A Savage Nature Ch. 23 (Warcraft Insert) (Patreon)

A/N: Tyrande angy. Tyrande veerrrry angy.

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Hearing Illidan’s unvarnished opinion of their people hadn’t felt good, don’t get her wrong… but that didn’t make it any easier to see the Death Knight slay him mere moments later. For a brief moment, Tyrande is ready to shut down again. She’d just lost her beloved. And now she’d gotten his brother killed as well. If she’d only been a little bit more open with Illidan, if she’d only tried to be more understanding… but no. It was too late. He was dead.

She felt broken. Empty inside. Even as the others raced forward to do battle with the Death Knight, this ‘Arthas’, Tyrande could only stare at Illidan’s body. His lifeless eyes still open and glassy, seemingly staring back at her, almost in accusation. She’d done this. She-

And then Arthas added insult to injury. The Death Knight, hounded and harassed by her companions, had used his necromantic magics to bring forth the dead from the ground, summoning up a small army to fight for him, to help him stave off his certain demise. Tyrande had flinched when Illidan had first twitched. A gasp had left her lips, as his corpse had risen from the ground.

Luckily, the Death Knight did not have time for anything too powerful. He had reaped Illidan’s soul and in raising him into undeath the quick and easy way, he had not brought Illidan’s body back as anything other than another mindless undead. If he’d had the time to summon Illidan as an intelligent servant, their ability to stop Arthas would have been significantly curtailed.

Not that they were all that much better off as it was. That sword that the Death Knight wielded was dangerous to say the least, and it was taking all of Cenarius’ concentration to protect Rognak from its soul-reaping effects. Meanwhile, Thrall and Jaina were busy dealing with the ghouls and zombies attempting to swarm them, holding them at bay through a combination of Lady Proudmoore’s ice magic and the Orc Warchief’s lightning.

Finally, there was Shandris. The Night Elf Sentinel, Tyrande’s adoptive daughter, was loath to leave her side. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t firing arrow after arrow, providing support to both pairs as they fought their respective opponents.

All of this, Tyrande takes in with a detached air. The sounds of fighting and shouting barely reached her ears past the blood roaring in them, reduced to nothing but a dull murmur. Even Shandris right beside her goes unheard… at first. All she could do was stand there, swaying side to side. Until…

“PRIESTESS! Priestess, we need your aid!”

Shandris’ voice sounds desperate. Afraid. Scared. Tyrande finds herself tugged from the abyss she’s falling into, the ocean of despair she’s drowning in. Malfurion is gone. Illidan is gone. But Shandris is still here. And she’s in danger.

“… Mother! Please! I need you!”

And with that, Tyrande finds the strength to pull herself up. More than that, she finds the fury that her heartache had been holding at bay. This… creature was the root of all of her woes. This Death Knight had killed Illidan, but more than that… he represented the Scourge who took her mate from her. Malfurion’s death was on his hands just as much as his brother’s was.

And now this… Arthas thought to use Illidan’s body as a puppet?! The bow is in Tyrande’s hands before she can even think about it. The arrow of pure, blindingly radiant moonlight is drawn along it before she even truly breathes. She fires the first radiant arrow straight at Illidan’s reanimated, desecrated corpse, burning it to ash right there on the spot.

Then she fires the second at the Death Knight’s head, feeling nothing but a howling fury blazing away inside of her as he barely manages to catch it on his blade in time. The sword he wields is clearly an artifact of great and terrible power. Tyrande has never seen its like before, but just looking at it as the runes along its blade glows, she knows it to be an awful, vile thing of unimaginable corruption and evil.

She doesn’t care. In that moment, Tyrande feels the Might of Elune thrumming through her. Every fiber of her being feels at one with her Goddess. The Moon shines overhead, brighter than it’s ever been before, seemingly larger than it’s ever been before. Tyrande’s not sure how she knows that truth be told. She doesn’t look up to confirm it. She doesn’t take her eyes off of her prey for one single moment, even as the stars themselves fall all around her, slaying his undead servants one after another without fail.

Stalking forward, she lets out a snarl as she draws back her bowstring yet again, another blisteringly bright radiant arrow forming between her fingers.

“YOU! You took my beloved from me! You took his brother! My people suffer because of YOU!”

Arthas sneers and deflects her next shot as she fires. But it strains him to do so, forcing him off-balance as his powerful sword is swung to the side by the force of her arrow. The orc druid Rognak takes advantage of this to strike at the Death Knight’s unprotected side with his axe. Blessed by Cenarius himself, the powerful axe bites into the Death Knight’s chest plate, causing dark blood to ooze from the wound that it leaves there.

But the Death Knight is not killed by the blow, as Rognak is forced to pull away a moment later, Arthas recovering and swinging his sword dangerously close to Rognak’s chest in turn. Still… it’s an opening if Tyrande has ever seen one. Calling upon her Goddess, calling upon the Light of Elune, Tyrande howls as she fires arrow after arrow at the Death Knight.

When Arthas goes to block her this time… he finds roots wrap around his wrist and pull his sword arm back at the last second. Lord Cenarius’ druidic magics restrain one of the Death Knight’s arms, allowing for her arrows to find purchase in Arthas’ chest at long last. The radiance of the Moon Goddess punches into the wound that Rognak has managed to make, filling Arthas with the Light of Elune as he howls in anger.

For a moment, his eyes shine with Moonlight and his head tilts back… before snapping forward again, his standard icy blue glow reasserting itself. He makes eye contact with Tyrande then, sneering at her in defiance. She sees in his gaze… he recognizes that he’s not getting out of this alive.

“I don’t even know who you are, bitch. But I’m glad I hurt you. I’m glad I caused you pain!”

Tyrande’s eyes narrow at that, her next arrow already drawn and ready to fire. All the while, she’s been getting closer. Perhaps not the wisest of moves. Perhaps not even particularly advisable. She’s the one with the bow, he’s the one with the sword. By all rights, she should not be closing the distance between them. But she can’t help herself. Perhaps some part of her wants it. Wants to die.

Not the cognizant part, however. When Arthas suddenly breaks free of Cenarius’ binding, his dangerous, rune-covered sword swinging towards her and managing to cut the ‘head’ off of her latest arrow of radiance, Tyrande’s eyes widen in shock. The broken ‘arrow’ explodes a moment later, the contained light no longer contained. The blowback from her arrow of light being cut in half sends her falling back as Arthas surges forward, roaring in anger.

She’s barely able to get her bow up in time, before his runed blade cuts right through it. However, before he can cut through HER, her allies interpose themselves. Working together, Rognak and Thrall use axe and hammer to catch Arthas’ blade and force him back, their muscles bulging as they strain themselves to push the unnaturally strong human into a backwards stumble.

Before the Death Knight can fully right himself, ice coalesces around his ankles, locking his feet to the forest floor. More roots than before reach out from the root wall that blocked his initial escape, grabbing onto his arms, neck, and shoulders. Another roar of anger sounds from his lips, even as he swings his blade too and fro.

Tyrande stares for a moment, finally recognizing him for the psychotic, sick beast he is. He is a plague on this forest, an unstable and sickly thing. Mercy will only see him spread his disease to others around him… and so Tyrande stands, feeling a clarity of purpose fall over her. When an animal maddened by sickness and disease threatened the woods, you did not try to reason with it. You did not try to show it kindness. You put it down. For the safety of everyone else.

With her bow destroyed, there are no more radiant arrows. Instead, Tyrande reaches up with her bare hands, grasping at the Moon shining so brightly high overhead. She lets her eyes drift shut for a moment as she calls to her Goddess, the sounds of Arthas struggling to escape and the others struggling to contain him falling away. For a moment, it is just her and Elune and despite the absence of a Moonwell, the High Priestess of the Night Elf People has never felt closer to her Goddess.

In that instant, Tyrande knows that she and Elune are in complete agreement. The Death Knight must die. Here, now, before his madness and plague can harm anyone else.

Tyrande’s eyes snap open and she lets out a singular cry as she thrusts her hands forward. Through her, the Light of Elune shines brighter than it has EVER shone before. Power, raw yet somehow contained, courses through her veins and strikes Arthas in the chest, in that same spot where Rognak’s axe struck true and a dozen of her radiant arrows had stabbed him mere moments before.

The flow of power catches in that wound and spreads out through every fiber of Arthas’ body. Like before, his eyes begin to shine with moonlight… unlike before, there is no recovery this time. His sword shines with the same ice-cold blue that his eyes once shone with, but it’s no use. And as Tyrande burns the Death Knight from the inside out, a pillar of Moonlight strikes down from the sky above, falling upon Arthas and his sword.

Moonfire more powerful than Tyrande has ever wielded or seen wielded by any other hits the earth, making the ground itself shake beneath its feet and all of them set themselves in place to keep their footing. Tyrande screams and in that scream she lets out all of her pain, all of her suffering, all of her heartache.

When it’s done… she feels empty. Empty of Elune’s power, though she can tell she will recover that in time. But… also empty in a way she’s not so sure of. Her vengeance… her vengeance feels incomplete.

Meanwhile, the Death Knight lays dead. And his sword beside him, the dangerous thing covered in runes, lies shattered into a hundred different shards. For a moment, time itself seems to stand still… and then wisps of energy begin to pull off of the broken shards. Souls start to pour out of the sundered blade at an alarming rate, but while everyone else lets out exclamations of shock as they fly up into the sky, Tyrande… Tyrande finds herself freezing.

For in front of her, one soul in particular hovers. Despite just witnessing his death, Tyrande comes face to face with Illidan Stormrage once more. He appears to her as he once was before the War of the Ancients, before the Sundering, before ten thousand years of imprisonment. He appears before her young… and almost innocent in a way.

Tyrande chokes, tears welling up in her eyes as he gives her a soft smile.

“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…”

“No, Tyrande. You, of all people, do not get to apologize to me.”

She flinches at that, taking the worst from his words, but what he says next disabuses her of the notion that he blames her at all.

“My own actions led me here, to this fate. You were the only one who ever truly believed in me. For that, I loved you until the end… but I see now that we were never meant to be.”

Tyrande averts her gaze at that. There was a time when she’d wondered if they were meant for each other. When it was the three of them, before everything had happened. But in the end… in the end, Malfurion had been her choice. And she knew Illidan had never accepted that. Until now. Small mercies, that. Here she stood, her friend finally able to accept that they could not be together… only after he was dead. And his brother, her mate, soon to follow him.

“Tyrande…”

Looking up, Tyrande’s eyes widen as she realizes Illidan is being pulled away. Rather, his visage is slowly morphing into… into that of a wisp. The spirits of their people. Did that mean he would become one with the trees of their forests? Did that mean he would be allowed to join the other wisps, their dearly departed?

“Promise me one thing, Tyrande. Please…”

Tyrande’s breath hitches, but in the end it’s an easy promise to make.

“O-Of course. Anything…”

He’s dead. What could he possibly ask her that she would balk at, at this point?

Now fully a wisp, Illidan bobs up and down, a glowing ball of translucent light shimmering in front of her. But his voice is still his own. Clear, calm, and so very strong. Even though she can no longer see his face, she can still feel as though his eyes are boring into her own with that infamous intensity of his.

“Never stop fighting for what you believe in Tyrande. Never ever stop fighting.”

Tyrande opens her mouth to respond, though she doesn’t know what exactly she’s going to say. But it doesn’t matter because the wisp floats away a moment later, joining the rest of the flowing river of souls leaving the broken sword.

A moment later and it’s over. The outpouring of souls reaped by the dark and evil blade ends and the last of the runes on the destroyed sword fizzle and go dark, leaving it as just pieces of metal laying there on the forest floor.

Silence falls, only interspersed with the heavy breathing of everyone save for Lord Cenarius. The battle had not been an easy one. It had felt impossible at certain points. But they’d won it all the same. And while Tyrande still felt a little empty inside… Illidan’s last words slot into that emptiness, nevertheless, filling up a small portion of it as she stands there, staring down at the broken shards and the Death Knight’s still corpse with the rest of them.

Never ever stop fighting. Looking down at one of her hands, slowly curling it into a fist… Tyrande clenches her jaw.

That she could do. After all… their enemies were still numerous. The Legion and the Scourge were still out there and they needed to be stopped. Once and for all.

-x-X-x-

A/N: So yeah, that happened. To be absolutely clear, this was more Elune killing Arthas and shattering Frostmourne using Tyrande as a conduit. This is not a feat Tyrande could have managed without the connection between her and Elune being blown wide open by very powerful emotions.

That said... what do you all think? Originally, when I was first writing this outline, I planned to have Arthas escape via Death Gate, maybe after losing an arm, so he could still be the Big Bad later on in the story.

But then I found out he doesn't HAVE Death Gate back in WC3. Or else he wouldn't have to spend 7 months getting back to EK from Kalimdor.

Anyways, hope you all enjoyed and be sure to toss me a comment!