Conquest of the Horde

“Disgusting."
”Horrendous!”
“Heinous!”

The words echoed at the back of her mind, aching with pain long ignored. They hadn’t been directed at her at the time. Quite the opposite was true back then, as she’d agreed with most of them at the time. Now, however… Well… Circumstances had changed.

She let her weapon rest in the stream, eyes on the water. She was calm now, but who could ever tell how long that would last. The Hunger was sated, and had ceased tugging on her sanity for the moment. All it had taken was an extremely unfortunate Sentinel. She’d need to move again, of course, but that could wait an hour or so.

A careless glance at her reflection caused her to frown. Something about it looked so alien now. Her glowing eyes peered from beneath her hood, but that wasn’t it. Something was off. She didn’t like that, and at first assumed it was the angle with which her reflection laid on the water. Then it hit home.

The reflection was not of Sabina the Death Knight, but of Sabina the Priestess, that weak soul whom she constantly endeavored to snuff out. The Priestess: tiny fragment of what once was and refused to stay gone. She always tended to appear right after the Hunger had been sated, with her disapproving mouth set, and her stern, powerful gaze. The Priestess, Sabina had long ago decided, was not a fractured piece of her personality, but a hallucination caused by her brain’s inability to accept remorse for what she was doing.

The Hunger needed to be sated. Sabina the Death Knight was all there was now. She was the strong one. The one whom would change the world, to end this curse for herself and her brethren. She had no need for remorse! No need for the weakness that had kept her back! She was a Knight of Death now! Destruction Incarnate! She would create from that destruction and nothing else!

And yet…

The Priestess refused to stay destroyed. Killing a part of one’s self was never quite as easy as smashing a mirror or dispersing a reflection.

She locked eyes with the Priestess, their lips turning to snarl at each other in tandem. “What do you want? Why will you not leave me be?”

As usual, the Priestess was silent. Of course she was. She was little more than a figment of imagination.

Sabina snorted, snatching her runed-weapon from the waters. “Leave me be. I’ve a future to create. One which you are not part of.”

The Priestess merely stared, mirroring Sabina’s haughty smirk.

”What’s so funny? You’re dead. You don’t get to smile.”

She frowned, then, but not disappointedly. Defiantly.

“You are my past. I accept that you existed once, but you’ve no place in my life. Now I said be gone!”

Tandem screams, and both parts slammed their fist at the other. Only one was merely a reflection in the pool, and the other was only splashing at the waters.

Sabina sighed, her wet hand spreading against the cool, wet stones of the stream-bed. "I'm going mad. She doesn't exist. That's all there is to it." The Death Knight allowed herself the caution-less gesture of lowering her own hood. "My focus must be absolute. I must not falter like this. I shall not show my weakness!"

Sabina mercilessly clawed at the reflection in the water. Blond hair, glowing blue eyes and a deathly pallor, yet the face of the Priestess was one definitely holding some quality of life. Of a weakness Sabina could not afford. Life was distractions and needs. To transcend that was to achieve perfection.

"You're mocking me, aren't you? Knowing I cannot slay something that doesn't exist, you mock me."