After-shocks

[Nykkolaia]

((OOC: This takes place after the events in the Ficlet for Nykk in the Beatdown Ficlet thread...))

The inside of the soft wool cloak clung to the ragged lines. Small fibers that would have been missed entirely in any other situation now attached themselves to the edges, so that if you tried to remove them from one another you were rewarded with a sharp, unkind pain. The dark blue hid the color of the blood that had, by now, mostly dried in place. What was let was the ragged flesh, which unattended to would take some time to heal...

...again.

From the enclosing darkness that was the entrance to Dalaran's Underbelly, the hooded figure walked cautiously up to the light. She did not limp, for there was no injury to her leg, but she moved with the slightly off-balance gait of one pushed past their endurance and in a pain that was so complete as to take over the entire body and spirit.

Nykkolaia's hand trembled as it pressed against the cool stone wall, holding herself upright.

The front of her dress was stained with thin rivulets of blood that had seeped down from her face and neck. She swallowed and was reminded of how painful an endeavor that was, then instead focused on her breathing. She paused her strides to catch up with herself.

He had done his work upon her - a reminder for her wrongs, he'd said. He had said that she should be grateful he'd not taken anything else from her or torn her apart any more than he had. She had said thank you. Then he had left and she had remained, in pieces, in the cold stone corner. Shadows mocked her as she slowly returned to her senses. Tears stung her eyes, but she swallowed them down and pushed herself up, pulling her cloak around herself, like it would hold her together.

From there, Nykk had made her way back up to the streets of Dalaran, but once she reached the gateway to the rest of the world and life... she hesitated.

As ever, just one step apart, the mage looked in from the outside. Her hood pulled close to hide her shame, she peered out from its small darkness and watched the people passing by. Somehow, so simple a scene managed to summon up something from deeper within. Something from the Nykkolaia that had come before she was taken from the capital streets.

It was not distinct at first. Hazy. Frowning, she pulled it up. Memories from before were little treasures and perhaps it would be the only thing to save her from her present torment. To ignore the hardening feeling upon her face while its skin knit itself back together.

Nykk stared at the people, all of them going on about their lives. None of them took note of her. Then a face stood out among those walking. She had met him before, although the name had drifted away behind the pain... and yet it was his face that proved the final catalyst. This face, so random in its placement among the passers-by, would be the final string to bring the memory to bloom before her eyes...

...a young woman yet, only newly on this side of it from having been a girl.

Lordaeron city was alive and all the other children and young ones called to her. "Nykkolaia! Nykkolaia! Come see!" They were not children she knew well, but knew in the manner of all children to each one another. There was something to see and so it was proclaimed through all the youth by the randomly designated children's crier, much akin to a town crier only smaller and less official.

She laughed in the lighthearted way that young one's do, as-of-yet unaware of the ugliness that the world could bring. Sheltered still from that storm and allowed to be as she was. She rushed with the other girls to the edge of the street where the crowds had gathered. "Wha' have we come tae see?" she asked, standing on her toes to try to see between people's heads.

Down the street marched a sea of white and blue with a banner being carried amongst them. It rose proudly and waved in the gentle breeze - a banner of gold with a crimson stag emblazoned on it. Somewhere, someone said, "The fifth legion of Lordaeron" - although aside from the last word, this did not mean much to Nykkolaia. She only recognized them for soldiers.

Marching towards the front of one group was a man. She didn't know why, he caught her eye for an instant. Probably some thirty years older than she with black hair and keenly blue eyes that shifted in the sun light as he called out to the soldiers marching with him. Perhaps it was that he turned in her direction for a moment, who was to say, but she noticed him out from the others for that instant.

Then the instant passed and they continued marching, leaving the wake of laughing children and murmuring adults in their path. The adults spoke of why the soldiers were coming through at all. But this was not something children listened to or thought.

What did they know of the world outside their own, until it was thrust unkindly upon them without escape?

Nykk blinked away sorrow. The man was almost gone, but she recognized him now. He was older. His hair was the dark iron grey that came from age mixed with the original black it had once been. A turn of his head showed a glint of a blue eye, though the other was now covered with an eye patch. His gait was less ...uplifted and proud than it had been. There was still pride, but it was more... stubborn set, angry.

It was likely the result of what the world had done to them all, Nykk reflected. The name Taborwynn floated to the surface of her mind just as he passed out of sight, leaving her with nothing to look at but the memory in her mind. The memory of a happier moment - a light before the storm - when she had once been an unsullied and bright girl. Happy.

What has become of me?