author's note: Ok, so I redid the whole thing to fit in with the (rather ambiguous) new lore from BC. In the beginning the fic was suppose to be my answer to some obscure flavor lore saying Maiev was dead and me saying: heck no I like this character! But when BC came out, I learned, much to my rejoice, that she wasn't dead: JOY!
So you'd think my whole purpose to write this fic would be gone...but no...HECK NO! There is another character in this fic that's one of my favorite and you know what they did to him in BC? They made him evil, he's a bad guy now! Kael'thas is the last boss of an epic instance ripe for 25 nameless morons (no offense meant, I mean the characters not the players) to beat the crap out of him and steal his magic stuff!
Well, NO! Kael evil, no way. so this fic will go on as i will now try to redeem Kael, in my eyes and perhaps yours too and show him as more than a circled red source of shiny purplz.
I do not own the warcraft universe...'cause if I did, things would be done differently!
(ranting done, on with the new and (I hope) improved story)
"We have to retreat mistress, there's too many of them!"
But Maiev Shadowsong ignored the plea of her lieutenant and pressed what remained of her watchers onward to meet the illidari forces. She had not come all the way from Kalimdor to the Azeroth and then this desolated wasteland hunting Illidan to back off in front of a few demons who had cowardly bowed down to Illidan after Magtheridon's defeat.
Well, more than a few actually, the demon force that was guarding Illidan's personal abode in the outlands, the black temple he had seized from the pit lord, outnumbered the night elves three to one. The watchers were falling quickly and the demons were taking very little causality.
But in Maeiv's mind, it was all worth it; Illidan was just within reach, just beyond those walls, if only they could break through this force, she could finally recapture the betrayer…If only her troops could win this one fight, then none of it would have been in vain, Illidan would pay for all his crimes, including being responsible for the death of so many of Maiev's soldiers.
"This is suicide, call them back, they're getting butchered!" the lieutenant insisted, riding a nightsaber panther at Maiev's side as they both charged into battle.
"Illidan is too close to let go, this is why we came here, we cannot give up now." Maiev answered with steely resolve. Unfortunately, anyone who knew anything about warfare and most five years old children could tell the odds were badly stacked against the night elves.
"You're mad! If we press on then we will all die and then it will have been in vain!" the young woman screamed over the dying wail of her comrades.
"If we can get just a few more meters of ground, I'll be within blink reach of the entrance, and then I can engage the betrayer myself…" Maiev started to explain her plan.
"AT THE COST OF OUR LIVES! WHAT ARE WE TO YOU, CANNON FODDER!?" the young huntress screamed in anger before addressing to the troops: "Anyone who wants to live, RETREAT!"
Though Maiev ordered the fleeing troops back into battle, none of them seemed to indulge her leadership at the time; they fled at once, turning their back on the illidari army.
But this desperate retreat was cut off by another force coming from behind, trapping the watchers between the advancing demons and themselves. Blood elves, twice as much as their purple skinned cousins, blocked the retreat.
What followed was a total massacre, whether under the blade and sorcery of the blood elves or the claws and flame of the demons, the night elf force was decimated to the last.
All except one, who had blinked out of this deadly scissor tactic.
Maiev watched, from the top of a hill, her troops get massacred by Illidan's. So many more death the betrayer would have to answer for. And so many more people who would have to pay with him. It didn't matter that she was now alone in this forsaken dead planet fighting an entire army led by a powerful sorcerer. Illidan would pay. The nagas would pay. The blood elves would pay. The demons would pay. They would all pay!
She would not rest until it was so.
And thus she departed the battle site, plotting her revenge against the betrayer and his allies.
Three days latter, as she was looking for food, hunger having become a growing concern over the last days, Maiev met with one of the man she blamed for her current situation.
"Greetings warden." said Kael'thas Sunstrider in a neutral voice. He was standing alone on the open plain, his arm crossed over his chest.
"You…" Maeiv growled bitterly as she charged him with her moonsword, eyes filled with hatred.
Kael got out a blade of his own and parried the furious night elf's assault. She however kept striking and didn't relent until the blood elf prince casted a spell to make himself incorporeal.
"Now what did I do to deserve that exactly?" in asked in the same calm voice.
"You…" Maeiv was breathing heavily from both hatred and exhaustion "…you turned Malfurion against me, you allied yourself to the betrayer and you sent your filthy blood elves to assassinate my troops!" she spat, slicing her blade through him without any harm.
"First, I did not mean to turn Malfurion on you, I only told him the priestess might still be alive, but you were the one who had lied to him and told him she had been torn to shreds. You lied out of fanatical obsession and perhaps a little hatred, I told the truth out of concern and goodwill. The fault was your own, don't blame it on me." He said in a paternal tone.
"If you had kept quiet just a second longer, I could have executed Illidan and be done with it all, I would never have come here and my watchers wouldn't be dead now! There would still have been time to help Tyrande, not that I care, she was the one to free him, making it only fair she sacrifice herself so he can be contained again!" Maiev said bitterly.
"A rather harsh judgment, Tyrande only did what she though was fair." Kael replied.
"Harsh but fair, she freed the betrayer, she his as her share of guilt in all his actions, just like you who allied yourself with him!" she said.
"Siding with Illidan was the only option to save my people from their own magical addiction and to get revenge on the undead scourge. If I had not followed him into the outlands, my people would have died, either executed by treacherous humans of self consumed by their own addiction." said Kael with renewed conviction.
"You're people should have died and their forsaken arcane practice with them, I wouldn't have shed a tear for any descendant of the very highborn who brought my people to ruin!" she screamed.
"The fact that the sin'dorei descend from those highborn who did not side with Azshara in the end aside, I guess I won't shed any either for those poor watchers you sent to suicide here on this broken planet." he answered, starting to sound as bitter as Maiev.
Upon completing his last sentence, Kael became solid again and Maiev seized the moment to attack him again, but once again, she was parried.
"Anyway, I did not come here to debate our respective choices." He said, keeping her at bay with his sword.
"Why then?" she growled.
"Without your watchers, you cannot hope to take on Illidan, he his far stronger than you and you'll just rush to your death if you keep up this relentless hunt. Beside, any day now, the demon lord Kil'jaeden will come to the outlands looking for Illidan too, I don't think he'll mind squashing you on the way. So I am here to offer you a way back to Azeroth." Kael explained while still keeping her would be mortal blow from hitting him.
Upon hearing this however, she stopped her assault.
"A way back?" she asked suspiciously.
"Yes, I have the mean to create a portal that will bring you out of this dying world, if you will take it." Kael said, relaxing his sword arm, assuming he would not have to parry another blow.
"What! You don't want to bother killing me so you're nicely asking that I leave Illidan alone? No, I am staying here until Illidan dies!" she said angrily.
"I wanted to offer you an alternative Maiev. There is no way for you to get to Illidan, let alone defeat him. I though I might manage to make you understand it. This might be your only chance to return to Kalimdor before Outland becomes the theatre of a demon lord's wrath, or Illidan kills you." Kael said, returning to a calmer tone.
"There will be no alternative! I will make Illidan answer for his crimes myself, whatever it takes, and not you, your blood elves the nagas of even a demon lord will stand in my way!" she screamed with a glint of madness in her eyes.
Kael raised his shoulder in resignation.
"So be it." He simply said, sounding saddened.
He dropped a bag at Maiev's feet, casted a spell and vanished into thin air. The warden opened the bag warily and found fresh bread and a gourd of water in it. Seething against the blood elf for mocking her so, she still did sate her hunger on his present before resuming her hunt…
Two days later, a lone figure landed on one of the dusty hill of the outlands, absentmindedly surveying the surrounding. But the boundaries of his realm were the least of Illidan Stormrage's worries right now. He traced his finger over the large scar over his chest yet again, painful proof that he had failed Kil'jaedan.
Thousands of time now, he had replayed the events in his head and he still couldn't understand how he could have failed. How could a mere human have defeated him, no matter how much he searched his memories, he couldn't see when and how Arthas could have ever struck him down.
And yet Vashj and Kael assured him that this painful scar was a healed wound of a near fatal blow dealt by Frostmourne. That though had been slowly driving him even less sane than he had been.
Suddenly, he felt a presence behind him; something was coming quickly in his back. He jumped in the air in a wing beat in time to see that he had just dodged a blow from Maeiv Shadowsong. The warden had blinked behind him and hoped to take him by surprise.
Irritated by the night elf's incursion in his introspection, Illidan focused his will to burn away all magical energy within Maeiv, then he drew his warglaives and swung it in her back in one fluid move before she could event turn back. Her feet never touched the ground.
"Don't you ever give up, little warden?" he said angrily "You kept me chain underground for ten thousand years, then I was banished from my own homeland to dwell in this husk of a world, but it still isn't enough for you, now you…you DARE follow me even here!!"
He dropped her to the ground, she was still too shocked to speak, the wound in her back causing severe blood loss. She couldn't even articulate a coherent answer.
"I must thank you though, finally getting rid of you does brighten what had so far been a rather bad day." He sneered. He kicked her on the side of the face with his hoof to force her face to look toward his.
"Now die Maiev, alone, bitter, unsung and un-mourned on this dead planet, I was a mistake to follow me here. You were far too rash, you..." He stated evilly.
The warden tried to reach out to her moonsword with her left arm, but Illidan stepped on the elbow, audibly breaking it. Maiev screamed.
"You were not prepared!" He screamed before flying away.
Maiev saw the Betrayer escape her as life leaked from her, drop by drop. Everything she had done, everything she had sacrificed, she all did thinking that killing Illidan would make it all up for it. And now that she had finally managed to get him alone, he had bested her before she even landed a blow.
Hatred turned to despair and revenge to regret in Maiev's heart as her eyes slowly closed for what she knew was the last time.
The next day, a cloaked figure walked toward sunfury hold in the middle of the twin mooned night carrying what seemed to be a large and heavy burden. He walked up to the unfinished fortress that looked over the newly build encampment to meet with the man waiting for him, the blood elf prince Kael'thas.
"I was expecting you, Akama." The prince said.
"I have done as you asked, Prince Kael. She is weak but thanks to my healing magic, she is no longer in danger." answered the draenei elder sage, giving the human sized pouch he had been carrying to the young elf. As a fold of the cloth piece slid, Maiev Shadowsong's head, still clad in her helmet, was revealed.
"No one saw you?" the blood mage asked, quickly covering the night elf's face back.
"I was as stealthy as you'd expect from any of my people to have survived so long, no one knows of this." the old draenei answered "aside from you and…well, now them I guess." He added, gesturing at the two spell breakers flanking the prince.
"Fear not, these two have my complete trust, you have my thanks, elder sage." Kael answered.
"If I may, blood mage, why did you ask me to bring the wounded warden to you? Illidan will surely not be pleased with this if he finds out." Akama asked suspiciously.
"Tell me Akama, why did you side with Illidan?" Kael asked back while securing Maiev's wounded body in his arms.
"To get rid of the orcs and demons that destroyed our beloved draenor and claim some of it back as our own." answered the elder sage, matter-of-factly.
"To save your people then, just like me?" Akama nodded "Only now you realize that Illidan as made pact with the most powerful still living general of the burning legion, have failed him and has now brought his wrath to all who have sided behind him." Kael waited for Akama to grimly approve before going on "as thankful as you might be for what he has done for your people, their safety his still more important than your loyalty to Illidan, right?" again, the draenei nodded "and thus Akama, you and I are the same, we are the leader of our people before Illidan's lackey, our true loyalty doesn't lie within him and you must sometime make decisions that go against Illidan's wish for the sake of the draenei, yet you know his wrath would be endless if he knew of your betrayal, thus you hide things from him." He concluded.
"I can only agree. In truth I despise Illidan as much as I did Magtheridon, no sooner did he overthrow the self proclaimed lord of Outland did he claimed himself the new one, and that I cannot abide. Still, right now he his the lesser of two evil and I do not have the strength to oppose him, as long as he believe my people are as much his as yours, the nagas, the fel orcs and what's left of the pit lord's forces, the draenei will be safe. My loyalty, as you said, lies with my people alone and not this depraved, power mad night elf." The elder sage stated.
"Beyond placing the need of your people before his it seems you truly hate Illidan, how do you know I do not hold enough loyalty to him to warn him of your lack of faith?" the blood elf prince inquired, more out of curiosity then malice.
"Well, let's just say we are even now, you will keep my secret and in exchange…" he looked down to Maiev's concealed body, smiling slyly "…I will keep yours. Which brings me up to this question, why? Why save the warden?"
"Illidan wants her to die, I want her to live. Why? My motive regards only me. Don't worry, if I am discovered, he will never know your part in this." Kael assured.
The elder sage considered the blood elf prince a few seconds before turning back.
"I have led my people through many hardships young Kael and I have learned that sometime, a leader must make sacrifices for the good of his people. To put the draenei in danger for personal reasons would have made me unworthy of being their leader." Akama said, starting to fade in invisibility.
"You think I'm making a mistake, elder sage?" Kael said, looking down on the woman who had pursued Illidan until she died from her fanatical conviction.
"The draenei you have seen did not always look this way, there was a time when our people was powerful and pure…but war and despair led us down a terrible path that warped our bodies into the form you see today, yet our minds remain the same for in our soul we are still pure. What you did today Kael was the right thing, and that gives me hope for your people. May the light embrace you, sin'dorei." the draenei said before departing, unseen and unheard.
Kael'thas turned back, carrying Maiev to a room where her wounds could be tended to, mediating on the words of the elder draenei. They had not always looked this way? War and despair had made them the way they are? Most disturbing of all was the parting blessing of the elder sage…it sounded like a prayer of the holy light…