The funny thing about fear (if the word “funny” can ever apply) is that it is unique to everyone. That is to say, everyone’s fears are their own, and no two people have the same virulent strains. Fear, in short, tailors itself to the individual.
When that individual is actually several individuals thanks to the soul-sucking properties of a certain lunatic’s sword, the tailored fear of each member of the group is compounded exponentially times the number of members.
Thus is was that when Maelstrome Sunscryer, Guardian of the Blood of the Rose, Head of Security for Tranquility’s Watch, and recently-reformed (literally) individual took a wrong turn over the Dread Wastes of Pandaria without noticing because she was busy trying to re-wire her guildstone so she could monitor multiple channels at once, she ended up flying smack dab over the Heart of Fear. The recently patched parts of her responded much as a pack of squirrels in a cage would if someone dropped a rabid hyena into their midst.
She didn’t notice the long fall, nor crashing to the twisted ground. The sound of the bones breaking and tendons ripping was not enough to make a dent in the cacophony of terror in her head. She lay in a heap, unnoticed by the raid team that a month later swept the Heart clean of Shek’zeer and the Sha of Fear. Even after the Sha’s departure, her personal turmoils continued as, perhaps, was inevitable. A treaty had been struck between the disparate parts of herself, but it took a complete upheaval for her to truly come to grips with what she had become.
Being dead has its advantages. Maelstrome slumped in a heap for a little under a year before the chaos abated and drained away. When she finally came out of her fear-induced coma, it took months more to heal; to gather runic energy from the living beings around her, a little at a time, directing it inward. Eventually she was able to stand, to walk. And she did, stumbling her way Eastward, dreaming of home.
Her journey ended twelve steps later when she kicked what she thought was a rock, but which turned out to be her guildstone. Perhaps it still worked? She brought it to her lips and spoke her first words in over a year: “Hello? Can anyone hear me?”
((to be continued in game once I get some time on the computer. 😉
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