Fourteen Hundred Words

The scirocco cut across the pale dunes, kicking up the dust and sand. Like a fog or mist it blurred the landscape, softening it, casting the rippled dunes in gentle pastels, fading the deserts of Tanaris like a worn memory.

She stood, arms clasped about her waist, silent and as still as a statue. The hot wind tossed her crimson mane, tumbling it over her long slender ears, dashing it upon her shoulders. The only noise was its low whistle, the shuffling of sand over sand and the snap like puppies at one’s heels as it rippled about the hem of her long robes. In truth while barely heard they seemed to echo like thunder against the surrounding emptiness.

Alone, save for the sepia shadows of the wood lashed watchtowers.

Alone, save for the Sandsorrow dead.

I should feel something.

She looked across the sea of carnage, the bodies slowly vanishing beneath the drifting dunes, the darkened splashes where the blood had seeped into the desert already offered to the unforgiving wind.

I should feel something.

Anything.

Her head ducked, turning her back to the storm. A slender arm rose, the back of her hand dragged across her light green eyes, nothing to dry, simply to free them of the wind blown fog.

But I don’t. I know I should, shouldn’t I? The only difference between them and I now just a heartbeat. Between fel magics and my demon’s cobalt claws I have shorn them from this mortal world, from whatever they had, leaving only silence. Soon the dunes will cover them and it will be as if they were never here at all. A theft, of all a body has, taken and in their place left only nothing.

Just like me.

Is that all what we are? Simply swords sent out into the desert, to return for a handful of coin or some shiny trinket. Is that the truth of the world, that we are nothing but carrion creatures, drawing what we need from someone else’s corpse; be it a scrap of silk from these forgotten trolls or the sacking of Stormwind by our grand battalions beneath banners of deep rust and black? Is this emptiness what must necessarily be; because to actually feel, to be more than that assassin’s blade, to have something touch this silence inside would force one to turn to face the hurt and cruelty we have left in our wake? Against the destruction of our lands by the Scourge, against the betrayals of the Alliance, against those whom we leave behind swallowed by the Sun’s passing and the Night’s conquest is empathy but a deadly and self destructive luxury and is it only the simple pragmatics of survival to just let it wash over and around and past one's self like this desert sand upon its hot wind?

Crouching, the slender elf dipped her hands into the dune. Cupping her palms she watched the grains sift through her fingers, slowly turning them to try and work out the rusted remains of the Sandsorrow life’s blood. There was something in the simple, repetitive motions. Comfort, familiarity or perhaps just the silent discipline of the task in and of it self.

No one ever told me.

What am I supposed to feel?

Unconsciously the blood elf winced, her head turning as if slammed by a gauntleted fist.

Mother’s sword never asked questions, never had more than a single answer to the world. Mother’s armor was impenetrable, forged from the Light and brooking no quarter, no wavering of Faith. A hero of Silvermoon, oh that she was, nary a dark word or vengeful lance could stay her. That was supposed to be good, wasn’t it? Something to aspire to, right and proper by anyone’s accounting. I am her daughter, blood tells they say, shouldn’t that set my path, define my right and wrong in the world? Give me something to believe in? Allow me the luxury to feel?

But I have seen the beautiful crystal. I have heard its funeral dirge beneath the streets of Silvermoon. Felt the cold chains of power that bind it.

How can there be Light when it is born of Darkness? How can something good be dependent upon another’s torment? Is it simply another addiction, if a pleasure is born of pain is there really any difference between the two?

Flip a coin, toss it into the air, does it matter what face it lands on. Heads or tails, good or evil, pleasure or pain or Mother or Father.

Father wouldn’t even consider the question, for it has no meaning in his world. In the Royal halls what is white may now be black completely dependent upon the Regent’s mood. There is no future in his world, no past, only the cut throat morals of the Now. His past is nothing but foundations for today’s choices and it is today’s choices that make the future real. Like a roc upon this desert windstorm it doesn’t matter which way the wind blows; what only matters is how you ride it.

Is his seneschal’s world just as much an illusion as Mother’s? Is all that we can do is build ourselves a fortress, stone by stone, to create an illusion of propriety … as one might build a set in the halls of Kharazhan, upon which to place a passion play? Nothing more than a façade, the reality of our world not set by any truth but simply force of will?

If so – what can we hold?

Is this why I don’t feel anything? How can anything be true if there is nothing between these illusions we build and the impartial, unfeeling drift of the dunes. The implacable desert, erasing not just these lost trolls but eventually myself too?

Is there anything real?

Slowly standing, the blood elf closed her eyes, turning her head in the direction of the sun. It was low on the horizon, just a pale disk against the fog of the sandstorm. If she concentrated she could pretend she felt its warmth.

One thing I know. It is a long ride back to Silvermoon, to those polished halls, shimmering concourses and whatever tavern this night hosts the household that claims me. I doubt they ever consider these questions, instead choosing to let the wind take them where it wills. Maybe it is easier, simpler, not to question, not to think, to just sit about the tavern and listen to the conversations drift back and forth, hear the skalds sing of ancient heroes and mysteries, lace them with drama and passionate romance. To set down one’s pack and forget about deserts and trolls and place.

To set down one’s pack.

She smiled at that, small but true, taking in a deep deep breath.

It won’t be set down alone, I suspect. And we will trade our tales on where the fates have tossed us between then and now, and how long the nights were and I found this and thought of you and then it would be just as fine to sit quietly, safe, safe and no longer …

… and no longer apart.

Maybe the minstrels do have it right. As they tell their stories of well crossed lovers and passionate betrayals, the soft lament of those who fell before us.

I remember watching a queen of ice, her heart no longer beating, and yet that frozen soul warmed just a bit, by a locket, a token supposedly scorned and when no one was supposed to be looking, cherished.

The trinket, in itself, was nothing. A piece of jewelry, cold metal, unfeeling stone and that’s all. And yet it broke through the weight of the years and the curse of a frozen throne.

Sisters. Forever torn apart, and yet, for that one brief instance, together, even if just a memory in an unbeating heart.

Maybe that’s it.

It’s not right or wrong. It’s not good or evil. It’s not power or strength, not shadow or fire, and certainly not Light or Darkness.

It is not where the fates send us but who we share that journey with.

Tonight my pack will rest next to another’s.

That is real. That is true.

The minstrels, listen to them. They have fourteen hundred words to describe our relationships with each other.

I have three.

That’s not very many.

But it’s a good start.