If Casmiron was honest with himself, he hadn’t at first realized there had been an elf hiding in a nearby tree.

He had been in the grip of the Eternal Hunger - The pack of worgen were a suitable alleviation from the torment, an addiction of violence that came and went like the phase of the moon. As far as anyone knew, the cravings seemed tied together with the unholy necromancy that animated his generation of death knight. The only relief that was known to Casmiron was to take to the field of battle and kill. Silverpine Forest provided many opportunities to do so, usually at a far away enough distance from any reminder of civilization.

Feral worgen were normally a terrifying opponent. It was still unreal to Casmiron that he was able to combat such dangers - Surely, in life, he would have been outmatched. He was not the largest or strongest of draenei, and he had taken to fighting unwillingly, learning it out of necessity to help defend his people. In life, he had longed for the day he would have been able to hang up his sword and ply a more peaceful trade, but it seemed the whim of fate had cursed him to fight forever.

Casmiron urged his deathcharger towards the closest of the worgen, which ran at him on all fours. The horse screamed in challenge, turning its side at the last moment to knock the beast to the ground. The deathcharger then reared on its hind legs and kicked out, killing a second worgen with the impact of its hoof with its head. However, Casmiron found himself quickly surrounded, and a grasping clawed paw dragged him down from the saddle.

He knew, logically, that at this point he would have been done for if he had still been living. The worgen lunged at his face and caught his throat in its teeth, tearing it from the front. It caused a mess of black ichor and a gruesome wound, but Casmiron barely felt it. Being raised as a death knight had given him some strange pain tolerances that he preferred not to think too much about.

He swung his black blade. The worgen collapsed, red blood steaming in the cold air. The remaining creatures attacked him, raking him savagely with clawed hands. Even as armored as Casmiron was, his unarmored extremities carefully wrapped in the death knights’ strong dark cloth, some of their claws punctured through, leaving awful gashes.

Casmiron knew such an assault wasn’t enough to stop him, however, and with a few more quick slashes of his sword, the last worgen collapsed. He stood alone in the clearing, the maddening bloodlust in his mind and body quieted, for now.

Perhaps he was less alone than he thought. He could sense the lifeforce of another being - Sentient, living beings shone brightly against his necrotic senses, like small, flickering flames. He could sense enough about the lifeforce to discern that it wasn’t another draenei, but little more than that. Cautiously, Casmiron started in the direction of the psychic light. Most times, if someone had borne witness to one of his killings, they made haste to run from him when he started in their direction. It made for a lonely existence, but he thought it for the best.

The lifeforce remained stationary. Perplexed, then concerned that whomever was there meant to ambush him, the death knight paused for a long moment. He then began edging closer even more slowly, his sword held in defense. The resistance to injury and pain came with terrible weaknesses to other forms of assault, particularly with the Light.

The lifeforce stayed as still as a stone. Finally, having come close enough, Casmiron saw a small bundle huddled against the trunk of a tree.

Casmiron felt himself catch his breath, even with the injury to his throat. It was a blood elf - Small, vulnerable, tucked in on himself in fright. The elf was unconscious. It was possible the worgen had been hunting him, and he had tried to escape, only to collapse in utter exhaustion.

The elf did not look injured, only ragged, like someone who had tried to run away from a bad situation. He was also, at least to Casmiron’s eyes, hauntingly beautiful.

The sight of the elf caused strong feelings to well up in the death knight’s chest, feelings he hadn’t felt since his fall, and that he hadn’t known he was still capable of experiencing. To Casmiron, the elf’s face could not have been more beautiful if it had been carved by the most skilled artisan. Apart from the elf’s beauty, a faint sense of psychic suffering lingered about him. Casmiron was at a loss to explain the sensation. He thought that the elf must have witnessed many very hard things.

The death knight reached out a gauntleted hand to the smaller man, then withdrew it quickly at a second thought. Was this the correct action? What if the elf were to awaken, would the sight of a death knight cause him dreadful fear? Still… He couldn’t leave the poor man unconscious in a wilderness.

Casmiron whistled sharply to his deathcharger, and the horse approached with a whicker. He withdrew a blanket of dark fleece from one of its saddlebags, and carefully wrapped it around the other man. It smelled faintly of leather cleaner and horse soap, but it was clean and would provide some warmth. This was important, as a chilly wind had whipped up, bringing with it the first flurries of the season.

The death knight picked up the unconscious elf easily in his arms. He racked his brain for what to do, as he placed the other man carefully in the saddle. His allies were few in these lands. He knew of another blood elf… a young priest with curly golden locks, who had been kind enough to dress his wounds in a rustic, small church outside the perimeter of the blood elves’ city. There was risk in moving deeper into the blood elven lands, but it was the only course of action that made sense to him to do.