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Today's story is a piece of World of Warcraft fan-art. Written for a long dead Guild in WoW, that requested backstories for our in-game characters.
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| A very young Hunter on her way to Darnassus, the capital of the elven. |
Ishnu'alah elven brethren.
I was no more than a toddler when my village was annihilated by the wild, tainted furbolgs. Everybody seems to agree that Starbreeze was the first and only village to suffer this fate. I suppose is it because our village was far smaller and there was no survivors to tell the tale, except from me, and I only learned the whole story a short while ago. The village was to the south west in the more desolate parts of Teldrassil, although I can't rightly use that word of my beloved isle.
Among my first memories are the giant shadows of furbolgs on moonlit trees, screams and frightening sounds. The next thing I remember must be years later. An old hunter sat skinning a furbolg body by the fire. He had found me in the ruined village and took me to his hiding place in the southern hills. It seemed a sunlit and nice place to me as a child.
Sometimes in his darker hours he hinted at an unspeakable crime that kept him away from other people. That was the reason he did not live in our village any more. Now that I think about it I realize that I must have been related to him in some way, but I can't start to guess how.
The old hunter, Wilwarinn -- named after the stars, his name means butterfly -- raised me more like a pet than a child. From him I learned how to cook, skin and make clothes, skills he found appropriate for a girl. Later he realized that old age was soon upon him and if he wanted to eat, he had to teach me tracking and hunting. He taught me the tracks of beast and elven, he made a bow for me and made me practise for hours on end until one day he let me shoot at living targets. My first deer was an unforgettable triumph, but even more so my first furbolg only days later.
I was still only a wisp of a girl when he turned ill. In his illness he ranted about unicorns and immortality. He asked me to fetch master Strongoak from the great tree, Aldrassil. I did it even though I nearly fainted from fear, I had never spoken to other people before. After Wilwarinn had died, master Strongoak told me some of the things they talked about. He told me that Wilwarinns crime was that he in the recklessness of youth shot a unicorn, but he found this misdeed fully atoned by his caring for me all those years. He also told me a bit more about my village and the furbolgs.
I took over the old cottage and the owl wich belonged to Wilwarinn. Master Dazalaar in Dolanaar taught me what more was necessary. For many years I lived peacefully in the old hut hunting out furbolgs in the surrounding woods.
In the end curiosity got the better of me and I travelled the world. I met strange and amazing sights, but mostly I kept to myself, not being quite confident around people. Then one late evening in Elwynn Forest, I met a young elven man who were about to be killed by a pack of wolves. My owl and me killed most of the wolves, and the young elf invited me to join a nice group of elven. I was shy at first, but he convinced me. For a time I kept in the background and listened to the older ones, slowly I got a little used to living and talking with other of Elune's creatures. But after some time a spirit of evil spread in the group and it disbanded. After this disillusion, I went back to my beloved Teldrassil. If you have an errand for me, you will find me where the evil gnarlpines gather.
Elun'edorei sisters and brothers.
PS. I wrote this story years before reading the Harry Potter books, the idea of unicorn blood granting immortality to the imbiber comes from "A Spell for Chameleon" by Piers Anthony, or just from the Commonwealth of letters.
SvarSlet