WARCRAFT - KAEL
"The Demons are Kind"
"Perhaps I am not mortal, but I can keep you warm, my lord," the succubus said.
Kael'thas complied, and tried not to think of home and Elves. She covered him with her arms and wings.
"Where do you get your power?" he asked, curious.
"From the blood of the demonlord Alshallus," she replied. "His fire burns in the succubus daughters."
"And what price do you pay for this?"
She laughed. It was beautiful and verging on the frightening. "I am a demon." She replied.
He did not press her on it – but gave himself room to explore it with a wizard's mind. Sometimes more words could confuse one's thoughts on a cosmic mystery. He would ask her again later, when he was more fortified with wisdom. For now, he had other needs. A profound loneliness, bereft of all love he had known – of those he had loved, and the lands as well. His entire world, far beyond an impenetrable barrier – and only Illidan could take him back.
The demons had many ways between worlds. Maybe he would learn a few. Loosen the chains upon him – but in return for magic, he would chance any chains. Illidan had earned his loyalty, and the loyalty of an Elf, even ones such as they, blood-lusting and forgotten to demons, was a powerful thing.
He thought of beautiful Tiris, by the waters of Anders Fall, and tried not to feel guilt as mortals did. His heritage was Quel'thallassan after all. He should not be any more mortal than these beings. And despite their evil apparent natures, the thorns seemed to hide something more gentle than a wizard should allow himself to believe.
But he did not resist the comfort – the night was cold, and it was a kind offer, such as demons knew.
He watched the stars, and waited for them to move. His eyes burned bright now. Bright with magic. And fire.
He thought of the women among his people that had followed him to this place. Yalandra, and Isistar. Palestars and Songbows. Some even older than he, with experience. And yet, they were his people, and he could feel little but the need to lead them to a better place. Though he outwardly burned with fire, inside crept the certain feelings of ice.
So perhaps, only a demon was fit as a companion for a blood elf prince, even only for a little while – given their capricious natures. But he knew they could be bound by a desire for a little while.
"Do you need to feed, my lord?"
And he nodded. He was hungry. And she made a small gesture, and a flame grew, dancing from her wrist. She opened a small font of the magical energy he craved, and he hated himself in that moment – feeling as if he had suddenly become worse than the demons who were once his enemies and now sated his will.
They were non-judgmental creatures, he mused. They lived only to please or do their duty. They were not so terrible once you no longer feared them. But he worried the thought was not an intellectual one – but a spirit inside that yearned for surrender to temptations he should resist, and once would have.
Some-time later he had left the camp, and was wandering the demon city. Constructed out of bones and obsidian rock, hewn by the thralls the demonic entities brought to this world and enslaved upon it. Many Draenei laboured.
"They torment you with their beauty, eh?" the Felguard said with a smirk, as he passed, knowing well how the Blood Elven Prince spent his time - his guttural words were barely understandable but enough to scathe him.
What were these things? He thought them to be a native race from another conquered world, or perhaps where the demons originally hailed – but seeing them more closely with his Elven eyes, he wondered about the fate of the Orcs that had been left here when the rest of their brethren fled to Azeroth.
He continued on, leaving the camp behind and seeking a solitary place, a flattened rock overlooking the desert that was barren even of the stable magical forces that united the planet. It was the perfect hiding place, there was little of value for any enemy, but it was a true desert for one of his kind.
He would have to ask Illidan, his master, about the soldier. Maybe just another Demon race, he shrugged. Perhaps they were what human men became after they died. He once remembered an interesting theory about the Orcs, that they were actually the fallen spirits of humans, that travelled to the world of Draenor and were reborn as Orcs.
Eventually the magisters and scholars had ruled against the hypothesis, but he still thought about it from time to time.
Once he had loved a human woman named Jaina, but that seemed so far away now. The human magess desired a human prince, it seemed, not an Elven one – but that had not lasted either. He wondered if he felt capricious about it – but decided he did not. Not now.
Kael would live longer than either, perhaps. With him perhaps she could have had a longer life – but he supposed there were few magicks he could teach her now. She learned everything he could teach her. And now his own life-span would likely be cut short, unless the daemons could replace the power of the Sunwell – a test he had yet to see.
He lived in a world beyond the one he had known, and everything had changed. He did not feel an ease about it, but he knew he should wait. He was still Elven. He would wait.
THE END