Paying Respects (Skint story)

[Rhonya]

Nagrand. Such a familiar place, but also not. There were a lot of differences, but also many similarities between this world and the one I grew up on. The biggest of course being the sorry state of this one.
I walked slowly, one foot in front of the other, my robe fluttering around my legs as I did so. There was a slight breeze on the air, blowing through my wet, white hair. The bath down the river had been nice, a safe place to wash off all the dirt gathered the days before. Not only the dirt though, but also part of the worries about what happened back in Auchindoun. Watching the filth being taken by the water also left me feeling lighter a bit about what we saw there.

The road was quiet, not very well travelled, besides sometimes a mag’har passing by on wolfback. I didn’t mind. I took my time for the walk, looking around as I followed the road down to Oshu’gun. My destiny wasn’t Oshu’gun though, but the burial grounds before them. The Ancestral grounds.
My arms were full of wildflowers I picked up along the way. I didn’t have anything else to give to them.
Not that these were the graves of ‘my’ ancestors. Yet, I felt a kinship to them all the same. My gaze travelled up to look at the sky, watching the nether magic flow across it in purple waves on the air. This world, ripped apart by magic.
My world, perhaps enduring the same fate right now? It was a different magic, but from what I’d heard, the Burning Legion took over this world by force, with Fel.
And the Lightbound did the same, but.. with Light.

I shook my head, glancing back down to look at where I was going. It was no use thinking about Draenor, we were never returning there either way. We’d probably never learn what happened there.
Which is why this little trip was so important to me. Maybe some closure. Not the same ancestors, but once we were the same world, albeit in a different dimension. This was the closest I was going to get.

As I rounded the corner and walked up the soft grass to the ancestral grounds, I smiled a little. It was peaceful here. Not as big as the grounds I had so often visited as a child, but the same feeling hung in the air. A feeling of peace, sadness, but also joy. A life that had ended, a life celebrated.
Slowly I walked across the grounds, laying a few flowers by every pyre.
The last few days had been an eye opener for me. Even here, I felt it more. The presence of the dead, the departed, the souls. Not only the slight lingering essence of those having passed on, but also those who wouldn’t let go, who still wandered the in between.
Since having my fetish complete and delving deeper into the magic that was granted to me, I had felt them. Especially down in Auchindoun. Maybe Nakobu hadn’t heard them, but the ones tortured by the necromancer.. I had felt it and heard their silent screams. Their pain, their anger, their hurt. I felt it and when I released them, it faded, but it only made my own anger so much stronger.
Strong enough for me to have actually claimed the necromancers soul for myself to offer to Bwonsamdi later, where I almost lost myself in my anger. Where I delved into something deeper, something I had found familiar, but I couldn’t place my thumb on it…

I bend down to put a bowl upright again at one of the pyres that wasn’t in use. I placed a flower inside of it anyway. I felt like I knew what I wanted to do… my path to take. I wanted to aid these souls. Any soul. Aid the mind, the inner workings that made a person a person.
I could now, but with a price. And that was a price I couldn’t keep paying. A price that also had involved others, and I didn’t want that. One of these days, I’d have to break my deal.
I was really grateful for Nakobu for helping me so much. But he was also so overly worried about me. Worried I’d hurt myself. I’d get into trouble. I mean, I did, but still.
A sigh escaped my lips, I sat myself down on a patch of grass, placing the left over flowers beside me. I cared a lot about him. And to my surprise, when I had admitted it to him, he said returned my feelings. He’d shown that again and again the past while. Taking these risks for me, taking me into Auchindoun and into Outlands. I felt like I was building up a debt to him I couldn’t repay.

Yet he was still here. I glanced down at the bracelet around my wrist. Worried even now probably, while I was alone here. What had I done to deserve such a male? Not that we were formally bonded yet, and to be fair, the thought actually scared me because I’d never even thought about finding someone for me, ever. But he was here. And we’d agreed to take it slow, at our own pace. Which was fine with me, I was too nervous every time anyway. This trip was helping, though. Spending time together, talking…

And I knew I had to mess it up again soon. I knew the Loa of Death would be mad at me, no matter what I’d do to try and lessen the blow by giving him a few souls anyway. It was only the question what he’d do.

Shaking my head again, I shoved that thought aside. Not today. Today I was here, in Nagrand-but-not-my-Nagrand, paying my respects to spirits long gone. Tomorrow would be a new day, a free day, where we’d only have to return in the evening. No trips. Nothing we had to do.
I smiled to myself, standing up again. Better not stay away too long and make Nakobu worry about nothing.

My stomach growled as my feet found the path again. I hope he had dinner prepared already. I felt I could eat a whole Talbuk.

[Okiba]

MOAR