#taryane

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Eliendre had not meant to find what she found. She was alone at home, as usual, and wanted to give herself a chance to wander. It was when she was alone that she could roam, without getting in anyone’s way. While she never stepped into any of the occupied bedrooms without their owners’ express permission, no-one had said that she was not allowed into the study.

Narindiel shared her space of work with nobody. Taryane preferred to keep to the security of her own messy room, with her own shelves stacked with tomes of her choosing, her table on which she could read, write, plan, tinker, and the numerous messy supplies and objects she had laying around. The study of their home was a place where Narindiel mainly worked on House-related matters, as far as Eliendre was told. 

She had not intended to pry. She merely saw the scrap of parchment laying intact in the unlit brazier, spared from the flames that were meant to destroy its entirety. The scant words on it were enough for her to take pause.

For the first time in many weeks, Eliendre’s interest was keenly roused.

She told no-one about it. After all, it was not her business. She was never meant to have seen that little bit of information that was not privy to anyone. But it was too much even for her to resist, when Vellidan announced - out of the blue - that they were to go on a Hunt.

Eliendre raised the suggestion of the target herself. It was no lie that on her way to find Vellidan, after she left the Fel Hammer, she heard rumours of scattered agents of the Legion still in hiding in various parts of the world. They only needed to be sought out, tracked, and dealt with, permanently. It was a rumour, she had told Vellidan, that this particular demon was last seen in the south of Silithus. It was a good a place to start as any.

While she responded - too quickly, perhaps - that she was ready to head off, she noticed that Taryane was less than eager to embark on the excursion. She also noticed that Taryane, despite her reluctance, was keen to spend time with her own father, and so came anyway.

Eliendre tried hard not to be reminded of her own late father, and how similar a dynamic she once had with Ann’da.

They departed without Narindiel, who had other responsibilities to attend to. One of the estate’s mages opened a portal for them to an old Horde base in the bleak land where the wars of the Shifting Sands took place not once, but twice. It was not Eliendre’s first time seeing the horror of the Blade of Sargeras impaled into the land, but Taryane, she noted, stared, expression stony, at the disturbing sight. 

After questioning the few still-stationed Horde troops of any unusual sightings in the area, Eliendre forged ahead, leading the hunt. It was a familiar mindset to slide into. She lived and breathed nothing but the Path since she made up her mind and was initiated into the Illidari. It had become her identity. She made it who and what she was. It was easy to turn into a single-minded tracker, hunter, killer. It was easy to turn into a machine, bred and forged for a single purpose.

It was harder to remember how to live again, outside of the brethren of those similar to herself, who were willing to die for their purpose. It was harder to remember what it felt like to be happy, only for any semblance of happiness to turn into grief.

From the ruins by the old Scarab Wall, to the merciless burrows of the silithid, to the dunes and the rocky caves leading easward, Eliendre was relentless. They found remains of rotten corpses - or at least they looked like corpses. Of any and all races, remnants of not only Alliance and Horde forces, but also shamans of the Earthen Ring, and Cenarion druids. They were not normal corpses. Not with the rancid decomposition, akin to the corrupted rot if an undead and a demon had an offspring. They were scattered amongst the remains of actual corpses in a subtle yet bloody trail, hopefully leading to where their quarry was.

Taryane struggled to keep up. Several times, Eliendre paused, hearing the merciless taunting that Vellidan made towards the blood knight to spur her on. She felt a stab of guilt. 

It was not Taryane’s fault that Eliendre did not stop and wait. After all, it was harder to remember that there were other people than oneself and the foulness of the creature that shared your soul. It was harder to remember that there were those who still mattered. Who still cared.

Internally chiding herself, she slowed her pace, letting Taryane move beside her, than behind her. 

Eventually, they reached the mountainous range that bordered the cruel sands and the primieval jungle of the Un’goro Crater.

____

If there was a single demon that was, in Eliendre’s opinion, the most difficult to hunt down, it was a Nathrezim. Elusive, cunning, a master of stealth and of disguise, wielder of shadowy powers that could deceive minds, the worst dreadlords over the course of the Legion’s history, especially on Azeroth, were those who wrought ruin from within their enemies. 

And if what Eliendre surmised was true, then this particular dreadlord - that, going by the scrap of paper she found, Narindiel had failed to destroy - was not going to be easy to deal with. Vellidan likely expected that, given that he remained at the back of them both, like a watcher, supervising them, only aiding if he needed to. 

They came upon an unlikely group at a campsite, near the northeastern border. A rag-tag mix of hunters with no regard for the faction divide, eager to capture trophies of the beasts of the land. They were welcoming - overly welcoming, and extremely friendly. Too friendly. 

Eliendre could not see anything wrong, but she would not expect to have seen nor detected anything wrong. It was Taryane who felt the most disturbed of them three. What could a Light-wielder sense that a demon hunter could not?

The roar and attack of the hulking dwarf after the blood knight’s unannounced blessing with the Sunwell’s Light was enough for them to act. More of them swarmed out from various hiding places: caves, tents hidden amongst the thick under growth, remnants of silithid burrows... Those that emerged were the ones who looked the least intact, as if discarded from failed experimentation. From them, every single open wound poured foul green blood. Neither undead, nor demon. Both undead yet demonic. Created by the very demons as the counter to the senses of a demon hunter.

Vellidan leapt into the fray as a literal army of homunculi erupted around herself and Taryane. Not only humanoids, but amongst them, remains of silithids. Remains even of some of the dino-beasts. Eliendre would not have minded if her Shan’do did not join in: the potential threat to her person thrilled her. For the first time in weeks - no, months - she felt as if she was alive again. This was her purpose. She was supposed to have perished on Argus. She was not meant to have returned home, to pretend to know how to live again.

“Eliendre!”

She saw the eruption of Light from the earth around Taryane, burning the homunculi in holy flames. Velllidan had shouted her name, and just in time. Before the rusty axe swung upon the back of the blood knight’s neck. Eliendre leapt across to her adopted sister’s side, snarling as the consecrated ground seared the soles of her feet, and blocked the would-have-been killing blow, before in turn decapitating the offending copy of an orc berserker that wielded the weapon.

She did not see nor hear Taryane’s reaction. She did not care to. Eliendre’s sight fell upon a single lookalike of a Forsaken body, crawling up the sides of the ragged cliff and upwards to what looked like a cave in the wall of rock.

She cut down the rest of the abominations that threw themselves in her way as she beelined to the escaping individual. Vellidan and Taryane were making good work of the swarm behind, giving her the opportunity of pursuit.

____

Somewhere in the depths of her memory, Eliendre recalled the Un’goro Crater as an ancient land once used by the Titans in the shaping of the world. Her mother was the one who made her read the history books, and then told her afterwards of the experiments made there, of the constructs where the first watchers inhabited.

She sliced the Forsaken homunculus in half as she stood in the pitch blackness of the cave. Her spectral vision allowed her to see what normal eyes could not, and even then, it was dark. Metallic pillars of titanic design lined the walls, decorated with runes that looked inert. It lined a tunnel further inwards. There was no one else in the immediate vicinity. Not that she could see.

“Why did you snoop in my office? Why are you here?”

Eliendre whirled around, brandished warglaives still covered in the foul green blood of the copies. In person, Narindiel had suddenly appeared. The blood mage’s lips were in a thin, angry line. Fel fire surrounded her hands as she glared at Eliendre. 

“Who gave you permission to look for the demon? Why didn’t you go elsewhere? Where is Vellidan? Where is my daughter?”

There was the sound of scrambling, and Taryane pulled herself onto the smooth stone floor of the cave’s entrance. “Minn’da?” She blinked owlishedly at Narindiel.

Eliendre bared her teeth and snarled.

The head of Narindiel flew off her neck just as Vellidan himself appeared behind Taryane. Blood was everywhere. On her glaives. On her gloves. The walls of the cave. The floor. 

Disgusting green blood.

Taryane, the colour drained from her face in shock, was the first to say anything after hers and Vellidan’s initial reactions of horror at what Eliendre did. Eliendre heard her say what must have been the first thing that came to her mind. “How did you know she was not real?”

She froze in response, a sudden coldness plunged into her chest akin to a blade, as if the blood knight’s words were the literal water that doused her focused rage.

“Enough. We move onward.” Shan’do Sunstorm’s commanding voice interjected, breaking the tense silence. “I can smell him.”

She could feel Taryane’s stare lingering on her, aghast and suspicious, even as she moved ahead with her father, leaving Eliendre trailing behind. 

_____

They arrived later at the doorstep of their house, via the teleportation stone held by Vellidan. All of them, especially Taryane and herself, were bloodied, wounded, and exhausted. It had been a difficult task taking on the Nathrezim, even with the three of them. Eliendre had forced aside the horror of her own action beforehand, prior to once again becoming the honed demon-killing-machine that she was forged into, only now instead of another Illidari, she fought alongside a blood knight. 

Vellidan helped too, but Eliendre knew him well enough in battle to have seen that on this occasion, he only aided when he had to: when either of them, in their difficult co-ordination, posed any risk in the face of the dreadlord. 

In the end, it was Taryane who tore off the Nathrezim’s wings, her twin-blade radiant with holy flames cutting into the demon’s back and sides, while Eliendre sliced into his chest and ripped out his heart. In respect and in tribute, she offered it to her Shan’do, for the months that she was separated from him in the aftermath of Argus. 

“Go get seen to, Eli.” Taryane’s voice was hoarse, parched from thirst and from too much shouting. She managed to heal herself as best as she could, of course, but with the likes of Eliendre and Vellidan, there was little she could do except reach for the healing salves, imbued bandages and potions, and offer them to both demon hunters.

Eliendre slowly shook her head, declining. She was wounded, but she was alive. The pain reminded her of it. She would recover, as she had many times in the past.

“Come and wash then. Ann’da would be using the other bathroom.”

Again, she wordlessly declined. She turned a deaf ear to anything else Taryane or Vellidan might have said. Opening the doors to the back porch and the sea, she tread towards the beach instead.

____

She left her rinsed armour on the rocky sand. Her warglaives too, were wiped clean and stabbed in the ground in the shape of a cross behind her. Immersed in the water up to her neck, Eliendre brought her knees to her chest, and let the rhythmic ebb and flow of the waves gently sway her posture as she hugged her legs.

How did you know she was not real?

She did not know how she knew. It was instinct. Cold blooded and cruel instinct. A gamble? A calculated risk? Though she was correct in her decision making, what must have unsettled - must have frightened Taryane, was how decisive her action was. How she had absolutely no hesitation nor remorse in culling a figure of kindness, of maternal love, of charity. An individual who meant the world to her two companions. Her new family. Anyone else who was in her place would have taken pause and be conflicted, but she did not.

How hard was it to remember how to live again? 

What would her Ann’da and Minn’da say if they knew what she had turned into?