Sylvanas Windrunner loved her homeland. It was why she did not indulge her wanderlust, her desire to explore the world. It was also why she stood here on the front lines, destroying the undead hordes that slowly tore through her countrymen. She sent many elves back home, urging them to go into the inner city of Silvermoon. There they might, imight/i, be safe.
Lor'themar, her second in command, she sent to escort civilians to homes. He was the only one she trusted enough to ensure that they would return home.
With his back in the distance, she nocked her arrows. She destroyed the first bridge, firing shots across the water and skewering several of the undead and leaving them in once-again-dead pieces on the ground.
It was there, destroying their first entrance into Quel'thalas, that she first locked her eyes with Arthas'. The sockets were once filled with the eyes of a young prince, an ambitious paladin filled with the Light. Now they were an icy blue, filled with the power of darkness and the magic of the master of the undead. She hated seeing the hatred in his eyes because it felt like it bored into his very soul.
"I see you've never fought elves before," she shouted across the water, a cockiness in her voice faked enough to hold confidence better than what any sane elf would have in this situation. She couldn't let this Scourge get the better of her.
Unfortunately, desire to keep the Scourge from getting the better of her did not make it so. Despite her best efforts, Arthas and his legion of dead overran the outer gates and then the inner gates. They destroyed the rangers' base camp and now the death knight stood there, cold eyes and all, looking down on her with a mix of pity, repulsion, and inspiration.
Sylvanas spat at the fallen prince's feet. "Finish it. I…deserve a clean death." Her breathing was hard and this was her version of begging. She would refuse to plead, but she would try and get him to finish her as she deserved regardless.
Arthas' face spread into a smirk. His dead face dropped into a cold, cruel laugh. "After all you've put me through, woman, the last thing I'll give you is the peace of death." He sent a death coil into her body, and she felt as if she flew a hundred miles. She lifted a hand and looked at her hand and screamed…quite literally like a banshee. She looked over her entire body which currently lay on the ground in front of her. She could not move from where she stood (floated?).
"Now get back in your body and pick up that bow." The order ran through her spirit like a hot flash, and she was overwhelmed with the power of the Lich King in her mind, ordering her to obey the command given to her by this butcher. For some reason she had a semblance of her mind, but she could not express herself.
She obeyed.
Sylvanas reentered her body, still warm from the recent death, and felt her spirit possess it. She stood again, her body now already greying and the tears she could not remember shedding burned into her face as a scar of her final moments of terror. "What must I do?"
"Lead this battalion to invade Silvermoon. Meet us at the Sunwell when the invasion is completed." He looked so smug, so ready to abuse the power he now held over her.
There was nothing she could do, so she collected the arrows she now pulled from this otherworldly power possessing her and began to fire them. She led the group of Scourge troops into the city, and had to suffer as she watched her own hands fire arrow after arrow into the hearts of her people. The high elves were slowly being eliminated, and she was an agent in it. Willing or otherwise.
The one she would remember for years after was a woman, no older than Sylvanas herself was. To stop her from running, the dark archer kicked the woman to the ground and stomped as hard as she could on her chest. A sick crack indicated that at least one, probably more, of her ribs.
It took a long time to fire her arrow. The first resistance she had shown in the precious few hours she'd been undead, she held back the bowstring long enough to watch the terror fill the woman's eyes. The recognition of one of the great defenders of their homeland being the one to execute her. The dark arrow descended into the woman's skull.
Sylvanas stalked forward to continue the onslaught. She personally entered many of the homes and cut down her people, leaving bodies in beds where they had slept, tables where they ate, and gardens where they grew bloodthistle and other garden herbs.
The invasion wiped out most of the elves over the course of two days, and Sylvanas personally watched as the remains of Kel'thuzad were resurrected using her people's power.
Even in death, she felt the wind knocked out of her as the power of the Sunwell was ripped from her, and ripped from all the other elves as well. She tried to breathe before remembering her lungs didn't need air anymore. She could feel her organs beginning to rot in her, and she remembered that she was dead. This body was hers, but she was a spirit possessing her own corpse. This was not her.
If she was still capable, she would have thrown up on the ground. But there was nothing left in her dead stomach to be thrown up, and her body did not have the capacity to try and expunge something poisoning it anymore. That just made her feel even more sick.
Even if she still had the ability to throw up, it wasn't as if she'd be able to with the commands of Arthas and his Lich King at her back. They likely wouldn't let her. She was not going to be allowed to do anything against them until she could break the will holding her. Right now it was too strong, too old for her to do something against. Even as she thought, the crushing fist in her mind demanded that she not think of rebellion.