The Romancer Opalbane
Episode Twenty-Four: A secret confession! And cake!
Alessandre pulled out his slender pipe and began to light it.
"Don't dare smoke in the Temple of Elune." Priestess Feathershine narrowed her eyes at him.
The tiny confession room was pristine. The walls were made from unblemished white stone and the floor was slick polished marble.
"This may be the last time that I get to say anything meaningful to anyone." Alessandre slyly objected. "Besides, the smoke helps me—"
"Put it out, Mirothalas." Shadowstep growled at Alessandre.
Alessandre was hating Shadowstep more and more by the minute. Grudgingly, Alessandre emptied the newly lit contents onto the perfect floor and ground them into smoldering ashes with the heel of his boot. Then, he put the pipe back into his pocket.
"You'll clean that up later." Feathershine informed him. "Now, start talking."
Alessandre folded his arms and leaned forward on the small marble table between he and the Priestess of Elune.
"One thousand and nineteen years ago, I was born into the Shademoon family. Our name is an old one, though many people might not recognize it. More people would remember a name like Stormrage, right? Well, that's because Malfurion Stormrage was the first Night Elf druid. Orion Shademoon, my ancestor, was one of the first druids that Malfurion trained after the Sundering. He was one of many, but that kind of thing was still an honor, to have been privy to such raw druidic powers at the beginning of time." Alessandre paused when he felt Feathershine's powers enter his mind. Unlike Opalbane, Feathershine's Mind Vision spell was bold and domineering. It insisted that he only focused on the memories it wondered about, but Alessandre resisted that intense kind of mind searching which felt as suggestive as mind control.
"Priestess, I'm going to tell this the way it needs to be told. Besides, you're going to get lost or upset if you start leaning on the wrong memories too heavily."
Feathershine pursed her lips. "Nor will you bombard me with family memories that are not your own. I know why you are going back so far, Alessandre. Don't play those games with me."
Alessandre grimaced. "Fine. I'll skip ahead to where this whole thing started. Because of my ancestor Orion, the men in my family made exceptional druids, especially feral ones. No one in my family was really surprised when I was asked to join the Cenarion Circle at nineteen. I was always a bit of a prodigy and nearly all the men in my family were already members of the Cenarion Circle. But, for some strange reason, the druids stationed in Silithus at the time were very surprised to see me breaking all kinds of rules with my powers, going against direct orders, and raising a commotion with the few female druids there." Alessandre finished sarcastically.
"I bet you were an irritating bastard." Shadowstep half-smiled.
"A full feral druid, at only nineteen years old?" Alessandre allowed himself to laugh. "You bet I was. But the real problem wasn't all the rules I arrogantly broke. I was so good at everything, the rules no longer applied to me. My feral instincts were always on track. If I stayed out scouting the insect-like Silithid creatures for days longer than I was supposed to, I'd come back with such a lead no one could chastise me. Or, if I had guard duty and went on patrol miles out of my way on an impulse, I'd end up coming back with information about a Silithid surprise attack. I was as close to a perfect feral druid as anyone could get at Cenarion Hold. To top that off, I let everyone know just how irritated I was with the Archdruid's less than stellar leadership. He made huge oversights in his judgments. Oftentimes it seemed he was oblivious to what was going on around him. A lot of the older druids stationed at Cenarion Hold in that bereft wasteland they still call Silithus really liked me for it, though they wouldn't come out and say it to anyone in charge."
"You challenged even the Archdruid at that time?" Shadowstep couldn't believe it.
Feathershine's eyes were vacant. She seemed to be listening, but in a different way with her powers.
Alessandre nodded. "I was an idiot, and a smartass. Of course, the Archdruid made it his personal mission to teach me some humility. I knew what he was up to, but I couldn't avoid it. That bastard sent me on pointless mission after pointless mission into those damnable sands, all to 'build character' he said. I finally got sick of it."
"What about the girl, Arianna?" Feathershine's voice turned surprisingly gentle and her eyes focused on Alessandre.
Alessandre cleared his throat uncomfortably. "That really has nothing to do with Stormwind—"
"Oh no, dear, it has everything to do with Stormwind. I can tell already. Now, tell us about her."
Alessandre rested his head in his hands. "I loved her. She was a Priestess of Elune, one of a few that High Priestess Tyrande sent down to Silithus to watch us druids. At that time, the Cenarion Circle was not as independent as it is now… so much has happened over the last thousand years that enabled the druids to consolidate power. Anyway, at that time Tyrande had kind of a leash on us, and she was wary of our being so far away from everyone out in Silithus. She wanted to know what was going on with the Silithid creatures we encountered first hand. I was ordered to take Arianna along with me on one of the Archdruid's assignments." Alessandre hesitated. "At first, I didn't like her. She was arrogant and always good at everything..." he trailed off.
"You two were a perfect match." Shadowstep concluded.
Alessandre nodded. "Yes sir." He swallowed. "You know, Opalbane reminds me of her, which is a bit spooky. She's the kind of woman that is too good to be true. I kept looking for a flaw in Arrianna, but I never did find one."
"That is because you weren't with her long enough. Young love is like that." Feathershine frowned.
Alessandre flushed with anger and was about to say something in his defense when he realized Priestess Feathershine had been talking to Shadowstep. The Master Rogue grunted and looked away from his rumored girlfriend.
Some things about love never changed, Alessandre smiled to himself. "I feel you prodding at this Feathershine, so I'll just come out and say it for you. Yes, Arianna was the first woman I ever slept with. She was older than me by some years, but it didn't matter. I've always had that kind of luck with women, even before I became a rogue. The two of us were all alone in the desert for days… the inevitable happened. But it turned out to be more than that. I grew to love her so much… we had many good times together. Even after a few years went by and the War of the Shifting Sands started, I still cared deeply for her. I had a wreathe shipped to Cenarion Hold from Darnassus… everyone knew what we were about. And, despite all of the Archdruid's efforts to teach me to respect my superiors, I'd only become more confident with a Priestess of Elune backing me. With my family members also firmly placed within the Cenarion Circle, I think the Archdruid started to feel threatened by what I was saying. I started to imagine that I'd be an Archdruid one day; I certainly had the bloodlines for it. Maybe I mentioned that little fantasy to one too many people. Maybe that is why the Archdruid sabotaged my wife."
Both Priestess Feathershine and Shadowstep looked at Alessandre, startled.
Priestess Feathershine raised her eyebrows. "Alessandre, you are not married. You never married Arrianna, I can tell. Why would you say that?"
Alessandre got a wild look in his eye. "I wanted to marry her. In my head, it was already done. Even after everything… I always called her that in my head. I had to wait a year because of our Wreathe Day, but I was ready to do it. And Arrianna came from a powerful family too. If we'd been able to join as husband and wife, then no one would be able to oppose my career."
"So this was a political, as well as an emotional betrayal." Shadowstep put in.
Alessandre turned to face his guild leader. "Political? It was personal. The Archdruid knew about the Twilight Cultists. He knew how powerful they were. He was keeping it a secret from everyone; that was why his methods appeared so questionable. In truth, he knew exactly what he was doing… and he knew that Arianna had been talking to them." Alessandre had to stop there.
Priestess Feathershine indulged him and cocked her head to the side, an empathetic look on her face. "You knew she was becoming a cultist, didn't you?"
"I thought it was just a phase… We'd seen a camp of cultists from far away while on that mission together. Arianna couldn't stop talking about how amazing their blazing blue bonfires looked. She kept begging me to let her go and touch one of their orange crystals. It was strange that she was obsessed with them, when we'd only just encountered the cult in passing. I loved her so much. I just didn't think she was capable of really doing something like that." He answered quietly.
Feathershine inhaled slowly, hesitant with her own information. "More than likely, Arianna had been thinking about the cult before she even met them." Then she waggled a finger at him. "Mind you, I am only telling you this about Opalbane because I think you deserve some peace after everything you endured back then. Arianna's situation sounds much like Opalbane's… many years ago, when my little girl came back from that idiotic Convention of the Cloth Classes in Stormwind, Opalbane began to act strange. She was already a very angry novice priestess, but whatever the Archmage told her and the other young casters who attended that meeting pushed Opal over the edge. I didn't hear any of his speeches myself, but it was clearly some kind of propaganda about how people who look and act strangely are in fact evil. Opalbane was convinced that she was tainted somehow, and that she was destined to fail at becoming a priestess of the Light. Sometimes I would hear her talking to herself, to a person named Zar'teaus… it truly doesn't surprise me that when she grew into a woman, she ran away to Silithus to join this Zar'teaus. He turned out to be an old god that needed her as a High Priestess… but to haunt her for years, nearly her entire life? I don't know how my daughter got exposed to that filth back in Stormwind, but it certainly ruined her."
Alessandre didn't have to wonder too long about who might have planted a desire to meet Zar'teaus in Opalbane's heart. Priestess Feathershine saw that he was thinking of Priest Benactus and shuddered. We will discuss him later, Alessandre. But for now, we must continue with the trial. Please, go on. She told him mentally.
Alessandre nodded at her and continued. "Eventually the Archdruid sent us to one of those camps alone. We were supposed to just get information, he said. But when we went, they saw us in the distance. I could stealth in my Nightsaber form, so I got away. Arianna didn't. It took…" he exhaled angrily, "weeks for the Archdruid to get the proper approval to go to war with the cultists. We were there for the Silithid, and the Twilight Cultists were so new at that time, well at least to us. We didn't want to have anything to do with them. Nor did they appear to be affiliated with the Silithid forces in any measure, so to avoid conflict we were supposed to leave them alone." Alessandre balled his fists in anger. "The Archdruid put me in an infantry position to keep me from raising an alarm about Arriana's disappearance. My friends at Cenarion Hold kept telling me that he was doing all he could, but in my opinion, it wasn't enough. I also suspected that the Archdruid knew how Arianna was tempted and sent her there on purpose, to get rid of her. I finally decided to go and get her myself."
Alessandre sat up straight again. "I defected."
Shadowstep blinked, but said nothing.
"I stole Starshatter, the war mount assigned to me, and left the morning before one of our last battles. It had been a difficult war. Cenarion Hold barely maintained an advantage over Ahn Quiraj. Every Night Elf who could, druid or no, was expected to do everything they could to help the effort. My heart wasn't in it though, not after what the Archdruid did to me and Arianna. It actually wasn't very hard for me to make the decision. I had every intention of running away with Arrianna after I got her out of there. I didn't care about my career or my family. I was the youngest of five sons, so they often forgot about me anyway. But that's beside the point. I switched to my catform, and sneaked in there. Feral druids have a talent for tracking people, so finding Arianna was easy. But when I tried to get her to leave with me, things went bad."
Feathershine covered her face with her hands. "She pretended to go with you at first, but it was just a game. When you were almost out, and things seemed perfect, she turned against you. Oh, Alessandre… I'm so sorry."
"It's no excuse for the things I've done to make up for it. All the different names I took, the men that I've killed… for the first five hundred years afterward, I was a madman, closer to a monster than an actual person."
"You were insane." Feathershine clarified.
"I knew what I was doing!" Alessandre insisted, "I wanted to kill people, and I was strong enough to do it, so I hunted men. And big cities were the greatest temptation. Stormwind turned out to be my favorite."
"Hold on just a minute. You two have all the inside information here, and you just skipped the most important part. What did Arianna do to you in Silithus, and how did you become a rogue?" Shadowstep came and stood close behind Alessandre.
Alessandre dragged his fingers back through his long hair. "She tried to… she called all her new cultist friends around and told them to watch. Then she… used some terrible fel power against me. It hit me… If she'd just wanted to kill me… villains do that kind of thing all the time, I would understand. But she tried to destroy my life… she attempted to castrate me."
Shadowstep didn't know what to say. Priestess Feathershine blinked back tears. "What a terrible thing for someone you love to do that to you, Alessandre. That is the worst kind of abuse." She said.
Alessandre's face was emotionless. "It would have been better if she just killed me. How was I supposed to recover from something like that? I loved her so much. I would have done anything for her. In fact, I'd done everything for her. I threw away my career with the druids and turned against my family, all to save her life. And when I asked her to decide between the cultists and me… she chose to torture me. She left me bleeding in the sands." Alessandre's eyes were wet, but he would not allow himself to cry. "I wanted to live… I had to return to Cenarion Hold somehow. I was completely at the Archdruid's mercy."
"The Cenarion Circle is an exclusive group." Alessandre calmed himself and continued on. "Only the best druids get in. No one ever gets out, for very good reasons. There are some secrets I learned, some powerful druidic techniques, that I would not dare share with anyone else. Even now, I have respect for that dangerous knowledge. But, just because I understand why the Archdruid stripped me of my rank doesn't mean that I agree with it. Even though it may have been necessary, I hate that man for what he did to me. I've checked, and thankfully this is a practice they ended some years ago. I am not going to tell you what I was planning to do to certain members of the Cenarion Circle if that weren't the case. But anyways, back to the story. At that time, an unworthy druid could be excommunicated from the Cenarion Circle and stripped of his rank. When I got back to base, the Archdruid wanted to let me die because he knew what my fate was. Maybe he should have." Alessandre smiled grimly. He looked like a madman. "But my friends wanted to heal me. However, as soon as I was recovered, the Archdruid began the slow and torturous process of taking away my druidic powers."
"I take it he attempted to destroy your mana somehow?" Feathershine wondered.
"Something like that. Whatever he did to me, it felt like I was being skinned alive, and it took hours, longer than a day to complete. The awful pain alone is enough to make someone mad. I'd heard horror stories of excommunicated druids who later lost their minds after surviving the process. The lucky ones had enough sense to commit suicide and end their long immortal lives right off. It is the most painful thing you can ever imagine, to be stripped of something you've committed your entire heart, body, mind, and soul to. If some tragedy happens, you rely on your beliefs to comfort you, right? Well, my tragedy was being betrayed by the love of my life and being stripped of my rank by the druids who had been the center of my world, the core of my family's beliefs for generations. Could I go to Moonglade and speak with my mentors, or my relatives and find comfort? No. Could I meditate and commune with the animal spirits within myself and find strength? No. Even if I wanted to, that world was closed to me. The Archdruid used his powers to break the deep bonds I'd made with the Great Bear Spirit, and countless other benign natural entities. The process was supposed to tear my mana from me, but for some strange reason it didn't work properly. Months later, after I left Silithus and my family turned their backs on me because of the shame, I found out by accident that I was still a druid. And… though you are a lady Feathershine, I feel you're curious about the other thing too. To answer your unspoken question, No, Arianna did not succeed at unmaking me a man. Somehow… what she did and what the Archdruid did enhanced my abilities in that department. But, I didn't dare tell anyone the truth, for fear they would come after me and finish the process, or worse."
"Perhaps the fel energy you'd been exposed to at the cultist camp had something to do with it?" Priestess Feathershine offered, though she blushed.
Shadowstep flashed a jealous look at Feathershine, which she ignored. Then, he scratched his beard and began to pace.
"This is a trial afterall, so please forgive me for pressing forward in the light of such tragedy." He said hurriedly, "But, how did you become a rogue after? This still makes no sense."
"It makes perfect sense, Shadowstep." Alessandre addressed the impatient man without turning his head to look at him. "You see—"
A panicked banging at the door cut off Alessandre's words. Darnassian trials were sacred and not meant to be interrupted for any reason. However, the insistent visitors were so annoying that Shadowstep finally groaned and snatched the door open.
"Why are you bothering us? Where are the Sentinels who are supposed to be watching this door?" he demanded of the intruders.
Onyxbane looked up at the intimidating Shadowstep. His hand was balled into a fist and it was frozen mid-knock in the air. Wisthera wasn't standing too far behind him.
"We told them there was cake downstairs." She shrugged then sported her classic wily smile. Everyone knows that cake is a Sentinel's one weakness. That is probably why you can't buy it anywhere in Azeroth.
Shadowstep's eyes went wide when he saw Wisthera. Behind him, Priestess Feathershine began asking who it was, but Shadowstep quickly pulled the door shut behind him. Then, he leaned against the door to keep it closed.
"You two…" he eyed Wisthera carefully, then gaped at Onyxbane. "Your foster mother is going to kill you for this, you know that right?"
Onyxbane sighed. "I know, I know. We messed up everything. But do us a favor, alright? We need to get in there and stop Alessandre from marrying my sister, right now."
"We're not here to stop the wedding, Onyx! We're here to tell her about the other thing." She whispered harshly.
Onyxbane groaned and tugged on his long twin braids desperately. It made him look like a child, and perhaps it was an old habit from when he was a boy and didn't get his way. Clearly, he and Wisthera had been arguing about his sister's impending engagement to the rogue and the other thing for some time.
Master Rogue Shadowstep couldn't keep his eyes off Wisthera. It took a burning glare from Onyxbane to get him back on track.
"There's definitely not going to be any wedding, so don't worry about that."
"Why not?" Wisthera challenged.
Shadowstep sighed, and composed himself. "Because we are in the middle of trying Alessandre for murder. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this."
"A murderer! You set my sister up with a murderer!" Onyxbane threw his hands up in the air and turned on Wisthera.
"What in the Legion are you talking about?" Shadowstep asked Onyxbane. Wisthera instantly shushed her boyfriend.
"Shadowstep," she addressed him sweetly, and batted her eyelashes to distract him. "You can't be serious. Alessandre may be a top rate assassin, a master forger, and an expert lover… but he is not a murderer. If this is about the Maker's Terrace thing… I was the one who leaked those secrets from his mission, and any fallout from that is really my fault. Alessandre wasn't the one who told all of Azeroth that Dwarves are descended from Troggs. I was just a little mad at him at the time. Besides, I would know if Al were a murderer."
Shadowstep shook his head at Wisthera, disappointed. "While I thank you for that unsolicited confession, it's not going to help Alessandre." Then, Shadowstep looked at her critically. "And might I add, that for all the wreckless seducing of my agents you've done over the years, one would think you'd know a lot of things. How could you even let him get you like that?"
Onyxbane stepped imbetween them. "Hey, don't you talk to my girlfriend that way. Maybe it's unexpected, but I love her and it isn't the end of the world. But please, don't tell Feathershine yet? I don't want her to find out this way." He pleaded.
"It's no reason to be mean." Wisthera pouted at Shadowstep and wrapped her arms possessively around Onyxbane's shoulders.
Master Rogue Shadowstep sighed heavily. His long green ponytail twitched as he shook his head at both of them. "Alright. When I go back in there, I won't tell Priestess Feathershine that you tried to break up Alessandre and your sister."
Onyxbane grabbed Shadowstep's arm. "No! Not that… the other thing."
Shadowstep scowled. "You know, this is why I don't like you young people. There's always some kind of drama isn't there? Well, I guess I should be glad that you didn't ask me to break the news to her myself. Like I would want to be the messenger of that kind of announcement."
Then, he went back inside.
"Ugh, well that was one face I was never hoping to see again." Wisthera stretched and walked back to the ramp leading to the lower floors of the temple. "Onyx dear, please don't take any of that flirting personally, by the way. I only did it to distract Shadowstep from what I did to your sister. Think we should go and break the news to her?"
Onyxbane would not answer Wisthera. He looked overwhelmed. They descended the last few levels of the Temple in silence. Some Sentinels stuffing cake into their mouths near the moonwell on the bottom floor waved to them cheerfully and thanked them for the delicious snack.
Wisthera smiled and waved to them in turn. "I'm sure glad you got me that cake when I had a craving back in Auberdine. It came in handy."
"Woman, how can you act so calm when you SET MY SISTER UP WITH A MURDERER!" Onyxbane shouted at her.
The Sentinels looked up from the box of cake they were eating, surprised by Onyxbane's outburst. Wisthera carefully sat down on the edge of the moonwell and stared up at her agitated boyfriend.
"Geesh." Wisthera shrugged. "Some people say assassin, others say murderer. Tomato, tomatto."
"Gaaaaah!" Onyxbane sank to his knees at Wisthera's feet. A flock of compassionate Sentinels rushed in and started to comfort him.
"He'll be fine." Wisthera waved her hand dismissively in the air. "It's just that his mother is a Priestess of Elune, and we aren't married yet."
All around, the women nodded their heads under shining silver visors. These holy women lived by very strict rules when it came to that sort of thing, and they more than understood.
"My sister and Feathershine… both of them… both of them are going to kill me…" Onyxbane hugged his knees to his chest in a fetal position and kept mumbling over and over.