Say you'll never deny me.The voice whispered within her head, warm and gentle as it had been that long ago day. A flash of blonde, and blue--a form standing in the darkness, reaching out toward something.
I'll never deny you. Never.Another voice, lilting and soft, joined the previous, answering the statement. A smaller form, with a mane of dusty blonde stepped forward to take the hand of the other.
....you said you'd never deny me. Never. And yet, you've turned your back on me! Those words, you never meant.The first voice, now bereft of its calming tone. replacing it with a scathing one, shattered through the silence of her mind, slinging the second form away from itself--the blond and blue being replaced with an icy white. A harsh laugh echoed from the now-changed form, as a scintillating shard rose from one of its 'hands', shining a blinding wintry blue.
And the world will know my vengeance. The vengeance of the dead.
At this, the forms vanished, the scene melting away to a normal room, alight with the orange glow of a fireplace, glinting off the multiple windows. Blinking, Jaina cleared her eyes, looking back toward what she had been working upon--another tome of magic, and its interactions with some force or another. Sighing, she stood--after a dream such as this, even her favorite solace of studying would not calm her. Walking slowly to one of the great glass panes, she watched over the sea, and the storm that was presently whipping it into frenzy.
It was nights like this that always brought the memories flooding back--riding upon the screeching cry of the wind, and the angry swell of the waves buffeting the sides of Theramore Isle like an invading army battling for purchase upon the land. The storms had been worsening as of late, and she was assured it wasn't just a normal happening of nature.
No, something was making the world cry out like this, as if its very essence was threatened. A blight, draining the lifeblood of the land, until only dust remained.
The very something that came to her upon the wings of the thunderclouds, invading her dreams with the memories of a time long gone. Shaking her head, she closed her eyes. She always wondered if there was something she could have done differently that would have prevented what was happening now. But, each time, she'd come up with nothing--and yet, she'd still turn it over in her mind, again and again--never sated with her answers.
He'd turned his back on all he loved, and destroyed everything he stood for. Ripped it apart with the blade that consumed his soul. There was nothing she could have done. What had begun as good intentions, had twisted into the worst machinations. It was pitiable, and painful--and her heart still mourned what was lost--the land, the people, and he, himself--who truly was nothing more than one of the lost.
Arthas Menethil, the one she had known, and had given her heart to, no longer existed. Only the Lich King remained. Never would that love return.
Her mind switched to where the taint upon the land was bleeding from--the glacier of Icecrown, far away in the northern wastes of Northrend. He was there, hand outstretched--fighting against all the world. The strongest of the races of the world were challenging him there. And, her dearest hope was for them to succeed. To free him, after all this time, from the torments he'd brought upon himself, and in turn, free the world from his deathgrip, that was transfiguring the very earth into a lifeless shell, much like he himself had become.
Opening her eyes, she noticed a moisture building within them, threatening to spill over her cheeks, much like the rain was flooding over the eaves of her tower, and pouring down the window surfaces.
Is the
world crying for you, Arthas? Or is it crying for what you've become,
and what you intend to do?