Kassira, The Blood Elf

Prologue: The beginning

A cloud of black smoke rose at dusk on the third day of the siege.
The blood flowing through the streets soaked and satiated the bodies of my brothers scattered and extinguished along the road to the exit of the village.
My body swayed, confused and weary along the way, chasing that last flash beyond the horizon and trying to escape from that torment before the night rose, as did the beasts of darkness.
The cries of women and children kept echoing in my head, with shrieks and lament tearing my thoughts.
After hours, the silence had fallen on the village covered with ashes.
The wagon of a traveler who had come to our village for some businesses came unwillingly to my aid. It wouldn't be comfortable, but I didn't care...
After all, even if it almost pierced my nostrils with its pungent smell, that damp dirt of poorly cared wood was the only thing I could call home.
It was a precarious place but certainly safer than those four pieces of wood and stone trapped in the Scourge's grip.

"I am tired..."

This was the only thing echoing in my head while the dry tears pulled the bottom of my eyes, weighing the weight of the eyelids.
I had to stay conscious and alert, but my body wasn't in the condition to respond to my commands. My shoulders were crunching, and my legs were still struggling to wake up after the long run from those monsters.
To avoid being noticed, I sneaked into a trunk containing some kind of crap...
It was greasy and sticky, and something seemed to move and complain inside it.
I decided to believe that those feelings were just my fantasies, and after a couple of hours, what was alive underneath me stopped complaining and gave my brain rest.
The man occasionally babbled something in a language I couldn't understand. He seemed alarmed, confused...
Probably, he wasn't used to what destroyed my village and my life.
The man decided to play a melody to clear his mind and find peace. I closed my eyes and followed his feelings.

The next day the slimy stench of the wood and the contents was still there and stronger, but from a peephole in the wood, I saw something fresher and more welcoming: a large prairie that seemed to have forgotten what was next and close.
Making some calculations, I assumed that we could be almost at the entrance of the wild lands in search of a safe road to the capital.
I kept remaining silent to rely on the lack of wisdom of the coachman who, as hoped, reached the gates of a city.
Time to hear the wagon stop for the double, and I had already disappeared in the shadows of the crowd.
With the little money I had in my pocket, I paid for a bed at a cheap inn and a hot bath, but as much as I scraped off the mud that the man called food, I couldn't shake the acrid, iron smell of ashes mixed with blood encrusted on my arms, my feet, my face.
I tore it, scraped it, and removed it from my face, but I couldn't do the same for my soul.
My sleep couldn't find peace, so I was lying on that second-hand bed, staring with eyes wide open at the ceiling, while I wondered why, of all my brothers, the spirits decided to save me.

At that moment, a shouting disturbed my rest on that tormented night, and I heard the squeaking of some brat beyond the door.
Ready to tear their faces off, I approached the door, and I heard them babbling about a group of adventurers who had managed to fight and defeat a big fish in the ranks of the Scourge.
After my first pilgrimage through the streets of the capital, one thing was certain: I could no longer afford certain freedoms.
A small village was an easy place to hide and survive, but not in my condition...
I was an exile from death, a survivor among survivors...
And as such, I had the world to steal from and the same world to watch my back from.
That's why I needed a shadow...
An excuse to hunt, steal, and feed my insatiable hunger, with the protection of those adventurers, and who knows, even their compassion...
Every hero is a good boy... and the good-hearted ones are the easiest to pluck...

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