((Though I may be taking a break from WoW, I shan't ever cease to write Keilara's stories. There are more, much more, at Argent Archives, I felt this installment deserved a sharing in here too. Especially as it gives a hint as to what Keilara has been up to. ))

Empty Silence

Blood. It was a rich, deep red staining her pale, blue-white hair. The coppery tang filled her senses, teased her nose and tasted bitter in her mouth. A cautious step, two, drew her closer, her sword up and out, her eyes darting this way and that. She wasn’t sure how she got to this strange, night-filled place, the ground muddy and oddly-colored, but it drew her. Lured her. The call was strong in her mind and all she could do was answer.

Her muscles tightened, a warning tingle down her spine. Her ears twitched, desperately seeking a sound that wasn’t of her own heart beat and breath. It was eerily quiet, unnaturally so for a forest. There would be the soft chitter of insects, the rustle of leaves and the occasional bestial howl. But here, nothing.

Indeed, she couldn’t even see the moon or the stars though the overhead foliage was sparse. This… this was wrong. Still, she went on. The ground was smooth, soft, giving way to her gentle steps. There were no tracks, no sign for her to follow, and yet, still, she continued, as if she followed a script to a play she already knew but could not recite.

Had she paused to consider, she would have realized there were many, small indiscretions. The major one was the lack of the pregnancy belly, she who was four months into her gestation period. The second was the absence of her loyal companion, the black lion she named Kerrigan. The third would be her attire—she had long since abandoned her black chain mail armor, no longer able to bear the weight of her ghosts that clung to the obsidian scale.

“She remembers…”

A choked gasp. She whipped around, searching the source of the whisper.

“Indeed,” said a deeper voice. Male, this time. “Will she then remember who we are? The ones she slew out of a misguided promise?”

“We can only ask, old friend,” a third voice, low and matronly.

“Who are you?!” she cried, demanded. Turn and turn, nothing there. Just a gray fog rolling past the dead trees. “What do you want from me?!”

A shriek echoed behind her. Too late, she turned a full half-circle and cried out as a pair of red eyes lunged at her, the face distorted and mutilated long since past recognition. Her fevered mind noted the long fangs, the fierce talons, and the wild, writhing hair.

The multitude of voices screamed at her as one: “Vengeance!”

Panicking, she lashed her blade out, desperate to keep the spirits away. “I don’t know who you are! What do you want?!” Hysteria edged her voice. “Keep away!”

“You know who we are!” shrieked one of them, the first voice. “We are the ones you slew! Traitor! Slut! You have betrayed your people for a half-elven lover! You have consorted with the sin’dorei for the last time, Keilara Arelyn Moonrise!”

The blood drained from her face. “N-no…” Her lips were pale. “No,” she whimpered. “No this can’t be!”

“She doesn’t deny it,” said the second voice.

“She denies only our existence,” agreed the third.

“Kill her! Slay her! Take the unborn whelp with her! Let her death sate the need for vengeance!”

“Patience,” said the third, the voice gentle. “Keilara Moonfall, do you deny that you have slaughtered your own kind in the sin’dorei lands?”

Stars danced in her vision. She forgot to breathe. A strangled gulp of air managed to find purchase in her starved lungs. Two. Her breath came, rapid and shaky. “I… I…”

“You will answer me.”

“I… don’t deny it,” she replied through bloodless lips. How could her heart beat so rapidly and still live? Her chest felt as if it would explode like some badly repaired gnomish device.

“How unfortunate,” said the male, sadly.

“Kill her! Killherkillherkillher!”

“Wait!” She swallowed hard. “I had a reason!”

“Beyond swearing to protect the sin’dorei, they who have long since abandoned our ways and sought the cruel embrace of demonic power?” asked the second.

“Yes!” Shakily, Keilara tried to look at the ghosts and flinched away. Undead spirits, disquiet. If she failed to argue for her life, she would die. “You must understand. I am loyal to the kaldorei people. To the ideals of the Alliance, if not the practice. To be with Trias wherever he went, yes, I promised to not raise a hand against the Horde while I was there.

“But nor would I permit them to use me to attack Alliance lands! One of them asked me to, when they knew of my origins. It was meant as a proof of my veracity but I’d rather die than attack my people!”

“Lies!” The first voice echoed furiously. “You raised your sword to us, we who did our duty!”

“Because it was wrong!” Now that the shock of the encounter was beginning to dim, Keilara found her strength. Her conviction. “The kaldorei people launched spy outposts in the ruined lands of the sin’dorei. It was wrong of us to do so! We were organizing maps and weaknesses so we could eradicate them!”

“Which is right,” said the third.

“Which is just for their crimes against us,” agreed the second.

“No!” Keilara thrust her sword into the ground and held out her hands in entreaty. “It was wrong. We shouldn’t be trying to destroy them. We should be trying to save them. Elune’s vision of peace can’t come from utter genocide of an entire race! They were our kith and kin and yet we drove them out, rejected them, instead of using Elune’s love to save them!”

Bitter, mocking laughter rang about her.

Desperate, Keilara cast her mind about for a solid argument. Then it dawned on her. “Kael’thas, the Burning Legion, the Lich King, the Scarlet Crusade… we have so many enemies. Some who seek an entire eradication of life or seek to corrupt nature as we know it. Did it ever occur to you that all this began… because of our supreme arrogance?”

Wariness rippled about her. She had their attention now.

“If I remember my history accurately, we as a whole turned a blind eye to Azshara’s lust for power. We allowed prejudice and hatred to reign. And when the war began, didn’t it take us by surprise? Thousands of kaldorei died because we turned a blind eye against Azshara’s actions, because we allowed ourselves to be so easily swayed by a charismatic woman?

“If… if we had been more alert, more cautious, indeed, had we been willing to take everything with a grain of salt, perhaps we would still be a whole race.” Keilara shook her head, her gaze distant as she envisioned an entirely different world. “We shouldn’t blindly follow orders; we shouldn’t allow raw hatred to exist. One shouldn’t be better than another just because they possessed a power that no one else does.”

“And what,” asked the third voice, “does this have to do with your capital crimes?”

“I’m… I’m getting there,” Keilara said carefully. “After the Sundering, the kaldorei people hid for a long time. We ignored the rest of the world. Small wonder the other races distrust us. We looked at them and decided they were foolish, stupid, in their youth. We’ve lived so long… that we judged them inferior.”

She took a breath and continued. “We’ve never really let go of that prejudice. First the Highborne looked down at the kaldorei and now we’re doing it to the humans, the gnomes and all the rest. Why? Because we, in our ‘blessed’ immortality—but ah, we lost it, didn’t we? We sacrificed the World Tree to destroy the servant of the Burning Legion… but he already knew of Azeroth, all thanks to Azshara.”

Pale, glowing eyes glanced at the haunting spirits. “Don’t you get it? If you go back further and further, all this… all this damned mess is our fault! We turned a blind eye to what happened then and we’re turning a blind eye even now! Staghelm corrupted our lands thanks to his selfish bid to reclaim our immortality but we don’t deserve it! We shun our lost kin, we shun the ‘lesser races’ and we breed mistrust and hatred.

“As a whole, both the Alliance and the Horde, we’ve proven we’re more than a match for the Burning Legion! Together, we could restore the Outlands, help the sin’dorei defeat their magical addiction—or better yet, utilize the lost power, control it, so that we no longer need to reject our past!”

“Blaspheme! You would dare entice danger to us once more!”

“You would cast judgment upon our people as a whole, but you do not yet provide explanation for the slaughter of a score of kaldorei,” said the third coolly.

“I did,” Keilara replied evenly, hiding a quiver of fear. “You’re in the wrong. By creating a bridge between the kaldorei and sin’dorei—between the Alliance and the Horde—I take the first step in forming a partnership so strong that we can fight off the rest of our remaining threats. We dissolved the previous alliance too quickly; we still have the Lich King, Kael’thas and the rest of the Burning Legion to contend with. For all you know, we may have a need for the power that only those who wield magic can provide.”

“Do you hold no regrets for the lives you have taken, for the families you’ve destroyed?” asked the second.

She bowed her head. “I regret it every single moment of every single day,” she murmured. “I know some day… some day someone will connect the evidence and realize that a kaldorei slew her own people. My reasons won’t matter then. I accept the price. I will not permit the Horde to spy and attack upon the Alliance anymore than I would permit the Alliance to spy and attack upon the Horde. Neither side will win any strength from the losses. That was my promise.”

“You court execution,” mused the third. “You court utter exile from your homeland, from the Alliance… and for what?”

A tear fell down Keilara’s cheek. My old bear, she realized, Nath’s haggard face coming to her mind, we are no different after all. “For peace,” she said at last. “For an alliance that would endure any outside threat upon our world. For the chance that someday, my son, Trias, and so many others who are of a mingled race may be allowed to walk the streets without hatred.”

“Then accept this, our decision: you will bear the weight of our deaths upon your soul for all eternity, Keilara Arelyn Moonrise. You may know peace and contentment, but your redemption shall be forever out of reach.” The collective voices paused, then added, “And we make no promises for what your people may do to you once your crimes have been discovered. Pray for mercy from Elune, child—I do not think you shall ever know it again in your lifetime.”

~ ~ ~

Night. The stars shone like diamonds on black velvet. The moonlight made all of Darnassus glow, cast a silvery sheen upon Keilara’s blue-white hair. Slowly, silently, the huntress entered the Temple of the Moon, her heart heavy.

The words spoken by the ghosts of her dead repeated over and over in her mind. She wanted to dismiss that experience as nothing more than an elaborate nightmare, she knew better. It was a reality—she had barely escaped judgment by a score of vengeful spirits. And if their families, if the Silvereye Circle, if the Sentinels, ever knew… ever found out, Keilara would lose everything. Her own life would be forfeit, that and most likely her unborn son’s as well.

With painful awareness, Keilara took in the statue of Elune, noting the carved details, desperately seeking a kind of tender understanding in the goddess’s face. But there was nothing. Of course not. The goddess would hardly appear before a grieving kaldorei, especially one who had turned her blade against her own people.

And would likely do so… again.

Weeping, Keilara fell to her knees, her slender form wracked with tears, whispered pleas for forgiveness met with utmost, dead silence.