Heresy

Sundown


In the dead and violated lands south of our beautiful city, I see them walking - the mindless dead.

I wonder if he is one of them. I wonder if I would know.

Even if I did, I doubt I could do anything to save him. I was never a very good priestess, at least I never thought so.

It was Orodreth that had made me believe enough in myself...Orodreth that lifted me out of the place I had been.

The shadow of what I have been - and done - and what my addiction drove me to is only lifted by his memory.

But he is gone now. The shadow remains still.


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A bloom only recently faded still carries its scent and colour; a sort of spent beauty, waiting for the inevitable.

Lorish wasn't young anymore; but lingered instead on some fragile age where a woman's life story begins to play out on her features. Flaxen-blonde hair, nearly white, tumbled to pale shoulders. Lips as red as strawberries and glowing jade eyes should have made her beautiful. But addiction and time, and the skeletons that rattled both within her closeted memories and before her eyes took their toll each day, each week, each month that passed since she had murdered Andene and fled to the darkest corners of Silvermoon.

Quite by chance, Father Orodreth had found her years ago, eking out an existence deep in Murder Row, feeding her addiction on scraps of soul shards and the odd minion let loose by careless warlocks. Lorish's addiction had driven her to darker ends, closeted away in rooms with rogues, quick with gold and in immediate need of a specific pleasure, living in shadows where perhaps that odd black eye or nasty scratch would be hard to see. Eyes that should be beautiful were instead shrouded with fear and exhaustion; lips that should be full and red were dry and cracked from poor nutrition and exposure. Even in the magnificence that was the rebuilt Silvermoon, Lorish stood as a testament to those that still could slip through the cracks, in countless ways, the small stories swallowed by the monumental ones.

And it was Ordoreth who plucked her from the dire and bleak fate to bring her into the world he had known, of relative luxury and stature, as a Priest, a follower of the Light. It was he that showed her a different power, and helped the woman with the shadowed past build some sort of future for herself. And so Lorish Sunspire, a tailor, then wife of an abuser, then murderer, then addict and finally survivor, had come to the priesthood quite differently than she had left it.

But the memories would always be there, of what she had been, of what she had to be to survive. No matter how far Lorish walked into the Light, it seemed the shadow would never let her go. Not entirely.

Orodreth had loved her; of that she had some vague certainty. Why else would he have risked some degree of credibility in plucking the little tailor - who came from no real name, or family - of merchant's caste and of no consequence - from the streets and into the seclusion and safety of the priesthood? And despite his older years she had grown deeply fond of the one who had saved her from some uncertain fate, and had married the elder man only to learn of his death some weeks later during the Scourge invasion; for despite his own advanced stature and power, one thing Orodreth had never been, was a coward.

On hearing of his dissapearance and assumed death she took the name Sundown, and would speak of no other.

"I think it is only this that keeps me here, my love...your strength." she whispered one sunny afternoon, standing near the Dead Scar, gazing out at the seemingly endless Scourge still sniffing at the city's flanks like brutal hounds. As long as she remembered Orodreth's resolve, she would tap into her own; she would not give in to her past, to those acts of shame and destruction that had nearly ended her life.

The determination he had given her, the faith he had shown to her, the love he had given so freely had bought Lorish a little more time - for herself, and for her people.

With a weary sigh, she shielded herself and ran forward, her slippers slapping against bare feet as she begin to strike the undeads down, one by one, averting their blows and crushing them under the weight of invisible holy power. This had gone on for some time before she realised two of the undeads were clothed, albeit in tattered rags, and seemed to be trying to speak to her.

"Missusssss...." one hissed, his head bobbing slightly, he appeared to be sizing her up, small daggers in her hands. "Brains..."

Lorish stepped back uncertainly, before backing into a second figure. "We need purposssee...pleasssee"

She moved to smite them before something inside her made her hold back; something about their movements, though they stood too close, their undead forms inches from her own, sniffing her, one even reaching out and pinching her before she yelped and jumped backwards, glaring angrily, wand outstretched before her.

"Get back, now, unless you would prefer to die twice!" She pointed the wand at one, and then the other undead man.

"But we need purposeeeeeee.." the one in the ragged robe lamented, hands outstretched. "hungry..." the other, with the daggers looked around for a moment before eyeing her once again.

"Are you our master?" The first one, slightly more coherent, questioned her.

"I'm..what? No..I..I'm a priest. What do you want?" Lorish began glancing around her nervously, trying to place a guard in her field of vision. It wasn't too far. If they did attack...she could shield herself and break away from them...probably.

"We tolds you...purposeeeeee!!!!" they wailed, almost in unison, an inhuman sound, coarse and wet at the same time,

"Are you Scourge? No.." she spoke to herself, peering at them, regaining her composure. "No, I don't believe you are.....so what are you?"

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"I wrote the story myself. It's about a girl who lost her reputation and never missed it." - Mae West
Fireflower's Words of Wisdom: http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/a...ompilation.jpg