#kyuustory

[ Photo by raquel raclette on Unsplash ]

“There, that should do it.”

Deep within Sor'theril Barrow Den, Ymalius stepped back, kicking aside discarded bandages stained with blood and ashes to examine his handiwork. In front of him, a kaldorei sat on a low stool, stripped to the waist with her back turned to the healer's work. Burns and cuts littered her shoulders, back, and arms, each wound carefully cleaned and even now fading as the green dragon’s potent magic sped the healing process.

“You ought to rest, you know.” He stepped close again to trace a burn along her left arm where the flesh had once been seared to black. It was almost recovered, well ahead of her other wounds, the swirled markings on her skin clearly visible once more. “This healing’s going to take a lot out of you.” He snorted, visage turning to a wry smile. “But you should know that by now”

“What am I supposed to do, hrm?” Kyuusei half-turned, silvered gaze looking sidelong at the dragon. “Rest in the Dream?” Her laugh was humorless. “We’re already here. They’re already here. And I told her I’d protect it. You knew what you were doing when you dragged me out of Val’sharah and asked me to come to the Isles. Don't tell me to rest now.” She leaned forward again to rest her elbows on her knees, long, unruly hair obscuring her face.

“I suppose,” Ymalius mused, “I did.” Of all the healing wounds on Kyuu’s back, one old scar had resisted all attempts at mending. Between her shoulder blades, the skin was warped in a palm-sized circle, twisted like clay beneath the hand of some cruel potter. “What about this?” he asked, lightly touching the disfigurement.

Kyuusei jerked forward as if shocked. She glared over her shoulder, lips pulled back in a fanged snarl, and Ymalius quickly stepped away to raise his hands in placation. The druid reached for her tunic with an abrupt motion and stood to pull it over her head, back still turned as she became engrossed in the act of lacing the leather garment. “There’s nothing about it,” she snapped back. “I don’t have time for this, Ymalius. I need to get back out there.”

“You forget what I am, Kyuu.” Still circumspect, he moved to the opposite side of the small barrow, leaning against the wall with affected nonchalance. “I’m a dreamwarden, and I slumbered in that meadow outside your cottage for years. Long before you arrived there. I knew your dreams while I slept.” Ymalius sighed ruefully. “And I know your nightmares as well. I know how you came by that scar. Are you going to tell anyone before it comes back to burn you?”

With a last tug at the laces of her tunic, Kyuu turned to face him. Her eyes were still set in a glare, but with a slow exhale of breath, her gaze softened and her shoulders drooped. “Tell them what? The Circle already knows about Delyra, knows she went to the Flame, knows I was the one that killed her at Hyjal. I loved her since we were children, Ymalius. What am I supposed to tell the Circle now, that I was so heartbroken when she left that I tried to follow her, and the Druids of the Flame wouldn’t even have me? That they just... marked me and cast me back out? That I slunk back to the Circle to join the assault on the Firelands instead?”

She took a deep breath before squaring her shoulders. “No. That’s the past. I’ve been lost and burned and found myself again since then. This is what matters now. “ Kyuusei gestured to the passage that led out of the barrow and back to the Emerald Dream. “Amirdrassil. That tree, that – hope.”

“You’re not afraid someone will come forward?” The dragon pushed off the wall and gathered the discarded bandages for a waste bin. “That some disciple of Flame will speak up under interrogation? Her!” Yamalius abruptly took on a self-righteous cast as he leveled a taloned finger at Kyuu in mock accusation. “She came to us in the past! You can’t trust her!” He lifted a brow in question.

Kyuusei’s response was flat and sure. “No. The ones who cast me out? They’re dead. I remember that clearly enough. And these... zealots? Cultists? They’re something different. I thought I was the only one left to remember until you opened your mouth. Besides,” a lopsided grin, the expression familiar and comforting, crept across her features, “I was recruited to defend the Dream by a member of the Green Dragonflight. You. That has to be worth something, dora dor.”

Ymalius gave a low chortle. “It might be, a little bit. I’m sorry, Kyuu. I just don’t think there’s room for doubts out there anymore.” He canted his head. “I had to be sure.”

“You say you’ve seen my dreams,” Kyuu snorted, “but you still needed to be sure. So much for the storied wisdom of Dragonkind. Come on, we need to get back out there.”

A few-score paces took them out of the barrow den, followed by the thunder of broad wings striking the air as Ymalius bore them north to the Wellspring of Life, where the fight against Primalists, Djaradin, and Druids of the Flame was fiercest.

And if the torches that lit the barrow den were dimmer, their flame guttering lower with Kyuusei’s departure, there were no eyes remaining in the barrow to notice...

References

Influences – Delyra

A Repressed Memory – The Firelands

[ Photo by Jacob Rank on Unsplash ]

"Now remember when I told you that's the last you'll see of me Remember when I broke you down to tears I know I took the path that you would never want for me I gave you hell through all the years"

– I Bet My Life, Imagine Dragons

Four Years Ago, Ardenweald

The Veil that stood between Life and Death was still tenuous, then. No longer torn asunder but gossamer-thin in its renewal. Growing stronger. Healing. Soon enough, they said, few would be able to travel between the mortal realms and the Shadowlands.

Kyuusei didn’t care much about what they had to say.

The Dream remained as close to Ardenweald as a lover. And if she went to the cool depths of Tel’andu and slumbered, Kyuusei could walk those forests again in her waking dreams. See the twilight sky littered with stars strange to her, stretching above the canopy. Feel cool grasses beneath her feet.

Could walk with her again. With Delyra.

Sometimes, her love was a fox, lambent and shimmering in her soul’s shape. But on rare occasions, she walked in the form that Kyuu remembered. Slender like the willow, hair laden with midnight. Secrets in her smile. A form outlined in stars.

They talked of nothing most times. After the tears, and the confessions, and the forgiveness. The mending of what had been broken by fire, all those years ago.

But in this dream, Delyra was quiet. She walked silently on two legs next to Kyuusei, their hands entwined, Delyra’s feet leaving no trace in the soft grasses.

“We can’t do this much longer,” she finally said.

“I have something for you.”

After wandering the booths and the performances and the dueling, Kyuusei’d made her way up the hill to the same cooking competition as opening day. It might have been the so-called Tournament of Ages, but nothing said it all had to be a competition of martial strength, dora dor. The crowd held many of the same faces as the previous night of competitive appetizers, for this night’s contest of main dishes.

Mozelle was among them and, despite the human doctor’s dry and ascerbic wit and detached manner, Kyuu considered her something of a friend. Mozelle’s knowledge and appreciation of nature and life bore unusual depth, more than enough to endear her to the druid. Besides, Isha spoke well of her. The regard of birds wasn’t easily granted.

It didn’t make it any less of a surprise when the good doctor drew a single orange rose from a small bundle of flowers and presented it to Kyuusei.

“It was the only one I could find that matched your skirt,” Mozelle explained matter-of-factly. “A Helena’s Feather rose from the Ashes of Al’ar booth. They’re supposed to make a good incense as well.”

The bundle of flowers Mozelle carried, obviously intended for other gifts, assuaged a brief moment of unreasoned concern, and Kyuusei inclined her head in thanks.

“Shaha lor’mar. Thats so thoughtful of you.”

A nod of acknowledgement and both turned their attention went back to the competition to see what could be made of salmon, yak cheese, and cabbage. Kyuu absently tucked the rose into the vines that entangled her staff, a few newly sprouted tendrils twining about the rose’s stem to hold it firm among the pale leaves and small white blooms.

The Dreamwarden looked down at Kyuusei, calmness in Alythsera's voice as she posed her first question.

"In the darkest night, in the deepest dream - what do you see?”

Kyuusei considered for a moment, her expression briefly solemn. "The past. Flames and pain, written three times."

"So it is that your dreams bring to mind the anguish you have suffered - but as Fate will test you, know that darkest night brings brightest day. Let the mark remind you to never forget what you have lost - for what you have endured grants you strength. But what awakens you from these tormented dreams?"

She inclined her head and slowly exhaled, the earlier darkness breathed out. "Small white blooms, growing on vines with leaves of pale green." Almost absently, she reached over her own shoulder, plucking a small leaf from the living staff slung across her back.

"Ah, the sight of flowers. Let these brilliant blooms remind you that no matter how tall the walls may be, one will cherish the sight of your bloom to climb them. And at last, my final question - what do you hope will remain, after you are gone?"

"Given enough time, no things remain." Kyuu's expression turned wry as she looked up at the green dragon's visage "You know that better than I, hrm? But - stories, those endure, yes? I'd like to hope they still tell stories, fondly, once I'm gone."

"As the cycle draws from seed to bloom, as flame endures within a lantern, know this: Long after the cycle of nature has come for you, decay will never touch the spoken word of your legacy."

The Dreamwarden cupped her hands briefly - a verdant light shining between them, before offering a dream mark to Kyuusei.

"Here. May this serve you well in the times to come."

Kyuu accepted the mark with both hands, offering a shallow bow in return.

The mark seemed a strange thing, weightier than its size as Kyuu carefully tucked it away. The green dragon in her visage, Alythsera, excused herself into the Tournament's crowd moments later, proclaiming a need to find rest after having seen into so many dreams

* * *

Many hours later, as she drifted off to her own rest after an eventful night, Kyuu mused over the Dream Warden's words

"...decay will never touch the spoken word of your legacy."

[ Photo by Blake Weyland on Unsplash ]

Roots stirred in the dark earth. A quiet awakening. Awareness.

I have grown here. Yet this is not my soil.

Tendrils recoiled. With awareness came will, with will came choice.

This is not my soil. Broken masks and shattered mirrors reside, though there exists an echo (taste) of birth. An echo brought here of hope, yet never has that hope found purchase in this soil.

A shift of growth, of intent. Slow, perhaps, for those with hearts that pulsed with red blood, that breathed the air created by kin. But urgent among the children of the green.

Some tricks take longer to bloom.

V A L ‘ S H A R AH

Kyuusei woke, gasping for breath, her fingers grasping for purchase in the bedsheets.

“‘Sei-sei?” Lani’s voice was querulous, muddled with sleep from the other side of the bed. Her hand rested, cool and calming, on Kyuu’s back. Drifted lightly across old scars that were the last remnants of wounds long since healed. “Another bad dream?”

“No, not bad. But...”

She lingered a moment. The draw of the bed, their bed, was difficult to resist. A place of comfort made within the cottage in Val’sharah, no matter the demands and responsibilities that so often drew them apart. Darkshore, Astranaar, fledgling druids, the healing and rebuilding and vigilance of recovery. This was their place, their haven, their hard-won respite from... everything.

With a reluctant sigh, Kyuusei slipped from beneath the sheets and padded barefoot across the floor.

“Kyuusei?”

Alania rose up in the bed to watch, drawing the sheets around her as Kyuu knelt down to open a worn iron-bound chest. Inside, the chest was filled with the mementos of a life spanning almost a millennia. And on top of scrolls and trinkets and books rested the fragments of a staff shattered into three parts. A gift bearing Cenarius’ blessing, ever-blooming, crafted from an Ancient’s branch - yet broken almost two years past in the assault that ended in the Blightcaller’s welcomed demise.

Three green fragments, each of which bore the green leaves of new growth for the first time since their shattering, extended tendrils towards each other to draw again into a single whole.

“It woke up.” Kyuu lifted the tenuously-joined fragments and held them - it - aloft for Alania to see. She pushed ivy-laden hair out of her eyes with one long-fingered hand, a sharp-toothed smile upon her features.

“And I think,” the druidess mused, “I know what awakened it.” She settled on the floor, the green-leafed staff cradled to her chest.

Alania exhaled a sigh with all the dramatics of the long-suffering.

“And where, surfal,” she asked, “should I tell the captain you’re going this time?”

Kyuu grinned. “Pandaria. But I don’t think I’ll come back alone.”

“So long,” Lani offered a knowing smile as she pushed the sheets aside, “as you return to me.”

“Always.”

P A N D A R I A

A stormcrow flew high above the Jade Forest, dark eyes set upon the grounds far below. The manor was all but enveloped in growth and neglect, the few caretakers fallen far behind the green’s advance. But there, behind the long-uninhabited residence, was a small clearing surrounded by thick stands of bamboo, a familiar sight to the one who flew above.

Lazy circles brought the stormcrow lower and closer until the winged form resolved into a kaldorei’s shape, long and lean. Kyuusei set foot lightly in the clearing, looking about with a well-acquainted gaze.

The grasses were familiar if overgrown. And there was the stone memorial to the mentor of another, etched with Pandaren characters again grown thick with moss.

But where the teldorei had once taken root to the memorial’s side, there was only a disturbance in the earth - thick loam cracked and broken as if something had pulled itself out of the rich soil.

Kyuu looked from one side to the other, then drew the reborn staff from her back.

“Ande’thoras’ethil, teldorei,” she murmured, placing the staff into the broken earth where a small sapling had once grown. “Bandu belore a’Kalimdor?”

The staff twisted, the tendrils that drew its fragments together twining closer as small white flowers blossomed along its length. A faint rustling sound grew at the edge of the clearing before, tentatively, a small shape emerged from the encircling bamboo.

The shape of a sapling tree, but one that... moved. Roots worked across the grass, branches moving in the approximation of limbs, and a pair of bright green eyes blinked as if looking upon the world for the first time. And, perhaps, it was the first.

A sense of an uncertain question. The creak of wood, of green growth, raised as if it were a questioning voice. Clear enough to the druid’s ears.

“This was home enough as you grew,” Kyuusei offered reassuringly. “But it’s time to come with me. It’s time to rejoin your kin. Come to Kalimdor.”

The fledgling Ancient crept forward on uncertain roots, branches reaching out to twine with the green growth of Kyuu’s staff.

[ Photo by Suyash Agrawal on Unsplash ]

Kyuusei startled awake, her long limbs tangled in the bedsheets, dark laughter still ringing in her ears. The kaldorei sat up abruptly and pulled tangled locks of hair away from her throat, then rubbed at the skin as if to erase the fading sensation of gnarled hands. It took a few more calming breaths and the coolness of sweat evaporating from her skin before she was fully present... only to question for a moment where she was.

The light streaming through the window was at the wrong angle, the room’s scent dusky with an echo of tea and old incense on air that had been long stale. But it was the room’s decor - terminally uncluttered and painstakingly ordered save for Kyuu’s duffle tossed at the foot of the bed - that reminded her where she’d slept.

“Dora dor. Thal na teldorei, rae kal-ethil’re,” she muttered to herself in lilting Darnassian, running sharp fingers through her hair.

The Jade Forest. Pandaria. The old manor.

* * *

A morning bath - a benefit of staying here rather than with the others on the Dancing Dolphin - and a few moments in a familiar kitchen found Kyuusei padding out of the house with a cup of warm tea cradled in her hands, making her way to a small clearing in the back.

The house had been empty when she flew from Krasarang last night. But the key was still hidden in the same place, the grounds still marginally maintained by the pair of Forsaken groundskeepers that Kyuu carefully avoided. And in all truth, the druidess hadn’t expected the owner to be here.

And if she had been? Some questions were easier set aside, hrm?

Surrounded by thick stands of bamboo, the clearing was green with low grasses and moss still damp in the morning air. Near the center rested a large stone with Pandaren characters etched into it; a few paces to the left of the graven marker grew a small lopsided tree adorned with pale green leaves and tiny white blossoms.

“It’s been too long,” Kyuu said as she moved closer, running one hand gently through the small tree’s foliage, its branches still not taller than the druidess herself. “And here I hoped I wouldn’t have to worry about dreams near you, hrm? But I know,” sharp-tipped fingers cradled a small cluster of blossoms. “I need to go back soon. Let shal’nar Kyuusei tend to you first.”

Her morning spent in the small grove was almost a moving meditation, Kyuusei clearing away leaves and debris with detail and care that the groundskeepers obviously didn’t have time to grant this small corner of the estate. The lopsided tree and the pale green ivy that surrounded it were given most of the druidess’ attentions, but Kyuu still took time to brush leaves from the graven marker and pick out bits of moss from the etchings that had been worked into the stone.

The sun was near mid-day by the time she finished her unhurried work, her final labor spent polishing a lone brass bell hanging from a branch by a weathered ribbon.

“There,” Kyuu murmured, empty teacup in her hand. “Shaha lor’ma, teldorei,” she bowed, “Tordu kal-ethil’re... ishnu ano’naldu.”

Kyuusei stepped away from the crush of the Masquerade after the last performance ended, melded into shadows on the edge of Ashamane's Fall and padded on four legs towards the Gate. When the music was a distant echo, she rose up on two legs and walked the High Road south - back towards Sundersong Glade.

Towards home, or at least what bore its trappings.

She stripped out of the loose cream and gold robe she'd worn, took a moment to lave her face and rinse off at the edge of the well before entering the small cottage.

Inside, there was dust on too many surfaces; accusations of how long she'd been gone. Darkshore and Drustvar. Stormwind and Boralus. Ardenweald. So many places, pulling the druidess this way and that. This place, where she'd been so happy for a time, was allowed to languish in the shadow of the others that called her.

Her leathers, worn and comfortable, waited on a corner of the bed. She tugged them back on, binding the tunic about her chest, wrapping her feet once more, fastening the heavy leather gauntlets on her wrist. But it wasn't until Kyuu put the pair of curved daggers back at her hips she breathed an unconscious sigh of relief. The fangs of the old nightsaber patriarch, a gift to her from the company at Bashal'aran, now edged with the glint of silver she'd helped Merellia recover.

Too many places that called to her...

She could return to Stormwind through the Twilight Grove, walk the camps, check on her friends and ensure they weren't being set upon again by whatever criminal elements seemed fixated on accosting them. Basha'aran, and Alania, weren't far when one could walk the Dream, and she might find some comfort there. Or to the Station in the Wetlands, to see what she could make of the shrine, and whether she could make good on her promise to bring Merellia and Alexandria to Ardenweald. Where the silver and rowan would find their use. Where Delyra's spirit still roamed.

But the pale wine she'd had at the Masquerade plied at her thoughts, sapped her purpose, and drew forth a quiet melancholy. Making her way out of the cottage, she took a seat on the stones next to the moonwell and idly drew her fingers through its pale, luminous waters.

“The experiences of each druid are as varied as nature itself. Most learn at the side of a Shan’do, while others find the Dream or commune with the wild. But there are those few, touched by the spirits themselves...”

— Navas Sageheart, Druid of the Branch.

200 Years Ago

It started as a presence on the fringe of Kyuusei’s senses, a pricking at the back of her neck as she patrolled the woodlands of Ashenvale. Something beyond the trails, hidden in the moonlit shadows cast by the Elune’s light, lingering only for a moment before receding.

At first, she thought nothing of it. Wisps were common in these forests, drifting between the massive boughs even this far from Ameth’aran. And none of her sisters had reported disturbances in their patrols, the Sentinels speaking only of calm in the Long Vigil.

But for Kyuusei, it didn’t pass; the presence grew more frequent, bolder, as Mother Moon waxed brighter each passing night. The young kaldorei, not even 700 years old, grew ever more sure. Something was stalking her.

Elune was radiant and full, joined by the Blue Child in the night sky as Kyuusei made her wary patrol among the ancient trees. There. Her long ears twitched, skin raising at the back of her neck, but this time there was a glimpse, something at the edge of her vision. Waiting beyond the trees, taunting her.

Kyuusei turned to leap from the trail, rushing into the trees and after the apparition without hesitation. The chase was on.

She wasn’t sure how long the pursuit went; all her attention focused on the shape that moved ahead of her, flowing between the trees and moving from shadow to shadow even in the brilliant moonlight. Always just beyond her reach, but never escaping her. But at some point, the forest around her changed. Elune’s harsh brightness grew softer, the branches and leaves gained their own faint luminance.

No longer in the Ashenvale she knew, the night elf pushed through the underbrush and stumbled to a halt in a small clearing.

The grasses were soft beneath her feet, a shallow moonwell filling the clearing with its gentle light. Slender trees ringed its edges, their supple branches decorated with pale green leaves and delicate white blooms. Kyuu only had a moment to take in the quiet beauty before a shadow beyond the moonwell drew her gaze.

A great cat, a nightsaber that dwarfed even the ones her sister Sentinels rode, stalked into the moonwell’s light. Her sleek shape limned in glowing starlight, the feline watched the night elf with a lambent predator’s gaze. But rather than fear, Kyuusei only felt a strange calm that bordered on quiet elation.

“There you are,” she muttered. “I found you.”

The enormous feline rumbled in response.

No. I have found you.

The nightsaber leaped at Kyuusei with a speed that seemed impossible for her size. She threw up her arms in a vain attempt to shield herself, turning her head and closing her eyes as she waited for claws to rend her flesh, for teeth to close around her neck. Waited for an end that didn’t come.

She felt rather than heard the same rumbled voice, this time tinged with amusement.

Look about you, child of starlight.

Slowly, Kyuusei opened her eyes. She was lower, close to the ground. The shadows beyond the moonwell were no longer shadowed to her sight, the earlier silence of the clearing now filled with quiet rustlings of leaves and small creatures unseen. Creatures she could smell, their scent causing her claws to twitch at the thought of prey in the grass. Grass that was soft and cool beneath her paws.

You gave chase well. But now? Let me teach you to hunt.

Kyuu tried to smile but only succeeded in baring her fangs. A soft breeze came through the clearing to ruffle her fur, the gentle sensation nudging her into motion. Awkwardly at first, and then with growing confidence, a single feline shape padded from the clearing, moving into the gentle shadows beyond...

(Thank you for the ask, @theparkhurstalchemists )