The Doctor's Path (Aedric)

Introducing my new worgen, Aedric, who I have yet to RP but whose character I am looking forward to exploring. I have taken a few liberties with the Surwich lore, but nothing contradicting the quest line, I think. There will be two parts to the tale. I hope it's enjoyable!

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1. The End of a Dream

Rain swept down from the red hills surrounding the little harbour town, beating against the huddled houses and drenching their already-weathered roofs. Surwich had not stood long on the Blasted Lands' southern shore, but it was often subject to gales such as this one. The wind would wail at the shutters while mist from the sea drifted in, so thick that on some nights a man couldn't see the lantern swinging from his hand. These were the storms during which the villagers would gather around their hearths or around the inn's roaring fireplace, trading stories and gulping dark nutty ales from wooden mugs, where not even the shrieking wind could reach them.

But tonight, there was one man who was braving the storm, for he had news to give, and the news was leaving a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach that had nothing to do with the rain.

Aedric Richards raised a gloved hand and let it fall three times against the heavy oaken door. As he waited, he looked up toward the north. The mist was thin tonight, despite the torrential rains, and he could see the dim outline of the hills looming dark above the town, and between them, the forest... The forest that was the caused of everything. That damned forest.

'Yes?' The door creaked open and a woman in a black dress and a white cap looked up at Aedric, a few strands of grey hair straying out above a kind face.

Aedric met her gaze with a weary nod. 'Hello Hattie, I'm sorry to disturb the household at a time like this but I need to see Mayor Connisport. It's... important.'

The housekeeper fixed her eye on the man's bedraggled appearance, and then beckoned him inside. 'Well now Doctor Richards, you don't look like you've slept for a week. If it's important, it's important. I'll just be finding the mayor if you'll wait here a moment.'

Aedric nodded, taking off his soaking overcoat and hanging it on the carved wooden hat-stand beside the door. He rubbed a hand over his face and looked up into the modest hallway, his eyes lingering on a painting of purple heather blooming across the moors. The expedition that had brought them to Surwich had been a modest one, and there was little that they had been able to bring with them when they had fled Gilneas for the night elves' lands, but they had managed to keep the memory close. That was what you did, when you were forced to leave your home; you kept the memories close, so that when one day you went back...

'Doctor Richards? Hattie said you looked "all in a state." What's the matter?'

Aedric looked down quickly from the painting above the stairs and bowed. 'Mayor, I'm sorry to disturb you but... I have some news.'

Moments later, they sat in the mayor's study, Connisport behind a great oaken desk, and Aedric in a chair beside the small hearth. The crackling of driftwood beside him steadied him a little, and he took a deep breath as the pleasant scent of woodsmoke met his nose. 'Allen's dead.'

The mayor looked across the desk at him, a flicker of something - regret, perhaps? - moving across his face. After a moment he leaned forward and folded his hands on the wood surface. 'Allen... was a good man.'

'I did all I could to cleanse him, but with that amount of fel poison coursing through his veins, and the burns besides.' Aedric shook his head. 'He died perhaps two hours ago, and I....'

Swallowing the huskiness in his throat, Aedric leaned forward in the chair. 'Before he died, he told me a strange thing. Do I have your leave to continue, mayor?'

The man looked at Aedric askance, then, rubbing the tuft of whiskers on his chin he nodded. 'Of course, go on.'

'He told me that when you sent him to scout the forest, you told him also that Marl Wormthorn was dead.' There. The thing was said, and Aedric rubbed a rough hand across his face, the lingering smell of blood from the surgeon's-room still present, if only faintly, in the cracks of his skin. Behind him, the fire crackled suddenly as it hit a knot in the driftwood, sending up a soft shower of sparks. When he looked up again, it was as if the mayor had aged some few years; his shoulders seemed more slumped, now, as if in recognition of a defeat.

'Perhaps... I should have told you, doctor. But the morale of the town already stands on the edge of a knife.' Mayor Connisport spoke quietly, as if each word was a weight around his neck. 'I thought that the fewer that knew, the better.'

'So it is true.'

As the mayor simply nodded in response, Aedric felt the coldness that had lain in his belly since Allen had died in front of him spreading into his bones and slowing the warm flowing of his blood. So Marl Wormthorn was dead, then; Wormthorn, whose dreams of healing the tainted scar - the demon-infested corner of the Blasted Lands whose twisted foliage seemed yet the nearest thing to life in the empty red wastes - had brought them all to those shores. Wormthorn's vision had led to the building of Surwich, to all of their work trying to understand the soil of the scar, to reverse the corruption, to bring life back into the ruined earth... If he was dead, then his dreams had died with him, and the forest that they had produced was nothing more than a mockery.

The mayor's heavy voice broke through his thoughts. 'Wormthorn, like Allen, was a good man.'

'He was,' said Aedric, looking up slowly. And yet, he had been so much more. The ideals that had carried them there had all lived in him. All of those things about nature and its gifts, the healing powers of the elven druids. Wormthorn was the one who had made them all believe that one could save a land from demons. Aedric's mouth twisted into a tired, humourless smile. 'It is a hard day for us all, sir. A hard day.'

You paint such rich pictures with a few carefully-chosen words. It's quite wonderful.