DISCLAIMER
The following story contains references to various content from the game World of Warcraft, owned by Blizzard Entertainment. I claim credit for the story, but not anything in the story that originally belonged to Blizzard Entertainment.
Rated M for graphic violence.
Now with that hopefully out of the way…
Kerindia snarled in frustration as her house burned to the ground around her. Her small, delicate-looking face briefly twisted in fury, before she got it under control.
Her dresser was right there - it was right there - on the other side of the room. She was staring right at it. But her bed had caught fire, and the flames wereit was eagerly and rapidly consuming everything around it. Even her shadow magic wouldn't be able to help, because there was nowhere left that was not on fire. She almost roared in anger, but she held it back. Outbursts got her nothing.
Finally relenting, she turned around and sprinted out of her bedroom, into the rest of her house - also on fire. This time she didn't even pause; there was nothing else she valued to the same extent as she did her armour and weapons. She turned again and tried to head for the door, but stopped as she saw that her path was blocked by more fire. This was getting tiresome.
She couldn't leave through her door, so she settled on the window. Seeing the way was clear this time, she grinned to herself and ran for it. She braced herself and pushed off the ground, leaping through the window with a terrible crash, and the shatter of breaking glass. In any other situation it would have attracted attention from the people around her, but not now. There were no people around her, and even if there were, there were more important matters to focus on.
Kerindia winced as the shards of glass bit into her skin, cutting in as many places as they could find. Most of them were shallow, trivial, but there was one in particular that lodged itself deep into her shoulder. She snarled again as the pain flared, but forced herself not to focus on it. Distractions got her nothing.
She was hurtling fast toward the ground, but she kept calm. She could handle this, it was fine. She even smiled.
Just before she fell flat on the ground and would have very likely died, she reached into herself and tapped into her magic. Her body hit the earth, but seemed to fall through it, as she wove herself through the shadows. She came out of the darkness, and stepped calmly onto the street that she'd just almost died on.
She looked up at her house. The fire had tried to leap out the window after her, and the flames were now licking up the side of the building, crackling and roaring as it devoured her home whole.
Kerindia grunted in dissatisfaction. She'd liked that house. She shrugged to herself, and started sprinting towards the Temple of the Moon.
There was an almighty groan of agony, as a towering tree ahead of her started to fall, seemingly in slow motion, wrapped in a blanket of writhing red and orange that seemed delighted to claim another victim. Kerindia sped up and narrowed her eyes. It was falling faster now. It was going to block her path. She wasn't going to make it.
As it crashed to the ground directly in front of her, she reached into her magic again. The blackness enveloped her comfortingly, and she let herself smile for that brief moment before she came out on the other side of the fallen tree, and continued to sprint across the burning husk of Darnassus.
Kerindia ran into the Temple of the Moon and brought herself to an eventual halt, leaning on her knees and panting from the exertion of a dead sprint through the burning city. After a moment, she recovered herself and stood up, looking around.
The Priestesses of the Moon were certainly busy. She saw a few faces she recognized among the survivors, being tended to in a hurry by the various healers. The ones who seemed fine - who could at least walk - were ushered through various portals leading to, by the looks of it, Elwynn Forest. The ones in critical condition were being treated here, now. She frowned. There were already vastly more patients than healers, and she didn't think for a moment that they were anywhere near done yet.
One of the priestesses ran up to her, and without even a single word, grabbed the shard of glass stuck in Kerindia'a shoulder and yanked it out unapologetically. She cried out in pain as the wound started gushing blood, before the nameless priestess put a hand over the injury. A warm, silver glow radiated from her hand, the pain faded, and the strange priestess ran off without a word, leaving the wound completely healed. Kerindia stared after her, somewhat confused.
There was a distinct blip of arcane magic behind her. "I see you made it."
Kerindia reached into her own magic, delving into the shadows. When she came out, she was in the same spot, merely turned around, facing the newcomer within an instant. She did so enjoy doing that. "Ravenbloom. What do you want?"
Manados Ravenbloom spread his hands to his side in a mockingly innocent manner. "I merely wanted to say hi! It's just a relief to see such a good friend survive this tra-"
"Shut up." He pursed his lips, seeming annoyed. "Do not think for a moment you're fooling me. I know who you are, Ravenbloom, and I know you always want something. What is it?"
He sighed, and hesitated for a moment before he spoke. "I don't know where Terrandor is."
She laughed, and brushed aside a strand of her brilliantly blue hair that almost fell into her eye. "And? Why should I care?"
"I would have thought you'd be more concerned for the safety of your pupil."
"I don't care about him. I taught him, yes, but only because I was bored. Besides, I've never approved of his having aligned himself with you. You, of all people." She looked around disinterestedly, but she didn't see either Terrandor, or Manados' glare. "If that's all, you can be going now. Oh, wait! No, I know something. Can you portal me down to Darkshore?"
Manados frowned. "Why would you want to go to Darkshore now? It's crawling with Horde."
"I know, that's why I want to go. I'm curious. May as well see this great big army that managed to beat us night elves, right?"
"Well it's not that I can't, but. It's very dangerous in Darkshore right now, are you really sure?"
"Yes, Manados, I am sure. Are you going to do it or not?"
The mage pinched the bridge of his nose in irritation. "Yes, alright, fine. Where exactly in Darkshore?"
"Anywhere's fine, I'm not picky."
"Anywhere could be in the middle of an orcish battalion."
"As I said, anywhere is fine. Just hurry up. Unless you've forgotten how to make portals?"
He glared at her, to which she responded with a sickly sweet smile. He waved one hand in the air behind him and muttered a brief incantation, and a hole opened in the air, leading to the war-torn land of Darkshore. "You owe me for this."
"You're a doll. I will never pay you back ever!" She laughed and flipped him off as she ran through the portal, excited to see for herself what the War of Thorns was like.
Kerindia hadn't been to Darkshore all that often, but even still she knew straight away that this was very, very irregular. Orcish war machines had trampled everything to the ground beneath them, from great swathes of grass to great, ancient trees.
"Hey! What on Azeroth are you doing here?!" A voice rang out behind her, and she turned around in curiosity.
There was a human woman, young by the looks of her. She was running out of the treeline toward her, waving her arms in a somewhat panicked manner. Her long brown hair fell past her shoulders in two thick braids, but the only thing Kerindia saw was her armour.
It was coloured a brilliant blue, mixed with an equally gorgeous gold. It looked exquisite, not just in its design but also in its craftsmanship. It covered her entire body, with extra padding in the more sensitive or important areas. She wanted it.
Her eyes continued travelling the woman, and fell upon the two daggers strapped to her waist. They each had a long handle and a longer blade, perhaps abnormally long for a dagger, but still very obviously not a sword. They didn't look like something she'd enjoy, but they would work.
Kerindia reached into the empty air beside her, and landed on the hilt of one of those daggers as she came out of the shadows to stand next to the human. Before she could react, Kerindia tightened her hold on the weapon and pulled it out of its sheath. Immediately, she stabbed it hard into the empty space behind her, dove into and out of the shadows once more, and winced when blood sprayed out onto her wrist as it entered the woman's eye and went deep into her skull. She died instantly.
Kerindia pulled the weapon out of the corpse, and it thudded to the ground. She was about to toss the dagger next to it, before her eyes widened somewhat in surprise. The weapon felt better in her grip than she thought it would. She stopped, and bounced it around in her palm. It was weighted perfectly, with supreme balance and control. She spun it around in her hand, getting a smile to her face. The overly long handle actually allowed her to be able to do things with it that she hadn't expected. She chuckled to herself as she tossed it into the air, watching it flip around before the handle landed back in her hand again. She might keep this, actually.
She knelt down and wiped off the blood on the grass, before dropping the knife and walking over to the unfortunate human. Kerindia grimaced at her blood-covered, nightmarish face, turned into a horrific parody of itself by that one stab. She leaned down, plucking a badge off of the woman's chest and bringing it close to herself to read. "Captain Cassandra Clark…" She glanced down at Captain Cassandra Clark. "Whoops."
Kerindia stretched her arms above her head languidly, smiling to herself at the ease of mobility the armour offered her. She'd certainly lucked out, finding that human.
She turned around, ignoring the now almost-naked body laying on the ground, and headed up the road to Lor'danel. There would probably still be a portal open there to Darnassus, and from there she could portal again to Stormwind. She grinned to herself as the ideas started whirling around in her head. So much to do in Stormwind…
She heard a commotion on the road behind her. She turned around, and she was greeted by the sight of a small battalion of armed and armoured orcs sprinting towards her. They must have been headed to join the battle. There looked to be about fifty. A smile graced her lips. A chance to test out her new weapons, and just after she got them too. She lowered herself to the ground, bent her knees, and sprinted towards them.
That gave a couple of them pause, but they recovered and charged at him in return. Her smile widened, became a grin. She unclipped both daggers from their new straps on either side of her waist, holding them firmly. In a few moments she was just a few steps away from the one at the very front. She leapt off the ground, and as the orc swung his axe at her, she didn't just reach into her magic. This time, she dove into it.
As she flew towards the orc, writhing shadows suddenly wrapped around her, embracing the night elf in the comforting warmth of darkness. She stepped out of her cocoon briefly, directly behind the orc she had leapt at, and was in front of just an instant ago. Her new knives sought out and found the chinks in his heavy plate armour, and cut deep. He roared in pain, but she had already stepped back into nothingness.
She whirled around, and suddenly she was next to another orc, and her long, obscenely long, blade slashed into his face. She turned on a heel, and stabbed into open air, and the blade entered the gut of another orc, parting the flesh easily and travelling in deeper and deeper. The orc screamed. Kerindia laughed, and before any of them could find her and attack, the shadows wrapped around her again, and she vanished.
She'd never worn gloves in a fight before. It was nice to be able to not worry about losing her grip on her weapons if her hands got sweaty. Blood was still a problem, of course, but not nearly as big of a problem. And there was certainly no shortage of blood. Her brand new blue-and-gold gloves looked like they were painted red, as she danced through the concentrated dogpile of orcs, carving them to pieces.
She appeared out of thin air in front of one that looked to be some sort of mage, judging by his cloth 'armour.' The excuse for protection didn't protect him much as she slashed one knife across his chest, carving the cloth like it wasn't there and opened a deep cut horizontally across his body. It was so deep that it immediately started pouring blood, and the orcish corpse fell forward into empty air, for Kerindia had already disappeared. By then she was in front of another orc, this was looking to be a paladin of some sort, if his heavy plate armour, coloured bright gold and white, was any indication. She stabbed her dagger upwards into his chin, and watched the light go out in his eyes. The shadows embraced her again, and the piercing glow of her bright golden eyes remained to light up the night for just a moment, before it too was hidden.
She'd been expecting them to put up more of a fight. It was almost boring, she thought as she slashed both crooks of an orc's knees, forcing him to suddenly kneel on the ground so she could reach around his neck, stabbing both blades towards her and into his throat. She heard a whistle through the air and reappeared in front of the orc she'd just killed, watching as another swung a battleaxe through his dead comrade's back, where she'd just been. She whistled in appreciation. At least one of these orcs could react quickly.
Not quickly enough, though, as she shadow-stepped through the dead orc kneeling on the ground and in front of the one who'd just tried to attack her, and shoved her dagger through the side of his head.
It only took her another minute to clean up the remaining few. When she was done, she came out of her cocoon of shadows to step lightly onto the exact spot on the road she'd leapt from to start the fight originally. She watched dispassionately as the last three, whose throats she'd all opened, collapsed in unison to the ground, with their other forty-seven friends.
She flipped both daggers into the air, caught them by their bloody hilts again, and clipped them onto her belt. They were good daggers. She would be keeping them after all, most certainly.
She could feel the road rumbling as another convoy approached. She sighed in frustration. She could tell this one was larger than the one she'd just wiped out, and she was a little bit too tired to slaughter them as easily as she had these ones. She let the shadows wrap around her again, not in order to dance around through them as she just had been, more to simply hide her from view. She smirked at the thought of how these next orcs would react upon finding these fifty butchered on the ground.
They were still all huddled up mostly together, as they had been when they'd stumbled upon her, creating a pile of dead orcs. Only five were separated from the rest - a group that had run away and huddled together, all facing outwards in a circle in an attempt to prevent her from getting a chance. That had been smart - smarter than the rest of their buddies, at least. Hadn't helped them much. She'd simply ignored them for a few minutes, before appearing in front of one of them and cutting a large X into his chest. The one next to him looked over in panic, which had left him open, and the other four fell shortly after before she returned to the main group. Those five were a few feet away, slightly off the road and laying together on the bloodied ground.
She turned around and headed back up the road again, not interested enough to stick around and see the next convoy's reactions to the ruins of the first. Her plan remained; Lor'danel, Darnassus, Stormwind.
She whipped her hands gently to each side, waving off a few drops of blood onto the grass but nothing meaningful. She'd have to deal with these new gloves - and her boots, which were also very covered in blood - and especially her new daggers, but that could all be dealt with rather easily.
Kerindia grinned. Oh, what fun this would be.