Galloping broke the overall silence permeating the landscape. The sound startled animals who were lulled into false security by the silence, causing them to flee rather swiftly as the steed neared. Perhaps it was the sound itself that had startled them.

Perhaps it was the steed itself, a menacing, skeletal horse draped in green cloth, feet burning with unnatural magics.

Or, perhaps it was the rider, the lone elf whose very eyes burned a vivid green color. Her starkly white hair flowed in the wind, yet she paid it no mind. Her eyes were searching not the land before her skeletal steed, but the horizon.

She was searching for something, but was uncertain as to exactly what it was she sought.

The hiss of a nearby naga startled her from her focused search, and she turned to face the beast, eyes narrowed.

Naga. Descended from the corrupt high elves who attempted to bring the Burning Legion into Kalimdor. The last survivors of the fiends who would have sacrificed everything merely for a chance to bask in the glory of demons.

As she rode past the naga without a second glance or thought, leaving the fiend snarling at being ignored, she thought long and hard about them, and their ancestors, the night elves.

Night elves. Kal'dorei. Respected members of the Alliance, cowardly treehuggers to the Horde. The most significant thing to the lone elf, however, was none of these.

To Ilyasviel Bloodspinner, who brought her steed to a stop and slipped to the ground below, eyes upon ancient elven ruins in the Great Sea, the night elves were her ancestors, a race of nobility and cunning, one that was meant to be respected.

Ilyasviel's skeletal steed let loose an unearthly whinny, attempting to catch her attention. She glanced back at it, waving a hand gently so as to dismiss it. She clenched her hands gently, as though gripping something tightly, and then stopped.

Once, what she was attempting to do was within her power. Once, she would've been proud to follow up the spell now dancing upon her fingertips.

Once, she had been no better than the accursed high elves who attempted to summon the Burning Legion, and Sargeras, into Kalimdor.

Once, she had thought herself a highly capable warlock. And for the six thousand years she'd lived, she had certainly demonstrated a grand degree of control over the fel. Yet things changed. Circumstances changed, made her path with the fel less than desirable. She had nearly killed someone close to her when her fel magics spiraled, slowly at first, from her fingertips, then spun further and further beyond her control. The magics lashed her closest, truest friend in their berserk state.

Ilyasviel had never been subject to the concerns of losing control, but what she had seen and done had all but terrified her. She didn't dare strive for that path again; it was only because she grasped the last remnants of that magic that she saved her friend from dying a painful, agonizing death.

Yet, with that salvation for her friend, and the sudden realization of just how dangerous the fel really was, Ilyasviel ceased her ventures in the fel.

In the past, she had long claimed to be a pyromancer who was still in learning, a front to cover her warlock's path. For years, everyone believed her. She exhibited less than desirable results in the more advanced fire magics wielded by a pyromancer, but she knew deep down that she wasn't eagerly trying for them. For at the time, they had, after all, been a front. Her true interests were in the fel, as shown to her by the first warlock she had met, the first elf she knew who exhibited exceptional control over them. The first person she ever fell in love with.

Her thoughts were scattered by the gentle crunching of leaves behind her. She spun her head around quickly to face the source of the noise, fire magics dancing upon her fingers. She let the magics die, however, as the source emerged to be a stunning violet feline who sported a collar decorated by three orbs, all colored as Elune was rumored to be. She smiled softly, beckoning the feline closer, turning back to the ledge.

The feline obliged, walking toward the ledge to join Ilyasviel. The feline contorted almost uncomfortably as it began shifting its very shape. Ilyasviel didn't look at the feline during its transformation, knowing it to be completely natural. Indeed, when she did look back in the feline's direction, she saw instead a young night elf, whose violet hair was almost identical in shade to the violet of the feline's fur.

"You have been busy," the night elf said simply in perfect Common, stretching her arms above her head. She stretched her legs out next, attempting to get accustomed to the transition.

Ilyasviel nodded, replying in similarly perfect Common, "I have to be. I require strength if I'm to play any part in the battle against the Lich King, but I'll be damned to the Nether if I ever go down the dark path for that strength." She regarded the night elf keenly. "What about you, Erraya? Has the necromancer slipped from you?"

Erraya hung her head dejectedly. "...Sadly, yes," she said after a moment. "I've pinpointed his location to the hinterlands of Azeroth, but from there, he manages to lose me..."

"The hinterlands is enough of a clue to--" Ilyasviel began, but Erraya cut her off.

"No. There is the path that leads from the hinterlands to the Plaguelands, don't forget... He always riles up the gryphons in the western lands, south of Aerie Peak, before he progresses further, knowing that a riled gryphon will attack anyone and everyone, friend or foe. It's as though he knows I'm trailing him, and by the time I've put all the rampaging gryphons to sleep to keep them from attacking me... he's gone."

Ilyasviel studied Erraya for a moment, letting a small smile cross her features after a while. "Don't worry, Erraya. Not even you can get away from the gryphon's sharp eyesight, especially if they're rampaging. You've done well enough to pin him to the hinterlands. I can only hope he hasn't entered the Plaguelands, however." The smile vanished from Ilyasviel's face as she lost herself in thought. "It'd make the most sense, when you think about it... but it's not desirable for anyone."

Erraya nodded, thinking about what had last transpired in the Plaguelands. Her right hand slipped slowly, cautiously, to her left side. "No, it's not..." she murmured. She seemed to be lost in thought, and Ilyasviel knew deep down what the young druid was thinking of.

"...Ilya," Erraya suddenly said, eyes meeting the other elf. "It... wasn't your fault. I had thought myself capable... but it's not what I suspected. The fel was... no, is too..."

Ilya shook her head. "It was my fault, Erraya. I was fool enough to try casting that complicated a spell, even if it was to save my niece from her fate..." She let her voice trail. "...Worse still that I asked you to help me with the spell..."

Erraya shook her head. "The past is the past. I was foolish for trying to help, that's all there is to it." She lowered her hand from her left side, eyes scanning the landscape. "Azshara..." she murmured. "Where we first met..."

Ilya nodded, eyes returning to the landscape as well. She said nothing, and the two elves, although vastly different from each other, watched the waves in peaceful silence.

So, there you have it. The prologue that outlines the present situation revolving around these two elves; that is, if you were to go to Kirin Tor, the realm these two are on, you'd learn that their situation is pretty much as it's outlined here.

The necromancer Ilya and Erraya were talking about is yet another of my characters, one who's increasingly becoming a thorn in the side to, well... EVERYONE who knows him. You won't see him in the story for a little while longer; if I had to guess, I'd imagine you'd see him for the first time in Chapter 3.

This story tells the history between both characters, so if there are any of my RP buddies reading this now, no, don't worry. I'm not attempting to set in stone anything that's planned ahead, just the current situation.

I WILL be doing an epilogue for this story. The prologue and epilogue are practically the same thing, only with a break in the middle. A HUGE break that explains their history. And, while at present, Erraya's RP options with Ilya's Horde counterparts are pretty limited until I get the Tongues addon again, I'm hoping to correct that quickly, and soon. That is, of course, dependent on this computer being able to HANDLE WoW...

Next chapter, Ilyasviel Hawkrunner is searching for answers to her parents' history, a topic they avoided at all costs and took with them to their graves. Yet her studies into the largely undocumented War of the Ancients brings her across the most unlikely of beings, an encounter that changes her beliefs and thoughts forever. -Spiritslayer