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| Details |
| Author: | Alli |
| Summary: | Nesselos comes to the Exodar to check up on his cousin Erixa, and the two discuss where their paths might lead from here. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
With all the disasters occurring across Azeroth in recent days, stepping off the boat onto the small dock at Azuremyst Isle feels almost like stepping back in time. Nothing has happened here, the earth is unsplit and no dragons soar in the air. Still, despite the calm, Nesselos can sense the anger in the earth beneath the isle, just as he felt the sullenness in the water lapping against the edges of the small craft that carried him from Teldrassil.
It worries him. For the past few weeks, Ness has been trying to keep up good cheer for Therald and the others at the Heartwood Trading Post. Now that he is alone for the moment, he can admit to himself that recently it has been more of an act than usual.
Ness passes into the humming, well-lit entrance corridor of the Exodar, a place that still feels more like an alien environment to him than a home. The open fields and skies of Draenor have always spoken more to Ness’s heart, but they’re crumbling now. He had hoped that his heart would not crumble with them, but would instead find an anchor here in their new home of Azeroth. And it has, but now… he’d tried to downplay it at first, when the elements began to turn away from him. Perhaps he had simply been frightened that the world was rejecting him. It was almost a relief when he heard so many other shamans had the same experiences. Except, of course, that it meant the problem was with the world, which made it much more difficult to solve.
That is part of why he’s come back south from Northrend - to consult with other shamans. The other reason is… a woman who likely feels at home in this noisy, glowing, enclosed space. That woman is his elder cousin Erixa, who has not left the island since the rescue from her imprisonment in Ulduar.
He hesitates in front of her door, and then knocks. There’s a sense of movement behind the pink crystal, and then it slides open to reveal Erixa herself. She seems smaller than Ness remembers. Maybe thinner. Or maybe it is simply the lack of her usual armor, replaced by a loose pink skirt and the tiny shirt that appears to be a scarf tied around her torso. Or maybe it is that her hair is down. Or maybe it is the dark circles under her luminous eyes.
“Cousin,” Nesselos says, smiling hopefully. He holds his breath until her face softens into a smile. “Have you been well?”
“Well enough,” Erixa says, gesturing him inside with a jerk of her head that jostles her neck tentacles. “Come on in. I expect you’re not staying long.”
“I’ve come to see you,” Nesselos says earnestly, moving into her small apartment. Everything here is so tidy that it looks almost unlived in. Ness glances at the perfectly made bed, and Erixa’s shadowed eyes, and wonders if she’s been sleeping at all. “It was… a difficult thing, what you experienced in Ulduar. I want to be here for you, if you need someone.”
“But I’m not the only worry on your mind,” Erixa says, still smiling faintly as she moves to take a seat on a stool by a small table in metal and crystal. Her posture is perfect. “I know you, Ness, you worry about everyone.”
“You are a part of everyone,” Ness says, sitting awkwardly across from her. The stool is a little bit small for him, but he can manage. “A big part of everyone, because you’re family and I love you.”
At that, Erixa tenses, which is an absurd reaction to such a statement, but then Ness has pretty much given up on predicting Erixa’s reactions.
“You love the idea of me,” Erixa says finally. “A cousin dedicated to the Light. A vindicator, fighting to defend her people. I bet you love that.”
“Is that… your idea of you?” Ness asks, uncertain. “That does sound like the Erixa I’ve always known.”
“Well, then, I’m an excellent liar,” Erixa says, and her smile turns a little brittle. “That’s a thing I’ve been coming to terms with, in the time since Ulduar. I believed I was led by the Light, even when I did not agree with the naaru. And I have always thought I am meant to protect people, at the cost of my own life if necessary. And yet, I fail at every turn. What does that make me?”
“Fallible?” Nesselos blinks at her. “No one is perfect. You know this. You cannot be a perfect vindicator.”
Erixa shakes her head. “I’m beginning to think I’m not any kind of vindicator at all. I tried to keep faith after Draenor, but then this. You saw the end of it Ness, but I survived that place. Eight days, and they barely let us rest. They made us fight animals sometimes, or fight each other. Just… for entertainment.” Erixa meets his gaze. “I killed people to stay alive. Innocent people, as trapped as I was. I tried not to, I tried to heal when I could, and to bring people back. But I have never been a good healer. Do you love this Erixa, too?”
Ness looks at her, his eyes wide. Is this what has been hurting her, in the weeks since? What a thing to carry inside one’s heart… he sees her gaze dull as she sees what she thinks is his answer, and she starts to rise from her seat, turning away.
He moves faster than she does, for once, and he envelopes her in a hug. Water may not answer him today, but he pulls on the gift of Light that rests inside him, sending the small warmth of it from his heart to hers. For a moment she tries to pull away, but then she returns the embrace with a fierceness of her own. He feels the catch in her breath that usually indicates tears, but he doesn’t point it out. He knows Erixa doesn’t like showing weakness.
“Yes, cousin,” he says, holding her. “I love the heart in you that always wants to help, even when it fails. You would not hurt so much if that heart were not true.”
“It’s stupid,” Erixa mumbles against his shoulder, and then she pulls away, rubbing tears from her eyes. “After everything, after all the worlds, after Shattrath and Zangarmarsh, for something like this to break me, I just… I feel like I can’t see myself anymore, Ness.”
Ness lets her pull away, but stands watching her. “I see you. I don’t see someone broken, I see someone hurting. I cannot call on water to heal this hurt, but I think it will heal.”
Erixa sniffs, and her tentacles tremble faintly with the motion. “Thank you. I never thought little Ness would be the one comforting me. I just… don’t see where I fit. How I might help. And without that, without a purpose, what am I? What are you, anyway?”
“I’m a shaman,” Ness says immediately, with more certainty than he feels. A shaman whose elements refuse to answer him more often than not, these days. “That is one of the other reasons I am here. There has been a cataclysm, and it is my duty to help. I am going to be working with the ‘Earthen Ring’. Nunuzac has invited me - many draenei are helping.”
“That doesn’t sound draenic,” Erixa says, frowning at the Common name, ‘Earthen Ring’.
“No, no, it’s like I always wanted, all shamans working together. Not just draenei but taurens and or…” Ness cuts himself off hastily, amending to “…and other people. Some are headed to what may be the source of all this, and others, we will work to calm the land, heal where we can.”
Erixa raises an eyebrow, but at least she’s trying to smile again. “Taurens and other people, is it? You have always been more forgiving than I am. Just make sure you don’t turn your back or you’ll find a knife in it.”
“It’s okay if I do,” Ness smiles. “Shamans can heal.”
That actually prompts a brief laugh from her, which is definitely a good sign. “Even so, don’t count on it.” She falls silent again, and then speaks. “Then what am I? I thought protecting others was my strength, but maybe I am wrong.” She reaches one hand to twist a tentacle between two fingers as she thinks. “Maybe my strength is the weight I can bear.”
Ness frowns, trying to parse this one. “What do you mean?”
“Sometimes, the vindicators have asked me to do things that cut the soul deeply,” Erixa says, her bright eyes dulling with memory. “Things I must do to protect the future of our people, even if they go against everything I feel. For a long time, I thought I should have died in Shattrath, rather than the people we left behind. They knew their sacrifice, but I should not have let others pay such a price. Then in Zangarmarsh, I should have sickened, lost the Light and my self, in penance for driving out the Broken. But I did not die. I did not sicken. I am still here, and maybe it is because I can carry such darkness.”
Ness does not turn away from her, but he does watch with some concern. “Sometimes one must make a decision, when there are no good choices. You did the best you could for our people, with what you knew at the time. Maybe you must learn to forgive yourself, as well as others.”
Erixa sits back on the stool, and shakes her head. “And we return to forgiveness. I’ve never been as good at forgiveness as you, Ness. It feels like cheating, to forgive myself, with those I have wronged in no position to offer me such a thing. Besides, that is long past. There is also Ulduar.”
“In that place, I was… toyed with,” Erixa tilts her head. “We all were. There was a creature in the heart of that place, a creature of darkness. It looked like Sif for Thorim. It captured his mind, and it tried to creep into our thoughts. It kept us from working together, tried to make us follow its will. I saw people lost to it. I could hear the whispers, the same as the others, but I could always tell they were from outside. They never mastered me. I don’t know if it was because I am draenei, or it was the Light, or it was just me being me… but I did not succumb.”
“And I am glad of it,” Ness still looks at her in uncertainty.
“As am I,” Erixa says, her gaze distant in thought. “But that is a thing I can do. Sacrifice. Endure in dark places. I cannot calm the elements as you do. But we need to know more about what is happening, and there are people who claim to know. They are on all the street corners of Stormwind, with their little doom pamphlets.”
“The cultists?” Ness asks, a little worried. “I do not think they will answer questions, not honestly. They want to spread doom, not how to avoid doom.”
Erixa gives a faint hum of agreement, but then says, “I think I begin to see my path. I have been prepared - the pain of letting others risk and sacrifice where I do not, learning about espionage with Ace, denying the whispers from the dark places of Ulduar.” Her eyes snap back to Nesselos, and she smiles reassuringly. “I will confer with O’ros before I do anything dangerous, do not worry. But maybe… maybe I am still led by the Light, through the darkness.”
“I think you are always led by the Light, cousin, even when you cannot see it,” Ness says, reaching forward to pat Erixa on the shoulder in comfort. She sways a little with the force of the pat. “I hope you will find your path, and that you will travel it safely.”