I wrote this because I kind of had to. It’s meant to be how I feel the Windrunners are like. Kind of a dissertation of how I feel they’re characterized, only in short story format. I only wrote it on a whim, no revisions, so sorry for errors an such.
Dark Sisters
Alleria woke up somewhere unknown yet somehow familiar. A hellish landscape, dark and empty. She was unarmed. Had she been kidnapped? Her ranger instincts kicked in and she began to assess the situation, instantly driven forward. She had to act. Now. Before whoever brought her here came back.
She grunted and crawled over to a sound, a soft humming. A voice… strangely familiar. Over a ravine, some fifty yards away, a dark figure walked up a slope of ashy ground, looking at the floor, casually tracking some sort of trail. Hooded, cloaked, bow in hand. Alleria knew instantly who it was. She couldn’t see her face, and the figure was hard to see in the darkness, but her sister’s gait was unmistakable. Had she bought her here?
Alleria considered sneaking up on her. Sylvanas was armed, Alleria was not, and the Banshee could not be trusted. But it would be pointless. Sylvanas would know, she might even already be aware of where she was. So Alleria took a deep breath and strode towards “the Dark Lady”.
Perhaps she should have snuck up on her. Sylvanas seemed distracted, aloof, and it took her a surprisingly long time to notice her sister striding up to her, stomping. Her now-blue eyes looked at Alleria, confused, her mouth partially ajar. Just when Sylvanas was about to say something, Alleria screamed and threw a punch, as hard as she could. Sylvanas dodged by reflex, easily avoiding the hit, almost looking like she did so in slow motion. Well. There went Alleria’s chance to even the playing field.
“I missed you too.” Were the first words Sylvanas said, a strange tone came from them. Tired, strangely neutral… resentful? Why would she be resentful? With what right? Alleria frowned. “Did you bring me here?” Her undead sister looked at her up and down in detail. “I don’t think you are here, this is only your spirit. Part of it. You… must have been hurt very badly, or maybe it’s the void.” She then grinned half-heartedly. “Well, if you finish your transition, you’ll get to spend eternity with your second most favorite sister.” She then placed one end of her bow on the floor and leaned on it.
“Why would I come here? You belong here, you’re a monster.” Sylvanas raised an eyebrow. Alleria knew Sylvanas thought the same of her, due to her connection to the void. She didn’t have to say anything. Thinking of it, it was unfair to blame her for her undeath. Everyone told her her sister had died a hero. “You’re a mass murderer.” Sylvanas nodded in acknowledgement, but also chuckled, amused. “And you aren’t? I know what I am. I’ve always known, if somewhat late. My understanding of myself catching up to my actual current self. But I’ve been here a while…” She looked around at the Maw. “…And I think I’m finally caught up. I do probably belong here, but I am doing my penance. You on the other hand are not one for introspection. I once wrote about you that you are the best of us, but in some ways you are also the worst of us.” She looked back into Alleria’s eyes, she had regained some of her intensity.
“In what way am I worse than you, exactly?” Her voice had come out like a bird’s squawk, surprising Alleria with her own desperation. “Everyone I’ve killed…” She was about to say that they had deserved it. But she didn’t know that. A lot of the people she had killed might have been innocent, she certainly had caused innocent deaths, if not maliciously. “…I killed for a good reason. To save the world.” She had not even finished saying it when Sylvanas burst out laughing. A strange laugh, like two women laughing at once. The ear-piercing, annoying, mocking laugh of the banshee queen, and the soft, loving laugh of her sister, full of understanding. Somehow, the latter hurt more.
“Do you honestly believe those I killed I did to make the world worse? Aren’t you a thousand years old? You’re supposed to be the wise one.” She sat down on one of the less jagged rocks, the thin, powdery dirt creaking under her soles. She had the demeanor of a tired old woman. She opened a sort of can of a disgusting grey sludge, and poured some of it into her mouth. Alleria grimaced. “Are you seriously going to eat that? It’s disgusting.” Sylvanas shrugged. “Everything tastes the same when you’re a walking corpse. Might as well eat what no one else wants. Feasts are wasted on me.” Alleria sat next to her sister on the ashy ground. It was full of something sharp, like broken bones. She began thinking about what she wanted to tell, or ask, her sister.
Before she had thought of something, Sylvanas spoke, her mouth full of disgusting sludge. “So how’s the family?” Alleria knew she wouldn’t have done that in front of anyone but her sisters, it was… strangely endearing. “Could be better. I barely talk to them, and… it’s my fault.” Sylvanas nodded in understanding. “Sucks. I don’t think it’s going to get better.” Alleria glared at her. “What? If you want false comfort, find Little Moon. We’re made of the same cloth you and I.” She swallowed the last of the sludge. “You have me worried.” Tyrande’s owl swooped by. Sylvanas didn’t pay it any mind.
“So it’s worry, is it? You think you have grounds to criticize anyone? You will go down in the history books as one of the worst people to have walked Azeroth, right next to Arthas and Gul’dan.” Sylvanas gave her a sad smile. “When I first was freed from Arthas’ control, I was consumed by vengeance.” She frowned. “Much like you, after… you know. But while you left in a rage to find those who had done it… I… I’m much more patient. I knew I couldn’t just shoot him. Besides, I tried that and failed. I built a whole kingdom, full of people who followed me because I had given them freedom and purpose, all of us arrows pointed at Arthas. And in that time, I did some horrible things. But nothing I’m particularly ashamed of.” She looked into Alleria’s eyes. “It had to be done.” Alleria felt a shiver down her spine at her sister’s intensity. She nearly said something, but Sylvanas cut her off.
“Let me finish. Most of the worst things I did, what I will be remembered for, really, I did for what I genuinely thought was a good cause.” She opened her arms to show the Maw around them. “Why does this exist in the first place? We live short lives, then spend eternity in some new place where we’re forced to do what some cosmic forces tell us to, away from those we loved in life.” Her face soured significantly. She looked at Alleria and barked “How is it fair? You live the best life you can, you give everything for others… and look at me. And this is not even the worst part. It’s coming here.” Alleria was taken aback by the violence in her sister’s voice. “I had to do something about it. I would have, I would have fixed everything, if it had been in my hand. Hopefully I could have made something better. I suppose it is somewhat better now, people can visit each other, this place is closed, and the arbiter is wiser. I think. So it wasn’t a complete loss. Something was gained, some progress made.” Alleria did not like the implication. “At what cost?”
Sylvanas let out a deep sigh. “That is the question, isn’t it. Do the ends justify the means?” She shared a significant look with Alleria. She was pushing this to her side of the archery range. “I’ve been struggling with that question for longer than you think.” Alleria felt as if she was on sinking ground. “You clearly thought they did.” Sylvanas nodded. “Of course I was missing half of my soul. The other half disagrees. So… I’m not sure. Do they?”
Alleria looked away. Towards Torghast. Of course she couldn’t answer that question. But it wasn’t what her sister was trying to say. This conversation wasn’t about Sylvanas. She wasn’t justifying her actions, this was about Alleria. “I have done nothing like what you have. I ask again, how exactly am I worse than you?” Sylvanas began throwing little stones at an abandoned, upside down helmet, making muffled clanging noises. Alleria followed suit.
They did that in silence for a while. Until one of Sylvanas’ stones hit the inside, bounced off and landed outside. “Aha!” Alleria exclaimed. “I win.” Sylvanas grinned. “So you think the game was that the first to miss, loses? What if I’ve been playing whoever fills the helmet with most stones wins?” Alleria felt she had stepped on a trap. Had the whole game been an argumentative tool from the start?
“The three of us have an angry streak. Some of the worst things I have done were out of anger, lashing out. Part of me is a hothead, like you. I think every time I have been defeated it was because I lost my cold blood. When I sit and think, I plan, I strategize, I always come out on top, even if it appears I lost, I won. When I lose my nerve, I manage a quick victory, and have generally been quickly defeated soon after, paying the price, every time. Gloating has also lost me a few fights. But that’s beside the point. The point is-” “That I’m all hothead, without any of your calculating machinations.” She was reminded of the Harbinger. She had plotted and her machinations were everywhere. It was like facing off against her sister, but Sylvanas could be goaded into rashness, could the Harbinger be goaded too? She wasn’t a Windrunner. “I know that much. I know myself.”
Sylvanas narrowed her eyes. “Do you really? It seems to me that you’re still pondering who Alleria Windrunner is, really. Only now beginning to consider it. Alleria Windrunner can’t stay idle for five minutes. Even now you’re about to burst out running, away from me, trying to find something to fight. You always need to have somewhere to go, something to do, someone to kill. Your family doesn’t factor into that. Does it?” Alleria threw a big stone at the helmet, making it bounce noisily. “So that’s your verdict? I’m condemned to loneliness, away from my men?” Sylvanas shrugged. “It’s up to you, in the end. You do have a very lonely sister who could use the company, she’s always busy with an unending task. You might like it.” Alleria elbowed Sylvanas on the ribs. “To be with them, you have to change. You have to think what really matters to you, before you… you… hm.” She looked into the horizon. “Lose them.”
Alleria groaned. Nathanos? Still? She couldn’t see what her sister saw in that lout. Of course Sylvanas had to settle since Alleria had picked the best man in existence for herself… and then had opened a breach between them.
“So you’re worried that the elements of our personality we have in common will keep me alone forever? Or is it that my enemies will use it against me like they have with you? Or that it will lead me to make a horrible mistake, also like you.” Sylvanas smiled, warmly for once, and calmly said “Yes.”
In that moment, Alleria began to be conscious of her body, somewhere impossibly far away, in an entirely separate realm of existence. She was waking up. Sylvanas noticed, and bumped her with her shoulder. “Visit me again. It was nice. And chin up, you got this.”
Alleria woke up in pain. Her memories slowly began to come back to her. And those of her… dream? Was it a dream? They began to slowly fade away. Sylvanas had been there, and she had said things, some insight… things Alleria couldn’t have known on her own. Maybe she would go visit Sylvanas, ask her if it had really happened. But deep know, Alleria knew she wouldn’t. She was on a hunt, and the prey wouldn’t wait. There was always a hunt…