Hello, welcome to my latest plot bunny. By latest I mean this was started six months ago lol. It just came back to me and I found the will to act on it. This story will mostly be told through journal entries and small moments of reflection by the man reading the journal- until the end, when we jump forward ten years in time.
As always, I own absolutely nothing but my own characters, the rest belongs to Blizzard Entertainment.
I hope you enjoy this story, leave a review and let me know what you think :)
Mist poured over the fraying walls of Shattrath and into the Lower City, gathering in the tunnels where the vagrants hung about. It drifted through the cracked stone streets thickened with vines and weeds, shrouding the marketplace that had yet to open for today and silhouetting the tents and various thrown-together structures that littered the ghetto.
The city was still sleeping, recovering from a vivacious revelry in celebration of the fall of the Betrayer. The Black Temple was no more, already being reclaimed by the Draenei and Broken who were eager to restore such a holy place and to cleanse it of all the atrocities committed on upon its stones. The people of Shattrath had danced and sung and drank for three days and nights, music ringing out from the the World's End Tavern and the marketplace alive with celebratory foods saved for only the rarest of occasions- the fall of Illidan being more than worthy of such delicacies.
But now the time for festivities was coming to a close. Yesterday the tavern's songs had grown more solemn and the markets were filled with a sea of hushed conversations as the people of the Lower City began to mourn. So much and so many had been lost in the preceding decades. The demons' hold might have been greatly lessened in this last attempt to cut the fingers from the proverbial beast that was the Legion, but this decimated world still continued to die and with it went its citizens. There would be a time of relief that followed Illidan's death, but the battle had yet to end. Kael'thas was still lurking somewhere as Kil'jaeden's puppet and the Twisting Nether and all its darkness continued to fold in around them all.
Sitting perched atop a stone slab jutting from the damp earth sat a small elven woman. She was shrouded beneath layer upon layer of silks from head to toe that obscured even her face and were woven into the braid that was slung over her shoulder. All that could be seen were her eyes, green jewels in the fog. Sheltered in her arms she held a child, equally as bundled and hidden away as she, that fussed quietly as it sucked on the woman's bony fingers. The woman hummed quietly to the baby, longing for it to remain as silent as this Shattrath morning, and hoped that her wait would be over soon.
It was. From the mist came another elf and then another, the pair much more plain than she, but still dressed in mana-silk all the same. They came to a stop before her as she slid down from the stone slab and grimaced as mud soiled her slippers. To them she held out the bundled baby. The elderly woman took the child and held it to her breast, sheltering it further from the cold of the morning, just as she had once done for her own daughter many years past. To the man, the young elf gave a book, a journal of thick, black leather with golden thread embroidered into the spine. He, too, held this precious thing to his chest before depositing it into inner pockets of his robes.
The elderly couple then turned their attention to the child, unwrapping the silk that shrouded it's face from view. Pale skin tinged with the slightest hint of lilac and hair the color of midnight itself greeted their startled eyes. The child was so young that her ears were still folded and had yet to harden, but it was plain to see that they were already longer than one of the man's fingers. But it was when the baby's eyes opened that they were truly startled. Rather than the green or silver that they'd been expecting, they were met with amber.
The man looked up at the silk-shrouded youngling who stood before them impatiently. "She is mixed?" He asked.
The young woman nodded and shrugged. "I thought it was known that there were as many Kaldorei among the Illidari as Sin'dorei." She replied sharply. "Does her heritage bother you? If she does not meet your standards you can simply deposit her at the orphanage. It is but a small walk from here."
At this the older woman held the baby even closer to her chest and glared affrontedly at the brazen youngling before them. The man, too, was shaken by her comment and stepped between the two women. "Never, and you would watch your tongue before your elders!" He hissed. "This child, mixed or not, is my granddaughter and I intend to make sure she that has the life she deserves. One spent away from this place."
Beneath her scarves and silks the woman was grinning at him. "Rest your worries." She said dismissively. "I was only checking to make sure that she will not be abused by you because of prejudice. Surely you cannot fault me for that."
Both of the elderly elves softened a bit at her words and the man apologized softly for his outburst. A moment of silence passed between all four elves as the mist began to clear. Recognizing that their time was short, the woman of the pair finally spoke.
"Do you know who the father is?" She asked as she stroked the baby's dark hair.
This time the young elf seemed to deflate at the question. "No…" She admitted. "She would not tell me." She looked away from the pair before her and sighed. "There may yet be hope for your question, though. The answer may be within her journal. I could never open it myself to find out because of the enchantment, but the two of you should have no trouble."
The man retrieved the journal from the pocket of his robes. "Which enchantment does it bear?" He asked as he flipped it over in his hands, inspecting the embroidery further.
"A blood enchantment. Only those who she shares blood with may open it." She watched as the man tested this out and successfully opened to the first page. Relief, jealousy, and bittersweet sadness filled her as she watched his joyful expression at his success. The sound of voices cut through the emotion in the air. Hoof steps could be heard against the ruined stones and the silhouette of two Draenei materialized through the mist.
The woman grew tense as the pair of Draenei drew closer. "I should go before I am discovered…" She murmured as she pulled a hearthstone from inside a silk pouch at her hip. She looked the two elderly elves, the parents of her fallen best friend, in the eye one last time. "Good luck to you…" It was all she could bring herself to say before she activated the stone and disappeared within seconds.
Both elves stared at the emptiness that replaced her for a few moments before turning to one another and then the baby in the woman's arms. She was fussing again and blinked up at them as she rubbed her own face with her tiny, balled fist, trying desperately to put her fingers in her mouth. The woman could not resist her smile or her tears. The man took his wife and granddaughter and hugged them both between him. "We should go as well." He whispered. His wife, shaking with the tears of grief, nodded and mirrored the actions of the younger woman who had just departed by pulling a hearthstone from the pouch at her own hip. She closed her eyes as she activated it and felt her husband draw her and the baby closer. When she next opened her eyes they were standing in the middle of their parlor.
The three of them stayed bundled together for a while longer, unsure of what to do next. Finally, the baby's cry broke the silence in their quiet house and her life with them began.
It was late before the baby was finally at rest, asleep in the bassinet in the corner of their room. After having lost so much in just a few short years, neither of them felt comfortable putting the week old baby in a nursery alone. Once she was older things would change, as was the nature of life, and they would move her into the room that had once housed yet another girl many years ago, but for now she would stay with them.
They had yet to name her, wondering if perhaps she already had a name hidden away in the pages of their daughter's journal. So much promise lay in the little black book that accompanied their granddaughter. Answers, they hoped, to the burning questions that haunted them every time they looked at the sweet baby.
Sitting beside his wife in their own bed, the man stared down at the book in his hands. His fingers clutched the leather so tightly, so nervous he was at opening this book. Anticipation ran through him quicker than a hawkstrider, but there was an edge of reluctance in the tips of his fingers that had him grinding his teeth. The last year of his daughter's life was inscribed into these weathered pages. Her tears, her hardships, her thoughts and feelings and every little thing about her that he'd missed so much since her departure. He wasn't sure he'd be able to handle the task of reading through her reflections and picking through the last of her days, knowing that when he reached the last page, he would be forced to come to terms with the fact that it was all truly over.
Unable to bear the anticipation any longer, while also certain that if he waited another moment he wouldn't be able to go forward, he opened to the first page.