Eleeria Silverwing

Time of Death

The Light warned her something was off well before she made it to the front door of their Suramar apartment. The sensation was like a shiver down her spine; a sense of inherent wrongness, the briefest feeling of stay away! like a whisper from her magic. Disappearing swiftly, only the lingering raise of the skin on her forearms reminded her that something was less than completely normal.

Eleeria frowned, hand hesitating for only a moment, an inch away from the translocation orb. Her magic never lied to her and yet — how could anything be wrong? She had left for work early from the Cove this morning, Weleria departing for Suramar aboard one of the merchant vessels. Weleria would surely be waiting for her; they would go out for dinner as they had planned, with only a laugh spared for the way her magic had falsely warned her from danger not present. Reassured by her own rationality, Eleeria sighed, touching the translocation orb and reappearing in their apartment.

The scent alone told her she should have heeded the Light.

“…Leria?”

It was too quiet. No sounds or smells of cooking wafting from the kitchen; no lights were on across the apartment, and Eleeria wondered briefly if Weleria was sleeping. But then, a nap would hardly account for the smell that she had so often recognized before; that scent of death, blood and the slow decay of flesh. Eleeria moved slowly into the living room, something in the pit of her stomach warning her away from turning on the lights. The crunch of glass beneath her plate boot caught her by surprise – she glanced down, then up, noting the hole in the skylight. The jagged edges of glass pierced the night, and Eleeria stared for a long moment, fear trilling down her spine.

“Weleria?” Her voice rose in octave and urgency, the broken skylight providing light enough to maneuver around the furniture and towards the stairs. Panic rose in her chest, and she willed it back down, pausing to take a deep breath.

Think, Eleeria. Trained assassin’s eyes scanned the living room; quickly,she noted the broken glass, the faintest hints of blood on the carpet – scrubbed with something hastily, as if to get rid of them. Her fingers trailed the shot holes on the banister. Eleeria pulled her fear and anxiety down into the part of her she had long since learned to repress, until all she could feel was a muteness, a dampened sense of self. With her focus highly tuned, she took a soft breath and climbed the stairs.

Even with all of the training she had had in her long life – all of the people she’d seen in various states of death and decay and gory trauma – she was not prepared to see Weleria Dawnsteel dead on the landing.

A shock rippled through her, and despite her best efforts Eleeria knelt in the dried blood to stare at her lover for a long moment. It was an effort to maintain her composure. Several deep breaths later, she reached automatically for the light, letting it wash over Weleria’s body.

She was dead – long dead, by the look of her body. Her shotgun lay close by, shots to the stomach the evident sign of death – oh, Lirelle– no, she couldn’t think about that. Eleeria forced herself to think of nothing but clinical sterility, of medical procedure, and cast her magic like a net over the body as if Weleria were nothing but another patient in her infirmary. She checked for a pulse, for a thread of what must have been Weleria’s soul tethering back to her body; she checked for any sign of life still left in the person she loved most in the world and found absolutely nothing.

For a moment, Eleeria’s hand hovered over Weleria’s chest. It shook with suppressed emotion as she checked once, twice, for any sign of Weleria’s soul. It was one of the first things she had been taught about resurrection: the soul had to keep some tether to the body to walk back to it naturally. To force a soul back from the dark beyond without its permission, to grab what did not wish to stay in the mortal realm any longer and put it back into a shell, would not create life. It would merely be necromancy – undeath.

Nothing. There was nothing she could do. No light could bring Weleria back.

Eleeria swore she could hear the laughter of the Thing beyond the shadows in her ears as she extinguished the light magic held in her grasp and sat back on the bloodied floor, hands smearing her lover’s blood. Do you wish you had chosen the path of shadow now, little Sun?

She could not respond; she didn’t want to respond. Mutely, she shut the whispers of the void out, her hands focusing on other tasks to keep her from answering. Eleeria picked up her communicator for the Warband, magical signature contacting Ysrathil almost without thought. Though she heard the other woman’s voice on the line– Ellie? Hello? – she couldn’t speak. Eleeria knew if she opened her mouth, the tears would come – the dam would break. Her silence these long minutes was holding back her sadness, keeping those feelings pressed into that dark corner.

Please answer me, Eleeria–

“Ysrathil, I…I….” The wall collapsed. Eleeria sobbed into the communicator, pressing it to her cheek as if she could physically cling to the small thing like she would a real person. Tears fell down her cheeks, and though she had smeared her face with blood she could scarce feel it. For a long moment she struggled to find the words to convey what was happening. There weren’t any words to convey her grief.

“I know you’re busy, but I– need you to come home right now, please, please come home, it’s Weleria– something’s happened…”

Eleeria couldn’t hear the response over the roar of her emotions. She did not even realize that she had broken down into mute tears for long, long minutes after that until the sound of the communicator’s disconnection rang in her ears, leaving her alone to mourn for her best friend.