Cold Homecoming
Posted: Thu Dec 25, 2008 3:45 pm
It was in one of those cold, dark, long nights when even the semblance of sleep would not come that Urusinidhal’s darkest thoughts turned to the Scourge. When that smallest, most traitorous of voices in her head suggested, quietly, that returning to the monsters and the cold embrace of the Lich King would be so much easier. Easier than the black thoughts and the recriminations and certain knowledge that she was a thing that should not be – an abomination manifest in the world and a blight.
Crushing that horrible voice once again, Urusin pulled out her long knife and slashed across the back of her hand, noticing again how quickly the remaining Scourge taint began stitching together the seeping wound. She spotted a wriggling form at her feet and smiled bitterly at the bloodworm blindly searching to something to kill. She picked it up and crushed it in a fist, noting the echo of feeling in her own chest as she squeezed the life out of it.
A blight on the face of the world. An abomination.
Armed with a grim satisfaction at the pulpy mess, she looked out the inn’s window. She had never been to Northrend in life, nor even in her service to the Lich King. But everything here was familiar – more echoes brought to her from her remaining links to the Scourge. The links that made Arthas’ armies so horrific, tied together with tendril’s of his magic and malice from the lowliest ghoul to his Death Knight champions. The traitorous voice piped up again, from a more secure corner of her mind
‘Yes, his grip is terrible and cold and it will leave you misshapen and broken but surely that’s easier than all this hate. Just let him direct that hate once more and you can be at ease’.
At ease. A blight. An abomination.
Hating this new found freedom, Urusin, as many other Death Knights had determined to destroy him… removing the possibility of return, salvation, a longed for release of not-thinking. No, she denied the silky voice and listened again for that other – the Kaldorei Sentinel – what remained of her life trapped here in her now-dead body. The Sentinel’s words were plain, less appealing but she knew at heart that what the vestige spoke was true. Arthas must be destroyed utterly then the world could be free.
And then… what? She would still be a blight, abomination. As would be all Death Knights – all abominations and insults to Elune and the earth. Suddenly a new voice spoke and it took her a few moments to realise who this voice belonged to – herself – the undead, unloving being that existed now, free from the Lich King yet severed from the world. And her thoughts were beautiful and cold and, she realized, terrifying.
‘Kill them all; Arthas must be destroyed, then when the danger is gone so to must go the Knights of the Ebon Blade. Hunt them down, cut out the blight, and cleanse the abomination. When we are gone, the sickness and infection of undeath will be excised from the world. Kill them all, and then, only when the job is done, so too myself.
A decision, so to speak. She felt better already.
(( Just something that's been rattling around in my head since creating this character. Better out than in, as they say. ))
Crushing that horrible voice once again, Urusin pulled out her long knife and slashed across the back of her hand, noticing again how quickly the remaining Scourge taint began stitching together the seeping wound. She spotted a wriggling form at her feet and smiled bitterly at the bloodworm blindly searching to something to kill. She picked it up and crushed it in a fist, noting the echo of feeling in her own chest as she squeezed the life out of it.
A blight on the face of the world. An abomination.
Armed with a grim satisfaction at the pulpy mess, she looked out the inn’s window. She had never been to Northrend in life, nor even in her service to the Lich King. But everything here was familiar – more echoes brought to her from her remaining links to the Scourge. The links that made Arthas’ armies so horrific, tied together with tendril’s of his magic and malice from the lowliest ghoul to his Death Knight champions. The traitorous voice piped up again, from a more secure corner of her mind
‘Yes, his grip is terrible and cold and it will leave you misshapen and broken but surely that’s easier than all this hate. Just let him direct that hate once more and you can be at ease’.
At ease. A blight. An abomination.
Hating this new found freedom, Urusin, as many other Death Knights had determined to destroy him… removing the possibility of return, salvation, a longed for release of not-thinking. No, she denied the silky voice and listened again for that other – the Kaldorei Sentinel – what remained of her life trapped here in her now-dead body. The Sentinel’s words were plain, less appealing but she knew at heart that what the vestige spoke was true. Arthas must be destroyed utterly then the world could be free.
And then… what? She would still be a blight, abomination. As would be all Death Knights – all abominations and insults to Elune and the earth. Suddenly a new voice spoke and it took her a few moments to realise who this voice belonged to – herself – the undead, unloving being that existed now, free from the Lich King yet severed from the world. And her thoughts were beautiful and cold and, she realized, terrifying.
‘Kill them all; Arthas must be destroyed, then when the danger is gone so to must go the Knights of the Ebon Blade. Hunt them down, cut out the blight, and cleanse the abomination. When we are gone, the sickness and infection of undeath will be excised from the world. Kill them all, and then, only when the job is done, so too myself.
A decision, so to speak. She felt better already.
(( Just something that's been rattling around in my head since creating this character. Better out than in, as they say. ))