Post by Moirah on Nov 8, 2009 1:48:29 GMT -5
((It was a great pleasure to meet some of you. Since I was invited by Keilune to post on your website, I thought I should start with a bit of an introductory story. This is a story that ties two of my characters together. Though Moirah plays an important role, it is really the story of Ella Rose, my now-forsaken priestess.))
Afternoon sunlight streamed through the high thin windows in the gray stone, casting a warm glow through the dark golden locks framing the face of a young woman kneeling by her bed, lost in prayer. Nearby another young woman hummed softly as she carefully laid out ceremonial vestments on her own small bed, smoothing out any visible creases. In the long narrow room a handful of others worked quietly, studying or tidying near their own sleeping places.
With a final prayer of blessing to the Light, Ella opened her sky-blue eyes, moving out of the sunbeam as she rose from her knees and walked over to her friend. Moirah was still humming to herself, lost in her own thoughts, seemingly as much in her own world as during the long hours spent reading here where the Sisters slept or in the Cathedral library.
“Are you ready for tomorrow, Moirah?” Ella smiled at her friend, patiently waiting for the other acolyte to acknowledge her.
“Hmm…oh yes! I am!” Moirah turned her own shy smile to Ella. Carefully she lifted her vestments to hang them again in a small wardrobe, the inside of the plain wooden closet otherwise bare except for the pack snuggling filling the bottom. She then took a seat on the bed, patting it to ask Ella to take a seat beside her.
Moirah turned to survey the room, motioning to other bunks lining each side of the dormitory. “Will you miss this, Ella?”
Ella smiled, the angelic young woman already the perfect picture of a holy priestess of Stormwind Cathedral. “I will miss my Sisters, certainly. But I am prepared to follow whatever path the Light sets for me.”
Her friend giggled, reaching out to hug her. “You were always the most pious of us, you know.”
Ella shook her head, briefly returning the embrace before cast her eyes around the familiar room that had been their home for the past four years. “No. I’m sure that’s not true. But yes, I will miss this place, if I’m called to leave. I’ve been able to hear the Cathedral bells as long as I remember.”
Moirah sighed and nodded. “Your mother will be there, won’t she?” Of the half dozen Sisters among the acolytes to be ordained at sunrise, Moirah was the only one who would stand alone, with no parent beside her.
Sensing her friend’s discomfort, Ella reached out to pat her hand. “Yes. This is the day she’s been looking forward to since I was a little girl. I only wish my father could be there, too.”
In her dreams Ella could still see her father’s face, see how small her child’s hand had looked in his. She remembered being proud that she was the daughter of one of the defenders of the kingdom, and how awed she’d been by his shining armor. Or at least she thought she remembered…she’d been only four when he died. Her mother had taken a tailoring job then, in the shadow of the Cathedral. In the years that followed the two had made a nightly ritual of lighting a candle in memory of her father, offering prayers for his soul to the Light. Her mother could not have been more proud the day Ella Rose pledged to be an acolyte and moved into this room with eleven other new Sisters.
Her father was with the Light now. But as much as she felt he was always watching over her, she still missed him. As she thought of her father, Ella fought back the tears that began to fill her eyes.
It was Moirah’s turn to offer comfort, clasping Ella’s hand in her own. For a long while the two young women sat quietly together, watching the shadows of leaves dance across the polished stones of the floor.
The silence was broken as a hesitant rapping on the heavy wooden door echoed in the chamber. An arm clad in the simple white linen of a first year acolyte emerging from the doorway, with the rest of Kalei Worthmyre, the page of the Mistress of Acolytes, following. The young women in the room turned their attention to the page that, although blushing a bit in front of the older acolytes, delivered her message with a strong voice.
“I’ve been sent to fetch all of you being ordained tomorrow. The mistress and Priestess Camalla need to ask you an important question.”
Ella and Moirah looked at each other, then rose in unison. Ever curious Moirah voiced the question in all of the their minds. “Is it about tomorrow’s ceremony?”
“I don’t know. Just come right away, and as you are. Those were the Mistress’s instructions.”
Four of the young women in the room followed the page as she slipped out, then made their way together to the study of the Mistress of Acolytes. Kalei excused herself to search for the other two soon-to-be priestesses.
When the acolytes arrived, pausing out of courtesy in front of the open door, the two elder priestesses in the study were in serious discussion. The youngest daughter of a noble house was the first to speak up. “You called for us, Mother?”
The Mistress of Acolytes turned her attention to the four women in doorway, nodding, her usually calm and kindly demeanor seeming pained, almost anxious. “Please, my children. Take a seat while we wait for the others.” She folded the letter laying open on her desk, passing it to the healer in the chair beside her. Priestess Camalla took the parchment with a nod, her expression solemn.
Each of the young women bowed her head, murmuring “Thank you, Mother…” finding seats on the benches under the wall of books on one side of the room and by the fireplace at the other. A moment later two other young women appeared at the door, and were likewise directed to sit.
The elder of the priestesses looked at the charges in her care, pausing for a moment on each uncertain young face. With her grey hair pulled into a tight bun behind her head the Mistress of Acolytes looked almost severe, but her eyes were filled with a mixture of love and sadness.
She then glanced to her old friend Camalla, and with a heavy sigh, answered the question unspoken by the younger women. “Priestess Camalla has been sent with news from the battle against the Scourge. The war has not been going well. Too many of our soldiers are dying on the battlefield.”
Camallla spoke then, gravely as one who has long used the Light to battle against death. “We are in need of healers. Desperately so…or I would not ask this of you, young Sisters.” She held the letter up for the young women to see. “The commander of my unit has ordered me to bring back as many healers as I can. Even those newly ordained in service to the Light.”
Fear filled the faces of most of the young women in the room. The Mistress responded to the distress around her as both a gifted healer in her own right and a longtime caretaker of the uninitiated. Her voice soothing and face gentle, she met in turn each pair of eyes looking up to her. “My children…after tomorrow morning you will each follow the path the Light makes for you. All we can ask is that you look within your heart to see if it leads you to answer this call.”
“But how can we be healers for the war?” It was the daughter of a noble house who spoke again, twisting her single brown braid with a hand as she did. “We’ve only just begun to learn that art.”
Camalla nodded at her, then swept her gaze around the small room. “What you’ve learned is enough to be of help. And if you volunteer to serve with me, you will learn more, quickly, as a healer in the war zone.”
The Mistress of Acolytes rose from her seat. “None of you need answer now, but think carefully this night. Priestess Camalla and the reinforcement she raises will depart by nightfall tomorrow.” She raised her hands in benediction over the women. “May the Light embrace you and illuminate your path, my children.”
The six young women bowed their heads, responding in unison. “May the Light bless you, Mother.”
Dismissed by the blessing, the Sisters rose, moving through the study door back into the hallway before beginning to whisper frantically to one another. The conversation continued long after they returned to the narrow room.
“What good can any of us really do?” The woman with the long brown braid sat cross-legged on her own bunk, shaking her head. “I mean, we’ve so little training, wouldn’t we just be in the way?”
Moirah sighed and nodded her agreement, but Ella didn’t seem convinced. “If we weren’t needed, we wouldn’t have been asked.”
“I think Camalla just wants to be able to say she asked everyone at the Cathedral.” The other young women seemed unperturbed by the informal reference to the veteran healer. Many of the nobles among the acolytes were a bit less likely to show the proper decorum when not in direct hearing of the Cathedral Elders than their peers of more humble beginnings. Twisting her braid around a finger, she went on “I for one won’t be changing my plans.”
Through dinner the debate continued, and with hushed whispers into the night. An hour before dawn, the Cathedral sprang to life again. The Sisters, many of whom had barely slept, began their preparations for the sacred ceremony that would begin with the first rays of the new day.
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Each side of the sanctuary was filled as the initiates began their slow march down the aisle robes of pure white silk shimmering softly in the glow from the candles each carried as they made their way to blue of the altar stairs. They walked past the assembled priests and acolytes, past family and friends, and paused at the base of the rise.
High Priestess Laurena and Archbishop Benedictus stood behind the altar, between the Mistress and Master of Acolytes, the later two beaming with pride at their charges. The High Priestess raised her hands in welcome toward the congregation as the first rays of morning broke through the eastern windows, casting long streaks of colored light across the marble of the floor.
“Brothers and Sisters, join us in welcoming these dedicated young people into the service of the Holy Light.”
“May the blessings of the Light be upon you.” The sing-song words spoken by so many echoed loudly in the chamber.
Two by two, the initiates brought their candles to the altar, joining their light with the single flame of the large central pillar. They then set their own smaller flames into the gleaming silver holders waiting on either side.
As the Sisters peeled off to their side of the altar rise, the Mistress of Acolytes stood waiting, her page holding the stoles that marked the ordained.
When all the candles stood in their places beside the central flame, the Archbishop called in a clear loud voice “Who will stand with these gathered here as they begin their journey on the path of Light?”
Proud parents climbed up the stairs to stand behind their children. Ella turned her head to smile at her mother, her smile widening when she saw Lady Kitistra had filled the place Moirah had fretted over being empty behind her, then she turned back to face the officiates.
Alternately the Archbishop and High Priestess led the young men and women through their vows of service. Vows completed, the pages held out the stoles, embroidered and fringed in threads of silver and gold, to be placed around the neck of each new priest and priestess.
As the Mistress and Master of Acolytes wrapped the white silken cloth around the necks of their kneeling charges, they kissed each in turn on the forehead, smiling and softly saying to each “Go with the Light.”
When each line of initiates was marked with the rights of the priesthood, they rose in unison to face the assembly, beaming families…or friends…standing behind them.
Two-by-two they filed out as they had come in, slowly, formally, a joyous hymn to the Light filling the air around them.
Formality faded with the last stanza of the hymn as the congregation followed the newly ordained out of the sanctuary, chattering voices and laughter echoing in the halls as the music had minutes before.
Ella’s mother hugged her tightly. “I’m so proud of you! Your father would be too.” Smiling back Ella returned the embrace.
“Oh! I have something for you.” The older woman held out a pendent in the shape of a flame, crystal glimmering in the light as it twisted slowly on its delicate gold chain. “Your grandparents gave this to your father on the day of his commission. I know he’d want you to have it now…”
Ella reached out to take the necklace in her hands, holding it in her palms as the early morning Light reflected off its shining facets. “My father…” Tears came unbidden to her eyes. “Why did he choose his path, mother?” The young woman looked up, closing her hand around the precious object.
“Here. Let me see that. “ Her mother held out her own hand to take the pendant, then sweeping her daughter’s hair to one side, hung the chain around her neck and fastened he clasp. “There…it’s perfect on you.”
“Mother…”
Ella’s mother sighed, then brushing her daughter’s hair to where it had been, answered her question. “He went where he was needed, Ella. As much as his family needed him, his country needed him more.”
He went where he was needed…that thought resonating in her head she looked down at her pendant, reaching up to clutch it in her hand. “Mother…would you be upset if I…” She took a deep breath then looked up into her mother’s eyes, letting her thoughts spill out into voice. “Priestess Camalla has asked for healers to help against the Scourge. I know I won’t be much help, but what if I could save soldiers like him?”
Ella’s mother looked at her daughter with even greater pride than before, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. “He’d be so proud of you, Ella.”
Throwing herself into her mother’s arms, Ella nodded. “Thank you, Mother. I’ll be careful. I promise.”
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Back in the narrow room for the last time together as Sisters, the young women hugged one another, shedding tears and asking of plans. Each had traded their formal vestments for traveling robes. Only Ella’s new garments carried the mark of a military healer.
Like the day before Ella and Moirah sat together, talking quietly. “Are you really sure, Ella?” Moriah asked yet again. “I…I just don’t think I’m ready. Are you?”
Ella nodded, watching the shadows on the floor. “The Mistress said to follow our hearts. To find the path the Light has made for us.” Her hand went unconsciously to the pendant as she turned to give Moirah a small smile. “This is my calling, Moirah. Like it was my father’s.”
Moirah looked at her friend, silently nodding, her expression sad, her burgundy hair falling to veil part of her face as it so often did.
“You’ll go to live with Lady Kitistra, right? I’m so glad she came to stand with you today.” Ella was clearly trying to lift her friend’s mood with a change of subject.
Moriah nodded again, a small smile of her own coming to her lips. “Yes…she’s been very good to me.”
Ella squeezed Moirah’s hand, then smiled at her again. “Will you keep something for me? Until I return?” Releasing her friend, she picked up her bag, and brought out a book bound in worn leather, holding it out to Moirah. Gold letters on the book’s spine read On the Virtues of the Light.
Moirah shook her head. “No…Ella…I can’t take that. I know what it means to you…your mother gave it to you on your first day here.”
Ella kept holding the book out. “Please, Moirah. I know it will be safe with you. And I have this now.” She held out the pendant with her other hand, smiling down at the shining crystal.
Reluctantly her friend took the offered volume, clutching it to her own chest with tears in her eyes. “I’ll keep it safe for you, Ella. But you have to promise you’ll come back for it.”
The two Sisters hugged each other again, both wiping away tears when they parted. Ella looked at her friend, then broke into a new smile. “Are you ready, Moirah.”
“Yes…yes, I am.” Reaching down to pick up their bags, the two women stood together and walked for the last time out of that room that had become their home, going separately to find the paths the Light had laid out for each of them. Each new priestess clutched something precious to her chest as she began her Light’s journey: the shy farm girl a worn book, the determined soldier’s daughter the symbol of her father.
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A sudden jarring of the wagon on the dirt road woke Ella from her dream. As she opened her eyes could see the faces of the others traveling with her, light and shadows playing across their faces as the single lantern on a pole moved with the rocking of the wagon. Lights of other three wagons shown just ahead and behind, dancing like large fireflies in the darkness.
As her gaze met the eyes of young priest across from her, he blushed and looked down. That one…Jacob was his name? So far he hadn’t managed to say a coherent sentence around her. She smiled back at him, though she knew he couldn’t see, then swept her gaze across the others assigned to travel with her.
Priestess Camalla had managed to find seventeen volunteers at the Cathedral, three among the new initiates. Ella and Jacob shared their wagon with three other priests and the soldier who had driven them through out the long dark night. The soft snoring at her side made it apparent that at least the priestess one year her elder was managing to get some rest on this long trip.
Pulling her cloak more tightly around her, Ella again tried to get some sleep before daybreak. The air had grown increasing chilly, although she wasn’t sure if the cause was the long trek northward or the natural cooling of the night toward dawn. Or maybe it was uncertainly and a touch of fear that made her shiver so. As the road became less rough, the rocking of the wagon gentled, finally lulling Ella back into her dream.
Her next memory was of early daylight and voices. The wagon had stopped, and her traveling mates were themselves yawning and stretching, seemingly universally eager to leave the rickety wooden platform behind. Looking behind her, she saw a flurry of activity among a city of tents set among trees bearing the first colors of autumn.
When it was her turn to step down from the wagon, an armored soldier smiled at her as he held out his hand to help her down. “Welcome to our camp, my lady.”
“Thank you, sir.” Taking his hand, she stepped off the wooden step and onto the wheel-scarred and foot-compacted dusty soil.
With a small bowing of his head, the soldier turned to help the last of her companions down from the wagon before moving off toward the tents.
Ella held onto her bag’s handle with both hands as she demurely waited by the wagons with the rest of the Cathedral volunteers for further instructions from Priestess Camalla. No one but that soldier who had helped her down seemed to have taken notice of their arrival, though the smell of cooking fires held the rapt attention of several others in her party.
Finally someone spoke. “You’d think they’d offer us breakfast, at least.” It was one of the more experienced volunteers, a still-young priest with a sparkle in his green eyes. He winked as he noticed her looking at him. With a soft sigh, her own gaze went back to her hands and her bag.
As if on cue, Priestess Camalla returned with another soldier. “This is Sergeant Merick. He will show you all to your quarters. We will meet there in half an hour for the morning meal and assignment of duties.” As she spoke she pointed to a large white peak of canvas near the center of the camp.
Moving among the tents as they followed the Sergeant, Ella was surprised to find the soldiers looked nothing like what she had expected. Their armor wasn’t the gleaming vision of her memory of her father, nor was it the well-polished and symmetric metal of the city guards. Instead, dents and scratches marred dim steel. The soldiers themselves looked more haggard than proud as they went about their morning duties, many with same haunted look she’d seen so briefly in Camalla’s eyes the night before.
The tent she would share with the other priestess wasn’t so different from the dormitory she’d just left behind. Camel canvas replaced grey stone, and sleeping roles were spread on the ground instead of sheets and blankets on narrow cots, but she was with Sisters again. Different ones, unfamiliar ones, but Sisters nonetheless.
Changing quickly out of their dusty traveling robes, she and the other priestesses left their bags neatly on their bedrolls, and made their way to the tent Camalla had indicated. The men, having found their quarters more quickly were already seated and helping themselves to the bread and cooked eggs on platters in the middle the long table where the battle-seasoned priestess waited.
An officer was speaking with her. “The supplies are much appreciated, Priestess, but more so the healers you’ve brought.” His voice dropped lower as he added. “Several seem quite young, my friend. Are you sure they can handle this?”
Camalla gave him a stern look in answer, rising to welcome the rest of her recruits. “Come and sit with us, Sisters. And eat well. You can never be sure just when your next meal will come in a war zone.”
Obediently the young women followed the example of their male counterparts, filling tin plates and taking their seats, each head inclined briefly in a prayer to the Light before beginning to eat.
Surveying the recruits, Camalla continued. “You will each be assigned duties based on your level of training. You six…” She indicated the older priests and priestesses “Will come with me. And for our newest initiates” She smiled gently at Ella and her two young male companions. “You three will stay away from the front lines. Your job will be to care for the walking wounded, freeing the attention of the rest of us for more serious cases. After breakfast, report to the aid station near the edge of camp. The Sergeant will show you the way.” She went on to give the remaining priests and priestesses their assignments.
Jacob, meanwhile, attempted another smile at Ella before staring down at his plate with a red face, while the priestess next to her whispered in her ear. “I think that one is regretting his vow of chastity already.”
Ella’s own blush matched Jacob’s as she turned with a shocked expression to the young woman at her right. In answer, the priestess smiled back smugly and took another bite of bread, shrugging at Ella.
The Commander had stood silently by as Camalla spoke, with his arms crossed. He had looked at the exchange with a less than pleased expression, shaking his head at Jacob in particular. Impatience showing on his face, he cleared his throat. “Priestess Camalla, we need to depart as soon as possible. My reports at dawn said that the Scourge attacks continued throughout the night, and the line is barely holding.”
Quietly rising, Camalla nodded in answer and began to follow the officer. As she reached the tent flap, she turned spoke again to her recruits, meeting the gaze of each in turn, her expression earnest. “Be safe, all of you. Remember your training, and the blessing the Light has bestowed on you.”
“Light bless you, Priestess.” Seventeen voices responded in near-unison. The older priests and priestesses rose as they spoke, following their leaders from the tent.
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Catherine, the medic who ran the aid station, was kind enough. She’d greeted them warmly, though barely glancing up from her task of removing field bandages to examine a wounded arm, brushing back the wisps of black hair that escaped from her tight bun with the back of her hand. But she was clearly grateful for help, and especially to have healers on her staff who could do more than set a bone, apply a poultice, or stitch a wound.
Although they assisted with whatever tasks Catherine assigned, Ella and the two young priests spent much of their time invoking prayers to the Light to heal minor wounds and to strengthen soldiers.
And such diversity! The priestess had expected all of the fighters to be regular military or paladins with training in the Light as well as combat. But there were mages, even the ones who used dark magic, fighting here against the Scourge. And certainly not all of the fighters were humans. There were elves, and dwarves, and even gnomes, their tiny bodies seeming like children next to their comrades in arms.
Most surprising to the young follower of the Light were the good number of the fighters she’d helped heal that might have been convicts released from prison for just this duty.
Why else have so many roguish characters among us? She’d asked herself, and then given her own answer. Perhaps even thieves and brigands will volunteer to do their part in this fight. After all, the Scourge are enemies to everyone.
Finishing yet another bundle of linen bandages she’d been asked to roll, Ella let out a soft sigh. In the past week she’d already been more help than her Sisters at the Cathedral had imagined she could be, but it just didn’t seem to be enough. When she’d mentioned her concerns to Sergeant Merrick, he’d just chuckled and said she’d brought plenty of benefit to morale. That was not quite the help she intended to provide…
Her chance to do more as a healer came with the sergeant rushing through the tent flap, his face red from exertion. Catherine immediately looked up from her sleeping patient and met his eyes. Panting, he motioned for her to come with him.
“They’ve broken through the lines…we pushed them back, but the trail of wounded in their wake…”
Catherine nodded, grabbing her bag of medical supplies, and ran to follow as the Sergeant turned and ran back the way he’d come.
Ella, taking one of the bags she’d been filling, ran after. “Ma’am? May I help?”
Without pausing, Catherine turned back, nodding. “Of course, child. Go and tell the others to ready the stretchers, and then follow. Just be careful! We need to find out who can me moved and get them back to the aid station.”
Doing as she was ordered, the priestess sped back to the tent and gave the message to Jacob before hurrying after Catherine and Sergeant Merrick. As she left the relative safety of the camp, she could hear the clinking sound of metal against metal intermixed with shouts of anger and the cries of the wounded and dying. She heard a new sound, too…shrieks, moans…bone chilling…she froze.
Her heart pounding in her chest, she consciously pushed back the terror she could feel rising in her, making herself move forward. The wounded…there were so many.
She moved from soldier to soldier, using both the Light and linen to stop blood from pouring from flesh torn by blade, arrow, or worse…by tooth, or nail.
Try not to think about it. Just focus on what you can do. Ella continued to push down her fear, helping the wounded that could walk to their feet, calling for the stretcher to bring those who couldn’t back to the camp.
The sounds of combat, at some level she noticed them coming closer as she did her work, but her mind stayed on her task. So many… Some were beyond her ability to aid.
A moan of pain caught her attention. Running over to the mail-clad soldier, she knelt and gently rolled him onto his back, out of the expanding pool of blood. Gasping, she pressed linen where a blade had slipped past metal, cutting deep into the gut, she prayed to the Light with all of her strength.
His face still distorted in agony, soldier opened his eyes. “Are you an angel?” The priestess shook her head, trying to smile back at him. “No…you’ll be all right.” The bleeding…it won’t stop. Discarding the soaked linen, she pulled out more, again invoking the Light.
His hand reached out to grip her arm. “Tell my wife, my son. Tell them I love them.”
She shook her head, gently shushing him, again trying to smile. “You’ll tell them yourself.”
A call of a trumpet pierced the din of battle, echoing calls of retreat following on its heels. Ella looked up to see armed forms rush past her and the wounded soldier, but kept her hands pressing on the wound.
One of those forms paused, pulling on her other arm and shouting at her. “Didn’t you hear the call for retreat? Move!”
“We can’t leave him…”
The man in blood-spattered armor pulled her out of the way, grunting as he lifted the wounded soldier in his arms, and turning to shout as he ran toward the camp. “Run, priestess!”
She nodded, stunned but doing as she was told, when suddenly the world seemed to stop. A sharp pain in her back, spreading warmth…
Ella felt herself falling forward, throwing out her hands as the ground came up to meet her.
The sounds around faded behind the roaring in her ears, warmth on her back, cold in her limbs, her heart pounding harder and harder, matching in time to the sound like rushing water that had become all she could hear.
Then…darkness.
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Darkness…cold…
A voice…achingly beautiful…mournful…with the waking of her conscious mind, the song faded, fleeing as she reached for it.
So cold. Ella opened her eyes to darkness. The sound, the pain, the warmth on her back, it was all gone now. Only the inky blackness and the chill to the depths of her soul remained.
Slowly, the priestess moved, rising from shattered stone. Where am I? She thought she remembered dying…remembered a last desperate reaching for the Light as her life flowed from her body to soak the ground. Had she been saved before her life faded completely?
She felt her way, stumbling, her useless eyes straining to see where no light fell. Where am I?! That song…she could barely remember it now, grasping at the memory of melody as it slipped further from her, leaving only the echo of a feeling behind. Such sadness…had she dreamed it?
Hugging the wall, Ella felt the stone tilt upward under bare feet, her arms lurching forward before she caught her balance. So cold… She was so afraid…but her heart…it wasn’t pounding as it had before. She inched upward.
Finally…a beam of moonlight pierced the darkness, gentle, calming. She moved forward, the opening she prayed to find leaving her transfixed as it came into view. Star light.
Where am I? The White Lady stood high in the sky, her face fully turned to the world below, a halo of crisp stars surrounding the silver orb.
The priestess of the Holy Light turned her own visage to the symbol of light in darkness, giving a fleeting smile to the face of Elune. Turning her attention back to the stone still beneath her feet, fear grew into terror as she realized from what she had just emerged. A tomb? A broken tomb? Where am I?!
Climbing onto the brittle grass and leaves surrounding the doorway into earth and stone, she turned around.
In the distance stood buildings, a human town, but one she didn’t know. She had so little experience beyond the safety of the walls of Stormwind, but even to the eyes of a sheltered priestess, this town seemed…wrong…long damaged…deserted. She made her way to a road, visible in the night as darker strip of firm soil among bare trees, their branches silhouettes against the sky.
Alone, frightened, the young woman made her way toward the broken buildings, knowing no where else to go. The wind stirred long-fallen leaves as she walked, rustling mixing with the soft wail of the gaze. She pulled tattered robes close to no avail, firm soil drawing no warmth from the bare feet pressing against them.
As the buildings drew close, Ella saw a bent figure in the darkness. It turned to her, eyes glowing softly in a face that would have chilled her to the bone if the night had not already done so. She froze…Light! Please let it not see me!
Her pleading prayer went unanswered, the form moving closer. She tensed, her eyes wide, terror rising, she reached for the Light, feeling welcome warmth and something new…like burning…fill her.
The figure paused just in front of the still priestess. And then…and then it spoke to her. A deep voice, raspy like one of the very old or ill, but one she understood. And it was not unkind. “You are newly awoken? “
Dumbstruck, her feet frozen to the ground by fear, Ella could only nod, cold returning to permeate her being as the Light faded from her.
The figure nodded. “The Dark Lady has called to you. Saved you, as she has saved us all. Praise be to her.”
Ella found her own voice then. “D…Dark Lady?”
The figure reached out a thin hand to her arm. Looking down she could see bones peaking out from torn flesh, her shaking no longer for the winter or the night. “You are Forsaken. You have heard her call. She has set you free.”
Shaking her head, Ella tried to back away, drawing air into lungs to shout into the darkness, to the figure holding her arm. “What?! Wh…What are you saying?”
The figure let her go and stood still, just watching her with those glowing eyes, with that torn flesh.
Terror consuming her, she backed away slowly, her eyes fixed on the form that had once been a human man, his white bone and marble flesh illuminated by moonlight. He didn't move toward her again. He just...watched her. A sound of crunching leaves came from below as her feet left the road.
She kept backing away. Wood met her back. Ella’s arms reached behind her to feel the trunk of a tree. The figure was distant now…
She turned, running, the only sound the breaking of dry leaves and twigs beneath her feet, the only pounding her footsteps…
Ella ran back. Back to the doorway into the ground below, sinking down behind a block of fallen stone, the symbol of the Light above names and dates carved deep into the marble.
The priestess leaned against the headstone, pulling her knees to her body as she stared sightlessly into the darkness, sobbing with tearless eyes. Ella was oblivious to the passage of time, to the lengthening shadows of the trees, her mind threatening to leave her so soon after waking. Finally, she moved again, her hand pressing against her chest. If she thought to take a breath, she could feel the rise and fall…but no beat within…just…stillness…and that endless chill.
Her hand moved upward to the pendant at her neck. Closing her eyes, the terrified, confused priestess hung onto the symbol of her faith, or her lost father. She clung to the charm as a drowning man lost in the sea clings to driftwood.
She took another deep breath, feeling the rise and fall below her clinched hand, and called the Light.
It came, just has it had since she had first learned to call it. Filling her with warmth with peace. Terror threatened to rise again as she felt the new pain come with it, but she pushed it away. She looked to the moon, now near the horizon, the stars relinquishing their claim on the first rays of the sun heralded her coming.
Forsaken.
Holding to the Light as she gripped the pendant, she began the prayer for guidance with which she had greeted every dawn since she had come to the Cathedral in service of the Light.
Forsaken by life, but not by the Light. She clung to the thought…her sanity…her entire being reaching for it, surrounding it as her hand surrounded the crystal that was once her father’s.
She rose again, turning east and closing her eyes as warm light spilled over the cold, broken land to greet her.
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Ella walked slowly back to the decrepit town, holding the pendent for strength, for calmness, for sanity as she made her way forward. She could feel the warm sunlight taking the edge off of the death chill that permeated every fiber of her being.
The figure she had seen before, the Forsaken man, he was still there near the edge of town. He was still waiting.
“The passage into this new existence is rarely easy.” He spoke again, not reaching for her as she came close. “But we have tasks for you…”
Tasks.
There were many in the once-human town that was known as Deathknell to the Forsaken. One of the first was to fight against the Scourge. Not the terror that had torn the flesh of the soldiers she had helped to heal before her death…no these remnants of life were pitiful, mindless creatures.
A deep sadness and sense of loss filled every corner of this dark land, a reflection of her own still heart. Most of those she encountered along dirt paths or decaying buildings were human once…some soldiers, many just regular people swept away by the Scourge. She was still frightened, and so alone…Forsaken…forgotten.
And the cold persisted. Over the next few days that followed, Ella continued her ritual greeting of the sunrise, preferring the light of day to the cloak of night in which so many of her fellows hid. But even the sun couldn’t push away the chill in her bones.
Darkness…evil…freedom from the Scourge did not release the taint among those carrying the curse off fleshly existence beyond death. The church of this town, her past as forgotten as her people, was now the home of shadow.
At first, the priestess had been relieved to hear of the priest in service to the Forsaken in the town. She’d avoided the church before that evening, the sight of the building that would have been the center of life for a living town saddening her further. But when one of those who tasked the priestess asked her to see the priest inside, she agreed without hesitation.
Ella’s expectations were far from what she found within the steepled walls. As she walked through the door the cold in her grew stronger than the night of her awakening. Inside the priest stood clothed in vestments so similar to ones she had seen in the Cathedral. This former servant of the Light had taken a dark, twisted version of the garb of an archbishop and claimed it for his own.
The man turned as she came through the door, his voice sending the chill even deeper into Ella’s bones. “Welcome priestess. I am Sarvis, priest of Deathknell and archbishop of the lands beyond. ”
He beckoned for her to come closer, greeting her in raspy voice. “We are happy to welcome former servants of the Light into the service of the Dark Lady.”
“Former?” Ella whispered the word to herself, but he heard.
He came closer to her, his words somehow seeming a mocking attempt to soothe. “The Light has forsaken you child. It has forsaken us all. Let me show you the path to true power.”
The priestess called the Light, letting it fill her as she shook her head, shielding her from the shadow permeating every corner of the once-holy ground. “No…” Her voice barely above a whisper grew strength the father the backed away from this priest of darkness. “No!”
As she crossed the threshold she turned, fleeing from the mockery of a church, from Deathknell. No thought for the creatures tainted by the plague as well as the mindless ones she knew inhabited the wild places surrounding the town came into her mind until the Forsaken town was well past her. Running with wild eyes she could easily have been mistaken for a soul yet bound to the Scourge.
The Dark Lady freed us? For what purpose? Once reason began to return that thought ran over and over in her head. She fell to her knees in a patch of dead grass, holding her head and rocking back and forth. What purpose?!
The first rays of the morning sun brought her back to herself. Rising again she moved calmly in the morning light, alone in a land that seemed consumed by the same darkness that had threatened to engulf her in that shrine of shadow.
More conscious now of the dangers around her, Ella tried to stay close to the relative safety of the road. Thoughts of death and undeath joined her continued worries over why she had been awoken. If some creature driven into madness devoured her would she feel it? Would her mind live on as her flesh was torn away?
Her exodus from Deathknell ended as Ella stumbled upon the ruins of a human city even greater than her beloved Stormwind. She had never set eyes on Lordaeron, but no human girl could have grown up without hearing the tales of the magnificent human kingdom of the north. All that was gone now…broken…lost…just as she was.
There were many Forsaken here, coming and going from the doors on either end of the courtyard. Busy with their own tasks and concerns, they took no notice of the quiet woman. Ella sat for days among the rubble of the shining city of peace and prosperity. Perched on a wall of stone she watched as a people she’d seen rarely in her short life came to and for from a glowing red orb.
Elves. High elves. When she was a girl and had seen these graceful people in the streets of her own city, she’d always been awed by their beauty, their grace. And here they were coming in and out of this land of the damned as though it belonged to them. They were so full of life, so lovely, such a sharp contrast to the surroundings. Only their eyes betrayed the change that had come since they were severed from the alliance her people.
No. Not my people any longer. My own mother would scream in terror if I came near. She pushed back the overwhelming sadness and sense of loss threatening to pull her down into madness.
Finally, gripping the crystal flame at her throat, Ella followed in the footsteps of those she had long watched, her own rag-clad feet taking her up the steps that led to the glowing orb.
She shut her eyes as she reached out to touch the sphere, bracing herself for some unknown pain. But none came. Just a sound like swishing chimes and she finding herself transported into a living, magical city. A place filled with wonder and life, a place seemingly not broken at all.
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As the Forsaken woman walked through the streets of the strange elven city, amazement began to push back the despair that had become so much a part of her existence since awakening. This city was so different than anything she'd ever seen before. She was even warmer here. She'd been so terribly cold every moment between her awakening and touching the red orb. But here, in place of the biting chill and bitter wind of winter, was the gentle calmness of a new spring day.
The people of this new city, for the most part, took no more notice of her than they had in the ruins of Lordaeron. But no one turned away from her either. The dirty rags she wore hadn't really bothered her in the Forsaken lands, but in this beautiful place filled with stunning people she felt very much out of place.
The city was filled with fantastical buildings with flowing curtains. She could hear laughter and conversations from the people around her. Finally one of the turns she took brought her to the city gates, and she caught her first glimpse of the woodlands beyond. The warmth of spring in the air of the city was reflected in the green, in the bright spots of color, she saw nearly everywhere around her.
Most amazingly to Ella was that some of these people would not only speak to her, but asked her for assistance. She could understand most of them too, at least when they spoke in the guttural tongue that seemed so foreign coming from such fair faces. The lilting musical speech she sometimes heard she couldn't understand at all, but it seemed more natural to these people.
Tasks here in the place she learned was called Eversong Woods were similar to those she'd been to do in Deathkneel. The Scourge had made it all the way to the elven city, and she was asked to lend her assistance in ending the suffering of Scourge still presenting a danger to the elves. Like in Deathkneel, these remnants of the Scourge army were only mindless, pitiful souls. They were nothing like the organized and powerful onslaught that had taken her life.
And here, most of the land and the creatures within it seemed whole, and thriving. Only a strip of land called the Dead Scar marked the passage of the plague of undeath through these enchanted lands. Here she could almost forget what she was.
Soon after her arrival, she had earned enough coins to purchase supplies for making a new robe to replace the one too soiled and torn to be found on a beggar in the streets of Stormwind. A kind elf took pity on her, giving her boots that didn't quite fit. Another gave her weapon in exchange for her help with yet another small task. The rusty mace wasn't particularly helpful, but somehow it was reassuring to have it at her side when she faced an attack from a wild beast or one of the mindless ones.
She slept...or what passed for sleep now...wherever she could find a place out of sight and out of the wind. Near bridges, behind trees. She might have been afraid, young woman that she was, if she were still human. For the most part, she just hoped to be unnoticed, a part of her fearing she'd be sent back to the cursed lands of the Forsaken.
Even with the perpetual coldness somewhat abated, even with the magical, peaceful surroundings and peace of a living world surrounding her, the priestess was still very much alone. Very much forgotten.
A few weeks after her arrival in Eversong Woods, Ella paused by a small pond just outside the city gates. She'd just meant to kneel there on the soft carpet of new grass, to look out on ripples making the fading daylight dance on the water.
Instead, she saw something in the shimmering surface that brought back all of the grief she'd tried so hard to push away. Ella hadn't seen her own reflection since she'd lost her humanity. She'd never been conceited over her beauty like other girls and young women might have been. She was aware, yes, of the way people looked at her, but it hadn't really mattered. Being a servant of the Holy Light, that was her place, her calling. She'd spared little thought or effort for anything else.
But now...
Someone who hadn't known her before might have almost mistaken her for a still-living human. She bore no visible wounds, the single one on her back covered by the robe and nearly sealed by her own calling of the Light before the last of her blood had left her.
But now...the face looking back at the priestess was so different from the reflection she remembered. There was no rose in her pale cheeks, the radiant and bouncing waves of gold that had once framed her gentle face hung limp and dull against her head. Her sky blue eyes were masked by the same strange glow that had frightened her in the eyes of the Forsaken man who'd told her what she had become, the light that had shown in them before the curse somehow dulled.
If she'd been living the surface of the rippling water would have been broken, as if by rain. Instead her body shook with tearless sobs as she looked back at herself, as she mourned what she'd been and the loss of everything she'd taken for granted since childhood. Her descent into self pity was short-lived. Soon another reflection joined hers. The woman was sighing as she peered out over the water, angrily kicking the dead form of a frog and wiping her face in her hand.
((Much of what follows, save the ending, is story composed from in-game RP and used with permission for all but the most minor of interactions.))
Ella looked back at her own reflection and that of the woman next to her. Here she was feeling such grief, such self pity, but at least she was whole. The other was just as Forsaken as she, but with only a single arm and eye in contrast to her two.
Ella turned, rising and looking at the other Forsaken woman with sad eyes but a small smile.
"What's with you?"
The priestess indicated her reflection in the water, speaking softly to the newcomer. "Just remembering...." She paused for a moment. "And you?"
"Oh." The armor clad Forsaken shrugged off the question, waving. "Trying to forget. And it's not working."
"I know..." Kneeling again on the tender carpet at the pond's edge. "Was it..."
The other woman frowned. "No, you don't I wish everyone would stop saying that." She mimicked the phrase silently on her lips. "Was it what?"
The gaze of the priestess drifted back again into the water, staring at the unfamiliar form. She wiped nonexistent tears from her cheeks before she turned to finish her question, her voice barely audible. "Was it hard...when you awoke after...?"
She sighed again, not wanting to be alone, and not really expecting an answer. "Nevermind. Of course it was."
The other woman looked at her own reflection sullenly. "It wasn't hard. It was just...something that happened. You just have to deal with it."
"Deal with it?" Ella turned around again, despair filling her eyes.
"Yeah. Deal with it. 'Cause this is it. Unless you want to try and off yourself."
Ella shook her head, her voice still soft. "No...not that."
The other woman perked a brow. "Then what?"
"I don't know. Light! I wish I did. No matter how much pray I hear no answer." The priestess looked up into the darkening sky. "But there must be a reason, a purpose for all of his." Looking back into he water, she waved a hand over the rippling surface, indicating her own reflection.
Her companion sighed. "Another priest. What am I, a magnet?" she muttered under her breath, then added more loudly. "Look Sister, Mother, whatever you were. You're somewhere the Light doesn't know you are. Don't waste your energy trying to get its attention or find a reason why."
"This is all senseless." She went on. "Now just try to find a place to fit. That's all you can do."
Ella shook her head as she rose to face the other woman, her voice still soft but firm. "No. There must be a purpose...some reason the Light has put me here. Has let me return to..." Waving her arm behind her back she indicated the water again. "...to this."
"This was the plague's work, not the Light's." The other woman's voice was just as firm, and perhaps a bit annoyed.
"Yes...but all my life I've believed the Light has a greater plan. And now...I still do..." Ella's voice had lost some of its certainty, its strength as she reached up to clutch the pendant at her throat, the last words almost desperate. "I have to..."
The other woman peered at her with an irritated expression. "What do you want me to tell you? Why the Light is making you suffer for its greater plan? I don't even know you, kid."
"You're right." Ella nodded and extended her hand. "I'm Ella, priestess of Stormwind..." She sighed sadly then, looking down for a moment before raising her eyes again to give the other woman a small smile. "Formerly of Stormwind Cathedral. And you were a soldier before...?"
The Forsaken in armor hesitated, seeming to have a bit of self dialogue before shaking the offered hand with her only one. "Mag, former Captain of the 42nd company in the League of Arathor." She frowned a little before continuing. "I'm a soldier now. I was a soldier then. That's what I am. What's left of me."
"I guessed as much by your armor." Ella was nodding. "And I'm still a priestess of the Holy Light." It was her turn to hesitate. "Just a...lost one."
Mag's frown became deeper. "Nice to meet you."
Ella inclined her head. "My honor, Captain."
"Heh. It's been a while since I was a Captain. Just Mag."
"Mag then..."
The former Captain nodded, then asked "What are you doing out here, anyway?"
Ella turned back to the water for a moment, wrestling with what she saw there in the rippling mirror of the pond's surface. "Remembering...I hadn't seen my reflection since..."
The other woman nodded. "Yeah. It's a bit of a scare the first couple of times. You get used to it." She shrugged.
"Mag? I know you don't know me..." Ella turned to face the other woman again, frowning as she did. "But may I ask you about something you said earlier?"
The soldier looked at the priestess, at how fresh she seemed compared to the warrior with her one eye, one arm, and that only what was noticeable. She shrugged, looking back over the water instead of at the other Forsaken. "Shoot."
"You said something about finding a place..."
"Yeah?"
Ella looked up, trying to meet the warrior's eyes. "Have you found one?"
Mag turned to meet her gaze for a moment, the softly glowing eye once blue fixing on her before making every attempt to avoid contact. "Yeah. I'm shacked up with some friends of mine, down the way a bit."
"Friends?"
"Yeah, my friend Laericus. He owns the whole house. His sister Raelae, his wife, Ligiea. Then a whole lot of others...I guess anyone who can't fit anywhere else. And then, my friend Mae..." Her voice trailed off, her expression irritated again. "Anyway, yeah. My friends."
Not wanting to pry, but desperately wanting to know, the priestess pressed. "And you're welcome there?"
"Well if I wasn't the house brooms would probably kick my ass out or some dumb crap like that." Mag paused. "Uh nevermind." She didn't seem to be interested in explaining further.
"But yeah. I'm welcome."
The priestess stared back with a startled expression, blinking a few times at the mention of brooms kicking someone out. "Oh!" Seeing the other woman's face, she didn't continue to press, instead adding softly. "You're very fortunate then."
"Yeah...I guess."
For a while the two woman stood by the pond's edge. Looking around at the water, the trees, the life, Ella finally brought her gaze back to Mag. I guess anyone who can't fit anywhere else... Returning in her mind to what the soldier had said, the priestess broke silence that had descended between them, "Would I be welcome there?" Her voice was quiet, hopeful, fearful.
Mag, in answer, rolled her one eye. "Please. I'm a drunken psychotic slob. If I'm welcome there...no, if Mordes is welcome there..." She trailed off shaking her head, no explanation available. "Yeah, you'd be welcome."
Ella looked at Mag with a bit of confusion, then smiled. "I would love to meet your friends, Mag."
"Sure. In a few minutes. I kinda left to clear my head."
"Of course..." The priestess nodded, feeling suddenly like an intruder on the other's thoughts. "Should I leave you alone?"
"No, it's fine." The warrior sighed softly. "Been just...kinda dumb lately."
Ella gave Mag a brief gentle smile. A priestly smile. "If you want to talk about it, I'd be happy to listen. Or to sit with my own thoughts and leave you to yours..."
Mag shut her eye for a moment. "No, it's...no. We'd just better head back. It's not that important." She gestured at the other woman. "C'mon then."
Nodding and smiling gratefully, Ella nodded. "Thank you." She followed the other woman through Eversong until they came to a path up to what looked like a grand estate, passing a small lake and gardens before reaching the tall entrance of a very large building.
Mag pushed open the door with intricate carvings, stepping in but keeping her eye on the floor. "Watch your step."
Ella followed, looking around in awe at the surroundings. "This is your home?"
A petite elven woman with short black hair and dangling red earrings had been lying on a divan in a large room visible from the grand foyer. She stood and greeted the pair with a smile.
Mag paused at seeing her, then gestured at Ella, offering the short-haired elf a weak, apologetic grin. "She followed me home. Can we keep her?"
The elf could barely suppress a giggle. "Yes, of course. Welcome!"
The young Forsaken priestess smiled in answer. If she'd been living, she would have blushed. "Thank you." Her voice was soft and respectful.
Relaxing a bit, Mag added. "Yeah, make yourself comfy Ella." She looked around, pausing thoughtfully.
The elven woman, meanwhile, had put on her most welcoming smile. "I'm Maeilynel Stormeyes Angerfang. But please call me Mae, and welcome to the manor."
Ella inclined her head, first at Mag with a grateful smile, and then at Mae. In the same language she answered back. "I am Ella Rose Diadre. I was a priestess of the Holy Light for Stormwind Cathedral, and then in battle..." She sighed sadly, but inclined her head again. "I am honored to meet you Mae." Her accented orcish was passable, but clearly foreign to her tongue.
Looking around the room, Ella saw a handful of others. One was a large green man, with sharp teeth protruding from his lower jaw. He was intently reading a book. The man looked up and smiled at the newcomer, revealing even more pointed teeth. "My apologies. My name is Haysus Thunderblood."
The priestess inclined her head at the orc. "And you as well, sir Thunderblood."
Mae continued to smile, waving her hand. "Honored? Oh, I'm nobody special, but that's nice of you to say."
Mag, meanwhile, was trying to get down to business. "Alright, so. There's a room upstairs somewhere for you, have fun finding it, but it's there. Whatever you need, these walking weird walking broomsticks will probably try and help you. Just let them. Or they get annoying." She nodded, having dispensed her wisdom on the subject.
The priestess was giving Mae a brief small before she turned to Mag upon her second mention of brooms. "Broomsticks...you mentioned them before...but how..."
Mae laughed, holding up her hands and wiggling her fingers mysteriously. "Maaaaaagic!"
Mag smirked at Mae. "Lies." She moved past Ella into the commons, turning her head to add "You'll see. It's kinda...you just gotta roll with it."
The orc, watching all of this with a smile, looked at Ella and laughed hard. "Please m'lady. Haysus will do fine."
Ella looked at the gathering in the common room. "Magic..." she murmured to herself, then nodding to the orc. "As you wish." Her gaze lingers a bit longer on his large green form, as though fascinated by the sight of him.
Cheerfully, Mae held up a bottle. "Do you drink, Ella?"
A golden young elf who'd not yet spoken echoed Mae's words. "Someone say drink?"
Mag, now among the others while Ella remained in the entryway, warned "She's a priest."
"Drink? Oh...I still have my vows..." Ella still wasn't coming any closer.
"Oh good, more for us." Grinning, Mae took a seat and began to pour the beverage into glasses on a nearby table before patting the empty spot next to her for Mag.
Slowly Ella came into the room, finding one of the empty chairs. She gestured to it. "May I?"
Leaning back again and holding her glass, Mae waved at the chair. "May you? Oh goodness, just sit."
"Thank you..."
For a long while Ella sat listening to the others, to the comings and goings of this strange house. She kept staring at the high ceilings, the impossible grandness of her surroundings. Mag had laughed at her when she'd asked what this place was, just saying as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "It's a house...a manor." In all of her existence, Ella had never seen anything of its like.
The golden elf came over and made her own introduction. Ella felt warmth in her soul at the Light filling this young knight. Mendala Skystrider didn't hesitate at all in taking Ella's cold hand in her own as she led the Forsaken priestess up the stairs to find a place she could call her own.
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Ella followed the young paladin up the stairs and down a long corridor. She carried the rough burlap bag that she had taken for a pack slung over her shoulder.
Mendala released her hand to push open the door to a room. The room became gradually more illuminated as floating orbs emitting a soft light brightened at their entrance.
The priestess looked around the room, shaking her head in amazement. "All this? Just for me?"
((And I am hitting the character limit. *grins*))
Afternoon sunlight streamed through the high thin windows in the gray stone, casting a warm glow through the dark golden locks framing the face of a young woman kneeling by her bed, lost in prayer. Nearby another young woman hummed softly as she carefully laid out ceremonial vestments on her own small bed, smoothing out any visible creases. In the long narrow room a handful of others worked quietly, studying or tidying near their own sleeping places.
With a final prayer of blessing to the Light, Ella opened her sky-blue eyes, moving out of the sunbeam as she rose from her knees and walked over to her friend. Moirah was still humming to herself, lost in her own thoughts, seemingly as much in her own world as during the long hours spent reading here where the Sisters slept or in the Cathedral library.
“Are you ready for tomorrow, Moirah?” Ella smiled at her friend, patiently waiting for the other acolyte to acknowledge her.
“Hmm…oh yes! I am!” Moirah turned her own shy smile to Ella. Carefully she lifted her vestments to hang them again in a small wardrobe, the inside of the plain wooden closet otherwise bare except for the pack snuggling filling the bottom. She then took a seat on the bed, patting it to ask Ella to take a seat beside her.
Moirah turned to survey the room, motioning to other bunks lining each side of the dormitory. “Will you miss this, Ella?”
Ella smiled, the angelic young woman already the perfect picture of a holy priestess of Stormwind Cathedral. “I will miss my Sisters, certainly. But I am prepared to follow whatever path the Light sets for me.”
Her friend giggled, reaching out to hug her. “You were always the most pious of us, you know.”
Ella shook her head, briefly returning the embrace before cast her eyes around the familiar room that had been their home for the past four years. “No. I’m sure that’s not true. But yes, I will miss this place, if I’m called to leave. I’ve been able to hear the Cathedral bells as long as I remember.”
Moirah sighed and nodded. “Your mother will be there, won’t she?” Of the half dozen Sisters among the acolytes to be ordained at sunrise, Moirah was the only one who would stand alone, with no parent beside her.
Sensing her friend’s discomfort, Ella reached out to pat her hand. “Yes. This is the day she’s been looking forward to since I was a little girl. I only wish my father could be there, too.”
In her dreams Ella could still see her father’s face, see how small her child’s hand had looked in his. She remembered being proud that she was the daughter of one of the defenders of the kingdom, and how awed she’d been by his shining armor. Or at least she thought she remembered…she’d been only four when he died. Her mother had taken a tailoring job then, in the shadow of the Cathedral. In the years that followed the two had made a nightly ritual of lighting a candle in memory of her father, offering prayers for his soul to the Light. Her mother could not have been more proud the day Ella Rose pledged to be an acolyte and moved into this room with eleven other new Sisters.
Her father was with the Light now. But as much as she felt he was always watching over her, she still missed him. As she thought of her father, Ella fought back the tears that began to fill her eyes.
It was Moirah’s turn to offer comfort, clasping Ella’s hand in her own. For a long while the two young women sat quietly together, watching the shadows of leaves dance across the polished stones of the floor.
The silence was broken as a hesitant rapping on the heavy wooden door echoed in the chamber. An arm clad in the simple white linen of a first year acolyte emerging from the doorway, with the rest of Kalei Worthmyre, the page of the Mistress of Acolytes, following. The young women in the room turned their attention to the page that, although blushing a bit in front of the older acolytes, delivered her message with a strong voice.
“I’ve been sent to fetch all of you being ordained tomorrow. The mistress and Priestess Camalla need to ask you an important question.”
Ella and Moirah looked at each other, then rose in unison. Ever curious Moirah voiced the question in all of the their minds. “Is it about tomorrow’s ceremony?”
“I don’t know. Just come right away, and as you are. Those were the Mistress’s instructions.”
Four of the young women in the room followed the page as she slipped out, then made their way together to the study of the Mistress of Acolytes. Kalei excused herself to search for the other two soon-to-be priestesses.
When the acolytes arrived, pausing out of courtesy in front of the open door, the two elder priestesses in the study were in serious discussion. The youngest daughter of a noble house was the first to speak up. “You called for us, Mother?”
The Mistress of Acolytes turned her attention to the four women in doorway, nodding, her usually calm and kindly demeanor seeming pained, almost anxious. “Please, my children. Take a seat while we wait for the others.” She folded the letter laying open on her desk, passing it to the healer in the chair beside her. Priestess Camalla took the parchment with a nod, her expression solemn.
Each of the young women bowed her head, murmuring “Thank you, Mother…” finding seats on the benches under the wall of books on one side of the room and by the fireplace at the other. A moment later two other young women appeared at the door, and were likewise directed to sit.
The elder of the priestesses looked at the charges in her care, pausing for a moment on each uncertain young face. With her grey hair pulled into a tight bun behind her head the Mistress of Acolytes looked almost severe, but her eyes were filled with a mixture of love and sadness.
She then glanced to her old friend Camalla, and with a heavy sigh, answered the question unspoken by the younger women. “Priestess Camalla has been sent with news from the battle against the Scourge. The war has not been going well. Too many of our soldiers are dying on the battlefield.”
Camallla spoke then, gravely as one who has long used the Light to battle against death. “We are in need of healers. Desperately so…or I would not ask this of you, young Sisters.” She held the letter up for the young women to see. “The commander of my unit has ordered me to bring back as many healers as I can. Even those newly ordained in service to the Light.”
Fear filled the faces of most of the young women in the room. The Mistress responded to the distress around her as both a gifted healer in her own right and a longtime caretaker of the uninitiated. Her voice soothing and face gentle, she met in turn each pair of eyes looking up to her. “My children…after tomorrow morning you will each follow the path the Light makes for you. All we can ask is that you look within your heart to see if it leads you to answer this call.”
“But how can we be healers for the war?” It was the daughter of a noble house who spoke again, twisting her single brown braid with a hand as she did. “We’ve only just begun to learn that art.”
Camalla nodded at her, then swept her gaze around the small room. “What you’ve learned is enough to be of help. And if you volunteer to serve with me, you will learn more, quickly, as a healer in the war zone.”
The Mistress of Acolytes rose from her seat. “None of you need answer now, but think carefully this night. Priestess Camalla and the reinforcement she raises will depart by nightfall tomorrow.” She raised her hands in benediction over the women. “May the Light embrace you and illuminate your path, my children.”
The six young women bowed their heads, responding in unison. “May the Light bless you, Mother.”
Dismissed by the blessing, the Sisters rose, moving through the study door back into the hallway before beginning to whisper frantically to one another. The conversation continued long after they returned to the narrow room.
“What good can any of us really do?” The woman with the long brown braid sat cross-legged on her own bunk, shaking her head. “I mean, we’ve so little training, wouldn’t we just be in the way?”
Moirah sighed and nodded her agreement, but Ella didn’t seem convinced. “If we weren’t needed, we wouldn’t have been asked.”
“I think Camalla just wants to be able to say she asked everyone at the Cathedral.” The other young women seemed unperturbed by the informal reference to the veteran healer. Many of the nobles among the acolytes were a bit less likely to show the proper decorum when not in direct hearing of the Cathedral Elders than their peers of more humble beginnings. Twisting her braid around a finger, she went on “I for one won’t be changing my plans.”
Through dinner the debate continued, and with hushed whispers into the night. An hour before dawn, the Cathedral sprang to life again. The Sisters, many of whom had barely slept, began their preparations for the sacred ceremony that would begin with the first rays of the new day.
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Each side of the sanctuary was filled as the initiates began their slow march down the aisle robes of pure white silk shimmering softly in the glow from the candles each carried as they made their way to blue of the altar stairs. They walked past the assembled priests and acolytes, past family and friends, and paused at the base of the rise.
High Priestess Laurena and Archbishop Benedictus stood behind the altar, between the Mistress and Master of Acolytes, the later two beaming with pride at their charges. The High Priestess raised her hands in welcome toward the congregation as the first rays of morning broke through the eastern windows, casting long streaks of colored light across the marble of the floor.
“Brothers and Sisters, join us in welcoming these dedicated young people into the service of the Holy Light.”
“May the blessings of the Light be upon you.” The sing-song words spoken by so many echoed loudly in the chamber.
Two by two, the initiates brought their candles to the altar, joining their light with the single flame of the large central pillar. They then set their own smaller flames into the gleaming silver holders waiting on either side.
As the Sisters peeled off to their side of the altar rise, the Mistress of Acolytes stood waiting, her page holding the stoles that marked the ordained.
When all the candles stood in their places beside the central flame, the Archbishop called in a clear loud voice “Who will stand with these gathered here as they begin their journey on the path of Light?”
Proud parents climbed up the stairs to stand behind their children. Ella turned her head to smile at her mother, her smile widening when she saw Lady Kitistra had filled the place Moirah had fretted over being empty behind her, then she turned back to face the officiates.
Alternately the Archbishop and High Priestess led the young men and women through their vows of service. Vows completed, the pages held out the stoles, embroidered and fringed in threads of silver and gold, to be placed around the neck of each new priest and priestess.
As the Mistress and Master of Acolytes wrapped the white silken cloth around the necks of their kneeling charges, they kissed each in turn on the forehead, smiling and softly saying to each “Go with the Light.”
When each line of initiates was marked with the rights of the priesthood, they rose in unison to face the assembly, beaming families…or friends…standing behind them.
Two-by-two they filed out as they had come in, slowly, formally, a joyous hymn to the Light filling the air around them.
Formality faded with the last stanza of the hymn as the congregation followed the newly ordained out of the sanctuary, chattering voices and laughter echoing in the halls as the music had minutes before.
Ella’s mother hugged her tightly. “I’m so proud of you! Your father would be too.” Smiling back Ella returned the embrace.
“Oh! I have something for you.” The older woman held out a pendent in the shape of a flame, crystal glimmering in the light as it twisted slowly on its delicate gold chain. “Your grandparents gave this to your father on the day of his commission. I know he’d want you to have it now…”
Ella reached out to take the necklace in her hands, holding it in her palms as the early morning Light reflected off its shining facets. “My father…” Tears came unbidden to her eyes. “Why did he choose his path, mother?” The young woman looked up, closing her hand around the precious object.
“Here. Let me see that. “ Her mother held out her own hand to take the pendant, then sweeping her daughter’s hair to one side, hung the chain around her neck and fastened he clasp. “There…it’s perfect on you.”
“Mother…”
Ella’s mother sighed, then brushing her daughter’s hair to where it had been, answered her question. “He went where he was needed, Ella. As much as his family needed him, his country needed him more.”
He went where he was needed…that thought resonating in her head she looked down at her pendant, reaching up to clutch it in her hand. “Mother…would you be upset if I…” She took a deep breath then looked up into her mother’s eyes, letting her thoughts spill out into voice. “Priestess Camalla has asked for healers to help against the Scourge. I know I won’t be much help, but what if I could save soldiers like him?”
Ella’s mother looked at her daughter with even greater pride than before, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. “He’d be so proud of you, Ella.”
Throwing herself into her mother’s arms, Ella nodded. “Thank you, Mother. I’ll be careful. I promise.”
________________________________________________________________________
Back in the narrow room for the last time together as Sisters, the young women hugged one another, shedding tears and asking of plans. Each had traded their formal vestments for traveling robes. Only Ella’s new garments carried the mark of a military healer.
Like the day before Ella and Moirah sat together, talking quietly. “Are you really sure, Ella?” Moriah asked yet again. “I…I just don’t think I’m ready. Are you?”
Ella nodded, watching the shadows on the floor. “The Mistress said to follow our hearts. To find the path the Light has made for us.” Her hand went unconsciously to the pendant as she turned to give Moirah a small smile. “This is my calling, Moirah. Like it was my father’s.”
Moirah looked at her friend, silently nodding, her expression sad, her burgundy hair falling to veil part of her face as it so often did.
“You’ll go to live with Lady Kitistra, right? I’m so glad she came to stand with you today.” Ella was clearly trying to lift her friend’s mood with a change of subject.
Moriah nodded again, a small smile of her own coming to her lips. “Yes…she’s been very good to me.”
Ella squeezed Moirah’s hand, then smiled at her again. “Will you keep something for me? Until I return?” Releasing her friend, she picked up her bag, and brought out a book bound in worn leather, holding it out to Moirah. Gold letters on the book’s spine read On the Virtues of the Light.
Moirah shook her head. “No…Ella…I can’t take that. I know what it means to you…your mother gave it to you on your first day here.”
Ella kept holding the book out. “Please, Moirah. I know it will be safe with you. And I have this now.” She held out the pendant with her other hand, smiling down at the shining crystal.
Reluctantly her friend took the offered volume, clutching it to her own chest with tears in her eyes. “I’ll keep it safe for you, Ella. But you have to promise you’ll come back for it.”
The two Sisters hugged each other again, both wiping away tears when they parted. Ella looked at her friend, then broke into a new smile. “Are you ready, Moirah.”
“Yes…yes, I am.” Reaching down to pick up their bags, the two women stood together and walked for the last time out of that room that had become their home, going separately to find the paths the Light had laid out for each of them. Each new priestess clutched something precious to her chest as she began her Light’s journey: the shy farm girl a worn book, the determined soldier’s daughter the symbol of her father.
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A sudden jarring of the wagon on the dirt road woke Ella from her dream. As she opened her eyes could see the faces of the others traveling with her, light and shadows playing across their faces as the single lantern on a pole moved with the rocking of the wagon. Lights of other three wagons shown just ahead and behind, dancing like large fireflies in the darkness.
As her gaze met the eyes of young priest across from her, he blushed and looked down. That one…Jacob was his name? So far he hadn’t managed to say a coherent sentence around her. She smiled back at him, though she knew he couldn’t see, then swept her gaze across the others assigned to travel with her.
Priestess Camalla had managed to find seventeen volunteers at the Cathedral, three among the new initiates. Ella and Jacob shared their wagon with three other priests and the soldier who had driven them through out the long dark night. The soft snoring at her side made it apparent that at least the priestess one year her elder was managing to get some rest on this long trip.
Pulling her cloak more tightly around her, Ella again tried to get some sleep before daybreak. The air had grown increasing chilly, although she wasn’t sure if the cause was the long trek northward or the natural cooling of the night toward dawn. Or maybe it was uncertainly and a touch of fear that made her shiver so. As the road became less rough, the rocking of the wagon gentled, finally lulling Ella back into her dream.
Her next memory was of early daylight and voices. The wagon had stopped, and her traveling mates were themselves yawning and stretching, seemingly universally eager to leave the rickety wooden platform behind. Looking behind her, she saw a flurry of activity among a city of tents set among trees bearing the first colors of autumn.
When it was her turn to step down from the wagon, an armored soldier smiled at her as he held out his hand to help her down. “Welcome to our camp, my lady.”
“Thank you, sir.” Taking his hand, she stepped off the wooden step and onto the wheel-scarred and foot-compacted dusty soil.
With a small bowing of his head, the soldier turned to help the last of her companions down from the wagon before moving off toward the tents.
Ella held onto her bag’s handle with both hands as she demurely waited by the wagons with the rest of the Cathedral volunteers for further instructions from Priestess Camalla. No one but that soldier who had helped her down seemed to have taken notice of their arrival, though the smell of cooking fires held the rapt attention of several others in her party.
Finally someone spoke. “You’d think they’d offer us breakfast, at least.” It was one of the more experienced volunteers, a still-young priest with a sparkle in his green eyes. He winked as he noticed her looking at him. With a soft sigh, her own gaze went back to her hands and her bag.
As if on cue, Priestess Camalla returned with another soldier. “This is Sergeant Merick. He will show you all to your quarters. We will meet there in half an hour for the morning meal and assignment of duties.” As she spoke she pointed to a large white peak of canvas near the center of the camp.
Moving among the tents as they followed the Sergeant, Ella was surprised to find the soldiers looked nothing like what she had expected. Their armor wasn’t the gleaming vision of her memory of her father, nor was it the well-polished and symmetric metal of the city guards. Instead, dents and scratches marred dim steel. The soldiers themselves looked more haggard than proud as they went about their morning duties, many with same haunted look she’d seen so briefly in Camalla’s eyes the night before.
The tent she would share with the other priestess wasn’t so different from the dormitory she’d just left behind. Camel canvas replaced grey stone, and sleeping roles were spread on the ground instead of sheets and blankets on narrow cots, but she was with Sisters again. Different ones, unfamiliar ones, but Sisters nonetheless.
Changing quickly out of their dusty traveling robes, she and the other priestesses left their bags neatly on their bedrolls, and made their way to the tent Camalla had indicated. The men, having found their quarters more quickly were already seated and helping themselves to the bread and cooked eggs on platters in the middle the long table where the battle-seasoned priestess waited.
An officer was speaking with her. “The supplies are much appreciated, Priestess, but more so the healers you’ve brought.” His voice dropped lower as he added. “Several seem quite young, my friend. Are you sure they can handle this?”
Camalla gave him a stern look in answer, rising to welcome the rest of her recruits. “Come and sit with us, Sisters. And eat well. You can never be sure just when your next meal will come in a war zone.”
Obediently the young women followed the example of their male counterparts, filling tin plates and taking their seats, each head inclined briefly in a prayer to the Light before beginning to eat.
Surveying the recruits, Camalla continued. “You will each be assigned duties based on your level of training. You six…” She indicated the older priests and priestesses “Will come with me. And for our newest initiates” She smiled gently at Ella and her two young male companions. “You three will stay away from the front lines. Your job will be to care for the walking wounded, freeing the attention of the rest of us for more serious cases. After breakfast, report to the aid station near the edge of camp. The Sergeant will show you the way.” She went on to give the remaining priests and priestesses their assignments.
Jacob, meanwhile, attempted another smile at Ella before staring down at his plate with a red face, while the priestess next to her whispered in her ear. “I think that one is regretting his vow of chastity already.”
Ella’s own blush matched Jacob’s as she turned with a shocked expression to the young woman at her right. In answer, the priestess smiled back smugly and took another bite of bread, shrugging at Ella.
The Commander had stood silently by as Camalla spoke, with his arms crossed. He had looked at the exchange with a less than pleased expression, shaking his head at Jacob in particular. Impatience showing on his face, he cleared his throat. “Priestess Camalla, we need to depart as soon as possible. My reports at dawn said that the Scourge attacks continued throughout the night, and the line is barely holding.”
Quietly rising, Camalla nodded in answer and began to follow the officer. As she reached the tent flap, she turned spoke again to her recruits, meeting the gaze of each in turn, her expression earnest. “Be safe, all of you. Remember your training, and the blessing the Light has bestowed on you.”
“Light bless you, Priestess.” Seventeen voices responded in near-unison. The older priests and priestesses rose as they spoke, following their leaders from the tent.
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Catherine, the medic who ran the aid station, was kind enough. She’d greeted them warmly, though barely glancing up from her task of removing field bandages to examine a wounded arm, brushing back the wisps of black hair that escaped from her tight bun with the back of her hand. But she was clearly grateful for help, and especially to have healers on her staff who could do more than set a bone, apply a poultice, or stitch a wound.
Although they assisted with whatever tasks Catherine assigned, Ella and the two young priests spent much of their time invoking prayers to the Light to heal minor wounds and to strengthen soldiers.
And such diversity! The priestess had expected all of the fighters to be regular military or paladins with training in the Light as well as combat. But there were mages, even the ones who used dark magic, fighting here against the Scourge. And certainly not all of the fighters were humans. There were elves, and dwarves, and even gnomes, their tiny bodies seeming like children next to their comrades in arms.
Most surprising to the young follower of the Light were the good number of the fighters she’d helped heal that might have been convicts released from prison for just this duty.
Why else have so many roguish characters among us? She’d asked herself, and then given her own answer. Perhaps even thieves and brigands will volunteer to do their part in this fight. After all, the Scourge are enemies to everyone.
Finishing yet another bundle of linen bandages she’d been asked to roll, Ella let out a soft sigh. In the past week she’d already been more help than her Sisters at the Cathedral had imagined she could be, but it just didn’t seem to be enough. When she’d mentioned her concerns to Sergeant Merrick, he’d just chuckled and said she’d brought plenty of benefit to morale. That was not quite the help she intended to provide…
Her chance to do more as a healer came with the sergeant rushing through the tent flap, his face red from exertion. Catherine immediately looked up from her sleeping patient and met his eyes. Panting, he motioned for her to come with him.
“They’ve broken through the lines…we pushed them back, but the trail of wounded in their wake…”
Catherine nodded, grabbing her bag of medical supplies, and ran to follow as the Sergeant turned and ran back the way he’d come.
Ella, taking one of the bags she’d been filling, ran after. “Ma’am? May I help?”
Without pausing, Catherine turned back, nodding. “Of course, child. Go and tell the others to ready the stretchers, and then follow. Just be careful! We need to find out who can me moved and get them back to the aid station.”
Doing as she was ordered, the priestess sped back to the tent and gave the message to Jacob before hurrying after Catherine and Sergeant Merrick. As she left the relative safety of the camp, she could hear the clinking sound of metal against metal intermixed with shouts of anger and the cries of the wounded and dying. She heard a new sound, too…shrieks, moans…bone chilling…she froze.
Her heart pounding in her chest, she consciously pushed back the terror she could feel rising in her, making herself move forward. The wounded…there were so many.
She moved from soldier to soldier, using both the Light and linen to stop blood from pouring from flesh torn by blade, arrow, or worse…by tooth, or nail.
Try not to think about it. Just focus on what you can do. Ella continued to push down her fear, helping the wounded that could walk to their feet, calling for the stretcher to bring those who couldn’t back to the camp.
The sounds of combat, at some level she noticed them coming closer as she did her work, but her mind stayed on her task. So many… Some were beyond her ability to aid.
A moan of pain caught her attention. Running over to the mail-clad soldier, she knelt and gently rolled him onto his back, out of the expanding pool of blood. Gasping, she pressed linen where a blade had slipped past metal, cutting deep into the gut, she prayed to the Light with all of her strength.
His face still distorted in agony, soldier opened his eyes. “Are you an angel?” The priestess shook her head, trying to smile back at him. “No…you’ll be all right.” The bleeding…it won’t stop. Discarding the soaked linen, she pulled out more, again invoking the Light.
His hand reached out to grip her arm. “Tell my wife, my son. Tell them I love them.”
She shook her head, gently shushing him, again trying to smile. “You’ll tell them yourself.”
A call of a trumpet pierced the din of battle, echoing calls of retreat following on its heels. Ella looked up to see armed forms rush past her and the wounded soldier, but kept her hands pressing on the wound.
One of those forms paused, pulling on her other arm and shouting at her. “Didn’t you hear the call for retreat? Move!”
“We can’t leave him…”
The man in blood-spattered armor pulled her out of the way, grunting as he lifted the wounded soldier in his arms, and turning to shout as he ran toward the camp. “Run, priestess!”
She nodded, stunned but doing as she was told, when suddenly the world seemed to stop. A sharp pain in her back, spreading warmth…
Ella felt herself falling forward, throwing out her hands as the ground came up to meet her.
The sounds around faded behind the roaring in her ears, warmth on her back, cold in her limbs, her heart pounding harder and harder, matching in time to the sound like rushing water that had become all she could hear.
Then…darkness.
___________________________________________________________
Darkness…cold…
A voice…achingly beautiful…mournful…with the waking of her conscious mind, the song faded, fleeing as she reached for it.
So cold. Ella opened her eyes to darkness. The sound, the pain, the warmth on her back, it was all gone now. Only the inky blackness and the chill to the depths of her soul remained.
Slowly, the priestess moved, rising from shattered stone. Where am I? She thought she remembered dying…remembered a last desperate reaching for the Light as her life flowed from her body to soak the ground. Had she been saved before her life faded completely?
She felt her way, stumbling, her useless eyes straining to see where no light fell. Where am I?! That song…she could barely remember it now, grasping at the memory of melody as it slipped further from her, leaving only the echo of a feeling behind. Such sadness…had she dreamed it?
Hugging the wall, Ella felt the stone tilt upward under bare feet, her arms lurching forward before she caught her balance. So cold… She was so afraid…but her heart…it wasn’t pounding as it had before. She inched upward.
Finally…a beam of moonlight pierced the darkness, gentle, calming. She moved forward, the opening she prayed to find leaving her transfixed as it came into view. Star light.
Where am I? The White Lady stood high in the sky, her face fully turned to the world below, a halo of crisp stars surrounding the silver orb.
The priestess of the Holy Light turned her own visage to the symbol of light in darkness, giving a fleeting smile to the face of Elune. Turning her attention back to the stone still beneath her feet, fear grew into terror as she realized from what she had just emerged. A tomb? A broken tomb? Where am I?!
Climbing onto the brittle grass and leaves surrounding the doorway into earth and stone, she turned around.
In the distance stood buildings, a human town, but one she didn’t know. She had so little experience beyond the safety of the walls of Stormwind, but even to the eyes of a sheltered priestess, this town seemed…wrong…long damaged…deserted. She made her way to a road, visible in the night as darker strip of firm soil among bare trees, their branches silhouettes against the sky.
Alone, frightened, the young woman made her way toward the broken buildings, knowing no where else to go. The wind stirred long-fallen leaves as she walked, rustling mixing with the soft wail of the gaze. She pulled tattered robes close to no avail, firm soil drawing no warmth from the bare feet pressing against them.
As the buildings drew close, Ella saw a bent figure in the darkness. It turned to her, eyes glowing softly in a face that would have chilled her to the bone if the night had not already done so. She froze…Light! Please let it not see me!
Her pleading prayer went unanswered, the form moving closer. She tensed, her eyes wide, terror rising, she reached for the Light, feeling welcome warmth and something new…like burning…fill her.
The figure paused just in front of the still priestess. And then…and then it spoke to her. A deep voice, raspy like one of the very old or ill, but one she understood. And it was not unkind. “You are newly awoken? “
Dumbstruck, her feet frozen to the ground by fear, Ella could only nod, cold returning to permeate her being as the Light faded from her.
The figure nodded. “The Dark Lady has called to you. Saved you, as she has saved us all. Praise be to her.”
Ella found her own voice then. “D…Dark Lady?”
The figure reached out a thin hand to her arm. Looking down she could see bones peaking out from torn flesh, her shaking no longer for the winter or the night. “You are Forsaken. You have heard her call. She has set you free.”
Shaking her head, Ella tried to back away, drawing air into lungs to shout into the darkness, to the figure holding her arm. “What?! Wh…What are you saying?”
The figure let her go and stood still, just watching her with those glowing eyes, with that torn flesh.
Terror consuming her, she backed away slowly, her eyes fixed on the form that had once been a human man, his white bone and marble flesh illuminated by moonlight. He didn't move toward her again. He just...watched her. A sound of crunching leaves came from below as her feet left the road.
She kept backing away. Wood met her back. Ella’s arms reached behind her to feel the trunk of a tree. The figure was distant now…
She turned, running, the only sound the breaking of dry leaves and twigs beneath her feet, the only pounding her footsteps…
Ella ran back. Back to the doorway into the ground below, sinking down behind a block of fallen stone, the symbol of the Light above names and dates carved deep into the marble.
The priestess leaned against the headstone, pulling her knees to her body as she stared sightlessly into the darkness, sobbing with tearless eyes. Ella was oblivious to the passage of time, to the lengthening shadows of the trees, her mind threatening to leave her so soon after waking. Finally, she moved again, her hand pressing against her chest. If she thought to take a breath, she could feel the rise and fall…but no beat within…just…stillness…and that endless chill.
Her hand moved upward to the pendant at her neck. Closing her eyes, the terrified, confused priestess hung onto the symbol of her faith, or her lost father. She clung to the charm as a drowning man lost in the sea clings to driftwood.
She took another deep breath, feeling the rise and fall below her clinched hand, and called the Light.
It came, just has it had since she had first learned to call it. Filling her with warmth with peace. Terror threatened to rise again as she felt the new pain come with it, but she pushed it away. She looked to the moon, now near the horizon, the stars relinquishing their claim on the first rays of the sun heralded her coming.
Forsaken.
Holding to the Light as she gripped the pendant, she began the prayer for guidance with which she had greeted every dawn since she had come to the Cathedral in service of the Light.
Forsaken by life, but not by the Light. She clung to the thought…her sanity…her entire being reaching for it, surrounding it as her hand surrounded the crystal that was once her father’s.
She rose again, turning east and closing her eyes as warm light spilled over the cold, broken land to greet her.
__________________________________________
Ella walked slowly back to the decrepit town, holding the pendent for strength, for calmness, for sanity as she made her way forward. She could feel the warm sunlight taking the edge off of the death chill that permeated every fiber of her being.
The figure she had seen before, the Forsaken man, he was still there near the edge of town. He was still waiting.
“The passage into this new existence is rarely easy.” He spoke again, not reaching for her as she came close. “But we have tasks for you…”
Tasks.
There were many in the once-human town that was known as Deathknell to the Forsaken. One of the first was to fight against the Scourge. Not the terror that had torn the flesh of the soldiers she had helped to heal before her death…no these remnants of life were pitiful, mindless creatures.
A deep sadness and sense of loss filled every corner of this dark land, a reflection of her own still heart. Most of those she encountered along dirt paths or decaying buildings were human once…some soldiers, many just regular people swept away by the Scourge. She was still frightened, and so alone…Forsaken…forgotten.
And the cold persisted. Over the next few days that followed, Ella continued her ritual greeting of the sunrise, preferring the light of day to the cloak of night in which so many of her fellows hid. But even the sun couldn’t push away the chill in her bones.
Darkness…evil…freedom from the Scourge did not release the taint among those carrying the curse off fleshly existence beyond death. The church of this town, her past as forgotten as her people, was now the home of shadow.
At first, the priestess had been relieved to hear of the priest in service to the Forsaken in the town. She’d avoided the church before that evening, the sight of the building that would have been the center of life for a living town saddening her further. But when one of those who tasked the priestess asked her to see the priest inside, she agreed without hesitation.
Ella’s expectations were far from what she found within the steepled walls. As she walked through the door the cold in her grew stronger than the night of her awakening. Inside the priest stood clothed in vestments so similar to ones she had seen in the Cathedral. This former servant of the Light had taken a dark, twisted version of the garb of an archbishop and claimed it for his own.
The man turned as she came through the door, his voice sending the chill even deeper into Ella’s bones. “Welcome priestess. I am Sarvis, priest of Deathknell and archbishop of the lands beyond. ”
He beckoned for her to come closer, greeting her in raspy voice. “We are happy to welcome former servants of the Light into the service of the Dark Lady.”
“Former?” Ella whispered the word to herself, but he heard.
He came closer to her, his words somehow seeming a mocking attempt to soothe. “The Light has forsaken you child. It has forsaken us all. Let me show you the path to true power.”
The priestess called the Light, letting it fill her as she shook her head, shielding her from the shadow permeating every corner of the once-holy ground. “No…” Her voice barely above a whisper grew strength the father the backed away from this priest of darkness. “No!”
As she crossed the threshold she turned, fleeing from the mockery of a church, from Deathknell. No thought for the creatures tainted by the plague as well as the mindless ones she knew inhabited the wild places surrounding the town came into her mind until the Forsaken town was well past her. Running with wild eyes she could easily have been mistaken for a soul yet bound to the Scourge.
The Dark Lady freed us? For what purpose? Once reason began to return that thought ran over and over in her head. She fell to her knees in a patch of dead grass, holding her head and rocking back and forth. What purpose?!
The first rays of the morning sun brought her back to herself. Rising again she moved calmly in the morning light, alone in a land that seemed consumed by the same darkness that had threatened to engulf her in that shrine of shadow.
More conscious now of the dangers around her, Ella tried to stay close to the relative safety of the road. Thoughts of death and undeath joined her continued worries over why she had been awoken. If some creature driven into madness devoured her would she feel it? Would her mind live on as her flesh was torn away?
Her exodus from Deathknell ended as Ella stumbled upon the ruins of a human city even greater than her beloved Stormwind. She had never set eyes on Lordaeron, but no human girl could have grown up without hearing the tales of the magnificent human kingdom of the north. All that was gone now…broken…lost…just as she was.
There were many Forsaken here, coming and going from the doors on either end of the courtyard. Busy with their own tasks and concerns, they took no notice of the quiet woman. Ella sat for days among the rubble of the shining city of peace and prosperity. Perched on a wall of stone she watched as a people she’d seen rarely in her short life came to and for from a glowing red orb.
Elves. High elves. When she was a girl and had seen these graceful people in the streets of her own city, she’d always been awed by their beauty, their grace. And here they were coming in and out of this land of the damned as though it belonged to them. They were so full of life, so lovely, such a sharp contrast to the surroundings. Only their eyes betrayed the change that had come since they were severed from the alliance her people.
No. Not my people any longer. My own mother would scream in terror if I came near. She pushed back the overwhelming sadness and sense of loss threatening to pull her down into madness.
Finally, gripping the crystal flame at her throat, Ella followed in the footsteps of those she had long watched, her own rag-clad feet taking her up the steps that led to the glowing orb.
She shut her eyes as she reached out to touch the sphere, bracing herself for some unknown pain. But none came. Just a sound like swishing chimes and she finding herself transported into a living, magical city. A place filled with wonder and life, a place seemingly not broken at all.
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As the Forsaken woman walked through the streets of the strange elven city, amazement began to push back the despair that had become so much a part of her existence since awakening. This city was so different than anything she'd ever seen before. She was even warmer here. She'd been so terribly cold every moment between her awakening and touching the red orb. But here, in place of the biting chill and bitter wind of winter, was the gentle calmness of a new spring day.
The people of this new city, for the most part, took no more notice of her than they had in the ruins of Lordaeron. But no one turned away from her either. The dirty rags she wore hadn't really bothered her in the Forsaken lands, but in this beautiful place filled with stunning people she felt very much out of place.
The city was filled with fantastical buildings with flowing curtains. She could hear laughter and conversations from the people around her. Finally one of the turns she took brought her to the city gates, and she caught her first glimpse of the woodlands beyond. The warmth of spring in the air of the city was reflected in the green, in the bright spots of color, she saw nearly everywhere around her.
Most amazingly to Ella was that some of these people would not only speak to her, but asked her for assistance. She could understand most of them too, at least when they spoke in the guttural tongue that seemed so foreign coming from such fair faces. The lilting musical speech she sometimes heard she couldn't understand at all, but it seemed more natural to these people.
Tasks here in the place she learned was called Eversong Woods were similar to those she'd been to do in Deathkneel. The Scourge had made it all the way to the elven city, and she was asked to lend her assistance in ending the suffering of Scourge still presenting a danger to the elves. Like in Deathkneel, these remnants of the Scourge army were only mindless, pitiful souls. They were nothing like the organized and powerful onslaught that had taken her life.
And here, most of the land and the creatures within it seemed whole, and thriving. Only a strip of land called the Dead Scar marked the passage of the plague of undeath through these enchanted lands. Here she could almost forget what she was.
Soon after her arrival, she had earned enough coins to purchase supplies for making a new robe to replace the one too soiled and torn to be found on a beggar in the streets of Stormwind. A kind elf took pity on her, giving her boots that didn't quite fit. Another gave her weapon in exchange for her help with yet another small task. The rusty mace wasn't particularly helpful, but somehow it was reassuring to have it at her side when she faced an attack from a wild beast or one of the mindless ones.
She slept...or what passed for sleep now...wherever she could find a place out of sight and out of the wind. Near bridges, behind trees. She might have been afraid, young woman that she was, if she were still human. For the most part, she just hoped to be unnoticed, a part of her fearing she'd be sent back to the cursed lands of the Forsaken.
Even with the perpetual coldness somewhat abated, even with the magical, peaceful surroundings and peace of a living world surrounding her, the priestess was still very much alone. Very much forgotten.
A few weeks after her arrival in Eversong Woods, Ella paused by a small pond just outside the city gates. She'd just meant to kneel there on the soft carpet of new grass, to look out on ripples making the fading daylight dance on the water.
Instead, she saw something in the shimmering surface that brought back all of the grief she'd tried so hard to push away. Ella hadn't seen her own reflection since she'd lost her humanity. She'd never been conceited over her beauty like other girls and young women might have been. She was aware, yes, of the way people looked at her, but it hadn't really mattered. Being a servant of the Holy Light, that was her place, her calling. She'd spared little thought or effort for anything else.
But now...
Someone who hadn't known her before might have almost mistaken her for a still-living human. She bore no visible wounds, the single one on her back covered by the robe and nearly sealed by her own calling of the Light before the last of her blood had left her.
But now...the face looking back at the priestess was so different from the reflection she remembered. There was no rose in her pale cheeks, the radiant and bouncing waves of gold that had once framed her gentle face hung limp and dull against her head. Her sky blue eyes were masked by the same strange glow that had frightened her in the eyes of the Forsaken man who'd told her what she had become, the light that had shown in them before the curse somehow dulled.
If she'd been living the surface of the rippling water would have been broken, as if by rain. Instead her body shook with tearless sobs as she looked back at herself, as she mourned what she'd been and the loss of everything she'd taken for granted since childhood. Her descent into self pity was short-lived. Soon another reflection joined hers. The woman was sighing as she peered out over the water, angrily kicking the dead form of a frog and wiping her face in her hand.
((Much of what follows, save the ending, is story composed from in-game RP and used with permission for all but the most minor of interactions.))
Ella looked back at her own reflection and that of the woman next to her. Here she was feeling such grief, such self pity, but at least she was whole. The other was just as Forsaken as she, but with only a single arm and eye in contrast to her two.
Ella turned, rising and looking at the other Forsaken woman with sad eyes but a small smile.
"What's with you?"
The priestess indicated her reflection in the water, speaking softly to the newcomer. "Just remembering...." She paused for a moment. "And you?"
"Oh." The armor clad Forsaken shrugged off the question, waving. "Trying to forget. And it's not working."
"I know..." Kneeling again on the tender carpet at the pond's edge. "Was it..."
The other woman frowned. "No, you don't I wish everyone would stop saying that." She mimicked the phrase silently on her lips. "Was it what?"
The gaze of the priestess drifted back again into the water, staring at the unfamiliar form. She wiped nonexistent tears from her cheeks before she turned to finish her question, her voice barely audible. "Was it hard...when you awoke after...?"
She sighed again, not wanting to be alone, and not really expecting an answer. "Nevermind. Of course it was."
The other woman looked at her own reflection sullenly. "It wasn't hard. It was just...something that happened. You just have to deal with it."
"Deal with it?" Ella turned around again, despair filling her eyes.
"Yeah. Deal with it. 'Cause this is it. Unless you want to try and off yourself."
Ella shook her head, her voice still soft. "No...not that."
The other woman perked a brow. "Then what?"
"I don't know. Light! I wish I did. No matter how much pray I hear no answer." The priestess looked up into the darkening sky. "But there must be a reason, a purpose for all of his." Looking back into he water, she waved a hand over the rippling surface, indicating her own reflection.
Her companion sighed. "Another priest. What am I, a magnet?" she muttered under her breath, then added more loudly. "Look Sister, Mother, whatever you were. You're somewhere the Light doesn't know you are. Don't waste your energy trying to get its attention or find a reason why."
"This is all senseless." She went on. "Now just try to find a place to fit. That's all you can do."
Ella shook her head as she rose to face the other woman, her voice still soft but firm. "No. There must be a purpose...some reason the Light has put me here. Has let me return to..." Waving her arm behind her back she indicated the water again. "...to this."
"This was the plague's work, not the Light's." The other woman's voice was just as firm, and perhaps a bit annoyed.
"Yes...but all my life I've believed the Light has a greater plan. And now...I still do..." Ella's voice had lost some of its certainty, its strength as she reached up to clutch the pendant at her throat, the last words almost desperate. "I have to..."
The other woman peered at her with an irritated expression. "What do you want me to tell you? Why the Light is making you suffer for its greater plan? I don't even know you, kid."
"You're right." Ella nodded and extended her hand. "I'm Ella, priestess of Stormwind..." She sighed sadly then, looking down for a moment before raising her eyes again to give the other woman a small smile. "Formerly of Stormwind Cathedral. And you were a soldier before...?"
The Forsaken in armor hesitated, seeming to have a bit of self dialogue before shaking the offered hand with her only one. "Mag, former Captain of the 42nd company in the League of Arathor." She frowned a little before continuing. "I'm a soldier now. I was a soldier then. That's what I am. What's left of me."
"I guessed as much by your armor." Ella was nodding. "And I'm still a priestess of the Holy Light." It was her turn to hesitate. "Just a...lost one."
Mag's frown became deeper. "Nice to meet you."
Ella inclined her head. "My honor, Captain."
"Heh. It's been a while since I was a Captain. Just Mag."
"Mag then..."
The former Captain nodded, then asked "What are you doing out here, anyway?"
Ella turned back to the water for a moment, wrestling with what she saw there in the rippling mirror of the pond's surface. "Remembering...I hadn't seen my reflection since..."
The other woman nodded. "Yeah. It's a bit of a scare the first couple of times. You get used to it." She shrugged.
"Mag? I know you don't know me..." Ella turned to face the other woman again, frowning as she did. "But may I ask you about something you said earlier?"
The soldier looked at the priestess, at how fresh she seemed compared to the warrior with her one eye, one arm, and that only what was noticeable. She shrugged, looking back over the water instead of at the other Forsaken. "Shoot."
"You said something about finding a place..."
"Yeah?"
Ella looked up, trying to meet the warrior's eyes. "Have you found one?"
Mag turned to meet her gaze for a moment, the softly glowing eye once blue fixing on her before making every attempt to avoid contact. "Yeah. I'm shacked up with some friends of mine, down the way a bit."
"Friends?"
"Yeah, my friend Laericus. He owns the whole house. His sister Raelae, his wife, Ligiea. Then a whole lot of others...I guess anyone who can't fit anywhere else. And then, my friend Mae..." Her voice trailed off, her expression irritated again. "Anyway, yeah. My friends."
Not wanting to pry, but desperately wanting to know, the priestess pressed. "And you're welcome there?"
"Well if I wasn't the house brooms would probably kick my ass out or some dumb crap like that." Mag paused. "Uh nevermind." She didn't seem to be interested in explaining further.
"But yeah. I'm welcome."
The priestess stared back with a startled expression, blinking a few times at the mention of brooms kicking someone out. "Oh!" Seeing the other woman's face, she didn't continue to press, instead adding softly. "You're very fortunate then."
"Yeah...I guess."
For a while the two woman stood by the pond's edge. Looking around at the water, the trees, the life, Ella finally brought her gaze back to Mag. I guess anyone who can't fit anywhere else... Returning in her mind to what the soldier had said, the priestess broke silence that had descended between them, "Would I be welcome there?" Her voice was quiet, hopeful, fearful.
Mag, in answer, rolled her one eye. "Please. I'm a drunken psychotic slob. If I'm welcome there...no, if Mordes is welcome there..." She trailed off shaking her head, no explanation available. "Yeah, you'd be welcome."
Ella looked at Mag with a bit of confusion, then smiled. "I would love to meet your friends, Mag."
"Sure. In a few minutes. I kinda left to clear my head."
"Of course..." The priestess nodded, feeling suddenly like an intruder on the other's thoughts. "Should I leave you alone?"
"No, it's fine." The warrior sighed softly. "Been just...kinda dumb lately."
Ella gave Mag a brief gentle smile. A priestly smile. "If you want to talk about it, I'd be happy to listen. Or to sit with my own thoughts and leave you to yours..."
Mag shut her eye for a moment. "No, it's...no. We'd just better head back. It's not that important." She gestured at the other woman. "C'mon then."
Nodding and smiling gratefully, Ella nodded. "Thank you." She followed the other woman through Eversong until they came to a path up to what looked like a grand estate, passing a small lake and gardens before reaching the tall entrance of a very large building.
Mag pushed open the door with intricate carvings, stepping in but keeping her eye on the floor. "Watch your step."
Ella followed, looking around in awe at the surroundings. "This is your home?"
A petite elven woman with short black hair and dangling red earrings had been lying on a divan in a large room visible from the grand foyer. She stood and greeted the pair with a smile.
Mag paused at seeing her, then gestured at Ella, offering the short-haired elf a weak, apologetic grin. "She followed me home. Can we keep her?"
The elf could barely suppress a giggle. "Yes, of course. Welcome!"
The young Forsaken priestess smiled in answer. If she'd been living, she would have blushed. "Thank you." Her voice was soft and respectful.
Relaxing a bit, Mag added. "Yeah, make yourself comfy Ella." She looked around, pausing thoughtfully.
The elven woman, meanwhile, had put on her most welcoming smile. "I'm Maeilynel Stormeyes Angerfang. But please call me Mae, and welcome to the manor."
Ella inclined her head, first at Mag with a grateful smile, and then at Mae. In the same language she answered back. "I am Ella Rose Diadre. I was a priestess of the Holy Light for Stormwind Cathedral, and then in battle..." She sighed sadly, but inclined her head again. "I am honored to meet you Mae." Her accented orcish was passable, but clearly foreign to her tongue.
Looking around the room, Ella saw a handful of others. One was a large green man, with sharp teeth protruding from his lower jaw. He was intently reading a book. The man looked up and smiled at the newcomer, revealing even more pointed teeth. "My apologies. My name is Haysus Thunderblood."
The priestess inclined her head at the orc. "And you as well, sir Thunderblood."
Mae continued to smile, waving her hand. "Honored? Oh, I'm nobody special, but that's nice of you to say."
Mag, meanwhile, was trying to get down to business. "Alright, so. There's a room upstairs somewhere for you, have fun finding it, but it's there. Whatever you need, these walking weird walking broomsticks will probably try and help you. Just let them. Or they get annoying." She nodded, having dispensed her wisdom on the subject.
The priestess was giving Mae a brief small before she turned to Mag upon her second mention of brooms. "Broomsticks...you mentioned them before...but how..."
Mae laughed, holding up her hands and wiggling her fingers mysteriously. "Maaaaaagic!"
Mag smirked at Mae. "Lies." She moved past Ella into the commons, turning her head to add "You'll see. It's kinda...you just gotta roll with it."
The orc, watching all of this with a smile, looked at Ella and laughed hard. "Please m'lady. Haysus will do fine."
Ella looked at the gathering in the common room. "Magic..." she murmured to herself, then nodding to the orc. "As you wish." Her gaze lingers a bit longer on his large green form, as though fascinated by the sight of him.
Cheerfully, Mae held up a bottle. "Do you drink, Ella?"
A golden young elf who'd not yet spoken echoed Mae's words. "Someone say drink?"
Mag, now among the others while Ella remained in the entryway, warned "She's a priest."
"Drink? Oh...I still have my vows..." Ella still wasn't coming any closer.
"Oh good, more for us." Grinning, Mae took a seat and began to pour the beverage into glasses on a nearby table before patting the empty spot next to her for Mag.
Slowly Ella came into the room, finding one of the empty chairs. She gestured to it. "May I?"
Leaning back again and holding her glass, Mae waved at the chair. "May you? Oh goodness, just sit."
"Thank you..."
For a long while Ella sat listening to the others, to the comings and goings of this strange house. She kept staring at the high ceilings, the impossible grandness of her surroundings. Mag had laughed at her when she'd asked what this place was, just saying as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "It's a house...a manor." In all of her existence, Ella had never seen anything of its like.
The golden elf came over and made her own introduction. Ella felt warmth in her soul at the Light filling this young knight. Mendala Skystrider didn't hesitate at all in taking Ella's cold hand in her own as she led the Forsaken priestess up the stairs to find a place she could call her own.
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Ella followed the young paladin up the stairs and down a long corridor. She carried the rough burlap bag that she had taken for a pack slung over her shoulder.
Mendala released her hand to push open the door to a room. The room became gradually more illuminated as floating orbs emitting a soft light brightened at their entrance.
The priestess looked around the room, shaking her head in amazement. "All this? Just for me?"
((And I am hitting the character limit. *grins*))
Founded April 26, 2005