor in Grithorn's voice as he answers, carelessly, "Nope." He suspects the cold man hears none of it.
"His bones have been set. And what normal medicine is able to do has already been done." The cold man begins to painstakingly enumerate the steps taken. Grithorn's mild voice cuts him off. "Mm-hmm. Well, we'll see what we can add to that. Do you have the hot water and alcohol?"
The cold man's voice snaps into genuine anger. "I've already done all that! He's as disinfected as I can make him! He needs ~healing~, not - "
Grithorn's hands are deft and gentle across Edgthorn's skin, pulling gently at the scabbed bandages. He is ignoring the cold man's ranting. Edgthorn's mouth twitches up helplessly - he wonders how far Grithorn can push his rescuer before he storms from the room. Grithorn speaks again. "...What attacked him, Brudinna?"
Bru shrugs. "Some woman - S'all oi know..."
"...Elune preserve me, he is a sword brother. I cannot keep hating him. I cannot do anything else."
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