World of Warcraft®

((Since it's unlikely that we'll all be on at the same time - and since the ideal location for the actual ceremony is not a good idea - I figure we do it this way, here on the forums...))

A letter is sent out from Shadowgarde Keep, in Shadowmoon Valley on Draenor. It bears the personal sigil of House Valmy, the family of the man who now oversees the keep. It is sent to, among others, Genevra Stoneheardt and other members of her Conclave, Mithara, Kaellar, and any number of other friends and comrades - including to Taeril'hane Ketiron in Saavedar, a means of spitting in the face of the woman responsible...

Friends,

I greet you in this solemn time to send word that the preparations have been made. Packleader Zherron has been able to secure the aid of Auchenai priests who have remained loyal to their late Prophet and to the Council of Exarchs, and they have agreed to take in our fallen comrade, Battlelord Velenkayn.

From what I have been able to determine of draenei funeral rites - and according to Captain Leafrunner, few have been forthcoming on the topic when she asked, which led to my asking the Packleader to find out - the body is cremated, and the ashes are taken to Auchindoun, where they are interred in the vaults; presumably, the spirit remains within the ashes, allowing their soul to rest in honor with those of their people. Hopefully, with the defeat of the Iron Horde's plans for the place, the spirit of our comrade will rest easy.

I therefore extend an invitation to all of you to meet in the city of Telmor, to the south of Auchindoun, for the cremation, after which his ashes will be taken by the Auchenai priests to Auchindoun for interment. Telmor, I am told, held a special place in the memory of the Battlelord, as he had been a member of the city guard in the original timeline, on the world that became Outland. Curiously, I have been made aware that the Battlelord has a still-living counterpart from this altered timeline who also filled that role; I have made it a point to ask him to join us as well.

Though you all no doubt wish to bring retribution to the Red Mage for taking him from us, I ask that we set aside our feelings of vengeance for now, and come together to bid farewell to our friend.

Yours sincerely,
Lord Eldred Valmy
Master of Shadowgarde

The old gnome struggled reading through the letter. Long moments of lucidity afforded him to make certain personal arrangements and preparations for himself. He wanted nothing more in that moment than to pen a reply and attend the services in person, but he feared the worsening of his present mental state. Bouts of confusion and forgetfulness occasionally bordered on insanity, and he couldn't risk an episode during such a sacred event.

Especially not in public.

The scholar who had brought him the envelope addressed to Dr. Mahlr'D stood respectfully beside the curator's desk. The old gnome made arrangements with the scholar to pen a letter expressing his most heartfelt condolences, and also to find one who might attend in his stead. Handing the man his professional seal as a curator of Conclave he was dismissed.

Eldred Valmy stood alone in the mage tower in Shadowgarde, looking over his notes before he made his journey back to Azeroth...he needed a break from the stress of things here, and he remembered that the Feathers of Iron had a weekly tavern night in Booty Bay. Perhaps it was time he stopped in.

"It is curious. I had condemned him to seek his second death, and yet now that it has come...I have come in its wake."

Valmy looked up and turned at the voice behind him, seeing a grizzled, battle-scarred draenei wearing ornate plate armor, carrying a typical draenic warhammer. He was several thousand years old, by his estimate. His long white hair rested in braids on his shoulders, and a pair of horns protruded from the bony crest on his skull. Then suddenly it clicked - he remembered that he had sent one of his letters to the Exodar. "Vindicator Incarikayn," he said, nodding his head. "If you will pardon my saying so, I am very surprised to see you here. I did not expect you to answer."

Incarikayn nodded curtly. "I had not expected to come either, warlock. But..." His stern, almost dour expression became...uncertain. "I have never been sure what to think, in the years since he became a death knight. On the one hand, he is anathema to the Light, to all I hold dear...just as the powers you wield are. And on the other...he is my son." He looked Valmy over curiously. "And you were a friend of his?"

"Not without some reluctance on his part," Valmy admitted. "His reaction to me was much the same as yours. Having fought through the hell created here by the Shadow Council, I admit I can see why."

"Hm." The old vindicator seemed to accept that answer. "Is he...still here?"

Valmy nodded. "I have had the body kept preserved until the time comes to take him to Telmor. His death knight guard has ensured it." He tilted his head curiously. "Did you want to see him? Before we...?"

Again the uncertainty. As if he didn't know how to feel... No, more than that, Valmy thought. More like he doesn't know if he should feel. Finally, slowly, Incarikayn nodded. Gesturing to the ramp down to ground level, Valmy led him out of his tower and across the courtyard to the barracks. "We kept the chest down in the cellar...near the jail cells," he explained as they headed down that way. "This is still a working garrison, the quiet aside, and we had to have room. No prisoners to speak of, thank heaven, otherwise this would be even more awkward."

Finally, they entered the main hall, where a great casket - custom built by the fortress' artisans - stood on the floor, draped in the banner of the Alliance, with the sword sigil of the Ebon Blade on top. Six death knights, two to a side, one at each end - stood vigil. As one, they looked over at Valmy. "Leave us for a moment, please." As one, they nodded, and made their way out, waiting outside the dungeon. Gently folding the banner around the Ebon Blade sword, Valmy set it on a nearby chair...and lifted the lid of the coffin.

For the first time in several years, Incarikayn looked on the face of his son, now truly dead. Velenkayn still wore the scarred armor he had been killed in, with his truesteel battleaxe - wrapped in the slashed tabard of the Silver Hand that Saavedro had given him years before - clutched in his grip, the head resting at his shoulder. The frostforged crown remained on his head, the magic that had occasionally given him a frozen skull-face expended; now the deathforged metal was simply inert. The body was surrounded by ice, to preserve it until the ceremony.

"I will leave you alone with him now, Vindicator." Valmy stepped towards the door, to follow the death knights. Then he turned back for a moment. "I think...you might want this." He opened a large satchel at his belt, and pulled out a large book with a worn leather cover, though the draenei script was still visible on the cover and spine, as was the sigil of the naaru.

Incarikayn's mouth hung open in shock. "His...his prayer book? He...kept it?" Valmy held it out to him, and he took it with shaking hands, opening the cover...there were entries of prayers in the later pages, dated...in the years after Velenkayn had died and returned as a death knight. After he had been freed of the Scourge. They were all prayers for forgiveness, and for the protection of his friends. "He...never turned away from the Light." He was astonished. "Even in the wretched state he was in...he never turned away. But...I turned away from him instead..." Incarikayn looked up from the book to the corpse of its owner, tears falling unashamedly from his face. "What have I done?"

Valmy, deciding now would be a good time to leave the old vindicator alone, padded silently out of the dungeon.

In the town hall of Shadowgarde Keep, Arrhae Leafrunner looked up as Valmy entered, looking more rested than he had the day before; she had told him to get some sleep when he returned from Azeroth, and he had - surprisingly - accepted that advice willingly. "Captain Leafrunner," he said formally, "assemble your fellow knights. It is time."

Arrhae nodded, gesturing to one of the guards; a wagon was prepared to carry the body down the road out of Shadowmoon Valley, across the wartorn forests of Talador, and then around Auchindoun until they reached Telmor. "Will the others meet us there?"

"They will, or they won't," Valmy said shortly. "I know Ketiron is en route with a battalion of his House Guard. The others...we will see." He shook his head with a slight chuckle. "I admit to being surprised that his father showed up."

She certainly had been, too. From what Velenkayn had said, Incarikayn was a staunch puritan. No warlocks, no shadow priests, no death knights, and certainly no allies in the Horde. In fact, she was surprised he had not allied with Taldir. Velenkayn had thought much the same thing. "A man of my father's...narrow mindview would be an ideal soldier for this 'cause' this Red Mage upholds," he had told Arrhae when the troubles had begun. "But our foe is indiscriminate; she does not see 'innocents' in this private war she fights. My father is a lot of things - a back-turner, a stubborn old fool...but he is not a murderer."

"You think it will come to that?" she had asked him.

"I know it will," Velenkayn had replied grimly.

And so it had. Arrhae walked out of the hall with Valmy as the coffin was brought up from the barracks jail and placed on the wagon, the banner and sword sigil resting on the lid once more. A great elekk, trained in the keep's stables, was hitched to the wagon, and would pull it along the road for the journey to Telmor. Two of Zherron's Shadowhowl worgen rode on the backs of Uldum lions, carrying their Conclave banners, the white laurel on the blue field; a number of other worgen were on Gilnean mountain horses, brought through by the keep's mages. Zherron himself sat in the great saddle of a dire raven next to them, resplendent in his robes. The six death knight pallbearers had summoned their deathchargers, as the stable hands brought Valmy and Arrhae's mounts up to them - the worgen rode a dark-coated talbuk, and Arrhae her own deathcharger, with red armor rather than the blue-black of Acherus.

Arrhae put her armored foot into the stirrup and lifted herself into the saddle, as Valmy did likewise with his own steed next to her, before riding to the head of the column. One hand on the reins, Valmy raised his staff with his other hand, the jeweled head glowing. Then he pointed it outward, towards the fortress' main gate.

The wagonmaster coaxed the elekk forward, and the wagon began moving its way through the courtyard and towards the gate, the honor guard riding along with it.

Genevra made the trek to Shadowgarde. It was rare for her to leave the Eastern Kingdoms but this was something she had to do. She took a deep breath and her steps caught as she saw the wagon heading out of the main gate. Guiding her charger she urged it to follow behind the processional.

She nodded to those who followed, some she knew, others she didn't, but it stood as a testament to the impact that the fallen Battlelord had on the lives of others. Still, she couldn't help but think of all the things she should have said.

Zherron broke from his place in the procession and fell in next to Genevra, his expression grim. "It is good that you are here, Genevra." The procession turned onto the main road, heading northwest towards the border of Talador. "With all of those we've lost in recent days, it's good we can send this one off properly. We can actually have a chance to bid him farewell, and know that he rests in a good place."

Sitting atop her blue mechanostrider with its engine off, the little armored gnome reverently observed the procession pass from the roadside as it passed into Talador.

Clad in the regular blue plate Stormwind armor polished brightly and cloaked in the blue and white colors of the guild's tabard and cape, the little gray haired gnome looked every bit the part of a proud and stoic warrior. An appropriately sized shield of the alliance at her back with matching short sword at her hip (both also brilliantly polished), the little gnome cradled the blue crested helm in her lap.

Every gnome grieved in their own fashion, and so it was that Doctor Cail Liam Mahlr'D had chosen this one of so many innocuous traditions of the small people. Beneath her helm she carried a small box.

Her precious cargo.

Inside the box was a funerary offering. A simple trinket fashioned in the gnomish style which displayed a series of small interlocked cogs within an open framework a little bigger than a pocket watch. In the center of the trinket was suspended a pale blue stone that, when activated, would emit a soft blue glow so long a tiny spring were periodically wound with a special key.

In a symbolic gesture the trinket is activated once upon completion and the gem is left to glow for an entire day and night, afterward the setting mechanism is removed and discarded. Without it the device would forever remain inert, never again offering its glow to the world. As per the tradition, and according to Dr. Mahlr'D's explicit instructions, the device was then placed within a simple box along with its key and wrapped.

The box was simple with clean lines, finely crafted by a local Draenic artisan. It was wrapped in a swath of purple silk was also from a local Draenei artisan. This was her own personal touch. It felt somehow appropriate.

When the procession had finally passed Guardian Meraligus Pitrish Overpressure ignited the mechanostrider's engine and donned her blue crested helmet. She urged the machine she rode forward and joined the group at the rear.

At an appropriate moment (either during the viewing or after the services) she would make the offering and extend Dr. Mahlr'D's condolences, thus completing her honorable task as representative of the old curator.

Taeril'hane Ketiron stood on a small bluff just outside Telmor, his goggles zoomed in on the procession as it made its way through the ruins of Tuurem, then made the southward turn down toward Auchindoun, where they would move out of sight as they passed around the great dome. His detail of bodyguards were seated near the shrine behind him, where the Auchenai priests had already prepared the pyre on the shrine's former altar. Now they waited for the body.

Though the Shadow Council had been cleared out of the place, and the signs of their desecration were slowly being cleaned away by the local priests, no one had yet returned to Telmor since the city had fallen. Restalaan, the guard captain, still commanded his men in the field against whatever remained of Gul'dan's minions in Talador. Lady Liadrin had also offered a battalion of the Sunsworn to that cause, as well as protecting Auchindoun from any further efforts by the Shadow Council to consume the souls of the honored dead.

WIth the war winding down, Ketiron had sent a letter back to Silvermoon, formally retiring from military service; he was a general no longer, simply head of a noble house and Blood Knight Master who would answer the call of service when needed. But for now, after this funeral, he would turn Saavedar over to Lazhna and Kitrik, and go home to Silvermoon to raise his son...until the next war came along, that is.

It had been a never-ending cycle since his people had joined with the Forsaken and other members of the Horde to end Dar'Khan's perfidious influence once and for all. After that, they had gone to Outland, first hoping to join their beloved Prince...then fighting against him when he swore himself to the Legion. Then Northrend, where Arthas had met his well-deserved fate, avenging Anasterian and all the dead of Quel'Thalas. Then the Cataclysm, then Pandaria, then Draenor...on and on, it went.

Where next, I wonder? he thought to himself.

The procession had disappeared out of sight behind the dome of Auchindoun, and Ketiron removed his goggles, stowing them away in a belt pouch, before turning back over to the assembled gathering. In addition to his own troops, a lone orc had arrived as well - a death knight, wearing salvaged Blackrock armor and a cloak of garn hide, carrying a battleaxe salvaged from the Orgrimmar armory during the siege. Then he remembered Velenkayn had asked for this orc, the blademaster, to help defend Genevra while she was in hiding from Taldir's rage.

With a sigh, Ketiron walked over to one of the benches in the front row, sat down, and waited.

Zephilyn pulled back on the talbuk's reins as she neared the fortress known as Shadowgarde. She needed a moment to consider, and she had been putting this decision off for the entirety of her journey.

She didn't know the Battlelord personally. By reputation, he was a cursed being - a walking affront to the Light itself. A being to be avoided, shunned although through no fault of his own.

So why was she here? Because despite what he faced, he remained true? Perseverance. Because it felt right to be here. She answered herself.

The gold cross pennant snapped in the wind by her ear, reminding her. And because, as Sepha, I don't just stand for myself... I stand for the Presidium. What little girl Zephilyn might want is inconsequential. What Sepha Zephilyn must do is strap on her big girl pants and do the needful. The thought made her frown ever so slightly beneath her visor. Lady Gentyl wouldn't have needed the reminder. She scolded herself.

The sun glinted on her armor and caught the gold in the pennant on her lance. She watched the gates of the keep open. The procession formed, with others joining in along the way. She noted many members of Lady Genevra's Conclave- most she had at least met in passing. With an almost imperceptible nod, she spurred her Talbuk to join the procession wordlessly.

A lone figure stood at a distance, watching the procession. A hood was drawn tightly around her face and a cloak hung down to her ankles. She watched in silence. She couldn’t help but feel somewhat responsible. Had she given the warning of what Alieth had intended, would it have made a difference? Had she shared the knowledge, she’d gleaned from the tome that Sekhesmet had given her, would others have been able to see through the mage’s disguise? These were questions she didn’t wish answered. The Battlelord had served his purpose, without his death she was certain that Alieth would still be terrorizing the Kingdom. She knew the Battlelord didn’t like her, the feeling was mutual. She just couldn’t shake off the feeling that something valuable was lost.

Biting her lip Noikona turned whence she had come. Anger simmered inside of her as guilt flowed through her veins. Her conscious flared causing her knees to feel weak. With several deep breaths she regained her composure and slowly walked away.