As the pale dawn shifted into the mild heat of an Elwynn summer day, a rare and fleeting storm surfaced in the skies above Stormwind. The clouds, dark and heavy with rain and lightning, parted to unleash their bounty upon the land below. Peddlers and villagers, children and soldiers, and even a few of the less vigilant guards all made their way into the covered protection of taverns and shops to wait out the return of the sun. It was unusual for Elwynn to experience a weather storm of any magnitude; rain alone was no cause for confusion, but the lightning and thunder that accompanied a true storm were not typical for the area. With every clap of thunder, the startled cries of at least one man, woman or child could be heard in the distance. Tucked away within the Lamb, I had little concern for the onslaught beyond a general curiosity toward the reason for its arrival. The imagery of storms was often depicted in children’s fairytales to indicate the arrival of sorrow or misfortune, and my mind allowed itself to wander into the territory of the fantastic. Could danger be on the wind for Elwynn and her people?
One thing had piqued my interest regarding the storm, however, and it was of little relation to the storm itself. Oros’ disappearance during my conversation with Yazham the previous night had yet to be explained. I had arrived this morning on schedule for our daily training session, assuming that he would, as usual, be waiting for me. However, the corner in which he always stood lay barren of shadows. His continued absence in the wake of such an unusual day left me with a profound desire to know more about my elusive teacher. He had not made a habit of abandoning me to my own devices at peculiar times, but there were plenty of hours within the day that we did not spend in the pleasure of each other’s company. What did Mardux Oros do in his spare time, when he was not teaching me the finer points of destruction and the art of evil? I knew already that somehow, he had found enough time to maintain his wanted status within the city. It was also clear what he practiced in his off hours when I was busy learning from other teachers! I had to wonder whether the answers to my questions were better left to whimsy instead of truth.
It was foolish, of course, to presume that a man such as Oros would choose to limit his pursuits to those of pleasure. As he had told me, people such as himself would never be content with their lives. There was always the desire, the drive to reach something above and beyond the current plateau. If I learned from Oros, who did Oros learn from? Could there be any power greater than the one he held? The complete and utter mastery of his deepest heart, mind and soul seemed, to me, to be the ultimate limit of understanding. With that mastery, he could attain anything he desired! I would have traded my deepest secret for the deathlike calm he wore like a cloak, swathed about his body; a shield against all that opposed him. What did he have left to gain? What could Oros still desire that he had not yet been able to attain?
Growing impatient, I made my way out into the Lamb’s common room to see if Oros perhaps had paused for a drink or a chat with some other patron before coming to meet me. It was too early for the majority of warlocks to have made their first excursions into daylight, which was one of the reasons Oros had chosen to pursue my education at such a unique hour, but perhaps some other student of magic had hoped to avoid notice on this unusual morning. The room, however, was empty except for the ever present Jarel Moor, whistling into the air as he polished his beloved bar counter. Pulling up a bar stool in hope of at least passing the time by conversing with Moor, my inquiry into Oros’ location was interrupted by a low howling sound from beyond the Lamb’s walls. The storm was growing to alarming proportions! Moor’s frown had a moment to mirror my own before the door to the Lamb burst open against the force of the wind outside, creaking and groaning as if it were an ancient crone upon its deathbed.
Muttering curses under his breath, Moor launched to his feet in defense of his establishment, his cloak bunched into one fist to keep it from becoming an implement in human flight. His slender yet muscled frame shuddered and bent against the violent wind that thrust past the doorframe and penetrated the Lamb’s inner sanctum. Torches and lanterns unlit in moments, and I found myself closing my eyes to quicken their adjustment to darkness. In the distance, I heard Moor wrestle with the bolt to his door and at last reach a tentative agreement with it; the sound of metal scraping against wood and the sudden lack of rough winds fighting to uproot the entirety of the Lamb needed no further explanation.
As my eyes reached a comfortable happy medium, he lit a match; the small firelight illuminated the portion of the Lamb nearest him. His hair was plastered against his face with a mixture of rain and sweat, and his chest heaved as he attempted to catch his breath from his battle with the door latch. He cast a look in my direction and shook his wet head, droplets of the torrential downpour still raining upon the threshold of the Lamb from his brow. “That’s a fierce storm out there, milady. I hope Your Majesty knows how to dodge heaven’s bolts, or we won’t be seeing him again, I’d wager.” The barest flicker of something approaching a smile danced across his face and was gone again. It was no secret that Moor disliked Oros, but I was surprised by the gesture nonetheless.
A strange feeling crept over my skin at his words. It seemed impossible to imagine that such a storm could have landed upon Elwynn, but it was sheer madness to consider that Oros might not be capable of fending for himself against it. However, I was all too aware that the warlock powers borne from shadow and fire would do him little good against the elements. He was a warrior, a god inside his own skin, but that skin still belonged to a human being; humans could be injured with ease. The absence of his teaching and gruff demeanor seemed all the more poignant when it lay against that fact. If Oros didn’t return, where would that leave me? I would once again be left without a teacher, and without anything that even approached the title of friend. Yazham would falter and fail at the first hint of my insecurity; he had reason to. Without Oros, I was still as lost as I had ever been, that night in the Lamb.
I pushed back my chair and stood, summoning all the courage I possessed in the face of the chaos outside. Despite the fact that Moor had just managed to conjure up supernatural strength to ensure our safety, my concern for Oros’ wellbeing had reached a point where I could no longer be content with idle waiting and wondering. He had never abandoned a training session before, much less arrived late; if he was not here on time, something was very wrong somewhere within Stormwind indeed. If he had friends who would seek him out in my place, I had never met them, and the only other soul who knew of his failure to arrive had less of a mind to his continued health than I did. “I’m sorry to ask this of you, Moor, but please let me out. I have to find him.”
He looked as though I had just announced my preference for edible garbage over his own bar offerings. “Milady, I can’t risk your life out there, not even if you beg me! It’s a madhouse out there, you’ll be killed! And let me just say that I can’t answer a court summons from your family! They’d bleed me dry!”
“Don’t be concerned about my family. I promise they wouldn’t give you as much trouble as you would think.” The weapons I possessed against the storm numbered far fewer than I cared to admit. Oros stood a better chance of defending himself than I stood of finding him, much less offering hope of protection. Refusing to admit that to myself would, at length, do me no favors. However, leaving him to the mercy of Fate was not an option I could choose to accept. He had risked coming to Stormwind, a wanted man, to teach me lessons on many occasions; it was the least that I could do in return for those risks. “Stand aside, Moor. Please don’t try to stop me. I know what I’m getting myself into.”
Jarel Moor was a simple man. He frowned on behavior that reflected in a negative manner upon his establishment, and yet he would take arms against any patron who disagreed, breaking his own standard of tolerance in order to protect the sanctity of the Lamb. His precious Lamb was the basis for a large portion of his decision making. These facts had been reinforced so many times over the course of our association that I had little reason to believe that he would challenge my knowledge of them. I assumed that, given a direct order from a noble lady that frequented his tavern, he would have accepted it without question. To fail in that would have been to court dissent from those of a higher power and station than himself, rendering his safety and tranquility open to attack from outside.
My surprise, therefore, when he moved with slow and deliberate motions to shift his dripping countenance to stand in front of his door, was greater than it might have been from someone who had less experience with him. Any hope of my exit from the tavern was blocked through the weary mass of muscle and stubbornness that made up the form of Jarel Moor. I had not taken weariness or stubbornness to be possible modes for a man such as Moor, any more than I had believed that he would disobey my request. When he at last spoke, his voice seemed quicker and more strained than it had during our prior conversations, as if each word cost him something dear and precious at the moment it left his lips.
“I knew you’d ask the minute I heard that damned wind, milady, and just the same, I knew I’d refuse; yes, even a direct order.”
I opened my mouth to interject, but he held up a gentle yet firm hand to silence my interruption. “I’ve seen the way you look at him. No offense to your judgment, but he’s not worth the time and honor you give him. He’s the kind of man that will use you up and leave you naught but bruises and tears. You would be amazed by how many times I have seen the same sad story play out in this tavern.” His face had taken on an expression of anguish, but he forced himself to continue; it was clear that I had been wrong to assume that he was just as agreeable as any other commoner. “You know the kinds of people he finds here; people like you who just need a hand to give them the strength they need to survive. There’s nothing he can give you that he won’t give a hundred others just like you. He’s already threatened your life once. How far does he have to go before you realize he’s no savior?”
I found myself studying the patterns in the Lamb’s wooden floor, trying to appreciate the full measure of his thoughts before I responded. It was clear that Moor had known Oros far longer than I had; it was also clear that he somehow believed that Oros was incapable of acceptable human interaction with anyone. I had not witnessed any unusual behavior from Oros in Moor’s presence, but it did occur to me that Oros, more often than not, chose to ignore Moor when he arrived at the Lamb. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the behavior went beyond ignoring; Oros did not even see the kind and amiable Moor when he swept past, en route to our lessons in our private back room. Oros was taking advantage of his obvious noble bearing and position to ensure that Moor never got so much as a glimpse into Oros’ personal space, much less his thoughts or aims. It was part of the same game that he had played with the guard in trying to get me into my lessons the day before, and I began to realize that it was probable that he played it with others he encountered in order to prevent detection.
Given this display of self absorption, combined with the more violent aspects of his behavior toward me, it seemed natural for Moor to assume that Oros was just another beast in human clothing, capable of nothing but harm to those around him. The aura that the man possessed was far from welcoming; he radiated authority, solitude and danger just as a torch radiated heat and light. This was not a mere act; I had witnessed the reality and weight of his power firsthand. Moor was too goodhearted and kind to permit the rudeness, selfishness and potential danger that Oros represented to injure his patrons; if given good reason, I assumed that Moor would be content to ban Oros from the Lamb without a second thought, warlock or otherwise. Why he had not taken this step prior to my arrival into Warlock society was a question I could not answer.
However, another thought occurred to me. As a bartender, it was safe to assume that Moor had a genuine knowledge for people’s hearts; at no time were men and women more candid than when they were nursing the bottom of a tankard. It was possible, even probable, that he knew more about Oros than I did. The only other person I had witnessed harboring an attraction to Oros rather than an aversion, was La Salle; I did not need to wonder about what she found attractive! Yet she was the sole member of society that Oros did not hide from, behind his cloak of deception. Had Dane Winslow, La Salle’s demon trainer, been justified when he claimed that Oros used his power against women to capture their hearts rather than avoid them? I had limited information with which to judge the validity of that claim, of course, as I had no way to witness what Oros did when he was out of my sight. The questions I had for him were mounting ever greater in number.
Despite this, however, I did not fancy myself to be the same level of fool that most noblewomen would be in my shoes. The risks of pursuing the darkness at the side of Oros had been clear from the beginning, and I had accepted them with only a moment of hesitation. Oros’ fingers upon my shoulder had left permanent marks upon my skin; I knew the extent of his fury, and I could only wonder at what it could be if he failed to control it. My fear, then, had not been for the darkness, but of Oros himself. If he ever chose to wield the full force of his anger at me, I held no hope for my survival. These were aspects of reality that I could not ignore; I had not ignored them when I agreed to become his student.
At the same time, there were kindnesses in the man that I alone had witnessed, and those acts were the reason I yet wanted to believe in him; had waited for him, on his own terms, to disclose the answers to his mysteries. An evil man would never have approached me that night for anything other than pleasures of the flesh, and any such man would have been dead where he stood. Oros had forced his way into my misery and demanded answers, something that no sane man would have done. Even Moor himself had not shown the audacity to inquire regarding my grief. While I still could not understand in full why he had singled me out for rescue, nor why he had brought himself to such a level of anger and frustration toward a girl he had known for an hour or two, I could understand with ease that such acts could not come from the heart of wickedness. In times such as these, the mad alone cared for anyone outside their own flesh and blood.
Last but in no way least, something else had become clear from Moor’s outburst; his assumption of the relationship between Oros and me had reached similar conclusions to that of La Salle’s. I sought in the deepest recesses of my mind in an attempt to locate some mistaken act on my part that had led others to the misconception that I fancied Oros! The search came up empty, and I shook my head, amusement and frustration at war for my attention. From the passion and desperation ringing naked in Moor’s voice, it seemed that the fancy was neither Oros’ nor my own. Could it be that Moor held more interest in my well being than I had realized? The thought was not a repulsive one, despite Moor’s common blood, but I was not going to take advantage of knowledge given to me in the heat of argument. It would be humiliating to him, both as a man and as a businessman. It was a barkeep’s job to know all about the people he served; most of those in his profession would consider it a cardinal sin to fall in love with a patron, much less tell her so!
Taking a deep breath and composing myself in my mind, I crossed my arms over my chest, meeting Moor’s embarrassed but resolute gaze. “Your concern for my well being honors me, Moor. You have always been a good man since the night I first met you here in the Lamb. That night was the same night Oros found me, and though I know the risks I take, I cannot just abandon him to his fate. He is my teacher, and he is more than that as well. I am not yet willing to call him my friend, but he has gone out of his way to change my life and show me how to find myself. The things he said to me that night, even in anger, were things that I will never cease being grateful for, even if he should ever harm me. You would have found me dead on your street corner, battered by rain and tears and the gods know what else, if he hadn’t forced me to contemplate why.”
A small glimmer of hope registered on Moor’s face at the mention of Oros’ status as less than a friend, but it replaced itself with despair as I continued. I did not cherish the blows that I knew I was dealing him, but that did not make them any less necessary. Perhaps it would take many years, or even the rest of my life, to be able to master the guilt that came with such knowledge; Oros had gained that power tenfold, but not I. “Please, Moor, just let me go to him. I know you mean to protect me, but you do me harm by asking me to accept his death without an attempt at action. I would not ask that level of heartlessness be shown to anyone, wicked or otherwise. Even the damned can’t live without kindness.” It was a lesson I had learned well, having just experienced it for myself.
“The reason I hold his hand is because I know that he can show me the way to let go. He knows how to walk without holding on to anyone, and that is what I need most from him. He’s the only one who knows what I can be, someday. I will leave this place to find him, even if I must pass by force.” It was a threat I had trouble voicing. I had never planned to raise my hand or my mind to a caring citizen, much less Jarel Moor, in the process of finding and understanding my power!
“He’s not the only one who knows you. You’re wrong about that.” A small smile spread across Moor’s face, bringing light to the shadows within. “You’re a fighter, milady. You don’t have to be a shadow puppet or a shadow master to know that.” Despite his kind words, the muscles in his jaw tensed in rebellion. “That’s why I refuse to move. I don’t see many nobles in this tavern, but of them all, you are the only one to show more spirit than a dead man. The fact that you even came back to him, after what he did to you, tells me that there’s something special about you, even if you don’t have the good sense to take that and run.”
He sighed, relaxing his body against the frame of his door. “If I may be frank, I believe he would kill me without a second glance, if for some reason I let you go and he returned on his own. I would rather die by your hand, knowing you understand why I’m standing in your way, than look into his eyes as I die and know the end of the world I live and breathe in. I’m a simple man, and I’d like to die that way, if you don’t mind.”
Silence stretched between us as I agonized over my decision. With every moment that passed, Oros could be suffering further harm. On the other hand, could I justify harming a kind hearted civilian with nothing but the best intentions for my life in order to protect Oros? The man was, after all, a wanted criminal in the eyes of the Stormwind military. It was growing clearer that the answers I sought in regard to his past would not be offered at will. Despite the kindness he had shown me by going above and beyond the normal call of humanity, was I in truth playing the fool when it came to Oros and his ultimate plan? In a flash, it occurred to me that I could always return to La Salle in the event of his death and beg her supervision. Fool though she was in her love life, her power was no lie.
Yet, my mind returned to that night in the Lamb, just as it had so many times before, to the moment when my shoulder was locked in a heated grasp and his tiny eyes shone with a power that hinted at both murder and desperation. For one reason or another, he had reached out to me with everything inside him, calling me back to a world I had abandoned inside my own mind. Even if I did not, in the end, need him, it was unforgivable to consider leaving the act unreturned. Where I was yet a mere shell of a human, fighting to find my way back to understanding, I was still human. It would be monstrous to turn my back on that humanity by allowing a man who had done me no direct harm to die. Moor might have condemned Oros to the status of a monster, but I was not yet ready to do so.
Moor saw the decision in my face. His eyes closed in anticipation of his impending death, and I ground my teeth together in despair. There had to be some way to spare his life! Why did he have to protect me? What was I, but a worthless noble that had blundered into his tavern one night and, unintentional and witless, stolen his heart? What worth could I possess at the cost of another’s life? So many women in my station were used to playing games of the heart and mind; they would have lived for this moment and fallen into the arms of their protector, to be carried away to some castle in the clouds! Fairytales, again, were the sole recourse to explain the damnable storm that had driven all this to happen! In this fairytale, however, nothing would end in happiness. The protector would die at the hands of his beloved, believing still that her heart belonged to another; a demon in human flesh…
A roar, unlike that of the wind, bellowed against the door of the Lamb and brought both myself and Moor to instant and sobering attention. What new chaos had the storm chosen to unleash upon this miserable day? The sounds outside continued to grow stranger by turns; I imagined I could hear flames dancing in the rain, their onslaught unstoppable even as they faded into the cloudy mist. Moor jumped away from his leaning position against the door with a cry of pain, black scorch marks riddling the back of his cloak, and I realized that perhaps my understanding of the situation was, in fact, accurate. For one reason or another, the door of the Lamb was facing a barrage of fiery proportions from the outside. Had lightning hit us while I was lost in thought? Which of the gods wanted us with a passion so great that He would aim for this tiny tavern, deep within the shadows of Stormwind? Flight from the tavern would not be possible after all, and Moor would be absolved of his duty with my death!
The locking bar that Moor had fought with and mastered began to grind against the wood that made up the door. Smoke began to rise from the metal hinges, and within moments they failed, pooling bright molten metal on the floor of the Lamb. Taking a step backward from the door in anticipation, I found myself within the protective grasp of Moor. He had circled around behind me and was poised to whisk me clear of the danger, at any cost to himself. Fear, perhaps, had given him the strength to lay commanding but gentle hands on me; I could not help but liken the situation to the same one that had led Oros to do the same, albeit in a rougher fashion. It also brought back memories of a happier time, as I rested motionless against his chest; a time where two sisters had retreated from a social engagement to play in the windiest part of a castle keep, and the youngest of the pair had been afraid of the wind. The eldest had taken her in her arms for protection, just like this, and wiped the tears away…
No, I won’t die yet! I won’t be like you…
Moor’s muscles turned to steel as the door groaned against the arriving madness. It hesitated mere moments, long enough for both of us to catch our breath, before swinging open, slamming with its full force into the inner wall of the Lamb. The outside of the door was charred almost beyond recognition, and the scent of blazing wood filled our noses without mercy. Smoke and fire leapt at the door and the plants outside; together they made up the outline of something large and tall, with proud shoulders, tattered long hair, and a scowl that, for a moment, painted the creature in question as the very monster he had been named. At its feet stood a glowing twisted entity covered in ash and dust, a feral grin spread across its face in triumph. I didn’t need to hear what it had to say to its master. All that mattered was that Oros, somehow, had returned on his own to find his entry denied. The burning door served as a less grand entrance than the fireplace had at our original meeting, but the shadows it cast in its magnitude outstripped all of the awe he commanded that night nonetheless.
It was a good thing that Moor had taken me in his arms. The combination of smoke and heat mixed with relief and the loss of adrenaline left my knees weak; I found myself unable to support my own weight. Darkness swept across my vision, and I understood that I was going to lose consciousness; a strange knowledge to have as it was happening. My weak noble body should not have been expected to handle such trauma, and the result was not alarming in the back of my mind. I knew I would awaken, given time to recover. The last thing I understood before the shadows claimed me was that everything had worked out after all.
Fairytales, it seemed, were just that.