| Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: The Scept'rd Isle (Scotland!)
Posts: 470
| (continued)..
A full's days fighting in the dusty barren land that was the Bone Wastes had managed to preoccupy her mind for some time. Fighting with the mage was a simple pleasure, half art and half battle, where his masterful control of one particular element - water - never ceased to amaze her.
The unassuming mage in the jarringly flashy gown was better at wielding water as an element than she was, and she knew it. Most of her water powers were honed to simply cleanse or rejuvenate. But water for a shaman was merely one element of four. Narm had abandoned fire to learn this quieter art..one not of raging obvious power but of a deadly, careful sort of control that at first seemed quite underpowered until the opponent, frozen at some distance and unable to move their limbs well at all, crumpled in an icy, lifeless heap.
Well..it was okay for some. Selwan had never been subtle. A fire totem blasting at her side, she extended her hands and cast a bolt of electrical energy at an approaching skeleton with a smirk.
Selwan thought about lightning, and how it really wasn't an element in itself at all, and yet it had become such a part of her repertoire. Though in some ways Selwan had eschewed elemental arts in favour of a simple axe-swing, she couldn't deny that the feeling of the raw natural power leaving her hands and rocketing through the torsos of her targets was somehow thrilling.
The mage and shaman continued their strange death-dance well into the evening hours, until coated with dust and sweat, exhausted and thirsty, they finally reported back to the Sha'tar and agreed to rest.
It was there that they parted company; Narm retired back to his temporary home in Allerian; Selwan's evening had just begun.
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Selwan had taken to bourbon because she liked the taste of it, the vaguely dangerous, golden promise of it as it slipped down her white throat and warmed her chest from the inside. Once upon a time, it had carried a certain forbidden appeal - It wasn't so much that her parents had been strict - both Tordal and Naala enjoyed a drink at festivals or celebrations, or evening at dinner. Memories of them now, though faint, occasionally came back to Selwan's young mind and she would smile, reflecting on her shaman father and warrior mother with fond remembrance, a bittersweet sort of longing to know them again now, as she had grown somewhat older.
That wouldn't happen, and she knew that too. The crash of the Exodar had ensured that her parents would be a memory, and her childhood a handful of torn-away pages from a book she would never write. In the blink of an eye, Selwan had gone from a relatively young and innocent girl into a bourbon-drinking, violent, passionate young Draenei with very little to guide her other than Nobundo's teachings and an inner voice that demanded relentless honesty from her when it came to everyone else but herself. She made choices on a whim, what felt right "that moment" and had only just now begun to understand the price that is - and always is - paid when choices are made.
She was - in some ways - still a child, despite her wisdom and intelligence, with no mother to guide her, and no father to protect her, Selwan was on a crash course with herself.
So maybe it was all of this, coupled with Aeron's dissapearance, her guilt over Ledgic, the lingering restlesness she felt among the Guard about being treated like a soldier, and the loss of her family still lingering deep within her psyche that caused it to begin - that caused her to drink just that little bit too much, for the wrong reasons.
Maybe.
Not that she thought about it as she ordered a double in World's End Tavern and sitting down on a bearskin rug near the wall, unconsciously began to drink away everything - the aching muscles, the aching conscience and the aching heart.
Inevitably in the calm atmosphere of a partially-filled Inn, a crackling fire nearby, her mind wandered to the truths that bourbon could not drown.
He cannot be gone....but if he was..
With a sick twist of her gut, disgusted with her own reasoning, Selwan had a flash of thought that Aeron's death would make her "decision" easier, that Ledgic would no longer fear the influence of the elder rogue and that Selwan would in turn go back to Ledgic and never have to worry about it again.
How can you think such things? Is your conscience so precious? Shame upon you, Selwan, and upon your house for such beliefs!
No, the reality would bring no relief. She knew that.
Aeron.
Dead.
She felt as if she had been punched in the stomach.
The tears begin to form and with an angry, frustrated little snarl she emptied her glass and gestured to the waitress for another.
"Rinse and repeat" she muttered, remembering something she'd heard in Stormwind once.
Ten bourbons later, a young shaman slept fitfully in the corner of a pub, whimpering in her sleep like a puppy. |