Eleeria Silverwing

Change and Loss

Eleeria folded the tabard and sat it on her bed in front of her crossed legs. Fingers caressed the loving stitching -- the red and black of the phoenix motif was brilliant, spelled against blood and wear. She still smiled at the gift Ethalarian had given her -- it was her cherished armor, worn almost every day at this point. She loved the fierce crimson, the sacrifice it stood for; she loved the way Ethalarian spoke of the Order, how impassioned he could be at times was inspiring. She sighed, pulling the fabric into her lap to brush her hand over it again.

Though Ethalarian spoke of the Order with glowing praise, it was always for what it was -- not what it is, she reminded herself idly. Now it seemed less about spearheading an era of change and more about saluting and offering platitudes to one senior commander after another as they stared blandly at the scenery of Silvermoon. Basically anything that was exciting was relegated to people who were decidedly not her -- those pious fools who worshipped the Light with hands outstretched blindly towards a deity that didn’t exist. Liadrin had hand-picked her forces and marched off to war, leaving the rest behind. Eleeria stretched back on her bed, holding the tabard above her head as she sighed. So much for the great days of the Blood Knights. Now it's the great days of the Bureaucratic Knights. The thought was so depressing that it quite honestly made her want to vomit; long gone were the days of conquest and taking what was rightfully theirs by force or death. Now it was the protection of the homeland that was so central to their philosophy, if one could rightly consider learning the finer points of Silvermoon senery that. Mostly it seemed to be a lot of standing around and reminiscing about days gone by. Admittedly, to the woman who had crossed continents and traveled between planets in the past year alone, that seemed...remarkably boring.

With a sigh, Eleeria let the tabard drop over her face with the soft rustle of cloth. Perhaps Kiel’lanis was right. She had joined the Blood Knights searching for something they weren’t providing her. She wanted to belong to something completely -- not in the stilted way of the military order she’d left, nor in the awkward, pretend manner of Black Dawn. Why did she even need an Order? Could she not create her own Order, something that made sense for her, if she really needed one? What made paladins’ attendance in some sort of stupid group replete with pageantry and useless titles and grandstanding?

In my Order we’d have none of that. She huffed, the black fabric over her face raising and lowering with the exhale. She was quite fond of the power that had been borrowed, and then had chosen and accepted her in the end. The Light was like a constant, warm companion -- it was hard to imagine waking up without it now. Harder still to imagine going without it, even if she felt a bit awkward that so suddenly she was expected to incorporate it into every move she took. She pulled the fabric from over her face to examine the fresh arcanic runes on her hand. Synthiel had been a boon -- they still were tender, but they glittered with power, hidden just under the surface. I wonder how much power it would take to just transcend being alive into being something...else. Wouldn’t that be something?

That would certainly show those grandstanding buffoons who seemed to think being a paladin was about apprehending jaywalkers.

That thought earned a soft snort from Eleeria as she continued to examine her hand.

She would quit, then. She had watched Ethalarian be betrayed by the Order he had loved so much -- caught in the strings of a larger scheme, unbeknownst to him, trust abused for the sake of Quel’thalas. She wasn’t certain if she could cotton being part of that, herself; perhaps she would keep the tabard and style herself an original Blood Knight. A bit of self-promotion never hurt anyone. There was no reason she could not identify with the original ideas of the Order and yet, refuse to be a part of the changed, boring shell of a thing it had become. Wasn’t that what Larry was doing, in the end?

If only she could fix her problems with Black Dawn so easily.

The Black Candle representative’s eyes glittered in her consciousness. Could she go so far as to kill herself for the power she sought? She could lose the Light, like that...it was a serious consideration, however.

And I want him back so badly. I miss him, so much. The thought was a punch to the gut, and Eleeria rolled over, not caring if her tabard was wrinkled in the motion. So often she had considered digging her fingernails into the hard-packed dirt of that cemetery and digging up her lover; once she had tried to, blood and tears consecrating his grave and the skeletons beneath. She could still see it -- the sad handfuls of grass she’d managed to yank from the earth, the pile of dirt next to it. Not even enough to stick a fist in; she had hurt herself simply trying, curling up into bitter sobs.

One lover was under the waves and far from home; the other was beneath her feet, six feet under -- neither easily attainable and yet, both she would kill herself to bring back.

I miss having someone here. It was an ache she couldn’t soothe. Eleeria had to admit that she was, in the end, incredibly lonely. The Blood Knights had been a stopgap; throwing herself headlong from project to project was simply covering up the parts of her that still ached with Wara’s loss. He had never approved of her decision to join the Order, and it had been a point of contention between them until the day he died -- the Lord of Void and his Light-Kissed Lover, perpetually at odds and yet, all odds in their favor. Holding onto the Order meant so much to her, not simply because Ethalarian loved it -- but because it was a link to him.

And thinking of how she had lost Erinius was simply too painful to bear.

Slowly, she pulled her tabard into her hands, buried her head in it, and cried.