[OOC: this is from an older thread in the RP forums as well. I figure this would be a good place to leave it; perhaps others on the server would like to add similar testimonies. My goal was to add a more earthy, realistic turn on the day-to-day lives of the penitent and the survivors.]
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Rush leans his elbows on the table, folding his arms in front of himself. His usual chatty nature is markedly subdued when the topic is brought up.
“Yeah, I was there…I had a front row seat to that atrocity. About as close as you could get…right there on the beach. I was even closer than the poor sods operating the catapults were.”
The jungle troll shifts in his chair uncomfortably, peering through his peripheral vision at the people walking by. There are enough people passing, switching chairs, or looking for an empty chair that nobody is listening, but the otherwise stable warrior actually starts to fidget nervously.
“I guess the catapult jerks didn’t have it so bad. Not like the people up in that tree did. That thing was far out into the ocean, too far to see detail, but I could see the lights. My girlfriend and I were in the same unit at that time, and we were counting the lights. Each one was a…a treehouse, or a hamlet or something, where people lived. Most of them went out during the battle. I heard people were evacuated in portals or something. Still…it wasn’t enough. Not nearly.”
In a sharp, violent movement, Rush swings his elbow back to reach into his belt pouch and pulls out crushed peacebloom in rolling papers. Without even checking the rules of the establishment, he lights it with a match and puffs on the herbal cigarette.
“I don’t smoke, okay? Don’t judge me by this. I found it earlier, and this topic calls for it. I don’t plan on smoking again…anyway, where was I? Well, the War of the Thorns basically ended; my girlfriend and I secured the flight point at Lord Anelle or whatever that town was called. We were securing prisoners of war, following protocol and all that, when my lady noticed the catapults being wheeled up to the ocean. The positioning didn’t make sense. I thought nothing of it cause, you know, whatever. They told us that we were there to colonize the tree and stop Alliance shipments of Azerite…I knew what colonization meant. A few civilians would die, maybe a few dozen, but eventually they’d be accepting it. The strategy was so sound. I never thought…”
Rush pauses when another patron walks by and asks him to stop smoking indoors.
“I don’t smoke!” he snaps while smoking, clearly overreacting, scaring the complainer away, and making the people at the next few tables uncomfortable. You have to hold your hand up to caution him; he’s visibly distressed by the topic and not acting like himself. “I’ll put my cigarette out on the skin of the next mofo who interrupts me…” You calm him down enough to get him to put the cigarette out early and return to the topic.
“Right. I couldn’t believe it, not at the time. The catapults only got an effective range of five-hundred meters - I learned that from the munitions experts. The world tree be further than that into the ocean, which means the catapults Sylvanas used were…I dunno, enchanted or something. Think about that: she had catapults altered just to bombard a place full of civilians. We couldn’t hear the screams from that far, but we could see…we could see things falling out of the branches, in addition to branches falling. Bodies, entire houses, people who weren’t a part of the fighting. People who were supposed to get on with life under Horde occupation. Families, a lotta them with kids, I imagine. I can’t stop imagining it. The war captives on the beach stopped fighting back because they were screaming. I’ve killed my share of tree elves in battle, and they don’t scream or beg; seeing the prisoners on the beach like that, it didn’t feel right. I can kill someone in uniform no problem, unless they wave the white flag. So what about killing people who weren’t part of the fight? That not be what I signed up for.”
Grabbing the pitcher of ale from the table, Rush drinks directly from it without a cup despite having claimed not to drink.
“I got demoted twice, by the way. Not for letting some of the prisoners go - yeah, I said it, I don’t give a damn anymore - cause me and my lady never got caught for that. I can’t really keep my mouth shut, though, and I spoke against what happened from the beginning. Got demoted twice, whipped once, reprimanded a bunch of times…for what? Sylvanas never believed in the Horde, or the Forsaken, and here I am wearing nothing but a scout’s tabard for saying what everybody agrees on now: burning down a tree with so many civvies in it was a crime against mortality.”
Rush puts the pitcher back, not realizing that you probably don’t want any ale after he drank straight out of it. Eyes downcast, he taps his fingernail on the table a few times while searching for the right words.
“That’s where I was: the closest person to it who didn’t die. And I couldn’t do anything about it except talk and get myself in trouble.”
