Where were you when Teldrassil burned?

[Ralrush-steamwheedle-cartel]

(OOC note: I was in a mood after seeing the newest Saurfang vid on the WoW YouTube account; the part where he remembers the screams at Darkshore haunts me. This is open for everybody to add to. There’s no reason for yours to be the wall of text that is mine - one or two sentences could be enough, or you could write even more than me. I’m just interested in seeing where all the characters on this subforum were at the time.)

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.”

[Alystiel-darkmoon-faire (Alystiel)]

Alystiel clenches her jaw.

"I was in the tree.

I was a sole survivor, from a massacre at the Falfarren River.
My purpose, is divine vengeance. Let me tell you the things I saw. The things I heard."

Alystiel tightens her fists, tears welling at the corners of her eyes.

"I was untested by war, I was no fit commander, yet my own had perished, and so it had fallen to me to command a small force from forest song. Men and women barely of age to fight.

A Dark Ranger commanded my foes, alongside an orcish general. Aryalessa was her vile name. Aryalessa Amin’dal. Her orcish hound, was named Olm Axefury.

We tried to cross the Falfarren, by a forgotten bridge the Highborne had not managed to burn. We were going to destroy it, slow the Horde’s advance further… but they had already made it across the river.

We were surrounded. I was knocked down, dragged from the bridge. My forces surrendered.
My eyes were covered… and I only, heard, what happened next.
An elvish scream filled the air. The foulest cry I had ever heard. A hundred followed.
In an instant, I was guilty of leading so many to their deaths."

The tears begin to fall.

"I was allowed to live. One of their soldiers freed me, thinking it sympathy. It was the cruelest thing anyone has ever done to me. Some of my sisters found me, and took me to the shore. I spent days recovering. I couldn’t speak, the trauma of what had happened had robbed me of my mind. When finally the shock passed, grief came, and I swore my oath.

I would slay those responsible, and enact a world of suffering upon them, as they had on I. Yet it would take time. A long time.

I was taken to the tree, along with some civilians who had escaped. Civilians I took under my care, tried to guide. I spent what little time I could with my father. A good man, a simple carpenter. Mother remained in Darkshore, she had taken up an old glaive.

Some of those refugees took shelter with friends, and families.
It was then, that the tree caught aflame.

I, and my comrades. We could only save so many.
I had to make terrible choices. I decided, who we could save, and who we had to leave behind.
By my words, my own father was damned to burn in that tree. I wanted to save him, I wanted to more than anything else… but I had a responsibility to Elune, to save the young.

I saw boughs crash through rooftops, and crush those beneath. I saw people leap to their deaths to escape the flames. I saved a woman with child at her gut, a child that would never come to term from the smoke that choked her. She lives in sorrow now, as I do."

Alystiel takes a deep breath, shaking.

"I will have vengeance."

[Nendrovus-argent-dawn]

“I was being held captive by some… “lovely” Night Elves as a prisoner of war. Basically I took a wrong turn somewhere after skipping town. Ended up wandering right into an active warzone.”

Nendrovus grimaces

“because of course I did… Anyway, I got jumped by two ladies and one gentlemen, all of which were way too scantily clad might I add… but I digress. So, after being beaten and interrogated because they thought I was a “Horde spy” or something dumb like that, like what gave them that idea? But yes, it was a great vacation and I made some nice friends who seemed to love punching. But friends aside… after that I planned my escape, and when the time was right… when the planets alligned… when they were off in a skirmish or sleeping or something unimportant like that…” Nendrovus smirks and chuckles

“I strategically hightailed on out of there! They never knew what hit them.”

Nendrovus’s smile stops is removed

“Though the bindings were more difficult to get rid of…”

[Erahe-argent-dawn (Erahe)]

“I was at the wound, you know the place where the giant Titan stabbed our world. in which our beloved Azeroth is dying, yet everyone seems to forget.”

Being flustered Erah calms himself. taking off his wolf mantle, revealing a young face, but one of stress and sadness deep within his blue eyes.
" I heard about it from a former friend, a night elf Druid to be exact. I was obviously shocked and confused, but she was … " Barely able to hold back tears, Erah closes his eyes and clenches his fist taking in a deep breath.
“She died in her vengeance, though I don’t blame her. such atrocities, so many deaths and for what?.”
Erah rubs his forehead as signs of deep stress are bare on his face. but a gentle smile crosses over the Orc.
"I thank Saurfang for ending the war but, kinda poetic don’t you think? For the war started with many deaths and it ended with one. An old Orc who wanted to right his wrongs… "
“But the Horde’s sins aren’t going to wash away so easily, in fact, they never will. but the least we could do for the dead and living, is for us to be better. like an old Orc did.”

Erah pauses, his head downtrodden with sadness as he brings his hands together. after a minute or so of silence. he sings a shamanistic hymn in orcish for the dead and finishes with a bow.
“Be it in a Life or Death may we all find rest and peace.”

[Rykka-argent-dawn (Rykka)]

Looking to the others briefly with a weary gaze, she sighs and sits up straight, eyes fixed at nothing.

“Tried to do something, anything to deal with Silithus. It wasn’t working. Nothing we do really does.”

There’s a pause, a grinding of teeth.

“Heard about it on the wrong side of the continent to do anything. Just a husk and ashes when I got there.”

Another deep sigh, her expression unreadable as her usual terseness slouches off, the words flowing freely.

"I thought we were past these things; that free from our past, we had grown and learned to be better than brutal conquerors feeding lives to flames. I was wrong. It is war, I was told; this is what is done in war. A glorious war and a decisive, glorious victory over a long hated foe. They’d do the same to us, it was said: fight them to the last or they will never stop coming for us.

Maybe that is true, for some. Many more hold that cold flame deep inside them even now, vengeance unsated. They nurture it with righteous fury, eager to even the scales. One death and a new hand to carry the Horde’s banner changes nothing."

Arms crossed, she leans forward with a creak of her chair, that black mane obscuring her features.

“Life for life. It’s only fair, they say. Where does it end? Who gets to be the one to strike the final blow? How many cities in ruin? How many souls snuffed out by blades, fire or some arcane bomb? I do not get to answer that. I did everything I could and yet I did nothing.”

A sharp breath follows.

"An orc does not ask for forgiveness, nor does she expect it. It is an imposition on the wronged, an assumption of deserving the unearned. Remorse is proven by deeds until the wound is closed, the scar remaining in a reminder of past failures.

We have much to answer for. One day we will. Now, we must see to the world’s agony. Let old wounds ache until that one is mended, at the least."

[Thyrellas-argent-dawn]

“I was there… yes. Surrounded with my entourage, I watched the battle from my palanquin, behind the safety of an arcane shield. To be honest we went to the battlefield to see either that disgusting corpse and her fanatics die a final death, or our betrayer Kaldorei cousins suffer some loses… or maybe, just maybe bear witness Malfurion and Tyrande finally kneel defeated and humiliated…”

With a little nod, she orders one of her servants to pour some fine Arcwine to her glass

"You see I was never big fan of the idea we joined the Horde… It was a mistake. We should have formed a New alliance, the Allaince of Elves… Sin’dorei, Shal’dorei… those few Quel’dorei… and yes, we would have even invited our dispised cousins, the “Nigh Elves”. But alas, the First Arcanist for some reason sided with a… horde of savage invaders from another world, some primitve Trolls and disgusting undeads. Not to mention those treacherous pests, Goblins… "

Thyrellas shakes her head

“If anything, whats happened there, Teldrassil, proved we made a terrible mistake when decided to join those… them. I pity the Tauren. Their people is a noble one… and yet? They ended up something worse than a Legion. The Legion at least have a reason, a good one to pruge all those worlds, as I’ve heard, Sargeras was afraid… afraid of the Void, the Nameless Nothing, the all consuming emptiness. But the Horde? What could justify the Orcs deeds? Nothing. The Tauren I belive suffered as much as our Kaldorei relatives when they saw the flames… like, bleive it or not, the Trolls. Yes, the Trolls , well maybe exception of the Zandalari, are primitve, but they have faith! Faith in the spirits of the World. The Loa. Even Azshara left them alone. A deal was made, an agreement! In return for a halt to all troll incursions and hostilities against kaldorei territory, the trolls would, by Azshara’s grace, be allowed to remain in possession of their sacred Zandalar Mountain, south of the Well of Eternity. Even our Queen saw something int the Trolls… and you know what? She was right. I have spent some time in Zuldazar, the City of Gold, the seat of the Zandalari Empire and the most ancient city in the world… talked with the representatives of other Tribes, siting in the shade with the Terace of Speakers… and learned to respect them. Not see them equal, but they earned some mesure of respect. I belive, like the Tauren they were horrified to see Teldrassil in flames. Like the Sin’dorei.”

She observes the deep purple liquid in her glass before tasting it

“It was horrible… I’ve only seen this… this carnage, flames and destruction when the portals opened in Suramar and Zin-Azshari and Demons rampaged thrugh our Empire. In that moment I relaised… something went terribly wrong. Sure, some little fighting here, little skirmishes there, some petty squabbles over long forgotten feuds… they were fun and entertaining. But the Orcs and Undeads went too far. But maybe I’m to harsh on those poor corpses… to them it was maybe as much horrible as for the Tauren, Trolls and Elves. After all, in a sense they had to relive the destruction they saw when the Scourge destroyed their home, loved ones, and robbed them of their life and well earned peace of the grave…”

She ramains silent a bit

“Aside of the Orcs and Goblins, who I’m sure roasted some sausages over the flames of the burning world tree, it was horrible for everyone yet… it was no way to stop it. I could not watch anymore… I’ve seen many things… done many things… but there are things that upset the stomach even of voltures.”

She let out a little sigh with a faint, sad smile

" So I followed the Nightborne’s noble tradition and turned my back on the destruction, the flames, the screams and deaths… and left the battlefield. And never visited Darkshore since… perhaps I never will in this millenium. Maybe in another, perhaps. But it is too… it would be too horrible and painfull to see whats remained"

[Garamonde-steamwheedle-cartel]

Though I wasn’t the closest viewer to the glory of the Dark Lady, I maintained what was perhaps the greatest location to witness the justified strike against the most duplicitous of all nations.

Few peoples on the face of Azeroth have caused as much devastation as the so-called children of the stars. Their arrogance, coupled with the callous, fanatical narcissism of the Draenei, caused multiple Burning Legion invasions of our world. Don’t misunderstand me: I grieve not for the past. My intention is only to publicly note the hypocrisy of the night elves. Their actions literally and figuratively tore our world apart, sundering continents and spurring factional conflict. All of this benefits me in the end, of course, but my point is - I repeat - the conniving, dishonest double faces of the night elves.

Thus, I felt a swell of pride for our victory in the War of the Thorns. Many a Priestess and Druid were cut down by my skeletal troops, and I even had the honor of converting a few archers and sentinels to our ranks, using my warhammer as the instrument of both funeral rite and baptism. Perhaps a dozen former night elves, once blinded by the light of the moon like their diseased Gilnean allies, stood in rank and file behind me and marveled as Teldrassil, the world’s greatest example of toxic self-delusion, burned into ash to an orchestra of petulant screams. Not a day goes by without my new retainers thanking me for the blessing of clarity I granted them through reanimation.

In the end, death claims us all…but undeath is certainly a welcome upgrade.

[Martok-earthen-ring (Martok)]

Sigh… where to begin. Martok enjoyed burning things when the legion invaded. Until he saw a sassy elf freeze and shatter demons with ice… can you believe it?? ICE!! Martok was impressed! We went to Dalaran and the elf lady showed him how to freeze stuff. Martok was stoked. Now he can show warchief his amazing ice skills!!

And then Saurfang led us to the the scary night elf lands and warchief says “BURN IT!” Martok was horrified and confused. Martok now knows only how to freeze stuff!! So when queen wasn’t looking he quietly sent a frost orb towards the tree.

[Ashaana-argent-dawn (Ashaana)]

"It was a day much like many others, the castle library providing some shelter from the scurrying, buzz and din of the city and the king’s petitioners. Excavating the recent histories of the Third War so as to disentangle a certain political conundrum, I was surprised to hear the great city bell ring and the inescapable sounds of gathering crowds around the keep.

The streets were filling up with kaldorei of all descriptions, clad in anything from the finest temple finery to the humblest workman’s garb. That is not what caught my eye, however. There was a familiar look about them. One I knew from the sore and weary-eyed on their long walk to sacred Telredor. Griefstruck, wounded, outraged, these were no visitors but refugees, and so I knew another Shattrath had come.

The tale unfolded quickly in the desperate cries of some and the stoic stares of others. One whom I assume was a priestess of Elune seamlessly slipped from one to the other and back again, at once despairing, then all business once more, determined and ushering families to the great temple for protection.

Many humbling displays of compassion followed that day with Stormwind’s people offering up their food, clothing and shelter to the displaced. Personally, I remember little of it. Too many memories of what was done in Talador and the struggles that followed occupied my mind. There was no time for questions, only aid and comfort. The damage had already been done. I conjured food and water, lit campfires and helped with carrying what I could to set up shelters.

It is a terrible, sinking feeling; knowing what was done with no means to change it. I can only hope that we draenei make strong allies, still and an inspiring example for enduring such adversity. That day we were not elves, draenei, humans, dwarves gnomes nor pandaren. We were all Alliance."