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| Details |
| Author: | Alli |
| Summary: | Dara takes a few minutes before dawn for memory and imagination, as she faces the task ahead. ~700 words. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
Chain: Light Guide Us
In other parts of the world, spring is slowly turning its head toward summer, the days growing longer and the flowers blooming. In other parts of the world, people may be rising early, ready to spend a day talking and dancing and laughing, with home and warm beds at the end of it all. Here, in the frozen wasteland known as Icecrown, the rest of the world is only a memory. The morning sky is growing lighter, though the sun has not yet crept over the horizon, when Dara steps out of the inn at Justice Keep and into the cold, clear air.
From here, on this small plateau controlled by the Argent Crusade, she has a clear view of the dead and ravaged lands below. She shivers, maybe more at the silence of the snowy boneyards before her than at the chill breeze. Still, she carries a small stool from inside the common room, and she sets it where she might see the dawn.
She seats herself, raising her hands as if to hold an imaginary harp. She was a different woman, when last she actually played. Her soft hands are chapped now, roughened from travel and toil. Her hair, too, is not the long cascade it once was, before it was incinerated by Deathwing. She wears a symbol of the Light as a pendant on her chest, and robes of the order instead of her old gowns. Setting her hands to invisible strings, she wonders if that woman who lived three years ago would recognize her now.
As she moves her hands, she can hear in her mind the first notes of Renie’s Legend, one of her favorites. Her smile is a touch wry as she considers how imperfect the reality might be, after being out of practice for so long. It doesn’t matter, it can be perfect in her mind.
Dara closes her eyes, letting her hands move in familiar, practiced gestures, as her mind fills in the music and everything else. The shimmering light of a ballroom, the sound of many conversations, just at the edge of understanding. Warmth, and the sound of laughter.
She can see herself there, clad in jewelry and the kind of dress she used to wear, perfectly proper but designed to entice. The games she used to play. Every little smile or gesture that asked do you want me? and offered only a mirage of success. It had been fun, in its way, though there was panic at the heart of it. A woman discarded, growing older, and what else was there besides this?
The way she played those games could hurt people. She saw that now – both herself and others. Hearts and words. She’d gotten close, a few times, to making dangerous mistakes, when the two were aligned. Always, she’d managed to shut things down in time. And then one time she didn’t. It was sheer luck that she hadn’t been ruined, that she could ride out the rumors and pretend nothing had ever happened. Well, luck and Milady Moth, ruining that horrible man. And Sophiette, at her side. Fiance, then friend, and then…
Dara moves into the next part of the song, keeping her eyes closed. The song is based on a poem, and the poem is about chasing a loved one, who in the end is a ghost. As their path has led them here, chasing after Sophiette’s father, Luc Valonforth. She and Sophiette had shared so many stories along the way. The Nightmare – the first time they’d kissed. Wisteria in her shackles, in the Scarlet Lands. Mr. Shine, dealing invisible death to orcs distracted by odd disguises. During the long caravan ride across the Plaguelands – dragonfire, and reaching to touch the death knight Mercy's soul. Restoring dead lands, at Tyr’s Hand and Stratholme, along with Sir Atley and so many others.
And now, this journey is almost at an end. Ruuna has directed them here. The citadel, where once a Lich King ruled over a kingdom of death. It is still dangerous now, certainly, but less so. They do not need an army – simply a few friends.
Dara strikes the final notes and opens her eyes. The sky above this dead land is awash in golden light. She smiles.
“Even here,” she whispers, as she rises to go. “The Light guides us.”