Shadows

“Eriean?”

Her voice was meek in the silence of the room. He turned and she could see it clearly on his face that he was in pain as well.

Yes there was pain, Eireannan thought, as if aware of what was going on in her mind.

And there was nothing he was able to do to relieve it. He remembered the insane rush through Stratholme he’d done the day before, after the events in Tranquilien. Went in alone, one thought only brandished in his mind in scarlet letters.

To kill.

At least he’d done no worse to the world by sparing it of another handful of necromancers and ghouls.

The funny thing was the Scourge were for the most part witless, or so corrupted by the dark magic they wielded that they could not even remember the distinction between wrong and right. It was an army the Lich King put together with the sole purpose of wiping out all life on Azeroth. And it was impossible to blame the rotten corpses for the atrocities they so easily committed. Blame Nerz’ul, Arthas Menethil, Kel’Thuzad if you want… Someone who *should* have a sense of morality. Stitches had no brain to think with, no personal will to abide by.

So, Eireannan meditated, it could even get worse than that.

The Scourge trampled over our cities and villages and unburied our dead…They torn apart, chopped, disemboweled and stepped over our loved ones. They didn’t however beat, torture and rape our women and children IN COLD BLOOD!

It had to be the survivors to do that.

It really had to.

Then it is true that the worse tormentors are recruited from the martyrs that have survived their trials.

It would have been a thousand times better for the Scourge to extinguish us all, to the last woman, to the last unborn child, rather than to become such creatures ourselves.


----

“Eirean”, Laandra repeated and again the sound seemed to reverberate in echoes in the utter silence of the room. “Come here”.

He obeyed. Afraid yet to look into her eyes.

It’s not that I feel guilty.

But I’d rather not lived to see how low into darkness my own kin have fallen.

And I thought being a warlock was bad enough.

What they do makes me look like an innocent, although my hands are seriously covered in blood.

I can't stand your suffering, Laan...

Her face betrayed anguish and exhaustion, but at least the empty gaze was gone, Eireannan noticed. That was better. Shock and despair had a logical progression, he remembered…he’d learned it as a priest so as to be able to deal with such situations and ease the pain of those in need…and then he’d tested it first hand after the fall of Silvermoon.

There was a limit to the capacity of suffering each being possessed. Eventually you reached the bottom. And if getting there hadn’t killed you yet, you would survive.

“Hold me”, Laandra whispered, leaning forward, across his lap, so that her face was nestled into his shirt.

With a deep sigh of relief, Eireannan pulled her closer, wrapping his arms protectively around her shoulders. It was exactly the thing he’d wanted to do for two days now, yet he dared not, fearing her reaction.

You are alone and you will die alone, remember?

But the suffering was real and so were his feelings towards her. The rest was a total blur.

“I’m sorry”, she said, after a while.

“You – are – sorry?”

Her warmth, her delicious scent, the feeling of her body cradled against his, after two days of mental torture were more than enough to make his head spin.

“For pushing you away like that.”

“I would have done the same”, he whispered and instinctively tightened his grip. “There are moments when no one can understand what you are going through. You have to drown in you own pain and survive it, or you’re lost…”

“Yeah”, Laandra sighed. Her own life had taught her that much. But it had also taught her not to dwell on sorrow and bad memories. You became a victim the moment you started to consider yourself one. Such things simply happened. You went through them and just grew stronger.

“You want to talk about it?” he asked, quietly.

Laandra changed her position, so as to be able to look at Eireannan, as she still lay in his arms and felt shocked by his pained expression.

“Matter of fact, yes”, she whispered. “I just…I just think I’ve lost it badly, these days…”

“No”, he said, softly caressing her hair, the tip of his fingers trailing over the frown lines in her face, then her lips. “You’re actually taking it well.”

She raised a brow, as if his statement was completely surprising, and then gave a small shrug.

“There is something Prophet Velen, may he be blessed by Naaru, told me once. There is no place deep enough inside of you to hide from your own fears…”

Eireannan didn’t answer. Just held her even tighter, burying his face into her shoulder.