Heresy

Heresy stood up and stretched slightly, the soft, smooth leather of her Netherblade trousers shifting as she rested her gloved hands at her hips and arched her back.

She tilted her head, cracking her neck one way, then the other, the soft ‘click’ a lonely sound in the silence of the remote corner of this desolate and abused land. A breeze lifted, not fresh but warm and stifling, blowing her cape slightly. She wiped her face and sighed, reflecting before packing away her pick and collecting the precious ore into a small rugged pack.

Her limbs were almost sore; it had been awhile since she’d mined and hunted so very much, for so long. But it was paying off though…the Dragonmaw disguise held well and she was earning their trust. Each enslaved dragon she managed to help escape made her own soul smile inside; it was a private war for her own reasons, for free will. She had hers now, and she threw herself into helping the elegantly powerful, noble creatures find theirs. As much as she enjoyed working for Haramad in a sort of wickedly thieving way, this work she did for herself and for the things she believed in the most.

The soul cries to exist and be free to live as it sees fit; to choose its own captors, to walk its own roads.

To thine own self be true. Always.

She felt a strange internal purr rumbling deep within her belly, resonating out from her body like a soft, shapeless wave.

She smiled, a private small one, lingering at the edge of her violet lips. The beast lived within her now, in its wild and warm embrace, it walked with her.

She was it, it was her. Whole and surefooted. Though she sometimes felt the lingering pain of alone-ness, she accepted it as the fate of the Ma’Lanth H’raat, as generations of Ma’lanth females had done before.

She felt the slight chill as the weak sun that feebly cast light over Shadowmoon faded slightly; evening to day mattered little here, but what did pass for an excuse of daylight had long since started to wane, and she decided to give in for the evening and head away to Shattrath, landing Rebus gently near those gathered for battle.

Xelius stood nearby; the rogue didn’t know him well, but recognized him as the mischievous and deadly sparring partner of Fireflower’s.

“Good evening.” The priest bowed deeply; Heresy surveyed his form a moment, thinking.

You couldn’t see his face at all, so shrouded were his features. A strange and soft halo formed about his head, and ice blue robes cascaded down from his shoulders, edged with a thick, royal blue velvet. There was a cold, confident feeling about the man, lingering just shy of arrogance.

She sniffed the air, lifting her head slightly, careful to not turn directly to him as she did so, for fear of causing offence.

Ignoring the signals sent to her by her facemask, she focused only on the information her nose gave her; his scent was nothing like the demonic magic of warlocks; undead priests had a scent and air all their own – ritualistic, cold, controlled; speaking to her of cold stones and dusty books sparking gently with resolve and power. The beast frowned inwardly; the scent was a strange one – present but undefineable, it left her feeling unsure and thus somehow ill at ease.

There were no minions competing for dominance; the shadowpriest was his own master, dependent on no-one. For this, too, Heresy had always regarded them with a degree of respect and wariness. Even a priest who followed the light to her was still a figure to be regarded cautiously, for she’d known all too well how religion could be skewed and wielded by zealots for any desired cause. Her own life had once ended because of it. The Naaru seemed to have no need for such titles – why did man insist upon them? And for whose benefit?

Her musing was broken off by his question. “Have you seen the little warlock?”

“Fireflower?”

The priest nodded; soundless except the shifting silks of his hood.

“I have. Been some days though. Last time I saw her, Xelius, she was wandering around the city disheveled and muttering to herself.” The rogue raised an eyebrow as she said it, recalling the image, remembering how odd it was to see the girl in such a state.

The priest’s head tilted. Heresy saw the shadow of a mouth purse up slightly in concern before she continued speaking.

“That succubus, I think, is influencing her somehow but I don’t know why.
And then, well, there’s Zik Darkssyllah..”

“The magus I saw her with…this is of whom you speak?”

Heresy nodded.

“He’s one of the Horde Generals. We thought him dead, but he was in Northrend. Only recently returned.”

Heresy laughed slightly. “Much to my surprise. I’d have thought him eaten up by now. Man only has so many ears….”

“Eaten?” The voice of the priest was tinged with confusion.

“Long story.” Heresy smirked, dismissing that aspect of the tale before continuing.

“They’ve known each other some time, though how they came to meet, I’ve no idea. He means well. I think his heart’s in the right place, but he’s filled her head with words and ideas she cannot hope to understand..I think she’s being torn in two somehow, but by what I can’t be sure. Haven’t tried that hard to find out, either.”

The rogue sighed and shrugged, leaning back in the saddle, leather-clad hands resting on Rebus’s broad hips. She was burnt out on solving the torment of warlocks, once and forever.

“Ideas?”

“I think he tries to reach her human aspect somehow, Xel. But ..that’s the thing, you don’t just make her demonic half ‘disappear’. It’s not a possession, it’s an identity. If I thought there was some way to make her human, believe me, I would have. Would have saved us all a lot of damn trouble.”

Me especially. Heresy grumbled inwardly.

“I might need to have a talk with this Zik, then.” The priest spoke quietly, bringing his gloved hands together and lifting them to his face, fingers resting against his chin in thought, head slightly tilted.

It made him look like he was praying for a moment, but somehow in a rather foreboding way.

Heresy only nodded in response. It was an unexpected comment. Zik’s interest in Fireflower had always perplexed Heresy, for the warlock was a chaotic, childish mess – not likeable, not warm, not helpful. Honest and shrewd in her own mad way, with a pretty face and delicate little hands…but little else to recommend her. Her honesty was still born in insanity, her cleverness borne of cold instinct, her pretty face a mask of tortured half-emotions and her hands spent the majority of their time taking the lives of others as if they were small, ivory machines built for such a purpose. To like her seemed at best a folly and at worst, downright blind.

But despite his dubious judgment of women, Heresy had a slightly protective fondness for the mage, for the struggle she had witnessed within him, and for his generally good heart. Once, some time ago she’d had the chance to bleed him dry, and had walked away; he’d practically invited her to help him destroy himself in the name of some twisted pleasure.

While it was true Heresy was a cannibal, that it would not have been hard to consume him, she had also developed some amount of restraint, particularly as it applied to someone she knew by name, who clearly suffered. To have helped him would have been an injustice not by actions so much as intent. Zik had been through much in his tormented undeath; she felt compassion for the openly human journey of the gnome’s soul that somehow continued to exist in the husk of an undead mage.

It troubled her slightly, therefore, that he might already be walking into a conflict with the relatively unknown man that was Xelius, and that Xelius himself seemed more concerned about Zik’s influence on the warlock than that of her own minions. Who was this shadowed priest anyway, and what did he really want?

With a mind full of contemplation, and wondering what she could find out, she reined Rebus upwards and over the city, fading into the distance.

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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