#hetaera

Thirty-five years after your death, we have returned to Argus.  No longer do I fight alongside your daughter, whose whereabouts have become as mysterious to me as the others that once served the Light’s Blade.  But I listen for her name – I listen for all their names, for I know that somewhere they fight with the same passion that I do for our birthright.  Argus belongs to her children and we have returned at long last to make amends for the sins of our fathers.  Every battle to this point has been preparation for what is to come.  Every contest has been a reminder of not only our weaknesses, but what strengths we have to overcome them.  The Alliance has proven itself to be a valuable ally, but to truly overcome our foe will we need do more than win a contest of wills: we must vanquish those parts of ourselves that permitted this fall in the first place.

I recall that when I was a girl, you often chided me for my method of playing exarcheus.  I was overly cautious, you said, and would never know the thrill of victory without bracing against the fear of defeat.  Since then I have come to know my fears well – I have found them as motivating as the thrills others seek, and push myself ever to not merely overcome them, but conquer their origins.  What occurred on Draenor is not something that I will ever forget, but neither is it that which defines me.  I have since learned to brace against my fears – to push where others would falter, and strike when others might tire.

But it is not enough. It will never be enough to bring you back.

When I envisioned the return to Argus, it was in a different state.  Though I knew well it was fel-corrupted and fallow, some part of my heart held onto an idyllic wonderland of meadows and springs – untouched, unmolested by the evils abounding.  Perhaps that image spoke more to the innocence that I wished to find there, for the blood-soaked and fel-swollen fields promised no such purity.  But more importantly, it was not where I was, but who I was with that spoke to me:  our exarch, bold and brave in the face of this old world reclaimed for a new generation; that blundering fool Baatos, more brawn than brain but good beneath a crest that outweighed his armor; the Lorespeaker, whose words once soured me but I know now was merely foolishly and misguided.  And you, my mentor, would have been there with me and my son and the many that had fought to take back what was ours.

I met him, you know, my son – Draegar.  When I saw him I could not believe it and yet in the instant I knew who he was and where he had come from: I could see myself in him, far more than I could whatever beast had taken part in his conception.  He was wild and ruthless yet within him was that same spark that you said was within me: the will to be more, even if ‘more’ was not yet understood.  For him I turned away from everything: your daughter, my allies, and even the Alliance for a time.  I wanted to believe that I could break him of those parts of him that had been corrupted by the Horde, but it was a fool’s dream.  I have never been a dreamer and yet, in that, I was driven by love – no, obsession.

I believed that if I could purify him; that if I could remove the fel-taint and orcish brutality from him, then I could undo some of his suffering.  There is a term used among the Broken Ones of Draenei, “lych’traes,” which deals prominently with the rebirth of one from their pain.  You died before those Broken Ones were known in full, but though they are warped in body they are blessed with an understanding that few can appreciate.  I had believed that I could force that rebirth upon my son: that I could make him into the man he should be.  But that was foolish.

He is who he was meant to be. Of that, there can be no denying.

I thought to venture through the second Dark Portal opened – to venture into another time, another place, and rescue you from the fate that I knew awaited.  I had almost made that fateful step when I realized it was meaningless: there may be a man that looked like you, spoke and thought like you, but would he be you? Of course not… and if I were to tell that false version of you my story, would he understand?  Of course not – worse yet, he would love me all the same.  No, I could not return you to this world and no, I could not keep my son from embracing both parts of his lineage.

And just as Draegar would never be the son I wished for, neither would you be the father I desired to know as my own.  Praetus was a good man, but he was not the one that I sought for guidance.  It was you, Juras, who taught me that which I needed to know – that showed me there was more to life than the struggle to conform to another’s wishes.  I was reborn once not in your image, but in the spirit you embodied.  I pray that when this battle is ended and Argus is won, I may enter yet another.

It has been thirty-five years since your death, and three since the Light’s Blade was shattered. I can never return you to life, nor can I reforge that sword that was lost to us, but I can be born again from what I have experience and what I have known.   Once the Eredar are vanquished, there will remain orcs.  And once the orcs are broken, there will be the Forsaken and those that seek to corrupt and pervert the innocent in their selfish quest for subjugation of the weak.  I promise to you – I swear, that I will never allow another to fall because I looked the other way.  Until this world and all others are freed the burdens of pain, I shall fight onward.

Rest well, my mentor, with knowledge that your name and deeds will live on within me and those that come to witness the lessons you bestowed upon a quiet girl with little ambition.  Perhaps I will never again be a part of the Light’s Blade. But by the naaru, I do swear that it shall ever be a part of me.