**THIS STORY WAS RECENTLY REVISED! By me. February-May 2011. Just so you know... LOTS has changed.**
Full Summary: In the lush and unguarded fields of Elwynn Forest, a young Human discovers a secret plan to overthrow the Human capital: Stormwind. Allied with unlikely companions, a Blood Elf and a Tauren, she will have to travel the vast landscapes of Azeroth and stop this invasion plan at all costs. Viola, a reclusive rogue, will have to overcome her insecurities with company and learn to turn that into her greatest strength. Adventure, romance, comedy, drama, action, betrayal, twists, what else do you need? R&R, you wont be let down!
Legend:
Text: Chapter title.
Text: Regular text, dialogue, narration, etc.
Text: Emphasis, or if used in a large portion, denotes a flashback sequence.
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-x0x-: Denotes the beginning and end of a chapter, so you know when it's me talking to you, or when it's the actual story... hah.
Text: This isn't usually in the story itself, it's just the format I use when I'm talking to you, out of the story context. Like the following:
BTW, if you find errors in spelling, grammar, etc, please put it at the bottom of your review, so I might change it. Thanks!
DISCLAIMER: This entire story is Copywrite ME. Got it? World of Warcraft, however, is NOT. Most characters are my own, except characters like Thrall and such. The world, too, belongs to Blizzard. Now, without further adieu:
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Saving Stormwind: A Tale of Azeroth
Prologue: Practice
Things are better now, I knew it. This was the other end of the spectrum, the brighter side of the field. I've left all the bullshit in the burning barn and this was the new, paved-in-pebbles road. At least, those were the phrases that bludgeoned me in the back of the skull as the rest of my body came into contact with that horrible road. Fuck, the Earth sure was sturdy. Not even the bug five feet away felt a shake as I hit the ground. I looked up at the little critter, glaring at it like it was a locust. I frowned, a low grumble escaping me like like the few droplets of blood that sank between the pebble stones at my ears. It was those few sprinkles that kept me from twirling in my head, but with them gone from me, the dizziness made even the Earth move. Or so it felt.
I rolled my neck back to take a glance at my adversary, who tapped his foot a few yards away. He raised an intrigued kind of eyebrow and I made no move to display that it fazed me at all. His massive two-handed hammer rested on its corner and leaned on his outstretched arm for support. He had those dazzlingly suggestive eyes that were familiar to me, though they were hidden under thick, unkempt brows. He was teasing me, playing with me, and as I lay here on the surprisingly cool rock, listening to the cicadas laughing at me in the dancing heat, I realized that I really was pathetic. The sweet scent of sweat and dirt was like the humid breeze once again, and I almost choked on it. Coming closer, his sick and pungent odour wafted over me like the waves of the ocean. I covered my mouth and summoned the ability to roll onto my elbow and hold myself up.
My narrowed eyes were stinging from the sensation of my own exhaustion. It was something I hadn't known in quite a time, the feeling of trembling muscles. It was like shivering, the fatigue. But it was so damn hot, goddamn it I just wanted to jump in a river. I hated this stupid summer heat. This guy seemed to be in his element though, wielding that massive hammer, which was probably bigger than my whole damn person, with very much ease. He came over to me and stood there, a bead of sweat landing intimidatingly close beside the part of my arm that was exposed, due only to the low durability of my trash armour against his hammer not moments before. The scraps remained somewhere nearby, though I didn't really care, I didn't need sleeves in this scorching fire pit anyway.
His sloppy smirk was like a crease in the fabric of his leathery flesh, one which ripped apart to show his crooked toothy grin. I made to get up, so that I might bark a scolding remark in his browning face, but he stopped me as he raised his behemoth mallet single handedly and left it hovering close above my nose. It smelled faintly of blood and soil, even though I tried not to sniff it. I scowled, and displayed the left side of my teeth in a sneer. I would have let bile erode my cheeks, had I not the will to force it back down. He wanted something from me, and by the way his sleazy pupils ran me over like some kind of vehicle, I think the reaches of my mind could comprehend. I rested on my elbows for a moment, watching with a feigning façade of daring confidence for some kind of opening. He was a big guy, I'll give him that. His arms like tree trunks and his legs like mountains. Really, I wasn't much of a match in hand-to-hand against a guy who's hand was as big as my torso. I suppose I was lucky he had just knocked my twin daggers away, instead of turning them to dust in his fist or something. That hammer hit me like a building, though, and I could feel one whole side of my body bruising. I really could.
Like any good girl, however, I had my trump card. I bit my lip hard, nibbling it gently with my teeth across the fullness. I rolled my swelling, deep red lips and looked at him from under those dangerously low eyelids of mine, daring him to do more. There, his brows hopped a simple, quick jump and so did I. Reaching behind my shoulders I slid the sharp silver shank of my sword from the confinements it loved so dearly. Perhaps it was the quickness of my movements that caught him off of his guard, or perhaps it was the fact that he had probably assumed that daggers were the only thing I was proficient with, but that was his flaw. Though I'll admit, it was right of him to presume such. I easily sliced the top of his hand, releasing his grip on his mace. He yelped and jumped back, holding his bleeding fist with his other. He shouted and ran at me, another rash and clumsy manoeuvre. I spun quickly from the potential grip of his hands and pushed the business end of my sword behind me, close beside my body, stabbing the fullness of the blade deep into the tissue of his flesh.
I pulled it out quickly and with another flick of my wrist laid the blood beside mine on the speckled roadside. He fell with a gurgled groan and hit the pavement with his cheekbone, cracking it well. I took the handkerchief from my side pouch and ran it along both sides of my Father's sword. My eyes rested easily of the familiar sight, one which I knew better from the wall above the fireplace. I didn't like using it, mostly because the feeling of blood rudely taken and splashed on a sword which was no more mine than the stain upon it, well, it haunted me. Maybe that wasn't the only reason my stomach sank heavily.
You never really get used to it, I think. It gets easier, I suppose. Physically and habitually. Your body learns from practice, but that's not quite what I'm getting at. The feeling of grabbing a life with a sharpened edge and pulling it from the host's physicality never really feels good. Not to me, anyway. I've known people who seemed to crave the feeling. But me, not at all. I wished that I could just become a hermit, hide somewhere so far off that not even wandering children could find me when they get lost in the woods. I didn't like people, and I didn't like stealing from them. Their lives, especially. But being a sneaky Rogue and all, it's kind of in my job description. I mean, unless you've felt the beating and throbbing of life at the other end of a long and murderous tool, you can't really understand.
It's not something I ever plan to do, really it's not. But sometimes it just happens, by no choice of your own. People like hurting other people, I've found, and to defend yourself there are certain things that you have to be able to do. In this World, anyway. I never plan it, though. Maybe that makes it worse. I don't know. I mean, I never plan to run someone through with another object, and I don't even fully realize I have, until I hear it. Their sound. People make some kind of noise, guttural or otherwise, intentional or not, but it happens. And that's the part that really gets me. It keeps me up sometimes. I can remember the moans of every passing life I've ever directed. It's unique to everyone, I've found. It is. But it's not like the moan is who they really are, but it becomes the way I remember them. Sometimes I can't even remember faces, just voices. I mean, it's not even who they are at all. I don't think people die the way they live or anything. Though it would be nice. At least then I could see the truth of the person I take from this stupid place. I hope I die that way, the way I live. I doubt I will, but I like to think I will. I live a pretty terrible way, too, so dying in such a manner seems doable.
But it's not just the voice that kills me. It's the resistance of their body. Sometimes there's none, and sometimes it's like cutting through brick. Depending on my tool of choice. The feeling of pushing their flesh back as far as it will go, then slipping through it and splitting them open. When it's sharp, though, there's not much resistance at all. It's like cutting thick air. But I feel a bit of it then, too, the feeling of a person's being. It hurts me like it hurts them. And then there's the feeling that you get once it's over. When you have to wipe off the last bits of warmth from their life off your tool. That's when you really know they're dead. When you wipe them away. Especially when it gets on your hands, or your clothes, or anything. It doesn't come off so easily. I mean, weapons are meant for blood to slide right off of them, but people are not made for that. They're made to feel the blood forever. I am, anyway.
I slid my sword away, feeling confident I had wiped the greedy pervert off every edge of it. My Father wouldn't be proud to see such things on his sword, I don't think. I carry things like that with me, I guess. Things like my Dad. You can push past things like that, somewhere in your mind you might be able to let it go, but it can't really be erased. Memory is like that, it likes to pick fights with you, likes to poke and kick you. I don't like to think of myself as bound to it, though. Everyone carries something like that, like my Dad or something to that effect, but not everyone is kept so down. That's what makes me lift my head, the thought that everyone's got bad things going on, and probably worse than I do. Yet, they keep themselves up and going. If I don't, well, then I really am pathetic. I picked up my daggers and spun them back into the holsters on my hips, being careful with my movements. That hammer must have broken something. I heal up quickly though, I like to think. Pain's temporary, for the most part. Things will get better. Maybe.
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Preview of Next Chapter:
"Those Orcs," He pointed in the direction we came from, "are part of a new plan to overthrow Stormwind City. I'm here to stop them."
"You're here to stop them." I repeated in a sceptical, even tone. I rolled my eyes and waited for an explanation. I really didn't like the way this was going already.
"What, you don't believe me?" He asked, as if it was a sin to distrust him.
"Fine," I sighed, humouring him, "how did you find out about this so-called plan?"
"I heard the group talking about how it was direct orders from Thrall to come here." He pressed on, as if mentioning a name that big would make me believe him.
"Direct orders from Thrall, the Warchief?" I was still very much mocking him, but I perked up anyway, looking over through narrowed eyes, "What does he want here?"
I'll have a preview at the end of every chap, by the way. Just for fun, or just in case you are on time constraints and can only read a chap at a time, I'd like to give you some heads-up or suspense. Whatever. Anyway... Thanks for reading the prologue guys; it can only get better! Please REVIEW, if not now, then when you finish the story. I'd like to know how shitty of a job I did.