I returned to Stormwind today. Everything has changed. Every brick. Every stone. The water in the canals seems thick and syrupy. There has been too much death and pain. However much I return here, I will never again feel the breeze upon my skin or watch the birds flitter among the trees without feeling the sharp sting of loss. I can remember playing on these streets and alleys as a child. I remember more of my former life every day. But however much of my old life returns to me, Stormwind will never again be my home. I was born here. But I died before the Wrath Gate. I was brought back on that cursed ground among the corpses of my friends. I was reborn among the screams of my guild-mates as Sinister Crue was destroyed. If I have a home now, it is that blood-soaked ground.
I will never know why the Lich King chose Smyyth and I among all of our companions. Perhaps our crimes were greater. Our hearts darker. Whatever the reasons, he brought us back through the darkness into that darker horror of rage and hatred. However much the denizens of Stormwind may look at us with fear and suspicion, their recriminations can never equal the anguish that fills my days when I walk among them, still hearing in my head the screams of their brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers and children that I slaughtered in the service of the Lich King. No, now as I visit the depths of the catacombs beneath the Slaughtered Lamb tavern where I was born, being glanced at by the young warlocks whose hearts are being filled by the seductive sweetness of dark power and shadow, I envy their naiveté. As I stand before Lord Gakin the Darkbinder, who was once my father, and honor his wish to pretend he doesn’t know this Death Knight who stands before him, I wish I might be free for a moment in his childish arrogance, certain that my dark powers set me above the rest of humanity and allow me the false belief that they allow me to protect those I love.
When I look into my father’s eyes now, all I can think is that the old warlock has never known real pain. Or horror. Or loss. There he stands, surrounded by his lackeys and young students, safe in a world that makes sense and in which everything has its place. He’s never stood on either side of the Wrath Gate, so far removed from his own humanity that he doesn’t remember the being he used to be, much less that he once had family and friends. No, I am so far removed from these people that there is no reason to return to Stormwind. Smyyth is my family now. The remains of Sinister Crue provide our structure. But if we have a home now, it’s far from Stormwind or the Exodar. Our home now is the far reaches of Icecrown, fighting the Lich King and trying to atone for our crimes. Our comfort is on horseback. Our peace is in killing Arthas Menethil’s minions. That is what we are. In the halls of Stormwind and The Exodar, we find only ghosts.
I am not what I once was. I am not who I once was. But I am alive. Even if it is by the Lich King’s dark magicks. There is nothing for me here. I should accept that. There is a ship here in Stormwind that will take me home to Northrend. Perhaps this time I should remain there. If nothing else I owe it to Sinister Crue to keep our blood-stained tabard upright. I owe it to Smyyth to keep on fighting. She is the only one who can understand what what I have lost. It is not a perfect existence. But I am her conscience, just as she is mine. We are each the other’s reason for being. That is something I will never find here walking among someone else’s memories, haunted by another Saphiri’s ghosts.
My mother was the only person in the Slaughtered Lamb who would talk to me. She told me, “You are not my Saphiri. You are a dark abomination.”
Her words comforted me. It was nothing I didn’t know. I had no words for her that were not barbed, so I conceded the point. “Yes,” I told her simply, “I am a dark abomination.”
There is no need to return here again.
