Lilu of Darnassus

I’m starting a new addition to my blog: a role playing series with my main character in WoW, Lilu the night elf druid that I’ve played since 2006. I’ve never written role plays before, but it seems like a great creative exercise and provides additional content for my blog besides a timely real life gaming post. I hope you all enjoy my first attempt at fan fiction!

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An arrow whizzed by my ear with a hissing whine. “Well,” I thought grimly to myself, “not how I was expecting to start this day.”

Why I didn’t expect it, I couldn’t begin to tell you. Being in harm’s way had been a commonplace experience since I had left my homeland in virtual exile. Shaming your family and outraging your leaders doesn’t exactly buy an easy path through the rest of your life. A life, which, if I didn’t get moving quickly, might be over in a few seconds.

Shaking the sleep from my head, I heard another arrow hiss and strike home in a nearby tree. I cleared my mind, filling it with only a feline form. My skin rippled and changed, limbs lengthening, fangs and claws extending, a downy gray fur sprouting over my body. And, in an instant, I was a large panther-like cat, crouching low as I stealthed through the bushes, virtually invisible to all but the keenest eyes. I had to discover who was shooting, and, most importantly, if they were they shooting at me.

I crept silently through the undergrowth, my soft cat paws not even cracking a twig. I heard a voice call out, “Did you hit it?” The reply: “No, it disappeared, but I’m sure I saw it.” Was it me they were really after? Who were they? How did they see me, shadow-melded in the crook between two trees, in the gloom of the deep shade? Cursing myself for letting sleep take over so completely that they could even get that near me, I crept closer, trying to get a look at my assailants.

“There it is!” the first voice cries. And I hear the hiss of another arrow, this time heading away from me. What was going on here? I kept creeping along until I reached the edge of a clearing in the trees. Now, I could see who was doing the shooting. There were two human youths, perhaps about 16 to 17 of their years of age. One had a shoddy looking bow with a ragged string. The other had a hatchet of some type, looking more suitable for chopping wood than for fighting an adversary. They were now looking away from me, away from the area where I had been resting.

A flash of light on the other side of the clearing revealed their target. It was a large glow-fly, about four feet in length, but harmless. The first voice, belonging to the “bowman”, cried out in triumph at its appearance. “I told you! See it?” He raised an arrow to his bow for another try, and missed again. His companion laughed at him. Meanwhile, it occurred to me that shape-shifting into my flight form may not be the safest method of escape around these two youngsters. I prowled away from the clearing, past another thicket of trees, then shape-shifted into my speediest land form, that of a giant elk. I raced away, sweeping my eyes from side to side, looking for danger as I ran. I realized that I was far too close to human settlements and decided to keep running until neither sound nor scent of them could be detected. I didn’t stop until I met the bottom of a boulder strewn hillside, and hid myself in an overgrowth of bushes and vines.

Yes, I can shape-shift, for I am a druid. No, I am more than that. My name is Lilu. I am one of the Quel’dorei. A night elf of Darnassus. My mother, a night elf priestess, would have seen me join her with the Sisterhood of Elune in the Temple of the Moon. My father… Well, let’s just say that I took more after him. He had been a druid, as well. Had been. He was killed by the Horde in one of their dreadful cities, or so the word was brought to us by one of his companions who had escaped. Or fled.

I had been a mere elfling at the time. I loved roaming the forests, talking with the beasts and the birds, climbing the tall trees under light of moon and stars. I wanted to be like my father, nomadic and free, roaming all of Azeroth, fighting for the Alliance. My mother thought it wasn’t a fitting life for a pretty elf girl, especially considering my father’s tragic but, as she felt, inevitable end. She envisioned me in white robes, serving Tyrandre in the Temple. My propensity for healing seemed to make this the logical choice. I mended various wounded creatures I found out in the woods, even a bear. That bear. It wasn’t his fault, but in a way, he was my undoing.

You see, I had returned home, bits of leaves in my shiny, silver hair from climbing around through the forest, and excitedly told my mother about the bear, how its leg had appeared crushed from a hunter’s snare, but I freed the bear and healed him so that he could limp home to safety. The bear was all that filled my mind… and then suddenly, it happened. My body shuddered uncontrollably, my back rounding as I dropped to the floor on all fours. My skin rippled, my mouth gaping as I saw talons extending from my fingers. It all happened so fast. My mother screamed, and I saw, in her mirror, the bear standing there. No, it was me. I was the bear in the mirror.

There was no assuaging my mother’s anguish and rage. She was not about to lose her only child the way she lost my father. To be a druid was to be one with nature, to roam abroad in the wilderness. The other priestesses spoke with me, and declared that since I was a druid, there was no longer any hope for me to become a Sister of Elune. From that day forward, my mother and I rarely spoke another word. She could hardly stand to look at me. I started spending most of my time in the Cenarion enclave in Darnassus, trying to learn to control and use my gifts from the druids there, avoiding my mother’s thin-lipped disapproval when I returned home. When I finally got to be old enough, I asked to join the Sentinels of Feathermoon Stronghold, under Shandris Feathermoon. I had to get away from Darnassus, from my mother, and the broken dreams and expectations that lay with both.

My mind snaps back to the present. I am exhausted. I had gotten precious little rest as it was before I had been interrupted by those human oafs. Then to make an extended run at full speed… I needed to find a more secure place to sleep. Shifting again to cat form, I prowled invisibly amongst the scree and boulders at the bottom of the hillside. I finally found what I was looking for: a little “cave” formed between boulders a bit higher up the hill. I sniffed the interior. It seemed like it had been used as a den before, but the scents were old and faint. Hoping that the disappearance of the former occupant was not a bad sign, I curl up to go to sleep, still stealthed. I could think about what happened with the Sentinels, and all the horror that followed, another time.