Someone Who Shoots People

[Varenna]

Meet my hunter. I liked the class but the character sucked, so I killed her off in lanna's background story and deleted her. She's back, new and improved and someone entirely different. Whoo!
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A personality is like a face, which is like a mask. It's what the world sees when it looks at you, and it's mutable-- what the world sees is and can be changed, either in minor ways or significant ones, naturally over time, or, often, at will. Though important, and often reflecting heavily on the nature of the individual who possesses it, personality does not define that nature.

By extrapolation, a person, being like a personality, which is like a face, which is like a mask, is similarly superficial. It is a reflection on an idea, but the idea is not defined by it. The idea is something separate; independent.

A person, which is like a personality, which is like a face, which is like a mask, being superficial, can die. An idea, which is not superficial, is much harder to kill.


I was a Sentinel. I died in the Third War. I was a Shadowleaf, and with the others, I fought - and failed - to protect Cenarius. I came close to two thousand years old, but didn't make it. I didn't die in battle, despite the many, and two wars, that I had seen.

My commanding officer - not General Feathermoon, who commanded us all, but my commander - was someone you know. I loved her. I was loyal to her. I would have died for her-- turns out I did. She was a priestess back then. She used a bow, but not to kill me. She used a hunting knife for that.

She stabbed me with it.

My name was Keiana Windwillow. Then I died.


People die. Ideas don't. The idea didn't die.

The idea was: A hunter, or Someone Who Shoots People.

This is the sound of a tape being rewinded at high speed...

Fzzzwrp.


I was a Sentinel.

I fought in the Third War, just like everybody else did. I fought at Hyjal. Hell, who didn't? Even the orcs fought at Hyjal. Savage bastards. I'm three hundred and forty seven years old as of last night. I spent a lot of that time practicing with a bow. Got damn good at it, too - good thing, saved my life - but I'd never seen real combat until the war. Then I saw plenty.

I'm not friends or lovers with anybody you know.

I'm... technically still a Sentinel. I'm not on active duty anymore. Something about... uh. What's that thing humans call it? Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder? That. I couldn't stay in Ashenvale anymore anyway. Just... couldn't. They let me go see that new city, Darnassus. They say Teldrassil's tainted-- maybe it is, I don't know, it's still pretty. My parents are living there now. Not in the city itself, too big for them. They've got a little place in that coastal village, Rut'theran. They're fishermen.

I go back to visit sometimes. They always like that. I tried living with them for awhile, right after the war ended - they were still in Darkshore, then - but I couldn't stay put there either. Got tired of the gloomy skies. And I couldn't stand the way they'd look at me, like I was breaking their damn hearts all the time. I packed up again and left.

Wandered around in Stonetalon awhile, shot arrows in a bunch of goblins. Fucking orcs there, too. Same deal with the Barrens. Interesting animals, good hunting on some of them, but the people - if you can call 'em that - made me miss civilization. Fucking orcs ruin everything. I used up a lot of arrows.

Then there's Dustwallow...

It's got those same grey skies, like Auberdine. Rains all the damn time. The marsh kinda stinks sometimes, and there's plenty of things around that'll kill me if I give 'em the chance, but... not too many orcs. Haven't seen many, anyway. I'd know if I smelled one. Makes the marsh seem like roses.

Theramore is nice. The walls make me uncomfortable. They let it be a lot more green inside than I expected, though. There's even some trees. No animals - dogs and horses don't count - but that's okay. It's quiet here. They've got a fishing community, too. Different fish, but the guy sitting around on the docks gutting and selling them may as well be the same guy they had back in Auberdine, even if he does have shorter ears.

Ears...

I know the Quel'dorei should bother me (there's a lot of them here, they came over with the humans). Well, they don't. Yeah, they're freaky looking, but they're people. Screw what your grandparents say, or what their great grandparents did, magic fucking won the war for us. I was fucking there, okay? We'd have been screwed without the Alliance, especially the mages. That Jaina Proudmoore chick they talk about, the short little sorceress? She'd take out fucking legions. Whole sea of Scourge, boom, one spell at a time. Over and over. She's the one running this place. Fuck your grandparents, I've got nothing against slickears and arcanists. That goes for that wacky religion they've got, too, all that "Light" stuff. This one time, I took a spear right through my chest-- see, here's the scar? Thought I was done for, then one of their priests comes along, pulls the spear out, shoves the blood back in, there's this glow-- all gold, not like Temple stuff, but all of a sudden I'm patched up as neat as if it had been moonbeams. Maybe better. Fuck your prejudices, I know who my real enemies are. Ain't the Light or the slickears.

There's this guy, Captain Vimes, he runs the Watch here. He was looking for volunteers, I was out of cash, so I signed up. They interviewed me, did as much of a background check as they could-- then the guy finds out I'm a Sentinel, and he hires me on the spot. Fine by me. Easy work, good pay. I get Saturdays off. The uniform kinda bugs me-- never wore that much metal even at Hyjal, and the tabard itches. Still. I get Saturdays for fishing, and the rest of the time it stays pretty quiet. Even when I draw duty outside the walls. No noise in a swamp, you know? People noise I mean.

I like it here a lot. People leave me the hell alone. Dunno know how long I'll stay-- it's a nice job, but I'm not, you know. Invested. I wouldn't define myself as a "Keeper of Theramore's Peace and Security". I don't feel like a Sentinel anymore, either. I'm just some chick who's good at shooting things, I guess.

Keiana, by the way. Is my name. Reeds. ...Don't use my first name. No one else does.

[Varenna]

A visit home, en route to:

It was raining. Not Dustwallow rain, which comes down cold and bitter from the Great Sea, with the certainty that if you have by chance forgotten that you're living on the coast, it will remind you-- this was just Ashenvale rain, which is gentler.

Reeds shivered and drew closer under the long, broad-leaved branches of the tree. She wasn't alone under it.

She lit a cigarette and stared down at the grave. The headstone was just a flat rock someone had found and shoved into place. The last name, carved into its surface, had been obscured by thick green moss; the first name was the same as hers. It was probably a leftover from the war. Most things were, these days, it seemed.

"Tough luck, huh?"

She sighed, pulled her hood up to shelter the dull orange glow of her cigarette, shouldered the waterproof leather case that held her rifle - she'd bought it from a goblin in Ratchet, for a month's worth of pay - and walked off.

"Well, we can't all have survived."