World of Warcraft®

Finnaeus walked through the camp, taking in the horror of all the horribly twisted corpses littering the camp. It did not take long to find the source of the horror. His brother, Aloyseus, was standing in the middle of the layout, his entire body covered in Shadow magic. He was standing over the corpse of Sir Jarrett, the paladin that led the expedition to reclaim some part of Gilneas. His head was completely turned around, his eyes popped and blackened from the Shadow.

It was a reckless move, but Finnaeus could not help himself – he shifted out of his stealthed form and assumed his troll form. The murder of these people was monstrous, horrifying – he could not believe it of his brother, even if he had taken a darker turn. Aloyseus, aware of his presence, turned to face him.

The sight before him sent a sickening jolt straight to Finnaeus’s stomach. Gone was the superficial politic of Aloyseus’s normal disposition. Where he once wore a neutral expression to mask his intentions, now his face was alight with a passionate, wrathful hatred. His entire body seemed to vibrate with intensity, and at the sight of his brother Aloyseus’s nose wrinkled into a disgusted sneer.

“What have you done,” Finnaeus said, his eyes ranging over all of the dead.

“You killed my army,” Aloyseus snarled. “I thought it fitting to kill yours.”

“They weren’t my army,” Finnaeus said. “I had nothing to do with them.”

Aloyseus made a gesture with his arm, and Sir Jarrett’s body pulled from the ground as if strings were attached to his head and limbs. His body hung limp, a grisly puppet in Aloyseus’s control.

“This is what you sacrificed everything for,” Aloyseus said, his voice nearly breaking. “This useless piece of flesh is why you have destroyed everything that I’ve worked for. He is nothing but a misguided, naïve fool, and you threw away the chance at having your normal life back for him.”

“What you asked me to do was impossible,” Finnaeus said. “How can you not see how mad you sound? You can’t take someone else’s body to suit your agenda, you just –”

“Here,” Aloyseus said, and he made another gesture with his arm. Sir Jarrett’s body flew at him. “You wanted it so bad, have it.”

Finnaeus dodged the body with ease, choosing not to look when he heard the body hit the ground with a disgusting slump. Aloyseus flicked his hand again, and he levitated a dwarf.

“Another one?” Aloyseus asked. “Maybe you could be a dwarf. You’ve always liked burying your head in the ground and ignoring the problems you face. You’d fit right in.” Finnaeus made to respond, but the dwarf’s body spun in the air like Aloyseus had thrown a ragdoll. Finnaeus ducked.

“Aloyseus,” he began, but his brother’s rage was just starting. Already he had floated another human body.

“Or perhaps this one, eh Finnaeus? This one kind of looks like he could be a Peverley. Maybe this one could have been a long lost relative? No matter, he’s dead too.”

“Stop,” Finnaeus commanded, moving sideways to avoid another hurled body.

“Why stop?” Aloyseus barked. “Why? They are your compatriots, your allies, your friends. Surely you want all of them back?”

“I wanted them alive,” Finnaeus yelled.

“We don’t always get what we want, now do we?” Aloyseus said, hoisting a sick smile on his face. “Here we are, you stuck as a troll, me stuck as an undead corpse, and neither one of us is going to escape that predicament. Truly you can appreciate that this world does not give a damn about what you or I want.”

“Aloyseus,” Finnaeus started to say, but then his brother’s voice exploded over him.

“You are such a disgusting, manipulative hypocrite!” he screamed. “You stand there in that troll body, acting like you get a pass for it because it was done to you. And then you deny all of us the chance at getting back what was taken from us. You’ve looked down on me and my people with disgust from that easy, lofty perch of yours. I’ve seen it from the very beginning. You see us as a grotesquerie, as if we were born in undeath and desired this existence. We were victims as you are, victims of a crime that did not care what we wanted, what we desired in life. And yet here we are. What was done was done. Here I am, Finnaeus. Your brother still, looking to survive in the same way as you have done. You have killed to live, you have lied to live, and yet from that same condescending perch you’ve decided that I and my kindred do not get that same chance. You are the monster here.”

Finnaeus watched him rage, watched him scream, and with a sad swoop he realized that this was closer to the brother he knew than he had ever seemed before. The Aloyseus he knew was always emotional, passionate, caught up in ideals and principles. He would rage and fight and protest, and Finnaeus would always cut through his rhetoric with some grounded detail that would send him into a further protest.

“I never killed for personal gain,” Finnaeus said. “You’ve murdered all of these people for your own purposes. They did nothing to you.”

“Yet,” Aloyseus hissed. “Yet. Reclaiming Gilneas for the Alliance? And then what? King Varian and your prissy, condescending, pretentious Alliance would march down upon us and would gladly massacre an entire people simply because they do not fit its values. And the Horde is no better – we hear the whispers, see the dirty looks. We are in a world that does not want us, no matter how much we did not ask for our present state. And now that there is a way forward, a way to preserve our security, you wish to deny us that?”

Finnaeus stepped forward, narrowing his eyes.

“Your security, Aloyseus, has come at the price of depriving others of their bodies, and their lives. You are merely proving all of the suspicion towards the Forsaken correct. You are a host that must feed off the living to survive. You’re a fungus. A disease. A parasite. You cannot sustain yourselves naturally, because your existence is entirely unnatural. A horrible thing was done to you, and to Lordaeron, but that does not then justify you murdering others just to sustain your own life. It is wrong. What’s done is done.”

“I’ve suffered loss too,” Finnaeus said. “I’ve nearly died. I’ve watched those that I love have horrible, unfair things happen to them, and I’ve had to do monstrous things to try and set things right. I’ve had my heart ripped out ten times over, and I still feel that pain. But that does not then give me the right to inflict that suffering on someone else. I did not ask for this troll body, the same way that I did not ask for the worgen curse to rip my family apart. The same way I did not ask for you to leave us and join the world. I did not want you to be murdered in the way that you did, and my heart aches for what could have been had you not gone, and what happened to you. But we cannot change the past, Aloyseus, nor can we use it to justify the horrible things we do, or will do. You and your people may not have asked to become Forsaken, but that does not give you the right to kill others in turn to give yourselves a chance at life. Undeath is not natural, and neither is stealing someone else’s body.”

“Unnatural,” Aloyseus repeated. “You’ve got a very narrow view of unnatural. But since you’re the expert. Let me ask you. Is killing your own father natural? Or unnatural?”

“Aloyseus, you know I had to –”

“How about your dear wife Claire?” Aloyseus asked. “Natural to murder her in her own bed?”

“They were sick,” Finnaeus said, his temperature rising. “There was no cure for the worgen –”

“And your daughter?” Aloyseus said, lashing Finnaeus with every word. “Lydia, right? Natural that you stuck a knife in her heart? Or unnatural?”

Finnaeus did not speak – he was breathing too fast, too hard.

“We cannot change the past,” Aloyseus said. “Agreed. Let your past stand in judgment of what you truly are – a murderer, and a hypocrite. You murdered your family for being afflicted with the same curse that you enjoyed the cure for. You look down on us for trying to ensure our own survival by using these bodies, and here you are trotting around as a troll. No wonder why you live in such contempt for yourself. You’re a violation of everything you claim to stand for.”

“How have you become so deluded?” Finnaeus asked. “You’ve been listening to Malthaes Shadowbough for far too long. How can you possibly pretend that there would be no consequences to what you intended to do?”

“There will be no consequences, because the only thing that matters is survival,” Aloyseus said. “Your actions today are nothing but a hindrance. You may have shut the door on this avenue, Finnaeus, but there are plenty more to those who are unafraid to claim and use power to achieve their ends.”

Finnaeus took a breath, trying to steady himself. With every word he sounded more and more like a puppet to Malthaes’s twisted viewpoint of the world. And in that moment, Finnaeus finally understood. Death had not stripped away Aloyseus’s idealism, and made him a cold, cynical man. Instead, he had merely replaced his own virtues with Malthaes’s rhetoric. That morality was a hindrance, that the ends always justified the means, and that no way was too dark or too gruesome to take as long as it procured the necessary results. Aloyseus’s death at the hands of the Scourge left him like a leaf on the winds of a tornado, and Malthaes had offered him a place to rest.

“You have lost your way,” Finnaeus said. “And I’m not so sure that you can come back from it.”

“You are the only one that is lost, Finnaeus. You’ve been lost ever since you scurried back to Gilneas thinking that home and comfort could save you from the world. You claim to see the truth, but I am the one that truly sees.” Aloyseus raised his hand, and it was covered in Shadow. “That the world is dark, cruel, and vicious. And the Light, and all of its noble virtues, are merely blinders to the truth. The world will not stop itself from crushing you just because you are pious. It merely makes the process that much quicker.”

“Not as long as there are those that are willing to stand against that kind of thinking,” Finnaeus said. “You do not get to make a mockery of life just because you have a contempt for the world. You used to believe that once.”

“I was once a fool,” Aloyseus said. “No longer. I can see what you cannot.”

Aloyseus flung his hand out. Finnaeus could feel the Shadow magic breaching his mind. Many encounters with Malthaes had steeled Finnaeus to this kind of attack, and he pushed his brother out before he could do any damage.

“Stop,” Finnaeus said, his own hands glowing with nature magic. He needed to protect himself.

“You’re nothing,” Aloyseus said. “You defined yourself by family, and now you don’t have it. You were Gilnean, and now it’s a ruin. And you’ve done nothing since. No wonder you’re miserable. Malthaes was right to want to kill you. At least then you’d be put out of your miserable existence.”

He struck out again, the magic stronger than before. Finnaeus resisted, but for a moment he was breached. The Shadow magic flayed his mind, and it felt as if someone was scrambling his brain. Images and memories flickered into existence, unbidden.

“We should get married under the apple tree,” Claire said, her hands intertwined with Finnaeus. They lay on the ground, both of them looking up at the usual grey clouds that floated aimlessly over the farm land.

“That sounds perfect,” Finnaeus said, his own heart beating wildly. He turned to face her, and he met her eyes. She was so beautiful, so smart, and he couldn’t help it. He smiled, a feeling unnatural for him, and he leaned in to kiss her –

“NO,” Finnaeus said, pushing his brother out.

“So romantic,” Aloyseus hissed, the Shadow Magic roiling around him. “You were so happy. So oblivious that it would all come crashing down upon your miserable head.”

“You have to stop,” Finnaeus said, re-summoning the magic around him, trying to strengthen his own resolve. But Aloyseus had grown powerful in Shadow – another side effect of his partnership with Malthaes. “You are better than this. You can be better this.”

“I’m nothing but a corpse, remember?” Aloyseus snarled. “A nothing. A nobody. You looked at me with contempt when you first laid eyes on me, and my very existence as a Forsaken was a horror to you.”

“I was wrong,” Finnaeus said. “I was wrong to do it.” It wasn’t a lie, it was not desperation. He wanted so very much to go back to when he first realized that the undead priest was his brother. Perhaps if he wasn’t so cold, so dismissive, he could have reached him. If he could have gotten past his own shame that his own brother had died, beyond the selfish grief, perhaps –

“Wrong is something you’re quite familiar with,” Aloyseus said, pressing his magic against Finnaeus’s. Finnaeus could feel his defenses weakened, and in the next moment his mind was assaulted. He screamed in pain, feeling something wracking around in his brain, pushing him out of the moment and into other memories -

“Have you not one ounce of sense,” Thaddeus Peverley thundered at the shaking, scared eight year old boy. Finnaeus glanced at his younger brother, watching the tears trickle out of his sapphire eyes. It made him cringe – crying would only provoke their father further.

“I…I…”

“You’re so good at speaking up, Aloyseus,” Thaddeus boomed. “You love to argue. Why have you no defense for yourself?”

Finnaeus glanced at the ripped family tapestry that was now laid out on the dinner table, the rips down the middle of the fabric so obvious that even the cloth looked to be accusing Aloyseus. Finnaeus tried to warn him not fool around near it, since it was so old. But his brother never listened, and he was so stubborn.

“He didn’t do it,” Finnaeus said quietly. Thaddeus turned, gave his older boy a discerning look, and then swung his hand in an arc across Aloyseus’s face.

“That’s for being a coward and letting your brother take the blame,” Thaddeus scowled.

“STOP!” Finnaeus yelled, managing to repel his brother again. When he came to he found himself at his knees. He looked up at his brother, who looked beyond reason. His anger and loathing were clear on his undead face.

“I won’t stop,” Aloyseus snarled. “Look at what you ran back to. What a family to try and preserve. How blind you were.”

“That was his worst,” Finnaeus said. “But everyone has their worst and best, Aloyseus. It’s not one extreme or another. You only see what you want to see.”

Aloyseus laughed, cold and mirthless.

“He had no best. He was a selfish, unfeeling, cold shell of a man. I took great pleasure in feeding information about Gilneas to the Forsaken when the time came to invade. It felt great to watch them tear down everything our father loved more than his own sons.”

Finnaeus’s eyes widened.

“You what?”

“Did you honestly think that I wouldn’t participate?” Aloyseus asked. “A nation so vile for its selfishness, so preoccupied for its own self-concern. Retreating into itself as if it could just wall away the rest of the world while everyone else was screaming for help. It repulsed me in life and it repulsed me in death. I wasn’t surprised when we cracked the shell that we found that Gilneas was already poisoned from the inside. Civil war? Famine? The worgen curse?”

Finnaeus reeled from this information, so much so that he was not prepared when Aloyseus made his next attack. He didn’t even feel it this time as the magic ripped at his mind, forcing him into another moment in the past.

“What happened,” she asked, with no judgment in her voice. She wiped her hands on the kitchen towel, sighing, and then crouching next to Aloyseus, who was red-faced from crying.

“I think one of the horses just clipped him. He was just playing in the field.” Finnaeus said to his mother. His mother did not respond, and merely glanced at Aloyseus. He was favoring his right arm, which was covered in blood. When she looked the arm, however, she could not find what was wrong.

“Go along and clean up,” she said to him, kissing him on the forehead. Aloyseus shuddered, and he left to go to the washroom. She stood, her hands on her hips, and she looked at Finnaeus.

“You mended his arm.” It was not a question.

“I did,” he said, shrugging. “I thought I could fix it.”

“A broken arm might have taught him a valuable lesson,” she said. “He was riding the horse and fell, wasn’t he?”

“Well, I –”

“Don’t lie,” she said. Finnaeus hung his head.

“He was.”

“Of course,” she said, chuckling. “As soon as your father forbade it I knew he would try. He is lucky to have a brother that is always looking out for him. But just remember, you can’t fix everything, Finnaeus.”

Finnaeus gasped, pushing his brother out. His entire body felt weak again – all of his strength from connecting with Gilneas had left him. With a grunt he struggled to his feet again, staring at his brother.

“Such a good brother,” Aloyseus said, oozing with sarcasm. “So lucky to have you. Of course, if you were a better son, you would have saved her from her disease.”

“Enough,” Finnaeus said. “You’ve had your fun. But you’ve lost, Aloyseus. You’ve lost. You need to stop this.”

“Before what, Finnaeus?” Aloyseus said. “What are you going to do? Scold me more? Yell at me? Tell me I’m bad and that I need to learn my lesson? Your arrogance is overwhelming. I told you, you’re nothing but a hurdle that we need to clear. As if I’m going to let some self-loathing druid everything that I’ve drawn up. And besides, you won’t kill me.”

“Really?” Finnaeus asked.

“No. You don’t want to. If you wanted to kill me you would have tried to do so already. You keep trying to reach me to spare yourself the grief and torment of killing the last family member you have. You’ve been trimming the family tree now, trying to cut away the infected parts before they destroy the whole. And we’re all that’s left. Rotten to the roots, I’m afraid. For you to kill me would be a sorry coda for the Peverley clan of Gilneas. A family rooted as far back as Gilneas goes, a long and storied family that helped to bring an end to the very country that raised them. How our father would be so ashamed to know that you killed our family while I helped kill Gilneas.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” Finnaeus said.

“I’m not going to stop until I kill you,” Aloyseus said finally, glaring at his brother with murderous intent. “Let us end the prattle, Finnaeus. Let us bring the end to our family. Let’s see who will be the one to watch our family line extinguish.”

Aloyseus raised his arm to cast, but this time Finnaeus was ready. He shifted into his cat form and vanished into the darkness.

“Coward,” Aloyseus said. “Don’t run and hide.” He flicked his arms, and a burst of Shadow power emanated from his body in all directions. Finnaeus couldn’t avoid it – he felt himself blasted backwards.

“Ah. There you are.”

Finnaeus flipped onto all fours and vanished again. Aloyseus laughed, sending bolts of shadow in random directions.

“Come now, let’s not drag this out,” Aloyseus said. He made to flick his arms again, but Finnaeus moved fast to close the distance. With no hesitation he pounced on his brother.

But Aloyseus’s body dissolved into darkness, and disappeared. Finnaeus wheeled around in time to see a cloud of shadow coalesce into his brother.

“Very quick,” Aloyseus said. Finnaeus pounced again, but Aloyseus simply rose in the air. Finnaeus sailed underneath him, just out of reach, and landed on all fours. Floating in mid-air, Aloyseus began to hurl bolts of shadow at him. He dodged, moving quickly, feeling the edges of the magic as they burst into the ground.

“I can do this forever,” his brother called. Finnaeus did not doubt it. He looked around to see if there was any way he could reach him, but he was hovering too high. He’d need a running start to even attempt it, but Aloyseus and his magic would not let him get enough speed.

Finnaeus vanished again. He could see his brother gazing around, sending probing bolts of magic in the hopes of catching him. Finnaeus dodged these easily, but he was running out of options. He had to stop his brother, but he was afraid that the only way to do it would be magic. And as strong as he was as a druid, he was not convinced that if he stood toe to toe with his brother that he wouldn’t end up on the worse end of the encounter.

“I’m not surprised you’re hiding,” Aloyseus said. “You’ve always lived to fight another day. Are you still here, Finnaeus? Still prowling around?”

Finnaeus made his way directly underneath his brother. He would have to be very precise and quick. If he didn’t do this right, it was likely that he would perish.

“Finnaeus, show yourself,” Aloyseus said. “Let me send you to your family.”

In a flash, Finnaeus shifted into his troll form. Before Aloyseus could react, he splayed his fingers. The clouds above parted, and a brilliant beam of sunlight streaked down, bathing both his brother and him in a brilliant light. He heard Aloyseus cry out, and Finnaeus made his move. He shifted into his bat form, fluttering into the air, just passed his brother. The beam disappeared, but he had already committed – he shifted into his troll form, and he let gravity crash into his brother.

Their bodies collided, and after what seemed like an eternity of freefall, the two landed on the ground. The crash was violent; the impact sent him rolling to the ground. He could barely breathe, the wind was knocked out of him. With a grunt he turned and he saw Aloyseus trying to stagger to his feet. Finnaeus shifted into his cat form, took two steps, and pounced. He landed on his brother with a jarring thud, and he pressed a clawed paw to his brother’s throat to stop him from casting.

“Clever,” Aloyseus choked out. Finnaeus shifted into his troll form, keeping his hand pressed against Aloyseus’s throat.

“Why,” Finnaeus said, anger and grief over coming him. He saw his own three fingers, natural for a troll and so unnatural for him, and revulsion as strong as he ever encountered came over him. He hated himself, he hated this troll body, and he hated what his brother had become. Everything about this situation was wrong.

“We all do what we have to do to survive in this world,” Aloyseus said. “I’m no different.”

“It didn’t need to be this way,” Finnaeus said, his emotions pouring out of him. Why was he here again, in this moment, on the verge of something so terrible? “Leave the Forsaken and we’ll find a way, together.”

“You had your chance at reconciliation,” Aloyseus hissed. “Go on. Do it. The only regret I have is I won’t be able to see how much torture it is trying to live with yourself on a daily basis. You are the last diseased branch of our family, Finnaeus.”

Finnaeus stared into his brother’s eyes, trying to see something there, trying to find anything to hold onto. His brother was not a bad person, not the Aloyseus he knew. There had to be a way to reach him, there just had to. He had paid the price for being too quick with death, he learned that with his family. There was a price that everyone paid for killing, and he did not know if he could afford to pay it.

“Coward,” Aloyseus hissed. “Or are you afraid of it? Afraid of being the last? Afraid of the family you loved so much coming to an end?”

Finnaeus searched his brother’s face. He could see the outlines of the handsome, young Aloyseus. The eye structure, the shape of his cheeks, the remains of his nose. He could see him there, he truly could. And he remembered his conversation with his mother, right before she died. He swore to protect him, didn’t he?

“I’m sorry for everything that has happened to you,” Finnaeus whispered. He loosened his grip on his brother. Finnaeus saw the disbelief in Aloyseus’s eyes. But then Finnaeus’s gaze was drawn to the jaw, that jaw from some other body that was unnaturally fastened to his brother’s face.

“But our mother was right,” Finnaeus said. “All things must end.”

He shifted into his cat form, and in one smooth motion he swiped Aloyseus’s head clear from his neck.

Ichor streamed out of his brother’s neck. Finnaeus shifted into his troll form. His heart clenched in his chest, a vice of grief squeezing the life out from within him. He staggered over, grief washing over him, and he walked away from his brother. There was not enough in him to look at the remains of his brother’s forsaken face, and he did not notice that his swipe had removed the foreign jaw clean from the rest of the skull. Finnaeus left the camp, unable to look back, unwilling to look back. It wouldn’t change anything.

His brother was dead. And he was all that was left of his family.

The Light. How he hated it.

Malthaes sat among the rubble, staring down at the lifeless corpse of Araneon Sunwhisper. He had been staring at him for quite some time, watching as the last of the blood oozed out of his fatal wounds. Malthaes had stabbed him pretty thoroughly with the sword, and it must have been at least two hours since the Spider had breathed his last breath.

But he could not take his gaze from the elf. Malthaes stared and stared, sometimes flicking his gaze towards Anyanara’s body. But it always returned to the Spider’s. It was hard to say why he could not stop looking, except that he felt this odd compulsion to absorb every detail of the dead body.

“I hate you,” Malthaes hissed at the body. “I hate you for doing this to me.”

He glanced down at his own body, and nestled in the middle of his chest was a glowing, radiant ball of Light.

With Araneon’s last breath, he had channeled all of his Light into the Void Spark that gave Malthaes such immeasurable power. The power to subdue a god. And The Spider, in some last act of desperation, took that power away from him.

Malthaes could not bear to look at it, could not stand the sight. The sensation was odious as well – there was a constant warmth that felt like burning. He could almost hear the chimes of the Naaru that the spark came from, and the thought made his skin crawl. What smug, condescending things O’ros would have to say now that Malthaes had lost his spark.

“Enough,” Malthaes said. He needed to get out of here. There was enough failure in this mountain to last two lifetimes. There was no reason to lay in it. “Piztal.”

He spoke his imp’s name, trying to summon him. But the imp did not come.

“Piztal,” he snapped. “NOW!”

But still there was no sign of his imp.

“You can never rely on anyone but yourself,” Malthaes said, muttering. He got to his feet, dusting off his tattered robes. There were a few ways to conjure some fel portals. He curled his hands, but he found that there was nothing to summon. He closed his eyes, and he chanted. They were words he had said thousands of times before, magic he could conjure so easily. But the words did nothing, and he realized with a slowly dawning dread that all of his fel powers had been purged out of him by the Light Spark.

“NO!” he screamed. He tried everything. Shadow bolts. Fel flames. He scrambled down off the rocks and found a patch of dirt. He traced his fingers into the soil, uttering the incantations. When he finished, the rune did not glow green as it usually did. It just looked like a pattern engraved in the dirt.

He screamed then, to let out the frustration, the anger, and the fear. He could not deny it anymore. Fear bloomed inside of him. It was as if someone had taken all of his weapons away from him, and now he was alone to face the armies coming for him. The Light Spark had to go. It could not stay.

With panic he ran back to Araneon’s body, and he ripped the sword off the ground. He flipped the blade in his hands. It would be painful, but cutting out the spark was his only hope. He pressed the blade into his flesh, and he screamed as he dragged the sharp end down around the edges of the spark. But then the pain disappeared, and when he looked down he saw that the Light was healing the wound. Cursing he tried again, plunging the sword into his skin. It went deep, but it did no good – as soon as he moved the blade the flesh behind it healed.

It was too much. He let out an angry bellow and he hurled the sword away from him.

“YOU!” he screamed, turning his angry gaze down at the Spider. “You miserable, filthy, disgusting, stupid traitor!” He kicked Araneon’s body, and when the body settled from the blow the head turned towards him, the eyes still open. Malthaes felt accused at that moment, accused of murdering him. He felt terrible, and at that moment he felt something he had not felt in a long time. Guilt.

Terrified, he raced down the rocks, and he picked up the sword. He’d need it. What he would do from here, he didn’t know. But somehow, he would have to get rid of this Spark. Or it would ruin him. Malthaes fled down the tunnels of the ruined lab, the burning presence of the Light never fading.

Moonglade. All of the familiar scents came over him, but it was different this time. He did not reach into the soil to escape himself, because he knew that there was no escape to be had. Instead, he simply watched the blades of grass flicker in the lazy breeze.

“You’re back.”

He heard Narya from behind him. She sounded pleased to see him, but he did not turn to face her. Instead he kept his eyes on the blades of grass. Narya crouched next to him. She gazed at him, studying him with her eyes, and when he turned to look at her he found he could not meet her gaze. She sighed.

“Tell me.”

There was a time in his life that Finnaeus would have kept it to himself. He would have caged the entire ordeal away, locked it in that vault where he kept all of his painful memories. But he found that he did not have the strength to do that anymore. There was nothing to do for it now but to just let it happen. And so, he told her everything.

She was a patient listener, asking few questions. And he did not spare her any details. What would be the point of withholding anything? He didn’t have the energy to sift through what he regretted most, or what he was ashamed of, what he would have changed. It was all a nightmare, ever since he got that letter from his brother when he was sitting in this very same spot. And as he rolled through the tale, he found spots where he could have done something else, or made a different decision. But he did not shy away from those moments. He made those choices, he acted that way, and there was nothing to be done for it but to accept it.

He finished the story, and Narya let out a long breath.

“Well,” she said after a long pause. “I’m very glad that I found you here and you hadn’t connected with the land. Imagine the poisonous flowers you would have sprouted.”

Finnaeus did not laugh. He clutched the golden locket in his hand, his family heirloom, and found no solace in it.

“What happened to the warlock?” Narya asked. “This Malthaes.”

“I don’t know,” Finnaeus said. “I went back to the lab and found everyone dead. Including the Mogu. If I was a fool I’d assume that he’s dead. But without a body I can’t be sure.”

“True,” Narya said. “It is a shame you found your friend dead and not your enemy.”

“Araneon was not my friend,” Finnaeus said.

“On the contrary, of course he was,” Narya said. “In a fashion. He risked his life to free you. That counts for something.”

“Perhaps,” Finnaeus said. “We barely knew each other.”

“Which makes it all the more remarkable that he did such a thing,” she said. “You have to understand, you make it so hard on people to attach to you. You’re afraid of losing them.”

Finnaeus lowered his gaze to the locket, feeling an irrepressible sadness come over him.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said to her.

“What do you mean?” she responded.

“My old body was destroyed,” he said. “My family is dead.” He turned to her, meeting her eyes. “I have nothing, Narya.”

Inexplicably, she gave him a smile.

“You’re smart, Finnaeus. But it’s wasted by how stubborn you can be.”

It was something that she said millions of times before. He normally followed it up with some stubborn retort, but he had nothing to say to it.

“You don’t have nothing. You’ve lost so much, of that I am sure. We all do, in the process of living. We gain things, people. We make memories, good and bad. Experiences. And we lose some of those things, some of those people.”

“I know,” Finnaeus said. “All things must end.”

“But you’ve forgotten the most important part of what your mother told you,” Narya said, smiling. “Which is also something many of us do. We only remember the parts of the lessons we want to remember. What she said was ‘all things must end, to make way for what comes after.’ She did not want you to linger and wallow in the end. She wanted you to look to the after.”

Finnaeus gripped the locket tight.

“But what comes after,” Finnaeus said, feeling the warmth of a tear slide down his face. “I don’t know what to do.”

“It’s a good question,” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. Where once he would have shrugged it away, he found the thought of her pulling her hand away unbearable. “But it’s one you have to answer for yourself. What you do from now is a story you write yourself, with the help and hindrance of those that wander in and out of its pages. But just because you’ve turned the page does not mean what came before disappears. It must means you’ve moved on.”

Finnaeus nodded, wiping away the solitary tear that had escaped. He had come to this moment many times before, where he was ready to leave the past behind. But he could never relinquish the grip he had for it. He did not want to forget Claire and Lydia, his father or his mother, or even his brother, despite all of the things he had done. But what Narya said was true. He could not shackle himself to it any longer.

With a sigh he took the locket from around his neck.

“I thought it was going to open when I was shot,” Finnaeus said to her.

“It wasn’t the right moment,” she said, nudging him. “Look.”

He glanced down, and the edges near the hinges. Trepidation filled him when he heard the locket click. It was a moment he waited for since he got it from his father, always wondering what his parents kept inside of it. His father always told him it would be something important, something vital, and that the locket would only open at the precise moment when he needed it the most. Despite his awe and reverence towards his father he never quite believed that the incantation would work that way.

“Go on,” Narya said.

He pried his fingers in the hinges, and he opened the trinket. He tilted the locket, and out of it came a handful of –

“Apple seeds,” he choked out.

“Ah,” Narya said. “Of course.”

He felt them in his hands, and he knew at once that they came from the apple tree just outside the farm house. It was the house that he knew, the home that he craved, and just feeling the seeds in his hands summoned so many memories.

“Perhaps it’s time to grow another tree in your new home,” Narya said.

“Will the Circle allow it? It’s not natural to the area.”

“It is change, true,” Narya said. “But it’s also new life. They’ll understand.”

Finnaeus nodded, and with a wave of his hand a patch of grass shrunk and disappeared, leaving fresh soil. He reached into the ground, cupping out a handful of it, and then dropped the seeds into the patch. His hands glowed green, and he replaced the soil atop the seeds.

“Don’t,” she said, holding out her hands. He stopped chanting.

“Why?”

“You don’t get to rush through the process,” Narya said. “You need time to heal. Stay here for a while. Come to this spot when you need to reminisce and to grieve. Perhaps some of the apples will sour because of your disposition, but if you just let yourself be for once, perhaps most of them will turn out sweet.”

Finnaeus smirked, despite himself.

“You hope.”

“That I do,” she said. “If an orchard filled with poisonous apples fills this area, it’ll be more than just you that is exiled from Moonglade.”

“They won’t be,” Finnaeus said. “I’ll make sure of it.”

“Good. In the meantime, let’s get some food. Trying to get through impenetrable stubbornness always works up an appetite.”

Finnaeus’s eyes went to the patch of soil. It was a weird thing, but he found he did not want to leave the seeds to their own.

“They’ll be safe while you’re gone,” Narya said. He looked at her and nodded. With one last glance, he closed the golden locket and settled it next to the dirt patch. His eyes lingered on the hammer and rose intertwined. It carried so much importance to him, when he was adrift and needed something to remind of him of home. But it was, after all, only a locket.

“Guess it’s time for what’s after,” Finnaeus said. He turned away from the locket, and he walked with Narya towards Nighthaven.

((COMPLETED! To all the readers who managed to slog their way through, thanks for your readership and your support! I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it!))

I can't believe it's over. An 8 page !@#$%^. I think I'll take up smoking again.))

((I know! If it helps, the next story is going to take up with Malthaes, I think. Ol' Finn needs some time to rest.

And as always, thanks for even reading it in the first place. It means a lot!))

((This was fantastic, Finnaeus. I can't wait to read about what happens to Malthaes.))

((Thanks for reading and your kind words Azheria! Appreciate it tons!))