Alnarra had been unsure of what to do, so she asked the only person she could think of, and sweeping out of the sky with a furious and accusing glance she had been asked to step away for what she had done. Then when she had wanted to return to apologize, she saw something that upset her greatly. She had tried to explain things to herself, to reconcile that Seya was unique, that the woman’s words about Alnarra being special still meant something.
Then when she had crawled out of her miserable sleep to go apologize for her actions earlier in the day she came to discover a woman who actively and knowingly plotted her murder sitting on her lovers lap, cuddling together by the fire. A woman she had been told had long since had broken apart. The blow to her ego and her shattered self-confidence had sent her into a blind rage seeing only one option, to end the hurtful relationship before it went any further. So she erupted in an uncharacteristic rage on the person that she loved most in the world.
Huddled close to the stonework, she coughed, her immune system compromised by her sadness, the cold and the rain. Her words were only in Darnassian, any hint of common long since disappearing. Her forehead dripped with blood from where she had slammed into the masonry several times, berating herself for her stupidity. The small sprite darter that had remained as a constant companion watched sadly, truly unsure of how to help the woman. It whined softly at her, only to be pushed away, “Go away Kykona or I’ll just hurt you too” she whimpered sniffling.
Her rage had long since subsided into misery and regret, calming as for the first time in nearly 5 years the druidess felt truly alone. She knew what she had said had been unkind and there was no way she could repair that damage, but when she needed a reassuring touch most, her lover had backed down reaffirming her anger and rage as justified. If she had felt unwelcome previously, after what she had said there was no way in Alnarra’s mind that she could make up for what had been said. Her head drooped and her ears wilted as she called out desperately on the stone, only mumbles and sobs to be made out by any discerning ear.
The storm became shriller and more demanding, the small wooden signs that hung around time shuddering in the winds. Alnarra brought her arms around her knees curling up ever closer she went to grasp the small locket around her neck tugging at it, praying into the cloudy darkness, “Goddess… I am sorry for being such a miserable failure of a Kaldorei, I know this is my punishment, that I should not grow close to others, that it was my fault for Veraldan’s death, I should have been the one to die, I should have been the one to die in place of my children. I ask that when you take my life that you make it painful and agonizing to make up for all the terrible mistakes I have made, the people I have hurt. For Bael, For Hafu… for her”
The words made her sob once more as she clutched at her chest, coughing heavily praying that perhaps she could die right her in this storm, to be struck down by a flash of lightning and see the world no more.
“I still love her… and I’ve pushed her away,” Alnarra cried desperately to no one, “Why am I so stupid?” she slammed her forehead into the stonework several more times for good measure, a certain degree of damage being done by the punishment, blood now running to join the tears and rain that ran down her cheeks.
“I HATE MYSELF” she shouted into the storm, quickly be followed by coughing in an agonizing manner into her hands the druidess slouched over curling up in the mud and destruction, the remnants of the once beautiful park of Stormwind city were what welcomed her scared huddled form. “This is what they all wanted, this will make everyone else happy. Seya can be happy, Phaedra will be happy, Gwen will be happy, Delegoth will be happy,” she murmured to herself, letting her face come to rest in the mud, “Everyone will be happier… the Goddess won’t hate me anymore… momma won’t hate me”
Her grip on conscious steadily got weaker and weaker, finally fading from the exhaustion. The druidess lay broken, this time perhaps irrevocably so.
The druidess sat quietly in the temple, listening to her brothers and sisters pray to the goddess. Her usual place near the fountain instead replaced by a small huddle near the wall, rocking back and forth slowly she clutched to her knees weeping softly. Her form was riddled with mud and dirt, her limbs weak from starvation and dehydration. She had eaten with little Gwen earlier in the day, but had not been able to keep the fish and water down, her depression and terrible mood sending her stomach curdling.
There were not many Kaldorei in the temple today, her people, mostly nocturnal still had many hours before they awoke. Alnarra had been unable to sleep, tormented by the nightmares and her own constant anxiety. She was having more and more trouble keeping the beast which she relied on from her protection and skills in combat at bay, the feline form’s most base instincts wrestling with the druids weakened state. Every second her pulse ticked by she wrestled with the beast internally, her eyes sealed shut to keep it inside.
“Goddess,” she pleaded, her voice tired and desperate, “I came to the temple, I asked you to bless me and my mate, and on that day you my mate chose to leave me,” she clutched more tightly to herself breathing in deep as the inner conflict raged on, “I do not understand, why am I so different? Why am I, as Mr. Keledon said, broken? I tried to do what was right, I tried to pray to you, to ask for your guidance, why do you never respond? Is it something I have done to displease you? Ms Phaedra, the woman who plotted my death and no enjoys breakfast with my mate, she said she prayed to you and you answered her prayers. Am I that offensive to you goddess that a Gilnean is more deserving of your aide then I?”
The druidess sniffled quietly in the corner rocking back and forth against the stone structure, “Please goddess, I beg you, show me the path. I thought I had found it and just when I was comfortable with my steps it was washed out from under me. Everyone tells me that I am strong, that these trials serve some kind of purpose, but I do not feel strong. I have never felt strong,” Her eyes drifted to the elaborate masonry that provided a roof to the temple, her eyes looking for some sign, anything that might lead her to understand better, “What must I do? I have given my children, my companions, everything has been taken from me. I have nothing left, even the clothes on my back have been burned to a cinder on this path. Am I so terribly wrong?”
She clenched her fist slamming them into a nearby column, leaving a bloody trail upon it, “Why?! Why was I made this way? Why must I suffer this path? Why does everything I love and care for get taken from me?! How long before you take Gwen and Lithiaris from me? How long before I must bury Alice and Inodraen? How many dies should I count before I weep by Araane and Bael’s graves? Is it not enough? What have I not offered to you goddess? What have I not given you in service to your name? Why do you hate me so?”
She inhaled a sharp breath, the battle in her mind unforgiving as she clenched her fist tightly, “I am so tired Goddess, so broken and shattered that I cannot stand anymore. I feel like a saber with a string in front of my face, the chance of happiness dangled in front of me but never truly given. I want to smile again Goddess, like I did when I watched my children play about in the forest. I want to know happiness and safety once more. I don’t understand why I can’t have those things. Is it because of something my people have done? Have we forsaken you in some way? Please Goddess tell me! Tell me what I can do to make things right with you”
Alnarra shuddered after her upset plea, her form going limp against the grass, she began to look at the other Kaldorei in the temple, wondering what were here for. If they had faced the same trials, the same pressures that loomed over her like a specter. “I wanted this one to be my escape Goddess, I wanted to be on a path to happiness again. I wanted to cast aside the shadows and the scars of the past and now I am buried in them further then I have before,” she went to look at her hands, her mind seeming to impose the image of claws atop them as she swallowed trying to keep the images at bay, “Inodraen… he is….” She grows quiet, “Goddess you know more than anyone that in light of recent events this is what I want, it is what I always wanted… but why now of all times? I just… I’m scared not just for me but for him. You saw what I did to Bael, what I did to Hafu, you know more than anyone that I have hurt people terribly. I cannot bear the pain of hurting another”
She stops going to gently fiddle with the grass floor, pulling one of the blades and rubbing it soothingly between her fingers, “I want to be happy again Goddess, I want nothing more than to live a life without fear of burying another loved one, and I Know… I know that now more so then ever that simply is not possible, but please Goddess… if this is the path you intend for me… please give me a sign, something, anything” she lowered her head as if bowing, “I cannot take this pain any longer, I cannot wake up in the morning with a smile on my face asking for you favor only to go to bed in tears once more. Please Goddess… I beg of you stop hurting me.”
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