[Risska] WoW - Wounded
Risska smiled, her bright white teeth the only visible part of her in the darkness of the keep. The waiting had been interminable, the boredom of camp life and keeping watch only broken by her friend’s visit. Jayyson had grown much from the timid boy she’d first met. She did not need to worry about him anymore; he had become a man. The call had come at last, though. Her targets assigned, marked, and eliminated one by one, and now that the battle outside raged in earnest, she began to look for new targets.
She snuck to the outside of the keep, the screams of pain and death and roar of powerful magic spells making any attempts at moving quietly pointless. So she moved quickly, leaping out of the shadows to strike, here to wrap a garrote wire around the neck of a mage about to incinerate another orc, there to slide her blade through a gap in the armor of a soldier hurrying toward the fray.
The call for the retreat came unexpectedly. Risska looked around, her brow furrowing in confusion. They weren’t advancing much, but there were still many left to fight. She shook her head. One or two more, she thought to herself.
Two marksmen on the wall were the last to fall to her. She wiped her blade clean on the leather armor of her last victim. She looked back in toward Theramore with a sigh, noting a few groups still engaged. She almost leaped down and joined them; she ached to fight alongside her brothers and sisters. Her training kept her moving.
She saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye as she reached the grappling hook she’d used to climb up into Theramore. She looked up, seeing a single zeppelin. She shrugged and started to climb down. A sudden purple flash of light and a roar filled the air, and then it felt like a giant hand pushed her away from the wall, with enough force to tear the stones away as well. She flew backward, the stones zipping past her. She tried to twist her body to land gracefully, but the rocks battered her body.
A massive piece of the wall filled her vision, rushing toward her like an arrow shot from a bow. Then blackness.
“Headaches again?” asked the voice softly.
Risska frowned, her mouth twitching downward slightly. Her head was still covered from the nose up. The bandages kept pressure on her wounds, keeping her from bleeding to death. They did not, however, stop the pain of the wounds. So she meditated, sometimes sitting, sometimes laying down when her strength would not even allow that.
She took in a breath to respond but was only able to whimper as agony wrapped around her chest, squeezing and driving the breath from her body.
“I see,” her friend said. She could not see him, and she could barely move, and so she was forced to trust him.
At least he speaks orcish, Risska thought to herself. He helped clean her, fed her and changed her bandages. She was unable to ask his name, and he hadn’t told it to her yet. Instead, he told her of his home, a place called the “Wandering Isle,” and of what brought him to Kalimdor. He was sent to seek minds, he said, ones that could be taught and honed.
Risska frowned again at that, her mouth twisting. What good is a mind if the body is ruined? She thought to herself. Her friend must have seen the unspoken question in her expression.
“A body can be built anew,” he said, resting his hand gently on her chest. “Like a house once burned, the foundation remains.”
Risska’s eyes began to burn underneath the bandages as tears began to flow, the salt stinging the unhealed wounds. She felt the cool, clean wetness of his healing magic wash over her, soothing the aching and the burning.
“I wish to help you to rebuild,” he said.
Risska nodded slowly, the strain almost unbearable. But she managed it, her head slumping back on the soft cushion he’d lay down for her to rest on. Her breathing came heavy and ragged as her muscles started to relax.
“Good,” he said. “You will learn to bring your body and mind together as one. And so, you will rebuild, and be able to show others how to rebuild as well. No matter how bad things may seem, if the foundation is strong, there is hope.”