A Rogue and Fire [Story]
Senkha MacGlynn is happy.
It's sad, perhaps, that she can count on one hand the number of times she's honestly been able to say that and most of those times happened in the past year. But she's happy and happy to remain so, enough that she's leaving Stormwind behind her for the morning, as she has every day for the past two weeks.
They didn't have portals in Stormwind, back when the fight was in Icecrown, and it was impossible to go back and forth. You had to set up camp there or else make close friends with a mage (something Senkha had only recently accomplished with her nephew, Shepard), and coming back was a rare thing. It was easier, back then, to live in Dalaran, but now, now with the fight on the Molten Front, portals were everywhere, and Senkha takes one to the appropriately named Firelands (because if Azerothian society is nothing else, it is creative with its names for locations). Somehow, fighting here is soothing to her, despite that it's essentially a giant oven and she's liable to burst into flames at any minute. It's something like Icecrown, something understandable.
Things are made of fire.
Senkha kills those things.
Problem solved.
Even the bugs here don't make her uncomfortable. There aren't any bees, and Senkha figures that's why she's able to stomach it. Bees are unpleasant and she dislikes them, but here, there are no bees. Just fire scorpions, which mostly keep to themselves, and fire spiders, which make a delightful popping sound when hit with daggers, like they're full of hot air and waiting to explode.
She's fast as the wind here, dancing from one place to the next, daggers flashing in the firelight. Nothing to worry about here, not really, and she can lose herself to the heat (more of a dark, wet heat than the bright, dry heat of Silithus) and the dance. She can forget.
She can forget about Tatters and Edwin Bordros. Objectively, she knows she has no reason to go after them and should probably just leave them be, but subjectively, she feels obligated to stop things from starting again. Maybe it's because she knows this foe: she knows the old manse, she knows how to protect herself against his type of assault, and she knows what she can do against him. The trouble is (she catches herself thinking as a druid of the flame screams in her face. This may have to do with the poisoned gashes she's just carved under his ribcage) that she's feeling isolationist. Tatters and his little girl thing haven't caused her family grief yet and she's struggling to convince herself that prevention is a good idea in this case. It all feels hollow and like it will snatch the happiness away like the embers blowing on the unseen wind here.
Where things are made of fire.
And Senkha kills those things.
Problem solved.
Another problem, she realizes (now joining several druids and defenders in attempting to take down a molten behemoth; Light's sake, why does everything ever have to involve a giant of some sort?), is the empty grave in Southshore. Oliver's old wedding band. Senkha wants to believe these are meaningless, but something in her gut tells her that there's still cause to worry. Perhaps Oliver would never leave her for Adeline (in fact, he would never leave her for Adeline, this is known fact), but would Adeline give him a choice? Of course she would, Senkha reasons (and the behemoth falls to exhausted and hoarse cheers; it's hard to breathe here), but that doubt niggles that perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps she should be focused on here.
And that things are made of fire.
Senkha kills those things.
Problem solved.
Oliver. He's something else. She hasn't noticed it as much in the past (climbing this mountain is fantastic, and the heat vents are incredible, and Senkha wishes for a moment that she was one of the fire hawks so that she could just fly forever), but there's less of a distinction between him and Virh, even after her nightmare, even after she told him to keep fighting it. Maybe it's because their lives have been too busy until now for her to notice or maybe he's just finally relaxing enough to actually be who he really is. He loves her, she never doubts that, and he's not abusive. No, nothing is out of cruelty, but just a sense of the monster needing to be released every once in a while, and Senkha wonders if it's her. If she's doing something that's making the monster angrier, making Oliver more prone to...
She catches herself at the edge of the mountain, and it's a long drop down. The thermal vents keep a person from falling, but Senkha can't see the bottom from here. It's nothing but fire, and perhaps there is no bottom. Perhaps it's like Outland and falling off means being lost forever. She's too close to the edge, she realizes, and tries to step away, but before she can, she's set upon by a flurry of fire hawks, screeching that she's too close to the nest and the younglings. She flails an arm out to try and keep her balance, but there are too many of them, knocking her off kilter everywhere she turns, and with a crunching of gravel, she falls.
Sometimes I wish for falling,
Wish for the release,
Wish for falling through the air
To give me some relief
Because falling's not the problem
When I'm falling I'm at peace...
One of the druids of the talon swoops down and catches her arms with more strength than she would've expected from a bird. "Careful, miss," the druid squawks at her. "Wouldn't want to lose you to that abyss." He sets her down on the ground, and Senkha is surprised to feel her legs shaking.
"Thank you," she murmurs to the druid, who flies off in a flurry of feathers. And she wonders, as he does, what would have happened if he hadn't been there?
Problem solved.
It's sad, perhaps, that she can count on one hand the number of times she's honestly been able to say that and most of those times happened in the past year. But she's happy and happy to remain so, enough that she's leaving Stormwind behind her for the morning, as she has every day for the past two weeks.
They didn't have portals in Stormwind, back when the fight was in Icecrown, and it was impossible to go back and forth. You had to set up camp there or else make close friends with a mage (something Senkha had only recently accomplished with her nephew, Shepard), and coming back was a rare thing. It was easier, back then, to live in Dalaran, but now, now with the fight on the Molten Front, portals were everywhere, and Senkha takes one to the appropriately named Firelands (because if Azerothian society is nothing else, it is creative with its names for locations). Somehow, fighting here is soothing to her, despite that it's essentially a giant oven and she's liable to burst into flames at any minute. It's something like Icecrown, something understandable.
Things are made of fire.
Senkha kills those things.
Problem solved.
Even the bugs here don't make her uncomfortable. There aren't any bees, and Senkha figures that's why she's able to stomach it. Bees are unpleasant and she dislikes them, but here, there are no bees. Just fire scorpions, which mostly keep to themselves, and fire spiders, which make a delightful popping sound when hit with daggers, like they're full of hot air and waiting to explode.
She's fast as the wind here, dancing from one place to the next, daggers flashing in the firelight. Nothing to worry about here, not really, and she can lose herself to the heat (more of a dark, wet heat than the bright, dry heat of Silithus) and the dance. She can forget.
She can forget about Tatters and Edwin Bordros. Objectively, she knows she has no reason to go after them and should probably just leave them be, but subjectively, she feels obligated to stop things from starting again. Maybe it's because she knows this foe: she knows the old manse, she knows how to protect herself against his type of assault, and she knows what she can do against him. The trouble is (she catches herself thinking as a druid of the flame screams in her face. This may have to do with the poisoned gashes she's just carved under his ribcage) that she's feeling isolationist. Tatters and his little girl thing haven't caused her family grief yet and she's struggling to convince herself that prevention is a good idea in this case. It all feels hollow and like it will snatch the happiness away like the embers blowing on the unseen wind here.
Where things are made of fire.
And Senkha kills those things.
Problem solved.
Another problem, she realizes (now joining several druids and defenders in attempting to take down a molten behemoth; Light's sake, why does everything ever have to involve a giant of some sort?), is the empty grave in Southshore. Oliver's old wedding band. Senkha wants to believe these are meaningless, but something in her gut tells her that there's still cause to worry. Perhaps Oliver would never leave her for Adeline (in fact, he would never leave her for Adeline, this is known fact), but would Adeline give him a choice? Of course she would, Senkha reasons (and the behemoth falls to exhausted and hoarse cheers; it's hard to breathe here), but that doubt niggles that perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps she should be focused on here.
And that things are made of fire.
Senkha kills those things.
Problem solved.
Oliver. He's something else. She hasn't noticed it as much in the past (climbing this mountain is fantastic, and the heat vents are incredible, and Senkha wishes for a moment that she was one of the fire hawks so that she could just fly forever), but there's less of a distinction between him and Virh, even after her nightmare, even after she told him to keep fighting it. Maybe it's because their lives have been too busy until now for her to notice or maybe he's just finally relaxing enough to actually be who he really is. He loves her, she never doubts that, and he's not abusive. No, nothing is out of cruelty, but just a sense of the monster needing to be released every once in a while, and Senkha wonders if it's her. If she's doing something that's making the monster angrier, making Oliver more prone to...
She catches herself at the edge of the mountain, and it's a long drop down. The thermal vents keep a person from falling, but Senkha can't see the bottom from here. It's nothing but fire, and perhaps there is no bottom. Perhaps it's like Outland and falling off means being lost forever. She's too close to the edge, she realizes, and tries to step away, but before she can, she's set upon by a flurry of fire hawks, screeching that she's too close to the nest and the younglings. She flails an arm out to try and keep her balance, but there are too many of them, knocking her off kilter everywhere she turns, and with a crunching of gravel, she falls.
Sometimes I wish for falling,
Wish for the release,
Wish for falling through the air
To give me some relief
Because falling's not the problem
When I'm falling I'm at peace...
One of the druids of the talon swoops down and catches her arms with more strength than she would've expected from a bird. "Careful, miss," the druid squawks at her. "Wouldn't want to lose you to that abyss." He sets her down on the ground, and Senkha is surprised to feel her legs shaking.
"Thank you," she murmurs to the druid, who flies off in a flurry of feathers. And she wonders, as he does, what would have happened if he hadn't been there?
Problem solved.