This story will be in three parts, each with two chapters, so a total of six in the end. I wanted to elaborate on Giizheg's life more since he plays important rolls in a few of my other stories. I hope you enjoy it.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything in the Warcraft universe except for my own characters.
Part One: As they Are
Chapter One
Tirisfal is never warm, but today the air holds a peculiar chill to it as Giizheg walks along the path of stones that lead to his mother's door. Her house is a little, dilapidated, building on the outskirts of Brill, a converted storage shed with chipping blue paint. The porch is just a set of wooden steps that sag so badly in the middle that water has collected in them permanently and moss covers every inch of the wood that isn't submerged. Both of the house's two front windows have been knocked out and are covered by thick, intricate tapestries from their old home in Quel'thalas, one of the only gifts she's allowed him to give her. The roof is a mess of holes, one of which is so large that he could climb through it if he wanted to, and the floor squeals as though it's a beast in pain every time he walks upon it.
Yet despite all this the front yard is filled with life and color. Hundreds of flowers grow all around the little house, miraculously defying the decay all around them. Peacebloom, mageroyal, kingsblood, steelbloom, blindweed, even dreamfoil and a couple of extremely rare black and purple lotuses grow all around the patchy, stone path on which he walks. Ironically, just beside the door, grows a single Arthas' Tear.
For years he's pestered her about repairs, trying to convince her to let him fix something. He can hardly stand to come here and see her in such a state, even if she herself exists in such a state as this one. But she insists on leaving this place as it is. In regards to the ruined front steps she says that nature must take over again some day and who are they stop it. She tells him that she likes the holes her in the roof and that through them she stargazes. To the squeaking floors she only laughs.
He supposes that his optimistic nature is a gift from her and he cannot fault her for finding beauty and hope in the tragic. She is tragic yet she still dresses as she did in Quel'thalas and she still reads by the light of a candle despite not needing one to see. She still writes monthly letters to him even when he is worlds or an entire dimension away and insists that they celebrate birthdays and remember those who have passed.
In fact, that is why he is here now, walking up the rickety steps to knock on her battered door. He has come to commemorate his father with her and to celebrate the great man that he was as they have every done year since his passing. It is disturbing to realise that this year will be the eighth year. It has been almost a decade and the pain has never lessened. Giizheg still sees his face in his sleep and hears his Ann'da's voice reciting prayers with him as they bless the mass grave of fallen soldiers in Icecrown just hours before his father joined them.
Finally he has reached the door and quietly he knocks. For a moment he can hear a faint shuffling from behind it before she opens it and grins at him with yellowed teeth. Despite being dead, despite the stringy hair and the hollowed cheeks, and skin covered in scabs that will never heal, she is still beautiful even now. Perhaps it's just because she is his mother and because of her importance to him she will always be beautiful, but there is something in the faint smile that always rests on her face and in the way she has somehow managed to turn those yellow eyes into something warm and inviting rather than a signal of the missing pieces of her soul that strikes him as wonderful.
Or maybe he's just delusional, because in reality this is a dead woman. His mother is dead and despite her… undying… optimism, she is not the same as she once was no matter how little she changes things in an effort to keep things as they are.
Still, he grins back when he sees her and accepts her embrace as she hugs her son.