The Hunt

It was a clear night, much like the one when she’d felt the blood leak from her body out into Northrend’s snow.  There were a thousand stars in the sky, most of them familiar.  There was one new constellation that she had found herself staring at night after night, the one that had appeared one night without any more warning than the muted stab of pain she had felt the day before she’d noticed it for the first time.

There was always something new in the world, even after all of the centuries.  One just had to know where to look.

The Death Knight rubbed at the old brand on her chest, the one shaped like the crescent moon.  The blackened ruin of a pendant in the same shape rasped against its chain, cold against the back of her hand.  Once upon a time, it had not been so.  Before, it had always had a certain warmth, had brought comfort without name to a Death Knight who for so long had not remembered the significance of the trinket she wore, the reason she had held it so dear.

There had been times when it had burned with unbearable heat, pain she had struggled to ignore and sometimes had managed the same, both in the Before and the After.  It had been one of those moments that had created the old brand against her chest, stark and clean, the mark of Elune on one who was lost and was still struggling to again be found.

She had not been lost when it happened.

The world, she had come to realize in these last few months, was much changed from the world that had been before.  And yet...

And yet.

An owl cried in the darkness and she roused herself from her stargazing.  There was no moon tonight.  Nessiana would have said it was the time of the Shadow Moon, the best time for their work, for none would see them coming.  They had been companions for centuries when Ness had given her the trinket the day before she died on a battlefield.

Now that her memories of the before time had begun to resurface, it was on nights like this that she missed Ness the most.

Find the girl.

Her lips thinned as the wind whispered in the trees of Winterspring, in the chill of the darkness.  The hairs on her arms stirred and she came slowly to her feet, reaching for the blades that lay with her kit.

Find the girl.

The whispers had started when the Legion came, a thought in Nessiana’s voice echoing through her head.  It was the same tone Ness had used when she’d told her that she’d know when the time was right to shatter the pendant she wore.  She had never felt that moment come, but the thing had exploded anyway, just days after it had begun.

There must have been a reason.

She hadn’t dared to fathom what it might be.

A shudder ran through her and she looked around in the sudden stillness.

Wait for it.

Once upon a time, she would have counted the heartbeats, but those were long gone, now.  Now she merely counted the seconds, frozen and silent.

The manastalker launched itself from the brush, silent and deadly.  In a single, smooth motion, the Death Knight drew one of her blades and swung, neatly bisecting the creature.

Silence lingered for a moment.

They never travel alone.

The second came, then the third.  A song of battle sang in the Death Knight’s blood.  This was why she was still walking the face of Azeroth.

This is what I’m meant for.

This is all I’ve ever been meant for.

There had been six in the pack and all of them lay dead by the time it was over.  She stood in the midst of their corpses, her chest heaving with unnecessary breath, her fingers tight around the hilts of her blades.

No.  No, I was once meant for more than this.

She closed her eyes, the words to a prayer on her lips.

Then she stooped to gather her gear, including the oilskin-wrapped parcel she’d retrieved from Nessiana’s retreat in the north of Winterspring, her whole reason for being where she stood.

There was no sense in lingering there any longer.

In silence, her gear in hand, she began walking south and west, toward Ashenvale.

She wouldn’t camp again until she made it there.  Then she would find a likely bower and study the things Nessiana had left behind for her.

It was as if the priestess had known something she had not when they left for that last journey, headed for that last battle.

Isryael had been written on the oilskin itself, the script somehow undimmed by time.

Somehow, Nessiana Shadesinger had known.