Quel'Thalas, Realm in Exile
Part One: Narra
Chapter One
Twenty Months before Landing
Levak had been a philosopher all of his life. Even when he had been a child, so long ago, he had looked into the deeper meaning of things, into the aspects most elves found meaningless. Why did a person act this way? What would be the best way to do this, to do that? Why shouldn't magic be used?
Why shouldn't magic be used?
That simple question, and the curiosity behind it, had been his doom. He had been unwitting; he had been so certain that it would only be seen as a neutral demand for explanations and knowledge. Instead, the druids who had begun turning up those 'against' the established laws had labelled him a traitor, a man in connivance with the Quel'Norei. His defence had failed against these accusations, and he had been cast adrift. From his home, from his land.
And now all of his knowledge, all of his complicated theories failed him once more as Narra uttered yet one more scream of pain, there, deep within the decks of the immense ship they were travelling in.
"Hold on, girl." one of the ship's midwives told her, but from the expression on her face, it wasn't going well. He had heard her tell another that the baby was 'placed wrong' and that there were 'chances'. He hadn't caught the rest, but that had been sufficient to cause him terror such that the thunderstorms they had begun to brave so frequently seemed nothing but spring drizzles.
He had met Narra Pureglade by chance, as he had looked upon a contest of archery. He had found her both skilled and beautiful, and had made a point to tell her. She had replied boldly to that, and later to his tentative overtures, until he felt she was the one who was shaping their whole relationship. Which she probably did. He had soon found out that as much as she loved him, as much as she respected his intellect and ideas, she sometimes decided things alone. And when decided, nothing and no one could move her into change.
The only time he had tried to move the mountain she could sometimes become, was when the edict had passed that he should be exiled. He had pleaded with her, had contested her, and finally had angrily shouted at her. All of it had been for naught, as she ignored, riposted, or simply out shouted him.
Finally, when all had been said, she had simply said. "You're my mate, Levak. And if our feelings were faked, I might consider what you're saying. But we aren't faking. You are my sarralai, and I am yours. I will not send you adrift. I will not leave you. I could never live with it."
"But what about the child?" he had said as his last resort " The voyage might be long. He or she might die."
"And he or she might die here. And here, the child would never be able to know his or her father. I couldn't live with that. Could you?"
And he, in what he now saw as great selfishness, had let go, had accepted that she would come, whatever he might say. In fact, he had been infinitely glad to have her with him. And now, his folly might cost her her life!
She screamed again, and as if answering, he heard the thunder reply. 'Another thunderstorm.' he noted, utterly disinterested by the matter. A part of his mind wanted to run away. To let go of Narra's hand and leave this place, so that he wouldn't see the following events unfold. But he didn't. Running would make him a coward in everyone's mind, and most of all his own. And he loved her too much to think it seriously. He held her hand as she contorted a bit, her eyes half-closed, and glazed by a medicine the midwife had given her.
"Levak?" she slurred vaguely, before another frightful contraction took hold. It was coming, it seemed. The baby was coming.
"I'm here. I'm always here." he said, and he felt her hand grasp his in a deathlike vice, which nearly crushed his bones. He endured it. He knew whatever he felt was nothing compared to her pain.
It took an hour for the baby to be born. When it did, all covered in his mother's blood, she lost consciousness. He kissed her brow shakily and disengaged his hand, flexing it a second, before moving to the midwife and the people gathered around.
At once, he saw from their looks that something had gone wrong. They were looking both sad and horrified, and the sadness only increased as he approached. He almost didn't ask them what was wrong, afraid of the answer.
"H...how is the child?" he asked quietly. He knew already. It wasn't crying. But he had to hear it.
"Levak...I am so sorry." the midwife said, still holding the bundle "It was dead before it even came out. There was nothing anyone could have done."
He was a cultured man. He was a man who had investigated such things. He had known it had been something similar. But it still hurt. Oh, Elune! It hurt! Something blurred his vision, and it took him a moment to realize that it happened to be his tears. Narra's child...his child...dead...
"How...what sex...what sex was it?" he coughed out.
"...a boy."
"A boy." he said quietly, and then nodded vaguely "Thank you for all you did." And thereafter he went to sit by Narra, cutting off whatever happened elsewhere, only gently rubbing her left hand and forearm in wait. His grief threatened to burst too often. Sometimes it did, he choked out a few sobs, but otherwise he just waited for her to awaken, pleaded for her to awaken.
She awoke eventually, stirring as if from a bad dream - or rather a nightmare. The midwife had come and managed to stop the bleeding - something he barely registered in his mind. She moaned for a few seconds, then her eyes fluttered open, her eyes red and bleary, full of weariness. Somehow, despite all this, she instantly recognized him.
"Levak, my sarrallai..." she whispered, and he wondered if she would still call him that after he would tell her the sad happenings that had just occurred. Would she choose him as a target for her grief? If she did, he would accept it, though it would kill him. The fault was partially his, however, and that would always stay with him.
"Narra, my love." he said, unable to bring himself to say the ultimate word of intimacy. "I'm so happy to see you awake." he said at last, which was true.
Her eyes began to focus more. "I am glad to be awake as well." then her eyes lighted a bit. "The child! Our child! Have you seen him? Have you seen how our baby looks like?" she asked that so urgently, so happily, that he was taken aback, then made mute. How could he say it now? HOW?!?
"I...saw him...I...h-he..." his eyes filled with tears. Curse his weakness! That wasn't how he was supposed to tell her! Yet the words came out, the only way they could, saying the only truth they could. "Forgive me...h-h-he was...s-s-s-stillborn. Our child...died in childbirth." He finally wept.
The effect it had on her wasn't quite noticeable at first. Just a widening of her eyes. Then she began to look over the place she was at, unseeing the other elves, unfeeling of the ship, which began to sway, of the mighty thunderclaps. She just stared into the void. And then seemed to begin to hiccup. He took hold of her then, his own grief be damned, his own guilt be damned, and held her as hard as he could.
It was then that a sob, full of grief and despair, tore through her, followed by another, and another, until the mighty huntress of Elune began to bawl, her dignity forgotten. His own grief, and his tears, flowed with hers, and he kept holding her, feeling her clutch him, then hug him so tightly his breath was nearly cut off. He didn't matter - nothing matter except sharing and easing her pain.
Around them, elves were shouting, many running above deck. The ship was now swaying strongly and quickly, and the thunder was ever present. It looked like the thunderstorm was upon them at last.
But the two lovers who held each other never knew any of it, shut off from the world, enveloped by their grief.
* * * * * * * * * *
Seven Months Later...
The boat swerved from side to side, and water splashed the deck once more. Dath Remar saw thunder cracking beyond the power of any magic to control, and wondered why the sea seemed so frantic to try and devour them all. Already, three of the immense boats had been lost, and not trace had ever been found of them. And this was without counting the damage to the others, and of the people who'd been lost. From sixty thousand, they were now at well less than fifty-five, and that number seemed to ebb every day, just a little bit.
Five thousand people.
Of HIS people.
For they couldn't be anything else, not anymore. The old druids, those blind fools, had shut them out of Ashenvale, of Kalimdor itself. Sometimes quite cruelly. Whether they believed in his ideas or not didn't matter. Although not Quel'Norei, many of them had begun to refer themselves as the High Elves, mainly from growing bitterness for the Exile, which had been caused largely by the druids' unbending attitudes.
Although he'd affected an outraged outlook upon learning of the many people who had been wrongfully banished, Remar had danced inwardly. Sixty thousand people. Not just those who followed his lead, but many more. Sixty thousand. A true population. Exactly as he'd hoped. Perfect to begin a new civilization, one dedicated to returning the Elves - and the Highborn - to their rightful place, as they once were!
The boat swerved again, and the deck shook, destabilizing even the nimble elven feet that trod upon it. Remar heard, from his private cabin, the larger rush of water, the screams of those sailing the ship as they tried to bring it into control. He frowned - this was worse than it usually was - and he had to squash a feel of helplessness.
He wasn't used to being helpless. He was used to being in control of everything around him, ever since he had had been but a child. The strength of control was something his parents had given him, and he intended to make good use of it to bring the long dream of the Quel'Norei into a very real event.
He nimbly passed his true followers, who looked about in a sort of haughty surprise, as the ship seemed to lose control. None of them seemed truly frightened. He understood why they felt that way: they had a destiny ahead of them, and there was no way that they might have anything else in store but its achievement. They all nodded to him as he walked past, and then up to the upper deck.
He climbed, only to see to his horror that the situation was even worse then he had thought. Many sails, he saw, had been ripped off, and many elves were running to and fro, fighting to rig and repair, to save and stabilize. Many eyes looked wile with fear and disbelief as water soaked everything and thunder and lightning kept stabbing. One lance of natural energy stabbed into a mast of living wood, and it split in two, spitting fire, smoking as the downpour snuffed it out. Feeling a gout of fright inside of his gut, Remar went to look for the captain.
He found her shouting orders to frightened and frenetic elves. She was an imposing sight, larger and taller than nearly any Night Elf - High Elf - on the Exile Fleet. It took two tries to get her attention, and she looked at him scathingly. "Yes?!?" she shouted, not seeing or perhaps not caring about who he was.
"Captain Kallara!!" he shouted back against the wind. "Can you get us out of this storm?!? The ship..." he looked around "It is taking much water!!"
"I can see that!! And I'd like nothing better! But we're caught in the current, and the wind's so strong our masts are all getting ready to break! We've skimmed to close to the Maelstrom!"
"What about the rest of the fleet?!"
"Too far behind, and even if they weren't, no one in his right mind'll come help us!" she gave him another scathing look "That course change is putting us all in danger, sir!"
There was no way to say anything to that. He and his advisors had ordered the course change. They had been certain that they could brave the Maelstrom, while the rest of the Fleet would skim it farther north. They had been so certain they would succeed, but the way things looked....
He couldn't think like that. He wouldn't. Too much was at stake here. This was what he'd worked for his whole life! He remembered when his father, a purebred Quel'Norei who had been there before the War of the Ancients, had told him that Malfurion and Tyrande were but poor leaders, compared to the one they had once served.
"And who was it?" he'd asked alertly, despite his young age. His father had grinned and tussled his purple hair.
"Azshara." he said with a fond sigh "She created a realm of unequal splendour, where magic was used commonly. It is to recreating that realm that all Quel'Norei aspire. It is to that that your life will be directed to."
He had never forgotten. And although his parents mysteriously disappeared, he had taken his father's prominent place and had started to gather followers. He had tenaciously challenged the druids - even Malfurion himself, and had pushed the most inflexible of them to the very brink of inquisition.
It had been then that he, along with the most gifted magic-users, had created that magical storm. It had hurt little, destroyed little, but had been the push that brought the Druids into full paranoia. He had played them like a harp, and his small group had become a true colonization fleet, even if an unwitting one.
There would be time later. Time for the colonists to be slowly brought toward the ideals of the Quel'Norei, towards the dream that intended to rebuild a magnificent realm of magic in Azshara's name...
"Elune protect us, NO!!" ALL OF YOU BRACE YOURSELVES!"
Remar looked around towards Kallara, surprised at the terror in her voice, only to see that she and everyone else were running and taking hold of the ship for dear life. He wondered what could have happened, and looked around. He saw it immediately, and his soft purple tone turned to white.
A tidal wave was coming. But not any tidal wave. It was a monster utterly dwarfing the immense ship. It came at them, a wall lost into the storm, impossibly high. It was as though a mountain had decided to become water, and had crashed upon the village it cradled. It went beyond reason, beyond possibility.
Impossible to dodge.
Death rolling in liquid form.
In that instant, he started to move to grab something - anything! He knew, however, that he was too late. The leviathan was about to strike. For some insane reason, it rendered him furious more than afraid, and he screamed against it. "NO! THIS ISN'T RIGHT! THIS ISN'T THE PLAN! THIS IS NOT WHAT WE-"
The water hit him, taking him away. It cut off everything, filling his senses, his nose, his mouth. Desperately he fought it, tried to reach the surface, but couldn't even tell where it was. Who knew if the ship hadn't been destroyed by this ungodly strike?
'It can't happen...I won't allow it to happen!' he though as his body began to give up, to asphyxiate. 'Our magical realm...the destiny of the Quel'Norei...must be seen through. I cannot allow myself to fail.'
Less struggle. 'Please...Elune...'
His mind began to shut down, but still he struggle, one last time, allowing him onle moment of clarity, beyond pride and plans. 'Forgive me...my fellow High Elves...'
And with this, Dath Remar finally let himself go to the water.
* * * * * * * * * *
Four Months Later...
The captains of every ship he had visited were all in agreement: the Exile Fleet had skirted the Maelstrom - where the radiant heart of ancient Kalimdor stood, long ago. It had skirted it, paid the price for it, and survived. Every seaman, every person who knew the sea even slightly agreed that the storm they had faced two days before, was the last for a good long while. The waters were calmer, the sun shone, all showed that the Maelstrom no longer gripped them.
They had survived. They were less than forty-nine thousand now, all of them now wounded with friends or loved ones lost, but they had survived.
Dehire, former Druid of the Claw, and now one of the few druids amongst the High Elves, wondered once again if the ones who had decided to send these people into this terrible ordeal had known what they were doing. He hoped not. He hoped his fellow druids - elves he was no longer altogether certain he respected - had done what they did out of rash arrogance, and not out of vengeful, deadly spite.
'Enough, you old fool.' he chided himself 'Stop thinking as if you were still detached from this. You're no longer a Night Elf, no matter what you want. You saw what they endured, you saw the people, you helped them, you felt with them. You are an High Elf now, even if the name rankles.' There was nothing he could answer to the stern voice, especially since it happened to be that it was right.
He swooped from the last ship he had visited to his own, the Remembrance. He saw that many people were roaming above deck, knitting sails, repairing masts, patching holes or simply working to reduce the damage wrought to the ship through the past seasons. The damage was less extensive then it had been, but the sorrowful marks, and the lack of happiness he felt from those who walked the upper deck of the living ship. Told of the horrors the Exiles had faced.
He saw three elves he had come to know well enough on the deck, gesturing to him, and landed in front of them, immediately shifting from his storm crow form to his elven one.
"Enthul-Talentha, my friends." he said, using a speech now used amongst the Exiles, abandoned in Ashenvale. "How are the people here faring?" he didn't ask the question with much optimism. The Remembrance held her name for many reason, but one was stronger than the rest: the most touched survivors, those who had been hurt the more by the Maelstrom's ravages, lived on the ship. They were the sick, the wounded, and those whose grief had driven to the darkest depression, sometimes even to madness.
His three friends were those elves who had suffered as well. Salanil had lost his mate, and always seemed to look to his side, hoping she was still there. He was hopelessly distracted. Gaiena had lost her two sons to one of the thunderstorm. She always looked sombre. Flom, for his part, had been crushed by a mast, and felt pain whenever he moved. There was nothing but sarcasm in him. All three wounded, but coping, helping those who hadn't been able to. He respected them all immensely.
"We lost twelve more this morning." Gaiena said, her voice rough and somewhat angry - she took every death as a personal affront. "Eight of them were from the lung disease they'd contracted, three from wounds so grave even our healers could do nothing. But the worst," he face became sadder, far more sombre "the worst is the man who lost his entire family. We knew he had lost part of his mind, so we tried to watch him..."
"We failed." Flom said, his blue eyes flashing, his voice and body speaking of elegance and of bitterness intermingled, giving the green-haired elf a truly tragic appearance. "We didn't watch him enough, and this morning, he overpowered the wardens and threw himself into the sea, babbling about 'wanting to see them again'. He sank like a stone. He didn't even try to struggle."
"He didn't want to. For a little while, when Calli died, I thought." Salanil shook his head violently, blue bangs flying in the wind "Some tried to go save him, but it was already too late by then." he held his peace a moment, then said "His name, I think, was Eamonus. Perhaps just Eamon. I'm not certain. What I am hoping, however, is that Elune did at least see fit, in Her Wisdom, to reunite him with his loved ones."
Each time Dehire heard of this, he was washed over with deep sorrow. Suicide. To Elves, to any single elf, it was the worst possible way to die, and before the Maelstrom, it wasn't something the people even thought about. But he had seen the thought in so many minds. In those of parents who's child had died. In that of a female having lost her mate, in that of children being left orphan. In so many people, for so many reasons. 'We have never been used to death. We don't know how to deal with it yet.' he concluded. After all, death had been rare in Ashenvale. Some accidents, some people killed by monsters...but rarely such tragedy.
He thought of the Night Elves. Of those druids back in Ashenvale who'd haughtily caused all this, and felt a flash of anger. Blind, ignorant, inflexible old fools! Had the elven heart truly gone that cold? Once again, he felt as if he didn't feel a part of the Night Elf society, as if he never had. This impression was coming over him more and more frequently.
He was changing.
They were all changing. But was it for the better, for the worse, or simply different?
To break his thoughts and the sad gloom, which now held between the four of them, he spoke once more, this time in an irritated voice. "It seems the fleet's right on its way to anarchy. Now one's able to make any decision, except to keep repeating that we should go east, always east."
"Didn't they try to make some kind of council after Dath Remar and his ilk went down the waves?" Salanil asked. There seemed to be a glint to his eye as he said this - he hadn't wept when the Conqueror, the ship on which Dath Remar and most of the Quel'Norei lived, had sunk, with only a few managing to survive. Few had, however. They'd held themselves as better than the rest of the Exiles, and had never fit with the whole group.
Dehire nearly smirked. "Yes, but how can it work. Some Highborn are trying to wrestle control, but these don't have the charisma or the intelligence Remar and his advisors showed at times. Others are just mismatched fellows nearly shoved in their position, with little idea on what to do."
"In short, it's more like a mess than a council."
"An excellent, and perfectly viable way to put it."
"Can't you do something about this?" Gaiena asked, morose. "You always have ideas on how to help the people here. Perhaps you could be of use."
Dehire immediately cut her off with a wave of his slender arm. "No, my friends, no. I am no leader. I have ideas, but I lack the urge or the strength to lead these people. I could advise those who could make order in this chaos, but I can't do it myself. Besides, I am busy preparing my own experiment." He didn't elaborate, but he knew it had to work. Although the effect of the Well had only begun, it would only grow worse in the next few decades.
Unless he managed to create something to maintain what remained.
His friends exchanged looks, until Flom shrugged. "I'd feel better knowing you were there, but I won't push you into that den. You don't want to, its your choice and so fine by me." The others nodded, and he felt a bit better.
He nodded to them, his face probably plainly showing the relief that they hadn't insisted. "I thank you all for your trust. Now, Flom, I have prepared an ointment which might help alleviate the pain some wounded feel. If we could go try it...?"
He didn't need to say it twice. Flom was already moving - and swearing as he moved - towards the ladder grown from the ship, which went below deck. He heard moans from below: moans of pain, of sorrow, of madness. He shivered, but descended below to help these people as best he could.
No. Not these people. His people. The people he was part of. He vowed never to act as if he stood apart from now on.
From then on in, he would be a High Elf. Elune knew, he felt ironic and sad about the prospect, and yet it still fit.
It fit frighteningly well.
* * * * * * * * * *
Nine Months Later...
The walls cracked, people screamed, and he felt his mother hold him tighter against her as she shook with fright. She wanted to protect him, he was certain of that, as well as he intuitively knew that there would be no protection as a hole appeared on the hull, and water began to gush through it. It was too large, and water climbed even more swiftly than it had.
His father spoke quickly, urgently. He was frightened too, but it seemed a desperate idea had crossed his mind. He felt his mother tense, and then hold him tightly against him, whispering words he didn't hear in the cacophony of screams and wooden groans and lightning and thunder. He then felt his father take him, and grip him just as desperately as his mother had a moment before. His heart filled with an icy fright as a thought crossed his very young mind:
They are saying good-bye...
The water. The water was already up to his father's waist, and he approached the hole, the hole where the water was gushing from. Approaching it, it soaked them both, completely. He started to cry hard, sobs broken by the whimpers, water running down his eyes, gripping his father.
And then the arms that held him wrenched him off, and thrust him through the hole. He didn't know how that was possible, how his father had managed, but he had. Water filled him. He choked on it, and knew that if he didn't try to struggle, he would die.
And so he struggled as mightily as he could, his small arms flailing the water, thrusting and thrusting, his lungs choking on water, his mind nearly blanked in terror. Only the wet, murkiness of water was there around him. Still he struggled, because his parents had stayed behind, where the water rose, where there was no escape, and where they would flay about with no room to do anything...
He broke to the surface. His lungs let go, absorbing air in great gulps. Water beat at him, lighting stabbed here and there, and his watery eyes looked into the storm, to see the ship, the ship they'd travelled on, the huge ship, sinking, its great mass filing. He saw people here and there, in the water, and it seemed as if he heard a scream. No, many screams.
The screams of the people drowning.
His mind overwhelmed, he screamed with them...
And woke, hiccupping, being shaken gently by a gentle adult hand. His eyes opened, and he looked upon an elf he thought his mother for a moment. But the face was too soft, the ear not quite long enough, and the hair too deep a blue. He suddenly knew. This wasn't his mother. This was Weil, the elf-girl who'd taken care of him for the last year.
Evorin Eltrass, youngling of barely fourteen winters, looked with teary eyes at his protector, trying to chase the ghost of his parents away, but unable to.
"Were you dreaming of them again, Evo?" she asked gently. At his nod, she stroke his cheek gently. "Poor Evo...I wish I could help you. Will you be okay?"
He was too young to do any sort of bravado. He simply sniffled and hugged the young elf-girl. "I-I-I can still hear them...hear them dying!" he wailed, and only cried harder when she hugged him back. Nearby, other sleepers stirred as his noise woke them.
"Hush..." she said gently, looking around. No one, even if awake, complained. He knew elflings his age had enough pity and indulgence to get away with almost anything these days. Maybe it was even more than that. Maybe it was because so many elflings Evorin's age had died. "Lets go above, Evo. We'll get some fresh air that way, alright?"
"Yes, Weil." he choke back, and took her by the hand, following her, as he'd done so many times before.
He didn't remember how he'd been saved. From what he'd heard, it had been few survivors, floating on a large piece of wood, who had taken him out of the water, half-drowned. The fleet had later themselves rescued them after the storm, and it was on that ship that he had awoken - confused, scared, wanting his parents, demanding them so shrilly and so desperately that it had seemed to actually scare the adults. Maybe they thought he was becoming sick in his head? Well, maybe he had. Maybe he wanted to be sick and end it like this.
But then, he'd come to know Weil, and she began taking care of him. That had stopped enough of the sickness in his head.
Weil had been just over fifty summers, very young for an elf, still more a child than a woman. But she had gently coaxed him into eating, into looking around, into living. Maybe because she had also lost her parents, maybe because she thought he was pitiful. Evorin didn't care. Weil had become his sole link to life.
His sister. Yes, his sister!
The upper deck had few people, which wasn't a surprise for either. The sun had barely begun to send a few rays into the night, and the High Elves, not having much to do on ships, slept a lot. And much later than sunrise usually. They went to look out the sea alone, and Evoring climbed on a short barrel to see better, and looked out at the sea with the mingled impression of fear and hatred as he always did.
The sea. The sea which had taken mommy and daddy, which had made them flay and choke and...
"Evo, you have to start living again." Weil said, her young face serious "Fate struck you a cruel blow, but I think you have to keep on going. And not just that, but you have to go on enjoying life. Or you'll end up like Old Sob, see what I mean?"
He shivered. The elf they called Old Sob had hanged himself, after his son had been killed. He had been a sad but gentle old man, and they'd both liked him. Finding him had driven the ship crazy for a while. No, he didn't want to end up like Old Sob. "But why should I stay alive?" he asked, "What's the reason?"
"Well, from what you told me, your parents wanted you to live, no?" she asked with a sad look in his direction, before looking back towards the sea.
Evorin also looked, his young mind more confused than ever. His father had thrust him outside, knowing that he was dead and wanting his son to live. Everyone to whom he had told this story had told him his father had been brave, but he didn't feel that. If his father had been brave, if he'd wanted to protect him, he'd have stayed with him, wouldn't he? But still, he'd saved him too?
He sniffled, his mind confused, and thus it was in this state of mind that he noted the little black point on the horizon. He thought it was his imagination, so he blinked. Still there. He rubbed his eyes. He hoped he wasn't seeing things. His parents had always told him that his eyes were unnaturally sharp, that he could see farther than anyone. But still, he doubted.
Until the point became slightly more than a point. And then he recognized what it was. He jumped forward, startling Weil, who looked at him worriedly. "What is it? Evo?"
He knew what it was, and the scream, frightening in its intensity, shook the heavens in its shrill strength. "LAND!!!!! LAND!!!!!" he screamed, hopping up and down, knowing that this was it, that the sea would soon recede. That ground would be under his feet. No more nightmares. No more sickness there! No more people drowning!
It wasn't long before other noticed the darker shape that others took up the cry. 'Land! Land!' Shook the ship, as horns blew wildly, as other horns answered it, and as more elves ran forwards to look, many of them screaming in joy, laughing hysterically, or just crying. Small as he was, Evorin knew what it meant enough that his heart nearly burst with a swift ray of joy.
And then, he hugged Weil, sobbing hard, wishing his parents had been there to see it, as the rest of the elves sang and danced and screamed.
"LAND!!!LAND!!!"
The Exile Fleet, it seemed, had found its new home.
* * * * * * * * * *
On the Day of Landing...
Narra Pureglade gently walked the last legs of water separating her from the shore, her eyes looking over the landscape with a face more still devoid of most emotions. Beside her, Levak walked, also absorbed by his own thoughts, but always nearby, always keeping his presence close to hers. It wasn't a patronizing presence, or even a protecting one - for she needed neither of those. But it was a gentle one, and that she appreciated.
"It is different." She said at last. He nodded. Not inclined to talk much unless it was about something very serious, he had spoken even less since their baby - oh Elune, their little child, lost, lost! - had been stillborn. He hadn't spoken, given her the inane assurances that everything would be fine, when she had been nearly out of her mind with grief, for these few precarious days. He had just held her, and it had been enough.
The landscape was indeed different than what she was used to. Instead of the lush, wet temperature of Ashenvale, the air was dry, although comfortable enough. Large trees were everywhere around the beach, but these trees were slightly smaller, and had stiff branches instead of lichen-covered ones. Some large ones, indeed, were sorts she had never imagine - cones of green, made up of green pins instead of proper leaves.
Still, although it lacked the wet splendour of Ashenvale, this drier place had its own venerable charm. Her ears could pick up the songs of birds in the trees, she could see them flying in the air. She felt the passage of animals under the eaves of the woods, under the shadows. She also heard water gurgling gently from a stream no far away. The sun was shining, and a breeze came forth, gentle and full of the smells of life, from the new, primeval, beautiful land.
She saw other elves already on the beach. Some were kissing the ground. Others hugged each other. Some seemed to laugh for no reason. And yet others looked around, coldly, ponderingly. Everyone was getting used to the new place, and many seemed to feel its difference from Ashenvale's jungles quite strongly. It would take time for these to start living again, for they were caught in their pain and grief. Some might never manage to be free of these emotions.
Narra, for herself, still felt the strength of her loss strongly, sometimes so strongly she wept. But she didn't intend to let grief take her life away. She wasn't - wouldn't let herself be - like that.
No, she would live. The High Elves - she no longer could bear to associate them with the Night Elves who'd cast them out so cruelly, so spitefully; not since her loss - had managed to survive. Ragged, wounded, diminished in number, but they had survived. She knew she had to do something to help them continue on that path.
She would gather those males and females who remembered how to fight, or had fought, and see if she might help alleviate the lack of leadership the people needed. She'd throw herself into protecting, as she had protected as a Huntress under Tyrande Whisperwind.
"We will do it, my love?" she felt him look at her "Somehow, someway, we'll live on here, because the Druids cast us out, cast us out of hatred. Because we didn't agree, sometimes just because we were a little different." her voice broke a bit, but she continued, "An there will be children here. Our children, and they won't be persecuted by some old, inflexible, cruel-"
She didn't know what she was saying, only felt the slender arms of her husband around her more athletic shape. She heard him answer, his gentle voice also betraying his own, inward grief. "Yes, we shall. I'll see our people succeed with you, my Sarallai." he told her. It was then that she realized she had never called him such for all those months. She had been affectionate, but the word 'Sarallai' had never once crossed her lips. She understood the terrified looks he sometimes gave her quickly, the guilt his face sometimes showed.
She hugged him as tightly as she could, angry with herself. 'No, no, don't think that, Levak. You've never lost my heart. It was always, and will always be yours. You are also my Sarrallai. You will be until I draw my last breath.' She couldn't tell him that, not with all those elves now running, more ever coming from the ships. But tonight, when they would be alone, she would ask him to forgive her. He would protest she had nothing to be forgiven for, but she wouldn't let him put excuses for herself. Not now. Not ever again.
They stayed there for many moments, until they let go, their pride making them embarrassed, fidgeting - neither were very public in their affections usually. But she took and gripped his hand, Huntress pride be cursed, and he held on to it, philosopher's pride be damned. For the first time in twenty months, the grief in her soul seemed to recede ever so slightly.
"A new home. In this land." she said. "A realm for the exiled High Elves."
"Quel'Thalas." he said gently. She gave him a look, and he actually smiled. "'High Realm' in the old tongue. Fitting, in more than one way."
Quel'Thalas...yes, she found that the name, although resembling that of Quel'Norei, fit the land well. Yes, as they were the High Elves, they would found a High Realm. It wouldn't be easy, she felt it well. But it would be worthwhile. Somehow, she could see it. It would be apart, very different from Ashenvale. And it would be home.
And it was then, at that very moment, that Narra Pureglade began to work to better the future of her people.
* * * * * * * * * *
At the same moment...
Evorin looked around, and wondered what his parents would have thought of this place, if they'd seen it.
His mother would have found it too dry, and would have complained of that to his father, although her eyes probably would have been excited to be on dry land. His father probably would have replied in gentle sarcasm, and they would have sat down on the beach like so many did, looking at the sun or looking at him while he played with the water.
But that image would never happen. He knew that. They would never sit down and enjoy the sun ever again, and he had secretly vowed to himself that, no matter the reason, he would never be near the sea ever again. It had spared him, in its indifference, and he never wanted to see it, or feel it underneath him. He would stay on dry land for the rest of his days.
It was a solemn oath. One he would never break no matter how many centuries or more he might live.
"Stop looking so serious, Evo!" Weil said, and he looked at her. She was grinning on the shore, and looked towards the sea, looking at the ships of the Exile Fleet, and at the people quickly leaving for the same, sandy beach, bordered by threes and the chatter of gulls and other birds. "It's a new day. And this time, the storm won't be there to hurt us."
He looked at her, Weil. His only family now, and nodded, unwittingly more serious than an elfling should be. "I hope so." he said.
And he stayed there, looking around, taking in the scent of life, making it part of himself.
* * * * * * * * * *
At the same moment...
Sweeping in his bird form, looking down at the glorious trees, Dehire felt elation as he flew away from the Exile Fleet. It was a bittersweet feeling, he realized: the nightmare was over, and the people would be able to start rebuilding their lives, starting today. However, there were many people who had died in the crossing, wounding those who had survived deeply as a group.
'Would you feel happy we survived, Malfurion?' he asked. To be fair, he knew the old Archdruid would be very happy to know this indeed. But he had reservations about some of the Druids who had done this horrible inquisition.
He spied movement under the trees. It was only an instant, but his eyes had seen a form. He'd seen little about it, except that it was tall, green-skinned, and merged with the forest well. Some sort of Troll? Perhaps. This new land, it seemed, would have its lot of dangers for the forced colonists.
He would have to go back soon. The transport of the medicinal herbs might need his supervision, and he would hate to see those be lost. It would be hard enough with them. To build a new civilization.
It would be a civilization having little to do with Ashenvale. It would be something else, neither worse nor better, but different. Here, however, the High Elves would live their lives as they saw fit.
Satisfied, feeling more hopeful than he'd had in far too long, Dehire the former Druid swept around and returned to his people.
____________________________________
Part One: Narra
Chapter One
Twenty Months before Landing
Levak had been a philosopher all of his life. Even when he had been a child, so long ago, he had looked into the deeper meaning of things, into the aspects most elves found meaningless. Why did a person act this way? What would be the best way to do this, to do that? Why shouldn't magic be used?
Why shouldn't magic be used?
That simple question, and the curiosity behind it, had been his doom. He had been unwitting; he had been so certain that it would only be seen as a neutral demand for explanations and knowledge. Instead, the druids who had begun turning up those 'against' the established laws had labelled him a traitor, a man in connivance with the Quel'Norei. His defence had failed against these accusations, and he had been cast adrift. From his home, from his land.
And now all of his knowledge, all of his complicated theories failed him once more as Narra uttered yet one more scream of pain, there, deep within the decks of the immense ship they were travelling in.
"Hold on, girl." one of the ship's midwives told her, but from the expression on her face, it wasn't going well. He had heard her tell another that the baby was 'placed wrong' and that there were 'chances'. He hadn't caught the rest, but that had been sufficient to cause him terror such that the thunderstorms they had begun to brave so frequently seemed nothing but spring drizzles.
He had met Narra Pureglade by chance, as he had looked upon a contest of archery. He had found her both skilled and beautiful, and had made a point to tell her. She had replied boldly to that, and later to his tentative overtures, until he felt she was the one who was shaping their whole relationship. Which she probably did. He had soon found out that as much as she loved him, as much as she respected his intellect and ideas, she sometimes decided things alone. And when decided, nothing and no one could move her into change.
The only time he had tried to move the mountain she could sometimes become, was when the edict had passed that he should be exiled. He had pleaded with her, had contested her, and finally had angrily shouted at her. All of it had been for naught, as she ignored, riposted, or simply out shouted him.
Finally, when all had been said, she had simply said. "You're my mate, Levak. And if our feelings were faked, I might consider what you're saying. But we aren't faking. You are my sarralai, and I am yours. I will not send you adrift. I will not leave you. I could never live with it."
"But what about the child?" he had said as his last resort " The voyage might be long. He or she might die."
"And he or she might die here. And here, the child would never be able to know his or her father. I couldn't live with that. Could you?"
And he, in what he now saw as great selfishness, had let go, had accepted that she would come, whatever he might say. In fact, he had been infinitely glad to have her with him. And now, his folly might cost her her life!
She screamed again, and as if answering, he heard the thunder reply. 'Another thunderstorm.' he noted, utterly disinterested by the matter. A part of his mind wanted to run away. To let go of Narra's hand and leave this place, so that he wouldn't see the following events unfold. But he didn't. Running would make him a coward in everyone's mind, and most of all his own. And he loved her too much to think it seriously. He held her hand as she contorted a bit, her eyes half-closed, and glazed by a medicine the midwife had given her.
"Levak?" she slurred vaguely, before another frightful contraction took hold. It was coming, it seemed. The baby was coming.
"I'm here. I'm always here." he said, and he felt her hand grasp his in a deathlike vice, which nearly crushed his bones. He endured it. He knew whatever he felt was nothing compared to her pain.
It took an hour for the baby to be born. When it did, all covered in his mother's blood, she lost consciousness. He kissed her brow shakily and disengaged his hand, flexing it a second, before moving to the midwife and the people gathered around.
At once, he saw from their looks that something had gone wrong. They were looking both sad and horrified, and the sadness only increased as he approached. He almost didn't ask them what was wrong, afraid of the answer.
"H...how is the child?" he asked quietly. He knew already. It wasn't crying. But he had to hear it.
"Levak...I am so sorry." the midwife said, still holding the bundle "It was dead before it even came out. There was nothing anyone could have done."
He was a cultured man. He was a man who had investigated such things. He had known it had been something similar. But it still hurt. Oh, Elune! It hurt! Something blurred his vision, and it took him a moment to realize that it happened to be his tears. Narra's child...his child...dead...
"How...what sex...what sex was it?" he coughed out.
"...a boy."
"A boy." he said quietly, and then nodded vaguely "Thank you for all you did." And thereafter he went to sit by Narra, cutting off whatever happened elsewhere, only gently rubbing her left hand and forearm in wait. His grief threatened to burst too often. Sometimes it did, he choked out a few sobs, but otherwise he just waited for her to awaken, pleaded for her to awaken.
She awoke eventually, stirring as if from a bad dream - or rather a nightmare. The midwife had come and managed to stop the bleeding - something he barely registered in his mind. She moaned for a few seconds, then her eyes fluttered open, her eyes red and bleary, full of weariness. Somehow, despite all this, she instantly recognized him.
"Levak, my sarrallai..." she whispered, and he wondered if she would still call him that after he would tell her the sad happenings that had just occurred. Would she choose him as a target for her grief? If she did, he would accept it, though it would kill him. The fault was partially his, however, and that would always stay with him.
"Narra, my love." he said, unable to bring himself to say the ultimate word of intimacy. "I'm so happy to see you awake." he said at last, which was true.
Her eyes began to focus more. "I am glad to be awake as well." then her eyes lighted a bit. "The child! Our child! Have you seen him? Have you seen how our baby looks like?" she asked that so urgently, so happily, that he was taken aback, then made mute. How could he say it now? HOW?!?
"I...saw him...I...h-he..." his eyes filled with tears. Curse his weakness! That wasn't how he was supposed to tell her! Yet the words came out, the only way they could, saying the only truth they could. "Forgive me...h-h-he was...s-s-s-stillborn. Our child...died in childbirth." He finally wept.
The effect it had on her wasn't quite noticeable at first. Just a widening of her eyes. Then she began to look over the place she was at, unseeing the other elves, unfeeling of the ship, which began to sway, of the mighty thunderclaps. She just stared into the void. And then seemed to begin to hiccup. He took hold of her then, his own grief be damned, his own guilt be damned, and held her as hard as he could.
It was then that a sob, full of grief and despair, tore through her, followed by another, and another, until the mighty huntress of Elune began to bawl, her dignity forgotten. His own grief, and his tears, flowed with hers, and he kept holding her, feeling her clutch him, then hug him so tightly his breath was nearly cut off. He didn't matter - nothing matter except sharing and easing her pain.
Around them, elves were shouting, many running above deck. The ship was now swaying strongly and quickly, and the thunder was ever present. It looked like the thunderstorm was upon them at last.
But the two lovers who held each other never knew any of it, shut off from the world, enveloped by their grief.
* * * * * * * * * *
Seven Months Later...
The boat swerved from side to side, and water splashed the deck once more. Dath Remar saw thunder cracking beyond the power of any magic to control, and wondered why the sea seemed so frantic to try and devour them all. Already, three of the immense boats had been lost, and not trace had ever been found of them. And this was without counting the damage to the others, and of the people who'd been lost. From sixty thousand, they were now at well less than fifty-five, and that number seemed to ebb every day, just a little bit.
Five thousand people.
Of HIS people.
For they couldn't be anything else, not anymore. The old druids, those blind fools, had shut them out of Ashenvale, of Kalimdor itself. Sometimes quite cruelly. Whether they believed in his ideas or not didn't matter. Although not Quel'Norei, many of them had begun to refer themselves as the High Elves, mainly from growing bitterness for the Exile, which had been caused largely by the druids' unbending attitudes.
Although he'd affected an outraged outlook upon learning of the many people who had been wrongfully banished, Remar had danced inwardly. Sixty thousand people. Not just those who followed his lead, but many more. Sixty thousand. A true population. Exactly as he'd hoped. Perfect to begin a new civilization, one dedicated to returning the Elves - and the Highborn - to their rightful place, as they once were!
The boat swerved again, and the deck shook, destabilizing even the nimble elven feet that trod upon it. Remar heard, from his private cabin, the larger rush of water, the screams of those sailing the ship as they tried to bring it into control. He frowned - this was worse than it usually was - and he had to squash a feel of helplessness.
He wasn't used to being helpless. He was used to being in control of everything around him, ever since he had had been but a child. The strength of control was something his parents had given him, and he intended to make good use of it to bring the long dream of the Quel'Norei into a very real event.
He nimbly passed his true followers, who looked about in a sort of haughty surprise, as the ship seemed to lose control. None of them seemed truly frightened. He understood why they felt that way: they had a destiny ahead of them, and there was no way that they might have anything else in store but its achievement. They all nodded to him as he walked past, and then up to the upper deck.
He climbed, only to see to his horror that the situation was even worse then he had thought. Many sails, he saw, had been ripped off, and many elves were running to and fro, fighting to rig and repair, to save and stabilize. Many eyes looked wile with fear and disbelief as water soaked everything and thunder and lightning kept stabbing. One lance of natural energy stabbed into a mast of living wood, and it split in two, spitting fire, smoking as the downpour snuffed it out. Feeling a gout of fright inside of his gut, Remar went to look for the captain.
He found her shouting orders to frightened and frenetic elves. She was an imposing sight, larger and taller than nearly any Night Elf - High Elf - on the Exile Fleet. It took two tries to get her attention, and she looked at him scathingly. "Yes?!?" she shouted, not seeing or perhaps not caring about who he was.
"Captain Kallara!!" he shouted back against the wind. "Can you get us out of this storm?!? The ship..." he looked around "It is taking much water!!"
"I can see that!! And I'd like nothing better! But we're caught in the current, and the wind's so strong our masts are all getting ready to break! We've skimmed to close to the Maelstrom!"
"What about the rest of the fleet?!"
"Too far behind, and even if they weren't, no one in his right mind'll come help us!" she gave him another scathing look "That course change is putting us all in danger, sir!"
There was no way to say anything to that. He and his advisors had ordered the course change. They had been certain that they could brave the Maelstrom, while the rest of the Fleet would skim it farther north. They had been so certain they would succeed, but the way things looked....
He couldn't think like that. He wouldn't. Too much was at stake here. This was what he'd worked for his whole life! He remembered when his father, a purebred Quel'Norei who had been there before the War of the Ancients, had told him that Malfurion and Tyrande were but poor leaders, compared to the one they had once served.
"And who was it?" he'd asked alertly, despite his young age. His father had grinned and tussled his purple hair.
"Azshara." he said with a fond sigh "She created a realm of unequal splendour, where magic was used commonly. It is to recreating that realm that all Quel'Norei aspire. It is to that that your life will be directed to."
He had never forgotten. And although his parents mysteriously disappeared, he had taken his father's prominent place and had started to gather followers. He had tenaciously challenged the druids - even Malfurion himself, and had pushed the most inflexible of them to the very brink of inquisition.
It had been then that he, along with the most gifted magic-users, had created that magical storm. It had hurt little, destroyed little, but had been the push that brought the Druids into full paranoia. He had played them like a harp, and his small group had become a true colonization fleet, even if an unwitting one.
There would be time later. Time for the colonists to be slowly brought toward the ideals of the Quel'Norei, towards the dream that intended to rebuild a magnificent realm of magic in Azshara's name...
"Elune protect us, NO!!" ALL OF YOU BRACE YOURSELVES!"
Remar looked around towards Kallara, surprised at the terror in her voice, only to see that she and everyone else were running and taking hold of the ship for dear life. He wondered what could have happened, and looked around. He saw it immediately, and his soft purple tone turned to white.
A tidal wave was coming. But not any tidal wave. It was a monster utterly dwarfing the immense ship. It came at them, a wall lost into the storm, impossibly high. It was as though a mountain had decided to become water, and had crashed upon the village it cradled. It went beyond reason, beyond possibility.
Impossible to dodge.
Death rolling in liquid form.
In that instant, he started to move to grab something - anything! He knew, however, that he was too late. The leviathan was about to strike. For some insane reason, it rendered him furious more than afraid, and he screamed against it. "NO! THIS ISN'T RIGHT! THIS ISN'T THE PLAN! THIS IS NOT WHAT WE-"
The water hit him, taking him away. It cut off everything, filling his senses, his nose, his mouth. Desperately he fought it, tried to reach the surface, but couldn't even tell where it was. Who knew if the ship hadn't been destroyed by this ungodly strike?
'It can't happen...I won't allow it to happen!' he though as his body began to give up, to asphyxiate. 'Our magical realm...the destiny of the Quel'Norei...must be seen through. I cannot allow myself to fail.'
Less struggle. 'Please...Elune...'
His mind began to shut down, but still he struggle, one last time, allowing him onle moment of clarity, beyond pride and plans. 'Forgive me...my fellow High Elves...'
And with this, Dath Remar finally let himself go to the water.
* * * * * * * * * *
Four Months Later...
The captains of every ship he had visited were all in agreement: the Exile Fleet had skirted the Maelstrom - where the radiant heart of ancient Kalimdor stood, long ago. It had skirted it, paid the price for it, and survived. Every seaman, every person who knew the sea even slightly agreed that the storm they had faced two days before, was the last for a good long while. The waters were calmer, the sun shone, all showed that the Maelstrom no longer gripped them.
They had survived. They were less than forty-nine thousand now, all of them now wounded with friends or loved ones lost, but they had survived.
Dehire, former Druid of the Claw, and now one of the few druids amongst the High Elves, wondered once again if the ones who had decided to send these people into this terrible ordeal had known what they were doing. He hoped not. He hoped his fellow druids - elves he was no longer altogether certain he respected - had done what they did out of rash arrogance, and not out of vengeful, deadly spite.
'Enough, you old fool.' he chided himself 'Stop thinking as if you were still detached from this. You're no longer a Night Elf, no matter what you want. You saw what they endured, you saw the people, you helped them, you felt with them. You are an High Elf now, even if the name rankles.' There was nothing he could answer to the stern voice, especially since it happened to be that it was right.
He swooped from the last ship he had visited to his own, the Remembrance. He saw that many people were roaming above deck, knitting sails, repairing masts, patching holes or simply working to reduce the damage wrought to the ship through the past seasons. The damage was less extensive then it had been, but the sorrowful marks, and the lack of happiness he felt from those who walked the upper deck of the living ship. Told of the horrors the Exiles had faced.
He saw three elves he had come to know well enough on the deck, gesturing to him, and landed in front of them, immediately shifting from his storm crow form to his elven one.
"Enthul-Talentha, my friends." he said, using a speech now used amongst the Exiles, abandoned in Ashenvale. "How are the people here faring?" he didn't ask the question with much optimism. The Remembrance held her name for many reason, but one was stronger than the rest: the most touched survivors, those who had been hurt the more by the Maelstrom's ravages, lived on the ship. They were the sick, the wounded, and those whose grief had driven to the darkest depression, sometimes even to madness.
His three friends were those elves who had suffered as well. Salanil had lost his mate, and always seemed to look to his side, hoping she was still there. He was hopelessly distracted. Gaiena had lost her two sons to one of the thunderstorm. She always looked sombre. Flom, for his part, had been crushed by a mast, and felt pain whenever he moved. There was nothing but sarcasm in him. All three wounded, but coping, helping those who hadn't been able to. He respected them all immensely.
"We lost twelve more this morning." Gaiena said, her voice rough and somewhat angry - she took every death as a personal affront. "Eight of them were from the lung disease they'd contracted, three from wounds so grave even our healers could do nothing. But the worst," he face became sadder, far more sombre "the worst is the man who lost his entire family. We knew he had lost part of his mind, so we tried to watch him..."
"We failed." Flom said, his blue eyes flashing, his voice and body speaking of elegance and of bitterness intermingled, giving the green-haired elf a truly tragic appearance. "We didn't watch him enough, and this morning, he overpowered the wardens and threw himself into the sea, babbling about 'wanting to see them again'. He sank like a stone. He didn't even try to struggle."
"He didn't want to. For a little while, when Calli died, I thought." Salanil shook his head violently, blue bangs flying in the wind "Some tried to go save him, but it was already too late by then." he held his peace a moment, then said "His name, I think, was Eamonus. Perhaps just Eamon. I'm not certain. What I am hoping, however, is that Elune did at least see fit, in Her Wisdom, to reunite him with his loved ones."
Each time Dehire heard of this, he was washed over with deep sorrow. Suicide. To Elves, to any single elf, it was the worst possible way to die, and before the Maelstrom, it wasn't something the people even thought about. But he had seen the thought in so many minds. In those of parents who's child had died. In that of a female having lost her mate, in that of children being left orphan. In so many people, for so many reasons. 'We have never been used to death. We don't know how to deal with it yet.' he concluded. After all, death had been rare in Ashenvale. Some accidents, some people killed by monsters...but rarely such tragedy.
He thought of the Night Elves. Of those druids back in Ashenvale who'd haughtily caused all this, and felt a flash of anger. Blind, ignorant, inflexible old fools! Had the elven heart truly gone that cold? Once again, he felt as if he didn't feel a part of the Night Elf society, as if he never had. This impression was coming over him more and more frequently.
He was changing.
They were all changing. But was it for the better, for the worse, or simply different?
To break his thoughts and the sad gloom, which now held between the four of them, he spoke once more, this time in an irritated voice. "It seems the fleet's right on its way to anarchy. Now one's able to make any decision, except to keep repeating that we should go east, always east."
"Didn't they try to make some kind of council after Dath Remar and his ilk went down the waves?" Salanil asked. There seemed to be a glint to his eye as he said this - he hadn't wept when the Conqueror, the ship on which Dath Remar and most of the Quel'Norei lived, had sunk, with only a few managing to survive. Few had, however. They'd held themselves as better than the rest of the Exiles, and had never fit with the whole group.
Dehire nearly smirked. "Yes, but how can it work. Some Highborn are trying to wrestle control, but these don't have the charisma or the intelligence Remar and his advisors showed at times. Others are just mismatched fellows nearly shoved in their position, with little idea on what to do."
"In short, it's more like a mess than a council."
"An excellent, and perfectly viable way to put it."
"Can't you do something about this?" Gaiena asked, morose. "You always have ideas on how to help the people here. Perhaps you could be of use."
Dehire immediately cut her off with a wave of his slender arm. "No, my friends, no. I am no leader. I have ideas, but I lack the urge or the strength to lead these people. I could advise those who could make order in this chaos, but I can't do it myself. Besides, I am busy preparing my own experiment." He didn't elaborate, but he knew it had to work. Although the effect of the Well had only begun, it would only grow worse in the next few decades.
Unless he managed to create something to maintain what remained.
His friends exchanged looks, until Flom shrugged. "I'd feel better knowing you were there, but I won't push you into that den. You don't want to, its your choice and so fine by me." The others nodded, and he felt a bit better.
He nodded to them, his face probably plainly showing the relief that they hadn't insisted. "I thank you all for your trust. Now, Flom, I have prepared an ointment which might help alleviate the pain some wounded feel. If we could go try it...?"
He didn't need to say it twice. Flom was already moving - and swearing as he moved - towards the ladder grown from the ship, which went below deck. He heard moans from below: moans of pain, of sorrow, of madness. He shivered, but descended below to help these people as best he could.
No. Not these people. His people. The people he was part of. He vowed never to act as if he stood apart from now on.
From then on in, he would be a High Elf. Elune knew, he felt ironic and sad about the prospect, and yet it still fit.
It fit frighteningly well.
* * * * * * * * * *
Nine Months Later...
The walls cracked, people screamed, and he felt his mother hold him tighter against her as she shook with fright. She wanted to protect him, he was certain of that, as well as he intuitively knew that there would be no protection as a hole appeared on the hull, and water began to gush through it. It was too large, and water climbed even more swiftly than it had.
His father spoke quickly, urgently. He was frightened too, but it seemed a desperate idea had crossed his mind. He felt his mother tense, and then hold him tightly against him, whispering words he didn't hear in the cacophony of screams and wooden groans and lightning and thunder. He then felt his father take him, and grip him just as desperately as his mother had a moment before. His heart filled with an icy fright as a thought crossed his very young mind:
They are saying good-bye...
The water. The water was already up to his father's waist, and he approached the hole, the hole where the water was gushing from. Approaching it, it soaked them both, completely. He started to cry hard, sobs broken by the whimpers, water running down his eyes, gripping his father.
And then the arms that held him wrenched him off, and thrust him through the hole. He didn't know how that was possible, how his father had managed, but he had. Water filled him. He choked on it, and knew that if he didn't try to struggle, he would die.
And so he struggled as mightily as he could, his small arms flailing the water, thrusting and thrusting, his lungs choking on water, his mind nearly blanked in terror. Only the wet, murkiness of water was there around him. Still he struggled, because his parents had stayed behind, where the water rose, where there was no escape, and where they would flay about with no room to do anything...
He broke to the surface. His lungs let go, absorbing air in great gulps. Water beat at him, lighting stabbed here and there, and his watery eyes looked into the storm, to see the ship, the ship they'd travelled on, the huge ship, sinking, its great mass filing. He saw people here and there, in the water, and it seemed as if he heard a scream. No, many screams.
The screams of the people drowning.
His mind overwhelmed, he screamed with them...
And woke, hiccupping, being shaken gently by a gentle adult hand. His eyes opened, and he looked upon an elf he thought his mother for a moment. But the face was too soft, the ear not quite long enough, and the hair too deep a blue. He suddenly knew. This wasn't his mother. This was Weil, the elf-girl who'd taken care of him for the last year.
Evorin Eltrass, youngling of barely fourteen winters, looked with teary eyes at his protector, trying to chase the ghost of his parents away, but unable to.
"Were you dreaming of them again, Evo?" she asked gently. At his nod, she stroke his cheek gently. "Poor Evo...I wish I could help you. Will you be okay?"
He was too young to do any sort of bravado. He simply sniffled and hugged the young elf-girl. "I-I-I can still hear them...hear them dying!" he wailed, and only cried harder when she hugged him back. Nearby, other sleepers stirred as his noise woke them.
"Hush..." she said gently, looking around. No one, even if awake, complained. He knew elflings his age had enough pity and indulgence to get away with almost anything these days. Maybe it was even more than that. Maybe it was because so many elflings Evorin's age had died. "Lets go above, Evo. We'll get some fresh air that way, alright?"
"Yes, Weil." he choke back, and took her by the hand, following her, as he'd done so many times before.
He didn't remember how he'd been saved. From what he'd heard, it had been few survivors, floating on a large piece of wood, who had taken him out of the water, half-drowned. The fleet had later themselves rescued them after the storm, and it was on that ship that he had awoken - confused, scared, wanting his parents, demanding them so shrilly and so desperately that it had seemed to actually scare the adults. Maybe they thought he was becoming sick in his head? Well, maybe he had. Maybe he wanted to be sick and end it like this.
But then, he'd come to know Weil, and she began taking care of him. That had stopped enough of the sickness in his head.
Weil had been just over fifty summers, very young for an elf, still more a child than a woman. But she had gently coaxed him into eating, into looking around, into living. Maybe because she had also lost her parents, maybe because she thought he was pitiful. Evorin didn't care. Weil had become his sole link to life.
His sister. Yes, his sister!
The upper deck had few people, which wasn't a surprise for either. The sun had barely begun to send a few rays into the night, and the High Elves, not having much to do on ships, slept a lot. And much later than sunrise usually. They went to look out the sea alone, and Evoring climbed on a short barrel to see better, and looked out at the sea with the mingled impression of fear and hatred as he always did.
The sea. The sea which had taken mommy and daddy, which had made them flay and choke and...
"Evo, you have to start living again." Weil said, her young face serious "Fate struck you a cruel blow, but I think you have to keep on going. And not just that, but you have to go on enjoying life. Or you'll end up like Old Sob, see what I mean?"
He shivered. The elf they called Old Sob had hanged himself, after his son had been killed. He had been a sad but gentle old man, and they'd both liked him. Finding him had driven the ship crazy for a while. No, he didn't want to end up like Old Sob. "But why should I stay alive?" he asked, "What's the reason?"
"Well, from what you told me, your parents wanted you to live, no?" she asked with a sad look in his direction, before looking back towards the sea.
Evorin also looked, his young mind more confused than ever. His father had thrust him outside, knowing that he was dead and wanting his son to live. Everyone to whom he had told this story had told him his father had been brave, but he didn't feel that. If his father had been brave, if he'd wanted to protect him, he'd have stayed with him, wouldn't he? But still, he'd saved him too?
He sniffled, his mind confused, and thus it was in this state of mind that he noted the little black point on the horizon. He thought it was his imagination, so he blinked. Still there. He rubbed his eyes. He hoped he wasn't seeing things. His parents had always told him that his eyes were unnaturally sharp, that he could see farther than anyone. But still, he doubted.
Until the point became slightly more than a point. And then he recognized what it was. He jumped forward, startling Weil, who looked at him worriedly. "What is it? Evo?"
He knew what it was, and the scream, frightening in its intensity, shook the heavens in its shrill strength. "LAND!!!!! LAND!!!!!" he screamed, hopping up and down, knowing that this was it, that the sea would soon recede. That ground would be under his feet. No more nightmares. No more sickness there! No more people drowning!
It wasn't long before other noticed the darker shape that others took up the cry. 'Land! Land!' Shook the ship, as horns blew wildly, as other horns answered it, and as more elves ran forwards to look, many of them screaming in joy, laughing hysterically, or just crying. Small as he was, Evorin knew what it meant enough that his heart nearly burst with a swift ray of joy.
And then, he hugged Weil, sobbing hard, wishing his parents had been there to see it, as the rest of the elves sang and danced and screamed.
"LAND!!!LAND!!!"
The Exile Fleet, it seemed, had found its new home.
* * * * * * * * * *
On the Day of Landing...
Narra Pureglade gently walked the last legs of water separating her from the shore, her eyes looking over the landscape with a face more still devoid of most emotions. Beside her, Levak walked, also absorbed by his own thoughts, but always nearby, always keeping his presence close to hers. It wasn't a patronizing presence, or even a protecting one - for she needed neither of those. But it was a gentle one, and that she appreciated.
"It is different." She said at last. He nodded. Not inclined to talk much unless it was about something very serious, he had spoken even less since their baby - oh Elune, their little child, lost, lost! - had been stillborn. He hadn't spoken, given her the inane assurances that everything would be fine, when she had been nearly out of her mind with grief, for these few precarious days. He had just held her, and it had been enough.
The landscape was indeed different than what she was used to. Instead of the lush, wet temperature of Ashenvale, the air was dry, although comfortable enough. Large trees were everywhere around the beach, but these trees were slightly smaller, and had stiff branches instead of lichen-covered ones. Some large ones, indeed, were sorts she had never imagine - cones of green, made up of green pins instead of proper leaves.
Still, although it lacked the wet splendour of Ashenvale, this drier place had its own venerable charm. Her ears could pick up the songs of birds in the trees, she could see them flying in the air. She felt the passage of animals under the eaves of the woods, under the shadows. She also heard water gurgling gently from a stream no far away. The sun was shining, and a breeze came forth, gentle and full of the smells of life, from the new, primeval, beautiful land.
She saw other elves already on the beach. Some were kissing the ground. Others hugged each other. Some seemed to laugh for no reason. And yet others looked around, coldly, ponderingly. Everyone was getting used to the new place, and many seemed to feel its difference from Ashenvale's jungles quite strongly. It would take time for these to start living again, for they were caught in their pain and grief. Some might never manage to be free of these emotions.
Narra, for herself, still felt the strength of her loss strongly, sometimes so strongly she wept. But she didn't intend to let grief take her life away. She wasn't - wouldn't let herself be - like that.
No, she would live. The High Elves - she no longer could bear to associate them with the Night Elves who'd cast them out so cruelly, so spitefully; not since her loss - had managed to survive. Ragged, wounded, diminished in number, but they had survived. She knew she had to do something to help them continue on that path.
She would gather those males and females who remembered how to fight, or had fought, and see if she might help alleviate the lack of leadership the people needed. She'd throw herself into protecting, as she had protected as a Huntress under Tyrande Whisperwind.
"We will do it, my love?" she felt him look at her "Somehow, someway, we'll live on here, because the Druids cast us out, cast us out of hatred. Because we didn't agree, sometimes just because we were a little different." her voice broke a bit, but she continued, "An there will be children here. Our children, and they won't be persecuted by some old, inflexible, cruel-"
She didn't know what she was saying, only felt the slender arms of her husband around her more athletic shape. She heard him answer, his gentle voice also betraying his own, inward grief. "Yes, we shall. I'll see our people succeed with you, my Sarallai." he told her. It was then that she realized she had never called him such for all those months. She had been affectionate, but the word 'Sarallai' had never once crossed her lips. She understood the terrified looks he sometimes gave her quickly, the guilt his face sometimes showed.
She hugged him as tightly as she could, angry with herself. 'No, no, don't think that, Levak. You've never lost my heart. It was always, and will always be yours. You are also my Sarrallai. You will be until I draw my last breath.' She couldn't tell him that, not with all those elves now running, more ever coming from the ships. But tonight, when they would be alone, she would ask him to forgive her. He would protest she had nothing to be forgiven for, but she wouldn't let him put excuses for herself. Not now. Not ever again.
They stayed there for many moments, until they let go, their pride making them embarrassed, fidgeting - neither were very public in their affections usually. But she took and gripped his hand, Huntress pride be cursed, and he held on to it, philosopher's pride be damned. For the first time in twenty months, the grief in her soul seemed to recede ever so slightly.
"A new home. In this land." she said. "A realm for the exiled High Elves."
"Quel'Thalas." he said gently. She gave him a look, and he actually smiled. "'High Realm' in the old tongue. Fitting, in more than one way."
Quel'Thalas...yes, she found that the name, although resembling that of Quel'Norei, fit the land well. Yes, as they were the High Elves, they would found a High Realm. It wouldn't be easy, she felt it well. But it would be worthwhile. Somehow, she could see it. It would be apart, very different from Ashenvale. And it would be home.
And it was then, at that very moment, that Narra Pureglade began to work to better the future of her people.
* * * * * * * * * *
At the same moment...
Evorin looked around, and wondered what his parents would have thought of this place, if they'd seen it.
His mother would have found it too dry, and would have complained of that to his father, although her eyes probably would have been excited to be on dry land. His father probably would have replied in gentle sarcasm, and they would have sat down on the beach like so many did, looking at the sun or looking at him while he played with the water.
But that image would never happen. He knew that. They would never sit down and enjoy the sun ever again, and he had secretly vowed to himself that, no matter the reason, he would never be near the sea ever again. It had spared him, in its indifference, and he never wanted to see it, or feel it underneath him. He would stay on dry land for the rest of his days.
It was a solemn oath. One he would never break no matter how many centuries or more he might live.
"Stop looking so serious, Evo!" Weil said, and he looked at her. She was grinning on the shore, and looked towards the sea, looking at the ships of the Exile Fleet, and at the people quickly leaving for the same, sandy beach, bordered by threes and the chatter of gulls and other birds. "It's a new day. And this time, the storm won't be there to hurt us."
He looked at her, Weil. His only family now, and nodded, unwittingly more serious than an elfling should be. "I hope so." he said.
And he stayed there, looking around, taking in the scent of life, making it part of himself.
* * * * * * * * * *
At the same moment...
Sweeping in his bird form, looking down at the glorious trees, Dehire felt elation as he flew away from the Exile Fleet. It was a bittersweet feeling, he realized: the nightmare was over, and the people would be able to start rebuilding their lives, starting today. However, there were many people who had died in the crossing, wounding those who had survived deeply as a group.
'Would you feel happy we survived, Malfurion?' he asked. To be fair, he knew the old Archdruid would be very happy to know this indeed. But he had reservations about some of the Druids who had done this horrible inquisition.
He spied movement under the trees. It was only an instant, but his eyes had seen a form. He'd seen little about it, except that it was tall, green-skinned, and merged with the forest well. Some sort of Troll? Perhaps. This new land, it seemed, would have its lot of dangers for the forced colonists.
He would have to go back soon. The transport of the medicinal herbs might need his supervision, and he would hate to see those be lost. It would be hard enough with them. To build a new civilization.
It would be a civilization having little to do with Ashenvale. It would be something else, neither worse nor better, but different. Here, however, the High Elves would live their lives as they saw fit.
Satisfied, feeling more hopeful than he'd had in far too long, Dehire the former Druid swept around and returned to his people.
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