Spoiler:
I
A rusted sky stretched above the treetops of Ashenvale. Night was falling, and the last beams of sunlight began to fade in the ruins of an old village, hidden away in the bowels of the forest. The scent of smoke and ash had long since faded and the fires that reduced the village to rubble had long since died, but the pain of loss still hung in the air. It manifested itself in a thick silence: the birds did not sing, critters of the wood crept through as if wary of a sleeping beast, and the sullen air was still threnodic as the smoke that once filled it.
The stillness that choked the air broke, and the distinct sound of footsteps echoed around the ruins. A man, tall and imposing in stature, lumbered into the village. His muscular form seemed disconnected from the gaunt features of his face, as if they belonged to two separate beings. He looked tired, but his stride carried on with dedicated strength and certainty. A surprising quality, given that he was blindfolded. Two red warglaives, each almost the length of his body, were slung over his back. He wore green minimal plate and chain armor, with a heavy green cloak and a black tabard, upon which was the sigil of a black flame. His hair and beard were long, wild and white as Winterspring's snows. Violent green tattoos lay jagged upon his chest, visible only through gaps in his armor. They glowed with the uncertainty of power, and the air around them seemed to shiver in fear.
Any Kaldorei would have known what he was, and he made no effort to hide it. What he was did not matter to him; he simply walked a path. But to any other who saw him, he was a Demon Hunter, and he was both feared and respected for that vocation.
He sighed as he wandered through the burned houses. There would have been familiarity in his eyes if he still had them. This village was his home, once. Before the Orcs burned it in their bloodlust, he had built a life there. He had been a blacksmith, he had a wife, daughter, and lifelong friendships. The memories stirred up by this village seemed distant. Time and choice had irreversibly changed him, and a small part of him could not believe that he was still the same person. It seemed impossible.
The wind blew, and carried upon it a quivering whisper of a name, his name: Sadron Silentsong.
The village was built around a single road, and probably started as a hunting camp some time after the Sundering. Sadron walked down the road until he came upon the ruin of his house, and it was in the charred remains of his former life that he stayed.
Black ash covered the walls, but some places of the house were still recognizable. In his cursed gray sight he found the room where his mate and he had slept. Around a corner and through a small doorway, he found a room that was still somewhat unscathed. There was the remains of a table, and some personal possessions on the floor. The room had belonged to his daughter.
His daughter. He knelt in the ash and numbly felt around for anything that might have belonged to her. There was nothing. His breathing quickened as a complex rage took him. His hands tightened into fists and held the ash tightly within them as he remembered. Without his volition, memories surged up in him like a violent sea. In his mind's eye, vivid memories of colour first rushed into him. He saw the lush green of the forest overcome by fire, demons marauding unchecked through the forest, Orcs marching on a campaign against oak and peace and life. He saw his daughter, deeply cut by the axe of a felguard, dying in his arms. He had held her like he had when she was a child until she had passed from the world, and then buried her under a tree. Alone.
He mastered himself and repressed his rage. There could be no absolution for the completeness of his failures, all that was left to him was his duty and The Path. He told himself that grief was useless to him, and the memories faded. He set down his warglaives and slept in the corner of his house that had somehow been spared. He had been travelling for a night and a day, and sleep came over him quickly.
His dreams were marked by fire and wrath. He dreamed of awaking in his village to find Orcs and demons had returned to it, and that in the awakening of his ire he had burned demon and ruin alike, and that his village was consumed by his own flames. Dreams such as these were not strange to Sadron; he had suffered through them since he had received his tattoos.
He roused himself from his sleep at midday to forage for food. There was a river not far from his house, and he found some fish in it. The village remained still for the time he hunted for food. It was as if that corner of the wood was timeless, that it existed within its own ether of sorrow. He ate and rested until sunset. He entered a form of pensive meditation in which his gray sight blurred and he was lost within the shadows of his own thoughts.
As night again fell on the village, the Hunter felt he had stayed too long. The life he had lived in this village had passed, it had ended when he first fled it with his daughter during the War. The man he had become could not exist within this memory. Demon Hunters could not live in the past.
And yet they did.
He gathered up his warglaives, ate the remainder of his fish and left. The village faded behind him as he walked north and then crossed an old, abandoned bridge over the river. He moved slowly towards his destination, but Felfire Hill was still a day and a night's journey away.
The Pilgrim wandered his Path.
![[Image: 14l32iv.jpg]](http://oi46.tinypic.com/14l32iv.jpg)
well cool