"This .. is who I am."

[Mizue]

( All text in this color is to be treated like it's a voice over in a movie, where the main character—in this case, Mizue—is talking over the events taking place during a scene. )

“Hatred and racism are both taught. They aren't traits that one pushes forth from the womb wit'. So it should nah be surprisin' that when I was younger, I did not know that I was .. supposed to hate the Alliance. In fact, I wasn't even really aware of such a faction. Growing up in Stratholme I had heard the term thrown around from time to time by the Lordaeron soldiers that pass through the streets. But I didn't think much of it. After all, why should I have cared what the crazy adults were talking about.”


“C'mon, Mizue! You're going to be late for your first day!”

Both eyes fixated upon the large store front window within Market Row, where the baker was setting out on display freshly made treats ranging from muffins to loaves of honey bread. The aroma of them all drifting out from the inside of the store into the streets to catch the attention of those that pass by. Mission complete; as the soft iced blue eyes of the young, redheaded girl were fixated on those delicious arrangements of confectionary. Until the soft laughing of an older girl is heard nearby as a hand sets upon Mizue's shoulder, lightly grabbing hold of the strap to her knothide leather bag to pull her away from the front of the bakery.

“I'll buy you a cookie after school, but now we have to go~!”


“That's me. No, not the older girl. Yeah, the really young one with the messy mop and scarf wrapped around her head that was staring at the sweets. I must have been going through some gender identity issues back then before puberty finally set in. That's all fixed now, thankfully.”

“But the other girl, Kaitlynn, is my older sister—my adopted sister, I guess you could say? As you might have already figured out, I'm not a human. Quite far from it, as a matter of fact. I am in fact an elf—sin'dorei, to be exact. So now you might be wonderin': What the hell are you doing in Stratholme, Mizue? Good question; and to be honest, it's a long story. A long and rather uninterestin' story.”


The bell chimes just as two sets of feet rush up the wooden stairs and into the school house located at the cul de sac of Elder's Square. Mr. Davenport, the teacher, shakes his finger toward Kaitlynn for almost being tardy, but dismisses the gesture and beckons the pair of young ladies inside.

“Class, we have a new student who will be joining us. Please say good morning to Mizue Valentine.”


“I felt as if I was a prized shetland pony standing there in front of everyone. All those faces lookin' at me. All those eyes peerin' into my soul. I never was one for crowds, or being the center of attention. I suppose that's why I am always somewhere on my lonesome, with my nose in a book readin' and just keepin' tah myself. To my credit though, I kept it together.”


“Mee-zoo-ee?! What kind of a silly name is that?”


“That's Eldron Kraus. He's an asshole. Or he was, anyway. He died durin' the culling though, along with Mr. Davenport.”

"Sorry for the spoiler."


“Eldron, that's enough,” the soft giggles from other students get silenced by Mr. Davenport's stern tone on one of his student's rude comments. “Mizue, you can go sit in the back row over beside Felicia. — Okay class, let's begin this morning with some mathematics.”


End Part One — つづく!

[Mizue]

“I don't know my real parents. My biological ones. How come, you ask? Well, that part of my story is more morbid, but I'll tell you anyway if you really want to know.”

“I'm an orphan, but it wasn't because my parents didn't want me and decided to leave me on someone's doorstep like a Winter Veil gift. Instead, they were killed. Assassinated. That's what my new parents told me some years later—the ones that found me out in the middle of the forest. Lying in the pool of vitae that belonged to my slain parents, murdered in cold blood. Whoever committed such an atrocity must not have had the balls to kill me off as well, since I was only a defenseless infant at the time. Imagine that. So instead they left me out there to apparently die out in the open.”

“We elves are one with the land. Seems poetic, I guess.”


Plates softly rattle as Kaitlynn pulls out four of them from the wooden cupboard inside of that small home. Carrying the clean wear over to the dinner table where currently Mizue was sitting with her face down in her coloring book, using her chalk pencils inside. Playfully Kaitlynn places one of the plates over her little sister's drawing with a giggle, gathering a rude gesture with her tongue in retaliation from the young elven girl. Also sitting at the table was a human male, with rugged dark hair that was as thick as a canine's rugged coat. Reading through the newspaper at some events happening around Lordaeron.

“How was yah first day of school, Mizue? Did yah meet any new friends?” The elder feminine voice speaks out from the kitchen area of the home. The long blonde human female glances over her right shoulder back over toward the table where her family was gathered, as Kaitlynn finishes setting the table to prepare for dinner. Already some sweet bread was in the middle of the table in case anyone got the nibbles before the main course was finished. One of the pieces was taken up by my adoptive father, who munches on a slice while he was reading.

“I guess so. I got sat next to a girl named Felicia and we talked some. She had on cute sandals. And, oh, someone made fun of my name.”


“My adoptive parents are both Gilnean. Yes, you heard right, and that's another long story. — Actually, to be honest, I don't know if it is actually long because I am not sure on all the details. — So what were Gilnean people doing in Stratholme? To this day I still do not know. All my parents ever told me that they were from this far off magical land called Gilneas, but I could never tell anyone that they were in fact from there. Crazy, huh? Back then I did not think much of it. I was a decently good kid, so I jus' followed what my elders told me to do without question. Bein' around them for as long as I did, I kinda picked up a bit of their accent and the way they pronounced things.”

“They also told me that I had to do my best to keep the fact I was elven a secret. I know, even crazier. They said that elves were rare, almost mythical people. So they did not want anyone around the city to bother me. My adoptive mother, Juliet, was very protective of me and my older sister Kaitlynn. She is the one that used to personally cut my hair in that 'messy mop' style so that it hid my ears. And used the scarf to further conceal them, just in case. They weren't as large and noticeable when I was a child, so no one saw them.”

“Juliet, or Mom for all intents and purposes, was the one that named me Mizue, a very old Gilnean word that translated into somethin' like 'watery mural,' because my eyes were once upon a time very blue. Valentine was their surname, so there you have it. Mizue Valentine is who I am, and who I will always be.”


“Other kids can be mean at times, Mizue. But you have to look past that and ignore it. Do not get mad at it, else you'll fill yourself up with hate. And when you're full of hate, you'll go pop like an overfilled balloon!”


End Part Two — つづく!

[Mizue]

“Children, l-listen and listen well. We .. We don't have a lot of time and I can only say this once!”


“This was the morning that the Prince decided to cull Stratholme.”

“I remember a great deal of screaming. Pained screams. Then silence for a while. Then terrifying growling and clawing. Then the heavy clashes of metal feet across the cobblestone boardwalk, followed by the deathly cries of men and women being butchered in the streets not too far from the schoolhouse we all were collected in. Mr. Davenport had shut the doors to the school and moved as many of the desks in front of them as he could to bar the entrance. To protect us, even if it meant his own demise in the end.”

“I also remember crawling on the floor over to one of the windows, peeking out of it into the streets. Seeing a man get run through by a larger human male with bloody golden hair. His armor stained with crimson, the same running down the length of his blade. For a moment when he turned toward the school, I got a look at his face. A brief moment. I did not know that his name was Arthas Menethil. I was pulled away from the window by the teacher, who ushered me over by the other students so I wouldn't be seen. Curiosity almost killed me.”

“Mr. Davenport looked sick, deathly pale even. The color of his flesh had all by faded, and this .. greenish blood was around his mouth. Regardless of his condition, I watched him as he hastily moved through a sea of us pupils, ranging from the human ages of six up to thirteen. Toward the windows at the side of the school, which lead out into one of the alleyways between the buildings.”


“Run through these alleys .. m-make your way to Festival Lane. Be quiet and be .. cautious, do n-not let anyone see you. .. G-get to the flower sh—,” another bloody scream cuts off the elder man's words, sounding like it was right outside of the schoolhouse barred entrance. “Go to the shop and out into the .. the greenhouse in back. Then .. escape through the woouughh!!” Vomit tore out of his mouth like a broken trough, spewing this olive-hued and pungent sauce across the floorboards. Quick to wipe his mouth with his sleeve of a once white shirt, Mr. Davenport put on his last remaining sense of professionalism across his features in front of his students.

“Kaitlynn, you and .. you and Celesi get the rest out of here. I'm counting on you.”

“But what about you, Mr. Davenport! We can't leave you here, you're sick!”

“.. No, I .. I think I'm going to .. stay .. stay right here.”


“Both my sister and a blonde girl by the name of Celesi were the oldest in the class, and they were charged with the most important jobs of their juvenile lives: get everyone out alive. There was a little worry in my sister's face, but amazingly less in Celesi's. With some of his last bit of sanity, my teacher tore off those window shutters with his bare hands and opened up a passageway out to safety.”

“There were a clamor of powerful impacts beating against the schoolhouse door, trying to break through the makeshift barricade that was in front. Celesi and Mr. Davenport were picking up kids to get them out the window, where Kaitlynn was waiting in the alley to help us down and out of what would soon become hell. As Celesi climbs out the window finally and we all started to make haste, that's when I heard this alarming growl that bellows out from the classroom. Celesi commanded us not to look back and we continue onward."


“There's Ms. Aaren's flower shop,” Kaitlynn speaks softly toward Celesi as she peeks over a still in tact fruit stand the eight of us were hiding behind. The large fountain that stood in the courtyard between their destination still flowing water. “Let's make a break for it.”

“No, wait. Look,” Celesi points out toward the eastward past abandoned market stands where a trio of fully armored soldiers with swords drawn were fighting these decaying and rotting beings. Maintaining a perimeter to make sure that anyone or anything trying to escape toward King's Square would be stopped with extreme prejudice. The noontime sun bathes down upon their silvered armor, catching against swinging swords tearing through these dead-looking people.

“If we all move together, they might see us. Two at a time, first behind the fountain, then over,” Celesi dictates to the group, who all give off scared nods in one shape or another. The blood of a leader seemed to flow through veins her even at her age. Peering up over the fruit stand again to get a position of the soldiers, seeing that their backs were mainly facing toward their position, Celesi takes the hand of a youngest male classmate firmly. Seizing the moment, she breaks for it with speed and crosses the courtyard into the flower shop with its door torn off the hinges. Once inside she points to an area where the boy to stay put, then peers back out at door at the soldiers again. Waiting for the coast to be clear, her hand waves over to summon the next pair to come over. Red rover, red rover.

Susan and Nickolous were next, and tight hands joined to carry them across past the fountain and swiftly into the flower shop, where Celesi again makes mention on where they to stand until all were together again. Leave no one behind.

“Mizue, go with Felicia next,” Kaitlynn commands, though still having a bit of worry in her tone. Scared, and rightfully so, but did her best to show strength in the face of her adopted sister.

“What about you? I'm not leavin' you!”

“I'll be right behind you with Eldron, now go! She's calling!” Celesi's hand was vigorously waving the next pair over to where she was in the shop with half the student body. Making fast checks down the courtyard to keep eye on the fighting soldiers as well.

Grabbing onto Felicia's hand firmly, Mizue waited until Celesi's next sign of clear. Once she did, the two young girls make a run for it from behind the fruit stand toward the flower shop. As they came toward the fountain, Felicia's sandal slips off her foot, causing her to stumble and fall onto the ground behind the stone wishing fountain. Pulling Mizue down with her to the pavement. Both slide behind fountain hard, Felicia skinning her leg bloody on that hard cobblestone foundation. A near high pitched cry emits out of Felicia's mouth at the pain, but swift to react did Mizue's palm come around to clamp over it to silence her wailing. Breathing hotly against that palm, tears streaming down Felicia's cheeks over Mizue's little fingers. Celesi winces and looks ready to peel over to get her classmates, but pauses short as the soldiers were looking around after dispatching those infected humans.

Mizue looks down at the streams of blood running from her friend's slashed up kneecap, profusely down her limb. Thinking fast, Mizue reaches into her hair with her free hand to undo the knot of her hair scarf. Pulling it from her head causes the sight of her elongated ears to be seen poking out from her messy red hair. The sight of this causes Felicia to stop crying and instead just stare at her friend's inhuman ears some. Taking her hand away slowly from Felicia's mouth, Mizue starts to tie the scarf around Felicia's knee to create a makeshift bandage.

“That should stop the bleedi—?”

“.. y-you really have big ears.” Felicia had forgotten about her recent wound, and looking up at those longer ears.

“.. Yah, I guess I do. We have to go,” Mizue continues as she slides her arm under Felicia's to help her up some. Still hiding behind the fountain, Celesi holds her palm out to signal the two to wait a moment. Watching out from the corner of doorway carefully, as the soldier seems to analyze that nothing was happening in Festival Lane. With a turn, Celesi beckons them over again, to which Mizue peels off the ground with her friend in tow, almost literally yanking Felicia across that short remaining distance into the flower shop to safety.

Seeing her sister safely across the distance, Kaitlynn eyes down toward Eldron and then grabs onto his hand. “Ready to g—“


“That was when I looked past Celesi to see and hear one of those scourged humans burst out of the nearby building with a bloodlust near where we were initially hiding by the fruit stand. Immediately did it turn on my sister and leap at her, knocking her and Eldron to the ground. I remember cryin' out her name, but Celesi barred me or anyone from trying to run past to get to her aid. I don't know what the hell I would have done in that situation, but I wanted to go help her. To help Eldron. I watched in horror, eyes glued to the scene as another one of those things appeared and attacked Eldron, biting into his throat. The last thing I remember hearin' before Celesi pulled us away into the back of the flower shop was Kaitlynn yelling 'RUN! RUN!'”

“Like I said before, I was a good kid and listened to my elders. So I ran. Celesi took all of us out the back way through the flower shop's greenhouse. Where to our luck we managed to run into a lingering Jaina Proudmoore, who helped to smuggle us out of the burning Stratholme. Away from the death of a life I just started to get accustomed to.”

“I am an orphan who survived a nightmare. I ran.”

“And I promised myself I would never run again.”


End Part Three — つづく!

[Mizue]

“ATTENTION! — Hello to you new recruits. I'm Drill Sergeant Bahduum. For the next few days, you're going to receive orientation.”


“It was very hot that day when I first stepped foot onto the Isle of Quel'Danas. It didn't help either that I had this very small helmet on, and we all were basically starin' toward the sun in the direction we were standin'. I was flanked by a pair of draenei. To my left, a female by the name of Nemara. To my right, a burly male named Irgis.”

“You might be wonderin' how I got all the way here from being a runaway from a destroyed city. Well after we all ran into Jaina, she took us all—all except my sister and Eldron, of course—to this city called Theramore. All the others, Celesi included, ended up stayin' at the orphanage. As for me? Remember how I said that elves were these rare, mythical creatures? Apparently that was still kind of true here too like in Stratholme, but not by the same extent. So instead I slept in quarters up in the mage tower in the center of the city. I was allowed to go out and play with the others, but at night I just had to sleep elsewhere from the orphanage.”

“Celesi and I got into takin' combat lessons with some of the soldiers around there. Things like how to properly wield a sword, hold a shield, and put on armor. It was rather fun runnin' 'round with wooden swords, swingin' them against straw dummies.”

“I didn't know it back then, but apparently I was of high interest in the eyes of Jaina and others who had been watchin' me. Maybe they too was wonderin' what I wasn't at the time, which was what was an elven child doing in Stratholme to begin with?”


“What was she doing in Stratholme to begin with?” Jaina watches from high atop the mage tower down at the young elf running around with some of the other human children in the fields around the barracks.


“See, told you.”


“Who knows. She said her parents were 'from a magical land,' and that her sister was killed by one of the scourged people that the Prince was trying to warn us about.” The eldest of the human male mages on the council chimes in toward Jaina holding her vigil by the window.

Jaina grew silent at the mention of the recent Culling, and Arthas's words about the blight that was infecting the once great capital through grain supply stocks. Turning away from the window to gaze upon her advisors once more.

“My Lady, if I may.” Pausing a moment to think about his words before continuing among the ears of all present. “The girl can't stay here. We are already having to deal with constant resentment from the high elves to begin with. Should they find out that we are harboring one of theirs here with these silly claims about 'magical lands,' it is just asking for more problems we can avoid.”

“So you are insisting I am to just bar her from the city? Do you realize what horrors she must have seen back in Stratholme at the hands of Arthas, and now you suggest we let her fend for herself?” Jaina's tone hardens as her eyes focus on the one advisor, but also picking up reactions from around the meeting hall.

“N-no, My Lady, you misunderstand. I do not believe we should simply abandon her in the marshes. But, but what if we sent her to .. be back amongst her own people?”

“It would cost too much and be a significant loss, not to mention create a spectacle, to prepare an entire ship just to send one little girl across the ocean back to Quel'Thalas,” answers one of the council women toward the others.

“No need,” Jaina voices finally over her council members while she turns back toward her window, peering down onto the children sitting among the grass. Singling out Mizue, who was sitting beside Celesi and Felicia, laughing. “I will take her to Stormwind myself and address Highlord Bolvar about the dilemma. I'm sure he will understand the issue and help get her where she needs to be.”

“Very well, My Lady. Shall I send for the girl?”

“No,” Jaina answers, while still looking out her window toward the sight below. “Not yet. It can wait until the end of the week. Give her time to say goodbye to her friends.”


“By the end of that week I was away from my friends. Away from the second home I had ever known. I was beginnin' to recognize a pattern. During the followin' week, I was being transported up the Eastern Kingdoms from place to place like cargo. I forgot how long I was on the road. I do remember waking up and arriving at the gates of Silvermoon City late in the evening, by the Alliance soldier who was escorting me northbound. I stood beside as he spoke to some high elves, who would turn their gaze down upon me from time to time. After some deliberating the elves took me into the city, and that was the last time I saw that soldier. I was also beginnin' to see that the people I meet I should not get too attached to, because I ended up leavin' them at some point.”

“Let's skip ahead some: I grew up some. I went to school. I read. I read a lot. I was always with a book in my hand or in my bag. Some things never change, I suppose.”

“Then one night I woke up in my new bed to that screamin' again. I thought it was in my head, from a nightmare I was experiencin'. Turns out I was wrong, and as I peered out my window on the second floor, I saw fire. The sounds of men and women once again riddlin' my ears. Not again, not this again. I saw those same creatures that killed my sister. But this time, there were not just one or five, but hundreds, if not thousands of them. Accompanied by these large abominations that were swinging haunted chains, rippin' massive blades through the bodies of anythin' in their path. The platoon of undead followed behind this darkly armored man clutching an odd blade. Leading the march across what was once pristine grounds. But leading a blackened path in their wake that literally scarred the earth.”

“From my vantage point I saw those creatures tear through fellow elves. Consume them, eating their flesh and bones. Taking satisfaction out of slaughterin' their bodies.”

“I told myself I wouldn't run anymore. I wanted to fight. But I didn't know how to fight. So I hid, under my bed.”

“All I did was hide.”


End Part Four — つづく!

[Mizue]

“I was not goin' tah run anymore. And now I was not going to hide. I was going tah fight.”

“I survived two massacres by being a coward. I hated that about myself. It's still somethin' I kind of regret. But at the same time, I also wouldn't be here telling this story if I blindly got into somethin' I knew nothing about.”

“Like I said, I wanted to fight. So I joined up with the ranks of blood knights under Lady Liadrin. I learned and excelled in the styles of hand-to-hand combat, as well as effective prowess with a sword and shield. At the time I was not one for wieldin' the more bulkier weapons that required two hands to use, so I stuck with what I knew. But I was good at defending and fighting, and for the first time I felt strong.”

“Some time after that, after Kael'thas sent the felblood to attack Silvermoon, I was recruited into the Shattered Sun Offensive to go and hunt him down. I stood beside elves—now having called ourselves 'blood elves'—and draenei in those ranks. Like with the Alliance, I didn't understand at first why I should dislike them. We were all here for the same fight and a common cause, after all.”

“It didn't take me that long to learn the draenei language. I picked it up rather fast by just being around them while on the isle and around Shattrath. Not to mention I read and studied my ass off. I suppose that is why many of them didn't mind me because I actually took the time to learn their tongue.”


<”So what you going to be doing once this is all over, hm?,”> Nemara asks her friend while fitting on her armor. Preparations were being taken in the staging area for a heavy attack on the Sunwell, so much of the able-bodied men and women were gearing up to head inside. Taking the time to cast her bluish-white gaze over toward Mizue standing nearby attaching the locks to her plate together. The draenei was significantly taller than the elven woman, but almost a foot in stature.

<”I have not really thought that far. Perhaps stay in Shattrath some to do some more reading,”> Mizue turns her gaze up toward Nemara, letting her now emerald eyes rest upon those of her draenei counterpart. Nemara and Mizue had met since first arriving here on the island, and established a fast friendship. Both had lost their sisters: Mizue to the scourge, and Nemara to the crash of the Exodar. So they vowed to be sisters of one another, and promising not to leave the other. Conversations between them were commonly in draenei, as Mizue felt it was a good way to further her knowledge of the language to master it.

<”You and your books!”> Nemara laughs lightly and grabs up her plate belt to apply it around her waist, locking it into place. <”You do ever think about anything other than reading, no?”>

<”Not too much, no. I find relaxation out of it, and knowledge.”> Standing up tall, Mizue looks up to Nemara with a faint tilt of her head to the left. Raking hair up past her ear, pushing some of her much longer red hair back behind her elongated ear. Then a faint grin appears across her visage. <”Tell you what: if we live through this assault, you have to teach me something fun to do then. Deal?”>

<”We will live through this, and I will teach, yes yes!”> Nemara promises emphatically as she lifts her right arm outward in a bend toward Mizue. To which the blood elf clashes her own right arm against her friend's, lightly smacking the plate across their forearms together.

<”Wrap it up ladies, it's go time. Let's move out!”> Irgis stands there at the female soldier tent with a firm set of eyes over upon both Nemara and Mizue. Already clad in his full armor with his blade and crest of the Sha'tar both held in his mighty fists.

<”You heard the man, let's get going.”> Mizue bends down to grab a hold of her own blade and golden sunward crest into her own hands.

Nemara matching Mizue's actions in gathering her sword and matching sunward crest like that of her 'sister'. <”It is shake and bake time, yes yes?”>

Taking a brief moment to think about those words that came from the tall draenei, then nodding once in agreement. <.. Indeed Nemara, let's 'shake and bake'!”>


End Part Five — つづく!