"I love you." He said suddenly, in that way that made it seem as though he were saying it for the first time.
"I love you too, Andi." I replied, smiling at him. I did. I loved him so much...
"Yep." He replied, and my smile faltered at the emotion thick in his voice. He half turned away from me, wiping his face quickly with his hand. "Andi?" I asked, stepping in front of him, "What's wrong?"
He laughed a bit, smiling faintly. "You don't need to worry- my family- you won't have to deal with them until we're married."
I frowned at him- not at him, exactly, but I was just... Distressed. I reached up and wiped away a tear that he missed, kissing his forehead gently as I wrapped my arms around his waist. He hugged me tightly- tighter then he usually did-, resting his head on my shoulder as I held him. I hated to see him like this, but
====
"Burn the land and boil the sea,
You can't take the sky from me."
A shock of white hair is barely restrained by a cloth headband and, when they aren't over her eyes, her blue tinted goggles rest on. She's surprisingly short for a night elf, standing about as tall as the average human. The dark war paint that covers most of her face is dark, making the glow of her odd eyes (they posess pupils) stand out.
Her facial features are narrow, and her posture is military- the obvious guess would be she spent some time with the Sentinels, but with her laid back gait it could be debabtable.
Under a leather jerkin she wears a thick falconer glove that extends all the way to chest. A rugged brown shirt is visable under both of these garments.
Slung across her back is a quiver and across her chest is a bandolier, both filled with arrows and bullets respectively. On her right hand she wears an ordinate ivory thumb ring along with an archer's glove.
She wears thick cloth pants and fur-lined boots, and her cape is decorated with small hippgryph antlers. Oddly enough, two hooks hang from the fur-lined fabric, matching the two loops on her belt. Always around her neck is a silver chain with a fel-green orb hanging from it.
---
"Burn the land and boil the sea,
You can't take the sky from me."
Recently the elf has aquired an odd blade of some sort. It seems menacing enough from the hilt, where the eerie imagine of a skull rests. The white blade gives off an inner glow, haunting in appearance. She seems to hold it possessively, her hand often straying to the hilt.
A shock of white hair falls to her waist, when not kept hidden by the mask she wears at all times.
She's surprisingly short for a night elf, standing about as tall as the average human. The dark war paint that covers most of her face is dark, making the glow of her eyes stand out.
Her facial features are narrow, (recently they've become almost gaunt), and her posture is military- the obvious guess would be she spent some time with the Sentinels, but with her laid back gait it could be debabtable.
Under a leather jerkin she wears a thick falconer glove that extends all the way to chest. A rugged brown shirt is visable under both of these garments.
Slung across her back is a quiver and across her chest is a bandolier, both filled with arrows and bullets respectively. On her right hand she wears an ordinate ivory thumb ring along with an archer's glove.
She wears thick cloth pants and fur-lined boots, and her cape is decorated with small hippgryph antlers. Oddly enough, two hooks hang from the fur-lined fabric, matching the two loops on her belt.
-----
An older Kal'Dorei, with almond shaped eyes and a rounded nose, but possessing overall narrow features. Long blue-white hair has finally regrown and hangs down her waist, a few leaves tangled in it.
Most of her scars have healed over, her tattered ear repaired, although the tip of the right one is still missing, and the middle finger of her left hand is also gone.
She walks barefoot with smooth elven grace, surefooted in her gait and movements. Her only weapon is a longbow strung across her back, and a quiver bristling with arrows. Her eyes shine golden with nature's blessing.
Short for a night elf, standing about as tall as a human male, she makes up for it with broad shoulders and very well defined muscles on her arms and legs. Her military posture also makes her appear a bit taller then she actually is.
She doesn't smell like flower petals and roses, as one might expect an elf to smell for some bizzare reason. She smells like armor, sweat, blood, earth, animals, and a whole manner of things one may or may not regard as unpleasent. Around her neck at all times is an intricate totem shaped like a Gryphon. She wears no other jewelry.
A large Nightsaber walks at her side, sometimes hidden in the shadows but more often then not visible, gazing warily at strangers. He possesses his own share of scars, and is missing his left eye.
-----
With the fall of Nordrassil, Night Elves lost their immortality, once again vulnerable to sickness, age, and diseases... Like the plague.
The result of such a thing would be this paticlur decayed elf.
Her elongated ears jingle with various piercings- however, they’ve been tattered to a state where she could be assumed to be an undead high elf; the tip of the right one is missing, and the other heavily is ripped and torn. Another thing that could have her mistaken as a high elf would be her height- she’s about as tall as the average Quel’Dorei.
She can often be seen smoking a long, elegence pipe, Shu'Halo in style, with red smoke billowing out of it.
She moves with an easy, relaxed elven grace despite her condition, a shocking difference to some of the stiffer moving forsaken. Even so, she seems to have a limp of some sort that persists in Undeath, often seen leaning on the intricate staff she carries with her.
She seems almost stunningly well preserved, having not rotted between death and awakening. Her features are thin, with pale blue, almost white skin and hawk like soulless yellow eyes. She wears the traditional war-paint of a Kal'Dorei on her face.
Adding to her well preserved appearence, she seems to actually bathe regularly, and it shows in her thick, slightly wavy, dark brown hair. She keeps it wrapped with a blue ribbon that hangs down her front, and part of it hangs over the right side of her face.
---
Kinu inhaled slowly, then instantly wished she hadn't. The air was dark, damp and rotting. She rolled over, trying to ignore the various scents and sounds, but sleep eluded her, and finally she stood, lumbering over to the bars of her cell sleepily.
There was a definite excitement in the air, and while her ogre guards seemed to be picking up on it, the night elf hardly shared their views. There was to be a tournament today. Money would exchange hands. Innocent people would die.
The night elf inhaled deeply again and made a mental note to stop doing that. She was anxious and it showed as she paced back and forth. With her acute senses of hearing, she could hear cheering- it had started.
Her long red cape swayed behind her as she sat down, getting looks from some of the other gladiators. Except for those who revealed in combat, and those who were truly fearful, they all wore the same expressions: one of the dead.
Kinu leaned against the cold stone wall, letting her eyes slip shut and the memories slowly trickle back. It'd been... A few days? Weeks? Years? She had lost all count of time since she'd been forced into this life, and for the hundredth- thousandth?- time she wished she could just all go back.
Things had been going so well- or as well as they could have been. She had friends. She had enemies to, yes, but that seemed to come with being alive and having an opinion. She had a guild. People had cared about her.
But it was all different now. She was nothing. The Alliance- something she'd believed in perhaps as much as Elune herself- had failed her. 'We can't risk upsetting the neutrality with the Goblins' they'd said.
She was hardly a hunter anymore- who knew how out of practice she was with a bow. The only thing she knew now was her spear. Friends, allies, people, they were all lost to her.
“Rageclaw, you're up.”
Someone nudged her in the shoulder, and she let out a growl in reply, slowly peeking open a golden eye to stare at the ogre until he took a step back uncomfortably. She stood up, and stalked over to the goblin that had called her.
Shackles were clasped around her hands and neck, and she was led into the holding pen. The chains falling away again, she rubbed her wrists and neck, and prepared for combat.
The scent of blood linger outside, and she growled. When she walked out there, the crowd wouldn't see a rational being with complex emotions- they'd see a raging berserker with one desire: To kill.
A haze of red finally came over her vision, and with a growl she stalked out into the arena. Thunderous cheers greeted her- everyone that was here was eager to see blood spilled. In the back of her mind, she thought them barbaric.
Her opponent finally lumbered out, a huge armored ogre. “SKORR THE UNBREAKABLE!” The announcer shouted. Skorr roared, shaking a huge club. Kinu replied, raising her voice to be a loud as it could. She knew she wouldn't be able to speak tomorrow, but that didn't matter. Suddenly, as she grasped her spear, the only thing that mattered was seeing Skorr the Unbreakable broken.
Kinu charged forward nimbly, with lithe limbs that were all muscle, she was strong as well as agile. Stabbing past the armor, she pieced his skin. Skorr bellowed in pain at the minor wound, but by the time that his club crashed into the ground with staggering force, the elf was already a safe distance away. This tactic was repeated several times, until finally she got unlucky- or perhaps Skorr lucky- and his club connected with her body.
With staggering force he sent her small form crashing into the wall with a sickening crack, where slowly she slid down.
She lay there, absorbed in pain. She was dimly aware that she was bleeding and was Skorr coming to lord his victory over her. Blood trickled into her eyes as numbly she lay there. Bones that were broken burned in agony. Her breath started to slow, her heart rate dropped, and all movement ceased as she started to feign death.
Skorr was fooled, bellowing in triumph as he walked over to the center of the arena. The crowd was going insane with glee- they all knew that Rageclaw would never last against Skorr the Unbreakable.
Slowly, however, the crowd began to notice a small movement in the corner of the field.
Skorr didn't, but paused anyways, confused by the sudden silence of the crowd. Suddenly, someone- someone who had probably bet a small fortune at Skorr winning- shouted 'behind you!'. But the Ogre was too slow to react, and with a bellow of surprise and pain looked down at the spear protruding from his chest. He moved to pull it out, but even as he did so blood flowed out of his chest and he staggered numbly for a minute before crashing down onto the ground with a thud.
Kinu stood over his corpse, her breath coming in sharp, pain gasps as she stood there in victory. Her entire form trembled, but she basked in the rush of victory. She screamed her glory to the heavens, lost in the rush of battle, before she slowly collapsed into a heap, the sound of healers running over the last thing she heard.
A few hours later, as she limped into the mess hall to get some dinner, whispers followed the elf. She ignored them, too tired to do anything else. The food was perhaps the only decent thing- the people who ran these things didn't need their gladiators underfed.
Limping over to a empty table, she growled in slight pain. The healers had healed her (obviously) but it had left her extremely sore. Abruptly she looked up, and there was a flurry of movement as the others made to look away from her.
She chuckled weakly as she ate, repeating this action several times for her own amusement until no one was staring at her. Slowly, however, the amusement faded, and the trickling memories she tried to suppress slowly finding their way forward. Angrily, she pushed them away.
She was nothing now.
The ruins surrounded me again, pale and empty and colorless as they would ever be. No vines grew on this cold, stone marble. Nature would not touch the realm of my dreams. The only feature on this barren, grey wasteland were these ruins, and I hung about them, taking in the sky. It was the same sort of feeling you get when a dark cloud covers the sky save for a sliver of blue on the horizon- the feeling that a shadow has fallen over you.
The feeling that a storm is coming.
The first time I had had this dream, I had felt fear. Now there was only a vague sense of dread as I waited for the inevitable.
Ah... Yep. There she was. The veiled figure in white, slowly walking through the ruins as if she were a ghost. And to me she was a ghost- she could not see nor hear me, and I could do no more then see her. If I tried to reach out to her as I did countless times in the past, my hands would pass right through her.
As always, she peered around as though looking for someone. Her long ears and dark skin marked her as Kal'Dorei, or at least resembling one, and her robes made her a priestess... Someone trying to grant me salvation, perhaps?
I laughed weakly in this dream word as I watched. I wanted no salvation, no hope to only lead me to crushing disaster. I'd quickly tired of that.
As always, the figure spoke something quietly. It reached me only as a vague whisper, as though she were speaking from leagues away. For the past month I'd been having this dream it'd only came as a garbled whisper.
"Don't... I know..."
I was suddenly alert, straining to hear. Never before had I heard the words.
"Always.... Hope..."
Then the figure started to disappear, her glow withdrawing from the landscape.
"No! Wait!" I shouted, trying to run towards her, but as always in dreams my movements were slow and sluggish. By the time I reached her, she was gone. I braced for what was to come.
The world shattered...
... And the forsaken Kal'Dorei sat up in bed, clutching her blanket to her chest, gasping for breath she didn't need and cursing something fierce. She didn't sleep often, but when she did, that dream has always been there to haunt her. Ever since her Undeath a few months back... She hates lag
The camp fire crackled under the light of the moon. Galen huddled against it, drawing his patched wool blanket closer about himself. They were up north- too far up north for his liking, and the wind was too damn cold and everything was awful. He felt miserable- sore, tired, and numb with fear that rocked him to his core.
He looked to the fire for sympathy.
It cackled at him.
He didn't really expect anything different at this point.
Galen was not a fighting man. He thought he was, but he was learning that he was very, very wrong. He had worked at the Eastvale Logging Camp. A visiting night elf had told glorious tales of fighting for the Gulch, and it'd all gone to his head- he'd left a few weeks after for Kalimdor, bragging how he'd come back a war hero. The journey across the Great Sea had been harrowing enough, but the battle today had been like a kick to this nuts.
And his arm hurt.
"Eh, laddy, looks like you could use some company."
Galen jumped about a mile into the air at the voice, and looked up to see a dwarf standing across the fire. A hunter, Galen judged by the snow leopard at his side, but Galen wasn't really trusting his judgment at this point. He was middle aged, with black hair and a face that was probably normally serious- there was a glint of humor in his eyes... Probably at making Galen jump.
Remembering he had been asked a question, he nodded dumbly, and the dwarf's face took a sympathetic expression as he sat, his large cat eyeing Galen distrustfully.
"It was a hard battle today, hn?" The dwarf spoke good common. Only a vague hint of an accent. Galen nodded again dumbly.
"Th' Alliance did a mighty fine job."
Audric Lithdel Community Member 
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