Shifting sands

"They are so many"...

Standing on the outer wall of Silvermoon, they could easily see the fires burning in the distance. Another village destroyed. Survivors had long fled behind the walls of the city, to safety.

"Don't worry", Niniel said, placing a hand on his shoulder and leaning forward, to look down. " Our defenses will not be broken".

" I've seen these ...creatures at work, already". The memory sent him chills through the spine. "And I also know how determined Arthas used to be...I have fought alongside him, Nin..." He tried to put some calm into his voice, but couldn't. " Our world will fall, Nin, and we'll fall with it...and I pray the worst thing that happens to us is to die..."

" I know what happened at Stratholme" she said, quietly. In the sunlight, her blue eyes sparkled, her expression serious but confident." But we will hold up, Eirean..."

No, she did not know what happened in Stratholme. How could she, he wondered, as he felt sickness engulfing him at the simple reminder of those moments. If he closed his eyes, he would see them all. Maddened, hungry. Tearing at their own bodies that started to rot. Dismembered corpses, lying everywhere, whole families, reduced to a mass of raw flesh, oozing with blood. and the screams,in Light's name, the screams...

Niniel Ain'Ethil observed with unease the haunted expression that contorted his features. Ever since he had come back from Lordaeron he'd been like that...and she knew, better than anyone else, what gruesome story his nightmares revealed.

Oh, he'd tried to control it, but all the soothing and the meditation seemed to have served for nothing, to that day, as if there was some still-unknown effect of the plague consuming him from the inside.

How long had it been since he had even given her a smile?

She wanted to help.Yet he kept pushing her away. Refusing to even tell her the horrors he'd been through.

And now the undead where at their gates and they had run out of time.

"Nin..."

She snapped back into reality, and wished she hadn't when she saw again his grim look.

"If something happens...if I die in this battle, promise you'll have my body burnt."

"Eirean", she sighed, "will you stop being so macabre?"

He had put his hand on her arm, squeezing it and it almost hurt.

"Promise me, Nin. You haven't seen what I I've seen. I don't want to end up a mindless corpse, killing around my OWN people...!"

He frightened her, Niniel thought. Worse than the Scourge at their gates, if that would be possible.

"I promise" she conceded. " But you'll see, everything we'll be fine, Eirean. You just have to believe it..."

"No". Eireannan leaned on the wall, trying to guess from which side the undead will strike this time. Leaving the earth scarred in their wake. 'No", he repeated, in the same low voice Niniel had started to hate. " It is exactly as Arthas said, Nin...Death itself has come to our land...".