Rewound: a collection of OC backstories

Breakfast, Interrupted

Liaraedra Heartbinder (World of Warcraft)
I remember it like it was yesterday. I lost my sense of time when the Wardens came to call. Maybe it was yesterday. No. It couldn't have been. The Burning Legion wasn't defeated in a day. Ha. I didn't become a monster in a day.

Closing my eyes helps bring me back. Why, I don't know. Eyelids don't function in that way for me anymore. Perhaps it's the feeling of it. The illusion of doing something mundane. Something ordinary. I miss being ordinary.

I was sitting in my favorite spot, in the window of our happy little cottage. The sunlight fell gently on my face, and I held a steaming cup of tea in my hands. My older brother Alenmir and his husband Lorillan were in the kitchen making breakfast, and their soft laughs, dripping with love, rang through the room.

Love. Even on the coldest nights, it warmed our home.

And in she waltzed. Her movements were always so graceful. Every step a dance, every word a poem. She was fresh out of bed, her hair a tangled mess, her eyes bleary, a sleepy smile playing across her perfect lips. Every time I saw her, my heart would skip a beat. Every time I think of her, it still does.

Cora. My heart, my soul. Everything I've ever fought for. My sun, my moon, my stars. She was going to be my wife. Why did I ever leave?

Because I had to keep her safe.

She sat herself down in my lap and kissed me without a word and I could barely contain my giddy laughter. I had never known the kind of pain I do today. My world was one of healing others and rarely needing healed myself.

My world was flipped upside down that day.

And that's where it gets fuzzy. Everything was quiet, at first, and then, in the distance, screams. I remember my ears perking at the sound. Alenmir at my side as I rushed out the door. Both children of the Light just as much as we were children of our parents. Lorillan and Cora were close behind.

We saw the destruction coming. The peace of the Eversong Woods was suddenly replaced by chaos. I remember running. Not away, but toward. Murmuring every prayer that would come to me under my breath. Light, give me strength. Help me deliver these people to safety.

My prayers were not answered that day.

Kneeling beside a woman, unconscious but still breathing still alive. It was all I could do to keep from sobbing at the sight of her. These monsters marching on our home had left her with little hope of survival. Even if I managed it, she would never be the same. My brother crouched nearby, desperately trying to save the life of a child.

Our companions weren't far away, back to back, wielding makeshift weapons, fighting off the monsters to the best of their ability. One lunged at Cora and a scream ripped from my throat. It tore into her arm and I saw her set her jaw. She dug the blade of the sickle she held into the chest of the creature and shoved it off of herself.

She smiled at me and I let out a breath. And then the in breath caught in my throat as one of the creatures lunged at Lorillan. He'd been distracted by the attack on Cora and now...

Alenmir leapt to his feet, yelling words my brain refused to comprehend. I was vaguely aware of Cora stumbling back, losing her footing. The sickle in her hand skittered a few feet away.

The moment felt like it dragged on forever. Watching my brother-in-law ripped apart by this monstrosity. My fiancée bleeding on the ground. My brother screaming, crying, helplessly trying to pull this thing off of his husband. The monster, bored with the remnants of its first kill, grabbing Alenmir.

Sobbing the prayer, lifting shaking hands, the Golden burst of light striking down the nearby monstrosities.

Scrambling toward my brother. Taking him up in my arms. His weak smile. "Get you and Cora out of here," he said to me. "Run and don't look back. There's nothing more you can do here."

I shook my head. No. No, I wouldn't go. I wouldn't leave him. He'd never leave me.

Cora's hands pulling me up. She knew it too. But I wouldn't accept it. Couldn't accept it.

"I love you, Rae," Alenmir said, and then he started to mumble a prayer, channeling the rest of his strength into protecting us. And then he was gone.

And then I remember running. Running until we reached Silvermoon City. Until Cora could barely stand from the blood loss and I could barely stand from the sheer exhaustion of channeling as much of the Light as I possibly could through myself.

I don't remember the days following.

Except for the walk I made through the Eversong Woods, surveying the aftermath. The fresh scar through the beautiful wilds I'd always called home. The Scourge still crawled the length of it, waiting for the chance to draw more elf blood.

In every settlement, there were corpses. Far more than there were survivors. I stopped to pray in each town. To pray for we, the sons and daughters of Quel'Thalas. Why did the Light abandon us this day?

Why?

The question grew louder in my head. Why? Why? Why?

Why?

It became almost overbearing when I came across a sight more painful than perhaps any of the others.

Half a cottage remaining at the edge of the Scar, remarkably pristine despite its other half's destruction. A pretty little seat in the window, a half empty cup of tea sat neatly nearby, and behind it, on the kitchen counter, a mess of flour and a bowl of half-made pancake batter.