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Re: The Wrath Gate

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 1:58 pm
by Itanya_blade
((BAH!))

Re: The Wrath Gate

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 5:02 pm
by Rashona
((Placeholding cow is placeholding again. Rashona shreddage is back on page 7 if anybody needs it.))

Re: The Wrath Gate

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 9:34 pm
by Dravir
((Future Dravir silliness, future Snaga awesomeness.))

Re: The Wrath Gate

Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 5:08 am
by Lansiron
((Hey, all the other kids are doing it))

Re: The Wrath Gate

Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2009 11:01 am
by Beltar
((placeholder thang))

Re: The Wrath Gate

Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 1:20 am
by Aleros
Reservations, I has them

Re: The Wrath Gate

Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 8:51 pm
by Jolstraer
((More spot-holding. Writing to come in a day or two.))

Re: The Wrath Gate

Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 8:52 pm
by Bellesta
((Reserved #2, as well for me.))

Re: The Wrath Gate

Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 12:28 am
by Shad
((I FINISHED IT HOLY HELLS I DID IT))

Haemon had never minded the cold. He was born to it, and from playing King of Snow Mountain in his skivvies to swimming for crabs in Northrend's gray waters, he couldn't once remember truly feeling a chill at his core. So it was something of a surprise to find that he had actually never known what Cold was, not until his body took it for his own.

Sap froze from beneath the surface of the druid's wooden flesh, the crystallization cruelly creeping inch by inch down his trunk from the perforations that poured it forth. His branches, previously unhindered by the frigid air, succumbed to Arthas's cold without much of a fight at all. What was the point of fighting? The bleak stillness of the grave was an inevitability, even to his kind. Maybe Arthas, and Uthas in his image, were just setting right the mistakes of nature. Granting true eternity.

The thought was foreign, thrust into his mind behind the spearpoint of the icy eyes that saw him from half a mile away. Like the gaze of an omnipotent god, it judged him at once as individual and servant. As your mother before you, it instructed, you will be mine. Your Nature will betray you, and you it. You will bend knee to Me and foul this land in My Name. There is no escape.

There is no escape.

In one last strained independent effort, the tree tore his eyes from his doom to seek to prove the thoughts wrong. But amongst the high, sheer cliffs lined with fresh scourge creations, he could find no safe haven. The thick, sharpened pikes that lined the Alliance fortifications no longer seemed to be protections, but rather pointed directly at him. We have placed ourselves in a smooth glass bowl, and built barricades against our own escape. We have gathered the finest armies on Azeroth, and presented them to the Lich King on an icy platter.

Cold had reached his roots, fastening him securely in place. It was all right. He wasn't going to try to run. They'd been foolish to even consider facing the might of the Scourge, and they deserved their punishment for falling directly into His trap. This would be the beginning of the end. He would go, sent out as a new minion of his master. He would go, and he would find Fells, and he would tear the children from her womb with his bare hands and devour them--

Haemon had also never minded the darkness. He was grateful when it overtook him entirely.

Re: The Wrath Gate

Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2009 3:41 pm
by Threnn
Crone

Though the link to the other witches remained, though the ground beneath her feet still sang with power, Davien felt suddenly hollow. It had been years since she'd known any lover's touch, but she remembered enough: letting go of the arcane felt like a separation -- like that lonely moment after lovemaking when lovers disentangle and one body becomes two again.

She sighed with the loss, and heard Darrows' and Crownsilver's matching exhalations. Do we all feel the same thin', or are we echoin' each other?

Arced behind them, in charred and frozen and twisted heap, lay the bodies of the Scourge and the Cultists who'd marched with them. Davien couldn't help the smile that tilted up the corners of her lips, grim satisfaction at a job well done. We could pull down his mountain, like this. We could march into his throneroom an' tear the Bloody Prince asunder, him an' all his legions. We could --

The moaning had begun as they made their way to where ap Danywrith's lines had closed ranks. Now it became a keen, as dark shapes dragged themselves from the ground well outside the witches' circle of destruction and chanted for their king.

She wasn't afraid, as the gates opened, wasn't afraid as Frostmourne's cold blue light heralded his appearance. She didn't tremble as the grey daylight lit upon his spiked helm.

I am Davien Stonemantle. I am a mage of some power, an' when I was livin' I saw y'ride through Lordaeron City t'take y'r holy vows. I've been free of 'ee five years gone, an' I'll not quail before y'r show o'power. Not now, not ev--

"You speak of justice? Of cowardice?" Arthas' voice rolled across the hills.

Her bravado crumbled, like a house of cards in the breeze. Words fled, thought fled. Her hands, so steady while she'd painted symbols and sigils on her skin hours before, shook like leaves in a gale. It was a wonder (because some part of her -- the deep-down place where she collected her beloved tales -- was even chronicling this moment, and had to carry the metaphor through) that her whole body didn't bend with it, laying the mage near-flat to the ground with fear.

But maybe she was the other kind of tree -- push too far and she'd break instead.

That voice. That voice. It had been in her head, once, telling her where to go, what to do... who to kill.

Not that those orders had been very particular: Kill everyone. Let no living thing remain.

How long? How long had she wandered the Plagues, shambling and mindless, driven onward only by His will?

She knew the answer to that, too. Down to the day.

The one thing for which she'd been thankful on rising was that her time with the Scourge was a blank spot in her memory. As long as she didn't remember her sins, she could hold onto her humanity. Or so she'd told herself.

Then the shadows had come and stolen away that mercy. She remembered everything, now, every farmhand's scream, every throat she'd torn out, the pleading of mothers and sons as she and her shambling, murderous kin ravaged whole towns. Two years, now, two years, she'd lived with the memories, and sworn Never again. Never again.

"Never again," she muttered through bloodless lips, frozen by the Lich King's voice. But if anyone heard, they didn't acknowledge. She wasn't even sure she'd spoken aloud.

All this time, she'd been so certain that whatever Sylvanas had done to free the Forsaken from his bonds, it was permanent. Even in her opposition to the Dark Lady's plans, she'd been grateful for that. Now, though, with his voice echoing off the mountain passes, Davien wasn't so confident.

And where were her shadows? Terror this complete should have rendered her blind from the first flutter of her heart. She would have welcomed them, now, to hide her from that terrible gaze.

Even the shadows know fear. I'm facin' this alone.

I'm facin' Him alone.


What if he could take hold again? Reach in and steal away her free will, make her like one of the mindless minions writhing in the snow? Would she turn, unwilling, and watch from deep within as her hands sent deadly volleys at the people she'd called allies?

And if the Riders didn't cut her down, would he make her march to Moonglade, to the cottage where Jessen and Kyree slept? Would he make her --

Nearby, sobs cut through the bitter cold. It was instinct to reach out a comforting hand, but she couldn't find the source. Then her own chest hitched, the freezing air stabbing its way into her lungs as another sob tore free. It had been so long since she'd felt the sting of tears that for a moment, she didn't know what it was that was freezing to her cheeks.

Then dread and despair overrode shock once more, and, for the first time since her brother's death, Davien Stonemantle wept.