Honor Lost and Reclaimed (Svetlaena's Second Task: 2 parts)

[Svetlaena]

Part One : Eliminating the Past


Darkshore. One of the places hardest hit by the Cataclysm. The only reason there was anything left to stand on was the oh-so-noble Malfurion Stormrage. It was a nasty, low-lying spit of land that Svetlaena believed would have been better off obliterated.

She steered her drake low, tolerating a complaining sound from it as they skimmed over the trees. She disliked doing so on such a bulky mount, however it was imperative that she be discrete for the moment, so that she’d have time without interruption to complete her task. Bringing Ipolit the hippogryph had not been an option; there was too much to carry, and she had no desire to strain her swiftest flier.

The parts of forest that remained intact had a strange, washed-out quality to them after travelling through the brilliance of Ashenvale. Something never did sit right with the Professor about this place, even when she had been quite comfortable here. Her eyes strained, trying to spot through all the branches and leaves a graveyard that was to be her target.

It took her an hour or so before she finally spotted it, guiding her drake down through the forest canopy at the best opening she could spot to avoid damaging its wings. It seemed more than relieved when pulled a dagger and started cutting the ropes that were binding it to the heavy things it hated so. Specifically, they were ceramic jars-- each requiring the tiny blood elf to wrap both arms around to carry, and each requiring a few stops where she stood and panted for air. After some time and effort, all four were lined up next to a tiny plot of no more than two dozen graves.

Svetlaena stared down at the site, fingers flexing contemplatively around the handle of the shovel. The grave, like two or three others on the plot, had no name etched on it. For all the effort she had been through, this had better be it. Her Highborne acquaintance had never given her wrong information before, and all evidence pointed here. With no idea what she’d find, and not a single good possibility, she began to dig.

Reminiscing helped her get her mind off the strain and pain of physical labor. It had been three years ago. No, more. The passage of time was getting fuzzy indeed. She had been drinking her troubles away in Dalaran, something she used to do before she had gotten anywhere near competent with magic, when a Night Elf took the seat beside her. Thinking herself immune due to the language barrier, she made insults at him in Orcish in her intoxicated state. He’d just smiled down at her and said in perfect Orcish, “Well, hi to you too. I’m Illisade.”

Four days later it became known that Svetlaena Ascent of the Pale Heart organization was a traitoress when she kissed Illisade Shadesong on the streets of Dalaran, in full view of both factions. Distrust of them both spread quickly. Justifiably too, because things only continued to get worse from there.

At the time, she had seen nothing but brightness ahead. She successfully cured herself of her alcoholism under his guidance, while she mended any injuries he’d sustain from those she’d once called allies. At his suggestion she became associated with the Academy in Dalaran, eventually even earning her certification as a Professor and a career lecturing in Arcane Theory. Illisade introduced her to his daughter, Kairiel, and Svetlaena adopted the girl as her own. But this was all the good that would come of it. While she walked about as if blind, she had done great harm to those around her.

There were those among the Grim that could recall it all too well. In fact, it was how she had first met many of the people she was now calling her guildmates. Leyu’jin; a troll she respected greatly, had crossed paths with her first near Lake Wintergrasp while competing with Illisade for the area’s resources. He had told Svetlaena at the time that ‘Night Elves be bad voodoo’... she had laughed then. She believed him now. Anaie and Syreena remembered too; they had seen her, as others had, actively ignoring Illisade’s antics against fellow Horde. Occasionally even aiding them.

The shovel struck something. Wood. With renewed vigor, Svetlaena set about clearing more dirt from the area so that it would not all collapse inward when she cracked the casket. Her thoughts were beginning to darken.

Her betrayal had come to a peak when she, believing herself to be in danger, allowed Illisade and associates of his into the Undercity, where they promptly carried out an attack. This cowardly gesture did not go unnoticed by Leoren of the Raven Cross, who with his guild was quick to report everything they could to the Royal Dreadguard.

Days later, Svetlaena received a damning letter. On pain of death, she was not to set foot within a single Horde capital. Despite the setback, her honor in the eyes of the Horde completely shattered, she kept her head high and attempted to move on, amid rising fears that Illisade was growing ashamed of her. He remained distant in public places, and had once or twice refused to acknowledge her in the presence of guildmates. Stuck in their shared accommodations in Dalaran due to her banishment, she found herself more often than not alone.

As foolish as all her previous actions had been, acknowledging it with the wisdom of hew renewed perspective and hindsight, what happened next, she was still not sure what to think of. Even now she saw little alternative.

During the Fire Festival of that very year, the Raven Cross executed Kairiel Shadesong, Illisade’s only child, a child Svetlaena had adopted and loved as if she were her own. Her banishment ceased to matter to her and she went directly to Silvermoon City to confront Leoren in the presence of many of his officers, suffering a staggering defeat in a duel. She was, of course, then promptly arrested and transported to Orgrimmar to face execution.

She cleared the top of wooden box, nothing more than a simple prayer to Elune etched in the wood serving to decorate it, and sat down on top of it for a break. Her arms were shaking and sore; it would be a few moments before she could muster the force to break through wood. It was true. Blood Elves were not built for manual labor.

She was only alive and here today thanks to Selash Gustblade. The Professor dug a bloodthistle cigarette out of her pocket and lit it up for her break, the smoke’s effect soothing her nerves and sore muscles, and calming the incessant shaking that resulted from both. He was where she’d picked up the smoking habit, too. Particularly in the days after he led her out of prison under heavy watch, explaining that she worked for him now and he was going to reform her.

Every eye was turned upon her in disdain when she walked the streets, and she could not refute them. Illisade Shadesong himself was, of course, nowhere to be found.

Her strength returned, enough at least, Svetlaena got to her feet, balanced herself, and began striking the wood. It gave way with surprising ease, but she could only see blackness in the small hole she’d made. A glance upward... the light was fading fast, she should have headed out earlier in the afternoon. The Professor scolded herself aloud. A quick scramble, during which her robes got rather covered in dirt, and she was back out of the hole retrieving a lantern to light and setting it carefully on the opposite side from the ceramic jars.

Daintily, the small woman hopped back into the hole and started hacking away at the casket’s lid with the shovel and using it to shove the broken wood aside. When enough of it was cleared she stepped out of the way to let the lantern’s light shine down into the box in full. She winced, her stomach turning. The leather-clad corpse was mostly skeleton at this point, too far gone to even be able to determine what killed him, something that remained a mystery to Svetlaena. The rancid smell she expected did not come, and she looked again. Dried stalks of white hair were plastered to nothing but skin and skull, just the right length. Lipless, it seemed to be grinning at her, staring her down with black empty sockets.

Her stomach churned, more insistent now, and before she could even think to try and scramble back up the dirt again she lost everything she’d eaten in the last few hours into the casket. The immediate reaction was horror but then she stopped and rationalized for a moment while sipping a little liquid courage from a flask. Ashenfury had said to defile it after all. And why wouldn’t that count?

Once she had her bearings again Svetlaena drew her dagger. Dealing with dead bodies wasn’t foreign to her, but bodies that were familiar were always so haunting. She leaned down, peeling a bit of the hair that lay stuck to the armor up and cutting it loose from the rest. It felt like extremely fine straw and cut just as easily. This would hopefully appease those twins, she told herself, slipping it into her pocket.

And then it was back up the dirt slope, picking up her shovel again. Once she was safely out she struck the inward-facing side of each ceramic jar, busting them open and releasing liter upon liter of flammable lantern oil into the grave. Soon the corpse was completely inundated, bits of wood floating atop the oil pool.

Svetlaena pulled her foot back to kick the lit lantern into the mix, but hesitated. She glared down through the layer of oil back into those taunting black sockets, grinned right back at that eternally stuck grin.

“I loved you,” she spoke venomously, “You left me to die at the hands of your own enemies. But even worse, you left your daughter to die. I had to come here alone, for my own sake. But I brought a little message from my loving husband Duroxas with me.”

She kicked the lantern in and leaped back, flames arising rapidly from the hole in the ground, so high the leaves of the tree sitting beside it began to catch.

“We hope you burn for eternity.”

‘Something my scouts will report’, Ashenfury had specified. Hopefully, this would do.

((Part two of the task to come once it is fully edited.))

[Svetlaena]

Part Two: The Fall of the Grey Tower

Professor Svetlaena Quel'Ivan picked up an over-sized piece of parchment from the ground, kicking aside the stones weighing the corners down. Diagrams were sketched sparsely over the surface that she rolled up, places on each of them circled with the red strokes of a paintbrush; hastily-made depictions of the tower's levels with the points that held the structure together indicated.

The Highborne, Rhiandri, had come in handy again. It had been her vast knowledge of mathematics that Svetlaena turned to for help. Her equations, she had said, would show the Professor the points on which most of the building's weight rested. On every one, she had placed a box of bombs, Ugraz's donation to her cause. Ugraz was someone she never quite knew what to make of-- at times he accused her of being part of some kind of evil tag-team alongside Duroxas and sometimes Selash. But in this case, when approached by the diminutive Professor, he provided her with crates of high-quality explosive to help her bring the tower down. On top of that he didn't charge her a single copper.

It was surreal to come back to the old tower out in Crystalsong Forest at all, but even more surreal to find it completely abandoned. Even when she'd packed her things and left all that time ago, it'd been bustling-- she'd kept her head low then, the knowledge that she was abandoning both the Pale Heart and its ideals weighing on her. It had been where she met and befriended Duroxas Quel'Ivan, back when she was Svetlaena Ascent, traitoress.

He had seemed happy that she didn't find his red eyes frightening, and she appreciated that he didn't judge her based on her relationship with Illisade. And when things got particularly bad and she was expelled from the Horde capitals, they would sit in the tower often together, him keeping her company more and more as things worsened...

The Professor shook her head, coming back to reality. It was time to say goodbye to this place she had once called her shelter. The Grim would be her shelter now, her family. But in order to be accepted in her new home, she had to lay bare her past and destroy all that remained of it.

She turned away from the tower, starting to walk away and get a good distance to avoid being crushed under the the thing-- merely as a precaution, of course, the explosives were rigged on a timer to provide an optimal course for implosion. Minimal outward damage, Rhiandri had said, but Svetlaena wasn't willing to risk it.

The Pale Heart... she'd sought them out on her own after meeting a woman that stood up for her against some Grim, what was her name? It barely mattered. It had been years since she even saw her, but she recalled finding the guild after they defended her right to be associating with the enemy. They were advocates of peace and neutrality, and it suited Svetlaena back when she had not known any better.

Despite all this, however, the Pale Heart had given her one good thing. And now that 'one good thing' was part of the Grim too; in fact joining had been his idea.

From their days in the Pale Heart, misguided, they had at least come out of the mess with one another. When Illisade abandoned her, Svetlaena finally lost the blindness he induced in her and started to realize the reasons behind Duroxas' gentle, protective treatment of her... and they married not long before their respective careers in the pacifistic guild ended for good.

Finally at good distance from the old hollow stone tower, she turned to stare at it one last time before pressing the button on the detonator. Just like that the old home of the Pale Heart started to collapse, top floors giving way first then the destruction continued steadily down as each layer of structural supports was taken out. The sound resonated on the mountains surrounding the verdant basin, seeming to shake the air itself at the peak of its volume before fading away on the cold wind, echoing down the valley.

Svetlaena fidgeted, cracking a smile. She was no engineer, she'd never really blown anything up before, let alone a building of this magnitude. Something inside her felt a tinge of nostalgic remorse, but it was currently being overrun by a miniature power trip... she eyed the detonator, wondering how much Ugraz would charge her for more such bombs.

A shake of the head. There wasn't time for that now. She still had business.

Now that they were Grim, she hoped, their futures, as well as their beautiful little Aravinda's would be prosperous. She patted the letter in her pocket, took a deep breath, and headed to the Grim guild hall. Never again would she forget the meaning of loyalty, and the whole guild would be her witness to this vow.