Eleeria Silverwing

The Snap

(TW: Blood, death.)

--

You have always been your fathers’ daughter.

There are still raven feathers coating your fingers; the dying caws of avians still sound in your ears, and though you know later you should apologize to Eli for the life being ripped from her friends, now you push it from your mind.

You move through the snow at a clipped speed, ducking between the trees with daggers in hand. You had the foresight to grab your armor and favored weapons before you disappeared into the mountains of Alterac without a trace, evading Lormeus’ increased patrols. Rarely do you use your rogue skills any longer, but there’s something refreshing about being free of obligation and people watching you. That thought alone makes you increase your speed, until you’re truly dashing through Alterac, hunting for something to take your mind off of everything.

(The birds keep cawing in your ears, and no matter how much you run, you’re hard-pressed to escape them. Fucking birds. Fucking Lightsworns and their mind games. No one controls Eleeria Silverwing. Do they?)

There. Just at the top of the hill, you hear the soft sounds of well-trained horses, and the faint clink of plate armor carefully cushioned to not make a sound to most ears. Human ears. You are Sin’dorei, the long ears of your kind well-trained to detect even the faintest noise; these human tricks don’t work on you, amplified by your lack of sight.

When you descend upon the small group of cavalry, it is fast and without mercy. The first man falls from his horse into the snow, his neck slashed across with a poised strike of your blade. It’s been so long since you’ve had daggers in your hands you nearly forgot what they felt like. But as he bleeds to death, staining your boots and the earth below, it’s like you’ve found an old friend in your hands once more. You look up and smile at the other humans, the dying man’s blood splattered across your face and armor in a grim visage of what awaits them in a few short minutes.

(In another life, you would never have seen yourself holding a greatsword, or a polearm. In another life you-- but the memories are fuzzy -- and you can’t quite catch them before they slip away. Happiness is mandatory, citizen.)

“Who’s next?” You growl out in accented common. The two remaining scouts blanch in fear and begin to turn their horses. The beasts, terrified of the scent of blood, the sight of you, and the fear of their riders, balk at moving quickly under duress. It’s enough time for you to pull yourself out of the snow and charge at them, your daggers sinking into their mounts’ legs. They whinny in pain, bucking the scouts -- who crash to the ground and, expertly trained, roll over to pull themselves up with haste. They waste no time in closing in on you, expecting an easy, outnumbered match with a traditional assassin -- you can see it in their faces, the assumption that you’re some Talon sent on a stealth mission.

Wrong. You’re the motherfucking General.

And you’re going to murder them.

It’s been awhile since you’ve fended off two attackers at once with just a set of long daggers, so your steps are a bit rusty at first. You remember when your father taught you the difficult act of fighting with two weapons. Vanaal’s callused fingers had positioned yours on the daggers, showing you the forms and how to stand. The art of dual wielding required the entire body: the daggers were a seamless flow from your shoulder to the tip of your weapon, used in one complicated dance. Two parts of a whole, they had been your favorite thing to learn at the time because it reminded you of swimming through the air, the way you graced the floor with turns and slashes of your weapons.

Now, you pick back up on the lessons of your youth after a few sloppy parries, sliding into proper form with a sharp exhale of breath to calm yourself into a focused rage rather than the slices and hacks of pure passion. You hate these men, their black armor and smug expressions. One of them circles you, attempting to flank you; you continue to trade passes of your weapons, careful not to play your hand too soon. They don’t know who you are, though they might have a guess. With your mask over your face and your hood up, you’re just another passing rogue in the Horde military, if one with strangely dim eyes. You’re cautious not to use your magic before they get into position, not wanting to give yourself away.

As soon as the soldier closes in on your flank, you twist. Your daggers shine in the sudden light that explodes from your hands, running down your weapons and slashing at their eyes. You don’t intend to hit them with it; rather, you intend to blind them with the sudden flash of brilliant magic. They stumble back with a sudden cry, and you press the offensive. Your daggers flash with magic, the holy light an extension of your arm and will just like the weapons beneath them. It flickers like embers of fire as you take several slices of your blades at one soldier, using the back swing of your off-hand weapon to fire several shots of light magic at the second man to keep him at bay. You feel yourself sinking into your death magic to see, rather than relying on your blinded eyes. Now that you’ve realized you can extend it in all directions, it’s become easier to use it to grasp what’s around you, even if seeing through the magic is nothing like seeing with your real sight. Still, it makes it easier to detect where the second soldier is, so your light magic remains deadly and precise, even as you close in on the first man with your physical attacks.

One of his slashes of the blade catch your hood, slicing the fabric but sparing your face -- barely. Sloppy, sloppy. You could have parried that had you been paying attention rather than getting lost in threads of half-remembered fighting techniques. Orange hair spills through the sliced opening, and the pause he takes as he puts it together: the magic, the eyes, the brilliant hair, gives you just enough time to break through his guard and slice his throat as well.

Two down, one to go.

You turn on the final man, pushing your hood back so the ruined leather isn’t in your way. The final scout seems momentarily petrified, holding his shield and sword with a tight grip.

“They didn’t say the General was--”

“A rogue?” You answer, flipping one of your knives with a grin. “No, I imagine not.” You know, from the way he follows your every move with a panicked gaze, that you have already won. You walk towards him with purpose in every step, and he backs up. “Surrender, and I’ll simply send you back to your Marshal with a message.”

“For the Lion!” He hefts his shield and tries to muster some determination.

You know that in a fight against a skilled combatant, a shield presents some obstacles for your daggers. Nothing you couldn’t handle in a long encounter, but with the screaming and flashing of your magic, you don’t have a lot of time here any longer. These thoughts filter through your head like routine after so much time spent lurking in the shadows.

There is only one option to end this quickly. It will certainly give away your immediate presence, meaning you’ll need to flee swiftly after this -- but it’s worth it to see these fuckers to the grave.

As he steps in to attack you with his sword, you push the weapon away with one of your daggers, dropping the other into the snow. He looks at the sudden loss of a weapon, and you press your sudden advantage. Your hand slams against his shield with a metal thud.

And the entire clearing in Alterac bursts into holy flame.

The man is absolutely incinerated. Though your magic knows friend from foe, the air crackles and sparks. The few sparse trees catch fire, as the clearing simply disintegrates in holy flame. The animals flee from the concentrated blaze, and when you’re done -- when you’ve stared him in the eye with your sightless gaze as his flesh melted and bones cracked -- you stop. The fire disappears as suddenly as it came, and you scoop up your dagger.

That felt so good, it’s a little scary. You didn’t know how angry you were until it all came out. No one tells you what to do. No one can tell you how to do anything you don’t want to do. There’s no one in your head but you, alone in this burnt and damaged clearing. The only thing you can hear in the night is the sound of your own breathing, your heartbeat in your ears. Even the animals have fallen silent in fear of a nearby predator.

(The predator is you.)

You swiftly cut the heads off of the two men who still have heads, tucking them in a sack you brought with you. Quickly, you dash something into the snow with your blades. As the sounds of approaching hooves sound from the Alliance side of the siege, you make off into the woods with your prize, with no one the wiser of exactly who was in the woods, murdering these would-be assassins. You don’t stay to see what the humans think of your handiwork, but you’re pretty sure they’ll get the message.

Kill for the living, kill for the dead.