Freedom

The black dust stirred from the dead ground in a small cloud as the hooves pressed into it. The small skeletons of long dead animals and defenders crunched beneath the tread of the deathcharger. Each clump of a hoof sent new sound through the stillness of the Dead Scar, echoing mournfully from the nearby hills and returning to the steed's rider.

Celessiel Dawnleaf pulled up on the reins, bringing her dead mount to a halt before the ruins that jutted up out of the earth of the Dead Scar like a crown of broken teeth. The Sanctum before her had been destroyed in the Scourge invasion, and in its quiet ruin was a story that few who lived now remembered. For a time, Celessiel sat perfectly still, the warm breeze of eversong stirring her snow white hair against the stone gray flesh of her skin. Her glowing blue eyes drank in the sight of the ruins that once she had spent so much time in, and a look of sorrow passed across her face.

Slowly she dismounted, dismissing the horrible creature that she rode back into the magic that had summoned it forth. Her plate armored boots stirred up more dust as she walked to the edge of the ruins, a hand reaching out to touch a vine that now grew across the tumbled marble. The touch, soft and gentle, froze the plant to its core and it crumbled away, joining the dust around the ruins. Celessiel shuddered, recalling a time when she had tended the forest around this area with love and care, remembering the life that was so far behind her now. The sorrow grew on her face for just a moment, and her eyes closed as the memories rushed up to claim her.

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She had been but a simple tender of the forest. Working with others around the various sanctums of Eversong, she had spent her days wandering the untamed wilderness of her homeland, healing the land where it was needed and seeing to the needs of both the forest and the Quel'dorei who relied on it. All of that had ended on the day the scourge came, and darkness had fallen forever upon both the land and those who cared for it.

She recalled the desperation that she and the others had felt as the horde of undead poured from what would later be known as the Ghostlands, the defenses of Quel'Thalas already shattered before their unending numbers. As the wounded rangers and soldiers of the Quel'dorei fell back in disarray, she had been amongst the few civilians who had known that they had to make a stand, to buy the others enough time to regroup and evacuate the young and injured.

The memory of holding bared steel in her hands followed, so foreign to her nature at that time. How could she and the others, simple gardeners and untrained in combat, hope to fight the tide of darkness that swept ever closer to Silvermoon? What could the few of them do when the rangers had already been driven into full flight? And yet they had all stayed. All of her friends and family had remained by the East Sanctum, gripping weapons with white knuckles as the few children who had been nearby were hurried off by their parents. A few rangers had joined them, choosing to stand with the civilians that fate had put in the way of the advancing tide of death, knowing they would be selling their lives for a worthy cause.

Strangely enough, the battle itself was indistinct in Celessiel's mind. She remembered horror and fear, she remembered anger and rage, but the details of who she struck, of the monsters that she put to rest were impossible to grasp. Perhaps it was for the best that the entirety of that moment was forgotten, for the memories that came after were grim enough to overshadow everything.

She remembered the blow that dealt her a mortal wound distinctly. The skeletal horror that struck at her had wielded a cruel and rusted two-handed sword. Her untrained limbs could not respond fast enough to completely block its attack, and that terrible cold blade had cut into her side even as her counterattack cut the creature down. She remembered the cries of her friends, of her mother and father as they watched her fall. She remembered her sister grasping her bloody hand, dragging her from the front lines of the fighting and onto the cool marble floor of the sanctum. The blood had been so bright red on the white stone, and her sister's face held grief before Celessiel was even dead.

She remembered watching cold undead hands snatch her sister away. Remembered watching the corpses of her friends rising in undeath, twistching as necromantic magic forced them into eternal servitude.

Worst of all, she remembered lying on those cold stones as the shadows of her foes fell over her, waiting for a deathblow that would join her with her loved ones in undeath.

A blow that would never come.

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Celessiel's eyes snapped open, scourgelight blazing in them as she tried to shake away the memories. So many years ago, and yet touching the stones of the sanctum brought all of them back, with all of the horror that they entailed. She had been remade that day, captured by the Cult of the Damned and infested with the cursed scourge magic, a champion of death meant to spread misery to the rest of her people. Her will chained for eternity within her own living and cursed body.

A whore of darkness.

"No. No more!" she hissed angrily. It had been only months since she'd finally been freed. Months since the Argent Crusade had found her, enslaved to the Cult of the Damned in one of their remaining encampments amongst the shattered battlements of Icecrown. Since she had learned that not all of her people had perished.

A soft scraping sound came from behind her, something moving through the dead stillness of the ruins. She didn't need to turn to know what it was, to sense its presence. Like attracted like, and the undead of the Dead Scar would know her, would seek her out.

It was exactly what she had been hoping for.

She didn't turn, but a smile crossed her face. Her work could finally begin. "The days of darkness are behind me now, are behind us all. With your own weapons, with your own tools I will strike you down. I will hunt ALL of you down, and destroy each of you."

Her runeblade made no sound as she pulled it free, the blue glow of the blade echoed in her eyes.

"I will give each of you peace at last," she whispered.

She rose and stalked into the ruins. It would be many hours later before the lone figure would be seen riding towards Silvermoon, a pile of mangled skeletons left behind in the East Sanctum. Death stalked by death.