Zeldamon: The Legacy (Part 14) (My World of Warcraft FanFiction)

Jayxen had been the one to relate to Joseph first. "The whole time we've been interrogating him, he was writhing in pain just at the presence of us," she sobbed as Alucardia rocked her gently. Zaiden was sitting there, watching her aunt cry and not knowing what to do. Eventually, she wandered out of the house to play with her toys, and Alucardia wiped the tears from Jayxen's face.

"But sister, you do not see... If we know that the ailment is, we are more likely for a cure. He will be alright, Jayxen." She wasn't sure if her words were true, but Allie continued to speak them until Jayxen's breathing returned to normal and she slept in her lap. She gently put her under some blankets and went to see Zeldamon about the wait for a shaman that was supposed to return days ago.

All the troops in the garrison has been ready to fight since they thought there might be an attack from the horde, but it seemed less and less every day that they had eluded them, and trackers of magic felt them no where near their homeland. Now, the troops sat at the ready in case anything went wrong with the experiment to be done with the horde king. Alucardia stood next to her youngest sister, and she began to sense the shaman getting closer to their cloak not soon after the room had been filled with troops, spies, medics, and magic makers.

Joseph had been cleaned up by medics and left to rest, and put into a more comfortable and more secure cell, just as he had caged Alucardia. Alucardia suffered severe anxiety while she watcher his cell being built, and relived the experience openly with Jayxen with tear-filled talks in the dark. Jayxen marveled at the surrealism in the difference of their lives now, and held Allie as she rid herself of her most horrific emotions. When the cell was finished, Alucardia cloaked herself with magic to be perceived as a horde member, and she went to visit her father.

When the shaman showed up, they explained the latest information they had gathered, and he nodded solemnly as he pinpointed his diagnosis. "There is something to be done. He has had a curse put on his soul before the death he experienced. I will cut the link he has to his life after death, but in order to bring him back to a humanoid body... I have to cut the link to all of his memories or the curse could have residual effects on his restored soul. He would possibly be able to remember in time, with no harm, but it's not guaranteed that he would remember any one of you... ever." The shaman searched through his bag, providing materials needed for the ritual he was speaking of.

Jayxen felt her head spin, steadying herself on a chair. Zeldamon reached for her arm to anchor her. "Are you going to be alright sister?" she asked.

Jayxen swallowed her fear for the sake of her sister and nodded. "I"m fine... I'm fine."

Joseph was so delirious that he did not recognize her behind the disguise. She did not try to cloak her identity, but only wanted to speak to him without causing pain. As she dressed his wounds, his eyes locked with hers. "You look familiar," he stated quietly.

Alucardia's eyes brimmed with sadness. "It's me, daddy. It's Allie. I'm here to save you, okay? I'll bring you back where you belong."

Joseph smiled listlessly, "You look like a woman I loved once... She did not love me."

Alucardia looked down at him, now with surprise an his eyes. "She loved you so much. She died loving you!" She had to fight down the anger rising in her throat.

Joseph looked away from her, clear tears rolling down his face. "She searched the universe to tell of hatred for me. I did not have a choice, and when I found that she was... It does not matter. If not come back for love, what for?" In a lucid moment, he examined Alucardia's face. "You look just like her..." then his eyes went blank, and he slept on his mattress of stone and animal hide.

The ritual was performed in less than a day. The shaman told everyone that needed to know what they would have to look out for when Joseph woke. It was dark magic that he had used on their father, and he warned the girls that without a member of the horde, it may not have worked properly.

Joseph woke hours after the ritual, as the group sat together for dinner, none of them touching their meal. The garrison had become some kind of a family over the year they had all been together, and when one of them was hurting, the others empathized. Alucardia wanted to be with him when he woke, and she sat across from him in his prison. She had filled her emotions with familiar panic, and she couldn't help herself but to pace the room until she heard him begin moving on his bed.

Joseph looked down, confused by his constraints. Alucardia walked over to him and began to explain, "I know, but we didn't know what to expect when you woke up... and you have been so violent that we couldn't take chances... How do you feel?" She knew better than to ask if he knew who she was, but she wondered still if she was familiar to him at all.

"I apologize," Joseph grunted, pulling at the change. "Where am I?"

"You're in a safe place. Do you know your name?" Allie asked gently.

"I... I need to be somewhere. Someone is waiting for me to return." as his face came to the realization that he knew nothing about himself, Alucardia thought to herself that he looked like a child, learning everything new for the first time.

She took his and and looked into his eyes, the blood turned to a cool, soft blue that reminded her of Jayxen's eyes. "You found us," she wept. "We're here, and we're going to get you better."

It would be years before Joseph's memory came back to him at all. Very tiny memories would slip into a dream. As he grew accustomed to his life at the garrison, he learned to know his daughters and enjoyed his life with them. He still felt, however, that he was supposed to be looking for someone. Never asking of their mother, it was as if she never existed to him. It wasn't until Zaiden's 10th birthday that Marladylight would be mentioned in passing. Until then, he had not thought about his daughters even having a mother. It was strange, whatever had happened to him, and it was rarely spoken of. The girls were living happily in their own homes scattered across their vast lands, and they had decided that since he had not had an ailment of the mind, regression would not be necessary.

As he helped his granddaughter to gather her gifts from everyone, Joseph began having dull pains to the back of his head. When he got to Alucardia's cabin, he asked her for some herbs for the headache, and he went straight home to bed.

Alone in his small home, Joseph slept in fits that night. Waking several times, drenched in sweat, he decided he needed a walk to settle his thoughts. As he walked along the river that ran through his backyard, his reality began to shift. Marladylight became a reality in front of him. The clear of the water wavered from his vision, and it was as if he were inside her soul. She said nothing, but stared down at him with the hatred she now felt.

"I knew you were waiting for me," Joseph dropped to his knees as her eyes lit up and her lips developed a wicked smirk. He gasped for breath, clawing at his own jugular. The sense that she wasn't real slipped further away as her presence solidified, and he began to tear at his own skin, manically. Unaware now of what was going on around him, night guards were forced to subdue Joseph once again, and bring him to the resting quarters, with his life barely intact and torn skin hanging from his face.