A Wandering Spirit

[Danyxandra]

My ghost wanders, not knowing what to do, where to go. I follow my body as Clys carries it to her lab. I had wanted to get into her lab, but not this way. Funny that...I had spent all day convincing my sister that I was softening to her side in order to get a peak into that lab. Perhaps this death is karmic for lying to my sister, for trying to seduce her in ways she would respond to in order to gain her trust. Was I wicked in using my sister to get into Clys' lab? Is this my pennance?

I leave Clys' lab and I explore. I find an Orgrimaar paper. It blames the slaughter on Scorge Slayers. I fly as a wisp quickly, unhampered by water or geography with intent to find the Slayers. I find a Stormwind newspaper first. It has news of the bloody wedding. This one blames Sanctuary.

I was there. My sister was there. We know it was the groom that killed Kittsu. I know who killed me first, and then after Pylith raised me, it was the groom that killed me the seond time, putting me in this final death.

Whoever really is responsible, do they think people so stupid as to believe propoganda, articles that had to have been written before the deed in order to get to press so quickly? Are they so cocky they do not think witnesses can survive that can speak out? I saw my guild mistress alive. I know she had to have survived. She too is a witness...and Nouri..did Nouri live?

Kittsu has survived. I am thankful for that. I thought her dead. She can be my witness. She will tell the truth of what happened. She can avenge my death.

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[Teelia]

Teelia crept through the plains of Mulgore. She had been worried after the events of the night before, after the horde had acted most cruel to her allies. Danlyra had not returned. Teelia feared her dead. Upon reaching the spot where she had seen Danlyra fall, Teelia found only dried blood...No body.

Teelia's first thought was that perhaps the body had been carried away by animals, and this sickened her. Then she noticed a set of tracks leading away from the spot. Tracks that belonged to Clys.

"Good," Teelia thought, "Clys took the body. No wonder I didn't see her after the wedding turned into a bloodbath."

Teelia tried to follow the tracks, but after only a few feet they disappeared entirely. Perhaps Clys had hearthed back with the body.

Teelia sat there and wept. This entire thing had been orchestrated by evil people. This was not fair. The Scourge Slayers were not enemies of the Horde...They were enemies of The Scourge. This complicated things greatly.

Teelia mounted on her ram and began to ride back through the plains. Only a few weeks ago, she and Clys had fought in Duskwood...Now, it seemed Clys was her ally. War makes strange bedfellows. Time to contact Clys and see what needed to be done.

[clys]

"She isn't responding," said Clys as she, Danlily, and Kittsu stood next to a large vat, looking down at the body of Danlyra. The body appeared flawless, floating gently in a bubbling liquid. "Her wounds are fully healed, her heart beats, but her spirit...her spirit is either unable or unwilling to return."

Kittsu frowned, pushing out her lips in an odd pout.

"But...we can't lose 'Lyra. She was just coming around!" said Kittsu.

"No, we can't lose her. That is why I'm going to go after her," said Clys.

"Go after her? What do you mean, Mistress?" asked Danlily, looking slightly worried.

Clys smiled dimly and replied, "You know I've been practicing leaving this body for short periods of time, in preparation for my shift when the new body is done. I'm not really ready for it, but I'm still the only one who CAN go after her. You two will have to stay and make sure our bodies are kept safe here, while my spirit leaves and tries to find hers. I'll have to convince her to come back if she's unwilling, or help her if she's unable."

"Ok," said Kittsu and Danlily in near unison, nodding their heads.

Clys prepared another vat for herself.

"It will be more effective if I go out from a fully living body. I'm going to restore my flesh before I depart. It's important that nothing disturb either of us while I'm gone."

"We'll make sure of that," replied Danlily, putting her hand on Kittsu's shoulder.

They watched as Clys drank the restoration potion. The transformation was nearly instantaneous from their point of view. Clys' body refomed itself before their eyes, becoming a fully fleshed one. She smiled at them, looking through real eyes once again, and when she spoke her voice was soft and warm. She removed her clothing and got into the vat.

"See you in a bit," she said, and closed her eyes.

Kittsu and Danlily did not see her spirit leave. They only saw Clys' breathing slow until it was nearly imperceptible.

"She'll be ok, right?" asked Kittsu.

"She always is," replied Danlily, carefully keeping her fears to herself.

"What happens if her flesh restoration wears off before she comes back? It doesn't usually last more than a few minutes," asked Kittsu.

"I dunno. I'm sure she knows what she's doing, though. Maybe it doesn't matter when she comes back, only when she leaves from it," said Danlily. "Anyway, our part is just to stay and tend the bodies."

"Yeah. We can do that," said Kittsu.

The two of them stood side by side, looking down into the flawless face of their Mistress as she lay peacefully in the bubbling vat.

[Danyxandra]

Danlyra tried getting back into her body. She threw herself against it over and over. She was angry. Angry at whoever was behind this incident, angry that she was not whole, angry at so many things that anger was all she could see. She bounced again against her body but it was like a bug beating against glass.

She'd spent her life angry at the horde for killing her parents. She was angry at Kittsu for leaving her and taking up with Danlily and then Clys. She was mad at Kittsu for forgetting she is Kal'dorei and yet living with Sin'dorei. Danlyra had found ways during her life to get into Silvermoon and learned everything she could about plots and plans among the Lords. She'd spied on the Nex'Cruor Triumvirate. She'd helped "save" one of their half-elf sisters by smuggling her out of Silvermoon and into Alliance territory.


Danlyra had spied in Barrens and Mulgore, Thousand Needles. When bored she spied on allies for fun. One never knew what kind of information might be valuable to another. She became an Information Broker. It paid well. It also was eye-opening. She found as much deceit in Stormwind as she'd found in Silvermoon and Crosswinds. Darnassus, Menethil, even her home town of Astranaar, they were all full of secrets. Full of lies. She'd made a living off of it.

Angry. Her whole life. She tried to find happiness, thought she'd found it with Ayrn. She was engaged to him...when she was alive. But could she really be happy if she wasn't happy inside, when she was always full of quiet rage?

Who had dared do this to her? Her wisp bounced angrily. She'd danced her wisp over newspapers, found the propoganda and lies. But in it she found something else, a truth. There was truth between the lines. There were innocents. There were as many innocents as there were sinners. Scourge Slayers were innocent in this. Sanctuary's people were innocent in this. Sanctuary were horde...and they were innocent. Danlyra thought of how a finger was being pointed at an orc named Vilmah. Danlyra knew it was a lie. Vilmah never raised her mace against her. She became curious how many more innocents among the horde there were. She left her body and Clys' lab and went searching.

She found herself in Orgrimmar. She found children playing, women washing laundry, men fishing. Women tended orphans here the same as in Stormwind. People banked, they did business, they lived. They loved. Most of the city were plain people living normal lives. These were people that had lived in prison camps guarded by humans. Were these plain orc folk so different from the plain dwarven folk? Did these orc not have the same rights to cutting out an existence in this world for themselves? Try as she might, Danlyra could find no more evil among the common folk of Orgrimmar than she could in Stormwind.

She looked up at Orgrimmar's wyvern tower, saw the zepplin passing overhead. Well if she was going to find evil, the most evil place she could think of was Undercity, wasn't it?

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She bounced her wispy spirit to the zepplin and took a ride. The wrong zepplin. She ended up in Grom'gul. She took another zepplin and made it to Undercity. Her wisp shivered a bit before the gates. This is one place she never had tried to sneak into. But what could they do to her? Kill her? She'd have laughed if she had voice.

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She entered the city and explored it all. The apothocaries chased her wisp away as though she was a fly that might spoil their ointments. It didn't look so bad. They were simply doing research. Some of the creatures, their guards, were just horrid looking things, but were we alliance any more pleasant in their eyes? Danlyra pondered, had she not been just as guilty as everyone else judging. Were the alliance always so right, or merely falsely righteous? Here were people that did not ask to become undead. They were pawns of the Scourge. They had fought for their freedom against the Scourge.

Danlyra floated along the canals of Undercity, surprised that though she could walk on water everywhere else, her wispy spirit sunk in the green sludge. City of Undead. The anger was lifting from her spirit. Undead Clys. Her closed mind was opening. Had Clys been this angry when she found herself no longer alive but in the decayed shell she walks in now? Is this why she fought so hard to find immortality? Was Clys any more evil than any of the others that she'd spied on? Most of those she spied on were doing evil things for self serving reasons. Selfish people, people exploiting others. Suddenly Danlyra could understand that her anger was not too unlike Clys. To be dead, to have lost the life they had and wake up in a rotted shell, to look forward to losing life again some day, to have lost the lives of loves. Clys was angry at death. Danlyra was angry at death, and she was angry at politicians and warmongers whose manipulations were responsible for killing her along with hundreds and hundreds of the innocents, the common folk.

She found herself before an angel at the graveyard of Undercity. No longer angry, Danlyra looked into the face of the angel, and in that face she saw a tear.

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[clys]

Clys' spirit rose from her body, and she stopped for a moment to look down at herself. Danlily and Kittsu stood over her, and she smiled inwardly. Her girls, her precious girls. And there was another precious one out there, lost, alone, who needed to be found and brought home. She rose and slipped through the walls, and out into the still darkness of the ether.


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Clys carefully focused her mental energy, visualizing Danlyra as she had last seen her. Clys' spirit spun for a few moments, like a compass seeking north, and then sped off in the direction of the UnderCity.

Passing swiftly over the lands, unimpeded by barriers or winds, Clys homed in on the familiar emanations of Danlyra's essence. At last, she came to the graveyard, where the Spirit Angel kept her eternal watch. Danlyra was there, resting quietly, unafraid.

Clys smiled, if a wisp can smile, at the Angel, who nodded her head and motioned with her hand toward Danlyra. In her mind, Clys heard the words.

"This one I cannot bring back. Her door has been locked. You must help her unlock the door."

Clys put a spirtual arm around Danlyra and spoke, mind to mind, heart to heart, spirit to spirit.

"Come, precious one. It is time to come home."

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[Fallacy]

((Wow, that's almost exactly how Fallacy feels about being undead.))

[Danyxandra]

((Yay! I was hoping it was something someone's character could relate to.))

[Tillna]

((Damn goo dpicture taking too...I really like youse guys writing

[clys]

((thanks :) Those are photoshopped images, created to illustrate this story))

[clys]

Danlrya looked at Clys, Clys could feel her gaze, as if in a dream when you know someone is looking at you, but you can't see their eyes. A question formed, soundless, but clear.

"Why should I return? Return to a life of useless striving, surrounded by politicians and warmongers, pain and death? Why?"

Clys gave a spiritual nod, and drew Danlyra closer in a spiritual hug.

"Let me show you something," Clys said.

Images began to form around them, solid and real-seeming. The child Clys was playing in a large garden, hide and seek, which she was very good at. No one ever found her. When the call came, "All-y All-y In Free!" she came out of her hiding spot.

"You cheated! You always cheat!" said a much larger elf, pointing an accusing finger at Clys.

"I was right there!" replied Clys.

"Liar," said the larger elf, and suddenly he punched her in the stomach. She fell to the ground, unable to catch her breath, tears streaming from her eyes.

The images reformed. Clys as a young woman, coming into her father's bedroom. Her father turned, surprised, and Clys caught a glimpse of the woman he was with. It was not her mother. It was Clys' best friend.

Again the images formed, this time a shrouded Clys stalked quietly behind a large building. Suddenly there was a loud explosion, and the building collapsed upon her, imprisoning her in a fiery furnace. Her eyes and flesh burned away as she screamed in agony.

With each set of images, the color of Clys' wisp changed, growing more and more angry looking. What began as a cool blue presence, soon turned into an angry red ball of wrath.

Danlyra put a spectral arm around Clys, and they touched hearts for a moment, each drawing on the other's strength, each feeling the other's pain.

"You know why I don't give up?" asked Clys, softly?

"No, I really don't," said Danlyra.

"Because that is the only thing I truly control -- my response to the situations that life throws at me. If I give up, I lose, lose completely, with no hope, no future, nothing. My life isn't going to amount to a big fat zero. I won't let it."

Danlyra chuckled, her wisp pulsing merrily.

"You're not what I thought you were," she said.

"You thought I was a bitch?" asked Clys. "Well, you were almost right."

"Almost?" asked Danlyra.

Clys nodded. "I'm not a bitch. I'm THE bitch. And don't you forget it, or I'll spank your bottom so red they'll see the glow in Stormwind."

Danlrya laughed, a tinkling and sparkling sound, and threw her ghostly arms around Clys.

"I won't forget. But, can you teach me? Teach me to turn the anger into action? Teach me to make my life...count?"

"You betcha. There's a big empty spot that's just been waiting for you to come fill it. Are you ready to come home?"

"I'm ready," said Danlyra.

Together they flew, back to the lab, and everywhere they passed people looked up from what they were doing and said to each other,

"Did you just see a really bright light? And was that music? It sounded like music!"