((Warning: The
following RP storyline contains adult content. Several scenes may be
difficult for some readers. Reading discretion is advised. All
characters involved are here at the request of their owners.))
Kyliska Sunblade's charger made loud thumping noises as she lead the creature down the rather unsturdy looking dock in Ratchet. Considering that much of the coastline was utterly obliterated during the shattering, the Blood Knight supposed that having any dock at all was a blessing and much better than having to swim from the ship to the shore.
As she made her way into the town proper, she paused to look at the structures that the goblins and a variety of other races called home. A stiff cool breeze from the sea behind her stirred her golden hair around her face and made her tabard flutter, the black heart on its red field rippling over her thick plate armor.
Armor that barely fit her now.
Kyliska smiled, reaching down to pat her own stomach, just beginning to swell now with the bump of her first child; the child she and Andissiel had made together. A product of their love, her hesitation to be a mother was founded both on the fears that she would one day end up like her own mother, Sassariel, and on the fact that she simply was unable to contain her desire for action and adventure and be practical with her behavior. The Knight smirked, shaking her head and dismissing the thought; it didn't matter what her 'condition' was, adventure was what stirred her blood to life and she was not about to give up on it, even if she had to take smaller and smaller ones.
Adventures like her current trip.
As Kyliska lead her war steed deeper into the town, she began to reflect on why she was here. Several days ago now, an alliance raiding force had struck out at House Dayfire, destroying a small prison spire deep in the heart of Eversong Woods and freeing a prisoner that her sister Biara had taken. Although Kyliska didn't believe her sister's intentions were poor (she never really doubted that the Magistrix had the best of intentions for Quel'Thalas!), she had thought that the choice of location for holding the prisoner could have been better planned. In fact, it might have been better for there to have been no prisoner for the alliance to come and rescue.
Regardless of all of this, the alliance had slaughtered half a company of House guards, many of Biara's apprentices, and set the structure alight. In addition, mysterious attacks on Kyliska's own Blood Knights within the House had continued throughout Quel'Thalas, and no matter how she changed their patrol schedules or destinations during the patrols, the enemy seemed to have eyes upon their forces and would strike anyway, killing many of her men. By all accounts the aggressors were poorly trained humans, and it was high time that someone did something about it.
Someone like Kyliska Sunblade.
It would be her last adventure before her new life kept her confined to the Spire for longer and longer periods of time, and she would make the most of it. She'd tracked the humans back to a pirate ship that had docked in Ratchet several days ago, and she was about to find out both where they had gone from there, as well as whether or not they had any relation to the recent raids on her sister's holdings. It would be an excellent opportunity to swing her blade a few more times before setting it aside for decades.
***********************
A black shadow slipped through the night, almost undetectable as it blended into the natural darkness around it. It moved with a will of it's own, slipping through the underbrush of the Northern Barrens with an uncanny sense of direction. After a time, the construct came upon a small clearing hidden deep within the vast plains. A tent sat within the space, bordered by the large trees that dominated some parts of the otherwise flat landscape.
As it approached the tent, it slowed down, walking now rather than gliding, it's form looking much like a Sin'dorei as it moved. The flaps of the tent before it opened, and an actual Sin'dorei stepped out. Although the construct was composed of blackest darkness, and the elf was a contrasting marble-like white, the two were otherwise identical in appearance.
The construct bowed before the elf and then began to whisper about what it had seen in the nearby town of Ratchet, news that was long awaited.
Seluna Dawnsea grinned wickedly as she took the information in and then dismissed her shadowy apparition. She gestured and a small magical hum was heard throughout the clearing. Within the brush was the sound of stirring figures as the humans she'd enslaved began to rise. Her so-called Cult of the Shadowed Eye had spent much time preparing for what was to come, and finally all of the work was about to pay off.
For the first time in a long time, Seluna began to hurry in her preparations, eager to begin.
**************************
Kyliska paused, peering through the trees around her, trying to feel with her combat senses what might be ahead. She had traveled for several days to reach this spot, all the while planning what she would do and how she would investigate the issue at hand. The news she'd received from goblins in Ratchet and later from Tauren in the Crossroads had lead her to this spot deep in the heart of Ashenvale. All accounts had pointed to the human group abandoning the area around Ratchet and proceeding in this direction, likely to cause more mischief to the Horde.
Although Kyliska had been disappointed to discover that her enemies were fleeing, she was still determined to track them down; no one entered Quel'Thalas and killed her men without retribution! It was in her blood now, and she would not be denied even if it took a few weeks to track the humans down. She shook her head and frowned; if she took too much longer Andissiel would come to find her and she didn't want her beloved to interfere with the bit of fun she was likely to have!
Ahead of her in the trees Kyliska saw her goal; a sharply inclined face of rock with a crevasse through the front. She'd been tracking the humans for days in the forest now, and a chance encounter with an old orc hunter had lead her towards this spot. From what she could gather through the scant information she was able to collect so far, the humans had set up a camp within the crevasse and were using it as a base to launch more raids on the Horde forces within the forest. They were a ragtag bunch, dressed in black robes and fanatical in their assaults.
Precisely the kind of humans Kyliska was most fond of cutting to shreds with her sword.
She grinned wickedly, her grip on the familiar blade strong as she made her way stealthily through the underbrush towards the narrow gap ahead. She would find the cultists and slaughter them by surprise and be back at Dayfire Spire before the sun set this day.
*******************
The first human was unaware that he was under attack until the holy Light had slammed into him, exorcising him to ash in a brilliant flash of energy. The two humans closest to him were equally unprepared for the stroke of the two-handed sword that cleaved one's head clean off and slashed a fatal gouge down the front of the other's chest in its downward swing.
Ten in all, now seven, the humans were a rag-tag bunch of cultists in black robes with a strange eye symbol over their hearts. They had been fortunate in their attacks in Eversong, using stealth and surprise to launch ambushed, but in a stand-up fight they were poorly trained and completely unprepared for the armored death that launched itself into their midst.
Kyliska's plate armored body slammed into the next two who rushed her, physically throwing them over the back of the granite slab they had been using for an altar. Her hand lashed out, the plate gauntlet crushing the windpipe of a human that dashed in behind her, even as she whirled and cut the legs from a man in front of her. Her victim fell screaming showering Kyliska with his lifeblood as he died.
Kyliska Sunblade laughed.
Oh how she loved the thrill of battle! She dove around the awkward thrust of one of the humans, disemboweling him with her own weapon and then hurling his bloodied form towards a woman that screamed and ran at her, entangling the foe. Her blade rose and then fell, ending the struggling woman's life as she tried to free herself from her own dead companion.
Humans were such fools, but at least they bled brightly before they died!
The two men she had thrown over the altar rose behind it, looking at her with fear but also a bit of fanaticism in her eyes. She gave them no chance to go on the offensive, leaping onto the granite platform and lashing out with one of her plate boots, catching the first man in the face and shattering it. The second man raised his blade, a small dagger, and Kyliska giggled as she carved his arm from his body, her lithe form drenched with the blood of her enemies, her heart beating rapidly in her chest and breaths coming out in gasps as the battle lust infused her. The combat had lasted seconds, but already the clearing was empty of foes.
Or so she thought.
Seconds later a cry arose from the rocks around her, and dozens of humans charged into the small space where the altar had been prepared, wicked daggers raised high. Kyliska's eyes widened as she realized that the first ten had been intentionally sacrificed. The real battle had not even begun.
Her eyes narrowing, Kyliska grabbed her sword with both hands, setting herself upon the granite and preparing to deal death to the fools.
****************************
The cultists were like the waves crashing against a rocky coast. They slammed into the edge of the altar, and there were repelled by a force far greater than they were. Men and women fell screaming, their lifeblood pumping into the fertile soil of Ashenvale as they tried to take down a Sin'dorei who had better training, armor, and strategic positioning than they did.
Even so, eventually the tide overcomes the shore, and Kyliska found herself more and more having to dodge blows that came close to crippling her, or kicking out at humans who had climbed onto the altar with her. The men and women seemed unlike enemies she had fought before; their eyes were glassy with fanatical zeal, and they shouted obscenities to whatever god they worshiped as they charged her again and again. Ordinary foes would have been horrified by the carnage around them, would have long ago faltered as they realized the price they were paying to take down a single foe. But these were not ordinary enemies; they were not even in control of their own actions as they fell before her.
Slowly the blood knight found herself having to strike out around her in all directions as the slab of stone was surrounded. Here and there she had taken a hit against her heavy armor, and dents and scratches showed. In a spot beneath her right arm blood flowed down her side from where the tip of a dagger had nicked her flesh. They were minor wounds, but she was tiring and knew she had to break free before it was too late.
The enemy gave her no time.
In a move that was utterly suicidal, one of the cultists threw himself on her blade, lodging it deep within his bowels. He purposely squirmed along the cruel steel, entangling her weapon and forcing her to waste precious time trying to free it. Even as the man died and she cut her weapon free, eight more jumped up onto the granite altar, throwing themselves at her and tackling her.
Kyliska Sunblade was not about to let an inconvenience like being outnumbered and pinned down stop her from killing. Her body spasmed, fists, feet, and Light slashing out around her. Three more men were killed or permanently maimed before enough of the cultists had climbed atop her to wrest her sword from her hand and pin her thrashing limbs down. About twelve of the humans still lived when it was over, where before there had easily been thirty. They had paid a deadly price to subdue her.
As Kyliska's heart raced, one of the humans who had remained somewhat aloof from the fighting stepped forward, a wicked dagger in his hand. His eyes saw nothing, the fanatical look in them seeing only something in the distance that he himself heard, and he muttered to himself about the Shadowed Eye watching them. The Blood Knight tried to squirm under the men who held her, but was unable to free herself as the human came closer.
He gestured to the remaining cultists, and they brought their blades up, cutting away the straps of her breastplate and flinging it into the dirt beside the altar. The man climbed up, standing over her and holding his dagger high. It did not take much mental power to understand that Kyliska was about to be sacrificed then and there.
She snarled at the humans, “Do your worst then, for if I am able to free myself none of you will walk away alive! I swear to the Light I will carve each of you to shreds!”
The man stopped chanting and looked at her, a smile on his face. “The Shadowed Eye cares little for you elf. You mean nothing to him!”
Kyliska blinked at him in confusion for a moment. “B-but...why are you sacrificing me then? I don't understand...”
The man's smile only widened as he raised the dagger up, spoke three last words of magic, and brought it down hard. It glittered in the light of the day as it descended, and Kyliska found herself bemused by the thought that this weapon, this strike would finally be the one that ended her life. The blade arced down quickly, and she braced herself to die as it plunged.
Right into her belly, into her womb.
Her screams echoed from the rocks around her as understanding of the man's words hit home. The dagger flared, the magic within it sucking life energy out, destroying everything it touched, everything inside her, the life she had come to grudgingly accept responsibility for. In that moment her hopes and dreams for the future were shattered, even as her body was shattered and bled. She wanted to die, she wanted the man to bring the blade up and gut her, finishing his work, but her suffering went on endlessly.
***********************************
Seluna Dawnsea shivered with delight as the Blood Knight's screams echoed around her. It was a sound she had waited over a hundred years to hear; the sound of a traitor's daughter getting the justice she deserved. The moment stretched on, Kyliska's suffering unbelievably sweet to the priestess' ears as she stood there watching from the shadows.
After she had let the blade do its work for long enough, Seluna stepped forward, her lithe form making almost no sound as she let inky black tendrils of shadow ooze from her skin, hovering in the air around her. The cultists looked up, bowing their heads as they saw their mistress approaching, knowing they had pleased her.
That is why four of them died almost instantly as Seluna's magic lashed out against them.
They screamed of course. They always screamed when she killed them. It was almost a bothersome sound as her shadows lashed across the small space, throwing panicked men and women to the ground and leaving them to bleed out. She almost laughed once when one of them charged at her, his knife raised over his head in desperation. Her shadows actually cut his body in half before he came anywhere near her.
The final cultist, the 'leader' she had installed in place, still stood over Kyliska, his dagger protruding from her belly as she stared at Seluna in shock.
“B-but I d-don't...don't understand...” he stuttered.
“Hush now,” Seluna replied in a husky whisper. A tendril of shadow lashed out, smashing the human in the face and knocking him back off the altar. The clearing fell silent as Seluna surveyed the devastation.
It was over. The cultists were all dead, and Kyliska lay mortally wounded on the altar, her child stolen from her womb with deadly magic. Exactly as Seluna had planned all along. Perfect in all but one detail; Kyliska had not suffered enough yet.
The priestess let the shadows fade from her, her form shimmering and returning to the pale looking elf that she was. Her eyes glowed with a blue light as she fixed a few pieces of stray hair back into place and casually walked over to Kyliska. She cleared her throat, as if practicing, her face taking on a false look of concern.
“Kyliska! Kyliska Sunblade, can you hear me?” She put just the right amount of desperation in her voice as she leaned over the fallen Blood Knight.
Kyliska groaned and looked at her, pain and despair in her eyes so delicious to Seluna that her mask almost slipped. “S-seluna...w-what....they took...they took...” tears rolled down the knight's face as she cried bitterly, the weapon still stuck in her belly. The emotional pain of loss was worse than the actual wound, although it would be fatal in time.
Seluna gently ran a hand through Kyliska's hair, keeping her feelings of delight under tight control. “Hush now, don't try to speak. I will try and save you and get you to safety. I've managed to dispatch the cultists for now. Please Kyliska, just hold on a little longer....”
Kyliska's eyes closed, her choked sobs softening as the pain and devastating loss overwhelmed her. She passed into unconsciousness and left Seluna standing over her, grinning vilely.
“Yes, let me save you so that you can remember for the rest of your miserable life what it means to have the blood of a traitorous bitch in you. Let your memories haunt you and ride you, showing you how much of a failure you are to your homeland,” she hissed at the unconscious elf. “We can't let you die though, oh no, you've not had nearly enough time to suffer from this.”
Seluna began to sing, her prayer a beautiful, haunting melody that filled the clearing around her. Light built in her hand, and the priestess winced as it burned her flesh; it was always painful for her to handle the Light given her unnatural state, and this time it was doubly painful as the spell she was using was exceptionally powerful. With her free hand she yanked the blade from Kyliska's flesh, letting the life-stealing weapon fall to the ground. She reached out with her glowing hand, pressing it against Kyliska's wounds.
Nothing happened.
Seluna's eyes widened in shock and rage. Her singing faltered as whispers rose around her in the clearing; whispers she knew quite well.
“No Selun'athiel, my beloved. You cannot use the Light for such an end. She will pass on now, and rest in peace,” Tel'athar's voice seemed to come from all around her.
Seluna's rage was unmatched. She shook with it. Her fists came down and pounded on Kyliska's still form as she shrieked at the whispering air around her. The dead; her many victims from long ago, grew louder, more insistent with each pounding blow on the body of her victim. The dead, still body.
“I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE!” she yelled at nothing at all. Within her mind though, she knew the spirit of Tel'athar could hear her, would know the course she planned.
He whispered to her again, his voice otherworldly, “There is one way and one way alone that this will be allowed. The Knight's life will still have purpose, even after this. But you....you must come to understand what it is you have done. There is a price to be paid.”
Seluna's eyes narrowed and her voice came out in a deadly whisper. “I will have my revenge.”
She got no response, but the whispers died away to nothing, the feeling of their presence leaving her. She breathed a sigh of relief, preparing to cast her spell again when the pain hit her. She cried out, bending over in agony as it felt like hot knives were ripping through her again and again. Her mind felt the heavy weight of despair close in upon it, a desire to simply close her eyes and let it all go filling her. She felt every second of Kyliska's agony, her pain and despair over the loss of her child, the mental anguish she had inflicted on the Blood Knight, pain that wasn't hers.
Seluna staggered, leaning heavily against the altar, her breath coming in gasps. Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the stone and shook with the pain, wanting it to end and knowing it was the price she had to pay to use the Light in a manner that would inflict harm on another living thing. It was the price of being what she was, what her daughter and the bitch lying dead on the stone before her had allowed her to become.
Seluna's head snapped up, her face a mask of determination. An iron will that had kept her going for over two centuries, that had lead her through her own death and acceptance of her return in her unpure form burned within her. Her eyes blazed with the blue of the Quel'dorei, her spirit manifest in that moment more than it had ever been before. She reached out, laying a shaking hand on Kyliska's still form, her course set.
“So be it. I will have my revenge,” she said. She began to sing then. Each note held perfectly, each sound coming unerringly from the throat of an elf in the most extreme agonies, both mental and physical. Her desire, her desperate need to make Kyliska pay for the sins of her mother driving the song onward, forcing the Light to come to her call, to heal and restore the victim of her urges.
It came forth. It was begrudging, and the pain grew worse before the end, but the Light answered her call, falling down upon Kyliska in a cone of radiance that made Seluna's skin sizzle where it struck her. As the song ended, she withdrew her partially burned hand and waited, her prayers answered a moment later when Kyliska's chest heaved and breath came to her once again, her wounds slowly closing upon themselves.
As Kyliska's pain ended, so too did Seluna's, and she shivered with relief as the spell healed the burning agony she felt inside, the agony that Kyliska had felt. The priestess grinned, calling upon the shadows to aide her as she stood upright, wrapping the now-unconscious elf's body within her spells, lifting it and carrying it from that place.
It was time for Kyliska to go home, and think about the consequences of what it meant to be a lying half-breed bitch birthed by a traitor to Quel'Thalas.
***************************
Seluna smiled as she stepped from the tent, high on the peaks of Thunderbluff. She had left Kyliska behind in the small structure there, sleeping fitfully beneath the skins. The tent belonged to Elunearia Moonblade, and the surprise that would await her when she returned was as delicious to Seluna as what she had done to Kyliska.
Let them all suffer together. Let them know the foolishness of their actions. They were all failures, and every single one of them would pay before the end.
She stood there for a moment, letting the winds of Mulgore wash over her. She was Selun'athiel Dayfire, Sorceress of Quel'Thalas, Mother of Biara Dayfire, beloved wife of Tel'athar Dayfire.
Scion and true ruler of House Dayfire. It was time for everyone to know this once and for all.
Kyliska Sunblade's charger made loud thumping noises as she lead the creature down the rather unsturdy looking dock in Ratchet. Considering that much of the coastline was utterly obliterated during the shattering, the Blood Knight supposed that having any dock at all was a blessing and much better than having to swim from the ship to the shore.
As she made her way into the town proper, she paused to look at the structures that the goblins and a variety of other races called home. A stiff cool breeze from the sea behind her stirred her golden hair around her face and made her tabard flutter, the black heart on its red field rippling over her thick plate armor.
Armor that barely fit her now.
Kyliska smiled, reaching down to pat her own stomach, just beginning to swell now with the bump of her first child; the child she and Andissiel had made together. A product of their love, her hesitation to be a mother was founded both on the fears that she would one day end up like her own mother, Sassariel, and on the fact that she simply was unable to contain her desire for action and adventure and be practical with her behavior. The Knight smirked, shaking her head and dismissing the thought; it didn't matter what her 'condition' was, adventure was what stirred her blood to life and she was not about to give up on it, even if she had to take smaller and smaller ones.
Adventures like her current trip.
As Kyliska lead her war steed deeper into the town, she began to reflect on why she was here. Several days ago now, an alliance raiding force had struck out at House Dayfire, destroying a small prison spire deep in the heart of Eversong Woods and freeing a prisoner that her sister Biara had taken. Although Kyliska didn't believe her sister's intentions were poor (she never really doubted that the Magistrix had the best of intentions for Quel'Thalas!), she had thought that the choice of location for holding the prisoner could have been better planned. In fact, it might have been better for there to have been no prisoner for the alliance to come and rescue.
Regardless of all of this, the alliance had slaughtered half a company of House guards, many of Biara's apprentices, and set the structure alight. In addition, mysterious attacks on Kyliska's own Blood Knights within the House had continued throughout Quel'Thalas, and no matter how she changed their patrol schedules or destinations during the patrols, the enemy seemed to have eyes upon their forces and would strike anyway, killing many of her men. By all accounts the aggressors were poorly trained humans, and it was high time that someone did something about it.
Someone like Kyliska Sunblade.
It would be her last adventure before her new life kept her confined to the Spire for longer and longer periods of time, and she would make the most of it. She'd tracked the humans back to a pirate ship that had docked in Ratchet several days ago, and she was about to find out both where they had gone from there, as well as whether or not they had any relation to the recent raids on her sister's holdings. It would be an excellent opportunity to swing her blade a few more times before setting it aside for decades.
***********************
A black shadow slipped through the night, almost undetectable as it blended into the natural darkness around it. It moved with a will of it's own, slipping through the underbrush of the Northern Barrens with an uncanny sense of direction. After a time, the construct came upon a small clearing hidden deep within the vast plains. A tent sat within the space, bordered by the large trees that dominated some parts of the otherwise flat landscape.
As it approached the tent, it slowed down, walking now rather than gliding, it's form looking much like a Sin'dorei as it moved. The flaps of the tent before it opened, and an actual Sin'dorei stepped out. Although the construct was composed of blackest darkness, and the elf was a contrasting marble-like white, the two were otherwise identical in appearance.
The construct bowed before the elf and then began to whisper about what it had seen in the nearby town of Ratchet, news that was long awaited.
Seluna Dawnsea grinned wickedly as she took the information in and then dismissed her shadowy apparition. She gestured and a small magical hum was heard throughout the clearing. Within the brush was the sound of stirring figures as the humans she'd enslaved began to rise. Her so-called Cult of the Shadowed Eye had spent much time preparing for what was to come, and finally all of the work was about to pay off.
For the first time in a long time, Seluna began to hurry in her preparations, eager to begin.
**************************
Kyliska paused, peering through the trees around her, trying to feel with her combat senses what might be ahead. She had traveled for several days to reach this spot, all the while planning what she would do and how she would investigate the issue at hand. The news she'd received from goblins in Ratchet and later from Tauren in the Crossroads had lead her to this spot deep in the heart of Ashenvale. All accounts had pointed to the human group abandoning the area around Ratchet and proceeding in this direction, likely to cause more mischief to the Horde.
Although Kyliska had been disappointed to discover that her enemies were fleeing, she was still determined to track them down; no one entered Quel'Thalas and killed her men without retribution! It was in her blood now, and she would not be denied even if it took a few weeks to track the humans down. She shook her head and frowned; if she took too much longer Andissiel would come to find her and she didn't want her beloved to interfere with the bit of fun she was likely to have!
Ahead of her in the trees Kyliska saw her goal; a sharply inclined face of rock with a crevasse through the front. She'd been tracking the humans for days in the forest now, and a chance encounter with an old orc hunter had lead her towards this spot. From what she could gather through the scant information she was able to collect so far, the humans had set up a camp within the crevasse and were using it as a base to launch more raids on the Horde forces within the forest. They were a ragtag bunch, dressed in black robes and fanatical in their assaults.
Precisely the kind of humans Kyliska was most fond of cutting to shreds with her sword.
She grinned wickedly, her grip on the familiar blade strong as she made her way stealthily through the underbrush towards the narrow gap ahead. She would find the cultists and slaughter them by surprise and be back at Dayfire Spire before the sun set this day.
*******************
The first human was unaware that he was under attack until the holy Light had slammed into him, exorcising him to ash in a brilliant flash of energy. The two humans closest to him were equally unprepared for the stroke of the two-handed sword that cleaved one's head clean off and slashed a fatal gouge down the front of the other's chest in its downward swing.
Ten in all, now seven, the humans were a rag-tag bunch of cultists in black robes with a strange eye symbol over their hearts. They had been fortunate in their attacks in Eversong, using stealth and surprise to launch ambushed, but in a stand-up fight they were poorly trained and completely unprepared for the armored death that launched itself into their midst.
Kyliska's plate armored body slammed into the next two who rushed her, physically throwing them over the back of the granite slab they had been using for an altar. Her hand lashed out, the plate gauntlet crushing the windpipe of a human that dashed in behind her, even as she whirled and cut the legs from a man in front of her. Her victim fell screaming showering Kyliska with his lifeblood as he died.
Kyliska Sunblade laughed.
Oh how she loved the thrill of battle! She dove around the awkward thrust of one of the humans, disemboweling him with her own weapon and then hurling his bloodied form towards a woman that screamed and ran at her, entangling the foe. Her blade rose and then fell, ending the struggling woman's life as she tried to free herself from her own dead companion.
Humans were such fools, but at least they bled brightly before they died!
The two men she had thrown over the altar rose behind it, looking at her with fear but also a bit of fanaticism in her eyes. She gave them no chance to go on the offensive, leaping onto the granite platform and lashing out with one of her plate boots, catching the first man in the face and shattering it. The second man raised his blade, a small dagger, and Kyliska giggled as she carved his arm from his body, her lithe form drenched with the blood of her enemies, her heart beating rapidly in her chest and breaths coming out in gasps as the battle lust infused her. The combat had lasted seconds, but already the clearing was empty of foes.
Or so she thought.
Seconds later a cry arose from the rocks around her, and dozens of humans charged into the small space where the altar had been prepared, wicked daggers raised high. Kyliska's eyes widened as she realized that the first ten had been intentionally sacrificed. The real battle had not even begun.
Her eyes narrowing, Kyliska grabbed her sword with both hands, setting herself upon the granite and preparing to deal death to the fools.
****************************
The cultists were like the waves crashing against a rocky coast. They slammed into the edge of the altar, and there were repelled by a force far greater than they were. Men and women fell screaming, their lifeblood pumping into the fertile soil of Ashenvale as they tried to take down a Sin'dorei who had better training, armor, and strategic positioning than they did.
Even so, eventually the tide overcomes the shore, and Kyliska found herself more and more having to dodge blows that came close to crippling her, or kicking out at humans who had climbed onto the altar with her. The men and women seemed unlike enemies she had fought before; their eyes were glassy with fanatical zeal, and they shouted obscenities to whatever god they worshiped as they charged her again and again. Ordinary foes would have been horrified by the carnage around them, would have long ago faltered as they realized the price they were paying to take down a single foe. But these were not ordinary enemies; they were not even in control of their own actions as they fell before her.
Slowly the blood knight found herself having to strike out around her in all directions as the slab of stone was surrounded. Here and there she had taken a hit against her heavy armor, and dents and scratches showed. In a spot beneath her right arm blood flowed down her side from where the tip of a dagger had nicked her flesh. They were minor wounds, but she was tiring and knew she had to break free before it was too late.
The enemy gave her no time.
In a move that was utterly suicidal, one of the cultists threw himself on her blade, lodging it deep within his bowels. He purposely squirmed along the cruel steel, entangling her weapon and forcing her to waste precious time trying to free it. Even as the man died and she cut her weapon free, eight more jumped up onto the granite altar, throwing themselves at her and tackling her.
Kyliska Sunblade was not about to let an inconvenience like being outnumbered and pinned down stop her from killing. Her body spasmed, fists, feet, and Light slashing out around her. Three more men were killed or permanently maimed before enough of the cultists had climbed atop her to wrest her sword from her hand and pin her thrashing limbs down. About twelve of the humans still lived when it was over, where before there had easily been thirty. They had paid a deadly price to subdue her.
As Kyliska's heart raced, one of the humans who had remained somewhat aloof from the fighting stepped forward, a wicked dagger in his hand. His eyes saw nothing, the fanatical look in them seeing only something in the distance that he himself heard, and he muttered to himself about the Shadowed Eye watching them. The Blood Knight tried to squirm under the men who held her, but was unable to free herself as the human came closer.
He gestured to the remaining cultists, and they brought their blades up, cutting away the straps of her breastplate and flinging it into the dirt beside the altar. The man climbed up, standing over her and holding his dagger high. It did not take much mental power to understand that Kyliska was about to be sacrificed then and there.
She snarled at the humans, “Do your worst then, for if I am able to free myself none of you will walk away alive! I swear to the Light I will carve each of you to shreds!”
The man stopped chanting and looked at her, a smile on his face. “The Shadowed Eye cares little for you elf. You mean nothing to him!”
Kyliska blinked at him in confusion for a moment. “B-but...why are you sacrificing me then? I don't understand...”
The man's smile only widened as he raised the dagger up, spoke three last words of magic, and brought it down hard. It glittered in the light of the day as it descended, and Kyliska found herself bemused by the thought that this weapon, this strike would finally be the one that ended her life. The blade arced down quickly, and she braced herself to die as it plunged.
Right into her belly, into her womb.
Her screams echoed from the rocks around her as understanding of the man's words hit home. The dagger flared, the magic within it sucking life energy out, destroying everything it touched, everything inside her, the life she had come to grudgingly accept responsibility for. In that moment her hopes and dreams for the future were shattered, even as her body was shattered and bled. She wanted to die, she wanted the man to bring the blade up and gut her, finishing his work, but her suffering went on endlessly.
***********************************
Seluna Dawnsea shivered with delight as the Blood Knight's screams echoed around her. It was a sound she had waited over a hundred years to hear; the sound of a traitor's daughter getting the justice she deserved. The moment stretched on, Kyliska's suffering unbelievably sweet to the priestess' ears as she stood there watching from the shadows.
After she had let the blade do its work for long enough, Seluna stepped forward, her lithe form making almost no sound as she let inky black tendrils of shadow ooze from her skin, hovering in the air around her. The cultists looked up, bowing their heads as they saw their mistress approaching, knowing they had pleased her.
That is why four of them died almost instantly as Seluna's magic lashed out against them.
They screamed of course. They always screamed when she killed them. It was almost a bothersome sound as her shadows lashed across the small space, throwing panicked men and women to the ground and leaving them to bleed out. She almost laughed once when one of them charged at her, his knife raised over his head in desperation. Her shadows actually cut his body in half before he came anywhere near her.
The final cultist, the 'leader' she had installed in place, still stood over Kyliska, his dagger protruding from her belly as she stared at Seluna in shock.
“B-but I d-don't...don't understand...” he stuttered.
“Hush now,” Seluna replied in a husky whisper. A tendril of shadow lashed out, smashing the human in the face and knocking him back off the altar. The clearing fell silent as Seluna surveyed the devastation.
It was over. The cultists were all dead, and Kyliska lay mortally wounded on the altar, her child stolen from her womb with deadly magic. Exactly as Seluna had planned all along. Perfect in all but one detail; Kyliska had not suffered enough yet.
The priestess let the shadows fade from her, her form shimmering and returning to the pale looking elf that she was. Her eyes glowed with a blue light as she fixed a few pieces of stray hair back into place and casually walked over to Kyliska. She cleared her throat, as if practicing, her face taking on a false look of concern.
“Kyliska! Kyliska Sunblade, can you hear me?” She put just the right amount of desperation in her voice as she leaned over the fallen Blood Knight.
Kyliska groaned and looked at her, pain and despair in her eyes so delicious to Seluna that her mask almost slipped. “S-seluna...w-what....they took...they took...” tears rolled down the knight's face as she cried bitterly, the weapon still stuck in her belly. The emotional pain of loss was worse than the actual wound, although it would be fatal in time.
Seluna gently ran a hand through Kyliska's hair, keeping her feelings of delight under tight control. “Hush now, don't try to speak. I will try and save you and get you to safety. I've managed to dispatch the cultists for now. Please Kyliska, just hold on a little longer....”
Kyliska's eyes closed, her choked sobs softening as the pain and devastating loss overwhelmed her. She passed into unconsciousness and left Seluna standing over her, grinning vilely.
“Yes, let me save you so that you can remember for the rest of your miserable life what it means to have the blood of a traitorous bitch in you. Let your memories haunt you and ride you, showing you how much of a failure you are to your homeland,” she hissed at the unconscious elf. “We can't let you die though, oh no, you've not had nearly enough time to suffer from this.”
Seluna began to sing, her prayer a beautiful, haunting melody that filled the clearing around her. Light built in her hand, and the priestess winced as it burned her flesh; it was always painful for her to handle the Light given her unnatural state, and this time it was doubly painful as the spell she was using was exceptionally powerful. With her free hand she yanked the blade from Kyliska's flesh, letting the life-stealing weapon fall to the ground. She reached out with her glowing hand, pressing it against Kyliska's wounds.
Nothing happened.
Seluna's eyes widened in shock and rage. Her singing faltered as whispers rose around her in the clearing; whispers she knew quite well.
“No Selun'athiel, my beloved. You cannot use the Light for such an end. She will pass on now, and rest in peace,” Tel'athar's voice seemed to come from all around her.
Seluna's rage was unmatched. She shook with it. Her fists came down and pounded on Kyliska's still form as she shrieked at the whispering air around her. The dead; her many victims from long ago, grew louder, more insistent with each pounding blow on the body of her victim. The dead, still body.
“I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE!” she yelled at nothing at all. Within her mind though, she knew the spirit of Tel'athar could hear her, would know the course she planned.
He whispered to her again, his voice otherworldly, “There is one way and one way alone that this will be allowed. The Knight's life will still have purpose, even after this. But you....you must come to understand what it is you have done. There is a price to be paid.”
Seluna's eyes narrowed and her voice came out in a deadly whisper. “I will have my revenge.”
She got no response, but the whispers died away to nothing, the feeling of their presence leaving her. She breathed a sigh of relief, preparing to cast her spell again when the pain hit her. She cried out, bending over in agony as it felt like hot knives were ripping through her again and again. Her mind felt the heavy weight of despair close in upon it, a desire to simply close her eyes and let it all go filling her. She felt every second of Kyliska's agony, her pain and despair over the loss of her child, the mental anguish she had inflicted on the Blood Knight, pain that wasn't hers.
Seluna staggered, leaning heavily against the altar, her breath coming in gasps. Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the stone and shook with the pain, wanting it to end and knowing it was the price she had to pay to use the Light in a manner that would inflict harm on another living thing. It was the price of being what she was, what her daughter and the bitch lying dead on the stone before her had allowed her to become.
Seluna's head snapped up, her face a mask of determination. An iron will that had kept her going for over two centuries, that had lead her through her own death and acceptance of her return in her unpure form burned within her. Her eyes blazed with the blue of the Quel'dorei, her spirit manifest in that moment more than it had ever been before. She reached out, laying a shaking hand on Kyliska's still form, her course set.
“So be it. I will have my revenge,” she said. She began to sing then. Each note held perfectly, each sound coming unerringly from the throat of an elf in the most extreme agonies, both mental and physical. Her desire, her desperate need to make Kyliska pay for the sins of her mother driving the song onward, forcing the Light to come to her call, to heal and restore the victim of her urges.
It came forth. It was begrudging, and the pain grew worse before the end, but the Light answered her call, falling down upon Kyliska in a cone of radiance that made Seluna's skin sizzle where it struck her. As the song ended, she withdrew her partially burned hand and waited, her prayers answered a moment later when Kyliska's chest heaved and breath came to her once again, her wounds slowly closing upon themselves.
As Kyliska's pain ended, so too did Seluna's, and she shivered with relief as the spell healed the burning agony she felt inside, the agony that Kyliska had felt. The priestess grinned, calling upon the shadows to aide her as she stood upright, wrapping the now-unconscious elf's body within her spells, lifting it and carrying it from that place.
It was time for Kyliska to go home, and think about the consequences of what it meant to be a lying half-breed bitch birthed by a traitor to Quel'Thalas.
***************************
Seluna smiled as she stepped from the tent, high on the peaks of Thunderbluff. She had left Kyliska behind in the small structure there, sleeping fitfully beneath the skins. The tent belonged to Elunearia Moonblade, and the surprise that would await her when she returned was as delicious to Seluna as what she had done to Kyliska.
Let them all suffer together. Let them know the foolishness of their actions. They were all failures, and every single one of them would pay before the end.
She stood there for a moment, letting the winds of Mulgore wash over her. She was Selun'athiel Dayfire, Sorceress of Quel'Thalas, Mother of Biara Dayfire, beloved wife of Tel'athar Dayfire.
Scion and true ruler of House Dayfire. It was time for everyone to know this once and for all.
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