Interlude - When time has come for us to fail

"They are so many"...

From their vantage point on the outer wall of Silvermoon they could easily see the fires burning in the distance. Another village destroyed. Survivors had hopefully long fled behind the walls of the city to safety.

"Don't worry", Niniel said, placing a hand on his shoulder and leaning forward, to look down. “The defenses will not be broken".

"I've seen them at work already, have you forgotten it?” The memory sent chills through his spine. That memory and others. He forced his mind to stillness, yet thoughts came back, pushing at the frail barriers he had built inside. “Arthas is leading this army. He had always been rash…but a good strategist, nonetheless.” He tried to put some calm into his voice, for Niniel’s sake, and failed miserably.
“I know about Stratholme" she said, quietly. In the sunlight, her blue eyes sparkled, serious but confident. “But we will hold on, Eirean..."

She knew nothing about Stratholme. He could not bring himself to talk about it. An oath to protect life, not to take it away. With a shudder, Eireannan lifted both hands and studied them cautiously, as if they did not truly belong to him.

“There will never be forgiveness”, he whispered. He seemed to have forgotten Niniel. She stood by his side, the living expression of anguish in a tall elf woman, with blonde hair shorn short and deep blue eyes. She wore the ranger garb, leather and wool in green and gray, softened only by the tiny silver insignia on the high collar of the coat which marked her rank as captain.

The sickness inside himself was like a coiled, writhing snake. He wrestled with it day and night. He wished he could just lay down and die, yet that would have been to easy an escape. Do what you must and pay the price thousand fold. But was there really no other way…?

"Our world will fall, Nin, and we'll fall with it...and I pray the worst thing that happens to us is to die..."

Her beautiful face contorted with unease. Eireannan had not been himself since he came back from Lordaeron. At least now he spoke and ate – if meagerly. Nightmares plagued his sleep more often than not and he would wake up screaming each time. He looked ill – reedy thin and pale, with haunted glazed eyes that seemed to be looking through things.

How long had it been since he had even given her a smile?

She wanted to help him. She would have given her soul to…. But how could she do it when he refused to even acknowledge something was wrong?

And now the undead where at their gates and they had run out of time

"Nin..."

She snapped back into reality, and wished she hadn't when she saw again his grim look.

"If something happens...if I die in this battle and you don’t… promise you'll have my body burnt...hell, burn everyone that falls, Nin…"

"Eirean", she sighed, "will you stop being so macabre?"

He put his hand on her arm and it seemed to Niniel his fingers tried to dig through her bones.

"Promise me, Nin…!” How fitting would be to end up a mindless corpse himself, killing around his own people.

He frightened her, Niniel thought. Worse than the Scourge at their gates, if that would be possible.

"I promise" she conceded. “But you'll see, everything we'll work out fine, Eirean. We just have to hold on to our defenses and…”

“Maybe”, Eireannan said lightly. “Or maybe we’ll just be all dead three days from now…”
He sounded…eager. Niniel could not repress a shudder; instinctively she took him in her arms, pressing her forehead against his.