Beckyann heaved the stone up, her arms straining as she brought it down into place on top of the monument. It was the last piece that had been knocked off and she dusted her hands against each other as she stepped back to look at it. The object had once been a tomb laying in the heart of Lordaeron, but the Scourge had disturbed it, snatching the body from it and destroying the beautiful memorial in the process. Some clever necromancer had also left a deadly trap behind that would add new dead to ranks of the scourge if it were set off. Of course, such traps were a concern for the living only.
Beckyann smiled at her handiwork, starting to turn around. The old woman had asked her to repair the memorial to her beloved but was too weak to do the work herself. As the death knight opened her mouth to indicate that she had completed the work, her eyes widened in shock. Where the old woman had stood, a small bronze dragon now rested. The creature offered her a toothy grin, dipping its head, "Thank you Miss Eastberg. You have honored him as I could not. The trap on it would have slain me also, and I'm not so familiar with death magic that I could have undone it as you did. I am sorry for the deception, but it was the only way I could have his tomb repaired."
Beckyann merely blinked at the creature, still too stunned to speak. A deep chuckle escaped the beast and it dipped its head again, "We are told, when we are young, not to take on the forms of the shorter lived races, as there is risk. Not to our bodies, but to our hearts. I loved a man that died many thousands of years before I myself will pass from this world."
The creature paused, looking the death knight over with large reptilian eyes, "And what of you? You have done me a boon, and therefore you shall have one as well. What would you undo, if you could? I cannot alter the course of history, but I can grant you a gift. One mistake, undone as you please."
Beckyann frowned, shaking her head before answering, "The past is what it is. I cannot alter it nor should I. The present is confusing enough as it is."
The dragon chuckled at this response, tilting its head. "No? You would change nothing at all? I can see the thread of your life. There are many moments I suspect you would change. Such as...."
Magic flared and a memory came unbidden to Beckyann.
*****************************
*Corin's Crossing, Several years before the plague of undeath*
"Beckyann Eastberg! You get in here right this instant," a voice called from the next room. Beckyann sighed, her green eyes rolling once as she tied closed the last laces on her backpack. She rose from where she'd been sitting on her bed, her seventeen year old frame still lanky and thin from the scarcity of food but not entirely starved either. Turning to ensure that everything was in order in her rather messy bedroom, the young girl hurried from her room and into the small living room/dining area of their family's cabin in Corin's Crossing.
"Yes mother?" she said sweetly, knowing that being polite might be a LITTLE help.
Laying on their one, beat-up couch, Beckyann's mother sighed at her daughter. Her golden hair had a touch of gray in it, and there were new lines around her eyes that Beckyann didn't remember seeing in recent years. She coughed hard before she managed to get a response out, shivering beneath her blankets.
"I don't want you going up to that grotto today Becky," her mother said. "I know you like to go there but there's chores to be done here and your father isn't feeling well. He can't sharpen those knives the butcher needs and we need the coin. Can you stay home today to help out?"
Beckyann frowned in irritation. Her mother had been sick for days now and her father had caught whatever it was that was going around. Even so, the thought of being stuck in the workshed out back all day sharpening blades was enough to set the teenage girl's teeth to grinding. She offered her mother a pout, "I stayed in and helped YESTERDAY mother! I've got an experiment going on in the grotto and I want to check on it. It's important!"
Beckyann's mother sighed, the sigh turning into another series of wracking coughs. She looked at her daughter through glassy eyes, a frown on her face, "I know it means a lot to you Becky, but family's important too, and your father needs your help. You want him to have to do all the work 'round here while I'm laid up? Don't argue with me, just help him."
Beckyann could have screamed. Her parents never believed that she would accomplish anything with the scant bits of magic she'd found she possessed, and to her young mind this was just another roadblock in her path. The experiment would be ruined and she'd have to start all over! She put her hands on her hips, a frown on her face, "No. I need to tend to my experiment. I'll be back before sundown and THEN I can help him. You never take me seriously mother! I'm doing very important things! You'll see!"
With that she turned and walked back towards her room. Behind her, her mother coughed again, shaking her head and protesting weakly, "Becky, I know you're going to go places, but sometimes you gotta slow down and think about what's important. Your father needs you and I can't help him right now."
Beckyann shut out the voice, furiously snatching up her backpack. It was just like her mother to make her feel guilty for ONE DAY away from the cabin by appealing to her sense of family. She KNEW her mother always took care of them, but why couldn't she understand that Beckyann had things she needed to see through also?
With a resolute look on her face, the young blonde teenager stormed out of her room, marching past her mother and towards the door. She didn't turn to face her as she grabbed the door handle, "I'll be back later mother, and then we'll talk."
She left and went to her grotto, spending the day there engrossed in her budding magical skills, returning at sundown. By then of course it had been too late. The sickness that her mother had been battling for days began to gain the upper hand. The woman had looked feverish and pale when her daughter came home, and had been unable to speak past the fluid that was slowly filling her lungs. Within twelve hours, Beckyann's mother had died, drown by the flu that was eating away at her.
And then her father's cough began to worsen....
*********************************
She had fallen to her knees as the vision flashed through her mind, her hands outstretched in front of her, the soil of the plaguelands grinding into the legs of her armor. Tears streamed down her face, the fluid dark and unhealthy looking from her unnatural state. Beckyann blinked to find she had been weeping openly, the memory like a searing hole in a heart that had stopped beating many years before.
Behind her, the dragon whispered softly to her, "I can undo that moment. You can spend the day with her. You can say goodbye."
Muscles clenched in Beckyann's neck as the emotions washed over her. Confusing, agonizing feelings flowed through her that she couldn't sort out and didn't understand. Despair, grief, sorrow, mourning and guilt all mixed in a toxic cocktail within her. Her only defense was to reach for the feelings that sustained her, that allowed her to exist in her current state.
Rage.
It pounded in her mind like a hammering pulse, the feeling so intense it almost blinded her at first. Her outstretched hands clenched into fists and her voice hissed from between her teeth, the menace obvious to all. "How DARE you? How DARE you make me experience that again? How DARE you attempt to manipulate my emotions?"
She rose slowly, facing the creature directly, hateful malice in her gaze now. The dragon's head moved back, confusion on its face. "I only sought to give you a gift...to change a mistake..."
Beckyann trembled with rage, staring the creature down. "Leave. Now. Get out of my sight. We are what we are because of our mistakes. BECAUSE we have to learn lessons that are sometimes painful. That does not mean we have to relive those moments over and over!"
"Miss Eastberg, you misunder-" the dragon began.
The creature was cut off by the deadly sound of Beckyann's runeblade being drawn. It came free with a metallic shiver that hung in the air like the promise of doom. The dragon became alarmed to notice that the death knight actually appeared to be breathing, her rage so extreme that her chest rose and fell regularly. It moved towards her, "Miss Eastberg, please there is no need for-"
"I SAID LEAVE NOW!!!!!!!!!!!" her voice came out in a howling shriek, her eyes flaring with magic. Fierce gales blew in the air around her, the icy touch of the wind coating the ground in frost. Her hair broke free of its ties, the blonde strands blowing wildly around her, framing a face that had nothing but hate written on it.
When the dragon didn't move fast enough, the death knight lurched at it with unnatural speed, the blade coming down. It struck where the bronze's leg had been a moment earlier, severing a talon but causing no permament damage. The dragon hopped backwards, wings flapping as it took to the air, the gales buffeting it.
"I'm so sorry Miss Eastberg. I will leave you to your grief then."
As it flew away, Beckyann threw her runeblade at it. The weapon fell far short, arcing back down to the ground and sticking point first in the soil. The creature disappeared into the distance, a glittering dot in the sky, leaving behind it nothing but endless malice.
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