Chapter 1
-Loving brother no longer beloved
It was a very beautiful night when my brother was bonded with his loved one, with a brilliantly shining moon and a lustrously pleasant breeze. The whole neighborhood was festive; for my brother was a darling and a object of admiration for the race. Everyone was sincerely happy for his marriage. Even acquaintances that the family barely knew mustered the effort to show up and share their affection. Today was his moment, one of the best days to come. It therefore felt like a sin, if not simply improper for me to be feeling so twisted and angry. My boiling rancor was so humiliating for my ego to withstand that I was in the verge of vomiting.
It was not my intention to do so. I truly wished to be able to be like the others; praising my brother's fortitude and wish him good. Especially as his closest kin, a twin brother, it felt as if I should have been the second happiest individual in the festival. I loved my brother. I truly did. I adored him with all my strength and I looked up to him with all the respect any younger brother can ever have. He was smart and wise. He was charming and handsome. He was kind and compassionate. He was irresistible. It was so obvious that everyone just had to love him and not much of a surprise in that Tirande Whisperwind also loved him as well. In fact it was as simple and obvious that it was inevitable. However, despite the simplicity of the matter I still found it immensely difficult to acknowledge that. Some demon within me refused to take in common sense.
I still don't know what I was thinking when I carried that knife outside. I still don't know what compulsion drove me to get so drunk. For reasons my sanity could not decipher, I called upon my brother to see me alone; with a knife hidden behind my back and malicious intent I could not fathom. I did not wish to harm my brother. I swear an oath to that. Still, I was holding a knife behind my back. My brother approached me with a slight jolt. Apparently he has drunk as much as I have; of course with different reasons no doubt. He smiled at me like so many times before, and suddenly stopped about ten paces away from me.
"Beautiful moon Elune has offered us tonight, isn't it brother?"
"Indeed."
He smiled at me awkwardly for a few seconds, and then suddenly changed his face to a more concerned look. He looked at me that way for a few more seconds. He finally spoke again.
"Do you hate me, brother?"
I could not answer back immediately. Of course the question being totally random and sudden had something to do with it, but all in all I didn't hate him. He was my beloved brother. He was my pride and my joy; the brother that always loved me more than I loved him. How could I hate him? As much as I wished to say those exact things the moment he asked the question, instead my tongue remained inanimate. I just bit down harder on my lips, as if to compensate for the silence.
"Why do you ask such thing Malfurion, on such a joyous day?"
"I ask so because you for one do not look joyful, and I believe the cause of your grief is me."
"I am joyful, brother. Why should I not be on your blessed evening? Why would I hate you, dear brother? You have done no wrong to me for me to hate you what so ever."
I shook as if I was freezing in a winter cold. I didn't know if it was due from the humiliating guilt that I was here with a weapon intended to harm my brother on such blessed moments, or the shameful fact that I was lying of fake joy; joy that I should not be lying about but actually be feeling right now.
"I am sorry. I really am, Illidan."
I did not answer. Instead, I shook harder and started to softly weep. The shame tormented my chest, and the wine that I had drowned myself prior was making it exceptionally difficult to restrain my showing of emotions. I choked on my own sobbing and without any warning, burst into tears. It was all too embarrassing and humiliating, but most of all it was shameful. It was as if my brother had called to see me alone, not the other way around, and was now punishing me by stripping me bare; exposing all of the dirty malice I was harboring towards him. Of course, he was doing nothing of the sort. In fact, all he was doing was looking at me with a sympathetic stare and apologizing for things he was not liable to. It was my own shame that was doing all the punishing, not my brother. This eventually formed a vicious chain that tended to feed off each other, causing my disturbed mind to be pushed to further chaos, and further frustration.
"Why should I hate you, brother? WHY? You have done no wrong to me! Why do you apologize to me as if you have done me any wrong!"
"Because I have wed the women you also are fond of, Illidan, and I know that it caused you much sorrow."
Malfurion started to come toward me, which was startling for a moment. I held up my knife out from my back and pointed it at his direction. It was not with the will to stab him; it was simply from an unknown fear that suddenly formed towards my once beloved brother. I did not want him to come any closer. Understanding the gesture, Malfurion did not come any closer.
"I… I do not… HATE you, brother."
I lost my grip on the knife and it dropped on the stone road with a blunt clunk, bounced and then silenced momentarily. I shook my head from side to side ferociously as if to deny the fact that I even brought the weapon, hence summoned my brother with even hinting intent to use it on him.
"It is not hate, brother. It is not."
With heavy sobs, I raised my head and with great courage looked straight in my brother's eyes.
"It is the longing to be you. Born with your nose, your chin, your face… to be born to look exactly like you and still not be you, not have the things that you have… It is envy and jealousy, brother. To seem to be so much like you, only to find in my sleep that I am nothing like you. The gap between what I assume myself to be and wish to be from what I… really am. It is spite, brother, not hate. Never hate."
"You wish it was you, not I who was chosen by Tirande."
I laughed at my brother's frankness.
"…maybe. Or maybe I simply wish that I did not love the woman that happened to be your lover. Or even more, maybe I simply wish that I did not look like you. At least then, I would not gaze countless hours staring my reflection, fantasizing that I can be you if I tried."
It was painful, if one thought about it. Seeing my brother and Tirande together, happy and loving, was as if I was looking at myself with her. Whenever she would give her wonderful smile to Malfurion, I would fantasize that she was smiling at me instead. To watch yourself with the woman you loved in a stranger's viewpoint, far away as if spying or peeping was in some sense mortifying yet sensational. I would dream of lying on the flower fields with her and whisper in each other's ears confessions of love and affection. I would simply think that I was in my brother's place. But that never lasted long. The name that Tirande spoke of with such love and affection was not mine. She spoke of the other Stormrage; the wiser and the stronger and the bolder Stormrage.
"Why does Elune loves you more than I, brother? Were we not born the same when we left our mother's womb? Were we not twins of same character and form? Why has it come that Elune loves you more, along with everyone else in this world? Why then must you take the one person that I was fond of? Was not Elune and everyone else enough? Did you have to take that one person along with the rest?"
Without waiting for an answer of my sudden outburst, I turned away from my brother and fled. Fled away from the sympathetic gaze of my brother; fled away from my disgusting self; fled away from the cruel reality that in the end Tirande Whisperwind loved someone other than me. I ran with all my strength that my legs would allow me to sprint; with the hopes that the running would silence my sobs and hide my tears. And maybe, just maybe, the running might be merciful enough to also silence the voice that was haunting my mind; the voice that kept on saying that I should have killed my brother and claimed my loved one as my own. The running might be also be merciful enough to hide the revolting truth that the envy and jealousy had long ago already evolved into a hatred that with my lying lips denied in front of my brother.
On a day of much joy and celebrating, I Illidan Stormrage was the only soul that was in rancor and regret. Consumed with sorrow and rage, I stumbled and fell on the ground, not knowing how far I have run away from my brother and his festival. Exhausted and suddenly indifferent with everything, I stayed slumped there on the cool dirt. On the sky, colorful displays of arcane fireworks were decorating the already star-filled void. Elune shone exceptionally bright and vigorously in favor of her favorite son. Everything was so full of blessing and joy excluding me. It seemed I was the only hapless being, left out alone as an exile from the bliss that everyone else was taking for granted. Sure that I was far off enough, I started to wail and shed tears all over, only this time without the need to restrain my grief in front of any brother from fear of shame.