Art commissioned from https://twitter.com/Galehowl

Darkshore.

Ebon had been here countless times, all in different points in her life. In her youth, as part of a raiding unit known as the Thundering Hammer. In the years since, as part to defend Horde gathering units and again as part of a raiding unit.

These days, after resigning from the Horde military corps, she rode with the Thundering Hammer one more time, answering the call of maintaining an honor-bound oath to her old warlord, Thor'grun Ashgrip. The fighting was the same, but ... this seemed different. There was a zealotry present here. The fighting was not of one of mutual surviving interest, but of a frantic need to defeat the other. The elves fought with unrestrained vigor, but the Horde fought with a rampaging bloodlust Ebon hadn't witnessed in ages.

When the flames crawled up the World Tree Teldrassil, when the smell of burning embers and the unmistakable tinge of brimstone - the scent of burnt flesh - washed from across the shoreline ... Ebon took pause.

Some looked on in horror.

Some in revulsion.

Ebon, she could only see what she had seen so often in the past.

This was what the Horde had begun as. Raid. Pillage. Burn what you couldn't take. Burn what your enemy held dear. Burn fear into their souls.

Where others had forgotten, Ebon only remembered. Only this time, she could not find that fire in her heart.

Only exhaustion.