[OOC: War Crimes]

[darkrangerqueen]

Notes after finishing the novel War Crimes by Christie Golden.

• Sylvanas does not need to eat.
• She does have a bedroom in the Undercity. [Her quarters] were spare, as befitted one who did not linger overlong in them. Sylvanas Windrunner no longer needed to sleep, as such, though she did come here from time to time simply to be alone and to think. She had few belongings: a bed hung with heavy, dark drapes; a desk with candles and writing materials; a chair; and a single shelf lined with a half-dozen books. Select weapons were displayed on the wall within easy reach. She needed very little else in her present existence, and she did not keep much from her past one. [...] she unlocked a drawer [of the desk]. Here, untouched for years, was all that remained of her past. There were only a few items: decades-old letters, arrowheads from significant kills, some other odds and ends, the detritus of a life.
       And a small box.
  
• She finally had a chance to reconnect with her sister Vereesa. Their goals aligned for a time: they wanted Garrosh Hellscream dead, for certain, instead of leaving his fate up to the court. Both Windrunner sisters were knocked off balance by how much the other had changed. (I should write more analysis here, but the words aren't coming. I can look up the scenes later, if I want to; I own the book.)
• They would have succeeded in poisoning Garrosh, but then, of course, Vereesa's conscience caught up with her. She confessed to Anduin Wrynn what she had done -- thus dumping the responsibility onto him, of whether or not to inform the prisoner -- and fled home to her perfect, joyful, and completely personality-less children. Sylvanas...did not take the news well. Her plans disrupted, and her sister once again taken from her, she tore through Tirisfal Glades in fresh rage and grief. (Bolding is mine.)     The dead horse galloped as swiftly as it had in life, and never tired. Its rider killed as swiftly as she had in life, and she, too, never tired. The corpses were starting to litter the forest: wolves, bears, stags, spiders. Whatever had the bad luck to cross her path died, not always quickly and seldom clean.
       The Banshee Queen uttered the horrifying shriek of her kind, infusing it with all the sickening sense of betrayal and raging, insane grief that filled her. A bear fell, weakened and panicked by the sound alone. She peppered the thick brown hide with arrows, and the beast bellowed in pain and churned up the mossy earth. Sylvanas drank in its suffering. She leaped off her skeletal mount and charged a wolf, which met her snarl for snarl until she tore off its head with her bare hands.
       The pain was unbearable. It was the same phantom agony she had experienced over the last several days, when she had felt so happy with Vereesa. Except now, even the joy that had accompanied the pain was gone, and there was nothing left but torment.
       Torment, and hate.
       Her leather clothing was now spattered with blood, but she did not care. The only way to stop the hurting was to hurt something else, to vent her anguish and sorrow and despair on something living, since she could not vent it on Vereesa, sister, Little Moon--
       She staggered, clutching the wolf's head, blinking eyelashes sticky with crimson fluid. She dropped the head, and it bounced hollowly. Sylvanas fell to her knees, buried her face in her hands, and wept, wept like a broken child who had lost everything, everything.
       Little Moon...!
       Gradually the sobbing ceased, and the familiar peace of coldness drove out the heated hurting. Sylvanas rose, licking blood from her lips.
       She should have known. The pain she had felt at first, when she dared foolishly permit herself to hope for something different from what she had now, to feel something for another...to feel love again...It had been a warning. A warning that she was not longer made for feelings such as hope, or love, or trust, or joy. These things were for the living; these things were for the weak. In the end, they would slip through her fingers, trickling away like the violet remnants of Jaina Proudmoore's apprentice Kinndy, and she would be left alone. Again, and always. Calmed now through tears and slaughter, she remounted her horse. Sylvanas Windrunner, the Banshee Queen of the Forsaken, would never again make the mistake of believing she could love.
  

In summary: if I ever choose to play her again, I would have to willingly enter a dark, cold, wounded state of mind. It would not be good for me...unless I was already there.