#quel'danas

It perched on a small finger of land above the water at the northeastern tip of the island, facing the rising sun.  Behind him, the sun was vanishing over the western horizon, night coming on.  The tiny shrine commemorating the lost of House Kyvare was simple, not ostentatious at all, but wax coated its stone shelves, the floor.  Hurricanes of red and blue and silver and gold sparkled in the dying light as he finished the climb up the hill.  Below, waves crashed against the base of the cliff, the first faint harbingers of a storm still hours away.

Tyr knelt within the shrine, his eyes sliding shut.  To his left, on the north side of the tiny memorial shrine, stood a dozen flickering candles. Ahead of him, facing east, stood even more.  A sigh escaped his lips as he stared at the flickering flames, settling down against his heels, ignoring twinges of pain, of old aches and fresh discomfort.  It was those things that reminded him that he was still alive—something that the men and women represented by the candles around him no longer were.  They were just memories, some faint and fading, others raw and close.  Some he maintained out of respect for his parents, his grandparents, remembering people he never knew himself but still understood were important.

These past few years, he’d found himself adding too many of his own, representing people he’d known, loved, lost.

He set another candle, lit it, then settled back again.  He stared at the flickering flames, lights in the gathering darkness, lights to push it back—lights to remember and lights to forget.  Lights to remember the good times and to forget the pain.

His gaze flicked between them—the brightly burning one with lavender embedded in the wax, the braided blue and green and black that burned low, now—he’d need to replace it when he came next—the fat green and gold one that was newer than most, not much older than the one with the lavender.

Another sigh.  A tear tracked down his cheek.

Tyr closed his eyes, humming the first few notes of a hymn.  His voice rose in song, soft at first, growing stronger as the night deepened.

Waves crashed below. Someday, they would wear away the base of this bit of land and it would fall away into the sea.

But it was not this day.

The wind off the northern seas was cold, tugging wisps of white-blonde hair free of the bun and braids she bound them in every day, leaving strands to whip around her face. She stood on a rise above the plateau, looking north over the sea, north toward Northrend rather than south, toward the Eastern Kingdoms and the Isles.

The journey back there would come soon enough.

Her glaive hung against her back, a comfortable weight—more comfortable than a simple staff these days. She wasn’t sure at what point she’d begun to travel so well-armed, but it had happened somewhere along the line. It had progressed beyond the throwing knives hidden in her hair disguised as stick-pins to a pair of daggers in her boot, another in her sleeve.  A sword usually replaced the glaive when the latter wasn’t practical.

And then, of course, there was magic—arcane and the Light.

When people looked, she wasn’t sure what they saw.  Perhaps it was a girl playing at being a soldier, a noblewoman playing at martial games, at making war.  Did some see the spy, the whisper?  Did some see her as her mother’s daughter, one whose secrets would make or doom whole Houses?

Perhaps.

Perhaps someday they would see a Blood Knight, a deadly and tempered blade with the Light at her call and a few more tricks up her sleeve, a healer and warrior and defender.

She had come here last night, after finalizing the last of the paperwork, things that had been on file for months but had been missing a few last signatures, a letter or two for her files, mostly certifications of her fitness to serve.  Now it was done and official where it had previously been quietly assumed.

What would Talindar have thought?  Would he have understood?

Wyn closed her eyes and exhaled.

Quel’danas was a familiar place for her, the plateau becoming increasingly familiar.  She had gone to the Sunwell, sat for a few hours, losing herself in thought and meditation.  Now the sun was rising over the northern sea and soon she would return south, out to the Broken Isles and the war against the Legion.  There would be one more stop for her before she went to Dalaran and back to war, though.  She would visit the estate where her family had died, where she had watched her mother murdered.

Perhaps the stones there would have more to whisper to her than the Sunwell had.  Perhaps there were more secrets to know before she returned to the war.  There could be something there that her mother had left for her, had hidden away that remained safe, still lost.

Then again, perhaps it would be a fool’s errand that would simply bring on more nightmares and visions of the past.

Even then, though, it would not have been for nothing.

Wyn Ilthyrii exhaled a sigh into the wind and opened her eyes.  The sun had cleared the water in the east.  It was time to go.

Months had seemed to come and go with the blink of an eye as the war carried on, and even now it was waged across the face of every inch of the Isles. Smoke rose on the horizon of every field, camps rose and fell as the beast of war breathed on, and letters dispersed like falling leaves. How many had been written with a shaking hand, a heavy heart, and the knowledge that the words would bring little comfort to those who needed them back home? Each one had set like a heavy weight piling upon his shoulders, and yet each and every one of them had to be written. Time would come when wounds would mend, and heart would once again know peace and joy. Yet as time dragged on, that shining hope seemed far and away. ______________________________

The morning sun began to crest over the horizon, and filter through the boughs of the trees dotting the landscape. Light pierced through windows, raising the land to wake to a new day on the cusp. Life began to stir from it's slumber, and the light chorus of the ocean rose with each heartbeat. Yet standing at the edge of the shore was a lone figure, poised calmly with feet bare and sunk into the wet sand. Lightly fitted clothing rippled as the morning breeze drifted in from the north, and a brief shiver slipped through him as the icy winds gave way to the perpetual spring air that surrounded him. Most were only just beginning to resist the call of the new morning, but he had stood there for hours like a quiet sentinel. He'd watched the Moon lift from its bed, and give way as the Sun now took its place.

For once the day didn't ring with the clash of steel, or the pungent odor of burning pitch and felfire. Instead the calm waters of the northern ocean brought with it the hints of salt on the air, and the waves that tumbled over themselves did so in a rhytmic fashion. The careful study of their uniform appearance had given him something upon which to focus, and now as the sun began to blanket the water's surface he was jarred from the silent revery. As the wind picked up, strands of alabaster hair were whipped back, far longer now than they had been at the beginning of this conflict. Though most were tied to a lazily bound tail, most had come free and now drifted like a wayward cloak against his upper back. It was one of the few things that he had left to change as the war took its course, as something real that he could point to and know how time had passed.

His hands, calloused from what seemed ages now of constant fighting, lifted to carefully right the tossled mess that rebelled against him. Yet he paused when his fingers grazed along a single strands, braided by a blackened line of hair mingled into his own. He thumbed over the tiny ridge of that line for a long moment before letting it disappear within the rest, and cast his eyes to the clear skies above. Bereft of cloud cover the day promised to be a colder one, and though most would argue that the weather stayed perfect year round, Denlandis swore he could always feel the change in the wind. Perfection always had a funny way of hiding the truth that lay beneath it, one only ever had to look close enough. That thought alone seemed to break the trance that he'd fallen into, and as his lungs filled with the sea air he let it spill forth with a sigh.  

In the distance, the sun's light finally enveloped him completely, erasing the lingering shadows that had remained from the night before. It's warmth radiated through him, almost as though it were coursing through his veins further with every heartbeat. His lips parted to whisper a silent message, no prayer or littany, but something that still spoke to a devout heart. Verdant eyes, flecked by golden light that glimmered with the rising sun, shut briefly as he finished his whispered promise. Just as the fiery orb cleared the horizon completely he gave one final look out towards it, and then turned away. His toes dug into the sand with every step, carrying him farther from the shoreline toward the small town that had once served as a staging ground for another war years ago, against the same foe that now plagued them once again.

All around, one had only to look close enough to see the lingering signs of battle that marked the stones and pathways. In some places fires still burned, though diminished, unwilling to succumb to the progress of time. Bare feet felt the coarse surface of the stone walkways, feeling where chips and scrapes had been dug by plated boots and wagons not so long ago. Now, as then, an army of desperate survivors had invaded the final stronghold of an ancient enemy, though now the shores of Quel'Danas stood quiet, while the Isles raged in constant struggle. He made his way towards the center, where the monument stood in constant defiance. Side by side, Blood Elf and Draenei stood immortalized in partnership against a common enemy. It had been erected to serve as a memorial for the fallen yet many, himself included, had looked to it as a beacon of hope.

A hand lay against the plaque, etched with words of remembrance. He'd never know the struggle that followed in the wake of the Prince's treason, but many of the soldiers who'd bled here now fought beside him. He'd passed this statue a hundred times during his training, but now as he stood before it once more, it seemed somehow different. He noticed the chips in the stone, the small cracks that had formed from age and settling. The rough surface that had been weathered by the ocean air remained beautiful, though, and in a way it served only to heighten its purpose. Many would look at it and see only an artisan's work, a memorial cast in flawless stone.

He saw a flawed creation that, despite time and age, remained unbroken in the face of the challenges that surrounded it. Like it, perhaps as centuries passed he too would be stricken with lines of aging, and the scars of battles long forgotten. As he labored in a forge that one day might be, side by side with one who'd gifted him purpose, and a single strand of ebony hair, would he look back and wonder about this statue. They fought for a future that might not be, but that never seemed to deter them. His thoughts raced with possibility, worry, anguish for their fallen, but somewhere a glimmer of hope prevailed. Calloused fingers fell away from the plaque, hands folding neatly together at his back as he looked up to the timeless features of the stone figures.

"We make our own perfection."