Fallen

[Rhowen-Prea]

(( Big post - sorry. Follows up Ael's most recent post. Written to a remix of Sarah McLachlan's "Fallen". Thanks for reading the whole thing, if you manage to slog through. Comments/criticisms alway welcome. ))

Rhowen stood in the room she - they - frequented in the Gilded Rose, sipping a thin pinot grigio. Her lips were pulled into a definite frown. She stared listlessly down at the rumpled covers of the bed, but her vision was far away. The sounds of a normal, busy Stormwind day were mute behind the tightly-shut door. The tall elf paid them no mind. The grey pools of her eyes rolled smoothly, color heavy, moving like smoke in a snifter. Long fingers held the glass loosely, and she bit at a nail of her other hand, before moving it to thumb the jagged edge of her ear. And all the while, that old mind worked. The thinking kept the pain at bay.

Oh, not that there weren't enough things to think about, and seriously. She thanked fortune itself that life was keeping her so busy. It was ample distraction from the things that pained her previously. She hurt. Not emotionally, not mentally, nay, but physically. Old wounds ached, old scars itched. Joints that were past their prime ground on each other every time she hefted the plate mail onto her thinning form. Her ribcage showed through pale, blue-grey flesh. She was lean, lithe, muscular as she should be, and completely without any sort of feminine grace. Rhowen sighed, an arm crossing her body to massage a shoulder, all while sipping the watery wine. Blasted mortals can't do anything right. The softness had melted from her body, the beauty of youth - and you never were a beauty to start with, girl - gone from her. No, this morning she was old, and this morning she was feeling it.

And here she was, spending her time watching out for a young, beautiful creature who was so blind as to be devoting his time and attentions to her. He could ease her pain, if he knew, if she let on. He was a creature of the healing craft, regardless of how he twisted it into the shadows. And she was perfectly aware that all she had to do was ask. He will not let you protect him - will not trust you to do it - if he knows you feel pain.

The next thought: what difference did it make? She found herself wondering when it was she decided to take the priest on, to devote herself to him, to give into such a commitment, once more. He was young, he was beautiful, and she had seen the way the equally young, equally beautiful had eyed him, and the looks he had given them back. You are just a battered old elf, a druidess who cannot hear, nor speak. The sharp bite of tears was startling.

She was smiling, short raven tresses pulled back off her face. She was young, and healthy, and fit. Her friends gathered around her, and they whispered words to the beasts and trees. Flowers opened under her breath, nightsabers pushed their heads up into her fingers with a pleased purr. Another of her number, a druidess Nemea. She'd only been learning in the Circle for a year at best. It was the first time she'd seen him. Nemea had been helping her cultivate a small patch of flora, when she'd stopped suddenly, staring at something behind Rhowen, over her shoulder. She turned to see what it was and saw a young druid. Dark blue tresses and the kindest smile she'd ever seen. It made Rhowen blush, looking at him. She spun back to Nemea with a girlish giggle.

"Who is that?"

"Mathrengyl Bearwalker. Isn't he beautiful? He's a few years ahead of us."

The room temperature was surprisingly cool against her flesh. The thin silken robe did little to keep it out, but the chill was a welcome feeling. After the heat of the night before... His madness had driven a blade of ice burning deep into her gut. He was panicked, desperate, wildly out of control. Babbling about Her. Always about Her. It made Rhowen want to spit. Had she been out on a road, she would have. Another sip on the pinot was taken to quiet a scowl. And people had the audacity to wonder why it was she seperated herself from her people. The same race that swore to protect peace and nature was the same race that was tearing it down and destroying it at all costs. It was maddening, and so, so frustrating.

Rhowen heaved a sigh and spun on the ball of her foot. Her clothing had been piled in a corner, and she assumed it was he who had done it for her. Of course, who else would it have been? The warrior turned back to the bed. The places where he had singed the sheets still showed brown and black against the cloth. His words, her responses, it all rang loud and violent in her head suddenly. Her heart fluttered in her chest like a bird on broken wing.

The heat of his lips against hers, his hands on her back, shoulders, how absolutely small she felt against him. The brush of his fingertips on her cheek. The way he eased her back onto the grass, in some dark corner of Teldrassil. She was young, and he was older but still young, and good, and gentle with her. She'd shook with fear of him, sheepish and naive. More, he'd become a friend... most, he'd become a lover.

Rhowen relaxed her grip on the step of the glass and it slid so that she held it near the rim. It was not brought to her lips. She only stared at the bed, mind lost in the maze it built to keep her mind off her age. The meeting with the Immortalis took prominance. She didn't expect it to be as exhilerating as it was - Clys had been little more than a legend in the words of Lovely, and a rogue she knew from a momental meeting in the Blasted Lands. And then to be in the same room as them, as Clys, the rumored Danlily, and that orc she recognized from Splintertree, the one she'd been after... Her nerves had been so taut it was a miracle she'd ever fallen asleep in the first place. His nightmares were not a complete surprise.

The affair with Mathrengyl had been short-lived. Her teachers inevitably found out and put a quick end to it. Little resentment was held against them, though; the teachers always knew what was best. The elders were to be respected and obeyed.

She was out doing field work in Ashenvale. He had been stalking the great Shadumbra. She had heard whispers of the strange creatures from the trees, from the birds, and from the Sentinels; strange Troll creatures coming from the sea to the east, but not very many, and not very intelligent, from the sound of them. They were not adapting to the environment, hostile as it was. She had heard of them but had not seen one. And there he was, ready to strike down the great beast as she slept.

Rhowen threw herself forward, shouting at the cat, and she watched him fall backwards, trying to back away, drawing a dagger, watching her with wild eyes. She wrapped her arms around the neck of the great 'saber, holding the feline back, but only staring at him with the utmost reprehension. Aye, these creatures were large and terrible, completely without respect.

But then he righted himself, eyes always on her, and after a spell, he bowed to her. She was speechless.

The cat purred under her careful ministrations, and the pair stared at each other in wonder for a time.

Admittedly, she felt his preoccupations, his worries, were misplaced. He boggled over their previous raid on the Undercity. She worried about their future treaty with the Immortalis. Lovely said they could be trusted to keep their word. And no one knew all the ways to keep your word while bending it as far as possible better than Rhowen Ryl'anthra who was now Rhowen Wildblade. Why did you think that now? What is a name but nothing more than a title, same as any other?

The meeting in Ambermill had happened without incident. Her muscles still held tension whenever the barest memory of it touched her. Regardless of Clys' wishes, and the temerity of them, Rhowen still curled at the thought of the experiments. The ground may not rise to meet her feet, the beasts would not heal beneath her touch, she might not hear the trees, but something deep, deep within her despised the reckless torture of life. Death was one thing. Killing was one thing. Torture was something completely different.

His hands, misshapen and strange, touched her gingerly, though no differently than she was sure hers touched him. Her tongue spoke the broken language of his own, and his smile, while different, was nothing less than beautiful. Four months had passed since that initial meeting, and in the cool air of Ashenvale night, her heart skipped for the danger and peace of it all.

Many months later, Mathrengyl would find out about it. He would frown at her, and sigh, and help her dodge the Sentinels. She would work with Kadian to try to find a way to reasonably tell their people about their relationship. She would learn to crave his touch when she was but a breath from it. And she was smiling.

This is love.

"This is love," she murmured, mouthing the words more than anything. Fingertips brushed lightly over the mountains and valleys of the bedcovers. She had lost love once, too young and stupid to notice, to care, to know how to protect it. And now she would lose it again, too old and tired to do anything about it, too weak to protect it and too prideful to admit that she could not. No, not prideful, you stupid thing, you love him too much to let him go. You -love- him, just like you swore you never would. And it is terrifying and too much, and now you will hurt again, eternally, as you have always hurt. But more. The whole thing was very masochistic, when she thought about it.

Masochistic, and final. And only the weak accept finality.

The gears in her head turned, an ancient, weary mind trying to brush the dust away. The meeting with Clys could perhaps weild more than a momentary immunity. Another meeting must be had... One without others. If anyone had the answer, it was the Mistress Clys.

I have dealings with the Forsaken, and I do not trust them. And they will take my other ear, and my life, before I am finished with them. And I accept this, for such is the price I must pay for the safety of my others.