#adrianal

An inexplicable displeasure settles deep in the muscles that contort the curves of the Blood Knight’s brow, her lips, the muscles ‘round her eyes. Her long ears flicks about. A low whistle of air. A strained, racking, breath when blood is where it should not be. Thanidiel rounds the corner into the nearby room.

Her foul spirit only grows when her one visible eye fixates on a sprawled out spellweaver against the cold walls. She hefts out a breath that she did not know that she was holding, tosses her spear to the ground, unslings her pack from ‘neath her cloak. From her first-aid kit, the Lightward pulls free a roll of bandages and medical tape.

She drops to her knees, already getting to work. Her voice cuts the relative silence like a knife; everyone else had screamed, and roared, and shouted, their throats hoarse. She had been silent, stalking the Heart’s chambers like Lynx, versus Knight. Such discretion serves her well now.

“Your injury is not mortal,” she punctuates with the rough palpitation of the woman’s gaping wound, “Your cavity is exposed and nothing else. Shallow and slow your breath - you’re hurting yourself.” She doesn’t look once at the other’s face. She feels… guilt… over her selfish mood. Her disappointment towards the Guard’s triumph.

“I’m going to cover and secure bandages over this wound three-ways. Do not touch it. There’s air entering where your lungs are - pushing down. This will reverse the flow of pressure and you’ll find it easier to breath gradually. After that, you’ll be fine for the most part. You will need to wait for the menders to get organised: they will have to drain the blood that’s entered before they can treat you with magicks. Understood?”

Another flittering of her ears catches the croaked response of the sorceress. The Blood Knight looks up at that face - that discomforted agony stretched over that glossy, waxen, skin. Another wave of guilt that makes the movement of her hands stutter, pause, drop the objects within their palms.

A hand slides underneath her breastplate, making to unveil a cigar packed within the gambeson underneath. “You’re fine, sit still,” is bitten out in a snap of teeth as Thanidiel is quick to flare brilliant, licking flames of arcana from her fingertips. She watches the way the heat curls and blackens the edges of the rolled leaves before shoving the other end between her lips.

One, two, three, four, five. Roll that bitterness ‘round. Exhale, nice and slow. After that, she can finally get to work on ventilating the injured Suncaster’s chest. She can channel the guilt through the buzzing heat of ‘thistle smoke numbing her chest and head.

The Blood Knight should not possess the thoughts that she does. This… chill. This guilt. They won. Winning is always a good thing. Winning is her job. She did her job well. As she always does, as she always will. Something within her does not like that they have won this today.

Not because there is regret to the Dawnspire standing, to such an overwhelmingly high victory, but…

“...once that day comes, there will just be another enemy. It always happens. It never ends. I’m sure that gives you a little of peace, ironically, knowing that you’ll never be bored.”

“...I don’t know what I would do after - so yes, I suppose that gives me a bit of peace.”

There was something in her that ached. That felt as though Bri’s words had proven false. That this was the end. The Horde and Alliance have allied, they have stormed the Tomb of Sargeras - they are storming Argus. All over Azeroth, Legion threats are being cut down similar to Baal’s demise on this night. What else is there to be done? To find purpose in?

One part of her smugly counters that peace on Azeroth between the Grand Alliance and this New Horde will always be unattainable - that the tides of war will lick the shores of this planet the minute both factions withdraw from the alliances of Legionfall.

Another part of her twists with guilt derived from her selfishness; the way her desire coincides with a promise of furthered agony for elves like this woman, her people. A champion should not wish for those of her cause to suffer - even indirectly. But how is a champion to have purpose when there is nothing to protect?

To fight for?

She pauses, a sigh buckling through her frame, then the Lightward finishes the taping and settles back on her haunches. Her ears perk. She waits. The low suction of air and blood seeping into the spellweaver’s cavity, pressing down on lungs wanting to expand, alleviates slowly. The tune shifts. The air is pushing out now, not in. Good.

Thanidiel pats the woman’s shoulder, slips her hand underneath her armour again to pull out a second cigar and slip it into the partial curl of the other’s hand. She loosens the waterskin strapped to the other woman’s hip, drops it below her fingers.

“This will take a while. Have a smoke when you can - the ‘thistle will numb the pain. Don’t drink alcohol or take painkillers - your bleeding will go from sluggish to heavy. I’ll alert the menders to your location and they’ll handle how to move you and get you patched up. Stay still.”

She doesn’t hear out what the Suncaster has to say. The Knight is already making to her feet. There is so much left to do: more wounded to secure; debris to clear; men to put under order; field reports to write and collect; dog-tags to send throughout the reaches of Quel’thalas, Dalaran, Orgrimmar, wherever next-of-kin may lie.

Yet, she feels her purpose running through her fingers in the way a desperate man attempts to save a shattered hourglass. This possibility of peace, however temporary, wrenches at the soldier’s heart. What is Thanidiel to do with peace?

Very little.

Thanidiel is not synonymous with peace. For the briefest season of her elven life, she was Girl. So brief, so early in her beginnings, that such past identity is irrelevant in the same fashion that a cut on a babe’s skin fails to scar its future. For the other century-and-three-decades, she was Soldier. Terror. Guardian. Knight. Champion.

In what regard would any of these words be able to reconcile with peace? This identity, as a whole? This victory should have lightened her spirits for eternity as it will for everyone else. Instead, it illuminates the harshest of truths:

In a world that lives on Hope, she is incompatible.

She is a tool made to be obsolete. A weapon to throw away. A soldier to retire. A terror to forget. A guardian to dismiss. A knight to relieve. A champion to replace. She is something that is ultimately useless. She is cattle to butcher when its milk is no longer needed.  She is a steed to slaughter when its leg shatters. She is fuel to burn up for winter and forget in spring. She is not enough.

And what could she do about that?

Very little.

All she can do is watch the world slowly turn without her, away from her. Slowly but surely, its shadow will drape over her.

And she will starve in that darkness.