One more broken dream...

[Archivist~Bel]

One more broken dream...

Author: Nuilia

Link: forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-realm-scarletcrusade&t=158542&p=1&tmp=1#post158542

Stormwind Park, in the chill of early morning, was not the most inviting place to find oneself after a tormented night. Attractive as the park may be, awakening in the midst of a brambly bush with nightmares that didn’t end upon waking generally signified that the day was only going to get worse yet from there.

Nuilia wrestled herself free, hardly concerned about the new scratches that the bush inflicted upon her and her once-elegant dress. More of a concern to her, as she gradually became aware of the dirt and blood that crisscrossed her tearstained face, was piecing together the events of the last evening that had led her to her present location and predicament. The tears renewed their assault as she forced the memories out.

The cold stone of the Cathedral of Light suddenly seemed much more distant, and much less welcoming, than it had been a few minutes ago. Nuilia wrung her hands with uncertainty, concerned about his well-being. It had begun to seem as if half of the world had it in for Haymon for some reason, and now there seemed to be another. He had looked and sounded rather frightened when he saw the other elfwoman in the library, even accusing her of stalking him. This worried her. Having already met Menteria firsthand, the last thing she wanted to see was another woman with dangerous plans for him. When the two had withdrawn to discuss matters unknown to her, she feared the worst. Trusting in her wild-tuned hearing, she crept closer to the archway where her tracking sense told her they waited.

She held still and silent, her face flushing with embarrassment and shame at such uncouth eavesdropping. Repeatedly she insisted to herself that she was not betraying his trust – she was only looking out for his well-being. She kept her sword and bow close at hand, prepared to make a charging defence of him if it should prove necessary.

As the words, and with them the whole of the discussion, became clearer, the redness of her shame began to drain as rapidly as the normal colour from her face. As her stomach turned and her heart trembled, she struggled to make sense of what she was hearing, tried to make herself believe that she was not trapped in another wicked nightmare.

Words of affection, of a fondness long seated, and never dissipated… words of love, even… Promises once made, and renewals of them…

And the more she listened, the more painful the words became.

Callous dismissals of “all the other women”… a complete acceptance of the unimportance of all those other women…

And a slow dawning of realization that she was one of those “other women”, no more than the next in line.

The conversation soon turned to her, by name… with nothing but a cold promise from the elf – Adelesara, was that her name? – that “If she hurts you, I will kill her.”

A stray thought flew through her mind and lodged there, claiming that didn’t seem like that undesirable a fate right now.

Helpless to tear herself away, she could only stay in the shadows, listening to their brief, furtive kisses. So they hold true to each other, even while with others… Had she been a dispassionate observer, she would be admiring their devotion to each other.

But she was not an observer in this, nor was she at all dispassionate.

Only when he said he had to leave was she able to force herself out of her dread trance. To go to a wedding, he said, one that she had not known about until a few hours prior. She had expected to attend with him, and it sounded from what she was hearing that he intended the same. It also sounded as though his thoughts would be with an elf other than her during that time.

Dimly she became aware that her hot, angry tears – which she had not noticed until then – had soaked her dress, and a corner of her mind hoped that they wouldn’t leave a trail behind her. The same hope extended to her bloody palms, after she realized she had been clenching her fists so tightly that her nails had cut her flesh. Primary in her mind at that moment, though, was a desperate desire to run – to get away, to not let him see her there, to not let on what she had heard. Her fear grew until it was nearly savage in its ferocity, and when she heard him starting to depart, it took over, sending her tearing out of the Cathedral, her legs carrying her unthinking to the park, the wildest part of the city.

As she ran through tear-blurred streets, heedless to those around her, her ears rang and echoed with a strangely calm tinkling sound – a sound which she thought madly could only be the falling remnants of her shattered heart.

[Archivist~Bel]

Addition to: One more broken dream

Haymon's head hung in apparent shame as he confessed to his wayward heart. Nuilia didn't bother turning to face him, didn't care to see his shame for herself. She neither cared nor believed his emotion was genuine.

Through the haze of fury that clouded her thoughts, she recalled the events of the day. With a heavy heart, she had quietly returned to her room at the Templar homestead – the room that belonged to Haymon, which he had so willingly offered her, even decorated with what plants he could find, to make her wild heart more at ease there. Her once-lovely festival dress, torn and bloody from her encounter with the bramble bush, was left carelessly in a corner, no longer of any use to her. Donning her adventuring outfit, she slammed shut the door with all the force she could muster, locking it tightly from the inside. She wasn't sure whether anyone else had a key, but she was in no mind to care. Taking up as many of her effects as her bags would hold, she leapt through the window, landing with a roll and dashing off with cheetah's feet.

Returning to Darnassus. Returning home.

She felt sure he would find her eventually. The journey gave her all the time she needed to rehearse her exact words.

When he did find her, off in the most secluded corner of the elven city, she hadn't bothered to meet him face to face. Her back showed him enough of her emotion. And yet still he sounded confused. Hopelessly oblivious to her anger, either unaware or unconcerned about his betrayal of her. He tried to claim that Adele wanted only to make his life miserable – a strange plan indeed, if her methods of doing so included kissing. He offered lamely that she herself was on his mind too, more than Adele. As if that was supposed to be a comfort. More telling to Nuilia was what he did not do – no sincere apology, no desperate insistence of love, no attempt to reach out and comfort her. It wouldn't have much mattered – had he tried to touch her, she would have forced him away – but what he made clearest of all to her was his lack of interest in repairing their destroyed relationship.

He didn't want her anymore. That much was clear.

Now she spun on her heels, fixing him with a steel-cold glare. “Do you love her?”

She spoke as she had for the entire encounter – coldly, emotionlessly, flatly, letting that speak for itself. She did not ask, but demand – even he knew from her tone that there was to be no equivocating, no dodging this answer.

From a point near the tall tree that stood nearby, fellow Templar Thelicon sat in silence, having followed Haymon here, hoping to offer what comfort he could, yet not daring to stand between the two at this moment.

Haymon looked away from her eyes. For a long moment he was silent, and briefly Nuilia could almost believe he felt truly ashamed of himself. Almost.

“Yes.”

His voice was barely audible. He had answered truthfully, in the only manner he could.

The sounds of the forest faded away from Nuilia's ears, and the shattered remnants of her heart froze into ice as hard as diamond. It was the only answer she expected, the only answer she knew she would hear.

Her face remained an unmoving mask as she turned away again, showing him her back once more.

“I think we're done here, then.”

Even at that moment, she was aware of the double meaning of her words.

It was his next reaction that truly caught her off guard, the only thing he had done all night that surprised her.

He ran off to battle.

“Duty calls,” he said calmly, as though nothing had just happened between them. He was off to the endless battle in Alterac Valley.

Even as Thelicon walked forward to protest his action, Nuilia's mind filled with the sound of an iron portcullis slamming shut.

"Typical," she muttered coldly, loud enough that she knew he would hear her.

Now she knew exactly where she stood with him. Now she truly understood what mattered to him. And it most certainly was not her.

Haymon spoke his farewells to Thelicon as he answered the summons. He did not say a word to her.

"When you are in battle," she said quietly, choosing her last words to him carefully, "I hope you think of her."

She never bothered to turn around. She knew, now, that he wasn't worth it.

Let him remember her this way. That he was not even worthy of one last look at the face he had once spoken of in such awe. Let him remember her as she walked away.

And then, let him rot.

[Archivist~Addie]

Addition to: One more broken dream

((The conclusion, for now... perhaps...))
(Part III: Suggested musical accompaniment: Dido, "See You When You're 40")

Entering through the window just seemed more her style, more like the wild girl she sometimes liked to imagine herself as being. And considering it was the way she had last left, it seemed all the more appropriate. Fortunately for her, Thelicon had possessed the wise forethought to leave it open for her. Perhaps he had guessed her thoughts.

The long talk the two of them had shared after Haymon's most unfashionable exit had assuaged so many of her fears, calmed her concerns. She had come to believe in her heart that Haymon really did treat all women the same way, that she was just another in a long line of similar victims, and yet somehow hearing Thelicon admit as much about him made her feel that much more satisfied with her own determination.

Thelicon himself had done all he could to comfort her. With him in the lead, they withdrew from the scene of the battle in the distant corner of Darnassus, and the Templar chaplain built a small fire in a quiet corner of Darkshore. There they sat for some time, just talking, just airing their own thoughts to each other. It was precisely what she had needed.

She had wondered whether she belonged in the Templar at all; although they seemed to be perfectly accepting of her, she had joined only at Haymon's urgings, and she found it difficult to believe that she still belonged, especially in a group where she could come across him again at any time. Thelicon remained as gentle and as comforting as he always seemed to be. He did not push her one way or the other; trusting her to make her own decision, he wished her well if she chose to leave, and ensured her there would always be a place for her within the Templar halls.

Merely listening to the holy man's reassurances filled her with calm. It was not Haymon's closeness that had made her feel so safe there; it was everyone else's. It was the welcoming, the freely-given friendship they had all extended to her. (Perhaps they expected the inevitable conclusion, she thought ruefully.) They had not taken her as Haymon's current flame; they had accepted her as Nuilia.

And so she decided to stay.

She confided in Thelicon that she had no idea what to do with her life now. Before knowing Haymon, all she knew how to do was survive. She lived among the wild, doing what she had to do to stay alive. When she did know him, he became the sole focus of her life. Now that she was alone again, she couldn't bring herself to just go back to the emptiness of her old life.

Be patient, he had counselled her. You will find your place, though you know not where or how. You are here for a reason, and you will find what you are called to fight for.

And so she stayed on.

Perhaps her best calling now was to save other innocents like herself from the same fate. Perhaps she could find a way to protect them, somehow. Perhaps her talents were meant for another purpose entirely.

As she climbed through the window into the Templar room that now belonged to her, she wondered where she belonged. For now, though, she belonged here. Thelicon had entrusted her with this room, one of her own at last, one she could claim as her own and fill with her own memories. It had once been his, he said. That thought alone brought her comfort.

Quietly, due to the late hour, she unlocked the door from within and peeked out into the hallway. As she had asked him, he had gathered her few effects left behind in Haymon's room. Piled next to the door along with them was her torn festival dress, newly mended as he had promised. The tears and wounds it had suffered from the bramble bushes were hardly visible. He knew his trade quite well.

She relocked the door, and tucked the dress away in a drawer. There would be another time and place for it, along with all the others she had gathered.

She was not the girl she had been before she had known him, that was quite certain. She doubted she would recognise herself now. Her broken heart still ached with wounds that she felt were unlikely to ever completely heal; yet somehow, amidst all this, she felt more alive, more herself, than she had ever imagined she could. She had found a group that gladly accepted her for herself. She had found that it was possible for someone to see her as a beautiful person, even compared to so many more superior specimens among her elven kin. She found now that there was something within her even she could believe in – a potential that could truly become something more than she had ever been. She had truly embarked on the path to adulthood now, and it was all due to him.

In the midst of all the ways he had hurt her, she owed him her life. A life she would never have known without him. She knew, now, she was capable of love.

She curled herself up on her bed, and dreamed.

[Archivist~Bel]

(Addition to: One more broken dream...)

((Act II, Part 1: Suggested musical accompaniment: Nobuo Uematsu, "Not Alone" (from Final Fantasy IX) ))

There seemed a suitably mournful sound in the tolling of the hour bells over Stormwind that night. At least to Nuilia, they seemed fitting to her mood.

Putting away her fishing pole with a deep sigh, she curled up tight in her small alcove beneath the bridge, steeling herself against the cold. The actions were routine, commonplace for her, so much so that she never even noticed any more. But now, as night fell across the Valley of Heroes that marked the city’s entrance, this tiny isolated spot beneath the entrance plaza seemed the only fitting place for an elf who hadn’t been aware of the void of smothering loneliness devouring her soul until very recently.

She had been alone all her life, she reminded herself yet again. A short life perhaps, but longer than any human’s. She had always been used to relying on none but herself; why should things be any different now? She would remember how to live this way, it was only a matter of time.

A sudden stabbing pain across her heart begged to differ with her.

He had taken advantage of her, made light of her, used her. In the end, he made it plainly clear how little he really cared about her at all. A passing interest as a physical companion, perhaps, but his words and his promises were as empty as his heart. No wonder he claimed such bad luck in relationships. It was he himself that caused the problems.

Then why was it that now, as she shivered against the night’s cold, that her life suddenly felt so meaningless? If he didn’t care about her, why did he still occupy her thoughts?

“Go away!” she shouted at the stone walls around her. “Leave me alone!”

I’m not your toy anymore, she thought to herself with somewhat less conviction. Go enjoy the solitude you’ve brought upon yourself.

What did she have to complain about, really? The Templar had accepted her anyway, welcomed and comforted her in her time of need, promised her there would always be a place for her among their ranks. They gave her a title, and a room of her own. They gave her the sort of home she had never had.

But they still welcomed him as well. And he outranked her, in power and in title. Was that truly a safe situation for her?

And if he had truly treated her so badly, why did her heart cry out in agony whenever she thought of him? Why could she not forget the promises she made to him?

“This is wrong…” she whispered, as sleep tried to conquer her. “This is all wrong…”

Painful dreams, wicked dreams, full of blood and torture and suffering. The kind of brutal nightmares where she wouldn’t remember events, only the overwhelming intensity of the emotions and the pain and sorrow filling them. Only agony, death, condemnation… the feeling of a heart torn from her body and crushed underfoot, and the realisation that she was still alive… damned to an eternity of endless torture…

Her own screams awakened her. They echoed and amplified through the Valley and across the walls of her tiny alcove beneath the bridge, but in her panicked state she was only aware of the torment overflowing in their ever-increasing volume.

With wide, wild eyes, she saw the stone walls closing in upon her, threatening to crush her alive; alone, unmourned, and forgotten, lost to the mists of time beneath the city where no one would ever find her. Suffering in eternal torment.

“No!” So shrill and panicked was her voice, so wild her thoughts, that she didn’t even recognise the anguished cry as her own. She stumbled, flailing, desperate to escape the crushing walls before becoming forever buried behind them. Throwing herself into the water, heedless of the biting chill soaking through her leather, aware only of the desperate need to get away!, that her unfocussed thoughts clashed like discordant cymbals through her madness. A trail of cold water followed behind her as she raced blindly through the forest of Elwynn, aware only of her need to run, to escape the blind terrors her mind insisted were so close behind.

Only some time later, when her unthinking and rapidly-slowing strides carried her to the open expanses of Sentinel Hill, did she come to a stop. Her addled thoughts still could not focus even on where she was, still encompassed by the driving need to run, to escape the nightmares that would not seem to end. As her body finally ran out of strength to push her any further, she collapsed on the pale ground, that looked so cold and dead in the moonlight. Curled desperately into a foetal position, whimpering incoherently to herself, her exhaustion finally caught up to her nightmares and left her in an oblivion of dark, dreamless unconsciousness.



~~~



((Part 2: Suggested musical accompaniment: Anggun, "A Rose in the Wind"))

Nuilia stared unseeing into the ever-evening sky over Darnassus. No city, no matter how attuned to nature, ever felt truly comfortable to her. Alone now, as ever, she felt only more vulnerable. Though her rest had been more peaceful, her heart’s torment continued.

The rose he had sent lay on the table before her, still pristine and flawless. She still felt at a loss in how to respond, even though she had spent hours upon hours struggling with the words for her answering letter. The news Tamalrin had brought her offered no comfort. That he was hiding from his troubles was no surprise, but was he truly so desperate that he would seek out a drug to violate his mind, in his effort to forget?

She knew she could not stand by and watch him destroy himself.

“If that means I still care about him…” she whispered to the trees, “so be it.”

She cast her eyes across her completed letter. The parchment bore the marks of several tearstains – a detail she knew he would not miss. She still disliked how it sounded, but she had no choice but to send it. She could not leave him to this fate.


Dearest Haymon,

There can be no greater crime than the crime against oneself.

You are capable of so much – of so much more. But you are throwing it all away – throwing yourself away – with your reckless abandon. Your callous disrespect for yourself is what is hurting you most of all. You must stop, before it kills you.

There is so much – too much – that has gone unsaid for too long. You must learn to respect yourself, learn to treasure what you have, or risk losing everything. As beautiful a person as you have the potential of being, you are killing yourself. You run away from your problems in battle, and you drown them in alcohol. You chase women to make yourself feel loved.

You don’t need any of that to be loved.

The time has come for you to become the person you were meant to be. Don’t let your sorrows overwhelm you. Don’t look to drinks and drugs to cover up your problems. They will not heal you, only kill you. Put aside your self-destructive ways if you truly want to be loved. Seek out your Holy Light for guidance. Cast off the shackles you have bound yourself with. Be reborn to the world.

Find the one thing that you care about with all your heart, and pursue it.

And never give up hope. No door is closed to you.

Nuilia


She tucked the rose into her hair, and headed off for the mailbox, leaving the marks of a few fresh tears on the table behind her.