(11) Revival

Voices, blurred shapes and colours of many vibrant shades poured in to Rhia's vision. Her thoughts couldn't unscramble the mysteries of the primal sounding language, nor the blurred, violent shapes that assaulted her. In fact, thoughts could not even be held, and they instead washed away like sand on the beach. Was she laying on sand? Or clouds? Nothing made any sense. One moment the world would be filled with blues and greys and scorching, the next black and silver, and as cold as ice. Time held no meaning, and instead flowed like water down a river; sometimes fast, sometimes slow.

Eventually, things began to steady. The clear blues became sky, yellows, oranges and reds were sands and rocks that jutted out from the endless landscape. The darker blues was the sea, gently lapping against the shore line. The burning fire in the sky was the sun, lighting up the land yet scorching it and her as well. Yet despite her recovery, Rhia felt as if death itself had brushed past her, leaving her on an unsteady balance between this world and the afterlife. Movement was near on impossible, and only then a twitch of a finger or a blink. A wave of water washed over her, cool and refreshing.

For hours, she lay there, unable to move and fend for herself, left alone with her thoughts. She would die soon, she was certain, but was she ready for death? Had she lived her life to the fullest and best that she possibly could have done? Rhia did not think so: She often had selfish thoughts, and a raging fire burned unending within her, even if it was a small one now that the demons were gone.

Would she now be cursed with eternal torment and suffering or something of that sort? She was a kinslayer, a betrayer and a liar, for which she would likely be cursed by Elune if she was even real. She held strong doubts about that: If a goddess was real, why did they create a world full of such suffering and pain, why did they abandon their children in a time of their most desperate need?

Her line of thought was suddenly broken however when a face loomed over her. With coarse brown skin, striking blue eyes and long black tusks, Rhia immediately knew the face for what it belonged to. A sand troll. Rhia was surprised and fearful; she had heard the stories. Monsters, savages, that is what trolls were. Her kind had waged a war against them for many years, and their primitive nature and the Night Elves superior magic had usurped their empire and fragmented them in to smaller tribes. They held a burning hatred for her kind, despising them all for their actions.

Rhia prepared herself for the worst when she saw the troll start preparing some voodoo charms and such. No doubt he meant to sacrifice her to one of his dark gods. Instead however, when his magic flowed through and in to her, she felt rejuvenated and uplifted rather than weakened. She could feel a fever, burning away inside her, dampen, and wounds on her body began to close slowly.

Surprise was evident of her face, making the troll grin. "I be knowin' what ya were tinkin'." The troll stated, in his heavily accented common. "But it not gonna happen here. I ain't gonna sacrifice ya to the loa, mon. I and me band o' exiles are gonna help ya get back on ya feet." The troll continued his magic for a while, making Rhia feel better by the second as the cool waves from the sea gently lapped over her.

She opened her mouth to speak, say some words of kindness in the common tongue which she had learnt long ago, yet instead she was silenced by a violent coughing fit. The troll looked down in pity as he spoke. "It be best not to speak just, ya still not well. A few days ago, ya washed up on da shore east o' here, on da brink o' passin' on to da spirit world. I did what I could ta bring ya back, but ya still gonna be weak for a few days. A fever be burning away inside o' ya, so I brought ya here to try and cool ya down. Ya should be back up walking in a week." He nodded once. "For now, let's just get ya away from da oceans grasp. I think ya been spendin' too much time 'dere already." A chuckle erupted from him as he went to gently help Rhia up in to a sitting position.

Rhia coughed again as she was eased in to sitting, and she managed to speak, all be it roughly. "...Name..." She spluttered, and the troll seemed to understand when he nodded and replied.

"My name be Zenthul."

Slowly, Zenthul helped Rhia regain her strength beside that beach, and through her own willpower and his help she eventually stood, leaning on his shoulder. After a few more minutes, she took her first few shaky steps, almost falling over were it not for Zenthul's quick reactions, keeping her up on her feet. After some time, when the sun began to head towards the west and the two moons began to rise, the pair could make it back to a very small cluster of three huts, woven from basic materials in a basic, sand troll style.

The realization dawned upon her in that moment. She had been saved; she was not walking in the afterlife, aided by this friendly troll. She had survived the cataclysmic explosion at the end of the War of the Ancients which they had won at such a cost, only to wash up on the shores of this strange land.

She was alive.