Playing with Fire - Of loss and grief

Chapter Two: Anger

My doubts were consuming me, and so I decided to go where I thought it all started - where that seed of doubt was born. After I talked to my Master, I decided to go back to the ruins of Kirin'Var and think of what sow doubt in my mind. "Maybe the ghosts of the obliterated village can help me", I thought, with denial still stirring in the depths of my head.

The Tempest Keep, our base of operations, was located at Netherstorm, a damned and desolated piece of land - or pieces of land, should I say. There is nowhere safe at Outlands now, where the very own land seems to want to devour you - but Netherstorm is unique. It is the picture of instability and chaos. I heard it was once a fertile green field, but then the Shattering literally tore the place and the pieces of the land still float loosely in the Twisting Nether. The ground has the violaceous hue of brute magic and the arcane storm raging above it all never ceases. Thorn, destroyed, chaotic. Everything there was unstable, collapsing, devouring itself. The most bizarre creatures made up of brute mana wander aimlessly, while some big chunks of rock float by the edge of the land, still infused with arcane power - and everytime I return to this place, it seems worse. It was as ironic as it was tragic that our search for hope took us to such a hopeless place.

But there was life there too. Kirin'Var was once a small village that served as base to Kirin'Tor mages when the Alliance sent their forces to Draenor. The village suffered deeply when the Shattering occurred, but it survived. Clinging to the cliff, facing the Twisting Nether, it survived. I admire the survivors for such spirit, living in such a chaotic place and seeing the land crumbling around them, while the only thing they could do was to keep on living. They were brave.

But they didn't survive us.

With that silky voice that made me shiver, filled with so seductive hope and promises, Kael'thas told us they were a threat, and we didn't question him. How could we? He was our Prince, our hope, our light. We were such idiots.

And so we fell upon the village with everything we had: a group of Kael'thas' most talented magi against a bunch of Kirin'Tor magi already struggling for survival in such a harsh land. They could barely react to our attack as we marched on them and destroyed a place they'd gotten used to calling home, burning houses to the ground. They could barely react when their children and elderly succumbed to us, writhing in pain from curses and screaming in agony. They could barely react because it was so fast, and we were too strong.

When the attack occurred, my blood pounding at my ears muffled the voices in my head trying to grab my attention, and for a moment, all I knew was the thrill.

It is when chaos falls upon a battle, and it always does, that I truly feel alive. I've heard that we don't live fully our lives because we rarely are - really are - in the present. We spend too much time thinking of the past or future. But in a battle, you're always living the present moment. There's where I feel I belong, I know there's where I'm supposed to be.

The elves invaded the city in a wave of crimson and gold, a tsunami of fire and death, filling the main streets and spreading through the smallest alleys. I remember going through an alley to catch the people trying to escape using the back doors, and a small group of elves followed along. My first victim was a man getting out of his house with a cleaver he barely had time to swing - the moment I saw him, I eagerly cast upon him a spell that enveloped his head in a glorious halo of flames and torment. I always found the patterns the dancing fire created while consuming flesh beautiful, hypnotizing and I could just stand there and watch. But through pain and agony, he screamed and insisted on trying to swing his cleaver at us, blindly, running to us with his head on fire; at least until I threw a fireball that made him fly a couple of yards before hitting the ground, motionless. I paid no mind to the farmer with a fork running to me, with the weakest imitation of a battlecry upon his lips - Neph quickly saw to him, putting him to the ground, writhing in pain from his casted curses while I took care of a swordsman trying to get him from behind. We had such a synchrony that is hard to achieve; it takes time to master it, but it seemed like a dance. We danced the dance of the doom-bringers by the song of the despaired, the screams of the defeated, while they pirouetted through the ballet of corpses-to-be, spinning around in pain while the flames insisted on being their partners. Neph was my partner, and he took care of me, allowing no harm to descend upon me - and I did the same to him.