Finale

Staci knew about the fel crystal's disposal. This would be Anadia's last gasp — she was sure of it. Staci took her sister by the neck but, to the huntress' immediate relief, she did not strangle the life from her. Instead, Staci began scrutinizing her, toying with her like an odd meal.

"Why do you still have bags under your eyes? My god, your pores..."

She

didn't

know, but she was close to finding out. Anadia tried to pull away and fend off the haughty priestess, but Staci was as unrelenting as a mother and not even half as kind.

"Your hair is looks fried, limp—

rattier

than usual."

"Well, I just spent the night in a cell—"

"Show me your nails! Give me your hand..!"

"You expect me to-to walk out of that place looking like some storybook

princess

?"

"Don't play

games

with me, Anadia," Staci replied like a venomous snake, "Where is it?"

The question hung in the air like bad gas. Anadia said nothing, but could not avoid it. She could only stare back with soft, frightened eyes.

"WHERE IS IT?!"

Her child-like defense mechanism was ineffective; Staci was steel, and her gaze cut into her like a sword. Not a second passed before her hands and nails were at Anadia's throat. She broke free, but received a strike to her cheek in turn.

"I went through Hell to get that crystal to you, and you

threw it away

?!"

"Why are you doing anything for me at all?! Until a few weeks ago, we were as good as strangers! Why you showed up is..."

As a candle upon the table began to overflow with wax, so too did questions spill from Anadia's mouth. "Why am I fighting this match at all? There are at least a

dozen

highly ranked and decorated Sin'dorei Champions who could have taken my position in this tournament! Why was I chosen?"

Anadia fixed her gaze upon her. It was time Staci provided answers.

"..You still don't get it, do you?"

"Explain it." Anadia said authoritively. Staci did not waver.

"Anadia... my political and social advancements are great. I have made the right friends, shaken the right hands, kissed the right

cheeks

, and I have earned

and burned

a few favors along the way. However, I am anchored,

burdened

somehow... by you."

Anadia's eyes widened, feeling affronted and vulnerable.

"You, the free-spirited ranger, who hops between battlefronts as quickly as she hops between bedrooms," she scoffed, pacing around their rented room at the Legerdemain Lounge. "Oh yes, word has gotten around almost as fast as you do! I never

imagined

that sponsoring you for this arena match would actually make the situation

worse

. I thought it might give you the opportunity to refocus, and develop yourself. I thought that it might

busy

you enough that you'd curb your frivolities. ... Of course I'd be

wrong

!" Staci shed her calm exterior as quickly as she had donned it. "What a fool I was to wager

my

opportunity for a seat at the Regent-Lord's side on my dear

sister's

self-control or sense of decency!"

"Self-control? Is that a joke?" Anadia said, raising her voice, "You weren't concerned about exercising

any

of that the other night! As I recall that was your idea!"

"A sacrifice for a greater good! Better to consort with the sleaze at the Sanctum then hear another story about your high elf pets. You almost blew my nomination for..."

Anadia tuned her sister out for a moment, turning away toward the white brick walls, not wanting to hear anymore, not wanting to be

here

at all. If she could shut her ears without being forced to prolong this awful conversation, she would in a heartbeat. Anadia felt bad for what she had done to Staci's career, but it was no excuse to be spoken to this way. "I don't exist to further your political agenda!" she said, whipping back around. "I like to have

sex

,

so what? I enjoy it!" Anadia lowered her voice to a pointed whisper, "I like the feeling of a big, fat cock in my hands—

both

of my hands. I like feeling them throb, I like feeling them

inside

of me...! And I bet you would too, if you could lose the frigid veil you seem to enjoy wearing so much!"

"I—"

"You had as much fun that night as I did, Staci. I saw how quick you were to get on your knees, to take one into your mouth. I don't care how you talk about what positions you're taking on, what office you oversee, or seat you've claimed. That sensation of a man between your lips, filling the space behind your cheeks— the sound of him sighing, groaning, grunting over you like a primitive creature as you force him to fight release:

that's

power. You're just upset because I'm strong enough to claim it!"

"Upset? I'm LIVID. Livid because "claiming it" got you thrown in prison like a drug-addled streetwalker! I had to explain that away, I had to pay for your bail, I had to pay for your mana fix, had to pay to smuggle it in! I'm

furious

because I try and I try and I try to fix your shit, and you spit in my face!"

"Errog paid—"

"No, I did, and I had him pick you up because I can't even be

seen

in public with you anymore! It's legendary, Anadia! Your deeds are legend! Never before has any champion been i the night before a match, with the fate of ALL of her people on the line, for public indecency no-less!" Staci hissed, her hands shaped like claws. "And who does she get caught with? None other than her

opponent

!"

"I didn't know!"

"Well you're damn lucky he got arrested too, so that I could

at least

spin it like it was his fault. Sorry to say, I've used my LAST favor in this city to preserve that lie, and he won't be out to poke any holes in that story until the match practically starts. Please do us all a favor and

kill him

next time so that I don't have to be related to the 'Whore of Dalaran'!"

"ENOUGH!" roared Errog from beyond the doorway, "Here's your bauble, witch. Take it, shove it up that barren desert you call a cunt and be gone!" The orc tossed the fel crystal at Staci, who caught it at the tips of her fingers. Rising to her full height, she looked to Anadia, whose eyes were on the floor.

"Return it," Anadia said.

"What?"

"Or throw it away. Just get it away from me, Staci." Anadia insisted.

"Going cold turkey was never a smart idea." She held the crystal up. Its emerald radiance gave the priestess a sickly glow. "You boarded this ship, and now you expect to be able to just jump off? Ha... You'll drown, sister."

Anadia's eyes drifted toward the crystal. It made her salivate; it made her think. She enjoyed sex, she enjoyed her fix... but not out of Staci's palm.

"You don't know the meaning of the word," she replied. "And I'm not sure I do either, now."

-------------------------

"If only people could understand," Thelise said, "If only they'd

see

... we're not the same." Victor saw only the deepest hatred in her eyes, though they were not affixed upon him.

"The blood elves... Even cleansed of their corruption, they could never be like us again."

She

refused

to look at him, even when speaking to him.

"Hubris is their true impurity, and they will be stained by it forever."

She refused to look at him, even in death.

Her final words remained in his mind as Victor held her lifeless body in his arms. Thelise was still warm with the heat of battle, but her blood coated his hands, soaked his sleeves, dampened his chest. It was everywhere. An arrow protruded from her breast, lodged deep and unable to move—a simple healthstone would not be enough to save her. Victor brushed the hair from the her dahlia-white face and held her head upright, as if setting her in a restful pose would somehow correct the grievous injury that spelled her end. He shook her, begged her to wake, but her now-hazy, heterochromatic eyes only seemed to roll away from him. It made sense that Thelise would not want his face to be the last thing she saw. Instead they were set upon some distant hope, a sinking sun giving out its last glint over the hidden horizon, her arm outstretched in a vain attempt to grasp it.

He laid her to rest. There was no time to properly mourn, and no way that he could. The eyes of his foes were upon him, but he did not care. He rose to his feet. He shook, but did not tremble. Victor was the rumbling mountain, vast and precocious. So small were his opponents beneath his shadow, for he was ready to erupt.

-------------------------

Anadia's world was a spinning plate balancing atop a stick. The air was thick with the rusty scent of Errog's dismembered remains. As mighty as her friend was, the warlock hit him with something that could be nothing other than a mine cart full of dynamite. The violence with which he was cut down belonged in nightmares, and he was scattered in a macabre display of blood and cold entrails. Terror crowded all other thought from her mind, leaving only base instinct and primitive reaction. There was nowhere to run and death to greet her if she fought, so she froze and remained in hiding behind the crates. Her senses sharpened, and higher cognitive function eeked out small victories; the rattling pipework, the dripping water, the sight of old blood on the walls. The thought that others had died exactly where she stood was as unsettling as the high elf's eyes in her final moments.

Cultural division had brought them into the Dalaran Sewers, and learned hatred entangled them in battle. No priest had ever struck her with such malice as the one called "Thelise"—not even those that dabbled in shadows. Anadia wrapped her arm in bandages until the pain of severed circulation outweighed that of the priestess's holy fire, but the sight of that woman would not leave her.

Thelise despised her; true hate beyond sense or reasoning. They did not know one-another, and yet all the prejudice and fear shored upon her face like the debris from years of war—between Horde and Alliance, between blood elf and high elf, indulgence and discipline. Anadia couldn't hope to mirror or even capture her emotion. In the width of her eyes Anadia saw an unbridgeable chasm that separated the two. In the bends of her face she saw the inversion of their worlds. In the haste of Thelise's actions she saw that Anadia stood in perfect antithesis to every heartbeat that had drummed in her chest.

Thelise's destiny was confrontation. Anadia's was victory.

Anadia was a black obelisk to Thelise: meaningful, mysterious, and menacing. Thelise did all that she could to overcome the huntress, but Anadia watched determination disintegrate into dread as she painstakingly drove the last arrow into her heart, gripping the shaft like a hilt as it dug into her flesh and cut between her ribs. In her final breaths, a glint of emerald shored over the high elf's watering eyes like pollution at low tide. Did she dabble in darkness whilst Anadia abstained? Did she, deep down, seek to understand her opponent's kind as Anadia sought to understand hers? If

that

were true, this elf was more her kin, more her twin than Staci ever may have been - to kill

her

would be to—

"No."

Anadia forced herself to believe what the link between them was all imagination, but it made the end all the more excruciating to behold. Thelise did not make a sound. She soldiered on and on into the unknown until her head and eyes rolled listlessly to the side in search of something hidden within the encroaching night. Anadia became weightless without the priestess's accusing gaze upon her, but Errog's prompt decimation made her feel equally fragile. The human had no vendetta against her, but she was an ant beneath his magnifying lens, and her corner of the arena grew hotter every second.

But Anadia was not yet found.

Concealed by a pile of haphazardly stacked crates, Firemane had briefly joined her in hiding to lick his wounds. The red-haired lynx would not survive the night. Its fur was mottled with char-black patches of burnt and split flesh; the burns would require time to mend that Anadia did not have. She spared bandages for the beast.

"You've done well, Firemane," she said quietly, running her fingers through its thick fur and petting her companion affectionately. She had always adored the natural softness of his mane. She never did groom him as well as he deserved, and yet his fur was more comforting than any pillow. On quiet nights in the forest, Firemane would allow Anadia to rest her head upon him so that she might gaze the stars. She stroked and stroked his neck, hoping that the memories of running her fingertips against the fine hairs would return them there somehow, someway.

Her face wrinkled and her eyes welled with tears. Errog was dead. Firemane, too, would die. Though she would exit the arena the same way she came in, the world outside would never be the same—or, if she allowed herself to cry here, now, there may not be a world at all.

With a hard heart, she ordered Firemane to take to the battle once again. He was tired, weak, wounded. The lynx, for the first time since she had wrestled and tamed it in Eversong Woods, refused her order.

The tears could not be stopped this time. "Firemane, attack!" The lynx remained still, refusing to budge from its place upon the platform. The moisture in her eyes was blinding. The beast turned and pushed against her instead, rubbing the top of its head into her chest and shoulder. Firemane loved her as she loved him, and Anadia wanted to believe that it knew what would happen once it left the cover of the crates. "

I'm sorry,"

she thought, "

I am sorry to do this to you.

"

"Firemane," she said again, swallowing her sorrow deep down to the furnace within, "

attack

!"

Finally he rose and stretched his legs, lifting his tail and flicking it around, finding his own balance. "Go."

The simple word, the simple command was more difficult than anything she had ever been forced to utter to anyone. She had known Firemane since she was a youngling. She had grown with him, struggled with him, fought alongside him. Her friend had saved her life innumerable times and now she was condemning the lynx to give his own. Anadia felt her chest hollow and her eyes overflow as his tail disappeared from around the boxes. Their journey together was finally at its end.

-------------------------

Thunder filled Victor's ears and a force of chaos erupted from his body. The bolt of unstable energy pierced the animal through-and-through, dispatching it and leaving it beyond recognition. It slumped and fell to the ground like an oversized children's toy. Though it had died, it barred his path to the platform like some feeble attempt to slow him. He sheathed his spellblade and took the feline carcass by the neck. Its face was limply frozen in the moment of its demise. "There will only be one soul leaving the arena today."

Victor shoved it out of his way and a strange jingling caught his attention. There was no collar on the lynx, no bells, no trinkets—the sound came from elsewhere. The glass bauble lay before him, scuffed and dirty amongst the bloodstained walkway, but with its shape intact. It was obvious that the storm drains of the city would empty into the arena, but regardless, the discovery was as miraculous as it was bittersweet. Thelise was lost.

Victor gripped the object so tightly that he thought it would shatter—but he sprung forward in a fiery sprint, hunting her murderer. He swept his hands through the air, raining conjured fire all around the ring. His hastily summoned voidwalker mirrored his combat readiness. The two scoured the room for the blood elf until she was flushed out. Arrows flew at his face and neck, and survival instinct forced him behind a crate. His demon was too durable to be picked off. His demon took the lead and Victor reemerged to join the scuffle.

Adorning her with flames, Anadia only seemed to break sweat as she sunk a slew of arrows into the ink-black monster. Each disappeared one after another until the bow was ripped from her hands. She moved with the jerking motion, spun, and drove her daggers into the voidwalker. Even absence incarnate had limits— the spawn evaporated into lifeless smoke.

The huntress reached down for her bow to find Victor's foot set hard upon it. Their eyes met again, and he saw the urgency and fear behind them. She shrieked, she stabbed, she struck home; direct strikes with both daggers into his chest. Like popping a balloon, all of the air left his body at once, and he gasped to reclaim it. The bite hadn't registered—Victor wouldn't let it, he wouldn't acknowledge her except to destroy her. Thrusting his palm forward, an explosive blast forced the redhaired menace away from him. She staggered, but remained intact.

"That should have killed you!" he shouted what she was likely thinking as well.

He persisted, conflagrating her once more, causing her to stumble and nearly fall from the platform. Anadia was alive still. It was unacceptable—for Thelise, for him, for Vereesa. He recalled the Ranger-General's words. "Humiliate her," she had said, "Show the world what the blood elves are." Victory must be total.

Anadia grasped for the crates nearby, the fel flames smoldering a quiet death while her open wounds painted blood on the wooden panels. Victor closed in for the kill.

"Take no chances," he said, his mind reeling with how he would mete out justice. It was the only distraction from the sting of extracting the knives in his chest.

One—it was like being cut open. The blood loss was significant. He threw it as far as he could.

Two—he blacked out for a second. "

Maybe this was a bad idea,

" Victor thought.

The warlock withdrew his only healthstone and crushed it. It was satisfying to do—and it gave him a devious idea.

-------------------------

"End it," Anadia whispered.

She was disarmed, damaged, and tired. Her reputation was tarnished into ruin, her sister was no sister, and her friends... Errog, Firemane, they were gone. Destiny promised their reunion in the afterlife. What was Victor waiting for? Her eyes remained open, but her vision faded repeatedly. The burns on her body elevated her to an apex beyond feeling; her mind was shutting down. What was next? Would her soul leave her body? Would she watch her own gruesome demise?

Denial was not an option. Anger had given her two good hits, and he was regenerating from them now. She could not speak to bargain, and it was not worth it. Anadia would die on her feet, a proud Sin'dorei, a worthy huntress, free from Staci, from the bonds of her addiction. In a sad but

sound

way, that was a victory in and of itself. No human or high elf could ever take that away from her.

She watched the warlock reach into his pocket and say something. "... Thelise..." the word was all that she recognized, like a horrible wind chime. His face was crinkled with anguish, his bearded chin quivering beneath shuddering lips. Anadia felt his anger; the pall of vengeance upon her like a hundred feet of water and yet she would not find the peace of death beneath it. Hope gleamed in his hands. Victor produced a small, round, glass object.

Was he going to make her choke on it?

Batter her skull with the ornament?

Life persisted in her fleshy shell—it couldn't leave her soon enough. She gulped, tasting her blood for a final time. She couldn't promise her people she wouldn't scream. Anadia closed her eyes and waited.

A loud, glassy, crushing sound in front of her face.

Did it happen yet?

Something was leaving her body, exiting her veins, her tear ducts, her pores, from beneath her fingertips; every possible, imaginable spot on her body.