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Post by Archivist~Alabaster on Apr 21, 2006 10:30:05 GMT -5
From the Ashes ~written by Hel~
Sometimes a fresh start was all one needed. Sometimes it was best just to let go and leave everything else behind.
She sat staring out the window towards the sea, a carefully folded tabard in her lap and tears starting to form in her eyes. The quiet murmur of her children soothed her only slightly as she sat on her bed in the high loft she had purchased in Shadowprey Village. Whispered warnings from a happier time still pricked the back of her mind... a reminder of what she had to look forward to.
Hel'caite forced a smile and stood, setting the tabard on a shelf next to the bed, looking at the contrast of colors. There were three of them now... black and white with a red paw, green and silver grey, and now blue as well.
All reminders of what she had left behind or lost.
"You go' tin's ta do, Hel'caite... Get up an' do dem." She whispered to herself, turning to look at the floor where the children played.
Neph'anis, of course, was off aways by herself. The girl-child grew bigger everyday, and had taken to playing alone, away from her brother and sister. She was currently stroking the hair of a small horse toy that Hel' had received from an old... friend. The girl's green mane was as unruly as ever, though she kept it in braids to keep it off her face.
The twins, Tam'lan and Cael'jun, played with blocks together on the rug, building up towers and knocking them down with glee, a sight that made Hel'caite smile.
Perhaps... The future held happiness as well.
She picked up her hearthstone, listening to distant voices of old friends and letting out a thoughtful noise.
Familiar voices... one more familiar than most, whispering her name.
Ethna...
Ethna thought she was just a hallucination... had she really been hiding for that long?
Hel'caite set the heartstone down, picking up her worn, dusty sheild and her mace, smiling again to herself.
"Time to go huntin'." She murmured, calling down the stairs to the Innkeep, asking if she could watch the children while she was gone hunting.
Yes...
Perhaps the future held more happiness than she first let herself believe...
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Post by Archivist~Alabaster on Apr 21, 2006 10:30:36 GMT -5
~written by Ethna~
((An entry from Ethna's journal...))
One of the symptoms of my recent confusion, this mixing of timelines and possibilities, conflicting memories, and what-is with what-might-have-been, has been the reappearance of faces and voices from the past -- the missing, the lost, and the dead.
Hel'caite was the most recent case. I heard her voice yesterday over the Stone. As I spoke to her -- or spoke to her phantom -- or imagined speaking to her -- I tried to remember when she had died. Was it when the zeppelin crashed? Or had she sailed off across the southern seas in search for her Jambwe?
"Hello, Ethna," she said, "Do you remember my offer? My offer to bear a child for Tai'jin and you?"
I asked, "How can the dead bear children?" It would have been cruel to ask whether she had already borne enough orphans.
She's not the first of the dead to rise and speak to me in these weeks.
"The King in the North sends his regards," said Holagar, Champion of Northrend. "He is misunderstood. He seeks to bring justice and order to the living and a new chance at life to the dead. How could this be wrong? Come, join us."
"I have been to Northrend, Holagar, I know what fate awaits us there."
"Yes, you have," said Tchan. Dark eyes looked up at me as he squatted in the snows of Winterspring. I had just completed my shamanic training.
I pleaded with him, "Tchan, take my hand, be a friend to me again. Not as lover or mate, but as mentor and comrade." I wanted reconciliation so desperately. But he turned his head to one side and did not look at me.
"Har!" laughed Naugrum. "Don't mind him, he was always grouchy!" We stood in the bank of Ogrimmar, the Orc warrior impossibly young in his training, dressed only in copper and bronze. "How's my favorite Priestess?"
I began to answer, but another familiar voice interjected. "Your problem, Ethna," said Zion, "is you take everything to heart. Give up adventuring, and join the simple life like me." Zion was dressed in overalls and a straw hat, his skin deeply tanned from hard work in the sun. I grinned broadly and turned to embrace him, but no one was there except an orc warlock I didn't recognize.
There are more: Kadia urged me into the caves of the Silithids, overcoming my fears, even though the expedition had been al-Darkspear. I met a troll that looked exactly like Baradul. I asked him to remove his mask, and the face was different, though this one had the same haunted eyes. Orange eyes, like the one I saw in an undead warlock I took for Alabaster. When I hugged that one, she stared at me without comprehension and told me to stop drinking. I apologized.
Cael'jin had surely attended the Founder's Day party we held in his honor, and Chadou had left small notes of encouragement in my journals. I could have sworn Kazume helped us overcome Onyxia yesterday. Lotian's owl returned to my shoulder and whispered in my ear.
And Kazulin spoke heavily of the dangers of consorting with dark and powerful gods.
His... or mine?
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Post by Archivist~Alabaster on Apr 21, 2006 10:30:54 GMT -5
~written by Hel~
The children were sleeping when Hel'caite let her thoughts return to Ethna, frowning slightly to herself as she pondered a way to make Ethna realize...
She hadn't died. She wasn't just a vision, she was real, flesh and blood... An old friend come out of hiding, as she had said.
She sat on her bed and stared out at the sea again, going over things in her mind. There was much to think about... There was much to do. She ran her fingers over her armor, looked over to where her massive two handed axe leaned near the door. She would have to get used to using it...
She had relearned everything, started working hard on growing stronger, already thinking of purchasing a mount with her money given to her as a wedding present. She knew that now, without a mate, without a clan, with former friends and family considering her a figment of their imaginations, she would have to work hard to be able to protect her family.
Still...
Had hiding this way been the greatest idea? Now that people thought her dead and returned to life?
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Post by Archivist~Alabaster on Apr 21, 2006 10:43:21 GMT -5
~written by Alabaster~
It had been ages since they wandered the lands of the Horde, yet even in the distance, the wind carries its whispers. Bent low over fires, Tchan tossed in the various herbs and ground powders for his vision seeking. Clouds of this hissing smoke billowed around him, ghostly and strange.
Alabaster needed no such thing. Simple listening and thought could lead to insights. And so she settled back in the shadows, letting the demonwind find her.
It was at once, they spoke a name over the fire. A lost one had been returned...
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Post by Archivist~Alabaster on Apr 21, 2006 10:46:05 GMT -5
~written by Sinieya ~
*lifting her head from her potions table, Sinieya thought she heard a name whispered on the wind."
Hel....
Would Hel bring back Constanse? Or was her friend truly dead?
*a small tear trickled down her cheek as she thought of her two friend and what had become of them.*
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Post by Archivist~Alabaster on Apr 21, 2006 10:47:58 GMT -5
~written by Hel~
Hel'caite stood near the shore in Revantusk Village, the wind from the sea blowing her hair, the scent of life rolling from the water, a smile touching her lips.
"Know me..." She whispered, holding her hands out and closing her eyes. She stepped out onto the water, carefully...
It had been a long time since she had last attempted to walk on water as Shaman's could. She put all the faith she could into the spirits of the water, taking in a slow breath and letting it out as a sigh.
"Hea' me." She whispered, whispering her own name into the wind. "Know... I am no' a vision. Da spirit's no' lie. I am no' dead. I am alive. I am retu'ned."
She trembled, stepping out further on the water, facing the sunrise.
"Hea' me... I make da rain. Da ea'th is my skin, da ai' is my breath, da watah my blood an' da fiah my soul... Da spirits canno' lie... Hel'caite has retu'ned."
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Post by Archivist~Alabaster on Apr 21, 2006 10:48:26 GMT -5
~written by Kazlin~
Despite his inner trepidation at the timing of this chance meeting, Kazlin could not help but smile. Just weeks after he had holed up in Shadowprey, licking his wounds, as it were, trying to regain some form of balance, trying to find where he belonged in this world now that he had lost so much – his faith, his family, his mate – his estranged sister shows up in the same village as him. "Obedah," he muttered, chuckling.
Dragged along behind her, the three children that had caused so much strife between the two kin. Not the children directly, but the issues surrounding their origins. The highly irregular nonblooded marriage to Gaji and the subsequent dissolution; the children born out of wedlock; Hel's mating so soon thereafter to the other one.
Kazlin sighed deeply. How could two siblings be so different? One a student of the old ways, a practitioner of lore and ritual. The other a reckless and passionate individual seemingly unfettered by custom and convention. But who was he to judge? Just look what his beliefs had wrought. He was utterly alone.
Kazlin watched as Hel strode out of the thatch-roofed hut in Shadowprey with her battle gear, then walked resolutely down the pathway to Desolace. The hunter hopped down from the rocky cliff perch on which had watched her current domicile. A leap to a lower outcropping, a mid-air twist to grapple a tree branch, a soft landing on the green grass. He bounded up the tan stairway and into the living area of Hel’s hut, startling the children inside. Neph’anis pulled a small dagger from her robe and held it aloft in threat.
“Hahahahaah!” barked Kazlin, doubling over in laughter. As Neph’s face softened slightly in confusion, he said, “Greetins, chillen, ai be jah uncle. Joo can call mi Kaz-ji.”
Kazlin looked from one beatific face to the next. Three precious gifts. Perhaps fate had conspired to bring them all together again. Or perhaps Ethna was right and this was chaos playing shadow games with them. Either way, Kazlin would enjoy the moment, for he had not known joy for so long.
“Sheath dat pick-stickah, Neph, an’ introduce mi tah jah bruddah an’ sistah. Joo know, ai be at der birth .... ”
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