Zeldamon: The Legacy (Part 9) (My World of Warcraft FanFiction)

Alucardia was devastated to learn of their mother's passing. She cried for most of the day, blaming Zeldamon for not coaxing her out of the cage when there was time to save her. "You're grown now, Zellie, you could have left to get help for her, and gone back for her... You never came back for us! It took her death to..." Alucardia collapsed to the ground, hysterical and violent. Her magic was out of control, and Lyfe feared she might burn down the forest around them. Jayx was afraid to get in her way after last time and she plead for Lyfe to make her sleep. He gently took Alucardia buy the shoulders and soothed her like he had Zeldamon the day they meet. After his incantation, he carried her into the tent to sleep.

Hours later, Alucardia woke to Zeldamon chanting in mediation. Not to interrupt her, she quietly slipped out of the tent.

"Our sister is training to be a monk." Jayxen told her softly. "She was raised without a class, really. Mother... She was always sick, after daddy... She's still a child, Allie. If that king really is our father, maybe there is a cure for him. We were all mutated in a way, you know... During the bad years of the war, everyone was affected. Maybe mother is in that cave right now, turning like he must have... Do you think it's him?"

Alucardia was defeated from the day. "This is all too much, Jayx. We need to move on tomorrow. The baby will be coming soon, and I can't have her in these woods." with that, she went back into the tent and fell asleep to Zeldamon's rhythmic chanting.

Though they made it back to the garrison safely to set up Alucardia's room and a space for the baby to be born, her stomach had grown larger yet. For the greater part of their first three days home, she lay in her room while others whirled around her, cleaning up and checking on her. No one pushed her to speak for fear of an outbreak, and she seemed calm by herself for now. Only Zeldamon, Jayxen, and Lyfe had been in to check on her, but she could hear others outside from her window. Zeldamon had insisted on an outside room for her, and the others agreed to find her one.

At the end of September, Alucardia's daughter was born. She named her Zaiden, and fell into a love that, for a moment, washed away all the painful emotions she had just two or three weeks ago. With the cold outside, she had reason to stay in with the baby without telling anyone that she was terrified of the outside world. She had spent 4 months with nothing but strangers, and without her mother to search for and Zeldamon found, she was satisfied staying in the bedroom made for her when she got there. Lyfe offered to build her and the baby a home within the garrison's walls, and she quickly declined. Lyfe began to worry, but decided she needed time with the baby, and didn't voice his concerns. She was in the safest place possible, and he wanted her to have time to adjust.

Allie began to venture out into the rest of the town hall around spring, when she could see the birds from the tiny window in her bedroom. In search of a bigger window, Alucardia traveled farther and farther each night, after the baby was put to sleep. Zeldamon, concerned as well by then, offered her a job at the desk in the main hall. Alucardia almost declined, but the big window that shone light into the whole room made her agree. She loved the nature around them, and ached to breathe fresh, spring air. Manic about the outside world by then, she had acquired a new weapon that lie next to her matrress at night. At night, she had begun dreaming about her mother, and the dreams, though innocent at first, fed the mania. She no longer knew how long she had been fighting it. She felt then that maybe he had always lived this way.

As the dreams turned to nightmares, she also began having hallucinations at night. Visions of herself dancing in fire, and apparitions where she was drunk on light made her retreat from her failed attempt at leaving her room. Allie soon began locking her door at night and only coming out for new clothes or extra bedding. The garrison had offered her a nanny, and as Zaiden was beginning to walk, she finally agreed. As the visions became more and more vivid, she appreciated the choice she made for her daughter.

No one knew of the hallucinations during this time, but it wouldn't be long before they all found out the extent of Alucardia's mental injuries. Just like her mother, she caged herself the only way she could, and hid there. This time, there would be help, but it could be too late...

Once Alucardia began locking her doors, Jayxen became enraged. She was acting just like their mother when the mania hit, but this was different... there were doctors around her, and Allie knew better! For sake of the child, Allie let the nanny take her to tame and hone her magic. It was toward the end of spring when Zeldamon first heard the screaming in the night. So sudden that it woke other members of the garrison, Zeldamon ran to Allie's room, carrying a key she made to get in, in case of emergencies. Once Zeldamon got into the room, she noticed that Alucardia had literally blocked herself into the small bunker-sized room. She sat in the corner of her bed, staring opposite of her sister. Zeldamon couldn't tell if she even saw her. Slowly, she walked up to Alucardia, and reached for her. Alucardia moaned, terrified.

"What is the matter, sister? You have been reclusive for quite some time now. I wanted to give you your space... but I don't think you have this under control, Allie."

"Don't call me that, you bastard!" Alucardia went from terrified to violent so quickly, that Zeldamon reasoned that her sister wasn't talking to her. Not sure what her sister was seeing, she whispered healing into her ear for her to sleep, and wake when she was lucid enough to manage. In the time she had, Zeldamon quickly alerted Jayxen, life, and the medic on duty to make a diagnosis, and a plan.

Jayxen hadn't been sleeping well lately, kept up at night with worry for her eldest sister. Lyfe had said she just needed time to heal after the baby, having held in her trauma for so long. She needed time to grieve, and they had more than given that to her.

When Zeldamon woke her in the middle of the night, she knew why. She had felt the trouble in her sister's heart that night when she had let her into her room. The room was dark, with the curtains drawn on her lone window. She wasn't allowing anyone to see her since the nanny had taken the baby out of her room. Jayxen was heartbroken to see her sister separated from Zaiden that way, but she knew something was wrong. She got to see her niece more often now, as she ran and played with the other children the garrison had collected.

Some with parents, some not, Zeldamon and Lyfe believed that any child could have a home with them, but they would work for their home as everyone did, when old enough. A few of the children had no parents to tend to them, and they had hired a nanny. Alucardia believed the nanny had been "hired" for her daughters kidnap, but was never brave enough to go outside and see the truth. So far, all the orphans at the garrison had had no parents come for them at all, and Zeldamon's heart ached for them.

As the morning sun gathered, and Zeldamon sat in the empty mission hall, she sipped at a small drink to ease her nerves from the image she held of her sister, whom she may never truly get to know now. Not knowing when she had gone manic, she had no way of understanding the magic it would take to heal her. She wouldn't know until Alucardia woke, and she prayed, but knew it had been bottled in, possibly since the day of her capture, which seemed like ages ago as she contemplated how long ago that had actually been. She had been alone for so long, Zeldamon had a morbid sense of time due to her own prison in the cave with her mother for so long.

Jayxen came into the room first, with tears in her eyes. "What are we going to do?"

"I'm trained better now, sister. There is a medic now... it won't end the same..." as the words came out of her mouth, Zeldamon had to repeat them to herself.

"She's strong, Zeldamon... She could have been fighting this all along. It's going to be much more difficult to help her as Lyfe helped you. She will resist harder, and we have to be strong enough to take it. It's better if it's us that soothe her, but even then... she may be too far gone."

Lyfe entered the room with the medic, and they sat down to discuss how they would attack Zeldamon's sickness. If it she had fallen ill to more than one mania, there would be several rituals that would take a toll on all three sisters.

"Three is a good number, and from what you all tell me, the root of her sickness or sicknesses is rooted in family. It's possible that I may not have much to contribute except aid to the two of you. You may be the only force able to help her now."

Zeldamon got a lump in her throat. Would she, herself, be strong enough to handle this? She still feared her own memories would begin to haunt her again, and what would happen with her and Alucardia both under the spell of hallucinations? Would Alucardia need to hear how her mother died? She knew that in order to heal old wounds, you must re-open them, and their mother was a wound for them both.