Ryleen made her way over the old graveyard towards the abandoned church. It was dark, but her fire servant spread enough light to keep her from stumbling. It felt strange to meet this close to human lands, but she wasn't worried. Had she been, she wouldn't have come alone. She was curious, however. The letter she recieved from Seidra claimed he had a way to end the conflict with the House, and in exchange all he asked was to meet Desdimone. It sounded far too good to be true.
She entered the ancient building and greeted the elf. When she learned that he was in conflict with the House himself, she understood more of why he would be interested in helping them. Then he handed her the manabomb, and proudly explained that a fully charged one could be capable of obliterating all of Undercity, but that these ones were limited, probably not stronger than destroying a building or two. So that was his "solution" to the conflict, to kill them all. She tried to explain to him that he had misunderstood their goals in this, that they had no wish of wiping out the entire House.
Perhaps that wasn't entirely true... She knew several of her people couldn't be happier than at the thought of killing every single member of the House. But she tried to look at the larger picture. Killing them all would bring nothing good to the Heritage, nothing but new wars with other enemies. No, defeating the House was better. And having them know it, remember it... That was what they would benefit the most from. She gave the bomb back to the elf.
Then she followed him to the coffin, where he showed her the dead girl and explained what it was he wanted from Desdimone, or the troll gods, should that be a possibility.
And she refused.
It wasn't that she didn't understand him. She knew little of his relationship with the girl, but his willingness to go to these lengths in order to try to bring her back said enough. She could understand that, understand his pain. But this wasn't the answer, wasn't an option.
She tried to explain to him, that the girl's spirit had moved on, that it deserved it's rest, that it shouldn't.. no,
couldn't, be brought back. But he refused to listen, and again asked to be allowed to meet with Desdimone. And again she turned him down. She told him that it seemed that they wouldn't be able to help eachother tonight, and that he could see Desdimone once she was no longer in the custody of the Heritage, and then she turned to leave.
She had crossed about half the room when she felt something hit her in the back. Her armour protected her from harm this time, but she could easily realise that it was a weapon he had thrown at her. Immediately, she felt angry. Almost without asking, the flames came to her, engulfing her hands as she spun around to counterattack.
They came so easily to her nowadays...
Always there, at the outskirts of her mind, begging to be called upon, tempting her to use their power to get rid of her problems.
It was such an easy solution. Just burn whatever annoys you to ashes, and then all will be fine.
Usually, she had the strength to reason herself out of that, to realise that it wasn't a solution at all. But not tonight. She had been forced to use her magic too much lately, each time it came to her faster and more easily, each time it was a little bit harder to hold back, to choose not to use it.
But she had no reason to hold back now. This was perfect. Before her wasn't just the elf anymore, but all her frustration and fears, everything that had been tearing her apart for the past few weeks. And this time, there was no one here to stop her.
Nor to save her.
She didn't think of that though. There was no fear, only anger. She fought the elf almost without thought, reacting instinctively and leaving herself in the capable hands of the magic surging through her body. She felt brief stings of pain and realised she had been cut by the daggers he threw. But it wouldn't kill her. Physical pain was temporary, half of these cuts would be healed by tomorrow.
Most of the fight was a blur of arcane flames. Then she was suddenly close to him, unlike before when she stayed at a safe distance. So close... She reached out her hands, wanting to feel him as she ended his life, as she burned the breath out of him.
And then he kicked her.
She stumbled backwards, her lungs suddenly void of air. She fell to one knee, and realised with painful clarity what a mistake she just had made.
Suddenly a memory of an evening almost a year before came to her.
Alone, bleeding and defenseless. The Barrens sun was setting and the ground under her was still warm, a sharp contrast to the foot long pikes of ice that literally pinned her to the ground. This time the enemy was not an armoured elf, but a forsaken. The stench of his undeath filled her nose, and all she could hear was his laughter. But she wouldn't let him defeat her! She was stronger than that. He didn't deserve that victory. Without knowing from where she got the strength, she summoned her flames and hit him right in the face, catching him off guard as he had considered her defenseless.And she had won that time, she had survived... And weeks later, she had caught up with the forsaken again, and finally seen him lie dead before her feet.
This was the same, in many ways.
She was alone, no one would step in and save her.
She was at a disadvantage, practically kneeling in front of Seidra.
And just like that time, she wouldn't let him win.
Ignoring the burning of her lungs as she struggled to draw breath again, she got to her feet and was ready to strike at him again.
But what she saw was him running away as fast as he could. For half a second, she was confused.
Then she saw the bombs by her feet.
She reacted instinctively, training kicking in to save her before she had the chance to even consider her options. The two feet thick ice surrounded her completely just in time before the bombs exploded. It was so cold that it felt like it burnt her skin rather than chilled.
She hated ice, both being near it and having to conjure it. But flames wouldn't have saved her here.
Her vision was distorted through the ice, but she could feel the block shaking, and the dark shapes of logs and roof tiles piling up above and around her. The ice cracked in several places from the impacts, but held strong enough to keep her safe.
Soon, she was trembling from the effort of upholding the ice block, it was more difficult than she remembered it. As soon as she could no longer hear the sound of falling debris, she let it go.
She was lucky. Two heavy beams had fallen over her, but were now supported by the surrounding rubble, prevented from falling down to crush her as the ice vanished. She started pushing at the smaller pieces and climbed out of the debris, ignoring that sharp shards and splinters scratched her skin to the point of bleeding.
She couldn't see very far when she got out, the amount of dust and dirt in the air was incredible, thicker than any fog. She considered hunting after the elf. She considered several creative ways of thanking him for collapsing a building over her... Most of them were violent, and very tempting.
But she felt that she was bleeding, and she couldn't know if he had run ahead to plant another trap. Instead she picked her Hearthstone from her bag and activated it, escaping to the relative safety of her home in Booty Bay.
Home 
Portal 
Calendar 
FAQ 
Search 
Memberlist 
Register 
Log in 
Subject: Ryleen of the Heritage of Zandalar assasinated? 
Wed Oct 07, 2009 1:19 am
