Life Blood
It had started with thunder and blood.
An island, black and haunted by the souls of shackled slaves, by the god-king who had been granted life again. There was rain, so much rain, a smell of rotting fish, there were swords clashing amidst screeches of dying trolls, elves, dragonhawks. A man rode through it all as if it were a meadow in his home land. There was a smile on his face, and there was a thirst for troll blood.
A great discovery. Blood, blood, so much of it, a crimson liquid imbued with a mighty power! It gave life to that which was not blessed with it. It gave hope to those who had long lost it. Guardian constructs were powered into life and they obeyed, they would fill gaps in the army of which few soldiers remained. It was meant to be the beginning of a rebirth. It was meant to be their chance to rise again.
Word swept through the ranks of the Horde. There was one, he who oversaw every inner working of it all, who desired this liquid life for himself. It was thus deemed too dangerous to be in the hands of the greedy and unstable Blood Elves. Too good for such weak filth. Their Regent Lord would not relent. The land of eternal spring would prosper by any means necessary.
He was taken. Broken.
He said not a word, not a whisper. The orcs would never know how to use the precious life blood.
It all seemed so long ago. The memories were no longer his, or so they felt. He had always been here with his gnarled, clawed hands chained to the walls, with his bent wings snapped and hanging uselessly. He had always felt this … terrible, nauseating … insatiable hunger. The man – no, the creature - writhed and moaned, his skull pounding with each and every movement. The memories were forgotten, everything ceased to exist but this sheer craving for a sustenance that would surely break him from this prison in the end.
There came a day of light. The creature closed his good eye to block out the searing light of the sun. He hissed, growled, whined for more of those delicious green crystals, the energy that was so familiar and so new and so devastating. The orcs were parading him in front of a people who reeked of the crystals … the crystals! The shackles were finally broken, and for a matter of seconds he was free, so free -
There was a face. It was a face he knew. Then, there came the thud of an arrow. The creature crumpled to the red dust below, the slit of his eye watching as crimson trickled from underneath him. Precious life blood. Perhaps … once the pain was gone and darkness swelled, he would remember what the colour meant, why the fel-people mourned.
He would remember all he had given to see this day come.
