Alnarra sat quietly, staring at the rabbit and Leola root stew she had brewed up. She stirred at it occasionally, but any enthusiasm she might have for the meal seemed to drain out of her. Her stomach roared for food, but she could hardly look at the concoction. It was not that she did not like the flavor of the stew, but her mind drifted elsewhere and she knew the taste simply would not be right.
Sighing heavily, she took the small pot off the fire and set it aside, spooning out a small portion into a bowl. Taking a set of utensils she stabbed at the stew a few times before leaning her head back against the wall and sighing once more. She set the stew aside as her stomach seemed to grumble in protest.
Alnarra frowned deeply looking down at the bowl, hoping maybe it could provide her some answers, but alas it was a bowl of soup and little more.
It had been nearly a week and a half since the incident in the Mage Quarter, but the images of that even haunted her mind, and even worst the taste haunted her mouth. Every bite she tried to eat sent her mind reeling back to that place.
Alnarra had met with a friend to have a nice cup of tea and discuss how things were going. It was not something she was unaccustomed to and the small bars that dotted the Mage Quarter were a favorite of travelers coming and going through the bustling city.
They had greeted each other, like they had a thousand times before and began to drink tea as if it was any other day, but this day would have a special highlight.
A man dressed in a bright gown and peculiar cowl had approached them, Even for patrons of the notorious bar, this man proved especially shady, but it was not his peculiar attitude or strange behaviors that caught Alnarra’s eye, now it was the set of robes that he dawned. At first she hadn’t been able to put her finger on it, what was so strange about this set of clothing, what bothered her so, but then as if a twig breaking in a forest.
It was the attire of a twilight cultist, the group that had robbed her husband of his life, and worshipped at the feet of those who had stolen her children from her. Any semblance of calm in her afternoon tea dissipated as her mind demanded to know why or how a man would arrive in the city in such treacherous attire.
She approached the man, perhaps he was some common fool, knowing not the meaning of the colors he wore, and sure enough in his protest at being questioned he had stated he simply found the attire pleasing to the eyes.
Alnarra wasn’t satisfied though, his behavior, his mannerisms, his whole aura did not settle well with her. Then as the conversation unfolded, as Alnarra revealed why she found his attire offensive he began poking… prodding at her.
The verbal assault against her would normally not been enough to rouse her to anger, but with each comment about her failure to protect her family, with each goading gesture he made, her anger rose, her hatred for this creature grew.
No exact moment could be pinpointed as to when what started as a questioning glance turned from a simple exchange of words into a blood bath. The precious moments where her sensibilities, her cares for what was around her slipped away were lost in a stream of though, but the vivid memory of sinking her claws into his chest, her fangs into his throat and tearing the creature apart, those rang clearer to her than anything else.
She lost all sense of the world; the creature that stalked those streets had not been the proud Kaldorei Druidess, but a shambling creature of rage and feral aggression.
Luckily the local guards had been paid off by a family friend, not that they were too interested in the case to begin with. As it would later be explained to Alnarra, convincing them that a suspicious man in Twilight Cultist attire had attacked her was not all too difficult a task.
It did not take a great deal of time for her husband and best friend to track her feral forms behind the hills of Stormwind, trap, and reclaim her sensibilities. Indeed, she suffered very little in the brutal exchange, but as she stared down at her blood soaked hands, and choked on the contents the lay in her gut her mind buckled.
Hours were spent praying before the waters of the Temple in Darnassus in some hope that perhaps Elune would answer to her cries and prayers for forgiveness or at the very least acknowledge that she understood what she had done was wrong; however, the voice in the darkness never came and the hours turned into days.
She had been afraid to face her newly married husband, afraid that if such a simple exchange could excite her to the point of that level of rage, surely she could not be trusted around her loved ones, her most trusted companions. Hafu had tried to comfort her, but his words echoed hollow and seemed unable to fill the void that was left within her.
Every moment the scene seemed to unfold again, countless times unable to stop the raging beast within. Perhaps though, what bothered the Kaldorei druidess most was not the prospect that perhaps she had murdered an innocent man, but that she had lost control. That she had abandon the most crucial aspects of her training in favor of an emotional outburst.
She tried to justify, to rationalize what had happened. Alnarra had killed before, countless times on the field of battle, many of whom were young cultist dressed the same, acting the same as the young man who she struck down, but there was something different. The images of the exchange soaked her mind and the taste…. lingered.
She stared that the stew once more, shaking her head a bit before pouring the contents of the bowl back into the pot, her stomach once more grumbling as if in some last desperate grasp for a morsel, as she crawled back into the far reaches of her underground hovel, bringing her hood tight over her head she rocked back and forth pondering what it all meant.
Shaking her head and tightening the face mask, she stood, knowing soon she would have to appear before the city for a public gathering. If she did not appear it would surely rouse suspicion. Giving a gentle sigh she put a large wooden cap atop the stew, perhaps tomorrow night she would be able to eat it.
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